"18 Signs That America Is Rotting Right In Front Of Our Eyes."

Pravda headline, a little too close to the truth to be funny.

Once upon a time, the American people worked feverishly to construct beautiful, shining communities from coast to coast. But now we get to watch those communities literally crumble and decay in slow motion. Nothing lasts forever...

Also in Pravda:

A restaurant in Germany has been conducting an advertising campaign for people to donate body parts which will be transformed into delicious dishes at a new restaurant called Flime.... [T]he donors will be considered “members” of a new dining cult. The “members” will declare themselves willing to donate “any part of their body” while the resulting hospital costs will be borne by the restaurant which is looking for “an open-minded surgeon.”

Campus Mantis: Non Compos Mentis.

It's Saturday night, and the praying mantis at the University of Wisconsin is restless and reckless. We try to help, but he seems lacking in rationality. (WARNING: 1 bad word.)

A Saturday ride on the Military Ridge Trail.

We began in Blue Mounds:



We got all the way to Ridgeway, 10 miles down:



And headed back:



To make a 20-mile ride...



... which seemed about right.

What made it especially nice? Llamas...



... and, on return home, pizza, Meade-made:



So beautiful!

At the Cool Reflection Café...

... you may coolly reflect (or spout off passionately). It's another open thread. That's all.

"I have no definitive definition of a masterpiece but, in my view, it is a work that permits diverse interpretations, indeed contradictions."

Ha ha. Get it? He (Laurent Le Bon, director of the Centre Pompidou-Metz) has to avoid tripping over his own concept. You can't have a "definitive definition" that is about diversity and contradictions. If you're into diversity and contradictions, how can you answer any of the questions that are asked?

And... "definitive definition" — isn't that a funny term? It should be a redundancy. If it's a definition at all, it should necessarily be definitive. If he can't give a definitive definition, he's not giving a definition at all, one would think. He's eschewing definition. He wants people to give diverse and contradictory meanings to the term used to name the show at his museum.

So... do you care what works of art get labeled "masterpiece"? If so, why and what would you put the label on?

"The older I get, the fewer books I finish, and the more I read highly selectively — fast forward set on high."

Writes Kenneth Anderson:

This is either the getting of wisdom — or the gradual shutting down of (what to call it?) one’s social and engagement functions as one gets closer to in-turnedness of dying, the inability of the aging to take in new stuff because we are too occupied trying to process the accumulation of the previous decades.

Do older people read differently? If so, why?

If older people are less likely to read straight through a whole book, it's probably because:
	The closer you are to death, the less reason there is to add more content to your brain.
	The more you've put into your brain over the years the harder it is to jam in new material.
	You've already read the things that have most influenced you, so the new things are less valuable.
	You're so experienced that you don't need all the background and explaining that pads out most books.
	You have less time left to live and more wisdom about when you are wasting it.
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Do blogging lawprofs wield too much power?

Orin Kerr reports:

On August 19th, Justice Kennedy gave an address that included an interesting passing remark about the role of blogs. Justice Kennedy was talking about how law review case comments generally come out too late to be of use to the Court (especially in the context of deciding whether to grant certiorari in a case). As a result, when Justice Kennedy asks his clerks to look to see what the law reviews have said about a particular case, there isn’t any commentary yet. Justice Kennedy adds: “I’ve found, what my clerks do now, when they have interesting cases — They read blogs.”

This means that the lawprofs who keep up high-profile blogs have disproportionate influence. You have traditional lawprofs laboring over law review articles, but these articles come out too late to discuss a case that's pending in the Supreme Court. One answer — I'm not the first to say this* — is that law review articles should properly be about something other than the latest pending or just-decided cases, something more timeless and profound. But I think that most law professors would like to be involved in the legal developments of the day. It must be irritating to see that the lawprof bloggers have a special line to the Court.

This may stir up an old question that I know nags at some law professors: Will I be required to blog? Very soon after I started blogging, I heard the question is it acceptable for lawprofs to blog? and then, right after that, the question will I be required to blog? jumped up. In the minds of some non-blogging lawprofs, it preceded the question is it good for lawprofs to blog? — which seemed like a more appropriate question to me. But I can see why someone with a legal mind would ask will I be required to blog? before is it good for lawprofs to blog? It's the same reason lawyers think what do I want the answer to be? before they try to figure out what the answer is.

Anyway, Justice Kennedy's remark shows why it's good for lawprofs to blog, but it would be ridiculous to require lawprofs to blog. Wouldn't it? Or is it ridiculous to require lawprofs to write law review articles?

_________

*And I'm writing this too quickly to figure out who else has said this.

At the Water Garden Café...

... refresh yourself.

Bonus pic: Meade in the herb garden.

Bemoaning the loss of blue laws in the NYT.

"Sunday Shopping Linked With Less Happiness."

Good lord.

Sarah Palin versus the "impotent, limp and gutless."

Talking about reporters, thinking about dicks.

"At what point should you give up on your dream of becoming a lawyer?"

"It’s a question on many people’s minds lately. Whether they were laid off during the recession and haven’t been able to get back in, or if they’ve just graduated law school to the triumphant sounds of crickets, people are wondering when it’s time to stop throwing good money (and effort) after bad."

Above the Law, via Instapundit.

"What is that? It makes me angry, and I don't even know why."

That's what I said, as I overhead this video (which Meade was playing over there). "It's a Hillary for President ad," he said. It doesn't make me feel angry while looking at the video...



... but that was a weird experience. The music is the most heavy-handed kind of movie music, the stuff you hear in trailers for very big-budget sci-fi. Perhaps Hillary is a big-budget sci-fi project. Ever thought of it/her that way?

In any case, it's not Hillary presenting herself as a candidate, of course. Not overtly anyway. But she is a 2012 candidate, isn't she?

Hillary in 2012?
	Pure fantasy, and it's going nowhere.
	Hillary wants it, she'll jump in if she can, and I hope she does.
	Hillary may want it, but there's no hope for her, and I'm glad.
	Hillary is already running against Obama, and this ad is one sign of that.
	She and Obama made a deal. He'll back out of the 2012 race, then run again in 2016 or 2020 perhaps.
pollcode.com free polls

Emily Dickinson meets...

... Grand Theft Auto.

"Don't Be Evil?"

Nice — evil? — viral video for getting people to promote the cause of "Do Not Track Me" legislation. Via Wired:

It’s not the first anti-Google antic from the group, which is largely funded by legal fees, the Rose Foundation, Streisand Foundation, Tides Foundation and others. Last month the group announced it had parked outside lawmakers’ Washington-area residences to determine whether they had unsecured Wi-Fi networks that might have been sniffed by Google as part of the internet giant’s Street View and Google Maps program.

UPDATE, 9/4/10: Google just updated its privacy policy.

"A group of Radiohead fans went to a recent show in Prague 'on a mission to capture the band playing using as many different angles as possible.'"

"Radiohead found out about this and provided the audio so that the fans could piece everything together into proper videos."

Beautiful! I love when artists respond to the work of their fans like this.

"U.S. Lost Jobs in August, but Fewer Than Expected."

A NYT headline. 

What will it take for the media to notice how pathetically laughable it is to say the bad news is better than what was expected? How long will this go on? It's getting surreal!

UPDATE: Obama reacts:

“This morning, new figures show the economy produced 67,000 private sector jobs in August, the eighth consecutive month of private job growth. Additionally, the numbers for July were revised upward to 107,000. Now that's positive news, and it reflects the steps we've already taken to break the back of this recession.”

Surreal!