The Faculty Lounge

Happy Fourth!

As we celebrate the Fourth of July today in a whirl of fireworks, hot dogs and beer, consider also these lines from Walt Whitman, glorying in our nation, quirks and all:

AMERICA always!
Always our own feuillage!
Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas!
Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New Mexico! . . .
Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes drain’d by the Eastern and Western Seas;	5
The area . . . of These States—the three and a half millions of square miles;
The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main—the thirty thousand miles of river navigation,
The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches;
Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy! ... Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am?   How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of These States? American Feuillage, Leaves of Grass

Why We Fight

As today's Memorial Day, I thought it would be the right time to honor someone who gave her life for democracy over 60 years ago.  Milada Horakova was a Czech freedom fighter, democratic MP and campaigner for women's rights, who battled against both the Nazis and the Communists.  On June 27th, 1950, she was hanged by the Communists on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage, despite appeals for clemency from world figures including Winston Churchill and Albert Einstein.

A new opera in the Czech Republic shines the spotlight on Horakova's show trial, using her own words decrying the brutalist regimes of facists and dictators:

"I have declared to the State Police that I remain faithful to my convictions, and that the reason I remain faithful to them is because I adhere to the ideas, the opinions and the beliefs of those who are figures of authority to me. And among them are two people who remain the most important figures to me, two people who made an enormous impression on me throughout my life. Those people are Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and Edvard Beneš. And I want to say something to those who were also inspired by those two men when forming their own convictions and their own ideas. I want to say this: no-one in this country should be made to die for their beliefs. And no-one should go to prison for them."

On this day, especially, we should remember Milada Horakova, along with all the Americans who gave their lives to preserve democracy and our way of life. 

Jack Rose In A Sidecar? Making Law School More Practical

We all know the ongoing debate in law schools: theory versus practice.  But perhaps even our view of practice is a little skewed.  Maybe clinics don't teach students all the necessary useful arts.  Many successful lawyers share a common practical trait utterly missed in the clinical pedgagogy: they are stellar schmoozers.  The curriculum committee might be clueless on this count but some of our students get it.  Gentleman Lawyer offers one student's thoughts on the matter of cocktails.  This gentleman favors the Manhattan, but I'm particularly intrigued by the Jack Rose.  I didn't even know what applejack was - other than the cereal my mother wouldn't let me eat. 

It's not just what you imbibe, however.  It helps to be a natty dresser.  Another student blogger suggests that that dapper gents might want to avoid one popular haberdasher lest they find themselves swimming in ill-fitting suits.

I know I'll never be a proper mentor on these matters.  I typically stick to the familiar uniform of button downs and khakis.  And I rarely drill deeply into the bartender's manual.  Still, I do respect the impulse.  Why else would I cotton to the radio station, The Martini Lounge.