Baseball dopes should not vote.

This is absolutely disturbing. Who would actually vote for Kerry because they saw him at a baseball game? How would attendance at a baseball game indicate that Kerry will do a better job as Commander in Chief? Anyone who is currently undecided and is swayed by the presence or absence of Kerry at a damn game should stay away from the polls because they are too dumb to participate in deliberative democracy.

UPDATE: Kieran Healy also finds problems with Post's post. He is far more analytical, however.

Modern art I don't hate

In the wake of my rant about Jeff Koons, I thought I would highlight some modern artists that I do appreciate.

Like Curtis, I enjoy Calder's mobiles. Lucien Freud is a modern painter whose work I enjoy.

While I'm not excited about any of this year's Turner Prize nominees (although this is somewhat pleasing to the eye). I do love the pottery of Grayson Perry, last year's winner.

Alas for the pokey reopening schedule of the MOMA. I had anticipated seeing the collection (I never went out to Queens last summer) and the new building. However, flyout week has been scheduled inconveniently and I'll have to make do with the Guggenheim.

UPDATE: This young woman has strong opinions about some modern artists as well.

What the . . ?

Have these Japanese girls just seen Fight Club too many times or what?

Show you care: buy lingerie.

Professor Ann Althouse directed me to this page of celebrity designed corsets. They are being auctioned off to benefit RAINN, a charity closely associated with Tori Amos. Amos has been tireless in her efforts to call attention to the problem of sexual assault. If any of the items strikes your fancy, use some of that mad summer associate pay you have coming (2Ls) or have accumulated (3Ls) and support the cause.

I think most of them are rather unsexy, but perhaps I underestimate the prevalence of bee fetishists.

Journal hypo

If you were a printer and had been sent a job two weeks ago, how long would you wait before telling us that the job is on hold because the fonts weren't embedded properly?

Two weeks is not an acceptable answer.

Jeff Koons, Thieving Hack

Today in Copyright we discussed parody. In each of the three cases we discussed, the defendant made a claim of fair use. I generally agreed with the courts in each case, but was flabbergasted when some of my classmates leaped to the defense of Jeff Koons, a modern sculptor who used a copyrighted photograph of two people holding some puppies as the basis for his work "String of Puppies." The case is here, but for those of you at home, here's the Jeff Koons method to obtain artistic success and profit:

1. Decide consumer culture is banal and a negative influence on society.
2. Find an example of consumer culture (a postcard sold in a shop depicting a couple holding their eight German Shepherd puppies) and buy it.
3. Tear the copyright symbol off the card and mail it to your crack squad of Italian artisans. Instruct them to render the image from the photo in three dimensional format.
4. Monitor the progress of the artisans in creating four polychromed wood sculptures. Repeatedly correct them as to your artistic vision and instruct them to render the positions of the figures, level of detail, and expressions on the subjects' faces "just like photo!"
5. Import Italian sculptures to New York and display one in a gallery, claiming that it parodies the banality of our culture.
6. When sued by the copyright holder for infringing on his art by making an exact reproduction of his expression in another medium and selling copies of it for over $100,000 each, disregard a court order to turn over the remaining copy of the sculpture and ship it to Germany on the sly.

Despite the many questionable elements here, some of my classmates thought this was a permissible parody, despite the fact that Koons was parodying not the specific work (the photo), but society in general, that he could have done so with equal effectiveness without using a preexisting copyrighted image as a basis, that the only transformative element of the parody was to render it in another medium and place it in a museum, and that Koons acted in bad faith at almost every step of the process (a factor which often militates against a finding of "fair" use).

One woman claimed that her perspective had been deeply altered by the confrontation Koons forced with his work. Another student didn't think it should matter that the photo itself could not be recognized as the object of the parody (although the necessity of borrowing recognizable material for a parody is one of the reasons the courts typically give wide latitude in such cases). The mind boggles.

Then again, on the other side of the spectrum, after class one fellow confided that he didn't think 2 Live Crew's parody of Pretty Woman should be considered fair use because 2 Live Crew did not have the well articulated parodic purpose argued in its briefs in mind when they created the song. I thought it was obvious that 2 Live Crew's song could be considered a brutal juxtaposition of the idealistic and romantic Orbison song with the reality of street life and street interactions, but perhaps all these are matters of taste.

"You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks."

For the few of you who have not already seen it, here's a link to the video of The Daily Show's Jon Stewart absolutely trouncing Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson on Crossfire. Here's the transcript. One of the reasons I don't watch television news is because too much of the programming consists of shows where people try to shout their talking points at each other. Jon Stewart is my new hero.

Incidentally, last night I had someone unknowingly quote one of my own blog posts back to me. Hee.

UPDATE: Avigael was not impressed by Stewart. While he may very well be pedantic and unfunny on The Daily Show (I wouldn't know, lacking cable), I still think his hijack of Crossfire was awesome. The reason?

I hate talking heads with the fury of a thousand alien suns. I think they are a negative influence on the public discourse and that they do, if they call themselves journalists, generally fail to meet their professional responsibilities. Also, they make my head hurt with the yelling. Anyone who calls out these guys and demands that they stop trying to outshout one another and actually make good on their promise of substantive debate is okay in my book.

Give me books.

Gabe at A Handful of Sand highlights an aspect of reading that many of us encounter: the frequent realization that one is utterly ignorant of the history or background of an entire field of human knowledge or history. The historical novels I love do this most often; Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy left me craving to know more about both twentieth century India and its long history. Watership Down led me to read more about rabbits. The lush narrative at the beginning of Middlesex revealed my ignorance of modern Turkish history (Smyrna burned?). This can lead to two outcomes:

-Lazy acceptance of whatever potentially dubious factoids and accounts of the historical experience or state of technology the book provides. Alternatively, failure to believe in some of the author's more unusual devices (Van Eck phreaking is real? I had no idea).
-Ransacking of library to find something to slake your thirst for something more substantive.

I tend toward the former, but only because I have limited time to sort through the field to separate the trash history and junk scholarship from the good stuff. I am in the market for a few good single volume histories at this time. An example of what I am looking for is The Fatal Shore, a book I picked up when I realized that no class I had ever taken mentioned the settling of Australia and its neighbors by the British.

Can anyone recommend a good history of India (20th c. or pre-colonial), 20th c. South America, the medieval Arab empire, or post-colonial Africa? Giant tomes are okay, but ideally I want something they could assign in a college survey course but which is not too dry.

Short movie reviews

Now that I have a Netflix subscription, I have been watching more DVDs than is strictly healthy. My impressions on some recent rentals:

Bubba Ho-Tep: a clever idea (Elvis traded places with an impersonator and then lost his chance to switch back) ultimately flops due to soggy plotting and a loss of sprightliness. So a soul-sucking mummy was accidentally dumped in the creek near a nursing home and it has been preying on the patients? Okay. But why does the mummy wear a cowboy outfit? Too many voiceovers. If you do see it, the subtitled hieroglyphics are the funniest part of the whole thing.

The Devil's Backbone: it does a good job of creating suspense. I was genuinely surprised to find out who killed Santi and suitably creeped out by the ghost's bloated visage and trickling fog of protoplasmic blood. The shots of the countryside also evoked the isolation of the setting well. It wasn't great, but it's an accessible and spooky foreign film.

Chinatown: I normally try to avoid supporting Roman Polanski, but this film predates his career as a rapist and seducer of young girls, and thus I made an exception. A youngish Jack Nicholson carries himself well as a P.I. who stumbles into a mystery involving water rights, incest, adultery, and murder. I felt strangely detached, though, until the end, when John Huston envelopes a screaming girl like a spider and drags her away while a distracted crowd gawks at the final victim. I still shudder thinking about it. A fine film.

Next up: Adaptation and Bottle Rocket.

The perils of blogging non-anonymously

My judge found my blog. I guess all those hits from uscourts.gov weren't just from my friends who are clerking right now. Someone at my summer firm has been reading, too. Hi, everyone!

Vote or die? I'd rather die.

My former roommate Kathy, currently devoting her energies to the ousting of our current President, presents this inquiry:

Here at our campaign, we're trying to decide why there would be Undecided voters left in this country right now. I said that certain groups that are completely left out of the major parties, such as Libertarians, Classical Conservatives, Log Cabin Republicans, might still be Undecided. So, as a Libertarian, who are you voting for: Bush, Kerry, the Libertarian candidate, none, or decline to state?

I call myself a "small-l libertarian," although I did vote for the Libertarian candidate, Harry Browne, in the 2000 election. I did briefly volunteer for the Bush 2000 campaign in New Hampshire, but that was more out of lack of other interesting options (I was on a school program in which we had to volunteer for someone in the NH primary, and I had no strong allegiance to any of the candidates at that time). In this election, though, I will not be voting at all. My reasons:

I am currently registered to vote in Massachusetts. I could have maintained my registration in Texas, but didn't bother. Those are perhaps the two safest states in this election. My vote would make no difference. I don't think the popular vote is a more valid mechanism than the electoral college and thus feel no impulse to affect the popular vote tally.

My normal reaction to this situation would be to vote Libertarian. It would help them get ballot access and (teehee) federal funds, and I am not a huge fan of the two party system. However, the LP candidate, Badnarik, is a loon. I can't cast a vote for a whack-job. I have nothing in common with the Greens. There is nothing for me to vote for.

I hope that is a sufficient explanation, Kathy. I wish you luck, though, because if your guy wins we get gridlock, and gridlock is good.

Counterconspiracy

I continue to be underwhelmed by Jim Lindgren's posts on the Volokh Conspiracy, and it appears that I am not alone. However, some may be under the impression that Lindgren is filling the J--- L--- slot temporarily. You are deceived! Unlike the dubious Dauber or the crummy Cramer, Lindgren is a permanent coblogger, not a guest blogger.

May I suggest http://volokh.com/?exclude=jim ?

Braaaains

I think this would be the only possible way for me to check my email more frequently than I do already. (Via GeekPress) It would also solve the pesky problem of finding the remote.

Modest proposal II

Now that Crescat has comments, maybe they should hop on another bandwagon: CafePress. I proposed this weekend that they get some customized underwear, but Will thinks I am the only one who would buy it.

Another frivolous post that does not address "the Iraqi human meat grinder"

Brock Sides reminds me of the Book of Ratings, a spinoff from the now-defunct Brunching Shuttlecocks website.

Via Stay of Execution: Outer Life has a series of posts on books he should have liked but didn't. I, too, suffered through the first hundred or so pages of the Gormenghast books and made an abortive attempt to read Gravity's Rainbow. Geoffrey claims I should start again with The Crying of Lot 49, but I'm not sure if it's worth the bother. Other books I should have liked but didn't: Catch-22, Infinite Jest, The Satanic Verses, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Thomas Covenant series.

Yesterday I was quite taken with this profile of Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials series for children. The article includes a reference to the Tom Stoppard-scripted film adaptation that's in the works; I was concerned that it had been scrapped after an extended stay in development hell. It also reveals that Pullman is writing a fourth book in the series. My feelings are mixed; the ending of The Amber Spyglass is so deliciously bittersweet that following Lyra into adulthood could only be anticlimatic. I shall, however, trust in Pullman to do well by her.

I was speculating with a friend on what rating the MPAA would give to the movies based on this series. The films couldn't appeal to a sufficiently large target audience to make back the budget unless they were rated PG, I'd say, but the themes in the films are very mature and there are definitely scenes that would frighten small children. I'd like to think that Stoppard's script won't water things down too much, but Hollywood is not concerned about maintaining the series's fidelity to its principles. We shall see.

Get it while you can

This is the last day of Geoffrey's guest blog stint, so if you want him to pontificate on something specific, interrogate him on the grad student experience, or whatever else you can think up, make a suggestion. Last I heard, he was at odds for a post topic.

Crescat has been desecrated.

So. Unmotivated. A letter came in the mail from a district judge. Even though it doesn't matter any more, it still feels like someone running up and kicking me in the shins to be summarily rejected.

The road to hell

I fully intended to go into the office today, do my Wills and Trusts reading, potter around with Journal stuff, do tomorrow's Copyright reading, and go out for a taco. It all fell apart, though, when I realized that I forgot the power cord for my laptop. That meant I had to walk home after class and get it, which meant I might as well cook lunch. I had finally procured some Mexican chorizo the other day and had been craving it. However, I forgot tortillas.

Still, it should have been easy: go home, run down to crappy local grocery for tortillas, make delicious chorizo and egg tacos for lunch, read Wills and Trusts, and then head back to campus for class and to get my Copyright book to read tonight.

But then the evil of Boston reared its head; there are almost no Mexican people here, so I had to go to three different stores to find tortillas. It rained. The reading for Wills and Trusts was 160 pages long, plus supplements. I may go to class. Maybe.

Funny because it's true

My philosophical acceptance of contextual mediocrity in law school is given a light hearted twist with this shirt from LawSchoolStuff.com. (Via email and Energy Spatula).

A modest proposal

Can we just draft Brian Leiter? He is so tiresome.

Birthday, party

Today is Geoffrey's birthday. Unfortunately it was marked by a big lot of nothing. However, his cousin is coming to visit so we will have a houseguest for the next few days. Hurrah for sofa beds.

Tonight was the reception for my summer firm. I went and got mistaken for an associate several times by lawyers from the other office. Is this good (I look professional) or bad (I look old)?

You're all just begging to face the moose...

As today is my birthday, I just went and pre-ordered myself a little present: Invader Zim DVD volume 3.

Invader Zim was an all-too-short-lived cartoon on Nickelodeon. It was created by comic book writer/artist Jhonen Vasquez. I originally learned of the show after it had already been cancelled, and for a couple of years had to subsist on poor-quality KaZaa downloads, which nevertheless convinced me that this was one of the greatest children's shows ever created. It was strange and funny, and subversive in a way that children's programming tends to shy away from (even Sesame Street has gone milquetoast, but that's another rant). In fact, to be perfectly honest, it was a bit dark, considering the intended demographic. The characters are fantastic - Gir is quite possibly the single best cartoon character of the last decade or so, and the interaction between Dib and Zim drives the series through even the most ridiculous of plots. When I bought the first two DVDs, I learned what I had been missing. Invader Zim is, visually, amazing. Furthermore, the care that went into created the music and sound effects for the series pays off in a big way.

Unfortunately, Nickelodeon canned the series, despite the huge and active fan base. Apparently, they were unwilling to spend time and money on a 'cult' show that wouldn't do as well with the young'uns as Spongebob. This, I think, was a huge mistake. Think of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Ren and Stimpy. These were children's cartoons that had a big college following. Hell, even Spongebob does pretty well among the college set. I think that if Nickelodeon had played it a little smarter, perhaps showing it later at night, gotten the word out, they could have had a solid fan base. Alas, it was not to be.

I'm not even going to try to describe the show in depth. It has to be seen to be appreciated. I'm not going to advocate downloading it from the internet, but if you do, start with episode 1: The Nightmare Begins. After that, they can be watched in pretty much any order. If you are a fan, I recommend investing in the DVD's, as they are pretty cheap, unless you are a megafan, in which case there is a super special boxed set coming out later.

New bookstore

Some have recently bemoaned the decreasing number of bookstores in Harvard Square. While it's not as convenient to the Yard, a new bookstore just opened in Porter Square. They don't have all their stock yet, but dogs are allowed and the space is bright and airy (unlike the dismal Habitrail of the Coop's second floor). I would also like to call attention to Pandemonium Books on the second floor of The Garage. They have a fine selection of SF and fantasy (both new and used) and a knowledgable staff.

Random roundup III

Thanks to Geoffrey for holding down the fort this weekend. Some links I found this morning:

Joanne Jacobs fondly remembers the Childhood of Famous Americans children's book series. My friend Chris was also a fan of these books, but I was a ValueTales reader. Without them, my lifelong obsession with Marie Curie would never have been. (I visited her house in Warsaw.) Sudeep Agarwala recently made a remark that could be seen as disparaging of Mrs. Curie. I hope it was not meant so!

A discussion on the phenomenon of drinking Coke for breakfast.

Phoebe doubts the gender of my classmate Waddling Thunder. Men can cook. Will Baude, for example, makes a mean chicken paprikash.

This is pretty funny.

My eyes, part deux

There's a guy in the front row of my class who has one of the most unpleasant publicly visible desktop background images I've ever seen. Is there a polite way to comment on such a thing?

Tales from Bakersfield

I mentioned in my Jack Chick post that I had a story I might post. Due to popular demand (ok, one person, but I am sure she counts as part of the populus), I will relate it here.

It was the summer of 1999; I had just finished my first year of undergrad and had returned to Bakersfield with the aim of earning some money while I lived rent-free with my parents. Alas, summer jobs were hard to come by, and I applied to numerous temp agencies. One of these, I learned to my chagrin, specialized not in clerical but in 'light industrial,' to which I am not well-suited (there is another story about that). But as things were looking grim on the job front, I went ahead and signed up.

In order to be eligible for any of the assignments that this firm would send me on, I had to spend a Saturday taking a workers' safety class. The class consisted mainly of watching educational safety films - think "Hi, I'm Troy McClure, you may remember me from such films as What's That Smell? - Death and HAZMAT - Your Road to Safety." After that the two instructors would tell us stories about the kind of things that could happen to you if you disregarded the safety instructions, most of which seemed to involve having extremities blown off. All sorts of extremities.

This being a long class, there were breaks, during which most of us just sort of sat there. One member of the class started talking with one of the teachers about the teacher's tattoos, which somehow got the teacher on to the subject of how he was saved. It went something like this:

The teacher (let's call him Frank) used to be a hard-living kind of guy. Motorcycle gangs, drugs, the whole bit. Then one day, he woke up after using drugs and found himself paralyzed, half-dead. He saw a demon come and start pulling his soul out of his body, through the top of the head. When the soul was about 2/3 of the way out of his body, he cried out to Jesus, and instantly four angels appeared, carrying swords which had little lightning bolts going up and down their blades. They chased off the demon, and Frank never looked back. One day, while Frank was over at a Christian friend's house watching a movie, he saw a demon in the movie - the exact same demon who had tried to pull his soul out of his body. Frank, greatly afraid, rebuked the demon in the name of Jesus. The movie? Kull the Conqueror.

Now, I normally try to keep an open mind as to the religious experiences of others, since I understand that from the atheist's point of view we all look pretty equally silly. But this was just too much. Kull the Conqueror. Kull the Conqueror. I was convinced the man was a nutcase. What I didn't realize was that I was probably the only one in the room who thought so.

Back to the story: Frank, sorely frightened by the apparition of his personal demon nemesis in a Hollywood movie, asks God "Why was that demon in that movie?" God answers "It is Satan's way of using Hollywood to prepare people for the reign of demons." And this was where things got wierd. For it was here that Frank segued into his theories on the End Times, and his conspiracy theories about the One World Government.

It would happen something like this: Soon, the millenium would happen (this was 1999, remember), and computers around the world would all fail, plunging us into chaos. He persisted in referring to this event as "KY2000." After that, people would not be able to get food, so there would be violence between those who had hoarded supplies and those who had not. This would be the only excuse the One World Government needed to send in 'peacekeeping' forces who would, in effect, conquer the US. Already, there were NATO armies in our national parks, including Russians in Yosemite. I didn't really have the heart to tell him that Russia isn't technically a NATO member state. Lest you think this was a lone loony, I would like to point out that by this time, at least 3/4 of the class (of about 30 or so) was nodding solemnly in agreement, and indeed many of them were offering their own theories or details, which Frank expertly wove in to the overarching narrative. Things I learned:

• The new quarter and the Euro were both being introduced as part of the One World Government. The attraction of these monetary units to the OWG was that they could be tracked by satellite, so that the shadowy Anti-Christ could at any time know exactly how much money you had in your pocket.
• Concentration camps were being built into which all 'patriotic Americans' would be put after the OWG takeover. One complex would be in California, the other in Oklahoma. Where would you go? Check out the fifth digit of your Social Security number. If it is even, you go to OK. If odd, CA.
• 'They' were working on a microchip to be implanted in the hand to act as a sort of credit/debit card, which would be the Mark of the Beast. They had a prototype that was implanted in the left hand, but as that hand has an artery that comes directly from the heart, the blood pressure tended to wreck it, so they were going to go with the right hand.
• FEMA is evil.

Eventually, someone said we should get on with the safety videos, as he had a softball game that evening. During another break, I overheard some snippets of conversation such as: "yeah, it's like the people who say the black helicopters don't exist." On the way back into the classroom, I saw Frank and another guy (let's call him Warren) talking thusly:
Frank: Yeah, people have seen those camps. The barbed wire isn't pointing out, it's pointing in. Those fences are to keep people from getting out.
Warren: A couple of us are going to move out and head up to Red Rock. We figure we'll stand a better chance up in the mountains.
Frank: Don't tell anyone where you're going! 'Cause then, they'll say you're a militia, and they'll send the feds after you.

I apologize if this post seems a little long, but I wanted to give you the full flavor of events. All of the above actually happened, and where I have erred, I have erred on the side of understatement. Keep in mind that this was a more or less random sampling of working class Bakersfield in 1999, and a majority of them seemed to, if not subscribe to the above ideas, at least consider them to be well within the realm of the possible. Now that Clinton is out of office and everyone knows about bin Laden, I don't know what a similar session would have sounded like this summer. Maybe I don't want to know.

Good News

I've come across two news items that make me happy:

1. Librarians tell the feds to bugger off: It's a small step, but I go all warm inside any time someone takes a stand against the paranoid post 9/11 political culture that writes off civil liberties as expendable.

2. APES! - Scientists in the Democratic Republic of Congo may have discovered a new type of ape. They describe it as kind of half gorilla/half chimpanzee and all ferocious lion-killer. Giant killer apes are cool, and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

My natural instinct is to start thinking how cool it would be if the Deming library were to hire one of these new apes, but that's because I read way too damn much Terry Pratchett.

If I turn in a sicko, will I get a reward?

A lot of my friends have trouble understanding one of my personal hobbies, which is reading and appreciating the amazing fundamentalist Christian propaganda of Jack Chick. If you've never seen any of Jack Chick's comic book tracts, then you are in for a real treat (or a brush with horror... whatever).

Jack Chick started drawing and writing these comic book Gospel tracts decades ago. Everyone has probably seen some sort of religious tract at some point in their lives, but these are the high quality models, featuring compelling comic book style drawings and melodramatic storylines. Originally, he was just using them to try to bring people to Jesus, but as time has gone on, he has refined his world view, his analysis of history, and his take on Biblical prophecy. A good example of the latter is 'The Last Generation,' which makes the Left Behind series look downright wimpy (and which is the only one of these tracts which I demand each of you take the time to read). A more sedate version of the end times can be found in 'The Beast.' For his take on the worst tragedy of the 20th century, read 'Holocaust.'

If you have read the above tracts, or really almost any of his little masterpieces, then you will recognize the special place the Catholic Church has in the Jack Chick cosmos. This may explain in part my enthusiasm for the man and his work, since I am a lifelong Catholic. Over the years, Jack Chick has, through his tracts and his other publications, demonstrated that the Vatican, acting for Satan, has created: Islam, Mormonism, Rock and Roll, Communism, Nazism, and a host of 'satanic' bible translations (this means anything - and I mean anything - except for the original King James version). To read his historical theories is mind-boggling if you actually know anything about the periods he discusses. At least he cites his authorities - other books published by Jack Chick publications and the Bible.

But lest those of you readers who do not belong to the Mackeral Snapper contingency feel left out, take heart. He has a tract condemning just about every religion out there (nothing on Zoroastrianism at present). He also warns his readers about the dangers of Freemasonry, evolution, Dungeons and Dragons, Harry Potter, and gays, gays, gays!

I could go on forever analyzing Jack Chick - indeed, I am sure there is a religious studies/Amciv/sociology dissertation just begging to be written about the man - but I will let you form your own conclusions. Besides, I've gone on long enough. If any of you, however, are interested in hearing more, I am always willing to chat about Chick.

Before I end this, though, I want to say one thing. Many of you reading this blog are college educated East coast intellectual types, and probably think this guy is just a lone artist on the lunatic fringe. Having grown up in Bakersfield, I have to tell you that you would be wrong. That's one of the reasons I like to keep an eye not just on Jack Chick, but on all his internet and radio ilk. While he may not be mainstream, his tracts have a great cultural resonance with a segment of the population that is much larger than most people would like to think. I have a pretty good story to this effect, which I may post later.

Lament

Is it just me, or is The Volokh Conspiracy becoming more politics-centered, to the detriment of its former wacky focus on law? Maybe it's just this new Lindgren guy. Why must all my favorite websites be inexorably swamped by election fever?

Graecum est, non legeri potest

Thus was the complaint of scholars in the west for centuries, after knowledge of Greek had faded from Latin Christendom and before its re-introduction.

But no longer will it be my complaint, for I am learning Attic Greek, and today I have learned a fantastic word that I want to share with all of you. The word is 'ekekeleukemen.' Go on. Say it out loud. Ekekeleukamen. It means "we had commanded." After only a couple of weeks of class, I can now say "We commanded Homer to sacrifice his five brothers to the gods, for the men in the marketplace had sent messengers from the island into battle." Unfortunately, due to limited vocabulary, that's about all I can say. But it sounds great.

This post has been brought to you by the letters phi and theta.

My eyes!

Some weeks ago, after the Journal open house, I had a heated discussion about Britney Spears with some fellow staff members. I tried to explain to them that Britney is trashy and hideous with a neck like a linebacker. They didn't believe me (those heavily airbrushed weddings photos in People carefully concealed her giant neck).

Unbelievers, behold: The Federlines.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty

From this news story on a controversial piece of art:

". . . the role of today's artists is not to produce things of beauty to satisfy but to ask questions on burning issues."

Why is this the role of today's artists? What makes artists uniquely qualified to do this? Are they not perhaps more qualified to produce things of beauty? This sort of false dichotomy is what drove me out of art classes.

National Poetry Day in the UK

It's National Poetry Day in the UK, and while the USA may have its own day, I am all about appropriating holidays from England for my own nefarious purposes. Thus, I have chosen to join this little celebration by posting one of my favorite poems below. Read it out loud for full effect.

The Greater Cats
- Victoria Sackville-West

The greater cats with golden eyes
Stare out between the bars.
Deserts are there and different skies,
And night with different stars.
They prowl the aromatic hill,
And mate as fiercely as they kill,
And hold the freedom of their will
To roam, to live, to drink their fill;
But this beyond their wit know I:
Man loves a little, and for long shall die.

Their kind across the desert range
Where tulips spring from stones,
Not knowing they will suffer change
Or vultures pick their bones.
Their strength's eternal in their sight,
They rule the terror of the night,
They overtake the deer in flight,
And in their arrogance they smite;
But I am sage, if they are strong:
Man's love is transient as his death is long.

Yet oh what powers to deceive!
My wit is turned to faith,
And at this moment I believe
In love, and scout at death.
I came from nowhere, and shall be
Strong, steadfast, swift, eternally:
I am a lion, a stone, a tree,
And as the Polar star in me
Is fixed my constant heart on thee.
Ah, may I stay forever blind
With lions, tigers, leopards, and their kind.

Istanbul, not Constantinople

Ooh, ooh, I went there!

X Prize

Just because someone has claimed the $10 million Ansari X prize does not mean that space flight enthusiasts should pack up their rockets and go home, according to CNN. I applaud the decision to continue the competition since, as every Heinlein fan knows, it will ultimately be private and commercial space flight that brings us to the stars. As someone who grew up reading classic science fiction, I have always felt cheated by the slow pace of our efforts to scatter humanity through the cosmos. I mean, NASA has yet to build even one Mars-based terraforming colony. And this is the 21st century!

By the way, if anyone who reads this is planning on competing in the annual space flight competition, I would like to remind you that one of the competitions is maximum number of passengers taken into space. I hereby officially volunteer myself if you need to fill a seat. Please? NASA will never let me be an astronaut.

That's it for my first post. I now have to go grade some papers about the 1453 fall of Constantinople. I haven't read them yet, but I did give them a quick glance to make sure nobody just turned in this.

More photoblogging

More photos, this time in teeny-tiny thumbnail sizes in consideration for slower connections.

The intrepid blogger, hard at work:

My bookshelf:

Why I love the hound

Buying tickets on the Greyhound can be infuriating due to their price structure (can't they just let me off the Boston-NYC bus half way through?), but they make up for it by having tons of adorable greyhound pictures on their website. Lemons out of lemonade, I guess.

Welcome to the jungle, we got fun and games

My housemate and fellow CMC alum, Geoffrey, will be guest-blogging here for the next week. He's a history grad student and thus more interesting than your run of the mill HLSer. I disclaim responsibility for all content or lack thereof in his posts.

On the amphibian theme . . .

One of my prized possessions, a talking Kermit the Frog with functional violin (yes, that is a CATO pin in his dickie).

Turtle Pants

There appears to be some doubt as to the niftiness of my turtle pants. Behold!



Alternatives to the peacock pants: miniskirts with other miscellaneous embroidery. Pants with dogs, bees, roosters, geese, and martinis.

My world is collapsing

The New York Times linked to Godawful Fan Fiction. Stop the planet, I want to get off. Next thing you know Maureen Dowd will be dropping references to furries.

Rainbows and army men

Yale is distributing rainbow pins to signify opposition to the Solomon Amendment. HLS Lambda scattered pink spray painted army men all over our classrooms last week for the same reason. I dig the army guys but they are hard to display with pride. It's too bad that Harvard is so dependent on the government teat that they can have their arm twisted like this. I respect their right to define their own mission and to exclude those from campus who don't fit into that scheme.

But isn't this whole exclusion business counterproductive? Shouldn't liberal law students want to swamp the JAG Corps, along with the rest of the armed services? How else can we effect real change in the military culture of homophobia if the only people who sign up are those who already subscribe to that culture? Change it from within, I say. Every liberal college student who joins the military is a gay-friendly officer. Isn't that what we want?

Update: I must add that there are many fine members of the armed services who oppose Don't Ask, Don't Tell. However, they are not the majority. Will Baude is correct that permitting recruiting might also serve a broader educational mission by allowing students on both sides of the issue to have easy access to the mechanism for effecting their policy goals. We all know the law school is rooting for one side, but they could at least take the long view and in the meantime reap the benefit of appearing neutral. In the final analysis, though, I don't think the law schools are the crux of the issue; the battle for the soul of the military won't take place in universities but in barracks.

This does, however, introduce the question of how neutral a university ought to be. There is a place for grand institutions that serve as intellectual no man's land, but to take this to the extreme means a college could not define a mission in any meaningful way.

Photos by request

Because I have lots better to do but little motivation (red eye flights will suck that right out of you), I will go along with Larry and Dylan and post photos of (just about) anything you desire. Leave a request in the comments and I'll post a picture within 24 hours.

Pressing questions

Should I buy corduroy pants with peacocks on them?

Lost in Translation

Via Metafilter, twenty-six translations of a poem by Sappho.

FIngers and toes crossed

It is quite likely that today my clerkship limbo will end. Of course, whether I shall be elevated to paradise or cast down into the "universal rejection" circle of the inferno is anyone's guess.

UPDATE: as I was posting this, my phone was buzzing silently in the next room. Guess who has a federal appellate clerkship! What this will mean for the future of this blog I can't say. Sasha VOlokh blogged until he began his clerkship, and the Curmudgeonly CLerk blogged pseudonymously through his. You can count on at least ten more months of Bamberblogging.

Thanks to the folks at AuthorSkeptics for the links to my posts on plagiarism and to Mr. Poon for linking to the one on maggot cheese. I wonder if Waddling Thunder would be willing to go to bat for the Sardinian cheese makers in their fight against oppressive EU regulations that prevent them from selling this delicacy. Sounds like a great pro bono project . . .

Via Prestige Whore, I find an article by George Hicks which argues that HLS students may be getting spoiled. That is probably true, but it doesn't stop me from grousing about the fact that FAS provides web space for its graduate students and the law school does not. Give me a few megs, Dean Kagan!

Say cheese

Camembert should not smell like wet dog, and if it does you should not eat it. Trust me.

However, an overripe Camembert pales in comparison with the maggot cheese of Sardinia.

Forecast

Last weekend I rolled around in lush grass with a book and fine company. The sun shone down warm and butter-yellow. But I can already feel the clammy chill of winter's approach, and any future lollygagging will require a sweater. I'l be in California for a couple of days, so one last taste of warmth is in the cards. But oh, to be further south. Just a little.

Why do we write the way we do?

Interesting post here on the father of modern American prose style.

The horror

When the stories of sexual abuse on Pitcairn Island began to circulate, I hoped that it was a flurry of false accusations: the result of a overzealous British policewoman pressuring young people to produce stories of abuse. The alternative was almost too horrible to consider. But it now appears that the original stories were true - there is a culture of rape on Pitcairn. And that may be part of the islanders' defense. Even some of the island women are claiming that this "tradition" should excuse the men's conduct.

I wonder if the girls of five and seven felt "like big ladies."

Interview No. 1

Today was my first clerkship interview. I woke up at three thirty in the morning to catch a cab for my six o'clock flight, watched Part I of the Decalogue, and then boarded the plane and slept the whole time. Then I cooled my heels in O'Hare for a couple of hours and watched Truly, Madly, Deeply. It made Alan Rickman really unlikable and thus I did not enjoy it. Then onto another plane - another two hours of sleep. Since I laid awake until 2 or so last night (nerves), these plane naps were vital. The hotel shuttle picked me up and brought me to the hotel, where I showered, changed, read soem Copyright, and then walked over to my interview.

I was early and spent a while chatting with the current clerks. Finally it was actually my scheduled time (have I mentioned that I was nervous? and that I get lost a lot and thus allow plenty of time to get from Point A to Point B? I was way early) and I had a nice talk with the judge. I hope he calls me back. He sounds like a dream to work for. I have a West Coast interview on Monday but nothing else so far. Fingers crossed. Afterwards the clerks took me out to dinner and to check out the "clerk ghetto" where they all live. It is actually a really nice pair of apartment complexes with all the amenities I was accustomed to associating with rental life before I moved to the Northeast, land of ancient housing stock. All in all, a good day. I am not looking forward to tomorrow's flight plan, though (three legs, not two, and arrival after midnight in Boston).

I refuse to chill out.

The proprietor of "HelpKerry.org" thinks I should "chill out" and reserve my anger for the war in Iraq, evil thieving Republicans, and other people who aren't on Greg's side of the political spectrum. A few points:

1. This is not "a few words." If the story in the Weekly Standard is true, then many words were lifted, even if only one phrase was taken in its entirety. That is sloppy, slovenly, unprofessional research. Even in the third grade, I remember being instructed to indicate quotations when taking notes on cards and cite to the page number.

2. Whether Tribe is a nice guy and friendly to students is beside the point. If someone commits an offense, they should not get off light because they are handsome, rich, or your good buddy. That is not justice. I am glad that he works so hard on so many pro bono cases. He should have worked a little harder on this book.

3. If Richard Perle stole $5 million dollars and Greg decided to be upset about it and post, I would not question him. I fail to see how the potential thievery of a sometime contributor to the Weekly Standard has any bearing on whether or not the specific allegations in the article on Tribe are true.

4. The argument that anger at relatively minor ethical infractions is misdirected because there are serious political issues to be concerned with at present is absurd and offensive. By this logic, outrage at small injustices must be rejected and standards of morality lapse; after all, what's a theft, an instance of plagiarism, cruelty to animals, or cheating on your wife compared to the overweening evil of the Bush administration? What laughable nonsense. This is not a warblog, or a politics blog. It is the personal blog of a Harvard Law student. I address issues that affect me and which are relevant to the scope of this site. If you want outrage about Bush, go elsewhere. Contrary to Greg's suggestion, there is plenty to be angry about right here.

When it rains, it pours

After a long day of Wills and Trusts reading, scrambling to get journal kinks worked out, and staring outside at the unceasing rain, some good news: a West Coast district judge wants me to fly out. Tomorrow is my first interview, but hopefully I can schedule the second one soon and perhaps even visit some friends while I'm there.

More excuses

Local coverage of the Tribe plagiarism scandal has revealed more pitiful excuses for unscholarly conduct.

From the Boston Globe:

In an interview with the Globe about Ogletree's book earlier this month, Tribe said people who "get on a high horse" about inadvertent plagiarism are "probably revealing more about their lack of self-knowledge than their high scholarly standards."

"I have a feeling that more than a few people who would not want to admit it have in the course of their careers accidentally found something in their own work -- a paragraph, a sentence, a line -- that they had intended to take down as a research note, but that ended up, not on the cutting room floor, but instead being sent by an assistant to a publisher," Tribe said.

This is so weak. More than a few others have been similarly careless, so we shouldn't criticize? I for one am very familar with high scholarly standards, considering every honor code and plagiarism policy I have ever had to comply with has been more rigorous than what's required of HLS professors. That an error is easy to make and difficult to detect should imply that we must be very vigilant to guard against it, not forgiving of those who commit it.

From the Boston Herald:

A supporter of Tribe, Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky said it wasn't plagiarism because the passages Tribe used inappropriately were historic statements of fact, rather than another author's ideas.

I am only beginning my copyright class, but even a couple of weeks have hammered in the idea/expression distinction. The issue is not just that Tribe wrote a book about the same facts as Abraham - it's that he used Abraham's unique expressions to describe those facts. I am not a fan of Duke Law professors in general, but Chemerinsky only drives that disdain home.

Deep breath, and an addendum

Welcome, Pejmanesque readers. I do wish to concur with Mr. Yousefzadeh on one point: the majority of professors do not subscribe to the questionable practices in which some HLS professors allegedly have engaged. I have worked as a research assistant here at Harvard Law and as an undergrad, and in both positions I was asked to perform conventional research tasks or was credited as a co-author if my contributions were substantial. I can also confirm that the delightful Will Baude is a scrupulously honest man who will, no doubt, produce prodigious quantities of high quality legal scholarship.

Crimson with rage at plagiarizing professors

I already posted once about the flurry of plagiarism scandals on the HLS faculty. Today's Crimson has an article covering the accusations and the aftermath. I don't mean this to be a real "Fisking" (hate the term), but the whole piece is chockablock with nonsense and questionable argument.

Harvard constitutional law scholar Laurence H. Tribe ’62 apologized yesterday for not properly crediting another professor’s work in his popular 1985 book God Save This Honorable Court, one day after a conservative political magazine accused him of plagiarism.

Note that Tribe is not described as liberal, but the Weekly Standard is a "conservative political magazine."

Tribe, who was named one of Harvard’s 19 University Professors last June, defended Goodwin against plagiarism charges two years ago on the grounds that her work was “closely documented with something like 3,500 footnotes.”
Tribe’s 1985 book did not contain footnotes and endnotes—a decision he made as part of a “well-meaning effort to write a book accessible to a lay audience.”

I'm not sure how endnotes (which do not interrupt the flow of the text in any significant way or take up space in the body of the work) make a book inaccessible. If Tribe had to dumb things down this much to make the book useful, maybe it isn't such a great and important scholarly work. (The Weekly Standard dissection makes it sound like a Cliff's Notes version of Abraham's book, in fact.)

. . . both Ogletree and Dershowitz jumped to defend their colleague from the charges leveled against him.
Ogletree, speaking to The Crimson yesterday, dismissed The Standard’s allegations against Tribe as “nonsense.”
“I think Larry [Tribe] may be overreacting,” Dershowitz said yesterday, when asked whether Tribe was right to apologize. “Abraham sat on this story for 20 years. If he had a gripe, he should have written to Larry 20 years ago.”

So let me get this straight. Even though there are passages lifted from another person's work, verbatim, the charges are nonsense? What would Ogletree need to indict, a video of Tribe throwing darts at Abraham's picture and cackling while a research assistant transcribed directly from Justices and Presidents to a manuscript of Tribe's book?

If a giant of constitutional law topples in a forest, does it make a sound? This is more than a gripe. This is potential scholarly dishonesty and theft. Abraham should have called Tribe out if he knew about this years ago. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.

“Tribe’s towering contributions to the field of constitutional law over four decades should not be overshadowed by this episode,” [Stanford Law School] dean, Kathleen M. Sullivan, wrote in an e-mail. Sullivan was Tribe’s colleague on the Harvard faculty from 1984 to 1993.

I bet an untenured professor wouldn't get this soft treatment from Sullivan. Maybe we need some kind of disciplinary guidelines to ensure equal justice in sentencing for similar plagiarism offenses.

Dershowitz said yesterday that The Standard’s charges against Tribe were politically motivated.
“Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime,” Dershowitz said—a quotation he attributed to Soviet spymaster Lavrenti Beria. “Clearly someone was looking to pin something on the most prominent liberal constitutional scholar in the country.”

Pin something? How about take him to task for a wrongdoing he has since admitted? This is some weird mutation of the CBS-Memogate argument - while the evidence is true, the accusations are politically motivated and thus must be given no credit. Maybe if Tribe was more concerned about producing original scholarly works and less about using his position for political ends, he wouldn't have cranked out such a shoddy book.

But Dershowitz isn't in total denial:

Dershowitz called yesterday for stricter University guidelines on source citations and the use of research assistants so that scholars could avoid ideologically motivated charges of plagiarism in the future.

Stop me before I steal again!

However, while the undergraduate and law school standards for plagiarism are quite clear,

Dershowitz said guidelines in the legal profession are murkier.
He said that judges frequently rely on lawyers’ briefs and clerks’ memoranda in drafting opinions. This results in a “cultural difference” between sourcing in the legal profession and other academic disciplines, Dershowitz said.

Now I always considered law professors to to be part of academia, but apparently they are all frustrated judges and should be assessed by the standards of their desired occupation when writing. Funny, that. Does this mean that student work, such as law review notes and seminar papers, is closer to real academic writing than the output of our faculty?

White men can't teach

Tom Bell at Agoraphilia documents the impact of affirmative action policies for teaching positions in law on white male applicants. If you are such an applicant or aspire to be one (Will Baude, please answer the white courtesy phone), it's worth a look. Tom Bell and his wife, for better or worse, were persuasive advocates for HLS when I was choosing law schools. They also have a really adorable daughter, which anyone who knows me will recognize as a rare child-oriented compliment.

Professional responsibility

Yet another Harvard Law School professor is charged with plagiarism. This is the third big name HLS prof so accused in the last year (the previous cases regarded Dershowitz and Ogletree). Perhaps a lot of this would be eliminated if professors of law were held to the same standards as their students. From the Harvard Law School Catalog:

2. Preparation of Papers and Other Work-Plagiarism and Collaboration
All work submitted by a student for any academic or non-academic exercise is expected to be the student's own work. In the preparation of their work, students should always take great care to distinguish their own ideas and knowledge from information derived from sources. The term "sources" includes not only published or computer-accessed primary and secondary material, but also information and opinions gained directly from other people.
The responsibility for learning the proper forms of citation lies with the individual student. Quotations must be properly placed within quotation marks and must be fully cited. In addition, all paraphrased material must be completely acknowledged. Whenever ideas or facts are derived from a student's reading and research, the sources must be indicated.
The amount of collaboration with others that is permitted in the completion of work can vary, depending upon the policy set by the head of the course or the supervisor of a particular exercise. Students should assume that collaboration in the completion of work is prohibited, unless explicitly permitted, and students should acknowledge any collaboration and its extent in all submitted work.
Students who are in any doubt about the preparation of their work should consult the appropriate instructor, supervisor, or administrator before it is prepared or submitted.
Students who submit work that is not their own without clear attribution of all sources, even if inadvertently, will be subject to disciplinary action.

Of course, no significant disciplinary action appears to have been taken in any of these cases. But perhaps it's too much to ask of HLS; after all, if they refuse to punish students who brag about cheating, how can they slap a protesting professor on the wrist for such "errors?"

For those students who are preparing to begin work on a law journal: keep your eyes peeled and source your articles carefully. Since academia refuses to enforce any sort of norm that would require law professors to write their own articles and books, we have to take up the slack by making sure that the publications they do produce only steal ideas and expressions from their research assistants.

Light at the end of the tunnel?

I have a clerkship interview this week. Yay. I also received the next DVD from my Netflix queue, Truly, Madly, Deeply. My boyfriend says his rom-com loving mother likes it (con), but it has Alan Rickman (pro). That should keep me entertained for part of the plane flight.

At some point over the weekend, I mentioned this story by Harlan Ellison in conversation. Ellison may have faults as a person, but he's an engaging writer. What are your most important things in life?

Mixed bag

Good news: we had at least 40 people show up at our Open House, which was going head to head with Dean Kagan's reception at the Charles.
Bad news: I ordered pizza for 75.

GN: There was an email from a judge's chambers in my inbox when I got home. He's interested in my application!
BN: He couldn't find it, so I had to put one together to send today.

GN/BN: I got called on in Admin Law and gave a halfway decent (i.e. not obviously wrong) answer.

GN: I have a guest this weekend!
BN: I have a migraine.

Be there or be square

Such a day. Two loads of laundry before 10am, Admin Law, a flurry of journal-related emails, lunch with a friend from another Harvard grad school, back home to fold the aforementioned laundry and mop, and now it's time to buy beer for tonight's open house. A lot of you might think that's fun, but:

1. I hate beer.
2. I don't have a car, so I have to recruit journal people to drive me around. I could get it myself, but beer is heavy and I am small.
3. Because of #1, I don't know what kind of beer to buy, so whatever I get will be sort of random. There will, however, be Diet Coke in abundance, so if nobody likes the beer they'll have something else to drink with their pizza.

If you're reading this an on the journal, go to the open house! 1Ls need your reassurances that Bluebooking is fun.

First rule of horror movies: the pet always dies.

On the recommendation of 2 Blowhards and (IIRC) Tyler Cowen, I ordered Audition over my shiny new Netflix subscription. It started out like a cross between In the Company of Men and Ringu and just got weirder from there. I'm still not entirely sure of the origin of some of the scenes: were they dreams, possibilities, reality? The movie is well shot, with the camera maintaining a careful distance until the last act or so and many well composed images. However, the cuts were abrupt and sometimes made me guess as to whether time had passed. All in all, it was . . . interesting. I'm not sure if disturbing Japanese cinema is really my cup of tea, though. Onward to the Decalogue.

Mixed reviews for Native American Museum

The museum whose conservancy policies gave me such qualms over the summer gets a negative review from the New York Times. WaPo is predictably celebratory. Next time I'm in D.C. I will stop by, although that's difficult to do since they use the same timed ticketing as the Holocaust Museum, which discourages casual visits.

*twitch*

The files for Issue 3 (aka "Summer 2004") have arrived and are being reviewed before they get tweaked and go to the printer. I have a twitch under one eye, an incipient migraine, and an upset stomach, but that's to be expected, considering that managing editor is out on clerkship interviews and so I'll be doing this myself.

Trickle-down economics

Well, it seems like the most sought after people have already snapped up the most prestigious clerkships (the ones with judges who conformed to the moratorium requirements, that is). Since yesterday was the first official day of interviews, I am hoping that some of the judges who had interviews lined up later in the week with my classmates will now realize that their first choice has been taken by someone else and call their second choice, etc. Perhaps some of them will eventually get to me!

The best magazine advice

Belle Waring suggests that Will and other men who claim to prefer a makeup-free female face are actually deceived by skillful application of high quality products. Will has a keen eye - there's no tricking him. I do agree with Ms. Waring that many men could benefit from a light application of makeup, though. Often while carefully painting my face in the morning I reflected upon the injustice of my being expected to artfully conceal all imperfections while men could stride about and expect that theirs would not be held against them as strongly. At the time, the solution appeared to be the expansion of makeup to men; the expansion of masculine skin care lines over the last ten years or so made it seem that equality drew nigh. But the opposite end of the spectrum can be an equally satisfying equilibrium - and less burdensome for everyone involved.

Linkety Link

I finally got around to checking out some more of the new crop of HLS bloggers. This one is going on the blogroll. He's angry. I like that.

Homophobia defeated by show tunes

This story is awesome. If I could sing, I would have done this a couple of weeks ago on Boston Common, where a deranged preacher was interrupting our peaceful afternoon of reading on the grass.

Red in (tooth and ) claw

I don't get the appeal of long, polished fingernails. I always assumed that it was one of those things that women do for other women, like wearing fashionable shoes. Apparently there is some element of sex appeal, though, at least if Ms. Fowler's commenters are representative.

My nails are very weak and thin, so I keep them almost boyishly short; as long as there's enough nail to scratch itches and gain purchase on fine work, that's enough for me. Painting them always seemed nasty, since I like to nibble (but not bite or tear) my nails, and getting shreds of paint in your teeth is an unpleasant surprise. Toenails stay painted almost all the time, but that's because they are ugly and should be covered. I did have fake nails once, but even the mid-length ones I had were so cumbersome that I wasn't able to remove my contacts without putting out my own eye, so I drove around Houston the Sunday after senior prom looking for a salon that was open that would take them off. Ugh.

One a related note, I've been going almost entirely without makeup for the last several weeks. I have noticed several things:

-My skin is better. If I have a blemish, it gets a dab of concealer, but the rest of it gets to breathe and, evidently, likes it that way.
-I am acutely aware of how much makeup other women wear. I have a better sense of the artificiality of their appearance now that I have had a chance to see the difference between my old made-up face and its freshly scrubbed incarnation. I wore some lipstick yesterday and it looked corpse-like and weird. Similarly, the strangeness of other people drawing lines and painting bits of their faces has been highlighted. I wonder what other women would look like without their makeup.
-I am better at picking clothes. Not wearing makeup forces me to confront the fact that some tones and colors are just not flattering, instead of telling myself that with the proper shade of red lipstick a red hat wouldn't wash me out.

The Confusion

Professor Volokh is counting the days until Neal Stephenson's The System of the World comes out. I would be as excited, except last week was the first chance I had to read Book 2 of his Baroque Cycle, The Confusion. As preparation, I reread Quicksilver, which was nearly as good the second time as the first. The Confusion, though, was a letdown. So much was foreshadowed that I spent a significant amount of time simply waiting for major plot developments to emerge - the suspense was minimal. The more outlandish Jack's adventures became, the less connected I felt to his story, and the dozen or so in his motley crew of Vagabonds didn't do much more to seize my heart or attention. There was a criminal lack of Daniel Waterhouse. Eliza's story, which took up half of this volume, rattled along with little action, at least once her vengeance was preempted. And while the merely asserted ability of Miss Eliza to drive all heterosexual men wild with her beauty had grown tiresome, her transformation into a pockmarked mother of sickly and deformed offspring by a bland and tiresomely polite fellow (who suddenly reveals a sadistic streak in the last chapter - ?!?) left a nasty taste in my mouth.

Made in Japan

I can understand the desire for something like this (although there is nothing so nice as the real thing). However, $77 seems a little pricey, especially for a boyfriend pillow with half a torso.

Dunn/CMC Update

Unconfirmed reports claim

Kerri Dunn was sentenced today to 90 days in prison so that she can undertake a series of psych evaluations. At the end of the 90 day period, she will reappear in court and be sentenced for her crimes. Her new court date is December 15.

On a related note, my alma mater will institute some changes in faculty hiring procedures.

Although faculty background checks are routinely conducted for the purposes of confirming academic credentials and character references, CMC will also implement criminal and public record background checks for faculty members hired after January 1, 2005, consistent with the policy that already exists for all other employees.

I don't know which is sadder: that previously the administration thought it was more important to check whether the groundskeepers and food service workers were criminals than whether the well-paid persons teaching its undergraduates were, or that crazy Kerri Dunn will probably get off because, well, she crazy.

Women are people, too.

Over at the Reason Hit and Run blog, Julian Sanchez has been doggedly working to unmask the identity of a young man who kicked a female protestor at the RNC as she was being restrained on the ground. I won't get into the factual issue of whether Scott Robinson of the Koch Fellows 2004 blog is the person in the video. What I noticed about the discussion ("discussion" is used loosely here - civility is nearly as absent in this instance as at the RNC) was the repeated taunting of the alleged assailant for "kicking a girl." Speculations about his manliness ensued. Now there are a few things to note:

1. The kickee was clearly a woman, not a girl. She is not an infant; this is a woman who made a choice to stand up for her beliefs (albeit not in the way that many would agree with).
2. It should be no more or less heinous for a larger and stronger man to kick a restrained woman lying on the ground than if the genders were reversed. By claiming that the act was particularly terrible because the kicker was male and the kickee female, the infantilized position of women is further entrenched. The relevant facts are that a battery was committed against a relatively helpless person. Since the left/liberals are the ones who are making the righteously indignant comments about this act, I would have expected less blatant sexism. Evidently true support for sex equality is not to be found on either side of the aisle.

UPDATE: Will and the Slithery D weigh in. I do not wish to go so far as to say that using force against those weaker than yourself is wrong. Self defense cannot really be considered rude. However, the amount of force used should be proportionate to the situation. A great deal less is required to prevent attacks by persons of my size and fitness level than would be necessary to fend off the assaults by large and muscular persons of either gender. However, this is not really important to the analysis of this case - the protester, considering her actions, posed no physical threat to the young man, and in any case the authorities had the situation in hand and required no assistance from such vile persons as the kicker in preventing further disruption .

Dunn For

Kerri Dunn was convicted of two felonies in connection with her fake hate crime at the Claremont Colleges. Sentencing to follow soon.

Wes Anderson Watch

The Life Aquatic comes out on December 25. Here's the trailer. I am cautiously optimistic; there is no Gwyneth, the father/son reunion plot seems a little cliched, and I worry about the post-Lost-in-Translation Bill Murray. But it still will drag me out of the house on Christmas, and it looks like a great cure for the absolute pantswetting terror inspired by Open Water, a movie I haven't even seen but which has made me want to never go in the ocean again.

Rumor mill

Can anyone confirm or deny the rumor that the construction taking place near the biology labs at Harvard is for underground rat mazes? I usually cut through the Divinity School to get to HLS from my apartment, but of late my route has been blocked by wire fences and trucks. I have to zigzig around so much I feel like a rat myself.

*Does happy dance*

I am in Manning's Admin Law class! This means I have class on Thursdays and Fridays (boo) but also that all but Tuesday have only one class per day (yay) and that I have two in-class exams (I always do poorly on take-homes). Now I can buy books!

Far more Blachman's bag than mine, but . . .

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a federal clerkship ?
My friends all leave Monday, I feel like a dip.
Worked hard all my lifetime, it's no time to slip,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a federal clerkship ?

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me interviews in DC ?
Surely some judge there is looking for me.
I wait for the phone call each day until three,
So oh Lord, won’t you buy me interviews in DC ?

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a clerkship in some town ?
I’m counting on you, Lord, please don’t let me down.
Prove that you love me and buy the next round,
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a clerkship in some town ?

Everybody!
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a federal clerkship ?
My friends all leave Monday, I feel like a dip.
Worked hard all my lifetime, it's no time to slip,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a federal clerkship ?

The Real Thing

A Polish-American was bothered by my failure to appreciate the reconstructed Old Town in Warsaw. I knew the reasons for the lack of original structures, but my reaction to the aesthetic experience of being there was still muted. The lack of authenticity undermined the uniqueness of the experience of place; this version of Old Town could be erected anywhere.

But why is the experience so tied to the perceived authenticity of the place or thing? Why should anyone care if burnt buildings rise again, complete with jaunty paint jobs, or if formerly noseless sculptures are fitted with marble prostheses? Virginia Postrel probably could say something about this. I can only piece together my intuitions. Is it that imagining the past becomes more difficult, that it requires more of a suspension of disbelief, when we are confronted with reproductions rather than artifacts? That would imply that our aesthetic pleasure in the presence of the ancient is derived partially from some totemic connection that we feel these objects provide with the past.

Is it distrust of the recreator as intermediary? Do we fear that our appreciation might be for the interposed modern elements intentionally or unintentionally introduced and thus hold ourselves aloof from the artistic mixed bag a reproduction entails?

Some might say that in a world which constantly finds new ways to introduce artificiality and commercialism, something authentically old provides a welcome respite, an object that we can be assured was not created with an eye to manipulating us into some modern channel of behavior. The images are based on the state of the art at the time of their creation, which was probably a time in which, for better or worse, things were closer to their natural state.

I cannot concisely explain my dissatisfaction with such recreations and reproductions. While Warsaw might have been painstakingly reconstructed so we remember, the elimination of the evidence of destruction can as easily make one forget. It's easier to feel a connection with the past when the evidence is solid beneath your feet. (Although the cobblestones might have been original - in a sea of crisply painted buildings, those were dark with memory.)

Pessimism

Another day with a silent phone. My deputy EIC is leaving for interviews on Monday. Meanwhile, I am left to sit in Cambridge and wonder exactly what my recommenders said in their letters.

Moving on up

I still can't find a class that's right for me, but today's waitlist update revealed that I have moved up from 24 to 11 on the Admin Law waitlist. If I get into Manning's class, that means I will have Wills & Trusts, Copyright and Other Intellectual Property, and Administrative Law. Fingers are crossed.

New methods of self torture

OCS just sent an email advertising a new feature of their online clerkship information system. It now can aggregate student-submitted call and interview dates and display them in handy table format. You can even have it display only the judges to whom you applied. This is a great way to see which judges you were dying to clerk for have already begun arranging interviews with your classmates.

Did I mention that I got no calls today? So glum.

I went to Bankruptcy but think it's not for me. Too bad Elizabeth Warren is not teaching it this year. The closest I got to her classroom was a mock session at Admitted Students Weekend. Tomorrow I will try out a new class on foreign affairs and the Constitution. Maybe that will save my schedule.

Discouraged

My phone has been silent. I just talked to someone who has had six calls, including one from a distinguished appellate judge to whom I also applied.

Dictionaries want to be free?

Someone hacked the OED. I wonder how long the free for all will go on.

Clerkship jitters

Today is the first day that judges can call to arrange clerkship interviews (if they respect the moratorium, that is - some judges started calling last week). I received an email over the weekend informing applicants that calls might begin as early as 8am today. No calls so far. I do have two classes today, so I won't be able to answer the phone for at least three hours. Augh.

My cable internet is controlled by demons

I wrote a long post about my classes, but the stupid Comcast cable internet connection died as I pressed publish and it was lost. Suffice to say I went to two classes today. I am currently enrolled in neither. I may add the second one and will probably not get into the first one. It all depends on how uninteresting the classes I have next week (the ones actually on my schedule) turn out to be. Maybe Bankruptcy will be totally engrossing and I will keep everything just the way it is. Or not.

Tomorrow, New Haven.

Insert Moan of Despair Here

Today was the last student registration I will experience, although pointless paperwork updates that less actual time to complete than the walk from my apartment are, no doubt, part of my future. Afterwards I stopped by the journal office, only to discover that the mailing policy change we wanted to make after Issue 1 came out was never made, thus precipitating a flood of expensive returned undeliverable journals. I spent an hour or so in the office and then fled to immerse myself in Michael Mann's new movie, Collateral. It was not as good as Heat, although there were similarities in structure. The ending seemed improbable and some of the sequences (such as the nightclub hit) were confusingly shot. Add to this the headache I could feel brewing before the film even started. I thought the books of Polish and Bulgarian poetry I requested from the Harvard depository might be bright spots in the day, but alas, both poets are either poorly translated or deservedly obscure.

Prescription: drugs. sleep. Stephenson.

Impotent rage at USPS

There was a three week period where I was abroad but no one was here to check the mail. I just found out that (becuase my subletters or the neighborhood kids removed my name from the mailbox) that the substitute carrier (not even my usual incompetent carrier) has returned all my mail to sender from that period. It took one post office visit, three calls, and a supervisor discussion to get this information, which is not even certain - just a best guess. The reason given was that Cambridge has a rule that the name must be on the box due to the high turnover rate. This is obviously not a universal rule, as I can remember receiving mail for years in boxes with no name in Texas.
(And if that's the rule, why do I still get mail for previous occupants?) Final paystub, required for financial aid purposes: lost. The firm gave me a screenshot of their payroll system. Maybe that will work.

Augh.

Bones, me hearties.

If you are interested in scoping out the rest of my vacation pictures, including some extra gruesome Kutna Hora photos, this link may work.

Millerisms

Inspired by Will, I dug out my collection of Arthur Miller quotes from 1L year.

"Does anyone know what I’m talking about? Sometimes I don’t know what I’m talking about."
"You’re all rich kids. You’re all desirable!"
"If someone wakes you up in the middle of the night and says, ‘the Supreme Court announced a new theory of jurisdiction, give it to me or you die!' . . ."
"Give me any substantive right you want. Just give me the procedure, and I’ll beat your ass every time."
"You’re in Sandra Day O’Connor Land!"
(After a student hypothesized a long chain of counter- and cross-claims) "I love it when you talk dirty."

and, of course, in inimitable style,
"HMMMM?!?"

Bad news for the Bamber schedule

I stopped by the clinicals office today and talked with them about rearranging my schedule. I am currently signed up for the course component of Slightly Interesting Clinical but not the clinical placement component. Unfortunately, the placements are full and they have 11 people on a waiting list. So that's out.

Really Interesting Clinical is not full. However, it requires enrollment in a three credit workshop that meets five days per week from 2-9pm, starting next Monday and running through October 1. This overlaps for two weeks with the clerkship interview period, conflicts with all the recruiting events for the journal, and is just generally a giant time suck. On top of that, a good half of the placements are in Massachusetts counties that are not accessible via public transportation. I don't have a car.

It's looking like I may have to just go with my original plan of taking a slate of semi-interesting classes and starting practice when the rest of us start practice - when we begin our real jobs. Alas.

Update: I emailed the professor teaching the workshop and he should be able to tell me whether missing a few sessions for clerkship interviews, etc. is the kiss of death.

Headless Chicken Marathon

Busy day today. I have to get a haircut, grovel to the clinicals office, go to the class marshals' cookout, hit the hardware store and the library, buy sneakers, check the JLPP voicemail (shudder) . . . we are still waiting for symposium pieces.

On the bright side, my wireless router started working again, so yay. And Geoffrey is coming back today. Free lunch. Life is okay. At least I have ice in my drink and tumble-dried underwear. That's more than I can say for myself a month ago.

Update: the cookout is tomorrow. No free lunch. :(

Nostalgia

Both my old housemate and my boyfriend have begun law school this week, and talking with them has brought back a rush of nostalgia. Vosberg v. Putney. Hawkins v. McGee. Not knowing anyone in your section. Ah, the excitement! Savor it, my pretties. The first year is the best year, regardless of what you might have heard.

Vacation Pix

For the two of you who care, here are a few photos from my trip to Eastern Europe:




The UNESCO protected town of Cesky Krumlov (St. Vit's on the left).




The ossuary at Kutna Hora. Yes, that is a chandelier made of human bones.




Karlstejn, one of the Czech Republic's better preserved 14th century castles.




Peles Castle, the seat of the short-lived Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen dynasty of Romanian kings.




Frescos at the old chapel, Sinaia Monastery, Romania.

PSA

In college I took a sculpture class in which one part of our grade required making something out of baling wire. My evil professor gave me an ancient roll of wire that was covered in rust. Needless to say, I repeatedly cut myself on the sharp ends of the twisted wires in the course of making a giant ear (don't ask) and became paranoid about contracting lockjaw.

However, tetanus does not come from rust. It comes from sh- er, the digestive tract of farm animals and humans. (pdf) This information allowed me to complete my project with some peace of mind, but evidently it is not commonly known, so I present it for your edification.

(Alas, my research on tetanus was perhaps the most I learned over the course of that sculpture class, as any attempt to make representations of humans was pooh-poohed, regular or geometric designs were disparaged as being "something a CMCer would do" (this to a artsy Pomona student, who rapidly came up with something else), and my desire to make something that I wouldn't mind looking at every day in my apartment was confused with a desire to make arts and crafts. Oh well)

UPDATE: The rusty nail myth rears its ugly head in the comments to this post. Get well soon, Ms. Fowler.

Small World

While out shopping today with a friend, I ran into Crescatter Sudeep Agarwala on the only-partially-functional Boston T. I'm sure the beginning of classes at HLS will bring encounters with new and old Cambridge bloggers. Maybe there should be a Boston blogorama.

Shame!

An issue of last year's journal comes under fire by the author of one of the articles. I hope this year's volume will be more pleasing to authors and readers and more timely.

Damn, people

The lawyers at my firm this summer were constantly pumping us for gossip about summer associate scandals. Unfortunately, the 2004 summer classes appear to have been so well behaved that the profession has to scrape this low for things to gasp and whisper about: a microcosmic version of the Cheney Senate fracas. But is anyone really shocked that people in high stress positions can occasionally lose their temper and let lose a flurry of swear words? Would it be better for us to sit with throbbing veins and grind our teeth? Scream like animals? In an ideal world, everyone would be civil and composed 24/7, but that's not the way things are. Swear on, guys. I might have watched the convention if there had been a realistic chance of seeing Bush cut loose.

Decisions, revisions

After a few hours, I may have actually caught up on the email backlog from vacation. However, the beginning of classes next week brings its own problems. As is usually the case, pre-registration assigned me a bunch of stuff that sounded interesting at the time but now seems rather uninspiring. I wanted one of two IP classes and ended up with both, but got no Admin Law at all. Also, I elected not to sign up for a clinical but my summer experiences suggested that it might be a wise choice on my part to do so.

The upshot of all this is that I may totally revamp my entire schedule, dropping all but one of my fall classes. Of course, the rationalization for not signing up for a clinical in the first place was that I didn't have the time for it, what with journal business and writing my third year paper this fall. None of that has changed. But I am wondering if the classroom only route that I had planned to take will give me what I want from law school, teach me what I need to know. Should I just sign up for the spring clinical component of a class I already have? Drop everything for the prosecution clinical? Stick to my original plan? Oy.

Transport grumble

Objectively, I know there are economic reasons why it is cheaper to buy a bus ticket from Boston to New York than it is to buy a bus ticket from Boston to a smaller city that the first bus passes through, but must the cosmos rub it in by actually making the latter more expensive than taking a bus from Boston to New York and then a second bus from New York (backwards over the same stretch of highway) to the smaller city? And don't even get me started on Amtrak. I want my old car.

Back in Beantown

Good: after two flights and a looong train ride, I am finally back in my Cambridge apartment, which the flaky weirdo subletters left cleaner than it was when I moved into it last fall. The internet works, which means catching up on weeks of backlogged email is possible. I have the entire apartment to myself, so I can laugh out loud at funny things I read without feeling self conscious (oh wait, I do that all the time, because my flatmate and I are both nuts).

Bad: I think I have a sinus infection. It feels like half of my head is stuffed with nastiness, my ears are popping, and the pain comes and goes. Half the front steps are missing, with a note from Harvard letting me know that they removed some deteriorated sidewalk on Monday. When they plan on replacing it was not stated. I lost my friend Danielle's phone number. My To Do list is literally a foot long. Augh.