Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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DefDog: Law Schools Not Teaching How to Lawyer

04 Education, Academia, Cultural Intelligence
DefDog

This just doesn't apply to lawyers, but most college grads are ill
prepared to enter the work force….

What They Don’t Teach Law Students: Lawyering

New York Times,  November 19, 2011

EXTRACT:

What they did not get, for all that time and money, was much practical training. Law schools have long emphasized the theoretical over the useful, with classes that are often overstuffed with antiquated distinctions, like the variety of property law in post-feudal England. Professors are rewarded for chin-stroking scholarship, like law review articles with titles like “A Future Foretold: Neo-Aristotelian Praise of Postmodern Legal Theory.”

So, for decades, clients have essentially underwritten the training of new lawyers, paying as much as $300 an hour for the time of associates learning on the job. But the downturn in the economy, and long-running efforts to rethink legal fees, have prompted more and more of those clients to send a simple message to law firms: Teach new hires on your own dime.

“The fundamental issue is that law schools are producing people who are not capable of being counselors,” says Jeffrey W. Carr, the general counsel of FMC Technologies, a Houston company that makes oil drilling equipment. “They are lawyers in the sense that they have law degrees, but they aren’t ready to be a provider of services.”

Read full article.

Phi Beta Iota:  The entire US educational system is hosed.  From college students who graduate with no more capability than high school graduates to half century ago, to “professional” degrees that do not teach how to “do” only how to take tests, the disconnect from reality is huge.   While some intelligence studies have emerged, after the pioneering effort of Mercyhurst under Bob Heibel, they do not actually teach the craft of intelligence or how to do holistic analytics or create workable open source information technology support packages — they simply prepare rounded cogs for the secret intelligence world.

See Also:

Education (General) (128)

Education (Universities) (58)

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DefDog: The Absurdity [Atrocity] of US Police Powers

07 Other Atrocities, Corruption, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Law Enforcement
DefDog

War on Terror and War on Drugs actually a war on individual civil liberties. And for this [and the bloated defense/intelligence pork fest] we borrow one trillion a year?

Police Response to Occupy Wall Street is Absurd

E. D. Kain

Forbes, 19 November 2011

Events like the one in the above video have been far too common in the police response to Occupy protests across the country. I do believe that Occupy Wall Street is at a tipping point, and that it must grow beyond and evolve away from the tent city occupations, but this police response is absurd and excessive.

Arrests exceeding 250 people followed protests in New York City yesterday. All across the country, cops are cracking down on protesters with force. I may be a critic of Occupy Wall Street, but the police are public servants, and public servants have no business treating the public this way.

Read more, watch short video.

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John Steiner: Re-embracing Abraham’s Path

Cultural Intelligence, Geospatial, Peace Intelligence
John Steiner

In the footsteps and spirit of Abraham

William Ury is on a campaign to mark the path, which will run through several countries of the Middle East, an whose route will follow in the footsteps of the patriarch Abraham.

By Moshe Gilad

HAARETZ.com, 16 November 2011

EXTRACT:

The Abraham Path, which is now being marked, begins in Haran and meanders its way to the city Gaziantep. From there, it continues southward, crosses the border into Syria and wends its way to Aleppo. The path then moves south, passing through Damascus before crossing the border into the kingdom of Jordan and the city Amman. At that point it crosses over to Jericho in the Palestinian Authority, and then to Nablus, Jerusalem and Hebron, where Abraham was buried. Additional offshoots of the path follow Abraham's journeys through Iraq and Israel.

. . . . .

Click on Image to Enlarge

The route is approximately 1,200 kilometers long. The Harvard team is aware that very few people will ever hike its entire length, but in a telephone interview with Haaretz, Ury clarifies that the intent is to create among visitors to the Middle East a profound cultural experience and a familiarization with the local culture, the residents, the landscapes and the regional tradition. “Hospitality is one of the greatest legacies that our culture received from Abraham,” he says, “and when you hike or drive along the path, you feel it every day, in the best possible way.”

A tool for conflict resolution

Ury himself has twice travelled the entire route, from Haran to Hebron, and his travels have left in him a deep impression, he says. His great expertise is conflict and crisis resolution. Development of the Abraham Path is, in his opinion, a tool for resolution of the prolonged crisis in the Middle East.

Read full article.

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NIGHTWATCH on European Union, Banks, and PIIGS

03 Economy, 08 Wild Cards, 11 Society, Civil Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, Law Enforcement

European Union: Reuters and other news services reported on 18 November that the European Commission will present a study that proposes three options for debt issuance for the Eurozone. The study indicates the European Union intends to exploit the debt crisis to undermine sovereignty in debtor countries, such as the PIIGS – Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain.

• The first law would link the acquisition of emergency loans from current and future bailout funds to the acceptance of economic monitoring by the Commission, which would be more extensive than that for Portugal, Ireland or Greece. If a eurozone member accepts this enhanced surveillance, it could mean the Commission would have an almost permanent presence in the nation.

• The second law would allow the Commission to evaluate draft budgets, suggest changes or draft a new budget. The Commission could also debate the budgets in a national parliament. These changes would not require a change to the EU treaty, which already states that economic policy is a common concern.

• The third law stipulates that budgets must be drafted based on forecasts from independent institutions, such as the Commission or the European Central Bank, rather than government agencies. The Commission will also propose that fiscal rules be written into national laws, preferably a country's constitution.

Comment: If the PIIGS accept these terms, they surrender national sovereignty. It is unlikely that the laws will be approved, but they make clear the intentions of the unelected Eurocrats to govern. Budgetary authority is government authority. The Eurocrats think they know better than the people of the PIIGS.

NIGHTWATCH KGS Home

Phi Beta Iota:  The only thing worse than democracy is everything else, and that everything else assuredly includes European technocrats who have deep conflicts of interest, deep gaps in their knowledge, deep gaps in their integrity, and zero appreciation for the realities that have led to this situation including deep corruption in both government and finance.  In a democracy, if politics and intelligence keep their integrity, there is no conflict and good policy results from good intelligence.  When either or both abandon their integrity, the people get screwed.  The LAST thing any of the weaker countries should do is listen to dictats from external “authorities.”  The re-nationalization of privatized public assets, and the criminal prosecution of all Goldman Sachs and other banking figures that lied to governments over the past decade, are two of the FIRST things each government should do.

See Also:

Journal: Politics & Intelligence–Partners Only When Integrity is Central to Both

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NIGHTWATCH on Pakistan-US-Who Knows What

03 India, 05 Iran, 08 Wild Cards, 10 Security, Blog Wisdom

Pakistan-US: Special comment. This week, the Pakistani ambassador to the US submitted his resignation for his involvement as a conduit for conveying a politically explosive memorandum from Pakistani President Zardari to Admiral Mullen, when he was US Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Washington Post published the text of the memo whose authenticity, on a prima facie basis, is established by the ambassador's request to resign.

Continue reading “NIGHTWATCH on Pakistan-US-Who Knows What”

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Patrick Meier: Ushandi Data to Study Micro-Conflict

Cultural Intelligence, Peace Intelligence
Patrick Meier

Using Ushahidi Data to Study the Micro-Dynamics of Violent Conflict

The field of conflict analysis has long been handicapped by the country-year straightjacket. This is beginning to change thanks to the increasing availability of subnational and sub-annual conflict data. In the past, one was limited to macro-level data, such as the number of casualties resulting from conflict in a given county and year. Today, datasets as such as the Armed Conflict Location Event Data (ACLED) provide considerably more temporal and spatial resolution. Another example is this quantitative study: ”The Micro-dynamics of Reciprocity in an Asymmetric Conflict: Hamas, Israel, and the 2008-2009 Gaza Conflict,” authored by by NYU PhD Candidate Thomas Zeitzoff.

Click on Image to Enlarge

I’ve done some work on conflict event-data and reciprocity analysis in the past (such as this study of Afghanistan), but Thomas is really breaking new ground here with the hourly temporal resolution of the conflict analysis, which was made possible by Al-Jazeera’s War on Gaza project which used the Ushahidi platform.

Read Abstract and Key Highlights.

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Tom Atlee: #Occupy Listening and Process: Mic Check!

Blog Wisdom
Tom Atlee

#Occupy Listening and Process: Mic Check!

Some people have asked why I am focusing on the Occupy movement. There are so many aspects of transformationally relevant co-intelligencebeing explored in and evoked by this movement, whether or not we are politically involved in or motivated by it. This post is a prime example. It is all about LISTENING and its exploration in and around the Occupy movement. 
One of the most remarkable things about the Occupy movement is that it pays at least as much attention to listening as to speaking out or pushing a particular point of view. True listening – including letting people know they are truly heard – is a rare phenomenon in mainstream society. However, it is fundamental to the kind of transformation the world urgently needs.

In this mailing you will find detailed reflections on processes used by the Occupy movement, including thoughts from some of my favorite process colleagues like consensus practitioner Tree Bressen, Dynamic Facilitation practitioner Rosa Zubizarreta, and Nonviolent Communication practitioner Miki Kashtan. These reflections are but the tip of the iceberg: I see thoughtful discussions about group process spread widely throughout the movement – signs of tremendous grassroots creativity, learning, and evolution in a domain usually confined to process professionals and corporate managers and consultants.

You will also find in this post…

Read full post with major links to related thoughts of others.

Phi Beta Iota:  Tom Atlee survives in a commune totally on donations.  He and his Co-Intelligence work are the single sole only cause for which we actively solicit support.  Here is his Donate Button.  Please–$5-20 means a great deal, it supports our emergence as a truly human collaborative society, overcoming the corruption and selfishness that have destroyed community and the Earth.

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