Academic
Jurisdynamics 
Dedicated to the methodological tools (mathematics, linguistics, complexity theory, and biology) and subjects (regulation, innovation, environmental law, and natural disasters) that most vividly depict the law's interaction with societal and technological change.
Post Frequency: 0.8/day Last Entry: August 11, 2009 at 00:20:00 Recent Entries: 214
By Jim Chen
Go to Jurisdynamics, find other Academic blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Search
Posts
The rhetorical orgin of Sarah Palin's "death panel"
Posted on August 11, 2009Despite her July 26, 2009, resignation as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin remains a formidable political force. She has shifted her primary written platform from Twitter to Facebook.Sarah Palin's Facebook page has had an immediate and profound impact on national politics...
Malaise in America again
Posted on July 15, 2009Thirty years ago, President Jimmy Carter delivered A Crisis of Confidence, better known as "The Malaise Speech." We stand again on a precipice of national decline, having frittered away three decades of opportunities to address energy dependency, environmental protection, and climate change...
In Defense of Law School--A Response to Lippe
Posted on July 10, 2009There has been plenty of buzz on legal blogs lately in response to Paul Lippe's AmLaw blog post laying out the case against the prevailing law school pedagogical model, in particular the status and role of the law faculty. There is no question that there is room for improvement in the American law school model, as there is in every educational model...
Governor Mark Sanford faces the music
Posted on June 24, 2009In a genuinely remarkable pieces of American political theater, Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina admitted that he had not in fact taken a hike on the Appalachian Trail during a five-day absence, but rather conducted an extramarital affair in Argentina...
Neda ??? : In life apolitical, in death a symbol of resistance
Posted on June 23, 2009In a death seen around the world, a symbol of Iranian protestsIt was hot in the car, so the young woman and her singing instructor got out for a breath of fresh air on a quiet side street not far from the antigovernment protests they had ventured out to attend...
Neda ???
Posted on June 21, 2009This video is as compelling as it is graphic:In death she is being called Neda ???, which in Farsi means the voice or the call.
Feudalism Unmodified / Something Blue
Posted on June 16, 2009Feudalism Unmodified: Discourses on Farms and Firms, 45 Drake L. Rev. 361 (1997) (with Edward S. Adams):The regulation of market structure and industrial organization often restricts firms whose size and scope favor sharp distinctions between labor, management, and capital...
Literary Warrant [43]
Posted on June 12, 2009McSorley's Old Ale HouseMarilyn A. Brown, Frank Southworth & Andrea Sarzynski, Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institution, Shrinking the Carbon Footprint of Metropolitan America (May 2008)"The nation?s carbon footprint has a distinct geography not well understood or often discussed...
Least complicated
Posted on June 08, 2009Least complicatedSome long ago when we were taughtThat for whatever kind of puzzle you gotYou just stick the right formula inA solution for every fool— Indigo Girls, Least Complicated, Swamp Ophelia (1994)Yes, there is a connection to law. Read all about it in The Cardinal Lawyer.
Follow J.C. Redbird on Twitter
Posted on June 05, 2009» Adapted from The Cardinal Lawyer «Twitter is a lightweight online platform that blends blogging and social networking. Its users "tweet" by answering a simple question: "What are you doing?" All answers are limited to 140 characters — the length of an SMS text message, minus 20 characters...
I de dager var kjempene på jorden
Posted on May 05, 2009Again from Recess Appointment, chapter 3 of Iridescence:I de dager var kjempene på jorden. The land of one's childhood, no matter its physical location, marks the same place on every person's emotional map. In those days there were giants in the earth, and the sons of God came unto the daughters of men...
Manifold destiny
Posted on April 30, 2009From Recess Appointment, chapter 3 of Iridescence:No reach back into ancient natural history can resist the temptation of the near emotional future. You will believe in that orgiastic future no matter how badly the recent personal past distorts your view of current global reality...
Memory and redshift
Posted on April 28, 2009No less than their sensory counterparts, the waves of personal remembrance obey Doppler's law. The mind in motion never quite perceives what passes before the mind at rest. Emotional recall obeys the forces that bend the peal of a passing bell and warp the color of distant stars...
Creamskimming and competition
Posted on April 27, 2009Herewith my latest paper, Creamskimming and Competition:Creamskimming and CompetitionThe concept of ?creamskimming? arises with regularity in the law of regulated industries. As a rhetorical weapon, the term ?creamskimming? readily conjures images of the sort of putatively destructive competition that regulatory commissions are charged with patrolling...
Seton Hall Law Review symposium
Posted on April 27, 2009Seton Hall Law Review SymposiumOctober 30, 2009Seton Hall Law SchoolNewark, NJSecurities Regulation and the Global Economic Crisis: What Does the Future Hold?CALL FOR PAPERSThe Seton Hall Law Review will be hosting a Symposium on October 30, 2009, at Seton Hall Law School in Newark, NJ, to address the role of securities regulation in the current global financial crisis...
Literary Warrant [42]
Posted on April 06, 2009John Ashbery, Moon Glow, 2008 (collage)The spoon went injust right,stirred the coffee,was removed and layon the saucer, silent.The lost librarybooks fantasizedabout where they'd end up,notrealizing they already had.?from John Ashbery, A November, A Worldly Country (New York: Harper Collins, 2007)American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure (March 25, 2009)"The 2009 Report Card for America?s Infrastructure finds not much has changed since the last edition four years ago...
Visualizing Networks in Law - The New Computational Legal Studies Blog
Posted on March 30, 2009In what is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating new blawgs to start up in a long while, Dan Katz and Michael Bommarito, two political science PhD students at Michigan, have launched the Computational Legal Studies Blog. Using massive data sets and computational software for analyzing and visualizing networks, the sites features articles, posts, and diagrams tapping into such matters as political contributions to Senators by industry, contributions to Senators from TARP institutions, the flow of judicial clerks within the federal judiciary, and the structure of academic disciplines (including law) based on web clicks on journals...
Train wreck
Posted on March 22, 2009Train wreck at Montparnasse Station, Paris, France, 1895.From Daphne Merkin, If Looks Could Steal, N.Y. Times (March 22, 2009):[T]o call Mr. Madoff a sociopath isn?t really to explain him so much as to explain our failure to pick up on his scam. ?Everything that deceives,? decreed Plato, ?can be said to enchant...
Literary Warrant [41]
Posted on March 12, 2009Municipal Waste, Richmond, VA, thrash metal band, liveBryson Bates et al., eds., Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change and Water (2008)"This Technical Paper consists of eight sections. Following the introduction to the Paper (Section 1), Section 2 is based primarily on the assessments of Working Group I, and looks at the science of climate change, both observed and projected, as it relates to hydrological variables...
????????? ????
Posted on March 07, 2009Nam Sibyllam quidem Cumis ego ipse oculis meis vidi in ampulla pendere et cum illi pueri dicerent: ??????? ?? ??????; respondebat illa: ????????? ????.— T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (1922)
The Race to the Bottom and Ward Churchill
Posted on March 07, 2009The Race to the Bottom, a blog that Jurisdynamics and MoneyLaw follow with interest, will cover the Ward Churchill trial.
Clawback
Posted on February 23, 2009"Should executives get to keep lavish pay packages when the profits that generated their compensation go up in smoke?" A growing, grumbling chorus says "yes":With losses mounting at the nation?s largest financial institutions, years of earnings have been erased, investors have lost billions, thousands of employees have been let go, and taxpayers have been tapped to rescue the financial system...
Venus setting: A piece of the night
Posted on February 20, 2009James Watkins, Winter Sunday, Venus Setting (2009)Gin Blossoms, Pieces of the Night , New Miserable Experience (1992)Is it any wonder that the stars just don't rush byWhen you're only doing 60 through this oh-so-vacant nightBut it's lacking something big this timeWhat the hell did you expect to findAphrodite on a barstool by your sideTwelfth night we goAfter something everyone should knowSomewhere in the distance out of sight ...
Darwin's beautiful mind, still not fully appreciated
Posted on February 09, 2009George Richmond, Charles Darwin (1840)Nicholas Wade's reflections on Charles Darwin upon the bicentennial of his birth and the sesquicentennial of The Origin of Species resonate strongly. It is often said that progress in a science is measured by the speed with which its founders are forgotten...
Tech Theory returns
Posted on February 02, 2009Law and Technology Theory, an affiliate of this blog's extended network, has returned. A global consortium of bloggers will address the question of human autonomy and technology throughout February and March 2009. Arthur Cockfield, the host of this extended series of related posts on Tech Theory, begins the discussion with an overview of instrumental and substantive theories of technology.
Literary Warrant [40]
Posted on January 27, 2009Bodleian Library QuadrangleAmerican Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), 2009 Report Card for America's Infrastructure"The Report Card is an assessment by professional engineers of the nation's status in 15 categories of infrastructure. In 2009, all signs point to an infrastructure that is poorly maintained, unable to meet current and future demands, and in some cases, unsafe...
Earthrise on Christmas Eve
Posted on December 24, 2008EarthriseDecember 24, 1968Peace on earth,good will to all
A mountain wind falling on oak trees
Posted on December 21, 2008table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=0tr style="background:#663300; color:#dddd99"td style="padding:15px"img src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/12/18/arts/26113827.JPG" style="width:217px; border: 0px none #663300; padding:0px" alt="Artemis" title="Artemis"/tdtd style="padding:15px"not one girl I thinkbr /who looks on the light of the sunbr /will everbr /have wisdombr /like thisbr /br /div align="right" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 20px"mdash;nbsp;Sappho, emFragment 56/em, emin/em Anne Carson, a href="http://www...
The wonders of a pitiful, dreadful life
Posted on December 19, 2008a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/movies/19wond.html" target=_blankimg src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/12/19/arts/19wonderful.xlarge1x.jpg" style="display:block; margin: 0px auto 0px; text-align:center; width:479px" alt="It's a Wonderful Life" title="It's a Wonderful Life"/abr /Almost precisely a year to the day after the publication of a href="http://www...
Literary Warrant [39]
Posted on December 18, 2008div style="clear: both;"/divdiv style="clear: both;"/diva onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Aquitania/dp/B000001TZQ"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px;" src="http://ecx...
Dogs know
Posted on December 14, 2008Friederike Range of the University of Vienna confirms what dog owners have always known: dogs don't appreciate being treated unfairly. The popular press calls it envy; Dr. Range prefers the term inequity aversion. Either way, dogs know. And in case we've forgotten, so do people.
Literary Warrant [38]
Posted on December 01, 2008Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal den Haag from Candida Höfer, Libraries (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005)"The spirit of rhetoric trumps the spirit of modern philosophy?not quite canceling its dark vision but placing it in a context of ongoingness exemplified by the sense that invention is always available if one can stop fretting over matters of identity...
Jurisdynamic agricultural law
Posted on November 24, 2008I invite readers of Jurisdynamics to ponder how one might update the agricultural law curriculum to account for legal and social change in that domain over the past generation.
Ex libro lapidum historia mundi
Posted on November 19, 2008Mazon Creek lagerstätteAll geology represents the present-tense freeze-frame of the earth's history, condensed conveniently in the chemistry of rocks and soils. Though the course of any single organism's life is infinitesimally minute by comparison with the history of the earth, only one species in the earth's parade of life — ours — has managed to crack the code...
Logarithmic spirals and the nautilus
Posted on November 15, 2008I just composed the following observations in connection with a MoneyLaw post and thought that the Jurisdynamics audience might appreciate them even more:The chambers of a nautilus are arranged according to an approximate logarithmic spiral that can be calculated in polar coordinates according to this simple formula:r = aebθwhere r represents the radial coordinate, θ represents the angular coordinate, e is the base of natural logarithms, and a and b are constants that (1) are arbitrary in modeling and (2) are empirically determined in real-world applications of logarithmic spirals...
Disaster and Sustainability: The Cultural Perspective
Posted on November 04, 2008» Cross-posted from The Cardinal Lawyer «I will take part in a November 6-7 symposium called Disaster and Sustainability: The Cultural Perspective. The University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Law will stage this symposium at Carlsberg Akademi:It is widely accepted that the study of ecological and societal sustainability in general and climate change in particular involves all research disciplines from all faculties within the academy...
Things that don't last, and those that should
Posted on October 21, 2008Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;fecemi la divina podestate,la somma sapïenza e 'l primo amore.Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create,Se non etterne, e io etterno duro.Justice moved my high maker, in power divine,Wisdom supreme, love primal. No things wereBefore me not eternal; eternal I remain...
Literary Warrant [37]
Posted on October 21, 2008Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallenfrom Candida Höfer, Libraries (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005)Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) et al., Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Six Years of Achievement"Uniting public health players, including agencies at the state and local levels, the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Program is a key component of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s (CDC) response to the 9/11 and anthrax incidents in the fall of 2001...
Pygmalion and Galatea
Posted on October 18, 2008Étienne Maurice Falconet, Pygmalion et Galatée (1763)For Pygmalion so loved his graven Galatea that the gods took pity and gave her life, that Pygmalion might not die alone, but know mortal joy.And so the project of depicting Pygmalion and Galatea expresses the quest for a perfect expression of the Immaculate Conception, albeit in reverse...
Reparations Symposium
Posted on October 17, 2008On October 31, 2008, the Kansas Law Review will host a symposium highlighting empirical research supporting legal claims for reparations for slavery. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a pathbreaking decision on reparations in In re African-American Slave Descendants Litigation, 471 F...
Schattenfreude: Endlich ein juristischer Ausdruck
Posted on October 13, 2008I owe a debt of gratitude to Hubert Humphrey, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger, Allen Tate, and William Wordsworth. Schattenfreude, an idea that has obsessed Jurisdynamics in image and in word, has finally found an explicitly legal expression. I invite you to read about the legal treatment of Schattenfreude at The Cardinal Lawyer.
The Biden-Palin debate
Posted on October 05, 2008Herewith video of the 2008 vice-presidential debate:
Biden versus Palin: The SNL parody
Posted on October 05, 2008You've seen the real thing. Now watch the parody:
Literary Warrant [36]
Posted on September 29, 2008Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #13, 1978Ceres, Investors Achieve Major Company Commitments on Climate Change (Press release) (August 20, 2008)"Investors engaging with U.S. companies on the financial risks and opportunities from climate change achieved breakthrough results during the 2008 proxy season...
The story of Wickard v. Filburn: Agriculture, aggregation, and commerce
Posted on September 21, 2008The Story of Wickard v. Filburn: Agriculture, Aggregation, and Commerce, in Constitutional Law Stories (Michael C. Dorf, ed., 2d ed., Foundation Press, forthcoming 2009). Abstracted in the University of Louisville School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series, No...
Tina Fey : Amy Poehler :: Sarah Palin : Hillary Clinton
Posted on September 14, 2008Hat tip: Maureen Ryan's The Watcher. Here's another version of the same video, courtesy of NBC.com:
Where I go
Posted on September 08, 2008The Green River near Mammoth Cave, KentuckyNatalie Merchant, Where I Go, Tigerlily (1995)climbing under a barbed wire fence by the railroad ties climbing over the old stone wall I am bound for the riverside Well I go to the river to soothe my mind ponder over the crazy days of my lifejust sit and watch the river flow find a place on the riverbank where the green rushes grow see the wind in the willow treein the branches hanging low well I go to the river to soothe my mindto ponder over the crazy days of my life watch the river flow ease my mind and my soul where I go well I will go to the river from time to timewander over these crazy days in my mind watch the river flowwhere the willow branches grow by the cool rolling waters moving gracefully and slow child it's lovely let the river take it all away the mad pace, the hurry the troubles, the worries just let the river take them all away flow awayThe Kentucky River near Shaker Village, Kentucky
Degas and his dancers
Posted on September 04, 2008The New York Times takes another look at the Metropolitan Museum's Degas collection and comes to know it for the first time:At the Met, . . . [Edgar] Degas is the sole occupant of two rooms (one of painting, one of sculpture), the main occupant of two more and is found in two others...
Die bessere Rede
Posted on August 29, 2008American political commentators have begun, and will long continue, discussing Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. But from a broader perspective of time and space, of history and geopolitics, Senator Obama's August 28 speech in Denver can rank no higher than the second best oration of this political season...
Addicted to love
Posted on August 27, 2008As Bill Clinton left the stage at the Democratic National Convention, the musical director summoned a surreal tune:Yes, that's right. Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love. Modern political conventions are too carefully choreographed and scripted for this musical selection to have been accidental...
Survival of the Fittest
Posted on August 27, 2008Via the New York Times, an object lesson in (1) making money while being environmentally sound and (2) remaining economically viable by maintaining a longer managerial time horizon:During the glory days of big pickups and sport utility vehicles, one automaker steadfastly refused to join the party...
At once word and world together
Posted on August 24, 2008» Cross-posted from The Cardinal Lawyer «In the hope that homage delayed is not homage denied, I dedicate this post to the first legal academic I ever met. A quarter century of familiarity with that scholar's work lights a path toward understanding the place and the power and the grace and the grandeur of law in a world beyond borders...
Ithaka: Legal education as an odyssey
Posted on August 18, 2008Thalia-Flora Karavia, Portrait of C.P. Cavafy (1926)Like all other journeys, legal education has a fairly well defined end. Like the best of journeys, legal education at its best does not set its destination in advance, but rather refocuses along the way...
Literary Warrant [35]
Posted on August 18, 2008"—No doubt, Sir—there is a whole chapter wanting here—and a chasm of ten pages made in the book by it—but the bookbinder is neither a fool, or a knave, or a puppy—but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and complete by wanting the chapter, than having it...
Prospettive su Pluto e Proserpina
Posted on August 14, 2008Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, Pluto e Proserpina (1621-22)This exquisite piece of Baroque sculpture graces the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Its sensuality, especially when portrayed from unusual angles, has maddened the authors of blogs as diverse as Glendale Figure Sculpture, Kym Lardner, Noodnik, and Jurisdynamics.
From Red Lion to Red List: The Dominance and Decline of the Broadcast Medium
Posted on August 13, 2008Herewith my most recent SSRN manuscript, From Red Lion to Red List: The Dominance and Decline of the Broadcast Medium, 60 Admin. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2009):This essay proposes a little housecleaning in the law of communications regulation. Red Lion Broadcasting Co...
Toilet to tap
Posted on August 11, 2008Indirect potable reuse? Toilet to tap? Whatever you call it, the recycling of sewage into drinking water is today's reality in Orange County, California. It may be tomorrow's inevitability in a world of soaring demand, depleted aquifers, and galloping climate change.
Literary Warrant [34]
Posted on August 06, 2008Another grey image: Hurricane, MiamiCenter for Public Integrity, Perils of the New Pesticides (July 30, 2008)"Pyrethrins, extracted from the chrysanthemum plant, and their synthetic relatives, pyrethroids, have exploded in popularity over the last decade...
Literary Warrant [33]
Posted on July 31, 2008Grey Sky, Sea and Speedboat, Dominic's pics, Brighton, EnglandKeith Collins, Kraft Foods Global, Inc., The Role of Biofuels and Other Factors in Increasing Farm and Food Prices: A Review of Recent Developments with a Focus on Feed Grain Markets and Market Prospects (June 2008)"This paper reviews various studies that have examined the relationship between corn used in ethanol production and corn prices...
Engineered beauty
Posted on July 23, 2008Each year Microsoft invites students and staff at the University of Cambridge's engineering department to submit photos that are "beautiful, fascinating, intriguing, amusing, or possibly all of these things." Here are nine images, including the three winners, from the 2008 Microsoft Photography Competition...
Access to knowledge: further building blocks
Posted on July 21, 2008As promised in my first post on access to knowledge (A2K), I am pleased to provide links to Lea Shaver's forthcoming paper, Defining and Measuring A2K: A Blueprint for an Index of Access to Knowledge, and to the PowerPoint presentation that Lea made at this year's American Association of Law Libraries meeting in Portland.
Literary Warrant [32]
Posted on July 21, 2008Marino Pliakas, Michael Wertmüller & Peter BrötzmannRobert Bamberger, Specialist in Energy Policy, Resources, Sciences, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), The Strategic Petroleum Reserve: History, Perspectives, and Issues (Order Code RL33341) (Updated May 15, 2008)"Congress authorized the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA, P...
Annabelle
Posted on July 19, 2008Within the expressive idiom of American folk music, is there a more compelling example of literary naturalism than Gillian Welch's 1996 ballad, Annabelle (on Revival)?In previous blog posts, in this forum and on MoneyLaw, I've come close to answering the question...
Quantifying access to knowledge
Posted on July 17, 2008A2KHerewith Access to Knowledge: Defining and Measuring Economic, Legal, and Human Capital , my contribution to a July 13, 2008, program called International Law and the Evolving Knowledge Society at the 2008 meeting of the American Association of Law Libraries...
Classroom 2.0
Posted on July 09, 2008By way of Red Lion Reports and TaxProf, I've learned about, and am now pleased to rebroadcast, the following lecture:Professor Michael WeschA Portal to Media LiteracyUniversity of Manitoba, June 17, 2008Dubbed ?the explainer? by popular geek publication Wired because of his viral YouTube video that summarizes Web 2...
Truth and beauty: A legal translation
Posted on July 08, 2008Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of NightHas flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caughtThe Sultán?s Turret in a Noose of Light.— Edward FitzGerald, The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859)Truth and Beauty: A Legal Translationhttp://ssrn...
Lowering the costs of switching between Windows and Mac
Posted on July 07, 2008For years I've resisted switching from the world of Microsoft-powered computers to that of Apple, the Mac, and Leopard OS. Not out of any belief in Microsoft's technological superiority, mind you — I am firmly convinced of Microsoft's inferiority — but rather out of fear that the switching costs would be prohibitive...
New Mexico bans cockfighting
Posted on July 05, 2008New Mexico bans cockfighting. When a ban takes effect in Louisiana in August, cockfighting will be illegal in all 50 states.Fuller details available on Agricultural Law.
I reaffirm my allegiance
Posted on July 04, 2008Editor's note: The following letter, I Reaffirm My Allegiance, was originally published in the Washington Post on July 4, 1976:What am I?I am a free man — a good and decent man — a man of compassion, generosity, and understanding — a true friend, a steadfast ally, and a bitter foe...
I wish it would rain
Posted on July 02, 2008Nanci Griffith, I Wish It Would Rain, on Little Love Affairs (1988)Chorus:Oh, I wish it would rainAnd wash my face cleanI want to find some dark cloud to hide in hereLove in a memorySparkled like diamondsWhen the diamonds fall . . . they burn like tearsWhen the diamonds fall ...
Rock 'n' roll federal courts
Posted on June 30, 2008Bedrock(er)s of American lawThis multimedia post serves as a sequel to Rock 'n' Roll Law School — the SSRN download as well as the Jurisdynamics entry. Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice and Adam Liptak of the New York Times have extracted maximum musical value out of one passage in Chief Justice John Roberts's dissent in Sprint Communications Co...
Amazing grace, in the key of black
Posted on June 29, 2008» Cross-posted at Danzig U.S.A. «Negro Spiritual Singers, from the Works Progress Administration's Federal Music Project, entertained King George VI and Queen Mary at the White House, June 8, 1939.addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart— Ephesians 5:19, RSVThe Negro spiritual is a powerful and influential art form...
Poverty and natural disasters
Posted on June 27, 2008Herewith the RealPlayer video of my February 16, 2007, presentation (alongside Daniel A. Farber) on Poverty and Natural Disasters, during the Law & Inequality Symposium: The Next 25 Years. I have summarized these thoughts in an essay called Law Among the Ruins (previously discussed on Jurisdynamics)...
Mountain of sorrow
Posted on June 27, 2008One wistful Nanci Griffith cover on MoneyLaw merits a musical response in the form of a wistful Nanci Griffith tune on Jurisdynamics: Nanci Griffith Mountain of Sorrow Hearts in Mind (2005) Easy come, easy go Anything but easy . . . though You were here, now you?re gone That?s the only thing I know And it?s just one more sorrow To throw upon the heap Mountain of sorrow ...
AIDS as a global disaster
Posted on June 26, 2008IFRC, Our world, together against HIV ?The link between vulnerability to HIV and humanitarian disaster has long been recognized; yet we have been slow as a global community in proactively involving organizations in the humanitarian world in the fight against HIV and AIDS...
Le Bassin aux Nymphéas
Posted on June 25, 2008Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.— Claude Monet (1840-1926)Carol Vogel, Le Bassin aux Nymphéas is sold for a record $80.4 million , New York Times (June 25, 2008)An important work by Claude Monet has set a record price at auction...
Homage to Lampyridae
Posted on June 24, 2008As with the photographer who snapped the shot above, this too is my favorite part of summer. The season with the least amount of dark offsets that deficit by allowing the meekest lights among us to rule the night. Hail Lampyridae; long may you glow.
George Carlin
Posted on June 23, 2008George Carlin has died. A Prawfsblawg post by Howard Wasserman featured this video of Carlin's Seven Dirty Words routine:Howard Wasserman's broader point regarding Carlin's legal legacy is squarely on target. There simply is no way to reconcile FCC v...
Rock 'n' roll law school
Posted on June 20, 2008Joan Jett loves rock 'n' roll. So do I. And so should the Supreme Court. Herewith Rock 'n' Roll Law School, 12 Constitutional Commentary 315 (315), plus part of its accompanying soundtrack:
Banana twilight
Posted on June 19, 2008A widely read and frantically e-mailed New York Times story has opened many new eyes to a horticultural disaster anticipated for many years: the commercial extinction of the Cavendish banana. Dan Koeppel's warning is right on target:By sticking to [a] single variety, the banana industry ensures that all the bananas in a shipment ripen at the same rate, creating huge economies of scale...
Euro 2008: Take it to the next level
Posted on June 16, 2008By way of Red Lion Reports, I've learned of Nike Soccer's video celebrating Euro 2008. Click the Euro 2008 logo accompanying this post or this link to watch Take It to the Next Level.
What it's like: Everlasting empathy
Posted on June 12, 2008It has been ten years since Everlast issued What It's Like, but the song still resonates. Even more so in a hotly contested political season that coincides with some of the toughest economic times in recent American history.Everlast, What It's Like , Whitey Ford Sings the Blues (1998)We've all seen the man at the liquor store begging for your changeThe hair on his face is dirty, dreadlocked, and full of mangeHe asks the man for what he can spare with shame in his eyesGet a job you fucking slob is all he replied...
Primary colors
Posted on June 10, 2008The Census Bureau has already divided America into regions and divisions. Might these boundaries help the parties organize — and rotate — regional primaries?Now that primary season is over, it's time to draw and quarter the political rules that make a mockery of America's system for selecting each major party's presidential nominee...
Telecommunications mergers
Posted on June 10, 2008Herewith my latest SSRN download:Telecommunications Mergers, in Competition Policy and Merger Analysis in Deregulated and Newly Competitive Industries, at pp. 52-83 (Peter Carstensen & Susan Beth Farmer eds., Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming 2008):Telecommunications mergers are at once a historical mirror and a harbinger of the legal future...
The $4 barrier and rural America
Posted on June 09, 2008As reported in the New York Times, the breaking of the $4/gallon barrier for gasoline is taking an extraordinary toll on rural America:Tchula, Miss. — Gasoline prices reached a national average of $4 a gallon for the first time over the weekend, adding more strain to motorists across the country...
A Hillary Clinton campaign montage
Posted on June 08, 2008Primary season is over, and Hillary Clinton didn't win. Even though she didn't win (enough) delegates or the Democratic nomination, she did make history and win the grudging admiration of many friends and foes, especially down the stretch. Herewith a gallery of images drawn from two New York Times slide shows, Clinton Cross-Country and Clinton's Bid Comes to a Close...
The greatest story ever told
Posted on June 06, 2008Hear the rhapsody in cyan that cyanobacteria composed in bridging the Archaean and Proterozoic eons of geologic history. By "poisoning" the ancient earth's atmosphere through photosynthesis, cyanobacteria converted the reducing atmosphere of the Archaean into the aerobic atmosphere that has prevailed ever since and has supported a wide range of oxygen-loving (or at least oxygen-tolerant) organisms...
Obama versus Clinton, county by county
Posted on June 06, 2008Herewith an intriguing county-by-county look at the 2008 Democratic presidential primary:Barack Obama's counties are in purple; Hillary Clinton's, in green.The comparison with the county-by-county results of the 2004 presidential election is also interesting:The 2004 map follows the color coding that has become familiar since the 2000 presidential election: Democratic counties (Kerry) in blue, Republican counties (Bush) in red...
Schattenfreude II
Posted on June 05, 2008The dying day weaves sunset's rich brocadeOn shoulders lithe and bare. As shadows fade,Emergent twilight's tender hands caressYour head beneath a crown of light and shade.A quatrain to accompany the original Schattenfreude.
A campaign season for the ages
Posted on June 05, 2008VictorVanquishedBarack Obama's triumph over Hillary Clinton for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination will be the subject of intense popular and academic scrutiny for years to come. What blogs can do is to capture the heat of the moment and — variable coding skills permitting — to deliver multimedia, bit by byte, to a voracious online audience...
Literary Warrant [31]
Posted on June 05, 2008"It's hot, real hot. The summer has broken all heat records and those chunks of Antarctica that have broken away have pushed water levels so high that you're surrounded by water. But no chunks of ice. At first you like the heat; it's like having your own hot tub...
Resilience, in disaster relief as in environmental innovation
Posted on June 01, 2008Two recent news items, appearing together in the May 31, 2008, issue of The New York Times, highlight that jurisdynamic qualities, resilient decisionmaking and pragmatic judgment.First, cyclone relief in Myanmar:They paddle for hours on the stormy river, or carry their sick parents on their backs through the mud and rain, traveling for miles to reach the one source of help they can rely on: Buddhist monks...
Law among the ruins
Posted on May 30, 2008Law Among the RuinsTwo paintings by Sir Edward Burne-Jones. Left: King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid (1884). Right: Love Among the Ruins (1893-94).Herewith a new paper, Law Among the Ruins:Hurricane Katrina broke America's collective heart. No previous natural disaster in the nation's history inflicted a grimmer toll...
Dealing with the Polar Bear
Posted on May 29, 2008There has been a lot of hoopla and controversy focused on the Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS) recent listing of the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The FWS is taking flak from all sides. Alaska, Canada, and many US industries argue that the agency used insufficient science to designate the bear as threatened, and that the listing will bring doom and gloom to our economies...
Remember the quagga
Posted on May 28, 2008Olivia Judson, Musings inspired by a quagga, The New York Times: The Wild Side blog (May 27, 2008)The hall is hushed, like a church. No one else is here. The only sound is the clicking of the heels of my shoes. I walk up and down, looking at the animals...
Literary Warrant [30]
Posted on May 28, 2008What has come to the fore — at least in the West — is the dream of total communication itself. Could anything be more desirable and innocent than the superconductivity of electronic media as they arouse the illusion of complete transparency and universal access? In the revolution of the Information Age, openness, communicability, transparency, have become slogans as inspiring as Kant's "Dare to know" used to be...
The detail of the pattern is movement
Posted on May 27, 2008The detail of the pattern is movement . . . .T.S. Eliot, Burnt Norton, Four Quartets (1943)Herewith the concluding lines to Burnt Norton, the first of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets:The detail of the pattern is movement,As in the figure of the ten stairs...
Brooklyn Bridge
Posted on May 23, 2008Brooklyn Bridge is 125 years old. To celebrate, Jurisdynamics presents Hart Crane's poetic tribute, To Brooklyn Bridge:Hart Crane, To Brooklyn BridgeHow many dawns, chill from his rippling restThe seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,Shedding white rings of tumult, building highOver the chained bay waters Liberty —Then, with inviolate curve, forsake our eyesAs apparitional as sails that crossSome page of figures to be filed away;— Till elevators drop us from our day ...
Too cruel anywhere
Posted on May 23, 2008As the 2008 presidential primaries wind to a close, Hillary Clinton invokes the assassination of Robert Kennedy as a reason not to end her campaign. In response to suggestions from reporters and Barack Obama's campaign that she should quit the race, Senator Clinton replied: "[H]istorically, that makes no sense...
The love song of the Delaware Court of Chancery
Posted on May 20, 2008By way of Red Lion Reports, I've learned of The Love Song of the Delaware Court of Chancery. It is an awe-inspiring adaptation of T.S. Eliot's classic poem, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Enjoy!Let us rule then, you and I,When there?s theft of corp?rate opportunityLike a patient over-billed by doctors able;Let us read through certain less well-researched briefs,The nimbly wrought conceitsOf high-paid lawyers in nearby hotelsWho work so hard all day for corporate shells;Days that follow, full of insipid argumentOf questionable intentThat lead some to such aggravating questions ...
Law's double helix
Posted on May 19, 2008?Beauty is truth, truth beauty,? ? that is allYe know on earth, and all ye need to know.John KeatsOde on a Grecian Urn (1819)The concluding couplet in John Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819) — ?Beauty is truth, truth beauty,? — that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know...
The Double Helix
Posted on May 18, 2008James Watson's memoir, The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA, has been described by Sylvia Nasar as "unique in the annals of science writing." The Double Helix describes a "discovery . . . of a magnitude comparable, in terms of scientific and social significance, to the breakthroughs that led to the splitting of the atom and the invention of the computer...
I've been delivered
Posted on May 16, 2008The WallflowersI've been deliveredBreach (2000)In many ways, this lyrically rich song is an anthem for Jurisdynamics. From the opening lines — nothing's hard as / getting free from places / I've already been — to the closing — I can't fix / something this complex / any more than I can build a rose — I've been delivered expresses some of the core principles of complexity theory...
The wives and times of William O. Douglas
Posted on May 15, 2008A warm and welcome e-mail message from Thomas E. Baker showed the error of my ways. In The Mystery and the Mastery of the Judicial Power, 59 Mo. L. Rev. 281 (1994), I asserted that William O. Douglas is the only Supreme Court Justice ever to marry a law clerk...
Trouble in bear country
Posted on May 15, 2008As rising temperatures change life on a global scale, we should not be surprised that Ursus maritimus, the eponymous bear of the far north, has now come under the aegis of the Endangered Species Act.Threatened
Sugar, sugar
Posted on May 14, 2008Memorandum Fellow members of the Barack Obama campaign, we're about to seal the deal. We just scored endorsements from NARAL and John Edwards. One little matter does warrant our attention:In addition to bitter and cling, please remind Senator Obama to drop the word sweetie from his vocabulary:Our candidate is the smoothest orator in the recent history of American politics...
Just do it: Obama's victory lap in Eugene, Orgeon
Posted on May 11, 2008Above: a brilliant piece of political photography by Bruce Ely of the Associated Press, published in connection with the Washington Post's coverage of Barack Obama's campaign stop in Eugene, Oregon.
Almost heaven
Posted on May 10, 2008John Denver, Country RoadsAlmost heaven, West VirginiaBlue Ridge MountainsShenandoah River —Life is old thereOlder than the treesYounger than the mountainsGrowing like a breezeCountry roads, take me homeTo the place I belongWest Virginia, mountain mamaTake me home, country roadsAll my memories gather round herMiners' lady, stranger to blue waterDark and dusty, painted on the skyMisty taste of moonshineTeardrops in my eyeCountry roads, take me homeTo the place I belongWest Virginia, mountain mamaTake me home, country roadsI hear her voiceIn the morning hour she calls meThe radio reminds me of my home far awayAnd driving down the road I get a feelingThat I should have been home yesterday, yesterdayCountry roads, take me homeTo the place I belongWest Virginia, mountain mamaTake me home, country roadsCountry roads, take me homeTo the place I belongWest Virginia, mountain mamaTake me home, country roadsTake me home, now country roadsTake me home, now country roads
Hillary's last great hope
Posted on May 09, 2008From Hillary Clinton's explosive interview staking claim to a "broader base" among "hard-working Americans, white Americans":West Virginia and Kentucky are the next battleground for swing, working-class voters. These are the people you have to win if you're a Democrat in sufficient numbers to actually win the election...
The platypus genome
Posted on May 08, 2008The platypus genome has been sequenced. Some of the cooler details:Sex determination. It has been known that platypuses have not one but five (!) pairs of sex chromosomes. Male platypuses exhibit an XYXYXYXYXY genotype. And those sex chromosomes bear some connection to the ZW sex determination system found in birds...
Are administrative patent judges unconstitutional?
Posted on May 06, 2008Apparently, yes:As amended in 1999, 35 U.S.C. § 6 authorizes the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) to appoint all administrative patent judges of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences [BPIA]. That method of appointment is almost certainly unconstitutional, and the administrative patent judges serving under such appointments are likely to be viewed by the courts as having no constitutionally valid governmental authority...
Loving
Posted on May 06, 2008By way of The Daily Kos and Pharyngula, I've learned that Mildred Jeter Loving died on May 2, 2008.Mildred Loving and her husband, Richard, were the subject of Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1. (1967), the Supreme Court case that invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriages...
A campaign picture worth a thousand words
Posted on May 05, 2008The above image is what Fox News used to illustrate Hillary Clinton's announcement that she had challenged Barack Obama to a Lincoln-Douglas debate. A tip of the stove-top hat to The Faculty Lounge, Feminist Law Professors, and Bitch Ph.D..And in the interest of preventing that image from becoming too strongly associated with the real Lincoln-Douglas debates, the ones that took place 150 years ago and involved a Democratic Senator from Illinois who would go on to win his party's nomination for President, I offer this image from 1858:
Benediction
Posted on May 05, 2008In response to Red Lion Reports' exam-inspired "Prayer for a busy day," Jurisdynamics offers yet another benediction. Herewith Numbers 6:24-26:24 The Lord bless you and keep you:25 The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you:26 The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace...
Jazzfest 2008
Posted on May 05, 2008The New York Times took note of New Orleans' annual Jazz and Heritage Festival, a.k.a. Jazzfest:Like the city it celebrates, the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is steeped in local memory. . . .At this year?s Jazzfest it was clear that New Orleans performances have added a new and possibly permanent custom: an acknowledgment of the scars left by [Hurricane Katrina]...
The Law of Rock
Posted on May 04, 2008By way of the Daily Californian, Jurisdynamics and MoneyLaw have learned a matter of earthshaking importance in legal education:Josh Keesan, a law student at the University of California-Berkeley, has recorded The Law of Rock, Volume 1. To the best of my knowledge, this album represents the first, full-length, studio-recorded effort to express legal doctrines as works of rock 'n' roll...
Rhapsodizing further on insects
Posted on May 02, 2008Elaborating further on Rhapsody in iridescent blue: A quartet from "The Theater of Insects," in Jurisdynamics' preferred variation on the theme of synesthesia:I. The Theater of Insects RevisitedImages from Jo Whaley, The Theater of Insects, © 2000-2007...
Rhapsody in iridescent blue: A quartet from "The Theater of Insects"
Posted on May 01, 2008Images from Jo Whaley, The Theater of Insects, © 2007. Top — 47: Doxocopa cherubina and 8: Papilio ulysses. Bottom — 60: Anaea cyanae and 102: Morpho deidamia.From the introductory essay accompanying Jo Whaley's forthcoming book, The Theater of Insects (2008):Like moths attracted to the light of a flame only to perish in that flight, I wonder if we, too, are tied to self-destruction through a drive toward greater technological heights...
The rainbow as refracted truth
Posted on April 30, 2008By arc or by whole, the rainbow reveals refracted truth. Nearby rain and distant mist have equal power to vaporize visible light into bands of color. A single sheet of water, slicing through sunlight, projects the full spectrum against the sky's inverted bowl...
Scalia on Bush v. Gore: "Get over it"
Posted on April 25, 2008In his 60 Minutes interview, expected to air on April 27, 2008, Justice Antonin Scalia has this to say about Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000):Get over it. It?s so old by now.Hat tip: ABA Journal Online.
Pyrrhus of Epirus, campaign manager
Posted on April 23, 2008Obama, Osama, and one hot kitchenAlternate video sourceNew York Times editorial, The Low Road to Victory (April 23, 2008)Ferdinand Bol, Fabritius and Pyrrhus (1656). Read more about Pyrrhus of Epirus.The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it...
Toxic inaction, in humans and their pets
Posted on April 23, 2008Mark Schapiro, Toxic InactionGreenpeace U.K. released a study in 2005 that found numerous toxic chemicals in the umbilical-cord blood of European infants. That same year, World Wildlife Fund International tested the blood of three generations of women from 12 European countries...
Literary Warrant [29]
Posted on April 22, 2008Fred is dancing on a tilting dance floor on the ocean floorIn a sunken ocean linerIn 1934?lighter than air!?Fred Astaire!?In the depths of the Great Depression.From Frederick Seidel, "Dick and Fred," in Ooga-Booga (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006)Bill Baue & Jackie Cook, Ceres, Mutual Funds and Climate Change: Opposition to Climate Change Resolutions Begins to Thaw (April 2008)"This report is the fourth by Ceres examining the mutual fund industry?s proxy voting practices on climate change shareholder resolutions...
Immoderate thoughts about the Clinton-Obama debate
Posted on April 20, 2008Watch it again. Read the transcript. It's impossible to miss what 10 million viewers noticed: ABC News' moderators, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, along with the national news media as a whole, were the real losers of this week's debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton:[V]iewers of all political persuasions were affronted by the moderators? failure to ask about the mortgage crisis, health care, the environment, torture, education, China policy, the pending G...
Beauty and truth in physics
Posted on April 17, 2008Herewith an extension to The quark, the jaguar, and the laws of Jurisdynamics:Murray Gell-Mann: Beauty and truth in physicsWielding laypeople's terms and a sense of humor, Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann drops some knowledge about particle physics, asking questions like, Are elegant equations more likely to be right than inelegant ones? Can the fundamental law, the so-called "theory of everything," really explain everything? His answers will surprise you...
Liberating Red Lion from the Glass Menagerie of Free Speech Jurisprudence
Posted on April 15, 2008Liberating Red Lion from the Glass Menagerie of Free Speech JurisprudenceFollowing the established protocol for loading old articles onto SSRN, I've posted Liberating Red Lion from the Glass Menagerie of Free Speech Jurisprudence, 1 J. on Telecomms. & High Tech...
Appalachian Spring: A simple gift upon the passing of milestones
Posted on April 14, 2008Wadih Ghsoubi, Foggy Morn, Red River Gorge, Daniel Boone National Forest (n.d.)Marie Reilly of Red Lion Reports recently passed a blogging milestone. So did Jurisdynamics and MoneyLaw. The occasion warrants a modest celebration, at the very point where Marie's world and mine — whether expressed in legal, geographic, or intellectual terms — intersect...
Pharyngula, we are here
Posted on April 14, 2008PZ Myers of Pharyngula has asked bloggers everywhere to help build a Google bomb that promotes the National Center for Science Education's website, Expelled Exposed. The project consists of embedding the word Expelled inside a matched pair of <a> and </a> tags...
Dendrobium: Family Orchidaceae's tree of life
Posted on April 11, 2008I.V. Passmoore, Dendrobium Orchid (n.d.)Dendrobium refers to a large genus of tropical orchids comprising roughly 1200 species. The term dendrobium combines the Greek words ?????? (tree) and ???? (life). These orchids range throughout much of southern and eastern Asia, the Philippines, Indonesia, New Guinea, Australia, and New Zealand...
Supreme Court fantasy camp: Justice Kennedy's chambers
Posted on April 11, 2008My dear friend, Marie T. Reilly, has wistfully wished, "I wish there was Supreme Court fantasy camp."Well, we can't quite make that happen. But Jurisdynamics and Ratio Juris can do the next best thing: bring Oyez.org's virtual Supreme Court tour to life...
Simplicity, complexity, and Madame X
Posted on April 10, 2008[T]he ladies of John Singer Sargent . . . [are] very demure, the ladies of 1905, and then also they express themselves. There are Mrs. I.N. Phelps Stokes; the Misses Vickers; Lady Agnew; . . . and there is Madame X. — Lynnette Abel, Sargent's "Madame X," or, Assertion and Retreat in WomanMadame X, currently on display at MoneyLaw for the purpose of illustrating the academic advantages of risk-taking, also illustrates the relationship between simplicity and complexity — one of the pervading intellectual themes of Jurisdynamics:Simplicity and Complexity: Is there a simplicity in all art, a deep naiveté, an immediate self-containedness, accompanied perhaps by fresh directness or startling economy? — and is there that, so rich, it cannot be summed up; something subterranean and intricate counteracting and completing simplicity; the teasing complexity of reality meditated on?
Sherman Minton
Posted on April 10, 2008My Louisville colleague, Kurt Metzmeier, has continued his blog's series on Supreme Court Justices buried in and near Louisville. Installments 1 and 2 — focusing, respectively, on Justices John McKinley and Louis D. Brandeis — are now accompanied by Justice Sherman Minton: A Bridge Between Eras...
A Louisiana decision on flood damage
Posted on April 09, 2008In Sher v. Lafayette Ins. Co., 2007-C-2441 & 2007-C-2443 (La. April 8, 2008), the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that an insurance company was not liable for water damage caused by the failure of levees in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. Homeowner Joseph Sher's policy excluded "flood" damage...
Leda and the Swan
Posted on April 07, 2008William Butler YeatsLeda and the Swan (1924)A sudden blow: the great wings beating stillAbove the staggering girl, her thighs caressedBy the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.How can those terrified vague fingers pushThe feathered glory from her loosening thighs?And how can body, laid in that white rush,But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?A shudder in the loins engenders thereThe broken wall, the burning roof and towerAnd Agamemnon dead...
Biolaw: Law at the Frontiers of Biology
Posted on April 04, 2008Interface and Pain, watercolors by Sharon BurgmayerHerewith the video proceedings of the Kansas Law Review's symposium, Biolaw: Law at the Frontiers of Biology (November 9, 2007), to be published in volume 55, issue 4 of the Review.Read the rest of this post ...
Pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart
Posted on April 04, 2008Marie Reilly of Red Lion Reports reminds us that April 4, 2008, is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and of an extraordinary oration by Robert F. Kennedy in response to that national tragedy.Kennedy's words speak eloquently for themselves, and — courtesy of American Rhetoric — I have reproduced them below through video, audio, and text...
Biolaw: Cracking the Code
Posted on April 01, 2008Biolaw: Cracking the CodeThe neologism biolaw describes all areas of law informed by the life sciences. Health law, bioethics, environmental law, natural resources law, agricultural law, food and drug law, biotechnology, law and neuroscience, law and behavioral psychology, and evolutionary analysis of law all share a common scientific core...
Literary Warrant [28]
Posted on March 25, 2008President George W. Bush, The White House, Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), CEQ Fact Sheet: Conserving Our Oceans Through Stewardship, Volunteerism, and Education (March 24, 2008)"The President And Mrs. Bush Are Committed To Continuing To Protect Our Natural Resources Through Wise Stewardship And Sensible Management...
The quark, the jaguar, and the laws of Jurisdynamics
Posted on March 23, 2008[H]istory shows clearly that humanity is moved forward not by people who stop every little while to gauge the ultimate success or failure of their [own] ventures, but by those who think deeply about what is right and then put all their energy into doing it...
Easter moonrise
Posted on March 22, 2008The moon rises over Ahu Akivi on Easter Island.Easter 2008 falls on March 23. According to western Christianity's rules for calculating the date of Easter, this movable feast will not arrive as early in the calendar for another 152 years (2160). Easter will not fall on the earliest possible date of March 22 until 2285...
Holy Thursday / Semana Santa
Posted on March 20, 2008William Blake, Holy Thursday, Songs of Innocence (1789)?Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,The children walking two and two, in red and blue and green,Grey-headed beadles walk'd before, with wands as white as snow,Till into the high dome of Paul?s they like Thames' waters flow...
Literary Warrant [27]
Posted on March 18, 2008beSpacific, EPA Issues Strengthened National Standards for Ground-Level Ozone (March 12, 2008)"On March 12, 2008, EPA significantly strengthened its national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for ground-level ozone, the primary component of smog. These changes will improve both public health protection and the protection of sensitive trees and plants...
Patrick Henry Hughes
Posted on March 17, 2008As described at The Cardinal Lawyer, the story of Patrick Henry Hughes is breathtaking and inspirational:Part 1Part 2
Birdsong gives voice and motion to the mysteries of speech
Posted on March 16, 2008A new study of vocalization in birds sheds possible light on the relationship between voice and movement in humans and other mammals:Movement-Associated Areas in the Avian BrainGesa Feenders et al., Molecular Mapping of Movement-Associated Areas in the Avian Brain: A Motor Theory for Vocal Learning Origin, PLoS ONE [Public Library of Science] 3(3): e1768...
Musical and true
Posted on March 16, 2008And apropos of birdsong, the human voice too can be musical and true:She let her mind wander back over her stay at Grand Isle; and she tried to discover wherein this summer had been different from any and every other summer of her life. She could only realize that she herself — her present self — was in some way different from the other self...
Complexity, IPR Rights and Innovation Ecologies: Distributive Considerations
Posted on March 16, 2008Part 2- Distributive ConsiderationsAs touched on in the previous post, an important implication of the nexus between appellate patent law, commercialization-based S&T policies privileging closed IPR rights and the notion of an increasingly global innovation ecology is the manner in which newer conceptual theories and analytical frameworks such as systems theories may be used to explicate and, perhaps, stimulate true ?breakthrough? innovation...
Patrick S. O'Donnell is now blogging at Ratio Juris
Posted on March 15, 2008I am pleased to announce that Patrick S. O'Donnell, one of the smartest readers and commentators in the legal blogosphere, is now blogging at Ratio Juris. Patrick's first contribution includes links to two of his remarkably thorough reading lists, one on bioethics and the other on environmental and ecological worldviews, and a description of his storehouse of bibliographies...
Anatomy of a masterpiece
Posted on March 14, 2008From the New York Times' review of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new exhibit, Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to Read Chinese Paintings:From his terrace, the world is blue and green ? mountains and trees ? or almost green. Spring is on the way; the geese are back...
Complexity, IPR Rights and Innovation Ecologies
Posted on March 14, 2008I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves. Zarathustra Part 1- IPR Rights Considerations In a recent editorial in Science, Bill Wulf used the systems ecology model to frame a forward-looking model for innovation in the life sciences...
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Posted on March 13, 2008The work of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children warrants very close look by Jurisdynamics. The NCMEC is an exemplary case of multijurisdictional coordination, cooperation between private and public actors, and astonishingly rapid adaptation in pursuit of the public good...
Same-sex marriage and the meaning of conservatism
Posted on March 13, 2008I'd like to offer a few thoughts in response to the video proceedings of Is Gay Marriage Conservative?, a February 15 conference previewed on Jurisdynamics. Let's begin by watching videos presenting the opposing perspectives of Dale Carpenter and Teresa Stanton Collett:Dale CarpenterTeresa Stanton CollettDale CarpenterThe Traditionalist Case[G]ay marriage is a conservative idea, though many self-described conservatives may be among the last to realize it...
Die Schöpfung: Zwei Podcasts
Posted on March 09, 2008By way of Theologisches Deutsch I've discovered this treasure trove of literary podcasts in German. I have combined Literatur-Podcast.de's podcast of Genesis, chapter 1, with the 1912 revision of Martin Luther's translation and an excerpt from Joseph Haydn, Die Schöpfung, as performed on December 8, 2002, by Benita Borbonus (soprano), Jörg Nitschkes (tenor), Almas Svilpa (baritone), and the Chor und Orchester der Universität Witten/Herdecke under the direction of Ingo Ernst Reihl...
El Muro tiene que caerse
Posted on March 07, 2008John F. Kennedy, Ich bin ein Berliner (June 26, 1963)All free people, wherever they may live, are pilgrims along the borders of this world, and, therefore, as a free person, I take pride in the words, Yo soy peregrino fronterizo.With those words, Jurisdynamics invoked the spirit of John F...
Sunrise with Sylvia Plath and Norah Jones
Posted on March 06, 2008Sylvia Plath, Southern Sunrise (1956)Color of lemon, mango, peach,These storybook villasStill dream behindShutters, their balconiesFine as hand-Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch.Tilting with the winds,On arrowy stems,Pineapple-barked,A green crescent of palmsSends up its forkedFirework of fronds...
Bad science, shrewd politics?
Posted on March 04, 2008It?s indisputable that autism is on the rise among children. The question is, What?s causing it? And we go back and forth, and there?s strong evidence that indicates that it?s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.— Senator John McCainAnd with that pronouncement, Senator John McCain touched one of the most politically controversial questions in modern medicine...
Music by the numbers
Posted on March 03, 2008Kyle Gann, Scale in C-major Having recently declared on this page that Color is math, math color — That is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know, I figured I would outline some of the basic relationships between mathematics and music...
Good riddance
Posted on March 03, 2008Herewith an open letter to Michael Stokes Paulsen, Distinguished University Chair and Professor at the University of Saint Thomas School of Law.Dear Mike,I just got around to reading your piece, Good Riddance, Jim Chen, You No-Good Lousy So-and-So, 24 Const...
Campaign 2008: Dueling "3 a.m." commercials
Posted on February 29, 2008Courtesy of the New York Times, the Jurisdynamics Network is pleased to present the dueling "3 a.m." commercials being aired by the Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns. We embed; you decide:Hillary Clinton's adBarack Obama's ad
I can see clearly now
Posted on February 29, 2008Johnny Nash, I Can See Clearly Now (1972)It has been quite the month at Jurisdynamics. Beginning with Schattenfreude, this month has brought extraordinary joy to me as a blogger. I will always treasure this blog's February 2008 archive. I leave this month with a musical treat for myself and for the faithful readers who have stayed with Jurisdynamics and its affiliated weblogs throughout the past year and a half...
A new blog: Commercial Law
Posted on February 28, 2008The Jurisdynamics Network is pleased to announce a new member of its family of weblogs, Commercial Law. The law of sales, leases, payments, finance, and lending has manifested some of the most dramatic responses by the law to social, economic, and technological change...
Projecting the Pacific Northwest's next major earthquake
Posted on February 28, 2008As reported in the February 28, 2008, issue of Science Daily:Virtual Mega-Quake Shows Earthquake Could Inflict Major Damage On Pacific Northwest U.S.On January 26, 1700, at about 9 p.m. local time, the Juan de Fuca plate beneath the ocean in the Pacific Northwest suddenly moved, slipping some 60 feet eastward beneath the North American plate in a monster quake of approximately magnitude 9, setting in motion large tsunamis that struck the coast of North America and traveled to the shores of Japan...
Who can frame thy brilliant symmetry?
Posted on February 27, 2008Kelly J. Bozanic, a student blogger at Red Lion Reports, has posted a truly beautiful item called More than skin deep:Beauty speaks to the genetic disposition of an individual, and [a recent University of New Mexico] study suggests that intelligence can be accurately predicted solely based on appearance...
Literary Warrant [26]
Posted on February 26, 2008Robert Esworthy, Specialist in Environmental Policy, Resources, Science, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Federal Pollution Control Laws: How Are They Enforced? (CRS Report for Congress, Order Code RL34384) (February 20, 2008)"This report provides an overview of the statutory framework, key players, infrastructure, resources, tools, and operations associated with enforcement and compliance of the major pollution control laws and regulations administered by EPA...
Gone for good: A fatal flaw in the logic of love
Posted on February 25, 2008The Shins, Gone for Good, Chutes Too Narrow (2003)Untie me, I've said no vowsThe train is getting way too loudI gotta leave here my girlGet on with my lonely lifeJust leave the ring on the railFor the wheels to nullifyUntil this turn in my headI let you stay and you paid no rentI spent twelve long months on the lamThat's enough sitting on the fenceFor the fear of breaking damsI'd find a fatal flawIn the logic of loveAnd go out of my headYou love a sinking stoneThat'll never elopeSo get used to the lonesomeGirl, you must atone someDon't leave me no phone number thereLa dee daIt took me all of a yearTo put the poison pill to your earBut now I stand on honest ground, on honest groundYou want to fight for this loveBut honey you cannot wrestle a doveSo baby it's clearYou want to jump and danceBut you sat on your handsAnd I stood on your chestGo back to your hometownGet your feet on the groundAnd stop floating aroundI found a fatal flawIn the logic of loveAnd went out of my headYou love a sinking stoneThat'll never elopeSo get used to used to the lonesomeGirl, you must atone someDon't leave me no phone number thereLa dee da
Cubes, cones, and color: Cutting through the RGB and HSV colorspaces with clarity
Posted on February 25, 2008On this forum as on MoneyLaw and on The Cardinal Lawyer, I've confessed my obsession with the mathematics of TrueColor. On the strength of a single Google search — RGB cube — I've found two sites that have truly sharpened my understanding of the mathematics of color...
Stillness by moonlight
Posted on February 22, 2008Jurisdynamics' tribute to Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899), continues. From chapter 11:The stillest hour of the night had come, the hour before dawn, when the world seems to hold its breath. The moon hung low, and had turned from silver to copper in the sleeping sky...
Seaside awakening
Posted on February 21, 2008The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace...
In plain sight: Simple rules for complex camouflage
Posted on February 19, 2008To the most faithful readers of Jurisdynamics and BioLaw, I owe a small apology. The "life-dinner principle" outlined in Richard Dawkins & John R. Krebs, Arms Races Between and Within Species, 205:1161 Proc. Royal Soc'y London: Series B, Biol. Scis. 489-511 (1979) — the observation that "a lineage under strong selection may out-evolve a weakly selected one" — is a bedrock tenet of evolutionary biology...
The Octopus
Posted on February 18, 2008Men — motes in the sunshine — perished, were shot down in the very noon of life, hearts were broken, little children started in life lamentably handicapped; young girls were brought to a life of shame; old women died in the heart of life for lack of food...
The Great Gatsby
Posted on February 17, 2008If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away...
Synesthesia
Posted on February 14, 2008Carol Steen, Vision (1996). Oil on paper, 15 x 12-3/4 inches.One day, many years ago, I was having an acupuncture treatment and was lying flat on my back, on a futon, stuck full of needles. My eyes were shut and I watched intently, as I always do, hoping to see something magical, which does not always occur...
Gillian Welch, "Wrecking Ball"
Posted on February 14, 2008Courtesy of MoneyLaw, I present a psuedo-synesthetic presentation of Gillian Welch, Wrecking Ball , Soul Journey (2003):Gillian Welch, Wrecking BallA little deadhead . . . playing bass under a pseudonymFarmer in the Pogonip . . ...
The theory of everything
Posted on February 13, 2008Curious about the theory of everything? This 30-minute Vega program, downloadable in RealPlayer format, offers some answers:How did the universe start? What are we and where are we going? If we had a "Theory of Everything", we should be able to answer these questions...
Ash Wednesday
Posted on February 12, 2008I know it's a week late. Still, courtesy of Red Lion Reports, I share this excerpt from T.S. Eliot's poem, Ash Wednesday:Although I do not hope to turn againAlthough I do not hopeAlthough I do not hope to turnWavering between the profit and the lossIn this brief transit where the dreams crossThe dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these thingsFrom the wide window towards the granite shoreThe white sails still fly seaward, seaward flyingUnbroken wingsAnd the lost heart stiffens and rejoicesIn the lost lilac and the lost sea voicesAnd the weak spirit quickens to rebelFor the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smellQuickens to recoverThe cry of quail and the whirling ploverAnd the blind eye createsThe empty forms between the ivory gatesAnd smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earthThis is the time of tension between dying and birthThe place of solitude where three dreams crossBetween blue rocksBut when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift awayLet the other yew be shaken and reply...
Carson McCullers, Wunderkind
Posted on February 10, 2008There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.— Carson McCullersTo many of my fellow residents of Danzig U.S.A., I often say that my best preparation for becoming law school dean at the University of Louisville was to reread the works of Carson McCullers (1917-67)...
In the beauty of the poppies
Posted on February 06, 2008Poetic JusticeIn the beauty of the poppiesThe poet was born across the seaWith an anthem in his bosomThat transfigured law and theeAs he wrote to make life holyLet us read to set law freeThe truth is marching onOdetta, The Battle Hymn of the Republic , My Eyes Have Seen (1959)Or, in somewhat more prosaic terms ...
Celebrate Evolution Sunday
Posted on February 04, 2008Now that Super Bowl XLII is safely behind us, we can look forward to Evolution Sunday 2008. According to a report in The Scientist, 467 congregations planned their church services around Evolution Sunday in 2006, and 618 participated in 2007. This year's Evolution Sunday will take place February 10...
Themes and rhemes and XSV: Smiled as the wonder I pondered
Posted on February 03, 2008When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not.— Yoda, Jedi master and syntactic wonderReturning from my gig as keynote speaker at this year's Mid-Atlantic APALSA Conference at Penn Law — an episode worth blogging about in its own right — reminded me of a place where syntax and style intersect and linguistic variation elides into poetic power...
Schattenfreude
Posted on February 01, 2008Long are the shadows and dark, that lead from light to my joy. Winter grips us now, and even the noonday sun hangs low. I am gnomon; by midday I stand taller beneath the shade of naked trees. Though dusk befalls me, I shall not weep. For the lesser lights that rule the night project the umbra and penumbra of my soul upon the concrete canvas of the city...
Literary Warrant [25]
Posted on January 31, 2008The environment-poem bridges the gap between the opaque thingness of nature lying "out there," and the philosophical and scientific access we gain by developing terms, formulas, explanations, and theories of the order and meaning hidden within that opaque nature...
Downtown
Posted on January 30, 2008Ann Bartow, a faithful reader of Jurisdynamics reader, a super genius, and a dear friend, reminds me that Petula Clark's 1964 classic, Downtown, makes you smile whenever it's played. And so here it is:For lyrics and other versions of this song, click here...
Does constitutional theory matter?
Posted on January 29, 2008According to Stanley Fish, no:Does it matter if judges declare themselves to be adherents of the philosophical approach or the living constitution approach or the intentionalist approach or no approach. The urgency and occasional stridency of the debates in this area suggest that it matters very much because a judge?s interpretive theory will strongly influence, if not dictate, his or her decisions, won?t it? No...
O Lost!
Posted on January 28, 2008It is the darkest hour in the deepest night of the coldest season, and through the shadows I reach for twin sources of literary inspiration linked by the most tenuous of connections. O Lost!First I look across time and the river to a Southern writer not yet forgotten, the master behind the South's greatest autobiographical protagonist, Eugene Gant:When will they come again? When will they come again?The laurel, the lizard, and the stone will come no more...
Gay marriage and the conservative movement
Posted on January 25, 2008Dale Carpenter has organized a symposium at the South Texas College of Law dedicated to the question, "Is Gay Marriage Conservative?" The symposium will take place February 15, 2008. Dale describes it as "a first-of-its-kind event, devoted entirely to what has become an intramural debate among conservatives about the issue...
Panoramic views of Gulf coast storm damage
Posted on January 24, 2008Edward Fink (panoramic photos and composite) and Pierre Kattar (production) have assembled a remarkable series of interactive, panoramic images of Gulf coast storm damage at washingtonpost.com. Two samples follow; click the pictures and manipulate your mouse to adjust the view...
Die Preußische Staatsbibliothek
Posted on January 23, 2008Cross-posted from Danzig U.S.A.Die Preußische StaatsbibliothekThe Prussian State LibraryAlong Unter den Linden in Berlin, some distance east of Brandenburger Tor but considerably west of Alexanderplatz and Fernsehturm, stands the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin...
Pinker on "The Moral Instinct"
Posted on January 14, 2008Steven Pinker is as provocative as he is brilliant. This time he challenges the "moral instinct":Which of the following people would you say is the most admirable: Mother Teresa, Bill Gates or Norman Borlaug? And which do you think is the least admirable? For most people, it?s an easy question...
From Ecclesiastes to epiphany
Posted on January 09, 2008Herewith an interesting progression, from Ecclesiastes 9:11 to Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1966):1. Ecclesiastes 9:11 (Revised Standard Version) —Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all...
Literary Warrant [24]
Posted on January 08, 2008Roger Alford, Opinio Juris, Availability Cascades and Global Warming (January 2, 2008)Brief blog posting on a recent New York Times article addressing "the role of availability cascades in media coverage of global warming."Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA), Implications of Climate Change for Urban Water Utilities (December 2007)"Warming of the earth?s atmosphere will continue to put mounting pressure on America?s drinking water sources, leading to diminishing supplies in some regions and flooding in others, according to an analysis released today by the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies (AMWA), a nonprofit organization of the largest publicly owned drinking water systems in the United States...
Headlines for the new year
Posted on January 08, 2008Extra! Extra!Ann Bartow has tagged me with the "Headlines for the new year" blogging meme, which originated on Feminist Law Professors and began spreading there.The premise is simple: I have to identify headlines in four distinct categories:Headline I?m most fearful of seeing in 2008:Polar ice melt deemed irreversibleEvacuation of New Orleans, Pacific Ocean islands advisedHere's a runner-up in this category:President-Elect _____ assassinatedPolitical crisis looms; war in Middle East escalatesHeadline I most want to see in 2008:Scientists announce HIV vaccine breakthroughDrug companies agree to fund shots in developing countriesHeadline I most expect to see in 2008:Spending, scandals, and smearsCandidates spend record amount as ads and allegations flyHeadline I least expect to see in 2008: Electoral College tie sends election to HouseSupreme Court refuses to review Ohio and Florida returnsAnd now it's time to tag...
Multimedia suggestions from South Carolina
Posted on January 07, 2008I offer two radically different multimedia presentations, each traceable to a reader connected to South Carolina:1. One reader recommends PBS's documentary, Dirty Politics 2008:I very much intend this video to be watched in conjunction with MoneyLaw's coverage of the South Carolina bar exam scandal...
Emergency and disaster response: The federal statutory framework
Posted on January 03, 2008Note: The following constitutes a summary of my presentation at the 2008 annual meeting of the Association of American Law Schools, in a panel called "The Katrina Experience: Why Federalism Broke Down." It is derived from chapter 2 of Daniel Farber & Jim Chen, Disasters and the Law: Katrina and Beyond...
Uses and needs / Form follows function
Posted on December 17, 2007Herewith a continuation of this blog's recurring commentary on John Dos Passos's epic trilogy, U.S.A. (1930-36). (Previous entries: prologue to U.S.A., "The body of an American.") Among the biographical vignettes interspersed throughout U.S.A., perhaps none captures the spirit of Jurisdynamics as vividly as dos Passos's portrait of Frank Lloyd Wright:Near and Far are beaten (to imagine the new city you must blot out every ingrained habit of the past, build a nation from the ground up with the new tools)...
These days in an open book
Posted on December 14, 2007Even in the academy, the books we write aren't the only chronicles of our lives. Herewith Nanci Griffith's variation on this theme:Nanci Griffith, "These Days in an Open Book," on Flyer (1994)Shut it down and call this road a dayAnd put this silence in my heart in a better placeI have traveled with your ghost now so many yearsThat I see you in the shadowsIn hotel rooms and headlightsYou're coming up beside meWhether it's day or nightChorus:These days my life is an open bookMissing pages I cannot seem to findThese days your faceIn my memoryIs in a folded hand of grace against these timesNo one's ever come between your memory and meI have driven this weary vessel here aloneWill you still find me if I leave you here beside this roadBecause I need someone who can touch meWho'll put no one above meSomeone who needs meLike the air he breathesRepeat chorusI can't remember where this toll road goesMaybe it's Fort Worth, maybe it's a heart of goldThe price of love is such a heavy tollThat I've lived my life in the backroadsWith your love in my pocketIf I spend the love you gave meTell me where will it go?Repeat chorusThese days your faceIn my memoryIs in a folded hand of graceFolded hand of graceFolded hand of graceAgainst these times
Literary Warrant [23]
Posted on December 06, 2007Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General, New York State, et al., Attorney General Cuomo Sues EPA for Denying the Public Access to Information on Toxic Chemicals in Their Neighborhoods (Press release) (November 28, 2007)"The EPA will allow thousands of companies to avoid disclosing information to the public about the toxic chemicals they use, store, and release into the environment by rolling back chemical reporting requirements...
Inmaculada
Posted on December 06, 2007Among the staples of western mythological art, the Immaculate Conception is at once the most theoretically difficult and the most practically achievable. La Inmaculada lies beyond contemplation if the painter dwells even slightly on his challenge. How do you paint female perfection? The utterly flawless, ever virgin mother of salvation? Just how do you depict the triumph of the Mother of God over the Fall of Woman, the miracle by which Mary, conceived free of sin, makes straight the path for redeeming Eve and her daughters?By the same token, every painter sees his Inmaculada, not in his mind's eye, but in the same eye that surveys the streets, the stalls, and the shadows that stretch before him...
A kiss is just a kiss
Posted on December 04, 2007. . . except when it isn't. Jack Burden learns the laws of love, gravity, and path dependence in chapter 7 of Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men (1946):Jack Burden kisses Anne Stanton"Aren't you happy?" she asked, leaning."Sure," I said, and was as happy, I suppose, as I deserved to be...
Cats versus birds
Posted on December 03, 2007Jurisdynamics Network correspondent Dan Kowalski has directed my attention to this New York Times Magazine feature: Kill the Cat That Kills the Bird?:[There is a] strange Sylvester-and-Tweety feud between birders and cat fanciers . . . ...
The avian cost of environmentally friendly architecture
Posted on November 24, 2007Environmentally friendly buildings are often bird killers, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.The Mathematics and Science Building, one of Emory University's most environmentally friendly buildings and a hallmark of that school's environmental efforts, has been described as an "avian slaughterhouse...
Truly bad movie meme
Posted on November 24, 2007"It's the worst film I have ever made. Now, when my kids get out of line, they're sent to their room and forced to watch Red Sonja ten times. I never have too much trouble with them."— Arnold Schwarzenegger, as quoted in Wikipedia's entry on Red SonjaBad movies...
Happy Thanksgiving
Posted on November 21, 2007A nice image, by way of Feminist Law Professors.Herewith the 1863 proclamation by which President Abraham Lincoln transformed the Thanksgiving tradition into a legal holiday:Proclamation of ThanksgivingWashington, D.C.October 3, 1863By the President of the United States of America...
Literary Warrant [22]
Posted on November 20, 2007The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will runFrom hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;That is the Grasshopper's?he takes the lead In summer luxury,?he has never done With his delights; for when tired out with funHe rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed...
The Most Dangerous Justice Rides into the Sunset
Posted on November 19, 2007Freshly available on SSRN:Paul H. Edelman & Jim Chen, The Most Dangerous Justice Rides into the Sunset, 24 Constitutional Commentary 299 (2007):In this essay, our third and last in a series, we employ our previously developed techniques to measure the power of the Justices in the Rehnquist Court over its full 11 year run...
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Posted on November 17, 2007The N.Y. Times reports on the latest word from the IPCC:Synthesizing reams of data from its three previous reports, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the first time specifically points out important risks if governments fail to respond: melting ice sheets that could lead to a rapid rise in sea levels and the extinction of large numbers of species brought about by even moderate amounts of warming, on the order of 1 to 3 degrees...
Intent: Searching for Meaning in the Constitution
Posted on November 16, 2007Herewith a description of the ETS Pictures documentary, Intent: Searching For Meaning In The Constitution (2006):What does the United States Constitution tell us about the defining political issues of our day? And how do we interpret the document to find those answers? This one hour documentary examines the meaning of the Constitution through the lens of several interpretive perspectives, and it investigates how differing views of the document impact today's political debates...
International bird rescue
Posted on November 15, 2007The International Bird Rescue Research Center has been working furiously in response to the San Francisco Bay oil spill. The IBRRC has been helping birds since 1971. Its mission is to mitigate human impact on aquatic birds and other wildlife through rehabilitation, emergency response, education, research, planning, and training.
Drove My Chevy to the Levee but the Levee was Gone
Posted on November 14, 2007The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) performed an independent review of the failure of the New Orleans flood control system. As the Times Picayune reports today, this review has become quite controversial. Among the ASCE's strongest critics has been Ray Seed, from the Berkeley engineering school (pictured left): A long-simmering dispute about whether a leading engineering organization whitewashed the role of the Army Corps of Engineers in the failure of the levee system during Hurricane Katrina has broken into the open with a bitter YouTube spoof and a demand for an ethics investigation of the organization's staff...
The body of an American / The lowlands of Holland
Posted on November 13, 2007Reprinted in part from The Cardinal LawyerThere is perhaps no finer Veterans' Day tribute than John Dos Passos's "The Body of an American," the concluding chapter of 1919, part two of the U.S.A. trilogy (1930-36). (See also the prologue to U.S.A.) This post excerpts "The Body of an American" and pairs it with a traditional folk song, "The Lowlands of Holland," that seems especially pertinent on this Veterans' Day...
For thine is the camera and the glory
Posted on November 11, 2007For raw visual power, nothing beats a good photoblog. A Portuguese correspondent of the Jurisdynamics Network, António (pictured at left in a self-portrait), runs a good photoblog called deFocused.Here are two recent recommendations from deFocused, utterly different from each other in artistic impression, but each filled with power in its own right:Melissa Catanese:Franck Juery:
White Paper on Disaster Law
Posted on November 07, 2007The California Center for Environmental Law & Policy (CCELP) held a workshop last spring at Boalt Hall to consider future direction for the subject of disaster law. The resulting white paper considers a broad range of ways that law schools could be involved in teaching, research, and public service regarding U...
Literary Warrant [21]
Posted on November 04, 2007I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie.I remember how much I cried seeing South Pacific (the movie) three times.I remember how good a glass of water can taste after a dish of ice cream.?Joe Brainard, I Remember (1975)A gratuitous epigram, perhaps, but also a wholehearted recommendation of a unique work of humorous, often poignant writing...
#1 Online Legal Resource
On 08-28 at 21:13PM
Ten months later, Fed must reveal names of emergency lending recipients #FOIA
On 08-25 at 19:02PM
Squeaky Fromme, would-be Ford assassin and Manson devotee, released from prison
On 08-14 at 15:19PM
Likely unintended consequence of cash-for-clunkers stimulus is dampening of 2010 spending
On 08-14 at 14:34PM
Palm seeks to halt Palm Pre Android theme on copyright and trademark ground
On 08-12 at 17:30PM
Congressional investigation demonstrates Karl Rove lied about his active role in US attorney's firing
On 08-12 at 16:20PM
Family of New York City swine flu victim to sue city for failure to secure school #nyc #swineflu
On 08-12 at 12:59PM
Real Network's DVD copying software deemed to break DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions
On 08-12 at 12:57PM
Prepaid funeral operators indicted for $100 Million fraud
On 08-12 at 12:53PM
NY Jets join Cincinnati, Dallas, Green Bay, Houston & Seattle #NFL teams offering branded state lottery games
On 08-12 at 12:43PM
Are you the author of this blog? Adding USLaw.com to your Blogroll increases relevance. You qualify to display a USLaw Network badge.
Suggest changes to this blog's description or nominate another for inclusion. Register for updates.
 |
|
Contact Us | About Us | Celebrity Law Blog |
Our Partners | Disclaimer
| Law Blog Directory
| Law Jobs
| Law Tweets
| GoDaddy Hosting
All original material © 1999-2009 by USLaw.com. |