Better Off Dead

Jonah Goldberg on "A conservative Constitution."

The case for dead constitutions is simple. They bind us to a set of rules for everybody. Recall the recent debate about the filibuster. The most powerful argument the Democrats could muster was that if you get rid of the traditional right of the minority in the Senate to bollix up the works, the Democrats will deny that right to Republicans the next time they’re in the majority (shudder).

The Constitution works on a similar principle, as does the rule of law. Political scientists call this "precommitment." Having a set of rules with a fixed (i.e., dead, unliving, etc.) meaning ensures that future generations will be protected from judges or politicians who'd like to rule arbitrarily.

National Review Online June 29, 2005, 8:02 a.m.

Republican Virtue, Imperial Temptations

Richard M. Gamble reviews America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire by Claes G. Ryn. [PDF]
Intercollegiate Review Fall/Winter 2004

Assessing the Nanotech Revolution

The Editors of The New Atlantis, Spring 2005

Julian Baggini reviews Harry Frankfurt

Nor could he have been serious when he makes that crass undergraduate essay manoeuvre and consults the Oxford English Dictionary for guidance as to the meaning ...

The Philosophers' Magazine Online

The New World Order

Tony Judt reviews At the Point of a Gun: Democratic Dreams and Armed Intervention by David Rieff; The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War by Andrew J. Bacevich; A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility: Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change; and Guantanamo and Beyond: The Continuing Pursuit of Unchecked Executive Power by Amnesty International.

And yet it isn't so simple. Saddam Hussein (like Milosevic) was a standing threat to many of his subjects: not just in the days when he was massacring Kurds and Shiites while we stood by and watched, but to the very end. Those of us who favor humanitarian interventions in principle-not because they flatter our good intentions but because they do good or prevent ill-could not coherently be sorry to see Saddam overthrown. Those of us who object to the unilateral exercise of raw power should recall that ten years ago we would have been delighted to see someone-anyone-intervene unilaterally to save the Rwandan Tutsis. And those of us who, correctly in my view, point to the perverse consequences of even the best-intentioned meddling in other countries' affairs have not always applied that insight in cases where we longed to see the meddling begin.

The New York Review of Books July 14, 2005

Forty Good Years

Irving Kristol on and in The Public Interest,
Spring 2005 (last issue)

The Original Meaning of the 21st Amendment

8 Green Bag 2d 135 (2005) [PDF]

2005 Separation of Powers Course

From the Society's national office:

The Federalist Society's Federalism & Separation of Powers Practice Group will host the 2005 Separation of Powers Course at the Ritz-Carlton, Bachelor Gulch in Avon, Colorado.

The Separation of Powers CLE Course offers a great opportunity for our members to spend time, both intellectually and socially, with one of the most significant leading jurists in the modern age. United States Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Louisiana State University Paul M. Herbert Law Center Professor John Baker will teach this two-day course in Colorado on September 29-30, 2005.

Class size is limited to 100.

Registration is open to active dues-paying members only.

Power to the Parents

Chester E. Finn Jr. says President Bush should empower parents by giving them a say over where—and how and from whom—their children learn.
Hoover Digest Winter 2005

The Treatise Power

In 2000, Professor Tribe completed the first volume of what was going to be a two-volume third edition of his constitutional law treatise, but he has decided to stop at volume one, at least for now. The following letters explain that decision in short form (a two-page letter to Justice Stephen Breyer) and long form (a thirteen-page open letter to readers). We would like to hear what you think of his decision and his reasons.
- The Editors

8 Green Bag 2d 291 (2005)

[the link is to the Breyer letter, a large PDF]

P.S. not really by Professor Tribe.

No Rehnquist announcement; Commandments split

From SCOTUSblog.

Shorewood's own apparently staying on as Chief, for now.

Split is between the Court's decisions, not between the tablets.

P.S. Eugene Volokh comments on Divisiveness.

The opinions joined by Justices Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer routinely stress that Ten Commandments displays and the like often threaten to produce "religious divisiveness," and that the Establishment Clause should be read as making such divisiveness into a reason for invalidating (at least some) government actions.

But I wonder: What has caused more religious divisiveness in the last 35 years -- (1) government displays or presentations of the Ten Commandments, creches, graduation prayers, and the like, or (2) the Supreme Court's decisions striking down such actions? My sense is that it's the latter, and by a lot ...

Isn't there something strange about a jurisprudence that in seeking to avoid a problem (religious divisveness) causes more of the same problem, repeatedly, foreseeably, and, as best I can tell, with no end in sight?

P.P.S. from The Economist of June 23, 2005 on America's religious right.

Religious America's switch to the right is rooted in two things: liberal over-reach and conservative organisation. The consistent whinge from the Christian right about "liberal activist judges" exceeding their mandate contains a kernel of truth. In the 1960s and 1970s, judges changed America from a country where every school day began with a prayer, and abortion and pornography were frowned on, to a country where school prayer was banned and both abortion and pornography were protected by the constitution.

The fact that the courts were running so far ahead of public opinion in a generally religious country bolstered the religious right in two ways. It provoked white evangelicals to join the political fray. And it persuaded all religious types to bond together. Protestants and Catholics, who used to be at loggerheads, have now found common ground, especially on abortion.

(via Get Religion)

Stem cell pioneer does a reality check

James Thomson [of the University of Wisconsin-Madison] reflects on science and morality in an inteview by Alan Boyle.

Developmental biologist James Thomson says he never expected his work in embryonic stem cells to continue attracting media attention. "It's been seven years now: Get over it," he says.

MSNBC 6:29 p.m. ET June 25, 2005

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Assembly passed 59-38 Assembly Bill 499 which bans human cloning.

(both via Political Tidbits, June 24, 2005)

The Road Back from "Tort Hell": The Alabama Supreme Court, 1994-2004

A report on the state of that state's judiciary, by Michael DeBow, Cumberland School of Law, Samford University [PDF]

Running on Empty

James A. Montanye reviews Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do about It by Peter G. Peterson. The Independent Review Spring 2005

Culture in the Age of Blogging

Terry Teachout says that even as the Internet abets division and fracture, it crosses old lines to shape new communities. Commentary June 2005

Changing the Guard, Keeping the Nuclear Card

Ray Takeyh updates "Taking on Tehran," his March/April 2005 essay with Kenneth Pollack in which they argued that offering economic benefits to moderates in Tehran could strengthen their hand domestically and enable them to extract concessions on the nuclear issue from their harder-line colleagues.
Foreign Affairs June 22, 2005

From the Crossing of the Rubicon to the Return of a Republic

"The Mississippi Supreme Court's View of the Judicial Role, 1980-2004"

A report on the state of that state's judiciciary, by James W. Craig and Michael B. Wallace [PDF]

The journalism of warfare

Keith Windschuttle on the history and function of war journalism, from Thucydides to Operation Iraqi Freedom. The New Criterion June 2005

In the War Room

Evan Thomas reviews Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power by David J. Rothkopf.

In Running the World, Rothkopf shows that Kissinger's acolytes have essentially become the modern foreign policy establishment. He plays a game he calls "Two Degrees of Henry Kissinger" to illustrate that every national security adviser since Kissinger, all 13 of them, either worked for Kissinger or worked directly for someone who did.

The New York Times June 26, 2005

The victory of Euro-nihilism

Andre Glucksmann says The French no is the manifestation of a movement that cuts to the heart of Europe.

On an even more serious note, the phobias that cemented the no are kept alive by the official defenders of the yes. Was it not President Chirac who, during the European quarrel about going to war in Iraq, had the arrogance to say that Eastern Europeans had only one right: "to be quiet"? French diplomacy is bent on creating a "European power" to stand up to the American "hyper power". This dream is not of a European Europe, but of a French Europe. And the backbone will be Paris-Berlin-Moscow. Brussels and Warsaw will just have to behave, and they'll be the ones to pay for the failure of the referendum.

Putin over Bush! How can one reproach French voters for being more logical than Monsieur de Villepin?

Sign and Sight, June 9, 2005

Strange Bedfellows

Thomas Laqueur reviews Sex after Fascism by Dagmar Herzog. BookForum Summer 2005

In the News

Our State Bar notes in "Appointments, Elections,"

James T. Barry III, Chicago 1989, has been named to the board of directors of Colliers International Property Consultants USA. He is president of Colliers Barry, Milwaukee.

and in "Awards, Degrees, Honors,"

Several attorneys have been named "Leaders in the Law" by the Wisconsin Law Journal. Honorees for 2005 ... [include] the Hon. Diane S. Sykes, Marquette 1984, Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Milwaukee. ...

Wisconsin Lawyer June 2005

Jim is Co-Chairman of our chapter, and Judge Sykes serves on our chapter's advisory board. Our congratulations to both.

Proles and polls

"A spectre haunts the BBC" as Karl Marx leads in its on-line poll to select history's greatest philosopher.

Far be it from The Economist to suggest foul play, despite Marxists' talent for poll-rigging and ballot-stuffing.

The Economist June 23, 2005

The Ohio Supreme Court: A Court at the Crossroads

A report on the state of the state's judiciary, by David J. Owsiany [PDF]

Disengagement First

Abraham D. Sofaer says Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza will result in a more secure Israel while enhancing prospects for the creation of a Palestinian state. Hoover Digest Winter 2005

Re-Visioning Conservative History

Essay [PDF] by Ted V. McAllister, Intercollegiate Review Fall/Winter 2004

Iran, Tyranny and Democracy

Roger Howard, In the National Interest June 17, 2005

Preparing for the Next Pandemic

Michael T. Osterholm says If an influenza pandemic struck today, borders would close, the global economy would shut down, international vaccine supplies and health-care systems would be overwhelmed, and panic would reign. To limit the fallout, the industrialized world must create a detailed response strategy involving the public and private sectors. Foreign Affairs July/August 2005

Levine Looks Beyond State Bar Election

Our State Bar received a letter to the editor from its incoming President-elect.

I hope that many of you who were heartened by the results of this year's election will decide to get involved with the Bar - serve on a State Bar committee, run for the Board of Governors, make the many, small, anonymous contributions that are necessary for any organization to work. And, as the Hues Corporation once advised: When it needs rocking, "Rock the Boat." Take risks. As my election shows, anything is possible - even a voluntary bar.

Wisconsin Lawyer June 2005

The holding in "Rock the Boat" was to the contrary. The factual background was summarized thus:

Ever since our voyage of love began
your touch has thrilled me like the rush of the wind
and your arms have held me safe from a rolling sea
there's always been a quiet place to harbor you and me

Our love is like a ship on the ocean
we've been sailing with a cargo full of, love and devotion

If that is analogous to a member's relationship to the State Bar, then one would not want to "rock the boat." It might be persuasive authority for change if that is not considered an accurate depiction of the relationship.

The Illinois Supreme Court: Judicial Activism, With Limits

A report on the state of that state's judiciary, by James C. Dunlop, Esq., and Tara A. Fumerton, Esq. [PDF]

In with the New

Brian C. Anderson says The liberal media's power continues to shrink, as the the new media's grows. City Journal Spring 2005

Abe Lincoln's Deep Throat

Ralph E. Shaffer writes

... long before Watergate the nation was shocked by the startling publication of The Diary of a Public Man. Appearing in serial form in the North American Review, the published diary ran in four monthly installments in late 1879. Carrying the enticing subtitle "Unpublished Passages of the Secret History of the American Civil War," the series aroused partisans of all sorts - Republicans, Democrats, secessionists and unionists - as it recounted the fateful events leading to civil war.

History News Network, June 13, 2005

Science Education and Liberal Education

"Missing from today's science textbooks is any true appreciation of the wonder of the natural world and any inspiring reason for taking an interest in science. These books tend to be intellectually pleasureless-and sometimes incoherent. In no small way, this is the fault of the absurd process by which textbooks get written and adopted. Matthew B. Crawford probes the connections between the textbook market, the teaching of science, and the liberal education of young minds."
The New Atlantis Spring 2005

Soldier wins fight on hair

On the international standards front:

A military court has granted a male German solider the right to wear a ponytail. The 18-year-old soldier went to the court in Munich after he was forced to cut off his ponytail, which was nearly 10 inches long. ...

The court backed the solider, saying the different rules that applied to hair styles of male and female soldiers were "incomprehensible," the magazine [Spiegel] reported.

F.A.Z. Weekly June 24, 2005 (final issue)

Kelo v. New London

The U.S. Supreme Court decided this case on the scope of the power of eminent domain in favor of the condemnor city.

(at Legal Information Institute, via Drudge Report and SCOTUSblog)

The case was among those discussed in Thomas W. Merrill's May 18, 2005 presentation to our chapter.

US e-voting proponents say no to paper trails

Celeste Biever writes

The argument centres upon which voting technology is best at simultaneously preventing inaccuracies, fraud, technical glitches and confusion and making voting accessible to the disabled, all without incurring excessive expense. ...

Proponents argue that a paper trail is the most effective way to detect that a computer hacker has changed votes. They also provide redundancy, allowing a re-count if necessary and enabling voters to check their vote. "Paperless voting is hostile," says David Dill, a computer scientist at Stanford University, California, US, who supports the bill [requiring paper backups of electronic voting].

But in a report to be published in Science on Thursday, Ted Selker of the Caltech-MIT Voting Technology Project, has shown that the newest DREs [for Direct Record Electronic, or "touch screen," voting machines], accompanied by the appropriate training, outperformed all other technologies for accuracy. ...

Opponents of the paper trail also complain that it takes away the privacy and security that e-voting has recently given blind people and Parkinson's sufferers. ...

New Scientist June 22, 2005 17:02

Results of the competition for best blogs defending freedom of expression

Reporters Without Borders selected around 60 blogs that, each in their own way, defend freedom of expression. The organisation then asked Internet-users to vote for the prize-winners - one in each geographical category. ...

(via Spiegel)

The Schiavo Case in Wisconsin

Robyn S. Shapiro writes

... L.W. and Edna [Lenz v. L.E. Phillips Career Development Center (In re Guardianship of L.W.), 167 Wis. 2d 53, 482 N.W. 2d 60 (1992), and Spahn v. Eisenberg (In re Guardianship & Protective Placement of Edna M.F.), 210 Wis. 2d 557, 563 N.W. 2d 485 (1997)] suggest that if Terri Schiavo's case had unfolded in Wisconsin, the following analysis would apply:

Given that Terri Schiavo was in a persistent vegetative state, Michael Schiavo, Terri's legal guardian, would have had the authority, pursuant to L.W. and Edna, to direct the termination of her artificial nutrition and hydration, regardless of the weight of evidence about Terri's previously expressed wishes to forego life-sustaining procedures if she were to experience her current circumstances.

While Michael Schiavo's decision to direct termination of Terri's artificial nutrition and hydration would not have required prior court approval, Terri Schiavo's parents would have been able to challenge Michael's decision in court, pursuant to L.W. At that point, Michael would have had the burden to show, to a high degree of medical certainty, the existence of a persistent vegetative state and to show that his decision to have Terri's artificial nutrition and hydration withdrawn was in Terri's best interests and made in good faith. ...

Importantly, as noted by the L.W. court, best interest arguments against treatment termination could not be based on the need to protect Terri Schiavo from the potential pain and discomfort involved in the withdrawal of artificial nutrition and hydration. As explained by the L.W. court, this concern is inapplicable to individuals in a persistent vegetative state, because they cannot experience pain or discomfort. ...

Wisconsin Lawyer June 2005

Political Pamphlets

Project Gutenberg presents this 1892 work, edited by George Saintsbury, with contributions by George Savile Halifax, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Edmund Burke, Sydney Smith, William Cobbett and Walter Scott.

(via The On-line Books Page)

Freedom Fighter

A review By Gerard Alexander of The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror by Natan Sharansky with Ron Dermer. Claremont Review of Books Spring 2005

Schools and the g Factor

Linda S. Gottfredson says Researchers cannot agree on what constitutes intelligence. Wilson Quarterly Spring 2005

Educating the University

Peter Berkowitz reviews Restoring Free Speech and Liberty on Campus by Donald Alexander Downs. Policy Review June-July 2005

State Bar welcomes 119 new members; U.W. Law School class sworn in at Capitol

Isn't that redundant (since membership in the State Bar of Wisconsin is mandatory)?

The Proliferation of State Statutes Using Racial and Ethnic Classifications

With the guidance of Roger Clegg, Vice President and General Counsel for the Center for Equal Opportunity and former Chairman of the Federalist Society's Civil Rights Practice Group, the Society recently undertook a comprehensive study of state statutes throughout the U.S. that contain racial classifications. This white paper authored by Mr. Clegg and Shawn Nevill summarizes the study's results and offers commentary on particularly interesting statutes. [PDF]

Keeping the Felon Vote

Jessica McBride in Wisconsin Interest Vol. 14, No. 2 [PDF]

Great Debates

J. Alexander Thier says The creation of the new Afghan constitution was rife with conflict. Will it bring peace to this long-suffering country? Hoover Digest Winter 2005

Capitol Update Newsletter For the Week Of June 13/20, 2005

(links to it say June 20 while the page itself says June 13)

Our State Bar reports "Legislative Term Increases Get Mixed Review"

2005 Assembly Joint Resolution 31, introduced on April 27, received a tie vote (3-3) regarding adoption (passage) on June 9 from the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections. This constitutional amendment, proposed to the 2005 Legislature on first consideration, would provide that representatives to the assembly be elected to staggered 4-year terms and senators be elected to staggered 6-year terms. The changes to the length of terms would first apply to legislators elected in November 2008.

An amendment to the Wisconsin constitution must pass during two successive legislative sessions and then be voted on by Wisconsin citizens in a state-wide referendum vote.

'The CSI effect' on real juries

Ed Treleven writes that

The script for this phenomenon, written by prosecutors across the country and repeated by news media in recent months, is simple and compelling: Having watched hour after hour of "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" and other legal dramas, jurors nationwide are demanding forensic evidence and acquitting defendants when prosecutors don't deliver. ...

David Schultz, associate dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School, said that in the 1980s, during the height of the popularity of "L.A. Law," a drama about the travails about a Los Angeles law firm, juries started asking for instant transcripts of trial testimony, just like the ones provided to juries on the show.

But in Wisconsin, trial transcripts are never provided to jurors, who are expected to rely on their own recollections of the evidence. Because of the requests, Schultz said Wisconsin's Criminal Jury Instruction Committee wrote a new instruction, specifically informing juries that they would not get a transcript. The rule is still read to Wisconsin jurors.

Wisconsin State Journal June 21, 2005

(via WisBlawg)

Lawmakers Trying Again to Divide Ninth Circuit

Jonathan D. Glater writes

Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., a Wisconsin Republican who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said last fall that dividing the Ninth Circuit would be a priority. and linked any new judgeships to dividing the Ninth Circuit. ...

Most of the judges themselves do not support a split, said Alex Kozinski, a Ninth Circuit judge. "We've taken votes of our judges regularly," Judge Kozinski said, "and we always overwhelmingly vote against the split. And these are the folks that know the work of the court."

The New York Times June 19, 2005, corrected June 21, 2005

(via Human Events)

The Help America Vote Act of 2002: A Statutory Primer

Hans A. von Spakovsky has recently authored his second paper in a series on recent developments in election law. This paper offers a thorough analysis of the features of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was designed to alleviate some of the perceived problems of the 2000 election, and was signed into law in 2002. [PDF]

Breaking the Durbin Code

Hugh Hewitt explains What Dick Durbin said, what he really meant, and why the Senate should vote to censure him.

Durbin's entire statement is reproduced below, for although two paragraphs caused the firestorm, his carefully prepared remarks provide context to understanding what Durbin and like-minded leftists intend in the coming months and years ...

Daily Standard, June 20, 2005

The Intelligent American's Guide To Islamism

Tarek Heggy on The Egyptian Version: The Muslim Brotherhood. In the National Interest June 16, 2005

The Liberal Project Now

Paul Starr says Liberals need to remember their first principles, rebuild a majority, and connect to a new generation. The American Prospect June 6, 2005

The Downing Street Memo and the Court of Appeal in News Judgment

Speaking of Jay Rosen, he says in Press Think that News judgment used to be king. If the press ruled against you, you just weren't news. But if you weren't news how would anyone know enough about you to contest the ruling? Today, the World Wide Web is the sovereign force, and journalists live and work according to its rules.

Hobsbawm's Hidden Self

Review essay by Robin Melville on Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life by Eric Hobsbawm

Hobsbawm does not depict himself as having learned anything from what he terms his "proletarian experience" (p. 158), though the lads did amaze him with their "instinctive sense or tradition of collective action" (p. 158)--my god, there really was a working class.

Logos Journal Spring 2005

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

The A-word and the L-word...

Andrew Cline in the Press-Politics Journal at Rhetorica notes Bruce Murphy's recent Milwaukee Magazine article.

I am fascinated by some of Murphy's observations. But I'm even more fascinated by some of the things he accepts without criticism--what Jay Rosen calls "press think." Here's one good example touching on something I wrote recently:

The yes-no, push-pull environment of the newsroom confused and embittered some reporters and took its toll on morale. It was often easier to produce less, to simply do the stories editors suggested. Yet if your stories got too safe, you could get marginalized and stuck with a low-priority beat like suburban government.

This paragraph is about so much that is wrong with American newspapers and journalism. And I can simplify it with one word: arrogance.

I accept Kovach and Rosenstiel's articulation of journalism's (civic) purpose: Journalism provides the information citizens need to make civic life work and to be self governing. Those people living in those suburbs probably think the running of their civic lives is pretty darned important. And it is. The journalists who can't understand that covering it is equally important suffer from professional arrogance.

The institution of journalism--from the schools of journalism to the news organizations--is set up to teach and perpetuate this arrogance.

Remember this word: LOCAL

I wonder how much of the shrinking circulation of newspapers is the result of a form of professional arrogance that promotes the silly idea that local suburban politics is unimportant (the clear implication of "low-priority beat").

Tragedy in Africa gets scant notice

Dave Kopel says

... it is impossible to deny that one of the reasons the postwar promise of "Never again" has again and again proved impotent against genocide is the failure of the American press to push genocide stories to the front page.

Rocky Mountain News June 18, 2005

Old news and a new contender

"The BBC's excellent websites may make it even harder for newspapers to survive"

The BBC now has 525 sites. It spends £15m ($27m) a year on its news website and another £51m on others ranging from society and culture to science, nature and entertainment. But behind the websites are the vast newsgathering and programme-making resources, including over 5,000 journalists, funded by its annual £2.8 billion public subsidy.

The Economist Jun 16, 2005

It's Not Just the Test That's a Lemon, It's How Some Judges Apply It

A Supreme Court ruling is expected soon in ACLU of Kentucky v. McCreary County and Van Orden v. Perry, two cases regarding the constitutionality of public displays of the Ten Commandments. In the forthcoming issue of Engage, Robert D. Alt and Larry J. Obhof analyze the two cases in light of the Lemon test, a legal framework that is used in Establishment Clause cases. [PDF]

No American 'Gulag'

Pavel Litvinov says

Several days ago I received a telephone call from an old friend who is a longtime Amnesty International staffer. He asked me whether I, as a former Soviet "prisoner of conscience" adopted by Amnesty, would support the statement by Amnesty's executive director, Irene Khan, that the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba is the "gulag of our time."

"Don't you think that there's an enormous difference?" I asked him.

"Sure," he said, "but after all, it attracts attention to the problem of Guantanamo detainees."

Washington Post, June 18, 2005

(via Power Line)

Consumer Vertigo

Virginia Postrel says A new wave of social critics claim that freedom's just another word for way too much to choose. Here's why they're wrong. Reason June 2005

(via Arts & Letters Daily)

The Fall of the Modern Age?

Neil G. Robertson reviews Icarus Fallen: The Search for Meaning in an Uncertain World by Chantal Delsol, Intercollegiate Review Fall/Winter 2004.

Patriotic and worthy

Dilip D'Souza reviews Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, A New Urban World, by Robert Neuwirth.

Neuwirth got a MacArthur grant to do something few journalists would. For months at a time, he "embedded" himself in slums - he objects to the word, but he'll indulge my use of it here - in Rio, Nairobi, Mumbai and Istanbul. The result is this work of hard-nosed, yet compassionate and thoughtful journalism.

In his time in Mumbai, living in one room in a Goregaon slum, Neuwirth became something of a star. Local journalists interviewed him with an odd air of wonder: for them "it was important", he realised, "to have face time with a strange nonsquatter who had become a squatter". And with this air of wonder, or perhaps even without it, they would often not even listen to him or pay attention to his experiences.

Hindu Literary Review June 5, 2005

Limits on clergy lawsuits revisited

The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments in April and may be about to issue its opinion in a cases against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The case raised two issues.

Whether the statute of limitations, the time period in which victims can file lawsuits, should not start running until people who were sexually abused as minors recognize the psychological injury done to them. Advocates say this often happens years after the abuse. ...

Whether to overturn or clarify a 1995 Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling known as the Pritzlaff decision. Citing First Amendment church-state separation concerns, it dried up sexual abuse lawsuits in Wisconsin by barring most claims against churches for negligent hiring, retaining, training and supervision of clergy.

How far can schools stretch their dollars?

The issue comes up in the state budget because the state cap on school spending on general operations was coupled with a state commitment to pay two-thirds of that amount, which it is now finding it difficult to fund. Here's Mequon-Thiensville School District Superintendent Robert Slotterback.

"Either they don't understand school finance or they're not being totally honest with the public," Slotterback said in response to Republicans' contention that allocating more money to schools over the next two years is not a cut.

"It's true that it's $400 million over what was spent on schools this year. That would be the equivalent of you at your home having a 10 percent increase in gas and electricity, 4 percent in cost and maintenance stuff you can't really control, and your boss saying 'What are you complaining about? You're getting a 5-cent-an-hour raise.' "

He appears to assume that taxpayers employed in the private sector get raises equalling or exceeding increases in the cost of living as a matter of course.

Update: The paper's editorial board concludes from the paper's seven-part series Voucher schools fill need. Among the op-eds, Patrick McIlheran's Millions more for schools traces the recent history of spending on aid for school districts.

Hypothetically, I wonder what would be the effect of the state instead paying two-thirds of instructional costs.

P.S. School Matters is "a public source for information and analysis about our nation's public schools" from Standard & Poors.

Can Europe Learn from American Constitution-Making?

James Banner says

It's no surprise that the Europeans didn't follow the American example. The Constitution of our federal system of decentralized power, checked and balanced as it is, has never had much appeal to Europeans used to more centralized systems in which legislatures are predominant. Still, if they go back to the table to try to do better next time, they might well borrow a bit from the Framers.

History News Service, June 13, 2005

Pathological Science

Henry I. Miller says Health scares based on bad data represent a growing problem. Hoover Digest Winter 2005

Is Mzoudi Innocent or just not Proven Guilty?

Abdelghani M