(no subject)

[bursar42]

Junior year is a bit odd. Between rehearsals, driver's ed, clubs, and Latin-y doom, I've managed to average over twelve hours a day in school for the past week or two. This is not time spent on school work, which surely approaches 16hrs/day. Oh well.

Other than this, I've been having a fine time. American History is actually interesting and full of stuff I haven't heard of before (unlike a lot of European History). The Soc Curriculum Associate fellow, btw, is looking into offering Comparative Government next year, too, which will hopefully be fun and finally give me at least some formal education to go along with things like this. It's kind of scary that history and government are becoming my favorite subjects in school, but I suppose that's better than Chemistry. After all, who wants to be a hard scientist? (Yes, I know. I say this, and I'm doomed to be a physical chemist in my next life. Stay tuned for Chipmunk in the Caves of Nuclear Fire.) Somehow I've ended up taking three years of Latin simultaneously in one period a day. There's definitely going to be some issues with that by the end of the year. English has gone from one of my perpetual favorite subjects to being one of my least favorite. The teacher seems to advocate a school of "descriptive" writing which is best written with a small checklist in one's hand. If you haven't gotten every rhetorical device on the list into every paragraph, go back and try again. It's really pretty sick, but at least he's not one of those passive voice mavens. Maybe I should have skipped this course and gone on to the next one. I have the prereqs since this is technically just the AP version of the course I took last year. (There was a dumb move! I could have gotten this course out of the way, taken Lit this year, and have lotsa' time left over for the interesting-sounding English electives.) If I end up a senior without a lunch despite moving my math to a Saturday at the community college, I'm gonna' have a fit.

Other than school, life's alright, I suppose. People's lives seem to be falling apart all around me, though. It's really unsettling to hear about some of the things that are going on.

On a happier note, SWIM'N will start getting more of my time as the semester draws to a close. After all, where would we be without an interesting prosecutorial system. Anyone with any details on the French system or the theory of the Soviet system (we all know it was corrupt) would be really nice if they spoke to me. Sadly, SWIM'N is the only organized quasi-CTY organization I still actively participate in. I talk to people still, but I think the group as a whole has finally collapsed under its own weight. The people who I really associated with have pretty much all bailed. Most are in college. Others, I either talk to them regularly or they have disappeared from the ether entirely. The remainder are my age, younger, or people I never really talked to anyway. There seem to be few chats going on, and the Alcoveboard seems to be filled with even more inane chatter than ever. Maybe it's just because the archives are so readily accessible... Who knows? It seems that there's very little of interest going on. The older contingent has finally gone, and I can't say I'm happy about it.

On a completely unrelated note, I am pissed at E.B. White. The fellow goes so far as to revise a guide to style and forgets an interesting, though oft-forgotten rule of English. Proper nouns refer to specific things. So, we have the current Prince Charles, Prince of Wales referred to as Bonnie Prince Charlie. Unless he was interested in making a political statement (such as "All true supporters of the British monarchy should try to have him exiled" or something similar), White really shouldn't be using one person's nickname (to which he is known to history) to refer to another person (who doesn't even have the same name). I grr imperfections in those who make a living telling other people how to behave in their supposed area of expertise.

Edit: Since enough people have asked me, let me clarify. The Alcove collapsed under its own weight, not the Swiss Imperial Navy.

Comments

[roseandsigil.livejournal.com]

KILL WHITE! KILL WHITE DEAD!!
err...yeah. Sorry to have disappeared, CM. Although my doing such appears to have out you in an advantageous position, militarily speaking, in our Glorious Navy.
IM me sometime.

[silvergirl42.livejournal.com]

Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself.

[silvergirl42.livejournal.com]

I miss you. Come see Princeton (and me) soon? Please...

[inuki42.livejournal.com]

...heyyyy, waitaminute! If you go visit Princeton, you have to come up to Rochester! Fair's fair! :D

And seriously, anyone who says they're fine, they can handle it, is lying. Especially when it's about a big nasty serious issue. (Not pretending I know what's going on, just making observations based on what I know of human nature.)

[(Anonymous)]

> And seriously, anyone who says they're fine, they can handle it, is lying.

I beg to differ. If silvergirl42 says she can take care of herself, then I believe her. I know what it feels like to have all sorts of people worrying about me when they really don't need to be.

~A.N.

The prosecution rests

[sternoquiaspero.livejournal.com]

I think it would be more interesting to come up with a common-law system for our burgeoning interstellar civilization. Basically, that whole "uniform law code(s*) for developing non-autonomous colonies" thing that we were talking about once. It's not that it's any practical use, it's merely fun to think about. Well, for some people, anyway.


* There are different kinds of developing non-autonomous colony, obviously (without getting into non-developing non-autonomous colonies, which also come in various flavors). For instance, a gas giant's sterile moon is rather different from a warm farming world. Perhaps different codes might exist for different types. Certainly we do need to give some thought to what sort of civilian maritime law we might have; we both thought that the version speculated about on someone's Traveller site wasn't good enough for us and our purposes (remember that?).

Re: The prosecution rests

[bursar42.livejournal.com]

Why does it have to be common law, though? If we're going to impose standardization, a centralized form of law without any real precedent-setting by the underling courts would probably be more useful. Oh yuck, we may have to go with Civil Law. There are several hybrid versions (I think Australia has one.) but I think the Civil may be the best way to go. Talk to you more about this later.

Re: The prosecution rests

[sternoquiaspero.livejournal.com]

Well, the nature of your question suggests that uniform codes would be retained by colonies that turn "autonomous" (whatever that means for us), unless they bothered to change elements themselves. I imagine that planets that turn autonomous would (like California) come up with encompassing Civil Codes. If something weren't specifically addressed, the common law would come in handy.

I'm not saying that the common-law has to be some sort of tradition-encrusted thing from the reign of Henry VI (personally, I dislike the idea of having American common law that you can't ever do jack about, and also the manner in which it's created). What I meant was something more along the lines of "this is more-or-less universal law that doesn't directly involve the federal government, and isn't as big a deal to change either".

What exactly do I mean here? Well, for instance, let's take rules on common-law marriage. I can only assume we'd need this stuff (given the way Martians are...), but your average amateur drafter of a colonial constitution isn't likely to think of this, or any number of other things. That's where this stuff comes in. If it's not addressed in any way in the local law, this kicks in.

Presumably we would have something like common law anyway. After all, we no doubt have a foundation of Swiss law dating back to the Pact of Ruetli, and possibly even the Holy Roman Empire, plus a certain admixture of Roman stuff thanks to the secret government; then Mars added some new wrinkles in the first half of the 20th century pertaining to colonies, and then Centaurus did some more in the second half. So we would no doubt have already collected some ideas about what a well-ordered planet in the Empire would be like.


Anyway, I wasn't thinking of a uniform code for "autonomous" colonies (which would be radically unitary). More like, provisions for whenever a place hasn't discussed some matter which, for whatever reason, we care about.


Of course, like the rules of impeachment, this is a project to save for a rainy day when we're REALLY bored and everything important in the legislation queue has been handled.

[Jesus, that was a long comment. Henceforth, I'll save this crap for AIM.]