"The practice of secret courts. The use of torture to secure confessions. The receipt of secret evidence. The exclusion of the public from proceedings. The offering of evidence in the form of summaries delivered to the judges, without the defendant being able to confront the evidence or conduct a cross-examination. These practices were the definition of tyrannical injustice to the Puritan fathers and the Founding Fathers. We thought them long banished, indeed, a hundred years and more before our own revolution. And now suddenly here they are again."
-from remarks' made by Scott Horton at the NYU Law School.

This is the audio version of Dean Lawrence R. Velvel's blog, www.velvelonnationalaffairs.com
For more information on The Massachusetts School of Law, log on to www.msl.edu
And to hear (and see!) the history of MSL, please visit "Against the Tide" on www.podiobooks.com or in the podcast section of iTunes

...From the media one may receive this explanation
For why names of judges it does not mention:
A court of appeals is a unitary body,
So it matters not who speaks, or whether her logic is brilliant or shoddy,
Her words are not hers but of the court anent
(Unless, I guess, spoken in concurrence or dissent).
And this though the judges usually are but three
Of a court of seven or twelve or even twenty.
Need one say the idea is preposterous
And serves only to insure ignorance among us
Of who is liberal and who reactionary,
Of who uses life tenure to push views of the nineteenth century?...
a poem by Lawrence R Velvel

This is the audio version of Dean Lawrence R. Velvel's blog, www.velvelonnationalaffairs.com
For more information on The Massachusetts School of Law, log on to www.msl.edu
And to hear (and see!) the history of MSL, please visit "Against the Tide" on www.podiobooks.com or in the podcast section of iTunes

It’s no longer just the desire to be first,
Or to live forever in a great sunburst
Of historical fame.
No. Now its for gain,
For riches, for wealth, for dollars by the million
That the greedy dance at the presidential cotillion,
Since it has now become clear for all to see
That to be President is a business opportunity
Of terrific dimension....
- a poem

This is the audio version of Dean Lawrence R. Velvel's blog, www.velvelonnationalaffairs.com
For more information on The Massachusetts School of Law, log on to www.msl.edu
And to hear (and see!) the history of MSL, please visit "Against the Tide" on www.podiobooks.com or in the podcast section of iTunes

In 1963, Gene Patterson wrote a now famous column in The Atlanta Constitution in response to the Birmingham Church bombing.
...If you substitute the words"United States" for the word "South", the word "American" for the word "Southerner", the name "Iraq" for the name "Birmingham", and make some other necessary verbal substitutions...then what Patterson wrote is in many unfortunate respects as applicable to the entire United States today as it was to the South in 1963.

This is the audio version of Dean Lawrence R. Velvel's blog, www.velvelonnationalaffairs.com
For more information on The Massachusetts School of Law, log on to www.msl.edu
And to hear (and see!) the history of MSL, please visit "Against the Tide" on www.podiobooks.com or in the podcast section of iTunes

For all its professed Christianity, the South today still has not adopted the philosophy of the Sermon on The Mount in its world outlook.... Sherwood Ross responds to Velvel's previous post...

This is the audio version of Dean Lawrence R. Velvel's blog, www.velvelonnationalaffairs.com
For more information on The Massachusetts School of Law, log on to www.msl.edu
And to hear (and see!) the history of MSL, please visit "Against the Tide" on www.podiobooks.com or in the podcast section of iTunes