Osler's Razor

So, if you would like to see my interview from Thursday night on Al Jazeera, it is now online here.  Oddly, they seem to jump-cut a lot from me to some guys smoking a bong.  Sigh.

If that isn't weird enough for you, check out these fascinating commercials Bob Darden shared with me:

Last night I was at the Minnesota Gophers-UNLV game as the sun was going down... just a beautiful end-of-summer evening.  Then I went downtown to do an interview with Al Jazeera America about the DOJ's views on marijuana legalization, and as I was waiting in the green room I found myself thinking not about narcotics policy, but about what a great time of year this is.  I've spent most of my life attending or working at schools, and the academic calendar is etched in my heart.  This is the start of the year, a new beginning.  It is just about my favorite time of the year.

Part of what defines it is the annual ritual of getting school supplies-- and yes, I do restock for my own purposes at this time of year.  I love the stacks of notebooks and pencils, the backpacks ready to be hauled to a locker, the shiny pens and tape dispensers.

Let's haiku about them today.  I'll go first:

Yearly ritual:
Buying a new protractor.
But... what does it do?

Seriously, I still don't know.  Yet, I feel like buying one.

Now, you go.  Use the 5 syllable/7 syllable/5 syllable formula, please.  I think this will bring out some great work... or at least some decent nostalgia.

It appears that we are coming up on Fashion Week in New York soon, meaning that we will be treated to a parade of emaciated models wearing clothes that no one in the real world wears while bored-looking celebrities look on.

Could someone please explain to me what social utility this event has?  It seems morally caustic-- making people feel like they aren't skinny enough, that clothes are meant to be about the maker, not the wearer, and that what a small cabal of people from New York feel is attractive is, necessarily, attractive.

The Dorothea Lange photo pictured above features many of the same elements you will see in pictures from fashion week.  The thinness of the model, the shape of what she is wearing, even her expression will be echoed by the models on the runway in New York.  This picture, though, the one above, is of a starving girl.

Of course, the ones from fashion week are, too.  And what, exactly, is so great about that?

A few years ago, I had a remarkable day in Detroit.

I had two things on my plate:  First, I was to do a little research for Bob Darden, and then I was supposed to have lunch with Judge Avern Cohn.

Bob was working on his book about gospel music and the civil rights movement, and had a particular request.  The week before his "I Have a Dream" speech in DC, Martin Luther King had given a similar speech in Detroit.  Bob wanted to know who the gospel singers were who sang before the speech, and what songs they had sung.

I went down to what remains of the Detroit Public Library downtown, and went to the room where they store microfiche of the black newspapers.  I dug around and found remarkable reports of that day-- the astonishing speech, the crowds, the sense of change.  I made some copies for Bob, and became so lost in the project that I almost forgot about my lunch.

A little late, I raced down to the courthouse and up to Judge Cohn's chambers.  He greeted me warmly, and I told him about my project at the library.

He smiled and laughed, reached behind him and took a framed photo off the shelf.  It was a remarkable photo.  He was there with King, walking down Woodward Avenue, as the crowds followed.

I looked at the picture incredulously as he gathered his things to go.

What history are we witness to?  Are there still those moments?

I love my dad.
I also loved his haiku this week (the theme was "beauty"):

The plastic bottle
rolled up against the curb 
into a ray of light

the man sitting on
that same curb smiled and said
life is beautiful.

Meanwhile, I really want to meet the people Renee has been writing about!

My segment starts at about 6:30....

Last November, I posted a story about one of my most important teachers, Dr. Joanne Braxton of William and Mary.  A few months later, I was surprised and very happy to get a message from Prof. Braxton, who had stumbled across the post.  We began to correspond, and last March I traveled back to Williamsburg.  Professor Braxton had invited me to speak to her class and give a sermon in William and Mary's historic Wren Chapel.

It was a remarkable trip.  Prof. Braxton was a powerful formative influence on me in a variety of ways, and the idea of teaching and preaching with her was thrilling and a little intimidating.

I needn't have worried.

On Sunday, I met her before the service, and the connection was recast.  She explained the liturgy, but I had no idea of what was to come.


The Wren Chapel, miraculously, held a variety of people from different points in my life-- Prof. Braxton, Tom Stanton from Waco, Laurie Smith Dowdesdell, Craig Anderson, George Greenia, and others.  It was the single most moving service I have been a part of, and my sermon was only a small part of it.  Collaborating with Prof. Braxton was one of the greatest honors of my life.  Remembering that morning still makes me smile with joy.

The next day, I was to speak to her advanced writing class.  Prior to the beginning of the class, we met briefly in her office.  She carefully pulled something out of a drawer and with the tips of her fingers pushed it to me as if it were a jewel.  It was a book, a slim volume:  Ernest J. Gaines's "A Lesson Before Dying."  It was just that, only that, a paperback book, but that was everything; because to the people who know me, there is no gift quite like the exactly right book.

Gaines's story revolves around a man condemned to die and the teacher who somewhat reluctantly reaches out to him on death row.

Why was this the exactly right book?  In part, because of its darkness.  It is all tragedy, every bit of it, and my students know well that this is precisely how I describe the enterprise of criminal law. I have never before found a story that embodies that belief of mine as completely as this one.  The stark lines of race that too often divide us (not only physically and politically, but even in terms of how we see the same event) were also clearly drawn, much as they have been in my own life.

Also, though, it was exactly right because of the hope it conveyed.  In a broad arc, yes, the hope that people can change, even those who are most oppressed and seemingly hopeless.  In a sharper way, there is also hope that societies can change, and that people like me can sometimes cross over from one side to the other, painful as that is, to challenge systems that cause harm.

Finally, too, there was faith.  The teacher Gaines imagined into being was challenged in his faith the way I sometimes am, as the brokenness and unfairnesses of the world create doubt that a loving God exists.

When I was done with the book, I sat quietly and held it in my hand, this precious gift, chosen so well and carefully.   I was thankful, as I too rarely am.  Teachers, the best ones, can move us that way.

 

More myth than thing
Even here, among eagles,
They are the ghosts
In stories and sounds.

I did see one once,
I saw it swimming
(Swimming!)
From island to shore
It shook itself dry.

They shot that one.

It got too close to a cabin,
They do that, I guess,
We do fear the ghosts
When they get too near.

Things continue to get worse in Syria as rebels fight against the longstanding Assad government there.  The latest reports are that the government has used poison gas against its citizens.  The rebels seem to be no angels, either; their ranks include Islamic extremists who have executed prisoners of war.

The hard question is this:  What should the United States do?

Doing anything, of course is predicated on which side you choose to support-- the Assad government or the rebels.

Naturally, I throw these two questions over to you:  First, which side should we support (if any), and second, what should we do?

Once I heard him pause
A full beat, silence
Not for drama
But uncertainty.

I stopped my car
went silent myself
What would come next?
But no waver lingered.

But for that one moment...
I kind of liked him.

... and all (except one) were really good.

Can you guess which one I didn't like?

And which did YOU like?

Next week, on Sunday, I will write about a book that Prof. Joanne Braxton gave me, Ernest J. Gaines's "A Lesson Before Dying."  It is about a man in prison, condemned to die.  It is set in a time when  black Americans saw Joe Louis, the boxer from Detroit, as the kind of hero we find hard to imagine anymore.

In one of the more painful passages of the book, Gaines describes a young man about to be executed:

And my mind went back to that cell uptown, then to another cell, somewhere in Florida.  After reading about the execution there, I had dreamed about it over and over and over.  As vividly as if I were there, I had seen that cell, heard that boy crying while being dragged to that chair, "Please, Joe Louis, help me.  Please help me.  Help me."  And after he had been strapped in the chair, the man who wrote the story could still hear him cry "Mr. Joe Louis help me, Mr. Joe Louis help me."

I'm no Joe Louis, but we have one thing in common.

I was gone this summer, and my mail piled up.  I have spent part of this week sorting through it all, and there is one large pile of similar letters.  I get them often.  They are in white rectangular envelopes, with neat pencil addresses on the front:

"Dr. Mark Osler, Professor of Law"
"Prof. Mark Osler, Lawyer"
"Professor Mark Osler, Esq."

Inside, carefully handwritten, is a story.  It is always a tragic story.  They are from men, and sometimes women, who are in prison for life or a very long term.  They have exhausted their appeals.  They have no more hope through a habeas petition.  So they write to me.  They think I will know a way to get them out of prison, after 20 or 27 or 35 years there for a narcotics case no one but them remembers.

Sometimes, the letter is not from a prisoner.  It is from a wife who has been alone those 20 years, or a despairing sister, or a pastor who has seen too many families dissolve.

They often begin their letter by explaining why they chose me to write to.  Sometimes, often, they have read something I have written, something like the things I wrote in the past week.  Other times, they know someone our clinic has helped.  More often than I am comfortable with, they say "I know you are a Christian man...."

I can't help them, usually, not in the way they want.  The answer is nearly always "no."

It is a compliment, I suppose, that they write to me, but the appearance of these letters fill me with dread.  It is exhausting, emotionally, to read the stories, even to see the painstaking handwriting or the row of stamps purchased with prison wages of 45 cents an hour.  I feel guilty just to hold them in my hand.

I am about as much good to nearly all of them as Joe Louis was to the young man being strapped to that chair.

Or, maybe not.

Maybe, if we keep fighting there will be a change, a movement towards mercy, towards the good, a reform of what clemency means.  Perhaps we can win at wholesale what I cannot give them at retail.  Maybe.  There is some bit of hope.  Maybe.

Still, every stamp hurts my soul.  I need grace to open my mail.  I need forgiveness to get through the day.  It is never enough.  My words are never enough, and I always know that the next day, the nest week, there will be another letter addressed to me in neat pencil letters because the river of tragedy will flow and flow and flow.

.... is a new piece I did about the Holder speech.

In a week in which it felt like I didn't get much done, I did get a lot of writing out there:  this piece, one on MSNBC, and another in the Waco Tribune Herald on sentencing, and the article about Jesus on the Huffington Post.

Jesus and sentencing... what a weird career.

I re-watched some of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" yesterday, and once again admired Cameron's house, the glass-box-in-the-woods classic.

Well... it is for sale!  The price is now down to $1.5 million, Ferrari not included.

Hello, Haiku friends!  This week, let's write about trips to Europe-- the ones you've had, the ones you hope to have, or the ones you don't want at all.

I'm not sure why the trip to Europe so captures the hearts of Americans, but there can be no doubt that it does.

Here, I will go first:

Bought a guide:  "Let's Go!"
Got it used, dated '02,
Turns out, things do change!

Now it is your turn!  Use the 5/7/5 syllable format, and have fun!

.... my take on the whole "Millennials are leaving the church!" debate, Five Reasons Jesus is a Millennial.

This may be way more exciting for sentencing geeks than everyone else, but Eric Holder gave a remarkable speech on Monday at the ABA convention.  Some of my thoughts about it are in this new piece over at MSNBC.

Here was the part that jumped out at me the most:


Wow!  It's like something I would write.  Or, did write at various times, as did a lot of other people.

Sadly, though, this passage was not followed by it's logical successor:  The announcement of a broad commutation for those who have been over-sentenced for narcotics.  DOJ is going to give prosecutors more leeway to avoid mandatory minimums, but they already have this in many cases through the "safety valve" provision in 18 U.S.C. 3553(f).

I hope that the Holder speech was the start of a new project based on the concern he expressed so eloquently, not the end of one.

Am I being too optimistic in hoping for and expecting more in the coming days and weeks?

The angel is delivering good and terrifying news...

Sure we all know who won the NCAA basketball and football championships, but what about all of those other sports?  Let's check out a few:

Women's Bowling:  Your 2013 National champion was the University of Nebraska!  They ended the two-year reign of Maryland-Eastern Shore, which had inexplicably dominated the sport.

Field Hockey:  This is a fall sport, so we have to go back to 2012 to find our defending Div. 1 champion, which is... Princeton!  Pretty good for a school with no athletic scholarships.  They ended the two-year reign of the University of Maryland, which is probably some satellite campus of Maryland-Eastern Shore.

Fencing:  The 2013 champion was Princeton, finishing just ahead of Notre Dame.  Why haven't I heard of this school before?  They appear to be really good at sports!

Squash:  The Harvard women won a squeaker over Trinity, but in the Men's division it was all Trinity! I think there are 9 or 10 Trinity Colleges in the US, but I'm pretty sure it is the one in Connecticut that is pretty good at squash.

Men's Golf:  Alabama!  Bet you didn't see that coming.

Rifle:  West Virginia over Kentucky.  Which kind of makes sense, right?

Skiing:  Colorado won, and the championships were held at Middlebury, which has the cutest little ski area ever!

Women's Rowing (Heavyweight 8):  Yeah, there really is a sport where women are called "heavyweight."  Anyways, UVA is the defending champion, though Brown usually seems to win.

Men's Volleyball:  UC Irvine is your defending champ.  Go Anteaters!

If you haven't been following the news too closely, you may have missed the recent reports on closures of US embassies in the middle east, based on reported terrorist threats from an Al Queda affiliate.

There hasn't been much information made public about what the threats are, but it is deeply unsettling, in two respects.  First, the bare fact of the threats and what they might mean.  Second, the fact that we can know there is a danger without quite knowing what it is.  War has become very gray that way, hasn't it?

What intriguing haikus on internships.  Of them all, this one by Renee most made see something differently:

This fall I'll be teaching Sentencing and my clinic, both of which I love.  In addition, I have a lot of other stuff to do. Here is the schedule:

9/22:  Sermon, First Covenant Church, Minneapolis MN

Over the years, most of us have had an internship of one kind or another.  They make for some weird, weird lessons.  Let's haiku about those today!  If you didn't have an internship, you can haiku about your first paid job (which probably worked much the same way).  Or, fantasize about an internship with IPLawGuy (if that is your kind of thing).

Here is mine:

CTL, intern
Made both copies and a bomb--
That is real talent!

Now it is your turn.... the formula is 5 syllables/7/5, and have some fun!

Rick Perry seems intrigued by the idea.
RRL (he's a partner at a large law firm who is also very conservative) likes it.
IPLawGuy has always been a supporter.
The Paper even suggested that it may have already started without us noticing.

So... should Texas secede from the U.S.?