Today in the Akron Legal News -- 2010, It's On

Today's Akron Legal News column hooks on the Wednesday after Election Day being, for us politics junkies, the official beginning of the 2010 election cycle. From that I take on a personal bugbear.

Based on what we're hearing from Republican candidates, the narrative is likely to be 1) Strickland has dithered on the economy, hence the lousy economy, and 2) the Republican's positive, innovative, not-just-hatin' proposal is to update Ohio's antiquated business tax system. Rob Portman, for one, was talking up these themes (with a dose of Obama criticism of course) when he visited the Press Club last week. He said that Ohio's tax system was designed for a traditional heavy manufacturing economy with little competition from elsewhere.

So this is what really pisses me off. That was a compelling argument six years ago, and in response Ohio revamped the system. This under a Republican administration and with Republicans in charge of both houses of the legislature. And now Republicans pretend it never happened. Drives me right out of my tree every time I hear it.

So if I have one wish for the coming election season, it is that Republicans who continue to mine this trope get called on it. Specifically I'd like to see a reporter, at least once in a while, ask why we should Candidate R's tax reform to solve all of Ohio's economic challenges when the last reform was sold the same way. And needless to say, economic utopia has not arrived in Ohio.

Of course advocates for tax reform could argue that it worked. For example, Ohio keeps going up in the Site Selection ratings. But that would obviate the rationale for a new reform. But if you argue that the old reform didn't work, your back to square one. What's a tax cutter to do? Apparently pretend that the past reform didn't happen.

Linkage.

Here's the pdf Fact Sheet on what's left of the corporate franchise tax from Ohio Dept of Taxation. Another pdf from Ohio Tax, this one showing how the old taxes are being phased out (09 is the last tax year for both the business personal property tax and corporate franchise.)

Today (Thursday) in the Akron Legal News

For the handful of folks who read both this blog and my column in Akron Legal News, an announcement: This week's column appears in today's paper, not the usual Wednesday. There were some absences at the paper due to, yes, the flu again and things got moved around as a result. "Cases and Controversies" will return to its usual Wednesday spot in two weeks.

This week's column takes on Issue 2. Issue 2 would set up an Ohio Livestock Standards Board, has been endorsed by pretty much everyone who matters on either side of the aisle and for the most part 2 has slipped under the radar. It's not the worst idea ever, but it's not a good idea. The board is set up in a way that goofs around with the usual constitutional system of separation of powers for no good reason.

What's more, the particular not-good reason at work here is fear of direct democracy. The backers of Issue 2 explicitly say that they have put it together because of the possibility that animal rights activists (of the relatively sane Humane Society variety, not the PETA crazies) might introduce a ballot issue establishing a few minimum standards for livestock care. Reflect on that. Voters might have to opportunity to consider livestock standards, so we need amend the constitution to establish a new bureaucracy.

Further reading:

Here is the official Issue 2 website. You can also find lots of pro talk at Ohio Farm Bureau. The anti- forces have styled themselves Ohioans Against Constitutional Takeover. The particular potential ballot issue that has given people the fantods is California Proposition 2. Here's some background from Wiki and thumb-sucking reaction from a Wisconsin ag paper. And here, for grins, is a piece in The Hill by Ohio's own Jean Schmidt about the issue.

Tomorrow in the Akron Legal News

First off, insert the usual self-recriminations and apologies about not posting here. Suffice it to say that my estimate of the time it would take to get back up to speed after vacation, then get myself and the kids ready for school to begin this week for the lot of us was uproariously low.

And in all of that syllabus-revising, class-preparing, orientation-attending chaos I wrote this week's column. I took on the Obama=Hitler trope that has infested our politics. Actually I dialed back to the first round of comparisons during the election. I'm not going to link to any of the idiots that made those arguments, but here is a convenient list.

Back in the day, the nuttier of the wingnuts wrote laughable thumbsuckers about how Obama may be the next Hitler because his supporters like him so much. And he writes books. And stuff. My slant on this is that one of the many many many ways in which the argument is dead flat busted wrong is that it assumes that Hitler looked perfectly alright until he took power. This is, I believe a fairly widespread misconception across the land. The perception seems to be that Hitler was this charismatic guy that people liked because of the charisma and they supported him without really knowing what he was about.

In fact, Hitler's public record made pretty clear that he was that guy all along. He made clear all along that he was an anti-Semite with expansionist plans and dictatorial ambitions. To really draw a parallel, you would have to find a chapter in Audacity of Hope where Obama argues for monoxide for septigenarians.

It irks me in the first instance because people who believe stuff that's demonstrably untrue always irk me. It's why, for example, that I can never walk away from the fight when Troothers show up at the party.

But beyond that, there are real consequences to all this nonsence. If we do allow totalitarianism to take hold in this country, it's far more likely to be in response to some real or perceived threat from an identifiable group. But if someone try to just gently suggest that sweeping generalizations against the Muslim world are not just unseemly but represent the potential first step down a very ugly road, the rightysphere erupts in recrimination about how un-American he/she is.

This is a tricky argument, btw. I'm not arguing either that radical Islam poses no threat or that we shouldn't address that threat. And I'm certainly not arguing that any frank talk about terrorism is analogous to Hitlerism. But if one is realistic about how Hitler used fear of the Other to rise to power, it's clear that we have to be careful about striking a narrow balance.

Anyway, for those with ready access to the News, that's what you'll find tomorrow. And for those of you who don't, feel free to let them know how much you'd like to be able to access my column online and would certainly surf by every other Wednesday to do so it and that by the way you are the type of person who tends to pay outsized attention to internet ads and frequently click though them just in case the sponsors of the fine journalism you are enjoying for free happen to have a good/service that you may want to purchase..

Can't hurt is what I'm thinking.

Today in the Akron Legal News -- Nunchucks!

Today's column in the Legal News takes on the nunchuck colloquy during the Sotomayor hearings. If you missed it, the Second Circuit case regarding Second Amendment incorporation considered a New York State ban on nunchucks.

OK, once more in English. The Bill of Rights as written limits only the power of the national government (thus the "Congress shall make no law" language opening the First Amendment.) That changed after the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. The 14th, which among other things says that no state can deny life, liberty or property without due process of law, is read as incorporating fundamental rights against the states.

Which is to say, the Due Process Clause doesn't incorporate all of the Bill of Rights. After a certain amount of judicial back and forth (which is virtually impossible to teach coherently to undergrads, thanks very much) the Court worked up a fundamental rights test to determine whether a given right is incorporated. Fundamental rights are those from which all other rights flow, and/or those essential to the concept of ordered liberty. Yes, that's not the most definitive test in the history of American jurisprudence, but it's what we've got.

The newly discovered individual Second Amendment right has yet to be incorporated. Heller v. DC overturned a District of Columbia law which is functionally a Federal law given the special status of the District.

So, back to nunchucks. The 1970s saw a martial arts craze during which nunchucks acquired an inflated reputation as some kind of super weapon. Nunchucks can indeed be effective in hand-to-hand combat, but only in the hands of someone well-schooled in their use. In the column I draw on my own martial arts experience which has taught me little other than how easy it is to ding yourself in the face as you try to learn how to control these things.

Anyway, during the 70s martial arts fad, apparently some gansta types started rocking nunchucks and the New York Assembly responded by banning. The sponsor of the legislation said that they serve no purpose other than to maim or kill. Obviously he never saw this:



Anyway, the New York law was challenged in Maloney v. Cuomo and the Second Circuit held that Heller doesn't apply. In doing so, the court followed a Supreme Court precedent saying that the Second Amendment doesn't apply against the States. My guess is that the precedent will be overturned when an incorporation case comes before the Court, but the Second Circuit's position was that until it is, the precedent controls.

Wingers and Gunnutistanis on the Judiciary Committee tried to make the case that Sotomayor is anti-gun. Which she may or may not be, but in following precedent she was the opposite of the activist judge the Republicans made her out to be.

My point in writing up the nunchucks case is that a) the New York law is foolish and misbegotten and bases on false assumptions about the overwhelming power of nunchucks, but b) the way Heller pegs the Second Amendment right to weapons traditionally used for self-defense makes it hard to argue that the law violates the Second Amendment. We'll see what the Court does, but ruling against the state in Maloney would be an expansion of Heller that could make the right far broader and more unwieldy than Scalia seemed to be bargaining for.

So if you have a chance to pick up the Legal News, that's what you get today. I'll continue to lobby for some online reproduction and continue to occasionally post summaries here.

Infinite Summer: Because at 1079 Pages, It's Still a Good Beach Read.

As longtime readers know, I'm a big David Foster Wallace guy. So I was thrilled to hear about Infinite Summer, an online challenge/discussion forum dedicated to reading, discussing and celebrating Wallace's sprawling, daunting and ground breaking Infinite Jest over the summer. The "official" reading period is June 21-Sept 22. The "Guides" of the effort have calculated this working out to 75 pages a week.¹

I'll be rereading along with the effort -- in fact I've gotten an early start. I'd love to blog the whole thing, but that seems unlikely given my summer schedule. But I will no doubt have something more to say.

If you are tempted, but not sure, consider the following both a pitch and caveat. The book for the most part is eminently readable, but the book as a whole is challenging. The narrative is written in a nonlinear, sometimes seemingly random timeline. To confuse things further, the years in the near future world Wallace imagines are not designated by numbers, but by corporate sponsors², increasing the degree of difficulty in following the action. That said, the individual "chapters"³ by and large are easy to read.

Second point, understand that the story is not the major point here. Wallace is exploring ideas without explicitly laying out what those ideas are. We're not supposed to include spoilers, but let me just say this: You know how in Pulp Fiction you never find out what's actually in the briefcase? There's a lot of that sort of thing in Infinite Jest. Wallace drops plentiful clues to explain the McGuffins, but speculating about what happened ultimately is beside the point.

If the above has enticed and/or failed to dissuade you, a few tips to get you started:

• Consider buying the book. Yes, libraries have copies, but trust me, this is a book you will want to go back to. It's also one of the few novels in which I've written margin notes.
• Use two book marks -- one for the text and one for the endnotes. A fair amount of action/explanation/McGuffin-clue-giving happens in the endnotes. I used a sticky note in the endnote section that I moved with each note read.
• Have a dictionary handy. Wallace drops a lot of fifty cent words in some sections.⁴
• Consider doing a little reading ahead of time. Various sources have their recommendations for DFW gateway readings. Mine are the story "Octet" from the collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and the essay "Joseph Frank's Dostoyevsky" from the collection Consider the Lobster. You will find embedded therein almost Jerry Maguire-style mission statements that will help understand what Wallace may be up to. If you really want to go geeky about it, consider some of the theses posted on The Howling Fantods.
  

All that said, I hope at least some of my readers take up the challenge. You will be rewarded.

¹Though the final 94 pages of that 1079 is endnotes which you really need to read in conjunction with the text -- no really, you need to -- making it difficult to calculate exactly how much you are reading.^a

¹Of course a post about DFW must have footnotes. Of course.

²The bulk of the action occurring in the Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment.

³The book isn't divided into chapters per se, but is more of a collection of vignettes and epistles, most of which are designated only by a date, but some of which have some sort of heading not a few of which (i.e. the headings, not the dates) are comically long. Said vignettes/epistles range from a paragraph to a score of pages or more.

⁴Particularly those concerning central character Hal Incandeza who is described as a "lexical prodigy."

Today in Akron Legal News

In today's column I consider the recall effort. For the most part I discuss the merits of Change Akron Now's arguments only to say that they mostly come down to policy disagreements, which generally aren't considered the stuff of a recall campaign. Mostly the column considers whether Akron should consider raising the threshold for getting a recall on the ballot. Surveying the recall laws in major cities in Ohio reveals that Akron has arguably the lowest threshold. This is from the column:

• Cleveland uses 20% of the total vote in the last municipal election.
• Parma uses 25% of the total vote in the preceding municipal election, as does Toledo, whose mayor is also fighting a recall effort.
• Dayton bases its threshold on the number of registered voters in the city. A recall effort needs 25% to reach the ballot.
• Columbus also sets the threshold as a percentage of registered voters, requiring 15%. As an additional barrier, Columbus does not allow petitions to be circulated; they are posted in firehouses and the city clerk’s office so that interested citizens must go to the petition to sign.
• Youngstown doesn’t peg the threshold to any variable, instead having set the threshold at a constant 5000 registered voters, which currently amounts to about six percent of the total population.
• Neither Canton nor Cincinnati currently allows for a recall, though the local NAACP in Cincinnati is currently spearheading a drive to add recall provisions there.
  

(BTW, if you want to follow the Toledo recall story, my friend Lisa Renee's local blog Glass City Jungle is a good place to start.)

From there I make arguments in favor of a higher bar. Irate comment coming from Mendenhall in 3, 2, 1. . .

Tomorrow in Akron Legal News (Shameless Plugs, Pt. 1)

I've mentioned previously my latest writing venture, a biweekly column in the Akron Legal News. Tomorrow will be my fifth column since all this started. Since they haven't run me out yet, this seems solid enough to start blogging about without jinxing it. So I'll start posting a preview with a few links, perhaps a nut graf or two and maybe even a few snippets from the cutting room floor. Unfortunately you have to get the dead tree version of the Legal News to actually read the thing as my columns aren't being posted on the website yet.

So this week I was inspired by the 50th anniversary of Strunk and White's Elements of Style and some of the inevitable anti-Elements backlash from the descriptivist camp as a hook. While the descriptivist may have some points about some of the grammar "rules" contained in Elements, I'm concerned that the general reaction against prescriptive grammar has provided some of the impetus to stop teaching grammar in K-12 schools, to the detriment of students and those of us who have to read there writing attempts in college.

Nut graf:

Conjugating verbs, learning parts of speech and diagramming sentences seem rote and pointless, especially to succeeding generations of more digitized students. But that kind of grammar instruction gives us a language to speak about language. We can teach good, clear, readable writing more easily when students understand how the parts of language work together and have a vocabulary for discussing those parts.

Some linkage. The anti-Elements rant that serves as my hook is here. The ABA Journal online post that gave me the idea and a passible claim that it is germane to a legal publication is here. The author, Geoffey Pullum is one of the lead bloggers in Language Log which a linguistics-blog-fan friend says is the biggie in the field. I'm frankly a bit leery about having used the Pullum piece as hook, even though I don't directly take it on because a) Pullum is very good and knows far more about usage than I could ever hope to and b) a survey of his posts reveals that he can be markedly unpleasant to anyone who disagrees with him.

Anyway, if you happen to get the Legal News or otherwise come across it tomorrow, give it a look.

My Latest Gig

Finally I can announce that as of last Wednesday I will have a biweekly column in the Akron Legal News. This has been in the works for some time, then the launch caught me napping. Anyway, I have a pretty free hand to write about law-related topics that interest me. The masthead for the column appears a right.

Unfortunately, the paper doesn't currently post online, so no linkage. Also unfortunately, to make this happen I am selling my pieces outright to the paper, so I can't post them here at the risk of plagiarizing myself. Probably I'll at least let you know what I've written about and maybe include a graf or two. Last week's piece was an intro to me and what I will be doing with the column -- nothing you haven't heard already.

The whole writing thing has been stalled lately for obvious reasons. Hopefully this will keep me in the game for a while until the economy eases.

Summit Co Early Voting and Vote Protection Notes.

Here's a couple things you need to know if you don't already. First off, if you vote early, it will count, no matter what some yahoo caller on WNIR says. And on top of that, it's way easier.

My Tweeps heard recently that I've joined the Dem-side voter protection effort. This is the same thing I did in the 04 campaign and is a better fit than phonebanking or *shudder* canvassing. Plus the regional coordinator is a friend who has some big favors to call in.

Unlike past election time work, I'm determined not to go dark this go round (though a recent unplanned two-week silence doesn't inspire confidence.) I have a confidentiality agreement, but it doesn't bar discussing what I've seen.

So for my first official act, yesterday I voted. We wanted to see what was happening at the early vote location and, since observers aren't allowed into early voting, I guinea pigged it.

Specifically, I checked out the Job Center of Tallmadge Ave. where Summit is one of a handful of counties that has set up a satellite early vote location. The space isn't luxurious -- raw space in a former shopping mall being repurposed as a county facility. But it's huge and for this job, huge works. The space includes folding chairs that seat well over fifty, though no more than twenty were waiting during the time I was there around midday. The Board workspace also has extra capacity -- ten or so monitors weren't in use.

The wait was about ten minutes once I filled out the absentee request form. They are printing the absentees on demand and have to print out the right ballot for the right precinct. The advantage is that they don't run out of ballots for a precinct which was my issue last go-round.

The info I've heard is 550 voted the first day. That's fewer than the ABJ reported, but still a hefty number and probably more than the Board could have handled.

In addition to idiot rumors about the vote not counting noted up top, there are also apparently rumors misstating the operating hours. Early voting, including the satellite, is open until 8:00 weeknights and 12-4 Saturday and Sunday.

Meanwhile, if you are interested in being an election day poll observer for the voter protection effort, you can sign up here. Your you can contact me directly and we'll get you into the mix.

A New Knight Center and a New Freelance Piece.

My latest step in my slow ascent up the ladder of freelance respectability is here, a lead in the Knight Foundation newsletter about the Knight Center of Digital Excellence. Attentive readers may recall that when the Knight Foundation and OneCommunity announced plans for an Akron WiFi zone, they announced creation of this Center of Digital Excellence as part of the overall effort. They moved into their new offices in the United 1 building a couple of weeks ago and hired me to cover the event for their members.

If you aren't inclined to click through to review my work I'll say that the Knight Center (still getting used to saying that and meaning something other than the Convention Center) is a nationwide pro bono networking consulting service run in partnership by the Knight Foundation and OneCommunity. They work toward community internet access by playing what baseball teams call small ball -- small, focused connectivity projects here and there build out networks (mostly in what tech guys call the middle mile) and communities build on that to connect their populations.

It's no small thing for Akron to have gotten this. The effort is getting serious looks as a sort of next generation collection of connectivity models now that some high-profile muni wireless efforts have cratered. I was honored to have been present, if not at the creation, at least on moving day.

(Just so we're clear, my contract with the Foundation was fulfilled by the article; I'm writing this on my own because it's pretty cool and Pho-phriendly news regardless.)

Sermonizing

For real, yesterday. I led worship at church and delivered a sermon on church and state plus a bit on the state of our church. I posted it on the seldom-updated, rarely read church blog. It includes much of my take on church/state and may be something I refer to from time to time on the topic.

Texas Fixin' to Teach English Good1

This is a story in the works for one my paying gigs. If you have experience with this sort of thing, consider this fishing for background.

Anyway. The Texas State Board of Ed has been working on new language instruction standards, and things have gotten ugly:

State Board of Education members, casting aside months of work by English teachers across the state, tentatively approved new curriculum standards Thursday for English and reading classes that will be used in Texas schools for the next decade.

Led by its social conservative bloc, the board rejected a curriculum proposal written and backed by several teacher associations – including those representing English teachers – and instead adopted a Washington, D.C.-based consultant's plan that changes the way grammar is taught.

I've done a little reading on the language wars but was unaware parties would resort to political intrigue:

Some board members accused teacher groups of hijacking the process by pushing their own document instead of the one tentatively approved by the board.

"The process has become a joke and a mockery," said Cynthia Dunbar, R-Richmond , calling it "contaminated and a circus."

So here is what all this is about. The conservatives on the Board want a specific instruction on grammar and the teachers want grammar instruction to be part of writing instruction. And the English teachers want the standards to include reading comprehension instruction and the Board does not. The Board, being the Board, is winning. At least one teachers group has the drafts up on their website.

So here's the thing. None of the stories talk about whether there is any research on any of these approaches. Even the Fordham story I got this from talks about research. Both parties seem to be working more based on politically-based assumptions.

The idea of teaching grammar only in the context of writing is counterintutive. It sounds like teaching the fingering on a flute only in the context of playing a concerto or telling someone to make eggs Benedict without knowing how to make a Hollandaise sauce.

On the other hand, watching a daughter learning to read and doing well with a curriculum that teaches her strategies for reading comprehension, it's hard to see who would object. But I can see how that some might dismiss it as mollycoddling PC stuff.

So I know some teachers happen by on occasion. If you can shed any light on all this, I'll be in your debt.

¹A hattip to a friend who came up with the title during a conversation today. She's actually blogger Keith Woodruff's wife Marisol. And by the way if you want to mean on me for stereotyping Texans I'll point out that Appolonia is actually from Texas and you will go on about the long history of self-hating Texans and I will weep silently until you go away.

"Guns to Guantanomo" Impressions and Air Times

My first effort as a moderator went well yesterday. Which is to say, the panelists did a fine job and I mostly watched.

The one panelist I hadn't met before was Jonathan Adler at Case. He's a very good guy and very bright, though we don't agree on much. We apparently kept him away from Volokh for the day, but he's back this morning with three new posts.

One fundamental truth about current Con Law controversies is that you can't go into a Second Amendment debate unarmed; proponents of the personal right show up locked and loaded. The gun debate was the one place where we had some real back and forth, though the panelists were civil and respectful throughout.

Anyway, you can see all this on cable if you weren't able to make it there. Air times are:

Tuesday, April 22, 7:00p.m.
Thursday, April 24, 9:00 p.m.
Saturday, April 26, 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, April 27, 4:00 p.m.

In Akron, Canton, Mansfield or Youngstown, it's cable position 23. In Cleveland, cable position 15 or 22.

Worlds Are Colliding

Specifically my blog world and my part-time academic world.

Up until now I haven't told students about the Pages, nor have I written much here about teaching. It's hard to explain why, except that I'm big on strongly, consciously policing boundaries because I don't seem to have good natural instincts for them. There have been some impressive boundary-crossing screw ups in my past. Add to that a couple of academic friends who do or have blogged anonymously because they want to keep their politics neutral in the classroom.

So I've kept the two worlds separate. Like in other areas of life, Pho blogs here and that Scott Piepho guy does the other stuff. One of the advantages of having a nom de blog.

But this week the inevitable happened. Someone got wind and asked in class about the blog. Because of my jacked-up URL I generally tell people to find their way here by Googling Pho's alter ego and some have done so. (The first two hits came in during class. Nice to know my students are putting those laptops to good use.)

As I said at the time, the real surprise is that it's taken nearly two full semesters for this to happen. Just a few years ago someone would have Googled me the first week of class and that would have been up. The young adult online culture seems to have changed a bit. Less surfing, more chatting and social networking.

And of course the accursed texting.

Anyway, now some students are reading *waves.* So far I've gotten a very nice email and a Facebook friend as a result. The email was a revelation as it seems my politics were less than clear to the student. This is a good thing. My solution to the liberal professor thing is to consistently offer both sides of arguments, giving due respect to the position not my own. If my student's comments are an indication, the strategy works at least to an extent. And being a militant pragmatist helps.

As it happens, I've been thinking about posting bits from my lectures (I wouldn't blog anything about students unless I could be sure they would remain double secret anonymous and students swinging by here pretty much kiboshes that.) Partly it's because my business is to teach the law to laypeople and you can't have too much practics. Partly it's because there are things people don't know about the law and it really bugs me that they don't. And of course, it gives me material with little extra work.

Looking at the workload this weekend, I can't say that the first of these will go up any time soon, but it may become an ongoing feature.

The Next Press Club Program Includes Someone You Know

Monday, April 14 the Akron Press Club will present a panel discussion of the Roberts Supreme Court. Panelists will include law professors Jonathan Adler from Case and Will Huhn from Akron and political scientist Christopher Banks from Kent.

The moderator will be an underemployed slacker sponging off his wife attorney, writer and university lecturer named Scott Piepho.

Seriously, this is the first program I've helped put together as a Board Member. The program is called "From Guns to Guantanamo: A Guide to Life in the Roberts Court Era"

Details and reservation info here.

Now I have to get back to prepping.

Things I Do When I'm Not Blogging

My second ever freelance writing job is up on the Catalyst website. Once again I did the Notebook section which includes an interview with Akron Mayor Don Plusquellic.

Among the revelations, that the mayors are again attempting to reach consensus and offer a school funding reform proposal:

Well we just reconvened. I was at the U.S.
Conference of Mayors annual meeting and a
number of Ohio mayors asked me to convene
a meeting. We met there and made a commitment
that I would reconvene a group. We
did that with just mayors and brought an
expert that we had used early on from Colorado.
I understand [Governor Ted] Strickland’s
reluctance to jump in as the first thing
he did to try to solve this because I think there
would have been major problems and I think
he’s played this pretty well. But somewhere
here in the next year and a half we’ve got to
address this issue. This is a huge problem that
I think may only get solved by constitutional
amendment, and in a constitutional amendment
you’ve got to keep it simple. And the
simple way of dealing with it is to deal with the
funding formula first, get off of the property
tax, and shift to an income or sales tax base

By the way, in his State of the State address today, Gov. Strickland reprised the "What if we weren't afraid" trope he used in the cover interview last issue. It's great to be writing for a publication that's so easy to promote.