THE WHITENING OF TV

Last year I thought that TV was beginning to have more speaking parts for Blacks and other minorities.

Last night I discovered that Covert Affairs had killed off the only minority spy. This leaves only White characters, reflecting the problems within the actual CIA.

I honestly do not think that TV people set out to have only White characters. I think they write about the people they know, and that they do not know any minorities.

It can not be true that the TV people think that people will not watch minority actors. I think that the actor that played Jay on Covert Affairs is VERY nice to watch. Ditto for Sam on NCIS LA.

This is important. If we are all going to get along, we need to have an image in our heads about how to speak with a minority person. Yes, it is simple, just treat them as you do everyone else. But it took me years to be entirely comfortable dealing with minorities, so anything that the media can do to help, they should be doing.

Of course, TV wants all its characters to be cut from the same mold. This is as boring as always setting the cop shows in LA.

And do not get me started about Harry's Law. I am surprised that a show about a round, older woman attorney lasted two seasons. It is doubly sad as Harry's Law presented the legal questions that we will all have to answer in the 21st century.

Please let the TV people know that we all want to watch people who are NOT white, skinny, wearing stupid shoes, and with White model faces. Variety is the spice of life.

I AM MOVING

My new office address is on my website, LawandLaws.com.

I have lots of fabulous help with packing and moving. However, I still have to sort through 12 years of ignoring the need to throw things out.

This much physical activity makes my arthritis very painful. This turns my brains to mush.

I need to apologizes to the people at B of A. I was so tired and sore that I did not even notice that the machine gave me my ATM back. So I am fairly certain the I did not put my pin in correctly either.

This means that I will not be blogging about anything important until sometime next week.

I may blog about food and other things since my new place comes with a high speed connection.

SUPREME COURT AGREES WE ALL NEED HEALTH CARE!

Hooray! Fab! Far out, man!

We all have bodies that can break. Those who think that they can never be sick and poor are the same as those who think they can never die. If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

DEA, HOLDER & CONGRESS

I worry that the information that the House of Representatives wants contains information that would identify informants and agents working for, or cooperating with, the DEA.

The Bush era idea to let guns go into Mexico to try to trace the ultimate buyers was a risky and dangerous idea. It is too bad that it continued into 2010.

I know that in the drug wars it is difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys. But the US should not deliberately risk the lives of people who purport to be helping us. The risk to our agents in Mexico is extremely high. I think the death toll in Mexico is now 47,000 people since the DEA and Mexico started trying to stop the flow of drugs into the US.

You all know that I think the War on SOME Drugs to be stupid and ineffective. That does not mean that I am willing to increase the risk to the lives of the people who are trying to enforce US policy in Mexico.

A woman CIA agent has already been "outed" for the political purposes of the Republicans. She is safe. If Congress inadvertently "outs" a DEA agent, his headless body may hang from a bridge.

IS GERMANY A BULLY?

During the 20th Century, Germany tried its very best to rule Europe. The method they used was military power and the power of murder.

Now Germany seems determined to use economic power to rule Europe. The German economy is doing well. But Germany expects the smaller, less developed counties in the Euro zone to institute severe austerity measures. Never mind that these austerity measures are harming the citizens of these smaller counties.

Economists are frantically telling Germany that their policy is likely to damage the entire world wide economy.

It is important to remember that the Nazis took over Germany during a period of out of control inflation. People told stories of using a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread.

Huge economic changes can make people into a kind of insane mob. I hope Germany is not planning on using this kind of mob insanity to do what they could not do with military power.

The citizens of the smaller countries need to realize that one of the reasons that they are in this mess is that they make a game out of not paying their taxes. Of course, here in America we have Amazon as an example of how to use a government funded resource to make huge sums of money and not pay sales tax. (They are now trying to get small California towns to waive the sales tax in return for putting a warehouse in that town.)

Countries, corporations, and people all have to make moral choices. Making choices based only on money will cause more problems than it solves.

I HATE SORTING

I am moving both my apartment and my office. The new address for mail for my office is on my website, LawandLaws.com

I am a kind of hoarder. It is not so much that I really like having too much stuff. It is that I HATE having to decide to keep, give away or throw away. Each little decision can become very difficult for me.

This time I have to again downsize. That you, Republicans, for protecting the rich, who took all the savings from the middle class during the real estate bubble. Now the middle class has no money to pay lawyers. But gosh, let's not make the rich pay taxes.

Anyway, I have rented a pod, so all I can keep has to go into a 7' x 8' x 5' box. The rest must fit into my new apartment, which I have not yet found. Small apartments are getting expensive as we all seem to be downsizing.

But I will be available for those who need legal help. Just check my website for how to contact me. Blogging will also continue.

I am thinking about writing a book on how I became a blogger.

USING IRAQ TACTICS IN CENTRAL AMERICA

The DEA has announced that it is going to use the tactics learned in Iraq to stop the illegal drug trade in Central America. I would laugh, but the dead bodies are not funny. Especially since many of the dead are innocents.

1. Iraq is a DESERT and Central America is a JUNGLE. Remember Vietnam?

2. People doing things for a cause do not have the same motivations as people doing things for money. The money in illegal drugs is enough to tempt a saint, especially if the saint's children are starving.

The DEA already tried to stop the illegal drug trade in Columbia. A generation of judges were killed.

The DEA has turned Mexico into a place where headless bodies hanging from bridges do not even make headlines because dozens of headless bodies are now common. Plus so many reporters have been killed, the rest are worried about reporting on any of the violence.

The war on some drugs is counterproductive and causes the violence to escalate. The ONLY way to stop drug use is when the drug user decides to ask for help. We spend so much money on the violence that we have no money left for therapy.

We think our drug laws make our children safer. Actually, children have an easier time buying illegal drugs than they have buying alcohol. Legalization and regulation really work. More importantly, if drugs are legal then our lawyers could bring lawsuits against those who sell adulterated drugs.