The Daily Squishy--Halloween Edition

Lil' Bunny.

We're Moving!

Living on campus has been pretty good to us--we have a cozy little townhouse in a beautiful locale. But we have been discussing our move downtown for months now. And as I get closer to graduation, it makes sense to live close to my new firm (especially with the hours I'll be working.)

Monster has generously agreed to take over the heavy lifting part of our move: finding a place, negotiating the contract, hiring movers, etc. I am so excited! As rough as it may be to pack and plan for a move right now, it's really our best option and a great leap forward for us.

The Daily Squishy

At thirteen months.

The Daily Squishy

Slightly out of chronological order because, at this point, I have to use whatever pics I can get my hands on. :) This is the Squishy with her daddy at nine months.*

*[edited correction.]

This is the Kind of Litigator I Aspire to Be

In the 2008 election cycle, Rep. Alan Grayson took the seat in an pretty conservative district of Florida, Orlando. He has an impressive backstory: born in a tenement in the Bronx, he grew up to attend Harvard Law (and, in his four years there, got his law degree with honors, alongside a Master's from Kennedy's School of Govermnent and a Ph.D.) The man is a brain factory, basically.

He has made a lot of money for himself and his family through his legal work (he started his own firm) but a few years ago began to make a name for himself as a whistleblower against Halliburton's profiteering in Iraq. Once he joined Congress, he has been unstoppable force for the good of the common man. He was the Representative a few weeks ago who said on the House floor that the Republican health care plan was to stay healthy, but if you get sick, to die quickly.

But while I love his quick wit, when I watch him, I specifically hone in on his style: he is direct, forthcoming, he knows his stuff and he does his research. (Did I mention he also clerked for Supreme Court Justices Rehnquest and Scalia and defunct-nominee-to-the-Supreme-Court Robert Bork?) He has conviction and honesty and he will not be intimidated. I could really learn a lot from him in my own future legal practice. As a future lawyer, I must discipline myself to always be thoroughly prepared for my clients, to fight for their rights vigerously and not be intimidated.

Below is a short clip of Rep. Grayson asking Rep. Brown (R-Georgia) about Bills of Attainder (a Constitutionally prohibited piece of legislation that punishes people without trial) in relation to defunding ACORN.

Jewerly I Like

These are from Shy Siren (http://www.shysiren.com/). So cute. They are flirty and romantic. Even though I tend not to wear jewerly (except for my engagement ring), I think I would made an exception for these little beauties.

When You're Feeling a Little Down in the Dumps...

Taking a break after three straight days of working on a paper of mine that going sideways. Things are going pretty well: I am keeping up with my homework (my papers are another story), going to all my meetings and spending time with my husband. I have also managed to keep our little dorm apartment clean and tidy, cook, and enjoy multiple workouts a week.

I wish I was spending more time outdoors but I am realizing that I won't get a lot of chances to be outside when I'm practicing law. It's just one of those trade offs. But the weather is so beautiful, the leaves are changing, and I crave comfort foods and snuggling.

I guess my life is pretty good. Don't give up!

The "Peasantization" of America

One of the professors at my law school, Joel Bakan, wrote a documentary called "The Corporation.
It is about, you guessed it--corporations! And their impact on the resources of the earth.

In the 1800's in America, right after the 14th Amendment freed African Americans from slavery, corporate lawyers used the 14th Amendment to successfully argue that the status of personhood should be awarded to corporations. In fact, out of the few hundred instances where the 14th Amendment has been invoked in court, it has been argued in conjunction with an Afrian American complainant a handful of times, the rest of the time, the complainant (or applicant) has been a corporation looking to profit.

Practically speaking, this means that corporations are awarded all the rights of personhood but only one legal obligation: to make as much money as they can for their shareholders. Bakan's film goes through the ramifications of corporate personhood and compares a corporation to a psychotic--a corporations "personality traits" match up exactly to that of a psycho. psycho>, including extreme selfishness, an emphasis on short term rewards over long term benefits and a disregard to the welfare of others.

The thing about corporations is that they become so large & monolithic that they are unstoppable. Because of the current laws in the U.S., corporations are allowed to spend millions of dollars to send lobbyist to Washington, D.C. and influence the public policies of that nation. With disaterous results for average Americans. And nothing is done in the U.S. without their approval, as seen by the recent appointment of Goldman Sachs management leeching into the highest public office.

I took a corporations law class last year, coincidentially at the same time as the financial meltdown in the U.S. In Canada, we have corporate regulation. But what amazed me was how little regulation we have and how easy it is for corporations to opt out if it. It basically amounts to a few default positions and the ability of courts to step in should a shareholder with standing be able to convince them the situation is grossly unfair. That's it. So little, and yet, enough to keep Canada from having a similar meltdown to the States.

What struck me when I took this class was how greedy corporations are and how they get away with their nutty, nutty greed. They lobbied congress in the States to take away even these few small restrictions against short term profits. The requirements in Canada on corporations are not onerous, and yet America removed even those few safeguards. And then, when the unsustainable growth of corporate profits showed themselves to be unsustainable, instead of fixing the issues that brought American finance down to its knees, nothing was done. Nothing except forcing every taxpayer in America to become unwilling shareholders to these giant corporations through the bailouts.

I have been reading some pretty accurate commentary as of late on the problem of corporate greed, such as this article discussing last year's corporate takeover. and this amazing article by Matt Taibbi.. In his article, Taibbi explains the phenomenon we see so often in the US now, where its all left v right and blue state v red state. There is so much anger and hatred directed at Americans from other Americans. They blame each other as the cause of their problems but refuse to get angry at the corporations that are the real cause of the decline of wages, the polluting of the atmosphere, the denying of basic health care coverage and the growth of the national debt. It is why tea parties gathered to protest health care but not the bailouts, why ACORN gets more media coverage than Goldman Sacks.

Finally, we have this movie. I haven't seen it yet but was struck by something Matt Taibbi said about the film:

"The reaction to Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, reinforces a suspicion I started having a few years back: that most of us Americans are much better at being movie and TV critics than we are at being political organizers. When we come out of a film like this, we find ourselves focusing on the flaws in Moore’s moviemaking and not on the film’s content, which just happens to be the reality of our own day-to-day political existences.

We’re not thinking about how to fix our lives, in other words, but how to fix the movie about our lives."

I don't know if watching Moore's movie will make Americans (or the world) more wary of the extreme negative effect corporations have on something so basic as our very continued existence on this earth. It could be that corporations have just grown to large and powerful to be stopped. But become aware of their influence on our lives is a good start to crawling back our dependence on them.
Anyway, it's a start.

Crisp Autumn Days on Campus

It's a gorgeous day on campus!







I got up early, before dawn, to make my 7am Boot Camp class, then walked through the falling leaves to the law library for a whole day of paper research. I love days like today--when the leaves have changed color, the sky is bright, the weather is crisp but breezy and everyone is so..optimistic.

This is get out your knee-high boots weather, soft cable knit sweater weather, hot chocolate on a park bench weather. When my mind starts to wander a bit, I take a break and walk around campus: the snow-capped mountains, the ocean, the red and russet leaves. Our campus is so, so beautiful and I am so happy to spend the day reflecting on my paper, feeling the breeze through the windows.

This is my last autumn as a student and it feels.just.perfect.

I'm Making THIS for Dinner!

Thanks, Pioneer Woman!





Back in late 2006, I had quit my job to study for the LSAT. Theoretically, since I had the time, I should have also been cooking Monster dinner every night. But I had no inspiration to cook and so our usual pattern of eating out or grabbing take out continued. We both cooked a little but had a very small menu selection (mostly chicken and fish), so it got boring really fast. Actually, full disclosure, I learned how to cook from scratch as a teenager in Puerto Rico but never really felt like cooking--so I didn't. Brat!

Anyway, around this same time, fall 2006, I started to watch this show called Top Chef . Their cooking contests made preparing food seem new and fun. I remember watching an episode and then rooting around my cupboard for the first time to add sauted minced onions and garlic to my prepackaged mushroom soup. Baby steps.

A year later, I started law school and didn't cook at all-not one meal--for an entire semester. This was due to the fact that I was hardly home & also Monster was back in the States. However, the summer after first year, Monster's aunt told me about an internet browser download called "Stumble Upon" where you can plug in your areas of interest & push a button to be transported around various unknown parts of the internet universe.

Through Stumble Upon, I discovered this amazing menu website. It was built by a homemaker rancher's wife in Oklahoma who takes the most beautiful photographs of each stage of the cooking process. Slowly, I began following the recipes and I noticed that creating these dishes at the end of a long, stressful day actually decreased my stress levels. Especially risotto--making risotto melts away my stress, all that stirring and broth absorbing, not to mention the glorious, glorious rice toasting. Last night, I made a carrot risotto with butter poached cod and it was just delightful! Seblime! I was so proud of myself and so happy I had found such a productive hobby.

Here in Vancouver, there are so many specialty markets and farmer's markets that the very act of grocery shopping inspires me to experiment with food. I never thought I would pick up cooking in my mid-thirties. After all, if you don't cook throughout your twenties and early thirties, what hope is there?

Quite alot, as it turns out.

Some of the recipes I will try this year: biscuits & gravy, : baba ghanoush,: bacon wrapped jalepenos, and enchiladas.

On Sexual Relationships with Your Boss

Last night, David Letterman discussed an attempted extortion plot based on sexual relationships he has had with his employees. Now, I don't know what happened in Letterman's particular situation and I don't really have a comment on his sex-life, per se. But I have been in work situations in the past where the Big Boss (the top dude) has made sexual comments in my direction. In one situation, I endured the inappropriate comments for years while I worked my way through my undergrad. When I graduated, I quit. In another case, in my first week at work,the Big Boss pulled me into a room with him and shut the door. He only wanted to explain to me that I should like him, that he was a good guy, and not to listen to my co-workers who thought he was an asshole. I felt uncomfortable about this exchange and told H.R. But he was the Boss--what could they do? His name was on the building. I worked there another six months and then quit to start law school.

It is my opinion that in a relationship where the power disparity is so big--like in the case of me and my bosses & Letterman and his staff--that it is impossible to have a truly equal relationship with the person who could fire or promote you. No matter how many romantic feelings there are between the two, the extreme unequal power dynamic is always there. And, with the boss holding the real power, the other person may feel compelled to do things they are not comfortable doing, whether it be keeping the relationship quiet, exposing it, whatever. The decisions are made by the boss, both in and out of work.

Also, I think boss/employee relationships are uncomfortable for the non-intimate employees. Should they become aware of the relationship, it changes the dynamic of the team as a whole in a negative way.

The only boss/employee relationship I ever saw work out was the one where the employee quit her job as soon as the romantic interest developed. She became the girlfriend, and had an equal voice in a relationship that lasted for years. So, it can work, but there must be a way to equalize the power, otherwise it can never be truly consentual.