Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Samuel Williston

Interesting profile -- who knew that the great treatise write wrestled with mental health issues? -- and a fabulous photo. Samuel Williston, Harv. Mag., Jan.-Feb. 2006.

"I Do This Every Day, I Should Do It Better Than Other People"

WisBlawg - From the UW Law Library: "I Do This Every Day, I Should Do It Better Than Other People" Everybody searches these days, but librarians can search better.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Law.com - Dead Judges Voting: When Does Life Tenure End?

Here's a judicial oddity: An appellate judge drafts the majority opinion (2-1), then dies before it's filed. Should his vote still count? Law.com - Dead Judges Voting: When Does Life Tenure End?

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Turn Web page into a PDF Document

WisBlawg - From the UW Law Library: Turn Web page into a PDF Document This is a cool service. The demo is neat -- but the FAQ says that the number of free renderings is limited, so one can't count on being able to use it forever without subscribing....

Later, a colleague pointed out that Adobe Acrobat does this (not the free reader, but the licensed version). And there are free sites:

http://www.go2pdf.com/product.html

http://www.pdfpdf.com/pdf4free.html

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Commencement speeches


'Tis the season for advice, humor, platitudes, and reminiscences from speakers' platforms around the country. Want to find some?

What appears to be a great selection is humanity.org. It includes Steve Jobs, Toni Morrison, Martha Nussbaum, Madelaine Albright, Gloria Steinem, and more. As "oldie but goodies," there's George C. Marshall announcing the Marshall Plan (1947) and a JFK speech in
1963.

Another selection is in Yahoo's directory. It includes Richard Feynman (1974), Will Ferrell (2003), George W. Bush (West Point, 2002)

C-SPAN has video clips of about 30 speeches delivered in 2005.

Flylittlebird is an interesting website that presents "an experiment in building collective wisdom from hundreds of undergraduate commencement speeches." Results include a table listing issues by
urgency score. (The top issues are lack of democratic participation, terrorism, open questions regarding the war in Iraq, and lack of leadership in U.S.)

Flylittlebird.org also has a searchable archive of speeches.

Image: Jimmy Carter gives keynote address at commencement ceremonies at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA., 02/20/1979. Carter White House Photographs Collection. arcweb.archives.gov.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

See Jane project

The See Jane project "seeks to engage professionals and parents in a call to dramatically increase the percentages of female characters -- and to reduce gender stereotyping -- in media made for children 11 and under."

In February, it released a study from the Annenberg School of Communication documenting the overrepresentation of male characters in G-rated films: "Where the Girls Aren't: Gender Disparity Saturates G-Rated Films." This month, it added a second Research Brief: "G Movies Give Boys a D: Portraying Males as Dominant, Disconnected and Dangerous." Both reports are available here.

See Jane is a project of Dads & Daughters (DAD), which "provides men with tools to be better fathers and advocates for our daughters."

American National Biography Online

I just came across a citation to American National Biography Online and took a look. It is really cool. It offers short biographies -- by leading scholars -- of over 18,000 Americans. It is the online companion to a set published by Oxford.

The citation I saw was in an article by Barbara Babcock about the origins of the public defender. See Trial Ad Notes post.

Why, why, why?

I've run Trial Ad Notes for a year and a half and enjoy many aspects of blogging.

One thing I like is being able to keep track of some interesting link or news item if I want to find it again later. It also makes it easy to share such items with colleagues and friends.

But it only works for interesting bits that are related to trial advocacy. And I'm finding that sometimes I'd like to be able to post about something else. So I'm creating this blog as a place to note interesting websites, news, reports, studies, or whatever.

I don't know what it will likely include -- librarianship, law, technology, feminism, literature, whatever appeals to me. Hence the name.

We'll see.