July 30th, 2008
By: Franz Hartl
Here is a little introduction to one of the more interesting neologisms to sprout up in the past few years: Participatory Culture. Participatory Culture, a reaction to consumer culture, takes a lot of inspiration from Participatory Democracy. While a new idea, Participatory Culture even has a fancy 501(c)3 to support its ideals
Some of the main intellectual gurus behind the idea are PowerPoint ninja Lawrence Lessig , Wealth of Networks Author Yochai Benkler and MIT’s Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities, Henry Jenkins. The idea of participatory culture is of great value when trying to understand why things like wikipedia, flickr, facebook, and other web 2.0 technologies work.
If one wants to get an understanding of how technology is intersecting law and culture, exploring the above links is not a bad place to start
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July 22nd, 2008
By: Gerry Wagschal
In Thane Rosenbaum’s book, the Myth of Moral Justice he discusses the Clara Harris case as an example of a court only looking at bodily harm instead of looking at spiritual violence. For example, what happened to Clara Harris, as a result of her husband committing blatant adultery did not carry much legal weight. However, is it interesting to note that homage was paid to spiritual violence in recent decision in a murder case in Selmer,TN. In that case, Mary Winkler, the wife of a preacher, got a shot gun out of a closet and shot her husband in the back when he was asleep. On it’s face, it looked like a cut and dry murder case. But the jury took spiritual violence into consideration. One of the most poignant moments in the trial was when Mary Winkler, a preacher’ wife, talked about the white high heeled shoes that her husband forced her to wear during sex, the porn that she found on his computer, and the berating that she received from him on a continual basis. In the end, a jury convicted Mary Winkler of a much lesser charge than manslaughter — even though legally speaking this was likely the wrong result- and the judge sentenced her to about six months in jail. It appears this judge and jury put moral outcome ahead of result.
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July 18th, 2008
By Steven Constantiner
The laws failure to address spiritual injury is prevalent in the international realm. The United Nations, by and through its establishing principles and charter, exists to maintain world security and prevent acts of aggression. Recently, though, it has been silent and done very little to contain and control the acts of aggression and bellicose rhetoric coming from Iran and aimed at Israel. The U.N.’s failure to address the spiritual injury that results from the Iranian President’s consistent remarks threatening to “erase Israel from the map,” will ultimately lead to catastrophic confrontation and casualties, many of them civilians.
Since Israel’s inception in 1948, the country’s residents have been plagued by a constant psychological victimization. To say this feeling of angst, dread and the prospect of extermination began with its creation would be to deny two thousand years of history replete with persecution and pogroms. The creation of Israel, one must always remember, was a mere three years after the holocaust in which 2/3 of European Jewry had been eradicated, a term employed by the Germans, as if they were exterminating rodents. The creation of the Jewish State was not only in line with the thinking of Zionist pioneers, who posited that Jews could only be accepted if they were a people with a homeland, but it also was a proclamation to the world that Jews could fight and that they would endeavor to protect themselves. One must not underestimate the feeling of vulnerability and the anticipation of inevitable destruction that the Jews who inhabited Israel at the beginning felt about their future. On the day that Israel declared its independence, four Arab armies, with conscripts from almost every Arab nation massed on its borders threatening to “wipe the Jews into the sea.” In 1956, Egypt nationalized the Suez canal and with various other acts of aggression against Israel, precipitated another conflict. Only 11 years later, Egypt again threatened Israel with annihilation after closing the Straights of Tiran, massing its army in the Sinai and using bellicose rhetoric in much the same way as is being used today. In a military alliance with Jordan and Syria, Egypt with its continuing hostility and flagrant threats towards Israel, knowing that Israel couldn’t indefinitely keep its army mobilized without strangling the economy, and having removed UN observers from observation posts, was playing with fire–Israel’s southern neighbor was threatening them with annihilation and apocalyptic warfare, with the memory of the Holocaust still etched in the Israeli psyche. Jews all over Israel began digging graves for themselves, not knowing that Yitzak Rabin, Levi Eshkol, Uzi Narkiss and Moshe Dayan were ready with one of the most audacious military operations known to man. The history of that war is now the stuff of legend.
Over the forty years since then, Israeli citizens witnessed a War of Attrition with Egypt, watched its citizens massacred all over the world, watched planes hijacked, terrorists infiltrate its borders, its fishermen shelled in the Galilee, its athletes killed in Germany, again, its neighbors surprise attack on its Holiest Day, the creation of radical-fundamentalist terrorist groups aimed at mayhem and destruction, two intifadas, its children blown up in discos by suicide bombers, being forced into quagmire in 1982 in Lebanon, seeing Jewish passengers thrown from cruise ships, being shelled from Southern Lebanon….and then from Gaza.
The world body, the U.N., has consistently admonished, and taken positions adverse to, Israel; But for the United States veto power, the U.N. would consistently sanction this small nation. So what the supposed arbiter and proponent of International Law does not quite understand is the psychological impression that the aforementioned conflicts have engendered in the minds of Israelis, and the ramifications of that feeling. Like a beat up and fed up animal, Israelis always feel the end is near, thus not taking any chances when it comes to their security or existence. In 1981, in a daring mission, IAF pilots, including former Columbia astronaut, Colonel Llan Ramon, flew 100 feet off the deck into Iraq, bombing the nuclear reactor at Osirak. In the operation that was later dubbed “Raid on the Sun,” Israel’s fears climaxed and it acted. Now, Iran is flaunting its intransigence and has repeatedly refuse to yield or halt its nuclear aspirations—It’s president has vehemently expressed his desire to obliterate Israel. The spiritual injury that has resulted from the experience of Jewry and from the past 60 years of Israel’s existence, leaves them uniquely situated and extremely prone to drastic action. The Israelis, as seen in their black humor and fatalistic outlook, as evidenced by their high-rate involvement in extreme activities such as skydiving, motorcycling and other risky sports, always feel as if they are victims of some madman or another. The U.N. needs to take this into account. As Iran refuses to stop its reactor, to make full disclosure, and continues to make public tests of its missile program and the capabilities of its Revolutionary Guard shock troops, no one should be surprised that tension is building in the stomach of each and every Israeli. That is what the law does not take into account, the spiritual injury that these events in conjunction with the vitriolic rhetoric of Iran’s president and mullahs has on each and every Israeli. This psychological feeling is catapulting Israel towards actions.
In the last month, Israel sent 100 F-15 and F-16 fighter jets into the Eastern Mediterranean under the auspices and guise of an exercise but really to demonstrate its capability of reaching distances equivalent to those of Iran. The idea has been floated of using tactical nuclear projectiles to take out installations far below ground and Israel’s minister of transportation and former minister of Defense, Shaul Mofaz, recently told reporters that Iran’s president would be gone before Israel. Israel demonstrated in it’s still fully undisclosed strike on nuclear components in the Syrian dessert that it was not playing games and that it felt threatened again.
The world and U.N. are not taking into account how psychologically devastating it is to be told again and again that you and your people will be exterminated. It must be acknowledged that such has repeatedly been a real prospect for Israel, and that their predisposition to victimization is being drawn out here. Anyone who is threatened with death has a right to respond as it is not in the civilized nature of this world to have leaders threaten to take out a country. Wars have been fought over territorial expansion and power, greed, religion, but never just to eradicate a people. Iran has therefore opened itself up to attack, and preemptive attack it probably will sustain. The notion of preemptive attack may have been a token phrase of the Bush Administration, but before that it was called “preventative warfare” by the Israelis-warfare on your terms to prevent war. With threats emanating from the leader of Iran and the desire to obtain nuclear capabilities, Israel cannot wait to be attacked. Iran has called Israel a “one bomb state.” While the fear that Iran could become the first “suicide state,” as Alan Dershowitz termed it, the actual development of a nuclear arsenal is irrelevant. Iran has and continues to injure a people who are already spiritually injured. Telling someone who is already spiritually injured that you will kill them can go nowhere desirable, and telling someone who has an estimated 200 nuclear warheads and been attacked and attacked incessantly that they will no longer be around…well, then you are just messing with the wrong person. The U.N., the world court, and every other believer in International Law should not be surprised when Israeli warplanes are flying into Iranian airspace.
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July 18th, 2008
By: PJC
A recent Newsweek report follows a NAZI hunter’s quest to bring fugitives finally to justice before death prevents them from doing so. One such hunt is the subject in “Doctor of Death” by Joe Contreras. The article choreographs a week on the trail of the “Dr Death” aka Dr. Aribert Heim, who personally murdered hundreds of camp inmates, often by injecting gasoline into their hearts. The report of Nazi Hunter Efraim Zuroff, head of the Israel office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center alternates in temperature as he follows leads into ‘NAZI country’ of southern Chile and Argentina. Dr. Death, if still alive is 94, but his old age and infirmities are no justification for letting him continue to live out his natural life as a relatively free man. Justice so requires him to be held accountable for his monstrous acts even if he may not even survive the trip to trial or imprisonment. Genocide merits no statute of limitations. He deserves neither peace, nor rest no matter how many tubes and medications may keep his long-dead still heart beating.
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July 16th, 2008
By: David Lansky
I find it interesting that we are taught from a young age to ignore the spiritual side of ourselves and only to be concerned with the physical. The phrase used most often is “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but names can never harm you.” This is a fantastic legal principle, upholding the sanctity of the body and the physical world. However it is a poor moral principle. Some of the deepest and longest lasting wounds a person can suffer are from the words and sentiments of other people.
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July 14th, 2008
By: Ariella Cohen
The recent immigration raid at a meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa and the court’s decision on how to treat the captured immigrants is just one example of a legal but incredibly immoral result. At the Postville meat plant, 390 illegal immigrant workers were arrested for aggravated identity theft and social security fraud. Many of them did not speak English and had obtained their social security cards through the plant. Until recently, these workers would have just been deported. However, under the new system of cracking down on illegal aliens, over 260 of them were charged with serious crimes.
Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and court interpreter who translated for many of the illegal immigrants wrote an essay (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/07/14/opinion/14ed-camayd.pdf) describing the deplorable way these immigrants were treated. He writes that the immigrants were “driven single-file in groups of 10, shackled at the wrists, waist and ankles, chains dragging as they shuffled through, the slaughterhouse workers were brought in for arraignment, sat and listened through headsets to the interpreted initial appearance, before marching out again to be bused to different county jails, only to make room for the next row of 10.”
The courts were not interested in ascertaining if the immigrants had actually violated 18 USC §1028(a) which specifies “knowingly us[ing] a means of identification of another person with the intent to commit any unlawful activity or felony.” As Dr. Camayd-Freixas explains, “the offense clearly refers to harmful, felonious acts, such as obtaining credit under another person’s identity. Obtaining work, however, is not an ‘unlawful activity.’” In fact, most of the immigrants could not have been charged under this statute for another reason– they did not even know what a social security number was.
Many of the immigrants accepted the plea bargain that the government offered and chose to spend five months in jail instead of taking the risk of being charged with aggravated identity theft and receiving a two year sentence. Many waived their rights only because they did not understand the proceedings. Dr. Camayd-Freixas explains that the plea was coerced. He writes, “‘If you want to see your children or don’t want your family to starve, sign here’ –that is what their deal amounted to.”
Even if this result was legally correct it was blatantly inhumane and immoral. As Dr. Camayd-Freixas concludes, “A line was crossed at Potsville.”
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June 12th, 2008
By: Andrew Trask
When it comes to free speech, the United States is an outlier. The right to offend your neighbor may be a time-honored American legal tradition, but to much of Western world, a more hospitable standard prevails. In today’s New York Times, an article by Adam Liptak contrasted America’s free speech laws with those of other countries, concluding that “[m]any foreign courts have respectfully considered the American approach – and then rejected it.”
To illustrate, Liptak highlighted a pending Canadian trial involving a magazine article deemed offensive to Muslims. The Canadian Islamic Congress asserted that the article injured Muslims’ “dignity, feelings and self-respect,” and that, among other remedies, the magazine should be forbidden from publishing similar articles. A Canadian tribunal will soon rule on whether the article violated a provincial hate speech law.
Although the Canadian article may have offended the senses, its publication in America would not have raised an eyebrow from a free speech standpoint. Professor Frederick Schauer, a Professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, commented that “the American First Amendment . . . remains a recalcitrant outlier to a growing international understanding of what the freedom of expression entails.” The First Amendment generally stands guard over provocative, insulting, and even hateful language. One significant free speech limitation under American law is that the government may curtail speech that is likely to incite imminent violence. This has proved a difficult standard to meet, however. American courts have upheld speech by a Ku Klux Klan member advocating hatred and violence, and have refused to halt an American Nazi Party march even though it would have deeply distressed numerous Holocaust survivor residents.
By contrast, other nations are less tolerant of hate speech. The Canadian Supreme Court, in the 1990 case of R. v. Keegstra , upheld the conviction of a school teacher for “unlawfully promoting hatred . . . by communicating anti-Semetic statements to his students.” Liptak noted that, in addition to Canada, “England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech.”
Liptak’s New York Times article effectively illustrates that America, in contrast to many other countries, gives free speech free rein.
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May 8th, 2008
Location: The Time Warner Screening Room
Please let us know you’re coming. Register here.
The Forum welcomes legendary television and film actor Sam Waterston in a wide-ranging conversation about his iconic portrayal of New York District Attorney, Jack McCoy, in Law & Order, as well as his leading role in the critically-acclaimed TV series, I’ll Fly Away, and the award-winning film, The Killing Fields. No actor outside of Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch has portrayed lawyers as convincingly and compellingly as Sam Waterston. He has even played the role of Abraham Lincoln on stage. Join the Forum for a spectacular evening of conversation and clips with one of America’s finest and most distinguished actors.
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April 22nd, 2008
So this isn’t the way I pictured Eli Stone getting “rid” of his brain aneurysm but that’s why someone else gets paid to write the show while I just watch it. Religiously.
This past week’s show (April 17) begins with everyone at Stone’s law office treating him gingerly. Being that he’s about to get a dangerous surgery to remove a brain aneurysm, he thinks he’s being given special treatment. Especially when the main partner, Jordan Weathersby, surprises Stone by naming him junior partner, in charge of the firm’s new pro bono division.
Of course, Eli accuses Weathersby of giving him preferential treatment, and Jordan just blows it off, as does everyone else. That’s when I knew something was up with this episode.
You see, Eli has already had the surgery, only he doesn’t know it as we come to find out later. Meanwhile, a client, played by the brilliant Richard Schiff, known best as “Toby” from the West Wing, hires Eli to defend him in a trial in which his wife is trying to get him declared incompetent. Schiff’s character, David Green, has cancer for the third time after beating it twice and wants to forgo chemotherapy treatments while his wife wants him to fight for his life.
Green tells Eli that the reason he is giving up on chemo is because God told him to die in peace. This, of course, interests Eli, who has been having prophet-like visions himself.
Throughout the trial, Eli changes his mind on whether or not Green should die a couple of times, in the end, seeing his clients point of view. The case ends with the judge ruling in Green’s favor and Green dying in the hospital.
Meanwhile, we find out that Eli has already undergone the surgery and is in a coma.
This presents a serious problem because in the prior episode, Eli had a colleague draft a document stating that he does not wish to remain in a vegetative state should something happen in the surgery.
And that’s when Dr. Chen, Eli’s guide throughout this whole season, wakes up in the middle of the night and realizes Eli doesn’t know he’s in a coma and needs time to fight to live. He makes this plea to Nathan Stone, Eli’s brother, who is set to carry out Eli’s legal wishes.
Nathan gives Eli 48 hours and Eli fights to live. But not before having a “white light at the end of the tunnel” moment featuring … George Michael? Relax, George Michael *isn’t* God. It’s just another Eli Stone musical number.
And in the end, Eli wakes up.
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