Ciceronian Review

The Fox was Fantastic But the Cook was Not

I recently watched "The Fantastic Mr. Fox" and "Julia and Julie".  Mr. Fox was a lot of fun.  Interesting characters, more interesting than most live action movie characters.  I particularly liked the meals -- kept enough of the fox to have them eat the way good canid should eat.  The glory of temptation and succumbing to temptation.  Great casting of voices.  I am sorry I did not see it in a theater.

Julia and Julie, on the other hand was half a bad bad movie.  The Julie character was hard to bear.  Aside from being smarmy, it is very hard to believe that character could have worked her way through the cookbook in a year.  I am not much of a chef, but I eat well and I can see what you need to do to make french food of Child's sort.  First of all, the characters must have thrown out almost everything that was cooked.  Could not have made those dishes and gone off to work.  Second, the character just lacked the cooking skills and time to do all the recipes.  The shopping alone would have taken more time than allowed, and a fair number of the dishes could not possibly be done after work (unless the cook was using meth or cocaine to get through the following day).  Meryl Streep as Julia Child (and the character) were delightful, but that was just half a movie.

Concept of Law

I re-read Hart's Concept of Law recently.  One of the things that struck me was how well-written the book is.  The prose is clear and direct.  It is relatively easy to see where one disagrees because it is relatively easy to see what is being argued for and how.  A pleasure to read.  As almost all of philosophy is written work, and written work is the primary mode of communication for philosophy, it is a little odd that, as a group, the profession writes so poorly.  Maybe graduate work should include composition courses?  It would hardly hurt. 

Even lectures and colloquia are typically given by the speaker reading a paper.  The academic world is ripe for a number of competitive sports.  One could pit the sing-song bad poetry reading team against the the logicians' reading papers for the least comprehensible presentation.  Winner to take on the Art Critics.  And, on a separate track, economists against psychologists in a Power-Point playoff.

Keeping an Eye on You

Astronomy Picture of the Day.

 

Default

The Utah Court of Appeals handed down a peculiar decision today on defaults and default judgments.  The issue in Davis v. Goldsworthy was whether a trail court could dismiss a complaint notwithstanding that a default had been entered against the defendant.  This is the second appeal of the case.  In the first, Davis argued that the trial court had improperly lifted the default already entered against Goldsworthy.  The trial court, after  lifting the default, considered and granted a motion to dismiss.  Last time up, the Court of Appeals reversed the lifting of the default and remanded for further consideration.  So, on remand the trial court retained the entry of default but dismissed the complaint on the grounds that, if it could consider the motion to dismiss, it would be granted.  As a result, the trial court believed that it could not enter a default judgment based on the complaint and therefore dismissed the case.  Davis takes it up to the Court of Appeals.  The Court of Appeals agrees that the default was properly left in place and that the trial court properly dismissed the case because default judgment could not be entered.  Davis's argument that it was improper to consider the motion to dismiss (the default entailing that the Goldsworthy was not permitted to defend, including by filing motions to dismiss) was unavailing.

Here is what is odd about the opinion:  It is true that a default judgment must be based on the factual allegations of the complaint.  A complaint which is factually insufficient to support judgment cannot support default judgment.  But there is no rule which bars a plaintiff from introducing evidence to support judgment.  In fact, in a range of cases a plaintiff in a default proceeding is required to introduce evidence of damages.  See, for example, Rule 55(b)(2).  The Court of Appeals cites neither case law, rule, nor statute which limits introduction of evidence following entry of default and in support of a default judgment.  Because it is permissible to offer evidence, it at least odd that Davis was barred from the opportunity to cure defects in his complaint through introduction of evidence.  It may be that the Court of Appeals thought that he could offer evidence sufficient for judgment only on the basis of some claim which his complaint did not give notice of, but that is not what they say.  And, given notice pleading, it would seem that so long as the claim proven is consistent with the complaint, he should have been permitted to proceed., to at least try  The Court of Appeals' argument seems to be that there can be nothing between entry of default and default judgment, which I think is error. 

At paragraph 12 the Court of Appeals claims that"there is nothing in Skanchy or the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure that suggests that a defaulting party may not challenge the legal basis of the pleadings before the trial court enters judgment on the default."  Rule 55 is modeled on the Federal rule, and is virtually identical to a host of rules in other states.  The Rule therefore must be interpreted in light of those sources.  In federal court, default cuts off the defendant's right to defend (and a motion challenging adequacy of pleadings is defense).  That has been law since 1927 - Clifton v. Tomb 21 F.2d 893, 897.  And, if the allegations are insufficient to support judgment, the court may (and should) hold a hearing providing the plaintiff opportunity o provide an appropriate record.  Quirindongo Pacheco v. Rolon Morales, 953 F.2d 15, 16.  Skanchy involved a default judgment in which no evidence beyond the allegations of the complaint were offered to support liability.  The case does not say that evidentiary supplementation is barred.  And that really is the heart of what is troubling about the Davis decision -- the court seems to be of the view that a plaintiff may not supplement the allegations of the complaint, except on the question of damages.  Neither the Rule nor the case law say that.

Virginia Hates America

The Governor of Virginia has issued a proclamation for Confederate History Month.  It  is incredible that government officials still do such things.  The Confederacy was, from beginning to end, treasonous.  The aim of the Confederacy was destruction of the United States of America, in order to preserve slavery.  Will Confederate History Month include discussion of the policy to murder captured Union troops?  Or perhaps a musical celebration of terrorists like Quantrell's Raiders?  

Next month, maybe Virginians can celebrate the sacrifices of the Hitler Youth, or the Red Guards. It is not nearly enough to talk about the "sacrifices and bravery" of the Confederate Army -- does not change that the Confederacy was evil, and its defenders remain shameful and repugnant.

The Robert McConnell hates America.

Georgia offers the same crap.

The View Gets A Little Long and Confused

The NYT ran a review of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years by D. MacCullough in the Sunday Book Review.  A favorable review, which I won't gainsay as I've not read the book.  The review and the reviewer's views are not quite coherent, however.  Consider this bit from the early portion of the review:

Christianity’s foundational belief is that Jesus was the Son of God, who died and rose again as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of a fallen world. It seems banal even to note this. But guess who did not know it on that epic morning of Resurrection long ago? Those closest to Jesus, the disciples, who, when told of the empty tomb by the women who followed Jesus, were perplexed: what could this mean? Jesus had not adequately prepared them for the central dramatic action of the new salvation history that was to take shape in the wake of his Passion. Read carefully, the Gospels tell the story of the disciples’ working out what a resurrected Messiah might mean, and the conclusions they drew formed the core of the belief system that became Christianity.

Why the initial uncertainty? Because it is vastly more likely that Jesus’ contemporaries expected his imminent return to earth and the inauguration of the kingdom of God — a time, in first-century Jewish thought, that would be marked, among other things, by a final triumph of Israel over its foes and a general resurrection of the dead.

(Emphasis added).  Now compare that to this bit from the end:

To suggest that such supernatural stories are allegorical can be considered a radical position in even the most liberal precincts of the Christian world. But the Bible was not FedExed from heaven, nor did the Lord God of Hosts send a PDF or a link to Scripture. Properly understood — and MacCulloch’s book is a landmark contribution to that understanding — Christianity cannot be seen as a force beyond history, for it was conceived and is practiced according to historical bounds and within human limitations.

The inference which this suggests rather strongly, but does not explicitly draw, is that the allegorical interpretation of Bible passages is not at all what was intended in their composition.  If not allegorical, then absurd.  And so off from reason. 

The example of Christianity and abolition, though, is ultimately a cheering one.

Cheering because it took only about two thousand years for Christianity to repudiate slavery? 

The Libertarian Tide

Libertarian views of property have some counter-intuitive outcomes.  For libertarians, building codes are an abomination.  (I exaggerate; but are disfavored.)  If people care about sound buildings, they will pay for them in a proper libertarian economy, or collect damages from the breach of contract suits which will follow the fall of the buildings.  (I don't know what the libertarian view is about statutes of repose or privity of contract -- both would problems for a housing market.)  So, then, the libertarian should be a bit disappointed by the events in Chile.  The death toll in Chile from the recent earthquake is quite low -- around 400.  Disappointed because the primary explanation thus far for the low toll is high building standards regularly enforced by the state.

Absent the building codes, the toll would be higher.  In Haiti, where the people are not burdened by building codes (at least none that are enforced), the toll was significantly higher.  A couple of orders of magnitude in fact -- hundreds of thousands.

Architectural Tinkertoys

Like all recent Olympic games, the event is an excuse for massive building programs -- giant welfare projects for construction companies and architects.  And now monuments to the games are part of the building program.  London has unveiled the monument it will build.  Awful is, I think, the apt description.  Well, it is big, so it will cost a lot.  But then, the UK still is a monarchy.  

The image is from the NYT, which got it from Getty Images.