Southern Culture:

• NY Times: 40 Years Later, Ole Miss Asks When the Past Will Be Past — a very interesting story. I do think though that Ole Miss and Southern Universities would be be better served to remember and learn from their past, warts and all, instead of trying to forget it. As the old saying goes, if you don’t know your own history, you are doomed to repeat it.

Random:

I leave for Austin in about 12 hours!!! Woohoo!!!

I’m planning on taking the scenic route south. Instead of taking IH-35 (as they would say in Austin) the entire way, I’m going to take the turnpike (I-44) from Newcastle to Lawton, then south across the river to Wichita Falls, TX.

From there, I’ll take US 281 south until I hit Lampassas and then probably cut to Austin from there.

While I’m talking about my plans, here is a story from Texas Monthly’s May 2002 (10 Great Drives Issue) on roadtriping on U.S. 281

Also, on the subject of HW Trivia here’s a page that has pictures of the ends of US 281 and also the ends of US HW 62 (aka Main Street, Newcastle, OK) in El Paso, TX and Niagra Falls, NY

See ya next week!

Blogging:

• Thanks go out to Kyle Still for giving me a link!

Random:

Since MacDougal cancelled Torts on Friday, I’ll be leaving tomorrow for beautiful Austin, TX! (Woohoo!)

I have to take care of one chore (moving my junk out of a storage unit at E.41st St. Public Storage), but otherwise hope to enjoy a restful and fun weekend. Friday night I’ll be downtown to say hi to all of my old pedi-cab driving friends and maybe to make a few bucks playing harmonica on the street. Saturday I’ll be hanging out with my friend Kimberly at the Austin City Limits Festival, and then on Sunday I’ll get to see all of my old friends at Hope Chapel. If you need to reach me over the weekend, my cell phone (405-476-5620) should be in range most of the time. Otherwise, I’ll be back in time for class Monday morning.

Law School Update:

This week has been rather hectic for me (hence the lack of JMBzine postings). The big hurdle this week was the Research Exam for the Legal Research & Writing class. Due to my stupidity (I did not realize how long the exam was) I procrastinated horribly on it. I did get it done, but just barely in time.

Other than that, classes are going well. I am now doing book briefs for all of my classes and it is going much better. (For anyone interested, I’ll post details on my book briefing technique on One L @ OCU some time next week.) It is still a struggle though to stay on track with the readings, especially when you never know how much or how little the profs will cover in class. Overall Torts is still going the smoothest, but Civ Pro and Contracts are starting to make more sense to me.

Law:

• NY Times: Nearly 96, Judge Milton Pollack keeps an iron grip on the gavel
  . . . REGARDING the judge’s retirement plans: what with Enron and Tyco and Internet-generated litigation (last summer he dismissed six suits filed by disgruntled eBay and Amazon.com stockholders against the Internet stock analyst Mary Meeker), this is no time for a securities law expert to recuse himself.

  “The greed and contentiousness and double-dealing, all the things you find repeated over and over again in the past two years, are part and parcel of what it was all about back in 1929, just with modern variants and staggering sums of money,” he says.

  “It’s been a great experience to watch everybody else making money while I’ve been making decisions,” he adds, his smile smug.

  He has a lifetime appointment to the bench and received senior status in 1983: he can retire at any time and not forfeit his paycheck. So why, at 95, does he battle his way downtown daily from 58th Street and Park Avenue? His only concession is to boycott the overcrowded Lexington Avenue subway during the morning rush, and to leave work by 5 p.m. rather than 6, the better to sit down to dinner with his second wife, Moselle, at 6:30. Bedtime is 10:30, unless there’s a Yankees cliffhanger in progress.

  Really, why not put down the gavel?

  “That to my mind is a fatal error,” the judge says. “I have seen it in people who have left here and gone fishing, or golfing, or cruising, whatever. They go off and entertain themselves, and then they expire. To me, the thing that makes you live longer is having an interest in your work and having someplace to go each day to do it. I’m in it for life.”

  Literally.

OKC Events:

• OCU School of Law to Host Symposium Exploring the Impact of Enron on Corporate Governance

  From an OCU Law Press release:

  As the impact of the Enron scandal continues to unfold, Oklahoma City University School of Law is gathering a distinguished panel to discuss “Public Company Disclosure and Governance in the Post-Enron World.” The symposium will be held this evening from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Homsey Family Moot Courtroom, Sarkeys Law Center. The symposium is free and open to the public.

  More info at: http://www.okcu.edu/law/press/nr02059.asp

Noteworthy Campus Events:

• OCU School of Law to Host Symposium Exploring the Impact of Enron on Corporate Governance

  From an OCU Law Press release:

  As the impact of the Enron scandal continues to unfold, Oklahoma City University School of Law is gathering a distinguished panel to discuss “Public Company Disclosure and Governance in the Post-Enron World.” The symposium will be held this evening from 5 to 7 p.m. in the Homsey Family Moot Courtroom, Sarkeys Law Center. The symposium is free and open to the public.

  More info at: http://www.okcu.edu/law/press/nr02059.asp

1L Elections

I received this email from Micah Adkins from Section 1:
Hey James,

I received info tonight that not enough votes were cast to elect a rep for our section. This position is really important to me.

Can I count on you to help me out–if you know of anyone that is undecided, will you vouch for me? Please pass the word to others in our section and encourage them to vote in the run off tomorrow.

Thanks for your help.

Micah

I’m not making any endorsements on this page, but I do want to say that I have been really impressed with all of the candidates and how much they are working to enteract with their fellow students in politicing. I think this speaks well for them and the quality of student representation we have at OCU Law. — If you haven’t voted today, be sure and do it. I think several of these run-offs are going to be close, so your vote will really count.

Politics and Policy:

• Space4peace.org
• Late last night I watched part of the movie 13 Days, a movie about the Cuban Missle Crisis. Maybe I’m being melodramatic, but the situation reminds me a great deal of what is happening in Iraq and Israel with the current war. My fear is that, there is no voice for reason or peaceful resoluation in this administration like JFK had. I wish we had an Adlai Stevenson at the UN, or Robert Kennedy as attorney General. Instead, we have chickenhawks running the whole show. It’s a mighty fearful situation.

  But I was also struck by the prayerfulness of the nation at that time. In the movie they showed in Washington the Catholic churches open 24 hours a day with long lines for confessions, and people of faith everywhere praying and seeking God’s deliverance from nuclear war. It’s time for peaple of faith and peace to press in deeper in crying out to the Lord for peace.