Is That Legal?

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March 31, 2008

"I was really glad they put my mom in a bed right across from where you were working!"

hen I used to live in the NY area, I loved looking at the "missed connections" ads in the Village Voice. They were such a great glimpse into tiny little slices of people's lives.

Now, of course, there's craigslist, which does the same thing, only better.

So ... ER docs at UNC, take note.

Posted by Eric at 1:44 PM

What Are "Intellectual Enrichment Activities" for a Tiger?

ext time you are on the market for a pet, keep in mind this sage advice from eHow.com:

"Consider the practical aspects of having a pet tiger. You will need to find a veterinarian who will treat your big cat, have access to large quantities of raw meat, have a cage and space large enough for your tiger and be able to provide physical and intellectual enrichment activities. Plan ahead for these aspects of owning a pet tiger before buying one."

Yes, you read right. This is advice on owning a pet tiger.

Did you know it's legal in some states to own a pet tiger? I did not until my visit this weekend to the Carnivore Preservation Trust outside of Pittsboro, North Carolina. North Carolina is one of the states where tiger ownership remains legal. Many of the cats at the Carnivore Preservation Trust are animals rescued from irresponsible people who started out thinking it'd be nifty to have a two-ton huge wild cat in their backyard.

Perhaps there is a persuasive libertarian case to be made for permitting private residential ownership of tigers, but I haven't yet heard it. The risks to neighbors, the owners themselves, and of course to the cats, are mind-boggling.

If, perchance, a legislator in the State of North Carolina is reading this, I have a question for you: Why has the state not yet outlawed the private residential ownership of big cats?

UPDATE: Here's an example of what I'm talking about.

Posted by Eric at 12:21 PM

March 24, 2008

A Book Tour for the Ages.

ecently I was flipping through my dad's law school yearbook (U. of Pennsylvania, Class of 1956) and came across the page devoted to a lecture series called "Booknight" that the law school ran in those days. Authors would come in and talk about their books.

The photo on the page captures quite a gathering of intellects.

Yes, that's Learned Hand, lecturing alongside Paul Freund and F.S.C. Northrop about his (Hand's) then-recent book "The Spirit of Liberty." (I'm sure Professor Clarence Morris of Penn Law was no slouch either, but I'm not familiar with him.)

Now that's what I call a book tour.

Posted by Eric at 3:21 PM

March 19, 2008

Bill Murphy and the Hidden Inner Layer of Academic Freedom

ate last September I blogged about my UNC colleague Bill Murphy shortly after he passed away. I focused on the remarkable and tragic story of how he was driven out of his teaching position at Ole Miss for refusing to condemn Brown v. Board of Education.

Recently I learned the less well-known story of how Bill was effectively driven out of the University of Missouri in 1970-1971. It's quite a tale. It illustrates well that some of the most potent threats to academic freedom can come from inside, rather than outside, the university.

The short paper is available via SSRN.

Posted by Eric at 10:07 PM

Gun Rights in Georgia

esterday's Supreme Court gun-rights argument in Heller caused me to query how the issue of gun rights was viewed by early 19th century state courts.

An 1846 ruling from the Georgia Supreme Court seemed the most interesting. The case is called Nunn v. State. The issue was whether a state law regulating the sale of hand guns and knives for use as concealed weapons, under which the defendant was convicted, was unconstitutional.

First, the Georgia court ruled that the 2nd Amendment applied to the states, just as -- citing one of its earlier rulings -- the 5th Amendment's double-jeopardy clause applied to the states. No incorporation theory at work there. Nor any reference to the 9th Amendment. Just a textual argument that many of the protections of the Bill of Rights apply to limit the powers of both the federal and state governments:

I am inclined to the opinion, that the article in question does extend to all judicial tribunals whether constituted by the Congress of the United States or the States individually. The provision is general in its nature and unrestricted in its terms; and the sixth article of the Constitution declares, that the constitution shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not withstanding. These general and comprehensive expressions extend the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, to every article which is not confined by the subject matter to the national government, and is equally applicable to the States. . . .
The right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances; to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures; in all criminal prosecutions, to be confronted with the witness against them; to be publicly tried by an impartial jury; and to have the assistance of counsel for their defence, is as perfect under the State as the national legislature, and cannot be violated by either.

Next, the court ruled that the 2nd Amendment established a fundamental right.

Finally, the court ruled that a portion of the statute at issue was constitutional:

We are of the opinion, then, that so far as the act of 1837 seeks to suppress the practice of carrying certain weapons secretly, that it is valid, inasmuch as it does not deprive the citizen of his natural right of self-defence, or of his constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But that so much of it, as contains a prohibition against bearing arms openly is in conflict with the Constitution, and void; and that, as the defendant has been indicted and convicted for carrying a pistol, without charging that it was done in a concealed manner, under that portion of the statute which entirely forbids its use, the judgment of the court below must be reversed, and the proceeding quashed.

I don't foresee the Supreme Court ruling in Heller that the 2nd Amendment protects the right to carry weapons openly. On the other hand, that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right seems clear in all the early cases on the topic. Just as was a state legislature's power to regulate the manner in which that right was exercised.

Posted by shertaugh at 10:30 AM

March 17, 2008

The Heller Line

s Orin Kerr continues to cover the line of people waiting to see oral argument tomorrow in the Heller case on the Second Amendment, it occurs to me that this is a line you really don't want to cut.

Of course, it's not all bad. On a cold night like tonight, you'd probably want to be near somebody packing heat.

Posted by Eric at 11:49 PM

March 14, 2008

"An awful way to spend the day ... unless they get in the kitchen and make a great meal after all the bitching."

nn Althouse announces an upcoming conference on feminist legal theory at the University of Wisconsin, and all misogynist hell breaks loose in her comments, especially from some of her most frequent commenters. Nauseating stuff ... and Ann remains curiously silent (except to note that the program features some men, and to encourage people to hit her blog's tip jar). Ann has blogged quite a bit about her own feminism, and has criticized some powerful people whom she sees as feminism's false friends. So it's hard to understand her wanting to provide a forum for the sort of filth her commenters are spewing.

My theory: this was a ploy to drum up fodder for conversation at the conference. She set up a blank screen for her commenters to reveal themselves. If this was her strategy, it was brilliant, and it worked.

UPDATE: Ann sees her comment threads differently from me. She says, in a comment (to this thread, posted at 6:53 p.m.), "many commenters are finding academic feminism ridiculous and that is not misogyny. To call it misogyny is to put your lack of thinking and writing skills on display."

I was the first to call some of the comments misogynist, so I guess I'm among those displaying allegedly poor thinking and writing skills.

Here are some comments from the original thread that strike me as misogynist (as distinguished from simply critical of academic feminism):

11:20 a.m.: a feminist meeting is "another meeting with a lot of older women wearing shoulder pads."

12:24 p.m.: men attending a feminist meeting are there "to get laid."

12:39 p.m.: inquiry about anal sex.

12:44 p.m.: "if they want to be taken seriously, they need a bra-burning."

2:38 p.m.: a meeting of feminists is a place to "pick up babes."

3:24 p.m.: women at the meeting are probably just "bitching" and can make up for this only by cooking a good meal ... and the meeting will have lots of "lebanese" (which is to say, lesbians) with armpit hair and shag haircuts.

7:23 p.m.: a joke about womens' breast sizes

7:24 p.m.: a reprise of the anal sex theme, with a new reference to oral sex.

1:00 a.m.: a commenter raises the idea of ejaculating on a female law professor's hair.

7:49 a.m.: a screw-in-a-light-bulb joke in which a woman serves a man dinner and drinks and then allows him to have intercourse with her from behind, with a picture of a now-famous prostitute taped to the back of her head.

11:59 a.m.: a fantasy, complete with linked visual illustration, in which a cartoon woman's head is removed, and then she is reduced simply to legs and a vagina. (Yeah, "visual" was redundant.)

Posted by Eric at 3:45 PM

March 12, 2008

My Apology to Andrew Sullivan

n October, I wrote a post about "Andrew Sullivan's Crusade Against HRC." HRC is of course Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Today, I offer my sincerest apology to Mr. Sullivan.

I just finished dashing off a note the Clinton campaign telling them that I've reach the point of no return with her and will not vote before I vote for her.

Why? In the past two weeks, she's made Obama as dirty a word as Starr. She's refused to renounce Geraldine Ferraro's serial racism. She's the first presidential primary candidate in my adult life to successfully turn Democrat against Democrat since 1968. When the likes of George Wallace were slicing and dicing the Dixiecrats into Republicans and McCarthy was rallying the kids against their parents. She's turned this race into a freakin' nightmare.

Andrew . . . you were dead wrong about "W" Bush. Dead wrong about Iraq.

But you are spot on about the Clintons.

Posted by shertaugh at 6:22 PM

Spitzer's Fall

ould everyone be happier if Spitzer had given his female friend an $80,000 diamond necklace instead? Or 40 gifts worth $2,000 each? Or paying the rent and food bills for her?

What I mean is, would that have eliminated the prostitution charge and turned this debacle into another "(married) boy meets (single) girl" story?

What exactly is it that, in situations like this, separates a "kept woman" or "kept man" from a prostitute?

Maybe he should have promised to divorce his wife . . . .

Posted by shertaugh at 10:30 AM

March 9, 2008

No-Knead French Rolls!

am a huge fan of the no-knead French bread recipe that has been making the rounds since it appeared in the NY Times quite some time ago.

It is simplicity itself: you just barely mix 3 cups of bread flour, 3/4 T kosher salt, 1/2 t yeast, and 1 -1/2 cups of warm water. And I really mean just barely. (Why do you think it's called "no-knead" bread?) Then you let it sit for 18 hours. It's a goopy mess, but you, undeterred, dump it out on to a floured work surface and kind of fold it in itself a couple of times. Then you let it sit again in a warm place for 2 or 3 hours. Then you unceremoniously dump the glop into a pre-heated cast-iron or ceramic pot in a 450-degree oven for 1/2 hour covered and then another 10 minutes uncovered. And voila! You've got a French loaf with a crust and a flavor and a crumb that you simply will not believe. It's as good as anything you'll find at a specialty bakery, believe me.

The only issue I've encountered is that the bread stales fast, and I'm never able to eat the whole loaf quickly enough (unless I am being particularly gluttonous). So I've wanted to make little mini-loaves that I can freeze and defrost day-by-day. But where do you find little mini cast-iron or ceramic pots for baking? The whole secret to the baking process is that the pot serves as its own self-contained oven, keeping in the moisture during the baking to get a fabulous crust. My big Le Creuset pot makes a beautiful big loaf, but can't make little ones.

Or so I thought. Then, one recent day, I noticed my local grocery selling little cast-iron dishes that you'd use to make, oh, I don't know, little flans or puddings or something. And I thought -- why not put a few of these inside my big pot, dump a small amount of the bread dough into each of the little dishes, and then put the cover on the big one they're sitting in?

It worked like a charm.

Yum.

Posted by Eric at 3:33 PM

March 8, 2008

Stuffed animals.

went to change the sheets on my younger daughter's bed this afternoon and found this scene.

One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn't belong.

Can you tell which?

Posted by Eric at 3:39 PM

The Wren Cross -- Military Version.

avy cadets insist on dipping the U.S. flag as it passes before a statue of Jesus at the Naval Academy Chapel. The Academy's superintendent questioned the practice and it briefly stopped, but now it has resumed, apparently with the consent of the superintendent.

Anyone who thinks that William & Mary's Wren Chapel Cross controversy was merely the result of a breach of etiquette by its then-president Gene Nichol, or an "absence of deliberation" on his part, is fooling himself.

Posted by Eric at 10:48 AM

March 2, 2008

"That She'll Be There To Show Me 'Round, Whenever Comes That Day."

ack on February 24, I noted here that my mom had passed away. She'd been fighting diabetes and heart disease for the better part of 20 years. She'd fought courageously, and had repeatedly and gracefully accepted changes in her life that would have sent many people into a final tailspin. But the diseases finally overcame her. My wife and I watched her slip away last Sunday at around 12:30 a.m.

The experience of losing a parent is nothing I find myself able to put into words, and probably not something I'd write about here even if I had the words.

But here's a song in her honor, from a band that, if you read this blog, you might know is my favorite. I'll let Glenn and Chris say a couple of things for me, in a more enjoyable format than I could ever muster.

Posted by Eric at 7:31 PM