sliced bread #2

Some look at things that are, and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask why not.

Wednesday, November 30, 2005

the Supreme Court's crumbling "Authority"

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For some, the chunk of marble that fell from the facade of the Supreme Court yesterday was a frightening safety hazard. But this is Washington, after all, where people search for hidden meaning in anything that happens at places such as the nation's highest court. And so, some couldn't help but note that the tumbling piece chipped at a carved marble figure that represents "Authority."

Although "Authority" was damaged, there will be no need to restore "Order," its neighboring figure. Or "Liberty Enthroned," which also survived the accident. At the foot of the Supreme Court steps, where engineers were photographing the remains of the Vermont marble pieces and carefully loading them into crates, one onlooker nudged a friend: "Notice how it happened on the right side. Not the left. The right."

The events unfolded at 9:30 a.m., about a half-hour before the court was to convene. The piece of marble -- about the size of a medicine ball -- fell from the building's west pediment, and much of it smashed into smithereens near the steps below. No one was injured. The pediment includes 30 blocks of dentil molding that arc over nine muscular and serious sculptures that represent "Order," "Liberty Enthroned" and "Authority" along with past justices, a senator and other luminaries.

-- Petula Dvorak, Washington Post (11/29/2005)

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Tuesday, November 29, 2005

a moot point

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talk about the (bad) luck -- or divine injustice? -- of the draw with judges for the moot in Constitutional Litigation: we're arguing a case about (narrowing) the scope of freedom of religion... and one of the judges is general counsel for a major church group... and is a former candidate for the then-existing Canadian Alliance Party...

G-d help us...

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Monday, November 28, 2005

if a government falls...

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... in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?


well, we've heard all kinds of sounds coming out of the House of Commons -- the name is quite apropos in light of their behaviour as well -- in the last several months... there's the sound of so-called "honourable" Members of Parliament hurling insults across the floor during Question Period, the sound of our good ol' Prime Minister dithering his way through pre-election pork barrel promises, the near-slanderous caterwauling of the ever-vapid Leader of the *cough* Loyal Opposition, and the incessant thumping of the election war-drums... there's the sound of paper shuffling, of an inquiry commissioner's gavel banging, of numerous talking-heads on the evening news, and much partisan huffing-and-puffing...

and now finally they're gonna blow the government down...

there will be a lot of editorializing in the coming days, but i would definitely urge anyone and everyone who has a stake in this to really try to listen and get behind the rhetoric and find out what the issues are and who's doing what about them... i for one thought it important, despite my admitted distaste for their policies, to visit the Conservative Party's website just to see if i was missing something... i'm not at all inclined to vote based on the "devil you know versus the devil you don't know" principle, but even after checking out the website of the Prince of Darkness himself (KIDDING!), i really couldn't see anything substantive beyond the partisan platitudes...

is it too much to ask that, if you're so doggedly intent on bringing down a government and forming one of your own, to the point where you've done nothing in the past 17 months but kick and scream and jostle and jockey for another election, that you would at least take the time to flesh out your platform and offer the electorate some real options? for all the talk of him being a policy wonk at heart, Stephen Harper has shown nothing at all resembling political substance (his website profile should be titled "Leader Inaction" instead)... make no mistake, i would definitely like to give the Conservatives a fair chance at my one vote (meaningless as it may be), but what am i supposed to judge them on?

their chance to make some meaningful noise starts tomorrow...


You're going to be hearing a lot of big numbers in the next seven weeks. There will be promises of multi-billion-dollar tax cuts, multi-year spending programs and whopping surpluses far into the future. Before the electoral bidding begins, consider this: it costs 19 cents a day to feed a child in Africa.

-- CAROL GOAR, Toronto Star (2005/11/28)
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Saturday, November 26, 2005

Which Canadian Supreme Court Justice are you?




[Click for official biography]


You are the Honourable Madam Justice Marie Deschamps
(100.0% match)


Born: 1952, Repentigny, Québec
Appointed: 2002
Key word: "progressive"

You are the youngest Justice and represent the voice of the next generation. Unafraid of being called an "activist", you wrote strongly-worded minority opinions on all of our sample cases since your appointment. Maybe you inherited the job of Devil's advocate from the retired Justice L'Heureux-Dubé.

















ScoreJustice
100.0%Deschamps
72.0%L'Heureux-Dubé
42.6%Bastarache
32.3%LeBel
32.0%Gonthier
30.2%Major
28.8%Iacobucci
19.7%Binnie
19.6%McLachlin
11.9%Arbour


Which Canadian Supreme Court Justice are you?

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Friday, November 25, 2005

seasons of law

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with profuse apologies to the late Jonathan Larson...

525,600 minutes, 525,000 moments so dear
525,600 minutes - how do you measure, measure a year?
In cases, in summaries, in midnights, in cups of coffee
In essays, in moots, in laughter, in strife
In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?
How about law?
How about law?
How about law?
Measure in law
Osgoode and law

525,600 minutes! 525,000 career moves to plan
525,600 minutes - how can you measure the life of a woman or man?

In ratios that she learned, or after tests that he cried
In pages he turned, or the curve that she’ll ride

It's time now to sing out
Though the studying never ends
Let's celebrate
Remember a year in the life of friends

Remember the law!
Remember the law!
Remember the law!
Measure in law
Osgoode and law
Osgoode and law

Measure, measure your life in law

Osgoode and law
Osgoode and law

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Thursday, November 24, 2005

social autism

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Many people have no notion of propriety when in the presence of other people because they are not actually in the presence of other people, even when they are in public. With everyone chatting on cellphones when not floating in iPod-land, "this is an age of social autism, in which people just can't see the value of imagining their impact on others." We are entertaining ourselves into inanition. And multiplying technologies of portable entertainments will enable "limitless self-absorption," which will make people solipsistic, inconsiderate and anti-social. Hence manners are becoming unmannerly in this "age of lazy moral relativism combined with aggressive social insolence."

So says Lynne Truss in her latest trumpet-blast of a book, Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of the World Today, or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door. Her previous wail of despair was Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, which established her as — depending on your sensibility — a comma and apostrophe fascist (the liberal sensibility) or a plucky constable combating anarchy (the conservative sensibility).
She says, "Good punctuation is analogous to good manners because it treats readers with respect. All the important rules surely boil down to one: Remember you are with other people; show some consideration."

Manners arise from real or — this, too, is important in lubricating social frictions — feigned empathy. "People," says Truss, "are happier when they have some idea of where they stand and what the rules are." But today's entitlement mentality, which is both a cause and a consequence of the welfare state, manifests itself in the attitude that it is all right to do whatever one has a right to do. Which is why acrimony has enveloped a coffee shop on Chicago's affluent North Side, where the proprietor posted a notice that children must "behave and use their indoor voices." The proprietor, battling what he calls an "epidemic" of anti-social behaviour, told The New York Times that parents protesting his notice "have a very strong sense of entitlement."

A thoroughly modern parent, believing that children must be protected from feelings injurious to self-esteem, says: "Johnny, the fact that you did something bad does not mean you are bad for doing it." We have "created people who will not stand to be corrected in any way." One writer on manners has argued that a nation's greatness is measured not only by obedience of laws but also by "obedience to the unenforceable."

Because manners are means of extending respect, especially to strangers, this question arises: Do manners and virtue go together? Truss thinks so, in spite of the possibility of "blood-stained dictators who had exquisite table manners and never used their mobile phones in a crowded train compartment to order mass executions."

Actually, manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related — as a foundation is related to a house — to the word civilization.

George Will, Toronto Star (2005/11/20)
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Saturday, November 19, 2005

two myths that keep the world poor

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-- adapted from The Ecologist (July/August 2005), reprinted in Ode Magazine (Issue 28)

When Jeffrey Sachs, one of the world’s leading economists, head of the Earth Institute and in charge of a U.N. panel set up to promote rapid development, launched his book The End of Poverty, people everywhere took notice. Time Magazine even made it into a cover story. But, there is a problem with Sachs’ "how-to-end poverty" prescriptions. He simply doesn’t understand where poverty comes from. He seems to view it as the original sin. “A few generations ago, almost everybody was poor,” he writes, then adding: “The Industrial Revolution led to new riches, but much of the world was left far behind.”

This is a totally false history of poverty. The poor are not those who have been “left behind”; they are the ones who have been robbed. The wealth accumulated by Europe and North America are largely based on riches taken from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Without the destruction of India’s rich textile industry, without the takeover of the spice trade, without the genocide of the Native American tribes, without African slavery, the Industrial Revolution would not have resulted in new riches for Europe or North America. It was this violent takeover of "Third World" resources and markets that created wealth in the North and poverty in the South.

Two of the great economic myths of our time allow people to deny this intimate link, and spread misconceptions about what poverty is.

First, the destruction of nature and of people’s ability to look after themselves are blamed not on industrial growth and economic colonialism, but on poor people themselves. Poverty, it is stated, causes environmental destruction. The disease is then offered as a cure: further economic growth is supposed to solve the very problems of poverty and ecological decline that it gave rise to in the first place.

The second myth is an assumption that if you consume what you produce, you do not really produce, at least not economically speaking. If I grow my own food, and do not sell it, then it doesn’t contribute to GDP, and therefore does not contribute towards “growth”. People are perceived as “poor” if they eat food they have grown rather than commercially distributed junk foods sold by global agri-business. They are seen as poor if they live in self-built housing made from ecologically well-adapted materials like bamboo and mud rather than in cinder block or cement houses. They are seen as poor if they wear garments manufactured from handmade natural fibres rather than synthetics.

Yet sustenance living, which the West perceives as poverty, does not necessarily mean a low quality of life. On the contrary, by their very nature economies based on sustenance ensure a high quality of life —- when measured in terms of access to good food and water, opportunities for sustainable livelihoods, robust social and cultural identity, and a sense of meaning in people’s lives. Because these poor don’t share in the perceived benefits of economic growth, however, they are portrayed as those “left behind”.

This false distinction between the factors that create affluence and those that create poverty is at the core of Sachs’ analysis. And because of this, his prescriptions will aggravate and deepen poverty instead of ending it. Modern concepts of economic development have been in place for only a tiny portion of human history. For centuries, the principles of sustenance allowed societies all over the planet to survive and even thrive. Limits in nature were respected in these societies and guided the limits of human consumption. When society’s relationship with nature is based on sustenance, nature exists as a form of common wealth. It is redefined as a “resource” only when profit becomes the organising principle of society and sets off a financial imperative for the development and destruction of these resources for the market.

A system like the economic growth model we know today creates trillions of dollars of profits for corporations while condemning billions of people to poverty. Poverty is not, as Sachs suggests, an initial state of human progress from which to escape. It is a final state people fall into when one-sided development destroys the ecological and social systems that have maintained the life, health and sustenance of people and the planet for ages. The reality is that people do not die for lack of income; they die for lack of access to the wealth of the commons. People are "poor" because they have to purchase their basic needs at high prices no matter how much income they make.

If we are serious about ending poverty, we have to be serious about ending the systems that create poverty by robbing the poor of their common wealth, livelihoods and incomes. Before we can make poverty history, we need to get the history of poverty right. It’s not about how much wealthy nations can give, so much as how much less they can take.

Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, an ecologist, and prominent Indian environmental activist. She is the founder of Navdanya, a movement for biodiversity conservation and farmers' rights, an Associate Editor of The Ecologist magazine, and the director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy.

** also check out this adapation of Tressel's THE RAGGED TROUSERED PHILANTHROPISTS

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Thursday, November 17, 2005

food for thought, thought for action

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In 2002, the Social and Human Sciences Sector launched Philosophy Day and this year, at its fourth celebration, Philosophy Day will become known as World Philosophy Day. The 33rd session of the UNESCO General Conference (October 2005) accepted a proposal submitted by the Kingdom of Morocco to proclaim this Day as World Philosophy Day, thus acknowledging the tremendous success of the three previous Philosophy Days and recognizing the need for shared reflection on contemporary issues. By inscribing Philosophy Day in the calendar of annual events, UNESCO hopes to encourage as many partners as possible in as many countries as possible, to organize on one and the same day, activities and debates on philosophical issues.


Why a day of philosophy?

Many thinkers advance the idea that "astonishment" is at the heart of philosophy. Admittedly, philosophy results from this natural tendency in human beings to be astonished by themselves and the world in which they live. This discipline teaches how us to reflect on reflexion, to call into question well-established "truths", to check assumptions, and sometimes to find conclusions. For many centuries and throughout all cultures, philosophy gave rise to concepts, ideas and analyses, thus providing the bases for critical, independent and creative thought. Philosophy Day makes it possible to celebrate the importance of philosophical reflexion and to encourage the populations of the world to share among themselves their philosophical heritage. For UNESCO, philosophy offers the conceptual bases of the principles and the values on which world peace depends -- democracy, human rights, justice and equality. This Day offers an opportunity to question ourselves on the state of the world and if it corresponds to our ideals of justice and equality, to ask ourselves whether our society lives in agreement with the ethical standards and morals of our great Declarations. It offers us the occasion to also ask often forgotten questions: "On what do we neglect to reflect? With which intolerable realities are we accustomed?"

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Wednesday, November 16, 2005

reflections on recruitment

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"I have the rest of my life to be a lawyer. The study of law is not just to prepare for a career but to develop my lifetime skills as a lawyer. There are so many courses I want to take and I don't have the time for this now."

-- Albert Chen, 2nd year student (McGill University Faculty of Law)


after the madness of last week's hiring craze, i thought it would be apropos to reflect on what was undoubtedly one of the most stressful times in my life... the following excerpt from a washington post feature was originally funny albeit seemingly over-the-top when i first read it, until i put it into perspective with what i've just gone through... while the last thing i should be is disappointed, seeing as i did come away from the process with a job (it would've been worse if i hadn't, knowing how behind i am on schoolwork), it's also been an eye-opening experience to realize how infectious the competitiveness is -- especially for someone like me who has never been greatly inclined to join in mob states of panic... if ever Darwin's theory could have immediate proof, look no further than in the law school nearest you... it's a sick game that we've all implicitly acquiesced to, and it's probably too late to turn back the clock... until and unless the next generation of law students affirm that they are, first and foremost, interested in the academic and sociopolitical aspect of the study of law, then this commodification of our education is bound to continue... i might be forgiven in that i opted for a position with a government office, except i would probably be singing a different tune were i to have become a bay streeter... in any case, i'm glad that -- if only for the next little while, until clerkship and articling applications come due -- i can focus on being a student again...

The search for new talent goes deeper and deeper. High school football coaches recruit superstar middle-school running backs. AAU coaches scout elementary schools for the next playground legend. And now, the U.S. government is no different in its search for pee-wee code breakers who could grow up to crack the next-gen al Qaeda codes. Take a look at the National Security Agency's recently launched website for kids. It features the cartoon "CryptoKids," seven crime-fightin' math / code / language / technology baby geniuses. Amongst other things, the site teaches kids the difference between a code and a cipher and includes code-themed brain teasers and games. It's a pretty quick evolution for a government agency that didn't admit it existed until about, oh, 15 minutes ago.


Over 300 top law students across Canada were offered jobs by Toronto's major law firms last week and all of the new hires were second-year students who had only their first-year marks to show prospective employers. The students have been offered summer jobs and most are expected to return to the law firms to article after their third and final year of law school. British Columbia firms bagged their second-year students last month, and Quebec and Maritime firms are set to interview in January and February. Some firms are so keen to snap up students in the early days of their studies that they offer them jobs before they complete first year.

The aggressive hiring of students in the early stages of their studies is stirring debate about law firm recruiting practices. Few other professions slot students onto career paths so early, prompting some experts to worry that too much job stress is shouldered by students at a time when they should be focusing on their studies. Others worry that employers are scooping up students before their legal analytical and problem-solving skills have been properly assessed.

"It's a problematic trend," said Charmaine Lyn, assistant dean of external affairs at McGill University's law school. "First year marks are just a one-off snapshot about a person's ability to understand basic legal issues. It doesn't tell you anything about students' ability to think critically or constructively about legal challenges."

Gina Alexandris, an assistant dean at Osgoode Hall, Canada's largest law school, says the race is becoming too disruptive. "Students start worrying about their job chances before they even open their textbooks in second year."

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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

outlaws

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If you're closeted from your enemies, you're also hidden from your friends.

The cowboys are coming out.

But even with next month's release of the movie Brokeback Mountain - featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger in a romance between a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy - don't expect the rest of the overtly masculine world to stampede out of the closet. Gay rights have come a long way, with hate crime legislation and same-sex marriage entrenched. And popular culture is filled with gay characters. Yet taboos remain.

One of the more obvious is that lesbian relationships don't make people as uncomfortable as male homosexuality does. Last month, WNBA superstar Sheryl Swoopes, came out of the closet - where she said life was "miserable." Her decision brought the inevitable question: When will a professional male athlete, while actively playing in a major sports league, finally come out? And for that matter, when will Hollywood, the political arena, rap music, the media, the world of comic books and many ethnic communities lighten up?

The Pride parade hasn't marched everywhere yet.

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Sunday, November 13, 2005

BFF

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Keep smilin', keep shinin'
Knowin' you can always count on me, for sure
That's what friends are for
For good times and bad times
I'll be on your side forever more
That's what friends are for


In defining friendship, Aristotle describes three kinds or categories. Friends are those who are “mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other.” What determines the boundaries of the three categories of friendship are the three objects of affection: the useful, the pleasant, and the good. Friendships founded on utility or pleasure are “incidental” – that is, “the friend is loved not because he is a friend, but because he is useful or pleasant.” In other words, “those who love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure love for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves, and not in so far as the other is the person loved but in so far as he is useful or pleasant.” Quite simply, friendships based on pleasure or utility are rooted in self-love and egoism.

In contrast, “those who wish for their friends’ good for their friends’ sake are friends in the truest sense.” The perfect form of friendship is that between good men who are alike in excellence or virtue – they wish well upon each other because they themselves are intrinsically good. Such men – and thus, such friendships – are rare. They do not come about often, nor are they formed quickly. The wish to be friends can come about quickly, but true friendship cannot. Time and familiarity are required to establish a “perfect friendship” – perfect in foundation, though not necessarily in action, for no man ever acts perfectly in all occasions. Though friendships of utility or pleasure can exist among all types of men, only good men can experience perfect friendship.

Friendship is crucial to a happy life, “for without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.” Though life is in itself good and pleasant, a happy man cannot live in isolation, nor can an isolated man be happy. “If, therefore, existence is in itself desirable to a supremely happy man, since it is by nature good and pleasant, and if his friend’s existence is almost as desirable to him, we may conclude that a friend is something desirable. It follows that, in order to be happy, a man needs morally good friends.” This conclusion is only natural given the fact that men ultimately desire the good and that “happiness is of all things the one most desirable.” True friendship is a means to this ultimate good; perfect friendship brings about happiness. Good men then will seek perfect friendship because it is in their nature to do so.

So just call on me, brother
When you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on
I just might have a problem
That you'd understand
We all need somebody to lean on

Lean on me when you're not strong
And I'll be your friend
I'll help you carry on
For it won't be long
Till I'm gonna need
Somebody to lean on
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Saturday, November 12, 2005

the best there is, the best there was, . . .?

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my secret confession is that i'm a wrestling junkie...

up until now, i haven't thought of owning up to it, until i found a way to tie it to the law (and no, not liveaudiowrestling.com)... the following article is about one man's "Hart-rending" battle to win disability benefits, but as was pointed out by an astute reader, imagine the kind of trouble the "average Joe" has in "wrestling" with the Workmen's Compensation Board or private insurance companies... most people simply do not have the financial ability to pay for good legal help and could never survive a 5-year legal "ironman match" like the Hitman...


As he bounced off the ropes, Bret (The Hitman) Hart saw the kick coming. Even as he jerked his face away and raised his hand to block the hit, he couldn't stop the motorcycle boot from planting itself at the back of his head. He felt a sharp, sudden pain. This, Canada's most famous professional wrestler figured, is what it must feel like to get whacked with a hockey stick or kicked by a horse.

While much of pro wrestling is orchestrated, the 1999 kick that came out of the blue was the knockout punch for Mr. Hart's colourful career. It resulted in a debilitating concussion that would permanently keep him out of the so-called squared circle. He battled headaches, memory loss and mood swings, but the toughest wrestling match of his life was yet to come — the one with his insurance company. It has taken until now, five years after he filed his claim for $800,000 (U.S.) in disability benefits, for Mr. Hart to settle with the venerable Lloyd's of London and win that payment.

On Dec. 19, 1999, Mr. Goldberg took on Mr. Hart, who is four inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter, in that fateful match in Baltimore. After the boot to the head, Mr. Hart stumbled through the rest of the match and left the ring in a daze, holding the back of his neck. “I couldn't sleep. I had a headache. I thought if I could just get one good night's sleep, I'd be okay,” he said. “I was in no shape to be anywhere and I didn't know it.”

In January of 2000, a leading sports injury doctor and expert in concussions, Willem Meeuwisse, diagnosed him with a concussion. The muscle at the back of Mr. Hart's neck was torn. It had a hole the size of a quarter and deep enough for the doctor to stick his finger, one-knuckle deep. Mr. Hart said. It wasn't until July of 2000 that Mr. Hart realized — or at least finally admitted — that his wrestling career was over.

He had paid his annual $40,000 premium with Lloyd's, and believed now it was time to cash in on the disability benefits. He filed his claim in October of 2000. By March of 2004, there was still no movement on his insurance claim. He filed a lawsuit in the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench for more $1.2-million (Canadian) in unpaid disability benefits and another $1-million in punitive and aggravated damages for breach of duties. Three months later, Lloyd's filed its statement of defence, denying that Mr. Hart suffered a concussion in the match against Mr. Goldberg or in the few matches he competed in shortly thereafter. It said that Mr. Hart misrepresented his health in his application for insurance coverage with Lloyd's and denied that the firm had acted in bad faith in responding to his claim for benefits.

Brian Vail, Lloyd's Edmonton-based lawyer, said insurance claims involving injuries take more time to resolve than simple property-damage cases. Even more complex are cases of people who have medical records in more than one country. “I can absolutely guarantee you that every insurance company on the planet, in a liability case like this, they do not like a file to drag,” Mr. Vail said. “They do not like claims to be open long. They do not like them to take a long time. It's not in their interest to keep a claim open.”

Mr. Hart and his lawyer, Kenneth Staroszik, don't see it that way. “If you have a lot of integrity and you pay a huge premium and even though you have a really good case, don't bank on it,” Mr. Staroszik said. There was no celebration when the claim was formally settled out of court last month. For Mr. Hart, it was more a sense of relief. Now he's getting on with what he calls a more simple life. “There's life after wrestling,” he says, laughing. “You can't keep a good man down, but you can keep him out of the ring.”

— DAWN WALTON, Globe and Mail (2005-11-05)
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Thursday, November 10, 2005

close encounters of the judicial kind

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only in Canada could a person be riding the subway and find themselves beside a Supreme Court justice... i was transferring from the Bloor-Danforth line of the TTC at Yonge-Bloor station, and i did a double-take as i passed by the ticket booth and saw a seemingly familiar face... i shook my head and laughed, thinking to myself, "he wouldn't be riding the subway"... the story gets really weird when i realized he got on the same train as i did (only later did i stop to wonder, "how did such an old guy get down so fast?")... it's too bad that i was only on for 2 stops because it took me about that long to a) figure out that it really was the Honourable Peter Cory riding the southbound subway on the Yonge line, and b) to decide to at least say 'hello' instead of staring like a weirdo... of course, only a dork of a law student like me would get excited about seeing a judge in person (i mean, we weren't far removed from yorkville, but i wouldn't have been as curious even if a B-list actor had been on the train)...

i think he would've thought i was a bigger freak for going up to him, except i was wearing my Osgoode Law hoodie... i think that got his attention, and i smiled and nodded when we finally made eye contact (OK, even i admit this is starting to sound creepy)... i went up to him before my stop and said, "i bet i'm the only person here that recognizes a Supreme Court justice is on the train"... he laughed and said, "you're probably right"... i wished him well, knowing that i'd probably see him again at another conference or some other function soon anyway (after all, it was only a few weeks ago that i saw him at the s. 15 Charter conference)...

only in Canada, i say... i guess that just goes to show how small this country really is... also goes to show how safe this place is, that a Supreme Court judge (albeit a retired one) can ride public transit -- let alone, without Secret Service (or CSIS, in our case, i guess) detail... finally, i think it shows how oblivious the rest of society is to our profession and how esoteric the "law" really is... we address judges as "Your Honour" or "Your Lordship" and esteem them for being so "learned", but really, the average person wouldn't be able to tell Justice Cory from any other grandpa-figure in a suit riding the subway... while judges make decrees and interpret (some say "rewrite") the laws that affect our day-to-day existence, the rest of society just continues on its merry way... in Canada (to our credit, i think), we haven't imputed much, if any, celebrity status on public figures...

anyway, that's my anecdote for the day... it probably would've been a doozy of a story to share during interview week... i know it'll make great fodder for cocktail parties and what-not... talk about an interesting day: i start the morning accepting a position to work at a government law office, and i end the evening semi-stalking a judge... this law thing is really taking over...

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decision made

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"Counsel in the Crown Law Office - Criminal of the Ministry of the Attorney General have responsibility on behalf of the Crown for the preparation and argument of all appeals arising from prosecutions by indictment in Ontario under the Criminal Code. These appeals are argued before the Court of Appeal for Ontario in Toronto and before the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa. Well over half of the Office’s work is devoted to criminal appeals. The CLO – Criminal is the country’s largest and busiest appellate office.

Counsel often work with students – e.g. ME! – during the preparation of appeals. Generally speaking, students are assigned to assist with the most interesting (and difficult) cases. A student who assists a counsel in an appeal is, typically, responsible for preparing a draft of the factum. In some cases, counsel are assisted by the preparation of formal legal memoranda. Counsel and student collaborate in making both legal and tactical decisions respecting the conduct of the appeal. A student who assists in the preparation of an appeal will attend at its hearing and assist counsel, whether it is before the Court of Appeal for Ontario or the Supreme Court of Canada."

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Wednesday, November 09, 2005

rrrrrrrrrring...

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well, i'm not unemployed...

but it
is bittersweet...

ça c'est tout... i've 24 hours to ruminate...


meanwhile, here are some random musings on ethics and law...


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"As a business, the greatest challenge is too many lawyers pursuing a reduced number of clients. As a profession, the greatest challenge is too many lawyers who don’t understand that it is a profession." — W. Wright Danenbarger

"Lawyers sometimes tell the truth. They’ll do anything to win a case." — Jeremy Bentham

"I don’t think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of legislature. You’ve got to work on his
conscience. And his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer." — Will Rogers

"A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns." — Don Corleone

"There is no cause so bad which does not find a lawyer to defend it." — François Rabelais

"There is no better way to exercise the imagination than the study of law. No artist ever
interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth." — Jean Giraudoux

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." — Plato

"To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle." — Albert Einstein

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Tuesday, November 08, 2005

let's just get this over with...

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“I have no intention of allowing a Conservative motion to be a bargaining
chip in a Parliamentary poker game.” -- Stephen Harper (Nov. 8, 2005)


excuse me, Mr. Harper, but even though I'm never one to use emotive invective, I have to say that you, sir, are a political coward... after months -- nay, almost a year -- of posturing and political huffing-and-puffing, of being a downright abrasive and completely partisan power-hungry Opposition Leader, you now decide that you're not going to put your money where your mouth is? if you really believe, in principle, that it's "Liberal corruption" and not your own designs on 24 Sussex that warrant the toppling of this government, then you would do it at the earliest opportunity -- which, by all accounts is as soon as next week, given Mr. Layton's and Mr. Martin's recent comments... technicalities, schmechnicalities... i don't buy your nonsense about wanting the government to fall "the old-fashioned way"... bottom line, you're sitting on the fence because you have no agenda (other than to be Prime Minister) and you're still hedging your bets about the outcome of the inevitable election... or maybe you don't want to be the one to ruin Christmas with electioneering?

honestly, dude, just get it over with... i'm sick of your whining...

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les unemployables

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just 24 hours to go... yikes!

Les Unemployables
by Graham Phoenix
Mock Trial 2005: Thriving Under the Influence


(to the tune of Castle on a Cloud)

There is an office on Bay Street
I like to go there in my dreams
No longer graded just on B's
Not in my office on Bay Street

There is a boardroom right next door
Got an oak desk, a mahogany floor
When I get there I'll be elite
Safe in my office on Bay Street

There is a partner whose hair is white
Calls me and makes me work all night
Treats me rough and puts me through hell
But that's OK, they pay me very well

I know a place where money talks
I know a place where bullshit walks
Having a heart is no mean feat
Not in my office on Bay Street

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Monday, November 07, 2005

anniversary blog post

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the first "official" entry in my online ramblings started on livejournal (before they sold out and before a friend prompted the move to blogger after remarking on the drab look)... i took a weird approach at the beginning because, although i started posting on November 7, i backdated other posts to weave the narrative of what prompted me to start rambling in the first place (it all had to do with heartache, loss, suffering, blah blah blah)...

that being said, this blog has taken on a totally different purpose altogether... whereas a lot of the initial entries were admittedly navel-gazing (to the point of nausea, it seems now), i've purposely gone out of my way to use it, perhaps not so much as a personal "soapbox" (admittedly, i'm probably breaking copyright laws left and right by posting/linking so many external articles), but to capture for myself the ideals and ideas that, more often than not, i have too much of a difficult time expressing coherently...

i try to find interesting things to share, even if sometimes i wonder how many people are really reading this (although recently there seems to have been "more" activity -- acknowledging, however, that going from "zero" to anything is, by definition, "more")... i've found myself revisiting a lot of my own writing and philosophical reflection and feel compelled to continue exploring it through this medium... it's a weird balance trying to not be too personal (which would make this blog prima facie irrelevant) or too esoteric (ditto the former, but even more so)...

who knows what the next year of posting will be like? who knows if this blog will be around a year from now? who knows if anyone's reading this right now? who knows if i'll have some job security after interview week (yes, it starts today and continues until wednesday!)? who knows if i'll make it through law school? who knows if i'll get slapped with a gazillion-dollar lawsuit for sharing articles that i think should be in the public domain anyway? who knows if any of the things i ramble about will change for the better? who knows if i'll have any part in that whatsoever?

who really knows anything?

i certainly don't... but damn, it feels good to be able to rant...

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Sunday, November 06, 2005

anti-consumerism 101

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On Oct. 20, Yegor Sak walked into the Apple store in Yorkdale Mall, bought an iPod, took it out of the box, and smashed it on the ground. Was Sak making a statement against a consumerist society? Was this an homage to the Dadaist's destruction as art movement? Was he protesting the way we've come to covet — and almost humanize — our personal electronics, while neglecting to consider the plight of the labourers who make them?

The act raises some interesting questions. If only there were some interesting answers. "I did it out of boredom," deadpans the 19-year-old Etobicoke resident. "It's just a random act." Sak rankled legions of iPod devotees when he launched smashmyipod.com on Oct. 4. The website invited people to donate to a fund set up to purchase a $380 iPod for the express purpose of destroying it.

While Sak was bombarded with hate mail (he lists them as "flamers"), he got plenty of support, too. In less than three weeks, enough money had trickled in — typically in denominations of $5 to $20 — to carry out the project. Many of the so-called flamers complained that Sak was wasting money that could have gone to a better cause. He flatly dismisses those accusations. If anyone's to blame, he says, it's the donors.

"The site is purely for entertainment," says Sak. "If people want to donate money to charity, they can go to the Red Cross or the Salvation Army. This isn't a charity. I'm not the one wasting money. If they want to crucify someone, they should do it to the donors. They knew what they were doing with the money, so it's their choice."

Sak says he has nothing against Apple, but thinks the iPod is overrated. He bought one a couple of years ago. It conked out after a month. "I was pissed off, because I take care of my things," he says. "I lost all my music." One of Sak's friends originally mentioned the idea a few months ago. The friend was "too lazy" to take it anywhere, so Sak, who is taking a year off school to work (as a concierge), sat down, whipped up a website and waited for the donations to pour in. And after his year off ends?

Sak plans to attend the University of Toronto — to study law.

— CHRISTOPHER HUTSUL, Toronto Star (2005-11-06)

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For many families, Christmas is a time for togetherness, thankfulness, and passive-aggressive standoffs. This is a time to eat, drink and probe the layers of disappointment and resentment that haunt the very core of a disparate group that can be called a "family" only in the most technical, unromantic sense of the word. If Christmas imagery elicits such feelings, an emotionally rattled shopper might be less likely to exercise restraint.

Even before you've identified the gift boxes, chandeliers and sparkling trees in the downtown store as Christmas decorations, you feel the sudden urge to start spending. It's as if a switch in your head had been flicked to shopping mode. This is exactly what and how retailers want you to think when you enter their decked-out stores in the weeks — let's make that months — leading up to Christmas, says Lars Perner, professor of marketing at San Diego State University. Perner says we're conditioned to shop when we see holiday decorations — just as Ivan Pavlov's dogs were conditioned to salivate when they heard that famous ringing bell.

"Most likely there's some kind of classical conditioning going on that's similar to Pavlov's experiments," Perner says. "It's basically an association between events. Clearly, the Christmas decorations may induce people to start shopping and spending early." Perner believes the same model applies to humans when it comes to Christmas decorations and shopping. We're used to heightened spending during the holidays, so exposure to holiday symbols can trigger a subconscious desire to shop.

— CHRISTOPHER HUTSUL, Toronto Star (2005-11-06)
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Saturday, November 05, 2005

a culture of entitlement

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Justice John Gomery's report is, ultimately, about failure.

The report represents an opportunity to step back and assess our collective failure to learn from the past and our failure to take full ethical responsibility for those actions and inactions that take place in our orbit. Gomery speaks to a deep moral failure that is summarized in his expression "the culture of entitlement." In the end, it is a failure to adequately socialize the communitarian principles of public service among key decision-makers at the apex of the political process that should concern us most. The blame and the shame are much broader in scope than any one party, any one order of government or set of institutions.

Three decades of neo-liberal approaches to public management have contributed to the pervasive failures of public bureaucracies. The much-vaunted reforms associated with the public service, downsizing, flatlining, outsourcing, deregulation, and public-private partnerships were heralded as advancements. The promise of those who "reinvented" government was that citizens would be treated as consumers who could demand "best practices" from public officials retrained in the efficient ways of the private sector. There would be transparency and "shareholder-style" accountability. Public servants and public bureaucracies have, indeed, adapted to the ways of the private sector. But they have done so in ways that were unanticipated and seriously flawed.

Increasingly tolerant of personal gain and advantage, unconcerned with unprecedented levels of socio-economic inequality, willing to turn a blind eye to wrongdoing, and unwilling to insist that the good of the community must trump private advantage, the culture of entitlement has become more than a marginal subculture among a few bad apples. It is now widespread throughout systems of public bureaucracy.

However, there remain excellent public servants and political leaders of profound personal integrity. Working heroically to sustain an adequate public service, these men and women understand that transparency is no good when key political actors can readily shift the frame through which citizens scrutinize the political system. They realize that accountability is too often a matter of limited damage control after the fact and that what is really needed is a personal sense of responsibility toward the public.

Transparency and accountability are no good in a system that systematically rewards personal advantage, cost-cutting and superficial models of efficiency. We need to speak of a renewed idealism of public service. Untrammelled by references to the world of private transaction, this renewed vision of civic responsibility, duty, quiet efficiency and loyalty must be grounded in a simple acknowledgement of the public as the political people and nothing more nor less than that.

-- Paul Nesbitt-Larking, Toronto Star (2005-11-03)
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Friday, November 04, 2005

walking eagle

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Prime Minister Martin was invited to address a major gathering of the Assembly of First Nations last weekend in Alberta. He spoke for almost an hour on his future plans for increasing every Native Canadian's present standard of living. He referred to his career as Minister of Finance how he had signed "YES" 1,237 times -- for every Indian issue that came to his desk for approval. Although the Prime Minister was vague on the details of his plan, he seemed most enthusiastic about his future ideas for helping his "red brothers".

At the conclusion of his speech, the Chiefs presented the Prime Minister with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name - "Walking Eagle". The proud Prime Minister then departed in his motorcade, waving to the crowds. A news reporter later inquired to the group of chiefs of how they came to select the new name given to the Prime Minister. They explained that "Walking Eagle" is the name given to a bird so full of crap it can no longer fly.

Only in Canada can a national tragedy run behind an account of the winners of a lottery windfall and a possible visit from a royal in terms of news importance. The evening newscasts on Oct. 27 featured the abysmal conditions of the Kashechewan reserve in third place behind Lottery 649 winners and Prince Charles's possible visit to Canada.

The people of Kashechewan are Canadians and had this scenario been played out anywhere else in this country, the reaction would have been swift and decisive and the media would have swarmed to cover it. Whenever a group of people suffers a lack of fundaments rights, whenever the quality of a Canadian life is threatened, it is the country's conscience that is called to the fore. To view it as merely a sad state of affairs is like saying that Walkerton was merely a boo-boo.

Who is to blame for this?

Certainly the media that cover Native issues only when Indians are dying or complaining. Certainly the federal government that patriated the Canadian Constitution 23 years ago and thus became responsible for the lives of members of First Nations. And certainly, the Assembly of First Nations, the proclaimed voice of Canada's First Nations, needs to accept its share of blame as well. National Chief Phil Fontaine stated the there are 100 or so reserves that are on a boil-water advisory. If the AFN knows about them, then it was the organization's duty to their own people and to Canadians everywhere to make the deplorable conditions known.

It was embarrassing to see the finger-pointing and the woe-saying before any action was taken. The CTV newscast featured NDP MP Charlie Angus talking about the necessity to "haggle" with the federal government over decisive action. He went on to talk about how the feds needed to "hammer" conditions into place before the agreement was signed. Essentially, the feds agreed to move a reserve but refused to own up to any responsibility for the problem. Nowhere else but in dealing with an Indian reserve would there be "haggling" or "hammering" going on before the situation was dealt with. Nowhere else but in dealing with an Indian reserve would the government be able to move a mere 300 residents from a crisis area after two days. Nowhere would the conditions that bloomed into the crisis be allowed to gestate unnoticed and unproclaimed.

Kashechewan is a national tragedy.

The Assembly of First Nations has a communications department that should have made Kashechewan a household word long ago. The Canadian media should have understood that the politics of Canada demands continuing coverage of Aboriginal affairs. The government should have lived up to the promises it assumed when it took over responsibility for Aboriginal people in 1982.

The people of Kashechewan are Canadians. They are our neighbours. They are the heart and blood and fibre of this country, just as we all are. A well-known First Nations credo says that the honour of one is the honour of all. It follows, of course, that the dishonour of one is the dishonour of all.

-- RICHARD WAGAMESE, Globe & Mail (2005-10-29)
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Thursday, November 03, 2005

strike averted

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*sigh*

i sure could've used a break -- even a week -- to catch up on readings...

damn you, CUPE 3903 for toying with my emotions!!!

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Tuesday, November 01, 2005

. . . AND they have tenure!

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ethics teaches that virtue is its own reward...
economics teaches that reward is its own virtue...

Over the past five years, the salaries of professors at the University of Toronto Faculty of Law have escalated dramatically: some faculty members have seen their salary almost double. While the administration defends these raises as merit-based increases necessary to recruit and retain top-quality faculty, some professors claim that raises are awarded almost exclusively in response to offers from American institutions, a “destructive practice” which has reduced the value placed on Canadian law at Canada’s premiere* law school.

About 20 professors earn more than $150,000, and six professors make more than $200,000. In comparison, the highest paid law professors at Queen’s and Windsor earn $129,491 and $117,586, respectively. The Dean has also seen a sizeable increase in his salary, from $170,665 in 1999 to $285,402 in 2004. The Dean of Osgoode Hall Law School earns $194,014, while the Dean at Queen’s takes home $143,503.

-- Ultra Vires (10-18-2005)


"Giving large salary increases outside of the normal merit pay structure on the basis of U.S. offers is a destructive practice. Doing so rewards people who do the kind of research work U.S. schools are interested in, and that doesn't include Canadian topics. Moreover, it also puts a premium on research over teaching - nobody ever got a U.S. offer based on their teaching evaluations - and it encourages people to put effort into seeking such offers, which is not good for this law school."

-- Prof. Jim Phillips, UofT Faculty of Law

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In light of the recent Statistics Canada study highlighting the issues regarding access to professional programs amid the deregulation of tuition fees, these figures really ought to give one pause about how we measure the quality of education, the price of knowledge and, more importantly, the value of public education. I don't doubt that the faculty at UofT are top-notch (as, no doubt, are most Canadian law faculty members), but it's precisely policies like this (and the elitism it inevitably breeds -- and which trickles down the academic food chain to students, like those at UofT) that will continue to widen the gap between have's and have-not's. The editors of Ultra Vires had it right when they wrote:

"The escalation of salaries has contributed to skyrocketing tuition. In addition to giving students a legitimate interest in the salary issue, this means there is a tension between retention and accessibility. While it is undoubtedly preferable to retain as many faculty members as possible, there may be a price at which the cost to accessibility is simply too high. A substantial reason that schools south of the border are able to make such generous offers is that they charge upwards of $30,000(U.S.); in this respect, we should be proud that we are not able to compete with them."

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* I choked on my water over that line though.