At the age of eight I mowed my first lawn and even then I realized what an absolute, despicable waste lawns are. For the last several years I have been living in apartments in the middle of a city, so the small amount of lawn care that was required was taken care of by the landlords/ladies. This year, however, I moved into a house where I was responsible for the mowing of the not-insignificant lawn. I was immediately reminded of how utterly irritating, wasteful and self-defeating lawn-care is.
Onwards
Today was my last day working in student recruitment at the University of New Brunswick. Bittersweet to be sure. During my year and a half in recruitment, I encountered some challenges, mostly with the organizational structures of a university environment and those working in leadership positions. I also had the opportunity to work with some wonderful people and learn from some very intelligent and caring leaders. After some reflection I think the most important lesson I’ve learned over the last year has been in diplomacy. The ability to convince or sway people has never been a strong suit for me – I tended to see things in stark contrasts, rather than choose to see the places where ideas, concepts and objectives overlapped. It is from this place of overlap where the best compromises and, ultimately, the best decisions can be made. I know this lesson will serve me well in the future – in whatever legal profession I choose to pursue, the ability to stubbornly argue a perspective will never be as important as the ability to convince, cajole and otherwise move a discussion in a particular direction through common interest and objective.
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Too many laws…
Photo courtesy of Tubb on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tubb/
Harper’s Conservative Party, in line with his conservative ideology according to media outlets like the Globe and Mail, wants to curb the Supreme Court’s ability to significantly alter or amend legislation through interpretive rulings. See today’s Globe article on the status of Supreme Court interpretation. How would Harper significantly change the powers of the highest court? Well, technically he can’t. But, using one of the many ridiculously unchecked Prime-ministerial powers in Canada’s executive branch, Harper has the ability to unilaterally appoint two new judges in the next year (two judges are retiring). While Harper has promised to seek recommendations from a multi-party search committee, the ultimate decision lies with he and his Justice Minister Rob Nicholson.
Posted in Current Events, Law/Legal Issues, Politics 2 Comments
A disaster looms on the internet horizon…
Google just pulled the Grooveshark app from the Android marketplace due to intense copyright scrutiny. Grooveshark, as I’ve written about before is a phenomenal cloud-based music-sharing application. According to Ars Technica and other news sources, Google has officially removed Grooveshark from their mobile Android application market. This is suspected to be caused in part by intense pressure from Universal Music Group (UMG) who is currently involved in ongoing DMCA litigation with Grooveshark. Google also appeared before a congressional hearing yesterday on the topic of Google’s antipiracy and copyright policies (source: CNET News). Both these factors clearly resulted in Google’s decision to pull Grooveshark’s app without warning to consumers or the company.
Posted in Current Events, Law/Legal Issues, Music, Tech Leave a comment
