DC Geek Brunch

FYI: If you're a DC area blogger, Dave Winer, author of Scripting News and one of the most influential pioneers of blogging and related technologies (SOAP, RSS, OPML, and more) is having a “geek brunch” tomorrow (2/6) in Alexandria at the Royal Restaurant. I might be able to make it, but I'm not sure I'm geeky enough. Blogs I can talk about. Programming? Not so much. (Homework? What's that?)

Posted 11:42 PM | Comments (1) | meta-blogging

Please Send Paintings!

Ok, so this wasn't the most stellar week around the old imbroglio. In addition to flubbing an interview, I also lost another (the employer pulled out of next week's job fair after it scheduled an interview with me!), my journal editors told me my “note” is “extreme” and “unrealistic,” and I learned that my next three weekends are basically packed with special class meetings, ADR competition judging, interviews, paper-writing, and something else I know I'm forgetting—oh! applying for more jobs! With my weeks so full already, losing weekends to even more obligations is really, really not cool. So the week has not been the best; not awful, but not great. (Perhaps these weeks have to happen from time to time in order to justify a name like “imbroglio,” eh?) But you know what has been great this week? Watching people paint pictures on the artPad! For example, yesterday two friends (who will remain nameless to protect their identities and their future art careers) traded paintings back and forth and seeing them was the highlight of my day! Another friend also got into the act, although on an obviously different theme. (Be sure to adjust the replay speed to “fast” or watching those stars draw will take all day!) This is, in fact, so much fun, that I hereby request paintings from any and all! If you have 5 minutes to spare this weekend, please create a “painting” of anything you'd like and send me the link (or post it in the comments). (To get a permalink for you painting, click “send to friend” and send it to yourself, then copy the URL out of the email to post here in the comments or email to me.) I'll link to your creations here on ai, w/or w/out identification of the creator (your choice; just let me know) so that everyone can join the fun and appreciate your creative expression. (If you have a blog, you should, of course, feature your own work there, if you'd like.) Unless you specify otherwise, I'd also like to take a snapshot of the finished product so I can create an “ambivalent artpad gallery” of sorts. (Because who knows when art.com will decide it no longer wants to host all these paintings and they disappear into never-never land?) So hey, get painting and send me links! Pretty please? Your effort will bring the imbroglio joy, and how could you say no to that? Your friendly neighborhood imbroglio thanks you.

Posted 08:18 AM | Comments (3) | life generally

Margin Notes to the SCOTUS

If you're a law student, do you make notes in the margins of your books as if you were talking to the writer of the book or the case you're reading? I do. It's kind of like talking to the tv, which I also can't help doing, much to the dismay of everyone who watches television with me, I'm sure. Example: I was reading the opinion in Zurcher v. Stanford Daily, 436 U.S. 547 (1978), in which the Supreme Court held that the “critical element” required to justify a search warrant “is reasonable cause to believe that the specific 'things' to be searched for and seized are located on the property to which entry is sought.” The facts of the case are that the cops thought a newspaper photographer had taken photos of some “demonstrators” who “attacked” a group of police officers. Since there was no reason whatsoever to believe the photographer (or anyone else at the newspaper) had committed any crime, did the police have “probable cause” to get a warrant to search the newspaper offices for the photos? Of course, the Court said “yes.” Then it turned to the newspaper's First Amendment argument that such a search infringed upon the guarantee of freedom of the press. The Court wrote:

There is no reason to believe . . . that magistrates cannot guard against searches of the type, scope, and intrusiveness that would actually interfere with the timely publication of a newspaper.

My margin note: “The timely publication won't matter much if the content is vapid b/c the paper's free expression has been trampled by intimidating searches!” The opinion continues:

Nor, if the requirements of specificity and reasonableness are properly applied, policed, and observed, will there be any occasion or opportunity for officers to rummage at large in newspaper files or to intrude into or deter normal editorial and publication decisions.

My margin note: “That's a lot of ifs.” And finally:

Nor are we convinced . . . that confidential soucres will disappear and that the press will suppress news because of fears of unwarranted searches.

My margin note: “Well, you're stupid, then, aren't you?” I know my notes don't do any good for anyone, but they do make the reading more entertaining. Speaking of which, I've got some more “entertaining” reading to do....

Posted 07:59 AM | Comments (1) | 2L law school

Interview (f)art

So I had an interview yesterday for a job l really really wanted. Here's the whole story. UPDATE: For the low-tech, and for the sake of posterity, the gist of the story is here.

Posted 06:46 AM | Comments (12) | 2L law school meta-blogging

Tsunami Point Drive

The Tsunami Charity Drive I mentioned yesterday has been wildly successful, exploding into something like a blawg “meme.” The proof is at Jeremy Richey's Blawg, where you can see that more than 26,000 Lexis points have been donated. At $1.60 per 100 points, that' s just over $400. The goal is now set at 50,000 points by February, so if you have any Lexis points you were just going to selfishly exchange for personal swag, donate them to tsunami relief and let Jeremy know you did so so he can add your points to the total. I threw my points in, despite my own reluctance to do anything to help Lexis look like a good member of society. If I can do it, you can too. Come on, you know you want to. ;-)

Posted 08:00 AM | Comments (2) | 2L law school meta-blogging

Say Hello to MultiBlog!

The two “sideblogs” on ai—ambivalent images and ambivalent bits—are now being brought to you by the MT MultiBlog plugin by David Raynes. MultiBlog allows updates to one of the sideblogs to trigger a rebuild of the main page of ai. Although this may make no difference to you as a reader, it's a nice change from my perspective b/c it means that any updates to the sideblogs appear immediately and automatically here on the main page. (Previously changes to the sideblogs didn't show up here until I rebuilt this main page, either by adding a new post or if someone left a comment.) MultiBlog replaces the older and less sophisticated OtherBlog plugin. Although I said a while back that I wanted to get rid of the ambits sideblog, that may never happen (or I might change my mind), so in the meantime, this simple upgrade satisfies my need to tweak—for now.

Posted 07:23 AM | Comments (2) | meta-blogging

Death In Connecticut: Paused

Following up on yesterday's post about Michael Ross: he was not executed last night. His attorney asked for a stay to investigate Ross's competency and whether he is exhibiting “death row syndrome”—whether “years of harsh conditions on death row have coerced Ross to drop his appeals.” More about that in this article:

Haney, professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Cruz, added, “I have seen it in other death-row inmates who just give up and relinquish appeals and, in some cases, appeals that legal experts believe have a very high chance of being successful.” Someone with death-row syndrome, he and Grassian say, can appear quite rational and in touch with reality. But because the inmate's day-to-day existence has become so intolerable, that person wants life to end. “There's a debate in the courts about whether that constitutes incompetence,” Haney said.

Whatever the merits of “death row syndrome,” this means the first execution in New England in 45 years has been postponed for at least a month (probably much longer), and I'm certainly not sad about that.

Posted 07:23 AM | Comments (8) | law general

Blawg Tsunami Charity Drive

Jeremy Richey is encouraging law students to donate their Lexis “Ultimate Rewards” points to tsunami relief. He's hoping people will donate 4000 points by Friday. I have 2990 points at the moment, and I'd be happy to donate them all; they're relatively worthless to me and I've always thought the whole points thing was a stupid gimmick to get law students to like Lexis and forget how evil it is. Still, I hesitate because

1. I don't know how much money Lexis will give to the Red Cross if I give my points. Are 100 points worth $1 for the Red Cross, or what?
2. I don't want to help give Lexis any credit for doing anything positive b/c I think Lexis, West, and their competitors are parasites on society. (They take public information (legal decisions, statutes, constitutions, etc.) that is and should be free to the public, package it in complex ways designed to maximize their profit, then sell it back to the people it belongs to in the first place—you and me!) Lexis is probably going to take the points that law students donate and cut a check to the Red Cross, then release a statement congratulating itself for being such a good global citizen. “Lexis generously donated $5000 to the Red Cross today....” Lexis should be making a donation to this effort, sure, but law students shouldn't have to give points for that to happen.
3. I get the impression the tsunami relief effort has been pretty well funded already. I could be wrong.
4. There are many other worthy causes that need our attention and aid as much or more as the tsunami relief. For example, as I noted here (quoting this editorial), “ Each month more than 150,000 African children die of malaria; that's about the death toll of the Asian disaster. Yet those deaths do not sear the public's mind.” Yet Lexis, the good and generous corporation that it is, does not offer us any options for charitable point donations except tsunami relief. Why not? When this donation opportunity expires on Feb. 4th, will Lexis replace it by giving us another worthy cause to which we can give our points?
5. I'm a cynical, mean, cold-hearted person. I don't think so, but I bet a lot of you will when you read this. ;-)

All that said, I may throw my points in, anyway. Like I said, they're largely worthless to me, and since I think the whole idea of the points is evil to begin with, this would at least be some way to squeeze something good out of them. Anyway, if you're less cynical than me, please join Jeremy's campaign. He's trying to collect a total of how many points have been donated, so if you give, drop him a comment so he can add it to the tally.

Posted 06:52 AM | Comments (4) | 2L law school

Legal Advice and ULP laws

What's the difference between providing information and giving legal advice? If you ask my clinic manual, this is what it will tell you:

In essence, giving information is not dependent on particular facts or circumstances. Your answer would be the same no matter who the caller is or what his/her particular factual situation is. For instance, if someone calls and asks the maximum dollar amount you can request in D.C. Small Claims Court, the answer is $5,000.00. You may tell the caller that the jurisdictional limit is $5,000 because you don't have to analyze all the facts and particulars of the situation. On the other hand giving legal advice involves applying the law to a particular set of facts and imposing your professional judgment on your answer. If the same caller asks you, “I bought a lemon. Can I sue the dealer in D.C. Small Claims Court?”, you would have to delve into the facts, know the D.C. lemon law, and impose your judgment in order to provide an answer.

At first I thought this was a nice thumbnail definition of legal advice—if your answer would change if you knew the facts of the case, then you're giving legal advice. Fine. But the purpose of the rule against law students giving legal advice in the first place is to prevent them from practicing law without a license. Law students (and everyone else who has not passed the bar exam and been admitted to the bar) must be careful not to ever “practice law” because it's illegal to practice law without a license. Why? Ask Anthony Rickey (after he's gotten this note monkey off his back)—he's probably thought and read more about laws against the “unauthorized practice of law” (ULP) than I have. I would say these laws exist to protect the monopoly lawyers have over providing legal services. Anthony might say the same, but he might note other reasons, as well. I don't have time to go into a full-blown rant about why ULP laws are ridiculous, except to say that generally they're vague and broad and allow lawyers to bully non-lawyers w/charges of practicing w/out a license. This often happens when non-attorneys start doing simple things for very low cost that lawyers once did for a very high cost. For example, in the 1970s, lawyers viciously harassed a man named Norman F. Dacey for popularizing the idea that people could avoid probate court (and its attendant fees) by establishing living trusts. Lawyers didn't like this because it threatened a nice little source of profit for them. See also the more recent attempt by Texas lawyers to shut down certain publications by Nolo Press, the largest self-help legal publisher in the U.S. And see also here and here for the story of Della Tarpinian, who was harassed by Kentucky lawyers for helping consumers complete basic legal forms. All of these are good examples of lawyers trying to protect their monopoly over “legal services”—at the expense of the social good. In that light, this little line between “legal advice” and providing mere “information” becomes much more dubious. Of course, I'll respect this line until I'm admitted to the bar, but I'll continue to disagree with it long after that.

Posted 06:11 AM | 2L law general

Death in Connecticut

The ongoing saga of convicted serial killer Michael Ross may end tonight with Ross's execution, even as the Connecticut legislature begins discussions of a bill to ban the death penalty. However, another report says Ross is going to delay the execution to prove his competence. The executions has already been delayed once after a U.S. District Attorney accused Ross's lawyer of failing to fully investigate evidence that Ross was incompetent. The Ross case is a complicated one b/c, as I understand it, Ross claims he wants to die, but his defense attorneys have been arguing against those wishes, saying his expressed desire to die is a clear sign of incompetence. It would also be the first execution in Connecticut in 44 years. Will Ross's execution basically become a state-assisted suicide? And if so, will that become another argument against the death penalty? Ross says one of the reasons he wants to die is that he can't stand the thought of spending the rest of his life in prison; therefore, the death penalty is actually a lesser punishment for Ross than life in prison would be. This gives the lie to death penalty proponents who claim it is the “ultimate” punishment (as in the most punishment society can give), and thus becomes potentially another argument against the death penalty. What would become of the death penalty if large numbers of death row inmates voluntarily gave up all appeals and asked to die swiftly? Would death penalty proponents give up their support for this barbarous practice? More specifically, what the heck should a defense attorney do when his/her client gets the death penalty and says “I want to die”? Attorneys don't really take a Hipporatic Oath to do no harm; should they? See also this fascinating story about David Kaczynski (brother of Ted, convicted Unabomber). David basically turned his brother in, then fought hard to make sure he didn't get the death penalty, and now has become an anti-death advocate.

Posted 07:23 AM | Comments (3) | law general

Law Review and Marriage?

Meandering Law Student (MLS) of the new-to-me blawg The Road Less Traveled, recently compared law review to marriage in a way that is just too good not to note. MLS says that law review is like marriage because both are promised to be necessary and good, when really they are the exact opposite. Read the complete post for the setup for the marriage analogy, then this :

When you are a 1L, everyone convinces you that you need to make Law Review. Law Review will be the magic bullet on your resume opening the door to a big salary and at a good firm. But there is something they don't tell you: Working on Law Review is like being drafted to work in a foreign bureaucracy. The lack of organization and forethought will drive you crazy and you'll be hounded by some minor official drunk on power.

The obvious conclusion is that marriage is therefore also like being drafted to work in a foreign bureaucracy. Not being married, I wouldn't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if the comparison is not far from the truth for at least some people.

Posted 07:04 AM | 2L

Patriarchy: The Big Lie

From reading for Feminist Legal Theory:

Patriarchy is grounded in a Great Lie that the answer to life's needs is disconnection and control rather than connection, sharing, and cooperation. The Great Lie separates men from what they need most by encouraging them to be autonomous and disconnected when in fact human existence is fundamentally relational. . . . Who are we if not our ties to other people—“I am . . . a father, a husband, a worker, a friend, a son, a brother”? But patriarchal magic turns the truth inside out, and “self-made man” goes from oxymoron to cultural ideal. And somewhere between the need for human connection and the imperative to control, the two merge, and a sense of control becomes the closest many men ever come to feeling connected with anything, including themselves. (134)

Allan Johnson, In the Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy, 26, 31-41 (Temple University Press 1997) (quoted in Becker, Bowman, & Torrey, Feminist Jurisprudence, 2nd ed. 2001. I believe almost nothing could be more true. I would add that the “big lie” also includes the urge you probably have to dismiss or scorn anyone who uses the word “patriarchy” and or any writing that discusses it. Patriarchy is an ideology, and ideology (“our imaginary relationship to our real conditions of existence”) works constantly to make itself invisible so that if someone tries to point it out to you, your first reaction likely to be something like “whatevah, freak.” I suppose Johnson's description of patriarchy could be another way of saying that the Enlightenment was largely a fancy gloss on patriarchy, but that brings in a lot of baggage that may not be necessary to get the point that our so called “independent” lives (“our” meaning men, primarily, but women, too, to a lesser extent) are really a great big fantasy. I'm thinking this has everything to do with a world of gears and girders (see Cecilia Tichi, e.g. here), and long before that Kant (see also here). Today we see it writ large in cuts to welfare, attempts to dismantle social security, and Wal-Mart as the largest private employer on the planet (or at least in the U.S.). Control. Fear. Autonomous. Disconnected. Keywords of oppression. Things like Energy Spatula's recent post about self-image and relationships with men and social expectations may also fit into this matrix, both as examples of the way men attempt to control women (and their world generally) because of their own fear, but also as an example of how the Enlightenment ideas of independence and autonomy encourage people to feel alone in their lives and the problems they face, when really the source of those problems is social and we all experience them to one degree or another. If this sounds like babbling, it's not. I promise. I may make a paper out of it somehow in the next ten weeks. Or maybe I'll write about contingent foundations and related things such as those I mentioned here last fall.

Posted 07:03 AM | Comments (4) |

Ambivalent Index

With thanks to the Harper's Index, here's my semester, by the numbers:

• Average number of pages of a casebook I read per hour: 10
• Average number of pages of reading assigned per hour of class: 30
• Number of class hours I'm taking this semester: 13
• Average number of pages I should read per week: 390
• Number of hours per week I should therefore devote to reading: 39
• Total number of hours already dedicated to work, clinic, and journal: 20
• Number of hours available to blog, work on my “note,” or cover any extra assignments that might pop up: 0
• One adjective to describe me this semester: Screwed.

Posted 10:25 PM | Comments (6) | 2L

Bloglines As Copyright Infringement

Monica at Buzzwords recently pointed me to an interesting article entitled Bloglines and the Perils of Syndication about the author of The Trademark Blog who asked Bloglines to remove his blog feed from its service because he didn't want Bloglines making money off of his content. I noted this briefly before, but as the Trademark Blog explained:

Right now, among the million bloggers, there are bird watching blogs, and anti-Michael Moore blogs, and Linux blogs. Those bloggers do or do not view their blogs as part of a commercial pursuit, and do or do not wish to run advertising, and do or do not wish make use of information about their readership. As far as I can tell, based on its stated intentions, the leading web-based aggregator is reserving the right to, for example, place Windows-based software ads on Linux blogs, and Anne Coulter ads on pro-Michael Moore sites, and to sell everybody's subscription list to anyone. All without notification or authorization by the blogger.

(Note that this critic is more worried that his blog content will be surrounded by ads for legal services than he is about his content being surrounded by porn or online gambling. Interesting hierarchy of evils.) I generally don't like the idea that Bloglines (or other services) could soon do what the Trademark Blog describes, which is essentially making money from content you and I generate, without our permission and w/out giving us anything in return. I suppose if you use Bloglines, you might feel this is ok—you enjoy the service, so you get “paid” via the convenience it provides you. I'll be curious to see whether Bloglines runs into any significant resistance if it does start selling ads and making money in this way.

Posted 08:21 AM | Comments (3) | meta-blogging