Free speech comes at a high price.  An email by a Harvard 3L has raised firestorms across the blogosphere, implicating racism, the ability to question sacred beliefs and where the lines are drawn.  But this post isn’t about the email, which can be found pretty much everywhere else and won’t even be linked here.  Rather, this post is about the attack after the attack, the insanity that follows.

Eugene Volokh has discussed, with some sensitivity and sensibility regardless of where one stands on the subject, the email in question.  Does the expression of the openness to discuss a sensitive racial subject render one inherently racist?  Elie Mystal  thinks that white people don’t get it.  He may be right for all I know.  I think we’re all racist to some greater or lesser extent, and none of us are nearly as good at understanding what it’s like to be another race as we think we are.

Then comes SUNY Buffalo mathematician Jonathan David Farley , Ph.D. (with some major credentials besides) , who posts at HuffPo  that the email was racist, plain and simple, and goes further in noting that “free-thinking” blacks aren’t helping matters.

Should the Harvard law student be expelled for her stupid, offensive, and easily refuted views? Certainly. But more harmful than the email is the contemporary African-American community’s customary cowardice―the Harvard Black Law Students Association “has not taken an official stance” on the email that implies blacks are Untermenschen*―and its propensity to elevate monsters and call them heroes. That’s simply “precious.”

He’s got a point.  Whether he’s right, I couldn’t say, but it’s certainly something worth considering.  The comments to Farley’s post, however, are where things devolve quickly, as naturally people challenge or support the position taken in the post.  At one point, some knave raises Eugene’s post comparing his experience as a child on a bus in Kiev, and asks if Farley really calls for the 3L’s expulsion from Harvard.  Oh boy.

Yes, I am calling for her expulsion. And people like this “Volokh” should never, ever have been allowed into the United States to spew their race hate against Americans (masquerading, the way the white South Africans sometimes did it, as anti-Communism).

Say what?  This “Volokh”?  Spewing race hate against Americans?  I mean, sure, Eugene’s not the snappiest dresser and all, but I always thought that was his real name.

A comment followed  giving Farley a second bite:

Professor Volokh is a principled man who believes in academic freedom and most certainly not racist. He did nothing to deserve your vicious ad hominem attacks and misrepresentations (he stated that he was against certain politically correct taboos, and no more) save advocate a different response, and certainly nothing excuses your attack on him.

Feel free to criticize him views. Don’t launch ad hominem attacks.

I suspect you wrote the reply quickly after dealing with right wing nutters and didn’t think about Volokh’s argument before you replied to what you thought was another ill-informed troll. Just think about what he has to say, OK?

Farley wasn’t having any of it.

I responded to Volokh’s views. His view is racist. If it were in my power, I would limit the number of additional racists coming into the United States to attack Americans. Volokh owes African-Americans an apology.

I used to believe that the Volokh Conspiracy, by far the most prominent legal blog around, mattered.  Now, my ‘sphere view is shattered.  Not only is it worthless in the scheme of blogospheric influence, but I don’t even know if Eugene’s last name is really Volokh.  I mean, who would make up a name like that, but still, it’s now in issue.

So, Comrade, is your name really “Volokh”?  And dear Dr. Farley, you’re proof that even mathematicians with interesting geo-political racial points to make can be functionally insane.  Have you considered a moving from Buffalo to Arizona?  The weather is much better.  Much.

* “Untermenschen” is German for subhuman.

There will be no Miranda issue should there come a time when Times Square Almost-Bomber Faisal Shahzad goes to trial.  He talked pre-Miranda, and he talked post.  He was a talker, as the agents around him did the Happy Dance and issued press releases about what a great job they did. 

Yet the knee-jerk outrage  was at the ready, just as it was when the Underpants Bomber was Mirandized, if Shahzad had shut his trap upon being given the warnings. 

“Obviously that would be a serious mistake … at least until we find out as much information we have,” McCain said during an appearance on “Imus in the Morning” when asked whether the suspect, 30-year-old Faisal Shahzad, a naturalized American citizen from Pakistan, should be given his constitutional rights.

“Don’t give this guy his Miranda rights until we find out what it’s all about,” McCain added.

A host of other politicians supported this position, with equally compelling reasoning, primarily along the lines that only Eagle Scouts deserve constitutional rights.  As it happens, Shahzad rendered the argument moot when he was given the warnings and continued to tell the government everything he knew.  Happy Dance.  News reports say that he’s still talking even as I write, which should come as no surprise given that he was a marketer.  Maybe he’s just trying to network and be genuine.  Maybe he’s laying the groundwork for the Shahzad brand.  No matter. He keeps talking and they keep listening.

Aside:  Apparently, when they pulled Shahzad off the Emirates plane after having nearly blown the no-fly protocol, Shahzad pointed out two other passengers on board who were also pulled but then released, demonstrating what a rich source of information he would be.

Over at Volokh Conspiracy , Orin Kerr uses this as an opportunity to review the law of Miranda, a worthy review for lawyers and layfolks alike, and a perfect exercise in slippery slope jurisprudence.  Whether Orin agrees with the state of law, I dunno, though he offered nothing to suggest that he disagrees.

[T]he FBI’s strategy was a smart one if you recognize the detailed maze of Miranda doctrine. It’s a reasonably safe bet that a court would allow an initial pre–Miranda inquiry to be admissible under the public safety exception of New York v. Quarles, 467 U.S. 649 (1984). Then, after Shahzad made clear that he’s a talker, the FBI could insert the Miranda warnings and get the waiver and then get Shahzad to repeat what he just said pre-waiver. Because the two-stage interview was not an intentional two-step interrogation technique designed to violate Miranda, a court would allow the post–Miranda statement under Justice Kennedy’s controlling opinion in Missouri v. Seibert, 542 U.S. 600 (2004). So from a legal standpoint, this was pretty cleverly done. 

Assuming that you already know the Miranda basics, that it only kicks in on custodial interrogations (which is itself rife with issues, but not for today), the Supremes slid down the exception slope with Quarles, crafting a “public safety” exception:

We hold that on these facts there is a “public safety” exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given before a suspect’s answers may be admitted into evidence, and that the availability of that exception does not depend upon the motivation of the individual officers involved. In a kaleidoscopic situation such as the one confronting these officers, where spontaneity rather than adherence to a police manual is necessarily the order of the day, the application of the exception which we recognize today should not be made to depend on post hoc findings at a suppression hearing concerning the subjective motivation of the arresting officer.

Notice how the court denigrates those who would be slaves to the “police manual?”  Notice how “spontaneity” is “necessarily the order of the day?”  Notice how cops’ conduct “should not be made to depend on post hoc findings at a suppression hearing?”  This is the court’s way of saying, “we’re not gonna let all those stupid constitutional thingies get in the way when there’s he-man police work to be done.”  A step down the slippery slope.

[Tannebaum notes that in Quarles, there’s a missing gun at issue, whereas here, the bomb was already in hand, as if the missing gun in Quarles somehow makes the non-Mirandized interrogation different.  But when considered in light of Orin’s comparison to potential overseas conspirators who “who would presumably have other attacks planned or might in the future,” obviously an over-riding immediate public safety concern that would only last for a few decades and cover millions of people under any circumstances, Tannebaum doesn’t look nearly as silly. Public safety, obviously, is in the eye of the beholder. ‘Nuff said about that.]

Then there’s Seibert, where the court held that the Missouri two-step was wrong, but as long as police didn’t intend to scam the defendant out of his rights (as in, that subjective motivation that was wrong, wrong, wrong to consider in Quarles is now the saving grace for the police), it was cool with them.  Slip-sliding away.

Orin then points out an important point, that there’s no duty to provide Miranda warnings per se, but rather the failure to do so in the absence of Quarles would render the defendant’s answers inadmissible.

Under Chavez v. Martinez, 538 U.S. 760 (2003), it is lawful for the police to not read a suspect his Miranda rights, interrogate him, and then obtain a statement that would be inadmissible in court. Chavez holds that a person’s constitutional rights are violated only if the prosecution tries to have the statement admitted in court.

This would be a sensible decision, allowing the cops to perform that public safety function while simultaneously safeguarding the defendant’s constitutional right against self-incrimination, if it ended there.  But of course, it doesn’t.

Indeed, the prosecution is even allowed to admit any physical evidence discovered as a fruit of the statement obtained in violation of Miranda — only the actual statement is excluded. See United States v. Patane, 542 U.S. 630 (2004). So while it may sound weird, it turns out that obtaining a statement outside Miranda but not admitting it in court is lawful. 

Weird indeed, until one enjoys the sophistry of Justice Thomas’ rationale.

It follows that police do not violate a suspect’s constitutional rights (or the Miranda rule) by negligent or even deliberate failures to provide the suspect with the full panoply of warnings prescribed by Miranda. Potential violations occur, if at all, only upon the admission of unwarned statements into evidence at trial. And, at that point, “[t]he exclusion of unwarned statements … is a complete and sufficient remedy” for any perceived Miranda violation. Chavez, supra, at 790.

Thus, unlike unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment or actual violations of the Due Process Clause or the Self-Incrimination Clause, there is, with respect to mere failures to warn, nothing to deter. There is therefore no reason to apply the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine of Wong Sun, 371 U. S., at 488.

Got that? The remedy is suppression of statements, and physical evidence derived from statements isn’t statements, so therefore it isn’t suppressible. Duh.  Wong Sun is for kids.

Just to bring this back to the starting point, Orin concludes:

As a result, the FBI would have acted entirely lawfully in making a choice on the ground as to whether to read Shahzad his Miranda rights. The choice would have been between the odds of getting a statement that they could not use in court without the warnings versus the odds of getting a statement that they could use in court with the warnings. Shahzad turned out to be a talker, so the FBI gave him the warnings, got his waiver, and then continued to get more statements from him — all of which will be admissible in federal court.

While it’s not entirely clear, I think Orin is saying that no matter what the FBI did, chances were good that they get the statements in regardless of what they did, but the purely fortuitous fact that Shahzad won’t shut up makes the FBI’s choice a brilliant exercise of law enforcement discretion. 

Of course, given the fact that Shahzad was a marketer, all they needed to do was give him a blog and he would have spilled his guts no matter what.

While I’m not particularly fond of symbolism for its own sake, the announcement that the Supreme Court of the United States will no longer permit people to enter through its front doors came as shock.  Ashby Jones at the WSJ Law Blog  writes:

Some sad news to report on the Supreme Court front: At least for the indefinite future, no longer will the public be allowed to enter the Supreme Court building through the front doors. No, for security reasons, all visitors will now be shepherded through two side doors on the ground level.

Ashby’s primarily concerned with the loss of the inspirational aspect of this change.

It’s too bad: entering the Supreme Court through those doors is inspiring and cool experience — probably best done just after graduating from law school, when you’re still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and rarin’ to try your hand at real-life legal practice.

Certainly, the loss of a significant purpose to the creation of a structure representing the “majesty of the law,” the physical manifestation of the ideals upon which our system is founded, is disturbing.  So too is the symbolism that redress of grievances in America comes in through the side door.

Yet this goes beyond mere symbolism.  The closure of the front door as an entrance into a branch of government reflects two more substantive, and far more disturbing, things than the loss of coolness and inspiration.  First, it says that we concede that the United States of America is incapable of defending a single door from breach or attack.  Second, it says that the fear of this inability is of paramount importance.  To put it another way, safety first.

There is no denying, as targets of political disagreement go, that the Supreme Court is a big one.  While fear of terrorism falls far distant to fear of bad drivers as far as harm to others go, it would be a failure of massive symbolic importance should someone manage to get inside the sanctum sanctorum with a bomb under their coat.  Are we not capable of discerning such a threat through the front door?  Perhaps not, but if that’s the case, then for all the cost and inconvenience that safety imposes on us, why are we bothering?  If we can’t protect the Supreme Court from attack, let’s send the tin soldiers packing and make our lives enormously more convenient by trashing the whole scheme.

The second concern, however, goes far deeper into the troubled core of our society.  Justice Stephen Breyer, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg concurring, issued a “dissent” from the decision to close the front door entry. 

To my knowledge, and I have spoken to numerous jurists and architects worldwide, no other Supreme Court in the world—including those, such as Israel’s, that face security concerns equal to or greater than ours—has closed its main entrance to the public. And the main entrances to numerous other prominent public buildings in America remain open. I thus remain hopeful that, sometime in the future, technological advances, a Congressional appropriation, or the dissipation of the current security risks will enable us to restore the Supreme Court’s main entrance as a symbol of dignified openness and meaningful access to equal justice under law.

The tension between law and order, safety and freedom, is at the core of essentially every criminal law case that has and will come before the Court.  It has now spoken for itself, that safety comes before freedom.  That order is more important than law.  This is the ultimate capitulation to fear.

The Supreme Court has ruled.  We have lost. 

The ABA Journal reports that hundreds of law firms have been taken in by email scams, such as the Chinese collections scam that’s made the rounds over the past few years.

Since 2007, the FBI has received hundreds of complaints from law firms claiming millions of dollars in losses in e-mail scams, according to Jason Boone, a research assistant at the nonprofit National White Collar Crime Center who spoke to the publication.

Two initial thoughts come to mind, that legal Darwinism is at play, destroying law firms and lawyers who probably should find a different line of work if they aren’t savvy enough to spot an obvious scam.   The second notion is that these firms are desperate, willing to stumble blind into the cesspool of the internet in the hope of business.

A step back, however, and it’s similarly clear that lawyers have been bombarded with come-ons of online magic, with the complicity of such venerable sounding institutions as the ABA  Journal  itself, suggesting that the rest of the legal world is not merely surviving, but making money hand over fist by their early adapting, their online presence, their embrace of Web 2.0,  The scam is just as much within as without, and it pushes the unwary to put on blinders, to believe in fairies and, despite misgivings, accept the word of the Social Media Gurus that technology will save them.

Yet, when someone tries to provide the counterpoint to the cheerleading, the siren’s call of the internet, they are attacked for telling the truth.  Brian Tannebaum posted I Found You On The Internet, a drop of reality against a sea of deception, there was no applause.  The comments received demonstrate that the message is lost.  At best, it’s about minor tweaks to the internet marketing that will bring success,  The pot of gold is always just around the corner.

For the most part, the lie is perpetuated by the Social Media Gurus and the Slackoisie, the former because their income is derived from the wealth of lawyers foolish enough to believe that the internet is their path to success.  The latter because any other path would require real effort on their part, and that would interfere with their work/life balance and require them to trade their flip-flops for real shoes. 

But as the ABA Journal report shows, there’s another group that has quietly been subsumed in the scam world of the internet, so utterly lacking in digital understanding that they are ripe for the picking by any scammer around, whether it’s the Chinese collections scam, the Nigerian lottery scam or the Social Media Guru scam. 

A handful of lawyers have tried their best to buck the tide.  They are unpopular with the scammers for calling them out, explaining that there is no magic bullet, and pressing the issue of hard work and competence over an online marketing presence based on lies and low rent pseudo-lawyering.  The hundreds of law firms taken in by the collections scam are only the tip of the iceberg. 

When Mark Herrmann at Drug & Device Law wrote that blawging didn’t bring in business, at least not the kind of business that anyone wanted, he was excoriated.  How dare he challenge the budding Social Media business.  Things have only gotten worse since, with every failed lawyer with a computer offering advice for a fee to law firms hungry for business. 

Mark Bennett, who, like Tannebaum, has been one of the clear voices trying to save lawyers from themselves, made some changes to his contact page on his website reflecting online reality.

Please don’t call for a “price quote.” We don’t give price quotes over the phone. But how much do we charge? Probably more than anyone who quotes prices over the phone.

We represent people in serious trouble who are ready to take their trouble seriously. If a low-bid lawyer is good enough for you, please look elsewhere. Our clients deserve for us not to have to waste our valuable time with window-shoppers and lookie-loos.

For all the newcomers to blawgosphere, to twitter, to whatever social media flavor of the day is being tossed in your face as the greatest miracle ever, consider this.  Bennett and Tannebaum have not merely been engaged in these media for a while, but have been wildly successful in gaining respect, readership, interest and recognition.  They are the elite, what you aspire to be.  And if they are telling you that their blawgs aren’t bringing in a tidal wave of great clients and new business, what makes you think that it’s going to be completely different for you?

Neither Tannebaum nor Bennett need to help you.  Neither needs to endure the social media scammers and ignorance of the Slackoisie.  They do it for your benefit, so you aren’t amongst the next group of hundreds of law firms taken in by online scams.  How about a little appreciation?  And for all those who have yet to achieve an iota of the success they have, whether in the blawgosphere or the courtroom, what makes you think you know better than they do?

Bennett and Tannebaum are real lawyers trying to help other real lawyers.  It’s time for a little appreciation, because there aren’t many who will endure the crap they have to put up with to help you.  Pay attention to what they are saying. They know what they’re talking about.

From Timothy McSweeney, writtten by Jeremy Pippenger, this “imagined monologue” is far too close to reality.  Perhaps not for the detail, but the self-delusion and reasoning.  Called “This Really Nice Suit Is Going To Get Me Acquitted,” don’t miss this post.

If you want some insight into real life as a criminal defense lawyer, this is it. 

H/T Amy Derby

While Crazy Joe Arpaio ponders the move from Sheriff of Maricopa County to the lesser position of governor, New Yorkers have their own version.  It would have burst on the scene over the weekend, but for some crazy who put a fizzled car bomb in Times Square.  A potential dark cloud with a bit of a silver lining.  Only a bit, since they still have the balloons and wazoos to be used for the announcement once we get over our fear and loathing.

The announcement will come as no surprise.  Via Newsday (which you won’t be able to access unless you buy Jim Dolan’s cable, unlike real newspapers):

Nassau District Attorney Kathleen Rice Sunday delayed the expected announcement of her bid to become state attorney general.

“As a law enforcement official, and given the situation unfolding in New York City, the DA didn’t believe it was the right time for politics,” said Eric Phillips, Rice’s spokesman.

Phillips said Rice is monitoring the situation and will announce when it’s appropriate.

Translation: You won’t notice me.  I want you to notice me. Notice me, dammit!  That Rice would be running for AG was crystal clear from the outset of her last election for DA.  She’s everything you could want in an AG, self-serving, fear-mongering and cut-throat ambitious.  The prosecutors in her own office despise her.  The public loves her.  She’s got red hair and prosecutes drunk drivers under the murder statute, because the state’s vehicular homicide laws won’t get her big enough headlines.

Her credentials for the Attorney General job were laid bare:

William Cunningham, a Democratic consultant and former top adviser to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Rice has several advantages.

“One is her resume, one is her gender and one is her geography,” Cunningham said.

Cunningham explained that prosecutors appeal to the electorate, and Rice benefits from being the only woman now in the field. Though Rice once worked in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, she was elected in Nassau and Cunningham said that will help her draw suburban voters.

Larry Levy, who heads the Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University, added that not only is Rice’s gender a plus, but her Irish Catholic background will help with the suburban vote.

Levy said Rice has something else important working for her.

“She’s got the fire in the belly, too. There is no doubt about that,” Levy said. “This is something that she really, really wants.”

Notice that there’s nothing in there about ability, intelligence, fairness, any of that pap?  But when it comes to pandering, she’s a winner.  She knows how to play the masses like nobody’s business.  Plus, she’s got red hair.  Then there’s the screw up last year, when she cut a break  to the woman who lied about being gang raped at Hofstra.  So what if she was pandering to women and playing the feminist myth that if you hold women accountable for crime, that will chill their coming forward in the future to commit new crimes. 

The post of AG has been a major jumping off point for major league politicians in New York.  Consider Eliot Spitzer, who was anointed Emperor of the Empire State from the position.  Now Cuomo hopes to do the same, if Spitzer doesn’t set him up on a blind date. 

Either way, this leaves an ambition gap in state government, and there’s no one with as much ambition to fill it as Kathleen Rice.  Of course, there’s a huge integrity gap as well.  Unfortunately, there’s no one to fill that void.  Nobody’s even interested.

Update:  Apparently, the news cycle is over for the Times Square bomb, so Rice has announced she’s running . Woo hoo.

In her recorded announcement, Rice, noting the importance of the role of attorney general, said: “This year is even more unusual. We face unprecedented challenges in our cities, our state capital and our nation that are borne of uncertain times and an uncertain economy and are brought home in rising rates of violent crime.”

Maybe somebody should tell her that the AG doesn’t fight violent crime?  No matter.  It’s not like anybody cares.

Unlike many whose thoughts and feelings on the law exist only in the confines of their head, Norm Pattis’ days are spent in the well doing what lawyers are meant to do.  Norm tries cases.  So when Norm comes up with an idea for change, there are usually two things you can count on: they will be radical and raise an issue that needs to be addressed.  He does so again with his question, what’s wrong with letting jurors talk?

I’ve tried more cases than I can recall, but I know this much is true: A courtroom is all about energy and bounce. Sure, there are the facts and the law. But the facts and the law are merely disconnected pieces of data. Unless they are fitted into a narrative structure, given energy, they are meaningless. And unless that narrative structure is heard by the jury, it is merely sound and fury, signifying nothing.

I’ve watched sometimes as adversaries railed away at the jury, stamping their feet and hissing in rage. When I see the jurors look away, or look down, I know the message is not being delivered. I wonder how many times I have howled into the void.

So I try to listen with my eyes. I want the jurors to tell me they’ve heard. I speak, I look and I listen. And when I see recognition in the eyes of one juror, I move on to another. I talk to each juror in turn, and I know my task is near complete when each has given me the cue that they have heard.

Norm goes on to talk of his summation in the trial he just completed, where his method of using rhetorical questions elicited more than the normal reaction.

The other day, I asked a rhetorical question. I paused. A few jurors nodded. The eyes of another sparkled. I asked another question. A different juror nodded. And then the third question. This time a juror forgot the barriers of the courtroom and answered my question, simply and clearly. He returned the gift I had given.

“You cannot answer counsel,” the judge was quick to interject. Why not?, I almost asked. Why are we not allowed to communicate with the folks who decide our client’s fate?

Why not indeed?  One of the most difficult realizations about trial is that lawyers, as senders of information, cannot determine whether jurors received it.  Or if they did, whether the recognized it as we want them to.  Consider the withering cross, where we finally get the witness to stumble and fall, admit that he was wrong, or better still, lied.  In our minds, we’re killers, heroes, winners.  We want to do with Tiger Woods fist pump, we’re so pleased with ourselves.

Does the jury get it?  Were they even listening?  And if both, do they recognize how significant it is, that the witness who lied about one thing will lie about others?  Or will they shrug and say, so what?  So what if the witness lied about whether it was sunny or overcast.  He still say the defendant pull the trigger, right?

As we talk to a diverse group of twelve, it’s hard if not impossible to know whether our words, meant to say one thing, are understood.  Each juror brings their own ideas to the panel, their own understanding based on their own experiences.  We pretend that we can know them through voir dire, but we can’t.  And the words that resonate with juror number 2 may turn off juror number 11.  We just don’t know.

If a juror gives the gift of caring, why are we forbidden to return the gift with a response? Jurors should be free to speak with their voices during closing argument. Until they have that freedom, we must become adept at listening with our eyes.

But there’s a problem here too.  Just as the criminal defense lawyer would want to engage with the jury, so would the prosecutor.  We want them to nod as we explain the case, the defense.  They want them to nod too.  We want them to feel our arguments, our view of the facts, our reasoning.  So do they.

What would happen if the juror returned the gift of caring, but not to us.  What if he gave the gift to the prosecutor, who received the gift gratefully and went down the road invited, perhaps about the victim, the things that bring tears to everyone’s eyes but do nothing to show the defendant’s guilt.  What if it was a flagrant appeal to prejudice and speculation, exacerbated by the response of a juror that the defendant ought to die for what he did to a child? 

On the one hand, it clarifies our effort to read their eyes, to have a glimpse at what goes through their mind.  Sure, we believe that we’ve mastered the magic of understanding without knowing, but the verdict may well dispel our hubris. 

The alternative is a melee in the courtroom to manipulate the jurors to speak out, to voice their view and understanding.  Maybe like an old-time tent revival, we can get them worked up to the point where they praise the defense and raise their hands to the law.  Or maybe one will do that for the prosecution, and spread their fervor to the others.

One of the things we hope for in the process of closing our cases is to keep the jury’s attention, to hold onto them long enough to make our case as best we can and get our point into their heads.  Whether they will agree with us, vote our way, has yet to be seen, but at least the opportunity to speak was there.  If the jurors feel free to speak their minds in response, before we finished our summation, we may not get the chance to say what we have to say. 

The jury can give us a gift.  They can also take it away and give it to the other side.  We might be worse off that way.

About a month ago, Apple launched the iPad , and every cool kid rushed out to get one so that all the other cool kids wouldn’t laugh at them.  This weekend, Apple launched the iPad 3G, and even at $629, it sold like, well, an iPad.  The third generation iPad goes on sale tomorrow at $859.

Reports from the weekend raise questions about the second generation iPad.  Design issues prevent it from being thrown as easily as a frisbee.  And there’s that network reception issue too.  Bummer.  But the worst problem is that last month’s cool kids now look a bit dated.  After all, their iPad is merely WiFi, while the in-the-know kids are 3G.  I can hear the chuckles as they pull their outmoded iPad out and try to hide their shame in the corner.

I saw an iPad yesterday, though I’m fairly certain it was one of the old, pathetic versions since its user looked glum and wore a doubleknit leisure suit.  It’s so very hard to be cutting edge anymore with the edge in constant motion.

It was disheartening.  The iPad user was a nice guy, trying to keep up with the early bird at his children’s urging. The kids had iPhones and others gadgets with them, including a netbook from the looks of it, but they barely touched them.  They played some game on the iPad involving super heroes.  Other kids looked on.  Some looked at their parents with imploring eyes.  They probably didn’t know that the iPad was working on WiFi rather than 3G.  There was no reception there.

It must have been worth it to have every shiny new toy that appears in the store.  I know a lot of people with i-stuff, many of whom trade them up with hours of getting their first so they aren’t passe before they read the manual.

At least the original iPad buyers got a month of cool out of it.  The second generation iPad 3G users may only get hours.  And the third generation people are just losers, because by then no one will care at all.  No one ever advertises a fifth generation device.

My cellphone used to be my daughter’s.  When we renewed the contract, she got a new shiny one. I got her old one which used to be a new shiny one.  It works fine when I remember to turn it on. 

I’ve received numerous emails from folks who either have, or want to, blawg lately, asking questions about how to do it, how I do it, what to do.  When I respond, there is a tendency to argue with me. 

I’ve decided to try something very different for me, and will make this an open thread for anyone who has a question or an answer.  I’m no guru.  There’s no reason why my thoughts are any more worthy than yours or anyone else’s.  Got a question?  Ask.  Got an answer?  Tell.  Want to argue about it?  Argue.

Have at it all you want, no holds barred.