Document Review #5 - Tales from the Shift Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

This is Crab Media's fifth essay on the litigation support document review market in metropolitan DC. This one involves some awkward, graphic details; be advised.

During my work in multi-lingual document review and litigation support, I have encountered a great many wonderful attorneys of a variety of skill sets, experiences and perspectives. Some of the most interesting people I have met in my professional life, actually.

But then there are the crazies experiences and, occasionally, crazy people.

On my very first project, I got seated next a group of political firebrands - two very liberal Democrats and three Limbaugh fans. And did they love to gripe and argue! One would open the New York Times openly while billing the client, read Paul Krugman aloud and explain why the ditto-heads were crazy. I don't mean for 5 minutes - more like 40-45 minutes it would start. I was new, so I was a little reluctant to get mouthy about such things. The project tolerated it for a while, then called them out and fired them semi-publicly. Not all at once, but in a sort of obvious way.

Then I got cut, though to this day I don't know why. I assume it was my inexperience, incompetence or slow speed, since I did not present any "attitude problems" and my agency was happy to place me on another project promptly. It may have been that because I sat next to the "McLoud-lin group", they cut me as presumed cancerous tissue; the project had about 150 attorneys and was infamous for its unwieldiness.

On my next project, there was an attorney who behaved a bit, well, tensely. If anyone talked, she would shush them, loudly. This was a very relaxed project in which management openly encouraged us to talk with one another to solve problems, discuss strategies for reviewing the material or the appropriateness of coding tags; not all projects were this way but this one was. But she shushed us. Sitting across from her was a gregarious former upper-level partner of a large DC firm who, I suspect for his health and more travel-friendly lifestyle for his trips to New York and out west, took a position in document review. He loved to talk, had an old-school give of the gab and regarded the "shusher" with open antipathy. The shusher actually built up a wall of personal items to keep us speakers out of her "universe" - hairbrushes, toiletries, etc. I actually liked the shusher as a person, but she was regarded as an odd duck (as, probably, have I at times.) Ultimately, as things became more tense, "personnel changes were instituted."

On another project, I met the cheapest guy on Earth. I will call him "Pete." "Pete" was proud to be cheap, regarded the label as a boast, not a slur. He would rail against the agency for only allowing him to get 90 hours in a week when he had the stamina to get 100+. My only issue with him was my rock-bottom insistence that he go home and bathe daily; he lived close and did comply with that modest request. When we got a $15.00 food allowance, he would berate me loudly for only spending $14.87 of it at a Mexican carryout (I would buy both lunch and dinner on one ticket, as permitted.) If the coffee were bad, he would gripe. If the bathrooms were being cleaned, he would gripe, regarding the john, I guess, as a form of in-kind income. I got under his nerves badly by working steadily even near the end of a project; he would yell at me to slow down to prolong the available hours, told me I was an idiot. And he did it all with a U.S. regional accent that I won't identify, but which was so thick that I could only understand him maybe 85% of the time. A true character.

There was the infamous woman whom I did not meet (thank goodness), but who would plumb the depths of hygiene rejection. When her neighbors complained that she was sitting in a large pile of newspapers stained with her own pooled menstrual blood, she would ask them harshly whether they had "a problem." She got fired. Other attorneys got fired for fighting over a chair, a testosterone battle on which the winner got a chair and the threat of a butt-kicking, and the loser got canned. All licensed lawyers, mind you. I had heard of attorneys engaging in hard-core unethical conduct on billing, but always in the form of rumors about strangers, even rumors of attorneys managing to "triple bill": reporting hours on two projects simultaneously, being absent at one, present and goldbricking on the other while working on billable matters for their solo practice clients. Unethical if true, of course, and apocryphal.

I have been on document review projects where my female colleagues were remarkably free in their extended discussions of their bodies, specifically how they fear getting a black eye when they jog. Since I know nothing of sports bras but know a lot about how employment laws work both theoretically and practically, I took that discussion as, in the words of Jacques Chirac, an excellent opportunity to shut up.

Beyond document review, I have done "traditional" big firm temp work, specifically in capital markets document drafting and editing for bond closings. I am happy that that work exists; may others choose it freely if so inclined. But once you have witnessed a mid-level associate browbeat and mock a contract attorney "associate" to the point of tears over the phone, you implicitly make a career decision: deal, or no deal. I know the choice I made.

The peculiar cast of characters has not been limited to contract attorneys either. The supervising attorneys - staff attorneys, associates, counsel and partners - have ranged in professionalism from pouting brats to consummate professionals, happily much more the latter than the former. In general, I have perceived an inverse relationship between the size of a project and the professionalism of its management. The projects that look like zoos act like zoos. Snotty, unprofessional behavior from supervisors has been a rarity and absolutely non-existent on small-medium projects. More often one sees that the professionals in charge care passionately about getting work done well, and the sheer laser-like focus of some of these fine attorneys has impressed me most of all. Interestingly, the associates and staff attorneys have varied in their styles from every buttoned-down, straight-arrows to tattoo-covered "cool people." One can hear horror stories of truly dehumanizing conditions at some projects but I have had a pretty good run so far with no real disasters.

In general, I have found agencies to be very professional in their management of the core function as regards contract attorneys: accurate hours and prompt pay. Some handle direct deposit better than others but I have found only one agency to have had any problems with paycheck accuracy. While my experience with that agency was initially negative, requiring a nastygram to get my proper pay, a second go-round after some personnel changes was much, much better with excellent administration running the show.

The cases I have worked on have been interesting, usually involving antitrust or similar laws. I cannot go into the specific subject matter or project names of course, but the work itself has been on net a gratifying and an educational experience. For every "oddball" I have met probably 9-12 impressive professionals with a great variety of reasons for working in the unusual field of document review. Many LLM and returning MBA students use this work as an education-friendly cash source during their studies. Others take full advantage of its flexibility for personal or professional gain. Some use it as a source for capital to start a law or non-law enterprise. Others are doing as a holding pattern until their ideal federal job opens up. It truly takes all kinds.

Samizdata: French Activists Threaten to Bomb Supermarkets Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Samizdata reports that French wine activists have threatened to blow up supermarkets if impurities are not removed from the shelves. The impurities are wine from countries other than France. They will blow up the supermarket if any California wine gets in, or at least more than these non-suicide bombers are willing to tolerate.

Ah, I love Paris in the springtime. Makes me want to go to McDonalds and order food I dislike in a restaurant I don't want to be in, knowing that the restaurant's very existence is giving Gallic pecksniffery a bowel obstruction.

Maryland Attorney Toolkit Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

There is the barest beginning of an Maryland Attorney Toolkit page. I have not installed most of the actual live links; it's not only not yet "beta" but rather "pre-alpha." But it's up and I will be playing with it in ways to get the most bang for my attorney readers who need a "quick-and-dirty" page of links and resources for the busy practitioner.

Baltimore Sun: Parren Mitchell, 1922-2007 Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 29, 2007:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who grew up in Little Italy, said, "The Mitchell family was revered in my home."

With the death of Parren J. Mitchell, the first African-American elected to Congress from Maryland, Pelosi said, "Baltimore has lost one of its favorite sons."

...

During his eight terms in Congress, the slight, bespectacled, soft-spoken man fought successfully for minority set-asides on federal contracts; vigorously opposed the "supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics of the Reagan administration of the 1980s and promoted minority ownership as head of the House Small Business Committee.

...

Mitchell graduated from Frederick Douglass High School and what is now Morgan State University, and earned a masters degree in sociology from the University of Maryland. He was a member of a prominent Baltimore family that played key roles in the national and local civil rights battle. In 1970, Mitchell was elected to the House of Representatives after heading the city's anti-poverty agency.

Mitchell said he believed that the anti-poverty agency's policies should be aimed at helping to rebuild black family units that had been weakened by generations of poverty. "Slavery," he once said, had "prevented Negro families from forming, and for the century since then, the tradition hung on."

R.I.P. and condolences to all members of the Mitchell family. I worked next-door to a great-niece of Congressman Mitchell for a little more than a year.

UPDATE: HAT TIP to P. Kenneth Burns of Maryland Politics Today, who caught my headline typo of 1992 in place of 1922 as the birth year of the late Congressman, and who has a much more developed post on his life. Many thanks, Kenny. In general, if you are reading CMW for coverage of Maryland, you should definitely check out Maryland Politics Today as Kenny Burns tends to drill deep and has a quicker turnaround time on many Maryland issues than I do.

AlterNet: New Science Museum Portrays Humans, Stegosaurus as Contemporaries Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

AlterNet, May 26, 2007:

For Bible-defending "creationists," God created Earth and all its creatures between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. But they know a drawing card when they see one, and this museum has more than its share of animatronic (moving, teeth-baring, roaring) specimens. In fact, dinosaurs play a big role in this "biblical history": They live not 65 million years ago, but with humans — in the Garden of Eden and on Noah’s Ark.

"Dinosaurs are one of the icons of evolution, but we believe they lived at the same time as people," says Ken Ham, founder of Answers in Genesis (AiG), the fundamentalist Christian ministry that built the facility. "The Bible talks about dragons. We believe dragon legends had a basis in truth."

The $27 million museum set on 50 acres opens on Memorial Day, and AiG hopes for 250,000 visitors a year. Mr. Ham, a former science teacher in Australia, is direct about the museum’s purpose: to restore the Bible to its "rightful authority" in society.

My problem with this "museum" is that it purports to be a science museum rather than a religious shrine. I am not an evolutionary biologist or paleontologist, but it is my understanding that no scientific evidence from outside the evangelical Christian world points to the contemporary co-existence of dinosaurs and hominids. The general understanding of modern evolutionary biology is that dinosaurs died off millions of years before hominids arose. Fred Flintstone rode on dinosaurs in Bedrock, but Fred Flintstone is fiction.

The museum apparently goes on to explain how the entire land-based animal kingdom could have fit on Noah's Ark. Of course, this skeptic asks: how long did it take to get the thousands of varieties of beetles, ants, bees, wasps, woolly mammoths, stegosauri, birds, mastadons, tyrranosauri, velociraptors, brontosauri, monkeys, tenrecs, dodos, penguins, scorpions, cobras, rattlesnakes, ferrets, anteaters, armadillos, camels, cows, cebus, bison, chimps, orangutans, gorillas, pterodactyls, geckos, gila monsters and raccoons etc., and was a prior voyage needed to collect the cold and hot, dry and wet environment critters from their habitats first BEFORE the flood? Or were they all enjoying the same habitat and great weather in the Near East?

It should be noted in fairness that not all religious people who consider the Bible/Torah strictly binding also consider it a natural history document.

Marvin Gaye's What's Going On Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun: Franchot Seeking to Expand Comptroller Bailiwick Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 28, 2007:

It is customary at the start of Board of Public Works meetings for members to make personal comments, so Comptroller Peter Franchot took advantage last week by introducing his daughter. In case those in the packed State House reception room couldn't locate her, Franchot noted that Abbe, 25, was modestly "hiding behind the television cameras."

Gov. Martin O'Malley, sitting at Franchot's side, grinned broadly and said, "A quality she got from her mother."

...

[Comptroller Franchot] has issued statements about divesting state pension money from Darfur. He has railed against the possible implementation of slot machine gambling to mitigate a looming budget crisis. He supported a doomed House of Delegates health care plan. He led the successful charge against a Kent Island development that environmentalists argued would harm the Chesapeake Bay. And he has cast himself as a chief advocate for expanding Maryland's biotechnology industry.

Hardly matters of usual concern to Maryland's chief tax collector.

I wonder what would happen if Comptroller Franchot started focusing primarily on the constitutional duties of his office, rather than worrying about the biotech industry or environmental policies on Kent Island.

What are the constitutional duties of the Comptroller of Maryland? Article VI, Section 2 of the Constitution of Maryland:

The Comptroller shall have the general superintendence of the fiscal affairs of the State; he shall digest and prepare plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, and for the support of the public credit; prepare and report estimates of the revenue and expenditures of the State; superintend and enforce the prompt collection of all taxes and revenue; adjust and settle, on terms prescribed by law, with delinquent collectors and receivers of taxes and State revenue; preserve all public accounts; and decide on the forms of keeping and stating accounts. He, or such of his deputies as may be authorized to do so by the Legislature, shall grant, under regulations prescribed by Law, all warrants for money to be paid out of the Treasury, in pursuance of appropriations by law, and countersign all checks drawn by the Treasurer upon any bank or banks in which the moneys of the State, may, from time to time, be deposited. He shall prescribe the formalities of the transfer of stock, or other evidence of the State debt, and countersign the same, without which such evidence shall not be valid; he shall make to the General Assembly full reports of all his proceedings, and of the state of the Treasury Department within ten days after the commencement of each session; and perform such other duties as shall be prescribed by law.

Someone please show me where "biotech" or "business development" or "consumer protection" or "petroleum regulation" appear on that list. Sitting on the Maryland Board of Public Works, which authorizes most major State expenditures within the budget, is indeed one of the Comptroller's duties. One might hope, however, for a wiser sense of proportionality and at least a fig leaf of commitment to the core functions of the job. Franchot is ours for the next 44 months.

I am not a big fan of Senate President Mike Miller per se, and might in another context be sympathetic to some of Franchot's policy positions, but I agree with Miller's withering criticisms of Franchot for refusing to focus on his day job. I would add, the day job for which Franchot receives and cashes (ahem) a paycheck from the Treasury of Maryland presumably bearing his signature twice as both maker and as endorsee when he cashes it. It should be noted that the General Assembly has the power to remove the Comptroller upon a finding of incompetency or willful neglect of duty under Article VI, Section 6 of Maryland's Constitution. For some reason, I have the feeling that Mike Miller is going to get very familiar with that section in the coming months and years.

Wherein I Opposed a 100% Income Tax Rate Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I had a dispute with some commenters over at My Left Wing - upon which community peace generally - in which a commenter proposed the taxation at 100% of all income over $100K per annum.

I opposed. Hilarity ensued.

While I stand a bit to the economic right of MLW editor Maryscott O'Connor (who was not part of this exchange), she has been a most gracious hostess to the likes of me.

Meta - Construction Update (5/28) Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Please take note of the modification of the front page of CMW. Having created the fourth column with great price, I eliminated it upon feedback from my "war council" who warned of likely inconveniences to readers with smaller screen settings. Much of the material from multiple former columns now resides in Crablaw Maryland Weekly's streetcar suburb "Crablaw Page 2."

A Response to Hillary Clinton's Web Call for Campaign Songs Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The music most likely to get my vote, going back to just before her husband got elected President, is far superior to any of the choices offered by the lamenesses running the musical selection of Team Hillary:



But my gut feelings, not my policy analysis but my instincts, are a little closer to this:



As usual, Attila of Pillage Idiot has the smartest take of them all on such things. I am also glad that he caught Ace of Spades' latest dissertation on Ace's aversion to women's bodies. Somebody's gotta tell Ace that he can be straight, he can be gay, he can be bi or he can be celibate out of religious conviction, but "Ace-exual" is no way for a grown-ass man to go through life.

Meta - Construction Update (5/26) Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I have enjoyed an afternoon under the influence of a cold and DayQuil in a Caribou Coffee after my generous sweetheart offered to watch the kids while I blog and rework the site. A few minor updates on the home page; there are logos and one grossly-underdeveloped live link replacing the dull "Coming Soon" dead buttons which previously disgraced the site.

I have some draft ideas for the Toolkit pages and some more ideas for the Lab. But for now, it's time to go home and get ready for the unthinkable: an evening out with my wife, with gratitude to my parents who generously offered to babysit the kids. Enough blogging for today.

Baltimore Sun: Franchot Concerned About "Price Gouging" for Gasoline Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 26, 2007:

State Comptroller Peter Franchot said yesterday that he is launching a probe into high gas prices and wants answers from oil companies - particularly why the price can range 10 or 20 cents a gallon between nearby stations selling the same brand.

...

Twenty-one governors, including Maryland's Martin O'Malley, called this week for an inquiry into pricing. The House voted for legislation making gas price gouging a federal offense and also approved a bill to give the federal government the power to sue the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the major oil cartel.

...


Rayola Dougher, a senior economic analyst at the American Petroleum Institute, a trade association for the oil and natural gas industry, said the practice drives prices down, not up.

Refiners, distributors and marketers - sometimes the same entity, sometimes not - can decide to charge a station with stiff competition less than a station that's in a better position elsewhere in the area.

Several issues.

1. I return to my beloved refrain of the imperialist expansion of Comptroller Franchot's bailiwick. Is it the legitimate business of the Comptroller of Maryland - a tax collector - to engage in consumer protection activity? While gasoline is substantially taxed on a per gallon basis, and inaccurate measures of gasoline volume (mentioned in the Sun article also) can provide either an illegal windfall or shortfall to the state's coffers, it's not at all clear how the state's tax collector has a piece of this action. The Office of the Maryland Attorney General, Consumer Protection Division, has a large staff of attorneys, investigators and paralegels. It's like hearing that the IRS has gone into the truth-in-advertising enforcement business for hardware or socks.

2. Lowering one's prices to meet intense hyperlocal demand on three-gas-station intersection is not evidence in itself of an agreement to fix prices. It can be consistent with such an agreement but it is not evidence of one. Agreements between competitors to hold prices high (or low) are illegal under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act (15 USC Sec 5.) However, if there is other evidence of price coordination between competitors, such as sharing information about zones, that would be fairly powerful evidence of an contract, combination or conspiracy in restraint of trade.

3. Franchot once had a commitment to transit issues, having served on multiple committees and fora dealing with such issues. Artificial efforts to keep gasoline cheap postpone the inevitable: the reckoning with both an overburdened transit network and the environmental damage that comes from the one-commuter-per-tailpipe model of commuting. When gasoline rises in price, consumers respond by considering alternatives, such as combining trips, ordering goods online instead of driving to the mall, carpooling/slugging or public transit in the short term, and transit improvements and mixed-use development as is common in many parts of Canada become more attractive. There is a reason why Saudi Arabia wants to sell oil relatively cheaply now: they are afraid of structural reforms in fuel consumption here that would result from expensive gasoline.

Franchot should be more worried about making sure that he gets full enforcement of all taxes including gasoline taxes so that the projected budget deficits either do not materialize or come worse than feared. He should leave nickel-and-dime pricing decisions to other branches of government to address or (ideally) to leave alone in benign neglect.

Baltimore's transit system is a joke, with a reported about half of all buses arriving late. You know who has an award-winning transit system? The city in the country least likely to be considered a transit haven: Sunny, low-density, tailpipe-and-freeway-addicted Los Angeles, the city that infamously ripped up its transit network of streetcars around the same time that Baltimore did. So, Comptroller Franchot, please focus on your day job so that taxes get collected and Baltimore's weak, inefficient transit system doesn't get further damaged bu budget cuts while you are focused on who's charging $3.17 a gallon versus $3.23. This is from a life-long Marylander who commutes 800 miles a month by car (1200 by rail.)

Baltimore Sun: Spanish Language Programming for MPT Drawing Fla(c)k Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 26, 2007:

A new Maryland Public Television station to be launched this summer that will offer programming entirely in Spanish is drawing criticism from some who question why the organization, which receives public money, is catering to an individual ethnic group.

...

"If we're going to do an ethnic station, why not an African-American station? Why not children's programming?" asked Del. Patrick L. McDonough, a Baltimore County Republican who is among the most vocal critics of the new station. "I am going to look more deeply into their process of decision making."

...


MPT officials said that adding the station - one of three digital channels that MPT will launch as part of its transition to a digital lineup - will cost no additional money and that the same equipment used for other MPT programming can be used to broadcast V-me. The programs will be fed via satellite from New York, and no local programming will be produced.

...

McDonough said if the network moves to add local content in the future, he worries the O'Malley administration will try to influence it.

"He has supported in-state tuition for illegal aliens, he is a proponent of illegal immigration," McDonough said. "I don't want taxpayer money going to a news program that says tuition for illegals is good and Delegate McDonough is bad."

McDonough has been banging the anti-immigrant drum for years. The idea is that because some Spanish-speaking illegal immigrant's child might watch Spanish Sesame Street, the whole state is in jeopardy. Forget about the rest of us who want Spanish language programming for other reasons.

According to MPT, the programming is free and involves no new capital expenditures, and takes no space away from predominantly English programming, though for McDonough to confirm that through documentation from MPT is entirely fair. My son watches Spanish-language programming and has learned a lot of Spanish that way, just as he has learned American Sign Language. I wish that MPT had additional stations for additional languages; this is a rich state and German or Russian or Arabic programming would be a great idea if it could help kids learn and retain more languages. Kids in other countries grow up multi-lingually; most Swiss, Germans, Dutch, Israelis, Canadians, etc., grow up proficient in at least two languages, often three or four. I remain grateful to my high school for my German studies to this day; probably 40% of the income I have earned in the last 24 months has been directly dependent on that skill and I just wish I learned it and maybe two other languages when I was 5, not 14. A big part of why out-sourcing to India is a challenge to white-collar Americans, including attorneys, is that India is a multi-lingual country where educated adults speak English, Hindi and usually a regional Indian language.

Similar issues were presented in the discussion of an Arabic/English public school in Brooklyn, as covered by Lindsay Beyerstein. You would think in a dangerous world that the policy of the government would be to increase, not constrain, multi-lingual education.

Programming does not become oriented towards an "individual ethnic group" because it's in Spanish. Spanish speakers from a multitude of "ethnic groups" exist; I think Patrick McDonough is partially of Irish ancestry so he should be aware that just as speaking English doesn't make you English, speaking Spanish does not make you of any particular predominantly Spanish-speaking ethnic group.

Spanish differs significantly from country to country. Spanish in Puerto Rico has a decidedly different tone, speed and to some extent vocabulary that than spoken in Mexico or in Spain. This is a serious issue for producers of Spanish language programming. English in Baltimore and Newcastle and Cape Town and Bangalore don't sound even roughly the same, either. It's not "one ethnic group." But I don't think that the problem for McDonough is that some Spanish speakers and students will start picking up a Dominican accent vs. a Mexican one or Castillian one, through catering to an individual ethnic group through choice of actors.

I agree, though, that the state should not be funding hypothetical attacks upon the Governor's political opponents and critics. Attacking right-wing xenophobes who are interfering with educational programming decisions that benefit my children is a blogger's job, not the government's job.

Samizdata on Boycotts of Israeli Produce Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

I think Samizdata made a great point. Those who call for boycotts of Israel due to Israel's human rights record rarely or never call for a boycott of any other nation due to that nation's human rights record. Which would make sense if Israel were the worst in the world. But one hears of anti-Israeli boycotts far more often than boycotts of a whole list of centers of human rights outrages. Samizdata lists Cuba, Burma, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, Syria, Belorus, Zimbabwe and North Korea. I would add Kuwait, the UAE (where Jews Israeli passport holders are not even permitted to visit the new gleaming city of Dubai), U.S. aid recipient Egypt, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, though the last of those seems to be improving with time.

Israel has a population roughly the same as Maryland's and an GNP roughly on the same order of magnitude as Maryland's, but gets much more attention for civil rights violations than countries with much bigger populations and economies. The major human rights and economic freedom indices put Israel relatively high on the list of free societies, though not in the top tier. There are many other countries to protest, but almost nobody gives a damn about Belarus or Burma. An Israeli jail inmate is more free to criticize the Prime Minister of Israel than a Minsk or Yangoon bartender is to criticize his government out loud. A jailed Palestinian is more free to worship his God openly in jail - or none at all! - than a Christian hotel manager is to worship his God, or an atheist rug dealer is to give up on religion entirely, in many Muslim countries.

It's not about human rights for many such activists. It's about opposing Israel's existence, not its choices. The refusal of such activists even pro forma to criticize, say, Saudi Arabia or the UAE or Egypt, makes it pretty clear what's going on.

UPDATE: My source on the bar being on "Jews" visiting Dubai and not Israeli passports was, IIRC, 60 Minutes. Apparently I am not the only one to get this wrong. HAT TIP to Alon Levy.

"Are You There, God? It's Me, Crablaw." Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

At the prompt from a long-time reader of Crablaw, I note the following discussion on a topic on which I have absolutely no first-hand experience.

In response to the emergence of Lybrel, a drug designed to eliminate menstruation in women (i.e. the same thing in substance that most or all birth control pills do), libertarian ueber-blogger Eugene Volokh attempted to canvass his readership (or its adult distaff fraction, at least) on the topic of their own experience of menstruation:

When you menstruate, do you feel that you're part of the "in crowd"? If you chose to stop -- not because of menopause, which is a marker of age and of lost fertility, but voluntarily and reversibly -- would you feel "out"? Do you smile and talk to your friends about the cramps, the mood swings, and the like? Do you feel you derive meaning from the fact that you share menstruation as an experience with other women? Would you feel meaning subtracted if you stopped menstruating, because menstruation is so "central" a "female experience"? Do you find menstruation to be similar to pregnancy in any emotionally positive way?

Feminist bloggers took note of Volokh's inquiry.

Professor Ann Bartow:

I think Eugene needs to be educated gently and incrementally, so the first thing I’m going to do is send him a copy of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” by Judy Blume. Then, when he seems to have grasped the thirteen year old perspective, in a decade or so, I’m going to send him a package of Always and a bottle of Pamprin, and urge him to enroll in an introductory course in Women’s Studies.

Ann Friedman of Feministing:

But in all seriousness, while I do find some of Volokh's questions patronizing, this type of post is better than the alternative -- decrying the loss of femininity because some ladies like to take a pill that makes them stop having periods. It seems the gist of it is, "What does having a period mean to you?"

I found the tone of Volokh's questions a bit dorky and clumsy but hardly outrageous or beyond the pale of decency. After all, anyone who did not elect to discuss her business with Eugene Volohkh need not have commented or emailed him. I think that Ann hit the right note: better to ask a condescending question than to presume an answer out of patriarchial (or other) arrogance. As for the dorkiness, there but for the saving throw of a 20-sided die go I.

I disclose that I am indebted to Feministing for its early support of the Take Back the Blog event last month, and that Professor Bartow was constructively critical of that effort (and most cordial upon my inquiry.)

FEED ME, CRABLAW!!! Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Crab Media is pleased to announce a new offering for the wingnut and the moonbat alike: FEED ME, CRABLAW!! The page is in beta version at the moment, a little rough around the stylistyic edges, but check it out. At this one page, you can keep an eye on the latest happenings in the political blogosphere, both blue and red, right next to each other, for comparison and contrast.

The Moonbat Feed comes courtesy of:

Booman Tribune
MyDD
Talking Points Memo
Majikthise
Unclaimed Territory (Greenwald)

The Wingnut Feed comes courtesy of:

Blogs4Bush
Captain's Quarters
Power Line
Real Clear Politics
Right Wing News

I would have included Instapundit had the biggest blogger in the blogosphere not been felled by the challenge of providing a proper live RSS feed like everyone else with live title links. So the Professor flunks. Blogs4Bush instead, it is.

The omission of a libertarian, presumably "green" feed was not an oversight, but the result of technical limitations of my current subscription to Feed Digest which powers this and other feeds within Crab Media. May up the subscription, may not - we'll see. A likely feed set for such a future feed would include:

Samizdata
Reason's Hit and Run
Q and O
Bill St. Clair's End the War on Freedom
A Stitch in Haste

Anyway, enjoy. May upgrade this eventually to a "project" on the front page, or not.

Meta-Update (5/24) and Open Thread Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

1. I still don't know what the status on the Blogs4Brownback site noted below is. I would have spent time revewing it further to determine its bona fides, but I did almost two all nighters in a row: Monday night (catching up late on household paperwork) and Tuesday night (constipated autistic toddler - the circle of Hell that Dante forgot to describe.)



So I left work early yesterday and essentially crashed, enjoying 8 hours of sleep. HAT TIP to anyone who can show me the "snark/satire/rat¤¤¤¤" in that site.



2. Mobile blogging is being impeded a little by the non-clicking clickwheel on my BlackBerry. I have no fundamental complaint - I am a very heavy user of the BlackBerry and the device carries a one-year warranty, since expired. The wheel acts more or less like a mouse with scrolling and a one-button click. The wheel works but the click does not. Work-arounds do exist on the keyboard but pull the mouse or trackpad off of your computer and you get the idea. So mo-blogging and other BlackBerry activities will be a little curtailed until I do a buy new/sell used. on eBay or the like. Phone works just fine otherwise.



3. Does anyone know who "Ann Israel" is? Someone on one of my pages said I was an "ass-kisser" with respect to not stealing time or money from my employer, and compared me to "Ann Israel on crack.". I don't mind a random insult from some random reader, just don't like not knowing whether this is a pop culture reference with which I am not familiar, or a live human being somewhere. Keep in mind that I do not watch TV except for Grey's Anatomy on Thursday nights, which is our substitute for date night.

UPDATE: I suspect that this is the Ann Israel whom "anonymous" meant. Apparently Ms. Israel has committed the unforgivable crime of failing to be universally loved.



4. Did anyone watch the Monica Goodling testimony yesterday? I did not get the chance. What I did see on the blogs made it pretty bad for her.



5. Complete this sentence: "the tackiest thing in Ocean City, Maryland is ..."



Bruce Godfrey

Blogs4Brownback: Heliocentrism is an Atheist Doctrine Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

A blogger supporting Sam Brownback (without official affiliation with Senator Brownback's campaign) has made the interesting claim that heliocentric model of the solar system and universe is an "atheist doctrine."

My favorite lines:

However, for both moral and theological reasons, we should always bear in mind that the Earth does not move. If it moved, we would feel it moving.

...

No one–not Copernicus, not Kepler, not Galileo, not Newton, not Einstein–absolutely no one has proven the earth to be moving.

In fairness, the heliocentric model of the solar system is an approximation, and the universe is not heliocentric. But a geocentric universe model is as arbitrary and useless as modelling the movement of the universe as centered around a three year-old's left big toe. When the kid kicks, the universe moves back and forth a foot and a half. When he climbs into the tub, the universe moves "up" with his foot over the wall of the tub and "down" as his foot hits the bubble bath. Simple, see?

The seasons are not caused by the earth going around the sun at an angle; they are caused by the entire universe orbiting the Earth like a gear inside a Spirograph. How long does it take for the Earth to go around the Sun? 365 days? Thereabouts? WRONG!!! The Sun and the entire universe go around the Earth, you heretic!

You live in a country where the geocentric astronomical model is in 2007 apparently not a snark or a prank, but the genuine article of a political organizer seeking support from adult voters.

Baltimore Sun: "Stop Sinning" to Stop the Killing? Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The Baltimore Sun has a brief article regarding the efforts of the Reverend Jamal-Harrison Bryant of the Empowerment Temple to reverse Baltimore City's exceptionally high murder rate of approximately six murders per week in a city of now barely 600,000 residents.

I don't know whether the pastor's "Stop Sinning!" slogan is the right message. On the other hand, I would rather see a minister do so per his own free will and conscience than see the government attempt the same program on the dime of the public fisc.

I have never been a fan of the City's slogan "Believe!" as a method of opposing the crime, economic devastation and despair that have characterized much of Baltimore City in recent decades. I don't think the problem is failure to "Believe" but rather to "Behave." There is not a devastating problem of menacing epistemological skepticism or rampant atheism in the communities most battered by social dysfunction. Where would you go to find such cold-blooded skepticism? Probably the Philosophy or Physics departments at Hopkins, or maybe some apartment in fairly safe Govans in North Baltimore where some dread Towson University sophomore is reading too much Sartre, drinking too much espresso and toking off of more BC Bud than he can afford in time or cash.

The neighborhoods most damaged by City crime are the predominantly African-American neighborhoods in West/Southwest Baltimore and in East Baltimore near Hopkins Hospital and the Eastside District Court building. Other predominantly black neighborhoods such as Ashburton, Liberty Heights and Northwood are somewhat better off. One of the cultural factors that unites Black Americans and Black Baltimoreans is the prevalence of the belief in God. Atheism or explicit irreligiosity are extreme minority views in Black cultural life; while hardly all African-Americans are church- or mosque-attending worshippers, explicit atheism is a very rare phenomenon. Most historically Black Christian churches and denominations place a strong emphasis on faith as a concept; this is hardly unique, of course, but Black churches are more closely identified with the low-church Protestant traditions of the American South that begat both Black religious culture and Southern White religious culture, painted broadly. Baltimore does have a larger Black Catholic community proportionately than would be typical of the U.S. outside of Louisiana, but a statistical minority it remains.

So the City slogan "Believe" that clangs rudely in the ears of a lapsed Euro-American Catholic like myself will likely have a different emotional impact on the largest ethnic/religious demographic of Baltimore City. Perhaps my criticism or skepticism of its effectiveness is misplaced or at least reflects my own narrow cultural, religious and epistemological outlook, biases and all, which stands at variance with the real culture at issue.

A reader might think that I am over-reading "Believe" to be a religious message, that it means only that people should believe in the City or in the future in some narrower sense. Perhaps so. But the very effectivness of the message to "Believe" in this City is likely to depend on the receptiveness of the "believers" to "believe", and that orientation towards "belief" (rather than, for example, to "behave") does indeed reflect and benefit from the religious orientation of the vast majority of Baltimore City's residents. I don't think "Believe" can be excised meaningfully from that religious culture; it's not the Hopkins physicists that the message primarily seeks.

In the midst of a crime culture of the infamous "Stop Snitching," however, the closest thing to "Behave" may well be "Stop Sinning." Regarding the pastor's efforts, to quote a famed source, "By their fruits you shall know them."

Baltimore Sun: Lousy Reporting Lives Long And Prospers Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Read the headline "But 12 Md. voters look to GOP for safest choice in '08 White House race" regarding a 12-member focus group and you would think that 12 means 12, i.e. 10+2. In fact, two members of the twelve-member Maryland focus group conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center explicitly preferred Democratic candidates, and others expressed an interest in learning more about Democratic candidates such as Bill Richardson or leading candidate Hillary Clinton.

To quote the article further:

"As for [Senator] Clinton, voters couldn't seem to get beyond concerns about her personality, her husband and her single-minded drive for power."

The phrase "single-minded drive for power" is appropriate to a political battle blog; I agree with the sentiment and am no fan of Senator Clinton. But this is supposed to the journalistic reporting of an event, not a reporter's characterization of a candidate. The adjective "perceived" is missing from this reporter's sentence:

"From voters in both parties, there was a strong desire for a president with qualities very different from George W. Bush's."

Yet the first qualification of George W. Bush is that he is a Republican; the reporter's claim is undercut by the headline about "twelve" supporting GOP candidates, which itself seems more like 7 or 8 out of 12 after the individual accounts in Paul West's article favoring or leaning Democratic are counted. The precise final tally is not provided, nor are any leaners itemized. Conclusion: the article appears to prove that its headline is incorrect and misleading.

I understand that reporters don't always get to choose their headlines or sub-heads. But this is "underwear on the outside of your pants" embarrassing, and it's Paul West's name on it. And some of these reporters (perhaps not Mr. West) are the first to look down at us common low-bred outcast bloggers for our lack of professionalism.

How to Get to Know Autistic People and Families Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

The following is intended as a public service announcement. If you think you can write a better one, you are probably right. It follows in spirit a brief piece on "those children" by Jill Filipovic of Feministe on an LA Times article about a couple who adopted a child with autism and the condescending responses that the couple received from their friends, scandalized inter alia that the couple would not prefer a "healthy white baby," etc.

We have two autistic sons. Our older boy Sam, 4, is trilingual in ASL, English and Spanish, though not at a typical 4-year-old level in any of them. ASL was his first language. Our younger boy Noah, 2, has only a preliminary diagnosis at this point, but one that seems pretty reliable for now. The two fellows have very different personalities, interestingly. The 4-year-old can keep amazing rhythm with a drum, but cannot speak/sign in sentences. Sam loves to snuggle with his Daddy; while some autistic people are averse to touch, he loves sitting on Daddy's lap and sticking his finger in Daddy's ear (Daddy likes it less, but plays along.) Noah dislikes being held or touched, but is oddly more social in some ways and is slightly more verbal in my opinion than Sam was 26 months ago. No neat, straight lines, no boxes with reinforced square angles defines this unusual disorder or way of being.

Autistic people don't need pity, just like you don't. They need adaptive solutions for the maximization of their own lives, autonomy and potential. In other words, they need the same thing you need; the details just differ.

Their parents absolutely don't need pity either, though they do need babysitters. If you want to do a kind thing for parents of autistic kids, offer to babysit. If you are afraid of doing something wrong, say "I would be happy to babysit your kid(s) sometime if you can give me a "heads up" on how not to be an idiot." The parent will probably laugh and ask you where he or she can buy an "anti-idiocy" vaccine - for himself or herself, not for you. Offer to sleep over after the kids are down so the parents can get an evening away, without guilt. Autistic families need time and resources and logistical "grease," not pity.

Autism is not about being a Rain Man or a freak show, just as someone being "neurotypical" and at ease with both "office politics" and subtle verbal and non-verbal communication does not make one Eleanor Roosevelt or Malcolm X or Bill Clinton or Pee Wee Herman. Most autistic people are not savants, in the same way that most people who sing in their church choir are not Mahalia Jackson. (pity....) Many autistic people exhibit behaviors that are considered distinctive of autism; many others don't. Modern neuroscience is at the blood-letting, pre-germ theory stage of medicine for autistic people. Anyone who tells you that they "know" what causes autism is either reckless or a liar; 20 experts have 40 opinions. Some say it's genes; some say it's diet, child's or mother's; some say it's heavy metals in the blood and subject autistic kids to dangerous steam chelation to "sweat" these metals out; some say it's environmental, some say it's a virus; some say it's the age of the father's sperm or the mother's egg. Some say "we do not know"; trust those people. (The desire to find the "reason" for this disorder spectrum is an interesting phenomenon; because autism causes social challenges that bourgeois parents find embarrassing or inconvenient, its "causes" get a lot more play on television than the "causes" of childhood diabetes, which kills people but does not cause bourgeois social awkwardness. I digress.)

Autism is more common than lay people think it is. One doesn't hear about it as much because parents with kids with autism are too busy being grown-ass adults themselves to provide public service announcements. I am too busy to write this public service announcement. I won't even get into what my wife goes through logistically while I am earning the paycheck. But autism is common.

One way to look positively at autistic citizens is at the immorality and vice that they avoid. For example, since autistic people tend not to engage in social or political gamesmanship, you can pretty much take to the bank that an autistic person is not going around slandering your good name. If that's happening, that's some treacherous neurotypical liar stabbing your reputation in the back in your house of worship, your job, academic department, etc. Another is that they tend to have their own interests and are likely to both stay out of your business and to avoid inane "kewl" trends. Autistic people do not care, by and large, about where, when and why Paris Hilton, Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan are or are not drinking, doping, dressing or fornicating.

If you want to learn about what people with autism - or their parents or other family members - have to say for themselves, ask them politely, same as you would prefer to be asked about what you care about. If the communication doesn't go perfectly, don't freak. Sometimes, even Bill Clinton communicates suboptimally. Autistic people and their parents like their privacy like you do, in the same sense that you may not want to discuss your underwear with a stranger. But polite questions will be appreciated; many autistic families appreciate knowing that others are interested in their realities.

Many autistic people do very well on the internet; the social cues that autistic people sometimes find very difficult to track in offices, schools, etc., don't stack the deck against them as much or at all. Here is a blogroll of autistic bloggers you can check out if you like.

Autistic people do not need pity. They do not pity themselves, by and large. What they need is awareness and an opportunity to contribute. Many autistic people are employed, though usually not in fields where politics and non-verbal cues are critical. The proportionately largest agglomeration of autistic people in the U.S. is in Santa Clara County, California: Silicon Valley. Computer programming and technical drawing are two of the professions where autistic people have enjoyed considerable success.

Keith Olbermann, Steven Spielberg and Dan Aykroyd were all diagnosed as children with a form of autism-spectrum disorders. You just never know.

I will end with a word of thanks to the United States Supreme Court who affirmed the ability of parents to serve as advocates for their disabled children, not merely for themselves, in court under the IDEA without the use of an attorney. This issue involves both standing (i.e. having the necessary legal "dog" in the fight" and the regulation of the practice of law, but the Court managed to get it right, 9-0. Even Justices Scalia and Thomas joined the holding through a concurring opinion.

Baltimore Sun: Martial Law Defeated in City Council Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Baltimore Sun, May 22, 2007:

Baltimore's City Council overwhelmingly rejected a proposal yesterday that would have allowed the mayor to lock down streets and close businesses in areas declared an emergency - taking the unusual step of pressuring the bill's sponsor to withdraw the measures before they were fully introduced.

Eleven members of the City Council spoke against the legislation - proposed by City Council Vice President Robert W. Curran - that would have allowed police to close liquor stores and bars, limit the number of people on city sidewalks and halt traffic in areas declared "public safety act zones."

...

Curran, who received national attention last week for proposing the legislation, was ultimately forced yesterday to acknowledge that it had virtually no support. In a surprising move, Curran volunteered to withdraw the proposal, and his motion was unanimously supported.

I don't doubt either the sincerity of Councilman Curran's desire to fight crime or the severity of the crime problem, particularly the demoralizing homicide rate. But Baltimore needs American solutions to crime, not East German ones. The Baltimore City Council has taken a beautiful first step towards respect for individual rights; may it be emboldened to take a second, a third and a fourth.

I haven't checked but I am pretty sure Andrew Kujan is feeling good about this.

Meta - New Developments (5/21) Click HERE to Bring Up Full Post

Some happy news.



1. Crablaw Maryland Weekly was contacted by a major blog aggregator regarding syndication of CMW content. I won't identify the aggregator until the ink hits the contract tonight, but this syndicator publishes a lot of leading conservative and some liberal blogs for hire. The empire begins now (haha).



2. Crab's List (www.crablaw.com/crabslist.html) has undergone restructuring and improvements, with a new article about career strategies for lawyers who do temp work (linked above in red sidebar) and an improved chart of some of some of the DC-area agencies with which I am most familiar.



3. I will be adding content relating to the DC litigation document review

economy in the near future. Whether to segregate that content into its own document review blog or to RSS that subset to Crab's List remains an open question. Some of that content will be in the form of additional articles for the "Document Review Library" noted above, either within CMW or as stand-alone articles.



More on all of the above tonight.



Bruce Godfrey

UPDATE: The blog aggregator noted above is Newstex.com, which publishes the content of much of Pajamas Media, Eugene Volokh and other leading blogs. I am honored and very pleased at this development. You may notice "wonky" posts a little more often here in addition to the standard snark.