In re: Christmas Trees

In the spirit of this season, I want to share a short post on the subject of Christmas trees. Decorating a tree seems to be an ancient tradition, predating Christ himself, and a custom of having a Christmas Tree also seems to exist for several centuries, yet the appearance of Christmas celebration in the US law is not that old--the oldest cases I was able to find only date back to 1879.

A Case For July 4

I came across a good case to present for the July 4: Nixon v. United States, 978 F.2d 1269 (D.C. Cir. 1992) (URL upd. 06/26). I was looking to find a case describing past presidents, seeing if any decision reflected the fact that three presidents died on that day. I found this case instead, and, although it does not directly relate to July 4th, it has all the elements of a rightly fitting case for the occasion.

Books to read

If you have ever scanned through biographies of successful figures in legal profession, you could not miss a similar element in their upbringing. It is a very basic, foundational element: their education. Being educated is not the whole recipe, but is an unavoidable ingredient for success in a "learned" profession. This necessity, traditionally, is a costly one, and a large share of the costs fell on books.

From Cicero's times, "books, like works of art, were expensive." You would think that with the advance of printing technology the prices would drop, yet the textbooks remain extremely expensive today (URL upd. 06/26),* and the prices are on the rise. Imagine, how different our history would be, if Thomas Jefferson wouldn't be lucky to inherit his father's library and then get another one from George Wythe. The world will be all so more different if Abraham Lincoln, who "was mostly self-educated and was an avid reader and often sought access to any new books in the village," wouldn't be able to self-educate himself with books.

A lost fight over the lost script for LOST series - an Idea is as free as the air

On April 4, 2013, Second Appellate District issued an opinion in Spinner v. American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., (URL upd. 06/26) Case No. B239229, coming out, of course, from Los Angeles Superior Court. This is a case regarding a fight over the rights to LOST television series. In its "Facts" section, the court described the inception of the series in great detail, which in itself is an interesting story.

Burning Man Law

This month, Stuart Banner's book came out, covering courts' treatment of baseball, exempting it from the antitrust law. Reading an article about this book, I sought of another cultural phenomena, the Burning Man festival, and decided to take a look, what impact the festival makes on shaping courts' decisions, what constitutes the Burning Man law. I found six cases, which contributed to a variety of rules.