Progressive Peliculas

Cool thing to do this weekend in D.C.: Attend a free screening of a progressive documentary at the Provisions Documentary Film Series. Neato. [link via DCist]

Posted 09:08 AM | ai movies general politics

NaNoWriMo Report Card

Hey, have you started planning your NaNo novel yet? You only have about one week to get an outline or some plot ideas in your head before the mad dash begins! As part of your preparation, be sure to check out the NaNo report card (scroll down or do a find—no permalinks on the page). It's an Excel worksheet that has the whole month of novel-writing all set up for you. All you have to do is enter your daily word count (and how many hours you spent writing that day, if you want), and it will automatically calculate helpful information, such as how many words you have left to reach your 50k goal, how many words/day you'll need to write to reach that goal by the end of Nov., and when you'll finish your novel if you continue writing at your current pace. It even plots your progress on a graph and a pie chart! A detail-tracker's dream! The report card provides a little more insight into what NaNo is all about. People take it very seriously, but they also have lots of fun with it. I'm telling you, if you're thinking you'd like to write a novel (or even a long short story), but think you don't have it in you or you can't spare the time, you should just throw all caution to the wind like I'm doing and commit to spending every spare minute in Nov. during which your brain is functional writing. You will be very glad you did. Every year for the last three I get around to about now and I'm excited about trying to write a novel in a month, but I also start to worry and think about all the reasons why I really shouldn't even try. And then, inevitably, the thing that pushes me to launch into the madness yet another time is the memories of WriMo's past, the caffienated late nights and early mornings and stolen moments between classes or other projects, the hours in coffee shops w/L. writing, watching people, writing, thinking big thoughts about my future as a rockstar novelist, writing, hating the writing, writing more, playing solitaire in the hope that some idea will spring into my head for the next scene, writing more, more coffee, more writing, more juggling other stuff that I don't really care about for the month of November, more writing more writing more writing. And maybe it doesn't sound fun to everyone, but it's really a tremendous feeling, for one short month each year, to put writing first among all the other things that compete for my time and attention. Or, if not first, then much much higher on the list than usual. Oh, and this year, there's another reason to write: Writing can be good therapy, and no matter how this election turns out, I think we're all going to need some of that come Nov. 3rd or so.

Posted 09:06 AM | Comments (1) | NaNoWriMo

Eerie Sports Analogies

Congrats to the Red Sox. Since I know nothing about baseball and pay zero attention to it normally, I am shocked to learn that Boston might face Houston in the World Series. Another way to put that: Massachusetts might face Texas in the Series. Is it just me or would that be an incredibly eerie coincidence? And the Series starts Saturday. Which will be over first: The World Series or the presidential election? Oh, and do you really want a president who feels threatened by people asking him silently to protect civil liberties? Or how about a president who suppresses CIA reports he doesn't like? Houston, I think we have a problem. Is Bush a pirate or an emperor? UPDATE: About the potentially eerie symbolism of a Massachusetts v. Texas World Series? Nevermind: Cardinals 5, Astros 2.

Posted 09:20 AM | Comments (6) | election 2004 life generally

aliunde, world on fire...

One: Aliunde would be a great name for a blog. It means “from another source, from elsewhere; from outside.” Example in context: “[Co-conspirators' statements are admissible over the objection of an alleged co-conspirator, who was not present when they were made, only if there is proof aliunde that he is connected with the conspiracy. . . . Otherwise, hearsay would lift itself by iits own bootstraps to the level of competent evidence.” Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60 at 74-75 (1942). Because really, everything you see here is aliunde. By the way, the above is not good law. Hearsay evidence is allowed to bootstrap itself to competence at the discretion of the trial judge. Bourjaily v. U.S., 483 U.S. 171. Two: Sarah McLachlan's new song, “World On Fire,” is great. The video is also awesome—it describes how she spent $150,000 on social justice instead of wasting it on a stupid video. Think how much better the world would be if every penny put into music videos went to social justice efforts! Oh, wait, then there would be no more music videos, but this would be a problem how? Three: What does Sinclair Broadcasting think it's doing? You may be hearing reports that it has agreed not to show the anti-Kerry propaganda film it was going to show. Maybe, but don't believe the hype. The company has lost $140 million in market value already over this shenanigan; why not just force it into bankruptcy and take back those airwaves? Maybe it's time for ACT or MoveOn to raise funds to buy some tv stations. ;-) Four: Greens for Impact is trying to get Nader supporters to vote for Kerry. I keep dreaming that Nader's going to call a press conference and humbly ask all his supporters to vote for Kerry. The nation's respect for him would skyrocket, and it might be just what Kerry needs to put him over the top. What can I say? I dream a lot. Five: I know nothing about baseball, but I really really want the BoSox to win game 7 tonight. The Yankees seem like Bush, Microsoft and all other anti-democratic bullies. Boston is the underdog, the team fighting for the little person, the Kerry, the Apple Computer here. Ok, like I said, I know nothing about baseball so what am I talking about? I just want Boston to win.

Posted 08:22 AM | Comments (4) | lists

Dreaming Failure

Reading evidence, trying to catch up on the rule against hearsay, which seems straightforward until you get to all the exceptions. Maybe it's more difficult because I'm so behind and I've missed so many classes. You think? Nah... I had a dream last night that I was enrolled in a class that I have only attended once. In my dream, I just suddenly remembered one day that I was supposed to be in class, then I realized I'd been missing the class for weeks, then I thought about the ways to get out of the class and realized there were none, and then I panicked and thought I was going to fail out of law school. And then I woke up. It was an awful dream—a nightmare, even. Apparently my subconscious is preparing for finals. A quick count says there are five and a half weeks of class left before final exams, but maybe it's closer to six weeks since there's a half-week in there for the fall break (Thanksgiving). Needless to say I'll have a lot of catching up to do over that little “holiday.” NaNoWriMo fits into this where? How? Is this what's known as a reality check?

Posted 03:00 PM | Comments (2) | 2L law school

Is West A Thief? PKD, and...

One: Did you know that West started its online database of caselaw (Westlaw) by legally stealing a database created by the Department of Justice? According to this article, that's true. Does anyone know anything more about this? I can't believe there were no lawsuits related to this, but I haven't found any so far... UPDATE: Ok, I know it's not stealing if it was legal, and in fact the story almost suggests that the DOJ's failure to contract on terms that would have allowed it to retain rights to the work done by West was such a convenient and egregious “mistake” as to be almost intentional. This was the Reagan DOJ; deregulation and privatization were the tenets it lived by. So maybe the DOJ gave the database to West. In my book that doesn't decrease the injustice.... Two: I wish I had time to read Arts & Letters Daily more often. Three: Speaking of time, I wish I had time to tell you more about the Peggy Browning Fund's National Law Students Workers' Rights Conference, which I attended last Saturday. It was awesome, and I highly recommend it for any law student or future law student for next year. I took lots of notes and I hope to post more about it soon. For now I can say that I'm more convinced than ever that being a labor lawyer would be an awesome job. The trouble is, getting the job.... Four: Speaking of labor law, check out American Rights at Work, a new organization designed to offset the multi-million dollar anti-worker, corporate-sponsored National Right to Work Foundation and Committee. (If you didn't know it already, “right to work” is Orwellian doublespeak for “rights of employers to screw their workers.” Or, as the Disinfopedia puts it, “The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is an organization that attacks workers organizations through the US court system.” Five: Some comments from Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on John Stewart's appearance on their show last week. It's like they didn't hear a thing Stewart said. Six: Here's a comment about a Phillip K. Dick essay I haven't read but will when I find the time. I recently read Dick's short story “Autofac”—great little dystopian scenario. A lot of people think he's a hack, and in many ways he is, but if I could do what he did, I could be fairly happy that way... (Dick brought us the stories behind Blade Runner, The Running Man, Total Recall, Minority Report, and more that are not coming to mind at the moment.) Seven: This electoral college prediction is really a beautiful thing: Kerry 284, Bush 247. The pro-Bush interpretation of the polls is different: Bush 274, Kerry 264. This seemingly less partisan prediction says Bush's probability of winning has fallen below 50% (but is trending a bit up) and predicts an electoral college count of: Bush 269.1 to Kerry 268.9. Both candidates are currently trying to scare the bejeezus out of voters. Kerry's try to scare old people by saying that Bush is going to privatize Social Security (which is exactly what Bush is saying, he just doesn't use the word “privatize”); Bush is trying to scare everyone by saying Kerry is weak and won't fight terrorism. I guess people will have to decide which one they think is more credible.

Posted 08:14 AM | lists

More Derrida and Contingent Foundations

For some reason I keep thinking about Derrida, so . . . more links: Derrida online has collected links to obits and the Remembering Jacques Derrida page is like a who's who of rockstar academics. If you're still trying to get a grasp on why Derrida mattered, here's a highlight from a NY Times op-ed by Mark C. Taylor entitled What Derrida Really Meant, which tries to clarify what Derrida meant by “deconstruction”:

The guiding insight of deconstruction is that every structure - be it literary, psychological, social, economic, political or religious - that organizes our experience is constituted and maintained through acts of exclusion. In the process of creating something, something else inevitably gets left out.

To those who think Derrida was just some nihilist/moral relativist:

This is an important criticism that requires a careful response. Like Kant, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Mr. Derrida does argue that transparent truth and absolute values elude our grasp. This does not mean, however, that we must forsake the cognitive categories and moral principles without which we cannot live: equality and justice, generosity and friendship. Rather, it is necessary to recognize the unavoidable limitations and inherent contradictions in the ideas and norms that guide our actions, and do so in a way that keeps them open to constant questioning and continual revision. There can be no ethical action without critical reflection.

And one of the many reasons Derrida is so relevant today:

During the last decade of his life, Mr. Derrida became preoccupied with religion and it is in this area that his contribution might well be most significant for our time. He understood that religion is impossible without uncertainty. Whether conceived of as Yahweh, as the father of Jesus Christ, or as Allah, God can never be fully known or adequately represented by imperfect human beings. And yet, we live in an age when major conflicts are shaped by people who claim to know, for certain, that God is on their side. Mr. Derrida reminded us that religion does not always give clear meaning, purpose and certainty by providing secure foundations. To the contrary, the great religious traditions are profoundly disturbing because they all call certainty and security into question. Belief not tempered by doubt poses a mortal danger. As the process of globalization draws us ever closer in networks of communication and exchange, there is an understandable longing for simplicity, clarity and certainty. This desire is responsible, in large measure, for the rise of cultural conservatism and religious fundamentalism - in this country and around the world. True believers of every stripe - Muslim, Jewish and Christian - cling to beliefs that, Mr. Derrida warns, threaten to tear apart our world. Fortunately, he also taught us that the alternative to blind belief is not simply unbelief but a different kind of belief - one that embraces uncertainty and enables us to respect others whom we do not understand. In a complex world, wisdom is knowing what we don't know so that we can keep the future open.

Others have built upon Derrida's ideas in this area, including Judith Butler, who wrote a terrific argument in favor of “contingent foundations” in her contribution to Feminist Contentions. I tried to summarize that argument for a paper a couple of years ago as follows:

In arguing that all foundations are always-already contingent, Butler begins with a brief examination of the question, “What is postmodernism?” in order to discuss the value of the term to feminist social theory. That value, Butler eventually concludes, lies in the fact that “postmodernism”—or more precisely, poststructuralism—reveals the constructedness of all foundations, which are “the unquestioned and unquestionable within any theory” (39). One of the prime foundations of concern to Butler (and many feminists) is that of the “universal,” which, regardless of how it’s defined, always relies upon biased and ethnocentric assumptions. Perhaps because she was writing in the early 1990s, just after the inital Gulf War, Butler uses that conflict between the U.S. and Iraq to demonstrate the consequences of placing any premise beyond question by calling it “universal.” As Butler notes: “We have, I think, witnessed the conceptual and material violence of this practice in the United States’s war against Iraq, in which the Arab ‘other’ is understood to be radically ‘outside’ the universal structures of reason and democracy and, hence, calls to be brought forcibly within” (40). Following a lengthy (and frighteningly prescient, in our current context) dissection of the Gulf War, Butler turns to the category of gender as another example—like “democracy” and “reason”— of a category or presupposition that is constructed, and therefore neither universal nor unquestionable. Butler’s point is that “universals” simply do not exist; under no circumstances (in the real world) can there be premises or principles that are unquestioned or unquestionable. “This is not to say that there is no foundation,” Butler continues, “but rather that wherever there is one, there will also be a foundering, a contestation. That such foundations exist only to be put into question is, as it were, the permanent risk of the process of democratization” (51).

That really is an incredible essay (Butler's, not mine), both for the way it explains and justifies the idea of contingent foundations (antifoundational foundations, even!), and also for its description of the first Gulf War alone. I wonder what she's writing about this war.... When I left grad school, I was kicking around ways to sort of build a dissertation around this concept of contingent foundations coupled somehow with Frederic Jameson's idea of “cognitive mapping,” which I think I've mentioned before. (Somehow my site search function appears to be hosed; something I'll fix someday, really!) Contingent foundations could be cognitive maps in that we use those foundations to help us make sense of the world. I'm sure there's a good dissertation project in there somewhere, but it wont' be written by me. Still, the ideas fascinate me and Derrida helped bring them into being.... Note to Michelle Malkin, who was almost giddy that Derrida died: Among critical theorists there's no such thing as deconstructionism. There's just deconstruction. Full stop. An analyst or analysis can be deconstructionist, but the school of thought is called deconstruction—the “ism” is only used by those who don't understand deconstruction. On Derrida, see also: Some Simple Thoughts on Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Using Deconstruction to Astonish Friends and Confound Enemies UPDATE 10-18-04: See also Why I won't be mourning for Derrida by Johann Hari. I haven't finished reading it, but the excerpt here suggests that it's an expression of the typical panic and jump to dystopian conclusions when anyone dares question Enlightenment teleology (which Derrida most certainly did). I don't think it's necessary to chuck the whole of Enlightenment thought into the dustbin of history, but we should recognize its flaws and omissions, as well. There's got to be a balance here somewhere... And none of this really has anything to do with what I should be thinking about and working on right now, so....

Posted 05:47 PM | Comments (1) | general politics