Scrivener's Error

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Scrivener's Error	Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting.

22 January 2009

link to: 09:52 [GMT-6]

Sausage Visuals

More sausage links today... this time with pictures. Those of you who are squeamish about what the internet makes have been warned!

The second half of Professor Baker's essay on what ails journalism (or is that Ailes? but that's an argument for another time) has appeared at Balkinization. I think he is profoundly wrong in his prescription — a government subsidy for the press. It reminds me of my own experiences in the military, which were echoed in Colin Powell's autobiography.

Powell had a problem with in-service rates for helicopters in Germany, and eventually traced it down to differing standards: The maintenance technical orders required a 70% in-service rate, but the Pentagon's force readiness system required a 75% in-service rate. Powell's solution — which is the wrong one, but that's another issue entirely — was to tell the maintenance people to ignore their technical orders, which were based on years of experience with the hardware and a realistic technical appraisal of the possible (not to mention indirect effects such as metal fatigue from overfrequent removing and replacing of panels), and meet the Pentagon standard. Not incidentally, that also meant that nobody had to buy more helicopters and pay more maintenance personnel to ensure that the right number of helicopters was available to meet mission requirements. That, however, is exactly what is at issue here: Should the post hoc financial statistics for journalism, or publishing in general, or for the entertainment industry, be measured against comparable enterprises... or against the universe of all investment possibilities?

Thus far, the market has chosen Powell's "solution": Just measure against the universe for the present, and to hell with the unintended/unanticipated long-term consequences (such as insufficient replacement airframes to replace battle damage... which can't exactly be blamed on lazy mechanics). Professor Baker's "solution" is, essentially, to fudge the numbers by subsidizing the readiness rate with a 5% bonus. I question the basis for the numbers in the first place.
Also at Balkinization, Professor Balkin himself (tongue firmly planted through about six cheeks) facetiously claims that Obama still isn't President, even though (as the photograph on the right documents) he retook the oath... correctly... on Wednesday. "Correctly" in another sense: There's no visible religious tome getting in the way of an oath concerning the State.
Meanwhile, in a victory for substance over dynasty, Caroline Kennedy withdrew her name to replace Hilary Clinton in the Senate, citing the always-illuminating "personal reasons." N.B. I have little argument with Caroline Kennedy's policy proposals and/or politics, primarily because they simply aren't visible; her books on public issues that I've read are rather carefully bland and nonprovocative. My distress is not that she is a member of a "political family," but that her membership in that family seems to be her only publicly stated qualification for office.
Oh, yeah. The Oscar nominations were announced this morning, including several leading candidates that shouldn't even be eligible. Thanks to the stupidity of the rules and the industry, a majority of the best picture nominees, and a substantial proportion of other nominees, weren't available to most of the nation during the eligibility period. Instead, they were in limited release in NY and LA only, which satisfies the eligibility rules.

When I did a lot of book reviews, I had a strict policy that no review would be published until the work was actually available in stores here on the Silicon Prairie, in the middle of flyover country... and that any review I did based on an ARC would be confirmed by skimming an as-published copy. I wish that the Academy would adopt the same policy, so as to avoid awarding unfinished works (it is not unheard of for films to be partly reedited between those limited releases and the wide release). Frankly, I don't relish choosing between two films only for Best Picture (moving or otherwise).
Last for the moment, but far from least (considering that snide-yet-serious remark at the end of the second item), I leave you with this thought from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by way of Pharyngula.

Labels: culture, jurisprudence, mass media, miscellany, publishing

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Sausages?

Internet link sausages, as frequently appear here, are gathered from uninspected meaty internet products and byproducts via processes you really, really don't want to observe; spiced with my own secret, snarky, sarcastic blend; quite possibly extended with sawdust or other indigestibles; and stuffed into your monitor (instead of either real or artificial casings). They're sort of like "link salad" or "pot pourri" or "miscellaneous musings" (or, for that matter, "making law"), but far more disturbing.

I am not responsible for any changes to your lipid counts or blood pressure from consuming these sausages... nor for your monitor if you insist on covering them with mash or sauce.

Archives

Warped Weft

Now live at the new site. I have arranged some of the more infamous threads that have appeared here by unravelling them from the blawg tapestry (and hopefully eliminating some of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.

Links of Interest

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Writer Beware and the Writer Beware Blog provide essential knowledge for writers who don't want to be ripped off
Writing-World.com published by the former managing editor of the now-defunct Inklings
Agent Research & Evaluation provides both free and paid analyses of literary agents
US Copyright Office, including both registration forms and records and quite a bit of other helpful information
Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) allows searches of granted, pending, and some rejected trademark registrations
US Supreme Court Opinions from the current and past couple of terms
Law Library of Congress includes statutes for free
The Public Library of Law can help you find the law... but not use it in court, as many of its resources are not in proper form and do not provide all of the citation information needed in court papers
Legal, free e-books are available through Online Books (University of Pennsylvania) and Shakespeare (MIT)
Legal, free music is available through
- ClassicCat.net (what kind of music do you think you'll find here?)
- Music.Download.com (long-awaited successor to MP3.com)
- Janis Ian (artist)
- John McCutcheon (artist)

Other Blawgs, Blogs, and Journals

These may be of interest; I do not necessarily agree with opinions expressed in them, although the reasoning and writing are almost always first-rate (and represent a standard seldom, if ever, achieved in "mainstream" journalism). I'm picky, and have eclectic tastes, so don't expect a comprehensive listing.

A blawg is sort of like a blog on legal issues, but usually has a lot more links to outside resources (other than other blogs) than does a typical blog. Scrivener's Error is a blawg, not just a blog. You can find other blawgs at < ? law blogs # >.

How Appealing is aimed at appellate lawyers and legal news in general. If you care about the state of the law, start here — Howard's commentary is far better balanced, better informed, and better considered than any of the media outlets. To concentrate on the Supreme Court, don't forget SCOTUSBlog.
Some academics' blawgs with a variety of political (and doctrinal) viewpoints:
- Professor Anthony Arend (Georgetown Law)
- Professor Stephen Bainbridge (UCLA Law) (aka "The Perfesser")
- Professor Jack Balkin (Yale Law)
- Professor Dennis Crouch (Missouri Law) (better known as Patently-O)
- Professor Michael Froomkin (University of Miami Law)
- Professor Eric Goldman (Santa Clara University Law)
- Professor Rick Hasen (Loyola-LA Law)
- Professor Brian Leiter (U of Chicago Law/Philosophy)
- Professor Lawrence Lessig (Stanford Law)
- Professor Michael Madison (Pitt Law)
- Professor Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown Law)
BoingBoing, by speculative fiction writer (and 'net activist) Cory Doctorow, is quite hostile to copyright enforcement efforts, particularly regarding file-sharing
The main European IP blawg of interest remains the UK-based IPKat, on a variety of intellectual property issues, with some overlap (with a less Eurocentric view) at IPFinance
Cyberlaw (Stanford) has its agenda grounded firmly in the so-called "digital commons," which might make a bit more sense if any of the advocates of that viewpoint understood diddly-squat about population ecology
The American Constitution Society blawg is a purportedly "liberal" counterweight to the so-called "Federalist Society" (which, despite its claims, should be called "Tory Society") that has yet to establish much coherence... but maybe that's all to the good.

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