“The collective attention span of this country seems to be measured in nanoseconds.”

This insightfully accurate statement was uttered in a lively (if somewhat one-sided) discussion at Coffee Call, a less commercial Starbucks-lite coffee place that has the added advantage of serving Beignets which I’d previously only sampled at New Orleans’ Cafe du Monde. The more surprising thing is that it was not me who said it. In fact it was made by Mike, another friend of Stephen and Debbie, who explained that he loved to discuss politics when possible (not hard to guess from just how vocal he was), but usually cannot as he works for a state department.

Putting a slight damper on the wonderful mile-high-sugar-coated-“donut”-goodness (yes, Americans can spell “dough” correctly but, it would seem, get a little confused when it comes to the dual-syllable “doughnut”) was the fact a pick-up truck managed to reverse into our car in the parking lot before the evening had even begun. Fortunately it was not serious enough to cause injury but Debbie looked so angry as she threw open the car door and marched over that I glanced away to avoid being a witness to the inevitable murder. As it turned out she held herself back and we had the police check things and make a report. From the positions of the vehicles we were clearly not at fault, so one would hope the insurance companies will settle up with a minimum of fuss.

Yesterday I visited the Jetson Correctional Centre for Youth (JCCY or just “Jetson” for short) for the first time in order to meet a client of ours currently incarcerated there. She is a female sex offender who has admitted to her crime but we are having to fight to get her the treatment she requires because all sex offence rehabilitation in designed purely for males. Under equal protection laws she should have access to similar (if not identical) councilling and treatment made available to her while she serves her sentence, if for no other reason than to prevent reoffence. We spent considerable time researching and drafting a memo to show the treatment she deserves, and have a doctor who has performed an evaluation to back this up. Although Jetson only holds juveniles, security was still pretty high, to the point where they checked our car boot before allowing us to leave, just to ensure we did not have any stowaways. I was also pleased to hear my status upgraded to “paralegal”. Going up in the world!