For those (like me) trying to procrastinate, I point you to a recent discovery-- the Unofficial Kozinski page with links to oodles and oodles of articles and opinions by Judge Alex Kozinski.

One brief note in response to Amanda's post below-- she writes:

Blue jeans are affordable for most Americans, but the $10 Walmart pants and hundreds of dollar designer ones are distinguishable.

Pejman links approvingly to this post by Dan Boudreaux arguing for the "increasing invisibility of income inequality." I disagree. [But I am a "left-liberal", as you'll discover if you take me for coffee... never got the appeal of hot foamed milk.] While a cheap radio and WFMT bring high-quality recordings of great classical music to everyone, today's cheap cars may be better than those from the 70s, and discount European airfare is better today than ever before, there's still far more to income inequality.

[I disagree that "The clothing worn by wealthy Americans is virtually indistinguishable from the clothing of ordinary Americans." Laura Bush has an (enviable) nice large array of suits. Multimillionare computer geniuses dress as suits them, and Steve Jobs could easily exchange his trademark black mock turtleneck and jeans for Bill Gates's fashion sense, if he chose to. Blue jeans are affordable for most Americans, but the $10 Walmart pants and hundreds of dollar designer ones are distinguishable. The line between the have's and havenot's: isn't that central to income inequality?]

Mr. Boudreaux continues:

The further back you go in history, the greater were the material differences that separated rich from poor. Many of these distinctions were evident to the untrained eye (for example, the rich rode in carriages; the poor walked).

Income inequality is not invisible. Status symbols surround us (as they probably always have). The lifestyles of the rich and famous are well-documented. Rising living standards don't change this. We'll just find new uses for our incomes, new things to envy.

Between co-blogger Greg Goelzhauser, Professor Yin and JCA there is talk of many things. Among them are the question of whether it is appropriate for a blogging professor to refer to a stack of papers waiting to be graded as "unfortunate", but also the question of whether and when professors and students who are currently in class together ought to blog about one another. This is the question I find much more interesting.

Greg writes:

It seems to me that the potential benefits from the perspective of a professor writing in any way about current students or a particular class are small, while the potential for harm is high. . . Looking at this from the perspective of a current student and (hopefully) future professor, I simply see no good way to talk about on-going classes and current students. I should add that I follow this general rule as a student as well. I do not talk about any on-going classes (other than, perhaps, to mention a case the class discussed) or professors (other than, perhaps, to mention interesting scholarship by the professor). I don't (nor will I as a professor) feel obliged to follow this rule, but I think it generally a good idea.

Professor Althouse weighs in:

I've blogged about proctoring exams (carefully!), but I'm not going to blog about grading exams (though I'm obviously blogging about not blogging about grading exams). Prof. Yin's experience served as a warning to me. Students are very sensitive about the grading process--with good reason. Law school grades have a huge effect on them. So it doesn't really work for a lawprof to make casual comments about how things are going with the grading or to engage in the usual complaints about workload.

I think Prof. Althouse hits on a key point in all of this--student sensitivity. Personally, I don't mind hearing the types of things Prof. Yin said about grading and I'm even glad some professors discuss on-going classes. Along with the other insights I'm able to gleam from those in the profession who have blogs, how they deal with their classes is often very helpful to me as a (hopefully) future professor (not in law, though that might be nice too). Seeing myself in the position of professor, though, I simply don't see a good way to discuss on-going classes even in an offhanded manner. As I made clear, I was hoping my original post in response to Prof. Yin would spark some conversation, so I'm glad to see Prof. Althouse weigh in with her opinion. It is the same opinion I could not get myself away from (I have been thinking about this subject for quite some time)--the one that prompted me to write the original post in response to a seemingly innocent one by Prof Yin: "it doesn't really work for a lawprof to make casual comments about how things are going with the grading or to engage in the usual complaints about workload."

From Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game:

The Taklamakan desert, which dominates the region, had always enjoyed an ill reputation among travellers, and overr the years a sad procession of men -- merchangs, soldiers, and Buddhist pilgrims -- had left their bones their after losing their way between the widely scattered oases. Sometimes entire caravans were known to vanish into it without trace. It is no surprise to learn that Taklamakan, in the local Uighur tongue, means 'Go in -- and you won't come out'. As a result, very few Europeans had ever been to this remote revion, for there was little to attract them to it. (Ch. 25, p. 321)

Google images of the desert

View from space (in western China, south of the Tian Shan Mountains)

This post by Ed Cohn at Gnostical Turpitude revives the discussion of Superman, Red Son. Ed knows a gajillion times more about Soviet history than I do, but for those readers who are interested, I thought I'd note that we've discussed the Red Son issue here before. Here is my post in response to three posts by the ladies at Diotima (1, 2, 3).

I find the discussion most fascinating not because it involves Soviet history, about which I am generally rationally ignorant, but because it is yet another good invocation of the question of whether and how works of fiction can be immoral. If one believes Communism to be evil, is a Communist protagonist more evil or less evil than, say, an incestuous, vain, veenish one?

Sua Sponte responds to my previous post reacting in part to this post by Professor Yin. Because Sua Sponte does not appear to have actually read my post, I write again. In the post, SS claims to come to the "defense of Professor Yin" and writes,

Greg Goelzhauser posts at Crescat Sententia on the hypothetical offense he would take, were he one of the seminar students whose papers Prof. Yin has yet to grade.

Greg appears to think poorly of a) Prof. Yin's desire to be done with grading season, or at least b) his decision to share this desire with his blog readership. Now, while it may be poor form to publish such scandalous thoughts on the Internet -- I wouldn't know, being an incorrigible offender in this case -- I can't imagine that Greg truly believes Prof. Yin is not interested in reading a good paper merely because he does not relish the effort of grading it.

First, my post was not of the reaction I "would" have had were I student in Prof. Yin's seminar class. It suggested a potential reaction to the post. More importantly, I do not subscribe to either view potentially attributed to me by SS. I certanly do not " think poorly of...Prof. Yin's desire to be done with grading season" nor do I "think poorly of...his decision to share this desire with his blog readership." (As I pointed out in the original post and again below, the post was about the potential for harmful misunderstanding when professors blog about on-going classes or current students.) SS then goes on to write about the hardships involved with attaching a grade to a student's work product. Well said, SS. But I'm afraid it's all irrelevant to my post.

SS closes by saying,

I certainly can't find cause to accuse [Prof. Yin] of trivializing the work of his seminar students just because he doesn't look forward to reducing all that work to points on a semi-arbitrary scale.

This is simply irresponsible. The clear implication is that I have "accuse[d]" Prof. Yin "of trivializing the work of his seminar students just because he doesn't look forward to reducing all that work to points on a semi-arbitrary scale." First, Prof. Yin--despite SS's comments to the contrary--did not make the reducing of work product to numerical grades the focus of his post. In fact, in an update, Prof. Yin clarifies that he was referring to "the general degree of antsiness that I always feel whenever there are outstanding tasks to be completed."

On to the important point. Any person taking the time to actually read my post should have noticed, first, that I acknowledge that anyone having the reaction I described would be reacting in a way that is almost certainly "unwarranted" and in a way that likely reflected a "misunderstanding" of Prof. Yin's real point (which he had yet to make clear). Moreover, I then describe the point of the post as getting at the potential misunderstandings that may arise when professors blog about on-going classes or current students. My point was that even when the professor is innocent, unwanted damage might be done.

As my post made clear multiple times, I was not criticizing Prof. Yin. Instead, I was using his post as a vehicle to get at some potential problems arising from a subset of blogging (professors on current students and on-going classes) that I am quite interested in. As I said, the hypothetical reaction was not mine and I even thought it quite silly--but no so silly that I thought it improbable, un-troublesome, or unworthy of discussion.

To add to the mess, this blogger took the mic in SS's comments section saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you. Greg's post made me grind my teeth incoherently. You've said exactly what I meant." Fortunately, Prof. Yin did not seem to find my post worthy of incoherent teeth grinding and I'm still hoping it leads to more serious discussion. For the time being, though, I suppose I'll have to settle at utter amazement over SS's irresponsible drivel.