Results tagged “harvardlaw”

Ban the Beanball, Says Torture Advocate

Harvard Law professor and torture enthusiast Alan Dershowitz ran nearly 700 words in today's Globe about the injustice of the beanball. Using the most recent beaning of ball magnet Kevin Youkilis as a case study, Dershowitz points out the obvious: a team that beans a great hitter—and enrages him to the point where he draws a five game suspension—actually benefits from the infraction. In the case of the Youkilis beaning, Youk sat out for five games, during which the Sox went 1-4, and the offending Tigers' pitcher, Rick Porcello, merely had his next scheduled start pushed back a game.

--The Executive Director of the Turnpike Authority wants to CharlieCard everything so that you can use your card at the tolls. While we're all for not having to save spare change, automation might make it easier to miss fare hikes. [Boston Herald]

It seems that Bostonist's call for submissions inspired you. Say hello to Gerard Sloan, who is already working the political beat! And we hope you'll meet more writers in the next week. Interested in joining the team? Read our call for columnists and e-mail jobs@bostonist.com.

There's so much going on across the Ist-a-Verse that it's almost impossible to keep track these days. Fortunately, we do it so you don't have to! Londonist took a walk through Oliver Twist's London, thanks to a gorgeous map layer for Google Earth. They also caught up with modern-day fictional London, with the Fantastic Four and 28 Weeks Later. It was a week of insanity over at DCist. They started the week off with...

We're not quite sure why Attorney General Alberto Gonzales keeps trying to find love in Boston. He came up here once to try to distract people from the whole fired-prosecutors scandal with something about online predators, and then he showed up at his Harvard Law reunion.

If it hasn't been drilled into your head by now let us be the umpteen thousandth to tell you - Barack Obama went to Harvard Law. He was the first black president of the Harvard Law review. He is currently a US Senator from Illinois. He's also running for President of the United States, well, at least he's formed an exploratory committee to seek the Democratic nomination (thanks two-party system). Last week the New York...

Last month controversy erupted surrounding an invitation extended President Jimmy Carter to speak at Brandeis. The invitation was extended by a trustee with the suggestion that he make Waltham a stop on his book tour and have a little debate with Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz. Carter gave the idea a thanks but no thanks response. Carter’s newest book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid was publicly criticized by Dershowitz who has asserted that the former President is taking a critical look at Israel while ignoring other, and according to Dershowitz more significant, human rights problems in Saudi Arabia. While the initial invitation was twice declined, a new invitation was extended to Carter by faculty and students. Their invitation was to speak and take questions, but Dershowitz was not on the table. The group is looking to increase a dialog about the Israeli-Palestine conflict on campus, an issue on which Carter’s perspective is not presented with regularity. Carter has agreed to make an appearance at Brandeis under these conditions.

When Bostonist didn't get into Harvard Law School, we settled for another fine, albeit architecturally challenged, institution in the area (and married a Harvard grad student, which made us feel much better). But according to a story in today's New York Times, high school students rejected by Harvard College are increasingly doing bachelor's degrees at the Harvard Extension School, seeing it as the Harvard experience on the cheap. (Why not just go to community college, you ask? A Harvard writing instructor exlpains: "People say Harvard-trained, they don't say Bunker Hill Community College-trained." Ouch.)

This afternoon Al Franken rocked Air America’s AM airwaves* from right here in the Hub. As part of a nation-wide book tour Franken made his appearance in Boston and coupled it with a broadcast of his three hour program from the Wilbur in the Theatre District. Harvard alum Franken pulled on the alumni network to fill his show's time slot. Robert Putnam from the Kennedy School of Government, Laurence Tribe from Harvard Law School, Julius Richmond and Rashi Fein form Harvard Medical School, Atul Gawande from the Harvard School of Public Health joined Franken and Harvard College and Harvard Law School grad and current Congressman Barney Frank for conversations. Boston, "a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America,” according to Senator Santorum, was home to the progressive talk show and a half dozen of those liberal elites from that little school across the river, Harvard. Franken’s “zero spin zone” conversed with some intelligentsia before Franken hopped the red line into his hired car service on his way back up to Cambridge where he read from his new book The Truth (with jokes) at the Charles Hotel in – wait for it – Harvard Square. Bostonist doesn’t really have a problem having that prestigious University across the river, but it seems like Franken focused a bit too much “in the community” and overlooked some of the gems that Boston has to offer. Just think what he could have done with Mitt on the radio. It was nice to have you back in the Hub, Al, even if you were just promoting Ve Ri Tas (with jokes).

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