Gas Prices

I know I haven't written much about law lately, but since I got my internet access in my apartment I have been online looking at news a lot. I have some thoughts about gas prices. According to an article in today's NY Times, "Full Tanks Put Squeeze on the Working Class," apparently having to fill the tank is putting the hurt on a lot of people.

Okay, I'm not even in America right now, and I'm sick of this discussion. I say ENOUGH ALREADY to those who are complaining about gas prices. People, get a clue! Are people totally ignorant about the current global fossil fuel and warming crises, or are they so self-absorbed that they just don't care? I'm all for ANY phonomenon that causes people to think twice about driving places in their cars, and while I think its totally inexcusable and disgraceful that the oil companies are the ones who are racking up the SILLY profits here, at least there's SOME mechanism in place that will, one way or another, get people to think about how they can save fuel.

This NY Times article is rich. Apparently this crisis is hitting people especially hard in the Miami area, where people are being forced to give up trips to the mall, the movies, and to visit friends/family because all that requires gas that they need to make their 60-mile daily round trip commute to work. Still others have been forced to subject themselves to daily 2-hour commutes on public transportation as a result of giving up driving to work altogether.

The tone of the people in these articles is distinctly disparing: the woman who now relies on public transportation calls it "a nightmare" and says she's losing sleeping time due to her new commuting schedule. However, the woman who has to commute 60 miles back and forth each day to work scoffs at the idea of carpooling, refusing to leave her "aging Toyota 4-Runner" at home because it will force her to sacrifice her autonomy (specifically, "I don't want to depend on nobody.")

On the one hand, reading this article makes me want to shout, "Are you kidding me?!" But, on the other hand, I understand what these people are going through, really, and I do feel badly for them. Making lifestyle changes in which you are denied former conveniences is really difficult, and it is unfortunate that lower-income people are feeling the hurt the worst in this situation. However, for the good of everyone, I really can't see rising gas prices as a problem or crisis or anything negative. For so long in America people have treated gas like we have oceans and oceans full of it and it will never run out, buying SUVs and motorhomes, going to car races and monster truck rallies, clogging up our freeways and polluting our air. Its a desperate situation, and, well, they call for desperate measures.

I know that the cost of EVERYTHING goes up when gas prices rise. I really do appreciate that. But we in America have SO MUCH as it is, and there is so much waste in America as well. Can it be all bad that we are forced to consider conservation and frugality in our daily lives? My instincts tell me no. I know those are difficult concepts for most Americans to appreciate, but my goodness, we have to do something!

It is very interesting to think about this problem while sitting over here in Germany. I have been in a car a total of 4 times in the last 7 weeks, each trip lasting about 10 minutes (3 times in taxis going home late after the trams stopped running, and once when my friend Dani dropped me off after she and I met for a drink). Other than that I have exclusively walked or used public transportation. Don't get me wrong, I miss my car EVERY DAY. It's like a drug, really, and I have definitely felt the pain of not having it. But for once I feel like I'm really doing something positive, rather than just wishing I was.

Gas prices in Germany are astronomical, and I really think it's better that way...according to my calculations, they pay about $6.38 a gallon for gas (1.30 Euro for a liter, and there are 3.8 liters in a gallon, and 1 euro equal about $1.20). As a result, people here walk, ride bikes, ride trams and trains, and have smaller cars (I have maybe seen 5 big SUVs since I've been here). Granted, it's much easier to be in Germany without a car since the transportation infrastructure is so outstanding. But seeing what they have done here shows that IT IS POSSIBLE.

I want to say something too about my husband SP. He commutes each day from our home in the San Fernando Valley to the Westside of Los Angeles on the bus. He almost never uses his car. I know a lot of people who say they want to do something to help the environment, but SP really walks the talk. SP is a professional and works in an office. His company pays for his bus pass each month. While he's on the bus he listens to music or plays games on his phone. He will NEVER drive if he doesn't have to. And I'm proud of him because he's much better about it than I am.

It's time to stop seeing public transportation in the U.S. as something to be suffered. Politicians in America owe it to us to study the systems in Europe and come up with plans to make something similar at home. We can't continue down the path we're on. There's too much ozone asthma, too much smog, and too little consideration. It will be difficult for many people to adjust but we've had our fun and now it's time to be responsible.

Higher Education Mentalties -- US and Europe

The NY Times ran a really interesting article about the state of higher education in France today.

A note about the NY Times -- You need to register to access NY Times articles. Basic registration is free and allows you to look at most articles from the past 7 days. But don't even get me started about the Times Select program. To have to pay for their excellent editorial content, while they still have an ad on every page, is totally ridiculous to me, and I have refused to sign up for it on principle. Of course I really miss it and might change my mind someday.

As I was reading the article, I found some points very interesting because they showed some similarities between French and German universities:

France = "The...[University of Paris' Nanterre campus] library is open only 10 hours a day, closed on Sundays and holidays. Only 30 of the library's 100 computers have Internet access."

Germany = The library here is also closed on Sundays and holidays. In fact, everything in this town except restaurants, movie theaters, and gas stations is closed on Sundays and holidays. There is generally more internet access here though, and most of the campus is covered by wireless LAN.

France = "The campus cafeterias close after lunch...[and] by late afternoon every day the campus is largely empty."

Germany = Same deal here. The Mensa (student cafeteria) closes at 2pm, and the campus is mainly deserted after 6pm and throughout the weekend. This may be a problem unique to Augsburg though, since it (unusally for Germany) has a campus design (all the buildings in one location), and is located relatively far from the center of town (about 8 tram stops away).

France = "The practice in the United States of private endowments providing a large chunk of college budgets is seen as strange in France. Tuition is about $250 a year, hardly a sufficient source of income for colleges. But asking the French to pay more of their way in college seems out of the question. When the government proposed a reform in 2003 to streamline curriculums and budgets by allowing each university more flexibility and independence, students and professors rebelled. They saw the initiative as a step toward privatization of higher education that they feared would lead to higher fees and threaten the universal right of high school graduates to a college education. The government backed down."

Germany = There are only a few private universities in Germany as far as I know -- the first one was the University of Witten, and more have cropped up over the years. But it is certainly more common that universities are run by the government. Tuituion is similarly low here, but that will be changing next year, when the rates apparently will rise significantly. Students everywhere are opposed to fee hikes, and German students generally are no exception, but the German students I have talked to about it are resigned to paying them because they know that they're needed. Still, I went to a private college in the U.S. for undergrad, and I am going to one now for law school. I have consistently paid $20-30K a year for the privilege, taking out a lot of loans just to cover the bills. When I tell Germans about this, they look at me like I have two heads. No one can believe I'd even bother paying so much for a university degree. I think the feeling here is similar to that in France -- there is a lot of competition for jobs here, and most people see a university degree as somewhat helpful, but certainly no guarantee of finding work after graduation.

(Note -- here is an interesting article in English about German university fees that looks like an online supplement to a book. Note it is from 1996 and might be a little out of date, but what I'm reading here seems to echo even current sentiments.)

France = "Officials, entrepreneurs, professors and students alike agree that too many students are stuck in majors like sociology or psychology that make it difficult to move into a different career in a stratified society like France, given the country's troubled economy."

Germany = I am seeing a similar tendency over here. It seems that an awful lot of people are studying economics, sociology, and languages here in Augsburg. Not that those things aren't valuable in themselves, but I am not seeing a lot of practical science being studied here that would be more useful in finding a job. Maybe it's different elsewhere in Germany though. That said, a lot of American students are also studying those types of subjects as well. But I don't think competition for jobs is as fierce in the US as it is in Germany.

All in all, it was interesting (and to be honest somewhat enjoyable) to read an article that looks at the differences in higher education from an American perspective. There is a critical tone to the article that I don't really disagree with (although proponents of the French system would probably say that the NYT reporter was unduly negative). I continue to maintain that each type of system has its advantages and its disadvantages. It's fun and interesting to think critically about the differences in any event.

Classroom Settings -- Here and There

So I have now gone to five lectures -- 2 each in Legal Philosophy and International Civil Procedure, and 1 in Internation Criminal Law (that class was cancelled this week because the professor had a conflict). Here are some interesting differences I've noticed between law school classroom settings in Germany and in the U.S.

1. Classroom Noise level

I can't believe how loud German students are WHILE THE PROFESSOR IS LECTURING. It's like the professors are so intent on making their points that they don't care about any extraneous noise going on in the class, and the German students are sometimes jabbering away like they're sitting in a cafe rather than in a classroom. This makes it very difficult for foreign students to hear/understand the professor, and every American student I know over here complains about this. My friend AB told me that in the really large lecture halls it's worse because it sounds like the kids in the back of the hall are practically partying like it's Friday night, making so much noise that no matter how close to the front you sit, you can't hear the professor over the students. This absolutely would not happen in an American college classroom (the professor would merely ask the student to leave), and every German I have ever met who has not studied in America is shocked by this.

I have a couple of theories about this noise thing:

(a) German university students just finished high school, in which they had to write very difficult exams to earn their leaving certificate (Abitur). To me there appears to me to be a feeling of invincibility among kids who just got their Abitur and got a spot at university, so they feel like they don't need to work hard, pay attention, etc. in the beginning. They think they already know a lot, and what they don't know they'll just figure out later (in time for the exam).

(b) Compared with American students, German students pay very little to attend university, and they just don't appreciate the value of what they're getting during a lecture.

Both of these might also explain why lecture attendance among German students is viewed with a very cavilier attitude -- they feel like they shouldn't have to go if the professor is bad/boring because they can just learn it on their own. In my law school, attendance is mandatory and the professor passes around a sign-in sheet. Germans see this as too much hand-holding, but I have no problem with making attendance mandatory.

2. Laptop Computers

Yesterday I was shocked to see a kid using a laptop in my philosophy class. Of course, it was the type that looks like a clipboard and you write on it, and not a standard notebook computer with a screen that sticks up. Honestly, I think the Germans do this right. One of my biggest pet peeves about American law school classrooms is the amount of internet surfing, online gambling, instant messaging, and game playing that goes on during the lectures.

Apparently I am not alone in this feeling. Some college and law school professors ban laptops in their class, not only because of the "availability of distractions" problem, but also because they feel that taking notes on laptops turn students into zombies who can't remember anything that was discussed during the class. I agree with both of these points. In fact, I am considering abandoning my laptop when I go back to law school for my third year and just using regular pen and paper to take notes. I think I would be a lot less distracted and a lot more engaged in the class (which will be made easier by sitting as close to the front row as possible, another one of my plans for next year).

I guess the bottom line is that there are plenty of ways to be distracted in class. The professor has a job to do -- deliver informative lectures that, if possible, are also mildly entertaining; in short, whatever he/she can to keep students interested in the material. I think this is one of the most important aspects of professorship and it, rather than writing scholarly articles, should be the main criterion for judging a professor's effectiveness. But the students have to meet him/her halfway and pay as much attention as possible. Germany has it partially right (no computers) but then so does the U.S. (no talking). A combination of both elements would, I think, ensure maximum effectiveness for everyone.

Immigration Protests in Los Angeles

So I am reading in the LA Times about immigration protests in Los Angeles that are happening today. What is really moving is to look at the pictures and see everyone carrying American flags.

This is what it's all about, people. The vast majority of illegal immigrants are not in the country to take what they can from America without doing any work. I think most of them are probably law-abiding, hard-working citizens who want a better life for themselves and their families, and they know there is work that they can do in America, so they do what they can to come to the States and do that work. It's hard for me to understand why there is so much backlash against these people. I think America is better for these people risking their lives to come there, and doing the work that no one else wants to do. The idea that these people should be charged as FELONS is absolutely ridiculous. They provide a critical service to our country, and it's time for Americans to stop hating them so much.

I feel weird getting all patriotic and AMERICAN about this, because I'm in Germany now and they just don't do that here. But I am very moved by what I'm hearing about the protests in America. These people are just pursuing their dreams and a better life. How greedy and selfish of Americans to punish them for doing so.