Osler's Razor

It's a rainy Saturday morning in Waco. I'm sitting at the kitchen counter, looking at the red leaves and the damp, and thinking about the week we have had, in which the 100:1 ratio between powder and crack cocaine fell apart. Getting to this point was a big part of my life's work for the past seven years, and now we have won.

In the course of my work on the issue, I wrote six amicus briefs. My small group of amici included Graham Boyd's Drug Law Reform Project and Doug Berman of Ohio State. Both Graham and Doug were on NPR and quoted in a front-page story in the New York Times this week, and in Newsweek, Graham even compared Kimbrough to Brown v. Board of Education. I would probably agree with Doug that such a comparison is an overstatement, but yet I don't doubt that this might be as close as I ever get to changing the world.

While they were talking to the press on Monday, I was critiquing voir dire exercises down in our courtrooms. There is a part of me that would love to be in the Times and on NPR as a part of this, but then I remember what I teach my own students. I show them the painting above, Degas' "At The Milliner." There are two women; one is buying a hat while the other is placing it on her head. The woman in the foreground is fully formed and in the light; she will wear the hat and be complimented on its beauty. In the background, the milliner is in the shadows. She made the hat, chose it for this customer, brought it out, but will not be there when it goes out into society to hear the compliments. I tell the students that the lawyer is not the customer, but the milliner.

It's a good lesson. I left work yesterday about 4 and went over to Crickets to practice foosball with Prof. Bates. I got a table and some quarters. A few of our students came in and practiced against us; we laughed and told stories and watched that old Bates magic at work. On the way out I saw one of my old students, Seth Sutton. He's a big guy, so he could reach through the crowd and ask "How's it going?"

"Pretty well, Seth, pretty well," I answered. It may be the truest thing I ever said.

We made a good hat.