Academic

Anatomy of a masterpiece

Posted on March 14, 2008
From the New York Times' review of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's new exhibit, Anatomy of a Masterpiece: How to Read Chinese Paintings:From his terrace, the world is blue and green ? mountains and trees ? or almost green. Spring is on the way; the geese are back...

Complexity, IPR Rights and Innovation Ecologies

Posted on March 14, 2008
I say unto you: one must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves. Zarathustra Part 1- IPR Rights Considerations In a recent editorial in Science, Bill Wulf used the systems ecology model to frame a forward-looking model for innovation in the life sciences...

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Posted on March 13, 2008
The work of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children warrants very close look by Jurisdynamics. The NCMEC is an exemplary case of multijurisdictional coordination, cooperation between private and public actors, and astonishingly rapid adaptation in pursuit of the public good...

Same-sex marriage and the meaning of conservatism

Posted on March 13, 2008
  I'd like to offer a few thoughts in response to the video proceedings of Is Gay Marriage Conservative?, a February 15 conference previewed on Jurisdynamics. Let's begin by watching videos presenting the opposing perspectives of Dale Carpenter and Teresa Stanton Collett:Dale CarpenterTeresa Stanton CollettDale CarpenterThe Traditionalist Case[G]ay marriage is a conservative idea, though many self-described conservatives may be among the last to realize it...

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Die Schöpfung: Zwei Podcasts

Posted on March 09, 2008
By way of Theologisches Deutsch I've discovered this treasure trove of literary podcasts in German. I have combined Literatur-Podcast.de's podcast of Genesis, chapter 1, with the 1912 revision of Martin Luther's translation and an excerpt from Joseph Haydn, Die Schöpfung, as performed on December 8, 2002, by Benita Borbonus (soprano), Jörg Nitschkes (tenor), Almas Svilpa (baritone), and the Chor und Orchester der Universität Witten/Herdecke under the direction of Ingo Ernst Reihl...

El Muro tiene que caerse

Posted on March 07, 2008
John F. Kennedy, Ich bin ein Berliner  (June 26, 1963)All free people, wherever they may live, are pilgrims along the borders of this world, and, therefore, as a free person, I take pride in the words, Yo soy peregrino fronterizo.With those words, Jurisdynamics invoked the spirit of John F...

Sunrise with Sylvia Plath and Norah Jones

Posted on March 06, 2008
Sylvia Plath, Southern Sunrise (1956)Color of lemon, mango, peach,These storybook villasStill dream behindShutters, their balconiesFine as hand-Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch.Tilting with the winds,On arrowy stems,Pineapple-barked,A green crescent of palmsSends up its forkedFirework of fronds...

Bad science, shrewd politics?

Posted on March 04, 2008
It?s indisputable that autism is on the rise among children. The question is, What?s causing it? And we go back and forth, and there?s strong evidence that indicates that it?s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.— Senator John McCainAnd with that pronouncement, Senator John McCain touched one of the most politically controversial questions in modern medicine...

Music by the numbers

Posted on March 03, 2008
Kyle Gann, Scale in C-major Having recently declared on this page that Color is math, math color — That is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know, I figured I would outline some of the basic relationships between mathematics and music...

Good riddance

Posted on March 03, 2008
Herewith an open letter to Michael Stokes Paulsen, Distinguished University Chair and Professor at the University of Saint Thomas School of Law.Dear Mike,I just got around to reading your piece, Good Riddance, Jim Chen, You No-Good Lousy So-and-So, 24 Const...

Campaign 2008: Dueling "3 a.m." commercials

Posted on February 29, 2008
Courtesy of the New York Times, the Jurisdynamics Network is pleased to present the dueling "3 a.m." commercials being aired by the Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama campaigns. We embed; you decide:Hillary Clinton's adBarack Obama's ad

I can see clearly now

Posted on February 29, 2008
Johnny Nash, I Can See Clearly Now  (1972)It has been quite the month at Jurisdynamics. Beginning with Schattenfreude, this month has brought extraordinary joy to me as a blogger. I will always treasure this blog's February 2008 archive. I leave this month with a musical treat for myself and for the faithful readers who have stayed with Jurisdynamics and its affiliated weblogs throughout the past year and a half...

A new blog: Commercial Law

Posted on February 28, 2008
The Jurisdynamics Network is pleased to announce a new member of its family of weblogs, Commercial Law. The law of sales, leases, payments, finance, and lending has manifested some of the most dramatic responses by the law to social, economic, and technological change...

Projecting the Pacific Northwest's next major earthquake

Posted on February 28, 2008
As reported in the February 28, 2008, issue of Science Daily:Virtual Mega-Quake Shows Earthquake Could Inflict Major Damage On Pacific Northwest U.S.On January 26, 1700, at about 9 p.m. local time, the Juan de Fuca plate beneath the ocean in the Pacific Northwest suddenly moved, slipping some 60 feet eastward beneath the North American plate in a monster quake of approximately magnitude 9, setting in motion large tsunamis that struck the coast of North America and traveled to the shores of Japan...

Who can frame thy brilliant symmetry?

Posted on February 27, 2008
Kelly J. Bozanic, a student blogger at Red Lion Reports, has posted a truly beautiful item called More than skin deep:Beauty speaks to the genetic disposition of an individual, and [a recent University of New Mexico] study suggests that intelligence can be accurately predicted solely based on appearance...

Literary Warrant [26]

Posted on February 26, 2008
Robert Esworthy, Specialist in Environmental Policy, Resources, Science, and Industry Division, Congressional Research Service (CRS), Federal Pollution Control Laws: How Are They Enforced? (CRS Report for Congress, Order Code RL34384) (February 20, 2008)"This report provides an overview of the statutory framework, key players, infrastructure, resources, tools, and operations associated with enforcement and compliance of the major pollution control laws and regulations administered by EPA...

Gone for good: A fatal flaw in the logic of love

Posted on February 25, 2008
The Shins, Gone for Good, Chutes Too Narrow (2003)Untie me, I've said no vowsThe train is getting way too loudI gotta leave here my girlGet on with my lonely lifeJust leave the ring on the railFor the wheels to nullifyUntil this turn in my headI let you stay and you paid no rentI spent twelve long months on the lamThat's enough sitting on the fenceFor the fear of breaking damsI'd find a fatal flawIn the logic of loveAnd go out of my headYou love a sinking stoneThat'll never elopeSo get used to the lonesomeGirl, you must atone someDon't leave me no phone number thereLa dee daIt took me all of a yearTo put the poison pill to your earBut now I stand on honest ground, on honest groundYou want to fight for this loveBut honey you cannot wrestle a doveSo baby it's clearYou want to jump and danceBut you sat on your handsAnd I stood on your chestGo back to your hometownGet your feet on the groundAnd stop floating aroundI found a fatal flawIn the logic of loveAnd went out of my headYou love a sinking stoneThat'll never elopeSo get used to used to the lonesomeGirl, you must atone someDon't leave me no phone number thereLa dee da

Cubes, cones, and color: Cutting through the RGB and HSV colorspaces with clarity

Posted on February 25, 2008
On this forum as on MoneyLaw and on The Cardinal Lawyer, I've confessed my obsession with the mathematics of TrueColor. On the strength of a single Google search — RGB cube — I've found two sites that have truly sharpened my understanding of the mathematics of color...

Stillness by moonlight

Posted on February 22, 2008
Jurisdynamics' tribute to Kate Chopin, The Awakening (1899), continues. From chapter 11:The stillest hour of the night had come, the hour before dawn, when the world seems to hold its breath. The moon hung low, and had turned from silver to copper in the sleeping sky...

Seaside awakening

Posted on February 21, 2008
The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace...

In plain sight: Simple rules for complex camouflage

Posted on February 19, 2008
To the most faithful readers of Jurisdynamics and BioLaw, I owe a small apology. The "life-dinner principle" outlined in Richard Dawkins & John R. Krebs, Arms Races Between and Within Species, 205:1161 Proc. Royal Soc'y London: Series B, Biol. Scis. 489-511 (1979) — the observation that "a lineage under strong selection may out-evolve a weakly selected one" — is a bedrock tenet of evolutionary biology...

The Octopus

Posted on February 18, 2008
Men — motes in the sunshine — perished, were shot down in the very noon of life, hearts were broken, little children started in life lamentably handicapped; young girls were brought to a life of shame; old women died in the heart of life for lack of food...

The Great Gatsby

Posted on February 17, 2008
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away...

Synesthesia

Posted on February 14, 2008
Carol Steen, Vision (1996). Oil on paper, 15 x 12-3/4 inches.One day, many years ago, I was having an acupuncture treatment and was lying flat on my back, on a futon, stuck full of needles. My eyes were shut and I watched intently, as I always do, hoping to see something magical, which does not always occur...

Gillian Welch, "Wrecking Ball"

Posted on February 14, 2008
Courtesy of MoneyLaw, I present a psuedo-synesthetic presentation of Gillian Welch, Wrecking Ball , Soul Journey (2003):Gillian Welch, Wrecking BallA little deadhead . . . playing bass under a pseudonymFarmer in the Pogonip . . ...

The theory of everything

Posted on February 13, 2008
Curious about the theory of everything? This 30-minute Vega program, downloadable in RealPlayer  format, offers some answers:How did the universe start? What are we and where are we going? If we had a "Theory of Everything", we should be able to answer these questions...

Ash Wednesday

Posted on February 12, 2008
I know it's a week late. Still, courtesy of Red Lion Reports, I share this excerpt from T.S. Eliot's poem, Ash Wednesday:Although I do not hope to turn againAlthough I do not hopeAlthough I do not hope to turnWavering between the profit and the lossIn this brief transit where the dreams crossThe dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these thingsFrom the wide window towards the granite shoreThe white sails still fly seaward, seaward flyingUnbroken wingsAnd the lost heart stiffens and rejoicesIn the lost lilac and the lost sea voicesAnd the weak spirit quickens to rebelFor the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smellQuickens to recoverThe cry of quail and the whirling ploverAnd the blind eye createsThe empty forms between the ivory gatesAnd smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earthThis is the time of tension between dying and birthThe place of solitude where three dreams crossBetween blue rocksBut when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift awayLet the other yew be shaken and reply...

Carson McCullers, Wunderkind

Posted on February 10, 2008
There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.— Carson McCullersTo many of my fellow residents of Danzig U.S.A., I often say that my best preparation for becoming law school dean at the University of Louisville was to reread the works of Carson McCullers (1917-67)...

In the beauty of the poppies

Posted on February 06, 2008
Poetic JusticeIn the beauty of the poppiesThe poet was born across the seaWith an anthem in his bosomThat transfigured law and theeAs he wrote to make life holyLet us read to set law freeThe truth is marching onOdetta, The Battle Hymn of the Republic , My Eyes Have Seen (1959)Or, in somewhat more prosaic terms ...

Celebrate Evolution Sunday

Posted on February 04, 2008
Now that Super Bowl XLII is safely behind us, we can look forward to Evolution Sunday 2008. According to a report in The Scientist, 467 congregations planned their church services around Evolution Sunday in 2006, and 618 participated in 2007. This year's Evolution Sunday will take place February 10...

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