Toward a kindler, gentler (and more intellectually rigorous) law school: Epigram

It has been observed that my proposal (posted in four parts, below) is long, dense, and convoluted (and has too many parenthetical inserts (which make it hard (and very irritating) to read)).
Got it.

Could I possibly try to distill my message to something people might actually read?
Sure. Here goes (standing on one foot):

Our graduates should have the courage to take on established power, and the skills enabling them to do so effectively.

The rest is commentary.
Now go and study.

With apologies to the Jewish first-century sage, Hillel, asked by a Gentile to summarize the whole Torah while standing on one foot. (On my reading of the sources, it is somewhat obscure whether it was Hillel or his interlocutor who was standing on one foot, and whether the inquiry was sincere or sarcastic. Maybe an especially well-informed and/or industrious reader can help. You may sit down while doing your research.)

Future of Stem Cell Tests May Hang on Defining Embryo Harm

washingtonpost.com: By Rick Weiss

With the active encouragement of the Bush administration, U.S. scientists in the past year have developed several methods for creating embryonic stem cells without having to destroy human embryos.

But some who now wish to test their alternatively derived cells have found themselves stymied by an unexpected barrier: President Bush's stem cell policy.

The 2001 policy says that federal funds may not be used to study embryonic stem cells created after Aug. 9 of that year. It is based on the assumption that the only way to make the cells is by destroying human embryos -- a truism in 2001 but not any longer.

As a result, the National Institutes of Health recently refused to consider a grant application for what would have been the first federal study to compare several of the new, less politically contentious stem cell lines. ...

At the center of the debate is a new technique, pioneered by ACT [Advanced Cell Technology], that obtains stem cells from human embryos while leaving the embryos functionally intact. A single cell, called a blastomere, is removed from an eight-cell human embryo, then coaxed to multiply into a colony of stem cells in a dish. ...

Sean Tipton, president of the Coalition for the Advancement of Medical Research, a stem cell research advocacy group, said the policy amounts to a Catch-22.

"On the one hand, they're saying, 'Find this out,' " Tipton said, referring to the Bush administration's repeated call for scientists to find ways to make and study stem cells without destroying embryos. "On the other hand, they're saying, 'You're not allowed to do the research to answer these questions.' "...

My UW colleague Alta Charo is quoted further down in the story.
Federal stem cell policy certainly exemplifies the high degree of bureaucratic competence and regard for scientific expertise so characteristic of this Administration.

Recipe to End a Libyan Standoff

New York Times Blog:

Because of the courage and decisiveness of our President, George W. Bush, our uniformed men and women marched to Baghdad and deposed a despot. Since our President’s strong stand against terrorism, Libya has slowly turned away from it’s [sic] terrorist past and is warming to the West. George W. Bush is fighting for freedom, and the medical personnel who were freed today in Libya can thank our visionary President for their safe passage out of Libya. God Bless men and women (primarily Republicans) who confront evil to the benefit of all mankind.

— Posted by Kevin

G!d bless us, every one.

Bush Reclaims Power After Colonoscopy

New York Times

Bush Says Democrats Are Playing Politics on Iraq

New York Times

Iran Puts Detained Scholars Before TV Cameras

New York Times: By NAZILA FATHI

TEHRAN, July 16 — Iran’s state-run television on Monday broadcast the first video of two Iranian-American scholars since they were detained in May on espionage charges.

Haleh Esfandiari, a scholar at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center, and Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planner with ties to the Open Society Institute financed by George Soros, were shown briefly on the midday news. ...The Iranian authorities have suggested that the two have confessed that in their work in Iran, they were trying to overthrow the government. ...

“I am Haleh Esfandiari, and one of my roles was to identify speakers,” Ms. Esfandiari was heard saying.

“In the name of dialogue, in the name of women’s rights, in the name of democracy,” she was heard saying in another brief segment.

The conclusion follows inevitably from that.
Free Haleh!

Health care system broken, Clinton says

SF Chronicle:

SAN FRANCISCO -- The dire state of the nation's health care system is threatening the country's well-being, former President Bill Clinton told a receptive crowd in San Francisco on Saturday.

'Our health care system is immoral because it doesn't provide health care to everybody,' said Clinton...'It's wildly uneconomical. We pay more than everybody else in the world for less.'

'It is sowing the seeds of its own destruction...'

Coulda, woulda, shoulda...

New Madison School Named After Hmong General Vang Pao

From WKOW:

For several months, the school board took in suggestions for the the name of the new elementary school for Madison's far west side, in Linden Park.

Monday night, hundreds of Hmong parents and students filled the Doyle Administration building as board member Shwaw Vang pushed to name the school [after] General Vang Pao, a prominent Hmong leader.

After a 12 minute speech in which Shwaw Vang talked of General Pao's importance to the Hmong and how naming the school after him would help the Hmong feel like they are part of the school district, the board unanimously voted to name the school General Vang Pao Elementary.

I had been hoping the school would be named for a distinguished Madisonian, such as Howard Temin (a brilliant and deeply humane UW Nobel Laureate, leading AIDS researcher, and anti-smoking campaigner) or Shirley Abrahamson (Wisconsin's first female Chief Justice, and one of the most distinguished Justices and judicial leaders in the state's history). Or maybe the first Hmong (female) graduate of UW Law School. But judging from recent performances, Shwaw Vang would not know much about American ideals of law or justice.

For a full appreciation of General Vang Pao's many noteworthy contributions, school board members and other readers might wish to consult the highly acclaimed scholarly work of UW Professor Alfred McCoy. (McCoy himself apparently has alternative suggestions for a Hmong worthy of this naming honor.) Or, for general tone and atmosphere, Tom Wolfe might be appropriate.

No doubt, the new school's gardens will be festooned with colorful fields of poppies, providing opportunities for on-campus agricultural training, as well as supplemental funding sources for enhanced school activities.

PAP-Times: Slowing the Pace (WARNING:PARODY, LANGUAGE ALERTS)

Beginning a new collection: Parodies of Actual Published Letters to the New York Times (PAP-Times)

Pace Needn’t Apologize
Published: March 17, 2007 (AS IT MIGHT HAVE APPEARED IN 1947)
To the Editor:
Re “General Pace and Gay Soldiers” (editorial, March 15):

Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, owes no one an apology for stating his personal view that NEGRITUDE is an intolerable immoral act. His is a view shared by a large, mostly religious plurality of military personnel and their families.

Lifting the ban on COLORED PEOPLE to serve openly WITH WHITE PEOPLE would alienate that pool of religious conservatives who have demonstrated a proclivity to serve in the volunteer military. There is zero evidence that eliminating the ban would induce avowed NEGROES to flock to the armed forces.

General Pace has good standing to defend the ban from a military effectiveness point of view as well. There is longstanding evidence that soldier performance in combat is based on unit cohesion — trust and confidence — and readiness.

In 1946, the Army’s surgeon general declared SERVING-WHILE-BLACK behavior to be a readiness detractor and further concluded that RACE MIXING tensions in forced intimate situations undermine the unit cohesion necessary for a soldier’s success in combat.

AFTER "Robert L. Maginnis"
Woodbridge, Va., March 15, 1947
The writer, a retired United States Army lieutenant colonel, advised the 1946 TRUMAN Task force that wrote the “don’t ask, don’t tell--JUST STAY ALL WHITE (except in the mess tent and latrines)” policy.

N.B. In the current overheated environment, let me be explicit: this parody is not meant to disparage African Americans or Gays and Lesbians. It is meant to insult Gen. Pace and Lt. Col. Maginnis, to the extent they have not already fatally embarrassed themselves-TWB.

A Recipe for Miscommunication

At risk of propounding a cultural stereotype (whether a denigrating one may be in the eye of the beholder), the Midwest (I'll save the Middle East for future posts) is profoundly irony-challenged. (Not so good on sardonic, either.)

So are most bureaucracies, including educational bureaucracies. (Better left unsaid...)

For some of us, including but not limited to displaced former East Coast, Big City, preferably-Jewish, intellectuals of a certain generation (talk about stereotypes run amok!), irony runs in our very lifeblood. Try as we might to dam it up or to rechannel it, we are not infinitely malleable creations of our own will, and it finds its way to the surface, or, to extend the nautical metaphor, to the sea. The levies cannot hold, not to speak of the Cohens, the Kaplans, or the Wise Bard.
(With apologies to New Orleans, a great and wonderful city.)