Achtung! Der Himmel fällt!

...auch, die Nazin kommen!...von South Dakota.
Three items of note today (ordered from least to most alarming), along with a general status update.

First: Vicky Lynn Marshall (aka Anna Nicole Smith) set foot in the Supreme Court this morning. I'm sorry but that's almost as bad as pouring pigs' blood on the Western Wall. Not quite as bad, but almost; certainly much worse than the former spokesperson of the Taliban taking classes at Yale. (A warm welcome to you, sir, from our gender-neutral society. Just for the record, I wanted to bomb your women-hating fundamentalist-desert-cult before 11/9. Good to hear you didn't mean all those awful things you said last time you came to this fine country. Now that the unpleasantness is over, I hope that you might come to visit Stanford some time.)

Second: Apparently, the following is true -- Picketing an abortion clinic | to dissuade citizens from peacefully obtaining, rendering or discussing lawful medical services | and conspiring to harass or embarrass those citizens with the overall goal of preventing people from practicing their chosen profession or obtaining medical treatment | does not constitute extortion or racketeering. Don't get me wrong, Justice Breyer is my favorite for reasons too many to enumerate here and I agree with him that the Hobbs Act was not passed to punish discrete acts or threats of violence unaccompanied by extortive demands. However, I strongly disagree with Justice Breyer's view of the facts in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women. (For those of you fortunate, or indebted, enough to have an account, the Westlaw citation is 2006 WL 461512.) In reiterating the Court's position that protestors may be threatening or violent yet not extortive Justice Breyer says:

We pointed out that the claimed "property" consisted of "a woman's right to seek medical services from a clinic, the right of the doctors, nurses or other clinic staff to perform their jobs, and the right of the clinics to provide medical services free from wrongful threats, violence, coercion and fear.” (internal quotation marks omitted). We decided that "[w]hatever the outer boundaries may be, the effort to characterize petitioners' actions here as an 'obtaining of property from' respondents is well beyond them.” Accordingly, we held that "because they did not 'obtain' property from respondents," petitioners "did not commit extortion" as defined by the Hobbs Act. (citations omitted)

What part of the anti-abortion movement does the esteemed jurist fail to understand? It seems to me that the vociferous elements of this decidedly authoritarian ilk are set upon increasing the pain and publicity of what is by all accounts a highly personal and already painful decision. To accomplish this goal, the rabble presents medical care providers with the option of providing abortions or putting up with some of the loudest, most unattractive and ignorant guests for hours on end. If that weren't bad enough, some of them are even violent. I imagine that if these loud, ugly people fail to close down the clinic, the next move is to show up with a more muscular "redneck" or "meathead" - or, in the alternative, a bomb threat. Now, suppose I came to your place of business, announced myself to be a member of a "movement" known worldwide for blowing stuff up and started screaming for you to close up shop. You might reasonably conclude that you were being not-so-tacitly presented with a very unpalatable option which I leave the gentle reader to divine. Let's see how well you enjoy your right to make a living knowing you'll see me and my loud friends every time you go to work. Oh yeah, I'm not talking about women's rights here because I think OB/GYNs are some brave mofos and prosecutions under RICO or the Hobbs Act are so butter. Now, why would I suggest a pecuniary or commercial interest in the right to an abortion? Protesters who close down reproductive health clinics drive business to regular hospitals, delivery rooms and anesthesiologists. Also, I just spent an hour listening to pro-choice fellow explain how Planned Parenthood makes scads of money providing abortions because the pro-lifers chased away half the doctors and Papists bought up half the hospitals. I believe him...I just don't see anything wrong with it.
(Before I'm accused of being anti-Catholic, let me point out that Roman Catholicism is my third favorite religion - right behind the Cults of Minerva and Miuccia Prada which are also sorta "Roman" and have, to date, served me quite well.)

Third: South Dakota seems poised to ban abortion (except to save the life of the mother). There is no exception for rape or incest. Hmmm... If we ban abortion in South Dakota and every pregnancy produces a child, what result for the incest rate in South Dakota?


Addendum re status:
The other night [N] told me I did very little work for a law student, or that I was very laid-back for a law student...something to that effect. Anyhow, I was already scared that I wasn't paying enough attention this semester so did that observation ever put me into a panic! (Hey, even [N] is sorta lazy.) So, in celebration of several weeks of debauchery, I decided to actually get some things done and pull a couple of more traditional all-nighters. Once again, this boy comes through in the clutch. We will be posting with more regularity.

Commentary on "Physiognomy"

An assortment of people have posted commentaries on my earlier post purporting to describe the physiognomy of the hard-ass judge. One particularly Honourable fellow over at "Have Opinion, Will Travel" found my omission of a passage on the dishonesty of the un-able prosecutor particularly amiss. While the dishonesty (legally speaking) was apparent and the rage from the bench "palpable," I would remind readers that the point of physiognomy is to allow for quick characterizations of ball-park accuracy, not immutable judgments of character. For the sake of many a well-coiffed colleague, I hope my description of the prosecutor as "fresh-faced...with a brit-pop haircut" does not encourage the judicial audience to assume the worst from anyone with more than a passing concern for appearances. See generally, Insouciant Highlights, infra (revealing the author's stance with regard to this issue).

Nevertheless, following is the rest of the story of The Un-able Prosecutor and the Hard-assed Judges: Our last observation saw the fresh-faced prosecutor in fearful colloquy with the panel, Prada loafer firmly planted in mouth. Mr. Prosecutor had just made a feeble showing of flipping through various appendices, apparently with an eye towards suggesting that he actually believed that the basis for his assertions (which were admittedly tangential to the issue under discussion: something about whether defendant had taken sufficiently obvious steps towards abandonment of some earlier infraction) lay somewhere within. The lead jurist told the feckless lad to cease and desist, that the panel was well aware of what he was trying to do and the collective mind of the bench didn't like it, not one little bit. There followed some brainstorming as to how to handle the situation with one panel member suggesting a complaint to the State Bar; "I wonder if that was a lie," mused one judge to his brethren. Did I really think they would have him clapped in irons? No, but I don't doubt that the thought crossed his mind. There was no bite, but the barking was loud and sustained. At length, the harshest sanction appeared to take the form of a promised phone call: "The folks upstairs will be hearing about this," said the head judge, clearly in reference to the DA's headquarters housed in the same building. The incident drew to a close when the prosecutor, finally removing the loafer from his mouth but still choking on the polish, stammered something about most sincere apologies...no intention to suggest the court base its ruling on matters not in the record...just describing the earlier case from memory and in passing...please don't tell my mother...et cetera, ad nauseam.

Were the panel members really “hard-asses” in the colloquial sense of exercising capricious severity? Probably not. But it might be useful to assess at a glance the attitude a judge might take towards shoddy lawyer-ing. For those anxiously awaiting the next installment of the Physiognomy series, please be patient. I’m sure we’ll have some great stories and more photos from the upcoming three-month field trip to New York.

Caché versus Crash

I went to see Caché this afternoon.

Apparently, racism among the bohemian bourgeoisie has a necessarily strict historical context. Most people of quality probably aren't racist at age 6; just jealous, selfish children. That is to say, I can't help but think that director Haneke gives his decidedly bourgeois audience a break by making the stalker's retributive actions against the film's hero a product of unfortunate events over which the characters have no control. When [N] asked me after watching Crash whether I thought people were really "that racist" I could honestly say "no one that I know." That said, everyone of our ilk knows the society Caché observes so casually. Also, Haneke needs to try and forget Heidegger when when he writes a film; a character's geworfenheit doesn't really make him any more lovable. That said, it's a fuckin' great movie. Unless you're American, stupid, or non-BoBo. No really, Caché is a fuckin' great movie.

Insouciant highlights

Apart from the exchange recounted below, the highlight of the past 24 hours was the arrival of my bluefly shipment. There's a perpetual urge to dress like we make $2500-a-week, when we're actually living off student loans. That's why it's particularly good to get that $1500 pile of designer stuff (Miu Miu, Gucci and Zegna) for $600. It turns out that Gucci is a really, really bad brand for dress shirts. Don't get me wrong, I love the ties and the briefcases...not so much the shoes...but the dress shirts are just plain shitty. For christ's sake, I get paid to look like I know something. People who wear shitty shirts clearly don't make enough money to have a job that requires them to know anything (excepting, of course, jobs requiring the miraculous minutia known only to the medical professions). What's worse is that Bluefly prices Zegna shirts somewhat lower than their Gucci counterparts although the retail is higher. Verily, I cannot understand how folks can be so infatuated with this "brand" that doesn't have Tom Ford anymore.

addendum non sequitur
Hmm...I wonder if it's unethical to send a Photoshop-ed picture for the Firm's summer facebook; I wouldn't want people to contrast the picture with the results of the rhinoplasty I have scheduled for before I start full-time.

time goes by...

[S]: It was cold in Russia. People were smearing goose fat on their bodies to stop frostbite, and near Moscow zookeepers fed an Indian elephant a bucket of vodka to keep it warm; the elephant then went on a rampage, tore radiators from a wall, and calmed down only after it was given a hot shower.
-from "Harper's Week in review"


[SH]: Given the behavior of this elephant you're describing, I'm pretty sure it wasn't Indian. It's African.


[S]:yo,
Last night I was talking with my roomate, [], about the web commic WIGU which is undergoeing a transformation from a three-pannel-a-day format to book form- my contention was that the comic isn't fucking funny enough to sustain that, my roomate disagreed. The whole thing sparked a debate about narrative structures in general, and serialisation in particular, which Pat seemed to think was a bad thing. He said that serialisation was why Dickens was a worse novelist than Terry Prachet contemporary Brit fantasy humor).

I was struck dumb by this for a couple of moments. Then I pointed out that Dickens was a genius who used brillient prose trun societie's own weapons against itself, whereas Prachet was an ammusing hack who had managed to turn maybe a dozen jokes into an absolutly ungodly number of slightly funny books. [] conceded that this might be true, but asserted that Prachet was deffinitavly more enjoyable to read, and, as a consequence, preferable- he sugested that maybe it was all a matter
of taste.

Again, I was silent, this time as I contemplated the unchartable depths of imbicility, and the absolute banckrupcy of both immagination and soul that could lead someone to hold such a depraved opinion. Finally, I said that it probably was just a matter of taste, and that he was certainly entitled to hold his own opinion, and seemed to let the matter drop.

As soon as the non-aggressive and conciliatory words were out of my mouth I vividly immagined that the four of you were watching the exchange and had let out a collective "Wha???" In that moment, I felt myself grow older, and I felt the icy tenticles of death tighten their grip perceptably around my spine.

Of course, then I wennt and defeated the whole purpose by trying to explain to him how lucky he was that I wasn't screeming at him: this made him very uncomfortable, although I suspect that he still was more comfotable than he would have been if I had handeled the situation the way I would have three years ago.
fight the power,


[SH]: Yeah, [S]. I think you're dying. Which is good. In the better days, you would have tried to shove "David Coperfield" up his ass...Would it help to say that a [S] who doesn't fight, on behalf of Dickens!, is already dead to me?


[BL]: holy shit. As one who felt the icy tendrils some time ago, I can say I don't think it signals death, though it may correlate with age. To the contrary and much worse, it signals the beginning of a moral declension after which one just doesn't care about truth anymore. Death comes to us all, but it won't reach me with a clear conscience. I'm truly sorry [S], but welcome to the club. When I get to the city, remind me that we need to go shopping at Polo for your new skull and cross bones necktie.


[SH]: [BL], as usual, is completely wrong. WHEN THE FUCK DID ANY OF US EVER CARE ABOUT "TRUTH"? We only cared to prove that the other of us was dumb. The "moral declination" argument is interesting, but wrong. Think about it. Fill in the blank, if you will: "If one is DECLINING, that means that one once was..." Although, call me when you go to "Polo".


[ER]: well shit [BL] that's a bit extreme, [S] decides for once in his life not to pick a fight and now you've got him shopping at polo

your story kinda reminds me of the incredibly frustrating discussion I once had with my roommate trying to explain why scientology was crap (but whats the harm, if it works for you . . . ) I only felt a little bit better when I realized that her brief interest in scientology was because she thought that the volunteer handing out the free literature was really hot.


[BL]: well, as [S] is usually the sort to defend the truth to the death (even if it means that we're the ilk that finds its collective self up against the wall when the revolution comes), I maintain my position that this is a declension. Frankly, I'm already at the bottom of the slide so I won't be upset regardless of who comes along (even if it's [SH] - never a more honest man have I known, though with quite the unique relationship to "truth") when we get the skull and bones neckties. The great tragedy is that now our compass doesn't want to steer us off the cliff when that's exactly where we need to go.


[BL]: re: the drunken elephant in Moscow. It's the beer before liquor problem. Distilled libations are uncommon in the traditions of both continents.


[SH]: [BL] ended with: "The great tragedy is that now our compass doesn't want to steer us off the cliff when that's exactly where we need to go." Easily the most beautiful and true thing [BL] ever said.