American Violet with Basketball on a Warm Night

We saw "American Violet" Monday night at Bear Tooth. I'd just like to call people's attention to the movie - it's about how the district attorney in the Texas town of Melody got federal money by raiding poor black neighborhoods and arresting masses of people and getting them to plea bargain for a lower sentence, even though in many cases they had no evidence at all. Without their own attorneys, they depended on the public defenders who basically told them they were better off making the deal. It turns out that for every conviction (and the plea bargains were counted) the county got anti-drug money from the feds. The DA had considerable power over the justice system. So in the movie the ACLU sends a couple of lawyers who team up with a local lawyer to defend one of the victims of a raid. It was a powerful film and I was surprised the ACLU didn't have a representative there to solicit memberships.




While J was talking to friends, DZ and I went across the street to Play it Again Sports and found him a used basketball for $6.










We walked home from the movie on a very delightful evening. It was almost 9 pm and the temperature was 78˚F (25.5C).

When we got home, DZ rode over to play with his new basketball at Wendler.


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