Life

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November 15, 2010

Dispatch from Milwaukee & Salt Lake City

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Food, Life, Natural Resources
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In route to my lectures at the University of Utah College of Law, I stopped in Milwaukee for 38 hours to see friends, family and former colleagues at Marquette University Law School. I was able to have dinner at my favorite Milwaukee restaurant Crazy Water and tried a surprisingly good restaurant that I hadn’t been to before.

Now I’m in Salt Lake City, and it’s clear I’ve developed a somewhat new fascination with the West. I think this started when I drove cr0ss-country last year and loved the mountains of Wyoming, and has taken hold since teaching Natural Resources Law again and discussing all the federal lands and national parks of the West. I think this will be cured only by a two-month trek of natural resources in the West. For now, I’ll enjoy the beauty of the Wasatch and Oquirrh mountain ranges out my window. But my fascination also results from my strong distaste for the sprawl and low-lying development of western cities.

November 5, 2010

California’s Cap & Trade Program

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Climate Change, Environment, Life
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Legal Planet has an interesting post about how California’s cap-and-trade program will go forward. See here.

November 2, 2010

VOTE TODAY!…and Why I love Election Day

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Life, Politics
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Please vote today. I love election day and treat it like the civic national and state holiday that it should be. We also call it “Family Voting Day” and my partner and I walk our kids to go vote before walking them to school. This morning had three highlights: (1) At breakfast my older daughter (age 5) asked, “What type of people do we vote for?” I used words and phrases like “people who want to help others,” “progressive,” and “good leaders.” She asked, “Dad, what’s progressive?,” struggling to pronounce the word. I said progressives are people ‘who want change that helps people who can’t afford important things.’ At which point, my daughter said, “I know what is progressive. Kids without money need doctors. Doctors should go to kids’ houses if the kids need doctors. Moms and dads should be able to go get a doctor and bring them home to the kid.” With a big smile, I applauded her on this wonderful idea. (2) My younger daughter (age 3) literally running to City Hall because she was so excited to vote with the family. (3) When we dropped off my daughter late to Kindergarten, on the tardy slip line entitled ‘Reason for being late,’ the staff person wrote “Voting.”

I posted an election day preview yesterday, and I’ll start live blogging election day shortly. Go Vote!

October 25, 2010

Useful Document: CRS on Enviromental Law

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Environment, Life
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The Congressional Research Service has published “Environmental Laws: Summaries of Major Statutes Administered by the Environmental Protection Agency“

October 19, 2010

What’s going on at SSRN?

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Announcements, Law, Law Schools, Life, Scholarship
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What’s going on at SSRN? Over at Prawfsblawg, Dan Markel has a post entitled “SSRN, WTF?” questioning SSRN’s terms of service which allow editing and translation. Now see below my correspondence with SSRN, since they now want to print and sell my work. I emailed my colleagues immediately about this, writing: “Colleagues. See the email below. I have chosen to opt out of this option for environmental reasons and so as not to upset the apple cart on all my pre-existing copyright agreements that allowed for online publication of my articles on SSRN, but failed to make any mention of actual print distribution.”

My edited (for length) reply to SSRN with their original email below:

I do not want to have my papers on the SSRN eLibrary available for the new hard copy service.

I suspect many others will not want his as well since it may conflict with various copyright agreements.

Thanks,

Jason J. Czarnezki

Professor of Law

Vermont Law School

From: Gregg Gordon [mailto:Admin@SSRN.com]
Sent: Tuesday, October 19, 2010 1:49 PM
To: czarnezki@gmail.com
Subject: SSRN Announces Forthcoming “Purchase Bound Hard Copy” option for Free PDF documents in SSRN eLibrary

Dear Jason J. Czarnezki,

In response to requests from authors and readers to purchase printed and bound hard copies of papers on SSRN, we will soon release a “Purchase Bound Hard Copy” service for most free PDF files in SSRN’s eLibrary. We have contracted with a New York company to do the printing, binding and shipping.

The price for one or more bound hard copies will be $9.99 per copy plus shipping. Free PDF files with a minimum of 19 pages and a maximum of 240 pages will be eligible for printing. The PDF document will be printed in black and white, “perfect bound” with a glossy color cover, and shipped to United States addresses only. A “Purchase Bound Hard Copy” option will be added on the abstract page of each eligible paper. The existing options, including free One-Click Download, will remain the same, and each purchased hard copy will count as a download.

Any author, who does not want to have his or her free papers in the SSRN eLibrary available for this new service, can opt out at any time by emailing the request to AuthorSupport@SSRN.com, or calling the SSRN office at 877-SSRNHelp (877.777.6435) in the United States, or +1 585 442 8170 outside of the United States, between 8:30 am and 6 pm Monday through Friday (U.S. Eastern). If you request to opt out of the “Purchase Bound Hard Copy” service, ALL papers that are authored or co-authored by you will not display the “Purchase Bound Hard Copy” option on your abstract page(s). Please notify us by Friday, October 29, 2010 if you do not want your papers included in the initial roll-out of this new service. You may change your participation status at any time in the future.

We hope you will enjoy the convenience of this new service.

Gregg Gordon
President
Social Science Research Network

October 19, 2010

Conservation – A Czarnezki Family Tradition

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Environment, Life, Natural Resources
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In an earlier post I discussed famous Wisconsin conservationists and, as a small tribute, I mentioned by grandfather Gerald Czarnezki, a long time Milwaukee County Parks worker and naturalist who was a proud member of the first graduating class of the conservation education program at the Central State Teachers College at Stevens Point, now UW-Stevens Point.

In comments to that post, readers mentioned other noted Wisconsin environmentalists and one comment (admittedly made by my mother, who as a good mom actually reads my blog) felt compelled to list my dad, Joe Czarnezki, a former state senator who was the recipient of numerous “Clean 16” awards from Wisconsin’s Environmental Decade and author of the law which made Wisconsin the first state in the nation to legislatively ban toxic shot for waterfowl hunting.

Needless to say I am very proud of my family’s environmental history.

Since my family has now been implicated, in addition to my grandfather and father, I want to acknowledge the other conservationists/environmentalists/naturalists in the family. I don’t want to embarrass my relatives, but I’m quite proud of them, and it should be of no surprise after reading this, how I ended up interested in environmental law and natural resources policy. While I’m sure I’ll miss folks (and don’t want to list their names since they know who they are, and I don’t want to invade their privacy), my second cousin works in the Forestry Division of the WI Department of Natural Resources, my uncle is a former Alaskan Park Ranger who also worked at South Pole, and two of my dad’s cousins are, respectively, a former biologist for the Missouri Department of Conservation and natural resources planner on the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska. Family members are welcome to add to the list, which likely includes an additional four generations of my grandfathers that were foresters and lumberjacks.

October 19, 2010

Blog Book for Vermont2China

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Life
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I found a great new service called Blog2Print that allows one to print their blog into a book. We have now done so for our Vermont2China blog that chronicled our year in China. See here.

October 18, 2010

Ken Burns, My National Parks Bucketlist & WI Conservationists

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under Environment, Life, Natural Resources, Outdoor Recreation, Parks
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I’ve started watching the Ken Burns’ documentary The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, and today showed the first hour to my Natural Resources Law class. The film brought to mind two initial thoughts.

First, after watching about John Muir, I considered all the environmentalists/conservationists/outdoorsmen from Wisconsin (where I grew up)–Muir, Aldo Leopold, Owen Gromme, Gaylord Nelson, and, of course, my grandfather Gerald Czarnezki (a proud member of the first graduating class of the conservation education program at the Central State Teachers College at Stevens Point, now UW-Stevens Point). Of note, Wisconsin passed the Conservation Education Statute that required “adequate instruction in the conservation of natural resources” in order to be certified to teach science or social studies, and the state legislature also required that conservation of natural resources be taught in public elementary and high schools.

Second, it made me want to create a lists of national parks that I want to see for the first time or return to. The list so far:

Yosemite
Grand Canyon
Kenai Fjords
Glacier Bay
Return to Yellowstone and Grand Teton with family
Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park
Redwood
Glacier

I’ll keep adding to the list, and will likely add more once I finish the Burns documentary. Please feel free to suggest some additions. The Park Service does have an interactive map online.

Updated: I’ve added to my list– 9. Muir Woods, 10. Crater Lake, 11. Zion

October 17, 2010

Chinese Students and Letters of Recommendation

Posted by Jason J. Czarnezki under China, Law Schools, Life
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While in China, I was told (by both Chinese and American professors) that Chinese students expect you to write recommendation letters that they can place in their permanent files. For most Chinese professors, these letters are relatively standardized, positive, and done as a matter of course without a lot of individualized attention. I haven’t been asked to write any letters for my former Chinese students who only plan to continue their education in China, but my recommendation has been sought by a significant number of students who want to study in the United States, Cananda, and the UK. My former Chinese students are surprised to find that most schools (and LSAC) do not anticipate that students will see their letters of recommendation, and are absolutely shocked that I will not send them my letters of recommendation to them for their review. They insist that I send them the letter for their review, and when I decline the first assumption is that I’m not understanding their request. I assure them that I understand their request, but that it is best for them to formally waive their rights to review (e.g., on the LSAC form), and that I would have declined to write them a letter if I could not write a positive recommendation. I’ve very upfront with my Chinese and American students about whether I believe I can write a good letter on their behalf, as well as strategize what key characteristics I should discuss. But am I being too conservative here? Should all my students just be able to see my letters first, and then they can decide whether it enhances their file?

October 17, 2010