A throwback song for progressives and liberals:

“Well, it’s alright now…

I learned my lesson well.

You can’t please everyone so you

Gotta please yourself”.

          ~ Ricky Nelson, Garden Party

You all know what I mean…lessons learned. Game on. Move forward. Aren’t you waiting for that Garden Party on the White House lawn?

Okay, so it’s not quite mid-year yet, but with the second quarter coming to a close, it’s time to start thinking about taxes (if you ever stopped).  Here are some tips to ensure that your tax bill is right where you want it to be next April.

If you’re employed by someone else:

Did you owe a lot last year, or receive a large refund? I know many people like to receive big refund checks but, in my mind, that’s just loaning money to the government that you could be using all year round. Take a look at your withholdings and determine if you need to adjust them. Again, the IRS makes this pretty easy by providing a withholding calculator.  Take a few minutes to walk through this and then ask your company’s payroll or HR person for a new W-4 form to fill out. I find this is actually a valuable exercise to go through each year.

If you’re self-employed:

Those of us who are self-employed have a particularly challenging task. Since our Social Security and Medicare taxes aren’t automatically withheld, we have to be disciplined enough to withhold them ourselves. Otherwise, you’re going to be hit with a 15.3% tax on EVERYTHING you earned at the end of the year. I recommend taking a full 25% of every check you receive and socking it away into savings, in preparation for your tax bill.

If you expect to owe at least $1,000 in 2012, you should be paying quarterly tax payments (or expect to be hit with a penalty when you file your 2012 taxes).  The next quarterly payment is due June 15.  If you need help figuring out how much you owe in quarterly taxes, consult your accountant or, if you speak tax code, check out this handy resource.

Other tax considerations:

Make sure, as the year goes on, that you’re obtaining receipts for any charitable contributions that you make. Remember that charitable contributions don’t necessarily mean cash. If you take clothes to Goodwill, or make a quilt for a charity auction, you can deduct these things as well (as long as you have a receipt).  The IRS requires written acknowledgement from the charity receiving the goods if you have a donation greater than a $250 value.  Otherwise, you can use cancelled checks or bank statements as substantiation.

Finally, if your tax bill is confounding to you, consider evaluating your debt and shifting it more towards deductible interest.  For example, if you have a number of credit card bills (the interest on which is non-deductible), but some equity in your home, consider taking out a home equity loan to pay off your credit card bills.  In most cases, home equity interest is a deductible expense.

Additional questions?  Concerns?  Please leave them in the comments!

Disclaimer: This post is intended to be for general informational purposes about tax planning and overall IRS tips. Please do not consider any of this consultation for your individual tax or legal needs. I urge you to consult your own tax expert with further questions. Any information contained in this post is not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any transaction or matter that is contained in this document.

The #1 response I get when I tell people I am a teacher is, “It must be nice.  You get your summers off.”

And that is from polite people.

Less socially tactful people (like my grandpa) tend to lean more toward this response: “It must be nice to work only 9 months of the year.”

After 10 years in the biz, I now just reply with “yup.” or when I am feeling sassy with “that would be nice!”

But it used to make me hopping mad.

Contrary to what many people think, I do not get to just sit on a beach sipping a mimosa with a good book all summer.

There is work to be done.

Ok, technically the summer is not contracted time. My administrators cannot make me do anything work-related.

However, if I want to keep my job…or do it well the other 9 months of the year…stuff has to get done during the summer.

The number one thing teachers do in the summer is continue their education and attend professional development.

In the state of Michigan, in order to keep a teaching certificate, a teacher needs to accumulate a certain number of credits (paid out of pocket) in a set number of years.

It’s possible to take these during the school year, but with all the other responsibilities going on, it’s easier on the schedule to do it in the summer.

When we are not taking classes, we are doing professional development (ok, really, some people are doing both).  Professional development can include classes, meetings, trainings, etc. Most are not required (unless they are paid), but are very much encouraged. For instance, this summer I have three days of professional development to do in order to learn about the new Common Core Standards affecting my content areas (English and Spanish) and how to include them in my lessons and implement them.

Besides the three days in meetings, I will have to work on lesson plans with these new standards.

On top of all that, our district is restructuring our secondary grade level buildings this summer. This means that I am being moved to the building that will now be the 10-12 high school building. You can imagine the hours I will have to put in packing up a decade’s worth of classroom stuff, moving it, and reorganizing so that my new classroom is ready to go for the fall.

While most teachers are not moving into new buildings during the summer, they are restructuring and reorganizing their own classroom and lessons.

At the end of a school year, our classroom just isn’t ready for fall.

During a normal summer, I put in at LEAST two 40-hour weeks just working on my classroom, lessons, and new year prep.

Ok, so if you take out the two weeks for prep, a week of  professional development (PD), and a couple more weeks of implementing what I gleaned from the PD, AND if I am taking classes, I am down to about a month off.

Maybe three weeks.

Still pretty awesome.

However.

Many, MANY teachers need to supplement their income.

It may come as a newsflash to many of you, but teachers in this country get paid squat.

There is NO WAY many of us can afford to sit around all summer. Unless we have a partner who makes enough, loads of teachers have some sort of extra job they do during the summer.

Some tutor, some teach summer school, some work for camps, and some teach adjunct classes during summer sessions for local colleges.

I try to pick up a few writing gigs during each summer to supplement my income just a tad.

The big joke when I was growing up was that half the male teachers in my high school painted houses or installed underground sprinkling during the summers.

Now that I am a teacher, it’s not much of a joke.

I realize it’s a necessity.

We do get “time off,” but it doesn’t mean we are riding around in our convertibles in our bikinis.

It means we are preparing ourselves for another school year — and getting a bit of rest from the every day crazy that is teaching other people’s kids.

It’s Memorial Day weekend. You live in a city, sold your car because it’s useless in urban life, and prefer to utilize public transportation because it has become a way of life. You want to go to a beach, but you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on getting there. Instead, you decide to research cheap options of getting out of a concrete jungle to decompress.

I tried to do that very thing. Here’s my story:

The day before my departure (because I’m responsible and like to plan far in advance), I googled “car rental” in Philadelphia and Delaware. I wanted get to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, but I wanted to do it the cheapest way possible. I pride myself on being able to navigate, without fear of getting lost, effectively and efficiently. I declined to rent the car, and looked at bus transportation from NYC to Philadelphia. Megabus was an option, but not liking to do things the conventional way, I declined that as well. Instead, I hopped on a city bus and roamed the streets of Chinatown in search of the perfect ride for me.

If you have never heard of the Chinatown bus, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. It is a magic carpet ride of pure excitement and entertainment. It is what us class acts choose for travel. It is nearly divine. The accomodations are incomparable to any I’ve ever seen. And, I’ve been to Third World countries. You have not lived a complete life if you have not done this once. I like to be close to the “people.”

Upon being directed by a lady, who had a real handle on the English language as she leered at me through a plate of squeaky clean plexi-glass, I continued on my way down the street where a man driving a forklift nearly unloaded his wares on my head. So sweet: he wanted to share. At last, I found a corner where it looked like a group of people were waiting for an autobus (ow-tow-boos).  Above their heads, written in Mandarin and English, I saw it: Philadelphia. Sweet, sassy, love-saturated Philadelphia. Another lady behind plexiglass pointed across the room to a different window where an invisible person was selling tickets. I stood in front of said invisible person for a few minutes before I became foot-tapping impatient. My future travel buddy (a Philly rapper who will remain nameless) and I started mumbling incoherent swear-words at the empty chair. Suddenly, a short black man with few teeth whose warm up jacket stretched tautly over his generous abdominals poked his head through the open doorway to the street and began hollering, “Philly! Philly? Philly.”  He turned and swung his arm high, beckoning us to follow him. I looked at my new rapper friend, and we silently followed suit. My logic? Follow the tall guy with the biggest bling: he knows what he is doing.

“Go to where the sign says fifteen.”  Right.  Obviously.

I knew only at this point that jokes were the best ingredient to make this trip complete, “I know I’m listening to Bossman. Why wouldn’t you listen to him? He seems like he’s the one in charge. There is no uniform or nametag, but I trust him. I do. I really do.”

A few Russian girls approached us (we became an ‘us’ quickly). I told them to listen to Bossman, because he knew things  Then, while I was contemplating changing careers to Chinatown Bus Street Director, the “bus” pulled up. I know I’m short, and so were all the Asians getting on the bus with me, but this was taking stereotypes to a whole new level. Rapper and I jostled our way past six rows of seats to the back of the bus. I paid my thirteen dollars to the kid walking around demanding money. I crossed my fingers. I am so in love with adventure.

Two hours and thousands of raindrops in the face later (from the nice woman who let fresh air into the vehicle) my chosen mode of transport bounced to a halt in front of a strip mall on Broad and Olney.  I know I’m crazy, but when you think of Chinatown buses, don’t you assume Chinatown A to Chinatown B?  I should’ve asked Bossman. He might have told me that the last stop was to be the most dangerous part of North Philadelphia. Rapper was nervous, and so told me we “need to get out this hood fast.  I got too much bling on me to be on the streets in this hood. Need to find a yellow cab.”

I am not afraid.

Another man, one that looked strangely like Bossman, approached “us” and offerred to take us to Center City for “twenty-five.”

My travel companion responded, “Yellow Cab?”  He started to walk towards an ATM.  Bossman II began walking towards a well worn, black town car.

In my head I saw my death in a stranger’s car next to an abandoned building full of squatters. And so, I cheerily declined and ran down the stairs to the subway, calling for Rapper to follow me. I like to think I saved a life yesterday. And for that, I am teeming with pride.

Amtrak is fast.  New Jersey Transit to Trenton with a transfer to Septa to Center City is not as fast, but efficient. Chinatown buses are epic. What will you choose?

__________

Find @funnychristine on Twitter or making Lupus patients giggle somewhere in New York City.  There’s probably someone with Lupus in every audience.

The U.S. economy is a funny thing. It’s even funnier during a presidential election year. Ultimately, regardless of the true health of financial indicators, every four years it’s about the economy, stupid. And stupid is as stupid does. With that, I bring you Meg Whitman, the Stock Market, and Mitt Romney.

Yesterday, Hewlett Packard (HP) CEO Meg Whitman put a plan in motion to cut 27,000 jobs from her company. 27,000 jobs. That’s a pretty big number of positions for such an esteemed job creator like Ms. Whitman. But apparently, the stock market didn’t agree. Bad means good on Wall Street. After the job-cutting announcement, HP shares rose. In fact, it became the day’s best performing stock on the Dow.

Now, let’s take the time machine back a few weeks to the day that the April jobs report was released. Do you remember the panic, the terror, the daunting uncertainty that the creation of over 115,000 new jobs caused? Wait, huh? So let me get this straight. Losing 27,000 jobs is completely acceptable, even considered a positive on Wall Street but adding 115,000 jobs is a sign of the Apocalypse?

To add an entirely new level of weird to this story, last week Mitt Romney sang the praises of Meg Whitman, one job creator to another. Here’s what the man who would be president said about her:

“I wish Californians had elected Meg Whitman. She would have been more successful and explained to Californians the need to cut back on spending and eliminate unnecessary programs.”

So I guess 27,000 jobs would be considered unnecessary programs. I guess stimulus investments that have resulted in steady job growth should be deemed irresponsible spending. I suppose putting people out of work is fine as long as the Dow says so.

Yes, it is about the economy, stupid. I’m talking to you M & M.

“I’ll CUT the DEFICIT!” The words scream down from a billboard along I-15 in a rural part of the county north of me. I’ve seen it several times in the last few months during my drives from one end of the state to the other. The dude smiling in the picture isn’t even running for Congress anymore, so I guess maybe he was running a deficit of his own with regard to campaign finance. But, every time I drive by the billboard I can’t help but ask him…how? What will he do that all the rest of the Utah delegation in DC has not? It’s not as if Chaffetz and Lee are out there voting “Yea” on every single spending bill that comes their way. Even our lone “D” in Washington tends to vote more like an “R” the majority of the time. The fact is, there is nothing this guy can do to cut the deficit that isn’t being done by Utah’s politicians already.

But, you know what? It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters in these parts is that he has an “R” after his name and can throw out a few good buzzwords like “CUT” and “DEFICIT.” The only thing better would be tossing in a few others that seem to carry weight around here. “SOCIALISTS!” or “FASCISTS!” work well. So do “OBAMACARE!” and “OBAMA WANTS YOUR GUNS!” or “MUSLIMS!!!” “CUT TAXES” is another good one, even though Utahns are some of the least taxed people in the nation. And never mind that we spend about the least per pupil and face education funding shortfalls every year, which would lead a rational person to wonder how cutting taxes will improve that. That simply doesn’t matter in this new age of political rhetoric. All that matters is that “TAXES WILL BE CUT!”

I guess it’s a pipe dream to expect campaigns actually built around messages and platforms anymore. In the age of sound bytes, Tweets, status updates and “likes,” only the keywords seem to matter. Now, had this smiling face on the billboard proclaimed he would “CUT WASTEFUL SPENDING” I might be on board. Just because I’m progressive and support nationalized healthcare, Social Security, assistance for the jobless and people who need a helping hand doesn’t mean I don’t believe there’s a lot of money being spent in Washington where it shouldn’t be. We all remember the expose on the Pentagon spending $5,000 for a toilet seat and $10,000 for a hammer. Budgets and programs are huge and it becomes very easy for spending to become wasteful if things aren’t monitored carefully, such as million dollar conferences in Vegas where attendees walk away with commemorative coins. I know there are plenty of ways we can find savings in our government’s spending. But, it would require leaders who actually get behind their messages and who are serious about getting things done — as opposed to just throwing out keywords to strike a chord and win an election.

I can’t help but start humming a great song from the 80s every time a political commercial comes on.

“Do you hear me

Do you care

Do you hear me

Do you care

My lips are moving and the sound’s coming out

The words are audible by I have my doubts

That you realize what has been said

You look at me as if you’re in a daze

It like the feeling at the end of a page

When you realize you don’t know what you just read

What are words for when no one listens anymore

What are words for when no one listens

What are words for when no one listens it’s no use talkin’ at all”

- Missing Persons, “Words”

At least, our current politicians hope this is the case.

//
//

So here we are, the grand finale of my little saga of pissing and moaning about how sick and mean and cruel our schools are. Reading back on the previous three installments, I sometimes cringed; I sounded petulant, whiny, brash in that sophomoric know-it-all way that many 15-to-21 year-olds are before they get tossed feet-first out of their little adolescent test tubes and get their asses kicked by real life. All I’ve really been doing is spewing my personal vendetta against institutionalized education which doesn’t bear much in common with most peoples’ school experiences, but using universal terms to make it seem otherwise. It would be a lame manipulation game on my part, except for one small detail…

Everything I said was true. And so is everything I’m about to say.

Kindergarten through college amounts to glorified obedience training, a maladaptive leftover of Industrial Revolution-era political and corporate corruption that no one wants to address because that would mean having to address current political and corporate corruption, which would mean dismantling civilization as we know it. It’s much easier to distract us by dangling the golden carrot of “success” over our heads and shaming those of us who don’t jump high enough.

Once they’ve put the fear in you, the rest is a foregone conclusion. Whether you made it through the ringer and got a swanky office gig or you didn’t and you’re sweeping the office floor at the end of the day, you’re still caught in the same Pavlovian loop. And no matter which flipside of the same coin you’re on, you don’t quite know how you got there. It feels like someone kept you blindfolded for the first quarter of your life only to turn you loose in a world you couldn’t have imagined. Not knowing what else to do, you just latch onto whatever security you can find and hold on for dear life.

I talked about this with a respected communications lawyer based in Washington DC. An alumnus of Harvard and University of Chicago Law School with nearly 30 years of experience, world-famous clients, and a suitably generous salary, he is, for all intents and purposes, the epitome of the American Dream. I wanted to know what role his prestigious education played in all of this.

His assessment was rather bleak. He said he wished he could go to school now. He said that at the standard school age, people are at their most arrogant, the narrow boundaries of their sheltered adolescent lives having led them to believe that they have everything figured out. Not very conducive conditions for learning, are they? He went on to note that age and the accompanying gradual realization that so much is beyond one’s control or understanding has a humbling effect on people, making them more open-minded, more curious. Now in his late fifties, he firmly believes that his education would have been far more effective had he gotten it at his current age, now that he’s seen for himself how that knowledge fits into the world at large.

The real crisis in American education is not anything we read about in the papers or debate in forums. It’s not anything that can be blamed on bureaucrats or politicians alone. And it’s not anything that can be solved with some new legislation. American education is a crisis in and of itself.

This “In the Spotlight” post features writer, singer and guitarist Terry Sherven. The song, “Can You Hear,” was written with the Arab Spring, Wisconsin protests and Occupy movement in mind. Terry has toured all of the major Occupy sites in the Northwest — singing this song in the streets, protestors singing along with him. Follow Terry; he will be taking it to the streets again!

Slider Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I spent most of last week in Alabama, my home state. And I think, somewhere along the way, I began a love affair with it.

As y’all know, I’m hard on the South, particularly becauseI grew up in Alabama and, because, in a way, I guess I grew out of Alabama. As I write this now, I understand that in the process, I lost some appreciation for what Alabama has meant to me. Today, I want to rectify that.

Women’s Leadership Institute – Auburn, Alabama

I spent Monday through Thursday with the Women’s Leadership Institute (WLI) at Auburn University. It was a week of sessions and workshops dedicated to telling a different story about women and girls – that our value goes deeper, and stretches beyond our bodies and pretty faces.

The WLI Class of 2012 included a diverse group of dynamic women from all over the southeast. They came to us at various stages in their careers, education, and in their personal lives. Some had grown children, others had babies. Some had earned their Bachelor’s Degrees just days or weeks before we met, while others were working on Doctorates or their second or third Master’s Degrees. It was, for sure, an impressive group. We celebrated the courage it takes to face your fears, to lead a team, to trust your team, and to trust your leader. We recognized our power, and we acknowledged the ways in which it is brokered – either for some greater good, or because tradition/genetics/culture dictates that we should.

Throughout the course of our lives, women bear unique burdens and take on responsibilities that our male counterparts simply don’t. Man-struggles, though they exist and are no less challenging to the individual, aren’t even within striking distance of women’s uphill battles for respect, for power, for voice, for equality.  For autonomy. Men’s opportunities aren’t limited by their chromosomal make up. Rather, they are expanded by it. Infinite possibilities await if you happen to be born XY instead of XX. For men, the range of human emotion isn’t considered a liability. Questions about work/life balance, and who takes care of the babies while you chase ambition are realities men rarely face. For women, these features of life aren’t really optional. If you’re born with a uterus, limitations come standard.

For centuries, women have shattered false conceptions about their abilities to achieve great success outside of the home. The untrustworthy prism of sexism conveniently forgets that it was Harriet Tubman who risked her life returning to the South on missions that rescued more than 70 slaves. And it was Cleopatra who tactically employed beauty and charm as she ruled Egypt and was the alluring, elusive mistress to Rome. Queen Cleopatra and Harriet Tubman were merely women, and yet they succeeded in altering the course of world history. There’s nothing “mere,” minimum, or paltry about such a feat.

In the same way, women have enjoyed success in every facet of human life: family, business, science, medicine, and technology, the arts, research, and politics. But the psychology of sexism persists. Though the glass ceiling may be cracked in several places, it remains firmly in tact.

And chief among the reasons why, I think, is women’s lack of control over narratives about their own lives – their needs and ideas based in the context of their life experiences.  On Monday night, we watched the documentary, “Miss Representation.” The film lifts the veil from media’s influence on the way we value women. Media messages would have you believe that women are, or should be, “forever 29″ or younger, size 4 or smaller, married and mothering or laying looking under every Tom, Dick, and Harry to chase that dream.

It’s hard to be a girl, and then to grow up and be a woman. You’re measured against a standard that doesn’t exist. Perfection, as determined by men who never stray too far from their inner 13 year-old boy, isn’t an achievable goal. Media pushes the message that you need to be as close as possible to perfect to have value, and the market creates the illusion that you can actually buy your way into the mirage. But it’s a ruse. A clever, disheartening and disastrous ruse. Because the truth is that imperfection – the differences among us – that appeal to those among us, that’s “perfection.” Perfect. Defined by me, for me.

This was the second time I served as a Faculty in Residence with WLI. And, just like the last time, I came away inspired. The Residential Intensive Training week at WLI reminds you that women are powerful, brilliant, courageous, AND nurturing, beautiful, sexual beings. And it gives you license to be that, without contradiction.

Here’s my favorite photo from my week with WLI. It is what teamwork and sisterhood looks like.

No matter what you’re going through, sister, I’m determined to get you over this wall. The mission isn’t complete until we all make it over.

Tuskegee University - Tuskegee, Alabama

The base of the statue reads: “There is no defence or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all”

Like many ‘Skegee Alum, before I ever enrolled at Tuskegee University, I already had roots there. My dad, uncle and auntie had already taken the journey. So in August 1999 , when I showed up with the FAMU bumper sticker on my car, I wasn’t the most enthusiastic Golden Tiger.

But a couple of months later, I met a person who changed life as I knew it. And not long after that, I went to my first football game (as a student), and I saw my first probate show – it was Alpha Phi Alpha, the Fall ’99 line. And then I experienced my first Homecoming. Despite my best efforts, I began to let the “Tuskegee Experience” seep in. It was one of the best decisions I never made.

It just kind of happened one day, and I remember it so clearly. I was leaving the Union wearing yellow Old Navy flip-flops. I stopped at the top of the stairs for two seconds, and realized that I belonged there. Not on the stairs, of course. But on campus, that campus.

I felt the same way when I visited last Thursday. My dad’s roots are there, and now, so are mine. My best friend is a Tuskegee alumna, and my girlfriend is a double Tuskegee alum. I’m lucky. I get to have a little Crimson and Old Gold with me always. Last week though, it was nice to be there – to smell it, to see the caf, the yard, the valley, the ave, and the monument one more time.

Say what you wanna about my alma mater.  It is in the middle of nowhere.  It is  country.  And it is dysfunctional at times.  It’s also amazing and majestic in a way.  And for that reason, I wouldn’t trade my Tuskegee experience for your college’s any day.

Mike & Ed’s – Phenix City & Auburn, Alabama

If you’re one of those people who proudly doesn’t eat pork, then go on ahead and skip this part. If, however, you appreciate swine for its delicious contributions to humankind, then you understand my love of good barbecue. I’m talking about ribs, friends. Ribs.

Forget anything you’ve ever heard about DC or Maryland barbecue – that is, if anyone’s ever raved about DC or Maryland barbecue.

I had to go home to get a decent rib dinner. And if I’m going home, then I’m going to my favorite barbecue spot in the world, Mike & Ed’s. The original, and best one, is located in my hometown, Phenix City, Alabama. The building looks exactly like it did the first time my mom took me there for a chipped sandwich, when I was 5ish. The sweet hickory sauce still tastes the same. The thick-cut pickles are still the perfect accompaniment to ribs drizzled with their vinegary hot sauce. And they still serve white bread with a dinner.

The one in Auburn serves sweet tea in a garbage can container – with a spigot on it. I fucking love Alabama.

:-)

My Family – Phenix City, Alabama

I gotta be honest. I struggled with whether I would visit my family on this trip. But my favorite auntie said, “You’re this close. Go see your parents.” So I did.

And I’m glad I did. I needed to see their faces and feel their hugs. I needed to feel them squeeze me like they missed me. And I needed to squeeze back so they knew I missed them too.

We caught up on the last few months, and we resolved the respect issue. However, my mom is still my mom, and my dad is still my dad. And things are still rough and sensitive. But I realized that’s ok. I don’t need it to be more than it is anymore. It was just nice to see my parents and hold them again. That works for now.

And the bonus was that I got to hang out with Granny for a while.

Alabama fed my soul last week. It is indeed a beautiful place.

On April 26, 2012 Charles Taylor, the 64-year-old former president of Liberia, was convicted of war crimes by the UN-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), making his trial the first time a former head of state has been prosecuted in a court of law since the aftermath of World War II. Specifically, Taylor was found guilty of aiding and abetting the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) during Sierra Leone’s Civil War from 1991 to 2002. According to prosecutor Brenda Hollis, by arming the RUF, Taylor is criminally responsible for their numerous atrocities which include the death of over 50,000 people, the mutilation of thousands more, the public rape of women, and the display of decapitated heads at checkpoints. Taylor will be sentenced on May 30 and faces up to 80 years in prison.

Many people believe this event sends a clear signal to dictators and warlords around the world that the international community will no longer stand idly by and permit blatant human rights abuses. According to the Washington Post, Richard Lussick, a presiding judge in the case, believes “this judgment confirms that with leadership comes not only power, but also responsibility.” However, as a defender of reason, I am naturally suspicious of majority opinion as well as made-to-order judicial justifications that oddly correspond with Spider-Man’s morality.

But let me be clear. This article is neither a vindication of Charles Taylor, nor an attempt to make him appear less culpable than he actually is. I do not question his guilt as much as I question the system that dares to judge him.

First and foremost, the evidence in this case hardly passes cross-examination. As Edward Cody of the Washington Post reports, the SCSL has had to fight claims of corruption because key witnesses were apparently paid for their testimony. In addition, according to Mark Doyle of BBC, “the prosecution failed to establish two of its principal charges: that Taylor had effective command and control of rebel forces in Sierra Leone… or that he was part of a joint criminal enterprise.” All that Taylor could be found guilty of was indirectly helping the RUF, a charge so weak that alternate judge, Malick Sow, openly expressed his dissent. Taylor’s lawyer, Courtenay Griffiths, believes “the whole [international justice] system is not consistent with the values” it claims to defend.

The standard of proof used to convict Taylor is so troublesome that the United States, the founder of modern democracy, could not escape prosecution. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute the United States is the largest exporter of weapons in the world and, therefore (if one takes the logic of the SCSL seriously), America is a terrorist state.

But this type of blatant hypocrisy has a long and proud history in international law. The Nuremberg Trials, a crowning achievement to some, is a prime example of politics supplanting justice. The Allies manufactured laws (like crimes against humanity) to retroactively punish Germany, an act so legally disingenuous that it is expressly forbidden in Article I, section 9 of the U.S. Constitution. But what is even more contradictory is the fact that the United States committed some of the very same infractions for which twelve war criminals were executed, such as the bombing of civilian targets. Although I do not intend to cry over dead Nazis, I do think that the Nuremburg Trials of 1942 were little better than the unceremonious mob killing of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

The harsh reality of my words is borne out by the ever-growing irregularities of international law. While defending himself in the SCSL Taylor questioned why former U.S. President George W. Bush, was not being prosecuted for crimes against humanity, asking: “Is he above the law?” Most of the mainstream media, including CNN anchor Erin Burnett, dismissed Taylor’s controversial comparison with the speed and self-assurance of a logical fallacy, because it is far easier to rely on ad-hominem than to address the merits of Taylor’s reasoning. By any measure former President Bush’s warrantless wiretaps, unlawful invasion of Iraq, and admission of torture would at the very least warrant a tribunal. Even the benevolent, Nobel Peace Prize winning President Obama should probably be prosecuted for violating the sovereign airspace of Pakistan, using Attorney General Eric Holder to redefine due process, and for using drones to summarily kill terrorists without habeus corpus. Ironically enough, the United States could even be responsible for the crimes of Charles Taylor himself­—unless one actually believes that Taylor escaped from a Massachusetts’ House of Correction in 1985, and launched a Libyan funded coup throughout Liberia in 1989 by the power of positive thinking. Can you say CIA?

Although Taylor’s comments about a former U.S. President is likely an attempt to draw attention away from his own crimes rather than an idealistic appeal for a more just international legal system, truth can be found in the strangest places. Who would have thought that a former Liberian dictator, who once compared himself to Jesus Christ could be the source of so much profundity?  I guess as a thorn goeth up into the hand of a drunkard; so is a parable in the mouth of fools.

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Photo source: BBC