Thanks for . . .

My husband, who puts up with me all year long and lends aid, comfort and support for my new career, materially and spiritually every step of the way.

Law Librarians and Public Libraries

Hey!  I've got a great idea!!  Let's collect, classify and make every book ever written free to the public!!!  Google's moon shot?  the quest for the universal library from the New Yorker?  No, silly!  Public libraries.

Today, the Law Librarian Blog bring us the entire the Congressional Proclamation of Thanksgiving passed in 1782 here.

My contentious litigation friends will be pleased to know that the first public subscription library in Philadelphia was founded in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin and a group of his friends (the Junto) as a means to settle arguments. It is still in existence today -- here.

Law Professors, who, for better or worse, taught me not to accept as "true" anything for which there is no (preferably admissible) evidence.  

In gratitude, I provide you with the "most cited law school professors" from Et Seq. -- the Harvard Law School Library blog and once again thank Professor Dick Wydick for drawing all those word balloons over the heads of stick figures to teach me the hearsay rule -- a concept I found 80% of lawyers -- litigators even -- simply have never understood.  Because of Dick, it's always been easy for me.  Buy his book Plain English for Lawyers, which you can preview here. 

The Rule of Law in America (which we are presently clinging to as if it were a sinking ship). 

See Harper's must-read article State of exception:  Bush's War on the Rule of Law here.

The American Civil Liberties Union, most recently there for us when the City of Los Angeles decided it would be a good idea to "map" our Muslim residents.

The fact that the City of Los Angeles backed down so quickly is particularly gratifying given the fact that the chances of an American resident on U.S. soil being killed by a terrorist attack is one in 80,000 -- equivalent to the chances of being killed by a meteor that manages to land on earth after its calamitous trip through the atmosphere.   See Is there still a terrorist threat - the myth of the omnipresent enemy from the September/October issue of Foreign Affairs.

The Internet which has, this year, brought me joy, friends, colleagues, an illustrator for my book, information, opinions, facts, insight, art, literature, film, post-modern culture, and clients. 

Thanks everyone!  Off to put the turkey in the oven.

(photo by the brilliantly talented Albane Navizet)