Osler's Razor

Jonathan Swanburg: FromMalibuToWaco.blogspot.com

I do anything for prizes. I have an account full of WestLaw and Lexis points to prove it.
 

You don't have my real name over there.

Jeremy Masten: alicodreams.blogspot.com
 

Ah! Thank you Mr. "Alico Guy" Masten.
 

Professor Osler

Don't you think people would be more willing to vent about things that really are wrong with Baylor Law School and not just candy coat and pussyfoot if everyone wasnt scared of the backlash. People get community service for messing up and professors target students who stand up. Some things are wrong with the process and the programs but there is no forum to bluntly state what is wrong. Why must we wrap everything in the say two positives for ever negative. We are learning to become advocates and ethical lawyers. We are asked to stand up for the right thing but if we do that in law school there are repercussions. I do not condone anonymous blogging but don't you think the environment does not completely allow for honesty. How do you think Powell would treat a student, or other professors for that matter, who they found out were pointing out what was wrong with their attitude/teaching style and some of the inherent hypocrisy in things they say? I would like to see a Blog post to that. Blogs are fun and funny but don't you think there is sometimes a need to say things anonymously until the environment allows, or at least tolerates, dissent?
 

echo?
 

James Close:
stratomaster82.blogspot.com

I'm all about prizes...
 

Stephen Baker
stepbaker.livejournal.com

Obviously, I lack creativity. But I do like prizes.

I hope it's a pony.
 

Anon 7:22--

I thought I had responded to you earlier, but it didn't appear. Maybe that was a message to me from the ghosts of the internet. But I will do so again, with a more charitable spirit, perhaps.

Part of me agrees with you. I'm a dissenter and iconoclast by nature; I'm sure many of my professors did not enjoy having me as a student. And, yes, we have some issues to address at Baylor Law School-- we really need to work on some things, and one of them is an open dialogue. We need to hear what students think. Also, I have posted on message boards regarding University politics in the past using a psuedonym (though people knew who I was), so I can't condemn all uses of anonymity without being a hypocrit myself.

But, it does mean something that this discussion is within a law school-- as you put it, that you are "learning to become advocates and ethical lawyers." Law is not a profession that allows for anonymity-- you can't wear a bag on your head in court, or tell your clients you can't reveal your identity. What this means is that to be successful, you have to learn exactly the skills you disdain-- yes, sometimes you have to wrap every negative in two positives to allow the focus be on what you want changed. Passion is part of the best advocates, but "venting" is rarely a part of successful practice. So, for this forum, I would hope that people will use their real names. One of the results is that there will be advocacy, I hope, and that there will also be discretion.

I think you ask a good question, and I admire you for posing it. Your identification of the underlying problems is probably correct, but the solution is not going to be people venting on the internet under pseudonyms.
 

If you're going to censor whose blogs you will allow on this post, at least change the title of your post to "Calling all blogs, except for the ones I don't approve of"
 

I think the post made it pretty clear that I'm not going to help or advertise anonymous venting. I don't think that is a good thing.
 

I guess the marketplace of ideas is just a fantasy.
 

If you think my blog is a place to advertise an anonymous blog designed expressly to say bad things without attribution about a school I really care about, yeah-- I won't be a marketplace for your ideas.
 

Who said anything about anonymous blogging? I care about the school as well. I want those who follow after me to have a better---not the same---experience.
 

Non-bloggers aren't eligible for prizes?

-B
 

B--

I suppose I need to work out the prize rules. Perhaps I will get a student to write two pages of small print.

I am stockpiling some stuff (Bates photo, Stuckey's Pecan Log, etc.) as prizes.
 

Mark,
I pulled down my short lived blog. You're probably right, anonymous venting isn't going to change anything. And you're not the problem anyway.
 

Clearly, I need to stop doing homework. Every time I do, I miss an entire blogging disaster, and that's just not okay.

Rebecca Griffin, aka "I should stop doing this before PC, but I probably won't"
ladybird45.livejournal.com
 

I am Bradley Thomas, but I think you already know that. Will I get disqualified if I write a sonnet instead of a haiku?
 

Anonymous belly-aching should probably only be used as a last ditch effort when nothing else works. If students have problems with specific professors in the law school, I would bet that they could discuss that with other professors who are already professional mediators. But just belly-aching because you were treated badly is not a solution. I agree with the Razor, anonymity is not the solution. Take for example his pseudo-biography material (that was pseudo-biography, wasn't it?). Since everyone knew he wrote it, everyone also knew his was doing some real leg-pulling--for fun. If he had written that stuff anonymously, the objects of his satire might not have taken it as "just for fun."

Now, I've written several haikus but I haven't heard anything about prize winners. What's up with that? I'd love to have a pecan log from Stuckeys. Or even the photo of Bates! Rumor has it that next week's prize is a genuine imitation rawhide whip from the Texas Rangers museum. Can you please verify that rumor?
 

2:09-- Thanks. I never took anything people said as a criticism of me in a personal way. If there are problems, there should be a way that we find out about it, and that underlying point is correct.

Medievalist-- I haven't done prizes before. But, yeah, the whip is my ideal.
 

Ryan Latham
lindorama.blogspot.com
1Q currently transforming from travel blog to law blog

Watch out, my haikus
Sure do kick a lot of ass
Or so my mom says.
 

hatchets-up
I will be making this into a law blog in Feb. when I join the Spring class...until then, it will be about my life preparing for law school and living in the real world. Am I eligible for the prize?
 

Oh, my real name is Angela Hackett.
 

Well, yes, Ms. Hackett, if you write some haiku on Friday! We here at the Razor owe your employer (Henry Wright) a huge debt of gratitude for starting the entire Family Circus/random quote spasm that led to some excellent material around here.
 

Justin Scott

justinscott.blogspot.com

I need that framed photo of Bates. I would request that it is one of him in that collared shirt from last Friday just so I can have photographic proof.