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ContractsProf Blog

Editor: Myanna Dellinger
University of South Dakota School of Law

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Today in History: July 21

1831: Leopold I is crowned as King of the newly independent Belgians. His military prowess is such that he had been colonel of a regiment at age 5.

1873: Jesse James and the James-Younger gang pull their first train robbery, taking $3,000 from a Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific train at Adair, Iowa.

1911: Herbert Marshall ("The Medium is the Message") McLuhan is born at Edmonton, Alberta.

1948: Film director and entrepreneur David Lewelyn Wark "D.W." Griffith, who "almost single-handedly invented modern cinema," dies at Los Angeles, California. The Directors Guild of America, embarrassed by him, will later rename its D.W. Griffith Award.

1984: According to the United Auto Workers, the first "robot related death" in the U.S. occurs when a die cast operator is crushed between the back of a robot and a safety post at a factory in Jackson, Michigan.

2002: WorldCom, formerly America’s second-biggest telephone long-distance company files for bankruptcy, the largest in U.S. history.

July 21, 2005 in Teaching | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Navratilova, card company settle dispute

Martina Navratilova and a "gay-friendly" credit card company called Do Tell, Inc., have settled their contractual dispute. The tennis star had licensed her name to be used for the company’s "Rainbow Card," but later became "very dissatisfied" with the marketing program, which targeted Showtime TV programs "The L Word" ("Lesbian") and "Queer as Folk," which she called "depraved."

The details of the settlement were not announced.

July 20, 2005 in In the News | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Cyberspace update

The new issue of the Cyberspace Law Committee’s Miscellaneous Internet-Related Legal News is out. As usual, editor Vince Polley has crammed it with news across the legal gamut. The latest issue and back issues are here.

Among the interesting stories in the July 15 issue:

* Software users are banding together to create a pro-user version of the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act as an alternative to the stalled statute.

* France and Germany have found U.S.-style anonymous whistleblower hot lines, under which employees report possible misconduct, to be illegal.

* More than 98 percent of U.S. libraries are offering free Internet connections, without even requiring the purchase of a latte.

* A British web site that offers online gambling to Americans (illegally, say prosecutors) is going public on the London Stock Exchange, probably making billionaires of its owners.

* Internet bloggers are finding themselves subject to growing attention from federal regulators.

* Australia has decided not to implement a national identity card, on the grounds that it would just make identity theft easier.

* A Florida man has been arrested for using his neighbor’s Wi-Fi signal to access the Internet on his own laptop. It’s a third-degree felony.

July 20, 2005 in In the News | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Today in History: July 20

1519: Lawyer Gian Antonio Facchinetti de Nuce (Bologna Law 1544) is born to a family of modest means at Cravegna, Italy. In 1591 he'll be elected Pope as Innocent IX.

1861: The new Congress of the Confederate States of America takes up residence at Richmond, Virginia.

1872: Mahlon Loomis of West Virginia receives the first patent for wireless telegraphy. In 1868 he had transmitted signals 18 miles between two mountain tops, using kites as antennas.

1885: England's Footbal Association agrees to allow professionals to compete.

1922: The League of Nations goes happily about parceling out Africa to European powers, giving Togoland (Togo and part of Ghana) to France and Tanganyika (now part of Tanzania) to Britain.

1923: José Doroteo Arango Arámbula, better known as "Pancho Villa," is assassinated at Parral, in Chihuahua, Mexico. Last words: "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something."

1925: Clarence Darrow cross-examines William Jennings Bryan outdoors as part of the Scopes Monkey Trial circus at Cleveland, Tennessee. Bryan wins the case, but Darrow gets all the good lines in the play.

1940: Billboard Magazine introduces its Music Popularity Chart, successor to the Hit Parade and forerunner of the Hot 100. The first number one song: Frank Sinatra's I'll Never Smile Again.

1945: The U.S. Senate ratifies the Bretton Woods Agreement, the first international monetary pact in history.

1984: Officials of the Miss America pageant ask Vanessa Williams to turn in her crown after Penthouse magazine publishes nude photos of her. She'll go on to become the most successful former Miss America of recent decades.

2001: The two-hundred year-old London Stock Exchange goes public, with stock trading under the symbol LSE.

July 20, 2005 in Today in History | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Leib on Contract theory

Ethan_j_leib In a recent article, Daniel Markovits (Yale) tackled one of the Big Issues: a general theory of contract.  Now Ethan Leib (UC-Hastings) (left) takes a respectful but critical look at Markovits's thesis in Collaboration, Organizations, and Conciliation in the General Theory of Contract, forthcoming in the Quinnipiac Law Review.  Here's the abstract:

This short piece exposes a central shortcoming of all general theories of contract that purport to be comprehensive and descriptive: they tend to exclude whole types of contracts to make their theories fit. As the essay explains, there are contracts between individuals (Type (1)), between organizations (Type (3)), and between individuals and organizations (Type (2)). By carefully analyzing Daniel Markovits’s recent attempt at a contract theory in his Contract and Collaboration, 113 Yale L.J. 1417 (2004), as well as looking at Schwartz and Scott’s recent effort in Contract Theory and the Limits of Contract Law, 113 Yale L.J. 541 (2003), I am able to expose how contract theorists ignore various Types of contracts to their theories’ detriment. At the conclusion, I suggest how Types of contracts are relevant to contract theory construction -- and how a focus on Types can point to a resolution of some of the ongoing debates in contract theory.

July 19, 2005 in Recent Scholarship | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Today in History: July 19

711: An invading force of North Africans destroys the Visigothic army at the Battle of Medina Sedona, killing King Rodrigo and putting most of Iberia under Muslim control.  A survivor of the battle, Pelayo of Asturias, will retreat to the northern mountains to organize resistance.

1814: American entrepreneur Samuel Colt is born at Hartford, Connecticut. "God made men," people will later say, "but Col. Colt made them equal."

1848: Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, the two-day Women's Rights Convention opens at Seneca Falls, New York.

1898: American Marxist philosopher and sociologist Herbert Marcuse is born at Berlin in the German Empire.

1922: Future Dakota Wesleyan history prof and presidental candidate George Stanley McGovern is born at Avon, South Dakota.

1944: Retailer Montgomery Ward's Chicago properties are seized and Chairman Sewell Avery is carried from his office by soldiers after the firm refuses to obey what it considers to be an illegal executive order imposing a labor contract on it.

July 19, 2005 in Today in History | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Monday, July 18, 2005

Weekly Top Ten

Ssrn_logo_16 There's a new paper at the top of this weeks Top 10 chart, but not a new name.  Government contracts continues to be hot, with a new paper by Christopher Yukins grabbing the top spot in its first week on the chart.  Following are the top ten most-downloaded papers from the SSRN Journal of Contract and Commercial Law for the 60 days ending July 17, 2005.

• 1 (-) Understanding the Current Wave of Procurement Reform - Devolution of the Contracting Function, Christopher R. Yukins (Geo. Washington).

2 (5) Contracts and the Division of Labor, Daron Acemoglu (MIT Econ), Pol Antras (Harvard Econ) & Elhanan Helpman (Tel Aviv Econ)

3 (4) The Political Economy of International Sales Law, Clayton P. Gillette (NYU) & Robert E. Scott (Virginia).

4 (6) Trust as 'Uncorporation': A Research Agenda, Robert H. Sitkoff (Northwestern).

5 (7) Juries, Judges, and Punitive Damages: Empirical Analyses using the Civil Justice Survey of State Courts 1992, 1996, and 2001 Data, Theodore Eisenberg (Cornell), Michael Heise (Cornell), Martin T. Wells (Cornell Stats), Paula Hannaford-Agor (National Center for State Courts), Neil LaFountain (NCSC), G. Thomas Munsterman (NCSC), & Brian Ostrom (NCSC).

• 6 (10) The Comparative Law and Economics of Pure Economic Loss, Francesco Parisi (Geo. Mason), Vernon V. Palmer (Tulane) & Mauro Bussani (Trieste).

7 (8) Harnessing Litigation by Contract Design, Robert E. Scott & George G. Triantis (Virginia).

8 (9) Private Contractual Alternatives to Malpractice Liability, Jennifer Arlen (NYU).

9 (-) The Lurking Rule Against Accumulations of Income, Robert H. Sitkoff (Northwestern).

10 (-) Decisionmaking & the Limits of Disclosure: The Problem of Predatory Lending, Lauren E. Willis (Loyola-Los Angeles).

July 18, 2005 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

What exactly is a "classic" film?

Are the films Jaws 3-D, Home Alone 2, and Smokey and the Bandit "classics"?  That was the question a New York judge had to answer after Time Warner Cable sued the American Movie Classics channel for running such fare instead of the "classic" films it had agreed to air.

And the answer, said Supreme Court Justice Bernard Fried, is "no."  He ruled that AMC breached its contract with Time Warner, thus allowing the cable company to drop the channel.  The audio of an NPR story is here.

July 18, 2005 in In the News | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Cases: Student not TPB of school district contract

Georgia_flag_2 A high school football player who died at a YMCA outdoor facility is not a third-party beneficiary of the school's contract with the youth organization, according to a recent decision by the Georgia Court of Appeals.

Daniel Sterling, a high school football player, went to the Athens YMCA Camp in Talullah Falls, Georgia, for a three-day football training camp.  Under the contract between the YMCA and the school, the school and its coaches were to be responsible for the safety of the students over the weekend.  Sterling was playing on a "zip line," a cord that swimmers can use to swing and drop themselves in the lake, when he drowned.  His parents sued the head coach and the school district for breach of contract, claiming that Sterling was a third party beneficiary of the agreement with the YMCA.

For a third party to have legal standing to sue on a contract, said the court, the contract language must express the parties' intent to benefit the third party or a class of third parties of which the plaintiff is a member.  Here, the school and the YMCA were merely agreeing between themselves who would be responsible for accidents.  There was no express intent to benefit anyone other than the two parties.  Sterling therefore was not a third-party beneficiary, so summary judgment should have been granted.

Donnalley v. Sterling, 2005 Ga. App. LEXIS 764 (4th Div., July 13, 2005).

July 18, 2005 in Recent Cases | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Today in History: July 18

1811: Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray is born, the son of an East India Company employee, at Calcultta (now Kolkata), India.

1867: A Parisian gardener, F. Joseph Monier, receives a patent for reinforced concrete.  The insertion of steel rods makes the stuff useful for large projects for the first time.

1872: Oaxaca lawyer Benito Juárez, who rose from being a domestic servant who could not speak Spanish to being twice President of Mexico, dies at his desk in the National Palace in Mexico City.

1936: The first Oscar Mayer Wienermobile rolls out of the General Body Co. factory in Chicago.

1947: President Truman signs the Presidential Succession Act, providing that in the event the offices of President and Vice President become vacant, the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall become president, followed by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate and then members of the Cabinet in the order that their departments were created.

1950: British entrepreneur Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is born at Sharnley Green, Surrey.  In 1970, at age 20, he'll begin his Virgin Group empire by starting small mail-order record store.

1968: Two former employees of Fairchild Semiconductor, Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce, incorporate their new business, which they call Intel Corp.

1969: Follow a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Edward Kennedy drives his Oldsmobile off a bridge.

1969: Under pressure from the NFL, football star Joe Namath gets out of the nightclub business by selling his interest in New York's Bachelors III.

1986: One of the most profitable movies made to date, the $18 million Aliens, opens in theaters.  Star Sigourney Weaver, a gun control advocate, says she's troubled about making a movie glorifying gun violence, but she gets over it.

1994: The U.S. Senate Guido Calabresi to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

July 18, 2005 in Today in History | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Hall gets promotion at Louisville

Timothy_s_hall Louisville’s Brandeis School of Law has granted tenure to Timothy S. Hall and promoted him to associate professor.  Hall has been at the school since 1998.

He earned his J.D. in 1993 from Cornell, where he was Articles Editor of the Cornell Law Review.  He spent three years teaching at Northern Kentucky after a stint in legal practice with Cincinnati’s Taft, Stettinius & Hollister.  In addition to Contracts, he teaches and writes in the area of health law, particularly on the doctor-patient relationship in managed care situations and in legal attitudes toward the mentally disabled.  He’s also apparently a baseball fan, given that he’s got a piece called "Mickey Mantle and the Role of Celebrity in Regulating Organ Allocation," in a new book called Courting the Yankees: Legal Essays on the Bronx Bombers.

July 17, 2005 in Contract Profs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Cases: Policy language trumps employee representation

United_states_flag The provisions of the U.S. Postal Service's insurance contract trump the statements of one of its clerks to a customer, according to a federal district court in New York, and a customer who receives the policy acts unreasonably if he relies on the statements instead of the contract terms.

In the case, Arieh Gildor went to the post office in Cobleskill, New York to mail some gold rings to France.  At the recommendation of an employee, he paid $49 to insure the package for $5,000.  The package was not, in fact delivered, and was returned to Gildor -- but minus the gold rings.  Gildor filed a claim with the USPS, which was denied on the ground that gold jewelry was explicitly excluded from coverage under the policy.  Ultimately, he sued.

His first claim, negligence, was knocked out on sovereign immunity grounds, so he changed his claim to breach of contract.  Trouble was, said the court, the back of the mailing label that Gildor was given listed all the prohibited items, which included both gold and jewelry.  Since gold rings were clearly and unambiguously excluded from the policy, Gildor could not recover.  Gildor then claimed that the post office, through its clerk, misrepresented the insurability of the rings to him.  This, too, was a loser, because negligent misrepresentation is covered by the USPS's sovereign immunity.  Finally, Gildor claimed equitable estoppel, claiming he relied on the statements of the clerk.  But this reliance wasn't reasonable, said the court, since Gildor had been given the actual terms of the policy and should have seen that the goods were excluded.  The court granted the motion for summary judgment.

Gildor v. USPS, 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13792 (N.D.N.Y., July 12, 2005).

July 17, 2005 in Recent Cases | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Today in History: July 17

1787: Friedrich Krupp, the patriarch of one of the world's great industrial families is born at Essen, Germany, to a family of gunmakers.  In 1811 he'll start a small steel foundry in Essen.

1790: Scots economist and philosopher Adam Smith dies at Edinburgh.

1889: California trial lawyer Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of Perry Mason, is born at Malden, Massachusetts.

1897: The Klondike Gold Rush begins as news reaches the United States of a gold strike at Rabbit Creek near Dawson, Yukon Territory.  By the end of 1898, 40,000 gold-seekers and hangers-on will arrive.

1899: Nippon Electric Corp. (now NEC) becomes the first Japanese joint venture created with foreign capital.  Its partner is the Western Electric division of AT&T.

1917: In the middle of a war with Germany, Britain's royal Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family (a branch of the ancient Wettin family) changes its name to "Windsor."

1955: Walt Disney's widely ridiculed Disneyland park opens at Anaheim, California.  The Disney board had opposed the project, so Walt built it with his own money.

1961: Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb, the greatest player of baseball's "dead ball" era, dies at Atlanta, Georgia.  Cut from his first professional team, the Augusta Tourists, his contract was sold to the Detroit Tigers in 1905 for $750.

1995: The Nasdaq stock market index, which had started at a base of 100 in 1971, closes above 1,000 for the first time.  Less than five years later it will hit 5,000; today it's 2,156.78.

1997: The Wal-Mart of its day, the 117-year-old F.W. Woolworth Co. closes its its last handful of U.S. stores.

July 17, 2005 in Today in History | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Charlton Heston on employment contracts

     [Maj. Amos Dundee, assisted by Sgt. Gomez, is looking for men for a hazardous mission.]
     Wiley:  If you're lookin' for hard-ridin', Injun-fightin' whiskey drinkers, then by God you've got one!
     Sgt. Gomez:  He's the biggest drunk we could find, but a damn good mule packer.
     Dundee: What's your name?
     Wiley:  Wiley.
     Dundee:  Wiley. All right, make your mark.
     Wiley [pausing]:  Whiskey?
     Dundee:  All you can drink --
     [Wiley quickly signs the contract]
     Dundee:  -- when appropriate.
     [Sgt. Gomez escorts Wiley out of the room.]

          From: Major Dundee (1965)

July 16, 2005 in Film Clips | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Today in History: July 16

622 A.D.: The Muslim calendar, dating from the beginning of the year in which Mohammed and his make the Hijira to Medina, begins with 1 Muharram 1 A.H.

1769: Fr. Junipero Serra founds San Diego de Alcalá, the first mission in California, which he names for St. Didacus, a Spaniard who is patron saint of the Franciscan laity.

1782: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has his first big Vienna success with the premiere of his Abduction from the Seraglio.

1821: Mary Baker Eddy is born at Bow, New Hampshire.  In 1879, at age 58, she'll found the Church of Christ, Scientist.

1880: Forty-nine year-old Dr. Emily Howard Stowe, a graduate of the New York Medical College for Women, becomes the first woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada.

1898: Labor lawyer Trygve Halvdan Lie (Oslo Law 1919) is born at Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway.  An admirer of Lenin, he'll be elected in 1946 as a compromise candidate to become the first Secretary General of the United Nations.

1951: First-time novelist Jerome David Salinger publishes his The Catcher in the Rye, which will become one of the most-assiged novels in college history.

1997: The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 8,000 for the first time, hitting a record 8,038.88.

2005: The most-awaited book in the history of the known universe, J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is released in stores throughout the English-speaking world.

July 16, 2005 in Today in History | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Friday, July 15, 2005

Nehf returns to Indy

James_p_nehf James P. Nehf will be back at Indiana-Indianapolis this fall after a two-year stint at the University of Georgia. But he’ll be headed out for another visit in the spring semester at Wake Forest.

Nehf is the Cleon H. Foust Fellow and Professor of Law at Indy, where he teaches contracts, commercial law, consumer law, and European community law. He’s a former editor-in-chief of the North Carolina Law Review, and clerked for Judge Phyllis Kravitch on the Eleventh Circuit. He practiced with O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C., and then as a partner at Choate, Filler, & Nehf, before joining the faculty in 1989.

He’s written widely on contract and commercial law, particularly from the consumer perspective, and is a member of the International Consumer Law Association. He’s also the founding director of Indy’s European Law Program

July 15, 2005 in Contract Profs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Deadline for ABA is today

Today (Friday) is the deadline for advance registration for the American Bar Association Annual Meeting in Chicago, August 4-9. The lead speakers (Justice Stevens, Justice Ginsburg, Attorney General Gonzalez, and Senator Clinton) aren’t likely to talk much about contracts issues, but the Business Law Section has lots of good program. Registration is here.

If you're going to be in the Windy City, remember that Thursday night, Aug. 4, is the Birthday Bash at Buddy Guy’s Legends, one of the world’s great blues clubs.  In celebration, from Lonnie Johnson's Chicago Blues:

Chicago's all right to visit,
But please don't hang around.
You'll find the cool chicks and high slicks
And, boy, all those mellow fellows.
But when your bankroll is gone,
You're just another chump
That's dropped into town.

My first night in Chicago,
My friends really treated me fine.
Then overnight they all changed,
Like Daylight Savings Time.
And everything I wanted
I had to lay my money down on the line.

July 15, 2005 in Meetings | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Cases: Cardholder stuck with terms of credit agreement

Maryland_flag_1 A man whose estranged wife ran up thousands of dollars on his credit card was out of luck because he failed to comply with the terms of the credit card agreement, according to a recent decision by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals.

Seems that Arthur Spengler, Jr., had opened  a credit card account with Sears. He added his wife as an authorized user in 1996.  The original card agreement obliged Spengler to notify Sears whenever his address changed.  In 1997, Spengler paid off the credit card, destroyed it, and never used it again.  It was his intention to close the account, even though he never notified Sears.  In January 2001, Spengler and his wife separated, and he moved out of the house. Two months later, Mrs. Spengler received a bulk mailer from Sears (at Spengler's old address) saying the credit card was automatically upgraded to the Sears Gold MasterCard. Mrs. Spengler saw this and transferred her own credit card balance and made additional charges to the card, ending in a $5,638 balance.  When Spengler refused to pay the balance, Sears reported him to credit agencies, which made him unable to get a bank loan.  He sued Sears for breach of contract, defamation, and interference with business relations.  A jury awarded him $145,000 in damages, but the trial court granted a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, and Spengler appealed.

The breach of contract claim had no merit, said the court, because Spengler himself failed to follow the provisions of the contract. He assumed his ex-wife would destroy the card, which she didn't. He also failed to notify Sears of his change of address, so the court failed to see why his actions and inaction should be Sears's problem.  Because the breach of contract claim had no merit, the defamation claim also failed because they were intertwined.  And since Sears engaged in no "improper means" when it reported his defalcation to the credit agencies, the interference claim also failed.

Spengler v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 2005 Md. App. LEXIS 93 (July 11, 2005).

July 15, 2005 in Recent Cases | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Today in History: July 15

1085: Robert Guiscard (i.e., "the Resourceful"), the Norman freebooter who expelled the Muslim rulers from Sicily and the Greek rulers from Italy, dies on the island of Kefalonia in the Aegean.

1381: A leader of the Peasants’ Revolt, the renegade Lollard priest John Ball, is hanged, drawn, and quartered. In his sermon exhorting the peasants, he’d said:

From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. . . . And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty.

1799: A French military officer supervising some construction at the port of Rosetta (now Rashid) discovers the Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.

1848: Future economist Vilfredo Pareto is born at Paris, France. He’s credited not only with the Pareto Efficiency Principle—so popular in Contracts scholarship—but with the 80/20 hypothesis, which is that for many phenomena 80 percent of the outcome is caused by 20 percent of the cause.

1870: The Hudson’s Bay Company cedes the area known as Rupert’s Land to the Canadian government. The cession amounts to about one-third of modern Canada.

1916: William E. Boeing, the son of a timber merchant who is fascinated by airplanes, founds Pacific Aero Products. A year later the name will be changed to Boeing Airplane Co.

1930: French critic and philosopher Jacques Derrida is born at El Biar, Algeria.

1948: General of the Armies John J. "Black Jack" Pershing (Nebraska Law 1893) dies at Washington, D.C.

1955: The first successful jet passenger plane, the Boeing 707, makes its first flight. It cost $16 million to develop.

1988: Twentieth Century-Fox releases Die Hard, which turns Bruce Willis into a star and rejuvenates the action/thriller genre.

1995: sells its first book: Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought, by Douglas Hofstadter.

2003: Once viewed as Microsoft’s principal rival for control of the Internet, Netscape Communications is disbanded by its owner, AOL Time Warner.

July 15, 2005 in Today in History | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Oberman joins Santa Clara

Michelle_oberman_1Michelle Oberman (DePaul), who’s been visiting at Santa Clara for the past year, will stay there permanently. She’s joined the school as a Professor of Law.

Oberman joined the DePaul faculty in 1993, after earning a B.A. at Cornell and a J.D. and a Masters of Public Health from Michigan. In addition to her work in contracts, she’s known for combining feminist theory with health care law, most notably her book (written with Cheryl Meyer), Mothers Who Kill Their Children: Understanding the Acts of Moms from Susan Smith to the "Prom Mom."

Michelle_oberman_2_1 We can’t resist this, though. Which one of these is the California Michelle and which the Chicago Michelle?

July 14, 2005 in Contract Profs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)


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HealthLawProf Blog

Editor: Katharine Van Tassel
Creighton University School of Law

Friday, July 25, 2014

The Problematic Jurisprudence of Halbig v. Burwell

Like the recent Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby, the D.C. Circuit’s ruling earlier this week in Halbig v. Burwell is being hailed by conservatives and bemoaned by liberals as a death knell for Obamacare.  Unlike the decision in Hobby Lobby, however the D.C. Circuit’s ruling is not the end of the matter, and many liberals are finding hope in the ruling of the 4th Circuit the same day, the probability of an en banc hearing in the D.C. Circuit, and the ultimate possibility of a favorable Supreme Court decision.  In an earlier post in HealthLawProf, I decided to take seriously the possibility of damage control from a limited reading of Hobby Lobby.  It is pretty much universally agreed—and I believe correctly—that it is not possible to do similar damage control by giving a limited reading to Halbig v. Burwell.  If the ruling stands, that tax subsidies are not available to people purchasing coverage through the exchanges in the states that are letting the federal government do the work, many important other provisions of the ACA will be untenable, including the penalties for large employers not offering insurance whose employees receive subsidies and likely the individual mandate itself.  But I think it is possible to undermine Halbig in a way not generally recognized by the liberal critics who argue (correctly) that the statutory provision at issue is ambiguous:  argue that the jurisprudence of the majority opinion in Halbig is internally inconsistent.  Here’s how.

Under D.C. Circuit precedent, the court must “uphold an agency action unless we find it to be ‘arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.’”  So, the question for the court was whether the IRS rule permitting individuals purchasing insurance through federally-run exchanges was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.  In concluding that it was, Judge Griffith’s opinion for the court reasoned that it was not in accordance with law. That is, Judge Griffith found that there was no ambiguity in the relevant provision of ACA that permitted the IRS to interpret the statute as it did.   Here's where much of the criticism takes him on.  But there’s more to say.

In reaching the conclusion that the statutory language is not ambiguous, Judge Griffith purported to rely on a literalist approach to statutory interpretation.  But he did not in fact rely consistently on such an approach—nor could he have done so.  The problem is that in order to formulate the literalist question to answer, Judge Griffith had to resolve several issues in a manner that was not literalist at all.

Here’s what Judge Griffith says:

                  “But section 36B's formula for calculating the credit works further limits on who may receive the subsidy. According to that formula, the credit is to equal the sum of the ‘premium assistance amounts’ for each ‘coverage month.’ Id. § 36B(b)(l). The ‘premium assistance amount’ is based on the cost of a ‘qualified health plan ... enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under [section] 1311 of the [ACA].’ Id. § 36B(b)(2)see also 42 U.S.C. §§ 18021(a)(1)18031(c)(1) (establishing requirements for ‘qualified health plans’). Likewise, a ‘coverage month” is a month for which, “as of the first day of such month the taxpayer ... is covered by a qualified health plan ... that was enrolled in through an Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the [ACA].” 26 U.S.C. § 36B(c)(2)(A)(i). In other words, the tax credit is available only to subsidize the purchase of insurance on an “Exchange established by the State under section 1311 of the [ACA].”

In this passage, Judge Griffith makes two important jurisprudential choices:  that a literalist interpretation is to be used and that it is to be directed toward particular phrases.  With respect to the first point, Judge Griffith is not consistent in his use of a literalist interpretation.  In concluding that states are not required to establish exchanges, he writes:  “But, as the parties agree, despite its seemingly mandatory language, section 1311 more cajoles than commands. A state is not literally required to establish an Exchange; the ACA merely encourages it to do so.”  This, despite section 1311’s literal language: “Each state shall . . .,” 42 U.S.C. § 18031(b)(1).  If states were required to establish exchanges, the interpretation of 26 U.S.C. § 36B(b)(2) would pose the quite different problem of what to do if a state had failed to meet its obligations, as Judge Griffith appears to recognize.

With respect to the second point, Judge Griffith is also not consistent in how he selects the statutory language to be literally construed: an “Exchange established by the State under section 1311.”  The crucial turning point for Judge Griffith’s argument that subsidies are only available through state-established exchanges is that this passage is definitional, not operational.  To reach this conclusion, he relies on the language of 26 U.S.C. § 36B(b)(1) “In general--The term ‘premium assistance credit amount’ means, with respect to any taxable year, the sum of the premium assistance amounts determined under paragraph (2).”  It is the use of “means” in this subsection that, for Judge Griffiths, makes what follows a definition.  But the reference to exchanges established by the state occurs in the next subsection, 26 U.S.C. § 26B(b)(2), which states what “the premium assistance amount is.”  To reach the conclusion that this language is definitional, Judge Griffith must view the language about “premium assistance credit amount”—which is preceded by “in general” as applying to the method for calculating what the assistance amount is in the next subsection. He must read subsection (b)(2) in the context of the preceding subsection. This reasoning also is not literalist—it puts the critical language in this context despite Judge Griffith’s refusal also to put it in the context of other sections of the statute.  This point is developed admirably in Judge Edwards’ dissent pointing out how § 36B(b)(2) might be read in the context of the requirement that states establish exchanges. Admittedly, the context used by Judge Griffith is the general statement in the preceding subsection, but it is context nonetheless, albeit in a poorly-drafted statute.

So in addition to being implausible on many grounds, Judge Griffith’s opinion is internally inconsistent.  Either he must admit that literalist reasoning is insufficient for the conclusion he reaches, or he must give up the claim to be literalist and whatever plausibility it lends to his argument.

Affordable Care Act, Health Care Reform, Health Law, Obama Administration, PPACA | Permalink

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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

A Model for Providing Counsel to New York Immigrants in Removal Proceedings

A new report, New York Immigrant Representation Study Report:  Part II, Accessing Justice II:  A Model for Providing Counsel to New York Immigrants in Removal Proceedings, was released today.  It proposes the creation of a pilot assigned counsel program for detained immigrants in removal proceedings in New York.

The report outlines a plan to create a network of legal service providers to represent all low-income immigrants in the region who have been detained and face deportation. The network would be the first of its kind in the country.

The report grows out of the Study Group on Immigrant Representation launched by U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Judge Robert A. Katzmann.

Here is the New York Times story on the report.

November 28, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Engaging the Asian Diaspora

Policymakers increasingly recognize the value that diaspora populations bring to development efforts at home, not just as senders of remittances but also as sources of human capital and direct and indirect investments.

In Engaging the Asian Diaspora, Dovelyn Rannveig Agunias and Kathleen Newland explore how governments in Asia are facilitating diaspora contributions, including creation of conducive legal frameworks and diaspora-centered institutions to initiation of programs that specifically target diasporas as development actors. The issue brief details a number of legislative proposals geared at diasporas, including flexible citizenship laws and visa arrangements, political and property rights, and reduced income tax rates; it also examines the diaspora-centered institutions in government.

The authors make the case that these and other mechanisms of diaspora engagement, while beneficial, are insufficient if not integrated in a broad-based strategy that receives sustained attention over many years. Such a strategy, they note, must be tailored to the unique context of each diaspora population. The issue brief offers a helpful road map for diaspora engagement.

While such policies must be tailored to be effective, the issue brief outlines four fundamental steps that governments would do well to consider across the board: (1) identify goals, (2) map diaspora geography and skills, (3) create a relationship of trust between diasporas and governments of both origin and destination countries, and, ultimately, (4) mobilize diasporas to contribute to sustainable development.

The issue brief is the seventh in a series launched by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) and the International Organization for Migration’s Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific offering succinct insights on migration issues affecting the Asia-Pacific region today. To read earlier briefs in the series, click here.

This brief is drawn from a user-friendly handbook, Developing a Road Map for Engaging Diasporas in Development, that MPI and IOM published earlier this year. The handbook offers practical advice to policymakers and practitioners and details the wide range of institutions that governments worldwide have established to work with diasporas. For more information and a free download of the handbook, click here.

November 28, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

How To Get Through A U.S. Border Checkpoint (At Least If You Look and Talk a Certain Way)

November 28, 2012 in Current Affairs, Film & Television | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Transnational Crime in Mexico and Central America: Its Evolution and Role in International Migration

The growth of organized crime in Mexico and Central America has led to an increase in violence and insecurity, posing challenges to citizens, public security forces, and travelers. Migrants crossing the region are particularly vulnerable, facing increasing threats from Mexican drug traffickers, Central American gangs, and corrupt government officials.

Migrants who choose to proceed even in the face of these risks increasingly are forced to seek the assistance of intermediaries known as polleros, or “coyotes.” Those who are unable to afford a coyote are more likely to be abused or kidnapped, and held for ransom along the way. While there is little consensus on the numbers, Mexico’s National Commission on Human Rights estimates that about 20,000 migrants are kidnapped each year by criminal organizations.

In Transnational Crime in Mexico and Central America: Its Evolution and Role in International Migration, Steven Dudley, the co-director of InSight Crime, traces the rise of Mexican criminal organizations and Central American gangs over recent decades and examines how these criminal groups impact migrants moving northward. The report reviews the origins and growth of the main illicit networks operating in Mexico and Central America, then outlines the little that is known about how criminal groups profit from, and in some cases facilitate, the flow of migrants northward.

This report is the latest research from the Regional Migration Study Group, a partnership between MPI and the Latin American Program/Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Study Group, co-chaired by former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, former US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, and former Guatemalan Vice President Eduardo Stein, is a high-level initiative that in 2013 will propose new collaborative approaches to migration, competitiveness, and human-capital development for the United States, Central America, and Mexico.

Today’s report marks the second in a series of Study Group reports examining insecurity in the region. The first report, Border Insecurity in Central America’s Northern Triangle, examines the perennial problem of lawlessness along the borders of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Within the next few weeks, the Study Group will release a third report, examining how democratic transitions in Mexico and Central America have tested the limits of their governing institutions.

The Study Group’s website, , showcases the initiative’s research to date, mission statement, and selected background readings. We invite you to check it out, now and in the months to come, as we publish more works in the lead-up to our final report in spring 2013.

November 28, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

DREAM-Lite Bill Introduced by Republicans

Yesterday, Senators Kyl, Hutchison, and McCain introduced legislation that would affect DREAMers, but without a pathway to citizenship. The timing is curious, especially since both Kyl and Hutchinson are retiring.
More in-depth analysis to come later, but following are the some of the requirements for the initial W-1 visa (which would allow individuals to go to college or join the military, and grants work authorization, ability to travel, no benefit to other family members).  There is then the opportunity to apply for two additional visas, each with their own additional respective fees, including fees for renewal. There is no direct pathway to citizenship. Some of the key requirements for the initial W-1 Visa include:
·         Must have entered the U.S. prior to age 14
·         Must be under the age of 29 on day of enactment, or 32 if individual has a college degree
·         5 years continuous presence on day of enactment
·         High school diploma or GED
·         Good moral character, no felonies, not more than one misdemeanor with a jail term of 30 days with certain exceptions, no crimes of “moral turpitude” and no final order of removal
·         $525 fee

Click here for the language of the so-called "Achieve Act."

November 28, 2012 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Undocumented Immigrants for TIME Person of the Year

From Gaby Pacheco

Just wanted to let you know that TIME magazine is currently seeking for its yearly person of the year.  Although, I think this honor is going to be given to the much deserved activist Malala Yousafzai, Undocumented Immigrants can win the popular vote.  The winner of the people's choice for the person who most influenced the news this year for better or worse will be announced on December 14. Voting closes at 11:59 PM on December 12th.
You can vote here.
Please share with your family and friends and vote.  This is something extremely powerful! The more undocumented people get recognize and reminded they are part of this nation, the higher the likelihood we will not be ignored.

November 28, 2012 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

National Study of Domestic Service Workers

STEVEN GREENHOUSE of the N.Y. Times reports that domestic service workers -- nannies, caregivers and housecleaners  -- earn a median wage of about $10 an hour, and few receive benefits like health insurance or paid sick days, according to the first-ever national statistical study of domestic workers, which is released yesterday. The study, based on interviews with 2,086 workers in 14 major metropolitan areas, found substantial differences in pay across ethnicity, immigration status and whether the worker lived with her employer.

In important respects, the study's fiondings are not particularly surprising.  The classic book on the plight of domestic service workers is Maid in the USA by Dr. Mary Romero, which was recently released its 10th Anniversary Edition.  Romero worked her way through graduate school as a domestic service worker and has many keen insights about the treatment of these workers.  She was an advisor on the National Study of Domestic Service Workers.

November 28, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

UCI Immigration Clinic Prevails in Defending Rights of Immigrant Workers

Eighteen hotel employees reached a $130,000 settlement with HEI Hotels and Resorts over denial of meal and rest breaks required by California law. The settlement arose from claims filed with the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement by employees of the Hilton Long Beach and Executive Meeting Center, owned and managed by HEI.

In hearings before the Labor Commissioner, workers described facing direct pressure from supervisors to work through meals and to skip rest breaks to keep up with increasingly heavy workloads. Some employees suffered injuries due to the unremitting nature of their work. Employees in the hotel’s kitchen, restaurant, room service, banquet services and housekeeping departments stepped forward to participate in the legal action. Most of the workers are “back of the house” monolingual Spanish speakers.

Under California law, employers must establish practices that do not discourage workers from exercising their right to full 30-minute meal periods and 10-minute rest breaks. The workers, current and former Long Beach Hilton employees, were supported in their efforts by UNITE HERE Local 11 and represented by the UC Irvine School of Law-Immigrant Rights Clinic and Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center.

"Like many at the hotel, I worked through my breaks for years while rushing from room to room changing beds and scrubbing floors," said Maria Patlan, a Hilton housekeeper. "I hope this money will help teach the Hilton Long Beach a lesson in how to treat people like me."

"Through persuasive testimony and painstaking analysis of time records, workers, law students, and public interest lawyers overcame the odds in a challenging area of the law. They showed that groups of employees with dedicated legal support can hold employers accountable for worsening conditions of work in the low-wage sector," said Sameer Ashar, Director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at UC Irvine School of Law.

Click here for more details.

November 28, 2012 in Current Affairs, Immigration Law Clinics | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Immigration Article of the Day: Multilingualism and Multiculturalism: Transatlantic Discourses on Language, Identity, and Immigrant Schooling by Rosemary C. Salomone

Multilingualism and Multiculturalism: Transatlantic Discourses on Language, Identity, and Immigrant Schooling by Rosemary C. Salomone St. John's University - School of Law November 12, 2012 Notre Dame Law Review, Vol. 87, p. 2031, 2012 St. John's Legal Studies Research Paper No. 12-0020

Abstract: This essay explores the interconnections among language, identity, and schooling as they relate to the right of linguistic minority children to a “meaningful” education. In doing so, it uses contrasting discourses on multilingualism and multiculturalism in the United States and Western Europe as a framework for examining how history and politics have shaped attitudes on immigrants and their languages and how the current political rhetoric at times defies the reality of education policies. It begins with the United States, where the argument for preserving immigrant languages in the schools enjoys diminishing political and legal support despite widespread embrace of an unofficial “multiculturalism lite” in a society that prides itself on its diverse immigrant roots. By way of contrast, the essay discusses Western European nations where most notably the European Commission and the Council on Europe officially promote multilingualism (in certain “national” languages) in the interests of European integration. Meanwhile, in the face of mounting immigration, multiculturalism has come under broad attack, even among European leaders, as harmful to a cohesive society. Bilingualism for immigrant children, moreover, is afforded low priority, if at all, among European educators and policymakers. In response to these challenges and seeming contradictions, the essay examines research findings supporting the emotional and academic benefits that students derive when schools affirm their home language. It thereby makes the case for recognizing immigrant languages not as a negative barrier to social and political integration but as a critical constituent of culture and identity and a positive national resource. In conclusion, it calls on both European supranational institutions, historically standard bearers in protecting language rights as human rights, and the United States federal government, to articulate an overall vision of immigrant schooling that state actors can put into practice within a range of linguistic and culturally sensitive approaches informed by transnational research, dialogue, and collaboration.

November 28, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Immigration Policy in the Next Administration

From the NY Immigration Coalition:

Latino voters were decisive in the last election, giving renewed momentum for immigration reform in the next Congress. What would be the likely dimensions of immigration reform legislation? Where might the two parties compromise in order to move reform forward? What are the implications for the U.S. economy and labor market? Join Americas Society/Council of the Americas and the New York Immigration Coalition for a discussion on these issues and more.
Chung-Wha Hong, Executive Director, New York Immigration Coalition
Jorge Pérez, Senior Vice President, Manpower North America
Muzaffar Chishti, Director, Migration Policy Institute Office at NYU School of Law
Moderator: Jason Marczak Director of Policy, Americas Society/Council of the Americas
*Additional panelists to be confirmed
Monday, December 3, 2012
Registration: 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Presentation: 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Reception: 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
680 Park Avenue
New York, NY
Prior registration is required.
Registration is complimentary for all NYIC - affiliated organizations. If you are an NYIC - affiliated organization, please contact Melanie Reyes at or 212-627-2227 Ext. 238 to register.

November 27, 2012 | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

From the Bookshelves: Arab America by Nadine Naber

Arab America by Nadine Naber.  Part of the Nation of Newcomers Series, NYU Press, 2012

Arab Americans are one of the most misunderstood segments of the U.S. population, especially after the events of 9/11. In Arab America, Nadine Naber tells the stories of second generation Arab American young adults living in the San Francisco Bay Area, most of whom are political activists engaged in two culturalist movements that draw on the conditions of diaspora, a Muslim global justice and a Leftist Arab movement. Writing from a transnational feminist perspective, Naber reveals the complex and at times contradictory cultural and political processes through which Arabness is forged in the contemporary United States, and explores the apparently intra-communal cultural concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality as the battleground on which Arab American young adults and the looming world of America all wrangle. As this struggle continues, these young adults reject Orientalist thought, producing counter-narratives that open up new possibilities for transcending the limitations of Orientalist, imperialist, and conventional nationalist articulations of self, possibilities that ground concepts of religion, family, gender, and sexuality in some of the most urgent issues of our times: immigration politics, racial justice struggles, and U.S. militarism and war.

November 27, 2012 in Books, Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Immigration Article of the Day: A Labor Paradigm for Human Trafficking by Hila Shamir

A Labor Paradigm for Human Trafficking by Hila Shamir, Tel Aviv University - Buchmann Faculty of Law November 6, 2012 UCLA Law Review, Vol. 60, No. 1, 2012

Abstract: Although human trafficking has gained unprecedented national and international attention and condemnation over the past decade, the legal instruments developed to combat this phenomenon have thus far proved insufficient. In particular, current efforts help an alarmingly small number of individuals out of the multitudes currently understood as falling under the category of trafficked persons, and even in these few cases, the assistance provided is of questionable value. This Article thus calls for a paradigm shift in anti-trafficking policy: a move away from the currently predominant human rights approach to trafficking and the adoption of a labor approach that targets the structure of labor markets prone to severely exploitative labor practices. This labor paradigm, the Article contends, offers more effective strategies for combating trafficking. After establishing the case for the labor paradigm, the Article suggests how it can be incorporated into existing anti-trafficking regimes. The Article proposes five measures for implementing anti-trafficking policies grounded on the labor approach: prevent the criminalization and deportation of workers who report exploitation; eliminate binding arrangements; reduce recruitment fees and the power of middlemen; guarantee the right to unionize; and extend and enforce the application of labor and employment laws to vulnerable workers. Finally, the Article analyzes why this paradigm has yet to be adopted and responds to some of the main objections to a paradigm shift.

November 27, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Monday, November 26, 2012

Human Rights Summit

Human Rights First invites you to the upcoming Human Rights Summit from December 4–5 featuring a panel on “Where is the common ground in fixing our broken immigration system” on Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at 8:30 am (doors open at 8:15 am) at the Newseum in Washington, DC.

The panel will include, a video message from former Governor Jeb Bush (Florida), opening remarks by Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and a discussion featuring Dr. Richard Land, Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, Southern Baptist Convention, Thomas F. McLarty, President, McLarty Associates, and James W. Ziglar, Senior Fellow, Migration Policy Institute and Senior Counsel, Van Ness Feldman, moderated by Ted Alden, Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations. Please register today.

November 26, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

DACA and Your Workplace Rights

The National Immigration Law Center has received many questions about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Many of them are about your rights in the workplace, both when you are applying for deferred action and after your application has been approved. This FAQ is intended to answer your questions about DACA and your workplace rights and to provide information that may be helpful when you apply for and after you’ve been granted deferred action under the DACA program.

November 26, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Center for Forced Migration Studies' Summer Institute: "The Refugee Status Determination Process" June 2–9, 2013

The Center for Forced Migration Studies (CFMS) Summer Institute is an intensive eight-day, non-degree earning certificate program. Through lectures, focused discussions, workshops and simulation exercises, the CFMS Summer Institute, held at Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, IL, provides a forum to exchange ideas, build relationships, develop new approaches and policy recommendations and learn about new developments in the field.

Past participants have included government officials, non-governmental organization personnel, university faculty and graduate students (select advanced undergraduate students may seek permission to attend). Applicants must have good to excellent English speaking and reading skills. No translation services are available.

The 2013 Summer Institute on The Refugee Status Determination Process introduces participants to the legal basis for refugee status and the variations in how authorities in different countries determine whether an asylum-seeker is eligible for refugee status. It provides students with guidance and workshops on case preparation including taking testimony, evidence documentation, working with victims of trauma and with issues of credibility and includes a focus on special topics such as LGBTI and gang-related asylum claims and cases involving unaccompanied minors.

Faculty include:

Deborah Anker (Harvard University);

Barbara Harrell-Bond, (University of Oxford);

Michael Kagan (University of Nevada, Las Vegas);

Uzoamaka Nzliebe (Northwestern University);

Miriam Marton (University of Connecticut); and

representatives from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Asylum Division.

November 26, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Asian-American says Latinos not only ones hit by Ariz. immigration law

Here is interesting reading on the impact of Arizona's S.B. 1070 on Asian Americans.  The impact on Latinos is well-known.

November 26, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Sign of the Immigration Times: A New Immigrant Detainee Intercultural Center

Intercultural center

Earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a newly-established Detainee Intercultural Center at the El Paso Processing Center in Texas.  ICE stated that it "is a place where men and women in ICE custody can reflect, meditate and worship. The modest 13-by-55 foot structure is part of the existing building."

"The El Paso Processing Center is the only ICE detention facility in the country with such a dedicated center," said Sandra Marinelarena, the interim assistant field office director, addressing the group of attendees at the center's dedication ceremony held in early October.

The Obama administration detained a record 425,000+ immigrants in fiscal year 2011.

November 26, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Naturalization Ceremony on the Today Show

On Friday, November 16, USCIS welcomed 30 new citizens during a naturalization ceremony televised live on the Today Show in Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas provided the call of countries and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano administered the oath ceremony.

November 26, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

6 Steps for President Obama on Immigration Reform NOW

Pablo Alvarado, Director, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, offers these six steps on immigration reform for President Obama:

1. Stop the quota of 400,000 deportations per year.

 2. Uncover the truth about the practice of immigration enforcement.

3. Terminate the dangerous "Secure Communities" program.

4. Change leadership at ICE and DHS.

5. Bring Sheriff Joe Arpaio to justice.

6. Grant lawful status to civil rights and labor leaders.

Any thoughts from our readers?

November 26, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)

Maintaining the Diversity Lottery?

In his latest installment on Nation of Immigrators, Angelo Paparelli advocates keeping the diversity visa lottery and not eliminating it in immigration reform. The Diversity Immigrant Visa Program makes 50,000 diversity visas available annually, drawn from random selection among entries of individuals who are from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States. The U.S. Department of State's website has more information about its operation.

I am not as sure about the benefits of the "serendipity" of the diversity visa program, which in many ways is a stacked lottery akin to gambling in Las Vegas.  Originally designed to benefit the Irish, the diversity visa program has been criticized for, as Professor Stephen Legomsky (now Chief Counsel for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) put it, being "anti-diversity," see Stephen H. Legomsky, Immigration, Equality and Diversity, 31 COLUM. J. TRANSNT’L L. 319 (1993).  It disqualifies from eligibility prospective immigrants from Mexico, China, India, the Philippines, and other nations that send a steady flow of immigrants to the United States each year (and add to the diversity of the U.S. population).

I guess that what I would hope for is a better justification for keeping the diversity visa program in light of the other national immigration priorities that we must address.

November 26, 2012 in Current Affairs | Permalink | TrackBack (0)


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Monday, October 4, 2010

Speaking of Las Vegas...

If you are in the running for one of the positions Ngai's previous post references (or, for that matter, just visiting Nevada's most populous city), be careful when considering where you stay.

If you're not, then you might just be burned by the Vdara "Death Ray".

One wonders how this type of thing slipped by designer, inspectors, and building officials on a multi-billion dollar project.

--Chad Emerson, Faulkner U.

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Youch! I sense some litigation coming on...

Posted by: Jamie Baker Roskie | Oct 6, 2010 7:23:52 AM


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Friday, April 2, 2010

Personal Injury Roundup No. 73 (4/2/10)

Happy Passover!  Happy Easter!  In torts...

Reform, Legislation, Policy

New Lawsuits

  • Man sues neighbor over alleged deleterious effects of her use of electronic devices.  (ABA Journal)

  • Palestinian Authority loses another round in NY Appellate Division over $116M terror verdict.  (Turkewitz)
  • NY:  $50,000 pain-and-suffering verdict for 90 days of back pain upheld on appeal.  (Hochfelder)

Trials, Settlements and Other Ends

  • Panel on "Pluralism in Tort Law and Litigation" at the 13th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture, and the Humanities.  (Stier/Mass Tort Profs)

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Tuesday, 10 March 2009

LCD TV Enclosure - Press Release

LCD Enclosures Global Limited is proud to launch their range of LCD and Plasma TV enclosures for hostile areas; they are only the second Company in the World to do this.

These enclosures protect a standard large format LCD display up to 70" in hostile areas. Areas that normally you wouldn’t site an LCD display, such as in airports, train stations, Universities, hospitals and correctional facilities.

If the displays were left unprotected, they would be subjected to theft, abuse, vandalism as well as the weather. Now there is a solution to protect them, at an affordable price.

In their range of outdoor TV enclosures, they can accommodate from 26” displays up to 70” displays. The units have been developed so they are an easy two person installation.

Their LCD and plasma TV enclosures have three mounting options including: poles, wall or ceiling mount solutions.

Once the LCD display and media player are installed for outdoor digital signage and the door is locked, is then a waterproof LCD enclosure, perfect for outdoor locations in snow, rain and direct sunlight.

The units are cooled either by special filtered fan units or air conditioning units depending upon the application.

One of their recent projects was for a correction facility were LCD displays were being installed and needed protection from potential abuse, these enclosures will extend the lifespan of the televisions in such a hostile area.

More information on their product line can be requested by visiting their website (www.lcdenclosure.co.uk) and get a copy of their current product catalogue. LCD Enclosure Global Limited ship globally and have successfully won projects in Australia, America, Singapore and Europe.

Contact: Graham Gallagher
Telephone: +44 844 3578687

Company Information:
Name: LCD Enclosures Global Ltd
Address: Unit 433 Carlinghurst Business Park
City: Blackburn
State: Lancashire
Country: UK
Phone: +44 844 3578687

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Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Amy Tan, September 1989 Interview

Interview with Amy Tan: tape transcription

What do you think of your success now:
I am completely surprised, in fact I've been overwhelmed by it. If I in the beginning I was probably much more gracious to people who called me for interviews, but now I am so completely overwhelmed by it and I am trying to keep my life a little in control.
I had signed a contract after writing only three stories. My hope was that I would not disappoint the publisher and that the sales would pay for the advance and that they would not be disappointed with the result. My expectations were so modest, I hoped that somehow they would be able to recoup their advance -- $50,000--which is a great deal of money for a first book. It was, in fact, a tremendous amount for a collection of short stories. And then I thought, well, I can't worry about how they're going to sell this thing, the most important thing was the writing of it. I thought it was there concern and I hoped it wouldn't be a terrible disappointment.
There were a number of things that happened that gave me a hint that it might sell more than a typical first book, a collection of short stories, would be around 5,000 and maybe 7,500 for a first novel. And there was the book club that came along. Then in the summer, in late August, I had just come back from Mexico. And somebody called me and said, "One of the clubs wants to buy your book." And I thought, my that's fast, they're already selling to the clubs in Mexico. I was so naive about everything, I didn't realize they were selling my book to the book clubs. Somebody would call and say, "Well, there's a paperback floor on your book." And I would say, "Oh, that's good. And then I would ask, later, "What is a floor? What is this about."
The floor, which is the baseline for where the options start, was established in May of 1988, I had finished the book in April of 1988, and the floor was established under the first three stories. They had not seen the rest of the book yet, and it worried me again as with the first advance, that the paperback publisher might be disappointed with the final result. I kept asking myself, "Why are they buying this thing?" I had no track record then. As a fiction writer. And there were only three stories that they were looking at and the remainder of the book may be a big disappointment. So that was my main concern all the time.
You wouldn't think that people would want to buy a book and read about Chinese mothers and daughters or Chinese anything. In fact there was a very funny quote that someone read to me from the New Yorker last summer when my book was number three on the New York Times best seller list, And the thing was talking about how there was a fascination among Americans for Soviet espionage type novels, and it referred to Polar Star and Russia House and so on, and then somewhere in the article it said that Americans were too insulated from things that happened in China and so we would not see in the future any books on the best seller list that concerned China. Not that my book is simply about China, it is about Chinese Americans, but it struck me as funny that when they were saying this there was a book on the best seller list that had to do with China and was not a spy novel.
My mother has a good answer to where my stories came from. She says that all of my fiction is completely my imagination and I would like to say that. What is autobiographical are the feelings that did come from the experiences that I had from growing up in the country having parents who came from China in the 1940s and also trying to imagine what my mother would say to me if she could just sit down and tell these stories. She has told me stories much more recently since the book has come out that are more complete, but there are fragments of the stories based on things that my mother told me. Most of the factual details of the stories however, are fiction. The most true story of the book is called "Magpie." It's probably one of the most exotic of the stories, the story of the woman who becomes the third concubine. What is true is that my grandmother and she cuts a piece of flesh from her arm and makes soup, and my grandmother did that and my mother saw her do that. And it was a testament of how deep one's mother is in one's bones. My mother didn't use that expression to describe that event, but she was trying one time to explain the quality of respect that is very much a Chinese value that is not the same as mother/daughter love, but it is the kind of love where you would sacrifice your own life, and the proof of that is that when your mother is about to die, there is this tradition where you make this soup and you use part of your own flesh. And it is true that my grandmother was forced to become a third concubine to a, she had been a first wife, the wife of a scholar, and she became a widow, and she became the third concubine of a rich man and she overdosed on opium and my mother was there to watch her die. It is true the way she was forced to become a concubine. This actually happened in Shanghai, this part about meeting the man and his wife along a lake in Hangzhou is true, how she was raped and forced to become his concubine, this is true. The story of the red candle and the marriage is not true. My mother told me that there was this tradition in China where you could not get out of this marriage, marriages were a contract that could not be broken, and there was this candle, and so I decided to write a story about a marriage that could not be broken and how you could not go against your family in this tradition. I wrote a sense of how you could claim your own spirit back.
There was a story about a woman who lost her spirit and then saw her daughter going through the same thing, that was the story about the daughter's marriage with the architect where they put a list of things on the refrigerator, but superficially where they are achieving equality through tallying up expenses. I have been with the same man for over 20 years and we have been married for 15 years. And he is not like any of the men in the book.
I have three older sisters left in China in 1949. My mother told me how she had to leave the children behind, but she left because she finally had proof, so to speak, she had this man she was married to who declared that she was not his wife but that the concubine was his wife, she decided to leave, and in those days when you decided to leave this, but when she tried to leave before she was put in jail, this was an incredible story that is not in the book about her life with this man, she was abused in all sense of the word, but she was finally able to escape from this man she had to leave her daughters behind. You could not claim custody of the children. Had she stayed she would have killed herself. And probably, I don't think she would have killed her daughters, but if she wanted them to have a better life it would be something like let's all kill ourselves rather than stay in this marriage. She hoped that when she came here she would be be able to establish a better life and then send for them. But in 1949, then everything shut down, and she left literally on the last boat out of Shanghai. there were other people leaving after that, leaving on boats in the night, the boat people of 1949 and 1950, a lot of boat people who escaped through secretive means, but my mother was able to bribe herself on the last boat leaving Shanghai.
I went back to meet my sisters. We've asked if they want to come here. My mother has not had a letter back from one of my sisters to see if she want's to come. My oldest sister's son wants to come here to study. I wrote to him and said I would pay his air fare and his tuition and he will get a passport and come here to study.
All my life my mother had been telling me, especially when there were times when I wanted to say that I was not Chinese, I mean there were times , that I was not Chinese, I was American, I mean I thought it was a mistake, that I was an American born into this Chinese body. I was this American girl born into this Chinese body and how did I have these strange parents. And my mother said you are Chinese, you were born Chinese you will always be Chinese. As I got older I began to sense things about my upbringing that were Chinese. That was OK but I still felt American. My relatives always said that you are Chinese and you belong to China no matter what, even if you were born in America. In fact there is a saying, an expression, that Chinese relatives who live outside China are called "overseas Chinese," and it is thought you will return some day, you are just temporarily away. I went to China when I had become much more interested in my family's past and I wanted to meet my sisters. And my mother had said that we were going to go to China together, and she had this expression, "You will see. You will see. As soon as your feet touch China you will become Chinese." She was right. It was such a different country in one respect. It was such a paradox in that I was a stranger in such a strange land. My style was different. My mother said that there was an expression, people will know that you are not Chinese by the way you walk, by the way you carry yourself, by the way you look, the way you dress, people will know. I had this really silly fear that I would go there and they would think I was one of them and they would not let me come out. But my mother said, NO way. So that there was this feeling. It wasn't with what I... the way I looked ... it had to do with the fact that I had all these ambivalent feelings about being Chinese and here was the country my parents belonged to, my parents were born there, my sisters lived there, but also most of my family, and there was a feeling of coming home, I had two countries. One was the fatherland and one the motherland. And I really felt that China was my motherland and that I had come home. I felt I had a more complete identity then. All those things I didn't understand or didn't feel comfortable with sort of all of a sudden evaporated. I actually landed in Beijing. It was more because my family was there, they were there at the airport, and we were so surprised that they were there. And one of my sisters was there, and there was this instant family feeling. My sisters would start criticizing me immediately. Here you would say that was strange, but in Chinese families that is a sign of intimacy. they said Why are you wearing these clothes. Have you been taking care of our mother. she doesn't look so well. It was just like family, just like I'm home and here is my family. and they had all these gifts. But they had the gestures of intimacy at the same time.

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If You Are Looking For Additional Business in 44843, So Why Don’t You Outsource the Job?

Lucas Lead Generation

A great deal of people should make use of the outsourcing fact nowadays. But the trouble is that they could not know all the advantages that they can leave outsourcing. We will certainly allow you recognize much more below about exactly what outsourcing can do for you these days as well.

Reduction of Expenses
Outsourcing will certainly allow you to save a lot of loan in the future, as you could obtain any kind of job done rapidly and at a lower piece. There is a substantial distinction in terms of wages in between numerous countries, and also you can take advantage of this right away. Indian workers could do the work at just a fraction of the cost contrasted to Western employees. You will certainly take care of to save up to 60% of the complete cost of workmanship when you outsource any work to an Oriental country. You additionally obtain a high-grade task in all times also.

Get B2B Appointment Setting Help in Ohio

You will also get an enhanced performance for the job that you have to outsource also. You will certainly get tons of years of experience in a specific job. These workers recognize the domain, as well as you will obtain what you want swiftly as well as easily. Enhancing your performance degree is very easy when you outsource. There is likewise a great deal of efficiency in this process, and also your fundamental will profit immediately. You will manage to focus on the areas that matter most for your business, which implies even more money in your pockets.

Big Cost savings
You will not need to spend an arm as well as a leg obtaining world-class facilities, as your contracting out partners can do this for you at a portion of the expense. You will also obtain access to a pool of skilled employees, and you will not have to spend any time educating them. There is additionally a time-zone benefit. You can request the job to be one today, as well as your outsourcers might have the work done when you get up the next morning. You will obtain faster and truly much better services when you contract out nowadays too.

You will certainly likewise manage to transform any type of suggestion into a product right away, and also you will certainly additionally obtain a genuinely value-added recommendation whenever you need to. Remember that both expertise as well as swiftness are some of the advantages that you will get with an outsourced labor force these days. Getting a high-grade outcome is always feasible with an outsourced labor force.

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Decreased Employment Costs
You will not have to shell out a great deal of cash to obtain a new staff, as your outsourcing companion has actually done this for you. This is just one of one of the most vital benefits of contracting out some job. If you do not have experienced labor with you, an outsourcing partner can do the trick extremely well. You might be throwing away a lot of cash doing a broad range of back-office functions these days, and also an outsourcing partner can be the remedy to this issue right away. If you outsource these functions, you will have a minimized overhead down the road as well.

This may become an expensive task, as well as you will certainly likewise have to obtain even more room. If you can outsource this easy procedure, this can you can get an advantage over your competitors in this little job as well. If you have additionally inadequately managed or unrestrained areas in your company, you could take advantage of the outsourcing world.

Outsourced B2B Lead Generation in Ohio

Keep in mind that outsourcing will permit you to decrease the overhead of your company in no time, and this is a significant advantage that you can obtain over your competitors these days as well. Getting significant savings is also simple if you take advantage of the outsourcing world these days too.


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Brain Breaks!

brain break picture

The best decision I made last school year was to stop giving out incentives for good behavior, and start giving out brain breaks. I know, I’m pretty late to this party. I’d actually had parents write me notes-“Please, if you don’t mind, can you not give Kaylee any candy? Please?” These notes broke my heart! I try to make healthy choices at home. I run, I do yoga, I buy my dog this crazy expensive dog food that you have to drive to the vet to get and they close at 1 o’clock on Wednesdays, but here I was not reinforcing these healthy choices at school.

(See super expensive food eating dog above.)

So, ok no candy, no more. Easy! But I have been hooked on giving out incentives my whole teaching career! What can I do now? Brain Breaks!

What are these Brain Breaks?

About every 45 minutes, my students take a break from what they are doing and wiggle, laugh, breathe deeply, stretch, yell, jump, or sing! We started small and simple at the beginning of the year with games like “follow the leader” where I’d walk around the classroom like an airplane, then a frog. We sang some silly songs and made up dance moves. I keep a list on the wall by our smart board of our “Brain Break Leaders” (you get to add your name to the bottom of the list for making an awesome choice- our one incentive!) I’d pick a brain break leader and let them teach us their Tae Kwan Do moves (carefully!) Or we’d use any of the awesome videos on

How does this help classroom management?

Sitting still is not a natural state for children, especially younger ones like my second graders. The knowledge that they were going to get a break soon and a chance to wiggle and be silly keeps them focused just a bit longer. But you have to be consistent and you can’t keep telling them, “We’ll take a break in 5 minutes.” My students knew when brain breaks were coming and sometimes we had to stop what we were doing to take this opportunity to refocus.

But There Isn’t Enough Time and They’ll Just Lose Control!

There’s really no wrong way to hold a brain break as long as you set very clear expectations before hand. Picture what would happen if you asked children to stretch (by far the least scary of the things on my list above) without giving any directions first. “Ok let’s all stretch our arms wide and breathe deeply… whoa! Whoa! Hands in your bubble! Sarah you ok?! ALRIGHT hands back down! Hands back down!”

On the very first day of school, I rolled out the brain break expectations.

  1. You must stay in the brain break area (which is a big, safe area of our classroom.)
  2. You must move your body with enough control that no one gets hurt.
  3. As soon as the brain break is over I will say our class quiet signal and that’s your cue to sit down right where you are and put your eyes on me (now they’re ready to listen!)
  4. No begging for certain brain breaks and no whining about which brain break we’re doing!

Screen Shot 2016-06-24 at 3.07.47 PM

Get a FREE brain break expectations poster here!

That last rule is the headache saver! You can do so many different types of brain breaks, including the amazing videos at, but if everyone is jumping in your face yelling, “Disco Brain! Disco Brain!” then brain breaks are going to be too much of a disruption and you won’t want to do them.

At the beginning of the year, each time we come to our front carpet to do a brain break, we go quickly through these 4 expectations. Any of my students can tell you these rules- especially if they get to say them in a funny voice. “Who can tell me our brain break expectations like Cookie Monster?”

The truly hard part is enforcing those four expectations every time. Every time. Even when Alice’s mom, who is also the music teacher, walks in and it’s Alice who is disco dancing so violently that Kendra gets poked in the eye. If students aren’t following our brain break rules I say very calmly, “I’m sorry Alice, but you’re not moving safely, so you need to sit in your seat.” With most groups of students, you’ll only have to do this every once in awhile to show that these expectations are important.

Why are Brain Breaks so Great?

Here are the results I found after a year of having my students take brain breaks every 45 minutes:

  • We got more done!

I was not constantly having to ask for students to listen or stay focused. When I saw that a lot of the students were having trouble paying attention, we took our brain break earlier and I got them all back on task! Sometimes I even made a smaller lesson into a brain break between bigger lessons! For example, when we were studying how to make words plural by adding “s” or “es”, I wrote a bunch of nouns on index cards. I split the class into teams and had them line up in two lines and run back and forth to buckets labeled “s” and “es.” I stood in the back of the room handing out new cards and each child got to run at least twice. Then we all sat around the buckets to see if we had sorted the words correctly.

“Uh oh, dish ended up in the “s” bucket! Where should it be?”

“The “es” bucket! Dishes!”

  • We were calmer, happier, and more focused!

The students loved taking brain breaks and therefore worked hard to earn that privilege! Taking these breaks also gave students the chance to get their wiggles out, be loud, jump, etc! All the things that kids love AND NEED to do.

  • No one missed earning candy, prizes, or gold stars!

Occasionally, a student would ask me, “Why don’t we get lollipops like Mrs. H’s class?” All I had to say was, “Because our class is so well behaved that we get to take brain breaks!” I also had parents thank me for adding exercise into our day!

  • I had more energy and focus too!

I like to participate in the brain breaks with my students. They think it is hilarious to watch me learn the dances or be a rocket ship and when the break is over I get their focus back right away (and stronger than before!) Getting up and moving around every 45 minutes is good for the teacher too! More energy = more patience! Plus you can get more steps on your Fitbit… but really it’s for the kids. 🙂

If you haven’t tried using brain breaks in your classroom, then I highly recommend it! If you tried it last year and it didn’t work, then try it again with clear expectations from the first day of school. It is a fun and healthy way to enhance your students’ focus and encourage good choices. Message me here with questions or email me at 🙂

brain break picture


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Windows to Our World, by Sarah Janisse Brown

Windows to Our World

post written by Emma Filbrun

Windows to Our World, by Sarah Janisse BrownTitle: Windows to Our World
Author: Sarah Janisse Brown
Major Themes: Family Life, Missionaries, Christian Living
Synopsis: The mother of 10 children tells the story of her life, from a young girl struggling to learn to read to a missionary in Europe now.

I always enjoy reading about the lives of other mothers with a number of children. In Windows to Our World, Sarah, who happens to be only two years younger than me, tells the story of her life from a young girl to becoming the mother of 10. She was raised in a Christian home, with a pastor father and an artist mother, and many of her weekends as a girl were spent at art fairs as her mother sold her paintings. In seventh grade, Sarah’s mother pulled her out of school and began to homeschool her, which turned out to be a wonderful choice for Sarah. After completing the lessons her mother required in math, Sarah followed her own interests for the remainder of her schooling, often becoming so engrossed in what she was learning about that she had to be pulled away from her books for meals!

At 15, Sarah met a young man who, she knew almost immediately, would make a good husband. Even after Sarah’s family moved from on side of the United States to the other, they stayed in touch. By the time Sarah turned 18, she and Josh knew they would be married, but agreed to wait until Sarah turned 21. In the interim, Sarah spent some time as a missionary in Europe. Serbia, Austria and Russia taught her a lot, and she experienced the civil war in Serbia firsthand. Then, immediately after the wedding, the babies started coming along, and Sarah and her husband had to search out God’s will. Should they allow God to plan their family, or not?

For a number of years, the Brown family moved back and forth between the house they owned in a small town in Indiana, and various houses outside the town. However, they felt called to do overseas missionary work, and in 2012 moved to Italy and then Ukraine. Several years previously, they discovered that one of their daughters was dyslexic. This led to Sarah’s creating art materials to help her learn to read, and this developed into an online company which supports the family now, as they minister to people in Europe.

If you would like to read real-life stories about large families, or about missionaries; if you enjoy reading about homeschooling experiences or godly courtship, Windows to Our World is for you! It is full of inspiration for mothers, but would be a good read-aloud for the whole family, too. There are 73 chapters, but they are short, so a good book to pick up when you have just a few minutes in which to read.

No warnings!

Age Levels:

Reading Independently—Ages 15 and Above, Adults

Links to buy Windows to Our World:

Paperback | Kindle

Keywords: Missionaries, Homeschool, Homeschoolers, Homeschooling, Family life, Dyslexia, Italy, Ukraine, Serbia, Serbian Civil War, Austria, Russia, Romance, Art, Painting, Sarah Janisse Brown

Note: The links on this page may be affiliate links. Your clicks and purchases from my affiliate links will contribute a small amount toward the cost of keeping this website going, at no extra charge to you. Thank you for your support!

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Monday, January 19, 2015

Inside and Out: Probing the Boundaries of Law

[We have a call for “Inside and Out: Probing the Boundaries of Law,” McGill's Annual Graduate Conference in Law, May 29-30, 2015, Montreal, Canada.]

The graduate students of McGill's Faculty of Law are pleased to announce their annual graduate law conference. We invite fellow graduate students to submit abstracts for presentation at the conference and to join us in the exchange and development of new ideas, concepts and approaches to law.

Designed specifically for graduate students, this conference creates a safe and dynamic forum for new and emerging scholars to stretch intellectual boundaries and build academic networks. Conference participants will have the opportunity to share in McGill University's rich intellectual community and longstanding tradition of fostering creative and original thinking - all the while within the vibrant and captivating environment of Canada's culture capital.

The theme of this year's conference, "Inside and Out: Probing the Boundaries of Law", encourages participants to think beyond the traditional frontiers of state-made-law and law as a distinctive discipline. Submissions may focus on a substantial 'legal' issue or serve as an inquiry into the margins of legal scholarship itself. Examples of topics related to this theme may include, but are not restricted to, legal pluralism, alternative dispute resolution mechanisms and law and the social sciences.

Central to pushing the traditional limits of law is the acceptance of greater diversity in legal actors and legal sources. To what extent is the law equipped to accommodate for such diversity? Is such diversity a strength or a weakness? Views and perspectives of the law and what lies within and outside the boundaries of law are deeply personal. They are molded by our own individual histories and experiences. Scholars are invited to reflect on how the diversity of our backgrounds and experiences affect our legal scholarship. How does this diversity affect solidarity within the legal community?

The theme of this conference will not be limited to any particular question or area of law. The substantive agenda for this conference will be set by those questions and topics most important to graduate students wishing to participate. We encourage scholars to think creatively about the conference theme and how their own research interests fit into it.

Please send a 300 word abstract to  Submissions written in both English and French will be accepted.  The closing date for submissions to be considered by the conference committee is 23 February 2015. Successful applicants will be informed by 13 March 2015 and will be required to submit a minimum 2000 word paper in advance of the conference.

For those of who do not wish to submit a paper, you are warmly invited to join us in discussion at our Annual Graduate Conference in Law.  Detailed information will be posted regularly on the Conference website

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Wednesday, February 22, 2012

'Odditites' at Neue Berliner Räume, October 21, 2011 to November 11, 2011

21 October 2011 - 11 November 2011 Fr - So / 14h-19h Opening: 21 October 2011 - 7pm Closing: 11 November 2011 - 7pm

Neue Berliner Räume is pleased to present the exhibition Odditites, featuring works by Eva Lauterlein and Christopher Leib. Both aesthetically and with regards to content, the exhibition focusses on positions that explore the notion of oddness.

While representations of beauty often serve to obscure fissures, oddness may be understood as an access to more authentic perspectives. Where the idea of strangeness is being shifted to the foreground without redefining it as normality, a space emerges in which the normative power of the notion of normality begins to wane.

The discursive battles around notions of beauty and normality and their function in the arts have faded. Yet, the idea of perfection continues to exercise great fascination on the society. And while it refers to more and more constrained positions and constructs, representations of oddity have been increasingly approximated to fit to an idea of normality. Disrupting these dynamics, the works of Lauterlein and Leib render the notion of oddity accessible for identification as they explore it without distorting it.

Importantly, the works of both Lauterlein and Leib do not stop at showing oddity as a merely aesthetic feature. Quite to the contrary, the works point to an internal feature that finds a symbolic materialization on the faces and the bodies of the bizarre and strangely withdrawn figures. That they, the figures, still retain an element of approachability may be understood as an invitation to explore the core of their oddness and, ultimately, what we share with them: an all too natural oddity.

Please visit the Neue Berliner Räume website.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Gold Leaf...

I had some gold leaf scraps from a mural I was working on, so I thought I decided to incorporate it into some paper pieces...
Ink, watercolor, colored pencil, duct tape on paper.


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Tattoo Blog

Harley bar and shield tattoo

You harley bar and shield tattoo lot this

What's your favorite tattoo. But that's just politician spin. Sousho - Super-cursive letters. I have mixed feelings on this particular topic. However if you do find yourself a good tattoo artist, the end results would be amazing like in here. If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please leave us harley bar and shield tattoo hawaiian tribal shoulder tattoos meanings below. In EVE's colossal social sandbox, you can create your own game and play it your own way. Their tattoos featured thick, black lines forming images inspired by nature, such as flowers, leaves and animals, that mark a person's journey through life. Advice from friends or colleagues is pretty useful when it's time harley bar and shield tattoo tribal and tattoo this part of the shopping for the wedding. No two signatures are alike, and each signature is as unique as the person whose memory it represents. Thor's harmer symbolizes power of Thor tattoo for dog thunder and lightning. 0 or later. In this day and age, so many of you are undoubtedly clicking through hoards of totally generic designs and it has to be getting to you. The disorder, depression and my dear boyfriend has made me that person who I am now and that's why I would like to have something tattooed regarding to them. Some tribal designs will take elements of different cultures all over the world, including the Aztec culture which is common place in tattoos and often will have cool symbols such as the sun and moon incorporated. Hip hop singers had a lot of clout, particularly on RB music. A couple of doves are also a very familiar and universal sign of love. Mask tattoo designs can include any type of mask that you want. A tribal tattoo design is elected by individuals for various reasons. Orchid symbolism can be found as far east as England. In the recent harley bar and shield tattoo, back problem is very common problem of people who works full time in the office. Alocsin, I appreciate all your visits. How. If you're considering getting a tattoo, you're certainly not harley bar and shield tattoo. Make sure it is what you want. Life Some people that choose the hope tattoo choose this tattoo symbol to represent themselves, their beliefs. In this bio-mechanical tattoo, you can see that the skin is peeled back. ) This is a very easy hairstyle to manage. Is there a way to see time left harley bar and shield tattoo missions. So if you come face to face with the person who has a tattoo design which you admire go ahead and ask them which is the artists that help them in getting such a masterpiece. In the US, 40 of the same age population have at least one harley bar and shield tattoo. Get an instantly slimming effect by choosing shirts in dark colors, such as black or navy blue. Whether you're about to get your first tattoo or it's the next one in your collection, it's always useful to know if the symbol that your tattoo artist is about to whip out his tattoo machine and permanently ink you with has an appropriate meaning. Other important harley bar and shield tattoo methods are an abdominal CT scan and a bileliver duct MRI. Tribal tattoo designs have been the first tattoo designs to be used. These tattoo designs are mostly popular among the women and a fairy also defines being strong with magical elements tattoo and piercing winchester va you. Only 7 percent of Americans think the United States is winning the war on drugsand few Americans are interested in throwing down more money to try to win, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released in 2012. Female Gangs are still in the best reno tattoos. Brestrogen is a natural breast enhancement product that is meant for females who need to style up their breast and retrieve the first beauty in them. Here are the top small tat designs that are in the list of girls' favorites. When you create a tattooharley bar and shield tattoo needles will puncture your skin at very fast rates and variable depths. Here are a few of those meanings.

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