Humpjones

Nobody Actually Cares

Posted Jul 22, 2007 8 comments

It’s all context, right? Just depends on where you are at the time, and who you happen to be.  I happen to be rather stoned at the moment.

It’s not idle hedonism that drives me to joints, though, it’s actually a matter of professional journalism.  Today we’re going to take a quick look at the least funny story Uncle Hump will ever tell.  You can also read about it in The Washington Post.

It’s the tale of Mahamu Kanneh—he’s from Liberia and in August of 2004, he was arrested.  He allegedly molested a 7 year old girl.  His first language was Vai, a dialect spoken by around 100,000 Liberians.  Despite a three-year search, which involved contacting 47 states, Maryland has yet to locate a qualified translator.  What they do have is witness statements, medical evidence, DNA evidence, and the testimony of the child.  Yet because there’s no translator, there’s been no trial so far.

I am reminded, for some reason, of the whole dark episode with “The Finders”—these are horror stories with no happiness, or even hope, at the end.  No closure, just dull nausea—hence the joints, brothers and sisters. They really do help on Sundays like this.  As so many people have said, “no justice, no peace,” and that’s more of a curse than a threat.  Hopefully this is catharsis for y’all—I’m just blasting stuff off my chest and passing it out into the Universe.  Apparently, people read this. 

ETERNAL UNDERSTATEMENT TIME!!!!

Are you ready to CRANK UP THE FUNNY?

“This is one of the most difficult decisions I’ve had to make in a long time.”

That’s Katherine D. Savage, the judge presiding over all this.  She concluded—and she could be technically right—that the excessive delays caused by this whole translator problem had violated Kanneh’s constitutional right to a fair trial.  (This could be an irrelevant aside, but the dude isn’t a citizen, right?  So he’s got no rights, right?) So the “difficult decision” in question was to drop the charges against Mahamu Kanneh. He walks.

What makes this worse: in Maryland, you have the legal right to a trial for your crimes within 180 days.  However, Kanneh actually waived his right to a speedy trial. The reason?  He wanted time to get his own DNA analysis done.  Again, I’m just a humble layman with no knowledge of legal process.  Just the same, from where I’m sitting right now, this whole disaster seems completely f***ing insane.

I am reminded, for some reason, of Omar al-Baghdadi.  Yeah...”Omar of Baghdad.” Anyone remember Omar?  He was captured by US forces in March, and executed May, and declared to be a non-existent media stunt in July.  Quite a career, and I’m not sure what it says about where 2007 is headed—probably something it’s better not to think about.

Broke Rappers Love Economics

Translation services. Think about this: you can get a copy of Rosetta Stone, the bestest computer program to learn languages with, off a bittorrent client, today.  Learning a language is a great investment because it’s a market desperate for workers and expertise.  Consequently, there’s also a lot of tax dollars being bled in the process:

In Montgomery and elsewhere, the proliferation of languages resulting from immigration is presenting courts with a novel challenge, legal and linguistics experts say. Rarely, however, does a court have such difficulty finding an interpreter that a criminal case must be dropped.

Court interpreters and linguists say a national database of court interpreters would help quickly locate people fluent in uncommon languages. “The burden of increased requests for rare languages makes it a necessity,” said Nataly Kelly, author of a book on interpreting.

Knight said the county spent nearly $1 million on interpreters last year, 10 times the amount it spent in 2000. “It’s a constant struggle, and it is extremely expensive,” she said.

ENOUGH RAMBLING

This was all over a translator, remember?  Here’s the real Kick to the Stomach from the Washington Post:

The trial date was extended repeatedly as the state and the defense argued over whether Kanneh needed an interpreter and whether he understood the legal proceedings. The state noted that Kanneh attended high school and community college in Montgomery and spoke to detectives in English. The defense insisted that he needed an interpreter to fully understand the proceedings.

And while you’re hunched over, by God, they follow up with a certified Knee to the Face:

The first interpreter stormed out of the courtroom in tears because she found the facts of the case disturbing.

Boy howdy. Wowza.  Well, here’s a puff-puff-puff to whoever that translator was.  Your weak stomach and inability to cope with reality would normally not be a problem, but in this rare set of circumstances, you totally blew it for everyone. The least you can do is track down Mahamu Kanneh and castrate the guy, right? 

It’s a step in the right direction...vaguely...hmm...wonder if I can actually advocate that.

I am reminded, for some reason, of Jose Delgado’s solution for all social problems: psychosurgery and electronic brain implants.  After all, let’s be honest: nobody cares.  We all operate in our monkey-sphere and we’re wonderful people to everyone we know, but hey, there’s over six billion people we don’t know. A decade is a long time.  You can burn a lot of bridges, lose a lot of friends, and find yourself a very lonely person: nobody cares.

The good news is, you can do something good for the human species just the same.  Buckminster Fuller was, according to legend, waist-deep in a lake preparing to kill himself when he got his Big Idea.  He devoted himself to the success, security and quality of life of all humankind. The world is a better place today—sure, not as good as it could be.  Sure, Buckminster Fuller made a lot of mistakes.  Sure, he could have done better.  Sure, if you wake up every day trying to save the world, you will probably still fail to do so. 

But hey....as things stand, what do you wake up for every day?

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