BurtLaw's Law And Everything Else

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BurtLaw's Law And Everything Else
BurtLaw.Com	- LawAndEverythingElse.Com - Copyright (c) 2001 Burton Randall Hanson

"[F]or every specialist field...we should seek...suitable spokesmen...to act as a centre for information...." Carl Jung

12.17.2001-12.23.2001 Weblog & webzine on law and its relation to everything else - updated daily.

BurtLaw Daily Quick Links (Daily Weblog):

-- USSCt Fall Term 2001 + 2000-01 highlights (Cornell)

-- Mugabe's descent into dictatorship (BBC)

-- Identity thievery is big problem (Oregonian)

-- Dolls benefit people with Alzheimer's (ColDispatch)

-- 1 wsh ua v Mry xmas - HMQE2 (ThisIsLondon)

-- Anti-terrorism pork-barrel politics (FOXNews)

-- Bin Laden offers U.S. last chance to give up (Onion)

-- Greek judiciary under scrutiny (BBC)

-- Al Franken, Bill Clinton, Al Gore (ABCNews.Com)

-- 60 minutes that shook India (TimesOfIndia)

-- Iran's judges close 50 newspapers (Yahoo/AP)

-- Dept. of postal worker rage (ABCNews.Com)

-- Are lawyers out of control? (USNews)

-- Tort news: flying toilet hits moving car (AftenPosten)

-- Sick of Gap ads? (I am) (Slate)

-- Posner's review of new bio of C.J. Marshall (TNR)

-- Life as crim. defense atty. in China (FarEastEcRev)

-- NYT v. Sullivan protects this website (Yahoo/NYLJ)

-- India & us - a key partner (NRO)

-- Rummy has become romantic icon (NRO)

-- Another take on Rummy (WashingtonPost)

-- Why some guys like ballet (Yahoo)

-- Have a merry Christm - er, holiday (Oregonian)

-- Officer gets 10 years for excessive force (WashPost)

-- Vigilante Islamic vice patrols in Indonesia (Time)

-- Interesting study of death penalty stats (WashPost)

-- Fat dad loses custody of kids (AJC)

-- The public school as "Grinch" at X-Mas (WashTimes)

-- USSCt: X-Mas surprise for probationers (Yahoo)

-- Senator's son is nominated to fed. bench (RollCall)

Earlier Daily Quick Links (Daily Weblog): [click here]

Our response to terrorism. I am posting current original material relating to the events of 09.11.2001 and thereafter on this page. Earlier entries may be found here, here, here, and here. If you wish to contact me, click here.

Cat law. The Domestic Cat and the Law: A Guide to Available Resources, by Stephen Young -- recommended by Lady Mathilda, Wonder Dog, who says that in these troubled times it is important to promote understanding of the un-understandable other, the tricky, deceptive, aloof cat.

Memory. "I did terrible things. But now I can't remember what. And I just want to tell you...I hope you can forget just as I've forgotten." From My Mother by Amy Tan (The New Yorker).

Czeslaw Milosz. My favorite living poet is Milosz, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature a number of years ago for his poetry. Although he's not my favorite living prose writer, I find most of his essays worth reading. John Updike has written an appreciative review/essay, Survivor/Believer, for The New Yorker on a new collection of his essays.

Is it a wonderful life? a) Robert Frost didn't think so. He called it a Trial by Existence. But, he added, in some profound way we prefer it to "paradise." Other poets have made the same basic point. Wallace Stevens, who was a great lawyer besides being a great poet, wrote in "Poems of Our Climate" that "The imperfect is our paradise" (the poem is still under copyright but you can easily find it using Google). b) William James felt the question isn't whether life is "wonderful" but is it "significant" and is it "worth living," questions he answered in essays such as What Makes a Life Significant, in which he said, "The solid meaning of life is always the same eternal thing, -- the marriage, namely, of some unhabitual ideal, however special, with some fidelity, courage, and endurance; with some man's or woman's pains." c) Frank Capra, the director of It's a Wonderful Life, didn't really say that it is a wonderful life in general. I think he meant it can be a wonderful life sor some people if certain things happen. It's a pretty dark movie. George Bailey (James Stewart) comes close to killing himself during the long, dark night of his soul. His daimon, Clarence, "saves" George by convincing him he's not a failure, that his life has been significant. But Clarence basically does this by espousing a psychological and economic determinism that suggests whether the people of a town like Bedford Falls turn out good or bad depends on events outside their control. The folks of Bedford Falls are good because of a series of primarily economic events set in motion by one very good person, George. It's a wonderful life for the people of Bedford Falls because of George. It's probably a miserable life for people in some town 10 miles down the line who didn't have a savior among them like George. Are ordinary people that pliable, that pathetic, that dependent? Maybe they (we) are. Maybe one individual can make it a wonderful life for a number of other people. Then again, maybe the weakness, the faithlessness of an individual can make it a miserable life for another person or for a number of other people. I can't help feeling that the movie overlooks the significance of Mary Hatch, played by Donna Reed. Has there ever been a lovelier, stronger, more faithful movie heroine? Nowadays, the typical spouse would tell George he was suffering from a chemical imbalance and should get some Prozac from the town doctor. If he didn't "snap out of it quick," she'd dump him. Not Mary. :-) d) Is it a wonderful life? Not for the 100,000 child prostitutes in the Philippines or the 500,000 in India. And it's doubtful that the 3,000 people from 137 countries attending a conference in Yokohama, Japan this week will be able to do much to help most of them. Indeed, despite the best efforts of concerned people, it appears that the problem of the so-called "child sex trade" has gotten worse since the last such conference. But at least some people are trying to make a difference. And occasionally, in individual cases, they probably make big differences. When they do, they are making life wonderful where it otherwise would not have been. e) Is it a wonderful life? Not exactly for most people in Afghanistan. But at least, thanks to us, the wonderful music of love coming from an old boom box fills the dusty air in the lobby of the Afghan Hotel in downtown Kandahar for the first time in a long time. More.

Keeping your "Pat" happy -- for under $10. I read somewhere, a couple decades or more ago, that Dick Nixon often bought Pat boxes of Russell Stover candy -- just because, well, he was a thoughtful hubby who knew how to keep his woman happy. I'm not married or otherwise attached so I don't have to worry about what to get the little lady. But I noted in the Sunday paper ad inserts today that at a certain drugstore chain you can get her a pound of Russell Stover for $3.99 this week. That should do, that should do.... If she's Scandinavian, you might buy her some lutefisk and some butter. Entertain yourself watching her guzzle it down, butter drooling out the side of her mouth and down her dainty chin. There is a certain type Scandinavian woman whose nostrils are prominent and who looks good now but you can tell as she gets older she's going to look like a troll, with hair growing out of her nostrils and ears.

For this gal in your life, I recommend you buy one of those battery-operated nose- and ear-trimmers. Another gift idea: a Clapper (especially if your lady is like the white-haired woman at the end of the Clapper ad who claps her TV off, then turns over in bed with that self-satisfied "I'm in charge" look on her face). (12.16.2001)

Dick Nixon's "Six Fantasies." While we're on the subject of Dick Nixon, perhaps you recall his first best-seller was a book called Six Crises, written, I believe, after he was Vice-President and before he was elected President. More entertaining, I think, is Six Fantasies of Dick Nixon by Gerald Sussman from the old National Lampoon. Warning: it's a little risque in parts, e.g., in the first part, "A Late-Night Visit" in which "Dick" reveals his fantasies about Nancy Reagan. I always found the mere idea of Dick sitting around fantasizing about Nancy quite funny. I'm surprised there's no fantasy in there about bowling a perfect game. (12.16.2001)

The best radio station in the world. My pick? WCAL-FM, 89.3, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN. You can listen to it on the radio if you live in the Twin Cities area or on the internet from anywhere in the world. It's particularly good this time of year. I'm somewhat of a Scrooge re Christmas as celebrated in our consumption-mad society. WCAL will put you in touch with the other Christmas. When the college is in session, you might find it refreshing to listen to Morning Chapel daily M-F at 11 a.m. CST. Each of us is always in need of healing. (Watch out for anyone who doesn't feel he is in need of it.) I find that listening to the students sing some of the old, "healing" Lutheran hymns of my youth never fails to help restore my soul. Often the daily speaker -- student or teacher or visitor on campus -- will surprise or inspire you. (12.16.2001)

Santa sighting? Some general advice: keep an eye on the guy in the Santa Claus suit -- anyone can wear one. He may be -- probably is -- a nice guy or maybe just a benign fool. Then again, he may be John Wayne Gacy.

BurtLaw Daily Quote. "It is a governing principle of nature, that the agency which can produce most good, when perverted from its proper aim, is most productive of evil. It behooves the well-intentioned, therefore, vigorously to watch the tendency of even their most highly prized institutions, since that which was established in the interests of the right, may so easily become the agent of the wrong." -- James Fenimore Cooper. More quotes: here and here.

Wanna meet that babe? Got $78,000? "She is the perfect woman. Stunningly attractive. Walks gracefully. Dresses tastefully. Has a nice laugh. And an even nicer physique. Can make intelligent conversation. Doesn't throw tantrums. Who is she? She is your DREAM WIFE...You can't STALK her...But WE CAN. We can bug her phone. We can use a clever pretext to interview roommates and classmates from her past and colleagues and girlfriends from her present. We can send an agent to check out her relatives. We can go through her mail and filter her email. We can search her apartment and squeeze information from previous boyfriends. Then, we'll design a 'COINCIDENCE.' We can arrange for the two of you to first meet at a convention, and then -- a few weeks later -- end up, coincidentally, seated next to each other on a trans-Atlantic flight. Or find yourselves, coincidentally, trapped in an elevator together....A mission is comprised of three phases, (I) Research, (II) Investigation, and (III) Execution...." More (CoincidenceDesign.Com via MetaFilter). Is this service for real? Will they help me meet the woman in the picture (she's my type)? According to the site, their typical rates are $8,000, $45,000, and $25,000, respectively, for the three phases. Hmm, I can't afford it (though I might be willing to pay $10.95). But I know some attorneys and judges who can! Are you one of them? Hold on a minute, Mr. Big Boy! Maybe you can't meet Coincidence Design's rules. For example, "if you are lazy in terms of making [yourself] attractive to the opposite sex," they'll "decline" to work with you. And I don't blame them. Not one bit. Here's a link to the mission flow chart. Note: I neither endorse nor disapprove of this "service." I don't know any more about it than you do. (12.15.2001)

Too much bigness, concentration? "It's a pretty good rule of military thumb that the greater the concentration of value, the more attractive the target. If you have all your fuel, or all your tanks, or all your intelligence-gathering capability in one place, then that's the place the enemy wants to hit. To keep things safe, you need to spread things out...." More (Wired via MetaFilter). This article, which MetaFilter linked to today, 12.15.2001, apparently was published 09.12.2001. I made the same basic point on 09.13.2001. More.... (12.15.2001)

A Christmas miracle. Headline: Most Pregnant Women Can Fly Safely. I think it's a miracle they can fly at all, considering the payload. I'll bet their arms get tired.

Afternoon at the National Gallery of Art. "For the first time, a comprehensive selection of important drawings spanning the 20th century from the collection of the National Gallery of Art, including promised gifts, can be seen in the new exhibition A Century of Drawing: Works on Paper from Degas to LeWitt." (Press release) Click here to view online selections. My favorites: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. The museum could use more works by the Norwegian masters. Otherwise, a good exhibit. (12.15.2001)

Bulletin of interest to "pipefitters groupies" around the country. "A burst pipe has delayed the opening of a hotel owned by America's national plumbers and pipe fitters union...The current cost of the resort, estimated at $700 million to $800 million, is more than twice the original budget. The hotel, originally planned to open on December 31, 1999, is more than two years behind schedule." More (Ananova) (12.14.2001)

Where's Knute Rokne when we need him? Knute Rockne, Notre Dame's legendary coach, who migrated from Voss, Norway, home of my great-great-grandmother, Ragnhilda Harvey (Horveid) of Horveid, Evanger, Voss, must be hanging his head in sadness up in the Notre Dame section of the Norwegian section of Football Heaven on hearing the news that Notre Dame has forced the resignation of its newly-appointed Irish coach of "the Irish," George O'Leary, "after problems with claims disputing both his academic and athletic background were uncovered." More. (ESPN.Com). Assuming that "O'Leary" is O'Leary's real name, I'm assuming he's at least part Irish -- which prompts me to say that I grew up in a small town with a fair number of Irish, that some of my favorite people from then and later are Irish, indeed are O'Leary's, so I don't want anyone to think I think Notre Dame's troubles in recent years stem from its failure to hire another Norwegian (more particularly, Vossing) as coach. But I will stake Notre Dame on some free advice. 1) Pray for Knute to intercede with the football gods, some of whom reside in Valhalla, on your behalf. 2) Remember that your last winning coach came, if not from Norway, at least from the place known in Norwegian history as "the Glorious New Scandinavia," a/k/a Minnesota. 3) Go North again, Notre Dame: focus your search on a super-winning coach you may not have heard of, Mike Grant, coach of the Eden Prairie High School football team, worthy football heir of Bud Grant, the only great coach of the Minnesota Vikings (P.S., the Regents of the University of Minnesota weren't smart enough to hire him but the Brothers at St. John's University may be smart enough). (12.14.2001)

Conflict of opposites. Heraclitus, who lived toward the end of the 6th Century, B.C., was an early proponent of the view that both stability and development, paradoxically enough, come from the conflict of opposites. The opposites can be of good and evil, a conflict of the sort Seneca the Roman was thinking of when he wrote, "Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune." The "opposites" in conflict can also be of two equal "goods" or truths. As I have noted before, "For every truth, there is a counter-truth: individual rights and majority rule; freedom and order; fifty states and one indivisible nation; religion and secularism; change and stability; privacy and knowledge; new truths and old ones; discretion and rule; mercy and justice; and so on." More. So we shouldn't get too upset to see Congress and the President skirmishing once again over the issue of Executive Privilege. According to this report (Yahoo/AP), President Bush informed Congress he was invoking it "to keep Congress from seeing documents of prosecutors' decision-making in cases ranging from decades-old Boston murder to the Clinton-era fund-raising probe." The President's announcement apparently took the form of a memo from Bush to Attorney General Ashcroft. More than likely, Ashcroft and his associates in DOJ drafted or helped draft the President's memo to Ashcroft. :-) That, my friends, is the way things work. Congress is probably both asserting its principles (principles such as Congressional oversight under the Separation of Powers) and being political in the partisan sense; the President, likewise, is probably asserting the Executive's principles (such as the need for a privilege to insure openness within the protective confines of confidentiality in making prosecutorial decisions) and being political in the partisan sense (as, e.g., in hiding something?). We should not be upset, I say, when there is open conflict like this. The genius of our Madisonian Constitution is that it recognizes old Heraclitus' truth, that conflict among equals is good. We should be upset, rather, when Congress doesn't asserts itself vis a vis the President (as in being too timid to take on the President on issues of possible Presidential abuse of war powers), or vice versa, or when the Court doesn't assert itself when need be, as in the story about overregulation of the courts by the legislature, which I linked to yesterday. More. (12.13.2001)

Christmas - some links. a) How a lawyer might say "Merry Christmas" without incurring liability and without giving offense. (AhaJokes.Com). b) "Christmas must be a very bad time to watch television in the USA because it seems that every primetime drama and sitcom is required by law to work in a moral and someone in a Santa suit." A British view of American TV series' treatment of Christmas. (BBC). c) Is "the law" taking the fun out of Christmas at your workplace? - a discussion. (TheLawReport). d) When "the Taliban" ruled England, or how Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas. (TheLegalReport). e) A law clerk's Christmas on "Gilligan's Island" (Palau). (StuffedWombat.Com). f) Joke: Christmas gift for mother-in-law. (JokeIndex.Com). g) The story behind Chas. Dickens' A Christmas Carol. (Dickens). h) The American Center for Law & Justice's take on celebrating Christmas in the public schools. (ACLJ). i) The public school as Grinch at Christmas. (WashingtonTimes). (12.13.2001) j) Art: "The Sheepherder's Christmas" by Peter Hurd. (Modrall Sperling Law Firm Art Collection). k) Biology of the family chiaceae (chia pets). (Improb.Com). l) Having a barrel of fun with "The Clapper." (SwankiVY's Pranks). m) A critic reviews those irritating GAP "Give a Little Bit of Your Life" Christmas ads. (Slate). n) The story of Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" and speculations about why there are so many Jewish Christmas songs. (The Guardian). o) "Christmas in the Forest," a popular Norwegian Christmas song about the return of a couple's long-absent son, "a furry, fattish chap" with a trunk full of "Christmas grub and Christmas booze and lots of Christmas junk." (Frilanders.Net).

Annals of judicial independence. "The state's [highest court] offered only tepid opposition to a budget rider pushed through by the Legislature two weeks ago to strip judges of their power to hire probation officers -- an assault on judicial independence....Researchers who have studied the relationship say in no other state does the Legislature have such a grip on what goes on in the courts." What state are we talking about? Guess...then click here. For some of my views on judicial independence, click here. (12.12.2001)

Courthouse displays revisited. "Baker County [in Florida] is pondering what to do about a mural for the renovated courthouse that provides a 6,000 year visual history of the county because in it is a small view of white-robed Klansmen and a confederate flag. Eighth Judicial Circuit Chief Judge Stan Morris, who lives in Gainesville, has warned the County Commission he will order Sheriff Joey Dobson to take the mural down if it is put up as planned, according to county officials...." More (GainevilleSun) For another battle over what sort of "art" is appropriate or not in a courthouse, and over who should decide, click here and here. (12.12.2001)

Sinning bravely at the church bake sale. "The seven deadly sins -- avarice, sloth, envy, lust, gluttony, pride, and wrath -- were all committed Sunday during the twice-annual bake sale at St. Mary's of the Immaculate Conception Church...." The latest Onion is on the internet newstand. More (Onion). 12.12.2001

NYC's first great mayor. While searching for something else on the internet today, I came across the New York Times' 1947 obituary for Fiorello H. La Guardia, who was only 64 when he died of cancer. Click here. With NYC's current mayor likely being named Time magazine's "Person of the Year," it's worth rereading a good summary of the life of NYC's first great mayor, the city's colorful "Little Flower," for whom LaGuardia Airport is named. As in so many things, there's a "Benson connection," to which I've referred before. In 1929, after his first wife died, LaGuardia married Marie Fisher, who had been his secretary when he served in Congress. The man who performed the service was Rev. O.J. Kvale, former pastor of my childhood church, Our Savior's Lutheran in Benson, Minnesota. Rev. Kvale, along with my mother's uncle, Lewis Herfindahl, was one of the founders of the Farmer-Labor party, which later merged with the more conservative Minnesota Democratic party to form the DFL party. Kvale was elected to Congress a number of times before perishing in a fire at his lake cabin on 09.11.1929. While in Congress he became friends with LaGuardia, a fellow progressive, and that's how it came about that he presided at the 1929 wedding shortly before he died. The romance that led to the marriage was dramatized and set to music in the 1959 hit Broadway play Fiorello! (12.12.2001)

Old judges never die... You can mandate the retirement of judges at age 70 if you want, although I'm against it (more), but you can't keep a good judge down, and your loss may be somebody else's gain. Example, this 79-year-old former judge whose clock takes a licking but just keeps on ticking.... More (CincyPost) (12.12.2001)

Judicial conduct commissions. Do some judicial conduct commissions pose a potential or actual threat to the independence of the judiciary? In some instances are they "investigator, prosecutor and judge" all in one? Are the rules and procedures in harmony with state laws and constitutions? How can they be improved? These are questions some legislators are asking in Utah and questions that might arise in a federal lawsuit one judge, who is under investigation, is bringing against the Utah commission. More (Salt Lake Tribune). (12.12.2001)

Law clerk selection protocol. Back in the fall of 1969 I was interviewed for a Minnesota Supreme Court clerkship that I began the following September 1. In the years since then, courts all around the country have been interviewing and hiring earlier and earlier. Typically, now, the hiring process begins in the spring of second year of three years of law school. The federal judges have tried a number of times to change that, to revert to the time table that existed when I was hired. Here's a report on their latest plan: New Plan in Works to Change Deadline for Clerk Selections by Tony Mauro (Yahoo/Legal Times) 12.11.2001

Family feuds & family favoritism. There are two stories in today's New York Times that mark the opposite ends of the pole called "family relations." One, titled A Family, a Feud and a Six-Foot Sandwich, by Glenn Collins, deals with two brothers, Italian-Americans, who have shops next to each other but haven't spoken to each other in 25 years. "The court case that summarizes their enmity -- Manganaro's Hero-Boy Inc. v. Manganaro Foods Inc. -- has spanned 14 [of those 25] years." The other story in the Times is a squib item about U.S. Rep. Jim Ramstad (G.O.P., Minnesota), who not only is still speaking to his sister but is telling the President that he should appoint her to a lifetime federal judgeship because, in his objective opinion, she's "clearly the most qualified candidate" of the three finalists picked by one of those committees politicians assemble to winnow the field a bit. The Duluth Tribune contains a more detailed version of the story to which the Times refers. (12.08.2001)

Are you a traitor? Frank Rich has another great column in the Times today called Confessions of a Traitor. I love these two lines (among others): "[Ashcroft] just doesn't seem clever enough to undo the Bill of Rights, even with the president's backing. You have to have more command of the law than he does to subvert it." Today's Times also contains a report of 300 top law professors who have joined Mr. Rich and me in uttering strong criticisms of the Bush-Ashcroft tribunal plan, criticisms that apparently in Ashcroft's eyes constitute treason. It would be nice if there were a few "traitors" (Ashcroft's view, not mine) in Congress -- that is, a few people who didn't always have their fingers in the air to see which way the wind was blowing. At least Wisconsin has a Senator with guts. I'm referring to Russ Feingold. (12.08.2001)

Dan, Dan, he's our pal.... "'The irony,' he said, 'is [that] Dan Rather, the great journalist who exposed Nixon for what he was, sort of became Nixon.'" Bernard Goldberg, author of Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, quoted by Lowell Ponte in "Objectives and Objectivity," Front Page. More. (12.05.2001)

BurtLaw Places. Colonial Church of Edina. Architecturally, one of my favorite churches. Click here.

Looking at Matisse's anemones on a winter day. One of my favorite paintings by Henri Matisse is Anemones aux Mirroir Noir 1918-19 (ArtNet.Com). In 1998 this painting sold at auction at Sotheby's in NYC for $3.74 million. More (ArtNet.Com). On 11.07.2001 it was once again sold at auction at Sotheby's. Guess what it sold for: a) $4,185,750; b) $6,230,000; c) $3,458,575; d) $9,875,500? Click here (LATimes) to find out. (12.01.2001)

Looking at more still life paintings. "Imagine going to your banker with a business plan: You're going to make your name, and fortune, by painting little pictures of trivial objects from your home...[M]asterpieces based on tables set with fish, or fowl or vases full of flowers seems a crazy long shot. But it happens to have paid off for several hundred years...." From a review in the Washington Post of a special exhibition entitled Impressionist Still Life at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. The exhibition continues through mid-January, when it will travel to Boston. I may visit it in Boston in the spring when my law school class holds its reunion. (12.01.2001)

BurtLaw Daily Poem. "Now winter nights enlarge/ The number of their hours,/ And clouds their storms discharge/ Upon the airy towers./ Let now the chimneys blaze/ And cups o'erflow with wine...." from Winter Nights, by Thomas Campion (1567-1619). For more poetry, click here.

Office nickname detector. Would you like to know what your co-workers at the office call you behind your back? Just click here, type in your first and last name, and click on What do my co-workers call me? to find out. Gosh, I guess they call me "whore." That hurts, but hey, yours is just as bad. :-) (Thanks to MetaFilter.Com for the link.) (11.30.2001)

Law and poetry and everything else. "When we read a poem, we enter the consciousness of another. It requires that we loosen some of our fixed notions in order to accommodate another point of view -- which is a model of the kind of intellectual openness and conceptual sympathy that a liberal education seeks to encourage. To follow the connections in a metaphor is to make a mental leap, to exercise an imaginative agility, even to open a new synapse as two disparate things are linked...." Billy Collins, our new poet laureate, from The Companionship of a Poem (The Chronicle of Higher Education). Collins believes our primary and secondary schools and our colleges should incorporate more poetry into their curricula. Maybe our law schools ought to do so, also. :-) BTW, if you haven't read any of Collins' poetry, you might like Forgetfulness. I especially like its last two lines: "No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted/ out of a love poem you used to know by heart." For a selection of some of my favorite love poems, click here. (11.30.2001)

BurtLaw Featured Sites. Cellphone manners are the topic of forums, news stories, etc., at WWW.CellManners.Com. Earlier featured sites.

BurtLaw Featured Essay. "I have wondered why Jews praise Abraham for his willingness to murder his son when God commanded it. A true hero who believed in a God who rewards and punishes would have resisted that unjust command and risked God’s wrath, just as a true hero would have refused God’s order to murder 'heathen' women and children during the barbaric crusades. The true hero--the truly good person--is the believer who risks an eternity in hell by refusing an unjust demand by God...." From Why Be a Good Person? by Alan M. Dershowitz from his new book Letters to a Young Lawyer (Basic Books 2001). More on Professor Dershowitz. (11.20.2001)

Our response to terrorism. As I stated earlier, I am posting current original material relating to the events of 09.11.2001 and thereafter on this page. Earlier entries may be found here, here, here, and here.

Unlicensed, uninsured motorists - 17 million of 'em. Robert Miniter has an Op/Ed piece dated 09.10.2001 in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal making a plausible argument that illegal aliens -- of whom there are an estimated six to nine million -- should be allowed to obtain driver's licenses. He notes, although it is not the point of his piece, that there are an estimated 17 million unlicensed drivers, a very high per cent of whom are illegal aliens and presumably almost all of whom are uninsured. One in five fatal accidents involves an unlicensed (and therefore uninsured) driver. "As a result," says Miniter, "auto insurance rates for law-abiding Americans are artificially higher. Insurance companies have learned the hard way that unlicensed, uninsured drivers rarely pay up -- so you do." While Miniter at that point moves on to other matters to support his main argument, I would like to stop at that point and remind everyone that there is a sensible solution to the problem of high insurance rates we all pay because there are so many uninsured motorists. It's called pay-at-the-pump auto insurance. Many insurance companies, oil companies and personal injury lawyers apparently don't like the idea, as the popular consumer finance writer Andrew Tobias found out in promoting his version of the plan in California. But it is an idea that I think merits careful consideration by lawmakers. Since everyone has to buy gas to drive, motorists who now drive without insurance could not escape paying. Moreover, they, like everyone else, would pay according to their use of fuel. Therefore, an additional benefit of the plan, among several, is that it would encourage use of fuel efficient vehicles. The idea is explained here in detail.

Chivalrous lawyers win coupons for consumers, cash for themselves. I'm not one to question the motives of any of the lawyers who prosecute class action law suits to benefit consumers, etc. I'm willing to concede that most, maybe all, of them are indeed chivalrous soldiers in a civil crusade for justice for ordinary folks who've been wronged (and may not even know it). But I'm always irked when the settlement they negotiate on my behalf entitles me to coupons I'll never use and them to cash to.... More....

Those nice guys you meet in church. During my years as a research attorney at the Minnesota Supreme Court I worked on a number of appeals in sexual abuse cases in which it came out that the convicted defendant's modus operandi was to meet the women and/or children he victimized at social gatherings of single parents. Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and How to Be Good, also wrote a novel titled About a Boy, reviewed here, in which a relatively benign fellow perfects the "single-mom scam" to "market" himself as a sensitive guy to (and thereby "score" with) attractive gullible single mothers. Here's a link to a real-life story about a less-than-benign Maine guy convicted of sexual assault who has used churches throughout the state to meet the women and young girls he has assaulted. It's sad to say but believers, like buyers, must beware.

Is our criminal justice system "criminally unjust"? Wendy Kaiminer, writing in the Sept. 2001 issue of The American Prospect, argues it is: "When people start identifying with the victims of law enforcement, they stop accepting its systematic abuses. Laws against medicinal marijuana are vulnerable because their targets include respectable citizens....Imagine the political consequences of subjecting affluent whites to the same degree of police surveillance and abuse that poor blacks and Latinos endure. The war on drugs is a war on minorities, partly because police pay relatively little attention to drug-law violations by whites." [more] Also worth reading: "Hard-Time Kids" by Sasha Abramsky, who argues: "We are a country reeling under a changing definition of childhood, shifting views about redemption and rehabilitative potential, and an increasingly pre-Enlightenment notion of punishment as an emotional catharsis for victims and an automatic response to violations of the moral code." [more] For some of my views on the issues discussed in these pieces, click here and here.

Bill of Rights Golf - The Game. Professor Doug Linder, University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, has devised an online computer game that you can play right now. It tests your knowledge of hornbook Constitutional Law, the kind law students learn and lawyers tend to forget. It's called Bill of Rights Golf. At the end of your round, drop by the James Madison Clubhouse and quaff a beer or two.

Raising teens: what the researchers agree on. The folks at the Center for Health Communication at the Harvard School of Public Health have released a 101-page report titled Raising Teens: A Synthesis of Research and a Foundation for Action. The report "pull[s] together current research on the parenting of adolescents and distill[s] from it key messages for the media, policy makers, practitioners, and parents." The Report puts "particular emphasis on identifying those conclusions about the parenting of adolescents about which there is widespread agreement among researchers and practitioners." It identifies "Five Basics of Parenting Adolescents, with a list of strategies for each." and lists "Ten Tasks of Adolescence...delineat[ing] the main aspects of adolescent development that parents and other adults need to be aware of and support." You can download it or order "one" free copy here. More and more

Thoughts on racial profiling and "'consent' searches." It is curious, and I think telling, how easy it is for police to spot and stop and search black drivers [click here and here] when it is so difficult for taxi drivers to spot and stop for black passengers [click here]. New Jersey is considering barring its law enforcement officers from conducting so-called consent searches of motorists during routine traffic stops. See, e.g., this news report and this one. Justice Esther M. Tomljonovich of the Minnesota Supreme Court, in her prescient concurring opinion in a 1997 case, State v. George., broached the possibility of "reject[ing] the concept of consent to search in the context of routine traffic stops and so-called voluntary street encounters." I have come to the conclusion that Governor Ventura and the Minnesota Legislature ought to do just that, prohibit state and local law enforcement officers from conducting consent searches in these contexts. The virtue of this proposal is that, at minimal cost and without the need for more "studies," it would eliminate the incentive of officers to stop motorists, regardless of race, on flimsy grounds in the hope of obtaining "consent" to search. Such a policy would go a long way toward eliminating stops based on racial- and other impermissible types of profiling. Police want us to believe we can trust them to eliminate bias as a factor in stopping motorists. Maybe so. But the routine asking for "consent" to search from stopped motorists of any race is a separate, independent insult to free citizens of a free country. Updates: a) G. Callahan & W. Anderson, The Roots of Racial Profiling, Reason Magazine, Aug-Sept 2001. b) James Forman, Jr., The Conservative Case Against Racial Profiling, The New Republic, 09.10.2001 issue, on how profiling hurts kids.

"What does the Herfindahl-Hirschman index measure?" That's the first of 71 questions on the last version of the infamous trivia quiz U.S. Circuit Court Judge Danny Boggs gives his law clerk applicants. I know the answer to the first question because the "Herfindahl" in the HHI is my late mom's late cousin, Orris Herfindahl, who died trekking in Nepal. Click here for the latest story about Judge Boggs & his clerks, three of whom have appeared on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, click here for the quiz, and click here for the answers.

Funny-papers lawyer. Ruben Bolling started drawing his Tom the Dancing Bug comic strip for the student newsweekly, The Harvard Law Record, while he was a student at Harvard Law, from which he graduated in 1987. The strip, which blends social and political commentary, now appears in syndication in many newspapers. Bolling also draws "Tom" cartoons for The New Yorker, Salon, and the "Week in Review" section of the New York Times.

Fathers and kids. I occasionally "do a Google" on familiar names. Among the things I found doing one on my law-student daughter's name the other day was this piece in a University of Colorado alumni publication by William C. Marolt, CEO/President, U.S. Olympic Ski Team, Park City, Utah, recommending three books to kids about to go to college and their parents: "1.Letting Go: A Parents' Guide to Understanding the College Years by Karen Levin Coburn and Madge Lawrence Treeger, 2. The Real Freshman Handbook: An Irreverent & Totally Honest Guide to Life on Campus by Jennifer Hanson, 3. 101 Things a College Girl Should Know, from a Big Sister Who's Been There by Stephanie Edwards." J.HA's book has done well enough that the publisher, Houghton-Mifflin & Co. of Boston, is planning a revised, updated second edition. More...

"Imagination and Insurance." "From 1918 to 1941, the main office of the Hartford Insurance Company on Asylum Avenue in Hartford, Connecticut, 'a solemn affair of granite, with a portico resting on five of the grimmest possible columns,' housed two most unusual employees. Upstairs in a big corner office, a Harvard graduate bond-surety lawyer, who became (in 1934) a vice-president of the company, and, on the side, wrote poetry. Downstairs, in the fire insurance division, a fire prevention specialist, an engineering graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who on the side practiced linguistics...." [more] For more poetry, click here, here, and here.

Law and Norwegians: All of my ancestors were Norwegian -- including the Harveys, who were from the place depicted at right, Horvei (Americanized to Harvey), Evanger, Voss, Norway. The photo was taken at my request in the summer of 1999 as a courtesy by a generous Vossinger named Svein Ulvand, who maintains a truly wonderful website devoted to Voss, on which he posts a new picture every day. [more] One of my Vossinger great-grandmother Ragnhilda Harvey Herfindahl's grandchildren was Orris Herfindahl, who died, too young, while trekking in Nepal. Circa 1960 he wrote the essay, "What is Conservation," which has been called a "classic" in the field of environmental philosophy and resource management. [more] The so-called "Herfindahl Index," used by the trustbusters in the U.S. Dept. of Justice, is named after him. [more] For more on "Law and Norwegians," click here.

Click on "kiss" (left) for a collection of poems about "luv."

Click here and here for picks of the most romantic movies of all time, a few of which have lawyers and judges, those poor, unromantic souls, as characters.

Click here for some stuff about law and love.

Games people play...at work. In one monthly study WWW.Pogo.Com, which features scores of online games, led the Nielsen list of "stickiest" web sites visited by people using their work computers. Its audience size? Over 1,750,000 people. Average time spent on site per person? Slightly over two hours. E-Bay wasn't as "sticky" among workers (average time per person: 1:57 hours), but its audience was over 7,500,000 people. One wonders how many visitors to these sites were lawyers. One wonders if any clients got billed for those hours. :-) a) Slapping judges. A large number of disappointed Democrats apparently have visited this site, which I don't endorse, to play a game that I admit having played, a game that involves trying to help Al Gore become President by "slapping" those U. S. Supreme Court Justices whose "votes" ultimately had the effect of awarding the election to Geo. W. Bush. b) Tossing Cows. I understand from the feedback I've gotten that a number of people who regularly visit BurtLawEtc. have become addicted to the ancient and honorable Norwegian sport of cow tossing. As I've emphasized, you may participate without fear of prosecution for violating any cruelty-to-animal statutes or ordinances because the cows you fling are far away in Norway, and Norway doesn't have jurisdiction over you! You need not be a Norwegian or "a rube" to participate. If you score higher than 450 (out of 500), you beat me. If you're good, the best time to play is Sunday, when the previous week's highest scores are erased from the scoreboard. My 450 was up there briefly a few weeks ago. I was "in the zone" when I attained that score. If you do poorly, well, you may be asked, as my daughter was, whether you're Swedish. [click here] c) Hangman. When I was a kid, we played games using a blackboard or a scrap of paper, games like Battleship...and this one, Hangman. Now you can play it on the boss' dime on your office computer. Click here.