Brown Boy Blog

 Trust the back of a chevy (& a Honda) to proselytize while I was waiting at a stop light

Car #1: “Who would Jesus Bomb?”

Car#2: “When Jesus said ‘Love your Enemies’, he probably meant don’t kill them”

And no I didn’t spot these out while cruising through Montrose or the Heights.

Oh yeah, I guess I’m back. I’ve been horrible about blogging. Between the end of the year finals, being in the Maharaja Manhattan (i.e. Mumbai a.k.a Bombay) for 31/2 weeks over the holiday season and then the joys of a full load semester, I’ve treated this blog like an ugly stepchild. I won’t make promises that I will get better about blogging but with the Houston DA office having more drama than daytime TV and an election year that is has become a glorified ‘Survivor’, I’ll have to throw my two cents in sometime soon.

Those that have gone ahead of us can often save us from tripping into the pitfalls that lie ahead. One such pioneer is UHLC’s Eff who has informed me some of some seriously vital things such as Facebook now having 6 player risk and most importantly the deciphering of the dance moves from Soulja Boy’s Crank That.

Law school upperclassmen, where would we be without you?

From dance floor routines to how to effectively form an inter-mural basketball team check out http://themanbeard.blogspot.com/ for more. Now linked on my blogroll to the right.

Don’t say you don’t get love now Eff.

From the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-pakistan_5s_goeringnov04,1,6159722.story

So the Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf decides to declare a state of emergency and throws the country pretty much into martial law. I like contemplating Pakistan’s political scene because, for wannabe political science students such as myself, this stuff is fodder for the Poli-Sci brain.

What you should start to note as the key elements on the way to dictatorship are the steps Musharraf has taken. Let’s list them shall we so that the grade school kids can count along:

1. Fire the Chief Justice and put the other 11 under House Arrest. Add five new judges who pledge their allegiance. ( Us in the Land of the Free might consider this a brutal version of Roosevelt’s court packing scheme!)

2. Since the judiciary is on your side, you can do no wrong. Who’s going to say you’ve broken the law?

3. Musharraf even shut down private television stations and shut down phone service. Nothing says tyranny than the control of information ( I can go on and on about this in the US with a handful of corporations controlling media but I don’t feel like channelling Alex Jones right about now.)

4. Arrest leading democracy advocates and better yet, nab the chair of the country’s human-rights commission. (who said there wasn’t a lesson to be learnt from Pinochet et al)

Ugly isn’t it? I appreciate the gravitas of suspending constitutions a tad more now that I’m in the throes of my constitutional law class. It’s evident in this country that if the Feds are motivated they can pretty much do whatever they want but to think what they would do if there were no checks and balances. I shudder to contemplate such a scenario

 My favourite line to describe this mess is from a Pakistani talk-show host saying that this is one heck of a gamble and one way or the other it’s “curtains for him”.

The sad part is I actually somewhat agree with the ends that Musharraf seeks and can say that quite possibly what he is doing is probably the best thing for Pakistan right now but the million dollar question is do those ends justify the means. And the answer to that is: Probably not.

All of this got me thinking about a late night am radio show I was listening to while I was driving home from the library last week (had to switch - was losing my mind when Nickleback was on three stations at the same time  on the FM dial) and one of the conspiracy theorists reminded the audience that democracy usually preceded dictatorships and despotism and not the other way around. Look at the Roman senate. Look at Cuba and don’t be surprised if Venezuela goes that route too.

Makes me wonder then if the Unites States’ attempts at exporting democracy to the masses in the Middle East might just result in another Saddam in Iraq and Afghanistan and solidify the position of the likes of the Ayatollah in Iran.

Worth a think.

In another instance of judicially induced nausea, Judge Keller is under tremendous fire for her part in the ultimate execution of convicted felon Michael Richards. Think whatever you want to about the death penalty and about whether you think she was right or not but I will paraphrase Sister Helen Prejean (of Dead Man Walking fame) who spoke at my church about two Sundays ago and said: Is it fair to reduce someone’s life just to the worst thing that they’ve ever done?

Mark Bennett has a much better take on the whole thing than I do at:

http://www.bennettandbennett.com/blog/2007/10/sharon-keller-cont.html

And I thought an article by a former court of appeals clerk in the Chronicle spoke volumes as well.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5231289.html

I figured it would take quite a bit to get me out of my workload induced exile from blogging but it only took a four column article in the other day’s Houston Chronicle for me to be unable to contain myself.

So the Hon. Clarence Thomas, one of conservative Fab Four in the Supreme Court in his book, My Grandfather’s Son, seems to think that Yale did him a disservice by letting him in to its law school via its affirmative action program. The icing on the cake or rather the spit in the face of Yale is that he stores his degree in his basement with a 15-cent sticker from a cigar package on the frame.

A quote from the article is rather revealing:

“I’d graduated from one of America’s top law schools but racial preference had robbed my achievement of its true value.”

I’m sorry Justice Thomas but I don’t buy your logic. It’s one thing to suggest that you might not have gotten into Yale if you weren’t black, casting aspersion on your own academics but it’s another thing to suggest that Yale’s letting you in did you harm. Racism does the harm. Denial of opportunity does the harm. And very silly things like suggesting you’re worse off because Yale let you in and ,perhaps a poorer decision on their part, let you out, suggests that the prejudice that preceeded you was correct.

In the words of Lady MacBeth, Fie! Justice Thomas Fie!

I would urge J. Thomas to reconsider his position because someone who was head of the EEOC and now a member of the Supreme Court cannot in all truth be said to be harmed. What’s that in Constitutional Law? To have standing the plaintiff must demonstrate an injury. I see no injury here to Justice Thomas. I do however see an injury, a tarnish, on a hardworking Grandfather’s repute because of the ills of a prodigal son.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/nation/5233265.html

P.S.: I suppose there goes one vote, if I ever go up for appeal to the Supreme Court.

Fellow 2L law school victim, Luke Gilman echoed the oft-repeated truism of the ladder of law school life which goes something like this: “Scare you to death, Work you to death, Bore you to death”. These allegedly represent your three years (in my case 3.5-4yrs) in law school.

I don’t think I was ever really scared my first year. Okay maybe a little when my hair started falling out and when my cholesterol shot up 45points in 6weeks. But it wasn’t out of fear. I was just burdened more than I had ever been before. So I thought.

My 2L year is a kaleidoscope of multiple bright points that however small unto themselves, have this aggregate effect of making me feel like I’m on the rack. While I can’t tell you enough about how much I’m actually learning about methamphetamine production and use ( courtesy of the Houston Journal of International Law) and spousal abuse and infliction of emotional distress (My Moot Court arguments); I will say that along with that and my classes in Constitutional Law with Prof. Peter Linzer (probably the most interesting class I’ve taken in law school thus far) and Family Law with Prof. Tom Oldham, my cup certainly runneth over.

I will have to also account for Factor X, in this regard, who sailed into my life mid-summer. I guess no man, not even this Brown Boy, can live as an island, so I’ve now found myself juggling many-a-thing besides law school and a full-time job. I certainly do hope that the “bore you to death” phase is all that it’s cracked up to be. I for one am looking forward to the day in law school, when I can confidently say “gosh I’ve got nothing to do”.

For all you anti-trust mavens, tech-geeks and apple fanatics, PC World published a fantastic article about how Microsoft has abdicated its throne as the world’s Technology Bully and passed the torch on to its techangelic rival Apple.

In his article today, Mike Elgan with Computer World reckons ITunes bundling with Ipods and Mac OS is just as bad as the IE bundling with Windows back in the day. I frankly think it’s worse because at least we had Netscape. There is still no viable alternative to Itunes. The Chiang principle (which I named in honor of Ms. Chiang) states that the market will always resolve all errant behaviour and any aggrandizement on the part of one entity will be quickly be addressed by market forces. We know from past experience, i.e. Wal-Mart, Microsoft in the 90s, AT&T in the 60s & 70s , that this isn’t necessarily true. But even my pinko-social tendencies don’t crave government intervention. So what do we do? Good question.

A quick read and pretty insightful too: Mike Elgan, “It’s Official: Apple is the New Microsoft”

This post along with the many that are fluttering around my head is long overdue. One of the things that I promised I would do on this blog is give you the reader (note the singular for a reason….) my two cents on the classes I take and law school in general.

First the course: Alright, I don’t know why Administrative law isn’t on the bar and why it isn’t a course everyone is running to take. Perhaps the fact that the reading is quite onerous and tortured. There’s a thought. Nonetheless I think that the material we covered in Administrative law was so painfully interesting (painful here was not used lightly) that you couldn’t help but be interested in the stuff. The fact that almost anything you deal with these days runs through some quasi-adjudicatory forum such as administrative law courts makes me wonder why the masses aren’t clamouring for this class. I’m thrilled to bits I took it. Between the Admin law class and trying to write-on for law review, I almost sold my soul, almost discovered barbituates and a host of poor health practices that I am glad I didn’t turn to. Such was the nature of my Summer. Something I have regrettably come to terms with since skipping summers isn’t really an option but I’m trying to make it so in 2008.

Interesting tid-bits of Admin Law, is: if you’ve got to deal with the FTC ( and if you’re in any kind of business, you always have to deal with the FTC) or if you pay taxes to the IRS ( and if you’re into those schemes those guys on the internet sell, you’re already too far gone) or deal with any kind of regulatory agencys (like the FAA, EPA, FCC and other equally ugly government acronyms) you need administrative law.

What’s sad is that city councils, home owners associations and the like all don’t pay enough heed to the principles of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) because if you make rash ill-thought decisions not based on the record or propose and impose rules without due process, the lords of Admin law will come a-bustin your chops. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I will say Prof. Darren Bush, did his best to teach this class. Arguably the Punniest professor I’ve had so far. Also the only professor to do a real review of the class that one could actually use instead of the “ask me a question and I’ll answer it” format for class review that pervades academia.

Will warn the masses that he has a curious exam methodology. You get the exam questions a few days before and can even answer the entire thing but you can only bring your answer outline in with you besides any other text etc. Different. Made me sweat for 3days working on the thing. More like 2 days because I didn’t even go past reading the thing on the day I got it. We’ll see it all turned out soon enough.

To summarise: Would I take Admin law if I could do it over again? Yes sir/ma’am.  Should you? You’d be a fool not to.

So I’m sick of this incessant talk about Cleavage-gate and the non-stop press about a one-off incident of a dipping neckline. Gosh, America is so prudish. On the one hand we have Hustler and Playboy and Girls Gone Wild, yet a peeping breast, let alone a protruding one sends the whole nation in a FCC-phoning and complaining tizzy and a media frenzy. There are some good men and women being thrown into the Iraqi version of Hamburger Hill and we don’t spend our time thinking about how we can get them safely home. But the media goes ga-ga over a sexegenarian’s breasts. There ends the future of the Fourth Estate.

I think Jay Leno put it best when he said, “Those are not the boobs in Congress you should be worried about!”

Too true Jay, too true.

In another case of “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry” with regards to the legal system, we have a sherrif in Florida seeking prosecution of inmates for indecent exposure etc. who were err ’shaking hands with mr. happy’ (as Robin Williams once called it) in their cells.

The author of a Miami Herald article on the case, Fred Grimm, put it best when he said “It’s no longer enough to warn hairy-palmed drooling deviants that self-indulgence risks stunted growth, blindness, sallow skin, slackened jaws, amnesia, shrunken testicles, impotence and, for Catholics in particular, eternal damnation”

Brings a whole meaning to the notion of someone who selectively prosecutes being a total wanker (All apologies for the horrific pun).