David Cross on the "Colbert Report" as liberal radio host/food co-op stock boy Russ Lieber: he urges all of us to stop supporting the big, corporate kohlrabi farms because "when you eat that, you are literally eating a stew of lies."

Get the video here.

This week the Boston Globe reported that Alexander Pope, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Charles Dickens and Vladimir Nabokov all misused the word "literally." Note that they are all also dead. That's what you get.

Changing the subject, I used to think about what band, if I could only choose one, I would choose to play the soundtrack to a movie of my life. (I live with a narcissist, and it's contagious, just like the cold I caught this week.) I ultimately decided on the Pet Shop Boys. Turns out there's a 17-year-old Pet Shop Boys fanzine called Literally.

Another future John Waters star

Today's broadcast of This American Life was about mind games. "Act" II or III or something was about Elizabeth Smart, a Salt Lake Cityan abducted a few years ago. Her captor turned out to be a local crazy homeless man who thought he was a prophet, already had a wife but apparently wanted another [14 year old] one. With the two veiled women in tow, he traipsed around the very neighborhood from which he abducted Elizabeth. Her abduction was widely reported in the area, of course, and her photo was up everywhere. They walked right by people who knew her. He went with her into a convenience store once asking for something, with her photo hanging right there on the wall.

This American Life's coverage is really worth listening to (search for episode 286). One interviewee spoke to Elizabeth at a party that her abductor kind of crashed. She asked her where she knew her from, saying she looked so familiar. The abductor soon came up and said, "You don't know her."

The interviewee said, "He literally put a spell over Salt Lake City." But really, as the piece points out, the spell was already cast. The community's own expectations -- that she was abducted by an intelligent, calculating monster of a man and taken far away, blinded them. They just went on ignoring the loser, the crazy religious fanatic, perhaps not giving him credit for being able to pull off something like this. That, together with a piece of white cloth obscuring all but her eyes, kept people who'd known her since she was a child from seeing what was literally (almost) right under their noses.

Jerry Brown spoke at Boalt the other day. He's Oakland's mayor, California's former governor, former California attorney general and a former presidential candidate. He was only like 36 or something when he became governor, and he noted the other day that he was pretty inexperienced at the time. His philosophy was you don't need experience to be a good governor; you can rely on creativity and "brilliance or whatever." Now, all these years later, his attorney general campaign slogan is "There's no substitute for experience."

The first time around, he'd see someone he thought was smart and hire him or her. Once he was out to dinner and saw a guy from SEIU making a stink and being obnoxious at the restaurant. He thought, "That's the kind of guy I want," and made him secretary of labor. He said to us, "I would literally see someone smart go by and say, 'I'll hire him.'" This time around, though, he'll have a process.

As to the same-sex marriage issue, he says he's all for equal marriage rights but wouldn't do anything differently than Lockyer is doing. Huhhh?? There's a viable argument here: his duty as AG is to represent the people of California, who voted for Prop 22 (which he voted against) and to uphold the state's laws. Okay, but isn't he also supposed to uphold the state constitution? In fact, his campaign web page says "I will defend our constitution and the laws of our state." What happens when the two conflict? I note that he put constitution first on his web page, but not necessarily in practice.

2 items from celebrity culture this week.

"South Park roasts Chef, literally." Get most of the episode here (NSFW ads).

Also, Portia de Rossi says of her time with an eating disorder, "I wanted literally to disappear."

OMG, I just realized the "RICO" link in my previous post says this at the top of the page: "Literally anyone can find themselves in the crosshairs of a RICO claim."

Anyone, it's true. Except maybe for fetuses.

Lawyers

A speaker at school today said that the problem in Darfur is getting worse, that it is becoming "literally a chaotic, pell mell" situation.

From the French "pêle-mêle," which is from the Old French "pesle mesle," "mesle" probably being the imperative of "mesler," to mix. The same root as the word "meddle." Which is what we should be doing.

A few minutes later: In response to a student's question about the reasons people decide to stay in Darfur instead of fleeing to Chad, the speaker said we can't speculate as to why people aren't fleeing to Chad. It's arrogant of us to ask this question (I think not -- the answers are undoubtably worth knowing) because "we're literally sitting in the lap of luxury" here in America.

A guest lecturer taught my criminal law class today. We were talking about RICO and terrorism. At one point the lecturer, a Florida criminal defense attorney, said "you get used to literally getting your head bashed in by the judge." Scary!

Am catching up on blogs today, including mine. I know you missed me.

So the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment defines torture as

"any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."
As my international human rights law professor explained, if a public official is "literally a sadist," acting purely from sadistic motives in torturing detainees/prisoners, the torture does not violate the UN Convention against Torture.

My professor's office is across the hall -- literally 5 feet from -- John Yoo's office. When I went by the other day, they both had their doors open.