Osler's Razor

I don't know where anonymous has been:

Far from the city lights
Stars hang like sparkly jewels
Silent serenity.

"Wheee.....Let's go fast!"
Disrupting the stately elders
As it shoots past.

… but it sounds like the same place that Sleepy Walleye hangs out:

At the water's edge
We ponder the infinite
And swat mosquitos.

Last weekend, Florida State criminal law professor Dan Markel answered the door of his home in Tallahassee and was shot to death.  He was 41 years old and the father of two young boys, well-liked at his school and his synagogue.

I had met Dan, but didn't know him, really.  I certainly knew his work, which was compelling and well-considered.  He mostly wrote about retribution theory, and much of what I know about that topic is from his articles.

Though I didn't know Dan the way others did (even at St. Thomas, where he had many friends on the faculty), his death has been at the top of my mind all week.   Yes, yes, I know-- people get shot every day, and a disproportionate amount of media time is spent when a relatively affluent white guy is the victim.  Still, there is something about this case, this life and death, that is especially grueling to me.

Whoever shot Dan Markel (or hired someone to do so) must have been full of terrible emotions-- hate, vengeance, anger.  More than anything, tragedies like this pull me towards those who are gentle of spirit.  That is, at its best, what faith and communities of faith provide.  Faith cannot provide an answer for the question "why?" when something so brutal has happened.  It can, though, offer the too-often-unrealized hope of a time and place where this kind of hate, vengeance, and anger are absent.

Doesn't it seem a little like things are going wrong all over?  The longest-term issue may be the multi-faceted one that is developing in the Middle East, with Israel and the West Bank at war again, ISIS on the move in Syria and Iraq, and instability abounding elsewhere.  Then we have the situation in Ukraine, which could take a turn for the worse, and there are planes crashing all over-- three in the last week or so.

I'm not sure why, but it seems like many years there is a news cycle like this in late July/early August.  The calmest month?  Maybe October… and I'm not sure why.

I've lived in very different places-- Michigan, Texas, and Minnesota, mostly-- and the summer skies are so different in each.  In Michigan, it can be heavy, laden with moisture.  In Texas, there was that big sky-- encompassing, magical, and unmistakeable.  Here in Minnesota, summer skies can be gentle in the day (the sun is not too harsh), but at night it is very different as the stars take over the sky, or even the northern lights.

That's kind of a vague haiku topic, huh?  But it can work… let's just say you can haiku about whatever it is you do under that sky.  Here is mine:

Backs on the green grass
The berm along Lake St. Clair;
Slow clouds and freighters.

Now it is your turn… use the 5/7/5 syllable formula, and have some fun with it!

Things I will only eat in the summer:

BUT, there is still a lot I don't understand.  Including all of the following:

-- Dangling participles
-- Who and Whom
-- Prepositions (really, I have no idea what they are)
-- Oxford commas
-- Syntax (I don't even know what that is)

Finally, I'm most disturbed by the brief appearance of Clippy in this video...

You know what I liked?  This haiku by the Medievalist, on the topic of "old friends."  It just seemed very real... a recollection of a perfect, small moment:

Jumping off a wall,
Another cup of coffee,
Shadows of things past.

Jessica's was heartbreaking or sweet, or both:

His leaving almost
Killed me. Not from loneliness
But loving him more.

But Susan's was just heartbreaking:

First friend and first love,
We did did so much together.
Then you went and died.

Every once in a while you get a tiny bit of something just right.

This week, I felt that.  I spent most of my week in DC, training over 600 lawyers to handle clemency petitions for the Clemency Project 2014.   It was grueling and emotional-- we were trying to teach a very diverse group of people, ranging from experienced federal defenders to beginning associates at big law firms.  My colleagues in the project were wonderful, but the challenge was great.  If we do it right, hundreds or thousands of people will go free from prison having served a decade or more for non-violent offenses, and hundreds of millions of dollars will be saved.  It is something I have advocated for since 2009.  This is our chance, and the window may not be open for long.

Not all of what I did was great, or even good.  I should have put less text on my slides, I should have practiced more, I told a dumb joke about pumpkins.  I can be pretty awkward when I teach.

At the end of the two days, though,  I was answering questions from people in our audience that had been printed out.  The one I was answering asked about complex cases, and I addressed the discrete question.  But then I felt something bigger had to be said.  There was a camera recording it all and sending the images to screens, and I looked up to it, stopped for a moment, and then said something my students have heard me say before:  That tragedy is always complex, and that criminal law is all tragedy, every bit of it, and that is why it matters so much, why this matters so much; there is no simple tragedy.  And then I stopped, because the same instinct that told me to speak then told me to stop.

There is a lot more to do.  This is not a summer of rest.  But that one tiny bit?  I got that right.

I am doing what I most wish I could.  And I realize how rare and precious that is.

Guess who is visiting Minneapolis this weekend?  That's right-- it is America's favorite competitive eater/federal prosecutor, Gordon Davenport!

As a result, I'm making a LOT of hamburgers.  A lot.  After all, I have seen Gordon do some serious eating.

It will be great to see him again, of course.  That's the way it is with old friends.  Let's haiku about that this week…

Here, I will go first:

He is in my tests
As "Glorbon Dandyport," Esq.
Hunting down crime guys!

Now it is your turn-- just think about an old friend, of whatever type, and convert those thoughts into 5 syllables for a first line, 7 for the second, and five for the third...

The news lately has been largely focus on the arrival of thousands of undocumented children who have crossed the Southern border.  As followers of the blog know, I am not adverse to a consistent and relatively strict border policy; I think that open immigration keeps wage down.

However, this is a different scenario.  Children from Central America are the ones crossing the border, rather than adults.  It appears that they have been sent by their families to the United States, in some (but certainly not all) instances to avoid the violence of their home countries. 

What do you think the United States' response should be?

I watched the World Cup final on Sunday (I didn't think it was exciting as some others did, apparently), and now I'm left wondering how it went by so fast.

I'm not the world's biggest sports fan (and my timing is bad-- I had Baylor season tickets from 2001-2010), but sometimes for special events I get totally hooked.  This is especially true for the World Cup and the Olympics.  I say I won't do it, but then I suddenly care a lot about an octafinal  game between Chile and Cote d'Ivoire. 

And then it ends, and I feel a loss... like there is something missing from my week.  I know RRL or someone will tell me to watch English league games, but Everton United v. the Chipbury Rangers just isn't the same.  Plus, it seems to go on all year, judging by the fanatics I see over at Britt's.

Does anyone have a good idea on how I can fill the void?

I always like haiku that messes with the form a little, or adds a gentle twist to the topic.  Renee is a master of this-- how many times have I learned something new from her take?

Last week, the topic was "by the water," but Christine gave it that subtle twist by making it "in the water."  That wasn't just clever, it was genuine-- she's a swimmer:

I was fascinated by this story in the Waco Tribune-Herald, describing how the little town of West, which is 15 minutes north of Waco, successfully fought off Wal-Mart, who wanted to locate a store there.  From the story:

The West City Council heard mostly negative comment in a public meeting Monday on annexing the 10-acre tract at Playdium Drive and Oak Street, though the council itself did not discuss or vote on the issue.

Among the concerns were that a Walmart, even a small one, could undermine local businesses such as pharmacies, auto parts stores and grocery stores.

Kirk Wines, owner of the Old Corner Drug Store at Oak and Main Streets, was among the opponents.

“I told the council, ‘I realize it’s not your job to protect my business, but I don’t feel it’s good for the city,’ ” he said. “You’re going to lose your downtown businesses. Is that good for the city?”

When did West become part of Vermont?  I totally understand the position, and agree with the objectors in that the Wal-Mart probably would have killed off downtown, but it's the last place I expected that outcome...

A lot of people have asked me for a response to the Hobby Lobby decision last week, in which the Supreme Court interpreted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to protect the owners of closely-held companies in their efforts to keep some types of contraception out of company health plans.

A big part of my response is that I find it hard to care very much about this issue.  I think affordable contraceptives should be widely available, so it's unfortunate this makes that less true for a relatively small number of people-- but they weren't getting subsidized contraceptives before.  The "religious freedom" issue seems pretty insignificant, too-- given that the company's investments included the manufacturers of the same devices they sought to exclude; obviously, they weren't super-vigilant on this issue.

I thought D.J. Tice made some great points about all this in his opinion piece in last Sunday's Star Tribune:

I was nosing around for highlights of yesterday's World Cup blowout between Germany and Brazil-- a 7-1 disaster for the home squad-- when I came across this:



"Hey!" I thought as I watched, "That's the Spanish Medievalist!"  And so it is:



I've always been fond of the Medievalist and his catchphrase, "Nice job."  I think it should work quite well with his new career as a soccer announcer….