« April 10, 2005 - April 16, 2005 | Main | April 24, 2005 - April 30, 2005 »
The Usual
Whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. And whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. However, whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine. Therefore, whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine whine.
So there.
Posted 07:27 AM | Comments (11) | 2L
Feed me, please
All right kind peeps, I need to ask a small favor. Can you feed me, please? By that I mean: Can you make sure your blog produces an RSS or Atom feed so that lazy yahoos like me can read all our favorite sites in a feed reader (aka, “aggregator)? Whadya say?
If you don't know what I'm talking about with all this ”feed“ business, please see this introduction to RSS. If you use Blogger and you don't know how to create a feed for your blog, here's what you need to do: Go to your ”Settings“ tab and click the ”site feed“ subtab. Say ”yes“ to publish site feed, and make descriptions ”full.“ Click Save Settings and rejoice! You have now fed me and all your other adoring fans!
For those of you using Xanga, well, um, I don't think Xanga will produce feeds b/c it looks like the whole theory of Xanga is to keep people inside of Xanga. (I could be wrong, but that's what it looks like.) So may I suggest something like Feedburner? It should create a feed for you w/out too much trouble.
It would make me most highly pleased if the following blogs had feeds:
- Buzzwords
- I'm a PD
- Mister District Attorney
- Blonde Justice
- WonL
- Woman of the Law
- Crim Law
- Injustice for All
p.s.: If anyone has more tips or tricks to make it easy for people to make sure their blogs have a feed, please share.
Posted 11:42 PM | Comments (20) | meta-blogging
Scalia Is Politicizing the Judiciary
Listening to NPR I just heard a clip from an interview with Justices Breyer, O'Connor, and Scalia yesterday at the National Archives. One of the things the Justices discussed was the way courts and judges have been criticized recently (especially from the political Right) and Breyer said, more or less: “It's always been this way. Judges make tough choices and some people are always going to be unhappy with those choices, but that's all fine so long as everyone follows the rule of law.” That's the standard answer.
However, Scalia couldn't pass up the opportunity to “play politics” (as Republicans are fond of saying) with the question. I haven't found the full text of what he said anywhere online, but in the clip NPR played Scalia said something like this: “If you take the position that the Constitution is a living document that the Court will interpret anew for each generation you make the Court a very political body and people will rise up against that.” (You've got to see his actual words; they're much better than that.)
Again I say: Whatever, Nino. Of course, he is clearly correct that people some people do not like the idea of, um, change. But it's disingenuous for Scalia to imply that his “originalist” perspective would generate less animosity toward the Court than would any other perspective. Originalist arguments about Constitutional interpretation are exactly that—arguments about how to interpret words that some white guys wrote a couple of centuries ago. Those words have no immanent meaning that we can “discover” through historical research or any other means (although, obviously, historical research contributes much to our understanding).
Originalists may like to argue otherwise, but again, originalism is just an argument, and therefore it's controversial, and therefore a Court run by originalists would generate just as much animosity as the current Court generates—possibly more. Scalia knows this, which is why it was a dishonest political ploy for him to imply that an originalist Court would resolve current debates about the judiciary. I give him props for being media-savvy enough to promote his agenda at an opportune moment, but it's ironic and a bit hypocritical for him to use a politically loaded claim to criticize the Court for being overly politicized.
Oh, and on the subject of our overly politicized courts, it seems some evangelical Christians want to remove funding from the courts to stop them from making decisions evangelicals don't like. Brilliant, don't you think?
Posted 09:26 AM | law general
Study Breaks
Classes are over and studying has begun. Here are a few things I've noticed on my, um, “breaks”:
- There's a rumor running 'round that the new Dean of GW Law is going to be Richard D. Freer. I have absolutely no idea how reliable this information may be, but speculation is always fun.
- The second edition of Blawg Review is up at Likelihood of Confusion. There's an incredible amount of great content linked there, so if you have some free time, check it out. I'd especially like to follow up sometime soon on some of the great links in the “Law Blog Anschluss” section about whether blawgs are going to replace law reviews as the best sources of legal scholarship and commentary. De Novo is also currently running a symposium on the topic of law review... [link via Ditzy Genius]
- Monica at Buzzwords continues to make Alaska sound like paradise with a post about Moose Drills at the daycare center, the difference between a snowmobile and a snow machine, and “life in fishing villages and on isolated north pacific islands.” Oh, and if you don't believe Alaska is paradise, she's also got visual proof.
- Blawg Wisdom has been updated with a link to a great post from Divine Angst about applying to law school as a non-traditional student and link to a new review of Should You Really Be A Lawyer?
- Every single word written by the Public Defender Law Clerk is fascinating. Maybe I'll even be able to use some of these anecdotes in my crimpro final. (Don't laugh. It's a great way to rationalize reading blogs when I'm supposed to be studying.) Thanks to Luminous Void for the link.
Save Phil! Today!
The Alliance for Justice has begun a campaign to save the filibuster, which includes a fun little flash animation pitting Phil A. Buster against the One-Party-Rule Bot. Very nice.
The AFJ is also holding a rally today at Georgetown law school to help focus public attention on the importance of the filibuster in the context of judicial nominations. Speakers will include Senators Dick Durbin, Edward Kennedy, Charles Schumer, and Joe Lieberman.
See you there?
UPDATE: Um, I didn't make it to the rally. It would be great to hear from someone who did...
Posted 09:18 AM | ai action alerts
First Last Time?
It's hard to believe, but about eight hours from now I will never have another 2L class. I can't exactly say I'm sad about that. It's hard to believe, but there it is.
On Monday I was sitting in a line at the Financial Aid office talking w/some of the other people in the line about the whole process and one of them said, “well, at least this is the last time we have to apply for financial aid.” The 2Ls nodded and agreed that that was a good thing. Then, a few seconds later, the woman who had first made the comment seemed to realize what she'd just said. “This is my first last time!” she exclaimed.
And it's true, sort of. Technically, there are lots of “first last times” in law school: Your first last time to have a first class, your first last time to apply in the first place, etc. Still, it's nice to think I will never have to apply for law school financial aid again. I think. I mean, I might have to apply for a bar loan, but that's different. I will never have another 2L class. I will never have to wonder if I'm going to get a GW summer grant. What else? I'm sure there are more “last times” coming, and I look forward to them.
For now, it's that bittersweet time when it's thrilling to be done with classes, yet almost sad at the same time. I was especially sad to see Fed Courts and Crim Pro end yesterday. Both of them were great (if maddeningly difficult at times) classes taught by absolutely superb professors, and both of those professors offered parting words of advice at the end of the last class.
Prof Fed. Courts had two tips, which I paraphrase as follows:
- True power lies in the ability to achieve a purpose. When you graduate from law school, you have power and privilege. You can help people, give a voice to people who would otherwise not be heard, to effect social change. I encourage you to think about how you want to use this power. Don't just make money; think about how you can use this power.
- Don't ever stop being a student.
What Prof CrimPro had to say was also very memorable. He joked that one of the few ways he has to measure his success is in how confused he makes students about what they “really” think, so he judged the class successful b/c many students over the semester had come to him to say things like, “I thought I wanted to be a public defender but I don't know if I can defend these guilty people,” or “I thought I wanted to be a prosecutor but I don't know if I can prosecute these innocent people.”
But his overall message was that we, as lawyers (or future lawyers) are the guardians of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. “Be careful with our rights,” he said. And to paraphrase, he said: “What we have covered in this class are the rights that make us most free, those that define what it means to live in a free society. Some of them, and the debates about them, may be difficult to understand. Why should we protect the clearly guilty? But those of us who have faced power, and in its face felt lonely, or weak, or scared, perhaps we can understand. Imagine what it means to be suspected and prosecuted for a crime. Imagine United States v. You. W/out you the Bill of Rights is just a bunch of words on paper. With you, there's a chance that U.S. citizens can be both free and safe. Be careful, be brave, good luck.”
See, I told you these professors rocked.
Posted 09:03 AM | Comments (6) | 2L
Define “Rich”
Bruce Bawer, “a freelance writer living in Oslo,” wrote recently in the NY Times that, despite conventional wisdom, Norway is not the world's richest country. On the contrary, Norway and its Scandinavian siblings just perpetuation lies like this “to keep people believing that their social welfare system, financed by lofty income taxes, provides far more in the way of economic protections and amenities than the American system.”
Hmm. Could be. I really don't know. But I do know that the evidence Bawer uses to support his claims does not seem very convincing. That evidence? Norwegians don't get brand new cars every year or two like Americans, they commonly pack their lunches rather than popping out to the local deli at midday like workers in New York or Paris might, they do not order pizza every night for dinner, and gas costs (gasp!) $6/gallon. Does this mean Norway is not a “rich” country, or does it mean that it's not a wasteful and gluttonous country?
What I love most is Bawer's claim that Spaniards “live far better than Scandinavians” because Spaniards can buy alcohol much more cheaply. Yessir. There's no better measure of “wealth” and quality of life than how cheap the gin and tonics are.
Bawer does cite figures showing that the GDP (gross domestic product) of Norway and its citizens' “spending power” is lower than that in the U.S. That's not surprising, really. Norway doesn't sacrifice the health and welfare of its citizens and environment in order to squeeze out one more point of GDP like we do here in the U.S. You have to ask yourself: What good is that vaunted American spending power to the millions of Americans who can't afford health care?
Posted 07:25 AM | Comments (4) | general politics
Does this mean I have delusions of grandeur?
Which Incredibles Character Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
[another fun procrastination, this one brought to you via Blonde Justice]
Posted 08:04 PM | Comments (3) | life generally
Summer School!?
Speaking of money, GW gave me no funding this summer to help out as I work for free at the public defender's office. I was at first pretty miffed about this; I mean, if helping raise over $60k to support public interest law at GW doesn't qualify you for a summer grant, what will?
But then I thought, hey, there could be very good reasons I didn't get any money. For example, they gave me money last year, so maybe they want to spread it around a little, which is good. Also, maybe the committee could see that I'm already going to pursue a public interest career, regardless of whether they encourage me by giving me money, so it figured the money would be better spent encouraging someone else. Fine. That last is a slightly perverse rationale since it seems to punish people who demonstrate a real commitment to public interest, but whatever. I don't have any knowledge of how the committee made its decisions; these are just possible rationales that I thought of and they made me feel a little better as I fished in my wallet and found only lint. For all I know they simply looked at GPAs and filtered that way.
But like I said: Whatever. I have to pay the rent this summer, and the only way to get a loan for the summer is to take at least three credits, so hello summer school! I'm so excited to get to take a class or two while I work 40 hours/week this summer! That is so awesome!! I mean, wow! What could possibly be better!?!
Grrrrr.
Posted 09:08 AM | Comments (11) | 2L
Money Milestone
The deadline for financial aid applications at GW is tomorrow and, of course, I'm just getting around to filling everything out. There's a reason I put this off: Filling out all these forms forces me to face the fact that I have sold my soul. Exactly to whom or what I sold my soul, I'm not sure (did I have a meeting a couple of years ago with Satan, or was that just a dream?), but it certainly does not belong to me any longer.
For the record, today I officially owe the government and various banks just over $100,000. Yeah, that's six figures. Quite an achievement, don't you think? About 1/4 of that is not accruing interest at the moment; the rest grows like every day like some mutant spawn. Including that interest and what I will have to borrow in the coming year, the total should approach $150k before all is said and done. Cool.
You know those counters that show the national debt skyrocketing? I think someone needs to devise one of these for students so we can program in our loan amounts and interest rates and watch our debt grow. Yeah. And we can post these things on our blogs and show the world how poor stupid we are.
How much do you owe? Generally when you hear people bragging about money it's because they have some surplus of it, but hey, I'm all about making lemonade here. Shall we start a $100k and more club?
Posted 10:21 PM | Comments (13) | 2L law school
