LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®

Originally posted 2007-09-17 20:13:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Blawg Review continues its recent conceptual bent with Anita Campbell!

Originally posted 2010-12-01 20:08:12. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

[stextbox id="alert" float="true"]Or, perhaps, recycling.  It once again seemed appropriate, considering both the sad events concerning the passing of Ed. of Blawg Review and that this is first night of Chanukah — to reprint 2009′s last-ever Chanukah Blawg Review on LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®.  Better to light a candle … or eight… than to curse the darkness, after all.

It went something like — well, exactly like — this post, below.  As I re-read this, I realize that a lot of what I said about “what a year” last year had been for me was only more true this year.  In some very good ways, and very not so good ways.

(For something a little more theological and a little less introspective, you can go to this Blawg Review’s predecessor, the 2008 Chanukah Blawg Review.  If one crazy night of this is not enough for you.)[/stextbox]

Welcome to Blawg Review.  Cold, rainy, prematurely wintry greetings from metropolitan New York.

No exclamation point.  It has been that kind of year, it seems.  Nothing depressing about it, or it shouldn’t be.  That’s just life, and in particular that’s the way life feels at that dreary moment when you’re living it clustered around the winter solstice.

Historic Courthouse, Newark, NJ

And if I were perkily to emit that Chanukah, the festival of rededication, is “all about” pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps in the face of dread and gloom, for of course a little light will banish a great deal of darkness, I would not be the first to say it; and it’s not as if cliché is too good for LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®.

But no.  It is not going to be that kind of Chanukah Blawg Review this year.  Let’s instead think a little less loftily, but maybe more fruitfully, about where we are.  Where we’ve been since last Chanukah.  And what we’re doing, blawgily speaking.  And why.

Is there a Chanukah concept in that?  Rabbi Avraham Chaim Feuer says there is — and it seems to be a very appropriate one for this moment, for this blog, even, and for the constellations of blawgs that still form and swirl around us:

Only recently — barely a hundred years have elapsed since the invention of the lightbulb — has Edison’s genius transformed [mankind's formerly] bleak [benighted] situation. Today, mankind’s blindness is banished by billions of powerful and enduring bulbs. Artificial light has become so economically feasible that even the poorest can afford to squander it. Everything glows in the Age of Illumination. . . .

Centuries ago, prior to the Age of Illumination, people did not waste light. A fire with no function was promptly extinguished, and the fuel was carefully hoarded. If the flames of the menorah burned constantly without apparent function, it must have been that this was not light made to shed external illumination, but rather to symbolize the inner glory associated with Godliness.

For this reason, it is prohibited, according to Halacha, or Judaic Law, to use Chanukah candles as illumination for any ordinary activities. Such utility would strip the candles of their essential message — that there is more than one kind of light, that of the soul besides that of the eyes.

“The time for lighting the Chanukah candles is from sunset until the time that the traffic ceases in the marketplace,” states the Talmud (Shabbos 21b).  As long as men are involved in the affairs of the marketplace, as long as they are engaged in the pursuit and purchase of all their eyes see and their hearts desire, then they are still in need of the lesson of the Chanukah menorah.

No doubt, our era is the age of the eye and the age of the market. This is self-evident and does not need further elaboration. When before in history has the consumer been flooded with such a staggering array of tempting products, wrapped in millions of dollars of “eye-catching” advertisement? When before has the human eye been so constantly exposed to the distracting sights of the stage, screen, and street? In the Age of Illumination, the outer lights have all but blotted out the inner lights.

It is time to gather around the . . .  candles of the menorah, and give the inner lights the opportunity to convey their soft, subtle, penetrating message.

So, let’s sit down — come in out of the wet; can I get you a hot drink?  No, no latkes, sorry — trying to stay away from the heavy stuff, since the operation.  We do have these nice dreidel-shaped cookies… here.  Say a brocha.  Nice. Read More…

Originally posted 2009-07-13 10:14:07. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Walter Olson hosts this week’s Blawg Review:

Professional Courtesy

Welcome to Blawg Review #220, rounding up some highlights of the past week from around the legal blogosphere. It’s my second time hosting it here at Overlawyered, a blog that as its name implies maintains a certain critical distance from many of the doings of the legal profession. Despite (or because of?) that, lawyers make up a large share of our most loyal and valued readers. Overlawyered just celebrated its tenth anniversary, which so far as I know (though someone may come along to prove me wrong) makes it the oldest blog about law.

With an introduction like that…!

Originally posted 2008-12-08 09:42:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

At Infamy or Praise, tales of an ancient mariner:

For my first three Blawg Reviews, I’ve let Dante lead me through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. Inconsiderately enough, however, Il Maestro never completed a fourth cantica for his Divine Comedy, leaving me stuck for a theme this time around. Finding that theme was an albatross around my neck until a friend made a timely and much – appreciated suggestion — Samuel Taylor Coleridge‘s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Notwithstanding the theological question left hanging — besides Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, what does Colin thing Dante had available for a Divine Comedy encore? — Colin Samuels is in a literary class of his own with his Blawg Reviews, and this one is no different.  It’s hard for us to understand how such a well-educated guy could then go ahead and misspell “rhyme” but, hey, there must in every flesh and blood be some sin.

[stextbox id="alert" float="true"]Or, perhaps, recycling.  It did seem appropriate, however, considering that Blawg Review is on sabbatical — and this being the first night of Chanukah — to reprint 2009′s last-ever Chanukah Blawg Review on LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®.  Better to light a candle … or eight… than to curse the darkness, after all.

It went something like — well, exactly like — this post, at right.  As I re-read this, I realize that a lot of what I said about “what a year” in 2009 had been for me was only more in 2010.  In some very good ways, and very not so good ways.

(For something a little more theological and a little less introspective, you can go to this Blawg Review’s predecessor, the 2008 Chanukah Blawg Review.  If one crazy night of this is not enough for you.)[/stextbox]

Welcome to Blawg Review.  Cold, rainy, prematurely wintry greetings from metropolitan New York.

No exclamation point.  It has been that kind of year, it seems.  Nothing depressing about it, or it shouldn’t be.  That’s just life, and in particular that’s the way life feels at that dreary moment when you’re living it clustered around the winter solstice.

Historic Courthouse, Newark, NJ

And if I were perkily to emit that Chanukah, the festival of rededication, is “all about” pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps in the face of dread and gloom, for of course a little light will banish a great deal of darkness, I would not be the first to say it; and it’s not as if cliché is too good for LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®.

But no.  It is not going to be that kind of Chanukah Blawg Review this year.  Let’s instead think a little less loftily, but maybe more fruitfully, about where we are.  Where we’ve been since last Chanukah.  And what we’re doing, blawgily speaking.  And why.

Is there a Chanukah concept in that?  Rabbi Avraham Chaim Feuer says there is — and it seems to be a very appropriate one for this moment, for this blog, even, and for the constellations of blawgs that still form and swirl around us:

Only recently — barely a hundred years have elapsed since the invention of the lightbulb — has Edison’s genius transformed [mankind's formerly] bleak [benighted] situation. Today, mankind’s blindness is banished by billions of powerful and enduring bulbs. Artificial light has become so economically feasible that even the poorest can afford to squander it. Everything glows in the Age of Illumination. . . .

Centuries ago, prior to the Age of Illumination, people did not waste light. A fire with no function was promptly extinguished, and the fuel was carefully hoarded. If the flames of the menorah burned constantly without apparent function, it must have been that this was not light made to shed external illumination, but rather to symbolize the inner glory associated with Godliness.

For this reason, it is prohibited, according to Halacha, or Judaic Law, to use Chanukah candles as illumination for any ordinary activities. Such utility would strip the candles of their essential message — that there is more than one kind of light, that of the soul besides that of the eyes.

“The time for lighting the Chanukah candles is from sunset until the time that the traffic ceases in the marketplace,” states the Talmud (Shabbos 21b).  As long as men are involved in the affairs of the marketplace, as long as they are engaged in the pursuit and purchase of all their eyes see and their hearts desire, then they are still in need of the lesson of the Chanukah menorah.

No doubt, our era is the age of the eye and the age of the market. This is self-evident and does not need further elaboration. When before in history has the consumer been flooded with such a staggering array of tempting products, wrapped in millions of dollars of “eye-catching” advertisement? When before has the human eye been so constantly exposed to the distracting sights of the stage, screen, and street? In the Age of Illumination, the outer lights have all but blotted out the inner lights.

It is time to gather around the . . .  candles of the menorah, and give the inner lights the opportunity to convey their soft, subtle, penetrating message.

So, let’s sit down — come in out of the wet; can I get you a hot drink?  No, no latkes, sorry — trying to stay away from the heavy stuff, since the operation.  We do have these nice dreidel-shaped cookies… here.  Say a brocha.  Nice.

New York State Supreme Court, 60 Centre Street

We can sit by the fire.

So, yes, last year at this season LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® hosted Blawg Review for the second time.  It went over very well, and I’m grateful for the recognition.  At the end of the day (which comes mighty fast in mid-December) isn’t being noticed for having something to say why a person blogs?  It’s just that some of us need more of that than others, isn’t it? Read More…

Originally posted 2009-02-15 14:03:30. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Blawg Review at the East Central Illinois Criminal Law & DUI Weblog:

Today, we will find our inspiration in the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. Without further ado, here are your submissions shoehorned into these categories.

Yeah, well, after that, who needs further ado?!  Rather, repent!  But first read this week’s Blawg Review.

Kevin Thompson of Cyberlaw Central, at considerable risk to life and limb, does a Skull-and-Bones themed Blawg Review.

As  a Princeton man I have my issues with this.  But as a family man, I would not dare utter them.

Originally posted 2010-04-13 09:52:42. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Legal Blog Watch, uniquely qualified for the job, hosts this week’s Blawg Review!

Originally posted 2010-08-30 11:23:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Blawg Review #279 is up at Mirriam Seddiq’s Not Guilty blog.

It’s not safe for work.  Unless you work in a law office.

Home… that’s something else.

Originally posted 2009-12-14 10:05:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

House of the Association -- Association of the Bar of the City of New York

Welcome to Blawg Review.  Cold, rainy, prematurely wintry greetings from metropolitan New York.

No exclamation point.  It has been that kind of year, it seems.  Nothing depressing about it, or it shouldn’t be.  That’s just life, and in particular that’s the way life feels at that dreary moment when you’re living it clustered around the winter solstice.

Historic Courthouse, Newark, NJ

And if I were perkily to emit that Chanukah, the festival of rededication, is “all about” pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps in the face of dread and gloom, for of course a little light will banish a great deal of darkness, I would not be the first to say it; and it’s not as if cliché is too good for LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION®.

But no.  It is not going to be that kind of Chanukah Blawg Review this year.  Let’s instead think a little less loftily, but maybe more fruitfully, about where we are.  Where we’ve been since last Chanukah.  And what we’re doing, blawgily speaking.  And why.

Is there a Chanukah concept in that?  Rabbi Avraham Chaim Feuer says there is — and it seems to be a very appropriate one for this moment, for this blog, even, and for the constellations of blawgs that still form and swirl around us:

Only recently — barely a hundred years have elapsed since the invention of the lightbulb — has Edison’s genius transformed [mankind's formerly] bleak [benighted] situation. Today, mankind’s blindness is banished by billions of powerful and enduring bulbs. Artificial light has become so economically feasible that even the poorest can afford to squander it. Everything glows in the Age of Illumination. . . .

Centuries ago, prior to the Age of Illumination, people did not waste light. A fire with no function was promptly extinguished, and the fuel was carefully hoarded. If the flames of the menorah burned constantly without apparent function, it must have been that this was not light made to shed external illumination, but rather to symbolize the inner glory associated with Godliness.

For this reason, it is prohibited, according to Halacha, or Judaic Law, to use Chanukah candles as illumination for any ordinary activities. Such utility would strip the candles of their essential message — that there is more than one kind of light, that of the soul besides that of the eyes.

“The time for lighting the Chanukah candles is from sunset until the time that the traffic ceases in the marketplace,” states the Talmud (Shabbos 21b).  As long as men are involved in the affairs of the marketplace, as long as they are engaged in the pursuit and purchase of all their eyes see and their hearts desire, then they are still in need of the lesson of the Chanukah menorah.

No doubt, our era is the age of the eye and the age of the market. This is self-evident and does not need further elaboration. When before in history has the consumer been flooded with such a staggering array of tempting products, wrapped in millions of dollars of “eye-catching” advertisement? When before has the human eye been so constantly exposed to the distracting sights of the stage, screen, and street? In the Age of Illumination, the outer lights have all but blotted out the inner lights.

It is time to gather around the . . .  candles of the menorah, and give the inner lights the opportunity to convey their soft, subtle, penetrating message.

So, let’s sit down — come in out of the wet; can I get you a hot drink?  No, no latkes, sorry — trying to stay away from the heavy stuff, since the operation.  We do have these nice dreidel-shaped cookies… here.  Say a brocha.  Nice.

New York State Supreme Court, 60 Centre Street

We can sit by the fire.

So, yes, last year at this season LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSION® hosted Blawg Review for the second time.  It went over very well, and I’m grateful for the recognition.  At the end of the day (which comes mighty fast in mid-December) isn’t being noticed for having something to say why a person blogs?  It’s just that some of us need more of that than others, isn’t it? Read More…

Originally posted 2005-04-11 00:00:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

I didn’t “go out” for law review in law school — don’t get me started – and my career has been a pretty sordid exercise since then because of it.

I’m not making that mistake again.

Next week this blog will be host of the second-ever edition of Blawg Review, the “carnival” (why a carnival? just because Glenn Reynolds calls these things carnivals? who made him chief pimp? (Meant in a good way.) Okay, who else besides half a million daily readers? And he didn’t even use my “carnival of the cardinals” idea!) — I mean the weekly festival of law blogs (blawgs, right?).

Information on the rules of the game, including submission guidelines (yes, you must submit) here. This week’s Blawg Review here at Evan Schaeffer‘s Notes from the Legal Underground blog, “A weblog that asks the question–Why are lawyers so stuffy?”

Incidentally, I resent the premise, Evan. Stuffiness is not something just anyone can affect. I have worked long and hard to affect  stuffiness.

UPDATE: The emeser mensch, Jeffrey Haemer, writes in to ‘splain as follows (hyperlinks added):

FWIW, I think all these are spawn of Silflay Hraka’s original “Carnival of the Vanities,” which, in turn, is an allusion to the carnival in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (as is the title of Thackery‘s Vanity Fair).

Education is a wonderful thing! I will have to try one of these fiction books one of these days. I think we might want to  slide Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities in there… along with WizBangBlog‘s own back mutation of the whole thing.

Originally posted 2010-03-17 15:39:38. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Colin Samuels’s Infamy or Praise posts its unofficial Blawg Review, Number 23 in the “Round Tuit” series.  So you go right over there are read it.  Also the official Blawg Review, up this week at Law Shucks.

I was struck by Colin’s roundup regarding the musings of bloggers about where to put what in which blog, and what blog to start, and what blog to shut:

The legal blogosphere may be kicking harder in Texas, but it seems to be at least alive and kicking everywhere else as well, according to Kevin O’Keefe, whose LexBlog group has completed another “State of the AmLaw 200 Blogosphere” report. This isn’t to say that the legal blogosphere isn’t subject to ebbs and flows as bloggers — a thoughtful and self-critical bunch by nature — assess and reassess, as two noted bloggers did this week. Prompted by a comment by Bob Ambrogi, Venkat Balasubramani, who blogs at Spam Notes and guest-blogs regularly at Eric Goldman’s blog, wondered whether the broadening of his legal interests over the past three-and-a-half years of blogging suggest that he should “make a clean break” from his focused personal blog and start a different one; he weighs the pros and cons in a thoughtful post. Coming full circle, Bob Ambrogi took to heart Balasubramani’s discussion (prompted by his own comment) and added his own thoughts about shuttering his venerable LawSites blog in favor of a new one which covers the breadth of his interests:

The question for both of us is: Does it make sense to make a clean break from one blog and start anew with another? For both Venkat and me, the question is complicated by the fact that our blogs have achieved some degree of recognition and regular readerships. My blog has even won some awards, including twice being named one of the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100. …
What was most striking to me about Venkat’s post was his comment that this question “literally weighed me down.” I know precisely how he feels. It seems almost silly to spend so much time pondering the fate of a blog. Perhaps it shows that both Venkat and I remain passionate about blogging, if uncertain about our blogs.

Interesting to me, yes, considering that I faced such a question myself once… answered it… and have answered it again by, effective yesterday, retiring from active posting on my quasi- but not-so-legal Likelihood of Success blog, as discussed, implicating many of the very same thoughts and issues, at this last post yesterday.

So much interesting stuff to read and say.  How ever do we get a Round Tuit?  (And that’s my point, I guess.)