November 2008
23 posts
Law School is No Place for Children
I’m just saying…
Using the power of the hive to keep informed →
Where to find out the latest on the situation in Mumbai.
I'm a Little Tea Pot...
I listened to 808s and Heartbeat a bunch of times today. There’s this case they teach in property law classes, at least they did in my property law class a few days ago, where some architect proposes to build a triangle house in a suburban neighborhood and they refuse him a permit because they think its ugly. We spent a lot of time talking about the issue in class and people got pretty...
Cleanliness is next to godlessness →
Apparently if you wash your hands, you’re less likely to look down on other people and that even applies to other people who eat their dogs and use kittens for sex. Apparently The Economist thinks this is a bad thing. What do they know…
On Running
A lot of people run, but no one actually does it for utility. This may be the low hanging fruit. You run at least three times as fast as you walk, so that’s about a third of the time you’d be saving if you just ran everywhere. In the winter you probably won’t even break a sweat. Sure, there are times when there’s value beyond utility in a nice stroll, but sometimes you...
Exporting Identity →
Just came across this semi-old article by Fordham Law professor Sonia Katyal. She suggests that in the Western world, unlike some other countries, same-sex conduct is equated with homosexual identity, so we don’t just disapprove of same-sex acts, but rather we hate gay people.
Racism is the wrong frame for understanding the... →
The article suggests that the first female president might go a long way for the same-sex marriage movement. It would have been interesting to see what the Prop-8 vote would have looked like if Hillary Clinton was the nominee. The idea being that racism and homophobia are independent, so questioning societal norms regarding race does nothing for homophobia, but genderism and homophobia are not....
“Ideally, a biography should penetrate into the subject’s psychology, and provide insight into the subject’s society and times; it should tell us what drives and fuels, what angers and scares, what pleases and pains the subject, and what makes him relevant and meaningful to the people and culture around him. Failing that, a biography should be a compelling and interesting...
It's Official
I’ve decided to use single quotes wherever possible. I just don’t like how double quotes look.
Call and Response: Slumdog Millionaire Reviews
Village Voice
“Then, just when you figure he has pulled out all the stops, Boyle proves to have one more trick left up his sleeve: a joyous musical number that sends everybody out of the theater feeling like a winner” - Scott Foundas
NYPress
“Don’t expect the real India: Danny Boyle gives guilty liberals absolution through game-show gimmickry” - Armond White
Honesty is the Best Policy
The older I get, the more I think trying to game the system is not a good idea. There are a bunch of cases in the law where they say, “well, you keep arguing for A, which we don’t really think is quite right. It looks more like B, but you didn’t really bring up B, so we can’t really do anything about it.” There are certainly valid reasons to want to maintain the...
I basically measure time by how many undershirts I have left. Just used my last one today. Fingers crossed…
The Legacy of Barack Obama
Many credit Obama’s success with his ability to allay the irrational fears of others without being defensive and/or dismissive. Hearing the media guys talk about the Bradley affect, it occurred to me that maybe people are okay with being bigots so long as they think other people are too, but when they start to think they’re in the minority with their bigotry, that’s when they...
National "Read Slate.com" Day
Obama’s rural campaign consisted of finding the “urban” vote in small towns. For instance, Obama held a rally in Harrisonburg, Va., in the last week of the campaign. It was an unlikely place to find a Democrat. Harrisonburg had voted for every Republican presidential candidate since before the end of World War II. The last Democrat to visit that neck of the Shenandoah Valley was...
Koan
Consider: “Bigger Is Better, Except When It’s Not“—a 2007 article looking at body size in sports. “Smaller Can Be Better (Except When It’s Not)“—a tech piece from 2004. “A Marriage Penalty, Except When It Isn’t“—on couples and the tax code, 2003. This is the Times headline as koan, inviting readers to suspend in-the-box thinking and seek...
A Message From Dream Village
We are proud to announce that Dream Village has won the October Ideablob competition. Functionally, that means $10,000 in start-up funding. But of greater importance, the win means credibility and recognition for Dream Village. For example, we are in the process of confirming a formal check presentation at Wharton for this Friday, during the Net Impact Conference. We simply cannot say this...
“So, if Obama would risk a joke, that was about all he would risk. He’s doing the crossword in pen now.”
yes we did.
sequentialist:
i just spent the last hour driving around/running around berkeley honking the horn and yelling obama out of the car with some people. hundreds of people were in the streets and everyone cheered us on. there was even a guy in a convertible with a triangle. and then we got out and joined a crowd of about 200 and started chanting obama and stopped all but one lane of traffic and as...
“I think Holly is going to break up with me, but I’m not going to give up...”
“I have said that it is a precondition … that the language of the law be one which the defendant … could reasonably be expected to speak in her own voice.”
- R. A. Duff
Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress
Generally, the hot water in my apartment takes some time to warm up, but I’ve never really had a problem with it until a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, I was waiting for the water to warm up, but it never happened. For the next week I was taking ice cold showers. It was miserable. We complained to the landlord but he didn’t do anything for a while. This morning I was waiting for...
Buy Your Dream Home in 3 Easy Steps
Aside from the obvious disclaimer that we’re all special in our own way and what works for John might not work for us (and vice versa), when you’re seeking advice on how to accomplish A, go to someone who has not accomplished A to figure out what not to do and someone who has accomplished A to figure out what to do. This seems obvious enough, but you’d be surprised at how many...