From a letter sent to me 8/12/98:

Tis truth (with deference to the college)
Newspapers are the spring of knowledge,
The general source throughout the nation,
Of every modern conversation
What would the mighty people do,
If there, alas! were nothing new?

- John Holt's New York Journal, 4/19/1770

Now that the American Constitution Society is around to, um, compete co-exist with the Federalist Society, we should expect a no-holds-barred competition for the hearts, minds, and souls of law students and lawyers.

The ACS appears to have struck the first blow: they now offer a copy of the Constitution for you to download onto your iPod.

I'm not exactly sure why you'd want the Constitution on your iPod (although the thought of reading Article IV while groovin' to some music is appealing ), but the ACS wants you to have just that.

As I said when I posted this at my own blog, "I love ya, ACS, but this is a sure sign of the Apocalypse."

Given this blog's reputation in certain circles I'd like to express my amusement (but not displeasure) that the first two guest-posts here are about sex in one fashion or another.

But there are other Crescat obsessions too, like food. I've been trying to think of intelligent things to say about these two articles (both via Friend of Crescat Maggie Samuels-Kalow) and haven't been able to think of anything, but I still want to link to them. So:
William Grimes, outgoing Times food editor, defends the morality of spending $100/person on dinner:

[I wanted to feel guilt. Honestly, I did. But among the many emotions I experienced as a reviewer -- happiness, annoyance, amusement, boredom, bliss, rage -- guilt never figured.]

A recent news story raised the specter of some bizarre potential medical malpractice litigation. In April, the Cybercast News System reported that:

An Australian court has given the go-ahead for a 13-year-old girl who wants to be a boy to begin a "sex change" process, prompting strong criticism and calls for government intervention.

A psychiatrist who works in the field expressed concern that gullible youngsters were being misinformed about exactly what could be achieved by medical intervention, while ethicists argued that the child's condition was mental, not biological.

The girl, known only as "Alex," will be allowed to begin taking hormones—initially estrogen and progestogen to suppress menstruation and the feminization of her young body and, at the age of around 16, testosterone to begin the masculinization process.

The testosterone will "have certain irreversible effects such as the deepening of Alex's voice, the promotion of facial and body hair, muscular development and enlargement of the clitoris," according to the summary ruling of Family Court judge Alastair Nicholson.

Once she turns 18 she will be able to have surgery to make changes to her sexual and reproductive organs.

Patrick Goodenough, Critics Slam Decision to Approve 'Sex Change' Treatment for 13-Year-Old, CNSNews, Apr. 15, 2004.

Walter Olson identifies a more recent story indicating that such lawsuits have already arrived. According to the Times Online:

A Transsexual who spent £60,000 on surgery to become a woman is suing her doctor after claiming that he misdiagnosed her with gender dysphoria.

Samantha Kane, 44, had the operation to change her gender seven years ago but now claims that the sex change was a terrible mistake.

* * *

She is suing Dr. Russell Reid, a consultant psychiatrist, for £186,442 personal injury compensation. She alleges that he negligently allowed healthy male organs to be removed and failed to properly advise her once he found out her medical history.

* * *

Ms. Kane alleges that Dr. Reid should never have referred her for gender realignment surgery. Ms. Kane is representing herself.

Helen Nugent, Sex-Change Woman Sues Over 'Terrible Mistake', Times Online, May 27, 2004.

Without having conducted any research, it may be that Kane's self-representation says something about the prospects of "her" suit. At first blush, Kane's case strikes me as being akin to certain circumcision lawsuits that complain solely of a properly conducted operation. Although it is not impossible that such a suit might succeed under the right circumstances, suits involving purely elective (and very odd) surgeries that are founded solely on improper or insufficient advice may not play well with judges or juries. However, a far stronger case could be made in cases involving young teens like the one involved in the CNSNews article. One wonders if the potential for litigation alone will deter doctors from offering their services to minors (or others).

I guess I'll go ahead and be "that guy" who shows up early to Will's graduation blogging party. On that note, before I continue with this post, congrats to all of Crescat's graduates. I suggest postponing the real world for a few years. Law school works nicely to that end.

Anyway, a few months back, the American public was treated to the release of a movie called The Girl Next Door. IMDB gives us a one-line explanation:

A teenager's dreams come true when a former porn star moves in next door and they fall in love.[FN *]

An unlikely premise, right?

Wrong:

WESTON, Conn. -- Max Miesel didn't get very far with his prom date -- who's a porn star.

Max won a date with adult film actress Tyler Faith on Howard Stern's show Friday. Max is a student at Connecticut's Weston High School. The Advocate of Stamford, Conn., reported school officials and Max's parents stepped in before Saturday's prom.

Max said his dream was to take a porn star to the dance. But it was a dream unfulfilled.

Weston High Principal Mary Kolek says a date with a porn star violates the school's prom guidelines. Kolek said Max would be allowed to attend -- with a more appropriate date.

What does it say about our society when we go around crushing boys' dreams? How can America be a beacon of hope and promise to the newly-liberated Iraqis when stuff like this is going on?

I hope that Max can put this sad incident in the past, and move on to achieving his other dreams, like taking a porn star to his next Kiwanis meeting and taking a porn star to meet the parents of the girl he plans to marry.

[FN *] While that one-line description of the movie seems accurate, an IMDB user's description of the film made me laugh:

A straight-arrow high-school senior falls in love with the perfect 'girl-next-door', only to discover she is a former porn star. He comes to realize that if he wants this very special woman, he better be willing to risk it all and experience a journey for which he never could have prepared.

The last final is in.

This week I'm having a blogosphere-graduation party on Crescat, and though I'm now bidding a bittersweet farewell to my home (both physical and intellectual) of the past four years, I'm lucky enough to have a few friends coming back to help me say goodbye.

This week Crescat is bringing back some of our previous guests-- Chris Jones (our very first guest-blogger), Sara Butler (so delightfully contentious), Amber Taylor (charming and anagrammable), Waddling Thunder (maestro of food writing and other things), Toby Stern (pushing the boundaries of irreverence), Anthony Rickey (pushing them back), JCA (the evil subletter) and Jim Leitzel (a voice of moderation and adulthood). Whoever said the internet was the enemy of community?

Anyway, our guests-- some anonymous, some semi-anonymous, some quite onymous-- of course are busy people with other lives to lead as well, so some will post a lot, and some will post a little or not at all, but I'm honored to have them here. And as always, I'll let them do the rest of the talking for themselves.

Amber Taylor reveals that she doesn't like watching movies that "seem calculated to make you feel worse for days after leaving the theater". She seems to think this is just a bit of hedonist irresponsibility, on a par with not eating one's vegetables. [Sidenote: Vegetables are yummy! Olive oil, salt, pepper, a cookie sheet, a sharp knife and your oven turned to 450 degrees will make any vegetable yummy.]

But she's actually opened up one of the more vexing questions of fiction, which Aristotle dealt with, but never to my satisfaction. Some movies and books people sad, but nonetheless, people sometimes return to and reread them, or purposefully seek out other movies that make them sad. If this is "real" sadness, something seems off here. Normally we try to avoid things that make us sad.

Some killjoy philosophers try to claim that the emotions we feel for movies and fictions aren't real, are instead moves in some game or confused reactions to a pseudo-suspended disbelief. But they can't explain how sometimes these unpleasant emotional reactions get strong enough that we do stop seeking out those kinds of movies, like Amber.

I have my own inchoate thoughts on this, most of which I've tried to write down on my last exam, due shortly. But for now I just wanted to raise the issue.

The complaint from LGF and Maroonblog seems to be that in ceasing to campaign for a week out of respect for Reagan's death, Kerry is being self-serving.

Well, maybe so. But the fact that a touching gesture is advantageous doesn't necessarily mean it isn't touching. It strikes me that Kerry wanted to find a move that could both honor Reagan, and that would be the most tactically effective way for him to do that. Maybe this isn't true, and Kerry didn't feel moved at all, and just wanted some of his constituents to think so, but no evidence has been produced to distinguish between those two possibilities.

I feel about this the way I did about George W Bush's Thanksgiving in Iraq. Touching stunts are still touching.

Sometime during the day Sunday, we received our 250,000th hit. Thanks to all of our readers, and thanks to all of you who wrote in with thoughts or comments or complaints. Please keep writing. And thanks even to those of you who wrote in mostly to complain that our blog or bloggers were rotten and terrible and didn't deserve what attention we got.

Friend of Crescat Dimitriy Masterov asked me a few hours ago what will happen to Crescat once the last Chicago Crescatters bid farewell to Hyde Park. Amanda is gone from Chicago already and shortly will be in Kazakhstan (blogging here), Sudeep will probably head back to his own blog unless I can induce him to remain, Matt will keep up with his secret and unbloggable projects, and as for me-- business as usual.

Thanks again for reading.