Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 21:40:52 -0400 X-Sender: teddyt@teddyt.pop.crosslink.net Mime-Version: 1.0 To: Laura@netgate.net From: Ted Subject: Miranda's Warning Miranda's Warning (M/F) (Humor) Tired, sleepy, weary she was after a night celebrating her 23rd birthday at Barrister's, the chi-chi tavern on the K Street Corridor that might as well have been called the Beltway Bandit. But she would not miss this session at Gorgetown Law School. It was the Mumia Abu Jamal Memorial Seminar on Journalism Ethics open to only the brightest second-year law students -- a stimulating discussion of the law surrounding privacy, libel, slander, journalism and criminal procedure that last year garnered C-SPAM its highest ratings. And this seminar was being led by none other than Theodore Tose, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who shucked the daily travail shortly before that incident with a 17-year-old girl to earn a law degree himself and go on to write very very short articles on moral standards in journalism and the law. Yes, precocious Miranda Menendez was not going to miss this seminar. She had heard so much about last year's class and riveting professor from her older sisters, Lilah and Erika. She should have sat in the back row of the tiered classroom to better hide her grogginess. And at 5-foot-1, the pony-tailed Linda Ronstadt look-alike would have all but disappeared. But Miranda sat toward the front, fixating her wide brown eyes on the lanky professor -- sometimes his stray cowlicks, sometimes his deep voice, sometimes the actual epistemology of truth that he was exploring at some length. For the last of his three-week series, he relied heavily on Walter Lippmann's 1922 tome "Public Opinion" as his sacred text and spoke of how journalists merely keep track of numbers -- sports results, stock markets, city council taxing decisions -- for society's elite, the people who buy the products advertised in newspapers. She dozed and missed the key linkages, but did hear him intone, "So, in a sense, reporters are in fact pathetic little score keepers. But somebody has to do it because both the elites and the little people are too busy to pay attention themselves." The professor segued easily into a discussion of accuracy versus the truth, noting how something can be accurate but not true or true but not accurate. "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out," he cautioned in one of an endless string of arrogant aphorisms. As he moved toward a lengthy history of lying in politics, Professor Tose only semi-joked that the reason for telling the truth in government is so that when you lie you'll be believed. Miranda tried her best to stay awake, but the margaritas from the night before tore at the inside of her eyes and shame welled from deep inside her at the mortal academic sin she committed at the beginning of class when she turned in her seminar paper. The subject she chose was executive branch prevarication during the invasion of Granada in 1984, when her uncle Ramos was wounded by friendly fire. But the weeklong celebration of her birthday seemed to push the paper back further and further, until she turned it in this morning. Even Judge Ito would have seen through it. As the professor paced, lost in his own thoughts, rambling up the Pacific Coast Highway like President Reagan did during his debate with Walter Mondale, Miranda stared at the Harley-Davidson belt buckle adorning his three-inch wide belt. She nodded off, thinking of papa, how proud he would have been to see his three daughters in law school. And she recalled how they were brought up to respect the law and society's rules. Her eyelids fluttered, her full Mexican lips pouted and she dreamed back to papa and el cinto. There were several "el cintos" in her life, the little brown cintocita he used to enforce discipline before she was old enough to attend the Junipero Serra Academy. There was the long thin black cinto for the older boys, and the soft wide cinto for Lilah, Erika and Miranda, and perhaps even mama. Honesty was the rule in the Menendez household, and violations meant only one thing -- a whipping on the bare nalgas with el cinto, conducted with all deliberate speed. It was a household in which justice delayed was justice denied. Papa's blue collar got dirty and his hands calloused providing them a decent living, but his hands were never so soft as when he wielded el cinto across his girls' bared bottoms. They learned well and were a source of pride to him. Her eyes lifted open and in a flash she saw in the very Anglo- looking professor the wrinkled forehead of the thinker her own father was and the same passion for justice that burned in his blue eyes. She was falling in love. Or was it Jose Cuervo mocking her? The rest of the class sat rapt as the professor highlighted the important libel cases they should know -- Brandenburg, New York Times v. Sullivan, Hustler v. Falwell. Then he finished with a finger-pointing, striding tour de force on the value of honesty in both professions. He railed against reading other people's mail; he stormed against lying in journalism, in law or in personal conduct. He thundered his finale, quoting Shaw: "The real punishment for a liar is NOT that she won't be believed but that she will be able to believe NOBODY!" Was he looking at her? Her light brown skin turned red and she slumped in her seat as the class erupted in the applause Professor Tose had pre- arranged. He offered an imperceptible bow, thought of collecting his check and heading for the Caribbean tomorrow and dismissed the class of awe-struck lawyers-in-training. Then he announced quietly, "Ms. Menendez. I need to speak with you." She was trying not to cry as she stood before his desk. He rose and indicated she was to follow him out the side door of the classroom and up the service elevator to the dean's top-floor office. She clutched her books to her full breasts, enshrouded by a green sweater, and looked down counting the pleats in the red and white plaid skirt that had come back into style. "It's about your paper, Ms. Menendez," he said calmly, sitting on a couch to the right of the door and six feet from the side of the dean's desk. "I know, sir. Perhaps I should have spent more time on it," she offered as proof of good faith as she gathered her skirt beneath her and sat uncomfortably on a leather-upholstered straight- backed chair angled between him and the desk. "Perhaps you should have spent ANY time on it," Professor Tose snarled sarcastically. "And perhaps I should have spent a few more minutes on plagiarism during the first seminar! And the lecture on *damages*." Busted! She gulped down the burning bile rising in her craw. How could he know! She thought it was an obscure journal she lifted from a back shelf of the library. Dios mio! Had she forgotten to check the title page? Shortly enough she knew. He shoved the paper at her and asked her to read the marked paragraph: "The general pattern of executive branch lying in recent decades," she stammered ... "Has been to mask indiscretion, error and embarrassment under the cover of national security!" he thundered from memory. "Ms. Menendez, in my business, plagiarism is almost as offensive a crime as killing your parents. What is even worse is your stupidity. Did you not think I would recognize MY OWN WORK!" As she acknowledged her negligence, she sobbed softly. He began the lecture he should have given in more detail three weeks earlier. He cited Molly Ivins, Edward Chen, Michael Kramer, Fox Butterfield. He even joked that in academia, pilfering one citation is plagiarism but lifting two or more is considered research. But there was no way out of this. "I will not have it," Professor Tose declared, rising to his feet, towering above Miranda, who sat crumpled in the leather chair, looking like Lily Tomlin's Ernestine and crying like she did before a session of truth with papa. "Cheaters are bad lawyers *and* bad journalists," he told her, draining the young woman's dreams and shaming her late father's pride. As he looked into her eyes and hers met his, neither of them could hear clearly what the other was saying. But Miranda knew that she was being bounced from law school, and Professor Tose was understanding from her wretched pleadings that, of course, she would never commit this crime against honesty ever again. Obviously, academic dishonesty could not be tolerated. Yet at the same time, this was a single stain on a perfect life, certainly not one that would be repeated. She slumped to the carpet and buried her head in her hands, weeping and praying to every saint she could think of, mostly San Antonio, patron saint of lost objects. She didn't hear another word the professor said. Her mind was as blank as the soul of a newborn; she vaguely recalled nodding her aching head, and she heard herself imploring "papa" once more as el cinto began its downward journey across the plump cheeks no longer covered by nylon or plaid. Miranda's pony tail flew from side to side under the torrent of the professor's belt. She knew this was her only remedy -- the only way to remain in law school, so she fixed her eyes once more to stare decisively at the carpet, thinking about the "rule against pepetuities" and "the takings clause." When it was over, Miranda Menendez signed the pre-printed waiver the professor whipped from his satchel, agreed to take an F in the course and began applying for the following semester at a less reputable law school on the west coast with a funny name. ###