Too much?

Yesterday, my son threatened to throw me out the window. I told him that the word is "defenestrate." Can't wait for the note from his teacher next year.

It reminds me of the time I went to Frost's parent-teacher conference, and her teacher told me that during reading time, they had been discussing what the author was "inferring" in a suggestive bit of text. I bit my tongue, but told Frost about the difference between "inferring" and "implying" on the way out of the school.

Off to my immigration exam. Frankly, the folks crossing the Arizona border have a better chance of passing. Of course, they also have a little more at stake.

Speaking of Irony

I have approximately 27 hours until my immigration final, for which I am woefully unprepared, when I run across this article discussing a movement to mentor children to become more studiously productive. I think I may check out some of these books, after finals.

Back to studious productivity.

Pet Peeve

Today in a class, a classmate quoted "good fences make good neighbors" from Frost's "Mending Wall" for its truth value.

I didn't think it was appropriate in a law class to call a classmate out for having no sense of poetic irony.

Criminal Law question

Is intentional homicide legally justified in cases where the deceased was a putative partner on a seminar paper who completely failed to do a damn thing the whole semester? Would it improve my chances of beating the rap if I was coming off a week without meaningful sleep due to said individual?

Let me know.

Nerd-Pain

Nerd-Pain: (n)1. The sensation of agony you feel when, fairly late on a Saturday night, you come up with the idea of having the Secretary of Labor issue a policy statement noting a particular safety hazard in order to place employers on notice that they have a general duty to alleviate said hazard under section 5 of the OSH Act, only to realize that there is no one in your life that you can tell because of the complete opacity of the idea to everyone you know. 2. Realizing that a scholar has considered your idea and rejected it. 3. The sensation of agony upon receiving a grade for work that incorporated said idea anyway.

Bush's Veteran's Day Speech

Althouse points us to this article about Bush's speech "forcefully defending" his Iraq policy, saying that he should do more of that.

I couldn't agree more. He should defend his policy, if he can. But Althouse, who reminds me of Hitchens without the vitriol when it comes to foreign policy, seems to cite approvingly to Bush's argument about Democrats now questioning prewar intelligence. After all, the argument goes, they voted to support the war.

Isn't it the point that if the prewar intelligence was manipulated, then the Democrats' votes in support were made without the benefit of good information? I don't buy the notion that the administration can shield itself from all criticism about the "history of how that war began" by pointing to the troops in the field and saying that such questions are "deeply irresponsible" or indicative of rewriting of that history.

If the written history is false, either by accident or because someone lied to us, shouldn't we want to re-write it so that it is true, irrespective of how various political factions will incorporate that history into the dialogue? And are we seriously going to be gulled into believing that an Iraqi militant, who acts based on whatever motivation, is going to be somehow heartened by the political speech of the minority party? Isn't it more plausible that he is motivated by things like not dying and the actions of the U.S. forces in Iraq?

More questions than answers, I know. It's not irrational, considering the evidence already in the public arena, to believe that the administration deceived the American public with images of mushroom clouds in American cities or Saddam plotting 9/11 with Osama. It's not revisionist to want to find out if someone in government lied to make those things look more likely. In short, it's not wrong for us to have an accountability moment.

Lie about a war, and it's unpatriotic to question the lie. Lie about fellatio, well, that's an impeachable offense!

One-Fourth

As of last night, the final draft of my law review article is submitted for publication. That leaves a massive and thorny memorandum for my internship, a complaint and settlement letter for my part-time job, and an enormous seminar paper on new governance in OSHA.

Oh, and they're all due in the next 8 days. Shoot me now.

UPDATE: No, seriously. Shoot me now.

November Guest

The Writer's Almanac has Robert Frost's "My November Guest" as its poem today. It's one of my all time favorites, so enjoy.

My November Guest

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
For they are better for her praise.

_____________________________________________

This poem appeals to me today because it invites me to inhabit its imagery: "the sodden pasture lane" and "silver now with clinging mist," and "The desolate, deserted trees, / The faded earth, the heavy sky."

With Robert Frost, the form is there, and the metaphor is there, but the greatest pleasure for me is often the way he evokes natural images, particularly images of the changing of seasons, and the way those natural images stand as a surrogate for the narrator's inner feelings.