Florida State Law RC Tech News

Baffling Bookhouse

      

Turkmenistan has no private or foreign media, and the internet is inaccessible for most people. (via BBC)

Yet now the country has 'The House of Free Creativity,' a baffling book-shaped building "devoted to press freedom." Hmm...

Spookier things have happened.

Speaking of spooky, The Chicago Tribune is offering a story-shaped Halloween treat called A Secret Life, With Cats: A Ghost Story by Audrey Niffenegger. You can either read the story in seven short chapters or listen to the author read the chapters. In order to access either format, you will need to be registered with the Tribune. (Psst: Registration is free.)

Posted by Toni Urquhart                                   

Beijing's Bankruptcy Laws

The Wall Street Journal Online, October 17, 2006, has an interesting article on China's new bankruptcy law titled, Beijing's Bankruptcy Law.

Enacted in August by China's legislature, the National People's Congress, it comes into force next June 1. A formal corporate-bankruptcy procedure will be created, with administrators appointed by judges, not the government, as was the case under the old law. Creditors go to the front of the queue for payment, ahead of employees. Creditor committees get a strong role in supervising the bankruptcy process, which means that professionals -- perhaps including foreign lawyers and accountants -- will be running the process, rather than Communist Party officials.

Read the entire article here.

Read an account of the new bankruptcy law from China View here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Shift in Harvard Curriculum

The National Law Journal, October 24, 2006, has published the article Shift in Harvard Curriculum Reflects Larger Trend Toward Global Law. Harvard Law School has announced sweeping changes in its first-year curriculum:

Harvard's new course on legislation and regulation will focus on the separation of powers, the legislative process, statutory interpretation, administrative agency practice and more. For the global legal systems course, students will choose one of three classes: public international law, international economic law and comparative law.

Students will take the problems and theories course after they complete their first term. It will include solving problems from simulated case studies. Harvard will accommodate the changes by reducing the number of class hours in torts, contracts, civil procedure, criminal law and property, and by adding a new January term for first-year students for the problem-solving course. It will implement the changes over the next three years.

Read the article here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

 

From Network to Meaning

Yesterday, in the wonderful 275-seat Microsoft Auditorium of the Seattle Public Library, I listened to interactive media specialist Linda Stone discuss her current thinking on “continuous partial attention” and the coming shift to an era where we use our attention to seek out stillness and meaningful connections. Linda asked us to consider: Does technology set me free? Does technology enslave me? If you have answered yes to either question (or both), have a fondness for Aikido perhaps, you might appreciate Linda’s talk.

 
Posted by Toni Urquhart

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosopohy is a free online encyclopedia of philosophy.  Here is a brief desciption from the encyclopedia website:

Welcome to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP).  From its inception, the SEP was designed so that each entry is maintained and kept up to date by an expert or group of experts in the field. All entries and substantive updates are refereed by the members of a distinguished Editorial Board before they are made public. Consequently, our dynamic reference work maintains academic standards while evolving and adapting in response to new research. You can cite fixed editions that are created on a quarterly basis and stored in our Archives (every entry contains a link to its complete archival history, identifying the fixed edition the reader should cite). The Table of Contents lists entries that are published or assigned.  The Projected Table of Contents also lists entries which are currently unassigned but nevertheless projected.

Try it here.

Posted by Jon Lutz

Remainders

In describing an intuitive process native to novel writers, the author of Invisible Writer (Johnson, 1999, p.9) quotes American master of psychological realism, Joyce Carol Oates.

Somehow, without knowing what I did, without knowing, in fact, that I was doing anything extraordinary at all, I had written my mother’s story by way of a work of prose fiction I had invented.

The author of Invisible Writer says on the same page:

What Joyce did not mention is that a similar instance of her novelistic ‘intuition’ had occurred almost twenty years earlier. In A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967), she had written a scene that also bears a striking resemblance to the circumstances of her grandfather’s murder.

Novelistic intuition. I’m curious to know what phrase will be coined to cover the writerly source of this short story, especially because of this. (Mrs. Oates's apology.)

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A Research Fellow at St. Anthony's College, Oxford University and the Lokahi Foundation in London and author of a book to be published by Oxford University Press says he is “barred [...] from entering the United States to pursue an academic career.” (link)

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Mr. Salman Rushdie has sold his literary papers to Emory University and according to The Guardian newspaper, his "decision to sell his literary papers to an American university should be applauded for highlighting a lamentable aspect of UK government policy." (link)

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If you google, oops… [Note to self: To be on the safe side of the legal question, thall shalt not use Google as a verb (link)]. If you look for a Mr. Smiley III, you will learn that he is a thorn in the stacks of many libraries. (link)

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Jeffrey Toobin interviews the Honorable Stephen G. Breyer. (video)

Posted by Toni Urquhart

A Künstlerroman Causes a Stir

Graphic novels are in; they’re hot. And to keep pace with a literary trend that sounds like fun, I decided to jump on the bandwagon and read one. I skipped the much acclaimed Persepolis and American Splendor, choosing instead a memoir cum Künstlerroman about growing up in a weird family. I read Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home last month and enjoyed her fresh approach to sharing memories from dysfunctional family life, an old though not exhaustible topic thanks to our continued interest and quite possibly hardwired voyeuristic fascination with other people’s dirty laundry.

Since my reading experience was positive, it came as a surprise to learn that Bechdel’s book is causing a wee stir in a small town in Missouri. What’s the fuss about I wondered.

One resident has this to say:

My concern does not lie with the content of the novels, rather my concern is with the illustrations and their availability to children and the community.

and

Does this community want our public library to continue to use tax dollars to purchase pornography?

Speaking in support of the library, another resident says:

The library’s purpose is to provide a broad sweep of information. If you have only things that you like in a library then it is a private library. I find myself defending something that I find repugnant, but I feel it needs to be provided.

Fun Home is the first graphic novel published by Houghton Mifflin.

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Board of Education v. Pico and a story at Newsarama (via galleycat)

Posted by Toni Urquhart

The Silencing of Ruby McCollum

The Silencing of Ruby McCollum:  Race, Class, and Gender in the South by Tammy Evans  (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 2006).  Evans is an adjunct professor of composition at the University of Miami's Bradenton campus.

Silencing refutes the carefully constructed public memory of one of the most famous biracial murders in the U.S.  In 1952, Ruby McCollum, an African American housewife, drove to the office of Dr. C. LeRoy Adams, beloved white physician in the segregated town of Live Oak, Florida, and gunned down the doctor. 

"This groundbreaking work reads like a murder mystery, only in this case what has been killed is our American integrity and the right of an individual to a fair trial.  Evans has finally addressed the pervasive silence that distorts, fragments, and threatens to bury the history of so many southern places and people." -- Rebecca Mark, Tulane University

Posted by Trisha Simonds