Academic

The wonders of a pitiful, dreadful life

Posted on December 19, 2008
a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/movies/19wond.html" target=_blankimg src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/12/19/arts/19wonderful.xlarge1x.jpg" style="display:block; margin: 0px auto 0px; text-align:center; width:479px" alt="It's a Wonderful Life" title="It's a Wonderful Life"/abr /Almost precisely a year to the day after the publication of a href="http://www...

Literary Warrant [39]

Posted on December 18, 2008
div style="clear: both;"/divdiv style="clear: both;"/diva onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.amazon.com/Aquitania/dp/B000001TZQ"img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px;" src="http://ecx...

Dogs know

Posted on December 14, 2008
Friederike Range of the University of Vienna confirms what dog owners have always known: dogs don't appreciate being treated unfairly. The popular press calls it envy; Dr. Range prefers the term inequity aversion. Either way, dogs know. And in case we've forgotten, so do people.

Literary Warrant [38]

Posted on December 01, 2008
Handelingenkamer Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal den Haag from Candida Höfer, Libraries (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005)"The spirit of rhetoric trumps the spirit of modern philosophy?not quite canceling its dark vision but placing it in a context of ongoingness exemplified by the sense that invention is always available if one can stop fretting over matters of identity...

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Jurisdynamic agricultural law

Posted on November 24, 2008
I invite readers of Jurisdynamics to ponder how one might update the agricultural law curriculum to account for legal and social change in that domain over the past generation.

Ex libro lapidum historia mundi

Posted on November 19, 2008
Mazon Creek lagerstätteAll geology represents the present-tense freeze-frame of the earth's history, condensed conveniently in the chemistry of rocks and soils. Though the course of any single organism's life is infinitesimally minute by comparison with the history of the earth, only one species in the earth's parade of life — ours — has managed to crack the code...

Logarithmic spirals and the nautilus

Posted on November 15, 2008
I just composed the following observations in connection with a MoneyLaw post and thought that the Jurisdynamics audience might appreciate them even more:The chambers of a nautilus are arranged according to an approximate logarithmic spiral that can be calculated in polar coordinates according to this simple formula:r = aebθwhere r represents the radial coordinate, θ represents the angular coordinate, e is the base of natural logarithms, and a and b are constants that (1) are arbitrary in modeling and (2) are empirically determined in real-world applications of logarithmic spirals...

Disaster and Sustainability: The Cultural Perspective

Posted on November 04, 2008
»  Cross-posted from The Cardinal Lawyer  «I will take part in a November 6-7 symposium called Disaster and Sustainability: The Cultural Perspective. The University of Copenhagen's Faculty of Law will stage this symposium at Carlsberg Akademi:It is widely accepted that the study of ecological and societal sustainability in general and climate change in particular involves all research disciplines from all faculties within the academy...

Things that don't last, and those that should

Posted on October 21, 2008
Giustizia mosse il mio alto fattore;fecemi la divina podestate,la somma sapïenza e 'l primo amore.Dinanzi a me non fuor cose create,Se non etterne, e io etterno duro.Justice moved my high maker, in power divine,Wisdom supreme, love primal. No things wereBefore me not eternal; eternal I remain...

Literary Warrant [37]

Posted on October 21, 2008
Stiftsbibliothek St. Gallenfrom Candida Höfer, Libraries (London: Thames & Hudson, 2005)Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) et al., Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Six Years of Achievement"Uniting public health players, including agencies at the state and local levels, the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) Program is a key component of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?s (CDC) response to the 9/11 and anthrax incidents in the fall of 2001...

Pygmalion and Galatea

Posted on October 18, 2008
Étienne Maurice Falconet, Pygmalion et Galatée (1763)For Pygmalion so loved his graven Galatea that the gods took pity and gave her life, that Pygmalion might not die alone, but know mortal joy.And so the project of depicting Pygmalion and Galatea expresses the quest for a perfect expression of the Immaculate Conception, albeit in reverse...

Reparations Symposium

Posted on October 17, 2008
On October 31, 2008, the Kansas Law Review will host a symposium highlighting empirical research supporting legal claims for reparations for slavery. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a pathbreaking decision on reparations in In re African-American Slave Descendants Litigation, 471 F...

Schattenfreude: Endlich ein juristischer Ausdruck

Posted on October 13, 2008
I owe a debt of gratitude to Hubert Humphrey, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger, Allen Tate, and William Wordsworth. Schattenfreude, an idea that has obsessed Jurisdynamics in image and in word, has finally found an explicitly legal expression. I invite you to read about the legal treatment of Schattenfreude at The Cardinal Lawyer.

The Biden-Palin debate

Posted on October 05, 2008
Herewith video of the 2008 vice-presidential debate:

Biden versus Palin: The SNL parody

Posted on October 05, 2008
You've seen the real thing. Now watch the parody:

Literary Warrant [36]

Posted on September 29, 2008
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #13, 1978Ceres, Investors Achieve Major Company Commitments on Climate Change (Press release) (August 20, 2008)"Investors engaging with U.S. companies on the financial risks and opportunities from climate change achieved breakthrough results during the 2008 proxy season...

The story of Wickard v. Filburn: Agriculture, aggregation, and commerce

Posted on September 21, 2008
The Story of Wickard v. Filburn: Agriculture, Aggregation, and Commerce, in Constitutional Law Stories (Michael C. Dorf, ed., 2d ed., Foundation Press, forthcoming 2009). Abstracted in the University of Louisville School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper Series, No...

Tina Fey : Amy Poehler :: Sarah Palin : Hillary Clinton

Posted on September 14, 2008
Hat tip: Maureen Ryan's The Watcher. Here's another version of the same video, courtesy of NBC.com:

Jim Chen's Simpsons avatar

Posted on September 11, 2008
In motion, no less:

Where I go

Posted on September 08, 2008
The Green River near Mammoth Cave, KentuckyNatalie Merchant, Where I Go, Tigerlily (1995)climbing under a barbed wire fence by the railroad ties climbing over the old stone wall I am bound for the riverside Well I go to the river to soothe my mind ponder over the crazy days of my lifejust sit and watch the river flow find a place on the riverbank where the green rushes grow see the wind in the willow treein the branches hanging low well I go to the river to soothe my mindto ponder over the crazy days of my life watch the river flow ease my mind and my soul where I go well I will go to the river from time to timewander over these crazy days in my mind watch the river flowwhere the willow branches grow by the cool rolling waters moving gracefully and slow child it's lovely let the river take it all away the mad pace, the hurry the troubles, the worries just let the river take them all away flow awayThe Kentucky River near Shaker Village, Kentucky

Degas and his dancers

Posted on September 04, 2008
The New York Times takes another look at the Metropolitan Museum's Degas collection and comes to know it for the first time:At the Met, . . . [Edgar] Degas is the sole occupant of two rooms (one of painting, one of sculpture), the main occupant of two more and is found in two others...

Die bessere Rede

Posted on August 29, 2008
American political commentators have begun, and will long continue, discussing Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. But from a broader perspective of time and space, of history and geopolitics, Senator Obama's August 28 speech in Denver can rank no higher than the second best oration of this political season...

Addicted to love

Posted on August 27, 2008
As Bill Clinton left the stage at the Democratic National Convention, the musical director summoned a surreal tune:Yes, that's right. Robert Palmer's Addicted to Love. Modern political conventions are too carefully choreographed and scripted for this musical selection to have been accidental...

Survival of the Fittest

Posted on August 27, 2008
Via the New York Times, an object lesson in (1) making money while being environmentally sound and (2) remaining economically viable by maintaining a longer managerial time horizon:During the glory days of big pickups and sport utility vehicles, one automaker steadfastly refused to join the party...

At once word and world together

Posted on August 24, 2008
»  Cross-posted from The Cardinal Lawyer  «In the hope that homage delayed is not homage denied, I dedicate this post to the first legal academic I ever met. A quarter century of familiarity with that scholar's work lights a path toward understanding the place and the power and the grace and the grandeur of law in a world beyond borders...

Ithaka: Legal education as an odyssey

Posted on August 18, 2008
Thalia-Flora Karavia, Portrait of C.P. Cavafy (1926)Like all other journeys, legal education has a fairly well defined end. Like the best of journeys, legal education at its best does not set its destination in advance, but rather refocuses along the way...

Literary Warrant [35]

Posted on August 18, 2008
"—No doubt, Sir—there is a whole chapter wanting here—and a chasm of ten pages made in the book by it—but the bookbinder is neither a fool, or a knave, or a puppy—but, on the contrary, the book is more perfect and complete by wanting the chapter, than having it...

Prospettive su Pluto e Proserpina

Posted on August 14, 2008
Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, Pluto e Proserpina (1621-22)This exquisite piece of Baroque sculpture graces the Galleria Borghese in Rome. Its sensuality, especially when portrayed from unusual angles, has maddened the authors of blogs as diverse as Glendale Figure Sculpture, Kym Lardner, Noodnik, and Jurisdynamics.

From Red Lion to Red List: The Dominance and Decline of the Broadcast Medium

Posted on August 13, 2008
Herewith my most recent SSRN manuscript, From Red Lion to Red List: The Dominance and Decline of the Broadcast Medium, 60 Admin. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2009):This essay proposes a little housecleaning in the law of communications regulation. Red Lion Broadcasting Co...

Toilet to tap

Posted on August 11, 2008
Indirect potable reuse? Toilet to tap? Whatever you call it, the recycling of sewage into drinking water is today's reality in Orange County, California. It may be tomorrow's inevitability in a world of soaring demand, depleted aquifers, and galloping climate change.

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