Dart League Week 13: Oh Captain My Captain, has the Streak Ended?

When I walked into the Club Car at about seven o’clock, I knew we were going to be in for a rough night of darts. The team captain, long an exemplar of prudence and dedication, had been spotted leaving the premises an hour earlier. My quick inquiry of all credible sources revealed that he had been “completely wasted” at the time of said departure.

Long story short: we couldn’t field a team, but our opponents over at Charlie’s couldn’t field a team either. Everyone seemed to be a little bit embarrassed and apologetic, so we all went home early with vague plans to meet at a future date.

Now the only question that remains is whether our impressive winning streak, which we extended to two games last week, is still intact. If one team forfeits and the other is prepared to play the game, I think it’s quite obvious that the team that is prepared should be awarded a victory, and their unprepared opponents credited with a loss. But what is the rule if both teams are unable to compete? Two wins? Two losses? Something in between?

Until I get a call from the Commissioner of the Iowa City Area Dart League notifying me otherwise, I will consider the Club Car’s two game winning streak to still be valid.

Anyway, maybe that week off will prove to be beneficial to our team in the long run. As is usually the case in darts, the team that is most capable of making a run late in the playoffs is usually the team that hasn't suffered injuries throughout the season. With such a long and grueling schedule, last week was a great opportunity to keep our guys off the line, keep them fresh, and most importantly, keep them healthy to be a serious contender during the playoffs.

End of the Year Law Book Reviews: From Violent Courtroom Thrillers to Rollicking Constitutional Laugh Fests

Book Review 1:

Criminal Law: Cases and Materials, Second Edition,

By Saltzburg, Diamond, Kinports, and Morawtez

Do you love page turning courtroom thrillers? How about seamy tales of the dark, criminal underbelly of society? If so Criminal Law: Cases and Materials, Second Edition, might be just what you’re looking for.

The beauty of Saltzburg’s latest work isn’t the sensational depictions of widespread sex and violence which keep you turning the pages; although that’s certainly one aspect. No, the beauty is that that the narrator tells these tales of violence, loss, and retribution so thoughtfully, with such depth, that we never lose sight of the moral dilemmas and philosophic underpinnings of the modern criminal justice system in which the characters operate. In that sense, reading Crimianl Law, Cases and Materials, Second Edition, is a bit like reading Crime and Punishment if Dostoevsky had written it while engaging in a late night drinking session Irvine Welsh and Johnie Cochran.

And while it’s true that the sensationalist, bloody nature of the substance kept me turning the pages, formally the work was a bit more challenging. Instead of a straightforward linear narration of the plot, Saltzburg presents the reader with vignettes in a very fragmented style.

One moment we are in 1923 witnessing a highly publicized bootlegging case. The next moment we are in 1983 for a nuclear protest case. Was the brother from trial 4 the same man who had a duty to act to save his wife in trial 92? Did the lawyer who prosecuted the gang member in trial 7 in 1962, become a judge, only to deliver a verdict for the subsequent gang member in 1992? What is the connection between these two events and what sort of relevance should we give to them?

Other questions jump out at the discerning reader. For example, what kind of significance should we give to the inclusion of a 20 page index at the end of the book? Should we take it at face value as a handy organizational tool? Or is it instead a tongue-in-cheek tribute to post-modern aesthetics? And what should we make of the studiously academic, almost clinical tone of the omniscient narrator?

In this sense, the book is much more Joyce than Grisham. And just as Joyce, its scale and scope are certainly daunting. But don’t let the size of the book, weighing in at 1002 pages, scare you off. Take it from me, Saltzburg has a gift for narrative economy, and easily packs more violence and contemplation into 1002 pages than most authors of the genre could pack into 1160. I’ll admit, it’s difficult for the reader to make sense of it all. God knows I tossed Gravity’s Rainbow against the wall 20 times before it all became clear. But stick with it, and remember, even if it doesn’t make sense, at least there’s a felony-murder scene just about every five minutes to make sure you keep turning those pages.

Book Review 2:

Constitutional Law, Sixteenth Edition

By Sullivan and Gunther

If you enjoyed the 1st through 15th editions, of Constituttional Law, be sure to pick up a copy of the sixteenth and you won't be disappointed.

It all starts out typically enough. The nation is in peril. Crime, racism and prejudice are rampant and plague every cranny of our society. The political divides are deep and the disparity of wealth is running out of control. Only one thing can stop a complete and total breakdown. . .

The confused, bumbling, and hilarious members of the United States Government.

Once the goofball legislators in Washington realize there’s a problem, they try to legislate it out of existence. But can they? Not if the Federal Judiciary has its way. The stern and humorless Supreme Court is in no mood for monkey business, and is ready to strike down any cockamamie congressional initiative it can get its judicious hands on.

Slapstick abounds as the legislators continue their futile attempts at lawmaking. A bill to protect civil rights? (Boing!) Unconstitutional! A bill for the enforcement of labor and environmental regulations? (Boing, Boing!). Not in our courtroom fellas.

And just when you think things can’t get any wackier, in comes the President. . . and he’s brought the states with him. The states are saying that they can fix these things on a local level, the President refuses to enforce what Congress has authorized him to do, and Congress is stripping the Court of its jurisdiction faster than the Court can invalidate its legislation. Pretty soon the entire cast of crazy constitutional characters is standing in a room seeing who can yell “Separation of Powers Doctrine” in their most grating voice.

Will Congress find a way around the unyielding, temperamental justices? Will the states hare-brained notions of sovereign immunity be honored? Will the President get to line-item veto that ill-advised spending provision? Or maybe, will this crazy cast set aside their differences, save a nation, and learn the value of teamwork along the way? I think that originalists and functionalists alike would agree. . .

Compact Federalism has never been crazier.

Book Review 3:

Civil Procedure, sixth edition

by Stephen C. Yeazell

This book is about Civil Procedure. That is all.

A Follow Up on Meat from a Tube

William Saletan over at Slate just sounded off on the NYT article about meat in a tube. The article, if you're interested, can be found here.

Enjoy.

Earth Day Special: A Lazy Person's Guide to Being an Environmentalist. Plus, PETA's New Strategy

Every once in a while I have a recurring conversation with friend X that goes something like this:

Friend X: “Have you heard about widespread abuse of animals in food industry Z?”

Me: “No.”

Friend X: “It’s really awful, you should read about it.”

Me: “I’m sure it is awful. But I’m playing Scrabble. If it’s something that keeps you from getting sleep at night, there’s one really great, fool proof way to ensure you have a clean conscience. Stop eating meat.”

(Author’s Note—obviously this isn’t “fool proof” in the strictest sense. There may be other indirect ways you are supporting the industry: owning stock, supporting legislators, etc. . . but let’s keep it simple).

Friend X: “I like meat. I just want to make sure that the practices are humane.”

And then that’s it. We go on with our lives. Friend X gets to be concerned with animal suffering, AND she gets to eat her meat with a clean conscience because she says “Yeah, it should definitely be done humanely.” Essentially, she gets to have her meat and eat it too.

I’ll have a similar discussion with friend X about substitutes for meat. It goes something like this:

Friend X: “I wish I could stop eating meat, I think it’s a good idea for (insert reason here: health, environment, responsible management of resources, waste, animal treatment concerns, etc), but I just love eating steaks. I couldn’t live without my steak.”

Me: “I agree. Meat is tasty. But what if scientists were able to create a meat substitute that was indistinguishable, not just to your senses, but molecularly as well, from that steak you’re eating now. Surely you’d choose the substitute because of concerns ( health, environment, animal treatment, etc.) that you cited above, right?”

Friend X: "I don’t think that would be possible."

Me: "Ok. But assuming it was, surely because of the considerations above you would choose the substitute, right? Keep in mind that it is molecularly indistinguishable. The ONLY difference is that we didn’t use a shit-ton of feed (usually around a 10 to 1 calorie ration) and loads of land and water, and that there was never an animal alive to feel pain, to be slaughtered, or even, admittedly, to feel happiness." (For those of you who disagree with that last bit, I doubt you’ve spent any significant amount of time in a pasture in Spring, hanging out with your best friends, chewing away on a big old mouthful of cud as the sun warms your hindquarters. It’s absolute HEAVEN).

Friend X: "I don’t think that’s possible. I can’t imagine a substitute like that."

I swear to God I’ve had this conversation with people. I won’t say who (my mother), but this exact conversation has taken place. That’s what’s kind of weird, even people who are sympathetic to the cause are reluctant to concede that “given an indistinguishable substitute” they would prefer it.

Now, I’ve never been convinced that a real, indistinguishable--molecularly or otherwise-- substitute would be available, so it was with a great deal of interest that I read in the NYT today, that PETA is offering 1 million dollars to the first company to come up with commercially viable fake meat at competitive prices by 2012.

This article was insane. I figured when it came around, this indistinguishable fake meat would be the product of soy, red food coloring, lots of taste scientists working their magic, and maybe an atomic hyperaccelerator somewhere on the West Coast. It turns out I’ve got a lot to learn about the fake meat industry. Here’s a paragraph from the NYT article:

“For several years, scientists have worked to develop technologies to grow tissue cultures that could be consumed like meat without the expense of land or feed and the disease potential of real meat. An international symposium on the topic was held this month in Norway. The tissue, once grown, could be shaped and given texture with the kinds of additives and structural agents that are now used to give products like soy burgers a more meaty texture.”

Tissue cultures. I should have known all along. Here’s another quick quote from someone who appears to be engaged in a reasonable search for the truth:

“Henk P. Haagsman, a professor at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and an in vitro meat research pioneer, said he welcomed the prize competition.

But he said he would not like to see the field dominated by the animal welfare issue, since environmental and public health issues are such important ‘drivers for this research.’ The Netherlands has put $5 million into in vitro meat studies.”

Right on, Professor Haagsman.

If all goes well, being environmental might just get a whole lot easier, and tastier, for those of use who try not to eat meat.

Now, my views aren’t completely in alignment with PETA. For example, I don’t think that animal suffering should be the driving force behind a push for a less meat heavy diet. Sure, there’s an argument to be made there. If I have the option between kicking the shit out of a dog. . . and not doing that. . . . I tend to opt for the latter. Most people I speak to tend to be in agreement on this point. So at least at some level, when given the option between inflicting pain and not, humans think that the unnecessary infliction of suffering is at the very least, less preferable than the alternative.

But protecting animals just isn’t my number one priority. Why? Like I told friend X, I’ve got other stuff to do. Like what? Well, like playing video games, for one. Or (God forbid) studying for finals. Or, here’s one that’s pretty appropriate for Earth Day: deciding how we humans want to manage OUR own resources to ensure the comfortable survival or OUR species. At its heart, I believe that the argument for reducing the meat that we consume should be framed like this “What can we humans get out of it to make sure that our lives are comfortable?”

You see, deep down inside, I’m a speciesist. I love humans. I count some of them among my dearest friends, family, and neighbor acquaintances. If I’m sitting in a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with two buddies and a dog. The dog goes overboard. Did I say overboard? I meant eaten. No questions asked. He doesn’t get a seat at the table, he doesn’t draw straws with that non-opposable thumbed paw of his. He gets, IF HE’S LUCKY, the least painful vicious murder we can give him.

If it’s me, one buddy, my arch nemesis (Hi Jerry!), and a dog are in the raft? The dog still goes. But it’s a closer call.

So, no, I agree with Professor what’s-his-name from above, animal suffering should not be the primary force compelling humans to consider a less meat-heavy diet.

So what should be? Should health concerns be the driving force? Well, it’s true that there are substantial benefits to be had, but those aren’t really my main concerns either. If they were, I would have given up binge drinking long ago.

In fact, the driving force behind my own efforts to cut down on meat eating (a practice I prefer to call “intermittent vegetarianism," or "doing my best"), is based on two important reasons: 1) I suffer from a severe guilt complex of the Woody Allen variety, and 2) I’m lazy.

If you suffer from either of these symptoms, you might find this rationale helpful. Let’s start with,

GUILT COMPLEX

Here is a basic syllogism

1. Our Earth has a finite amount of resources.

2. To ensure our present and future comfort, we should manage these resources in a responsible way with an eye toward global sustainability and an ever-increasing population.

3. Meat, being about the most inefficient, soil eroding, waste producing, resource eating (literally), rain forest destroying, pollutant emitting way imaginable to produce food, does not ensure that we are managing our resources responsibly.

4. Therefore, people should try to eat less meat.

So, back to our lifeboat example:

This time I’m in a lifeboat with my friend, a dog, and about 100,000 calories worth of sandwiches. My friend requests one of the sandwiches. I say I would prefer to give them to the dog to “beefen” him up and eat him at a later date. My friend, aware that this is a horrible calorie trade off, and unwilling to use our limited resources in this way, scoffs and begins to gnaw on the most supple part of my calf. Do you see the tragedy here? The choice to feed the sandwiches to the dog would be stupid because, even if we survived, I’d never play basketball again.

Now, let’s change that hypothetical just a bit. Let’s pretend that the lifeboat, instead of being in the Pacific Ocean, is in the Milky Way. And instead of me and my friend and a dog on it, there are billions and billions of people and livestock on it. Oh, and we’re pretty sure we’re not going to be picked up by an ocean liner any time soon. We need to start deciding what we want to do with those sandwiches.

So there's the guilt complex bit.

Now, we move on to,

LAZINESS AND LETHARGY

Having accepted the above premises as being true, but generally lethargic and unmotivated, what am I to do? I’ve taken the one step that takes absolutely no effort on my part to do; I’ve tried to reduce the amount of meat that I eat. Does this make me better than you? Probably. But that’s only part of the reason that I do it. The fact is that it happens to be the most effective legal environmental non-action that any single human being could do is a nice little perk too.

PARTING THOUGHTS

Pursuant to this lazy, guilty mentality, long ago I made a studied, conscious decision to do two things that I would urge all lazy/environmentally concerned people to do to both maximize their environmental impact and assuage the dirty, guilty conscience that comes with living in a modern, resource hungry world:

1. Reduce the amount of meat you eat.

2. Only have one child each for you and your life mate/cosmic partner.

Go for it; do everything you want, recycle, clean up trash, plant a couple trees in your yard, lobby your congressman, write letters to the EPA, march in green protests, ride your bike to work every day, join the sierra club, spend more money on a hybrid. There is no way you will be able to match the enormous impact that these two non-activities have in reducing your carbon, environmental, resource use, etc footprint. It just can’t be done. You could spend every waking hour recycling every little piece of plastic that you’ve ever used, and you know what? If you have that 9th kid it’s all wasted. That’s one more mouth to feed, one more body to heat, Nintendo controller to be used, refrigerator to power, gas guzzling car to fill, and so on. . . for an average or 77 YEARS. How much did you say they gave you the last time you took your cans back? $2.35?

I thought so.

And do you know what these two non-acts take? Nothing. No affirmative act on your part at all. It takes two sacrifices:

1) Eating meat with less frequency. This is obviously a sacrifice because meat is tasty.

2) Not having that one extra bundle of joy you thought you were going to have. This, depending on your view of bundles of joy, isn’t even a sacrifice at all.

See how easy it is to be environmental? Eat great pasta and get an appropriately timed vasectomy. That’s it. You’re already doing a lot better than most other humans. And you’re probably doing a lot, lot better than most other Americans.

And on last note,

FOR THE CYNICS

Obviously, if you don’t have a raging guilt complex, this advice might not be very useful to you. I’ll admit that the alternative philosophy, “Why do I care what happens to the Earth after I’m gone. . .Let’s Party!” is an appealing one. Doubly so considering that I am expecting no moral evaluation at the end of my life by God or Zeus or the EPA or my offspring. If I was a bigger man, perhaps it’s the route I would choose.

But for some reason I can’t do that. I think in the end it comes down to my trouble with waste. Maybe it was the fact that my parents always had me clean my plate or were always encouraging me to turn off the lights, or turn off my stereo when I wasn’t in the house. Maybe deep down I just can’t stop hearing my mother’s voice. But that’s probably a good thing. After all, to ignore all that advice, to forget all those words, to not hear that voice telling me to turn off the lights, well. . .

That would just be a waste.

I ALWAYS Miss the Apocalypse

Anyone who’s spoken to me for any length of time is probably aware of my fascination with natural disasters. Especially tornadoes. The mystery, the power, the purple skies and levitating livestock, what’s not to like? It’s like a backstage pass to the Apocalypse every time the sirens start sounding.

The problem is, I’ve never actually seen any natural disaster live. Nothing. No hurricanes, no tornadoes, no mudslides or volcano eruptions, and I absolutely refuse to count the floods of ‘93. And to be honest, I’ve always felt this odd sense of inadequacy at having lived in Iowa for roughly my entire life and never, ever laid eyes on a tornado. Every night, as my friends congregate at the bar to exchange the week’s crazy tornado anecdotes, I always find myself embarrassed and trying to change the topic. Sure, if we were having a conversation in the abstract about tornadoes, I’d be all for it. But people with the experience can always one up you. Nobody wants to listen to you drone on about some lame Discovery show you were watching, when the guy next to you is talking about how his dog was freakishly lanced through a tree and still lived to fetch another ball.

Just once I‘d like the opportunity, when talking to non-tornado-alley outsiders, to boast about my close encounter with Earth’s most impressive natural disaster. “Have YOU ever seen a tornado?” They would ask me, mouth agape, eyes expectant. “Yes,” I would reply bravely, “but I don’t want to talk about it.” Then I’d start to walk away, only to stop briefly, shake my head, look at the ground and say “You’d better pray to God you don’t see one in your neighborhood.”

Which brings me to my main point.

Yesterday morning, a natural disaster that was literally IN MY HOUSE. . . and I failed to appreciate it. How fucking hard is it to miss an Earthquake? It’s not even something you can go out to chase, you just have to sit back and EXPERIENCE IT. The only thing required to take part is consciousness, and I failed.

And now I know everyone’s going to be sitting around hashing and rehashing their crazy experiences with the great earthquake of naught 8, and I’m going to be sitting there bleeding from my ears out from boredom. Every once in a while I’ll say something about how similar that must have been to the Great Floods of ’93. People will nod politely and then go back to their crazy earthquake having stories. And there’s nothing I can do. It’s always going to be like that until I experience my first natural disaster.

Until then, if anyone wants to talk about routine flash flooding, you know where to find to me.

It is Unfathomable That Any Doubt At All Lingers Anywhere as to the Total Rightness of Me

One of the things that I love about reading pages upon pages of legal opinions from law textbooks. . . .Ok, the ONE thing that I like about reading pages upon pages of legal opinions from law textbooks, is that you start seeing the same funny language over and over.

For example, here are seven sentences that I found in one night of reading that say essentially the same thing:

1. It is uniformly conceded that. . .
2. It can scarcely be doubted that. . .
3. There can be no doubt that. . .
4. It is well-established that. . .
5. It cannot be contended that . . .
6. The conclusion is therefore inescapable. . . .
7. (My favorite) The general correctness of this statement cannot be doubted. . .

I love it. Doesn’t get much more forceful and authoritative-sounding that that. Often times when I’m reading I’ll just nod along and say to myself, “God, I wish I could have doubted that, but I’m shackled. . .it’s WELL ESTABLISHED.”

It’s really a pretty brilliant strategy of argument. In fact, I wish I would have discovered this tactic as a young boy when I found myself engaged in vicious, no holds-barred arguments with my older brother:

Brother— Let’s watch MTV
Nick—No, let’s watch Full House. (Go on, judge me if you will).
Brother—MTV is better.
Nick—MTV? You must be joking. It is unanimously conceded, and cannot seriously be doubted, that Full House constitutes a higher quality level of television programming. The fact has been well established and does not admit serious discussions to the contrary.

Does everyone see the overwhelming force of that argument? There’s nothing my brother could have done but hand over the controller and start writing fan mail to Uncle Joey. It CAN’T fail.

For those of you who get into arguments at home with your spouses, friends, parents, rivals, etc., here’s a little cheat sheet so you can play along at home.

1. Take one of these words: uniformly, comprehensively, globally, unanimously, solidly, unconditionally (or other similar adverb),
2. Add one of these words: admitted, conceded, granted, accepted, acknowledged, recognized, agreed, (or similar past participle)
3. Throw on the phrase “It is. . .” to begin the sentence. . .

And Presto. . . you’re a Circuit Court Judge!

For those of you who spurn courtesies and prefer to infuriate and/or demean your adversary, try the more negative “Bill O’Reilly” variations. Here’s just a few to get you started.

1. It would take a fool or a simpleton to postulate that. . .
2. Idiots often maintain that. . .
3. Only a really big stupid asshole would ever argue that. . .

(Note: for maximum effectiveness, try yelling “Shut up” as loud as you can immediately upon finishing your thought).

So next time your girlfriend/boyfriend/wife/spouse wants to argue, just let them know that what you think, indeed, the absolute correctness of your thoughts and ideas, simply CANNOT be doubted. It’s well established.

Trust me, they’ll LOVE that.

Dart League Weeks 11 and 12: A Doubleheader Sweep

And just like that a winning season is possible. After our last two winning matches we now stand at 5-7, meaning that a streak at the end of the season here could put us over .500 for the year.

Here's a recap of the last two weeks:

Club Car 23, Martini's Backdoor Bandits 20

Club Car 22, Gus' Gun Show 21

Two nailbiters. I don't have much information on these matches because I didn't play in either of them (which may or may not explain why we won them both). But that's the basic recap.

Tune in next week for more comprehensive coverage of what will hopefully be the continuation of our first legitimate "streak" of the season.

Tack on a Few More Pulitzers Linked to the Writer's Workshop

Seems like every year there are a few more.

Here's a link to the DI story.

The CAT'S Out of the Bag: CIA Interrogators Run Amok at Guantanamo

Tonight, I relax.

I just finished emailing my final brief of the year to my professor and boy does it feel good. It feels like I can finally sleep after having been denied it for days. . . like I have finally been allowed to sit after standing for hours. . . like I have finally stopped drowning. . .like the incessant blaring music has finally come to an end. . . like the questions have stopped. . . like the burlap sack has been removed from my head. . .like. . .

Well, you get the idea. The torture is over.

The issue of this brief? Whether the "enhanced interrogation techniques" (sleep deprivation, short shackling) that the CIA has been employing at Guantanamo Bay constitute torture.

I argued that they did. It was not a moral choice. If I had been assigned differently, I would have argued that they did not.

Just following orders.

Here's an executive summary of the assignment:

In 1984 countries across the land got together and agreed not torture people. I suppose at the time it was a novel concept. This agreement was called the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Torture was roughly defined as "inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering" on a detainee. A ton of countries, including the United States, signed on.

United States went home, and by 1992 had enacted its own statute, The Torture Statute (18 U.S.C. 2340), to implement its commitment to the CAT in domestic law. The language was virtually the same as the language found in the CAT.

Fast forward to circa 2003. In our fake case for class, a detainee who is about to be tortured (or if you prefer euphemisms: "enhancedly" interrogated), is suing the government and all of the officers who have signed off on these enhanced techniques for violating the statute.

Government says the claim is outrageous and they don't torture, and even if they use short shackling and sleep deprivation, that's not torture.

Therein lies the dispute.

And now to my main point of writing this blog. In the assignment, the detainee is suing people like John Yoo from the Office of Legal Counsel, William Haynes III the General Counsel to the Pentagon, and even Alberto Gonzalez when he was at the Department of Justice. But this might just be the tip of the iceberg.

It turns out, after last night's story on ABC NEWS, he could've been suing some other notable people as well: Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft, Condoleeza Rice, George Tenet, Donald Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell, all of whom signed off on the methods IN DETAIL.

Here's the story that came out yesterday about how all of these public officials sat down in a smoke-filled room in the basement of the White House and started brainstorming in a way I like to call "thinking outside the statute."

If you'd like to watch the story that aired on TV, feel free to go here.

Here's a bit that I found particularly disturbing:

"According to a top official, Ashcroft asked aloud after one meeting: 'Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.'"

How Nixonian. With statements like that, it's going to be pretty tough to make the argument that you had no idea that you might be doing something morally wrong or even breaking the law.

But I guess I'll worry about that later. For now, I'm done wrestling with this issue. All that research, all that time formatting and struggling, it might not have been torture, but it was certainly and enhanced amount of suffering.

And now I'm ready to relax.

Two New Blawgs at the University of Iowa, and Brief Discussion of My Hypochondriasis

It's just recently come to my attention that two new blawgs have sprung up in the past couple of weeks.

There's the UI Law Blog, which seems to have been created after the uproar of the Law School's three-spot, world-altering, student enraging slide in the upcoming U.S. News Ratings. Thus far they've provided pretty straightforward content dealing with the goings-ons at the Law School.

And there's also a blog called The First Floor that looks to have enlisted the help of some astute and playful bloggers to get them going and should be a pretty good read. Special kudos to the designer for making such a viewer/user friendly and handsome blog. Here' s a link to what I found to be the best post thus far, called "Law Student Tourette's."

In other news, I'm always kind of fretting about all of the awful, degenerative things that could be going on inside my body without my even being aware. I hear stories about people with brain tumors going undetected for years until they're the size of tennis balls and I think "is that happening to me right now?" In fact, I think about it so much that I give myself a headache. Which makes me think I have a tumor. Which makes me. . . etc.

So I'm always kind of fretting about things like that while still going about my daily activities and trying not to let it affect me. But lately something has changed. I'm beginning to think that resistance might be futile, that my environment is destined to get the better of me.

Take water for instance. Though I have long railed against bottled water as being an anti-environmental elitist perversion, I have recently grown very suspicious of the cloudy, chemical smelling liquid coming out of my faucet.

A few things have made me rethink my commitment to using cheap and easy tap water. First, in a Civil Action, which we were compelled to read for Civil Procedure this year, the kids who drank cloudy water ended up getting cancer and dying. Point taken. Second, the recent news in the DM Register a couple days ago brought it to my attention that we have a major ammonia problem with our water supply. Third, when we signed our lease at the beginning of the year I had to sign some sort of release about lead poisoning. I know it was a long time ago, but I still think about it when I turn on the tap after a late night jog.

Though I'm not ready to start importing Norwegian glacier water just yet, I might start trying to fill up my nalgene bottle at the law school for a little while and see how that works. Which brings me to another carcinogen (assuming we can count "water" as the first carcinogen) that I initially resisted.

Mobile phones.

They used to say things like "Get a cell phone," or "Why don't you have a cell phone?" or, more frequently, "Nick is the stupid person who doesn't use cell phones." They used to taunt and ridicule me for my studied, Amish-like (Amish-ish?) obstinacy. The abuse, the jeers, the rocks hurled in spite and disgust, it's all coming back to me. And all because a little boy didn't want to use a cell phone. In the year 2003 the burden became too heavy to bear, and I broke down and purchased a cell phone of my own.

For all of the convenience and handiness of cell phones, it is a decision that I will probably come to regret.

It turns out that cell phones are probably causing cancer too. A study by an award-winning cancer expert has concluded that

"Mobile phones could kill far more people than smoking or asbestos. . ."

More than smoking? Really? Are you still considered a hypochondriac if the things you fear are REAL threats?

Feel free to read more about your imminent demise here.

My Bracket Was Ruined When Iowa Got a #27 Seed

It seems Iowa just can't catch a break.

First Drake falls due to a last second shot from Western Kentucky.

Then Iowa falls due to an elaborate, yearly calculus using a number of arbitrary factors from the people at U.S. News and World Report.

Apparently, Iowa's ranking in the annual U.S. News publication is going to fall next year from #24 in the nation to #27.

A blogger from the University covers the implications of this rankings slide pretty comprehensively in a couple of posts at a blog called Obscure Minority.

For the record, I'd like to note that I consider myself at least partially responsible for this slide. Specifically, I can recall at least three times the first semester that I missed classes; my understanding of the many provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code was less than complete; and just today I spilled a piece of popcorn on the floor and failed to pick it up.

An institution is only as good as the people traverse its halls. And in this respect, I have failed the University miserably.

Dart League Week 10: Are You Kidding Me?

After we won our 4th straight team game on Monday to advance to an 18-10 lead, I had already mentally chalked up the win in my head. If I was a basketball player, I would have taken a seat at the end of the bench with the substitutes, taken off my shoes and started mugging for the camera and laughing a lot and playing with the radio commentators shit at that big, long table. At some point I would have had a towel on my head.

In my mind, I was practicing saying things like "great game guys" in my most gentle and condescending voice. In darts, nothing is more painful than hearing those hollow, meaningless words at the end of the game; I wanted to be sure I was ready to inflict that kind of pain when our last winning dart found its mark.

After all, 4 team games in a row! How do you stop momentum like that?

I'll tell you how: you win the next four to win going away by a score of 25 -18. Damn the luck.

Here are some highlights:

As a team, we probably hit more 5, 6, and 7 marks than we have all year in any match. Individually, I won my first 5 games, only to give an uninspired effort in the 6th game which could have given us the win.

17 Briefs Filed in Iowa Gay Marriage Case

I feel like this quote from Dennis Johnson, the former Iowa Solicitor General of Iowa, pretty much sums it up:

"We have always been ahead of our neighbors in fighting for civil rights, and now is the time for our state to take the next step in ending inequality."

Here's a story from Lambda Legal, about the 17 friend-of-the court briefs that flooded the Iowa Supreme Court this past week on behalf of 6 gay couples seeking to get married.

Here's the DI's story.

Here are just a few of the signatories, in addition to the more than 200 faith leaders and Iowa Law School's own Angela Onwuachi-Willig, that I saw while scanning the articles:

Joy Corning, former Lt. Governor of Iowa
Salley Pederson, former Lt. Governor of Iowa
Dr. Kevin Mumford, History Professor at the University of Iowa
Dr. Dianne McBrien, Clinical Associate Professor of Pediatrics
Randall Wilson, Legal Director at the ACLU of Iowa Foundation