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June 30, 2007
Fifty! Nifty!
Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! I love you!
Posted by Eric at 11:54 AM
June 28, 2007
In Seattle, Diversity Isn't A Black-And-White Issue
As to the Seattle plan, the key paragraph in Kennedy's concurrence, it seems to me, is this one:
This seems exactly right to me, and it has since last fall when I first closely examined the cases for a seminar I was teaching. A very significant percentage of the enrollment in Seattle's high schools is neither white nor black. (Think about it: Seattle is a major city on the Pacific Rim; lots of folks in the Seattle schools are of Asian ancestry.) So it is very hard for me to take seriously the claim that the Seattle school district was seeking to achieve genuine "diversity" by making school assignment decisions with a "white/non-white" system of categorizing students.
This graph of the demographics of the Seattle School District makes the point quite clear:
Under Seattle's plan, a school that was 40% white and 60% Asian would be just as "diverse" as a school that was 40% white and 60% African-American. That's nonsense.
It appears that what Seattle was really after was not "diversity," but ensuring that no school would be excessively non-white. Perhaps there is a case to be made that compelling benefits flow from having adequate numbers of white students in all of a district's schools (as distinguished from the benefits that flow from true "diversity.") But I don't think the school district made that case -- and in any event, I'm pretty skeptical of the claim.
(By the way, comments on my blog are broken at the moment. I'm working on it. If you have something to say, though, you can always drop me a line: isthatlegal at bellsouth, with a "dot net" on the end.)
Posted by Eric at 11:18 AM
June 27, 2007
Supreme Court Spoiler!
It's below the fold. An IsThatLegal exclusive.
Hufflepuffs to be bussed to Slytherin.
Posted by Eric at 11:57 PM
June 26, 2007
Taming the Wild West
The piece that really captivated me was a very large painting by Irving R. Bacon entitled "The Conquest of the Prairie."
Painted in 1908, the large canvas depicts Buffalo Bill Cody as a guide on horseback bringing "modern life" to the West.
A somewhat dazed-looking group of American Indians look on as buffalo run from an oncoming line of covered wagons. In the middle distance, a train belches smoke as it crosses a bridge westward.
Far in the distance, over Buffalo Bill's shoulder, an urban skyline breaks the horizon.
Buffalo Bill so loved the painting that he bought it from the artist and displayed it in his Irma Hotel in Cody, Wyoming. To him, and I suppose to his hotel guests, the painting celebrated "progress."
To my eye, and I suspect to many modern eyes, the painting is just unfathomably sad.
Posted by Eric at 9:56 PM
Blog Malfunction
UPDATE: Made some repairs; things look OK again. Thanks, Sue!
Posted by Eric at 10:42 AM
June 23, 2007
Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation Unveils Two Important Plaques
The other plaque commemorates former U.S. Congressman and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta's incarceration at Heart Mountain from 1942 to 1943 as well as his extraordinary record of public service.
I'll be at the ceremony. Maybe I'll post some photos later.
UPDATE:
The ceremony was a smash -- moving in its memory of the past, and inspiring in its commitment to the future. Here are a few photos. Better ones, taken by the Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation's expert photographer (and former internee) Bacon Sakatani, will be available soon.
Here are our three featured speakers: Wyoming Governor Dave Freudenthal (left), former Transportation Secretary (and Heart Mountain internee) Norman Mineta (middle), and former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson.
Governor Dave Freudenthal emphasized that the internment of Japanese Americans at Heart Mountain involved injustice not just by the federal government, but also by the State of Wyoming.
Former Congressman and Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta spoke movingly about some of the people in his life who had inspired him to leadership even in times of adversity.
Mike Snyder, the Director of the National Park Service's Intermountain Region, unveiled a plaque designating the site of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center as a National Historic Landmark. He spoke very movingly about his own family background and the importance of preserving sites like Heart Mountain that reflect the triumph of the human spirit over adversity, and that serve as reminders of the importance of civil liberties during times of peril.
Former Senator Alan Simpson succeeded in getting the big crowd laughing -- and thinking about how his lifelong friendship with Norman Mineta, formed behind barbed wire at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, should inspire us to prevent future injustices.
Two old Boy Scouts embrace in the shadow of Heart Mountain.
Posted by Eric at 10:52 AM
The Most Powerful Man In The World
George W. Bush is living those limitations on presidential power in Iraq.
But the Office of the Vice President, and current office holder Dick Cheney, apparently suffers no such limitations.
It turns out that every VP in our history was mistaken in thinking that he was a powerless afterthought.
Thanks to Cheney and his chief advisor, David Addington, we now learn that the Founders constructed a constitution in which the Vice President, not the President, was in fact the most powerful man in the world.
Why? Because a VP is both of the executive branch and legislative branch. Sort of like a mythological centaur.
What's even better is that the VP, a constitutional officer in both Art. II and Art. I, suffers none of the limitations of a president.
Just look at the Constitution, and Article II in particular. It's full of pesky categories listing a president's powers.
But the VP suffers no such indignity. A VP is, well, like Superman -- with powers and abilities, we have now learned, far beyond those of mortal men.
Posted by shertaugh at 10:05 AM | Comments (2)
June 22, 2007
Heart Mountain Sunrise
I got up early this morning to shoot some photos at sunrise at the site of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center. A few turned out nicely enough to share with you here.
This is the boiler room of the old camp hospital complex silhouetted against the rising sun.
Same building but from the opposite direction, with Heart Mountain in the background. The sun is now up; the light is an incredible salmon color.
Barbed wire at the site, with Heart Mountain behind. This is undoubtedly not original camp fencing; it appears to be from more recent fencing that either the Bureau of Reclamation or local landowners put up.
Posted by Eric at 10:07 AM | Comments (2)
June 20, 2007
Kiva.org: Lend an Online Hand
It is an online service that allows you to make a microloan to a small business of your choice in a developing country.
Right now, in my portfolio, I've got $100 out to Rafiga Najafova's clothing store in Baku, Azerbaijan, and $50 out to Fatima Doré's food production business in Ndjamena, Chad.
(This, by the way, is what I do with most of the the paltry advertising revenue I generate on this blog.)
Go over to Kiva.org and click around. If you've got a bit of money collecting dust in a paypal account or something, why not spread the wealth a little?
Posted by Eric at 8:35 AM | Comments (6)
June 19, 2007
New Heart Mountain Website!
This is an exciting time for the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, whose mission is to educate the public about the story of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center for Japanese Americans in World War II. With the successful installation of a comprehensive Walking Tour of the site, we are now launching our campaign to build a state-of-the-art Interpretive Learning Center on our land at the site.
Did you know that former U.S. Secretary of Transportation (and U.S. Congressman) Norman Mineta and former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson (WY) met and became friends as twelve-year-old Boy Scouts at a Jamboree behind the barbed wire of the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, where Mineta's family was incarcerated? Click here to read a letter from Mineta and Simpson about their support for our planned Interpretive Learning Center.
Posted by Eric at 12:29 PM | Comments (1)
Ajami's Views on the Hamas/Fatah Split
Arab poets used to write reverential verse in praise of the boys of the stones and the suicide bombers. Now the poetry has subsided, replaced by a silent recognition of the malady that afflicts the Palestinians. Except among the most bigoted and willful of Arabs, there is growing acknowledgment of the depth of the Palestinian crisis. And aside from a handful of the most romantic of Israelis, there is a recognition in that society, as well, of the malignancy of the national movement a stone’s throw away.UPDATE: I read on notoriously unreliable wikipedia that "Ajami has been accused of being a self-hating propagandist who tells those in power what they want to hear, thus helping justify their policies." Perhaps this helps place Ajami's op/ed in context; I don't know.The mainstream in Israel had made its way to a broad acceptance of Palestinian statehood. In the 1990s, Yitzhak Rabin, the soldier who had led its army into acquisition of the West Bank and Gaza in the Six-Day War of 1967, told his people that it was time to partition the land and to accept Palestinian sovereignty. It was an unsentimental peace, to “get Gaza out of Tel Aviv,” as Mr. Rabin put it, but it was peace nonetheless.
In varying degrees, all of Mr. Rabin’s successors accepted this legacy. There was even a current in Israel possessed of a deep curiosity about the Palestinians, a romance of sorts about their ways and folk culture and their connection to the sacred land. All this is stilled. Palestinian society has now gone where no “peace processors” or romantic poets dare tread.
Posted by Eric at 10:07 AM
Right Now, It's A Shot in the Dark
Posted by Eric at 8:15 AM | Comments (3)
June 16, 2007
If You're In The Listening Area ...
UPDATE: It looks as though you can stream the show (noon Eastern) through the show's website.
FURTHER UPDATE: I thought the show went great. You can listen to it, if you want, by clicking on the "Listen" button here.
Posted by Eric at 12:43 PM | Comments (4)
Macca Treacle
"Paul McCartney's relentless cheerfulness is depressing. The very jauntiness I used to love as a girl feels as if it's covering up a sadder subtext. And what's bleaker than a brave face?"
I had just said nearly the same thing to my old college roommate Tom the day before Mann's op/ed appeared. Back in the day, we were both huge Beatles fans; Tom was a Lennon guy and I was a McCartney guy. Over the years, I've soured on Macca -- not so much because his writing has often been lazy and his music has often sucked, but for the reason that Aimee Mann put her finger on. I have just grown tired of, or perhaps away from, his relentlessly upbeat persona.
The man has been through hell these last few years (and this is just the stuff we know about): He lost Linda; he lost George; his third marriage to Heather Mills fell apart amidst accusations of physical and substance abuse.
Yet on he jaunts. (This article in the New Yorker subtly highlights the compulsiveness of his jauntiness, and especially of his desire to be seen as jaunting.)
The man even thinks of his own funeral as a moment to flee from sadness:
At the end of the endAt a Borders bookstore the other day, I put on the headphones and listened to this tune off McCartney's new album, and a couple of others, for a few moments. Fifteen years ago, I would have snapped up the album without even listening to it first. The other day, I hung up the headphones quickly and put the disc back in the bin.
It's the start of a journey
To a much better place
And this wasn't bad
So a much better place
Would have to be special
No need to be sadOn the day that I die I'd like jokes to be told
And stories of old to be rolled out like carpets
That children have played on
And laid on while listening to stories of oldAt the end of the end
It's the start of a journey
To a much better place
And a much better place
Would have to be special
No reason to cryOn the day that I die I'd like bells to be rung
And songs that were sung to be hung out like blankets
That lovers have played on
And laid on while listening to songs that were sungAt the end of the end
It's the start of a journey
To a much better place
And a much better place
Would have to be special
No reason to cry
No need to be sad
At the end of the end.
It makes me sad, but I can no longer even listen to this stuff.
Posted by Eric at 9:26 AM | Comments (5)
June 13, 2007
Calling "Lostingotham"
Posted by Eric at 11:29 PM | Comments (1)
June 12, 2007
Orin Kerr on the Al Marri Case . . . Eric, Your Thoughts?
I'm hoping Eric will weigh in on the debate -- as Marty Lederman of Balkinization did in the comments section to Orin Kerr's first post.
Eric, does Orin's position support the en mass round up of American citizens and lawful resident aliens suspected of aiding the enemy? I'm assuming a loyalty oath isn't enough.
Posted by shertaugh at 8:41 PM | Comments (1)
Smile!
Later I'm going to blog about this really funny multi-vehicle auto accident I just saw!
Posted by Eric at 2:04 PM | Comments (5)
American Inquisition
I like it!
Posted by Eric at 9:01 AM | Comments (7)
June 7, 2007
The Hypocrisy in William Otis's Argument for a Commutation of Scooter Libby's Sentence
"This was an unusually harsh sentence for a first offender convicted of a nonviolent and non-drug-related crime. . . . Neither vindication of the rule of law nor any other aspect of the public interest requires that Libby go to prison. He is by no stretch a danger to the community, as 'danger' is commonly understood. He did not commit his crime out of greed or personal malice. Nor is his life one that bespeaks a criminal turn of mind."Over at Volokh, Jonathan Adler praises Otis's argument. But I think it's garbage -- and surprising garbage, given that it's from the pen of an expert on the federal sentencing guidelines who has argued powerfully against the very sort of freewheeling leniency he now espouses.
The judge sentenced Libby to 30 months -- the lowest sentence from within the range of 30 to 37 months determined by the federal sentencing guidelines. (The judge rejected a guideline calculation that would have produced a range of 15 to 21 months -- more lenient, but a far cry from the out-and-out commutation that Otis contends for.)
In producing those potential ranges, the sentencing guidelines already take into consideration each of the factors Otis cites in support of Libby's escaping jail time.
First offender? Yes, the guidelines take that into account.
Nonviolent offense? Check.
Not drug-related? Yes, it's in there.
Degree of danger? Yup.
Absence of greed or malice? Also.
This is how the guidelines work, as Mr. Otis knows: they take these sorts of factors into account in producing the suggested sentencing ranges. It is only in those cases where some highly unusual factor that the sentencing guidelines do not already take into account is present that offenders ought to do less time than the guidelines suggest.
To be sure, today Mr. Otis is arguing for a discretionary executive commutation of a sentence in order to avoid all prison time, rather than a judicial "downward departure" from the guideline range.
But what a hollow argument from someone who, like me, used to be a federal appellate prosecutor, and who, just 7 years ago, decried sentencing leniency in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee:
"The Guidelines are being increasingly swallowed by downward departures. These departures, both in absolute numbers and as a percentage of all sentences, have increased every year from 1992 through 1999. At the beginning of the 1990s, sentences were imposed within the guidelines range in about four-fifths of the cases; by last year, it was less than two-thirds. The current guidelines compliance rate is, in other words, a little above 60%. That means that, as we speak, we are perilously close to sliding back to the subjective, idiosyncratic and gratuitously lenient sentencing of the old system -- but less honest than the old system, because the public has been led to believe that now we have rules, when increasingly, as a practical matter, we don't....Surely it cannot be Mr. Otis's position that no first-offending, non-violent, non-greedy obstructer of justice ought to do jail time. That is certainly not the position of the sentencing guidelines, whose "fairness" and "consistency" Mr. Otis has publicly lauded.What are the reasons for the national slide, and why has the Eastern District of Virginia escaped it? The slide began when the Commission whose term recently ended replaced clear guidance about the limited role of departures with more ambivalent language, creating increased wiggle room for judges who wanted to take it. In many jurisdictions they did. Fuzzy language in the Guidelines expanded it into gigantic new loopholes, and downward departures sprang up for novel reasons that ranged from the questionable to the absurd ....
Every downward departure means another criminal back on the street before he would have been had the Guidelines been followed -- back on the street to rob your bank, hijack your car, or sell drugs to your child. Yet, over the last seven years, the Department's efforts to constrain these departures have all but vanished.
Mr. Chairman, even the best of laws is no more effective than its enforcement. The Sentencing Reform Act is in my view -- a view formed through more than 20 years as a federal prosecutor -- among the best of laws, because of the fairness, consistency and visibility it has brought to sentencing, and perhaps even more because of what it has done to depress the crime rate and secure for our citizens their right to live in peace and safety."
So why exactly should Scooter Libby walk?
Posted by Eric at 11:55 AM | Comments (9)
June 6, 2007
Judge Sarokin Has Some Questions For Patrick Fitzgerald
Posted by Eric at 10:04 PM
I'm Guessing The Locals Say "Rufton"
Posted by Eric at 4:11 PM | Comments (5)
June 5, 2007
Growing A Nation
I just came across a sweet little letter that reminds us of how agrarian the world of our early political leadership was. It is a letter to Ruffin, then recently retired as a state superior court judge, from James Strudwick Smith, who represented Ruffin's district in the House of Representatives.
Washington City, January 27, 1819Next time I'm up near Judge Ruffin's old house in Hillsborough, I'll have to look for some old wild olives.Dear Sir
I have inclosed you six seed of the wild Olive. It is a beautiful evergreen that grows rapidly and to the height of 40 feet and the trunk is in some instances two feet through it has a dark green leaf smooth on the surface with the edges a little serrated.
Mr. [William Harris] Crawford the Secretary of the Treasury presented me about a hundred they grew in his garden in Georgia. He planted the seed about twelve years since and he informed me that the Tree is now about 8 inches through and twenty feet high. The seed must be planted where you wish the Tree to stand as all the evergreens are difficult to transplant. The seed should be planted 2 1/2 or 3 inches deep and in light rich earth the sooner these seeds are planted the better as the season for vegetation is fast approaching.
I am with regard
Your Humb. Servt.JS Smith
Posted by Eric at 10:41 AM | Comments (1)
June 4, 2007
Tanforan, 65 Years Later
It looks to have been a very moving event.
Posted by Eric at 12:43 PM | Comments (2)
June 3, 2007
Pop Quiz
A. New Jersey
B. Delaware
C. Wyoming
D. Michigan
Answer below the fold.
The answer is
C. Wyoming
Posted by Eric at 8:24 PM | Comments (1)
A Sign of Hope
My daughter looked behind the bima (the area where the rabbi stands and from where the Torah, the first five Books of the Bible, is read every week in front of the Congregation). On the wall facing the Congregation was a giant Menorah, a 7-branched candelabrum. My daughter asked me what the Menorah means. According to the Torah, God commanded Moses to fashion one out of gold after revealing to him His vision of what a menorah should look like. [Numbers 8:4.] I said to my little girl that I think the Menorah is a sign of hope.
As God would have it on this day, my daughter and I, along with my wife and son and the rest of the Congregation, watched and listened -- with this wall-sized Menorah as a perfect backdrop -- to this remarkable young woman standing on the bima give life to the hopeful symbol behind her.
That beautiful, brilliant young woman on the bima was reading the very Torah portion in which God revealed his vision to Moses. The Bat Mitzvah chanted God's words with the voice of a songbird. And she has the countenance of an angel.
As we watched the Bat Mitzvah confidently connect with the Congregation, I couldn't help but think that there really is reason to hope for our future. This is a very special young person we saw. L'dor v'dor.
Moz'l Tov, Eric.
Posted by shertaugh at 6:28 PM | Comments (4)
"The Young Hillary Clinton" -- And That Matters Because?
Bernstein's opinion piece actually covers the arc of her life from college to the present.
But the title to Bernstein's piece raised a question for me. Why should it matter what Hillary Clinton said or did in college or law school or even as an employee of the House Judiciary Committee as it investigated Nixon?
I ask because Ronald Reagan was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat before joining the GOP after becoming president of the Screen Actors Guild (when, it is rumored, he was bought off by Lew Wasserman -- the Hollywood ubber-agent and founder of MCA in a deal that guaranteed a lucrative stream of royalties for the studios at the expense of the actors' interests whom Reagan purported to represent).
No one was a greater flipper than the Gipper.
I suppose one could (and will) argue that Reagan's conversion -- and I'll assume it was heartfelt, rumors aside -- became a powerful metaphor for the wrongheadedness of the Democrat[ ] party's policies. So why question his past when he himself was saying, "gee, what was I thinking (before the payoff) [oops]."
Clinton, on the other hand, apparently left the Republican party for the Democrat[ ] party. So, because she's not disavowed her post-GOP past, she must always be held to answer for it. Were she to move (or return?) to the Republican fold, I doubt she'd get the reception Reagan did. Even her relatively robust views of executive power get no quarter from the GOP.
In any case, while I certainly think it's important to know whether, for example, a person seeking the presidency has run every company he's ever managed into the ground (like Geo. W. Bush did, for example). I also believe that what a person did or said during the same chronological period preceding Reagan's ascension to president of SAG should barely merit a footnote -- unless the candidate touts it.
I believe that to be true for Clinton as much as Guiliani (wife #1 of 3), McCain (bad student who made up for it by being a party animal), and Romney (pro-choice, right?).
Posted by shertaugh at 5:15 PM | Comments (1)