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Very serious evidence people at Cardozo School of Law

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A Massive Star

Pismis 24-1
Credit for image: NASA, ESA and J. M. Apellániz (IAA, Spain)

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Furrin' Law Folk in New Haven

John Jackson, Craig Callen & Michael Risinger

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Yale and New Haven in Red and Gold

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Gateways to Knowledge

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Bright College Years

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Neo-Gothic and Non-Gothic

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St. Obama, Deliver Us ...

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Flash: The Hubble Is Back

See The Inquirer (Oct 18 2008)

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Greenery

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Timbers & Piers

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Fall Nears

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Market Crises versus Market Ajustments

A major cause of the current financial crisis, it is said, is the "depressed" real estate market. But "depressed" implies that real estate prices are too low. One could also easily say -- and many people did say -- that real estate prices were "inflated." On the whole, it is a good thing that the price of residential housing has declined -- and let's hope that efforts to pump up prices to their previous "inflated" levels fail.

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The Philosophy Teacher

Jonathan Mahler, "The Thinker," NYTimes (Sept. 19, 2008):

After class, [Professor Kelly] Jolley and I walked across Auburn’s mostly deserted campus and into town for lunch. It was oppressively hot and humid; Jolley wore a fraying straw boater to keep the sun off his face. Over pizza and iced tea, I asked him if he ever wondered whether his style of teaching might be inappropriate for a large state school like Auburn — if the cost of his approach is that he’s teaching to the few rather than the many. “My view is that you really fall into a trap when you start allowing what you believe about your students to dictate how you teach your discipline,” he answered. “Too often these days we end up setting up our courses in light of what we believe about our students and we end up not teaching them. At best, we end up housebreaking them.”

[snip, snip]

In Jolley’s ideal world, every student would catch the philosophy flame, but he knows this will never happen. He says that philosophy requires a certain rare and innate ability — the ability to step outside yourself and observe your own mind in the act of thinking. In this respect, Jolley recognizes that his detractors have a point when they criticize his approach to teaching. “It’s aristocratic in the sense that any selection based on talent is aristocratic,” he told me. “I know it offends everyone’s sense of democracy, this idea that everyone’s equal, but we all know that’s just not true.”

Perhaps the dispute between Jolley and his critics boils down to how you define great teachers. You typically think about them as being devoted, above all, to their students. Jolley says his first priority is to philosophy itself. “I care about the discipline of philosophy more than the academic fate of any individual student — and I think I should,” he said. “Otherwise I’m just a baby sitter who occasionally breaks into syllogism.”

Jolley's notion that his philosophical endeavors in the classroom ought to be pitched to the best students rather than to average students is perhaps questionable. But his commitment to rigor is admirable. I, any event, admire his courage and his quite-literal idealism.

One has the sense or hope that Prof. Jolley thinks the "best" students are the most inquisitive. And with that thesis it is hard to disagree.

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One Trillion for Wall Steet but Not One Farthing for Social Security or Medicare?

Social Security is going bankrupt (it is said) and we can't continue down that path!

Medicare is going bankrupt (it is said) and we can't continue down that path!

Wall Street is going bankrupt (it is a fact) and we can't continue down that path. Throw the Street a trillion dollars! That'll fix things. But ... Social Security ... Medicare? Well...we can't afford such profligacy, now can we?

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The Nature of Visibility

The weather forecaster just said that it is a beautiful day and that "visibility is as far as the eye can see."

Well, gee, that's an interesting proposition. Or not?

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Freedom of the Press Russian Style

Philip P Pan, "Russian Activist Shot Dead By Police," washingtonpost.com (Sept. 1, 2008):

A leading opposition figure in Russia's volatile Ingushetia province was shot and killed Sunday after being detained by police, authorities said. His colleagues issued a call for protests in response, and human rights groups demanded an investigation.

Magomed Yevloyev, a businessman and the owner of a Web site that angered Kremlin-backed local leaders with its coverage of official corruption and police abuse, suffered a gunshot wound to his head while in a police car taking him to a station for interrogation, a spokesman for the Russian prosecutor's office told the Interfax news agency.

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258,000 houses destroyed by earthquake?

It appears that another terrible tragedy has taken place in Sichuan Province in the People's Republic of China. An earthquake has leveled 258,000 houses. So AP reports that Xinhua News Agency reported today.

But how did the Chinese news agency manage to come up with this large number just two days after the earthquake? Is there a chance it might be a bit high? A bit low? A bit too precise?

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Personality Cult

The country worries about Hillary Clinton's psyche. Or some of the country does. And HR Clinton seems to encourage us to worry about her psyche.

In some countries the public worries about the psyche of the Great Man. Now are to worry about the psyche of the Great Woman?

Disgusting. We've got more important things to worry about.

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What about MY Catharsis?

The NYTimes reports that "Mrs. Clinton is in the midst of a 'catharsis.'"

Well, I'm in a midst of a catharsis too. So why am I not getting press and media attention? Darned unfair, I say.

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Rembrandt in the New World

'Tis Time

Windows on Train Gateway to the New World

Ellis Island again

Gather While Ye May

Grass & Leaves in Late Summer in Liberty Park

By the Hudson in Late Summer

Soviet Man Spoke Russian

Not much has changed. I see that many people even in the American media are wont to refer to Ossetians and Abkhazians as "Russians." Of course, the Abkhaz and the Ossetians are not ethnic Russians. Stalin tended to deport people in order to do away with nationalist sentiments. Today Russia just reclassifies people; it gives them passports and calls them "Russians." (And if that doesn't work, the Russians like to obliterate the towns and the countryside that the offending populations inhabit. See, e.g., Grozny, Chechnya. Afterwards a democratic referendum is held [the dead do not have a vote] and peace is proclaimed.)

The Europeans have the right approach: let Czechoslavakia break into two countries and then invite both to join a truly transnational union. Of course, even the EU is not fully consistent. Witness its member states' treatment of, say, Basque nationalist sentiments. 

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Sixth Circle of Hades

As punishment for the attack on Georgia, Russia will be condemned, though not to the most nether regions of Hades, but at least to the near-nether regions:

...NATO foreign ministers were discussing possibly scaling back high-level meetings and military cooperation with Russia if it does not abandon crucial positions across Georgia.

Paul Ames, "NATO mulls closer ties with Georgia" (AP), The Guardian online

I imagine Putin will lose many sleepless nights over this terrible ignominy. No contact with the League of Nations! ... er ... NATO. How awful.

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What Is NATO Worth?

Never mind Georgia or Ukraine. Would NATO defend Poland or the Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania -- against a Russian military attack?

There is good reason to wonder.

The only real protection against Russian military aggression may be to live in the U.S.A. -- or in another country with its own "nuclear shield" -- or in a country such as Afghanistan. (China, for many reasons, is almost surely immune to Russian military aggression.)

Irredentism, it seems, is an ever-recurring human disease.

Is the life expectancy of a Russian male at birth still approximately 57 years? Ah, Russian imperial glory. Well, at least Russia still leads Zimbabwe in this respect. Or so one hopes.

But there is a bright lining to every dark cloud: the reconquest of Georgia would provide more real estate for dachas for Russian apparatchiks -- and, who knows?, it might lead to the birth of a new (Georgian? non-Georgian?) Stalin.

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Cityscape

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Woes of the World: Estimated Five Million "Easily"-Preventable Deaths in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the Last Decade

Sometimes massive human catastrophes are largely ignored by the world. See this BBC Story about the continuing human catastrophe in the DRC.




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The KGB in the 21st Century

What is the meaning of the KGB in the 21st century?

The KGB is crude, dirty, and violent.

Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent.

Perhaps Putin still is a KGB agent -- at least in spirit. But, if so, this KGB man wraps himself in religion.

The Russian state is Putin's god.

God (the real one) help us all!

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Summer in the City

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The (Grisly) Soviet Story

See The Soviet Story

&&&

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Summer Reflections, Jersey City 2008

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Summer 4

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Summer 3

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Summer 2

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Summer 1

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mccain quiddities

favors immigration reform, but opposes it

favors human rights, opposes torture, but opposes judicial protection of human rights

favors religious zealotry, but opposes it

opposes tax cuts, favors tax cuts

he's a man of principle, a maverick (he's from arizona, the land of mavericks, don't you know)

ah, yes, the steadfast principles of presidential aspirants




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obama babble

change, sure ... but ... money talks

i take your money to drive out money, to drive out monied special interests

trust me: i do it only for you (the people)

the people's money is pure, don't you know


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npr babble

npr living on earth bruce gellerman burble green burble biodiversity invasive species babble burble green ocean burble flood burble global warming burble too much rain floods global warming green desertification global warming cedar rapids burble ocean carbon consumption burble too hot babble too cold in iowa burble babble efficiency not nuclear burble buy local treat foreign peasant farmers fairly living on earth bruce gellerman burble babble



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Water and Buildings

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Einstein's Wisdom

Einstein reportedly said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible--but not simpler."

That Einstein fellah really was a genius.

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The Tragedy in Sichuan Province

A few years ago I spent a week in Chengdu at Sichuan University. My hosts there were generous and gracious. So I have a personal motivation for grieving over the massive destruction inflicted by the earthquake in Sichuan Province. The rescue efforts there by the Chinese are genuinely inspiring.

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Clinton, Obama, and Bob Barr

Clinton's overwhelming victory in West Virginia seems to bode ill for Obama in November. But Bob Barr's entry into the race may draw 5% or so of the votes in the general election and may doom McCain's chances of victory in states such as Texas.

It will be an interesting election.

I admire Barr's commitment to civil liberties, including the right of privacy and the Fourth Amendment. (But I couldn't vote for him; during his career he has taken some very unpleasant positions.)




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Underlawyered?

There was a fascinating article in the Japan Times online about the reason for having or not having many lawyers. See Colin P.A. Jones, "Law Schools Come under Friendly Fire," Japan Times online (Jan. 28, 2008). Among the points made by the protagonists in the debate (which takes the form of a debate about the number of persons who ought to be allowed to pass the annual bar exam) are the following:

The number of people allowed to pass the annual bar exam is fixed at an absolute number.

Japan's Justice Minister Hatoyama is challenging the current plan to increase the number of annual admittees from 1,500 to 3,000 by 2010.

My research shows that the current population of Japan is roughly 127,000,000.

Colin Jones, the author of the article, asserts that regional bar associations have joined the justice minister in questioning the planned increase in the number of planned admittees. He writes:

Unfortunately, in addition to these very valid criticisms, at least some of the bar association comments veer off into self-interest and self-importance, both justified by an alternative form of logic that only applies to protected industries. The Kanazawa Bar Association, for example, argues that more lawyers will result in (gasp!) greater competition. Facing increased competition, goes the logic, lawyers will have to focus increasingly on the grubby task of making money, losing the leisure that is apparently necessary to engage in advocacy for the public good (which is of course one of the mandates of lawyers everywhere). As a result, the number of immoral lawyers will increase as they take on bad, even hopeless, cases just to earn a living.

The pass rate on the annual bar exam was once 2-3%.

The author of the article -- a professor at Doshisha University Law School in Kyoto -- opines: "That the number of lawyers generated by the new law schools has become an issue already, when the impact so far is a relatively modest increase, reflects one of the core problems with the whole system — that it was apparently set up without a serious inquiry into what the average person actually needs out of Japan's legal system. Indeed, one fascinating aspect of the whole debate over the number of lawyers in Japan is that it misses a simple, basic fact — that the average Japanese person may not regard the legal system as a useful tool for solving problems. If you are arrested and prosecuted for a crime you will be found guilty over 99 percent of the time. If you get divorced and lose contact with your children, going to court probably won't change a thing. Lawsuits against the national government are shown to be losing propositions almost daily in the news. Small wonder then that Japanese people are averse to litigation, when it is so often proven to be futile."





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Spring 2

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Spring 1

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Canadian Robot Demands Respect

See here

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Tibet and the Baltic States

Gwynne Dyer, "No Tibetan independence," Japan Times Online (March 19, 2008):

The Chinese Communists seized power in 1949, and invaded Tibet the following year on the argument that "what was once ours is ours forever." So long as they hold power in Beijing, they will also hold Tibet — but an interesting analogy comes to mind. For the history of the Baltic states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — is not very different.

They fell under the rule of the expanding Russian empire in the 18th century, but regained their independence after revolution overthrew the tsarist regime in 1917. They lost it again when the Soviet Union invaded them in 1940 — but got it back when the communist regime in Moscow collapsed in 1991. And the main motive for their drive for independence was fear that their languages and cultures were being submerged by a wave of Russian immigrants.

As with the Baltic states, so too with Tibet. If there is ever a change of regime in Beijing, then a window of opportunity will open — and Tibet will have a couple of years to establish its independence before a new government emerges in Beijing that feels compelled to hold onto it in deference to Chinese nationalist sentiment. But that window is not open now.

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Evidence Is Messy

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The Study of Juristerei (or Legal Rigamarole) and Other Such Matters (even theology)

In Goethe's Faust Dr. Faust speaks the following lines when he first appears:

Habe nun, ach! Philosophie,

Juristerei und Medizin,

Und leider auch Theologie

Durchaus studiert, mit heißem Bemühn.

Da steh ich nun, ich armer Tor!

Und bin so klug als wie zuvor;

Heiße Magister, heiße Doktor gar

Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr

Herauf, herab und quer und krumm

Meine Schüler an der Nase herum-

Und sehe, daß wir nichts wissen können!

...

Bilde mir nicht ein, was Rechts zu wissen,

Bilde mir nicht ein, ich könnte was lehren,

Die Menschen zu bessern und zu bekehren.

A crude prose translation perhaps best conveys Faust's mood and sentiments:

Oh, I've studied -- thoroughly and passionately -- philosophy, law, and medicine -- and also, I'm sorry to say, even theology.

Now here I am, poor fool.

And I'm just as smart as I was before.

I'm called "master" and -- would you believe it -- even "doctor."

For ten years I've led my students around by their noses, up and down, this way and that.

And in the end I see that it is impossible to know anything.

...

I don't fool myself that I know what's right.

I don't fool myself that I could teach anything that would improve or reform mankind.

So the fellow turns to magic. Hmmm...





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Hillary Clinton's Kitchen Sink

Hillary Clinton vowed to throw the kitchen sink at Barack Obama.

Well, what would you do if you were the victim of a vast left-wing conspiracy?

A word to the wise: the above stuff is an attempt at humor.

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Ungeheures Ungeziefer: Eine wahre Erzaehlung!

Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt.

This is the famous opening sentence of Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung, or The Metamorphosis.

A rough and free-flowing translation:

When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from disturbing dreams he discovered that he had changed, in his bed, into an enormous insect-like creature.

Well, it turns out that this shocking story was true! See Mark Leyner, "A Bug's Life. Really," NYTimes (March 9, 2008):

In a scandal that’s sending shock waves through both the publishing industry and academia, the author Franz Kafka has been revealed to be a fraud.

"The Metamorphosis — purported to be the fictional account of a man who turns into a large cockroach — is actually non-fiction," according to a statement released by Mr. Kafka’s editor, who spoke only on the condition that he be identified as E.

"The story is true. Kafka simply wrote a completely verifiable, journalistic account of a neighbor by the name of Gregor Samsa who, because of some bizarre medical condition, turned into a 'monstrous vermin.' Kafka assured us that he’d made the whole thing up. We now know that to be completely false. The account is 100 percent true."

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Delta

Gamma

Beta

Alpha