Archive for the Book Reference Category

Writin’ (February 17, 2014)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, Book Reference, Plastic, Slavery, Writing on February 17, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

W1       “Read and write and read and write and read and write and read and write and rinse and repeat.”

W2       “Learn to juggle all the words in the English language and a few other languages behind your back in the dark with ease.”

W1       “And recognize the nuances of education, location, geography, employment, religion, politics, race and class.”

W2       “Develop an eye for detail and an ear for dialogue.”

W1       “Subtly appreciate and acknowledge the true nature and flow of actual daily discourse and conversation.”

W2       “And understand and capture the smell and feel and taste of a person, place and thing.”

W1       “Write what you know.  And know much.”

W2       “Go beyond knowing and write what you understand.”

W1       “And understand much.”

W2       “Go beyond understanding and write about and with wisdom.”

W1       “Then write what terrifies you and satisfies you and mystifies you and pacifies you.”

W2       “Show.  Do not tell.”

W1       “Tell a great story by showing a great story.”

W2       “Show and tell may be the most revealing show and tell.”

W1       “It is often easier done than said.”

W2       “It is only said if it is done.”

W1       “It is only done if it is done.”

. . .

W2       “Celebrating one’s love for language is another way to celebrate the day.”

. . .

W1       “Are ‘Doonesbury’ and ‘Prairie Home Companion’ the Great American Novels?”

W2       “A novel notion.  The Great American Novel is not a novel after all but rather a visual depiction in “Doonesbury” and an oral transmission in “Prairie Home Companion” depicted and transmitted in dollops over the decades.  They reward those with an eye for detail and an ear for dialogue.”  

W1       “Devoid of all the insecure male posturing that seems to be deemed the sine qua non of the GAN.”

. . .

[See the article at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/nyregion/ban-sought-on-microbeads-in-beauty-items.html?hp&_r=0 seeking to address microscopic beads that get into the water supply.  See the “e-ssays” under https://e-commentary.org/category/plastic/ that are part of “Project Plastic.”]

[From the New Confederacy in Utah and Oklahoma to the Old South in Virginia, hate is on the run, on the retreat, and on the retrograde.  See the e-ssay” titled The Sea Change Is Now A Tsunami (March 11, 2013).  For those who are troubled by slavery in all its forms and permutations, the vote in Tennessee, a charter member of the Old South, on unionization at the Volkswagen plant is disappointing.]  

Bumper stickers of the week:

Observe, Listen, (smell, feel, taste), Question, Comment

Art for art’s sake is somewhat uninspired and uninspiring.  Exquisitely superb art that promotes positive political, economic and social purposes is the most inspired art.

Bulk Collection Of Telephony Data. Again. (December 16, 2013)

Posted in Book Reference, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Constitution, Courts, Due Process, First Amendment, FISA, Journalism, Judicial Arrogance, Law, Newspapers, O'Bama, Politics, Press/Media, Privacy, Republican Federal Judge Syndrome on December 16, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

L1        “You never know what a Monday will bring.  A federal judge ruled that the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephony records likely violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

L2        “You did not hear the word ‘telephony’ in polite parlance two dozen years ago.  The courts must now address the interplay of law with technology far more sophisticated than a pair of soup cans and a string.”

L1        “Most federal judges were ‘Arts and Crafts’ majors in college who may understand Tennyson but really do not understand technology.  Listen to the techs who install IT systems in the state and federal courts.  Some of these judges are still looking for the rotary dial.”

L2        “The government’s reliance on a case from the prehistoric days of telephony – way back in 1979 – is proof positive that the issue must be addressed anew in light of the new technology today.”

L1        “They will need to refer more often to Newton’s Telecom Dictionary than to Black’s Law Dictionary.  That will be fun.”                  

. . .

L1        “Within a fortnight of the Democrats’ decision to require the Senate to ‘advise and consent’ and vote on O’Bama’s appointments to places such as the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, the decision will have consequences.  One or more of the new appointees could be assigned to the reviewing tribunal.  If there is en banc review of the three panel decision, there are now more Democrats than Republicans.”

L2        “But will the Democrats defer to their benefactor?  Is there another Republican appellate court judge who may be a fan of the Constitution rather than unchecked federal intrusion?  And we always have the five Supremes who will get to chime in.” 

L1        “Who just don’t get it.  They do not even want to admit that the NSA exists.”

. . .

L1        “Judge Leon (Bush II) overcame the always pernicious ‘Republican Federal Judge Syndrome’ that almost always plagues Republican appointees.  Yet the judge once again displays the occupational hazard of these imperial federal judges.  His opinion is snarky, arrogant, condescending, intemperate, and sloppy.  The screed deserves a B+ for intuiting basic truth, a C- for style and an F for arrogance.”

L2        “When you are going to be courageous, you must be flawless.”

L1        “There are more than a few good women and men who are concerned that collecting the metadata is constitutional and may prevent a great catastrophe.”

L2        “But in the final analysis, there is the Constitution.” 

. . .

[See the “e-ssays” titled USA PATRIOT ACT (April 4, 2005), Less Government Regulation Series: Google (Nov. 30, 2009), Boycott Facebook? (August 2, 2010), Brave 1984 Farm: The Best Of All Possible Worlds (March 19, 2012) and Hero or Traitor? (June 10, 2013) and I Spy, You Spy, They Spy (October 28, 2013).]

[See the “e-ssays” titled Judicial Activism: Rogue Republican Judges (January 28, 2013), The Paradox Of The Republican Federal Judge: Republican Federal Judge Syndrome (September 23, 2013) and Past Time: Exercising The “New Clear Option” (November 25, 2013).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Free Edward Snowden

Pardon Edward Snowden

Bestow a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Edward Snowden

Quash the sub poena issued to James Risen

Free the Press

In a dozen plus years and without a debate or a vote, technology has deprived us of privacy.  With little debate and many hasty votes, Congress has deprived us of privacy at every opportunity.  We as a society should create a rebuttable presumption in favor of privacy even if it appears to sacrifice security.  Our personal insecurities are actually creating greater national insecurity. 

Coal (December 2, 2013)

Posted in Book Reference, Carbon Surcharge & Dividend, Coal, Global Climate Change, Global Warming, Less Government Regulation Series, Market Solutions, Markets, Plastic on December 2, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

S          “Books on Cod and Salt discuss the profound impacts of the fish and the element on civilization.  Someone should write a piece titled Coal and its pernicious consequences.”

T          “A few books dig into Dirt.  We have clean dirt but not clean coal.  ‘Clean coal’ is an ironic, oxymoronic and alliterative phrase repeated often enough to fool many folks.”

S          “And ‘Dirty coal’ is redundant.”

. . .

S          “Mother Nature leads us into temptation.  The stuff is not shiny like gold but does provide that warm inner glow and hot outer glow that we all covet.”

T          “We must resist El Diablo Negro.”

. . .

T          “Later this week, coal will be deposited in the shoes of the youngsters who have been naughty rather than nice.  And may not have resisted temptation.”

S          “Some folks leave switches in shoes to acknowledge unacceptable behavior.”

T          “I really never needed candy.”

S          “We need to jolt folks into realizing that electricity is not produced for free at a wall switch.”

T          “We dig deposits out of the dirt and deposit the stuff in our power plants and then deposit the by-products around the Earth and in our lungs.  The death cycle of coal.”

S          “We need to get folks to switch their behavior.”

. . .

T          “I installed compact fluorescent lights (cfls) which admittedly have a little mercury that must be disposed of properly.  My reduced demand for coal reduces the mercury released when coal is burned to produce electricity.” 

. . .

S          “A Carbon Surcharge and Dividend policy (CS&D) enlists the market mechanism to internalize the costs of carbon production and reduce its use without any other government regulation.”

. . .

[See the article on plastics drowning the oceans at http://www.latimes.com/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gold-plastic-waste-oceans-20131104,0,1147461.story#axzz2jywwzvfA.]

[See the “e-ssays” at On Trading Off (May 9, 2011) and Energy “Manhattan Project”: The “Carbon Tax And Dividend” (March 25, 2013.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

The solution to pollution ain’t dilution.

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis will be available in paper back in March. 

Commenting On Legal Commentators (November 4, 2013)

Posted in Book Reference, Courts, Education, Law, Law School, Schooling, Writing on November 4, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

L1        “Did Ronald Dworkin ever practice law?”

L2        “Doesn’t seem so.”

L1        “Did H.L.A. Hart ever practice law?”

L2        “Seems that he may have handled a few traffic violations.  Some of them moving.”

L1        “Now I admit that they spouted some pretty city talk and a few inspiring aspirations, but do they have a clue.”

L2        “Does having a clue matter?  Two branches of the ‘Quaint Theory’ of the practice of law.  The say what others want to hear.”

. . .

L1        “Now Benjamin Cordoza did play the game, but he missed the boat.”

L2        “Accord.  The Nature of the Judicial Process should be filed under ‘F’ for ‘Fiction’ or for ‘Fairy Tale.’”

L1        “And given an ‘F’ for failing candidly to explicate the American legal game.”

L2        “He failed in describing how the legal game works, but he succeeded in trying to make the legal system work.”

. . .

L1        “Academic law is more closed and cloistered than any other area of academic pursuit in America.”

L2        “Except a few other areas of academic pursuit in America.”

L1        “Many of the failures of the legal system find their genesis in America’s legal schooling industrial complex.”

. . .

L1        “Did Fred Rodell ever practice law?”

L2        “He did not need to play the game.  He got it.  And got out of the game before ever entering the game.  That takes finesse.”

L1        “Lucky guy.  But he is an anomaly.  The legal schooling complex today would not allow a young Fred Rodell even to labor as an adjunct professor at a night law school.”

L2        “If they would even admit him as a law student.”

. . .

[See the “e-ssay” titled Playin’ The Legal Game (March 28, 2011).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

“There are two things wrong with almost all legal writing.  One is its style.  The other is its content.  That, I think, about covers the ground.”  Fred Rodell

I entered law school already knowing how ‘to think like a lawyer’ and exited law school still knowing how to think like a human being.

Who Is Your Big Bad Bogeyman? (March 26, 2007)

Posted in Book Reference, Political Parties, Politics on March 26, 2007 by e-commentary.org

In general, at a young age, individuals select, consciously or unconsciously, a Big Bad Bogeyman, either Big Government or Big Business.  All political views emanate from that fundamental decision.  Nock, Van Hayek, M. Friedman and their ilk don’t realize or acknowledge that Big Business can oppress as efficiently and mercilessly as Big Government.  Galbraith, Nader and their ilk don’t realize or acknowledge that Big Government can oppress as efficiently and mercilessly as Big Business.  For all but a few individuals, acknowledging two Big Bogeymen is intellectually and emotionally overwhelming.  F. Scott Fitzgerald is said to have said:  “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”  In politics, the few first rate intellects must challenge and confront the two Big Bogeymen who are equally dangerous.  John Dos Passos could handle it.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Question Authority, But Ask The Right Questions