Link Round Up

I’ve been reading some great articles and posts around the interwebz lately, and thought I’d share some with you all. Nothing like sharing the love!

Libraries: They’re about builing stronger, more just communities Well. I’m a lawyer, and a library lover, so of course I think this is fantastic: “This fall, Pro Bono Net is producing four national training webinars for public and public law librarians about free, online resources for people with legal needs. The Libraries and Access to Justice Webinar Series kicks off this Thursday, Sept. 13, with an overview of the legal information needs among low-income Americans and why libraries are essential partners in access to justice.“

O. Henry postage stamp

O. Henry Pardon Application This post is from a Texas law blog I like. The blogger has been on a mission to posthumously pardon O. Henry, short story writer extraordinaire. “The pardon petition idea first bubbled to the surface after President Obama quoted the great writer last year while pardoning a pair of Thanksgiving turkeys in an annual ritual that IMO makes a mockery of  executive clemency powers. The Constitution’s framers considered a pivotal check and balance to excesses of the criminal justice system. In Federalist Paper #74, Alexander Hamilton wrote that, “The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel.” In modern times, though, executive clemency, especially at the federal level, has itself become a cruel joke to those who seek it.“
Interested in signing your name in support? Here’s the petition.

The (Imagined) Woman Reader and Male Anxiety Jenny McPhee writes “Male anxiety about the woman reader is as old as reading itself. In Belinda Jack’s new book The Woman Reader, she meticulously explores the manifestation of this anxiousness historically. Some men encouraged and cultivated their women readers: Ovid created characters such as Byblis and Philomela to show his empathy for the female plight. Others, such as Lucian and Juvenal, wrote biting satires expressing their disgust for literate and intelligent women…. Rousseau, in his Émile: or, On Education, wrote that women should read and “cultivate their minds” but only enough to please their husbands. The eighteenth-century writer Samuel Richardson had an extensive female readership and kept up correspondence with them, often asking for their input and opinions. “My acquaintance lies chiefly among the ladies,” he wrote, “I care not who knows it.””
If you want to read some of McPhee’s fiction, I recommend No Ordinary Matter, which I read and reviewed earlier this year.