Legal Commentary

Movin'

Posted on November 21, 2009
Hey everyone, my blog is moving! It's the same blog, except now it's in a great new place with a lot more space, and fewer cobwebs under the stairs. Head over to http://www.cuivienen.org/gondolin and check it out. Be sure to update your bookmarks and your feeds...

Trying to be a better person

Posted on November 18, 2009
Ok, so I thought I was going to have the new wordpress blog up today or tomorrow, but... I was wrong. The details are boring -- they involve my dissatisfaction with the one-click wordpress installation my hosting service offers. It really shouldn't bother me...

Transitions

Posted on November 16, 2009
Instead of posting, I spent all my blogging time today on getting the new wordpress blog up and running. It's fairly simple and should be ready in a day or two. The rest of my time was devoted, unsurprisingly, to exercising my dog and studying for the emergency medicine boards...

To get started...

Posted on November 14, 2009
To start us off easy, I'll direct your attention to some provocative blog posts. Via Deliberate Agrarian, this gem:Currently, myself and many of my friends are on varying forms of state aid [...] With this in mind, I've compiled a simple list of rules (or perhaps, "guidelines") to help minimize the embarrassment and discomfort of taking public assistance...

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Missed me?

Posted on November 14, 2009
Start the celebration, because I'm blogging again. And oh, I have such big plans! This blog is going to be the best blog there ever was. Fame and fortune will be mine. I will demonstrate the awesome power of the internet to transform my solitary musings into brain candy for people from all walks of life who have the good fortune to read my posts...

Done with residency!

Posted on July 02, 2009
Hey everyone, I'm done! It was a fun, exhausting, entirely worthwhile three years. But I'm glad it's over. When I tell you that I would gladly do it again, I don't mean "do it twice." So I think I'll move myself and my cat and my dog out to Seattle, set myself up with a new internet provider, and start blogging again...

On the other hand...

Posted on December 13, 2008
Former Senator Fritz Hollings has a very interesting argument that bailing out the auto companies might be defended as part of a return to a sane policy of industrial protectionism. Protectionism? Yeah, it's an interesting piece: Of course, the economists for the global financial institutions and the big multinational corporations know this, but because their loyalties are more to their institutions and less to our nation, they continue their calls for ever more "free trade" and for continuing U...

Winter blahs

Posted on December 13, 2008
The winter blahs are a particularly bad problem when you're living in Chicago. Victims report wanting only to sleep, eat, and kill time on the internet. I've heard it called "hibernating," which is a good way to describe it. There are only two ways to cure my own winter blahs...

Short term

Posted on December 13, 2008
Re the auto bailout: I wonder if the Big Three's pitiful performance can be blamed in any way on the American system of corporate governance? Were the incentives to maximize short-term profits to blame for Detroit's ills? I'm thinking of how GM and Chrysler (and Ford to a lesser extent) were so eager to give up on the small car market in favor of big SUVs...

Friday Catbloggin'

Posted on December 12, 2008
So it's Friday; I'm back in Chicago. It's cold outside. I think I'll spend the evening inside, bloggin' with my cat Silver. That cat sure does love to snuggle on cold winter nights!

The guilty pleasures of watching GM go bankrupt

Posted on December 12, 2008
I don't think we should bail out the failing failed American carmakers. I admit that I'll feel a guilty pleasure watching them go down the tubes. It isn't that I don't support a vibrant American auto industry, or that I don't want to cushion the blow of all the layoffs that a collapse of the carmakers would entail...

Hideous

Posted on November 28, 2008
Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him...

Use me!

Posted on November 24, 2008
It's still too early to know whether President-Elect Obama (!!!) will be a split-the-difference politician in the Clinton mold, or if his rhetoric about "changing Washington" means he'll fight for transformative policies once he's inaugurated. But if it's the latter, I have a small request...

Concentrate

Posted on November 23, 2008
Reading this article about Daniel Barenboim, I come across this: I have a card in my favor, which is the ability to concentrate. The act of mental preparation didn?t ever exist for me. As a child I used to play soccer, shower, then play a concert. Now that I think about it, concentration is one of the qualities that all the most impressive people I've met in my life seem to share...

Chicago

Posted on November 20, 2008
?We?re not Little Rock and we?re not Texas,? said Rick Bayless, a friend of the Obama family, who owns Frontera Grill and is among the city?s celebrity chefs. ?It?s easy to put on your cowboy boots and eat all that barbecue. You can?t do that from Chicago...

Don't bail out or prop up, rebuild

Posted on November 20, 2008
Timothy Egan: "Why not go green, go for universal health care, go for economic stimulus ? all with one big vision? Imagine if the $700 billion were there for a fresh overhaul of the American economy, rather than being siphoned off by the very people who created the problem?" What if, instead of shoveling more money at current enterprises and industries that have been pursuing unsustainable polices for so long, we take this opportunity to get rid of them and rebuild on a sustainable foundation instead? When auto companies pay more for retiree benefits and health insurance than for steel, and when municipalities grant lifetime benefits to five-year employees, the question is when, not if, we will suffer for our foolishness...

No civil libertarians here

Posted on November 20, 2008
The most interesting thing about this quarrel between New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly and attorney general Michael Mukasey over the surveillance of terrorism suspects is what they agree about: the public is safer with more surveillance...

George Will

Posted on November 18, 2008
It's not too often I can say this about a George Will column, but I agree. Will it be painful if GM goes belly up? You betcha, but happens. Life is a bitch. A bailout will just delay the inevitable. Let's just get it over with.

Better sell your tri-level in the suburbs now

Posted on November 16, 2008
Via Slow Home, an interesting piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:We are witnessing the beginning of the end of sprawl. Like much of the rest of the country, the overproduction of automobile-driven suburban development at the fringe of the Atlanta metropolitan area has reached its limits...

Cats -- gotta love 'em!

Posted on November 14, 2008

In american politics, it's urban vs. rural

Posted on November 11, 2008
It's amazing what you can learn with a good map. The standard map of red and blue states suggests that the U.S. is politically divided between the coasts and the interior, or between the north and the south. These geographic divisions don't, however, explain my own experience...

F*** Rahm Emanuel!

Posted on November 09, 2008
According to Naftali Bendavid, Rahm Emanuel has a colorful way with one particular word. Signing off a phone conversation with a candidate, Emanuel says: ?Don?t **** it up or I?ll **** you. I?ll kill you. All right, I love you. Bye.? ?In my house, when you say **** you, it?s a sign of endearment...

McCain suffering in Colorado Springs?

Posted on October 09, 2008
I was pleased to see two references to my hometown of Colorado Springs today. Colorado Springs is known for being the home base of James Dobson's Focus on the Family, and it is the most conservative place in Colorado. It's also a place where Barack Obama's campaign is kicking the crap out of John McCain's:Because even in a place like Colorado Springs, McCain?s ground campaign is getting blown away by the Obama efforts...

Out of gas?

Posted on October 08, 2008
After we re-elected George W. Bush in 2004, I haven't been able to get very optimistic about politics. But the accumulating evidence that the Republicans are out of gas has become so persuasive that I'm allowing myself to hope. I actually think Barack Obama will win the election...

Death of Reaganism

Posted on October 06, 2008
We can't tell yet just how painful this economic crisis will eventually get, but it's fair to say that there'll be some of us who suffer pretty badly. There's going to be plenty of bad news, so I'd like to start concentrating on the silver linings in this economic cloud...

Wendell Berry a socialist? Yes, it's libertarianism vs agrarianism again

Posted on October 06, 2008
An argument has broken out in an obscure part of the blogosphere between libertarians, paleoconservatives, and agrarians. You may think you don't care, but I'd like to suggest that arguments like these tend to be more substantive than the typical democrat vs republican swill we're treated to on blogs like Kos and Instapundit...

Cubs lose

Posted on October 05, 2008
The Cubs, true to form, got swept out of the playoffs again. To the LA Dodgers: you're welcome. I suppose I'm lucky this year. Living in Chicago, it was impossible not to notice the buzz around the Cubs, and many times I was tempted to get on the bandwagon and pour my heart into the team like I did back in 1984...

Interesting lawsuit

Posted on October 03, 2008
Read all about this 7-1/2 year pregnancy.

Friday cat (and doggie) blogging

Posted on October 03, 2008
Here's Big Frank taking a little nap, high above it all. And here's Little Pele hanging out on the deck in Colorado.

The right wing blogosphere

Posted on October 03, 2008
Crises like this are the best time to visit the far-right blogosphere.  It's fascinating to see what effect reality has on the opinions of true ideologues. Apparently, no effect at all.  That's why they're called "ideologues." Take the Biden-Palin debate, for instance...

It's Friday, and cats are on the blog

Posted on September 05, 2008
I know it's late on Friday, but there's still time for some catblogging -- so I'm going for it. Big Silver has found a nice place to sleep. One that's blessedly free of puppy distractions. I suppose one of the reasons Silvs has been getting along so well with the little puppy is that, for now, the biggie cat can always turn the puppy knob to "off" by going somewhere in the apartment where the puppy can't follow...

Lamb shoulder and purple amaranth

Posted on August 18, 2008
Dinner tonight: lamb shoulder, rare, served with purple amaranth leaves sauteed in butter with shallots, pearl onions, sherry vinegar, and walnuts. Yum!

Moving

Posted on August 16, 2008
Moving from one apartment to another is a pain in the ass. But at least moving can remind you of how much crap you really have. It may induce you to finally get rid of some of it. Best, though, would be if moving all of that crap reminded you not to accumulate so much of it in the first place.

Friday catblogging

Posted on August 15, 2008
It's Friday, which means it's time for catblogging! Today we have my big cat Silver. Alias: Mr. Snuggles. As a bonus, here we have the Big Silv with my new little puppy. Twice the fun! About the cuteness of that little puppy: no comment.

Neighborliness vs. business relationships

Posted on August 13, 2008
I've always vaguely believed that being an asshole now and then is somehow part of being a good businessman. Here, Rick Saenz explores the relationship between business practices and neighborliness, and provides a historical argument to support my vague belief...

An ambulance crashes, and I'm not surprised

Posted on June 18, 2008
I'm surprised we don't see this more often. During the year that I drove an ambulance, I had to deal with a) oblivious drivers, for whom my lights and sirens were like the sound of falling golf clubs to Tiger Woods, and b) crazy-ass Denver Health paramedics who drove like nutjobs...

FISA "compromise" bill a Democratic surrender to George W. Bush

Posted on June 12, 2008
As is often the case, Glenn Greenwald's latest blog post must be read:The New York Times' Eric Lichtblau has a long, prominent article today on the pending debate over FISA and telecom amnesty -- headlined: "Return to Old Spy Rules Is Seen as Deadline Nears" -- that features (and endorses) virtually every blatant falsehood that has distorted these spying issues from the beginning, and which is built on every shoddy journalistic practice that has made clear debate over these issues almost impossible...

Academics and politics

Posted on June 10, 2008
There's an excellent discussion going on over at Stanley Fish's NYT column about the role of political beliefs among college professors. I tend to agree with Fish. The University of Colorado's attempts to recruit conservative faculty members are misplaced and should embarrass all Coloradans...

Got bass?

Posted on June 06, 2008
Waiting for my girlfriend's plane from L.A. to land, I listened closely to Stool... uh, Tool, in the parking lot at O'Hare airport at 5 am after I'd worked all night in the ER. It was sublime: And then this always makes me think of those cold nights camped under the stars in Wyoming:

Obama, the Chicago guy

Posted on June 05, 2008
Via Michael Froomkin comes this great piece from Rick Perlstein, the author of Nixonland. Anyone doubting that we've made some progress in race relations should read some of these letters written by white Chicagoans during the civil rights era. Read their letters, feel their fear...

Why Chicago wants the Olympics

Posted on June 05, 2008
Chicago Stays in Running After Early Vote to Decide Host of 2016 Olympics . . . . The transportation along Lake Michigan, where some of the Olympic sites would be located, needs to be improved because there is no link to rail lines, the evaluation said...

The winner of the popular vote is...

Posted on June 01, 2008
Here's a great post on the Daily Kos that sorts out the controversy over who's winning the popular vote.

Why old white working-class people voted for Hillary

Posted on June 01, 2008
After eight years of George W. Bush, almost all of us want some kind of change. Unsurprisingly, then, Barack Obama?s campaign theme of change has been more successful than Clinton?s theme of experience. What surprises me is the number of Democrats who have voted for Hillary Clinton nevertheless...

Another civics lesson

Posted on May 24, 2008
Glenn Greenwald says he used to be a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. But he doesn't need that background to make the following obvious point: . . . a court striking down a law supported by large majorities is not antithetical to our system of government...

Pygar, RIP

Posted on May 16, 2008
John Phillip Law, the actor who played the well-tanned angel Pygar in one of the most absurd movies ever made, has died. Read the L.A. Times obituary. Oh, and if you haven't seen Barbarella, Queen of the Galaxy, you should. Have you ever wanted to see a sci-fi movie about the sexual adventures of a hot chick who travels the galaxy in a spaceship with brown shag carpet that actually covers the walls? I thought so.

Barbara Ehrenreich gets the gender thing right

Posted on May 15, 2008
Hey Mom, look at this! (I call out my mom because I always have my best discussions about gender differences with her. I'm pretty sure my mom will actually agree with this piece by Barbara Ehrenreich. Even if I'm still not sure whether she supported Obama or Clinton for the Democratic nomination...

Heroes at home

Posted on May 15, 2008
We hear people throwing around the word "hero" a lot these days, mostly in reference to our soldiers fighting in Iraq. Heroes these soldiers may be, but let's also recognize some other heroes serving our country, even if they aren't lauded by the Hugh Hewitts and Rush Limbaughs of the world...

What makes a perfect book?

Posted on May 13, 2008
I was talking about perfect books with a friend of mine the other day. Most of you can point to a few books that sit at the tippy-top of your all-time favorites. Books that have become almost sacred for you. But what is it about these books that separates them from the merely brilliant? My friend said something about a perfect book commandeering her brainstem, whereas a brilliant book can only take control of her cerebellum, or her bilateral parietal lobes...

Noble and worthy people... who need their ass kicked

Posted on May 01, 2008
Writing about the college admissions process, Yale law student Amelia Rawls repeats the truism that successful people aren't always nice. Her article is worth reading because she also points out that noble, concerned, and committed people aren't always nice, either:I'm saying that sometimes some of these students will denounce world hunger but be unfriendly to the homeless...

Paul Krugman's bizarre assertions

Posted on February 12, 2008
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes that "the bitterness of the fight for the Democratic nomination is, on the face of it, bizarre."  Actually, the only thing that's bizarre is why Krugman would say this about a contest that has been astonishingly civilized and free of rancor...

Clinton vs. Obama on telecom immunity

Posted on February 12, 2008
In a few days I'll post the reasons why I think Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton, should be the democratic presidential nominee. For now, please note what happened today.I'm not talking about the potomac primary, I'm talking about the vote in the Senate to strip retroactive immunity from civil liability for telecom companies that cooperated with the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping of American citizens without a warrant...

Modern infantilism -- does Benjamin Barber have the solution?

Posted on February 09, 2008

We don't need a President McCain

Posted on February 07, 2008
John McCain, the certain Republican presidential nominee, sees the 2008 elections like this:Often elections in this country are fought within the margins of small differences. This one will not be. We are arguing about hugely consequential things. Whomever the Democrats nominate, they would govern this country in a way that will, in my opinion, take this country backward to the days when government felt empowered to take from us our freedom to decide for ourselves the course and qualityof our lives; to substitute the muddled judgment of large and expanding federal bureaucracies for the common sense and values of the American people; to the timidity and wishful thinking of a time when we averted our eyes from terrible threats to our security that were so plainly gathering strength abroad...

How democracy works

Posted on February 06, 2008
The New York Times editorializes about "how democracy is supposed to work":In an interview with ABC?s ?Good Morning America,? on Monday, Mr. Obama?s wife, Michelle, was asked if she would work to support Mrs. Clinton if she won. ?I?d have to think about that,? she replied...

Where I stand on the Hyde Park question

Posted on February 05, 2008
Warning: what follows is actually just a long-winded plug for a blog I stumbled upon today: Hyde Park Progress. Is the Chicago neighborhood of Hyde Park a good place to live, or is it a place to commute into because you wouldn't dream of actually living here? From 1989 until early 1993, I lived in Hyde Park...

Emergency medicine's body of knowledge

Posted on January 30, 2008
As you already know from my previous posts, I don't often blog about my job. If you want good blogging about emergency medicine, I suggest you read the EM folks on my blogroll. Panda Bear has been especially hilarious lately. Obviously, I disagree with Dr...

Blind pigeon

Posted on January 30, 2008
A brilliant essay on caring for a blind pigeon.

Re-reading Garrett Hardin in light of Wendell Berry

Posted on January 22, 2008
My dad recently reminded me of Garrett Hardin's essay "The tragedy of the commons", which I've read five times or more in school at various times.  Re-reading it now, it struck me how central the idea of responsibility is to that essay.The central problem for Hardin, of course, is that people acting in their own self-interest will overuse things that are held in common...

Best agrarian blogs

Posted on January 18, 2008
Dry Creek Chronicles, by Rick Saenz, has consistently been the best agrarian blog out there.  I don't mean to endorse all of Saenz' opinions, but I do mean to say that post for post, his blog describes the agrarian viewpoint and wrestles with its consequences better than any other blog I'm aware of...

Cloned cow and dead wolf

Posted on January 16, 2008
Two interesting items from Goat, the blog of the wonderful magazine High Country News:Thanks to a Food and Drug Administration decision made this morning, you might soon be able to order a McClonewich at the drive-through or spread a smear of low-fat clone cheese on your morning bagel...

"Small government" vs. "Big government"

Posted on January 14, 2008
Jonah Goldberg writes about the changing nature of conservatism, implicitly lamenting the rise of several conservative movements which he perceives to be "cris de coeur" against what he labels "mainstream conservatism."  It's a perceptive piece.  There does seem to be an increased reluctance on the part of many people identifying themselves as conservatives to repeat the mantra of "small government, small government" that we've heard so often since 1980...

What's wrong with libertarianism?

Posted on January 12, 2008
Some musings about the pros and cons of libertarianism from Michael Kinsley:Libertarians are quick to see hidden costs of ignoring libertarian principles and slow to see such costs in adhering to them. For example, Tucker Carlson reports in the Dec. 31 New Republic that Ron Paul wants to end the federal ban on unpasteurized milk...

Law vs. Medicine, and law school vs. medical school

Posted on January 11, 2008
I've gotten several email requests over the past few weeks from people who are trying to decide whether to pursue a career in law and/or medicine, asking what the professions are like and what the training for each of them entails. Since more people with the same question may find my blog but won't want to email me directly, I thought I'd post a generic version of what I've said about the subject here...

To my friends in New Hampshire

Posted on January 08, 2008
To each and every one of my political soul mates who live in New Hampshire, please, please, please go out and vote today.Barack Obama won a great victory in Iowa, and he's been getting a lot of good press.  But none of that may matter if you don't lace up your boots and go vote.

New layout coming

Posted on December 27, 2007
Over the next week or so I hope to transform this blog into one with three columns under the banner.So if you come here and see chaos, that's probably what's going on. Chaos. As in, "why won't this fracking thing work?"For the next few days, though, all is safe...

Why not?

Posted on December 26, 2007
Let's give ourselves a break from all this nostalgia, shall we?Now it's time for something completely different.

Countdown to the new year: battlestar galactica

Posted on December 25, 2007
Continuing our nostalgic trip: this past year I saw some of the new Battlestar Galactica with a friend of mine from law school. It rocked, and it reminded me of how much (as a seven-year-old) I liked the old series. Yes, the effects look kind of cheesy now, but I still like the old Battlestar Galactica...

Countdown to the new year: memories of medical school

Posted on December 24, 2007
As we approach New Year's Day, we traditionally prepare to make new year's resolutions by looking back at our past.  We take stock of what has come before, and we indulge our nostalgia for the good things that we've seen and done.There's no better way to indulge nostalgia on the eve of 2008 than by browsing YouTube...

Cats make the best exterminators

Posted on December 21, 2007
"Amid the goods found in the stores, there is one thing that many owners and employees say they cannot do without: their cats. And it goes beyond cuddly companionship. These cats are workers, tireless and enthusiastic hunters of unwanted vermin, and they typically do a far better job than exterminators and poisons...

How to rid yourself of evil

Posted on December 18, 2007
Or, failing that, how to give yourself a nasty headache.HT: GruntDoc

Iorek Byrnison, the armored bear

Posted on December 06, 2007
Nick Thornborrow has painted a great Iorek Byrnison, the armored bear from Phillip Pullman's Golden Compass. This week, we'll get to see a movie version of Byrnison, voiced by Ian McKellen.  This is one movie I'm gonna have to see.

ER overcrowding

Posted on November 29, 2007
The public doesn't really care about the problem of ER overcrowding, right?Well, maybe as a matter of public policy, Iraq and immigration have a firmer grip on the public's collective attention. But for people who have had to be a patient in an ER, and have had to wait for hours and hours to get a simple medical problem addressed, ER overcrowding is a big deal...

Another reason not to be a republican

Posted on November 28, 2007
The NYT has an article about the differences between the Democratic and Republican candidates on energy policy:For Democrats, the goal of energy policy is largely about reducing oil consumption and has become inseparable from the goal of reducing the risk of climate change...

We're not taking responsibility now. Don't make it worse.

Posted on November 26, 2007
If you have some time on your hands, read this post on Crooked Timber praising Michael Sandel's The Case Against Perfection.Harry emphasizes Sandel's point that enhancement technologies might plausibly erode our understanding that many of our talents are gifted, and that this wouldn't be a good thing...

Just because you like China Miéville's books....

Posted on November 25, 2007
China Miéville is one of my favorite authors, but oh! His taste in other writers is atrocious. I'm reading M. John Harrison's Viriconium, a collection of novels by a guy that Miéville says "is one of the very great writers alive today." Well, I can't tell it from the stuff I've read so far...