Academic

Chemo Again--Stuntz

Posted on August 28, 2008
Last week, my latest and I hope last round of chemo began; unless things change, the plan is to keep going til mid-December and then quit for good.  I feel lousy:  low-grade nausea is a constant companion, and sometimes it...

The Obama-Biden Ticket and Business Reform--Skeel

Posted on August 23, 2008
Most of the commentary on Obama's decision to tap Senator Joseph Biden as his V.P. pick has focused on the foreign policy expertise that Biden brings to the ticket. But I think the implications for some of Obama's business...

Olympic Medal Count--Stuntz

Posted on August 23, 2008
I'm not the biggest Olympic junkie around, but I've enjoyed watching, and following the Chinese and American medal counts. So far, everyone I've read uses one of two measures: who has the most gold, and who has the most total...

Eastern Christians and Environmentalism--Skeel

Posted on August 22, 2008
Some of our earlier discussion on this blog about evangelicals and the environment prompted a email from my colleague Stephanos Bibas that may be of interest to those who are following this issue. The email argues that there is a...

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A Few More Thoughts on Mere Christianity--Skeel

Posted on August 21, 2008
Thanks to everyone who has chimed in on the question of whether there's a true successor to Mere Christianity. The discussion has prompted many thoughts, but I'll mention three for now: 1) Several people (both in the comments and...

Abortion, Fighting Evil, and the Saddleback "Debate"--Stuntz

Posted on August 18, 2008
Two comments about the excellent speaking event (I don?t know what to call it) at Rick Warren?s church: First, as many bloggers have pointed out, Obama was wrong to say that the abortion rate hasn?t fallen on George W. Bush?s...

The Great (Debt) Seduction--Skeel

Posted on June 11, 2008
David Brooks argued in his column yesterday that traditional norms of thrift and frugality have been displaced in America by norms that ?encourage debt and living for the moment.? Among the causes of this shift, he blames state governments?...

Gifts and Bribes--Skeel

Posted on June 06, 2008
If you ever read the verses on bribes and gifts in the book of Proverbs, as I did for a Sunday school lesson last week, you will quickly run into apparent contradictions. ?Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles...

Living and Surviving--Stuntz

Posted on June 05, 2008
Last week, I got some very good news?but it didn?t feel good at all. This week?s news was medically neutral, as these things are usually judged. But it felt incredibly sweet. That sounds strange, so let me try to explain....

Obama--Stuntz

Posted on June 04, 2008
I?m a registered Republican and will probably vote for McCain in November. Even so, yesterday seems to me one of the great days in American history. And it?s a great day in part because it all seems so ordinary: two...

Prophets and Non-Prophets--Skeel

Posted on May 31, 2008
An article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday described a celebration of the work of the late rabbi and scholar Abraham Joshua Heschel, who wrote a famous book (?The Prophets?) about Biblical prophesy and was intensely involved in the...

Memorial Day--Skeel

Posted on May 26, 2008
The Memorial Day tributes in the papers today reminded me of one of the few pleasant airline experiences I?ve had in recent months. Of the hundred or so passengers on a flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta, roughly a dozen...

The Iowa Immigration Raid--Skeel

Posted on May 26, 2008
The big immigration story over the weekend was the arrest and sentencing of 297 illegal immigrants for using false documents to work at an Iowa meeting packing plant, as reported in this New York Times story. The raid is...

The (Invisible) Immigration Issue--Skeel

Posted on May 19, 2008
?So, whatever happened to immigration as a presidential campaign issue?,? Wall Street Journal editor Jason Riley asked in an interesting op-ed last week. He speculates that the candidates have been avoiding it because Americans are ?basically pro-immigrant but conflicted...

An Evangelical Manifesto--Skeel

Posted on May 14, 2008
The response to ?An Evangelical Manifesto?-- which was released a week ago, with the endorsement of many prominent evangelicals, and is designed to ?address the confusions and corruptions that attend the term Evangelical in the United States? and to....

Nicolas Poussin, the Art-- Skeel

Posted on May 14, 2008
Two final stray thoughts on the Nicolas Poussin exhibit at the Met (now over, alas), without the attempt to link the art to current events: 1) According to the wall text, ?Poussin studied nature less to imitate its surface...

Living Weak--Stuntz

Posted on May 10, 2008
?Live strong? is a common slogan among cancer patients. I think I understand the slogan?s appeal, and I admire the spirit that lies behind it. But it doesn?t fit my experience, and I suspect I?m not alone. Reduced life expectancy...

Nicolas Poussin and the New Morning in American Politics--Skeel

Posted on May 10, 2008
Making my way through the splendid ?Poussin and Nature? exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York yesterday, I kept thinking about a comment Jed Perl, the New Republic?s art critic, had made in his review of...

Oil Politics--Skeel

Posted on May 06, 2008
I?m not an economist and don?t even play one on TV, so I didn?t get quite as worked up as my economist friends on Sunday when Hillary Clinton said, in defense of the gas tax holiday first dreamed up...

More on Evangelicals and Climate Change--Skeel

Posted on May 03, 2008
Three follow-up comments about evangelicals and climate change, inspired in large part by the comments to the earlier post: 1) Perhaps the biggest point of disagreement among evangelicals, which shows up in spades in the comments, can be traced...

More on the Prison Population--Stuntz

Posted on May 01, 2008
Thanks for the kind post, David. Many of the comments to my last post took issue with the claim that America?s enormous prison is a serious social problem, and that ?pretty much everyone familiar with the justice system? agrees with...

Stuntz Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences-- Skeel

Posted on April 29, 2008
I learned through the grapevine yesterday that Bill is one of a small handful of law fellows (the others are Justice Stevens and six law professors) who have just been elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. This...

Who is Responsible for America's Swollen Prison Population?--Stuntz

Posted on April 26, 2008
Pretty much everyone?Republican or Democrat, right or left?familiar with America?s criminal justice system agrees that our prison population is far too large. The data are familiar: Adjusted for population, imprisonment has quintupled in the last thirty-five years...

Where's a Real Villain When You Need One--Skeel

Posted on April 25, 2008
Almost a year into the subprime crisis, we still haven?t seen any major reforms. The Enron and WorldCom scandals six years ago, by contrast, prompted sweeping reforms in Congress and on Wall Street. Why the difference? I increasingly think...

Evangelicals and Climate Change--Skeel

Posted on April 20, 2008
One of the more interesting things I learned (thanks to Vanderbilt Earth & Environmental Sciences professor Jonathan Gilligan) at a very interesting conference on consumption and climate change at Vanderbilt Law School this weekend was a tidbit from Mike...

Precedent and Judicial Method--Stuntz

Posted on April 18, 2008
The Supreme Court?s recent lethal injection decision, Baze v. Rees, reminds me of a puzzle. Supreme Court Justices, and appellate judges generally I think, often feel bound by previous case holdings and by the core reasoning that supports those holdings...

Chemo Brain--Stuntz

Posted on April 18, 2008
Thanks to some of my cancer survivor friends, I recently discovered that Wikipedia has an entry for ?Chemo brain.? (The link is here.) They call it ?Post-chemotherapy cognitive impairment,? but I think the simpler label works better.) So far as...

Obama's Multiple Audience Problem--Skeel

Posted on April 14, 2008
 There?s a clear pattern to Obama?s three biggest recent slip-ups? the controversy over his former pastor?s anti-American remarks, his economic advisor?s alleged assurance to Canadian officials that he doesn?t really mean the critical things he says about Nafta, and now...

Good and Bad Pro-Life Arguments--Skeel

Posted on April 10, 2008
While Bill?s most recent post focuses on the effects of the pro-choice movement?s overplaying of its hand in the Roe v. Wade era, the attempt to ban abortion altogether in South Dakota several years ago was a sobering experience...

Prohibition and Abortion--Stuntz

Posted on April 08, 2008
For an article I was writing a decade ago, I read a lot about Prohibition: both the then-current literature on the subject?the best book, as of then, was David Kyvig?s ?Repealing National Prohibition? ?and the impressions of people on the...

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