wisconsin

I asked for haiku about Spring, and I got some great ones. Meanwhile, I am looking out of my window at great big snowflakes coming down, and I am getting over my annual winter into spring head cold, which almost knocked me out last week. But, yes, there were haiku! Tales of different places: The Medievalist described Texas: Everything is green, Trees bloom luxuriously pink, Blue bonnets explode. As did Megan Willome (quite winningly): Center Point Road The trees were green, so green(kelly green) except  for the few still bare,  still waiting. Still, they wait for what is already  here but not yet theirs. While Christine has more of an East Coast/NC vibe: White, pink, delicate Cherry blossoms drifting, down, slowly to the ground. And CraigA tried to get over Gronk's retirement by thinking about the Sox: Fenway franks grilling Sam Adams on tap, and Mr. Mookie Betts in right.

On Friday, we had a remarkable Law Journal Symposium at St. Thomas, and so many of my favorite people were there. For the last decade, I have worked hard on clemency, and having so many of my fellow travelers in one place was a dream come true! It was quite a week (I also found out our students chose me as "Professor of the Year," which means I get the happy task of hooding the graduates at commencement), but the symposium and those who were there really requires some additional discussion. One of those fellow travelers joined us in freedom only recently. For years, I knew about Alice Marie Johnson's case from Amy Povah (and eventually  promoted it on CNN ). She was freed on June 6, 2018, and immediately began working to free those she left behind. While in prison she became an ordained minister, and shared her talents with First Covenant here in Minneapolis not long after her release. And, of course, she was the best part of the last State of the Union address and recent

Yesterday we had an amazing symposium at St. Thomas on clemency. The speakers, pictured above, included Shon Hopwood , Mark Holden , Alice Marie Johnson , Jason Hernandez , Erin Collins , Nkechi Taifa , Amy Povah , and Rudy Martinez . Such differences between these people, and such unity on what is important. It was a pretty incredible day.  I will write more about it tomorrow.

Razorites live all over, and the signs of Spring are different from place to place. Let's haiku about that today. Here, I will go first: The snow recedes now Leaving black ridgelines behind The green comes later. Now it is your turn! Use the 5/7/5 syllable formula, and have some fun!

One of the things I found captivating in the TV shows House of Cards and West Wing was the scenes where the candidates are out in little towns in Iowa, eating at the Pizza Ranch and trying to get good crowds to show up. We are to that season now, where exactly that is happening, and it must be fascinating to be in Des Moines (a place that might be less than fascinating at other times). I think what I like best about it is that the candidates constantly throw out ideas and come out with proposals on issues-- it is a real and genuine and usually well-founded debate about important things. What do you think they should be talking about?

Looking through photos the other day, I was struck by how cars appear in so many of the photos, even though they are rarely the focus of my photography. It's just that they are almost always there, it seems. The one exception is the pictures from Osler Island, a place cars can't get to and inhabit. I love cars-- I'm from Detroit, after all. But it is worth reflecting on how much these mobility devices shape our communities. Physically, it is inescapable: the sheer amount of concrete in a place like Waco, all designed to allow for plenty of parking, is the defining characteristic of the landscape. An alien visiting from outer space might, at first glance, think that cars are the sentient inhabitants of the planet. And yes, I do know that there is a series of animated movies about that. Freeways, of course, take out entire neighborhoods when they are built, but that is just a fraction of the impact of roads, parking lots, and everything else that cars demand. Is it worth it?

Megan Willome wrote a nice little haiku about the Mueller report yesterday: Dear Mr. Mueller, You could've summarized the whole in a haiku. She's right, too. I've got some thoughts on the Mueller Report (in addition to what I have said here  and here ): 1)  Regarding a conspiracy with Russians to influence the election, it seems clear that Mueller found insufficient evidence to recommend charges or impeachment. That's not totally surprising. From what we already knew, it seems that events like the Trump Tower meeting the Russians approached people in the Trump organization, talked about some stuff, but the Trump people never agreed to participate in the activity in any active way-- and that agreement is the essence of conspiracy. Sure, it turns out that the Russians went and did stuff to help Trump on their own, but that does not make it a conspiracy. 2) On obstruction, there is the legitimate question of "obstructing what?" I may disagree with the Barr analy

Well, it seems that Robert Mueller got his spring cleaning done... but he didn't submit a haiku. The medievalist did, though: Pear tree is blooming, A fresh coat of paint goes on, Clutter, trash, is gone. And so did my dad: All of our stuff seems comfortable where it is  untouched and unused.

One of my oldest friends (53 years or so) is Jeffery Plansker, and I had a great time visiting with him out in Pasadena a few days ago. He has saved some remarkable artifacts of our young lives, and one of them was the image above: an ad for my dad from the 1960's or 70's. My favorite part of it is the reference to him being "hard-driving" that comes with an asterisk, which in turn offers the disclaimer: "Some days more, some days less."  Well, yeah, of course! We are all imperfect. I have some good classes, and some where I walk out thinking of things I should have done differently. But in the end I get things out there, an dhopefully I get better the next time. I'll never be perfect, but I hope to get better. For reasons I will fully explain later, this will be a very important week. I would like to do my tasks perfectly, but I won't. I have an important goal, but I might not attain it. But I will try my best. Jesus was very clear about something:

Here are the upsets from the first round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, from biggest to littlest (based on seeding): UC-Irvine (a 13 seed) beat Kansas State (a 4 seed) Oregon (12) beat Wisconsin (5) Liberty (12) beat Mississippi State (5) Murray State (12) beat Marquette (5) Ohio State (11) beat Iowa State (6) Iowa (10) beat Cincinnati (7) Minnesota (10) beat Louisville (7) Florida (10) beat Nevada (7) Oklahoma (9) beat Ole Miss (8) Washington (9) beat Utah State (8) UCF (9) beat VCU (8) Baylor (9) beat Syracuse (8) Nine seeds often beat 8s, but this year was a wipeout-- 4 for 4. For some reason, the 12 seeds often beat 5s, and that was true this year as 12s went 3 for 4. 10s also went 3 for 4 against 7s.  But it wasn't all excitement and tumult-- no 3 seed or higher lost.

It is spring cleaning time! I look at the picture above, and I realize what I am standing in front of, blocking from the camera's view: a fantastic tangle of fishing rods and reels, piled against the wall and weaving in and out of one another. We all have something we need to clean out. Let's haiku about that this time. Here, I will go first: Boat house disaster Undifferentiated Mass of filament. Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable formula, and have some fun!

Who should the Democrats choose to run against Donald Trump? Most of the Senate, several governors, and a bunch of once and current members of the House are already running, along with a Mayor and some misc.  Here is the current list of people who are officially running, according to the Chicago Tribune :   Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand,   Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke ,  former   Gov. John Hickenlooper,   Gov. Jay Inslee,   Sen. Bernie Sanders,   Sen. Amy Klobuchar,   Sen. Elizabeth Warren,   Sen. Cory Booker,   Sen. Kamala Harris ,  ex-San Antonio   Mayor Julian Castro,   Rep. Tulsi Gabbard,   former   Rep. John Delaney ,  author Marianne Williamson and former tech executive   Andrew Yang. We will probably soon add Joe Biden to that list. My purpose is not to comment on the "horse race," which is pretty meaningless right now. Instead, I would like to list the top six candidates by experience and achievement in governance (which are two different things): Biden Sanders Klobuchar Warre

  I'm not sure what to make of this photo (from the meeting in Vietnam). Maybe you all have possible captions?

Tomorrow is a great day-- wall-to-wall college basketball as the first long weekend of the NCAA tournament kicks off. It's these early days when upsets happen, overdogs stick it to the little guy, thrillers go into overtime, and no one can always predict which games will be which. Here are some of the games I am most looking forwards to in the first round: -- Nevada (a 7 seed) vs. Florida (10) This is one of several upside-down games this year, where a traditional power is seeded below a mid-major. Nevada was ranked most of the year, while Florida had to pull off some wins at the end of the season to get to a 10th seed. -- Wofford (7) vs. Seton Hall (10) Another upside-down match, and this one features a Wofford team that seems to have something going (that something being shooting well).  -- Tennessee (2) vs. Colgate (15) I'm told that Colgate made the transition to four-year school from being a 2-year dental training institute only in 2014. It's remarkable they have gotte

I love that both of the takes I got on spring break from known Razorites involved adult spring break-- those of us who work at schools. First, it appears that the Spanish Medievalist is back here in Minnesota: Going home again, Family is important, Soft snow falling now. Meanwhile, Jill Scoggins has been robbed! Lucky faculty, students: Spring Breakers all, while staff toil away. WAH!

It's hard not to want to see those who do bad things be punished in a way that hurts a lot. That urge towards retribution seems to be an easy emotional response. Unfortunately, it creates a lot of harm when we punish people more than we should. It also runs counter to what Jesus taught (as do most other religious traditions, and many ethical thinkers outside fo those traditions). People like Paul Manafort really bug me. A lot. But I am not one of the people who think his sentence was too short. Instead, I think a lot of other people's sentences are too long. If you want to know more of my thoughts on this, I have a piece in the Waco paper today that lays it out. You can read that here -- and I hope that you will.

This was nearly four decades ago!

I've been enjoying my spring break quite a bit. IPLawGuy and I have been skiing in Sun Valley, and it has been a blast. It's a beautiful place, and apparently a secret given how uncrowded it is. Let's haiku about spring break this week! Here, I will go first: Up on the big snow You can see sky forever And then there is lunch. Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 formula, and have some fun!

Yesterday I took a break between runs with IPLawGuy to talk to Audie Cornish at NPR's "All Things Considered" about clemency and Paul Manafort. You can hear the interview here . I also interviewed IPLawGuy:

Last night, IPLawGuy and I hobbled over to the Sun Valley Opera House to watch "They Shall Not Grow Old," with some commentary by filmmaker Peter Jackson. The movie is simple but profound: a restoration of World War One film with oral history commentary by veterans of the events depicted. In all, it is an anti-war movie, focused on a war that grew out of a minor conflict and caused unmitigated tragedies and led to revolutions in both Russia and Germany. When I was a kid, there was a World War One veteran living across the street from us. Mr. Kengel was shell-shocked; the sound of our tennis balls crashing against the garage door resulted in understandable protests from him. But like most Americans, I did not think much about World War One. We are much more knowledgable, it seems, about the Second World War, which somehow seems more modern and immediate. And yet there is a lot to learn in the modern day from the epic rolling tragedy that some called The War to End All Wars. It

I'm not crazy about my birthday-- for one thing, it rolls around at about the most depressing time of the year (February 21).  One thing that brightens it up every year, though, is the card I get from my talented sister, Kathy Osler . She draws something original every time, and I love the surprise of it. She is... kind of like that generally . As some of you know, I am a little obsessed with the Roman Goddess of clemency , Clementia. Kathy took a turn with that and imagined Clementia as a little friendlier and teddy-bear-ish. Thus, what I got this year was Clementedia.  And I love it. It sits in the middle of my mantle. I am happy to take questions when people visit. And I glance that way if I need a lift of spirits.  Now that's a gift.

Christine had a good answer for what she would do with $206 million (cure cancer), but there was a great haiku from Gavin, too: I’d buy wild land Where game and fowl still live free And just leave it be.

It's spring break time here in Minnesota-- which seems a little odd, since we are getting a half-foot of snow this weekend, piling up on top of all the snow that we already have. So, I'll go skiing.  IPLawGuy and I do every year for spring break. I think having breaks from the usual is part of how we are supposed to work. We are programmed for cycles: to celebrate holidays at the same time every year, to recognize the change of the seasons, and to sometimes put down our tools. I have the luxury of a job--teaching--that has a precise rhythm. We have new students every fall, and we graduate others in the late spring.  There is a poignancy to it, those starts and ends, the people who are at the center of your work coming and going. When IPLG and I are skiing, we have different styles. I just ski, eat, and watch basketball on TV. He is usually working, even on the ski lift. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't found a way to take calls as we go down the slopes. I suppose it'

Fabulous old cars? Check. Chicago like it was when I lived there two summers in law school: messy, gritty, and fascinating? Check. John Lee Hooker singing "Boom Boom," followed by a shoving match? Check. Aretha Frankin at her peak, dissing John Belushi? Check. 

Yesterday I was looking for a video where I ramble on about sentencing issues and instead discovered a web site that supposedly reveals "How rich is Mark Osler?" The answer, apparently, is pretty darn loaded-- it says my net work is $206 million dollars... Which is off by nearly $206 million. The same site also claims that my main source of income is "Celebrities," that I was born on New Year's Day, and that I have expertise in "make-up" and "special effects." That picture is definitely me, though. So, this week let's all imagine we were that fictional Mark Osler with that $206 million. What would you do with it? And we can do it in haiku! Here, I will go first: Two hundred and six Million? I would buy a new coat A haircut and tie. Now it is your turn! Just use the 5/7/5 syllable formula and have some fun!

Yesterday at St. Thomas, ACS hosted Andrea James, the founder and leader of the National Council of Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls. I've known and admired Andrea for a while, and it was wonderful to get her in front of our students to talk about her work. I just wish that we had more time for it!  People like Andrea offer a perspective that I cannot, and it is essential to get those other viewpoints into the flow of ideas and conversation in our classrooms and hallways. Andrea is a forerunner for five others who will speaking at St. Thomas at a symposium on March 29 , who were also formerly incarcerated: Alice Johnson, Amy Povah, Shon Hopwood, Jason Hernandez, and Rudy Martinez. Other speakers include Mark Holden (General Counsel of Koch Industries), Nkechi Taifa, and Roy Austin (who worked on clemency in the Obama administration).   The moving force for reform in criminal law has come largely from those who were incarcerated.  That they have found a voice a

I'm not a native Minnesotan, but this is my favorite place that I have ever lived. And I am saying that as four feet of snow create a landscape most reminiscent of the ice planet Hoth . One thing people sometimes wonder about is the almost preternatural niceness of people here. I found people in Texas to be friendly but often not nice. Here they may not be as friendly, but they are more often nice. And I don't mean in a passive-aggressive way, but a genuine way. In a recent article about Amy Klobuchar in the Atlantic , Caitlyn Flanagan described it very well in the course of revisiting Klobuchar's now-famous dialogue with Brett Kavanaugh: Klobuchar didn’t take the occasion to grandstand or to showcase her own moral superiority by giving one of the vile little sermons that have become a hallmark of our time. She didn’t even bring up  Spartacus . She simply gave the only decent response to a sincere apology: She accepted it. She was no pushover—her questioning about blackou

Donald Trump is taking some flack for his flag-hugging at the CPAC conference last weekend (which was part of an epic 2+ hour speech he gave there). I'm not sure where I stand on flag-hugging. It should be noted that Trump has a bit of a history of, um, intimacy with the flag. Here he was last summer: Is it... patriotic? Romantic? Just kind of weird? I do have to say that it is sort of compelling, in a can't-look-away sort of way. It's one of those things that just challenges expectations. Of the many things we think of a flag doing, being caressed isn't one of them. It's kind of like Bible-dancing:

I loved what people wrote about being cozy! Like Christine's suggestion: The rain falls, steady My bones are cold; outside, brrr... Hot tea with whiskey. And the Medievalist seems to have some experience, too: Old college sweatshirt, Slippers and wool socks, blue jeans, Comfy recliner. And Megan Willome seems to have it down: warm White Magic tea dogs asleep, as usual, a real paperback

There is one crisis of the spirit that many people I know go through. It is this: Does my life matter? It is an existential crisis in four words. There are few stock answers to that. One is that "God loves you," and that this means that your love matters-- you are loved. I think that is true, but I understand how for many people it doesn't offer much solace. "After all," they say, "If God loves everyone and everything, that still means I don't matter much." And on top of that, if they have been hurt and are in pain, they don't feel very loved by an omniscient, omnipresent God that apparently chose not to help them. Another answer, for people inside and outside of a belief in God, is that meaning comes from helping other people. I think that is true, too. But, again, I can see how that can seem insufficient to those who are the ones needing help, or whose efforts to help others have been unrewarding. My own answer to that question does not deny

I've written a lot of academic articles over the years-- over 30 now-- and of all the ones I have written without a co-author, I think this is the most important. It sums up what I think is important about clemency, and how it should continue to be important.  It is titled "Clemency as the Soul of the Constitution," and you can read it here. It appears in the most recent issue of the Journal of Law and Politics . If nothing else, it is unique in that it cites to four plays by Shakespeare, the Joker's role in The Dark Knight , Gerald Ford's football career, Henry VIII, and Harry Potter. Let me know what you think!