Working titele: Finding Home

I had not previously realized just how annoying it is when people make all their important points with quotes. In fact, I quite like using quotes myself. But darnit, when you want to refer to that point, you have to go dig up the original reference - rendering articles where all important points are made with quotes, extremely frustrating. Barbara A Babb, I'm looking at you.

Boy, reading cases can get pretty dull after the first 4 hours or so...

Did write about 800-850 words of Big Damn Essay[1] out of guilt. Not the best words I've ever written, but also not the worst, and it did get me started. Have written out a preliminary structure that I'll probably try to comunicate with my director[2] tomorrow, or early next week. Because it would be nice to know if she thinks it would be doable before I get too deply mired in it.


[1] Yes, that's what I'll call it from now on. Possibly BDE when I'm feeling lazy.

[2] I want to write "handler"... but I'm not quite far enough into BDE-insanity yet to require a keeper. It's just that the Swedish word is "handledare" - false cognates and all that.[3]

[3] Or an actual cognate for all I know, they could very well have the same root, it just sounded funner[4] than "mistranslation".

[4] I never use this word, if indeed is is a real word, because it doesn't soud like a real word. So I use funnier, which means something else, though related, because by the time I get past fun- and have to decide how to end the word, it's allready too late to change it to "more fun".[5]

[5] Yes, I am in fact rambling, how did you know?

I have discovered that Stargate Atlantis is good study noise. They talk a lot, and I don't actually care what happens, and no-one has a really annoying voice, so if I just leave the volume low, it functions as background chatter. I can't study in silence, unless the deadline is tomorrow, and I have to. My preferred environment would be a street, or a park or something - where lots of people pass by, but nothing really happens, and there are no obnoxious repetitive noises, and no pressure to buy stuff, or move (like there can be in a cafe). Unfortunately, the park doesn't have wifi, and it's february...

This made me happy today:

EXECUTIVE ORDER -- ENSURING LAWFUL INTERROGATIONS

(excerpts)

[...]

Sec. 3. Standards and Practices for Interrogation of Individuals in the Custody or Control of the United States in Armed Conflicts.

(a) Common Article 3 [of the Geneva conventions] Standards as a Minimum Baseline.

[...]

(c) Interpretations of Common Article 3 and the Army Field Manual. From this day forward, unless the Attorney General with appropriate consultation provides further guidance, officers, employees, and other agents of the United States Government may, in conducting interrogations, act in reliance upon Army Field Manual 2 22.3, but may not, in conducting interrogations, rely upon any interpretation of the law governing interrogation -- including interpretations of Federal criminal laws, the Convention Against Torture, Common Article 3, Army Field Manual 2 22.3, and its predecessor document, Army Field Manual 34 52 issued by the Department of Justice between September 11, 2001, and January 20, 2009. [my emphasis]

[...]

(a) CIA Detention. The CIA shall close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and shall not operate any such detention facility in the future.

(b) International Committee of the Red Cross Access to Detained Individuals. All departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall provide the International Committee of the Red Cross with notification of, and timely access to, any individual detained in any armed conflict in the custody or under the effective control of an officer, employee, or other agent of the United States Government or detained within a facility owned, operated, or controlled by a department or agency of the United States Government, consistent with Department of Defense regulations and policies.

[...]

BARACK OBAMA

THE WHITE HOUSE,
January 22, 2009

I have just made myself a detailed schedule for the next 3 months, which would, hopefully, allow me to keep up with my schoolwork, make me work out, and make me work on both the tale and the spin-off project. Sounds utopian, but I'm really going to make an effort. I'm hoping the idea of fixed times will help - so now I know I'll be writing on the Tale every thursday at five, instead of just telling myself I'll try to do something every week.

Gave myself staurdays completely off, and wednesdays and sundays mostly off.

Wish me luck :o)

"insemination by penis"

( I'm back to studying on LJ, so here's my homework )

Sidenote: Studying family law here is extremely aggravating because you have to keep studying all this old shit, because of the whole common law system, in which women basically had no rights. In Sweden that stuff is old obsolote law, so you don't have to study it - but here it is only obsolete if it has been decreed obsolete by statute, so you have these weird statutes giving women rights that men are assumed to have, just to counter the stupid common law from the dark ages that says they don't...

Don't really know what to call it. My uni calls it a master thesis in english, to, I suppose, point out that it's on an advanced level even though we don't do the whole undergrad/gradschool thing. But I'm not doing a masters degree, so it isn't really. On the other hand, it's also not a bachelors. It's just a law degree. So I tend to call it a grad essay, because that's more or less what the swedish name means, but I don't know if that accurately reflects to english speakers what it actually is.

Anyway.

My big final essay thingy. I think I've figured out what is is that I'm actually wanting to write about. I had this loose vague idea, but no real name for it. But then I got this book yesterday, which explains it. I want to write about the concept of The Unified Famiy Court. I knew something like that existed, but I didn't know what it was called, so it was hard to explain to people.

According to the book:

"Some states and local jurisdictions have replaced the juvenile court with a unified family court. Unified family courts enable one judge, working with social service workers and other support personnel, to resolve all matters typically associated with distressed families."

"Ths array [of matters under jurisdiction] typically includes divorce proceedings, paternity suits, support actions, criminal prosecutions charging abuse or neglect or domestic violence, emancipation proceedings, and proceedings for protective orders under child abuse and adult abuse statutes."[1] That is in addition to ordinary juvenile court matters such as civil abuse and neglect proceedings, adoption, status offences (only an offence if done by a juvenile) and delinquencies (would have been a felony or misdemeanor if done by an adult).

In short, it's a way to try and get all matters involving children under one roof. Otherwise you could have proceedings in several different courts, relating to the same actual events. The book uses the example of alleged child abuse by a parent. That one event could lead to a neglect action from the state, a divorce and custody action from the other parent and a criminal prosecution. These three could, if there is no unified family court, be tried in three different courts (juvenile, family and criminal court) - potentially forcing the child to testify in three different proceedings.

In Sweden it's slightly less complex, we only have two court systems, but you can still end up in both. The above example would have the divorce and criminal cases in the general courts, but in differents proceedings, and the neglect case in the administrative court.

Same problem if the child is the offender - you'd have a criminal case in general court, and a possible child protection case in administrative court.

My theory, and belief, is that troubled children and families would be better served if these things could be pulled together under one jurisdiction. It would give judges a chance to specialise in these extremely complicated matters, and also to get a (more) complete view of the issues. Furthermore, it would decrease the number of agencies involved, hopefully cutting down on the amount of bureaucrasy and increasing efficiency. That ought to be good for everyone.

So that's what I want to do - I want to look at how that works, here, where it exists. Arguments for and against, whether there have been any evaluations...that sort of thing.

It's cool to have a name for it.


[1] p. 3 of Children and the Law, in a nutshell series.

My gut feeling is that things don't change as much as we think they do. Not where it matters. I believe that tech changes while people basically stay the same. I think cave men probably worried about whatever their equivalent to asking girls out was and fought over stupid things like why Grog couldn't keep his cave as tidy as all the other neighbours did. And I think that future humans or post-humans or whatever probably still will do those things a thousand years from now.

The basic human experience stays relevant, topical issues and politics become dated. That's why people still like Homer and Shakespeare, but don't really care about Lewinsky jokes anymore. Until those become of historical interest of course. There is also something to be said about the fact that people use everything for sex. The Sims was originally a practical architecture simulator - but when people where given free rein over it, they (re)created prostitution instead. Regardless of what Demolition Man says, sex will probably be just as much on people's minds in the future as it is now.

We eat, sleep, crap, screw, love, hate, fight, make friends, break up, are jealous, envious, proud, greedy, vain, kind, giving, grateful and rude - and I think we always have, and always will. The methods and expressions may change, but not the essential facts.

On the other hand, our definitions change all the time. Our tools for interpreting those essential facts change. What is a human? And what makes them so? Those questions probably have different answers to different people in different times. And as tech develops, this may become even more true. So will this be a crisis? Or do we just fear it because we (like everyone else since the dawn of time) are cought up in the current and feel out of control?

A cyborg is a creature that is part man part machine. An android is a machine that looks like a man, to a greater or lesser extent. These creatures appear in SF all the time - but what is the essential difference? Data and the Terminator are androids, made (almost) entirely out of artificial parts and programmed like computers. Jamie Sommers, Del Spooner and Berlusconi are cyborgs, originally fully human and outfitted with machine replacements for broken or missing bits. What about Roy Batty? Entirely artificial but entirely biological. What about Krang (if he'd been human) - biological brain in machine body. Where do we draw the line? Are you human as long as somewhere down the line you were born? No matter what you then do to your body later? Conversely - if you were never born, can you ever become human?

Does the fact that we allready ask these questions, as evidenced by the fact that I could rattle all those characters off without doing any reserach, mean that maybe there is not as much of a crisis as some would think? These questions are not new - the essential question, "what is it to be human" has probably been asked since we invented language - it's only the robot part that is new. And even that, not as new as you might think. Frankenstein's monster is sort of like Roy Batty, whatever he is, and asked the same questions. (A Flesh Golem if you play Oblivion... Clay golems are sort of robots, but my mythology knowledge doesn't extend far enough to know wether anyone debated their human/non-human status before Feet of Clay).

We don't have an answer yet - maybe never fully will - but what will it mean that those who will have to decide wether to grant the first fully independently functioning AI citizen status, have allready seen Picard and Data go through that trial on tv?

Is there a paper here somewhere that I would be willing to write? Random filosophising is easy, paper writing is hard... Of course, course requirements are light too.