Today was my last day as a full-time employee at the Prosecutor's Office.
Most people nearing retirement have the luxury of slowly winding down their careers, anticipating their future life with a combination of wistfulness and excitement. For me, though, the last few weeks passed by in a blur. I had two major cases to prepare---an evidentiary hearing on a big murder case today, and a state Supreme Court argument next week---and had to confront and overcome a paperwork snafu at the retirement office. Taken together, everything kept me hopping---and the last few weeks have raced by.
This morning, I had to get to work early for my evidentiary hearing: the judge wanted to begin promptly at 8:30. I'd prepared carefully for the hearing---it involves some rather questionable psychiatric testimony by a doctor renowned for questionable and highly convenient opinions---and came to court armed and ready. Then, the judge did something unexpected, unwarranted, and highly illegal: he closed the hearing to the public---and even ejected the victim's family, who had a state constitutional right to be there, from this courtroom. I slogged my way through much of the hearing on the doctor's "home turf"---mostly scientific background testimony, laying the basis for challenging the admissibility and relevance of his testimony---and was just starting to zero in on my own turf: the facts of the case, and the factual weaknesses in the doctor's testimony---when the judge announced that he had to leave. The case is scheduled to reconvene on April 24th---and the press and legal communities are buzzing with the judge's actions. It should be interesting...but will give us some additional time to plan our attack. And, in addition, it will give some sense of continuity.
Decompressing after the hearing, Bob Agacinski took me to lunch at the Old Shillaleh, to celebrate my impending retirement.
Ironically...I also got to attend a wedding! Eric Doeh, a bright young prosecutor who's moved on to better things with the US Attorney's Office, was getting married in the courtroom of his old Judge---Tim Kenny, who was another colleague at the Office in days past. It added a touch of poetry to the day...bringing a new beginning, as well as a close to a chapter of my life that I'll always treasure. But it also showed how life is more a series of circles than a line...and that it's constantly changing, supplanting the old with birth and renewal.
Late in the day, after everyone had left, I took a final walk around the place...and then a trip to a local bar, where there was a gathering planned as a celebration for the new retirees. I joined them for a time, before heading home...and beginning the next chapter of my life.
How things will go remains a mystery, locked away in the misty future, to be revealed in due course. But though wistfulness tugs at my heart, in the end I find myself at peace...and excited by the chance to begin this new chapter while I'm still young enough to look to the future with anticipation.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Book Review: How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer
Among the enigmas of human existence, the brain is singular in its importance. It not only defines us as a species, but is also the seat of our consciousness, allowing us, among other things, to wonder about ourselves, our world, and our own mortality.
But the brain is also a mystery in its own right. Since the days of the ancient Greeks, men have argued about its role in setting us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. And the split between our rationality and our passion—our capacity for thought as well as feeling—has been food for philosophers since the beginning of civilization. Plato argued that it was rationality that set us apart from animals and made us human; Aristotle, his pupil, believed that the brain’s role was to manage our emotions and apply them intelligently to the world around us.
In How We Decide, author Jonah Lehrer explores our current state of knowledge about our defining organ, the human brain. In an intelligent and engaging way, he shows how evolution has developed the two sides of our mind—our rational left hemisphere, and our emotional, intuitive right hemisphere—to give us a flexible and adaptable thinking tool that lets us apply quite varied modes of reasoning to the problems that we confront.
Lehrer shows how learning to trust our instincts and feelings can help us solve problems quickly and intuitively, when there is no time to reason out a problem. Yet we must also be cautious about relying too heavily upon our gut feelings and emotions, for they are easily fooled if we are facing a situation that is unfamiliar. Mastering the interplay between the two—and, most importantly, learning which to trust in what circumstances—is the mark of someone who makes consistently good decisions. There are, after all, some situations where thinking too much is counterproductive, and where lab rats do better than graduate students, simply because they lack the capacity to overthink. In humans, the ability to sense when to shift to a different mode of thinking is often what separates the wise from the foolish among us. And more often than not, a willingness to examine and learn from our own mistakes is what teaches us when, and how, to make the switch.
Using examples that range from professional football players to airline pilots, from casinos to modern politics, the author shows how our minds can solve problems seamlessly, or be tripped up by bells and whistles designed to soothe our senses and make us feel good. In our turbulent times, the ability to use our heads to recognize and sift through the perils and pitfalls we face is a daunting task, often made even harder by the confusing array of information that greets us every day. Tightly written and entertaining, How We Decide gives us reason to hope, and some useful perspective on our ability to make sense of our rapidly changing world.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
But the brain is also a mystery in its own right. Since the days of the ancient Greeks, men have argued about its role in setting us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. And the split between our rationality and our passion—our capacity for thought as well as feeling—has been food for philosophers since the beginning of civilization. Plato argued that it was rationality that set us apart from animals and made us human; Aristotle, his pupil, believed that the brain’s role was to manage our emotions and apply them intelligently to the world around us.
In How We Decide, author Jonah Lehrer explores our current state of knowledge about our defining organ, the human brain. In an intelligent and engaging way, he shows how evolution has developed the two sides of our mind—our rational left hemisphere, and our emotional, intuitive right hemisphere—to give us a flexible and adaptable thinking tool that lets us apply quite varied modes of reasoning to the problems that we confront.
Lehrer shows how learning to trust our instincts and feelings can help us solve problems quickly and intuitively, when there is no time to reason out a problem. Yet we must also be cautious about relying too heavily upon our gut feelings and emotions, for they are easily fooled if we are facing a situation that is unfamiliar. Mastering the interplay between the two—and, most importantly, learning which to trust in what circumstances—is the mark of someone who makes consistently good decisions. There are, after all, some situations where thinking too much is counterproductive, and where lab rats do better than graduate students, simply because they lack the capacity to overthink. In humans, the ability to sense when to shift to a different mode of thinking is often what separates the wise from the foolish among us. And more often than not, a willingness to examine and learn from our own mistakes is what teaches us when, and how, to make the switch.
Using examples that range from professional football players to airline pilots, from casinos to modern politics, the author shows how our minds can solve problems seamlessly, or be tripped up by bells and whistles designed to soothe our senses and make us feel good. In our turbulent times, the ability to use our heads to recognize and sift through the perils and pitfalls we face is a daunting task, often made even harder by the confusing array of information that greets us every day. Tightly written and entertaining, How We Decide gives us reason to hope, and some useful perspective on our ability to make sense of our rapidly changing world.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Only Thing We Have to Fear...
I'm afraid that in many respects we're starting to make a tradition out of avoiding many of the safeguards we've put in to guard us against disaster:
After the financial meltdown in the 1930s, we set up regulations and guidelines to prevent safeguard our financial markes, and prevent speculators from collapsing our financial system. This lasted for about sixty years...just long enough for us to forget how the Great Depression started, and for the go-go financeers and their enablers in Congress (of both parties) to "tweak" the regulations enough to remove the impediments to their ability to make money...which were the very protections erected to prevent a collapse. We're living through the results today...and ithe next few years are unlikely to be pleasant.
Our Founders designed our institutions of government to provide a brake on popular passion and emotion, and to slow things down enough for us to catch our collective breaths, and make informed, deliberate decisions on things that were of vital importance. Six years ago, Congress was stampeded into approving a war resolution amid drumbeats insisting that there we were running out of time, and they had to act NOW. Six months ago, Congress was stampeded into approving a $700 billion bailout, amid dire warnings of impending disaster if we didn't act immediately to enable the Government to buy up all manner of toxic assests which threatened to wreck our economy...only to learn that the Treasury Department promptly changed its mind and wasn't using the money as advertised, and that the "emergency" funds were used to fund bank takeovers, and executive bonuses.
Now, we're facing a similar stampede---for an even larger sum of money. With the same drumbeat of crisis. And with the same screeching demands that we MUST ACT NOW!
I've always believed that people in a democracy usually get the government and leaders that they deserve. I think it's time we started acting like grown-ups---someone has to, since our governmental leaders certainly aren't---and demand some answers before we throw any more money down some other sink hole. There's enough divergence of economic opinion on the effectiveness of simply tossing money at the problem in the first place to justify having us all take a while to calm down and look at the problem carefully. In the end, we'd do better to remember the advice of Franklin Roosevelt: our biggest danger isn't time, it's our own fear. And if we act out of panic, we're far likelier to make things worse than we are to solve any of our problems.
It's usually better by far to get something done right than to get it done quickly. And our experiences over the past few years should have taught us that our leaders are quite capable of making mistakes under the best of circumstances; if we're being rushed and pressured into making a quick decision, it's usually because the salesman is afraid that rational thought isn't his ally...and if we have time to consider what we're doing, we'll never approve what he wants us to do.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
After the financial meltdown in the 1930s, we set up regulations and guidelines to prevent safeguard our financial markes, and prevent speculators from collapsing our financial system. This lasted for about sixty years...just long enough for us to forget how the Great Depression started, and for the go-go financeers and their enablers in Congress (of both parties) to "tweak" the regulations enough to remove the impediments to their ability to make money...which were the very protections erected to prevent a collapse. We're living through the results today...and ithe next few years are unlikely to be pleasant.
Our Founders designed our institutions of government to provide a brake on popular passion and emotion, and to slow things down enough for us to catch our collective breaths, and make informed, deliberate decisions on things that were of vital importance. Six years ago, Congress was stampeded into approving a war resolution amid drumbeats insisting that there we were running out of time, and they had to act NOW. Six months ago, Congress was stampeded into approving a $700 billion bailout, amid dire warnings of impending disaster if we didn't act immediately to enable the Government to buy up all manner of toxic assests which threatened to wreck our economy...only to learn that the Treasury Department promptly changed its mind and wasn't using the money as advertised, and that the "emergency" funds were used to fund bank takeovers, and executive bonuses.
Now, we're facing a similar stampede---for an even larger sum of money. With the same drumbeat of crisis. And with the same screeching demands that we MUST ACT NOW!
I've always believed that people in a democracy usually get the government and leaders that they deserve. I think it's time we started acting like grown-ups---someone has to, since our governmental leaders certainly aren't---and demand some answers before we throw any more money down some other sink hole. There's enough divergence of economic opinion on the effectiveness of simply tossing money at the problem in the first place to justify having us all take a while to calm down and look at the problem carefully. In the end, we'd do better to remember the advice of Franklin Roosevelt: our biggest danger isn't time, it's our own fear. And if we act out of panic, we're far likelier to make things worse than we are to solve any of our problems.
It's usually better by far to get something done right than to get it done quickly. And our experiences over the past few years should have taught us that our leaders are quite capable of making mistakes under the best of circumstances; if we're being rushed and pressured into making a quick decision, it's usually because the salesman is afraid that rational thought isn't his ally...and if we have time to consider what we're doing, we'll never approve what he wants us to do.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
A New Game Coming to Town?
Thanks to a friend, today I stumbled across this fascinating chart and accompanying analysis. It outlines the changes in income growth over the past forty years---broken down by income percentile, to show the effects of different presidencies on different classes of people. Among the things it shows it that income growth is rarely even; and it suggests that some of the wild rhetoric about recent tax cuts benefitting only the already-wealthy may not be too far from the truth. And given the recent economic dislocations, it looks like restoration of some level orderly regulation is in the offing---hopefully done intelligently enough to help, rather than hinder, any economic recovery.
I think the point about intelligent regulations benefiting everyone---including those being regulated---is one that's been lost over the recent past. It strikes me that it's rather like a sporting event: you need very few rules and even less enforcement at the sandlot level...where everyone knows one another, it's largely played for fun, and cheaters are easily dealt with. But the higher the stakes, the more formal structure you need.
The trick at the major league level is making sure that the referees don't take the game away from the players. In the sport I referee (soccer), the skill of the officials makes a critical difference in how good a game it is: the better referees leave everyone alone as long as things are running smoothly, stepping in only when needed---on occasion, forcefully, to prevent trouble from escalating into something ugly. The poor officials try to dictate how the game is played...and the really bad ones either interfere so much that everyone---both teams, as well as all their rioting fans---wants to strangle them...or they don't do anything, which usually leads to the same result.
The American sports model, on the other hand, often has a different mindset: the Referee as mindless bureaucrat. This is why the last thirty seconds of a close basketball game can take twenty minutes: the referee is expected to blow the whistle for every single foul...thereby converting a foul into a tactic. (In soccer, the referee would simply let the foul go...since the team with the lead would benefit more from a running clock and the ball than it would from taking a free throw and giving the ball to the other team).
I think many of the political disagreements we have in this country tend to come about because we're approaching things from different philosophical perspectives...and can't always agree on whether rules exist as a guideline, or simply to be enforced regardless of their effect. Part of the problem comes from the fact that so many "referees" tend to be idiots...but that crafting rules to make them idiot-proof means that they're so hopelessly detailed and complex that they often get in the way of the actual "game" they're trying to govern. This leads to periodic disputes over whether we should have more rules or fewer rules...with each side pointing to the disasters caused by following the other side of the argument. Lost in the equation is any thought about having "intelligent" rules.
In economics, we seem to have devolved into a system where too many of us have adopted an "I want mine" (or worse, an "I want yours") philosophy, rather than viewing things as a non-zero sum game, where intelligence and foresight can lead to a system where everyone benefits. I'm not sure where this leaves us...other than I don't think it will help get us out of the mess we're in, and we may have no choice but to change our ways of thinking.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
I think the point about intelligent regulations benefiting everyone---including those being regulated---is one that's been lost over the recent past. It strikes me that it's rather like a sporting event: you need very few rules and even less enforcement at the sandlot level...where everyone knows one another, it's largely played for fun, and cheaters are easily dealt with. But the higher the stakes, the more formal structure you need.
The trick at the major league level is making sure that the referees don't take the game away from the players. In the sport I referee (soccer), the skill of the officials makes a critical difference in how good a game it is: the better referees leave everyone alone as long as things are running smoothly, stepping in only when needed---on occasion, forcefully, to prevent trouble from escalating into something ugly. The poor officials try to dictate how the game is played...and the really bad ones either interfere so much that everyone---both teams, as well as all their rioting fans---wants to strangle them...or they don't do anything, which usually leads to the same result.
The American sports model, on the other hand, often has a different mindset: the Referee as mindless bureaucrat. This is why the last thirty seconds of a close basketball game can take twenty minutes: the referee is expected to blow the whistle for every single foul...thereby converting a foul into a tactic. (In soccer, the referee would simply let the foul go...since the team with the lead would benefit more from a running clock and the ball than it would from taking a free throw and giving the ball to the other team).
I think many of the political disagreements we have in this country tend to come about because we're approaching things from different philosophical perspectives...and can't always agree on whether rules exist as a guideline, or simply to be enforced regardless of their effect. Part of the problem comes from the fact that so many "referees" tend to be idiots...but that crafting rules to make them idiot-proof means that they're so hopelessly detailed and complex that they often get in the way of the actual "game" they're trying to govern. This leads to periodic disputes over whether we should have more rules or fewer rules...with each side pointing to the disasters caused by following the other side of the argument. Lost in the equation is any thought about having "intelligent" rules.
In economics, we seem to have devolved into a system where too many of us have adopted an "I want mine" (or worse, an "I want yours") philosophy, rather than viewing things as a non-zero sum game, where intelligence and foresight can lead to a system where everyone benefits. I'm not sure where this leaves us...other than I don't think it will help get us out of the mess we're in, and we may have no choice but to change our ways of thinking.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Countdown
Three weeks to go....
After what seems like a lifetime of work, and thought, and a career of serving the People of the State of Michigan, it boils down to three more weeks. Then, I'm officially retired. While I'll be around for another year after that, on part-time contract to help the Office transition into the future, it won't feel the same. Or be the same.
Already, I can feel the Office changing around me. People are congratulating me (and the others, who also took the County's retirement proposal) and wishing us well. But the place is already starting to change out from under us. And soon, we'll be little more than a memory, fading into Office lore.
Three weeks...and as much as I'm looking forward to having the time to do things I've dreamed about doing, I'll be savoring every last moment.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
After what seems like a lifetime of work, and thought, and a career of serving the People of the State of Michigan, it boils down to three more weeks. Then, I'm officially retired. While I'll be around for another year after that, on part-time contract to help the Office transition into the future, it won't feel the same. Or be the same.
Already, I can feel the Office changing around me. People are congratulating me (and the others, who also took the County's retirement proposal) and wishing us well. But the place is already starting to change out from under us. And soon, we'll be little more than a memory, fading into Office lore.
Three weeks...and as much as I'm looking forward to having the time to do things I've dreamed about doing, I'll be savoring every last moment.
JEFFREY CAMINSKY, a veteran public prosecutor in Detroit, Michigan, specializes in the appellate practice of criminal law and writes on a wide range of topics. His books include the science fiction adventure novel The Star Dancers, the exciting second volume in the Guardians of Peace-tm series, The Sonnets of William Shakespeare, and the acclaimed Referee’s Survival Guide, a book on soccer officiating. All are published by New Alexandria Press, and are available on Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher.
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