JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG

WELCOME TO THE OFFICIAL RICHARD E GERSTEIN JUSTICE BUILDING BLOG. THIS BLOG IS DEDICATED TO JUSTICE BUILDING RUMOR, HUMOR, AND A DISCUSSION ABOUT AND BETWEEN THE JUDGES, LAWYERS AND THE DEDICATED SUPPORT STAFF, CLERKS, COURT REPORTERS, AND CORRECTIONAL OFFICERS WHO LABOR IN THE WORLD OF MIAMI'S CRIMINAL JUSTICE. POST YOUR COMMENTS, OR SEND RUMPOLE A PRIVATE EMAIL AT HOWARDROARK21@GMAIL.COM. Winner of the prestigious Cushing Left Anterior Descending Artery Award.

Monday, July 20, 2020

SHUT COURTS DOWN 2.0

It is now too dangerous for clerks, lawyers, JAs, corrections officers, bailiffs, and Judges to leave their homes and go to court. It is time to shut it down again. We realize two things: First, a courtroom needs to be open in criminal court, juvenile court, and domestic court to handle bond hearings in state court  and first appearances in Federal Court. Second, what we are advocating is easier blogged than done. 
The challenges facing Chief Judges Moore, Soto, Sayfie, Bailey, et. al, are staggering. But every contact inside a courthouse is a dangerous contact. Support staff have gotten ill. We have received reports of certain staff in certain courthouses congregating without masks, inside. No good can come of this. It is time to shut all but the very basic court operations until the positive test rate in Miami-Dade gets below 5 percent.
JULY 20 1969 
On this date in 1969 we landed on the Moon. Humans reached to the stars that humanity has stared at with awe and wonder since people  first walked the earth. We traveled to another celestial body and landed on it and returned. 
We have often pondered if that would be the people of earth's high water mark. Would this be our shinning accomplishment? The best we would ever do? 

The landing was fraught with drama. 1201 and 1202 alarms that were not immediately recognized or handled in simulations occurred as the Eagle plunged towards the lunar surface. The landing computer was bringing the Eagle into a field of boulders.  But the best pilot in the solar system was in command. Neil Armstrong had trained for this moment his whole life. The stress of the situation was not going to affect him. He rose to the occasion and took over from the computer and piloted the Eagle to safety. Humanity rose to the occasion and Armstrong, NASA and the USA showed the world what we could do when we put our mind to something. 

It is no accident a country that celebrates individualism could invent the technology that made Apollo 11 possible. 

It is no accident that the United States produced a Neil Armstrong. 

It is no accident that NASA had produced men like Gene Kranz Jack Garman, and Steve Bales,  who saved the landing when the unexpected `1201and 1202 alarms occurred. Kranz as flight director had final authority to order Armstrong to abort the landing. Weeks before the landing Kranz ordered his specialists to review every possible alarm. Twenty-four year old flight specialist Jack Garman made a handwritten list of all alarms and causes. Bales was the guidance officer. When the alarm occurred Kranz wanted Bales to give him a go/abort on the alarm. Garman quickly pieced together that the alarm was a computer memory overload and was not fatal to the mission. He told Bales they were a go and Bales trusted Garman. Bales told Kranz they were a go and Kranz trusted Bales. Kranz told Armstrong and Aldrin they were a go on the alarm and the two men trusted their team in NASA and they went on to land the Eagle on the Moon. 

This country produced Armstrong and Aldrin and Kranz and Bales and Garman and ten thousand other men and women who made the lunar landings possible. 

At this very moment ten thousand or more Americans are working to save humanity. They are studying a virus and discovering treatments and developing a vaccine. 

We can only hope that we did not hit our high water mark fifty-one years ago today. That someday in the near future we will celebrate  new names-unspoken today- who will be the team of men and women that defeat this virus and scourge. We have done it before. And we are not done yet and we will not be defeated. 


PS Wear your mask. It works. Study after study shows that all it takes is a mask to stop people from spreading the virus.  In a recent study two people who cut hair in Missouri became infected. While they were asymptomatic they wore masks as did there customers- over 130 people who came into close contact with an infected person wearing a mask. Contact tracing showed that NO ONE became infected. Here is the CDC study.  MASKS WORK. 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ok, so masks are 100% effective, but shut down anyways. Got it.

Rumpole said...

Masks are very effective. Staying apart is 100% effective. Stay apart and wear a mask for small tasks like shopping for food is best way to flatten the curve. But dealing with ignorant non wearing mask yahoos who are the ones getting sick because they have a third amendment right to sit in a bar without a mask and get soused and then go their walmart without a mask to buy pork rinds and a comic book - not saying this is you 9:52 but if the mask fits- dealing with these morons who are destroying our country and making it so that the Bahamas just banned Americans- dealing with them(you) is very very difficult.

You want to get covid and then slink to the hospital and beg for help? Do us all a favor and ...I was going to mention a violent act but it's not really appropriate, so I will mention a physically impossible act and suggest you go do that.
F off

Anonymous said...

Science is your mantra. O.k. how about the studies that show that the virus is spreading primarily at homes. What now. Should everyone wear a mask at home? Of course not the desire of the left to kill this country's economy with the hope that they can print enough money to keep us going is pathetic. Good union jobs does not an economy make. But this boob of a president has done more for minorities than 8 years of Obama did, except Obana does have two very chic and very expensive homes. Clearly his life matters.

Rumpole said...

Yeah you got me there. Minorities are doing sooooo well.
George Floyd. He's great. The people in Portland- they are doing just fine today. The people in California shot in the face with rubber bullets. Thanks for not blowing their heads off masssah.
Yes sirreee you are winning the minorities argument. Look how peaceful and happy our country is. We all coexist together, understand and celebrate our differences, led by a president who is so very very concerned with the rights of minorities that when a Neo-Nazi group ( a minority of dunces if there ever was one) counter protested in Charlotte our president stuck up for them! "Good people on both sides" he said. YUP He is one sensitive dude. There were good people on both sides of the Battle of the Bulge I suppose. And good people worked at Auschwitz too according to him. Maybe they went a little overboard with the ovens, but hey- mistakes happen right? American Jews understand when Trump praises white supremacists. They get it. Just a president concerned with everyone. No reason for MORAL LEADESHIP needed.

The Confederacy. Part of our history. Trump wants to keep that. Let's celebrate the traitors who killed Americans to keep slavery as an institution!! Black people everywhere should have to see statues of Lee and Nathan Bedford Forrest and celebrate their role in fighting for slavery. Lets name an Aircraft Carrier the Robert E Lee!

Anonymous said...

If we are remembering occurrences on 7/20 then RIP the coolest guy from the 1970's- Bruce Lee.

Anonymous said...

As a Jew, you should not toss Auschwitz into an argument so cavaliers. What did your democratic friends do for miniruty wages or unemployment during their term in office? I di not know who you think you are to compare folks who do not agree with you as Nazis!

Anonymous said...

952 here.

Mr rump total overreaction. Why so fragile? And This has nothing to do with walmart.

You say we need to close the cts and masks are super effective. So because courts are the one place that can definitely ensure compliance with mask wearing, why close them?

Dont you see your post is a total contradiction?

Just sayin