D  e  s  e  r  t     E  x  p  o  s  u  r  e  July 2005

Brewing Up Ideas

Argumentative lawyers, intrusive invasions of privacy and other redundancies.

Last month my wife and I spent the weekend in Silver City for the Blues Fest. We had a great time, although the rain gods did insist on performing at inconvenient times. We visited a new brew pub and drank some great microbrews, ate good pizza, and listened to a good band. So why am I telling you this? Well, while sitting on the brew pub's patio, a perceptive woman told me I am the most argumentative person she has ever talked to. A high compliment for a lawyer, don't you think?

Somehow, the people at our table on the patio had started talking about being ID'd when buying alcohol. I was laughing about when my wife and I had gone to the grocery store that morning to buy some wine for our hosts. The checkout clerk asked me for some ID. Given that I am 55 years old and, if you look at my photo, you can see that my hair is completely white, it looks like the store "cards" everyone. But I had left my wallet in my pick-up, so I told the clerk that my wife would buy the wine for me. The clerk said she wished I hadn't told her that, because she is not allowed to sell alcohol to anyone she knows is buying for someone else who does not have ID. So I stepped away and my wife bought the wine.

I jokingly told my new friends at the brew pub patio that it would be mighty convenient if "they" would just put barcodes on our bodies so I would not have to worry about forgetting my ID—I'd have it on me all the time. This seemed to upset the woman I mentioned in the first paragraph of this column. She is appalled at the worsening loss of personal freedoms and privacy in our society. Being the obnoxious person that I am, this just encouraged me to begin advocating that, instead of just barcodes, the government should implant microchips under our skin, with detailed information about each of us. Shortly thereafter, she made the observation about me being very argumentative.

If you have not figured it out yet, I am having a hard time coming up with a subject to write about this month. When "The People's Law" column started, I had expected that most of the topics would be from suggestions made by readers. Few suggestions came in. Was it that no one was reading the column? No, it couldn't be that! When I was in Silver, an amazing number of people told me they know of my column in Desert Exposure. (Okay, two people said they had read it.)

So, please, send me suggestions for subjects suitable for future "The People's Law" columns. (Contact me at tito@zianet.com, 524-4540, 800-610-0555, or PO Box 1628, Las Cruces, NM 88004.) I cannot give specific legal advice in the columns, but I would be pleased to go on too long about interesting legal issues. Let me put it this way: Unless I get some good suggestions, I may have to write about the Michael Jackson trial verdict next month.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July.

Robert (Tito) Meyer practices law in Las Cruces, representing people who have been injured in accidents and the families of people who have been killed in accidents. Contact him at tito@zianet.com, telephone
(505) 524-4540, (800) 610-0555, or PO Box 1628, Las Cruces, NM 88004. This column is not intended to provide legal advice to any specific person, or with respect to any particular problems or situations. To find a lawyer, call the State Bar of New Mexico referral service, (800) 876-6227.

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