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Animal Instincts By Mark David Blum, Esq. Yet currently, we are setting incredible precedents in our way of thinking. While a human can lawfully pierce the ears of an infant child, it is a crime to pierce the ears of a kitten. What if you don’t want your property anymore? Are you required to give it away or can you burn it up? Ask the firefighter headed to a cruise vacation who rather than pay to shelter his two dogs, opted to shoot them both. Locally, Judge Cecil disagrees with the right to abuse your own car. Maybe there are now limits on how you must treat your property; including cars and pets. How far are we extended coverage in our granting of rights to animals? Do we limit it to domestic animals or can wild animals be likewise shielded by law? How about only the cute furry ones or are alligators also protected? What about deer? A woman is charged with using a shovel to club a fawn seated in her flower beds. ... continued Glued to Fair Treatment By Mark David Blum, Esq. A woman lures a philandering husband to a motel hideaway. She blindfolded him and tied him up good. Her prey secure, the woman secretly texts three of her friends and the man’s wife to join her. Then, the woman cut off his underwear and slapped him across the face while she and her friends, including the man’s wife, belittled him and berated him. Finally using some fingernail glue, they glued his penis to his stomach. At sentencing, the women were given probation and a slap on the wrist. The judge made a point that the man suffered no serious or permanent injury. He then openly acknowledged that had the situation been reversed, there would be prison time. Finally, the judge blamed the victim in part for his role as a cheating husband saying he brought it on himself. For those of you who find this event laughable or say “good, the guy deserved it” for cheating on his wife, I submit the following for your consideration. Imagine instead it was a woman, lured to a motel room, handcuffed and blindfolded, and that the woman had her labia superglued together or each glued to a thigh. Nobody would be snickering then but society would be in an uproars. ... continued The Migration of Lou Dobbs By Mark David Blum, Esq. Lou Dobbs has been tapped by Senate Democrats to help reform our nation’s policies on immigration. Senator Schumer met with Dobbs and proclaims Dobbs is “changing his views” on immigration. In case you forgot, Dobbs had a show on CNN where his cause célèbre was immigration. Dobbs made his bones bashing the immigrants and blaming them as being the root cause of all the evil in this nation. Everything from the economy to Swine Flu was alleged to have come about thanks to so-called illegal immigration. Dobbs and his dwindling audience were inflamed, incensed, and incredulous. Now, Dobbs is a darling of the Senate and seen as being part of the solution to the problem. That just creeps me out. ... continued Sextual Healing By Mark David Blum, Esq. Sexual maturation is a normal part of the transition to adulthood. We have to recognize that our “children” are sexual beings by nature and as they grow, they are going to learn all there is know about the wonderful world of sexual pleasure. Clearly the thought of it makes us uncomfortable and we don’t like it. Nothing we as parents or society can do can stop this learning process. It will happen in the open or in secret. But as we all know from our own histories, it will happen. Eventually. In Indiana, a 13 year old girl and a 12 year old boy face felony charges for “sexting” with each other. They each sent naked pictures of their private parts to one another via their cell phones. A teacher accidentally discovered it when the phone rang during class and was confiscated. We are talking about two young teenagers who took pictures of themselves for their own use. Each is now charged with possession and transmission of child pornography. This is just not right. Our system has gone haywire and we are over reacting to a very natural process of maturation coming into contact with 21st century technology. The children certainly need to be spoken to about making such photographs public as they can come back to haunt you later (a lesson they already learned). Obviously their parents need to have a talk about sex with them to make sure they are aware of what they are doing. But it is a sin to involve the criminal justice system or otherwise civilly or criminally punish these children for engaging in normal healthy exploration. They were not harmed; they were teasing and tempting each other. Prosecutors have filed 3 felony counts against each. ... continued Congress Shall Make No Law By Mark David Blum, Esq. The sky is not falling and we are not about to become the United Corporation States of America. Listening to the rhetoric spewed forth in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC, the televangelists from MSNBC, Democrats nationwide, and even Syracuse’s own radio host Jim Reith, have all proclaimed the end of the Republic. So much of the Supreme Court’s decision has been twisted and misrepresented, that Americans are being told to take shelter, stock up on food, and prepare for the penultimate disaster that lurks behind the next election. Nothing is more important to this nation than its underlying fundamental principles. First among them is the right to free speech. Even moreso is the fundamental right to unfettered political speech. If you think about it, the loss of the right to express yourself on matters of public concern would render all your other rights moot. We have long recognized that whether it is a soapbox in the public square, the internet, or television commercials, the right to speak and express oneself on political issues has to be protected at all costs. If you cannot tell the world your President is an abject failure, your Senator is a PAC bought whore, or your Congressperson is disloyal to their constituency, then your connection to your roots as an American are gone. For the record, such politically opposite entities as the ACLU and the National Rifle Association stood together in favor of finding a violation of the First Amendment. The facts behind Citizens United are simple enough. Senators Russ Feingold and John McCain spearheaded legislation that gagged corporations from contributing to political campaigns. Instead, if a corporation wanted to get a message out there, they had to form a Political Action Committee (PAC) and have that Committee fund its message to the public. There were criminal sanctions put in place for violations of this law. Said another way, it was a crime for a corporation to express a political posture. ... continued Google’s Battle is America’s Battle By Mark David Blum, Esq. Google has done more than look into it. They fought back. Google announced it would no longer filter information and material according to the demands of the Chinese government. Google decided for itself to take on the entire Chinese market and threaten to pull out its operations. China has responded editorializing Google as behaving “like a spoiled child.” We need to stand with Google. I realize the world’s attention is focused elsewhere right now. But if what Google is reporting is true, then some of our nation’s major corporations have been attacked by a foreign and hostile government. Data has been mined. Names have been stolen. The walls behind which companies surround themselves have been penetrated. Our government should not ignore the problem. A response is required to put on notice those who would attack us that we are not to be targeted. Obviously, any action taken has to be measured, but there must be action. Foreign governments are not to be allowed to get away with attacks upon our nation. For what reason do we pay taxes for a military industrial complex if not to assure the security of Americans and American interests worldwide? Bombing Beijing is an overreaction. Scrambling the data in computers containing all Chinese banking records would not be unreasonable. Maybe the answer is to tell the Chinese we are cancelling all our debt. This attack is not the first upon American companies. It is also not the first from China. Experts are engaged in thousands of daily attacks by sophisticated cyberattacks that appear to come from China. The United States is already spending billions of dollars per year to fend off these attacks. When are we going to realize that we in the middle of a true conflict and put an end to it once and for all? ... continued Kiss My Asterisk By Mark David Blum, Esq. So Mark McGwire has confessed to steroid use during his record breaking 1998 season. It was a great season; with McGwire and Sammy Sosa battling out for a new single season home run record. Roger Maris’ family is upset and demanding an asterisk. No, there should not be any asterisk next to McGwire’s record. He earned his record. Same as Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens and David Ortiz who were all juiced but deserve recognition of their achievements. Also included are Marion Jones, running back Travis Henry, and Lance Armstrong. If memory serves, we live in the United States of America. We are a free nation that prides itself on individual achievement and success. Ours is not a social construct predicated upon disabling those out front so as to enable to do so those who cannot or will not keep up. Equality in this nation means equality of opportunity; not of outcome. You don’t break the legs of the fastest runners to enable the slower ones to win. In sports, as in life, the loudest opponents to the concepts of “higher”, “faster”, and “stronger” are those same purists who seek a return to their little house on the prairie, want their two chickens in every pot, dream they are the Marlboro man, and plan a Donna Reed lifestyle. They will not look forward and insist on anchoring human enlightenment and progress in a bygone era. They are the modern day blacksmiths facing down the new fangled invention called the automobile. ... continued Forced to Live in a Dead Marriage By Mark David Blum, Esq. The time has come for New York’s Legislature to change the laws on divorce. Under our current scheme, married couples can only divorce under few and limited circumstances. Adultery, abandonment, conviction of a felony, and cruel and inhuman treatment are the only recognized grounds. Also available is a legal separation whereby a court grants a legal separation for a year or the spouses enter into a contract and live under the terms of that agreement for a year. Finally, the Courts recognize a form of abandonment called “constructive abandonment” which applies when one spouse refuses to engage in sexual relations despite demands therefor. New York does not have a no-fault divorce action. In a case recently decided, Davis v. Davis, (2nd Dept. 2009 NY Slip Op 08579), one of New York’s intermediate appellate courts took the position that constructive abandonment only includes withholding of sexual relations. In Davis, insufficient grounds for a divorce were found even though the divorce complaint alleged, “that the husband refused to engage in social interaction with the wife by refusing to celebrate with her or acknowledge Valentine's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the wife's birthday, by refusing to eat meals together, by refusing to attend family functions or accompany the wife to movies, shopping, restaurants, and church services, by leaving her once at a hospital emergency room, by removing the wife's belongings from the marital bedroom, and by otherwise ignoring her.” To be granted a divorce, ‘abandonment’ as a general principal requires one party to absent themselves from the marriage for a period of at least one year. This can happen by one of the spouses moving out of the marital home or by one spouse throwing the other out of the marital home. Obviously, living together is considered a fundamental element of the marriage contract. At the same time, the Davis Court likewise recognized the special role that sexual relations play in a marriage. A sexual relationship is seen as a fundamental element of a marriage contract. Beyond that the Court refused to go. ... continued My Achilles Butt By Mark David Blum, Esq. My butt is my Achilles' Heel. Ain't that a kick in the ass. Though I am always the warrior, I remain mortally wounded. I shall continue to do battle and advance the Lord’s work. In time, perhaps I will be forgiven my sins and be allowed to be free of all my demons. Until then, can I bum a smoke? ... continued Goodbye O By Mark David Blum, Esq. Yesterday was the last day on earth for a man’s best friend. Oblio, a German Shepard mix breed dog owned by one of my best friends was put down due to old age. He was a smart dog, a well trained dog, and a good friend for the better part of the past 15 years. I remember him as a pup; full of puppy energy and spunk. We would play and chase each other for hours. He would bark incessantly and constantly challenge me to take away his toys. I complied with every request. We would hang out together lazily lounging on the couch. As the years went on, we grew old together until of late his pain and inability to move about brought about his demise. ... continued Be It Resolved in 2010 By Mark David Blum, Esq. I stand at the precipice of a brand new year Pondering the future. One of tears? Or of cheers? Is there a course? What is the way? How can I deal with the dawn of this day? Those New Year’s promises? Those Resolutions to keep? It is not very long before I toss them in the heap. With the dawn of a New Year all ready to pounce I have decided to resolve; affirm and announce ... continued An American Shame By Mark David Blum, Esq. Growing up “American” has always had in it a certain element of ethnocentric superiority. From day one, we are taught that we are the Richest, Most Powerful Nation on this Earth. As we mature we come to accept that capitalism and our natural resources and our military might have established us as safe from all threats; foreign and domestic. We count as among our blessings that we are of a very few peoples on this earth who can go to bed at night with confidence that our government and military will keep us safe and be in place in the morning. But, I carry with me a certain shame about my nation. The New York Times reports that “New York City shelters are so full that homeless men and women have been left to sleep on benches, floors and dining room tables.” MSNBC, on child hunger in America discloses that, “the number of youngsters living in homes without enough food soared in 2008 from 13 million to nearly 17 million.” This trend is growing. Back in November 2008, the United States Department of Agriculture released its report for Hunger in the United States for the year 2007. In their own numbers, One in Eight Americans or 12.2% of the population – more than 36.2 million people -- could not put food on the table at least part of last year. Nearly seven hundred thousand of them were children. ... continued Ice, Ice, Baby By Mark David Blum, Esq. In honor of the first real snowfall of the winter, the MarkBlum Report© has regurgitated from its January and February 2005 archives, the gripping tale of one lawyer’s slow slippery slide into an icicle induced insanity. ... continued Tis the Season to Drink and Drive By Mark David Blum, Esq. It is NOT illegal to drink and drive. New York and the rest of the United States has never taken a position that we do not want people drinking and driving. In fact, we encourage drinking and driving. Bars do not come to your house and they do not offer rides to all their patrons. Same with restaurants and office parties; there is plenty of booze and no rides for the partygoers. We know and accept that people get behind the wheel of a car. It does not bother us. ... continued Kill the Bill By Mark David Blum, Esq. I wish to add my voice to the growing chorus demanding that the United States Senate kill the present pending health care Bill under discussion. Ranging from the entire Republican Party and their Tea Bagger consorts on the right to Howard Dean and Keith Olberman on the left, there seems to be a near unanimous call to end the Senate Bill. What was at its birth an overhaul of the weaknesses and infidelities of the nation’s health care system has deteriorated into nothing more than welfare for insurance companies. The White House seems more focused on getting any Bill signed than it is on assuring its contents are in the best interests of the American people. In the end, if the Bill is approved in its current form, then none of the intended good will filter down to the benefit of any of us. ... continued Taking the Jew Out of Christmas By Mark David Blum, Esq. For almost two decades, this used to be the time of year when this evil hearted, child hating, Christian baiting, Jew volunteered his services on behalf of that jolly fat man and his worldwide mission of bringing pleasure to Christian spawn. Specifically, children all over send in their wishes and prayers to the Great and Powerful Claus via U.S. mail. My local post office would pawn the letters off on me. But our society has gone off the deep end with its paranoia about children. Last year, “Operation Santa” was officially cancelled by the Post Office downstate because a registered sex offender signed up to do Santa. This year, the cancer has spread to Upstate New York where by fiat and decree, all Santa letters are being sent to Albany for review and processing. It is as if the post office considers me a threat to children and I resent that implication. No more Santa letters for Mark. Society and the USPS went ummm, "postal" and cut off us good hearted Santa's from those who need us most. It was fun and not a little ironic that responding to such children’s wish lists is an offspring of the killer of Christ. Being as busy as he is at this time of year, Santa would call upon some of us to step up and help him get his job done in time. Failure to make timely delivery results in Santa paying substantial late fees. Consequently, people like me were anointed with the privilege and honor of responding to these letters from children to Santa Claus. I really did look forward to it. Now, I am alone for the holiday. ... continued The Red Zone By Mark David Blum, Esq. At this party I came across a new feature being offered by some cable service providers and produced by the NFL. It is called NFL Red Zone. The underlying concept is that the station switches from any one of the ten games being played and shows only those plays and events that occur in what is called the “red zone”; that area between the 30 yard line and the end zone. As soon as the play in that area is over, the station switches to another game where there, the play is in the red zone. With ten games being played at once on a Sunday afternoon, there was an immense amount of moving from one game to another to just see the highlights of scoring drives or interceptions and then quickly move off to another game. There are no commercials on this channel. The channel also does not show any one game so you really cannot follow what is happening anywhere in the NFL other than in the box scores being shown in a strip at the bottom. On that strip, you have to focus hard to see scores from around the league. Let me be the first to say that this ‘Red Zone’ concept is about the most annoying idea ever conceived for watching a game. Any football game is like a good novel; it is a slowly unfolding story that builds as you move through it and ultimately reaches a climax. It doesn’t matter if it is a blowout or a game that comes down to the last play. There are passes and runs, trick plays and fumbles, and a whole lot of interesting and skilled play that goes on elsewhere on the field beyond the red zones. The ability to follow a game is like seeing a story unfold and not knowing the end until you get there. I would define the Red Zone as being the Cliff Notes version of football and you miss all the in between play. ... continued The Annual War on Christmas By Mark David Blum, Esq. What would the Christmas season be without someone somewhere giving fodder to the extremist Christians to argue that Americans have gone to War against Christmas. Somehow we managed to survive a Black Death Friday and retailers are piping in the Christianity and Christmas as fast as their CD changers can play them. ... continued The Dangerous Path Through New York By Mark David Blum, Esq. We need to find our humanity again. Our State needs to stop finding ways to fatten its prison population. Citizens from other States need to be safe traveling through New York. All of us should be allowed to bring our medically prescribed prescriptions with us without first getting law enforcement’s approval. This case reeks of too much government interference in the liberty and privacy of all Americans. Shame on the New York State Police offices who made this arrest. Shame on prosecutors whose bloodlust ignores the privileges and immunities of fellow Americans. ... continued Inherit the Windfall By Mark David Blum, Esq. Among those itemized expenses apparently necessary to the business of judging are meditation retreats, framed photographs of themselves, and a $233 Apple iPod Touch. There was $1,665 for the cost of an entire table at a May dinner of the Metropolitan Black Bar Association, $2,878.40 to travel to Cuba in late September with the National Association of Women Judges for what one attendee reportedly called a fact-finding vacation, a $260 claim for a Poland Springs water cooler for chambers, a one-year, $127 New York Times subscription delivered to a judge’s home, and a $290 room air purifier bought on Home Shopping Network. Judges can continue to submit these expenses and seek reimbursement or they can just take the entire $10,000.00 as a lump sum and submit no itemized list of expenditures. Overall, this pay bonus will cost the state $12.6 million dollars a year. ... continued Tied Up By Mark David Blum, Esq. I bring all this up because I think it is time that folks my profession rethink its position on Men having to wear Ties and Jackets to Court. The idea comes from sanctions suffered by this lawyer for choosing to opt for an ascot instead of a tie. I am sure he looked quite smashing with a bundle of silk wrapped around his throat underneath an open-at-the-neck dress shirt. The Judge there was not so impressed and reacted angrily. ... continued       Click Here to Read and Explore the MARKBLUM Report Archives Collecting Dust and Being a PITA Since 2004.