For those of you on another planet, change your clocks for daylight saving (hah!) time, Sunday, March 11th, if you plan to visit the United States that weekend. (In the Willamette Valley, we really do save that hour for a rainy day.) I think you Fall Back, but Falling Forward sounds about right too. Inter-Alia will help you out if you’re wired (and you’ll know that you are if you’re the one Falling Forward).
PC Magazine’s “The 50 Most Important People on the Web” puts Senator Wyden at 29th. Well, well, well.
When I worked in academic law libraries, a charming and [usually] young law student would invariably come up to the reference desk, ask a question, and then say deprecatingly, “it’s really not that important, it’s just an academic question.” My rueful retort was usually, “hey pal, this is a law school – it’s ALL academic.” If I got a chuckle I knew the two of us would enjoy the student’s law school years. (If I got a really big laugh, I knew to look out. It wasn’t *that* funny!)
Well the same kind of retort could be applied to life. HEY PAL, IT’S ALL LAW, which is why I like what the Classroom Law Project is doing. But reading the newspapers on my long day’s journey into work this morning left me a bit law-stunned. Just about every story had a law connection. And I looked at only the Oregonian and the Portland Tribune before throwing up my hands and turning to the OSB Bulletin where at least I found some humor!
Here’s a taste of this morning’s legal news.
The print OSB Bulletin also has a new look, which we like very much. Editor Paul Nickell talks about it in his “Letter from the Editor” and has a sidebar, Postscript and Post Mortem, where he gives a very brief, not to mention humorous, history of the dingbat and its application to the OSB Bulletin. [Urgh Note: I’m not finding a link to this sidebar, but will add it when I do.]
And don’t forget to check out the Bulletin’s Legal.Online column, by Robert Ambrogi, one of our favorite blawgers.
The latest issue of the Oregon State Bar (OSB) Bulletin has two veterans’ related articles and announcements. One is a message to the membership announcing that the Board of Governors has authorized a vote regarding allowing Armed Forces advertising in the OSB Bulletin. The other is a Parting Shots column by Jesse Wm. Barton who writes about veterans and lawyers interested in practicing veterans’ law. More information on OSB work with veterans is here.
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Travis McDade’s, “The Book Thief: The True Crimes of Daniel Spiegelman.” This is one book thief who will have your hair standing on end, while you clutch your books tightly to your chest (and look out for those elevator shafts while you’re at it). There are also some wonderful dramatic courtroom scenes toward the end, so don’t expect this book about librarians, rare books, sentencing guidelines, and lawyers to put you to sleep. I was horribly frazzled at the end of a long day yesterday and figured a 90 minute yoga class and an hour with The Book Thief would calm the nerves (where is a bottle of Chateau Thames Embankment when you need it! I settled for a nice Australian Port). Well, those courtroom scenes all but had me cheering and laughing out loud, so there went sleep for another hour. I highly recommend it. (The book could have used one more edit to clean up some pesky grammar and syntax problems, but I’m never hard on new writers, especially ones who tell such a great tale. These are not easy stories to tell!)
One thing that isn’t mentioned, and was probably not known at the time the book was written, is that Associate Supreme Court Justice Alito (former U.S. Court of Appeals 3rd Circuit Judge Alito) who played such a lovely role in this tale at the end, is married to a law librarian (maybe former also – but to librarians, once a librarian, always a librarian 🙂
We have a good selection of materials for tenants, but for landlords and property managers, not so much. Washington County does offer this monthly class for landlords. It seems focused on crime prevention, not on “how to be a landlord” with associated financial and legal issues, but it’s a great start and every landlord would benefit from the information. I’m working on improving our collection of materials for landlords, so stay tuned.
Do you want to participate in Books for Troops? I don’t think they want your used law books (and then again …), so here are ways to dispose of those, but the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan just might want some of your other books. Margie Boule’s column in yesterday’s Oregonian (3/6/07) told the story of a woman who figured out a cheap and easy way to send Books for Troops. Read the story for details. You may want to contact a local National Guard or Veterans services offices, here and here for example, for other ways to send books or on how to direct them to specific soldiers’ units. In Washington County we have a terrific Veterans’ Services office and other county’s may have one too.
Every once in a while we get questions about The Flag. It’s amazing how many rules there are on displaying the flag, and how many of them are ignored (gotta love that First Amendment). But librarians don’t enforce rules (except in our own libraries). We just show people how to find them. I always thought that it might be fun to have my own flag and found this, Good Flag, Bad Flag, for some ideas (as if I don’t have enough problems – now I need to design a flag? 🙂
The March 1st, 2007, Street Roots has a nice tribute to Monica Goracke, of the Oregon Law Center, for the “Know Your Rights” training she held with the Street Roots vendors.
I like Street Roots and if you don’t buy it yet, you might want to start. Their insert, The Rose City Resource, is priceless, especially for those of us who work with the public. If you’ve never been part of creating one of these guides you might not be aware of the astonishing amount of time and labor that goes into creating a good one. Street Roots also has book reviews (this issue’s is one by Robin Lindley of the book by Steven H. Miles, “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and the War on Terror.” (It will be online soon; right now, buy a print copy of the newspaper.)
Oregon Legal Research Blog