Endear Like a Champion!

I'm doing a little early recruiting.

Book reports

The Peacemaker, by Ken Sande
When I picked this book up I thought it would be more about arbitration and mediation with a Christian twist (based entirely on the prohibition against taking other Christians to court in I Cor. 6:1-8). While that passage is referenced a few times in the book, its scope is much more broad than that. Sande has a lot of good points about the inability of courts to address underlying problems in disputes and the damage this can cause in relationships among believers, but I really like the book's positive focus on what the church can, and should, do about it. He encourages churches to take an active role in maintaining healthy relationships within the church by overseeing conflict resolution and reconciliation. Most notable about this book is that it is not really about "legal" disputes. It is about relationships and ALL the conflicts that go with them, whether it's the breakdown of a contract, of a marriage, or kids fighting over the front seat of the car. It was challenging to me on a personal level because it pointed out the positive effects of conflict--greater understanding of and interaction with fellow-believers, and growth from the ability to reach God-honoring solutions. I don't like conflict and tend to deny it, run from it, or ignore it, and that is just as unhealthy to a relationship as belligerence. This book gets lots of stars on a scale of lots of stars.

Humility: True Greatness, by C.J. Mahaney
This book reminded me of one of those little coffee-table-type inspirational books you sometimes see at the checkout. I don't mean that in a disparaging way. It has good substance, even if it is a little repetitive and sometimes reads like an annotated bibliography. If you need a quick reminder and refocus on your exact position with reference to God (and who are we kidding, don't we all?), this book is a good choice. Watch out for some overt Calvinism, if that sort of thing bothers you. A respectable number of stars out of lots of stars.

Books for fun

Well, it's officially summer for most of us student-types, so that means it's reading-things-other-than-textbooks season. Blackstone has sent me what looks like a fantastic set of additions to my library, there are some other new books on my shelves waiting to be explored, and of course there are some old friends there who need to be revisited. Books in the first category:

• Confessions, by A. Augustine
• Always Ready, by Greg L. Bahnsen
• Coercing Virtue, by Robert Bork
• Natural Law for Lawyers, by J. Budziszewski
• Orthodoxy, by G.K. Chesterton
• America's Christian History, by Gary DeMar
• Architects of the Culture of Death, by Donald DeMarco & Benjamin Wiker
• The Cruelty of Heresy, by C. Fitzsimons Allison
• No Other God, by John Frame
• The Abolition of Man, by C.S. Lewis
• Humility: True Greatness, by C.J. Mahaney
• The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, by Edwin Meese III
• Christ and Culture, by H. Richard Neibuhr
• When I Don't Desire God, by John Piper
• The Peacemaker, by Ken Sande
• Idols for Destruction, by Herbert Scholssberg,
• The Homosexual Agenda, by Alan Sears and Craig Osten
• ACLU vs. America, by Alan Sears and Craig Osten
• Sir William Blackstone & the Common Law, by Robert Stacey
• The Cube and the Cathedral, by George Weigel
• Vindicating the Founders, by Tom West

Books in the second category:

• One Hundred Years of Solitude (which my roommate just gave me--can't wait!)
• Huckleberry Finn (which I am ashamed to say I have never read)
• Understanding the Times

A FEW books in the third category:

• To Kill a Mockingbird (just saw the movie at DPAC and really need to reread it)
• Wuthering Heights (it's just been a while)
• The Grapes of Wrath
• Cry, the Beloved Country
• something by Jane Austin

So what are you guys reading?

Chieftains pictures

For you who are interested, they finally have a few pictures up on the DPAC website from the NDSOrchestra/Chieftains concert. I don't think I'm in any of the ones from Carnegie Hall, but I was there, I promise.

Edit: Oh wait, I'm in some of the rehearsal pics from Carnegie Hall. See, told you I was there.

More sniping at cnn.com

Note to CNN: Polygamy is having more than one wife. Polyandry is having more than one husband. They are not the same, whatever any statute may be titled and however it might be applied. Check your Greek and Latin, folks.

More Kent

Here's Baby Kent in all his glory. Not bad, if I may say so myself. If he's lucky, he'll take after his aunt. ;-)

First pictures of Kent

This is what is known in socioeconomics as a nuclear family unit.

This is what is known in family law as a potentially good situation.

New Phillips

Congratulations to my brother and sister-in-law for successfully creating another Phillips to populate the world. Kent Alan was born this afternoon about 3:00, at 20 1/2 inches and 7lbs., 14 oz. Pictures to follow.

Gas price sanity

While economics may be far from the normal topics of this blog, the gripes, "expert" commentary, and political pandering surrounding the continued rise in gas prices have promted me to finally exercise my posting privilieges. The link below is to the best, most concise explanation of the problem I have yet seen.

As the link shows, the columnist does little more than remind that that no matter how much the people scream and the politicans promise, the laws of supply and demand cannot be repealed. Are oil companies charging as much as then market will bear? Sure, but so does every single business and so does every single employee who looks for a raise. Countless investigations have found no collusion among the oil companies, and if they had, that would be an issue for Antitrust law, not the griping we hear today.

What irritates me most is that the same people responsible for the supply and demand problems are those scream the loudest over the prices. We might want to drive SUVs, regulate the blends of gasoline, or not drill in certain places because we like the look of tundra more than lower oil prices. But those decisions come at a cost, and politicans who created those costs by impacting supply and demand are now blaming everyone but the responsible parties: themselves. The least they could do is be honest.

Indeed, all the political sound and fury is counter-productive, because it only increases people's fear that prices will go higher. I have heard that the "future uncertainty" premium is at least$10, and maybe $20 per barrel of oil. Fear drives prices even higher by unreasonably increasing demand now, and adding to the fear does not help.

Link to article

The circus continues

And now to tie two posts together, I bring you a link that discusses the jury deliberations for the capital punishment sentencing of Moussaoui. The article opens:

The judge in Zacarias Moussaoui's death penalty trial admonished jurors Friday to avoid looking up words in the dictionary after learning that one went on the Internet to see what "aggravating" means.

My word. This calls into question all kinds of things (jury instructions, clarity of the lawyer's arguments, value of a 'jury of our peers'...).

Git yer tikits

You have less than a week left to get your tickets for the ND Symphony Orchestra Spring Concert on Friday at 8. Come on, you know you need a break from studying, and a little culture never hurt anyone.

THAT makes me want to take Moot Court...

Lawyer drops dead while arguing case

CNN needs to increase its budget for headline writers.

Death Penalty Laws

South Carolina recently passed a law making multiple-child rapists eligible for the death penalty. Louisiana already has a similar law, but it remains to be seen if the U.S. Supreme Court will uphold it (since it struck down a law allowing dealth penalty for rapists of multiple adults). Articles here, here, and here.

The ever-useful Wikipedia has some information on death penalty for crimes other than murder.

Early night

Tonight as I was returning from the law school to take out my dry contacts and put on glasses so I could finish reading Property, a fellow student saw me on the sidewalk and greeted me. "Early night for you, eh?" he said. It was nine o'clock. I laughed and made some mindless reply, but the comment followed me home. There have not been many nights lately I have been seen on that sidewalk on the good side of midnight. So when I got home, I placed my Property book on my desk and I read poetry. Here is a villanelle I have loved since I first read it a few years ago.


One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

-- Elizabeth Bishop

Not to revive an old topic, but...

I was browsing on Irish Trojan's blog and found a link to a site from USA Today that predicts which states would do what if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned. Thought you might be interested.

That did NOT come up in Ethics I

Here's an ethics question for you: if your client insists he's guilty and wants the death penalty, but you believe he's innocent, how do you best represent the interests of your client without breaching your fiduciary duty? What if your client is completely sick and you think if there was ever a man for whom the death penalty was adopted, his name is on your file? Can you respresent his wishes and yours by asking the jury for death? Or will that open you up to ABA sanction? Either way, you're not in a comfortable spot. My sympathy to the defense lawyers of Zacarias Moussaoui.

Happy Easter

He is not here; for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.

Matthew 28:6

More on Gender Roles

If you have a minute, I highly recommend this article about Harvey C. Mansfield's book, Manliness. Read it with a sense of humor and reserve judgment till you get to the end; close scrutiny may invite premature outrage. I don't think he means to be taken so dead-seriously as some take him. He's just tossing out some ideas, and I don't think they're all bad ones. Certainly not ones all of us haven't entertained once or twice.

Shall we enter this "political thicket"?

The Observer, Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College's student-run newspaper, ran a political cartoon on Friday you can find here. It made me go "Hmmm."

Polk County Does Something Good

Kudos to my own home Polk County, Florida for catching this guy. In the video clip they interview Sheriff Judd, for whom I am proud to say I voted. I'm not sure if I caught it just right, but I believe they quote the guy's defense lawyer saying he has no problem with sting operations of this sort because "these guys should have to worry about who's on the other end." Sounds like this guy doesn't have a chance in court. At least he's not making any excuses (not that there are really any he could make). These are sick, sick people.