SUGGESTED FICTION

Michel Houellebecq, Whatever, translated from the French by Paul Hammond, with an Introduction by Toby Litt (London: The Serpent's Tail, 1998, 2011) ("Obviously, I couldn't come up with anything to say, but I returned to my hotel deep in thought. It's a fact, I mused to myself, that in societies like ours sex truly represents a second system of differentiation, completely independent of money; and as a system of differentiation it functions just as mercilessly. The effects of these to systems are, furthermore, strictly equivalent. Just like unrestrained economic liberalism, and for similar reason, sexual liberalism produces phenomena of absolute pauperization. Some men make love every day; others five of six times in their life, or never. Some make love with dozens of women; others with none. It's what known as 'the law of the market'. In an economic system where unfair dismissal is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their place. In a sexual system where adultery is prohibited, every person more or less manages to find their bed mate. In a totally liberal economic system certain people accumulate considerable fortunes; others stagnate in unemployment and misery. In a totally liberal sexual system certain people have a varied and exciting erotic life; others are reduced to masturbation and solitude. Economic liberalism is an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. Sexual liberalism is likewise an extension of the domain of the struggle, its extension to all ages and all classes of society. On the economic plane Raphael Tisserand belongs in the victors' camp; on the sexual plane in that of the vanquished. Certain people win on both levels; others lose on both. Businesses fight over certain young professional; women fight over certain men; men fight over certain young women; the trouble and strife are considerable." Id. at 98-99.).

Joyce Carol Oates, Mudwoman: A Novel (New York: Ecco, 2012) ("Paradox: how do we know what we have failed to see because we have no language to express it, thus cannot know that we have failed to see it. That was the human predicament, was it?--the effort to remain human." Id. at 416-417. Also see Maria Russo, "The Ground Beneath Her Feet," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 4/1/2012.).

Lionel Shriver, The New Republic: A Novel (New York: Harper, 2012) (" 'Ever hear of the 'impostor syndrome'?' Edgar asked diffidently. 'It's a problem especially for professionals--doctors, lawyers. You work and study and aspire away and suddenly someone hands you a piece of paper that says, okay, you're a lawyers. A lawyer! And you don't feel any different, You know you're still that kid with a Spyder bike who shoplifted Ho-Hos. You think you're a fraud. It can get pretty bad, this terror of being discovered. Happened to me, I think-and I dealt with it by debunking the whole profession instead of just myself. If a former fat boy looking for love could be an attorney, bar membership wasn't worth much. I figure the impostor syndrome applies to adulthood in general. After all, being a grown-up is disillusioning. I guess being a fetishized grown-up is disillusioning in spades.' " Id. at 217.).

C. P. Snow, The Affair: A Novel (Stranger and Brothers Series) (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1960) ("He was innocent in this case. I had no doubt. And he had another kind of innocence. From it came his courage, his hope, and his callousness. It would not have occurred to him to think what Skeffington and Tom had risked; and yet anyone used to small societies would have wondered whether Skeffington stood much chance of getting his Fellowship renewed, or Tom, for years to come, any sort of office. Howard did not care. He still had his major hopes. They were indestructible. Men would become better, once people like him had set the scene. He stamped out of the room, puzzled by what had happened, angry but not cast down, still looking for, not finding, but hoping to find, justice in this world." Id. at 372.).

Alice Walker, Possessing the Secret of Joy: A Novel (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992).

THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE . . . NOT!

Thubten Chodron, Open Heart, Clear Mind, with a Foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1990) ("Closed-mindedness is an attitude that doesn't want to look at a new idea or event. It makes us tight, prejudiced and defensive." Id. at 54. "With open minds, we'll be tolerant. Having logically examined a new idea and checked for evidence to validate it, if we decide we don't agree with it, we can still be calm and friendly with another person who does. Disagreeing with an idea doesn't mean that we hate a person who accepts it. The idea and the person are different. Also, people's ideas change. We can appreciate what others say--be it correct or nonsensical--because it challenges us to think and thus to increase our wisdom." "When we find ourselves across the table from a person talking about a new subject or idea, we decide we don't agree we can approach the conversation with joy in learning, rather than with a judgmental attitude that has already decided the other person is wrong We'll let ourselves listen, reflect, grow and share, while we re-examine our previous ideas." Id. at 55. "The primary tenet of the selfish mind is that we are the center of the universe, the most important one, whose happiness and miseries are the most crucial. Why do I feel I'm the most important> 'Because I'm me,' says the selfish attitude, ''I'm not you.' " "I feel I'm the center of the universe (although I'm much too discreet to say that publicly). But so do you, and so do many other people. Just feeling that our happiness is the most important doesn't make it so." Id. at 71.).

IN A SENSIBLE WORLD MY DOWNWARD FACING DOG WOULD BE SHOT. FORTUNATELY THE WORLD IS FORGIVING!

Martin Kirk, Brooke Boon & Daniel DiTuro, Hatha Yoga Illustrated, photographs by Daniel DiTuro (Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2006) (Namaste.).

LOOK AROUND . . . THE WORLD IS TRULY A WONDERMENT

Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, with an Introduction by Charles Saumarez Smith (London: The Folio Society, 2010) ("The English language, with its elaborate generosity, distinguishes between the naked and the nude. To be naked is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word nude, on the other hand, carries, in educated usage, no uncomfortable overtone. The vague image it projects into the mind is not of a huddled and defenceless body, but of a balanced, prosperous and confident body: the body re-formed. In fact, the word was forced into our vocabulary by critics of the early eighteen century to persuade the artless islanders that, in countries where painting and sculpture were practiced and valued as they should be, the naked human body was the central subject of art." Id. at 3.).

Victoria Finlay, Colour: Travels though the Paintbox (London: The Folio Society, 2009) ("The first challenge in writing about colours is that they don't really exist. Or rather they do exist, but only because our minds create them as an interpretation of vibrations that are happening around us. Everything in the universe--whether it is classified as 'solid' or 'liquid' or 'gas' or even 'vacuum'--is shimmering and vibrating and constantly changing. But our brains don't find that a very useful way of comprehending the world. So we translate what we experience into concepts like 'objects' and 'smells' and 'sounds' and, of course, 'colours', which are altogether easier for us to understand." Id. at 3.).

Richard Fortey, The Earth: An Intimate History (London: The Folio Society, 2011) ("For some years I have been thinking about how best to describe the way in which plate tectonics has changed our perception of the earth. The world is so vast and so various that it is evidently impossible to encompass it all within one book. Yet geology underlies everything: it founds the landscape, dictates the agriculture, determines the character of villages. Geology acts as a kind of collective unconscious for the world, a deep control beneath the oceans and continents. For the general reader, the most compelling part of geological enlightenment is discovering what geology does, how it interacts with natural history, or the story of our own culture. Most of us engage with the landscape at this intimate level. Many scientists, by contrast, are propelled by the search for the inclusive model, a general theory that will change the perception of the workings of the world. Plate tectonics has transformed the way we understand the landscape, for the world alters at the bidding of the plates, but much of the transformation has been expressed in the cool prose of scientific treatise. The problem is how we can marry these two contrasting modes of perception--the intelligent naturalist's sensitive view of the details of the land with the geologist's abstract models of its genesis and transformation. My solution has been to visit particular places, to explore their natural and human history in an intimate way, thence to move to the deeper motor of the earth--to show how the lie of the land responds to a deeper beat, a slow and fundamental pulse." Id. at xiii.).

Richard Fortey, Life: An Unauthorized Biography: A Natural History of the First Four Thousand Million Years of Life on Earth (London: The Folio Society, 2008) ("The earth was born from debris that circled the nascent sun. It was a planet spun from dust and rock, and one of the smaller masses that were trapped in the thrall of the sun's attraction. The debris comprising the belt of asteroids testifies to this time of creation, being a circlet that never congealed into a planetary ball. The other planets show what the earth might have been like if just one or two circumstances of history had been different. Above all, it would have been dead." Id. at 28.).

Simon Goldhill, Richard barber, Theodore K. Rabb & Jonathan Glancey, Wonders of the World (London: The Folio Society, 2006) ('Behind science, philosophy, worship, art, poetry, sits human wonder, and with it the human need not just to stand in awe but also to ask why and how, to record, to explore. This book is an invitation to participate in the history of wonder in more than one way. It is, first to look at and explore with us some of the most amazing human achievements over the centuries of civilisation. . . . Second, however, every one of these wonders is itself a response to the world that stems form human wonder. The Pyramids are grand, religious and political responses to the crisis of death, and the pharaohs' monumental hope for immortality--a human attempt to come to terms with fearful wonder at the mystery of mortality. The silicon chip is one result of the extraordinary new understanding of the physical world which modern science has provided, from quantum physics to the genetic code. Einstein's wonder at the behavior of light led to his foundational contribution to modern physics, just as Watson and Crick's amazement at the molecular order of the world gave rise to the discovery of DNA. Our tour of the wonders of the world is not just an opportunity for some touristy gawping, but an attempt to understand the how and why of these monuments." "The second basic human response to the world that motivates this book is the list. . . . Lists are a primary means of ordering the world, of recording property in a systematic way, of maintaining the genealogies which give family history. That is, without lists society would lack its own history as well as its principles of organisation. If wonder is an awestruck feeling of amazement, a list is much calmer way of putting some order into a response to the world." Id.at at 8-9.).

Robin Hanbury-Tenison, ed., The Great Explorers (London: Thanes & Hudson, 2010).

Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects (New York: Viking, 2010) ("If you want to tell the history of the whole world, a history that does not unduly privilege one part of humanity, you cannot do it through text alone, because only some of the world has ever had texts, while most of the world, for most of the time, has not. Writing is one of humanity's later achievements, and until fairly recently even many literate societies recorded their concerns and aspirations not only in writings but in things." Id. at xvii.).

"SEEING THE BASIC IRONY"

Ghogyam Trungpa, Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, with a Foreword by Sakyong Mipham (Boston & London: Shambhala Library, 2008) ("So a sense of humor is not merely a matter of trying to tell jokes or make puns, trying to be funny in a deliberate fashion. It involves seeing the basic irony of the juxtaposition of extremes, so that one is not caught taking then seriously, so that one does not seriously play the game of hope and fear. This is why the experience of the spiritual path is so significant, why the practice of meditation is the most insignificant experience of all. It is is insignificant because you place no value judgment on it. Once you are absorbed into that insignificant situation of openness without involvement in value judgment, then you begin to see all the games going on on around you. Someone is trying t be stern and spiritually solemn, trying to be a good person. Such a person might take it seriously if someone offended him, might want to fight. If we work in accordance with the basic insignificance of what is, then you begin to see the humor in the kind of solemnity, in people making a big deal about things." Id. at 134-135.).

REINVENTING ONESELF: CORPORATE STYLE

John Harwood, The Interface: IBM and the Transformation of Corporate Design 1945-1976 (Minneapolis: U. of Minnesota Press, 2011) (From the bookjacket: "In February 1956 the president of IBM, Thomas Watson Jr., hired the industrial designer and architect Eliot F. Noyes, charging him with reinventing IBMs corporate image, from stationary and curtains to products such as typewriters and computers and to laboratory and administrative buildings. What followed--a story told in full here for the first time--remade IBM in a way that would also transform the relationship between design, computer science, and corporate culture.").

AMERICAN POLITICS 0.06--SUMMER READING FOR LAW STUDENTS--AMERICA'S SECRET POLICE(?)

Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York: Random House, 2012) ("Obama gave the FBI control over the toughest al-Qaeda captives, the high-value detainees. He entrusted [FBI Director] Robert Mueller and his agents with the task of arresting and interrogating terrorists without mangling American laws and liberties." 'The FBI was now a part of a growing global network of interwoven national security systems, patched into a web of secret information shared among police and spies throughout American and the world. The Bureau trapped more suspects with more stings, and more sophisticated ones. It sometimes worked at the edge of the law, and arguably beyond, in the surveillance of thousands of Americans who opposed the government with words and thoughts, not deed or plots. . . . " "On the home front, Americans had become inured to the gaze of close-circuit cameras, the gloved hand of airport guards, and the phalanx of cops and guardsmen in combat gear. Many willingly surrendered liberties for a promise of security. They might not love Big Brother, but the knew he was part of the family now. . . . " "The FBI, which still has no legal charter from Congress, had been fighting for a century over what it could do in the name of national security. Attorney General Edward Levi had been the first to try to goven the Bureau thirty-five years earlier, in the wake of Watergate. He had acted in the tradition of Justice Harlan Fiske Stone, the pillar of the law who first appointed J. Edgar Hoover, and who had warned that a secret police was a menance to a free society." Id. at 446-447. Also see Kevin Baker, "Foiled Again," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 4/1/2012.).

THE 21ST-CENTURY AUTHORITARIAN IN WESTERN 'DEMOCRACIES'--"OPEN MARKETS, CLOSED MINDS": "WHAT WOULD GEORGE ORWELL THINK?"

Margaret Atwood, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination (New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2011) ("The twentieth century could be seen as a race between two versions of the man-made Hell--the jackbooted state totalitarianism of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and the hedonistic ersatz paradise of Brave New World, where absolutely everything is a consumer good and human beings are engineered to be happy. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, it seemed for a time that Brave New World had won--from henceforth, state control would be minimal, and all we'd have to do was go shopping and smile a lot, and wallow in pleasures, popping a pill or two when depression set in." "But with the notorious 9/11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks in 2001, all that changed Now it appears we face the prospect of two contradictory dystopias at once--open markets, closed minds--because state surveillance is back again with a vengeance. The torturer's dreaded Room 101 has been with us for millennia. The dungeons of Rome, the Inquisition, the Star Chamber, the Bastille, the proceedings of General Pinochet and the junta in Argentina--all have depended on secrecy and on the abuse of power. Lots of countries have had their versions of it--their ways of silencing troublesome dissent. Democracies have traditionally defined themselves by, among other things, openness and the rule of law. But now it seems that we in the West are tacitly legitimizing the methods of the darker human past, upgraded technologically and sanctified to our own uses, of course. For the sake of freedom, freedom must be renounced. To move us toward the improved world--the utopia we're promised--dystopia must first hold sway. It's a concept worthy of doublethink. It's also, in its ordering of events, strangely Marxist. First, the dictatorship of the proletariat, in which lots of heads must roll; then the pie-in-the-sky classless society, which oddly enough never materialize. Instead we just get pigs with whips." "What would George Orwell have to say about it? I often ask myself." "Quite a lot." Id. at 148-149 (italic added). Food food thought.).

LOCATING WORKPLACE

Louise A. Mozingo, Pastoral Capitalism: A History of Suburban Corporate Landscapes (Cambridge, Massachusetts, & London, England: The MIT Press, 2011) ("By the mid-twentieth century the trenchant correlation of greenness with goodness held sway in American culture. The introduction of corporate landscapes into the pastoral suburbs usefully subsumed the capitalist enterprise into the pastoral suburb's implied moral order. After all, the broad public viewed the new phalanx of giant corporations as suspect, even threatening. As the business historian Alfred Chandler put it, the majority of Americans found the 'concentrated economic power such enterprises wielded violated basic democratic values.' heir acceptance as part of the pastoral landscape embodied Leo Marx's assertion that the American pastoral ideal mediated 'the moral ambiguity, the intertwining of constructive and destructive consequences, which are generated by technological progress' and thus quelled skepticism in the moment, if not beyond. In this time, the appropriation of the pastoral landscape by American business became a useful trope for corporate capitalism." Id. at 11. From the bookjacket: "By the end of the twentieth century, America's suburbs contained more office space than its central cities. Many of these corporate workplaces were surrounded, somewhat incongruously, by verdant vista of broad lawns and leafy trees. In Pastoral Capitalism, Louise Mozingo describes the evolution of those central (but often ignored) features of postwar urbanism in the context of the modern capitalist enterprise." A central concept in this book is that of 'managerial capitalism,' with its need(/) for a design that reinforced, while at the same time appearing to soften, the hierarchical managerial structure of the the American corporation. It will be interesting to see how, in this more knowledge based capitalist economy--which must value innovation and creativity (which almost by definition go against the grain of hierarchy as the new overthrows the established at a fair brisk pace--corporate offices will be designed. It would seem that the pastoral model is inappropriate, and the more urban (campus) model increasingly preferred. More work will be done in the local coffee shot with Wi-Fi connection, than in some suburban office complex. Young, high-skilled minds will want the excitement of the urban environment, and the they will want their work and non-work lives to be more closely integrated both physically and psychological. The suburban setting will be a disconnect for them.).

CLIMATE CHANGE AND URBAN LIVING: THE FUTURE

Austin Troy, The Very Hungry City: Urban Energy Efficiency and the Economics Fate of Cites (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2012) ("Global warming is another reason why the costs of climate control may tip in favor of the Frost Belt. If average temperatures continue to rise throughout the continental United States, the not-so-unexpected result would be that cooling burdens will become even higher in the Sun Belt, while northern areas would experience reduced heating loads. However, Frost Belt cities could also find themselves with significantly higher air-conditioning bills. For instance, it's been estimated that by 2080, New York City could have a climate like that of Raleigh, North Carolina, with far longer summers and many more heat waves. . . ." "The effect of global warming will likely be exacerbated by the so-called urban heat island effect: it has been shown that urban landscapes tend to be hotter than surrounding vegetated areas, which means that as urbanization increases, so too does the need for cooling relative to heating, an effect that also favors the Frost Belt over the Sun Belt. The difference between urban and rural landscapes has been documented to be between 2 [degrees] and 5 [degrees]F for daytime temperatures, depending on the location, size, and pattern of the urbanization. Nighttime differences (when conditions are calm and clear) can be as much as 22 [degrees]F. The larger the city, the greater the effect. The heat island effect stems from a number of physical factors. In vegetated landscapes, solar radiation is absorbed and water vapor is released, which results in evaporative cooling. In cities, impervious surfaces have little moisture to release and so there is less evaporative cooling; waste heat from buildings and transportation serves as a giant space heater; and highly absorptive surfaces like tar, asphalt, and roof shingles concentrate solar energy through conduction." Id. at 23-24). From the bookjacket: "As global demand for energy grows and prices rise, a city's energy consumption becomes increasingly tied to its economic viability . . . . A city with a high 'urban energy metabolism'--that is, a city that needs large amounts of energy in order to function--will be at a competitive disadvantage in the future. [Troy] explores why cities have different energy metabolism and discusses an array of innovative approaches to the problems of expensive energy consumption.").

BE NOT TOXIC!

Thich Nhat Nanh, Fidelity: How to Create a Loving Relationship That Lasts (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2011) ("With the practice of mindfulness, we can recognize the habitual nature of our desire. . . ." When we're able to smile at a provocation or direct our sexual energy towards something positive, we can be aware of our ability, appreciate it, and continue in this way. The key is to be aware of our actions. Our mindfulness will help us understand where our actions are coming from." "If we aren't yet able to transform that habit energy, we will come out of the prison of one relationship only to fall into the prison of another. . . . We are the victims of our own habits. The way we think, speak, and act has not changed. What we did to cause suffering to the first person, we now do to cause suffering to someone new, and create a second hell." "But if we are aware of our actions, we can decide whether or not they are beneficial and if not, we can decide not to repeat them" Id. at 28-29. "The Buddha said, 'Do not have faith in something because a famous spiritual teacher said it. Do not have faith in something because it was recorded in scriptures. Do not have faith in something because everyone believes in it. Do not have faith in something because it is laid down in custom. Hearing something, we should examine it closely, comprehend it, and apply it. If, when we apply it, there is a result, then we can have faith in it. If there is no result, then we should not have faith in it just because of custom, scripture, or some spiritual teacher.'" Id. at 96-97.).

AMERICAN POLITICS 0.05--SUMMER READING FOR LAW STUDENTS: THE AUTHORITARIAN TRADITION IN AMERICAN POLITICS

Marc J. Hetherington & Jonathan D. Weiler, Authoritarianism And Polarization in American Politics (New York: Cambridge U. Press, 2009) ("WHAT IS AUTHORITARIANISM? The scholarly literature on authoritarianism is vast, but we focus on a relatively small handful of considerations often associated with it, which are particularly germane to understanding political conflict in contemporary American politics. Those who score high in authoritarianism tend to have a different cognitive styles than those who score low. The former tend to view the world in more concrete, black and white terms . . . . This is probably because they have a greater than average need for order. In contrast, those who score lower in authoritarianism have more comfort with ambiguous shades of gray, which allow for more nuanced judgments." "Perhaps because of these cognitive differences, people who are more authoritarian make stronger than average distinctions between in-groups--the groups they identify with--and out groups--groups that they perceive challenge them. Such a tendency has the effect of imposing order and minimizing ambiguity. In addition, those who are more authoritarian embrace and work to protect the existing social norms . . . These conventions are time-tested in their ability to maintain order. Altering norms could result in unpredictable changes with undesirable consequences." "Since the more authoritarian view the social order as fragile and under attack . . . , they tend to feel negatively about, behave aggressively toward, and be intolerant of those whom they perceive violate time-honored norms or fail to adhere to established social conventions. Specifically, scholars have shown a strong relationship between authoritarianism and negative affect toward many minority groups. Over the past fifty years these groups have included Jews . . . , African Americans . . . , gays . . . , and Arabs after September 11 . . . ." "Authoritarianism is a particular attractive explanation for changes in contemporary American politics because it structures opinions about both domestic and foreign policy issues. In addition to having concerns about racial difference and social change, those who are more authoritarian tend to prefer more muscular responses to threats than those who are less. . . . Viewed as a whole, research on authoritarianism suggest that the same disposition that might dispose people to be anti-black or anti-gay might also dispose them to favor military conflict over diplomacy and protecting security over preserving civil liberties. A preference for order and a need to minimize ambiguity connects both impulses." Id. at 3-4. "Although politics at the elite level has been polarized for some time, a scholarly controversy has raged over whether ordinary Americans are polarized. The book argues that they are and that the reason is growing polarization of worldviews--what guides people's view of right and wrong and good and evil. These differences in worldviews are rooted in what Marc H. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler describe as authoritarianism. They show that differences of opinion concerning the most provocative issues on the contemporary issue agenda--about race, gay marriage, illegal immigration, and the use of force to resolve security problems00reflect differences in individuals' levels of authoritarianism. This makes authoritarianism an especially compelling explanation of contemporary American politics. Events and strategic political decisions have conspired to make all these considerations more salient. The authors demonstrate that the left and the right have coalesced around these opposing worldviews, which has provided politics with more incandescent hues than before. Id. at i.).

I WILL STOP BLAMING OTHERS.

Thich Nhat Hanh, Teachings on Love (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2007) ("King Prasenajit and the Buddha became close friends. One day, while they were sitting together in the Jeta Grove, the king said to the Buddha, 'Master, there are people who think they love themselves, but who harm themselves all the time by their thoughts, words, and deeds. These people are their own worst enemy.' The Buddha agreed, 'Those who harm themselves through their thoughts words, or actions are indeed their own worst enemies. They only bring themselves suffering.' We usually think our suffering is caused by others--our parents, our partners, our enemies. But out of forgetfulness, anger, or jealously, we say or do things that create suffering for ourselves and others. Another time the Buddha told King Prasenajit, 'People usually think they love themselves. But because they are not mindful, they say and do things that create their own suffering.' When we see that this is true, we will stop blaming others as the cause of our suffering. Instead, we will try to love and care for ourselves and nourish our own body and mind." Id. at 25.).

THE NEWSPEAK OF WAR AND THE CHALLENGE TO DEMOCRACY

Mary L. Dudziak, War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences (Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2012) ("Even as Obama announced that the American combat mission in Iraq had ended, he also said that troops would remain--'with a different mission.' Just how different the mission would be was clarified when practical questions surfaced, such as, if combat was over, would American troops no longer be eligible for hostile fire pay, or for combat service medals? The army responded with a message to all troops: The 'end to combat operations in Iraq' was effective September 1, 2010. However, the army added, 'combat conditions are still prevalent,' and so wartime awards would 'continue to be issued in theater, until a date to be determined.' Other combat-service benefits would also still be available. 'It is unusual for the Army to come right out and say the emperor has no clothes,' noted the journalist Thomas E. Ricks, 'but I think it had to in this case, because soldiers take medals seriously.' An internal memo from the Associated Press simply rejected the White House message. 'Whatever the subject, we should be correct and consistent in our description of what the situation in Iraq is.' read the AP memo. 'To begin with, combat in Iraq is not over, and we should not uncritically repeat suggestions that it is, even if they come from senior officials. The situation on n the ground in Iraq is not different today than it has been for some months.'" Id. at 130. From the bookjacket: "When is wartime? In common usage, it is a period of time in which society is at war. But we now live in what President Obama has called 'an age without surrender ceremonies,' where the war on terror remains open-ended and presidents announce an end to conflict in Iraq, even as conflict on the ground persists. It is no longer easy to distinguish between wartime and peacetime." "In this inventive meditation on war, time, and the law, Mary L. Dudziak argues that wartime is not a discrete or easily defined period of time. . . . Yet policy makers and the American public continue to view wars as exceptional events that eventually give way to normal peace times--a conception that Dudziak believes has two significant consequences. First, because war is thought to be exceptional, 'wartime' remains a shorthand argument justifying the extreme actions like torture and detention without trial. Second, ongoing warfare is enabled by the inattention of the American people. More disconnected that ever from the wars their nation is fighting, public disengagement leaves us without political restraints on the exercise of American war powers." "Articulately exposing the disconnect between the way we imagine wartime and the practice of American wars, Dudziak illuminates the way the changing nature of American warfare undermines democratic accountability, yet makes democratic engagement all the more necessary.").

TWO PERSPECTIVES ON CHINA

Anchee Min, Red Azalea: Life and Love in China (London: Victor Gollancz, 1993) (From the bookjacket: "Unlike anything so far [circa 1993] published in the West, Red Azalea is a blazing, erotic and often heartrending truthful portrait of growing up during China's Cultural Revolution.").

Liu Xiaobo, No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems, edited by Perry Link, Tienchi Martin-Liao, and Liu Xia, with a Foreword by Vaclav Havel (Cambridge, Massachusetts; & London, England: Belknap/Harvard U. Press, 2012) ("Third, the party has encouraged extravagance in consumerism and frivolity in culture." "Consumerism has been invigorated by a deluge of luxury goods--expensive cars and watches, sumptuous villas--and has given rise to a vapid mass culture that wraps itself in pretty veneers while it deals in illusions of prosperity. The selling of this mass culture dominates the cultural marketplace and has itself become a highly profitable enterprise. The triviality and philistinism of poplar consumer culture fits perfectly with the shrill language of official injunctions The authoritarian system actively indulges a hedonist culture in which crassness and barbarity can do as they like." Id. at 225-226.).

AMERICAN POLITICS 0.04--THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THINGS REMAIN THE SAME

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, The Change I Believe In: Fighting for Progress in the Age of Obama (New York: Nation Book, 2011).

"PRACTICE IDEAL VERSIONS OF THE SELF"

John Donatich, The Variations: A Novel (New York: Henry Holt, 2012) ("The doing of a thing over and over until its power sneaks up on you and you realize it has changed you made you what you wanted to be. To be deliberate is to trick fate, to be original even if deviating just perceptibly from the origin, to be judged by what you've done; to practice until it is perfect." "You are only ever as good as you are. Practice ideal versions of the self; every variation against the ideal. Commit to an identity until it begins to restrict. Then commit to another. If you cannot live these selves simultaneously, live among them. The varieties do not fragment but overlap; the variations anticipate and made each other, lead into each other, They are contingent on each other. Respond. Love." Id. at 268.).

AN ACT PERMITTING THE POSSESSION OF REINDEER YEAR ROUND

IMPORTANT LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS IN THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT:

General Assembly File No. 248 February Session, 2012 House Bill No. 5258 House of Representatives, April 4, 2012
The Committee on Environment reported through REP. ROY of the 119th Dist., Chairperson of the Committee on the part of the House, that the bill ought to pass. AN ACT PERMITTING THE POSSESSION OF REINDEER YEAR ROUND. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Assembly convened: Section 1. Section 26-57a of the general statutes is repealed and the following is substituted in lieu thereof (Effective July 1, 2012): Any person may [import one or more] possess reindeer [into] in the state [during the period commencing on Thanksgiving Day of each] on any day of the year, [and ending on the immediately following New Year's Day, provided (1) any reindeer so imported is subsequently exported from the state no later than a week following the end of such period, and (2) such importation] provided such possession complies with the following requirements: Each reindeer so [imported (A)] possessed (1) is individually identified by a permanent metal ear tag, legible tattoo or microchip, [(B)] (2) possesses a certified veterinary report of inspection documenting an inspection that occurred at least one day and not more than thirty days after such reindeer was born in the state or at least one day and not more than thirty days prior to entry into the state, [(C)] (3) possesses documentation that verifies such reindeer [(i)] (A) was born from or comes from a herd that is free of both tuberculosis and brucellosis, or [(ii)] (B) tested negative for tuberculosis and brucellosis at least one day and not more than thirty days after its birth in the state or prior to its entry into the state, and [(D)] (4) possesses documentation that the originating herd participated in a state chronic wasting disease monitoring program [(i)] (A) not less than the prior three years if such reindeer was imported from a state or province not known to have chronic wasting disease, or [(ii)] (B) not less than the prior five years if such reindeer was imported from a state or province known to have chronic wasting disease outbreaks. This act shall take effect as follows and shall amend the following sections: Section 1 July 1, 2012 26-57aENVJoint Favorable The following Fiscal Impact Statement and Bill Analysis are prepared for the benefit of the members of the General Assembly, solely for purposes of information, summarization and explanation and do not represent the intent of the General Assembly or either chamber thereof for any purpose. In general, fiscal impacts are based upon a variety of informational sources, including the analyst's professional knowledge. Whenever applicable, agency data is consulted as part of the analysis, however final products do not necessarily reflect an assessment from any specific department. OFA Fiscal Note State Impact: Agency Affected Fund-Effect FY 13 $FY 14 $ Department of Energy and Environmental Protection GF - See Below See Below See Below Note: GF=General Fund Municipal Impact: None Explanation The bill, which allows anyone to possess reindeer year round, is not anticipated to result in a fiscal impact. However, it should be noted there may be a possibility that reindeer could possess and transmit Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) to other animals. It is unclear to what extent this would occur. Potential significant costs could be incurred by the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) associated with the identification and treatment of CWD if this disease were introduced through the possession of reindeer. The Out Years The annualized ongoing fiscal impact identified above would continue into the future subject to the presence of CWD. OLR Bill Analysis HB 5258 AN ACT PERMITTING THE POSSESSION OF REINDEER YEAR ROUND. SUMMARY: This bill allows anyone to possess reindeer in Connecticut on any day of the year under specified conditions. Current law allows anyone to import reindeer into the state between Thanksgiving Day and New Year's Day if they are (1) individually identified, (2) certified to be in good health, and (3) exported from the state by January 8. EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2012 REINDEER POSSESSION Similar to current law, the bill requires each reindeer to: 1. be individually identified by a permanent metal ear tag, legible tattoo, or microchip; 2. have a certified veterinary report documenting a health inspection that took place between one and 30 days before entering or after being born in the state; 3. have documentation that verifies it (a) comes from a tuberculosis- and brucellosis-free herd or (b) tested negative for these diseases between one and 30 days before entering or after being born in the state; and 4. have documentation that its originating herd was part of a state chronic wasting disease (CWD) monitoring program for at least the previous (a) three years if imported from a state or province not known to have CWD or (b) five years if imported from a state or province known to have CWD outbreaks. COMMITTEE ACTION Environment Committee Joint Favorable Yea 28 Nay 0 (03/21/2012)

AMERICAN POLITICS 0.03--FOLLOW THE MONEY

Dylan Ratigan, Greedy Bastards: How We Can Stop Corporate Communists, Banksters, and Other Vampires from Sucking America Dry (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012) (a rant from the left; but little you don't know already know . . . unless you have not been paying any attention.).

WHAT MANY AMERICANS FORGOT DURING THE GEORGE W. BUSH ADMINISTRATION , , . AND MAY HAVE NOT YET REMEMBERED.

Michael Howard, The Lessons of History (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 1991) ("A threat to national security is normally a factor producing national integration, since it can usually be met only by a degree of social mobilization that itself can be achieved only by a degree of social conciliation and consensus. But that situation has been transformed by the advent of nuclear weapons. The threat these pose to national security is not one that can be countered by popular mobilization, by the creation of nations in arms. Writing at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Clausewitz described how war, which for a century past had been an occupation for princes and professional armies, had now become an affair of peoples; how war had been, as we would put it today, 'nationalized'. Without popular mobilization and participation, wars could no longer effectively be fought at all. Today in Western Europe and the United States we are seeing the reversal of that process. War is now seen a being a matter for governments and not for peoples; an affair of mutual destruction inflicted at remote distances by technological specialists operating according to the arcane calculations of strategic analysts. Popular participation is considered neither necessary nor desirable. As in eighteenth-century Prussia, the function of the civilian is seen as being to provide the money to enable his government to purchase the weapons and hire the specialists needed to defend him. This is not a recipe for national solidarity, and in my view much of the malaise in Western Europe today, much of the general support for the more extreme manifestations of anti-nuclear movements with their implicit neutralism, arises from precisely this divorce between the people and the mechanism of their defence. Nor I do believe, incidentally, that it is a very effective recipe for national defence, If Europe were to be attacked by the Soviet Union, it would have to be defended , at least in the first instance, by its own peoples; not by nuclear weapons under the control of a transatlantic ally." "Even in the nuclear age, the obligation on the citizen to fight in defence of the community that embodies his values seems to me to be absolute, and the more fully he is a citizen, the more total that obligation becomes. This ugly skeleton of military obligation for the preservation of the state can become so thickly covered with the fat of economic prosperity and under-exercised through the skilful avoidance of international conflict that whole generations can grow to maturity, as they have in Western Europe today, without even knowing that it is there. . . . But with the obligation to fight if necessary to defend one's community there goes a duty no less absolute, to fight in such a way as will so far is possible avoid the slaughter of the innocent; as it is to ensure that the defence of one's own rights does not involve, if one can possibly avoid it, the denial of the rights of others. If one ignores these obligations, the security one purchases by force of arms may be tenable only on a very short lease. With patriotic commitment and military skill, if these are not to be wasted and perverted, there must go also political wisdom; and a fundamental humanity." Id. at 48. Political wisdom and fundamental humanity were missing on the part of the government. And economic prosperity checked reasoned patriotism on the part of the the citizenry.).

AMERICAN POLITICS 0.02--SUMMER READING FOR LAW STUDENTS

Raymond Bonner, Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong (New York: Knopf, 2012) (a case-study on America's extremely flawed criminal justice system: racism, classism, prosecutorial prejudice, investigative incompetence . . . Also see Kevin Boyle, "Strange Justice," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 3/18/2012.).

RESISTANCE AGAINST FASCISM

Carolyn Moorehead, A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France (New York: Harper, 2011) ("On 16 June, Paul Reynaud, the Prime Minister who had presided over the French government's flight from Paris to Tours and then to Bordeaux, resigned, handing power over to the much-loved hero of Verdun, Marshal Petain. At 12.30 on the 17th, Petain, his thin, crackling voice reminding Arthur Koestler of a 'Skeleton with a chill', announced over the radio that he was asking Germany for an armistice. The French people, he said, were to 'cease fighting' and to cooperate with the German authorities. 'Have confidence in the German soldier! read posters that soon appeared on every wall." Id. at 14. "The French government came to rest in Vichy, a fashionable spa on the right bank of the river Allier in the Auvergne. Here, Petain and his chief minister, the appeaser and pro-German Pierre Laval, set about putting in place a new French state. On paper at least, it was not a German puppet but a legal, sovereign state with diplomatic relations. During the rapid German advance, some 100,000 French soldiers had been killed in action, 200,000 wounded and 1.8 million others were now making their way into captivity in prisoner-of-war camps in Austria and Germany, but a new France was to rise out of the ashes of the old. 'Follow me,' declared Petain: 'keep your faith in La France Eternelle'. Petain was 84 years old. Those who preferred not to follow him scrambled to leave France--over the border to Spain and Switzerland or across the Channel--and began to group together as the Free French with French nationals from the African colonies who had argued against a negotiated surrender to Germany." "In this France envisaged by Petain and his Catholic, conservative, authoritarian and often anti-Semitic followers, the country would be purged and purified, returned to a mythical golden age before the French revolution introduced perilous ideas about equality. The new French were to respect their superiors and the values of discipline hard work and sacrifice and they were to shun the decadent individualism that had, together with Jews, Freemasons, trade unionists, immigrants, gypsies and communists, contributed to the military defeat of the country." Id. at 15. "One of the reasons given by Petain for the defeat of France in 1940 was the severe lack of French children. Young women, he complained, had had their heads turned by seeing too many American films, and by being told by the Front Populaire that there was no reason why they could not study to become lawyers and doctors like their brothers Under a law of 1938, French girls had been permitted to enrol in universities, open their own bank accounts, sign and receive cheques and have their own passports." "Petain intended to reverse this heady spirit of freedom, and, without an Assembly to hinder him, set about putting through a series of edicts and statutes aimed at strengthening what he saw as the degenerate moral fabric of France. contraception had been declared illegal in the wake of the huge losses in the first World War, and would remain so, but now the penalties against abortion, and particularly abortionists, were strengthened to include the guillotine, Women who continued to breastfeed their babies beyond the age of one were given priority cards for queues (providing the baby was legitimate and French). Mothers of five children were presented a bronze medal, then a silver with the fifth and a gold with the tenth. Dozens of Vichy babies acquired Petain as their godfather. Families were declared to be 'patriotic'; to remain single was to be decadent." Id. at 43. Listen to Fox News and you will hear the rants of numerous American Petains; or, for that matter, read some opinions and statements of certain member of the current United States Supreme Court. There is, in earlier twenty-first-century America, a strong pull towards a conservative, authoritarian, anti-unions, anti-immigrants, anti-liberalism, anti-equality, anti-nonchristian, anti-individual, anti-critical thinking, anti-intellectual American and ant-women. From the bookjacket: "They were teachers, students, chemists writers, and housewives; a singer at the Paris Opera, a mid-wife, a dental surgeon. They distributed ant0Nazi leaflets, printed subversive newspapers, hid resisters, secreted Jews to safety, transported weapons, and conveyed clandestine messages. The youngest was a schoolgirl of fifteen who scrawled 'V' for victory on the walls of her lycee; the eldest, a farmer's wife in her sixties who harbored escaped Allied airmen. Stranger to each other, hailing from villages and cities from across France, these brave women were united in hatred and defiance of the Nazi occupiers." "Eventually, the Gestapo hunted down 230 of these women and imprisoned the in a fort outside Paris. Separated from home and loved ones, these disparate individuals turned to one another their common experience conquering divisions of age, education profession, and class, as they found solace and strength in their deep affection and camaraderie." "In January 1943, they were sent to their final destination: Auschwitz. Only forty0nine would return to France." Who will resist the new American fascism when the occupier is an internal enemy? Also see Caroline Weber, "Sisters Unto Death," NYT Book Review, Sunday, 11/13/2011.).

IF COLLEGE EDUCATION IS IN TROUBLE, HOW CAN LAW SCHOLL EDUCATION NOT BE?

Andrew Delbanco, College: What It Was, Is, and Should Be (Princeton & Oxford: Princeton U. Press, 2012) ("For the first time in our history, we face the prospect that the coming generation of adult Americans will be less educated than their elders." Id. at 26. "A renowned teacher . . . , Lionel Trilling, remarked near the end of his life that when, 'through luck or cunning,' small-group discussion works well, it 'can have special pedagogic value.' . . . What he meant was that a small class can help students learn how to qualify their initial responses to hard questions. It can help them learn the difference between informed insights and mere opinionating. It can provide the pleasurable chastisement of discovering that others see the world differently, and that their experience is not replicable by, or even reconcilable with, one's own. At its best, a small class is an exercise in deliberative democracy, in which the teacher is neither oracle nor lawgiver but a kind of provocateur." Id. at 57-58. "[L]iterature, history, philosophy, and the arts are becoming the stepchildren of our colleges. This is a great loss because they are the legatees of religion in the sense that they provide a vocabulary for formulating ultimate questions of the sort that have always had special urgency for young people. In fact, the humanities may have the most to offer to students who do not know that they need them--which is one reason it is scandalous to withhold them. One of the ironies of contemporary academic life is that even as the humanities become marginal in our colleges, they are establishing themselves in medical, law, and business schools, where interest is growing in the study of literature and the arts as a way to encourage self-critical reflection among future physicians, attorneys, and entrepreneurs, It is ironic, too, that amid rising concern over America's competitive position in the global 'knowledge economy,' we hear more and more about the need for technical training, and less and less about the value of liberal education at home, even as the latter gains adherents among our competitors abroad." Id. at 99-100.).

Richard P. Keeling & Richard H. Hersh, We're Losing Our Minds: Rethinking American Higher Education (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) ("So grades have become poor indicators of educational quality, just as have the actuarial measures . . . . Grade inflation--the nearly universal consequence of the marriage of declining standards with consumer values--has rendered GPAs so unreliable and suspect that some corporate recruiters have begun to ask interviewees for their SAT scores instead. Think about what that means! It says that some recruiters now believe that standardized data about the educational aptitude of entering students (for instance, SAT or ACT [what about the LSAT for law students?] scores are more predictive of success on the job than unstandardized, culturally constructed, poorly correlated data about academic performance in college. Grades then tell us practically nothing . . . . " "So what then do grades actually show? Grades primarily show the degree to which students have been successful in anticipating and meeting a professor's requirements for the display of knowledge that was intended to be acquired in a course. Cramming the night before a midterm or final exam installs enough facts in short-term memory to allow clever and high-functioning students to pass (or, in too many colleges, to even get A's and B's). But higher learning depends far less on short-term memorization of information than on the integration of knowledge and the generation of meaning by each student--processes that require time, reflection, and feedback. So it is that a student can ace an exam, or a course, without learning anything of substance; the hastily memorized facts and figures fade quickly from the mind, leaving little evidence that anything there has changed, But if grades do not suffice in demonstrating learning, how do we know that learning has happened? How can colleges prove that their educational programs are effective?" Id. at 31-32.).

AMERICAN POLITICS 0.01--LAW OF EXCLUDED MIDDLE

Geoffrey Kabaservice, Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party ((Oxford & New York: Oxford U. Press, 2012) ("The upset victory of Scott Brown in the Massachusetts race to succeed the late Senator Ted Kennedy in early 2010 gave the deceptive impression that the movement might benefit moderate as well as conservative Republicans, since the Tea Partiers' alarm over swelling government and rising deficits historically had been a primary concern of the moderates. Outside of Massachusetts, however, the movement supported few fiscally conservatives who were not also rigid social and cultural conservatives, and none who could be described as moderate. In Utah, the movement knocked off incumbent Senator Robert Bennett, a Republican who had always taken pains to maintain his conservative bona fides, largely because he was perceived as being insufficiently angry and partisan. Tea Party activists also viewed his experience and policy expertise as deficiencies, and charged him with failing to curb the growing deficit. But the movement-affiliated candidates who claimed the mantle of fiscal conservatism had no real plans for reducing government expenditures beyond the standard conservative pursuit of politics-as-warfare: cutting programs that benefited Democratic constituencies while preserving programs that benefited Republican constituencies and avoiding any serious reform of defense spending or middle-class entitlement programs." "Far from benefiting moderates, the Tea Party movement brought far-right ideas that even conservatives had once resisted into the Republican mainstream In precious decades conservative gatekeepers like William F. Buckley Jr., pressured by moderates and mainstream media, had marginalized the paranoid conspiracy-mongers of the John Birch Society and 'kook' books like None Dare Call It Treason. Now tea-tinged conservative entertainers like Glenn Beck peddled the crackpot theories of Birch theoreticians like W. Clean Skousen to a television audience of millions, and books of the sort that once had been viewed as the political equivalent of hardcore pornography soared brazenly up the bestseller lists. While conservative politicians like Reagan had kept the Birch Society at arm's length, now members of the Republican leadership sponsored and spoke at Tea Party rallies at which demonstrators equated Democrats with Nazis and charged that Obama was a foreign-born dictator ravaging the Constitution. GOP politicians were unable to resist the rightward pressures from their base, even if they had wanted to, and echoed the extreme charges of the movement. As Obama complained to a gathering of Congressional Republicans, 'You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling your constituents is, 'This guy's doing all kinds of crazy stuff that is going to destroy America'.'" "One of the likest ways America might in fact be destroyed would be if one its two major parties were rendered dysfunctional, and yet this seemed to be the direction in which the GOP was heading as the 2012 elections approached. The version of the Republican Party that greeted the second decade of the twenty-first century was the one that apparently was in the process of shucking off most of its own history and heritage. Its leaders showed little interest in appealing to moderates, repudiating extremism, reaching out to new constituencies, or upholding the party's legacy of civil rights and civil liberties. There seemed little likelihood that the GOP would take the lead in working toward bipartisan solutions to the economic crisis or present itself as an effective governing party. The half century-long struggle of moderates and conservatives within the Republican Party had finally ended in the conservatives' complete domination, bu the fruits of this victory were proving to be bitter." Id. at 387-388. And so its goes. And where will America end up? Nobody knows. For those who are concerned--which all of us should be--, reading Kabaservice's Rule or Ruin may be the first step towards recovery and reversing a fifty-year slide.)

Ira Shapiro, The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis (New York: PublicAffairs, 2012) ("And part of [a U.S. Senator's] the unspoken oath was an obligation to help make the Senate work. As Mike Mansfield, the longest-serving Senate majority leader in history memorably noted: 'In the end, it is not the individuals of the Senate who are important. It is the institution of the Senate. It is the Senate itself as one of the foundations of the Constitution. It is the Senate as one of the rocks of the Republic.' The Senate was an institution that the nation counted on to take collective action. Understanding that brought about a commitment to passionate, but not unlimited, debate; tolerance of opposing views; principled compromise; and senators' willingness to end debate, and vote up or down, even it is sometimes meant losing." "Those qualities characterized the great Senate and its members. . . . The Senate has often been described as a club, but at its best, the Senate actually functioned more like a great team, in which talented individuals stepped up and did great things at crucial moments, sometimes quite unexpectedly." "All of those qualities are missing from today's Senate, and they have been missing for a long time. When senators see the Senate as simply a forum for their own talents and interests, when they see their own views as so important or divinely inspired that compromise becomes unacceptable, or when they regard the Senate as merely an extension of the battle between the political parties, the Senate can become polarized and paralyzed on te path to irrelevance and decline." Id. at xv-xvi.).