Thursday, December 10, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Reading Break
UCI Law had a reading break this week. Originally the students thought spring break came early this year, but the incredible amount of time that would be demanded by our memo research and course outlines quickly came into focus. I think I actually spent more time in the library this week than I have any other week so far. Finals should be fun.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Sassy Judges
My Statutory Analysis class (also known as Criminal Law) read a case called Keeler v. Superior Court (CA 1976), wherein one Keeler, in the midst of divorce proceedings with his wife, found out she was pregnant by another man. Keeler went to find his wife, saw her obvious pregnancy, and said "I'm going to stomp it out of you," which he proceeded to do. He was charged with first degree murder according to California's statute at the time, which read something like "Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, with malice aforethought."
The case made its way to the California Supreme Court because Keeler kept arguing that killing a fetus wouldn't fall under California's definition of murder. The Supreme Court considered this, and in their opinion quoted three of England's most influential legal thinkers, Coke, Blackstone, and Hale. These three guys, writing in the 1600's had a lot to say about fetuses and "quickening," and most of what they said pointed to killing a fetus being "a great misprison," or misdemeanor. So the Supreme Court decided there is no way Keeler should have known killing a fetus would be considered murder, and he was convicted of assault.
Chief Justice Burke, in his dissent, delivered the funniest line I have ever heard from a Judge not named Judy, when he said "Aside from the absurdity of the underlying premise that defendant consulted Coke, Blackstone or Hale before kicking Baby Girl Vogt to death..." I love sassy judges.
The case made its way to the California Supreme Court because Keeler kept arguing that killing a fetus wouldn't fall under California's definition of murder. The Supreme Court considered this, and in their opinion quoted three of England's most influential legal thinkers, Coke, Blackstone, and Hale. These three guys, writing in the 1600's had a lot to say about fetuses and "quickening," and most of what they said pointed to killing a fetus being "a great misprison," or misdemeanor. So the Supreme Court decided there is no way Keeler should have known killing a fetus would be considered murder, and he was convicted of assault.
Chief Justice Burke, in his dissent, delivered the funniest line I have ever heard from a Judge not named Judy, when he said "Aside from the absurdity of the underlying premise that defendant consulted Coke, Blackstone or Hale before kicking Baby Girl Vogt to death..." I love sassy judges.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
The OC
So I live in Orange County now. I didn't fully realize, before coming to Irvine, that Irvine is not only located in Orange County, but is often considered the heart of Orange. It hasn't been entirely unenjoyable.
Aside from the obvious benefits of the Irvine Company's largesse (read: free tuition,) Irvine's planned nature has turned out to be kind of nice. There are two strip malls right next to campus, with a brewery, Trader Joe's, Albertson's if you're nasty, and an In N' Out.
I live in graduate student housing, which is massively subsidized, so I'm paying 500 a month for my own room. I shared a room this size with 2 other people for 300 a month at UCSB.
The grad student housing community is spacious and liberally sprinkled with bunnies. I don't know where they came from, but I would still categorize them as cute, with great potential to become annoying.
Aside from the obvious benefits of the Irvine Company's largesse (read: free tuition,) Irvine's planned nature has turned out to be kind of nice. There are two strip malls right next to campus, with a brewery, Trader Joe's, Albertson's if you're nasty, and an In N' Out.
I live in graduate student housing, which is massively subsidized, so I'm paying 500 a month for my own room. I shared a room this size with 2 other people for 300 a month at UCSB.
The grad student housing community is spacious and liberally sprinkled with bunnies. I don't know where they came from, but I would still categorize them as cute, with great potential to become annoying.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Marxist Medicine
Let people take what shots they will at Obama and his plan to enroll infants into public service and millionaires into substandard state-sponsored healthcare, because I'm gonna say I LOVE NOT PAYING FOR STUFF.
I don't want to hear any hubu jubu about higher taxes or efficiencies inherent to free markets. Look, I am in a town called Vigo. You don't know where it is? Neither do I. Somewhere in Spain. I hit my head REALLY hard on one of Vigo´s particularly hard concrete sidewalks and woke up screaming about how "they" got me while my brother tried unsucessfuly to stuff the blood back into my skull. Eventually a Vigo cop showed up, said "joder" a few times, and found a Vigo paramedic, who also said "joder", wrapped my head in gauze, and drove me to a hospital. At this hospital I waited for 2 hours, surrounded by enough chronically pained old people to make me say "joder" until some doctors violently shaved the back of my head and poured hydrogen peroxide in my eyes. At least, that is what it felt like.
I waited another 2 hours for the results of a blood test, after which I was mugged for my urine, the testing of which required another 2 hours, until finally an extremely cute Vigo doctor told me I was free to go, but to come back to her if I felt nauseous or dizzy. I asked her if lonely counted. She said no. :(
Anyway. This cost me zero dollars. Zero euros. Not a single commie cent. It was beautiful! It almost made me feel bad about cheating on the metro all those times.
I don't want to hear any hubu jubu about higher taxes or efficiencies inherent to free markets. Look, I am in a town called Vigo. You don't know where it is? Neither do I. Somewhere in Spain. I hit my head REALLY hard on one of Vigo´s particularly hard concrete sidewalks and woke up screaming about how "they" got me while my brother tried unsucessfuly to stuff the blood back into my skull. Eventually a Vigo cop showed up, said "joder" a few times, and found a Vigo paramedic, who also said "joder", wrapped my head in gauze, and drove me to a hospital. At this hospital I waited for 2 hours, surrounded by enough chronically pained old people to make me say "joder" until some doctors violently shaved the back of my head and poured hydrogen peroxide in my eyes. At least, that is what it felt like.
I waited another 2 hours for the results of a blood test, after which I was mugged for my urine, the testing of which required another 2 hours, until finally an extremely cute Vigo doctor told me I was free to go, but to come back to her if I felt nauseous or dizzy. I asked her if lonely counted. She said no. :(
Anyway. This cost me zero dollars. Zero euros. Not a single commie cent. It was beautiful! It almost made me feel bad about cheating on the metro all those times.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Lisbians
I'm not sure how you are supposed to refer to residents of Lisboa, but I like to imagine that the correct term is Lisbians.
Anyway, before going to Lisboa, I had heard a lot of rumor and speculation. If Spain was Europe's Mexico, people said, then Portugal was Spain's Mexico. I was a little scared, and getting off a bus from Seville at 5 in the morning, in a bus station surrounded by vacant lots and grafitti, I started to question what kind of twisted place Mexico's Mexico would look like. But I survived the first couple predawn shankings, and made it to the metro, which Ross and I used to get to the harbor, trying to catch a sunrise on the water. It was close to seven in the morning, still mostly dark, and not one cafe was open. I cursed the laziness of the Portuguese, and all Latin people, and walked to the waterfront, keeping eyes peeled for the last of the graveyard shift shankers.
The waterfront was beautiful, although the buildings around it were in terrible shape, the reputed splendor of Lisbon's monied past hidden by neglect. Ross and I watched the sunrise through a chainlink fence, until a Portuguese guy in a oddly cocked fedora edged towards us and slurred "Where are you guys from?" He continued talking to us, in a bad Portuguese accent made worse by his stupefying drunkenness, saying that he had lived in a cave in Granada for 2 years until being forced back to Lisbon due to a sick relative, which induced a boredom in him which could apparently only be cured by drinking until 7 in the morning and making techno samples from the sounds of ships mooring and unmooring, which is apparently why he was at the waterfront.
Aside from him however, I have found Lisbians to be extremely friendly, and eerily proficient in English. I had heard that Romance speaking countries, like Italy, Spain, and France are supposed to be among the worst in Europe, but people in Lisbon seem to have excellent English in the most unexpected, and embarassing places, like when Ross and I were in a grocery store debating whether or not to spend 56 euro cents on mustard for our cheese sandwiches, and a clerk burst out in laughter and head shaking, shaming me into assenting to the mustard.
Anyway, before going to Lisboa, I had heard a lot of rumor and speculation. If Spain was Europe's Mexico, people said, then Portugal was Spain's Mexico. I was a little scared, and getting off a bus from Seville at 5 in the morning, in a bus station surrounded by vacant lots and grafitti, I started to question what kind of twisted place Mexico's Mexico would look like. But I survived the first couple predawn shankings, and made it to the metro, which Ross and I used to get to the harbor, trying to catch a sunrise on the water. It was close to seven in the morning, still mostly dark, and not one cafe was open. I cursed the laziness of the Portuguese, and all Latin people, and walked to the waterfront, keeping eyes peeled for the last of the graveyard shift shankers.
The waterfront was beautiful, although the buildings around it were in terrible shape, the reputed splendor of Lisbon's monied past hidden by neglect. Ross and I watched the sunrise through a chainlink fence, until a Portuguese guy in a oddly cocked fedora edged towards us and slurred "Where are you guys from?" He continued talking to us, in a bad Portuguese accent made worse by his stupefying drunkenness, saying that he had lived in a cave in Granada for 2 years until being forced back to Lisbon due to a sick relative, which induced a boredom in him which could apparently only be cured by drinking until 7 in the morning and making techno samples from the sounds of ships mooring and unmooring, which is apparently why he was at the waterfront.
Aside from him however, I have found Lisbians to be extremely friendly, and eerily proficient in English. I had heard that Romance speaking countries, like Italy, Spain, and France are supposed to be among the worst in Europe, but people in Lisbon seem to have excellent English in the most unexpected, and embarassing places, like when Ross and I were in a grocery store debating whether or not to spend 56 euro cents on mustard for our cheese sandwiches, and a clerk burst out in laughter and head shaking, shaming me into assenting to the mustard.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Good God Granada
Ross and I took a 5 hour bus ride from Madrid to Granada that in no way resembled the horrendous bus rides we were subjected to in Morocco, in that nobody flung orange peels at my face and the rest stop looked like someplace humans could live, rather than the dimension Pinhead in Hellraiser comes from.
But Granada is really cool. They have a unique local food called tapas, which is essentially a beer and a piece of food somewhere in between an appetizer and an entree. They usually cost about 2 dollars. Ross considers this to be some kind of fantastic deal, and does nothing all day but eat tapas and ask me if I want to go get some more tapas.
We recently decided that we need a budget if this trip is going to last longer than 3 weeks, so Ross and I decided to stick to about 10 Euros a day, with rollover Euros within the week, but not across the Sunday-Monday divide, coffee and beer excluded. Fortunately, we decided that tapas count as beer.
But Granada is really cool. They have a unique local food called tapas, which is essentially a beer and a piece of food somewhere in between an appetizer and an entree. They usually cost about 2 dollars. Ross considers this to be some kind of fantastic deal, and does nothing all day but eat tapas and ask me if I want to go get some more tapas.
We recently decided that we need a budget if this trip is going to last longer than 3 weeks, so Ross and I decided to stick to about 10 Euros a day, with rollover Euros within the week, but not across the Sunday-Monday divide, coffee and beer excluded. Fortunately, we decided that tapas count as beer.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Kilometro Cero
I´m in Madrid now, although there is a lot I still want to say about Morocco.
Sucks for you Morocco. The first thing I noticed about Madrid was the size. I guess in terms of population, Madrid is about equal with Casablanca, both weighing in at a respectable 3 million, but when I got a look at the Madrid metro map, I was thoroughly intimidated. That thing is a hydra-like beast, serpentine and multi-headed. I had seriously never seen so many lines and transfer stations. So Ross and I disembarked from Easyjet Flight U2 277Y, and upon being confronted with this beastly map, could do nothing but stare dumbfounded.
Fortunately, it turns out that the Madrid Metro is really well designed, and the signs in the transfer stations are printed in such a way that it is almost impossible to get on the wrong train, and the future transfer points and transfer lines are also clearly indicated. So I did that. I bought a ticket for 10 journeys, because Madrid apparently refuses to use a card and credit system for its metro, and I rode around, creepily ogling the cute Spanish girls, with their delightful propensity to wear Converses, and their unsettling desire to wear disgusting, pajama-sized jeans. as well as being harassed by itinerant musicians, who wheel about homemade portable karaoke machines, which they use to torture entire cars full of people until the victims deposit their strange European currency into a hat. It is a weird custom.
I guess that isn´t so weird. But I did notice one uniquely Spanish thing while riding the metro. When Ross and I first rode into Barrio de la Concepcion, which is the closest stop to the person whose couch we are sleeping on, I saw what looked like a "slippery when wet" sign guarding a large pile of sawdust. 3 days later, the pile was still there. Apparently the customary Spanish solution for leaks, and other water related crises is to throw sawdust around and forget about it, which helps explain why the Spanish had such a difficult time hanging on to the Netherlands in the 1600s.
Sucks for you Morocco. The first thing I noticed about Madrid was the size. I guess in terms of population, Madrid is about equal with Casablanca, both weighing in at a respectable 3 million, but when I got a look at the Madrid metro map, I was thoroughly intimidated. That thing is a hydra-like beast, serpentine and multi-headed. I had seriously never seen so many lines and transfer stations. So Ross and I disembarked from Easyjet Flight U2 277Y, and upon being confronted with this beastly map, could do nothing but stare dumbfounded.
Fortunately, it turns out that the Madrid Metro is really well designed, and the signs in the transfer stations are printed in such a way that it is almost impossible to get on the wrong train, and the future transfer points and transfer lines are also clearly indicated. So I did that. I bought a ticket for 10 journeys, because Madrid apparently refuses to use a card and credit system for its metro, and I rode around, creepily ogling the cute Spanish girls, with their delightful propensity to wear Converses, and their unsettling desire to wear disgusting, pajama-sized jeans. as well as being harassed by itinerant musicians, who wheel about homemade portable karaoke machines, which they use to torture entire cars full of people until the victims deposit their strange European currency into a hat. It is a weird custom.
I guess that isn´t so weird. But I did notice one uniquely Spanish thing while riding the metro. When Ross and I first rode into Barrio de la Concepcion, which is the closest stop to the person whose couch we are sleeping on, I saw what looked like a "slippery when wet" sign guarding a large pile of sawdust. 3 days later, the pile was still there. Apparently the customary Spanish solution for leaks, and other water related crises is to throw sawdust around and forget about it, which helps explain why the Spanish had such a difficult time hanging on to the Netherlands in the 1600s.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Taxis, buses, donkeys
Morocco is a pretty large country, but can get pretty sparsely populated on the edges. In the densely populated areas, i.e. the routes between Marrakesh, Rabat, Casablanca, Tangiers, and Fez, there are regular trains and buses. But in the frontier regions, particulaly the dusty towns near the Sahara Desert, traditional transportation tends to..... breakdown, for lack of a better word. Fortunately, a combination of Moroccan entrepeneurship and good samaritism, (or its Koranic equivalent) have combined forces to allow people to move from village to village with an adjective that comes very close to reliably.
The first line of defense is the long distance taxi. I don't know how this institution began, but it is by far the most interesting piece of the Moroccan transportation pie. In all towns, regardless of size, there is an area that can best be described as the taxi depot. There, a host of Moroccan dudes stand idly by their impossibly old and improbably held together Mercedes while shouting the name of the city they are headed. After you find your driver, it is simply a matter of waiting for 5 other passengers (4 in the back, 2 in the front with the driver) heading the same way.
Of course, once the journey is underway, the taxi driver is free to make extra money by picking up anybody he sees on the side of road. I don't know if there is an upper limit to the amount of people allowed into one Mercedes, but can personally testify to at least 12, including the driver.
There are also huge Volkswagen vans prowling the highway system that will stop for anyone and charge an amount of money ranging between 0 and 20 dirham, which is worked out according to a rule system so arcane, I assume it takes a whole life lived in Morocco to understand.
The first line of defense is the long distance taxi. I don't know how this institution began, but it is by far the most interesting piece of the Moroccan transportation pie. In all towns, regardless of size, there is an area that can best be described as the taxi depot. There, a host of Moroccan dudes stand idly by their impossibly old and improbably held together Mercedes while shouting the name of the city they are headed. After you find your driver, it is simply a matter of waiting for 5 other passengers (4 in the back, 2 in the front with the driver) heading the same way.
Of course, once the journey is underway, the taxi driver is free to make extra money by picking up anybody he sees on the side of road. I don't know if there is an upper limit to the amount of people allowed into one Mercedes, but can personally testify to at least 12, including the driver.
There are also huge Volkswagen vans prowling the highway system that will stop for anyone and charge an amount of money ranging between 0 and 20 dirham, which is worked out according to a rule system so arcane, I assume it takes a whole life lived in Morocco to understand.
Moroccan Internet Cafes
I would wager that roughly 1/17th of my time in Morocco has been spent either in search of a cyber, or waiting for the horrendously slow Moroccan internet to load gmail. The Moroccan system of internet cafes, or cybers, has a few rules that I've been able to deduce as I watch the white screen with the small, red "loading..." sign in the bottom right that tells me my gmail account is a mere 3-4 minutes away.
1. The farther away from Casablanca you get, the slower the internet will be.
2. Never ask the staff for help, because they probably know less about computers than your grandmother. (Once, I couldn't log in to skype because there was a new version available, but the internet was so slow that the new version would take 6 hours to download. I called the staff guy over, and he proceeded to delete all the cookies on the computer, individually, and told me to try logging in again. I tried, naturally it didn't work, and again, he deleted the 1 new cookie, and told me to log in again. This happened 4 times.)
3. Never look at another person's monitor, because you won't like what you see.
In a tiny desert town called Tazzerine, where Ross and I were stranded in for one night, we were directed by a friendly seeming Spanish-speaking Moroccan to a small cyber described as "muy tranquilo." We went in, waited ages for the computer to boot up, logged into gmail, snuck in a quick bit of meditation while my inbox loaded, and finally managed to read one email before the power went out. Ross and I looked at eachother, shrugged, and repeated the process, power outage and all, after which we told the manager "nos vamos." He gave us a look of understanding and resignation, and said we didn't have to pay.
Later we found out that the entire town suffers from intermittent power outages, which makes me wonder why anyone would attempt to open a cyber at all.
1. The farther away from Casablanca you get, the slower the internet will be.
2. Never ask the staff for help, because they probably know less about computers than your grandmother. (Once, I couldn't log in to skype because there was a new version available, but the internet was so slow that the new version would take 6 hours to download. I called the staff guy over, and he proceeded to delete all the cookies on the computer, individually, and told me to try logging in again. I tried, naturally it didn't work, and again, he deleted the 1 new cookie, and told me to log in again. This happened 4 times.)
3. Never look at another person's monitor, because you won't like what you see.
In a tiny desert town called Tazzerine, where Ross and I were stranded in for one night, we were directed by a friendly seeming Spanish-speaking Moroccan to a small cyber described as "muy tranquilo." We went in, waited ages for the computer to boot up, logged into gmail, snuck in a quick bit of meditation while my inbox loaded, and finally managed to read one email before the power went out. Ross and I looked at eachother, shrugged, and repeated the process, power outage and all, after which we told the manager "nos vamos." He gave us a look of understanding and resignation, and said we didn't have to pay.
Later we found out that the entire town suffers from intermittent power outages, which makes me wonder why anyone would attempt to open a cyber at all.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Rabat deux
So it turns out Rabat is the capital of Morocco. Embarassing. For me, not Morocco. Rabat is a really cool city. Yesterday I went to the medina, which I understand to be Arabic for the old walled city, usually containing the souks, which are the open air markets full of snake charmers and monkey wranglers, among other less savory characters.
Ross and I went to the beach, which had 2 lonely surfers and a horde of kids playing soccer on the beach, with the requisite old Moroccan gentlemen drinking coffee on the shore. Ross and I joined the old Moroccan gentlemen for a bit of coffee and gossip, then went down to the beach and inexplicably began collecting very small seashells. Time well spent.
I still don't know if they are policing tourists or policing for tourists.
Ross and I went to the beach, which had 2 lonely surfers and a horde of kids playing soccer on the beach, with the requisite old Moroccan gentlemen drinking coffee on the shore. Ross and I joined the old Moroccan gentlemen for a bit of coffee and gossip, then went down to the beach and inexplicably began collecting very small seashells. Time well spent.
I still don't know if they are policing tourists or policing for tourists.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Rabat
I'm in Rabat right now, which is a town on the coast of Morocco. We are staying with a French girl named Sophia and her German roommate. Sophia works for an NGO which does microfinance, although she said her major was in history, which made me happy.
Ross and I spent most of the morning having coffee at a beach side cafe, which is apparently something that all Moroccan men tend to do. I have yet to see a woman drinking coffee in a coffee shop. I am half inclined to think this would be a good tradition in America as well, although eavesdropping would become a lot less humorous.
Men in coffee shops are invariably seated facing towards the street. Only once did I see a guy sitting with his back towards the street, and I couldn't help but think of wolf packs, and that he was definitely the mangy wolf in the back with last dibs on sweet caribou meat.
Ross and I spent most of the morning having coffee at a beach side cafe, which is apparently something that all Moroccan men tend to do. I have yet to see a woman drinking coffee in a coffee shop. I am half inclined to think this would be a good tradition in America as well, although eavesdropping would become a lot less humorous.
Men in coffee shops are invariably seated facing towards the street. Only once did I see a guy sitting with his back towards the street, and I couldn't help but think of wolf packs, and that he was definitely the mangy wolf in the back with last dibs on sweet caribou meat.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Planes, Planes and Automobiles
It has been awhile since I wrote anything in this blog, but I'm finally traveling again, although this time I'm going to the White Continent, which is a brand new experience for me.
I woke up at 5:00 this morning. Rather, I was woken up at 5:00 this morning, after getting home at 1 and packing until 3:30. Now, I don’t usually need or get a lot of sleep, but this is pushing it, even for someone as Circadian rhythmically-challenged as I. I want to say that despite arriving at the airport an hour and a half early, my family still almost missed our flight, but that really isn’t true. My dad just has a tendency to freak out when airline employees are criminally slow in their baggage checking. After berating a few Delta employees and smuggling toothpaste through security, we made it to our flight with time to spare for the McDonald’s breakfast that I have come to associate with San Diego departures.
My grandparents were apparently lost in JFK, which, in previous years, wouldn’t have been so frightening, but my grandpa has recently become extremely mobile, thanks to his new scooter, and I was forced to imagine him riding through the terminals pinching the asses of any flight attendants who can’t recognize a mischievous grin. But I guess that turned out alright. There aren’t any lawsuits that I’m aware of, anyhow. I was busy catching up with Evan, who is at school in New York and decided to swing by JFK for a drink, no big deal.
Finally, after a 6 hour layover, we got on the plane to Budapest, where I sat next to two overfriendly Romanians name Ilena and Arpi. I’m not sure about the spelling on either of those, particularly “Arpi,” but I am hoping that “Arpi” is not actually RP, some strange Romanian equivalent to JR or LT. Anyway, they were very nice, despite being from Transylvania.
Now I am sitting in the Budapest Marriot on Sunday morning, although it feels like Friday night, and “this morning” actually occurred 40 hours ago. I feel spastic in time.
The drive into Budapest from the airport was kind of boring. I saw 3 McDonalds, two KFCs and a Burger King. There were also some gas stations, but the prices seemed like San Diego’s from 4 months ago. That is probably because of the wacky Hungarian money, called a Forint, which exchanges at 200 FT to 1 dollar, unless you are me and trade with gypsies, in which case the exchange rate drops to around 170 to 1.
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