Ms. Weaver, Meet ISO 9000
Someone has decided to do a project post-mortem of the aliens movies.
OK, it might not be funny for law students, but for (ex-)project managers, it's pretty funny. (Hat tip to NTK)
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October 31, 2003
October 30, 2003
This thing's been around for ages...
But now it seems all the blawgers are doing it: the Political Compass.
For reference, I'm:
Economic Left/Right: 5.38 (where positive is Right)
Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.92 (where negative is Libertarian
I can assume I'd be just about opposite of Serious Law Student...
October 29, 2003
This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources
Some days the humour fades, the eyes get heavy, and the spirit seems weary and unwilling. No matter how one tries to put a brave face on it, the smallest things start to bring one down, even when you are caught up in your work and feeling like you understand the law--or at least your lessons. Today my nemesis was the pressure to pay $100 to Barbri for bar examination test prep, not because that's on my horizon at the moment, but because it's the last day to do so before they threaten to raise prices. LSATs, tuition, commercial outlines, Barbri, Bar exam fees--there are times when it feels like your whole point in existence is to pay for exams.
In this mood I wandered into Contracts, where I sit in the front row. Prof. Contracts, a cheerful curmudgeon who is constantly telling us to look at our cases with a healthy dose of cynicism, bore the full brunt of my own. "You know, I started this education with the thought that 'LAW IS A RACKET.' It makes so much more sense when you look at it that way." Then I obstinately chomped on a jellybean provided to me by Barbri as yet another of the peripheral bribes one finds here.
To his credit, he asked what I meant and listened when I said that sometimes it seems there's an obscene amount of money floating around this school and the legal system in general. He commented on the parts of the debate that are old: whether the bar exam is guild-like, and whether the third year of law school is actually necessary. Then he started class, and briefly commented on what he'd just been talking about.
His response was just to quote Edmund Burke, in his statement to Parliament regarding their soon-to-be-rebellious colonies. Along with English descent, a tradition of democracy, religious fervor in the north, manner and mores in the south, and the trials of distance, Burke specifically cited the strength and prevalence of a legal education as one of the foundations of Americans' love of liberty.
In no country perhaps in the world is the law so general a study. The profession itself is numerous and powerful; and in most provinces it takes the lead.... I hear that they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's Commentaries in America as in England.... This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defence, full of resources. In other countries, the people, more simple, and of a less mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in government only by an actual grievance; here they anticipate the evil, and judge of the pressure of the grievance by the badness of the principle. They augur misgovernment at a distance; and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
And then we went on to discuss the parol evidence rule and the meaning of the word 'chicken.' But whatever, it put things into a bit of context for me, into a bit of purpose. There's a time and a place for cynicism, but you don't live there.
Disappointed by Epstein
Grrr. Epstein is going to cost me some time.
Today in Torts, we addressed the issue of affirmative duties, which in the Epstein casebook is covered largely by comparing works by four torts scholars: Ames, Epstein himself, Posner, and Bender. The problem lies the Bender article, "A Lawyer's Primer for Feminist Theory and Tort."
Epstein seems to have pulled a few paragraphs from the article which I can't believe are representative of the work as a whole. It's emotive to the point of weepiness, a "we're all in this together, and let's stop pretending that humans are equations" argument. It reminded me (and it seems, Prof. Torts) of John Donne's Meditation 17, and I almost expected the author to advocate banning a party from sending for whom the bell tolls.
Simply put, there has to be more to the argument than that. Even if I'd disagree with it, I feel almost honor-bound to find the article and educate myself on Bender's viewpoint, just to make sure my mind doesn't have this residual impression left. But the article isn't on Lexis or Westlaw, so a trip to the law library will be in order, and I'll burn about an hour trying to figure out what the real story is.
Normally, I like Epstein, both his textbook and his outside works. But that kind of 'dirty trick' in a casebook really left a foul taste in my mouth.
October 28, 2003
Simple Lessons I have learned in law school
A lot of people think this lawyering malarky is difficult, or that the first year of law school teaches you a bundle of rarified or complicated matters, mostly involving words like 'jurisprudence,' 'stare decisis,' or my old favorite, 'promissory estoppel.' But really, after half a term I think that's all overblown, that the things you really need to know, and pick up from the casebook method, are all fairly simple rules.
A.: Contrary to popular belief, bathrooms are very dangerous places, in which people slip and fall on wet floors, are scalded by showers, cut their hands on negligently manufactured faucets, and otherwise ended up bruised and bloodied. Despite the obvious health and hygiene advantages, you might want to avoid them.
B. If you're ever in Massachusetts, do not eat at the Childs Dining Hall. [1]
C. The responsibility for an individual being able to stand on their own two feet generally lies with the owner of the land upon which they are standing.
D. Become a cowboy, become a lawyer, become a piano player at a house of ill-repute, but do not become a Regent of the University of California. (A Lexis search turns up 679 hits with 'Regents of the University of California' as a party. These guys are the only people on earth who get more summons in the mail than offers for low-interest rate credit cards.)
I'll fill in more as time goes by.
[1] Friend v. Childs Dining Hall, 120 N.E. 407 (Mass. 1918) (Nail found in food); Ash v. Childs Dining Hall 120 N.E. 196 (Mass. 1918) (tack found in blueberry pie); Jacques v. Childs Dining Hall, 120 N.E. 843 (Mass. 1923) (customer falsely imprisoned by cashier due to mistake in check).
Amazon is honking me off
If any of you get errors leaving comments on the site: it's because Amazon's web server is sending the following as 'valid XML':
The server encountered an internal error or
misconfiguration and was unable to complete
your request.
Please contact the server administrator,
webtech-admin@amazon.com and inform them of the time the error occurred,
and anything you might have done that may have
caused the error.
Because the MT-Amazon plugin doesn't seem to handle this properly as an error, the page doesn't rebuild. Consequently, even though your comment is stored (and will show up the next time I rebuild the site or make an entry, assuming Amazon has its act together) it doesn't show up immediately.
I'll probably revise the way my system works (i.e. hard-code the damn thing) this weekend. Until then, bear with me.
Update: After 16 hours of Amazon Web Services being useless, I've pulled my XML feeds. They'll be back once Amazon gets its act together.
October 27, 2003
Fluorescent Relativity
I no longer mark time by weeks or hours, or the rising of the sun or the appearance of the moon. No, after this long in law school, I mark time in the passing of yellow highlighters, the third of which has now given up the ghost since the beginning of my course.
Kate Michelman is George Bush's best friend
If you know who Kate Michelman is, that headline might be a bit surprising. She's the head of NARAL, now apparently known as Pro-Choice America. (Check out the website. For a non-profit, it's surprisingly good, and has had some obvious money put into it.) But given the recent outcry against Senate passage of a bill to 'outlaw' so-called 'partial-birth abortion,' you have to think she's working for the other side.
Ampersand has already given a good summary of why many Republicans don't want to see the issue go away, and are quite happy to see it struck down by the courts. I won't restate what he's put so well, except to say that it's an issue with a high instinctive 'ick' factor and a lot of very complicated and debatable underlying issues that will never reach popular debate. A moderate Republican senator who needs to shore up his support with a pro-life base gets the ultimate hat trick by giving it his vote: (a) whatever else his right-wing constituents say, he can always pull the 'But I oppose partial-birth abortion' card out of his back pocket, and keep their votes; but (b) he knows full well that so long as he throws his voice solidly behind the exclusion of an exception for the health of the mother, O'Connor will never let his vote see the light of day; and (c) he can sit back and watch the money roll into his re-election fund every time a pro-choice activist vehemently protests the act, thus riling his base that bit more. There's nothing to lose, except a bit of integrity, and what do you do with that on Capitol Hill?
It's item (c) which makes me ponder the strategy of the pro-abortion cause, however. (For those who've not been reading, I'm actually against restrictions on abortion, but I don't believe it's beyond the scope of the powers of a state government.) I can confidently predict that I'm going to be seeing a lot of the statements of Ms. Michelman in the next few months. They will appear on the numerous fundraiser letters, Presidential Action Fund requests, and 'surveys' from the Republican National Committee that constitute a goodly percentage of the junkmail I receive. She'll be selectively quoted, of course, but the best bits will be quotations from TV appearances or magazine articles--'proof' that the media is a right wing conspiracy.
Every time I see someone like her on television, a little dollar-sign appears next to her, and my ears hear a 'kaching' in the coffers of the Bush re-election fund.
What's the strategy here? I can't imagine that the money or the influence that NARAL (or similar organizations) receives from the national publicity is worth the funding they give to their opponents, and in this case it's for a law that even if it were to pass constitutional muster (it won't) would be unlikely to stop a single abortion. Even were it to be enforced (it won't), it would not ban alternate procedures. Even were it the start of a slippery slope (it isn't), it would be a very gentle slope covered with a lot of velcro.
And that's not to say that NARAL shouldn't talk about the issue: it should, and loudly, to its own base in its own targeted marketing. But it can cede the field on this issue and lose absolutely nothing, while spending time talking about issues that brings not only its base to the polls, but a broader public to its side. Provision of medical treatment in Africa, for instance, or any of the various Bush-era executive orders with regards to choice. The hyperbole here over a procedure that, whatever its medical merits, is extremely rare and very difficult to defend on a marketing basis (leaving a discussion of the merits to medical professionals) makes any victory pyrrhic at best.
Ah well. At least I get to look forward to entertaining fundraiser letters.
Sympathetic Machine
So you're one of those people who think that no man is an island, and the pain of any one man or woman is the pain of us all? Now you can prove it! Feel the global pain!
(Link via The Register)
October 26, 2003
Legal scholars should not do this to first year students
As part of our reading for tomorrow, we're reading Linda S. Mullenix's Another Easy Case, Some More Bad Law: Carnival Cruise Lines and Contractual Personal Jurisdiction (Texas International Law Journal, Spring, 1992), a rather histrionic account of the Supreme Court's decision in Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute 499 U.S. 585 (1991). At first reading, I stumbled over the following passage:
The Shutes had once again prevailed in their efforts to sue Carnival Cruise Lines locally, rather than being haled to Florida.
I did a bit of a double-take, but then figured that maybe it was an ambiguous clause: Carnival was a Panamanian corporation, and so even though its main place of business (and preferred jurisdiction) was Florida, maybe it could still be haled there. But then it happened again:
While it is interesting and true that ships travel to many ports of call, and that their corporate owners have an interest in not being subjected to litigation in multiple forums, these self-evident truths do not suggest why it is any better or fairer to force an injured plaintiff to be haled into some distant court of the defendant's pre-arranged choosing, or forego the right to sue altogether.
[emphasis mine in both quotations]
Have I completely missed the point of several weeks of civil procedure? I was under the impression that a plaintiff (through a complaint) haled the defendant into court, and that a defendant wasn't the one doing the haling. Maybe a forum-selection clause could limit the places in which a plaintiff could summon, but he can't be forced to bring a suit, can he? I thought the whole point of this jurisdiction stuff was that the defendant was the only person being forced to go anywhere, and that jurisdiction was the limitations of his choice.
Mullenix is pretty overwrought in her language, so this might just be another example thereof--but can one of you fill me in if I'm missing something?
Update: Someone tell me this is another howler: "The burdens placed by a state upon an absent plaintiff are similar to and of he same magnitude as those it places on an absent defendant. Where an out-of-state plaintiff is summoned by a defendant through a non-negotiated, nonconsensual forum selection clause, the plaintiff is faced with the full powers of the State to render a judgment against it." True, she's reversing the language of a Supreme Court ruling, but she then states, "This paragraph does not stretch the imagination."
Help! I'm lost!
October 25, 2003
Five Minute Book Review--Sci-Fi
I find I've done a book review at least once a week for about the last three weeks, and I think I'm going to keep doing it. This week, in the spirit of my comments on There.com, I figured I'd list a few books of virtual futures. After all, you can't read law all the time. So:
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: Even if you don't like science fiction, this book is great. Although the thoughts aren't as deep as The Diamond Age (proposing a world in which the fundamental economic dilemma has been resolved), the light-hearted and irreverant drama combines with Stephenson's gripping narrative style to make a dazzling good read. And besides which, what's not to like about a dystopian future in which all pizza delivery services are openly run by the mob?
The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling: It's not entirely common knowledge that the first computer was more a thing of brass than silicon. A 'steampunk' novel of an alternate past in which the Victorians had credit cards and the primary battles of the Information Age are fought between the British and the French.
Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis: Wondering what that 'Spider Jerusalem' reference was in my posting about blogging anonymously? If you can handle a combination of gonzo social commentary and bizarre future societies in a graphic novel format, then check out the ravings of a swearing, chain-smoking, neo-anarchist tormenting 'the system' and poking violent fun at the powers that be.
(An excerpt from Transmetropolitan:Makers are great. No argument. You turn to your maker and say, “Give me a roast dog leg, tossed salad, a black linen shirt, and a taser,” and bang, out it all comes. Makers aren’t particularly bulky, nor power- thirsty, and an average middle-class family can afford a good one.
But.
Makers are designed to operate with base blocks -- superdense chunks of neutral matter which the maker breaks down and recombines into whatever you’ve requested. And base blocks are horrendously expensive. Out of a middle class family’s price range. So the stores sell a converter, that allows the maker to use ordinary garbage as the base. Not as efficient, and the mileage stinks, but there you go.
Which leads me to the city’s new pest. Middle class families raiding the backyards of the lower classes for garbage -- because if you’ve got a maker, you don’t make garbage. Only those without makers buy prepackaged food and clothing... )
Over There
And now there's something over There.
I've been chatting with some friends of mine about There, a virtual reality experience (no plot, so I'm not sure that 'game' fits) which is planning to survive off its own economy. In a short form, you can build things, do things, buy and sell things, and those who do will get 'Therebucks.' But those who don't, but want to see or experience them, can make purchases with Therebucks, and can buy them with real money.
I can only imagine that economists, game theorists, and other scholars used to imagining 'what if' scenarios are salivating at the thought of observing this. If not, they should be. To my knowledge, this is the first online, interactive environment of its type and complexity which is plotless and relatively without the swords-and-sorcery background of an Everquest or Ultima Online. From what I've been told, the avatars (your virtual representation of yourself) can be remarkably varied, and some can be surprisingly honest. In other words, there are pot-bellies. Human beings have a fundamental interest in interaction and community-forming, and online groups have always profited from this. There might have found a way to turn this into a business.
One strong reason for my interest in a 'playworlds' concept is that if you can convince participants to be suitably serious about the results which occur within them, you can draw some remarkable conclusions about human interaction. Economists have looked at roleplaying games for a while, especially when the property was being traded for real money. I haven't found any studies by sociologists, but I'm fairly convinced that this is because I haven't worked very hard. I'm particularly interested in how such concepts might play out in law.
Unfortunately, such an experiment is not likely to be conducted for many years, because most virtual worlds have fixed laws, and thus nothing in the way of a legal system. (If A can loan B a hoverboard in There, and be absolutely certain he will get the board back because the database says he 'owns' it, no 'contract' is necessary.) The worlds are not yet suitably complex to require detailed conflict resolution systems (conflict resolution in fantasy systems is, generally, a whopping big sword, not tort law as such), nor confident enough to allow players, as opposed to designers, to write those rules. I think the time is coming for a virtual-reality system to play with those rules, though, and something like There might be a beginning.
Imagine, for instance, if the creators of There backed off from their god-like roles, and programmed separate rules for 'possession' of an item and 'ownership' of it. Possession would be a fixed rule of the system, but 'ownership' is determined by some form of agreement among participants. It would be possible to steal something that had value, and for uncertainty to arise in a trade or transaction. ("I'll buy that hamburger today for $1,000 Therebucks on Wednesday.") Similarly, you might be rewarded for returning a 'stolen' item.
How would different groups resolve their disputes? Imagine that certain players are given the ability to fix ownership of objects (judges) and possession of objects (police), and that these are both democratically elected, or even fixed at random. In this world, would individuals prefer judges who are formalist in their methods, or legal realists? Under what conditions would those preferences change? What if a judgeship is assigned to an infrequent player--how does the infrequent application of justice affect anti-social behavior? Given the ability to create 'islands' of users, such a virtual world might provide some indication of 'what if' scenarios currently argued within the legal academy.
I certainly won't be participating in There--there's too much going on in my life to put time into a virtual one. And There has a number of pitfalls and hurdles to clear before I'd be confident of the business model. (There are, it seems, regulatory hurdles to the conversion of Therebucks to real money, although those hurdles don't stop people from trading Everquest items on E-bay. Expect similar markets to develop.) But this is one story I'll definitely be keeping an eye upon, especially if There starts to attract not only item developers, but arbiters of disputes.
October 23, 2003
Ignobilis Vitae
Over at the Annals of Improbable Research, the 2003 Winners of the Ig® Nobel Prize have been announced. If you've never seen these, you should. There's proof that politicians have uniquely simple personalities, information on how to rent an entire nation, and the only Peace Prize ever to be given to the Association of Dead People.
Matters upon which I'm singularly unqualified to comment
I'd like to apologize to whoever came upon my site searching for the following terms, upon which I can pretty much guarantee they received no help:
hell and file sharing
The theological implications of copynorms escape me. Professor Solum, perhaps?
cockroach fresh direct
I've just done a search, and Fresh Direct doesn't deliver these on their website. If you got one, it's a freebie.
how lemons become lemonade
These days, via the magic of Minute Maid
japan women allowed to watch sumo wrestling
Yes, they are. Now at least that's answered
percentage of convicts who become better people
Not my speciality
packing with the devil
'The two of us just wanted to get away for the weekend--someplace with warmth, clean air, the silence that you can only get away from the persistent wailing of the damned.'
misty rain piercing
I'm going to hope that this person was searching for how to get their ear pierced on a foggy morning in Hyde Park.
solution to black cultural identity confusion
Well beyond my competence
law student stripper
Man, you're really looking in the wrong place.
high school days sex thoughts
I don't share those here. And I don't want yours, either.
October 22, 2003
The Euro, The Dollar, and Oil
There's a 'story' making the rounds on the blogosphere that one reason America went to war was that Iraq was threatening to denominate its oil trade in euro rather than dollars. (I've seen this most recently at The Muted Drum, but it's popped up in a lot of places. In various forms, it claims that the US feared that the dollar would be replaced as a reserve currency, and so we invaded Iraq in order to stop it.)
This seems to me like an economically illiterate 'tail wags the dog' story. The article I've linked to makes a number of post hoc errors, takes no consideration of the scale of the numbers involved, and uses these distortions to paint a pretty disturbing picture. Nonetheless, I can't buy it.
Does anyone have a link to a compelling counter-argument by a respected economist? I'd prefer to have a reference or link to use next time I see this urban myth.
A New Millenium
I did a lot of talking about Millennium Enterprises, Inc. v. Millennium Music, L.P. 33 F.Supp.2d 907 (Ore. 1999) today in Civ Pro. (Apologies to my classmates if I bored them to tears.) The case addresses the issue of whether a company who puts up a website targeted mainly at its local markets may be be required to answer a complaint in a foreign state due to 'purposeful availment.' In the case, Millenium Enterprises sued Millenium Music for trademark infringement, and tried to bring the case in Oregon under the theory that Music's website, being accessible in Oregon, provided a grounds for personal jurisdiction.
I hate it when I have to disagree with a court's opinion: after all, I'm a law student, what do I know? But applying the standard of 'purposeful availment' to a website seems to me to be a serious problem. So much of what is done by a 'real world' defendant occurs automatically online. You don't have to print out advertisements, because a Google spider will list you in a search engine. You don't have to send out advertisements, because your traffic will come to you--they may even link. True, active measures help, and in fact will make the difference between your project being a success or a failure. But if you put a site online, unless you specifically disclaim that you will use it to do business throughout the nation, I think you should be held to personal jurisdiction throughout the United States.
Still, if this case is any indication, courts today disagree with me. Which is, I suppose, a good thing, since it makes it that much less likely that anyone will successfully sue me for Three Years of Hell.
October 21, 2003
Anonymous Blogging
(Well, this started out as a short post on a topic that had been close to my mind recently. It just sort of turned into something larger. I'm afraid it's not very well-edited, since I don't have time to go over a work of this length, but I'm leaving it here for those who might find it useful.)
PART A: ANONYMITY
Recently, some of the virtues and vices of blogging anonymously stirred my interest, for reasons that I won't go into here. For the most part, I disapprove of blogging anonymously in any blog written for public consumption, particularly if you want to talk about your social setting.
Some people, like the Curmudgeonly Clerk, have good reasons for not putting their name to their blogs: federal rules may prohibit it, and there's no real point in them losing their jobs. But in the main, I find it a bad plan.
Before anyone accuses me of blatant hypocrisy, I have blogged anonymously in the past, both on sites like Deadjournal and some bulletin board sites (way back in the day). But these were always what I would call 'community journals,' writing intended specifically for a very narrow audience of friends and family who already knew who I was. If you weren't a member of that audience, you might 'stumble' on the journal--but otherwise you'd have to be a pretty damn dedicated stalker, in which case you've got worse problems. One key element of such journals is that they have a security model: in most of them, access to the writing was limited either to members of the community, or at the very least could be limited if I wished. At least to the target audience, it wasn't so much blogging anonymous but under another name.
'But that was in another country,' and besides, this is a different kind of blog. Most of the people I link to from Three Years of Hell, or who leave comments, are either professionals, students, or academics. We move within a very, very narrow world, and if our writings are going to be interesting at all, we have to write about the people with whom we work or play, those who make us insanely angry or profoundly grateful. Most of the problems of blogging anonymously arise from this 'small world' effect:
1. It doesn't work anyway
As I said, most professional (or school) bloggers move within a world circumscribed by a very limited number of real-world walls. This means your anonymity is inversely proportional to the actual value of figuring out who you are. In other words, if you're a Harvard blogger but I'm at Columbia, I'm unlikely to be interested in whether you're 'Webbed Lightning' or 'Alfred Pennyworth.' I'm not likely to meet you casually, and unless I've got some real-world friend in your area (always possible), I'm unlikely to care. But then, I'm not going to find your real name that useful anyway.
But if you're at Columbia and so am I, finding out who you are is pretty easy. First of all, blogging is at its heart an exhibitionist endeavor, and you're going to tell someone. They won't keep it quiet. And in a law school, rumours move fast.
But even supposing you're a model of discretion, you're going to write about things around you. If you're a law school blogger, you'll write about something funny that happened in your classes, or one of your social events; if you're a professional, you might talk about a client; if you're a doctor, you might mention some freaky disease. From that observation, or a number of them over time, you'll get found out. And once one person figures it out, forget it: you can't climb back into the bottle without scrapping the blog and starting over. From a new IP address.
Oh, yeah, that's the other thing: anonymity presumes you know the bits of the net that don't leave a trail. If you don't know what WHOIS does, how IP addresses work, or what's written in the source code to your site, don't even dream that you're anonymous. Sure, you might be, but you'd be surprised what a sufficiently determined (and skilled) net detective will figure out.
2. It gives the illusion of safety
But an anonymous blogger, thinking they're safe from detection, may quickly develop a sense of security that's wholly unwarranted. Blogs are similar to diaries, after all, and it's very human to put some comments into a personal diary: "That damnable right wing nut was at it again today, griping about persecution of Christianity." "Hasn't he noticed that his coat makes him look like a woolen version of the StayPuft Marshmallow Man?" "And with regards to the kid eating next to me, three words: no more onions." (And these are just things people could say about me.)
If you have that under lock and key beneath your pillow (or, in digital terms, behind some password-protected page), so be it. But if you don't, be sure that the guy next to you on the elevator is hearing about it. Even if they don't read your blog, someone they know will be. And maybe, just maybe, they'll put two and two together.
Here's a thought experiment: go to Friendster.com. If you don't have a profile, make one. Then search for one of your (relatively web-savvy) friends on the east coast, and link them to you. After that, search for a friend or two on the west coast who has almost no connection to the first friend. If you're like me, you'll find that the two friends are linked by at most three or four degrees of separation, via people you don't even know. Now think how much closer that is in law school. Or your office.
Bottom line, folks: if you talk about someone, no matter how careful you are, they're going to figure it out. If not every time, probably at the worst time. No one will expend the mental effort to determine if you're the person who held the door for you this morning, but people will hunt for the guy you slagged off for making that awful smacking noise with his gums.
3. It makes other people nervous
Now, imagine the blogger whose secret is out. Their Batman has suddenly been revealed as not-so-millionaire law-student Bruce Wayne, and he's had some pretty nasty teeth behind that cowl. Well, the result there is obvious. But let's suppose our Mr. Wayne has been the model of discretion and decency, or at least been justified in whatever bile he's spat during his 'Batman' phase. How are people who he talks to daily going to react, wondering if the next thing they say is going to be broadcast to the world at large?
So, anonymity doesn't work, gives a blogger a shield made of candyfloss, and can alienate their real world friends. In which case, I really find it's best to just go ahead and put your name on the work to begin with. You don't have the security, and it makes you think that much harder before you start running your mouth.
PART B: SOME RULES TO LIVE BY
Let's assume that some bloggers haven't been web-heads since NCSA Mosaic 1.0, just got their Blogger account, and want to start writing away. What are some good rules? Well, from my experience:
1. Would you say this to your mother?
Re-read everything you write, and ask if you'd say it in real life. In fact, ask if you'd say it in answer to one of your professors, over the microphone in your largest lecture hall, to all of your assembled fellow students. OK, no teacher is ever going to ask this kind of question, but if they did, would you want to be remembered for the answer? That's the test that goes through every one of these entries, every time. (Largely, I'll admit, because I've made serious mistakes in the past. Heck, you can check some of the archives here, though they're hardly my worst.) If I won't say it in real life, it's not going on here.
Everything you say on a blog will be remembered: even if you remove it, there's the off chance you didn't get to it before the Googlespider did, and trying to get something you've said out of that spider's cache is a royal pain. Even worse is trying to get it out of the hands of people who have read it already.
2. Grant your victims their anonymity.
As I said, you're going to mention people you know, the people you talk to every day. After all, unless you're someone like Prof. Volokh, with some cutting-edge professional things to say, what you're talking about is your life, and very few of your readers will be wanting to hear your personal opinions: they're here for your life. But the people you write about have not, in general, asked to be there. My attitude is to treat each and every one of them, no matter how much you like them or are being complimentary, as your victims.
I'm serious. If you assume an adversary relationship even to the mention of your best friend, you're less likely to run into trouble. When I wrote the story below about advising a friend to invite her young man up to New York when he felt like it, I asked the woman for permission, giving her a full copy of the post before I posted it. If she's said no, you're be down one story. I can write about something else, and stories are a cheaper currency than friends.
In these cases, honesty is overrated. If you get a story from me, you're getting at best a half-truth. I feel perfectly free to change the location of the action, the sex of the actors, anything except the essential action of the story, if I feel that the person involved doesn't want to be identified. I know what I'm trying to say, and you'll get the point, hopefully with a laugh at the end. I'm not going to give you enough to find my 'victims' unless you were there. It's only fair to them.
3. Self-censor. Frequently.
I can already hear the comments as I'm writing this: "But... but... if I do things like that, my readers won't be getting an authentic idea of what the law school experience is like." But they won't get that anyway--at the very best, they're getting facets of your law school experience, filtered through your own particular opinions. Unless you're going to spend an inordinate amount of time blogging in a day, your readers will get disconnected vignettes, small glimpses of the highs and lows of your experience. They're not getting 'authenticity' anyway, they won't miss it because you decided not to slam some gunner you didn't happen to like.
There's a lot of topics that are dear to my heart that don't make it to here. There's some political issues I won't address, not because I don't have feelings on them, but because I do and I know they'll offend some people unnecessarily. Much as I'd love to tell you about my love life, my relationship with my family, or the juicy gossip of the law school, it's not getting published.
And make sure it's not just political opinions you're censoring. That's an exception to the rule above. It would be relatively easy for anyone, at least at the school, to figure out who my professors are. I'm not going to contact them every time I write something, and indeed so far as I know, none of them read Three Years of Hell. But in return, I'm not about to say anything unkind about them, or even anything less than approval. Most law students will find this practical (don't peeve your examiners--a good maxim), but more importantly, it's polite.
4. When you're done self-censoring, do it again
And by this, I mean 'watch your language.' The occasional four-letter word isn't a killer, but they are words that wound, and raise your risks of getting into trouble with your readers. Besides, very few people will think better of you because you can use the word 'cunt' as a descriptive term. Ask if you need the word there, and if not, lose it.
When you get the urge to let it loose, go read Warren Ellis' blog. There's a man who can curse. When you feel like being Spider Jerusalem, ask yourself if you can live up to the hype. If you can't, drop the act.
5. It's not just on your blog
All of the above, by the way, applies whether you're a blogger or someone leaving a comment. Most blogs don't have a very tight security model, and it's sometimes tempting to comment from anonymity. All the warnings above apply to you too.
I generally comment with my real name, or if not, with a link to Three Years of Hell, to avoid the temptation to start acting like a jerk. But even if you don't want to leave your name, remember that what you're saying will be read, and especially if you're commenting anonymously, your words will represent everyone who's mistaken for you.
How would you feel if a colleague, a workmate, or a professor wrote to ask you, "What's going on at Company X? Your colleagues are swearing like sailors and acting like children." He then gives you a link to a 'debate' which features foul language, unveiled insults, and personal attacks, all signed by "A Member of Company X" or "Another Secretary at Company X." Not pretty, is it? Many of the blogs you comment on have readerships in the hundreds, if not thousands, and you give you and your associates a reputation.
(Note that, as mentioned on the 'About' page, I reserve the right to edit or delete comments, and have done so in the past.)
None of this is revolutionary, nor even particularly original. It's common sense. I can't claim to always get it right. I've annoyed a number of people (and usually apologized for it) with things I've said here. Bloggers are only human, and we won't get it right all the time. Still, these are the rules I'd like to live by. If anything because I'm less likely to lose the affection of my friends or the respect of my peers if I do so.
(If my readers have gotten this far, and have any other suggestions for good blog etiquette, I'd love to see it. I apologize for the disjointed nature of this post. I'll probably edit it a bit over the next few days to make it more coherent.)
Another good saying
As I've said before, although I love Contracts as a class, it's almost more fun playing 'Spot the Quotation' with Prof. Contracts. I missed Blazing Saddles, got The Jew of Malta, and today learned what 'having the smell of the lamp' means. Apparently, it means overly academic. ("This case does not have too much of the smell of the lamp about it.")
I have to find some chance to use this.
Strange Asceticism
When I said earlier that the worst thing you can do in law school is get behind, I did not mean that you should spend every moment of your life in a kind of law-related aesceticism. It's simply not healthy: no one should like law that much. This weekend I had a conversation about just that with one of my classmates:
Ms. A to Ms. S: Yeah, I really like him, but I've told him not to visit before Christmas, because while he can come up here from [his city] on a weekend, I'll just spend all my time wanting him and I'll never get any work done.
Me: (while closing my books) A., trust me on this one: ask him up. You will spend as much time staring out the window and wanting him, as you will enjoying his presence, and both will keep you from your work. But having him will make your other hours joyful, while keeping him at arms length will merely make all your hours miserable, and you will grow to hate your work for keeping him from you.
Ms. A.: Y'know, that sometimes how I feel about marble chocolate fudge cake...
Case in Point: The Song of the Strange Ascetic, G. K. Chesterton
Slightly Overwhelmed
Dear Wormwood:
Here's a good suggestion for surviving 1L: don't get behind.
Really. Feel like that movie on Saturday, but know you shouldn't? Don't. See that pretty girl at the bar (and yeah, that's you she's looking at): well, you've got to get up early tomorrow, boy, and sleeping in until noon means you're not finishing the outlining you promised your study group. Don't even think about it.
When all of your task list is red and glaring at you, the guilt alone is enough to get in the way of real work. No matter how much sleep or relaxation you've had, just looking at the enormous and growing pile of work awaiting you is enough to let exhaustion creep over your body. OK, you enjoy your weekend, but you do penance the entire week.
Seriously, Wormwood, don't get behind. The only real upside is the feeling of accomplishment you get when (if) you get caught up again.
October 20, 2003
Addictive (courtesy of my brother)
A deceptively simple, highly addictive game. I take no responsibility for you failing to listen to your lecturers while playing this.
Volokh on Solomon and Perspective
I spent a good bit of this weekend discussing various gender rights issues with a very charming young lady from a California law school, who was in town to attend the Lavender Law conference at Fordham.
As a result, the Solomon Amendment came up again, as it seems to be doing more and more frequently in the blogosphere, law schools, and the newspaper. The 'wisdom of Solomon' is certainly being called into question as never before.
Which is why I was happy Prof. Volokh linked to his old article on Solomon and perspective. I've remembered this one ever since I read it, on the basis of practicality alone:
Some boycotts are purely instrumental: They aim to make things costly for some entity, so that the entity changes its ways to avoid those costs. But surely this isn't the issue here. If the military changes its policy, it won't be because they're having a slightly harder time recruiting lawyers; the boycott just can't make that sort of practical difference. What's more, officers coming from (say) Yale Law School would likely be more tolerant of homosexuality than the average officer. As a purely practical matter, discouraging Yalies from joining the military may make the military slightly less gay-rights-friendly.So, of, course the boycott isn't really about practical questions — it's about morality and symbolism.
Indeed, one would think if you wanted to change the military as a system, your best bet (if you're straight but sympathetic) would be to join JAG. Certainly military experience might teach some campaigners the wisdom of not ceding a field to one's enemies.
Eccentric Legal Knowledge
Prior to my contracts reading regarding Laredo Hides Co, Inc. v. H & H Meat Products Co., Inc, 513 S.W.2d 210 (Texas 1974), I didn't know the difference between a heifer and a cow. In case you'd like to know, a heifer has had no more than one calf, whereas a cow has had two or more. Apparently their hides are worth different values.
I apologize to my readership for not having anything new up this weekend: after the Legal Methods exam I spent a fairly law-free weekend. Oddly, everyone I've talked to have said they did very little in the way of work this weekend. I guess after the exam, we all needed a bit of brain rest.
October 17, 2003
Senatorial Asylum
And in one moment, the blogosphere rose up in massive agreement. Check out Balloon Juice's description of why the new Congressional resolution to transform some of the money being spent to rebuild Iraq into a loan, which will be forgiven if other donor nations write off their Saddam-era debt. You have to scroll down a ways, but you'll see the list of the members of the blogosphere of every political persuasion who think this is dumb.
The most charitable interpretation of this is that it gives the U.S. a card to play to get countries like France or Russia to fold up their debt claims. From a game-theory perspective, that might not be a bad plan. From a moral (or hell, a public-relations) view, it's like holding up a beat up child and saying, "Gimme back this kid's money or I'll beat it out of his hide." It's insanity incarnate. Words fail me.
Why I've been feeling old today
Detailing how the exam went can wait: I'm feeling like a decrepit old fogey. Never mind the fact that my brother sent me this article, wherein little rugrats critique the Atari games that I grew up on. No, it's worse.
I went to see Kill Bill after the exam, with two of the people in my course. After the movie (which I will review, since I thought it was horrible), I mentioned that the eponymous Bill (who you don't see in the first film) is played by David Carradine.
"Who?" from my first companion. This followed by a blank look from a young lady who only a moment before I might have considered the salt of the earth, despite her obviously tender years.
"David Carradine? You know, from Kung Fu?"
Blank. Real blank. For a moment, I tried to console myself with the phantasm that both of these people were in Another Section, and that maybe Columbia specially segregated those of us with vast cultural knowledge into my section. [1] Then I realized that they'd made a remake of Kung Fu called "The Legend Continues" in the mid-90s that was diabolically awful: so if it were just poor taste, they'd know him from there. My classmates obviously have better aesthetic sense than that. [2]
No, there was no escaping it. I was just... old.
Okay, you whippersnappers, that's fine, make fun of me! You know what they say about age and... erm... hold on, my memory's not what it used to be...
[1] Yes, this is patently ridiculous, but their response was making me feel old. The human mind will perform some stunning feats to defend its ego. Have some sympathy.
[2[ See, I told you. At this point the obvious conclusion was that not only did they have better sense than that, but they have better taste than I.
October 16, 2003
Morituri te salutamus
...because, after all, law doesn't have enough latin maxims.
No, seriously, the day's study has gone well. I started too late and so finished too late, but I feel as prepared as I can be, and I figure the exam can't be that great of a shock now. And I appreciate Columbia's pedagogical practice of giving us what, for all intents and purposes, is a practice exam.
In many ways, it's been a real wake-up call. It's highlighted the fact that I've not done enough work over the last month, but it's also focused me on what I need to do. There's a lot of very simple things (putting page numbers on my notes, organizing outlines, putting things in binders) that I've done for legal methods which will serve me well in my other classes. It certainly means I'm not going into those exams half so cold.
One thing I'll miss, though, is the lack of formality of Oxford exams. Wearing a suit and gown and pinning a flower to your lapel, is hardly practical if you take exams every term. But it had a certain romance that I'm going to miss, sitting in an exam hall with jeans and a shirt on.
So tomorrow at 10:30 AM, wish me luck. For now, I think I'll get a good night's sleep.
Legal Methods Studying
While the rest of the law school may tell you 'don't spent that much time on legal methods,' when you're a 1L, don't listen to them. Looking back over this stuff, I wish I'd mastered it, instead of merely knowing it. Also, start studying a bit before the exam.
I've got a load of observations from this process, most of them more pedestrial than brilliant (always page number your notes, auto-outline functions that are helpful for review, etc.) but I'll post them after the exam. For now, I want to read over this stuff before I run out of time for sleep.
In the meantime, I'll leave you with a post from E Land, which explains why we lawyers are such rat bastards. It's not a bad post, but I think he's a better engineer than he is a biologist, since I think he's misusing the term 'parasite.'
October 14, 2003
Attention Marvel Fans...
This has to be a combination of the two worst ideas ever: high quality lithographs of super-heros and inspirational messages at SuperLithos.com. Now if they could get the great villains at Despair.com, that might be an accomplishment.
Linked from The Hulk Diary. You would not believe what you can find with Google's 'I feel lucky' button.
See through the Elvish Propaganda!
In an old post at gTexts, the author puts forward the view that Sauron's true aim was radical politics, and that Rivendell was the Augusta Country Club. It's tough to tell whether his tongue is in his cheek, out of his cheek, or in both cheeks, but it's worth a giggle.
Politics and Politenesses
Dear Wormwood:
I ventured up to the Center for Public Interest Law today and found that, if there is the panel for Public Interest from the Right, they didn't seem to know of it. On the other hand, I think my fellow student was referring to the (quite helpful) OPIA's Guide to Conservative Public Interest Law, which lists a number of organizations useful as contacts for a conservative who wishes to go into public interest. Perhaps ironically, it's a copy of a pamplet written by Harvard. Anyway, it's a good read if you're in shoes like mine. They've copied it with a neon pink cover, you can't miss it.
In other news, the furore over military recruitment (previously commented upon by The Curmudgeonly Clerk among others--see post for references) showed up in the front hallway today, where there is now bulletin board requesting that, if you wish to interview with the military, you do so off-campus, complete with quotation from the Dean. All told, I'm happier with this than with attempts by various groups to ban JAG recruiting from law schools. "Excuse me: this is offensive to us, would you mind not doing it in here?" is a much better strategy, in my opinion, than not inviting the recruiters or in some other way excluding them by force. (There are, after all, presumably some law students who wish to join the military and support the current 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Pursue' policy, if not a stricter one--the university would seem to be doing its students a disservice by not helping them with their careers.)
I'm not likely to sign up for military service, but if I were, I'd be inclined to take a bit of extra effort and interview elsewhere. I could see a compromise wherein the military is allowed to recruit here, but as a sign of respect for the feelings, if not the opinions, of fellow students, those interested were willing to wander to some neutral location. The JAG's audience being elsewhere, it wouldn't show up, even if allowed to do so.
(Related note: if you want the ins and the outs of the issue, The Last Best Hope presents a summary of Richard Epstein's 'debate' last year over this policy, held at NYU. I have apparently overestimated the presence of liberal academics at New York City institutions, since when invited to a debate by the author of my Torts textbook, not one fellow academic was willing to show up...
If you're a JD2B, I can't imagine this issue will have gone away by the time you get here.)
October 13, 2003
Shame, shame, old man!
In an amazing Paul Krugman piece entitled Lessons in Civility, Mr. Krugman opines:
But there's more going on than a simple attempt to impose a double standard. All this fuss about the rudeness of the Bush administration's critics is an attempt to preclude serious discussion of that administration's policies. For there is no way to be both honest and polite about what has happened in these past three years.
And generations of gentlemen, indeed the ghosts of gentlemen past, shake their heads disapprovingly. A well brought up man may be polite about anything, and his failure to do so is not the limitations of the world, but merely a reflection of his failings.
Shame, shame, Mr. Krugman.
This Imp May Have to Eat His Words
It's only hearsay so far, but I've been told by a classmate that the Center for Public Interest Law here (with whom I've not always seen eye to eye) is doing a panel on Pro Bono from the Right. Given past experience, the temptation is to be suspicious, and you can guess what has run through my mind thus far. But it's only fair to be open-minded about it until given reason to assume otherwise. I'll keep you posted, and look forward to the panel.
Solum's Law
I'd not noticed it before, but Professor Solum has published all his miniature 'lectures' into the Legal Theory Lexicon. This year's 1Ls can follow along as he creates this work, which will probably be a pretty good brush-up on key facts and a good source of advice.
Next years 1Ls will have a whole year's worth of them to read before they even start. The lucky bastards.
October 12, 2003
(Non Law) Questions I Need Resolved
Law seems to be going well. Some other things are not.
- Can someone jog my memory as to the relationship between National Review and Andrew Sullivan? I could have sworn the latter worked on, if he wasn't the editor of, the former for a number of years, though my mind may be failing. I remember him being insightful, humourous, and quite a good read, back in the day when I enjoyed National Review more for being well-written, irreverant, and not half as nasty as it is today. I've just read Sullivan's 'statistics don't matter' [1] postings on gay marriage and a mean-spirited 1 September rebuttal by one of my favorite magazines, and it leaves a 'plague on both your houses' bitter taste in my mouth. Is there some kind of bad blood between them?
- Second, do any of my readers have