U.S. Supreme Court: Camreta v. Greene; Alford v. Greene (09-1454; 09-1478)
Oral argument: March 1, 2011
Ninth Circuit case: Greene v. Camreta (2009: #06-35333), excerpt:
Civil disobedience, and its close cousin, civil resistance, has existed for centuries, maybe longer. The recent Gene Sharp article in the New York Times (2/17/11) had a long list of related links for further research, including a link to his Albert Einstein Institution and his e-book, “From Dictatorship to Democracy.”
We all know the most visible of the nineteenth and twentieth century peace-makers, Thoreau, Gandhi, King, but there are dozens, hundreds, thousands of others, some of whom have won Nobel Peace Prizes (as Gene Sharp may very well do next year) and most who have not.
Clarence Jones, lawyer to Martin Luther King, wrote his own book recently about a peacemaker and it is a wonderful read. It is a deeply moving account of a missing piece of our recent history: “Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation.”
Every time I hear people panic about their addresses and phone numbers showing up “ON THE INTERNET – AGHHHH” I want to pat them on their backs and say, “it’s all right – but here is what you really need to worry about.”
Yes, you can, and should, work on those online “privacy settings” and stop answering those intrusive questions or even applying for credit cards, but, not to dishearten you further, keep in mind that even if you clear your data from one databank, most of them “refresh” their data at a bare minimum of 4x a year so even if you delete your info or “hide” it, the information will likely pop up again in a few months. Surprise!
Put yourself in the databanks’ positions. They have a lot of competition and each one wants the best, most up-to-date, and, dare I say intrusive information to sell to the highest bidder or the most bidders.
Introduction to Basic Legal Citation (online ed. 2010), by Peter W. Martin, is available, with all the other goodies at the ever wonderful Cornell Legal Information (LII) website.
Beer is a hot topic in this year’s 2011 Legislative Session. You can find beer bills, so to speak, by using the search engine at the Legislature’s website: I found these today:
HB2100
HB2262
HB2588
HB2644
HB2924
HB3145
HB3110
And then there is 2011 Senate Bill 444, which doesn’t pop up in the Legislature’s search-engine, which is a puzzle, but not the first time we’ve noticed the problem.
I was able to answer a reference question the other day with a Jack Ohman cartoon – the one about redistricting in Sunday’s (2/6/11) Oregonian – very funny. The patron was pleased.
I’m not the only law librarian who says that “reference” duty is the best job in a library. It also helps if you read widely, including political cartoons. (I grew up, so to speak, with Herblock and it’s nice now to be in Jack Ohman territory (Oregonian-home).
Political cartoonists are amazing people – political, literary, artistic, comedic, disquieting, and not infrequently sources of reference information.
It all started with a simple citation. One of our patrons had a case from the Oregon Court of Appeals and was looking for previous history information. The first thing that should have set off my radar that this would not be a simple request was the patron’s mention that the case was affirmed without opinion. Not knowing the twisting path before me, I happily set off on my journey.
Day 1:
“Abandoning Law Reports for Official Digital Case Law,” Cornell Legal Studies Research Paper No. 11-01, Peter W. Martin, Cornell Law School
As you’ll see when you read and think about this, there are good ways to go about shifting to digital and there are irresponsible ways.
(Thank you to Legal Research Plus for the lead.)
If you have a Washington or California state legal research or resource question, and especially if you’re new to legal research, check out that state’s law libraries legal research resources: websites, blogs, and maybe even just use the telephone!
1) Washington State has some excellent county law libraries.
2) Mary Whisner, University of Washington Law School librarian, keeps a list of Washington State Law Blogs up to date.
The Law Librarian blog posted a very funny video today from the Onion News Network titled Congress Forgets How to Pass a Law. As an added bonus, the video offers a shout-out to the Library of Congress (and mentions legislators frantically searching wikipedia).
From the Onion’s website:
After years of gridlock, Democrats and Republicans have realized no one remembers how to actually enact legislation.
Oregon Legal Research Blog