Osler's Razor

Houston is under water again-- another storm, more floods.

Water is a tricky thing. Too little can be fatal, and so can too much. The Bible is full of water stories: the flood, of course, and baptism, and Jesus walking on it, and all of the fishing-- quite a bit of water for stories set in the desert.

I suppose that there is a subtle message in all of this: the things that sustain you can kill you, too.  It's an unsettling message, isn't it? 

I know, I know-- it's not nice to dime out your friends... but it's pretty clear that the guy involved in the attempted robbery, pictured at right, looks exactly like IPLawGuy.  He even has that exact outfit, which he wears for formal events at his law firm.

However, I have never seen that shark before.

Crime is a constant, even as rates ebb and flow. Some of us have committed them, some have been victims, some just saw movies about it, but at one time or another we all think about it. Let's haiku about that this week!

Here, I will go first:

Someone stole my tapes!
But only took some of them.
Feel a bit judged.

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

In the continuing march towards dispensing with every principle they ever stood for (ie, vigilant national defense, attention to deficits, personal liberty, actually conserving things, etc. etc. etc.) Republican leaders now seem to be totally dispensing with federalism.

The latest affront is President Trump's apparent plan to swoop in to remove homeless people from the streets of California cities, and to prevent that state from enforcing environmental standards. I frankly have no idea what semblance of federal authority could even arguably be said to support the incipient plan to move homeless people to an aircraft hangar-- but that doesn't appear to be a part of the calculus.

I'm not a Republican, but there were many Republicans I respected; they had principles. Not always the same ones I have, but I could work with that.  (After all, Democrats have some principles I don't agree with, either).  What I see now, though, is just brute partisanship.

Seriously-- what might the current guiding principles be for this Republican party?

I suppose the closest we can come to a guiding light is the mantra of "America First," which at least ties together two courses of action: anti-immigrant policies, and restrictive trade policies. But is that it?

On Wednesdays, I am profiling my fellow classmates from my law school class-- I want people to know about the remarkable people in that group other than the one who is in the news again. This week it is the memorable Judith Sandalow.

Judith Sandalow came to law school with a lot of tools some of us (me) lacked: confidence and a sense of mission. Those of us who knew her learned from her as much as we did some of the professors-- and she was a major factor in my maturing as a conscientious adult. In our third year, we were chosen (along with one second-year) to go on a tour of rural Alabama and then address the Alabama Judges' conference in Tuscaloosa. We were sent on this mission by Dan Freed, the professor who set me on my life work in sentencing. The trip was a blast. If you really want to get to know someone, drive around Alabama for a while. And it was a great thing to get to know Judith.

After law school, Judith had a laser focus on a crucial issue: legal representation of children. She started with a fellowship at Georgetown in juvenile justice, and then started her own juvenile justice clinic through an organization called DC Law Students in Court.

In the year 2000, she became the Executive Director of the Children's Law Center in DC. At the time she took the post, the Center had a staff of three. Now, it has a staff of 90 and helps more than 5,000 students in DC every year.  She is one of the nation's leading experts in the field, and has mentored an accomplished group of younger lawyers.

One of the things Judith has brought to the fore is the connection between poverty and the suffering of children. It's an important issue-- and one that many of us would rather not see or think about. That is why a public conscience like Judith is so important: she and people like her make us see what otherwise might be hidden.

Every week I get lots of mail, but I don't always have time to read it. Yesterday was a day to get caught up, and I had a big boxful that had built up from the start of the month.

Much of it was from prison. I read those first; after all, someone had to work for four hours at a prison job just for the stamps they put on the envelope. There were 16 letters from prison this time around.

Previously, most of that mail was from people who wanted me to take their clemency case for my clinic: assign a student, learn their story, and tell it in the confines of the petition form. That's not true anymore. Now, the mail falls into three groups. The smallest group, actually, is from people who want us to prepare a petition for them.

The largest group is from people who are asking "what is going on?" Usually, they filed a petition three or four years ago, and have heard nothing. Or they filed a motion under the First Step Act and have heard nothing. Or they did both and have heard nothing. It's a sad commentary on how things are going-- basically, it is stuck. There is a huge backlog of clemency petitions, and the administration is neither granting or denying them.  They are just being ignored.

The second largest group are from people who want me to connect them to someone else-- usually Kim Kardashian ("or any Kardashian" as one writer put it today) or Shon Hopwood. There is a belief out there that KK can have any petition for clemency granted, but that is based on a sample size of one (Alice Johnson, pictured above with KK and Nkechi Taifa).  No one else has been released under clemency based on a Kardashian-- the real route to success with this administration is to be featured on Fox News.

It needs to change. We need a better process. President Trump would be wise to make that change. Democrats challenging him are wise to promise that they will. And in the meantime, people--many of them as good and whole as Alice Johnson-- will wait.

Good haiku! We had this from the Medievalist:

Courthouse, Middlebury,
"No parking! And this means you!"
I parked elsewhere.

And this from IPLawGuy (who I am pretty sure did NOT heed the message):

Mother's Day warning:
"Drive Like Your Mom is Watching"
on I-95.

Two of my sharper political friends, Ron Fournier and IPLawGuy, agree on something important: that  Democrats need to remember that we are still in a "change" election cycle, and that they lost last time with a status quo candidate. A "change" candidate does not have to be radical-- Pete Buttigieg seems both moderate and to be a "change" candidate, for example.

IPLawGuy called me as he was driving down the Eastern Shore with the top down in his unrestored 1971 Mustang.  "They're going to do it again!" he yelled over the wind noise and, apparently, rain.  I think he meant that the Democrats were going to nominate Biden.

In recent years, both Republicans and Democrats win with change agents--particularly those from outside the beltway-- and lose with status quo candidates.

Ron had this great observation on Twitter:

‘92: Change agent wins (Clinton) ‘96: Re-elected vs status quo foe (Dole) ‘00: Change agent wins (Bush) ‘04: Re-elected vs status quo foe (Kerry) ‘08: Change agent wins (Obama) ‘12: Re-elected vs status quo foe (Romney) ‘16: Change agent wins (Trump) ‘20: You decide!

 Signs are supposed to clear things up, but that isn't always the case. Small towns, especially, have signs that are funny-- sometimes on purpose, sometimes not.  Let's haiku about those this week!

A sign in Waco
Promised "Colon Massage."
Not interested!

Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable pattern, and have some fun!

We seem to be entering a political season of rage. Largely fueled by President Trump's preferred campaign tactic of denigrating his opponents (and sometimes his own allies) in the coarsest ways, we too often see things as Us vs. Them.

In truth, if we are honest, there are always points of agreement.

It's no secret that I am a Democrat who did not vote for Donald Trump. I'm genuinely excited by the talented field of Democrats running for president. Still, there are things that I agree with Donald Trump about, even as I strongly disagree with him on climate change and the environment, taxes, health care, and many other issues. Here are those points of agreement (besides his signing of the First Step Act, which I have already discussed):

1)  Involvement in foreign conflicts

Donald Trump campaigned on avoiding wars like the one we started in Iraq. In office, he has generally followed through on that, and we have not become entangled in conflicts abroad. I'm glad for that. I want the United States to have less of a military presence abroad, and to have much less involvement in other countries' civil wars.

2)  Trade imbalances

I share Trump's concern that fewer consumer goods are manufactured in the United States than were made here forty years ago. I also agree with his point that good jobs and good wages in industrial jobs were lost because of NAFTA and granting most-favored-nation status to China (both of which happened in the Clinton administration). I do realize that other factors--particularly automation--played a big role, too, but I'm convinced that trade policy was also a factor. In a place like Detroit, that was devastating to the economy and especially to blue-collar workers. Unfortunately, Trump's correct assessment of the problem doesn't change the fact that the problem is hard to fix without a time machine; it's unclear that tariffs can create lasting change. It could be that the ship has sailed.

3)   He was kind of right about 2 Corinthians 3:17 being inspiring (even if people thought it was funny that he called it "two Corinthians instead of "Second Corinthians," a mistake I can see myself making): "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

On Wednesdays, I have been profiling my fellow members of the Yale Law class of 1990. This week, the focus is on Judge Pam Harris of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Pam Harris (like way too many of the people I have profiled-- I need to mix it up some more) was double-Yale, coming to the law school from Yale College. She hung around with some fun people, and in class was someone who seemed to get the material in a deep way. Her comments were blunt and correct, reflecting an understanding that some of us (well, me) had not gotten to yet.

Like several others, she married another member of the class, Austin Schlick (who will be profiled in the future). That happened in 1994, right in the middle of a remarkable cycle of accomplishment, which included the following:

1990-91: Clerked for Harry T. Edwards, DC Circuit
1992-93: Clerked for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens
1993-96:  DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (basically, the lawyers to the lawyers in the DOJ)
1996-99: Professor, Univ. of Pennsylvania law school

In 1999, she joined the firm of O'Melveney & Myers, one of the nation's most prominent law firms, and she became a partner in 2005. But-- and this is the part that fascinates me-- she didn't just settle in and work at a firm. Between 1999 and the time she was appointed to the Fourth Circuit in 2014, she also co-directed the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice Clinic at Harvard Law School, was a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law, directed the Supreme Court project there, and had another stint at the  Office of Legal Counsel.

Then, in 2014, she got that call from President Obama. Frankly, a judge who is blunt and correct is a great thing, so I'm confident Pam is a great addition. At the time of her appointment, a New Republic article surveyed Obama's nominations and named Harris as the "Most important one yet," noting that only 4% of Obama nominees had a public service background while 70% came from corporate law. Those who feared that she would be a politically-motivated liberal judge have found that things are (as they should be) more complicated.

If your really want an antidote to some of the more toxic confirmation hearings we have been through recently, you might want to watch this-- and appreciate the kind of smart, thoughtful person that Pam Harris remains:

Yesterday, Kamala Harris became the sixth candidate to embrace the idea Rachel Barkow and I have advocated: Fix the clemency process by taking it out of DOJ and putting it in the hands of a board. The others are Booker, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Sanders, and Warren. It''s a movement!

Why do that? Well... I just happen to have an article about that! It's titled Clemency as the Soul of the Constitution, and you can read it here (after downloading it for free).

Haiku Friday was about things that make us mad. And there was some great work!

I loved the sad story embedded in the Medievalist's:

Package lost in mail,
Post office has no idea,
Lost in Mexico.

And Christine had several, but I liked this the best:

Cups/Plates in the sink
Is it a stretch to wash them
Use the dishwasher?

Going 30 years
Can't teach an old dog new tricks
Will keep him anyway.

Meanwhile, Jill Scoggins' rang all-too-true:

Nothing stings like your
idea co-opted by
your boss sans credit.

And finally, truth from TallTenor:

Ev'rything to do
with that evil orange crook
makes me very mad.

I love watching college football, but don't like college football. It hurts too many young people and warps the values of universities that pay a single coach more than an entire academic department and pretend that the players are students like any other.

One of the compelling things about college football is that things are so finite. On any given play, with some exceptions, very little actually happens-- one team advances a few yards, then everyone stops to talk about it for a while. The goal for the offense is to gain just ten yards for a first down-- ten yards!

But I think it is the fact that the scope is so small that makes it so compelling.

And why does that appeal to us?

Perhaps it draws us away, gratefully, from a world that is so large, in a universe that is unimaginably huge; that we are one of billions of people in a universe with billions of stars and planets.

But for a minute, 100,000 people care intensely about an ultimately insignificant thing that happens between kids on a few yards of turf.  We create this thing we understand, and build it up.

But we are built that way, I suppose. Though, importantly, we choose what it is that holds that importance for us-- what three yards of the world we choose to care about intensely. And for Christians, Jesus was pretty clear what should be important, what we should construct our little world around: those in need, and our relationship with our God. It might be that the faith and football are in tension with one another... but don't tell Baylor (or pretty much anyone in Texas). It's another thing about faith that they probably will not want to hear or discuss.

If you haven't been watching the UK's Parliament the last few days, you have been missing the best show in town. Things are going kablooie over there! Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister has gone full-on Trump, and it isn't working. He lost his control of the government when members of his Conservative party defected on a Brexit vote (and one crossed over, literally, to a minor part). Then he lost a fight on a snap election and... well, his plan isn't working very well.

But the theater of it! Go to about one hour in in the video about (1.00.00) to get to the fun stuff. The yelling! The creative insults! The accents! The Speaker's turn of a phrase! The kooky Scots!

It's pretty remarkable to see that someone else's government can get as messed up as ours. Though... maybe it isn't messed up. After all, what are we really seeing?

-- the bullying tactics aren't working
-- principled members of the leader's party chose principle, and opposed a bad idea
-- there is a genuine exchange of ideas in real time

Y'all can go to the Downton Abbey movie... I'm going to stick to watching this!

On Wednesdays, I am profiling the remarkable members of my law school class. In fact, I did not realize how remarkable they are until I started profiling them! This week I profile author Pauline Chen.

Back in law school, Pauline Chen was hard to miss. She had raced through Harvard, and was unusually young for our class. We were assigned to the same small group (a set of 16 students assigned to the same classes), so I came to respect her intellect quickly. She was remarkably well-read, a brilliant and witty conversationalist, and a good friend to many of us. On at least one occasion, she cut my hair in the hallway, and did a pretty good job (I have a long history of low-bid haircuts).

After law school, she went in a different and better direction than many of us: off to Princeton to get a Ph.D. in Chinese literature. Her dissertation focused on Tang-era poets. She then began her life as a professor, and she taught  literature at the University of Minnesota and then Oberlin. While settling into the town of Oberlin, she began to focus on writing after fighting off cancer. Her first book was a novel for young readers titled Peiling and the Chicken-Fried Christmas.




Next, she turned to something for adults: A re-imagining of a classic Chinese tale known as the Dream of the Red Chamber. The story is beloved in China, and she was taking on a lot to mold the story in her own way, emphasizing the issues of sex and class to raise new questions. It was a success. Her book, The Red Chamber, was published by Knopf, recommended by the Chicago Tribune, discussed on NPR,  and was translated into French, Italian, Dutch, and Polish.

It has been mesmerizing and scary to watch Hurricane Dorian hovering over the Bahamas, not far from Florida. I have never been through a hurricane, though-- it seems like there is nothing else like it.

My deepest impression of it is from a book that Prof. Joanne Braxton assigned when I was in college: Zora Neal Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," which contains a depiction of the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane from the perspective of people living in dwellings never meant to withstand that kind of storm. For some reason, that scene sunk into my bones, and that is what I see and feel when I think about a hurricane.

Right now it is storming here in Minnesota, lightning and hard rain, but it is a flea compared to the cobra of a hurricane. Our storms, at worst, are softened by the cold to snow that drifts and billows.

I hope that the storm goes back to sea. Perhaps it will.