Googlewatch:

And (according to Google) this blog is now a "liberal critic of Hill v Colorado." Now, I do think that Hill v Colorado was wrongly decided, for precisely the reasons Justice Kennedy did. Does that make me (and him) a "liberal critic"? And, because I like quotes, here's a bit of Kennedy's dissent in the case:

The Court, in error and irony, validates the Colorado statute because it purports to restrict all of the proscribed expressive activity regardless of the subject. The evenhandedness the Court finds so satisfying, however, is but a disguise for a glaring First Amendment violation.

To say that one citizen can approach another to ask the time or the weather forecast or the directions to Main Street but not to initiate discussion on one of the most basic moral and political issues in all of contemporary discourse, a question touching profound ideas in philosophy and theology, is an astonishing view of the First Amendment.

There runs through our First Amendment theory a concept of immediacy, the idea that thoughts and pleas and petitions must not be lost with the passage of time. In a fleeting existence we have but little time to find truth through discourse. . . . Here the citizens who claim First Amendment protection seek it for speech which, if it is to be effective, must take place at the very time and place a grievous moral wrong, in their view, is about to occur. The Court tears away from the protesters the guarantees of the First Amendment when they most need it.

Papa Hemingway:

Chatterbox is angry at Foreign Policy for printing Fidel Castro's book review of the memoirs of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. (How's that for a chain of prepositions?). And I don't quite understand why. Foreign Policy coyly defends itself by saying, "We'd run a movie review by Kim Jong-il if we felt it might shed some useful light on his thinking and personality."

In typical Slate-Chatterbox fashion (quick, entertaining, but not entirely rigorous), Chatterbox alleges that the case of Castro is different. There is a popular perception of "Castro as some sort of Latin Papa Hemingway, and the publication of this review will only encourage them to go on believing it."

How does one square this with Chatterbox's own criticism of the piece-- that it is "amateurish, frequently unintelligible and (of course) all about Castro himself"? Either the piece is unintelligible and unliterary, and then Foreign Policy will win Castro no literary converts, or the review is good and Chatterbox is pissed that FP is printing a good piece by a terrible person (this, incidentally, is similar to the complaint people have made against Roman Polanski's The Pianist).

So which is it? Read the review for yourself. Honestly, I pored over it several times with varying degrees of scrutiny, expecting that I would have a lot to quibble with. I couldn't find much. It is at times compelling and at times incomprehensible, and largely unassuming. It reveals Fidel as a capable writer (or owner of a ghostwriter, who knows?), though not a particularly incisive or brilliant one. That's about what I thought of him as a politician.

My personal guess: Timothy Noah saw the review and wanted a chance to write about it, but couldn't actually think of anything to say; there's no "there" there..

But why did the translator and Marquez decide to translate vivir para contarlo as living to tell the tale? Chopping off the tale could have been just as communicative, and helped to retain a bit of the zip of the Spanish title.

One last thought-- Saddam Hussein writes (wrote?) novels. Does anybody know what they are called

UPDATE: Saddam's novels are apparently named Zabibah and the King and The Fortified Castle. They are supposedly highly trashy, and have not been translated into English, so far as I know.

Think of the Children:

(Via How Appealing): The Third Circuit has ruled in the case of ???, in which a 3rd-grade student attempted to circulate a petition complaining about a clas trip to the zoo to her classmates. School officials eventually told her to put it away, though they never punished her for it. All three members of the court ruled against her in separate concurring opinions. This is the right decision, though not I think, because third-graders have no right to petition, but rather because a classroom is not the appropriate time and place. Of course, given my feelings (Which are admittedly ill-formed intuitions) about children's rights, my favorite is Judge Fullam's:

...I am unable to join fully in the opinions of my colleagues. The First Amendment rights of school children are undoubtedly somewhat more limited than the First Amendment rights of adults . . . (b)ut that does not mean that a nine-year-old child should be treated as if she were a pre-schooler.

He's Everywhere:

Eugene Volokh (charmingly spelled Volockh) wins Chatterbox's contest to "finish Cubin's thought".

Too Poor, Part Two:

Kathleen posts some thoughts on public defenders in Georgia, and possible solutions (for my previous post on Mississippi, go here). I like the idea of a dedicated public defender-- it leaves a lot less room for official discrimination, and seems the most likely to regularly resolve cases. So what about having a couple counties get together to hire a public defender together? If a county only generates 1/4 the amount of work a p.d. can handle, why not just have him work four counties, each contributing some fraction of his salary (determined by the fraction of his caseload they generate)?

Life, the Universe, and Everything:

So Timothy Delgado, a very great guy who I work with, asked me today what I would do if I didn't go to Law School (am I going to go to law school?) and made the argument that law school has become something of a brain-drain in America. Decades ago, the "finest minds" whoever those are, became doctors, philosophers, economists, etc. Now, there are still doctors, but many people interested in some sort of philosophy and politics and the like just go to study law, where they later spend their time suing one another rather than producing in society.

I'm far from convinced that lawyers are wholly unproductive, of course, but this plays on a basic insecurity. Am I sure I want to go to study law? Of course, I don't need to be sure yet, and there's nothing else I'd rather do. . . but. But reading Jacob Levy's monster post on political theory and philosophy makes me wonder. I know I want some combination of philosophy and politics and economics and policy and whatnot-- that's always what's appealed to me about reading Court Opinions, and about the law that I have studied; it seemed something like applied philosophy. But how much do I care about the fine point of corporate tax law? Not a whit. (Property law on the other hand, is pretty weird stuff . . . what is the difference between a tax and a taking?)

I want to study applied philosophy, or theoretical political science, or economics without the money, or law without all the . . . statutes. So where does that leave me? Wandering off to Cambridge next year, trying to think of a dissertation topic, and worrying about it later.

Marketing:

So I've been trying to think of some excuse to blog on this. I first saw this story in Slate but it may have originated elsewhere. "Fake" advertisements for Puma have been circulating the web-- the ad features a none-too-subtle allusion to oral sex, and a lot of very blatant logo placement. It's the kind of young, hip, very edgy ad you might expect from an industry (like shoes) where marketing is nearly everything. The only hitch is that Puma insists that they didn't do it, and they're mad as hell that anybody is reproducing the pictures.

Various authorities have made the pretty convincing case that showing the pictures is legal; since the use is non-commercial its neither dilution nor infringement, since nobody's claiming that Puma made the ad, it's non-libelous, etc. Does anybody else suspect that the whole nothing is nothing but a giant and clever marketing ploy? Whether Puma made the ads originally or not, their current tactic of "protest too much" is certainly helping to bring some attention to them. I'm not sure that the ad makes me want to go out and buy Puma shoes, but it certainly did make me remember them; until today, I don't think I could have remembered what Puma made, or whether they made anything.

For much more on devious marketing, check out Syrup.

The Plot Thickens:

So since Amanda's blog broke we're offering her a place here. I'm sure she'll introduce herself in The Fullness of Time. In the meantime, should we think about a new name?

UPDATE: Oops, she beat me to it.

Hello. This is Amanda Butler, and I'll be blogging over here from now on. If that announcement seems utterly surprising, please visit my old blog. I can't think I've ever provided an introduction before, but perhaps one is in order, so here goes: I'm a 3rd year undergrad at Chicago (which is how I know Will), English major, and next I'll appear at Chicago Law. Possible intermediate stops in between, depending on whether I get bored and what I can figure to do in the meantime. Originally, I'm from Baton Rouge. Unfortunately for ya'll, I'm not so political as Will and and not so funny as Jonathan, but I'll do my best to be entertaining. Ooh. Sudden pressure to justify my presence on this site. I'll decline.