The three of us went out this hazy Memorial day for a walk, primarily to take some pictures of the boy. We have come across the tree seen in the header and marveled at its uniqueness on previous outings, so naturally we had to take shots of it before we left.
We have stayed inside the house for the most part all weekend. I am now beginning my third week of doing nothing. It feels good in part but there is this nervous undercurrent for me. The weight of finding a job for graduation has begun to leave its mark on me. It was once so very far away and now it is less than a year from happening. Next year this time I will start my Bar Bri course, and a short while later take the bar exam.
What else? I have found a good book to read. The Color of Water by James McBride is the first non-law school book I will finish in a good long time. I was curious about it for several reasons, just one being that we are a interracial family. There is a wonderful first person/third person narrative in the book, where two stories, one his mother’s and one his own are told. At first I was not tooo interested in his mother’s story but after learning about her upbringing in the 1930’s, a Jewish family running a grocery store in the deep south, in the black part of town, I was instantly hooked shifting my loyalty from his story to hers. I am about halfway through now and both tales are really engaging. I’ll write my final impressions when I finish the book.
I also have Obama’s Audacity of Hope. I’ve only managed to read the chapter on the Constitution. My highlight is his excellent explanation of the differences between strict constructionists and those that see the document as “living and breathing.” In describing the latter, Obama says,
…..[T}he founding fathers and original ratifiers have told us how to think but are no longer around to tell us what to think. We are on our own and have only our own reason and our judgement to rely on.
The viewpoint makes inherent sense to me. It doesn’t mean that the Constitution is without bounds – our thinking must be constrained by the framework. What the Constitution does not mandate is OUTCOMES, only the process we use to reach them. Simple concept (I think) but one lost on some many “learned” people.
