Der Sachsenspiegel in Bildern, Violent 13th Century Legal Code/Comic Book

Der Sachsenspiegel in Bildern (translated Wikipedia Germany link) is a 13^th century Germanic legal code. For ease of reading, it's illustrated — and the illustrations are crazy.


43. (Ldr. III 90 § 1) Who finds from unknown quantities a killing on the field and buries it with knowledge of the village neighbours, no criminal offense commits. (Thank Google/Babelfish for these glorious translations)



73. (Lnr. 19 § 1) the advocate must pay the bet, if the party does not profess itself to its word, if it cannot swear that it adhered exact to its order. This swears to the verbal error on the picture with a hand on the holy ones, while he points with second on his mouth and with third to his client, in order to say that he adhered exact to its words, which denies these however, by shutting itself the mouth and turning away half from him. (Note: Only historical reference to three-handed lawyer)



76. (Ldr. III 25 § 1) the successor of the deceased of judge may do court certification over the placing, which was done during the term of office of its predecessor and it via the certification of the jurors is proven. Four jurors inform the new judge under oath of the procedures.



133. (Ldr. III 48 §§ 1 u. 2)Who holds a malicious dog, a tamed wolf, a deer, bear or ape, must the damage, which they cause, replace. Right in the picture swore to the damage as plaintiffs (plaintiff gesture!) and two witnesses that the animals were at the time of the causing of damage in the possession of the deplored keeper of an animal.



138. (Ldr. III 79 § 2) No foreign one is obligated to answer for itself in the village after village right — in the new village, by the church, by the farmer master court is kept represented — the before it stand farmer appoint itself on it in the document the gentleman confirm by a document special right. The foreign one at left turns away and gives thereby and with the "Unfaehigkeitsgestus" to understand that it refuses the answer. It is dressed as turn, in allusion on the expression "uz wendic one". (Deep, I know. I think the guy on the left is flipping everybody off.)

Party Title: Serious Title

Knee-deep in essays on the justification of punishment, I have but one request to the academics of the future: Please use "Party Title" format only when absolutely necessary.

In the last hour, I've read (one after the other):
Retribution: A Test Case for Ethical Objectivity

Beggars & Thieves: Lives of Urban Street Criminals

Soldiers, Martyrs, and Criminals: Utilitarian Theory and the Problem of Crime Control

Keep it Simple: We're Not Reading This For Fun.

A Tidbit from the 1st Day's Reading in International Law

Another article of the BGB (German Legal Code — the Burgerliches Gesetzbuch) whose application has been controversial is the well-known §1300, which gives an unblemished engaged woman the right to sue her fiance for damages for lost chastity if the marriage does not take place.

Frightening Numbers from the 1st Day's Reading in Criminal Law

Citing Jerome G. Miller's Hobbling a Generation, my Criminal Law textbook offers these disturbing statistics:

Recent studies in the District of Columbia suggests that at any one time, 42 percent of the city's black males aged 18 to 35 are subject to some form of criminal justice system control (incarceration, probation, parole, or bond for release pending disposition of criminal charges). For Baltimore the corresponding figure is 56 percent. For an inner city black male, the lifetime risk of arrest and incarceration may approach 90 percent.

If You're Ever in New York and Need a Quiet Place to Read...

...the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts @ Lincoln Center really can't be beat. It's beautiful, Aeron-filled, & sparsely populated.

You don't need a library card to get in.

Andy, Military Consultant

It saddens me to hear that the 4-year old cease fire on Sri Lanka is apparently over.

Yet, since I'm easily distracted, I look at the AP picture CNN.com is running with the story and think, Mr. Soldier — please do not use plywood as armor. This is not a tree fort, and they are not shooting finger lasers.


Source: AP

Would Dada Want Matt Drudge to Give Credit Where it's Due?

Though the definition would likely cause an art historian to shudder, if I had to define postmodernism in a single breath, I'd go for something like the creation of meaning through the juxtaposition of seemingly unrelated assets or elements otherwise present in modern society.

This is funny.
If you go by my definition, the most conspicuous example of postmodernism at play is the Drudge Report, where Matt Drudge avoids writing much of anything — choosing to control the discourse of his site merely through the position and juxtaposition of stories that are already out there.

Though Drudge is little more than a headline editor and assembler, he sculpts the news of the world for millions of people each day. His daily audience is larger than the daily audience of any of the cable news networks. If you see it on Drudge, you'll see it on any one of the major news sites 30 minutes later.

Viewing Drudge through this lens, I was surprised to see him write something of a dismissive headline concerning vandalism of the Duchamp's Fountain, probably the most famous Dada work.


There would be no Drudge Report without Postmodernism, and there would be no Postmodernism without Dada.

Happy New Year from Pat Robertson

As I've mentioned before, Pat Robertson's contract apparently stipulates 1 kooky statement every 100 days.

Today, Pat Robertson announced that Ariel Sharon's recent stroke could be God's punishment for Israel ceding Gaza to the Palestinians.

55 days ago, he warned voters in Dover, PA that the Almighty might send a disaster their way — since he thinks God's a big ID supporter.

87 days ago, he announced that an increased frequency of hurricanes – coupled with some knockout earthquakes – is probably evidence of the 2^nd coming of Christ.

135 days ago, he asked the US government to assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Pat — you might be a kook, but you're a kook who can be regularly counted on.

Is That a Mouse in Your PC Card Slot, Or...

I know, it's easy to be too much of a gear fetishist; however, you've gotta admit that a mouse that recharges in the PC card slot on your laptop is pretty cool.

The Strangest Building on an Island of Strange Buildings

Last night, we ventured downtown for a New Years Eve party in TriBeCa. On our way there, we passed a building on Worth Street that gets stranger with each viewing: The windowless, 500-foot monolith that is the AT&T Long Lines Building.

You could write a little narrative about this building, but its nature is best communicated through bullet points of architectural weirdness.

• Completed in 1974, it is 551 feet tall — but has only 29 floors. Inside, each hidden story is more than 18 feet tall. (Emporis.com statistics)


• As you probably guessed, the building is a giant telecommunications hub filled to the brim with telecommunications equipment.


• The building is assymetrical. The original design plan was for the building to extend for another full city block. (Great pictures of the building @ nyc-architecture.com)

From this great message board thread concerning the building come other gems:

• "At the time it was built, telephone equipment generated much more heat, and the building heating system was designed to capture the heat and store it in salt banks, to be released when needed. With modern equipment generating less heat, and no sunlight - the place was always cold and gloomy."


• Though largely an uninhabited router and switch farm today, hundreds of people used to work inside this Lego.
  
  "The absence of people inside is a consequence of technology, but that is not the reason they were built windowless. When constructed 1960-1970, hundreds of people worked in each."
  
  (Each, because the AT&T Switching Center @ 10^th Avenue & 53^rd street is another windowless building — 370 vertical feet of uninterrupted granite.)

It's a little surprising to me that this building could be built, even in era hostage to Cold War paranoia.

Today, the public's reaction to the 200-foot windowless pedestal at the base of the to-be-built Freedom Tower has been largely negative — but that chunk of rock will be sheathed in glass, set back from the street. Here, you have a mass of a building that positively looms over the diminutive Worth Street.

Google satellite image of AT&T Long Lines Building

Like strange architecture? Visit Pyongyang. I hear it's beautiful in January.