Podcast appearances and mentions of bill kunstler

 Mary Lynn Rajskub, Bill Kunstler, and Tess Barker join Arden and Katie to talk Bachelor in Paradise ep 9! Gilligan's Island Basketball! Limited prop budgets!!! Baby Jess! - Arden thinks Rachel keeps getting in her own way! - Mary Lynn wants a Kat John Henry pee wedding! - Bill is available to boss around! - Tess thinks Leslie rocked Gerry's world! All that plus........TWEET OF THE WEEK!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mary Lynn Rajskub and Bill Kunstler join Arden and the Production team to discuss drama camp tears AKA Bachelor in Paradise! Gummy Bears! Defending Logan! Lady Lovers!- Arden and the rest of the team would have to take on Thor as their lovers on the show! -Mary Lynn thinks Kate should have kept on Logan as a TikTok boyfriend! - Bill thinks Aaron and Gen can make it through their misommunatactions as two crazy horny kids in love! All that plus........TWEET OF THE WEEK!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brendan Smith and Bill Kunslter join Arden and Katie to talk about the Covid Cruise journey! CHEESE WEIGHTS! CAMEL TOES! CHILDREN OF THE CORN! - Arden does her Golden Globe motherhood monologue! - Bill puts Arden through Bachelor school! - Brendan does not know why everyone is not flying on SPACE CAKES in Amsterdam! All that plus........TWEET OF THE WEEK!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Paul Greenberg, Jackie Harris Greenberg and Bill Kunstler share their greatest worst dating stories ever with host Rob Cohen!  Hear Paul weave a yarn of meeting a date's very frank folks. Jackie regales us with the moment she realized she was dessert. And Bill gets some extra calcium at the worst possible time.   Yank someone's doodle, because this one is a dandy! https://TheBadDatesShow.com

Rookie of the Season Mary Lynn Rajskub, Bill Kusntler and Brendan Smith join Arden and the Production Team to break down the GREATEST SHOW ON TELEVISION - Bachelor in Paradise! Tazjnados! Hurricane Demis! VJ's!!! - Arden gives Victoria's one episode arc an 11 out of 5 star review! - Mary Lynn is HERE for the drama and does not want love to start too early in the season! - Brendan is looking for a Silverlake Tammy! - Bill thinks they needed 24 people because it is TWO YEARS OF BUILT UP DRAMA!!!! All that plus........TWEET OF THE WEEK! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

Hi! This is Ada, I  hope you‘re taking good care of yourself and doing well. So guys, I'm so proud to be taking you on this lit global journey with me and I can’t wait to go even more places with you. It’s only episode 4. And we’ve been to inner city US, northern Nigeria, South Africa, and today, we're returning to America. Native America that is. So, in this episode, I’ll be talking about Lakota Woman by Mary Crow Dog.  You ready? Lets get into it.  So, Lakota Woman is Mary Crow Dog’s memoir . And if you remember from episode zero, I mentioned that in the Misty Bloom Book club I would be reviewing mostly fiction and on rare occasions would consider nonfiction. So I guess today is the rare occasion. It came early. This book reminded me a tiny little bit of Born A Crime by Trevor Noah. Not at all in terms of style or substance. They are very dissimilar in those regards because Born A Crime is Trevor Noah’s account of growing up in apartheid South Africa while Lakota Woman follows Mary Crow Dog’s story as an activist fighting for the rights of Native Americans. But my comparison here is in terms of Mary Crow Dog and Trevor Noah being compelling storytellers, not professional writers. And so for that reason I'm not going to do a typical review of Lakota Woman. I feel like how do you qualitatively assess or critique somebody's lived experience. You really can't judge it, you know what I mean?  And also these are people, Mary Crow Dog and Trevor Noah just trying to tell us an honest story of oppression, all that matters is that these are stories that we should all be paying attention to and be provoked into positive actions. They are not trying to be professional writers so it feels dishonorable to critique their style of writing. So, I'm just not gonna do it.  Instead I'll take a different approach and just chat with you about the book, okay? I think a great place to start this conversation is to ask who is a Native American? Because that's a question that always seems to keep popping up in public discourse.  And Mary Crow Dog answers this question. She says, "I should make clear that being a full blood or breed is not a matter of bloodline, or how Indian you look or how black your hair is. The general rule is that whoever thinks, sings, acts, and speaks Indian is a skin, a full blood and whoever acts and thinks like a white man is a half blood or breed, no matter how Indian he looks." This book covers Mary Crow Dog’s life in the seventies and it’s interesting how 30, 40 years later people still try to claim a Native American heritage even though they do not think, sing, act, or speak like a Native and do not have familiarity with native traditions. I wonder what Mary Crow Dog would have thought of today's world where people benefit from and will fully exercise not being seen in the world as Native but will claim being Native when it's convenient and profitable. So your classic case of eating your cake and having it too. I’ve seen that happen where the majority of their existence in society is as an oppressor because of course, of the privileges attached to whiteness and then they switch over to oppressed when they wanna benefit from a minor advantage of their native heritage. So basically wanting to participate in the scarce wins but participate in zero of the struggle, pain and bloodshed that has to occur for those tiny wins. I've seen people do this. I find it to be pretty dark and disturbing.  But moving along, I also wanna say that it felt like a treasure and a privilege to read this book. I felt like Mary Crow Dog was like letting me or us, since y’all are listening to this, into a sacred people and tradition that we do not deserve to know about but she is generous enough to share her people’s customs with us. In this case, obviously Lakota which is part of the Sioux people.  Each chapter in this book starts with a saying or a poem or the lyrics of songs by select Native American people. Chapter 8 for example starts with what appears to be the first verse of a poem by a young man from Eagle Butte. And it goes like this, "I knew when I brought my body here, it might become food for the worms and magpies. I threw my body away before I came here." This verse brought tears to my eyes, broke my heart and it feels like desecration to even attempt to dissect it because the verse has said all that needs to be said. And the verse lays bare that even though this book is Mary Crow Dog's story it is also a chronicle of Native American suffering. And that is the proper place to start the conversation.  This book covers the systematic stealing of indigenous lands by white settlers, the forced sterilization of Native Women including the author’s sister. It recounts the organized erasure of the native customs, and traditions, the introduction of poverty, addiction, and hopelessness into Native life. So it's both a story of a people and a person. Lakota Woman starts out on the Rosebud Indian reservation in South Dakota where Mary is raised by her grandparents in a loving but extremely poor home, a shack with no electricity or indoor plumbing. The grandparents try to raise the author and their other grandchildren as Catholic and to adopt White culture and norms for practical reasons, you know, to make it possible for their grandchildren to survive in the world beyond the reservation. But it is also heartbreaking where the author reveals that her grandparents still subconsciously turn to some of the traditional ways to find healing because the old ways is their truth, you know. At some point Mary Crow Dog is forced by the government to go to boarding school where they employ inhumane methods in unsuccessfully forming her into a good white Catholic girl. The memoir also recounts her time as a young adult trying to find herself in the world, roaming the United States with a band of other footloose and fancy free Native youth also trying to find their place in a world that’s been stolen from them. As a sentence in the book reads, “He had himself wrapped up in an upside down American flag, telling us that every state in this flag represented a state stolen from Indians.” It’s honestly overwhelming to even think about the depravities that America thrust upon and continues to do to Native America.  But anyway, during their youthful, aimless wanderings, Mary Crow Dog and her merry band of Natives of course suffer police brutality and violence from random racists. It is during this time Mary Crow Dog becomes exposed to AIM, A.I.M which is the American Indian Movement. So her memoir also follows her activism in the AIM movement some of which includes historically significant actions like the March  in Washington DC as well as the siege at Wounded Knee. Thereafter, Mary Crow Dog or Mary Ellen Brave Bird at the time marries Medicine Man and civil rights leader, Leonard Crow Dog. And she becomes a mother wife and the stepmother all at the same time, at the ripe old age of, wait for it? 18! So Mary Crow Dog lived a lot of life in one. But anyway. towards the end, a significant part of Lakota Woman also follows Mary’s time as a wife fighting for the release of her husband, Leonard Crow Dog, when he’s imprisoned for his activism. In this book, Mary Crow Dog spends a lot of time talking about how Native Americans are intentionally and systematically pushed out of society with little to no access to jobs, education or opportunities, the loss of their language, traditions, and ceremonies, the stripping of who they are as a people and them having to turn to alcohol to you know deal with the trauma that their lives have become. And in this book she addresses how alcohol becomes a coping mechanism because people often say things like oh you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps, oh why don't you want better for yourself. And there's a line that took my breath away and it's on page 54 “people talk about the Indian drinking problem but we say it is a white problem. White men invented whiskey and brought it to America. They manufacture, advertise and sell it to us. They make their profit on it and cause the conditions that make Indians drink in the first place.” It’s the same thing today. Go to the hood, same situation, same conditions, flooded with liquor stores, pun intended.  Moving along, remember I mentioned earlier that Mary Crow Dog joined AIM, the American Indian Movement? Well, there's a line on page 74 which I thought was really very insightful and articulates what I’ve always thought about activism and its effects on an activists’ lives. Here it goes, “I recognize now that movements get used up and the leaders get burned out quickly. Some of our men and women got themselves killed and thereby avoided reaching the dangerous age of 30 and becoming elder statesmen." This is why I have the utmost regard for activists. They live a principled life and they pay dearly for it, because it is marred with great sacrifice and suffering. Secular martyrs. And while we are on this, here is a quick plug. Please be supportive of and kind and generous to an activist. Also, this book made me reconsider the meaning of Thanksgiving in a new way. While I’ve always known Thanksgiving to be a troublesome holiday, and that’s understating it, I don’t think I realized the breadth of the pain it represents to Native Americans. I'm gonna read a short paragraph from page 75. By the way, this is the author's first encounter with AIM, the American Indian Movement. On page 75 she writes "he talked about not celebrating Thanksgiving, because that would be celebrating one's own destruction. He said that white people, after stealing our land and massacring us for 300 years, could not now come to us now saying celebrate Thanksgiving with us, drop in for a slice of turkey." So yeah. Okay, so I found something very interesting on page 77, where Mary Crow Dog says, and this is relative to the American Indian Movement, “we took some of our rhetoric from the blacks, who started their movements before we did. Like them we were minorities, poor and discriminated against, but there were differences. I think it's significant that in many Indian languages a black is called a black white man. The blacks want what the whites have, which is understandable. They want in. We Indians want out. That is the main difference.” It’s such a shrewd observation. But I think there is a bit more nuance that I’d like to offer here based on historical context. So yeah black people want in on a country that was built entirely and completely on their forced labor. And Natives want out because they are indigenous to America, with a complex and established civilization, until the advent of the white settler state known as the USA. They want out of the white settler state and the return of America to them. But I’d love to hear what you all think about this.     The author also talks about how being radicalized sent her back to her Indian traditions. She writes, “To white friends this may seem contradictory but for me and my friends it was the most natural thing in the world. This process had already begun when I was still a child. I felt that the kind of Christianity the priests and nuns of St Francis dished out was not good for my digestion. Jesus would have been all right except I felt he had been co-opted by white American society to serve its purpose. The men who had brought us whiskey and the smallpox had come with a cross in one hand and the gun in the other. In the name of an all merciful Jesus they’d use that gun on us.” Can all the colonized say amen? Huh. Anyway, Mary Crow Dog says something that I think it's really profoundly interesting on page 111. “I do not consider myself a radical or revolutionary. It is white people who put such labels on us. All we ever wanted was to be left alone, to live our lives as we see fit. To govern ourselves in reality and not just on paper. To have our rights respected. If that is revolutionary, then I sure fit that description. Actually I have a great yearning to lead a normal, peaceful life, normal in the Sioux sense.” That right there is what every oppressed person is trying to scream above the noise of the oppressor. We just want a normal, peaceful life. It’s really that simple. Mary Crow Dog also makes another really astute point in the book.  In fighting her husband’s incarceration, Mary Crow Dog visits New York for the first time and she's comparing the cost of things in New York versus on the reservation and this is what she says on page 112. "Everything was so much cheaper than on the reservation where the trading posts have no competition and charge what they please. Everything is more expensive if you are poor." This is an ongoing conversation that I'm always having in real life about how poverty is expensive, and capitalism is built on and sustained by racism. If you're poor you're working so many jobs which is detrimental to your physical and mental well-being because there’s no leisure time to recharge, you're not taking time off, you’re not taking long walks, you’re not hanging out in the park, you don’t spend time with your family, you're not going on vacations. And all of these things have a cumulative effect and impact your overall well-being pretty quickly. So you break down and because you’re poor you can’t afford adequate healthcare so you have to pay a massive sum out of pocket or be riddled with debt or both. So, yes poverty is expensive. And think about the demographic of people who typically work multiple jobs to make ends meet and you’ll realize why I said capitalism is sustained by racism. When you are poor you also don't have access to quality and affordable safe foods so you're spending your scarce dollars on cheap meals that are not good for you so that also has an impact on your health and then you develop expensive physical problems that you can not afford. So here we go again. Or when you’re poor you don’t have emergency savings so that when something big happens you are forced to borrow at exorbitant rates from predatory lenders because you don’t have collateral to negotiate a cheaper rate. So it’s like wash, rinse, repeat.  I could go on and on but I think you guys already know this already. Poverty is expensive. This memoir as you’ve obviously seen so far is full of quotable quotes. From page 241, Bill Kunstler, who is the attorney for Leonard Crow Dog. Anyway, here is what Bill Kunstler says and before I read the quote when I say they, you, or we in the quote, it refers to the oppressor, okay? "they are most afraid of the fact that the claims are morally right, because when you are confronted with the moral imperative against an immoral imperative on your part you got to hate the people who assert that moral imperative. And I think there is an irrational, guilt-caused hatred now that is beyond my ability to analyze. We hate them because their claims are totally justified and we know it." I encourage you to rewind this if needed. This very eloquently explains the oppressor’s illogical denial of the claims of the oppressed. This underpins the whataboutisms, the all lives matter crew, And in my opinion, it’s why the oppressed should not devote too much energy to debating the oppressor’s arguments because they are irrational. To me, the energy is best spent working for equity and justice.   Many things are so familiar in this book. On page 244 Mary Crow Dog says and I quote "to me, women's lib was mainly a white, upper-middle-class affair of little use to a reservation Indian woman."  I mean, I’ve always thought the same thing that the feminist movement is not inclusive of minorities. It felt validating to read this. I mentioned before that reading this book felt like a privilege. And the reason for that is that Mary Crow Dog lets us into Native or more specifically Sioux ceremonies. I learned about the peyote, the curing ceremony, the traditional Sioux family, which is the tiyospaye, that is the traditional extended family unit that people from most indigenous cultures around the world can relate to, and which was you know intentionally destroyed by white settlers and replaced with the nuclear family system. I learned about vision seeking, the sweat lodges which I kind of knew about before but learned a lot more about the sacredness of sweat lodges. I learned about the Ghost Dance, the Sun Dance. On page 253, Mary Crow Dog writes, and I’m paraphrasing just a tiny bit. "in 1883 the government and the missionaries outlawed the dance for being barbaric, superstitious, and preventing the Indians from becoming civilized. The hostility of the Christian churches to the Sun Dance was not very logical. After all, they worship Christ because he suffered for the people, and a similar religious concept lies behind the Sun dance, where the participants pierce their flesh with skewers to help someone dear to them. The main difference is that Christians are content to let Jesus do all the suffering for them whereas Indians give of their own flesh year after year to help others. The missionaries never saw this side of the picture, or maybe they saw it only too well and fought the Sun Dance because it competed with their own Sun Dance pole - the cross." She roasted Christianity and made also cringe thinking about the sundance channel and they should consider renaming it. So I’m gonna end this episode and close out with page 262 which is the epilogue. Mary Crow Dog ends with a recap of the activists associated with the American Indian Movement who participated in the siege at Wounded Knee and Mary Crow Dog says, "those are the survivors, many of the former brothers and sisters are dead. Some were killed but most died from natural causes. I think that the wear and tear of the long struggle just burned them up, ruined their health and took years off their lives. The best always die young." And this my friends, like I said before, is the high price of activism.  Mary Crow Dog, while being an activist herself, also discusses the other perspective which is the toll that being the wife of an activist can take. And she writes, "Cooking and cleaning up for innumerable guests most of them uninvited, listening to countless woes and problems. It became too much for me. I was going under. Wherever Native Americans struggle for their rights, Leonard is there. Life goes on."  And just so you know Mary died at the age of 58. And there, my friends, I think is a poignant place to end on. Support Misty Bloom Book Club by donating to their Tip Jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/mistybloombookclub Find out more at https://mistybloombookclub.pinecast.co

2020 Bachelor of the Year Rob Benedict, Lisa deLarios, and Bill Kunstler join Arden to discuss the Bachelor's trip to Chile! Crying against walls! I am in love with the strong girl I see in the mirror! Meat Sweats! - Arden thinks Peter's scar is made of mud and twigs and cartoon characters! - Rob would like a sidebar with Kelly! - Bill acknowledges that when he has gotten rejected it's because he knows that HE is the problem! - Lisa can't believe Peter was swayed by a candle! All that plus........TWEET OF THE WEEK! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Brendan and Bill join Arden, Anna and Katie to discuss the MOST EXCITING COUPLING ON PARADISE HISTORY! Bloody Pinatas! Tayshia Paul Jones! Ladies Kissing! - Arden is HERE for the Demi, Christian romance! - Bill thinks Dylan's moping is a lady boner killer! - Brendan does his best Mickey Mouse Celebrity impression! - Katie goes deep diving on Christian's Sexploits! - Anna thinks Kristina is auditioning for Real Housewives! All that plus........TWEET OF THE WEEK! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Attorney Ron Kuby and his former law partner famed civil rights lawyer Bill Kunstler once represented John Gotti, who has been named as a member of the so-called Gambino crime family. But Kuby says he never heard any reference to namesake Carlo Gambino who died peacefully in his Long Island home in 1976. Kuby and Kunstler were removed from the Gotti case for their success along with Bruce Cutler is winning acquittals for the "Teflon Don" who was eventually convicted and died in prison in 2002.

Brendan and Bill join Arden, Anna and Katie to discuss Lizard Kissing! Awkward Toasts! Bill and Ted's! - Arden is impressed with Demi's new evil game moves! - Bill thinks that Billy Eichner is doing his Hungry Heart - Brendan wants everyone to just be a HUMAN on this earth and eat and drink and have sex and hang out. - Anna is still roaming around Vegas trying to get into casinos! - Katie had the Billy Eichner on rewind WANT MORE EPISODES??? Become a Patreon Member!! www.patreon.com/wyatr All that plus........TWEET OF THE WEEK! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Kyle and Bill join Arden and Anna to discuss FANTASY SUITES! Market dates! Leg wraps! Edible Crickets! - Arden takes an ambien and sends videos to all of her co-workers! - Kyle takes a minute and sees a man throw a garbage can out of a 5 story window! - Bill bares his soul during WHAT'S YOUR BEEF! - Anna does a staged reading of all of Lauren's dialogue!  All that plus..........TWEET OF THE WEEK! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Brian Gunn is a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. He is a Principal at Powers Pyle Sutter & Verville PC in Washington DC. Brian is someone I’ve admired for a long time. In addition to being a lawyer that has taken on several large cases and initiatives as part of his work in Indian Country, he is low key and always maintains his sense of humor. Brian discusses how his general low key demeanor has positively impacted his clients’ cases. It reminded me of the saying “you can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin it once.” Brian grew up in Omak, Washington. He attended Washington State University. He served on the school’s newspaper and as part of his work, he decided to reach out to Bill Kunstler for an interview. To his surprise, the well known civil rights attorney agreed to speak with Brian for 45 minutes or so. He was surprised at the interest and access Kunstler gave him, and it sparked his interest in the law. I think this is one of the best nuggets of information from this conversation. Brian’s story demonstrates that it’s usually worth making the reach to email someone, approach them at a conference or connect via social media. Nine times out of ten you may hear nothing back, but occasionally you will connect and the encounter can change your path or theirs, and that’s worth it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL7Ct_urpUY After attending the University of Washington School of Law, Brian knew he wanted to end up in DC. So he moved and has been there working on behalf of Indian Country ever since. Brian and I discuss the challenges and effort of being a tribal leader, and his interest in the work of Hunter Thompson. We recorded the conversation on 9/11 and we discussed how individuals  email communications at his law former law firm (located in one of the towers) were published several years ago. They are a surreal read. Brian encourages people to engage tribal leaders and get to know them, and the work they do. He shares how much he has learned through working with tribal leaders, and that when he is looking for advice, they are often to whom he reaches out. I think that’s good advice, and extends beyond tribal leaders, too. To take the conversation full circle, nine times out of ten it may be unfruitful, but you never know what you can accomplish if you do.

Stanley Lewis Cohen is many things to many people. Some from the camp of the status quo brand him a radical, a subversive, a terrorist sympathizer, a communist, an Islamist. Basically any handle that portrays Stanley as against the state. To all of which, the man proudly says that is his duty as a defense attorney. Despite the power of the system and corporate media being on that side of the debate, they have been fighting a losing battle for decades. From his long term associations with Bill Kunstler, Lynne Stewart and Ramsey Clark (among others) in extremely incendiary defense cases against government, to his outspoken views on the illegal and illegitimate use of the power of the state on the individual, to his street level activism of persons and causes he believes in, Stanley has won far more supporters than enemies in societies around the world. The list of clients is unique to say the least. Weather Underground, May 19 Organization, Mohawk Warrior Society, War Resisters League, Black Bloc, Irish Republican Army, The Shining Path, Al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Shabaab, the Portland Seven, Anonymous, Occupy Wall Street and others, to the nobodies represented during his service with Bronx Legal Aid. The important factor is the politics of the cause, the righteousness of the fight. Stanley joins us to discuss his career, his beliefs and his future. To discuss his troubles with the Mulroney government over the Oka standoff. To discuss how the fight for individual freedom never ends against the state. To discuss how present day pledges and promises are nothing but an illusion to continue the dominance of the powers that be. Join us for a powerful show with Stanley Cohen. Listen, join the chat room, call in and pose a question. https://twitter.com/StanleyCohenLaw http://istanleycohen.org  

One woman's passion to protect basic human rights. Interview with Barbara Handschu, Family Lawyer Click the play button, wait a few seconds and start listening to this Podcast. My guest today is New York family lawyer Barbara Handschu, who I have invited to speak with me today not only because of the fact that she has had an outstanding family law career and has contributed greatly to the practice of family law, but also because Barbara has been an activist for change.  We’ll be talking with her as a family lawyer, but also as a criminal lawyer and as an activist. Before we get started, I want to give you just a brief little history about Barbara’s background.  She has been very active in both the national and state bar associations.  She was the first female national president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, a prestigious family law group with about 1,700 lawyers across the US, and she’s one of the most respected family lawyers.  In researching who to interview next Barbara’s name has come up a number of times, and I’m glad to have finally grabbed a hold of her. To start at the beginning, Barbara, what got you interested and how did you get into the practice of law? Well, anyone who knows me knows that if you say I can’t do something, that’s going to be the incentive enough for me to do it.  In fact, in 1963 I had just about finished an undergraduate degree in 2½ years at NYU and was getting ready to figure out what I’d do with the rest of my life.  I had a political theory major, which I decided was probably worthless because women weren’t getting college teaching degrees even if they could obtain a PhD.  And then I said, “well, maybe I’ll go to law school” and everyone looked at me and said, “no, you can’t go to law school, there’s not going to be a job for you, you’re going to be taking a guy’s spot.”  I had trouble getting money to attend law school, but thankfully the University of Michigan gave me money and I was able to go.  So I went basically because I was told I wasn’t supposed to go. That was enough of an incentive? That was the absolute incentive, and I arrived in Michigan to discover that I couldn’t live in the law quadrangle where all the law students lived because I was a female and we were six women out of almost 350 in my class. Wow. So there was one of us in each and every section, and needless to say that one woman would always get called on for big questions like the rape case in criminal law. I learned those lessons very quickly, but I adored the law.  To me it was just fascinating to think about any issue from both sides and to be able to come up with arguments for them and just grapple with the concepts.  So I decided being a lawyer was good now.  Of course, back in those days (and I finished law school in 1966), I was told when I said I want to be a trial lawyer, “No.  You’re too little, and besides women are only going to be able to do corporate law or estates.”  And I said that’s not fun.  I don’t want to be a lawyer if I can’t help people, if I can’t make a difference in this world.  And if you think back to the 1960s they were incredibly exciting times.  It was the beginning of the second wave of feminism, and the anti-war movement actually started at the University of Michigan with the first sit-in. Concepts of racial equality were being hard-fought all over the country and to me these were important issues, so I decided I was going to be a people’s lawyer as quickly as I could.  That’s what compelled me into the practice of law and what made me think about being a lawyer. So while you were challenged by people saying that you wouldn’t get to be a lawyer- A trial lawyer. A trial lawyer.  You probably would have been in the background.  Female lawyers at that time would have been doing the paperwork and the research. Women were not even being hired on that level.  Basically, women were being hired by corporations or to do estate work or government jobs.  I mean, there was very little out-front work for women in those days. It sounds like they weren’t really acting as lawyers, just more as administrators who had a legal background. Yes. You’ve come a long way. In fact, for a long time I hid the fact that I knew how to type because I was so afraid somebody was going to ask me to be a secretary. I don’t think that would have suited you too well.  Nowadays everybody types. Now it helps on the computer. Absolutely, we’re all our own secretaries now.  So when did you get into your own practice or were able to go to trial?  How did that happen? In the late 1960s I was in my own practice.  I had worked for a judge before.  I worked writing some law books even before that because I had student loans to pay off and I had to find jobs.  At the same time I was still staying politically active, so by the late 1960s I had my own practice in New York City.  That was the exciting time. So your first goal was to obviously become a lawyer, and your second goal was to be in your own practice.  After those two did other goals pop up that you wanted to achieve? I think my main goal throughout was always to be the best lawyer that I could be and to do my best.  That practice, for me, just evolved and evolved.  My original days in private practice were criminal defence because those were the main things going on.  I handled a few divorces, calling all my friends saying how do you do this and that, and suddenly I realized that I was doing more criminal work than I thought. Then came 1971.  I went up to Buffalo for what I thought was going to be a week to handle the Attica Prison cases because they needed legal help.  I was active in the National Lawyer’s Guild and volunteers were needed to handle all the things that were going on at the Attica Prison after the rebellion in September of 1971.  And that one week turned into 35 years or so. Just tell us a little bit about the Attica Prison. What was going on there? What happened? In September of 1971 the prisoners took over the prison with a list of demands, the primary of which was to have then Governor Rockefeller come to the prison and negotiate.  He refused to come and negotiate and after days of the inmates running the prison, it was retaken by the National Guard.  I think it was 39 people were killed.  All the prisoners had horrible retaliations.  They were put in segregation for months.  They were ultimately transferred to prisons all over the state and there were, as I recall, 41 indictments of prisoners for various things.  I ended up working on a case that involved one of the prisoners in a murder of another prisoner during the uprising.  My co-counsel was Bill Kunstler, may he rest in peace. Wow. Suddenly I was working on a murder case.  I was a very inexperienced lawyer at that point.  I had tried one case ever, a very long bomb possession case in New York City, and I had tried that in the fall of 1971, so you can tell how little experience I had. A trial by fire in your case. Well, luckily one with lots of co-counsel, especially since it was Attica.  Attica had a lot of lawyers working on it all over the country.  People came in to do it.  It was just a massive, massive case. Tell us a little bit about your other political activities, not that this is necessarily political in nature, but I think it is to a certain extent because it’s about change.  And I have a sense from what I know about you that what is at your core is a deep feeling of wanting to protect individual rights no matter who the person is. Thank you.  That’s probably true, and Attica was really about change.  The whole uprising had a number of demands, many of which were just for humane treatment.  And as recently as sometime this week as I was looking at our law journal in the City of New York, and I saw that there was a new case filed because people were being kept in segregation at a prison for months on end, and it was those kinds of conditions that led to Attica and the uprising.  They just wanted proper religious time to observe religious observances, if they were non-traditional to not be held in segregation without hearings, things of that nature.  That was what brought that about.  But over the years, in terms of my activism, non-matrimonial law, there’s a lawsuit in New York that’s called Handschu against Bureau of Special Services.  It’s a class action against the New York City Police Department, and it is the longest running federal case in the district court.  I have quite an honour.  It’s 42 years old and I also have the honor of having six lawyers who have represented me and our class for that number of years, and who’ve all done it pro bono. I don’t think many people could claim that they love their lawyers.  One day my lawyers invited me to come to court and I said, “oh, I’ll come to court, sure.”  And then they asked the judge’s permission for me to sit at counsel table and the judge looked up and, the judge has had this case for probably 20 and more years.  He looked up and he said, “Ms. Handschu, I feel I know you well. Please, join us at table.” So is there any chance of a conclusion to this case or is it going to go on for perpetuity? This case is going to go on forever and ever.  It’s a very important case that has to do with whether or not the police department can single individuals out and conduct surveillance upon those individuals.  And we had filed this case way back and my lawyers thought it would be a joke to put me as the first name plaintiff.  And some people, like Abbey Hoffman, Jerry Reuben, they were upset that I got my name there first.  But basically, we did it because we felt there were individuals from various groups who were being singled out and otherwise lawful activities were becoming the focus of surveillance, and this surveillance should not be happening.  So over the years what has evolved is something that’s called the Handschu Authority. That is, a commission in effect that the police department has to go to if they’re going to conduct surveillance.  Now after 9/11, the Handschu Authority was ordered down due to a claim that there was national security at stake. I was actually one of the plaintiffs who objected to any changes in what was originally the agreement that formed the Handschu Authority.  One of the things that has come up in recent years has been New York City’s fine on Muslim groups, including groups outside New York City, sending New York City police to spy on services at mosques in the State of New Jersey for instance.  That’s led to some more litigation under the Handschu case.  There’s some discovery going on right now. So do you ever get people criticizing you for helping what could potentially be terrorist groups?  Has that ever come up? I don’t think so.  In fact, I think the thing that’s come up is that there’ve been so little restraints at this point in terms of the surveillance that people are very frustrated.  It’s hard to imagine that the money from New York City is being spent on looking at otherwise lawful activities of Muslims in the State of New Jersey or Connecticut.  That’s where the New York City Police were looking.  I have not had any kinds of questions about whether this is deterring doing something that would not protect us against terrorism. Would you like to hear about more political activism that I’m very proud of? Sure.  Yes, please, if you want to continue on go ahead. When I was up in Buffalo the County of Niagara, which is just north of Buffalo and Erie County, passed an ordinance that would have required women to look at pictures of dead foetuses before they could have an abortion.  I looked at this, went out to the Niagara County legislature, and said to them, “You know, you can’t do this. This is something for the state to regulate. You’re not allowed to do this, and if you do this I’m going to sue you, and if I win I’m giving my money to causes that help women’s rights and gay rights. So whatever you pay me, you’re going to really be supporting causes you probably don’t believe in.”  Well they didn’t believe me and I ended up filing a case called Susan B. and this is back in the late 1970s when there had been one other similar ordinance in Akron, Ohio. Well, the case ended up going up to the United States Supreme Court on papers.  It was never argued.  And we won all the way through.  We won on an easy one, which is called a state pre-emption that the state is the only one that can take care of medical issues.  But nonetheless it was one of my favourite cases.  I really felt it made a difference; it protected New York State and it felt really like the right thing to do. Do you think that case would prevent any other state or any other jurisdiction from implementing such craziness? From individual ordinances if there is a health authority that controls the state, yes.  The underlying abortion issue and the woman’s right to choose, was not litigated; we had just a very easy win.  Nowadays states are trying to impose a number of limitations on reproductive freedoms in the United States and they’ve been encroaching on people’s rights.  These encroachments can be anything from a restriction for how much time has to pass before an abortion can be performed or a claim that the abortion provider or the medical provider has to have certain facilities that just aren’t plausible in poorer states.  So there have been lots of encroachments happening, but at least I felt I had contributed to putting off an onslaught on these issues, and now perhaps who knows, maybe the US Supreme Court will be a little bit more inclined to protect a woman’s right to reproductive freedoms. Do you think there’s the same energy, for change and to keep pushing back, that there was in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s? I don’t think so in a variety of ways.  I think some of the issues were so concrete in the ‘60s and ‘70s: a war in Vietnam that was to so many of us very wrong,  the oppression of third world people, the oppression of women and same-sex people, these were just some of the issues that were at the forefront.  They were so easy to define.  I mean, every time I’ve discussed reproductive freedoms, with groups of younger women primarily, they look at me like I’m crazy.  They don’t understand what an illegal abortion used to be.  They don’t understand that women were dying of self-inflicted wounds or going to backroom butchers because they were poor and couldn’t afford to go to England or to Puerto Rico at that point. Or Canada. Or Canada, yeah.  I mean, that’s what has changed, and I think, I hope we don’t have to live in a day where we have to re-teach some of these lessons. Right. Are there any other political activities or success? Well, I got to do several exciting trips over the years, from the ‘70s on.  I went to Cuba several times, primarily as guest of the government.  I went to Nicaragua right after the Sandinistas took over the country.  I had to do with a human rights investigation covertly in Guatemala, and we issued a report to the United Nation on human rights violations and issues affecting trade unionists who were getting killed. Were any of these going on while you were practicing law; how did you manage to juggle this? I managed to juggle a lot of different things, and they all were going on while I practiced law, but one of the advantages of basically being in my own practice was that I had the ability to define my own time.  So if a wonderful opportunity like a National Lawyers Guild trip to Nicaragua presented itself I could just go.  I could take a week off and not have to worry, just making sure to let judges and clients know that I was unavailable.  I was very lucky that way. So is this how you managed to keep your sanity?  My feeling is that you don’t like focusing on just one thing at a time, that you like to have your eyes and ears open for what’s out there. That’s an accurate assessment and, in fact, I think it’s typical of my practice years, my heavy practice years when I loved having a variety of cases with a variety of people. And what kind of cases most inspired you?  What kind person would be your favourite client? I’ve had a bunch of favourites, but I think probably the type of case that has always most inspired me has been a custody case.  To me, children are not fungible; they’re irreplaceable.  A child’s right to good access to parents, assuming they’re not at risk, is an important factor.  I’ve always represented a parent (I’ve not been a child’s lawyer, except once for a comatose teenager whose parents wanted to pull the feeding plug), and as a parents’ lawyer custody cases have always excited me the most and that’s where I think most of my energy has gone.  It’s certainly my energy in terms of many, many years of working with the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers as well as all of the other organizations that have always been towards the protection of children. Can you tell us a little bit more about your accomplishments regarding the American Academy? I’d love to.  I think I had a hand in virtually every children’s issue that the Academy has commented on, going back to things like The Voices of Children, which was a pamphlet we were giving out which pointed out the problems that children face and some of the practical things that can be done.  There was also putting together a video called “Listen to Children,” which consisted of children’s own stories about divorce.  Every one of those children had a particular story, and there wasn’t a script for them to read from.  It was filmed in Texas and when I went down to meet them I was just so impressed with these kids, including the one that said because his father lives somewhere else that his father didn’t love him, and he felt so bad.  You can’t listen to kids without feeling that. You’re touched by it. Oh absolutely.  I was also instrumental in the Academy’s model relocation act, which took us about two years to put together, parts of which have been enacted by various states.  I guess the thing that I’m probably the proudest of was the Academy’s parenting plan.  It was the cornerstone of my presidency year and it was a model act that had various provisions for parenting plans.  It was computer-friendly, and it was designed for lawyers, judges, and parents to use.  It was designed to provoke discussions, to lead to agreements, and one of the things that it did, which was unusual for early parenting plans, is that we designated age access appropriate parenting time.  So for instance, with an infant, we recommended that it be frequent access, and then left blanks for people to be able to fill in what that frequency should be. But up until then, there really had not been many plans that suggested that very young children need frequent but probably very limited access to a parent with whom they are not living full time. As for other things that I did for the Academy, I worked very hard on the standards for lawyers representing children and worked hard on what was, I think, our first brief filed with the United States Supreme Court.  It was in the Truxle case and it was a funny story because we discovered that when we had agreed as an executive committee to file the brief, I looked up and said (and I had worked on portions of the brief in terms of writing it), “Who’s going to sign it?  Is anybody other than me eligible?”  I was not a president; I think I was a vice president at that time.  And everybody looked around and said, “Barbara, you’re it.”  Because of my old activist work I had been admitted to the Supreme Court.  So I got to sign our Amica’s brief and I actually took a phrase out of it, so I was very proud of that. Barbara, I’ve talked to many family lawyers, and when I ask them about retiring, they kind of glaze over and they… I laugh. They don’t know what I’m talking about.  It doesn’t seem to be a word they understand.  So I don’t see retiring being in the near future for you.  What do you see for yourself in the next five, ten years? Well, I’ve had some changes in my life.  I closed my Buffalo office about two years ago.  I’m special counsel at a New York City matrimonial office, which is a wonderful thing to be because it means I can define my own time. Well, I’ve never seen special counsel before. I’ve seen counsel, but I think you must be super special, for them to call you special counsel. I’d love to think that, but special counsel and counsel are pretty much the same.  It means you have some kind of a senior status.  Most recently I was hired as an expert witness on a New York prenuptial agreement to testify in a Connecticut case, and I really liked that kind of work because there it’s intellectual work of the highest level in terms of grappling with ideas, coming up with a theory, looking at cases.  And all you have to do is go into court and tell a judge about your law.  No client calls first thing in the morning after a long weekend complaining.  It’s totally delightful. So is that where you see you’ll be placing your attention in the next year? I think I’ll probably continue to write.  I currently write for the National Law Journal on a matrimonial column.  I probably will be doing a little bit of teaching as well.  I’ve put the word out that I would do some teaching on trial techniques, which I had done for a very long time, about 22 years.  That I’d do some teaching for those who are representing battered spouses because there are newer lawyers there who probably would appreciate some help.  So I think in terms of the professional, that’s probably what I’m going to do. But I do hope that I can balance it out with having fun, because I’m absolutely convinced that what keeps people healthy is the ability to feel good, laugh at themselves, and have a life that feels good to you, that you look forward to waking up in the morning. Well, it seems like you’ve always been enthusiastic about something, whether it’s your family law practice, your criminal law practices, or simply your outside interests.  Why is it that you view life as being a thrill?  It appears to me that whenever you’ve faced challenges you took them on as opportunities; instead of being pushed down by them they added to your life.  Is there anything in particular about you or your background that helped in shaping this view of life? Well, I think I’m the kind of person where the glass is always half full, and I’m always looking for things that make me happy and keep the days feeling good.  For instance, I spend a lot of time doing exercise.  I adore Pilates; I keep thinking maybe I’ll get certified one of these days and become a Pilates instructor.  I think that would be exciting, but I’ll probably just keep doing Pilates for myself.  I’ve been going back to Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is, which is one of my favorite places, and this year I got fare for two football games in the big house.  I’m a big football fan.  I’m going to see Michigan play basketball in Brooklyn on Saturday at the University of Michigan.  So I do a lot of things like that and I spend a lot of time going to movies.  I adore them.  I watch everything I can.  Those kinds of things make me happy and I think that really enriches my life; they are probably just as important as other things. It sounds like you’ve figured out the right combination. I hope so.  I’ve been working on it.  This is a work in progress. ____________________________________________________________________________________________ Barbara Handschu has been pivotal in bringing family law to where it is today, and was the first female national president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. On top of that, she has also been a very outspoken activist and voice for change.

This edition of the podcast is part of the Adopt a Writer project in which various TV websites have the opportunity to interview members of the Writers Guild and get their perspective on their work...