Legalectric

Today the AI world had the good sense to recommend this Grist piece:

Olúfémi O. Táíwò’s theory of everything

Color me odd, but I found this to be so uplifting, statements, theories, that make such good sense, that explain so much.

Ages ago, 1989 to be precise, I was utterly freaking out because I’d been accepted to law school, and was frantically driving thousands of miles to raise money, and I couldn’t come up with it. I so starkly remember the day when I had to check in and let WMCL know I couldn’t register, I’d caught up on house payments but didn’t have the about $1,000 cash to grab my place. That day, at an Albany truckstop, was one of the worst. When accepted, that acceptance is “good” for 3 years, and I missed 1989, which sure blasted my 15 year plan to finish my B.A. and law school in 15 years. OK, regroup, get that next load, Curious George tapes from NY to Jefferson City, MO (was this the time of that state occupation and shutdown of Mohawk casino I had to drive around, no, that was a year later, unreal seeing state police blocking road and having to drive through the dirt roads to get through – another story for another day.). Keep driving and trying to raise money.

While focusing on raising money, I also was looking at a “Plan B” if money wasn’t going to happen, and as a truckdriver, that was always a more than likely result. Plan B was to go for a PhD in Philosophy. I’d really enjoyed my philosophy classes at Metro, and at U of M a decade before even more, the ethics class, very small group, professor plus TWO TAs — a deep dive into ethics — that was when I first started seriously thinking about going on after BA. When this hurdle for law school stopped me cold, grasping at “what now,” I called up the head of the department at U of M to see if getting in was a possibility, and it was the law school acceptance that triggered a “YES!” with a lot of catching up prerequisites, and Plan B was a possibility. Ethics is what really grabbed me, blew my dress up for sure! The thing about philosophy is that so much is “ancient” history, and ethics, though a lot of history, has such work and relevance in the present. Anyway, law school did work, it took two more years to start, so another 200,000 miles, and more PTSD-inducing trauma than I care to remember, 3 years of utter hell just trying to survive, pretty much losing everything, including my Mark VI alto, oh, those days were awful…

But back to philosophy… read this, the perfect antidote for “today” and where we’re at, his view of justice and the need to act thoughtfully in big picture scope:

Olúfémi O. Táíwò’s theory of everything

An essay:

Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference

And here are his two books thus far (not on my go-to abebooks yet):

Reconsidering Reparations – at Harvard Bookstore

Elite Capture – at Haymarket

And now I’m wondering about diving into school again before I drop dead! Or an intense round of independent study. Banking on another 20 years, and my interests in things “City of Red Wing” focus on revising the City’s Code of Conduct, and the Red Wing Citizens Assembly showed interest in ethics of government officials (we’d not long before booted out the Mayor for his ethical lapses). Plan C?