bowlinger qua bowlinger

1. Where to take that pesky exam in July. This is a level of commitment that I’m just not ready for.

2. Where to go for an awesome trip after taking that pesky exam. This is much more fun and is entirely based on the idea that wealthier relatives might contribute to the funding (it worked for grad school). I’ve been thinking the Trans-Siberian railway, and then taking a passenger/cargo ferry from Vladivostok to Japan. Or taking the railway on its Trans-Mongolian route, from Moscow to Beijing.

3. Not watching The Office after this season is over. I’m really really annoyed about a lot of plot and character developments. Anyway, this seems minor, but I’m very engaged in American television.

4. How I can’t wait to eat at Chick-fil-A. I sometimes cry myself to sleep over this.

I love slogans that tourist bureaus make up for cities (Yes, Baltimore, I will “get in on it” and my post-graduation town Carson City tells its residents to “Get Down!”). So I AMsterdam as well…Although, the symbol for the city, appropriately enough is XXX. You can see the triple Xs everywhere, on the city flag, on the grates that cover the sewers, on the manhole covers. I think it’s awesome that Amsterdam is triple X.

Biking is treacherous and should be done very carefully. My old beat-up granny bike (called The Pointer) cost me over 100 euros. It’s definitely and workout, going up and down the canal bridges. I rode on the back of our mutual friend’s bike and it was scary. JL almost planted my face into a brick wall while going around a corner. Funniest was when we were wobbling along and JL yelled out “Wo!!!”and this Dutch lady that we almost careened into yelled out “Wo!!!” too. JL and another classmate (LV) both experienced the mishap of getting their tires stuck in the tram tracks. Bike tires, oddly enough, are the exact width to get stuck in the tram tracks. This causes you to fly over the handlebars or come to a dead stop and tip over. I think they both tipped over.

I love Vlaame’s Fritehuis. The frites are sold in this hole in the wall place down kind of a shady alley. They are only 1.70 for a small cone and then you can get tons of sauces. I got the obligatory mayo on day 1. But today I indulged in something that ended up being garlic sauce. Delicious!

The law school is constantly crowded. There are over 1400 students here, most of them undergrads. And although our school has 900 or so students at least, they’re not all in classes at the same time. There are queues for the bathroom here. The snack line isn’t even worth getting into. And unlike in the US, no one has a laptop, so the computer lab is always packed. Students just plop down with their books and sit in front of the computer and ACT like it’s their laptop. So they flip through a few pages of their book, and play some game on fbook…

But, despite the monsoon yesterday that almost blew me and my bike into the canal, the weather has been generally good. Last weekend was so beautiful, I just got lost biking around, seeing the different parts of the city and exploring the parks (which are super crowded). It’s supposed to be nice this weekend too, but I’m expecting it to be cold and rainy very very soon. If you have money for plane fare saved up from your hard-earned work this summer, consider visiting!

Since I won’t be able to enjoy any sightings this fall…

GS, driving down my street in a light blue Honda Odyssey mini-van, looking very annoyed with all the traffic and constructions on this particular road.

DH (the one married to EK, not the one with the really tight jeans), walking behind me as I left the pita and kabob grilling place, talking animatedly to two people I’ve never seen before, probably about some hoity-toity European stuff, and looking like a model.

JP (the one who judged the karaoke show, as opposed to JJP, the one who looks like he is 12), walking in the arb wearing a big white brimmed hat with a black ribbon, he said “hi” which was nice.

GS and RP, bursting out of the doors of the RR as I came up the steps, looking like Starsky and Hutch or something. RP wore shorts and socks that were pulled up dangerously high.

Feel free to expunge this post after a few days if you think my information will be discovered by those it shouldn’t be discovered by. I was just really excited, particularly by Starsky and Hutch.

I apologize for my discontinuation of posts about food and the law. I will go back and update soon, especially what we had to eat. But right now I need some help! This week is the last meeting of food and the law, unless we can come up with some other topics for OB-S. I already sent him the Posner opinion about the horse meat, which he never responded to. What are some other food and the law issues? We’ve done taxing fat, tort liability, bio-engineered food, the problem with corn, and now we’re doing packaging and labeling. If you can  help suggest something and he agrees, I will try to get you into the meeting. Is that good incentive?

Yesterday while I was doing research on westlaw for my paper, I needed to find the SCt opinions for those famous affirmative action cases. I didn’t have the citation, so I used the “look up by party name” function. But I called the case “Gutter v. Bowlinger” rather than the name the rest of the legal world knows it by. Of course westlaw told me “no results found…” for the name of our bowling team! I laughed silently to myself about it for, like, 5 minutes and wished one of you were around to share in the hilarity. But no one was, it was just me, so I figured I’d write about it here so you could know how pervasive our name is in my mind.

The menu: beef chili, lentil soup with ham, foccaccia, two kinds of tea

 The topic: Civil liability and fast food restaurant chains. Should fast food chains be subject to tort liability when people eat their food and become obese or have diet-related medical issues? Can we liken this kind of suit to those against drug companies, i.e. a “design defect” products liability claim? Can we compare this kind of suit to those against tobacco manufacturers, which 30 years ago might have seemed impossible for plaintiffs to win? Will civil liability not do anything to solve the real problem, and this should be purely a regulatory issue - smaller portion sizes available, healthier options available at the same cost as cheap “bad for you” products, nutrition facts made clear and available, etc. Or, is all this paternalistic and the real problem comes down to human choice and responsibility?

The best part of the evening was OB-S admitting that he actually likes eating at McDonald’s and his favorite are the Chicken McNuggets. He said, “No one eats Chicken Selects. They are just not as tasty.” And he ate the famous 7 oz. burger at Jackson Hole Burgers in NYC.

Next class: packaging and labeling concerns

The menu: baked wild salmon, mixed greens with avocado, asparagus, and roasted peppers, baguette, homemade pumpkin bread, hot cider

 The topic: Should obesity be a category that gets anti-discrimination protection under a federal scheme like Title VII? Should it qualify under things like the Americans with Disabilities Act? Are people who are not morbidly obese, but only overweight according to the over 25 BMI standard, discriminated against? As you can imagine, there were many very strong opinions on this topic. Most people felt that weight was not a characteristic like race or sex that should be included for discrimination protection in employment settings. But a few felt very strongly that people who discriminated on the basis of weight should even be sanctioned for their conduct. Most agreed, though, that what we are talking about with the obesity crisis (which some people think is a made-up or dramatized public health issue) is really related to health and not necessarily fatness.

Anyway, again, very interesting conversation, great food (that salad he makes is the same one he made for the dinner last year and it’s delicious). Apparently there were a few open spots in this class, a few people have dropped? I don’t know that he’ll let anybody new in at this point, but there were a couple new people there last night who just got added.

The menu: grilled lamb, tabbouleh, hummus, homemade falafel, some kind of delicious grilled and buttered pita, baba ghanoush, thin buttery cookies filled with melted chocolate, coffee, chai

The topic: taxing fat

The proposed plan of our “special guest”: the taxing of common fatty foods….but….wait for it…only for people who are fat! You would be required to get your BMI read and if you are over 25, which apparently is the limit for people who are normal and not obese, you would be subject to the tax at grocery stores and restaurants, etc. I kind of forget the next part, there is a card, and people who are fat get the card? Or maybe people who are not fat get the card. Anyway, there is some kind of card and that’s how the tax gets applied. So when the server comes to your table at the restaurant, everybody pulls out their card and you don’t have one, so your part of the bill gets taxed. According to our guest, this creates an economic incentive as well as a public humiliation factor. The guest likens this to cigarettes which carry an additional tax and also has the public shaming element, which includes the guest riding past you on his bike while you are smoking outside the school and him laughing and yelling at you (which sounds worth it just to try).

A two hour discussion followed involving the many disputes people had with this plan, including the discriminatory effect on the poor, the idea of American food culture as embracing of poor diet and poor exercise habits, etc. We also discussed the tax taking other forms, like higher insurance premiums and companies having to pay large class action settlements (although admittedly there were many causation and proof problems with that idea).

Overall, excellent food as usual, and fun, lively discussion and debate of a legal and yet non-law school nature, which I am appreciating more and more these days. I’ll keep everybody posted throughout the semester on this course.

I figured I would share a few thoughts on my recent trip to Europe. I am not sure how to best organize this post other than mention some of the things that were interesting to me or that I would recommend.

 In Germany, they have this thing called a Floss (it actually has the funny German S symbol that looks like an F but it’s said like floss). For about 130 euros you get passage on a wood raft made out of logs down the Isar River. The whole thing takes about 4-5 hours and you are supplied with several kegs of beer, some bottled beer, and a band. The bands range in style from traditional leiderhosen fare to a Ramones cover band. How awesome is that? Riding down the river with unlimited beer, no life jackets, and a German Ramones cover band. Why they can’t do this in America is beyond me.

The trains in Germany are known to be among the best in the world. However, the real fun was on the Czech train from the border of Germany to Prague. For 50 euros for two people (so 25 each) you can get from Munich to Prague and can ride the Czech train, complete with shirtless guys walking from car to car and making announcements that you can’t understand. Also, the six person family with the pet mouse in a glass cage that they held in their lap was priceless. I loved imagining the great mouse escape on the train. The official train ticket checker also lied to passengers on the train and told them there were no bathrooms (there totally were) and that they should get off at the next stop because the train would stop for over 10 minutes. The train left in less than 5 minutes so I can’t figure out whether he just wanted to get rid of people or not.

Prague was wonderful however, and I will definitey go back to see more of it in the future.

Munich’s big six breweries rankings: After several stops and samples of all the Big Six, my rankings are Paulaner, Augustiner, Hacker-Pschorr, Lowenbrau, Spaten, and Hofbrau. The Paulaner is always just incredibly smooth and golden. The Augustiner is very similar with a bit of a bite at the end. H-P was a surprise with a fuller, more wheaty flavor. Lowenbrau I think is a fine beer, but not as good as the first three, less character. Spaten is an even wheatier version of H-P. And Hofbrau is just my least favorite.

Although I do not have a sacher or linzer torte to report on, I did have large quantities of schnitzel (pork breaded and fried in butter, who doesn’t love that) and leberkase (hot meatloaf type ham product - sounds gross but is totally delicious with mustard on a roll) and roasted chicken and sauerbraten.

I should be working on my memo, but while reading this complaint, I came across a line that actually made me laugh out-loud. Unfortunately I can’t put the whole complaint for everyone to see, but…

62. In response to her complaint, Mr. M_____ denied the entire incident as Ms. B_____ complained but admitted the erection and was placed on a 2-day unpaid leave.