The Perfect Storm

Yes indeedy, the cliched title for this entry is now perfectly justified by the fact that GW just cancelled all classes for tomorrow. Thank you, hurricane Isabel!

Sure, I'll pay for my day off later, but right now, I couldn't be happier. I'm up to my eyeballs in personal jurisdiction issues (in rem v. quasi-in rem v. in personam—oy vey!),*
and I could really use a bit of time to digest theories of contract and to apply the public necessity doctrine to NAFTA (Ch. 11, I believe).

And don't worry, I don't know what I'm talking about either. But I did learn today that one of my professors clerked for Scalia, and another clerked for both Thomas and Kennedy. Should I be concerned about this? Other than the question of how it's possible for one person to clerk for two Justices, I just wonder how well clerking for a particular Justice predicts a person's political/ideological leanings. I'm acquainted socially with a former Scalia clerk and he's a nice guy but he's frighteningly conservative (after Lawrence v. Texas came out last summer this guy fumed that Scalia's dissent hadn't been vehement enough), which leads me to believe the Justices often choose people of like mind for their clerks. Is that true, or would that be a mistaken or foolish belief?

At any rate, I don't have to worry about it for another day. Instead, perhaps I'll be flabbergasted for a little while by the pResident's recent attempt to pretend he's been telling the truth all along. Then I'll be horrified that the airlines plan to treat Americans like terrorists, and perhaps I'll top it off with an orgy of speculation about what Wesley Clark is going to do to the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Maybe I can even catch up on my Ditzy Genius, Liable, So Sue Me, Cooped Up, and all the other great blogs that I've been unable to read with any regularity amid all the rest of the life's fun.

After all that, maybe I'll even do some homework!

Nah....

* "You give me that juris-my-diction crap, you can shove it up your ass!" 10 points** to the first commenter to identify the source of that quotation.

** Speaking of points, the way Westlaw and Lexis play their stupid point games really gets on my nerves. But what's worse is the way law students fawn over these services; they act like being able to do legal research online is some sort of holy grail. I wonder what we'll think when we have to start paying for the pleasure of accessing public information through West and Lexis. I wonder how we'll feel if we stop to think that the cost of legal services is way out of the reach of vast numbers of Americans, at least in part because legal research is so damned costly. Gee, why isn't there a publicly-financed legal research service to rival West and Lexis so that anyone could do legal research at any public library anywhere in the U.S.? It's all about the points, baby, the points.

Posted 08:56 PM | Comments (6) | law school

Now Live from Dupont Circle

Ok, so we've moved. Last Saturday we went from zero (nothing packed) to completely moved in 18 hours or less, which was a new record for me. It's great fun. If you get tired of your job or law school or would just like a change of scenery, I highly recommend just picking up and moving across town. You'll be so busy sweating your ass off, you won't have time to think about anything else. I really have no intention of passing my classes this semester, anyway, so it's all good.

But yeah, ai is now coming to you live from just outside Dupont Circle, which I like to tell people is the heart of the heart of the heart of the ____________ here in D.C. You can fill in the blank w/just about whatever you want—museums, coffee shops, book stores, live music, political activism, good restaurants, cool movie theatres, and on and on—it's all here or a short walk or metro ride away. Now my stroll to school is about 20 minutes, and by bike it's like I blink and I'm there. Life is good.

Bonus: We moved in to find full cable already in effect, including wireless internet access! I don't know who's paying for this, but I'll be happy to make use of it while it lasts. The only problem with the cable is that it includes HBO, which is basically video crack—like playstation, but maybe worse because it calls you at regular intervals to say "watch me, your favorite show is on! you can't miss this! drop everything and watch watch watch!" Last night featured a HBO-crack binge of epic proportions, beginning at around 8 p.m. with reruns of the Sopranos, followed by some SITC action (I've always loved Steve, too), and then we had to check out Carnivale (trippy—by far the most Twin Peaks-ish tv since Twin Peaks), and we just couldn't tear ourselves away from K Street. Holy firetruck, after all that, I practically had to be peeled off the couch, not only because all that programming was such an mental overload, but because well, what the heck is up with Howard Dean being on K Street and what the hell are he and HBO trying to do!? If you didn't see it, Salon summarizes most of the Dean part in its coverage:

In a debate prep with Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean -- which Dean agreed to partially because he was thrilled to get some free advice from two of the highest-profile political strategists in Washington -- Begala comments on one of the current president's strengths: "One of the ways that Bush is an enormously disciplined politician is he never answers hypotheticals. He doesn't entertain that option." Begala also says that the best way for Dean to "chip Bush down" is with humor. It's tough not to be interested and engaged with such slices of strategy-building.

What that summary doesn't tell you is that during this fictional? real? debate prep, one of the K Street characters fed Dean one of the big jokes he used in the Baltimore debate, which was:

Well, if the percent of minorities that's in your state has anything to do with how you can connect with African American voters, then Trent Lott would be Martin Luther King.

After watching the K Street, I couldn't decide if James Carville, et al, really fed Dean that line, or if the show's editors had just made it seem that way. Salon seems to think it wasn't just the magic of editing. I don't know. Does it matter? I don't know. Dean's blog went wild with comments after the show; I think they mostly liked it. The Washington Post seems a little baffled by the show. Ah well, it certainly entertained me.

And now CivPro beckons. Do you think 10 hours of homework/reading time/week is sufficient to achieve success in law school? ;-)

Posted 04:44 PM | Comments (4) | election 2004 law school life generally