All legal posts: March 2008 Archives

In the new US News and World Report rankings Boston University School of law is apparently at #21, a mere one point away from being tied with #20. It's a reasonable position, significantly higher than it was back when I'd originally applied. Still, I can't help but wonder if there were more BUSL bloggers how far we could shoot up in the rankings...

To its credit though the school is making a much bigger effort to justly toot its own horn on its own website, including by touting the accomplishments of its alums. Including that of Zaheer Samee, a fellow 2006 grad, who recently won an important housing discrimination case in front of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.

I'm very happy to see someone from among my law school acquaintances go out and accomplish something significant, and all the more so when doing so has also served the public interest.

I'm starting to become a culture snob, I think. Or maybe just cultured altogether, as it's become a new tradition that whenever I'm in London I go to the theater. While such outings seem rare occurrences at home, in London it seems to happen more often than not.

On this latest trip I thought I might like to see the London performance of Spamalot. I already saw it in Boston once, but I really liked it and it's one of the few soundtracks I ever listen to regularly. But then, as I was standing on line to buy tickets at Leicester Square, I happened to turn over the flier on current London theater productions I picked up at Heathrow (a terrific idea to place them there, local tourist board). Felicity Kendall, whom I recognize from Good Neighbors and Rosemary & Thyme was on the cover, as she is appearing in The Vortex. And Penelope Keith, whom I also recognize from Good Neighbors, as well as To the Manor Born, was playing in the Importance of Being Earnest, a play I sadly seem to like less and less every time I encounter it, which is a pity, as I thought it hysterical the first time I read it.

But then I read on, and saw a listing for a comedy called Legal Fiction, starring Edward Fox. Well now! I've always liked Edward Fox, at least ever since I figured out who he was. He was one of those actors whom once I noticed I then went on a mini-filmfest to see what else he'd done. In fact, even though I own few movie DVDs, my collection happens to includes Day of the Jackal and Force 10 from Navarrone, two films he starred in. I even saw him in a film production of The Importance of Being Earnest and All the Queen's Men, with Eddie Izzard and Matt LeBlanc, which turned out to be one of the best films I've paid money to see in recent years. (If, like the San Jose Mercury News, you expect a camp farce, you will be disappointed. If, however, you just sit back and let it be a sweet, slightly comedic drama, you won't be.)

So it seems clear, on review, that apparently I do like Edward Fox quite a bit (despite never having seen him in Edward and Mrs. Simpson, a role for which he is perhaps most remembered, and hardly having watched any of his movies within the past several years), and so when I saw him listed as being in a production of something whose title included the word, "legal" and whose description included the word, "comedy," well, I thought to myself, what could go wrong?

I've been a pretty poor blogger this month, first being preoccupied with dealing with my earlier writing project and then with planning last week's trip to London. The reasons for my trip I'll divulge as soon as I have a moment to catch my breath, but long-time readers may be impressed (or is it shocked?) to discover it had absolutely nothing to do with Huey Lewis... (Or even Stephen Fry, for that matter.)

As per my usual cheapskate custom, I stayed in a hostel, the only nominally affordable lodging solution in London. The enormous downside to this arrangement is that for the second consecutive time, I found myself sharing a room containing someone who snores. All hopes of overcoming jetlag were dashed on the first night, as I didn't just find myself lodged with someone who snores but someone who seemed to snore through every. single. sleep stage.

On the upside, in shared rooms you do get occasion to meet people. Including, on this occasion, a non-snoring French paralegal who's studying to become an attorney.

UPDATE: No I apparently can't. Stupid pesky 12th Amendment and its fine print...

UPDATE 3/21: Or can I? See Update 4 below.

Much fuss is being made over whether the unique circumstances of John McCain's birth -- in the Panama Canal Zone to two American citizen parents -- preclude him from fulfilling the "natural born" requirement of the US Constitution's articulated qualifications for the office of the President:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States. -- Article II, Section 1.

In elementary school I had always been taught that "natural born" meant that you had to be born on American soil -- the idea being that someone born elsewhere might have split loyalties, with some being devoted to the place of birth instead of the US. That reasoning may still be the logic behind the requirement, but knowledgeable legal scholars are saying that "natural born" really only differentiates between naturalized citizens and those who were citizens by virtue of their birth -- which the citizenship of their parents could establish regardless of where they were born.

In looking over Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, however, much more interesting realizations come to mind.