understanding history

Harry Smeltzer has a website and blog about Civil War history in general, and the battle of Manassas in particular, called Bull Runnings. The topic of whether history should be presented in narrative format is popular right now and Harry has a good post today about that topic. In the post Harry asks whether “web projects, perhaps, [can] be something more than alternatives to traditional print narratives: can they somehow be more illustrative of the fragmented, chaotic nature of events, military or otherwise, and so provide a better understanding of what happened than traditional narrative?”

I think web projects can be. But even the best web project cannot address the problem of conveying what it was really like to be there.

A web project can go further than the traditional narrative history book in that a web project has at least the potential to be multimedia which in turn appeals to multiple senses; there is also the opportunity to build large archives and collections of different types of descriptions to create a more complete picture of a topic. For example, a website on a battle can include narrative descriptions of the fighting, maps of troop movements, maps depicting topography, photographs of the battlefield past and present. There can be paintings or depictions of art in other form. It can include descriptions from women, old men, children, fighting men, and generals — all each conveying a different part of the experience. Music from the period, the sounds of battle, could also be included. Books cannot convey sound and most are limited in what they can present in the way of photographs and maps. A good website can gather all of these things in one place. Furthermore, there’s more opportunity in a web project to have different authors.

(Not to say books should be replaced by websites. But I do think the electronic medium has a lot of potential to create a more complete version of history.)

But no multimedia presentation and no book no matter how detailed can convey what it was really like. Historians, like it or not, are constrained in part by the medium — the English language can only go so far in it’s descriptiveness. The brain can only absorb and process so much at any given time.

Part of the problem is history is the craft of describing human life and affairs, and life is in and of itself a sensory experience. Words can try to describe things we sense — what a man’s face looks like, what a battlefield smelled like, what a Whitworth projectile heading overhead sounded like, how the ground rises and falls — but unless you experience those things for yourself, you really don’t understand. Further complicating matters is the fact that people perceive things differently. Sure, there is usually a common thread, but reality is different for each of us. Asked to describe the same exact event, we’ll all come up with slightly different ways to do so, maybe even widely divergent ways. How we will describe the event in part is based upon our own past experiences, but probably also has something to do simply with the fact that we’re all biologically wired somewhat differently.

Take the example of chemo for cancer treatment. Most of you out there have not ever experienced first-hand what it is like to do chemo. I can tell you that no matter how much you try to understand what it is like to undergo chemo, you cannot understand unless you’ve been through it yourself. I can try to convey to you what it is like, but my reality and your reality are different. Think of trying to describe to someone who has never heard one what a saxophone sounds like — you have points of reference to use to try and describe it, but until you have experienced it yourself, you cannot say you really know or understand.

I think that is what the chaos of battle is like. We can try to understand it, but really never cannot because we have not experienced it the same way they experienced it. Historians try to describe it, but can only go so far.

The more ways you can sense history — touch it, experience it for yourself — I think the closer you can get. But you never are going to know what it actually was like to be there, unless you were there. Even then, you cannot ever have the full picture.

Since none of us are witnesses, we’re also limited by having to make sense of what we’re given by the historical record. The historical record has it’s problems. Go back to trying to describe the same event and coming up with different stories to describe it. We may sense it differently, but there is more to it than that. Our descriptions also may vary depending on what we’re trying to convey. Do we want sympathy? Do we want someone to believe us and not someone else? Is there something to be gained if our version of what happened is believed over another? This can impact what we emphasize when we tell our own version of what happened. It can lead us to consciously or unconsciously distort the record.

Historians, in the end, are a lot like attorneys, really. I think that’s the reason you find so many lawyers writing history or interested in history. As attorneys, we are given a set of facts — all filtered through the eyes of witnesses with different experiences who may have differing motivations for how they tell the story of what happened. They may all be telling the truth, or at least think they are telling the truth (though of course some will lie and the attorney will have to try and sort fact from fiction which is in and of itself sometimes impossible). An attorney takes these “facts” and then cobbles them together to create a story to be told in a brief, or to the judge, or to the jury. The attorney creates a story to explain reality. In the end, isn’t that really what a historian does — gather evidence and tell a story? Of course, we like to think that historians don’t have reason to give the story a certain “spin,” whereas the lawyer obviously tries to tell the story in a way that most benefits the client. But is there such a thing as a totally unbiased historian? I don’t think there is.

Just some thoughts bouncing in my head, as Harry put it. Although I don’t think there are any answers to some of these problems, I think that mulling over them and understanding that they exist is a good thing.

chemo casualties

1. Many of the hairs on my head and all of the little useful hairs inside my nose (now my nose runs constantly like a leaky faucet).

2. My job. (I had enough. So, I quit.)

3. My ability to eat ice (now ice nauseates me. How can something as innocous as ice cause nausea?!?)

4. My running capacity (I hope its getting better though)

5. My patience. (My tolerance for waiting on hold on the phone was never good and it is now completely gone.)

it only hurts when I breathe

Actually, it now only hurts when I take a deep breath. And, though it might not sound like it, that is a definite improvement.

I had been staying away from reading stuff about Hodgkin’s Disease on the internet; but the problems caused by the Bleomycin have made me go back to internet research. I have been spending most of my time combing through medical journals, attempting to transform myself from a lawyer into an amateur oncologist.

Surprisingly law is actually helpful. In law school, you spend your first few weeks learning how to “brief” a case. Generally, law school is taught this way: the students are told to read some cases and then come prepared to “discuss” them in class. Law students try to distill a case into a synopsis; this is called “briefing” the case. The most important part is sifting through the case to find something called “the holding.” The holding is what the court ruled; everything else is supposed to be something called “dicta.” Dicta lacks the precedent value of the “holding.” Or so law professors say. Anyway, of course, a case often has more than one “holding” depending on how you’re reading the case and what you’re trying to get out of it. (Not following? Don’t worry, its not that important.)

Class then works something like this. The professor will randomly call on someone from the seating chart and have them explain the case. Being on the spot like this is about as much fun as a root canal. The student will usually start by telling the class what the case is about. The professor will lead the discussion with questions. This is what is known as the “Socratic Method.” As you might surmise, most law students probably wish at least at some point that Socrates never existed. Anyway, usually the professor will question the poor, exposed victim … errr, “student on the spot” until they can’t answer the questions anymore; then the professor will either pick on another student or will call on someone with their hand raised (and usually its the same small group of people who always raise their hands).

If you’re a trial attorney, you get to take out your revenge for the terror inflicted upon you in law school on society by being able to do really nasty cross examinations. If you’re an appellate judge, you get to engage in the same sort of questioning of the lawyers that come before you to argue a case. And, if you’re a law professor, of course you get to terrorize the next generation of law students.

I had to step away from the computer and I have completely lost my train of thought. I’d chalk it up to “chemo brain,” but that used to happened just as much before I had chemo. Oh well. Anyway, back to my point (did I have one? I must have. Either way, I have typed too much to go back now.) Reading cases sounds easier than it is. First, there is the jargon. First year law students spend a lot of time just trying to understand the language of law. Second, cases are often poorly written or poorly edited. Cases are generally written by judges (or their law clerks) and like many lawyers, many judges are not good writers. Third, cases are often boring factually, particularly in areas such as contracts. Combine these elements and you get difficult to read material.

I was lucky going into law school; one of my college majors was philosophy. Once you’ve waded through Kant on metaphysics, nothing seems quite so difficult.

The point of that whole long digression was to say that I’ve found reading medical journals is like reading cases — its not easy. I feel like a first year law student again. I have to break out a medical dictionary to understand words like “prevascular spaces,” “hilar adenopathy,” and “pleural effusion.” Law school is obviously no help on understanding words like that, but the training, the basic grounding of how to teach yourself to learn any area of law is helpful. I suppose “thinking like a lawyer” can transfer to just about anything.

Then again, I also feel as though I need to go get a degree in statistics to really understand these journals. Everything boils down to stats. Whether to do radiation or not comes down (for example), it seems, to whether you prefer a 5% better chance of not relapsing with a 5% worse chance of a secondary cancer or other very bad effect, or vice versa. You get to pick your poision! I have trouble knowing how much weight to put on these stats; Hodgkin’s Disease is a relatively rare cancer with only about 7,500 cases a year. The state of medicine changes every day; some of these studies are now years old. Its hard to know what to do.

The one stat I really wanted to find, I haven’t, and that’s what the difference is between 6 cycles of ABVD and 8 cycles of ABVD. Is 8 actually going to prove to have a superior rate of cure? Or is having more of these dangerous drugs that come in biohazard bags and are handled by nurses who wear gloves and gowns and masks pumped into your body just going to prove a few years down the line to cause more secondary cancers, more secondary heart problems? I worry constantly about whether beating the Hodge will turn into a Pyrrhic victory.

But I really think a lot of these questions — whether to do 6 cycles or 8 cycles, radiation or not — are basically, when it is all said and done, dice throws. And that type of uncertainty is a pretty scary thing to think about when you’re talking about your life.

Being a lawyer, I have trouble trusting others judgment.  But I guess in this arena, I have to trust my doc.

For now, I suppose I will just be happy that it only hurts when I take a deep breath.

CLE

I spent the entire day at a CLE. CLE stands for continuing legal education (it also stands for Cleveland Hopkins airport). The topic was “How to Win Your First Civil Trial.”

(I am also WAY behind on answering email, so if you emailed me in the last few days, I am getting there.)

I’ve already won my first civil trial, but there were still some helpful things I learned which hopefully will aid me the next time I have a trial. It also made me realize how much I basically just fly by the seat of my pants. :) I am a fearless young lawyer (there’s just not THAT much for me to lose in small claims type trials and I seem to do better when I get aggressive).

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to find this class was a good use of my money. I still haven’t changed my mind about the “Substance Abuse” provision, though. Ohio requires all lawyers to get an hour of CLE credit every two years of training about “Substance Abuse.” I think its frankly kind of an insulting requirement. I’ve never had alcohol in my life and, having experienced the ultimate poisioning and hangover in chemo, I never ever will touch the stuff. Plus, alcohol makes lymph nodes hurt if you have the Hodge. (That’s a classical Hodgkin’s Disease symptom that as far as I know is unique just to Hodgkin’s Disease.)

Jenny’s Somewhat Helpful, Tongue in Cheek Bar Exam Tips

I realize its approaching that wonderful time when law students start to panic about the bar exam.  In the interest of helping out poor law students (I am still young and green enough to remember BEING one of those poor law students) I offer these somewhat helpful, somewhat tongue in cheek tips for the bar exam. Caveat (that’s a nice lawyerly word to use on your exam by the way — makes you sound smart, see tip five), I’ve only taken one exam and I’ve only taken Ohio’s test AND I self-studied.

1.  Study the state distinctions in the rules.  At least for the July 2005 edition of the 2.5 day torture fest, the examiners loved testing where Ohio’s rules differed from the “Model” rules or the Federal rules (i.e. in Civil Procedure).  If you were up on those areas, you were golden on the essays.  I was not.  (I ruled the MBE — except for criminal law — which is how I think I passed)

2. PMBR makes CDs with taped lectures.  Put them on your ipod and listen to them even when you’re doing other things (like exercising).  They are excellent.  As I said, I rocked the MBE and I think that’s why I did.  Also I followed the advice in tip four below.

3.  Take the bar courses during law school.  It really helps.  I guess its a little late for that advice. Still, I didn’t take Criminal Procedure, Secured Transactions (that’s UCC Article IX ), or Estates / Wills and I passed. Mainly by following the advice in number five.

4.  The MBE is cruel — either you know it or you don’t, and they try and trick you, so even if you do know it, it looks like you don’t.  The MBE is black-letter law.  So if you’re good at memorizing, you’ll be good at the MBE.  I recommend learning what some of the rules are and then using the process of elimenating answers.  For example, although there might be just ONE question on the MBE about, say, the Rule Against Perpetuties, RAP kept cropping up time after time as a potential answer in the Real Property area.  You might be tempted to just not study or know RAP since its only one question, but knowing what RAP is (and don’t ask me what RAP is because the day after the bar exam I erased it from my memory and replaced it with Civil War stuff) makes it easy to knock it out  as an answer and it probably will appear more than once as a potential answer.  Also, do lots of practice questions … you’ll start to learn how the examiners try and trick you.  Treat each of the multiple choice questions as a true/false and you should do ok.  It worked for me (and c’mon, we all know I am not the brightest star in the sky).

5.  Even if you have no clue what you’re talking about on the essays, pretend you do.  Throw in all those cool terms you learned during bar review for the topic and hope you sound smart and the examiner figures even if you don’t know your stuff, you’ll be good at faking it. Hey, part of being a real world lawyer is sometimes faking it or, at least, adapting on the fly. So show them you KNOW how to be a real lawyer and maybe they’ll have pity on you.  Someone had pity on me.  Somehow I actually got points on the Will question and I was way, way, way out in left-field.  In fact I was so far out in left-field I wasn’t even in the same time zone as the examiner.

And one last tip … if you did decently in legal writing, I wouldn’t even bother studying for the Multi-State Performance Test (the MPT).  I didn’t spend one minute on it, and got two excellent scores.  I know no-one who did bad on it and no-one who failed because of the MPT.  So I think you might have to be particularly talented to blow the MPT. Seriously, if you did well in your legal writing classes or you have some clerking experience writing stuff, you should be fine.  (That said, don’t blame ME if you don’t study for the MPT and you don’t pass!)

NOW, I am going to go work on my website.

shorter of breath, one day closer to death

Sorry to be so macabre. But this song was on the radio when I was driving home from work and it seemed appropriate today. Are there any Pink Floyd fans out there?

The Hodge is beating the heck out of me today. My groin pain (which feels more and more suspiciously like NERVE pain) came back. Thanks nerve-wrecking “V” drug. My lungs are in rebellion (deep breaths are not my friend). Thank you, lung battering “B” drug. My hair is shedding. Thank you appearence and vanity wrecking “A” drug AND “V” drug. And, to top it all off, I just in general feel kind of down and “yucky.” I’ll blame the dreaded, dastardly “D” drug for that one. I guess the medical term for “yucky” would be malaise. Whatever it is, its not fun.

Still, I dragged my sorry self into work and stayed most of the day. Did my usual exciting lawyer stuff: filed an eviction action, filed a money damages complaint in a different matter, wrote a letter to another lawyer about problems we’re having with their clients answering discovery requests (my boss signed it, not me), and did some skip tracing (i.e. searching for good addresses of debtors we’re trying to collect from). Oh, and I drafted a Motion for Contempt. Those are my favorite. Actually they aren’t, but they are useful. I actually like drafting any motion that I get to do from scratch or mainly from scratch. I like using my brain and not just doing law clerk, fill-in-the-blank type stuff — which is what most complaints or motions we file usually are. Motions for Contempt are useful because they do tend to bring the debtors to court to answer questions about their assets. Something about the threat of being held in jail on a capias gets people who have ignored everything — including the Motion for Default! — to actually start cooperating. The next step then is usually wage garnishing which is just filling in a bunch of blanks and then making about sixty copies for the Court. I think the Court likes to kill trees.

I can’t be much more specific than that about what I did ’cause of confidentiality (anyone who knows even a bit about law knows how much us lawyers love confidentiality), but now you basically know what I do at work all day. Glamorous it is most certainly not, but it pays the bills (most of the time anyway). Now you know why I rarely talk about my job — there is rarely anything to talk about.

I think I’m going to go do something fun — work on And Then A.P. Hill Came Up. That always keeps me out of trouble for a while anyway. Anyone got some new Hill stuff for me?

(Did I mention my father found me an A.P. Hill t-shirt on our trip to Gettysburg? I wore it to work and everyone asked who the bearded dude was. The biggest and best perk of my job is my boss doesn’t care WHAT I wear to work, as long as its not a day when I am representing a client in court.)

moms are cool that way

A rare law related post.

My mother came bounding up the stairs excitedly today to tell me she found a CLE program for me.  I was rather taken aback.  CLE stands for Continuing Legal Education, by the way.  Its sort of the bane of my existence because my employer doesn’t pay for mine and I’ve been trying to figure out how I am going to swing around $600 to get the 12 credits I need by the end of the year to keep my law license, what with the Hodge and all (not only doesn’t my employer help with getting credits, I also don’t work full-time right now).  But I digress.  Anyway, my mother found me a program called “Win Your First Civil Trial.”  Of course, I’ve already “won” a couple small claims civil trials (I do mainly landlord-tenant law).  But the CLE  program agenda actually looks good — dare I say useful even — and it’ll give me a chance to network with other lawyers.  My mother also, very graciously, is paying my way (money is very tight for me with the Hodge — can’t even afford to indulge my running shoe habit too often).

Moms can be very cool that way.

my diploma

The law school finally broke down and mailed me my diploma. I found it inside of my door when I went out to look for any snail mail. I was supposed to go down to the school and pick up the diploma in person. I did not do so, obviously. Why? Well, picking up the diploma meant:

1. Going to graduation, a fate worse than death (oh wait, they didn’t give us our real diplomas there. my bad)
2. Driving downtown (I would not fight downtown traffic and pay to park just for my diploma)
3. Taking the bus downtown (a 45-minute one-way trip that costs $1.50 each way)

Being someone who won’t go downtown unless I absolutely have to do so, I did not pick up my diploma. Plus, I would have had to STORE the darn thing somewhere and protect it from getting bent and ruined. I already have my huge legal license to store. I didn’t need another big document to store and keep safe.

But today — there it was. My diploma. And thus, I guess, closed that chapter of my life — law school. It closed with a minor triumph, I suppose — in the end, I didn’t have to go into downtown to pick it up. (A triumph of laziness I suppose. But I have so few victories I’m taking what I can get.)

(It ended up costing the law school $1.59 in postage to mail my diploma. So it was cheaper in the end for society for the law school to mail it to me as it would have cost me at least $3 and 90 minutes of time to go get the darned thing. See I am a lawyer, I can even make an argument to justify my own laziness in not wanting to go pick up my darned diploma). Anyway, the diploma is ok. Its big. It probably was run through a laser printer. Its gray and green which are the main University’s colors. It is slightly more impressive that my college diploma (which is not saying much). I give it three and a half trolls out of ten.I’m sure my family will want to oohhh and ahhh over it, though.

new lawyer training

New Lawyer Training: A Mind Numbing Experience. That’s what they should have called this seminar. Eeep.

Most of the speakers were not bad; I’m sure they all did their best and some were good. In fact, one of them (an actual MD who did a presentation about the insantity defense) was really and genuinely interesting. (That’s saying something; he was the speaker right before lunch when we were all hungry) The substantive law sections we did today weren’t bad either. But generally the ethics / professional responsibility part of the CLE was mind numbing and I think a lot of people were just bored. I mean, if you went to my law school, you passed Professional Responsibility; we passed the bar (which had an ethics question); we all passed the MPRE. In fact, because we passed the MPRE, we probably are more up to date on the Model Rules Ohio is likely switching to (we currently are one of five or so states with the older Model Code) than older lawyers are. Anyway, it seemed like almost all of it could be summed up simply as: “Be good. For the love of God, please please be good and bring honor upon the profession.” In the end, people who care are going to do their very best to be professionals who bring honor upon the legal profession. And in the end people who don’t care aren’t. No amount of prostelytizing is going to change that. If the message of be professional and be good and don’t steal from your clients hadn’t penetrated into your head before Friday, I really doubt that new lawyer training was going to do much good.

Ehhhh …. I’m just complaining. Make me sit through 9 hours of anything and I’ll be whiney about it. OK, except for maybe a seminar on A.P. Hill or the Civil War (but even then, you’re pushing my notoriously short attendence span — I blame TV).

A lot of the seminar seemed designed more for new lawyers starting out on their own. Which seemed odd because it didn’t seem like very many of us were actually doing that. Most seemed like they worked for firms or planned to try and find a job in firms. Oh — and I felt better to learn that I’m not the only one still looking for a job. I was starting to think just no one liked me. :)

I also have to say, it was weird being at new lawyer training. Coming back to the law school and no longer being a student. It was all very odd. I should have picked up my diploma. I forgot.

It snowed like crazy yesterday. I think we got a good four or five inches on the west-side while I was sequestered in new lawyer training from 8:30 until 5:15 (yeah, they let us go early because of the snow). Getting home was kind of a mess. I didn’t actually get home until 6:15. Usually takes about 20-25 minutes.

Ran yesterday morning at 5:40 and today at 6:30. Both good runs, today’s was better. There was ice and slush on the roads and some snow, but since it was Saturday, I saw very few cars on the road. Wore my reflective bands and kept the tunes turned down pretty low. Wore my “safety orange” Enduros. Went fine. It was just starting to get light when I got home.

Been running for the last couple days with my new heart rate monitor. I think it was a good thing to spend my gift certificate on. Though it keeps telling me my heart rate on my runs maxes at 236 or 240 (!!!!). Obviously, something is off. The average seems right though, so I’m working off of that. I need to find my actual max. I sure as heck hope its not actually 236 or 240 hahahahaha. If it is something is really wrong! (It should be somewhere AROUND 195 … that’s what 220-age would be).

Plans for tomorrow: sleep in a little, go running (more snow expected over night happy happy joy joy not). Eat. Uh. That may be it. Work on my website perhaps. Guess we’ll see.

pass lists

Pass lists in states other than Ohio have been slowly posting to the internet. Its interesting to see who passed from people who took the bar exam in other states. Then again, it feels almost voyeuristic to be checking to see who passed and who didn’t pass.

I’m not sure about how I feel about this whole, let’s publish the public list thing. I can’t really argue with posting it after a period of time has passed — after all, who is an attorney in a particular state is a matter of public record. Nevertheless, I have to say that I really don’t like the way Ohio handles it. Ohio published the public list right off the bat — something most states didn’t seem to do. If your name was on the list, well congratulations. If not, well, um, you get to enjoy spending the last week of February back in Columbus. I think it would have been a bit, well, kinder, to code the list (i.e. do it by exam number, password protect it, something like that) for at least for 48 hours or so. If you didn’t pass, I think its a little nicer to be able to break the news to other people rather than for everyone all over the country who knew you were taking the bar to know you failed, maybe even before you could check yourself. But that’s just my opinion.

The bar exam is quickly becoming a distant memory. Oh, sure, of course I’ll be checking the pass lists again for the next couple times to see if my friends who graduate later pass. But that horrible, unrelenting stress and pressure … well, that’s now a distant memory for me.

If you want to give yourself an ulcer, take a bar exam.