Paperback

My wife's grandfather is an avid reader, and almost every time he visits he brings a book or two for us to read. We've discovered some fun books that way, although I haven't had the time to read anything he's brought by in almost a year. But I did read the back cover of a book he left for us a while back, and it cracked me up. Here's a portion of the teaser:

An ambitious young congressional assistant, Jim Dillon has discovered a time bomb hidden away in America's Constitution—a provision that could be used to wrest power from the Chief Executive; a long -forgotten clause that could incite a devastating constitutional crisis. . .and plunge the country into chaos.

Whoa! Sounds like exciting stuff! And with recommendations from Stephen Coonts and Rush Limbaugh on the cover, how could I resist reading this book?

I found that paragraph laughable, although I may have to explain a bit of why. First of all, the U.S. Constitution is one of the most scrutinized documents ever produced, perhaps surpassed only by some religious texts. It's not that long of a document, so it really doesn't have much to hide. As it turns out, the "time bomb" to which the author refers is Art. I § 8, which states in relevant part: "The Congress shall have Power . . . To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water." One may safely surmise that in the course of this doubtlessly thrilling novel, Congress will try to usurp power from the President using that clause, or some other such dramatic political gambit.

The only problem is, it just doesn't work that way. When one branch of government (or an agency/commission within a branch) asserts a power that it does not have (or it received through improper congressional delegation), the other branches don't sit idly by. Every high school student who slept through less than half of the civics classes understands that the separation of powers doctrine and the checks-and-balances structure function to keep each branch of government from exerting too much power. What they don't realize is that "constitutional crises" happen slowly and undramatically for the most part. When the situations actually blow up, it's a political crisis, not a constitutional crisis. Desegregation, Watergate, and the Clinton impeachment all had their bases in a potential imbalance of power among the branches of government. But the legal underpinings of those situations were largely ignored. Which isn't surprising, because let's face it: legal stuff is boring. It takes an imaginative writer to make legal stuff seem interesting. Even John Grisham's legal thrillers are only thrilling because of some other plot, like murder or intrigue or suspense. So even though the author is a University of Virginia law grad, I don't have high hopes for any exciting legal parts. Because law is boring.

I still might read that book, though. It's summer, after all, which is a good time to read silly, pulpy novels. But if I do read the book, it won't be because of the legal aspect. It will be because Rush Limbaugh recommended it.*
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* Words can't even describe how much I'm joking when I say that.

Eye doctor

I got my yearly eye exam yesterday. I've needed corrective lenses since I was about 10 years old, so this has been an annual ritual for most of my life. Eye exams have changed a lot since I first got glasses. They seem to be faster now. That may be attributable to my perceptions of how long they took when I was 10 (I have never been a particularly patient person), but more likely, I think this is an actual change that results from better equipment. The machines get pretty close to my prescription, and then the doctor and I get to play the "which is better" game. That's always a fun part of the exam. My eyes may be in between prescriptions, because I'm never sure which lens works better. As a consequence, over the last ten years or so, I've bounced back and forth between prescription levels. Last time I went to the eye doctor he said that I was a good candidate for laser surgery because my eyes aren't changing. I like the idea of not having to wear corrective lenses, but until I get good insurance, it's not gonna happen.

Even though I've been to the eye doctor many dozens of times, I had a new experience yesterday. Since I'm nearsighted, he wanted to dilate my eyes so he could check to make sure there was no strain or tearing of the retina. He said I wouldn't be able to focus on something close up without taking off my glasses, and that I would be very sensitive to light, but that those effects would fade in an hour or two. I didn't need to do any reading that day, so I had him do it. He put a drop of solution in each eye. I assume that it contained some sort of muscle relaxant, because after 15 minutes my pupils were HUGE. Seriously, you could hardly see the iris at all. It was kinda creepy-looking. It reminded me of the pot-head kid that sat next to me in middle school. His pupils were almost always dilated, among other symptoms. :-)

My eyes checked out fine -- no tearing or worry signs -- so the doc sent me home with a prescription and a pair of "solar shield" sunglasses. (Think old man sunglasses and you'll know what they looked like.) Becca was outside playing with Lindsay when I came home, and she burst into laughter as soon as she saw me in my slick shades. They weren't exactly what you would call fashionable. In fact, I kinda felt like an old man, because I had to peer over my glasses to see anything up close. I felt like I needed bifocals. I closed all the blinds in the house because everything was so bright to me. I couldn't really do anything like write, cook, or type, so I ended up just watching TV for part of the afternoon. I have this week off, so it worked out okay. But the doc apparently underestimated how long the drops would last; it was almost 4 hours before I stopped needing sunglasses. I'll keep that in mind next time the eye doctor wants to dilate my eyes; it wouldn't do for me to walk into a job interview or conference later that day, looking like I just dropped acid.
Photo credit: deqalb.

On bad government

Today the government of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) allowed a U.S. plane with relief supplies to land. Nine days had passed since Cyclone Nargis struck the nation, but the military junta in control of the country had previously refused U.S. aid. The current official death toll is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000, but some estimates predict that it will rise to above 100,000 once aid workers reach the remote areas.

Allowing one U.S. plane to land doesn't do much good, unless it is followed by a larger-scale end to restrictions on foreign aid. But the generals in control of Myanmar continue to deny visas to foreign aid workers. They fear that if they let the foreign relief workers in, they won't be able to maintain their iron grip on the country. As the New York Times noted, "By keeping foreign assistance out, though, the generals must be ready to accept the deaths of hundreds of thousands more people, according to foreign relief officials. At the moment, this is the choice it appears to be making." The generals even had the audacity to put their names on the few boxes of aid they had allowed to enter the country.

I've thought a lot about the role of government and human suffering. Mostly I've considered it in the context of government corruption or the stereotypical Latin American dictatorship. You often see officials running off with millions of dollars while the majority of the population lives in poverty. But the situation Myanmar is bad governance on a grand scale, with about 1.5 million people in urgent need of basic necessities. This isn't a situation in which the government mis-allocates funds or wastes resources. This isn't a matter of inaction. This is a situation in which the government is taking affirmative steps to prevent the welfare and safety of its citizens. This is selfishness and power-mongery taken to the extreme. Myanmar officials would rather sit idly by and watch 100,000 of their citizens die than risk losing control of the country. I can scarcely think of a more damnable behavior, with the possible exception of ethnic cleansing or government-backed genocide. Unfortunately, the result in this case may be the same.

Hopefully that one plane will be followed by plenty more, and the country will loosen up enough to save at least some of the cyclone victims. But I feel very sorry for the thousands of innocent people who are doomed to misery, starvation, and disease, just because they happen to live in a country governed by men who would rather watch them die than risk losing power.

Thoughts in the supermarket checkout line

• The biggest misnomer in the publishing world is People Magazine's list of the 100 Most Beautiful People. Are these people really the most beautiful? Of course not. They're just the most popular right now. Beauty has nothing to do with it. If Johnny Depp is really that attractive, he would have been declared the most sexy man long before he surfaced in Pirates of the Caribbean. Why wasn't he even on the list before his career took off? Could it be that beauty is a figment of popularity and not actual looks? Perish the thought. Although, if that were the case, the 100 Most Beautiful People list would merely represent those with the most recent and successful plastic surgeries. On second thought, no. That's gross. (See Goldie Hawn, etc.)
• According to the tabloids, almost every couple is perpetually on the rocks. Bill and Hillary are about to end it. Brad and Angelina just had a fight. David and Victoria Beckham are splitting up. Pamela Anderson and whomever she's married to at the moment are on the breaks. Of course, celebrity couples break up so often that most tabloids can claim they were right all along.
• Is there some sort of industry requirement that women's magazines have a "sex secret" or "sex tip" column in each issue? I don't remember ever seeing one without it. And are there really any sex secrets left? Each new issue declares some new trick that will inevitably "blow his mind." And yet, I find it extremely unlikely that these claims can be true month after month. Though there seems to be no lack of people willing to believe it. But practically speaking, if someone really did discover something new about sex, they wouldn't publish it in a two-bit weekly. They'd patent the process and make millions. (I love the idea of patenting a sex move. I also think the patent application would be hilarious, especially the discussion of the originality elements.)
  

My new jacket

I bought a lightweight jacket last week for running. It wasn't a fancy jacket, but I didn't need a fancy jacket. I just needed something for when it's a little cold and it's raining.

I got a bit of a chuckle when I looked at the tag on the jacket, however. It showed people doing adventuresome things like roller-blading, dirt-biking, and running. None of those people, however, were wearing the company's clothing.

The label also showed a diagram of the jacket. It was designed to highlight the features of the jacket, such as repelling wind and resisting water. But if you look at the diagram, the bottom layer is your skin. I don't think your skin counts as part of the garment. Moreover, if you have to include the person's skin in the diagram, the garment probably isn't complicated enough to necessitate an explanatory visual aide.

To top it all off, the last portion of the tag declares that the jacket "guarantees that you stay dry with keeping a perfect body climate." That kind of diction and sentence structure is the sure-fire mark of a non-English speaker.

None of these comments, however, are meant to criticize the actual jacket. I used it over the weekend and it performed admirably. I stayed dry along with keeping a good body climate, and my skin functioned well with the shell material, just as the diagram indicated. Truly amazing.

Darwin Award nominees

We've had family unexpectedly come into town, and have been extremely busy dealing with them. So no blogging lately. Here's a quick update, and a little humor.

Last Friday I turned in my seminar paper. It wasn't good, but it was done, and it's enough to graduate. Let's hope that the professor doesn't read it. (I don't think he will. I think he'll scan it, so I made sure that the headings looked good.) Yesterday I cleared out my locker and study carrell, the latter of which had over 20 pounds of paper in it. Most of it I threw out, although some of it is for ongoing research for a pro bono project, so I had to hold onto it. More junk on my computer desk at home.

Yesterday I also finished up a some paperwork and miscellaneous tasks for a few clubs. So I'm officially done with all of my student duties. Not that I won't be back -- I'm actually hoping to come back to school and help out with an career exploration program we started last year. But I'm basically done being a student.

Even though it's sort of lame and uncool, I still host this blog through Blogger. I still hate some things about it, but it works nicely with some of the other Google-owned services. They just updated Google Docs to allow embedding of presentations, so I thought I'd try it out and post a funny little presentation I found a few years ago. This is what you would call lazy blogging, but hey, at least I'm posting.

I have a brief story to accompany that little slide show. As most of you know, I used to live in Venezuela. One evening I was walking from a bus stop to a friend's house, and I saw some guys on the side of the road doing some repair work on a bus.¹ They had removed the gas tank, and were carrying it over to a work bench. The tank was open on the top and I could hear that there was still some gasoline in it sloshing around. That's when I realized that one of the guys was smoking.

I was still shaking my head at their stupidity when I heard a voice above me call out for some more wire. I looked up to see a guy who had climbed an electrical pole and was hooking up his house to the electric wires himself.² He was barefoot, wearing nothing but jean shorts, and he was trying to be careful not to cross wires or touch the big cables, which weren't insulated at all. I decided to walk a little faster; I didn't want to be near the bus or the electrical pole if something went drastically wrong. Things like that are part of why women in Venezuela live more than 6 years more than men, on average.
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¹ This was actually a pretty common sight. Most public transportation in Venezuela at the time was privately owned and only loosely regulated, if it was regulated at all. Most buses always needed some work, so the bus drivers or owners would work on them in the evenings when the temperatures dropped. The cigarette/gas tank combo was not a frequent sight, thankfully, although stuff like that happened all the time.
² The vast majority of people in Venezuela steal electricity. They just run wires up to the electric poles and tap in. It's especially common in slums, where nothing is regulated, but you see it more organized parts of the city too. I would hope that most people wear rubber gloves when the do it, however. Or at least shoes.

After finals

I don't know how most couples split the domestic tasks, but we're pretty even about doing things. We both sweep, vaccuum, mop, etc. The single exception to this rule, however, is dishes. Neither of us like to do them, but Becca hates them more than I do. So the dishes are basically my job.

This last week has been a rough one. I had caught up with the dishes on Sunday, but I had a final on Monday morning and I had to turn in my seminar paper by midnight on Friday. I was at the law school library almost every waking moment from Monday afternoon until Friday evening, usually from 7 am to midnight. In the meantime, we had company over for dinner and the Babe continued to make her usual messes. So this is what I woke up to this morning:

It actually got a little worse after that. We actually used every single plate, bowl, spoon, and fork that we own. We had to have finger food for lunch. :-) I've done my duty now -- we still have some dirty dishes in the sink, but we at least have things to eat on.

Thanks to Becca for coping this week. It's been just as hard on her as it was on me. But it's over now. We'll still have a very busy week next week, with company and graduation and all, but at least I'll see my family for more than half an hour each day.

Always read the footnotes

The following is currently footnote 73 of the draft of my seminar paper:

The video game at issue in Davidson was StarCraft, one of the most popular PC games ever produced, with total sales to date exceeding 9.5 million units. Vivendi, Introduction to Vivendi Games 4 (2006), http://www.vivendi.com/ir/download/pdf/VIVGames_EuropeRoadshow_June2006.pdf. Widely recognized as one of the best real-time strategy games ever produced, StarCraft has enjoyed enduring popularity in North America and Asia, and helped launch Blizzard Entertainment to the top of the video gaming world. One of the keys to the game's success was the successful implementation of the Battle.net gaming site, which enabled users to play the game online or on a local area network. The Battle.net servers have expanded to also host World of Warcraft, the most popular massive multiplayer online role playing game, with over ten million subscribing users. Nearly ten years after its first release, there are still nightly StarCraft tournaments in South Korea, where the game has a large and faithful fan base. Press Release, Blizzard Entertainment, Starcraft® II Released (May 19, 2007) (http://blizzard.com/us/press/070519.html).

I'm not kidding; that's really in the footnotes. I've always wanted to put something like that in a boring legal paper, and I finally got a chance. It's actually somewhat relevant. We'll see if my professor notices it.

Bicycle

I may have mentioned it once or twice before, but I haven't yet written much about my experience riding a bicycle to school over the past six months. When we moved to our current apartment last summer, I was looking forward to being so close to school. It's only a few miles, so I decided to buy a bicycle and bike to school as often as possible.

The last several months have been an interesting two-wheeled odyssey for me, so I thought I'd share a few thoughts and comments about bike commuting in a city.

• Work. I immediately discovered that I don't have strong bicycling legs. I have one major hill I must go up and down every day on my way to school, and I almost didn't make it up the hill on my first day of biking. Thankfully, it's a more gradual ascent on the way home, but it can still be brutal in the mornings. Especially if I've already gone running or worked out that morning. You don't have to think about the physical side of transportation when you just jump in the car and drive. I've gotten much stronger over the past few months so now it isn't as big of a deal, but it still leaves me huffing and puffing some mornings.
  
• Pain. After the second day of biking to and from school, I was actually quite uncomfortable. To put it delicately, I didn't want to sit down. Some bike seats are better than others, but mine was fairly solid and I ended up with a bruised backside. Fortunately, just like my legs, my bum toughened up after a few weeks. Now I don't really have a problem. But it goes away quickly. My first time biking to school after a long Christmas break resulted in another few days of bruising.
• Dogs. When they see a person bicycling down the road, something goes off in a dog's brain. It's like the canis lupis part of the dog takes control, and the dog can't resist chasing you down. And compared to the other vehicles on the road, a bicyclist is the slower, aged member of the herd that will be easy prey.
  
• Route. The route I take is carefully planned out to avoid traffic, busy streets, and narrow roads. I'm fortunate in that I have a bike lane that goes through much of my neighborhood. When I get to the larger roads, I sometimes switch to the sidewalk. I know bikes really are supposed to be on the road, but it beats the alternative.
• Uncoolness. Motorcycles are cool. Bicycles are not. People in America like their cars. They always seem confused when they have to share the road with a bicycle. They may like Lance Armstrong, but they secretly think bike helmets look foolish. And the reflective bands I wear when it's dark take uncoolness to a whole new level. There is a certain appeal of riding a long under my own power, but in general, I am nerdiness on wheels.
  
• Maintenance. I have spent a lot of time trying to keep my bike in working condition. It's not an expensive bike, but it has had a lot of mechanical problems in its short ownership period. I've had my brakes fail, I have had two flat tires, and I've had parts of the bike fall off while I was riding it. When I first got the bike I bought a set of fenders to put on it so I could ride it on wet days without getting a skunk stripe of mud and water up my back. The fenders proved to be extremely problematic. They required constant adjusting and I was never able to install them properly on my bike. I eventually removed them when I went over a curb one day and several of the nuts holding the fenders in place flew off simultaneously and were lost in a busy intersection.
  
• Storage. I don't have a good place to lock up my bike. The only place I can lock it up is right on a busy street corner, which is just asking for it to be stolen. So I have to store it inside our apartment, which isn't exactly spacious. My daughter thinks it's a great toy and she likes to play with the gears, getting her fingers grubby in the process.
• Cost. I'm not sure how much I'm saving by bicycling to school. I still have to pay car insurance because I still use it occasionally. My commute isn't that long, so I'm not saving a ton on gas. It does make a difference, but I don't know if it makes up for the cost of buying and maintaining the bike. If I used it over a longer period of time, it would definitely pay off in the long run. But for the past 7 months, I don't know how much I've saved, if any at all.
• Weather. I have to pay attention to the weather report in the morning when I got to school. If it's going to thunderstorm, it's not a good day to take the bike. It's also pretty chilly riding to school on some mornings. I had to bundle up in the winter, although I ended up unzipping my coat by the time I got to the top of the hill because I was overheating at that point. The most important part of my biking gear in the winter were my gloves -- we picked up a cheap pair of leather gloves that were perfect for biking, since they are windproof. Biking without gloves in the winter can be painfully cold.
  
• Satisfaction. Despite the problems with maintenance, storage, dogs, and crazy drivers, I like riding a bike. Even though it's nerdy, I think there's something attractive about moving yourself around on your own. You can really move quickly on a bicycle; my commute is only 5 minutes slower on a bicycle than in the car. (Those extra 5 minutes are probably due to the hill.) I like getting some exercise in my day, and I like that I'm avoiding road congestion and pollution.

My bike-riding days may be over for a while. Yesterday I got my second flat tire on the way home from school. I only have a few more days left at school, after which I will be taking bar classes and working downtown. I probably won't be able to bike to those places. Still, it's been an interesting experience, and given the opportunity, I might try to ride a bicycle to work.
Photo credit: Salim Virji

Writing a paper

My exams are over, but I still have 35 pages to write in my seminar paper. And it hasn't gone very well so far, although I've already done a lot this morning. Still, it's slow going. I'll probably be working on it up until the deadline for electronic submission on Friday at midnight.

Everyone around the law school (myself included) is getting a little more haggard and more stressed out. Today I was eating breakfast and listening to some other students as they got ready to go into a morning exam. One of them said she still had to finish a seminar paper. The other one asked what the topic was, and she grimaced and said it was boring stuff. He asked what her thesis was, and she said something about venture capitalism and Sarbanes-Oxley and regulation. At then end of that recitation, the other student (who didn't seem like he understood a word of what she said) smiled and cheerfully added ". . . And World Peace!"

I think that's the best use of a Miss Congeniality quote I've ever heard.

Underwater photography

This month's issue of Smithsonian Magazine has an interesting little piece on Bruce Mozert,¹ who pioneered underwater photography from the 1930's all the way to the 1970's. His favorite place to photograph was Silver Springs, one of the many crystal-clear springs in Central Florida that were some of the state's major tourist attractions until Disney World opened in 1971. Mozert, at right, said “My imagination runs away with me."

I thought the photographs from the magazine and website were fantastic. They have an interesting combination of technological innovation, surrealism, and American post-War aesthetics. Here's a few of the photographs in the Smithsonian article. Due to the Smithosnian's overly-restrictive Terms of Use, each photograph is accompanied by the caption from the website. I have a bit more to say about that in the footnotes.² But for now, enjoy some of these great pictures.

Original caption: Bruce Mozert's underwater stills shaped the image of Silver Springs for more than four decades.
My caption: There's no wall there, dummy! Just swim around and get the girl!

Original caption: Mozert put condensed milk to good use for some special effects at the barbecue.
My caption: It's a complete coincidence that most of these pictures include attractive young women.

Original caption: Mozert rounded up some garden tools to mark Silver Springs’ spring cleanup.
My caption: If living under water still requires yard work, then count me out.

Original caption: For some 45 years (except for service with the Army Air Forces during World War II), Mozert created scenes of people underwater to show off the wondrous clarity of Silver Springs' waters.
My caption: This whole picture is fake. That's not really a water trap. And you will never meet scantily clad women while golfing. Not that it will stop most guys from trying.

Original caption: Mozert pioneered underwater photography, building waterproof housings that allowed him to go deep with a camera in hand.
My caption: Don't tip back in that chair! You'll fall and hurt yourself. Oh, wait . . ..

Original caption: His photos helped establish Silver Springs as a premier tourist attraction during the 1950s.
My caption: Is she trying to entice a fish? I'm not sure I like the idea of interspecies flirting.

Original caption: Mozert's images anchored a national publicity campaign for the springs from the 1940s through the '70s.
My caption: I totally could run the hurdles if I got to float over them.

Original caption: Mozert's staged scenes were ultimately created to showcase the natural wonder of the springs.
My caption: This is what kids in the 50's used to do for fun. Sit around, play the ukelele, and talk to the fake fish.

Original caption:With his surreal vision, Mozert cast Silver Springs in a light perfectly suited to postwar America.
My caption: Get off the phone, Jane! You'll run the underwater phone bill up!

All photographs Copyright Bruce Mozert/University Press of Florida
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¹ Mozert's photography was well recognized in the middle of the 2oth Century, but his sister, Zoë Mozert, was even more famous -- as a pin-up girl. Google her at your own risk, but this site is relatively skin-free and has a brief biography of her career.
² The Smithsonian Institution's Copyright policies are typical of many online content providers. They say one thing but do another. For example, the copyright policy claims that fair use is permitted, but establishes terms that are inconsistent with the Fair Use in the Copyright Act. I am allowed to post these photos here, only because "the site displays no advertisements and no sponsors, does not charge a fee for services, and does not offer any product or service for sale." Additionally, the images are unaltered with all captions included and a URL back to the Smithsonian site. I have a lot to say about such "super-copyright" provisions, but I'll save those for my seminar paper on the topic.