He Said It Best

Nobody ever asks me why I want to be a lawyer.  But if they did, I might point them to this passage from Michael Cricthon's 1994 novel Disclosure:

Sitting in the deserted law offices, [the client] had the feeling that he was all alone in the world, with nobody but [his lawyer] and the encoraching darkness. Things were happening quickly; this person he had never met before today was fast becoming a kind of lifeline for him.

That's how you justify defending people you think might be guilty: because, as humans, they need somebody to believe in them and fight for their (and our) rights.

Thomas KOs Artest

A quick Google news search tells me that nobody else is reporting what I saw today in San Antonio: Kurt Thomas knocking the crap out of Ron Artest, knocking Ron Artest flat on his patookis in the crowd behind the goal.

Let me explain.  Mr. Artest battered George Hill, our rookie guard, who was on his way to a fastbreak layup.  Sir Kurt (who should be knighted for his defense of the homeland) answered the assault with the same intensity with which he plays: he pivoted, then sidled toward Mr. Artest, stepped into it, pushed his 235 pounds through his left shoulder, and blasted Mr. Artest at least twenty-three feet into the crowd behind the goal.  Fouls were called on neither Mr. Artest nor Sir Kurt.

Normally, I don't condone violence.  Sometimes, however, you gotta put the smack down to show people whose house they're in.  Sir Kurt explained to Mr. Artest, in language he could understand, that he was in la Casa de los Spurs.  If you mess with one Spur, you mess with us all.

You just don't get stories like this in baseball.

This One's for President Scott

The Sporting News, via Yahoo!, published a story by Richard Justice, who writes for the Houston Chronicle.  So maybe he's just rubbing it in our face.  (But let's face it---Astros and Rangers fans don't hate each other like Cubs and White Sox fans.  The only thing we've ever done to them was steal an almost over the hill Nolan Ryan back in 1988 or whenever.)  Or maybe he genuinely understands what it means to be a Rangers fan.  Some quotes:

To be a fan of the Texas Rangers is to live in your own peculiar sports hell.

. . . 

[E]very franchise has had its bad moments.

The thing that separates the Rangers from pretty much every other MLB franchise is that they keep making bad decisions.  Year after year.  Generation after generation.

. . . 

In 37 years, the Rangers have won just one playoff game.  That was their very first one---on Oct. 1, 1996. . . . Under general manager Doug Melvin and manager Johnny Oates, the Rangers made the playoff three times in four years.

Those were the great years.  

I think it's important to note that he says "the great years" and not "some good years."  The article then delves into the great ownership of Tom Hicks, including his deals to get Alex Rodriguez and Chan Ho Park before concluding with the words that every Rangers fan wants to read and believe and hope:

Maybe Hicks has learned his lesson.

Yes, and maybe this is the year we beat the Nationals in the World Series.

Go 76ers Go

After my team's miserable loss on Monday night, I feel the need to spread the embarrassment.  Last night, sixteen NBA teams met in eight locations.  Seven home teams won; the only home team loss came in the Staples Center.  And in case you were wondering, the Clippers lost up somewhere near San Francisco.

First Movies

The earliest movie I can remember seeing is the 1987 classic Predator.  After that, the first two movies I can remember watching were Michael Keaton's venerable Beetle Juice from 1988 and Bill Murray's 1984 effort, Ghost Busters.  The first movie I saw in the theater was the inimitable Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

The first Disney movie I can remember seeing is 1991's Beauty and the Beast, tho I might have seen Terminator 2 in theaters first.  I'm also pretty sure I saw 1992's Aladdin in the theaters.  The first Disney movie I remember owning is still my favorite, 1994's Lion King.  (I asked for the Super Nintendo game for my birthday, but my parents got confused and bought me the movie instead.  Ah well: all's well that ends well.  The movie is a classic and the game is forgotten.)  Maybe this is weird, but the two scariest movies I remember from growing up are Dumbo and Fantasia.  I'm still afraid of drunk elephants and dancing broomsticks.

Come to think of it, the only kids movie I watched much of before Lion King was Scruffy.

What about y'all?  What's the first movie you remember seeing?

Sawliet, Sawliet, Sawliet!

One of my favorite things to tell The Missus is that life is too short to be in a hurry.  Like many of my friends, I want to know how LOST ends, but reading this post on Lostpedia got me thinking about enjoying the present on LOST (whenever that is).  Here's a good sum-up quote:

Too many of us complain that there aren’t enough answers being given, and that there are too many questions popping up. But it is a mystery show, after all. Learn to love the questions.

Will Sawyer and Juliet end up together?  Who's the real bad guy, Ben or Widmore?  When will Walt come back?  I don't know the answers, but I have guesses.  (Yes, Jack, and Season 6.)  And right now it's a lot of fun to talk to other people about what they think the answers are.  I think when the show ends, we'll miss that part of the LOST experience.

Dignity and Debasement

The most beautiful book I've ever read is Stephen King's Cujo, a story not just about a rabid (or demon-possessed?) dog, but a story about the debasement of a husband and wife dealing with insanely huge problems they can't escape, like infidelity:

[S]he hoped he would always think he had been as mad as hell, and not . . . not the way his face said he felt.

Infidelity (whatever that means to the couple in question) is such a big issue in a marriage that it cannot be simply swept under the rug.

But why is it such a big deal?  Relationships sometimes peter out.  Friends drift in and out of closeness, sometimes trading best friends.  Why not spouses, too?  Sure, judeochristian ethics frown on infidelity, but why?  (I mean besides the obvious husband : wife :: Christ : church analogy.  I've always thought of that analogy as arising precisely because of the ban on infidelity.)  I don't have the answer, but I do have a thought: dignity.

William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist is both beautiful and insightful.  Toward the end, Father Merrin (the old priest) and Father Karras (the young priest) are talking about what the demon seems to want from Regan (the little girl):

I think the demon's target is not the possessed; it is us . . . the observers . . . every person in this house. And I think---I think the point is to make us despair; to reject our own humanity, Damien: to see ourselves as ultimately bestial; as ultimately vile and putrescent; without dignity; ugly; unworthy.

The demon is trying to debase Regan and the others and take away their dignity.  When I talk about dignity, I mean something deeper than pride and more lasting than the absence of embarrassment.  I mean a recognition of your intrinsic self-worth, a recognition that, regardless of what seems to be or what people think, you deserve to have that worth recognized.

And dignity is what infidelity attacks.  We all deserve, intrinsically, somebody on our side, even when the world hates us.  It's why we all have a Sixth Amendment right to counsel and a right to zealous, loyal representation.  And maybe that's why infidelity is so destructive.

Fiction

I love reading fiction and only tolerate some nonfiction.  I've read enough nonfiction over the past three years to last me a lifetime, but I have much more nonfiction to read in the future.  Perhaps Isaac Asimov said it best:

It's your fiction that interests me. Your studies of the interplay of human motives and emotions.

That's it.  I love stories, and I love psychology.  Go fiction!

On second thought, most legal nonfiction is really a study of the interplay of human motives and emotions.  Maybe I have chosen the right profession . . . 

Ahem

Cough.

The Other Texas Football Team

I don't know much about football, but anybody who paid much attention to the 2008 football season saw how important a quality backup quarterback is to winning championships.  Texas's other football team,* ironically referred to as "the Texans," decided to trade away their quality backup.  Besides my burgeoning affection for the Other Texas Football Team, I point this out to you because I thought you'd be interested in what the Minnesota Vikings gave up: a fourth-round draft pick.

You read that correctly.  Not two draft picks.  Not a first-round draft pick.  Not a player to be named later.  "Mr. Rosenfels, we appreciate what you've done for us the past two years, but we think you're worth the equivalent of an unproven Division II left tackle."

But like I said, I don't know much about football.

 

*Texas's football teams being generally recognized in this order: Dallas Cowboys, UT Longhorns, A&M Aggies, Midland High, Baylor Bears, Houston Texans.

Causation Joke

So I'm sitting in Advanced Crim Pro today, and we're talking about how Gerstein violations result in exclusion only if there is a causal connection between the violation and the evidence.  [This is really just a lame lead-up to what I think is a funny quote.]  That got me thinking about this quote from Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency:

The complexities of cause and effect defy analysis.

You can take that to the bank.  The moral of the story is that the space-time continuum is

. . . very like a piece of badly put up wallpaper.  Push down a bubble somewhere, another one pops up somewhere else. . . . The only thing that really gets hurt when you try and change time is yourself.

Ah, Douglas Adams.  You left us too soon.

Who's afraid of a little paradox?

Those who've been watching LOST lately are probably thinking a lot about paradoxes and what-ifs.  My personal favorite paradox is the compass.  Alpert gives Locke the compass c. 2004, but Locke gives Alpert the compass (via time travel) in 1954.  If Locke got it from Alpert, and Alpert got it from Locke, where did it come from?

To help explain, here's a nice humorous quote dealing with time travel and paradoxes:

If the Universe came to an end every time there was some uncertainty about what had happened in it, it would never have got beyond the first picosecond.  And many of course don't.  It's like a human body, you see.  A few cuts and bruises here and there don't hurt it.  Not even major surgery if it's done properly.  Paradoxes are just the scar tissue.  Time and space heal themselves up around them and people simply remember a version of events which makes as much sense as they require it to make.

Thus spoke Douglas Adams, so it must be true.

Wii are post-PC

So while my fellow travelers read through hundreds of pages of pretrial procedure and evidence law, my neighbor came over today to make sure his Wii didn't get blown out by the storm last night.  And I beat the Mirror Lightning Cup on Mario Kart Wii.  For those of you who don't know, this means that I have now won everything there is to win on Mario Kart Wii.  I now have only to unlock the three remaining characters by flying through levels super-fast on time trials.

It's so good to be post-PC.

In the Beginning

Ah, ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you two unique groups.

The first: Baylor's 1Q's.  They are bright and shiny, happy, excited about The Law.  Rah rah for them.

The second: Baylor's 6Qs, 7Qs, and 8Qs.  They are a little duller, sadder, and sedated about law than are the 1Qs.  They are entering the PC Cave.  Unless you witness for them---which you should---you probably won't see them again until August.  It's too late now to say your goodbyes.

The 1Qs are learning the prose of the law: nouns and pronouns, verbs and adverbs, sentence structure, and the like.  Those entering the PC Cave are learning the poetry of the law: iambic pentameter and blank verse.

I wish I could tell you how great it feels to be post-PC.

Deadball Era II

For those of you who still turn to me as your source for important news, Sports Illustrated reportedly reports that Alex Rodriguez tested positive for steroids back in 2003.  On a side note, it's alarming that several of the big-name homerun-hitters caught up in the steroids era played at one time for the Rangers: Jose Canseco, Sammy Sosa, Alex Rodriguez.  What's next?  Are people going to suspect Nolan Ryan's 27th season?

Probably not.  I feel blasphemous even typing that.  The only drugs Nolan Ryan took were Alleve. 

Anyway, the Yahoo! article asks an important question.  Many were looking to A-Rod to save the sport, but now . . .

[W]hat’s left for baseball, which now looks to a future where a suspected steroid cheat will pass a confirmed one?

What's left, indeed?  I don't know . . . a return to fundamentals?  A return to good pitching and strong defensive teams?  An era where we can name more famous pitchers than hitters?  I, for one, hope so.

Defalcation isn't as gross as it sounds

Today's Dictionary.com Word of the Day is defalcate.  I thought "C'mon . . . everybody knows what defalcate means.  We do it every day."

Or not.  The trouble with quasi-homonyms is that they're tricky.  Five points if you can guess what I was thinking.  I'll put the answer five lines down, in white print.

 

 

Defecate.

Harry Potter XLIII

While the rest of the world watched Super Bowl XLIII, those at Chez Masten watched Harry Potter IV: The Goblet of Fire.  I just wanted to point out that I love Ralph Fiennes.  He may be my hero.  Even when he plays Voldemort.  But I also wanted to say that if you're trying to get through the Harry Potter series, hold on till you get to the fourth book.  The Goblet of Fire is the book that cinched the series for me.  After I read The Goblet of Fire (or HP4 as those in the know call it), I was hooked.  The night I read the scene with the third task in the Triwizard Tournament, I stayed up and read something like 300 pages.  Over the next week, I read HP5 and HP6 (whatever their real names are).  That's right.  Something like 2000 pages in 10 days.

I thought that was really impressive until I took Practice Court.

Black-n-Silver Domination

Anybody who talks much basketball with me knows how much I dislike a certain NBA team near Hollywood (and I'm not talking about the Clippers).  But I have to give Kobe Bryant some kudos; he complimented my team:

The Spurs are our rivals.

You should always feel good when people get excited about beating you.

And one piece of Spurs-Lakers lore.  According to Dave McMenamin of NBA.com, either the Spurs or the Lakers have made the NBA finals every year since 1999 except 2006, when the Mavericks lost to the Heat.  Go Spurs Go!

Running Down a Dream . . .

. . . that just might come to me.

Today, my partner and I---colloquially known as either "Team 29" or "Team 39"---rocked the house in our big trial.  Normally, I'd be too reticent to tell you that we won, but I have an ulterior purpose.  We won . . .

. . . no thanks to Justin Scott, who resisted my invitation to testify.

. . . no thanks to Mike May, a/k/a Mikearoni, a/k/a Mayonesa a/k/a Mikeanesa, a/k/a Mayoroni, who also resisted my invitation to testify.  (If this fellow had a blog, I'd link to him.)

And that's about all I have to say about that.

Quarter 9 Beckons

I registered for my ninth and final quarter of law school today.  So close, I can smell it.  Here is my beautiful schedule:

• Client Counseling.  This is a class I've been meaning to take.  I think I can benefit a lot from a class like this, and I plan to extract everything I can out of it.
• Advanced Criminal Procedure.  I've been avoiding taking this class, but I finally decided that it may be beneficial for a lot of reasons.  I wrote my article about a statute in the Texas Penal Code, and I thought the issues in criminal law were really interesting.  This past summer, I spent six weeks working in a criminal section of the Department of Justice, and I thought the viscerality of criminal law was compelling, even in such a cold area as tax fraud.  So here we go---learning about double jeopardy.
• Criminal Practice & Procedure.  This should be a really interesting class full of practical learning.  It will complement Advanced Criminal Procedure.
• Civil Liberties.  Another class I've been avoiding, I think this will be a very helpful class.  I feel the need to vindicate myself after my showing in Con Law.  Go 14th Amendment!

And that, my friends, is it.  For those of you keeping track at home, this means I won't have classes on Mondays.  Which means, most importantly, that I will have time to look for a job in the foreign land of Maryland.  If you know anybody looking, let me know.