The Goodson Blogson

The Goodson Law Library has just received the latest – and last – print volume of DARE, better known by its full title, the Dictionary of American Regional English . This massive, decades-long effort to document spoken English across America can be found in our Reference Collection at the call number Ref PE2843 .D52 1985. The set is arranged as follows: Volume I (1985):  A – C Volume II (1991): D – H Volume III (1996): I - O Volume IV (2002): P – Sk Volume V (2012):  Sl – Z Volume VI (2013): maps, indexes, questionnaire, and field data DARE has a fascinating history, which began in 1889 with the founding of the American Dialect Society. The dictionary's web home at the University of Wisconsin outlines the print edition's development and format. Individual entries attempt to trace the earliest appearance of a term into American English, and also identify the region(s) where the word/phrase is most commonly used. The latest volume is an intriguing conclusion to the set...

Would the Joker be eligible for an insanity defense? Is discrimination against the X-Men mutants actually a hate crime? And could a masked Spider-Man really testify in court without violating the Confrontation Clause? These questions and more are tackled in The Law of Superheroes , a fun new title in the Goodson Law Library's James D. Cox Legal Fiction Collection. Attorney-authors James Daily and Ryan Davidson also maintain the popular blog Law and the Multiverse (a recent finalist for the ABA Journal 's "Blawg 100" awards ), which since 2010 has examined a variety of legal issues through the prism of comic-book geekery. Their book compiles and expands the blog's analysis within thirteen different areas of comic-related law, including criminal law and procedure, tort and insurance concerns, and even immigration issues for world-traveling (and space-traveling) crime-fighters. If you'd like to read more about superheroes and the law...you just might be ou...

The start of a new semester is a good time to take stock of your Sakai course sites , which are listed as tabs at the top of the screen. The Goodson Law Library's Digital Initiatives Librarian, Hollie White , offers these tips to rearrange, hide, and/or change the number of displayed course sites in Sakai. To begin, log in to Sakai with your NetID and password . Make sure that the " My Workspace " tab is active. On the side bar, click Preferences . You should see a box that says " My Active Sites ." Inside that box is a list of courses to which you are assigned. To rearrange the order of tabs in "My Active Sites" Click and highlight the name of the course that you want to move. To the left of the course name are two buttons (one points up and the other points down). Click the up arrow to move the highlighted course to the left. Click the down arrow to move the highlighted course to the right. Click the " Update Preferences " butto...

Today's New York Times Magazine contains an in-depth examination of "restorative justice" in action. Author Paul Tullis recounts the 2010 murder of Florida college student Ann Grosmaire, shot by her boyfriend Conor McBride after a lengthy and heated argument. But Grosmaire's tragic death is just the beginning of the story. "Can Forgiveness Play a Role in Criminal Justice?" asks the story's headline. For the parents of Ann Grosmaire, the answer was an emphatic yes. McBride had turned himself in to police almost immediately, confessing his guilt and remorse. He had been a welcome presence in their lives for three years prior to their daughter's killing. "Before this happened, I loved Conor," said Ann's mother, Kate Grosmaire. "I knew that if I defined Conor by that one moment — as a murderer — I was defining my daughter as a murder victim. And I could not allow that to happen." After learning about restorative justice f...