Query on Human Rights

Is it, in fact, a human right to NOT get beheaded for child rape and murder?

http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-43639120091103

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What are human rights? Where do they come from? Who (what) has them? Do they exist? How and in what way? Who or what can NOT violate them? In what circumstances can they be violated? Or is it ever "proper" to "violate" a human right? Would it rather be correct to articulate a right in such a way as to not include within its scope acts that would otherwise be called "proper violation" of a human right.

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"Life" seems to be a fairly well agreed on human right, and yet it also seems to be fairly well agreed that soldiers can violate this right in war. What do we make of this?

Pictures

I sued Land O'Lakes 'cause they made "half & half" without any cream . . . .

So get this: You can now buy fat free half & half. Instead of half milk and half heavy cream, it's half skim milk and half corn syrup.

Right'o.

You all may be wondering how I came across this astounding bit of trivia; you guessed it: I accidentally bought the stuff when I thought I was getting real half & half.

Here are two of a ton of pictures we took the other day:

Law School and the Practice of Law

I sued Wal-mart . . . 'cause I got a paper-cut on my finger, from an open Dr. Pepper box, ow!

(Just couldn't resist.)

(But don't worry, my finger is getting better.)

Law school is hard, don't get me wrong, but sometimes, I think some of us new practicing attorneys feel like . . .

Weird Al

I found this browsing Volokh, and I think it's simply hilarious.

Weird Al Yankovic - I'll Sue Ya

Personally, I don't go much in for this style of music, but given the topic and lyrics, it couldn't be better, IMOSHO.

Watching tv doesn't make you brilliant.

Surprise. :-
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/the-great-baby-einstein-scam-531147/

of boggarts and house elves

I am a fan of fairy-tales, fantasy literature, and folklore. I am currently reading Thomas Keightley’s World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves, and Other Little People (1880). Other little people include such creatures as Kobolds and Boggarts.

Incidentally, Tracy and I are listening to the unabridged audio of the Harry Potter series. Today, because this sort of thing interests me, I’m going to talk about Rowling’s “Boggarts” and “House Elves.”

An unfortunate result of the HP series is that millions of people who don’t know what a “Boggart” is now think that’s it’s a creature of dark magic that takes on the appearance of a person’s worst fear. If you grew up reading fairy-tales and folklore, you would know that a Boggart is like a Brownie, or a Kobold, or an “elf” or other type of household fairy or wee man who inhabits people’s houses, plays pranks on the inhabitants, cleans or messes up the house at night, punishes rudeness, and other things like that. They are not like Rowling’s Boggarts at all.

I do not have a big problem with this. J.R.R. Tolkien substantially reworked the concept of Elves. Rowling is certainly at liberty to do so with Boggarts. But it seems to me that people, as a general matter, now have a clear concept of two types of elves (Tolkienesque elves and fairy/folksy elfs). My hunch, and it’s only a hunch, is that now the HP Boggart has probably almost entirely displaced the fairy/folksy elf. I think this is unfortunate.

On to House Elves–those supremely pathetic and annoying slaves/servants/clean-up-crews of the Harry Potter series. The House Elves do not have an exact corresponding creature in European folklore, but they are very similar to the Boggart/Brownie/Kobold/”household-fairy/elf” mentioned above.

In the HP world, House Elves are pretty powerful magical creatures whose history is vague. Somewhere in the past, they became completely subjugated by human wizards. They are slaves or servants, and one never really finds out if their nature seeks freedom (as does human nature) or if they are truly, as Ron protests, happy to be servants.

Personally, I find House Elves annoying. If Rowling was trying to explore serious issues of class, race, and slavery, I think she did a poor job. If Rowling was trying to be amusing, clever, and interesting while playing along the edges of serious issues of class, race, and slavery, I think she did a poor job. The only thing about it that is actually interesting is that series does not clearly conclude whether the slavery of House Elves is evil, or whether their nature is naturally servantish.

The two sides of the argument, as presented by the book’s characters are these:

Hermione–House Elves are like humans, having the same basic rights (to liberty) and nature (desiring liberty), but they have been so cruelly abused by humans, that they are brainwashed, and merely need help to be freed again.

Rom–House Elves are servants because that’s what they want to be; that’s what they love; let them go, and they become miserable and downtrodden; keep them as servants, and they’ll be happy and healthy.

A peculiar, magical characteristic of house-elves is that the invisible chains of their bondage cannot be broken by violence or force of will. Freedom is achieved by the master giving (by purpose or accident) a house-elf an article of clothing. Once this act is done, no violence or force of will can keep the elf enthralled.

Until reading Keightley’s work, I was unfamiliar with how this peculiarity is grounded in fairy folklore.

I was familiar with the Grimm story about the little cobbler elves who helped a very poor shoemaker become wealthy. Eventually, the cobbler and his wife stayed up and watched the elves at work, and noticed they were naked. The cobbler’s wife made smart little outfits for the little cobblers, and when they found them, they danced with delight, dressed themselves, and then left, never to return. My impression was that the cobbler no longer needed them, that the elves accepted the gifts with delight, and then left the cobbler to live out his remaining days in happiness and prosperity.

In the World Guide to Gnomes etc. there are several stories along a similar line, but many with a distinct difference. The people who the little elves were helping, after realizing the source of their aid, would make a cloak or other item of clothing and leave it out for the elf (Kobold, Brownie, Boggart, what have you) as a gift. The elf would put on the clothes and then sing a little tune about how they were “paid off,” or something similar, and would never return again. In one particular story, the elf sadly declared that now he could never come back again, even though he enjoyed the work he was doing.

This peculiarity is similar to that in Rowling. Here, something magical occurs which trumps the elf’s free will, forcing him to leave the house or people that he was helping.
There are differences: first, there is no force or slavery involved at the outset. The elves are helping the people out of their own volition. It’s “in their nature” to make attachments to humans and human households and to help them out in their special little way. Second, we often read of the little creature’s sadness in departing once the gift of clothes has been given. The only force involved in the transaction is the resulting banishment of the house elf.

With the gift of clothes, Rowling’s House Elves go from slavery to freedom (with dubious results, as we see from Winkie in Goblet of Fire). Contrarily, the house elf of folklore goes from a positive freedom to a negative freedom (banishment). Obviously (see discussion of Boggarts above), Rowling in no way ties herself to the facts of folklore, but I would say she is clearly pretty familiar with them. I think she knew many of the stories I allude to from Keightley, and perhaps she found it interesting how the concept of slavery is reversed with these house elves (the shift from positive to negative freedom). Perhaps that is why the HP series never definitely answers the question of House Elves.

If I had to take sides, I’d probably agree with Ron, as it aligns itself better with the old stories. Hermione’s view makes house-elves miniature human beings. However, the little-people of legend act and think differently than humans, and insofar as humanity can be put in a box, the little-people of legend should not be put into the same box.

The Delights of Life

What were you doing last night at eight o’clock? As Tracy was putting the boys to bed, I decided to brew the most complicated batch of hot chocolate I’ve ever attempted. (I more or less made up the recipe).

And, yes, it was excellent.

More than excellent: an extremely rich, chocolately, intensely flavored cocoa drink that will put Swiss-miss and Nestle’s chocolate powder to shame. (Haha, as if a simple mixture of milk, cocoa, and sugar didn’t do that well enough without the extra fanciness.)



Try this:

A wee bit of water (it isn’t necessary–I’m not completely sure why I decided to use water).

Dissolve a little bit of corn starch in the water (whisk it).

Put in a quarter cup of sugar.

A quarter cup of unsweetened cocoa powder.

Pour in a little milk (enough to properly dissolve all the sugar and cocoa).

A wee bit of pure vanilla extract.

Sprinkle in some cinnamon and nutmeg.

Pour in a bit of heavy whipping cream (I think we had about a quarter cup left from the dessert we made this past weekend).

Toss in a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips.

Heat on medium heat. Stir with your whisk frequently. It’ll get nice and hot, and the semisweet chips will eventually melt smoothly and become part of the liquid.. The cocoa and spices will get pretty well incorporated, and the cornstarch will thicken the mixture a little bit.
Then, pour in more milk. The quarter cup of cocoa and quarter cup of sugar is enough chocolate and sugar for about three decent sized mugs (two big mugs–four tea-cups). Continue to heat on medium heat, and keep stirring frequently.

When it’s hot enough for your taste–I like my hot chocolate pretty hot–pour it into some nice mugs or tea-cups, settle down on a cozy couch with your spouse or other loved one and a good book, and . . . enjoy.

The injustice of blind numbers.

Subtitle: or Maybe the Supreme Court of Missouri is Short on Mathematicians.

So, is Jaired the Blogger back? I make no promises. My promises tend to be like paper matches. Every tenth or twentieth one ignites a pretty impressive fire, but all those other ones either fizzle out after a brief-flair up, burn for a few seconds but never ignite the intended fuel, or never start at all.

Today, I share with you something that just shocked me.

In Missouri, we use what's called Form 14 (cooked up by our supreme court) which uses a formula to pop out the presumably accurate child support owed by any given parent who owes child support.

Here's a webpage provided by a lawfirm in Rolla, Missouri which makes Form 14 computations extremely easy. Today, I wanted to see how much a client would owe in child support. Here are the numbers I entered. First, I said the receiving parent made no income ($0). Then I said the paying parent made thirteen hundred ($1300) a month. Presumed support amount: $241.

Basically, the formula says that a child whose parents make a combined income of $1300 a month should be spending about $241 to support their child. Since the parent receiving the support makes none of that, the other parent will be responsible for the entire amount.

Given my information, I figured that the receiving parent is probably receiving disability checks. So I punched in the arbitrary amount of five hundred ($500). Payor makes $1300. Payee makes $500. Under the forumula, a child whose parents make a combined $1800 needs $380 in support. Since the parent making $1300 makes 72.22% of the total income, he owes $72.22% of 380 . . . presumed support amount: $274.

So basically, in many situations, if the custodial parent makes NO MONEY, the non-custodial parent's child support obligation will be less than if the custodial parent could actually contribute to the child's upbringing. Once I started adding money to the custodial parent's income of $0, I had to go all the way up to $2,800 a month to get the non-custodial parent's (who is making $1300) payment back down the $241, which is where it started when non-custodial parent was the only parent making money.

This is not only counter-intuitive, but it is clearly unjust. If a parent is justly fulfilling his duty of support to a child by paying $241 of $1300 on support, then it boggles the mind and ravages logic to suggest that this amount should go up IF AND ONLY IF the other parent begins making money (even as much as twice the income of the non-custodial parent's).

So, now that the other parent is actually contributing monetarily to the child's support, YOU HAVE TO PAY MORE. Bwahahahaha.

Something's got to be done about this.

Have a great day.

Preview of Coming Attractions

About This Blog

Caleb has kindly suggested I post again. I've become a miserable blogger. So, I thought I'd type in the old, familiar blog address and see if having the screen open would inspire me to write.

That's when I noticed that, while I've neglected my blog, the Regent Blogger folks have not (in all honesty, I don't know quite when the text along with "About this Blog" appeared; all I know is, I didn't write it).

Until I work up the inspiration to do a blog makeover (new graphics, descriptions, links, etc.), this description is a good one, especially the first sentence: as a lawyer, husband, and father, I've been ridiculously busy.

Being a lawyer has it's ups and downs. It's nice being self employed, though. I get a lot of freedom, and no boss to answer to. When the family's down with the flue (fever, colds, all that fun stuff), I get to stay at home later in the morning and head home earlier in the evening. Things like that. It's nice.

Being a husband is great. Though it does keep one busy.

Being a dad. Well. Little kids are like windup bowling balls . . .

. . . except they get wound up and stay wound up for hours. And guess what YOU don't decide when they're wound up. No, that happens during their precious few hours of sleep.

And then they're up again, actively hopping down the lane of life. If they're not toppling off the lane sideways (which, like the hopping bowling ball, happens repeatedly), they're knocking little white things over (like Mom's nice china or Dad's important papers).

But with all that going on, I've not been inspired to write much these days. Every time I sit down the right, I feel a bit like a parrot. If not a parrot, at least completely lacking in originality. For instance, I've been pretty good about reading a lot recently, but as easy as it is to sit down and write a review, it's still WORK. You have to actually sit down with the book that you've finished, open it up and skim through it while you jot down your thoughts and put them into some semblance of order.

I find it much easier to just tell everyone what I'm reading and have been reading.

Just finished Francis Schaeffer's How Shall We Then Live.

I'm in the middle of a book on Fairy's and Folk Lore. I'm reading my trial practice textbook from law school. I'm reading Jerry Spence's How to Argue and Win Every Time. And I'm reader Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book.

I'm trying to write an illustrated story, but it's really slowed down recently. Maybe I'll scan and post some of the illustrations.

Have a nice night.