For the fourth time in as many years, I am hosting an edition of Blawg Review on Declarations & Exclusions.
By the careful application of arithmetic, it has been determined that this week's edition counts as Blawg Review #205.
In keeping with the celestial theme adopted for this edition, the photo above depicts Local Group Galaxy NGC 205.
~~~
In April, during the most recent season of American Idol, McDonald's restaurants offered a series of product tie-in "Happy Meals" containing small toy figures representing various popular musical genres. USA Today provided this description at the time:
None of the toys is patterned directly after a specific Idol, yet a couple of the names are oddly suggestive. You'll pick 'em out -- the genre-specific lineup of toy characters comprises Disco Dave, Rockin' Riley, Lil' Hip Hop (surprised there isn't already a rapper by that name), Hippie Harmony, Country Clay, Soulful Selma, Punky Pete and New Wave Nigel.
Here are three of the figures -- Nigel, Selma and Pete -- courtesy of Flickr! user DaylandS:
Notice anything, hmmm, familiar about young Nigel?
It is difficult to miss that his jumpsuit and his ziggurat-emulating head gear -- indeed, even his choice of fashionable eyewear -- resemble nothing so much as the ensembles commonly sported by the members of Akron, Ohio's gift to American music, Devo, two of whom are seen here courtesy of Flickr! user zioWoody:
Now, as you might suppose, those trademark Devo Energy Dome hats are, well, trademarked. And copyrighted.
And what do we do when we want to use someone else's trademarked and copyrighted work in a large scale product promotion?
We ask and obtain permission, don't we? We certainly do.
Unless we are McDonald's.
In which case, we can expect to find, as McDonald's has done, that the be-domed and bespectacled holders of the intellectual property rights in question will make a speedy transition from jumpsuits to lawsuits:
Devo bassist Gerald Casale -- who designed the trademarked energy dome headgear-- is quoted as saying, 'This New Wave Nigel doll that they've created is just a complete Devo rip-off and the red hat is exactly the red hat that I designed, and it's copyrighted and trademarked. We're in the midst of suing them . . . they didn't ask us anything. Plus, we don't like McDonald's, and we don't like "American Idol", so we're doubly offended.'
None of the available reports sees fit to give more details of the litigation, such as identifying the court in which it has been filed, so I am unable to give you further details on the allegations or procedural status of the case. Since making the statement quoted above, however, it seems that Gerry Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh and company have been directed by the Court to withhold comment until the case reaches its conclusion.
In the meantime, if you want a "New Wave Nigel" to call your own, there are still a handful of the figures available on eBay -- although in light of the latest $61M judgment Louis Vuitton obtained against eBay for serving as a conduit for counterfeit goods, who knows how long that will last? (Of course, these aren't counterfeit fake Devo figures, they're real fake Devo figures. So the cases are clearly distinguishable, are they not? Discuss.)
Perhaps inspired by this litigation, Mark Mothersbaugh has created a limited edition image entitled "Devo and the Docket." Only six signed and numbered originals exist. Slightly more numerous but still limited (edition size < 100) is the genuine "Devo and the Docket" t-shirt. It's what all the most nouvelle vague IP lawyers will be sporting this summer.
~~~
For further study:
Via the New York Times by way of Idolator, it's:
This ostensibly scholarly article by Alex B. Long, formerly of the Oklahoma City University School of Law, now of the University of Tennessee, examines at length -- well, exactly what the subtitle says it examines at length. It includes a completely unscientific chart purporting to demonstrate that Bob Dylan is the most quoted songwriter in legal opinions and scholarship. It also includes, at footnote 198, the only manifestation I have yet seen in a law review article of the idiomatic expression, "Buwah ha ha."
In this anecdote early in the piece, Justice Alito meets The Boss:
Aside from aiding a writer in the quest to communicate about a particular issue, the use of popular music may also humanize an individual in the eyes of others. During the Samuel Alito confirmation hearings, for example, the news media enthusiastically reported that the conservative Alito was a fan of Bruce Springsteen. Not willing to cede his blue collar bona fides to the likes of Republican appointee Alito, Senator Richard Durbin took things a step further by using a line from an interview with Springsteen against Alito:
They once asked [Springsteen]: How do you come up with the songs that you write and the characters that are in them? And he said, I have a familiarity with the crushing hand of fate. It's a great line. I want to ask you about the crushing hand of fate in several of your decisions.
The article concludes with an unexpected discussion of The Undertones' "Teenage Kicks." "'Teenage Kicks'," observes the professor, "has universality and verisimilitude to burn, but it’s unlikely anyone is ever going to use it to advance any sort of argument in legal writing. [Footnote 273: Other than me, I mean.]"
Since Everybody Who Is Anybody -- blogospheric worthies the like of Harry at Crooked Timber and Ed. at Blawg Review -- has been linking to performances of the The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain over these past 48 hours, I will jump at this opening go there as well. Ladies and gentlemen, the UOGB's rendition of the aforementioned "Teenage Kicks":
This is pretty good stuff, but it is as nothing compared to the Orchestra's brilliant rendition of David Bowie's "Life on Mars?" -- a song that goes uncited by Prof. Long, notwithstanding the lyric that advises us to "take a look at those law men beating up the wrong guy."
The Welcome
Welcome! to the 2008 April Fool's Blawg Review Appendix.
This is the quasi-official adjunct to Blawg Review #153, now appearing on my legal weblog, Declarations and Exclusions. For the past two years, the post here has been termed the April Fool's "Prequel," but April 1st falls after Blawg Review Monday this year so I have renamed this the "Appendix." Clear enough? Splendid! Let's move on.
The Pictorial Theme
Last year, our theme derived from the medieval Ship of Fools. This year our Fool of choice is Punchinello, as embodied in two generations of 18th Century Venetian artistic foolery from father and son artists Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (father) and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (son).
Tiepolo patris was internationally successful, particularly as a painter of elaborate religious, mythological and allegorical frescoes. Tiepolo filii grew up assisting his father, but his own career took him in a smaller scale and often more secular direction. Both men at one time or another devoted time to the depiction of Punchinello (or Pulcinello), the tall-hatted, long-nosed stock character from the commedia dell'arte. Domenico grew so partial to Punchinello that he produced well over one hundred drawings and paintings depicting the character's birth, life, death and beyond. A smattering of both artists' pulcinellalia is spread about the grounds of this post for your perusal, pleasure, and bewilderment.
The Selection-of-Posts Theme
The posts selected for inclusion in this Appendix divide, like Gaul, into three parts:
First, we look to recent posts from lawyers or law professors who write about Something Other Than the Law. That "Other Than" has been the focus of this weblog for almost five years now, and it was the subject of an expostulation of mine last week in a post at Decs&Excs:
The practice of law does not take place in a vacuum, but in a vast and multifarious Real World full of fellow human beings and of social, economic, political, natural, and cultural tidal forces, and the practice can only gain from the attorney's engagement with that larger context. Also, writing about All That Other Stuff is frequently just more fun than writing about the law. So, while there is undoubtedly ample room for additional well-written law blogs, there is even more room in this world for well-written, lively non-law blogs from well-rounded, lively lawyers. Heed the call!
The Anonymous Editor of Blawg Review suggested I follow up on that thought here, and I am nothing if not biddable in this regard.
Second, we turn to posts that while law-related are nonetheless . . . odd, or foolish, or otherwise appropriate to the First of April.
Third, and to conclude on the lowest note possible, we ask the sensitive and tasteful to avert their eyes and their mice as we link several posts found or submitted this past week that qualify as Naughty or Rude or Potentially (or Actually) Offensive.
Part the First: Lawyers Getting Away From the Law
New Orleans' Ernest Svenson, better known as pioneering blawger Ernie The Attorney, has spent the past several years writing much more about Life than Law, but the life of the Legal Blogger remains a major concern. This week, he noted the important lessons go-go-go bloggers might draw if they would but recall how the tortoise beat the hare. Quoth Ernie:
The mainstream media has been serving us 'stupid pie' for years. . . . [A]las, it appears that popular bloggers with continuous partial attention disorder are doing the same thing.
David Giacalone of f/k/a ["formerly known as" ethicalesq and/or
shlep] is a long-time denizen of the non-law weblog world (and a
longtime friend of this weblog, it must be allowed) with an almost punditry-free
emphasis these days on the art of haiku. Every so often, however, he
cannot resist weighing in on a legal story, as when he takes us all to task for
ignoring the case of
the "toilet paper check." {For what it may be worth, David, it sounds like
a proper negotiable instrument to me.]
David has also held forth recently on subjects as varied as spatulas and the Ides of March.
I started reading Doug Simpson's Unintended Consequences several years ago when it was still a more-or-less conventional insurance/risk management weblog. More recently, it has converted wholesale into a thoughtful site devoted to climate change issues. This week, by way of example, Doug reported: "Study documents hotter, drier American West due to climate change.
Also on the environmental front, Leon Getter's SOX First blog -- which is not about baseball standings, but about the Sarbanes-Oxley law -- points to a Winston & Strawn paper on the Carbon Principles being proposed by a number of large lenders, calling for the imposition of "enhanced diligence" in the disclosure of the potential climatic impacts of borrowers' projects as a condition to obtaining funding.
Donn Zaretsky's Art Law Blog manages to have it both ways: It's about Art and it's about Law! Sort of my idea of heaven, but that's just me. This week, the intriguing case of Robert Schoenberg's trash, in which Donn points to the Where's Travis McGee blog to ponder "Who owns it?"
Mad Kane is a self-described "recovering lawyer," posting satirical verse and political comment. This week: a versificated sneer at the great State of Colorado, which decrees that even fictional characters who smoke can't smoke indoors.
Part the Second: Legal Oddities and Eccentricities
I am sure that Brett Trout of BlawgIT would like you to read his sound and sober proposals for Your Corporate Blogging Policy, but you know and I know that what you really want to see today is Brett's take on the Top Ten Wackiest Patents in the World.
[For unfathomable reasons, Brett's list is missing the highly practical Walking through Walls Training System.]
At the California Punitive Damages weblog: A New York Court Holds no Punitive Damages for Bed Bugs. I still get hits on a regular basis from this four-year old bedbug post.
At Prof. Shaun Martin's California Appellate Report, an insurance coverage case involving the surviving members of The Doors and this practical observation:
Even if you're a stud, sometimes you've simply got a case that's wrong on the merits.
Evan Schaeffer does not post as often as he once did at The Legal Underground (emphasizing instead his solid, if less eclectic Illinois Trial Practice Weblog) but this week he compiled links to his classic series: TYPES OF LAWYERS Nos. 1 through 17, inclusive.
On the sleekly redesigned Overlawyered, Walter Olson reports on efforts to enjoin the apocalypse.
Lawyer Advertising redux: "Have you ever done anything stupid? GET MONEY NOW!"
Lawyer Advertising redux redux: The sequel.
Part the Third: Lawyers and Naughty Bits
NSFW -- Professor Shaun Martin of California Appellate Report noted an unfortunate milestone: the California Supreme Court's first reported use of a certain well known but particularly nasty 12-letter Oedipal pejorative [but the Justices were just quoting the defendant, so that makes it all all right, right?]
Double-plus NSFW -- Another Donn Zaretsky Art Law Blog pointer, this time to Rita Tushnet's 43(B) Blog and a post on artist Adam Connelly who "paints pictures of pornographic images, pixellated so that it's our minds, not the paint, providing the salacious details." There's an example, but it won't harm you as long as you stay very close to the computer screen. Contrariwise . . . .
Legal tabloid Above the Law (which has driven a slew of traffic to our Blarrgh Review, thank you very much) posts an extremely rude story involving deviant wombats and vowel shifts.
New horizons in employee management (at Ohio Employer's Law Blog): Plaintiff's history of homemade porn is not fair game in harassment suit.
New horizons in employee management, too? I have no response to this: "Whips and chains: not even in your spare time, please."
Of related interest: Amber at Prettier Than Napoleon demonstrates convincingly that lawyers really need a better class of sexual fantasy.
~~~
Enough! I have done, for this year, with this April Fool's extravaganza. Thank you all for joining in. Do drop by again sometime soon, eh?
Blawg Review has information about next week's host, and instructions how to get your blawg posts reviewed in upcoming issues.
~~~
Illustrations via:
Patricia's Palette Mural Blog: Tiepolo's Pulcinella.
Commedia by Fava
On my legal weblog, Declarations and Exclusions, I am once again pleased to host an edition of Blawg Review, the carnival of law-related bloggers and blogging. Blawg Review #153 is a "themed" version, driven on this occasion by matters generally nautical and specifically piratical.
Decs&Excs commonly concerns itself with the law surrounding insurance, and the combination of insurance and piracy inevitably leads to Terry Gilliam's stand-alone introductory piece from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
The Crimson Permanent Assurance!
Tomorrow, as on the last two Firsts of April, this Fool will be hosting a Blawg Review bonus edition right here.
Los Angeles is better known for tight abs and botox than it is for tuxes and bow ties -- but we were supposed to have had a truly Enormous sculptured bow tie to festoon a space in front of the Disney Hall. To be created by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Van Bruggen, "Collar and Bow" was to have been erected in 2004 and was to have looked something like this:
In July of 2006, when I wrote about it here, the project was well behind schedule and plagued by technical difficulties. Today, that space in front of the Hall remains unoccupied and pedestrians can still pass without fear of being crushed by falling neckwear. The Tie exists, but it rests in a storage yard in Irvine and looks like this:
The Tie in Exile -- Los Angeles Times photo by Don Bartletti
In the past year, as reported on the front page of today's Los Angeles Times, "Collar and Bow" has gone from highly public art work to the subject of a highly public lawsuit against the artists, designers and fabricators involved in its making and unmaking:
The damages, Music Center attorney David Lira said this week, come to more than $6 million, including payments for the sculpture, additional money for consultants and $600,000 that the Music Center plowed fruitlessly into reinforcing the sidewalk in front of the Frank Gehry-designed hall at 1st Street and Grand Avenue so the ground could support the heavy steel objects that never arrived.
Like the Tower of Babel and other unfinished works, "Collar and Bow" may simply have been Too Big, its creators' ambitions outstripping their ability to deliver it into the real world:
The sculpture was conceived a decade before Disney Hall's 2003 opening. Oldenburg and Van Bruggen had been toying with the idea of a giant bow tie, and their friend Gehry thought that a swanky collar and tie, looking as if they had been tossed on the sidewalk by some colossus, would sound a playfully artful keynote for concertgoers and passersby.
The architect suggested increasing the sculptors' initial 35-foot-high design to 65 feet. In May 2003, the Music Center contracted with Oldenburg and Van Bruggen's company, Storebridge, to create "Collar and Bow" for $2.2 million and deliver it by Aug. 15, 2004. Donations of $1.85 million from Music Center patrons Richard and Geri Brawerman and $1 million from the J. Paul Getty Trust were expected to cover the cost.
The illustration at the top of this post of the sculpture in place comes from the website of one of the defendants, Westerly Marine, which provides this description of its fabrication:
The monumental artwork is made of aluminum, structural steel, stainless steel, then bonded with epoxy film, vacuum bagged and cured. The final finish will be painted with polyurethane enamel.
Although he was instrumental in starting the project and in expanding it to its gargantuan final scale, Frank Gehry is not a party to the "Collar and Bow" litigation. He is, however, the target of a lawsuit on the other side of the country, relating to MIT's allegedly leaky Stata Center buildings. The Disney Hall itself has not been without practical problems: one side of the building had to be sandblasted after completion because Gehry's signature highly reflective steel cladding threatened to roast the neighbors.
Filed last February, the "Collar and Bow" case is now scheduled for trial in Los Angeles Superior Court in mid-October.
For a last look at what might have been -- for better or worse -- here is a pristine 1:16 scale model of the work that was on offer in 2007 at London's Waddington Galleries:
[Cross-posted to Declarations and Exclusions.]
Unable to keep my online identities strictly separated, my law and insurance weblog Declarations & Exclusions today features a post filled with the sorts of thing you would usually expect to find here: Anglophilia, art museums, light verse, that sort of thing.
In short, it's another episode of DANGEROUS ART!
~~~
UPDATE [112807]: Wait -- there's more!
A: The lawyers don't dress nearly so colorfully when set upon by the enforcers for repressive regimes.
Pakistani police officers and lawyers clash in Lahore. AP photo via BBC NEWS.
~~~
Although this weblog is typically of a frivolous bent, this particular post is not. It is longer than most and, moreso than is usual here, directed in large part to my fellow attorneys. But please, read on: there's something for everybody by the time I'm finished.
~~~
Anyone following the news of the world in the past few days will be aware of the unilateral suspension of the Constitution of Pakistan by General-turned-President Pervez Musharraf, and also that the principal Pakistani citizens marching in protest and placing themselves in danger of arrest, injury or worse, are lawyers.
As an American lawyer, when I began seeing and reading these stories, my first reaction was one of quiet admiration for the men and women [see below] of the Pakistani Bar as exemplars of the best in our profession in their willingness to risk so much in defense of the rule of law.
Police in Lahore used batons to try to break up a march by black-suited
lawyers in support of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. AP photo via BBC NEWS.
My first spoken thought, however, was to my wife as we watched the evening news and went something like this:
"Can you imagine trying to get that many American lawyers to agree on anything, let alone getting them to organize a collective response? You'd have an easier time forming a drill team of cats!"
At f/k/a . . ., David Giacalone has posted a less flippant meditation comparing the two nations' legal communities, driven in part by a fit of pique with American attorneys who will talk a good fight when it's someone else's Constitution on the line, but who might not be so vocal if the threat were closer to their own home, hearth or wallet:
Pakistani lawyers are indeed acting to support the regime of constitutional law (a bit tardily, some might point out, since Musharraf has always been a military dictator). But, who in the USA would want to bet the ranch (or the Constitution) on the American legal profession putting itself on the line en masse? Which lawyers would be out there confronting the military police, risking a bloody head, a night in jail, and a blot on their resumes?
* * *
I’d love to think the Bar as a whole — as opposed to a relatively few activists who toil mostly at the fringes of the profession — would be leading the fight against tyranny here in the United States of America, but you’d have to be naive to expect it.
David ends, as a good advocate should, with a call to action:
So, don’t just hug a lawyer, or feel special pride as a lawyer, because the Pakistani legal profession is willing to put its bodies on the line to uphold its principles. I’m still betting that most American lawyers will talk a good game against tyranny, but — when push comes to shove — will act to protect their wallets and future job prospects first. . . . Please, please, prove me wrong, Bar America, by sticking your neck out right now — no matter who you might offend — for the American Constitution.
Before he reluctantly concluded that he could be an active weblog reader or an active weblog writer, but not both, David was among the more frequent commenters here. By a timely coincidence, and without any mention of events in Pakistan, another (non-lawyer) reader of long standing has just posted to highlight a looming danger to our own Constitution. This particular danger is not so immediate as troops in the street or a knock on the door in the night. It is perhaps all the more insidious and the more in need of a preemptive response precisely because it comes armed, not with teargas and truncheons or other obvious tools of tyranny, but with far more dangerous weapons: Good Intentions and Broad Bipartisan Support.
Texas Trifles' Cowtown Pattie points to a post at Time Goes By warning against H.R. 1955, the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007." [Full text here.] The bill was introduced in the House by the South Bay's own Jane Harmon (D-CA, 36th Dist.) and has been passed along to the Senate on a vote of 404-6.
By its terms, the bill does little more than authorize the formation of yet another study Commission (at an estimated cost of $22 million over four years), but that Commission is supposed to recommend action, and the bill's aspirations, findings and definitions are sufficiently broad and slippery that it could become, or lead eventually to enactment of, what its opponents label a "Thought Crime Bill."
Lindsay Beyerstein interviewed Rep. Harmon on the bill for In These Times. (ITT is an unapologetically doctrinaire journal, but the article itself is a balanced one.) The Good Intentions Paving Company is clearly on the case, looking to build a route backwards to ideas that are only ideas, not imminent actions:
'A chief problem is radical forms of Islam, but we’re not only studying radical Islam,' Harman says. 'We’re studying the phenomenon of people with radical beliefs who turn into people who would use violence.'
That worries Mike German, policy counsel for the ACLU, who calls the legislation 'wrongheaded' because it focuses on ideology, rather than criminal activity. The bill calls for heightened scrutiny of people who believe, or might come to believe, in a violent ideology. German wants the government to focus on people who are actually committing crimes, rather than those who are merely entertaining violent ideas, something perfectly legal.
* * *
The bill’s broad language and loose definitions of 'violent radicalization' and 'homegrown terrorism' also arouse the concerns of many civil libertarians.
The broad wording of the bill leaves open many questions. If homegrown terrorism is defined to include 'intimidation' of the United States government or any segment of its population -- could the Commission or the Center of Excellence task itself with investigating groups advocating boycotts, general strikes, or other forms of non-violent 'intimidation'?
Here are the core definitions in the bill, with emphasis added for purposes of instilling fear and concern in the reader:
(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system ['extremist' is an undefined term] for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- The term `ideologically based violence' means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs.
The Congressional "findings" in support of the legislation include:
(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens. [We must maintain the healthful qualities of what flows through our series of tubes.]
* * *
(5) Understanding the motivational factors that lead to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence is a vital step toward eradicating these threats in the United States. [Our citizens commit bad acts because they are influenced by bad ideas; now if we could just identify and corral those ideas. . . .]
* * *
(7) Individuals prone to violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence span all races, ethnicities, and religious beliefs, and individuals should not be targeted based solely on race, ethnicity, or religion. [Everyone is suspect, so we must be even-handed and suspect everyone. Cf. the 'Search the Little Old Ladies' Luggage First Act" of 2002.]
(8) Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism in the United States should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents. [This goes without saying, doesn't it? There is no comfort in seeing that those who wrote the bill feel the need to provide this "reminder" to those who will implement it.]
Dreadful notions that remain between their holders' ears and do not venture out in to the world are still dreadful, but not so dreadful that they should be targeted or suppressed under a Constitution built upon freedom of thought. The bill's lack of any definition of what "belief systems" are to be deemed "extremist" only adds to its problems. The United States has a long history of instances of violence or destruction in the name of ideas that have gained widespread assent: the abolition of slavery, the right of workers to organize, freedom from colonial government. The actions are not redeemed by the ideals behind them, but are the ideals themselves to be declared "extremist belief systems" because they led some subset of their followers to violence? This bill invites or directs the Commission to identify means of reaching beyond action and incipient action to ideas qua ideas, and that is a constitutional step too far.
So, particularly to my fellow attorneys, I will not pretend that Rep. Harmon's bill is the only, or the most significant, danger to the U.S. Constitution in November of 2007, but it is a real one. As David Giacalone urges, it is our role as lawyers to watch over our laws and to protect the Constitution that underlies those laws and the nation. If not on this issue, then on another: "stick[] your neck out right now — no matter who you might offend — for the American Constitution."
Photo by LiminalMike via Flickr, under Creative Commons license.
More foolery will be forthcoming here, but in the meantime I have been posting at my law and insurance weblog, Declarations and Exclusions, on the subject of this week's Southern California wildfires:
One never knows what will turn up in the referrer logs, and this afternoon delivers a real treat.
Professor Harry S. [Terry] Martin III, who teaches the Art Law Seminar at, ahem, the Harvard Law School, maintains a list of Art/Law links and has graciously included this weblog among them. (It is an interesting list for anyone interested in the interaction of art and law. There are a number of sites linked that I have not previously encountered, and at which I will certainly be taking a look in short order.)
The link is certainly welcome, but I must confess that Professor Martin has given this Fool rather more credit than is strictly deserved. Share my blushes at his description (emphasis added):
A fool in the forest - Influential blog among lawyers and cultural enthusiasts emphasizing art and culture with occasional law notes
Mercy!
Of course, the professor doesn't specify that I'm a good influence . . . .
