Daily Archives: 6/2/2004

Letters from Iraq

You can read all the blog posts of Jeremy Botter made as a soldier on duty in Iraq as a PDF file. Interesting stuff, and testimony to how the ability to immediately self publish on the web allows us to experience and communicate with others in ways we our parents couldn’t imagine and our children can’t imagine being without.

On the lighter side, you could read these logs of the interrogation of Saddam Hussein.

I promise I’ll be back to something more frivolous and less baseball related tomorrow.

Learning about the Supreme Court

The inner workings of the Supreme Court have always held a certain fascination for me, and since my wife got me an iPod, I’ve found two audio resources to help me learn.

The first is oyez.org, an online archive which contains many mp3 files of oral arguments before the Supreme Court, all licensed with permissive Creative Commons licenses. During a recent trip, I listened to the oral arguments concerning the disposition of prisoners at Guantanamo and the case of Jose Padilla. They also have many recordings from older and historic cases. It’s often pretty hard to understand the proceedings unless you are well versed in the fine details of the legal arguments, but it is nifty stuff nonetheless.

The other is the Barnes and Noble Portable Professor Series entitled Shaping Justice – Landmark Cases of the Supreme Court. It is an eight CD audio book which covers the history of the U.S. Supreme Court and details 13 of the cases which have shaped the power and scope of the Supreme Court. It can be a bit sketchy at times (I’m still not sure I really understand what “substantive due process” actually refers to) but the choice of cases are intriguing, and several seem particularly timely, especially Korematsu v. United States, 1944 which details the decisions regarding forced internment of Japanese citizens in World War II.

Ouch! Chavez HBP, moved to DL

I was watching the Oakland A’s game against the Chicago White Sox in preparation for sneaking out of work for today’s day game ($2 tickets? How can you resist?) and was treated to “bonus baseball”: a twelve inning game in which the role of hero was played by Bobby Kielty, who hit his first career walk off home run to win in the bottom of the 12th.

Unfortunately, Chavez was drilled in the right hand by Sox reliever Damaso Marte, and was forced to leave the game. Later X-rays revealed a break in his right hand, which may require a steel pin to be inserted. Oakland Athletics News reports that he’s expected to spend at least three weeks on the disabled list.

Ouch! Best wishes Eric, get well soon!

Addendum: I’m wearing my (somewhat unlucky, if truth be known) A’s baseball jersey today for the game. Last season it was actually getting unreasonably tight, and now it is actually baggy. Losing weight rocks. 🙂

Addendum to the Addendum: The A’s tied it up in the bottom of the 9th courtesy of a pinch hit double by Scott Hatteberg, and went on to win in the 10th when Mark Kotsay hit a walk off home run. Beleaguered reliever Arthur Rhodes gave two innings with none scored, although managed to load the bases in the 9th for an anxious moment for the fans of the green and gold.