Justice!

Classes are good so far. I had a bit of a scheduling/communication issue with my writing class, so I ended up doing my first story in a rush over the weekend and may not have to hand it out for another week or two.

Today was my first day of training for my internship with the Legal Aid Society (Manhattan Criminal Practice). A bit depressing (most things examining the justice system are), but it's looking to be a great internship.

Also having fun in my Law & Literature class. We're starting with the Oresteia--well, The Eumenides, the last of the trilogy, which dramatizes the creation (by Athena, no less) of the first criminal court ever. Not a bad play. All sorts of fun issues to poke at. On the one hand, the Furies, who have a narrow jurisdiction and pursue all crimes within said jurisdiction with extreme prejudice, ignoring any extenuating circumstances (kinda like traffic cops, really); on the other hand, Apollo and Athena, who are all about law and logic and justice and hearing both sides of the story and considering all relevant factors. And so the gods win and Orestes gets a fair trial and is, on top of that, exonerated. Which is all "Yay! Justice prevails!" Except that, you know, the argument for his defense is basically "He killed his mother, but that was because she'd killed his father, and men are more important than women, so it's all cool." ...um, yeah. But hey. At least there was a trial. Still better than people getting Furied to death.

Not sure why I felt compelled to delve into that, except that I'll have to miss Friday's class for the second day of internship training, but I did the reading anyway because it was only 20-something pages, so then I felt compelled to comment on it somewhere, lest my brilliant glibness be lost to posterity.