The State of Oregon has set up a Swine Flu website, with links to guides, local resources, and more.
There are, of course, other national and international sites you can visit for information, including the CDC , WHO, and PandemicFlu dot gov.
Previous post on The 2009 Flu.
The newly redesigned Washington County (Oregon) website is up and running, however …
One of the many perils of migrating to a new county webpage is that links from this Oregon Legal Research blog to research guides on the Washington County (Oregon) Law Library’s (WCLL) webpage will be misdirected. Not all of them, but too many. I am slowly making my way through the cleanup, including updating previous blog post links to some of our most frequently used research guides.
Here is the list so far, with correct links for the guides I’ve been told are not linking properly from old posts. (You can also get to these guides from the WCLL webpage.)
An excellent, and fast, tutorial on free and low cost legal research tools is available from the Duke University law librarians: The Unexploded Cow’s Guide to Legal Research
My previous posts on free and low-cost legal research are here and here (with additional imbedded links).
An event in the Portland metro area (previously blogged about), open to all Oregonians, to assist people who facing possible foreclosure:
Home Ownership Preservation Event
FREE
Open to the public
Saturday, May 2, 2009
10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Portland Memorial Coliseum
300 Winning Way, Portland, OR 97208
Free parking
On the TriMet MAX line, Rose Quarter Transit Center
To register, please click here or call (in Salem) 503-947-7854 or 503-947-7068. Please note that childcare will not be provided.
Other foreclosure posts on the Oregon Legal Research blog.
Government website on the flu: PandemicFlu dot gov. Also, from the CDC , WHO, Wikipedia and beyond, learn about Endemics, and pandemics and Epidemics.
Those of you who have read some histories of the Flu of 1918 (as opposed to reading just headlines), or some of the less overwrought news (e.g. at the CDC) may recall that there was a 1918 Springtime outbreak of flu that preceded the more virulent Autumn one. (I liked John Barry’s book, the Great Influenza, but there are others, many others.) You may also recall that those who caught the early, less virulent form either didn’t get the deadly one or had a better outcome if they did (they lived) than those who had not been exposed previously. They were, in purely layperson’s terms, “vaccinated.”
As my father used to say about Calculus 101. If you survived it, you had been vaccinated and were immune; you didn’t have to get it (take it) again. You might go on to get Calculus 201, but you had a better chance of survival than if you hadn’t been exposed previously to Calculus 101.
If you missed the Maira Kalman and Justice Ginsburg May it Please the Court (and Pursuit of Happiness) illustrated article, from the New York Times, 4/23/09, catch it now.
If you were wondering about Maira Kalman, try her webpage or Wikipedia entry. She also has a presentation at the TED conference, a source of much other inspiration (about which I blogged a while ago).
A question frequently asked in law libraries: What is the highest interest rate imposed on debts allowed by Oregon law?
Here is my 2009 (before the end of the current 2009 Legislative Session) answer to the general question, when it comes to me via email.
(Note: if your situation is more complex than trying to figure out what the interest rate on that unpaid parking ticket is going to be, or what to charge your adult child for a car loan, I recommend you talk to an attorney. Answers to questions about interest rates on credit cards, on debts, on child support, on money judgments, etc. need more research than the average person can do “on the web.” NO, no, no – it is NOT all online.)
The very shortest answer to the general question is “It Depends!”
We’ve been getting excellent feedback on the ABA’s “Buying, Selling, Merging and Closing a Law Practice”.
When law partners part amicably, they may find that a how-to book is useful, but when they part less than amicably, they must have a book, forms, checklists, and sometimes more – a referee maybe?
In Oregon, attorneys also have the incomparable PLF staff members who advise Oregon attorneys on all sorts of legal practice, and getting out of practice, issues. New Oregon attorneys don’t automatically think about PLF and about just how many services are provided by the PLF. The PLF really wants to keep you out of trouble so they offer a lot of preventative care! Use them – the PLF, that is.
I saw the link to Wordle at a Jim Calloway blog post and decided to try it out with the text of a bill in the Oregon Legislature. Here is what Wordle does to it: 2009 HB 2813.
Wordle has some interesting uses, perhaps for writers who want a check on what their article, story, or other writing reveals about their use/overuse of certain words. If the word LIKE is bigger than all your other word, like wow, like get an editor – as if.
We all need a little bit of comic relief and today’s suggestion comes to you from the lawyers and law librarians behind: “Top 3 ‘Peeps in Law’ Entries” from the ABA Journal Law News Now, Apr 13, 2009,by Molly McDonough.
Don’t forget to click on the Peeps in Law Gallery for contest entries.
(Librarians also play Pimp My Bookcart for their comic relief.)
Oregon Legal Research Blog