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Dec. 19th, 2008 09:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdog(I can write this here because my brother whose present I'm writing about does not read LJ. So nobody else tell him! *giggles*)
So I've been reading a book that I bought because I happened to see it in Border's and thought it would be excellent for the Law-And-Order-watching nascent lawyer in my family to read. It's called Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse.
Fifty pages in, I'm rather glad I did. This book is depressing. Really fucking depressing. If I had any desire for a career in the criminal justice system (which, for the record, I don't), I think reading this would pretty solidly quash it. That said, if he can get through it and continue on with his plan to be a prosecuting attorney, more power to him. I love discussing his take on all the philosophy and logic courses he's taking these days, and I think he might be a good one. For what that's worth.
From the book, with my emphasis:
On a cheerier side, I've been listening to music I discovered by looking at the website of NPR's Sound Opinions music talk show. I looked at their lists of the top albums of 2008 and downloaded a couple. I really like The Fleet Foxes' debut album, and the one I'm listening to now is really good stuff too. One of the reviewers described it as, stylistically if not in content, techno-gospel.
So I've been reading a book that I bought because I happened to see it in Border's and thought it would be excellent for the Law-And-Order-watching nascent lawyer in my family to read. It's called Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Criminal Courthouse.
Fifty pages in, I'm rather glad I did. This book is depressing. Really fucking depressing. If I had any desire for a career in the criminal justice system (which, for the record, I don't), I think reading this would pretty solidly quash it. That said, if he can get through it and continue on with his plan to be a prosecuting attorney, more power to him. I love discussing his take on all the philosophy and logic courses he's taking these days, and I think he might be a good one. For what that's worth.
From the book, with my emphasis:
The principal job in the courthouse still is sorting; the sorting is just done even faster now. The 1973 National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals urged judges and lawyers to put more thought into their actions, but there's no chance of that today. "There is not sufficient time to be introspective," says Thomas Fitzgerald, the presiding judge at 26th Street in 1998. "Thinking time doesn't show up on a cost-benefit analysis."
On a cheerier side, I've been listening to music I discovered by looking at the website of NPR's Sound Opinions music talk show. I looked at their lists of the top albums of 2008 and downloaded a couple. I really like The Fleet Foxes' debut album, and the one I'm listening to now is really good stuff too. One of the reviewers described it as, stylistically if not in content, techno-gospel.
