My First In-Person Class in 519 Days

It's good to be back.

Today I taught a mock class for 1L orientation. For the umpteenth time, I asked a student to recite the facts in Pierson v. Post. But today was different. For the first time in 519 days, I had an in-person class. My last real class finished on Thursday, March 12, 2020. It was the last day of classes before spring break. One of my students asked if we would return to the building after spring break. I predicted that we would not. Now, those students have since graduated. And a new crop of 1Ls have entered the building. It's good to be back.

Here, you can see the before-and-after videos:

 

Comments

[Brancron]

Please, please, PLEASE for the love of Zeus, get a haircut.

[DaivdBehar]

You need to disclose the sicko indoctrination these intelligent ethical students will undergo. They will come to believe in fake supernatural doctrines. Each they breathe, they will destroy $5million in economy value. Every self stated goal of every law subject is in failure. You will take $trillion a year and deliver mothing of value.

Any of you sick fucks wants a 3 hour presentstion on The Law in Failure, it's free by Zoom. I may put it on YouTube with an actor.

[DaivdBehar]

Buildings are stupid. Travel to buildings is really stupid. The lawyer profession is stupid.

[Queen Amalthea]

He's cuckoo for cocoa puffs, folks.

[DaivdBehar]

If I have a criticism of Josh's personal appearance, it is to please take off that worthless mask. It is the stigma of the Democrat douche bag. Only the OSHA certified, American made N95 has the slightest protective property. Its weave is 300 nm, and the diameter of the virus is 120 nm. That surgical mask collects aerosols and preserves them against the nose of the wearer. It is like a funnel for COVID.

[David Nieporent]

You forgot to tell us what you had for breakfast, and whether you got a good parking spot. You're slipping in your confusion of a legal blog and your personal diary.

[DaivdBehar]

David, aren't you a lawyer? Like STFU. Nothing you say has the slightest validity.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Two clowns so far, two clowns who have no blogs of their own, one whining that the author should change his appearance, and not daring to show us his own appearance; the other whining about a blog he has not been forced to read, telling the author what he should write in his blog.

It has been said, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, coach." So far Josh has both done and taught. I would not be surprised if Josh has coached T-ball or something, btu what really comes to mind is a fourth sentence: "Those who can't coach, pester."

[Noscitur a sociis]

What exactly do you think Prof. Blackman has done, besides "teach" at one of the worst law schools in the country and engage in masturbatory self-promotion? Certainly not practice law, if that's what you were implying.

[Artifex]

... and yet here you are.

[IPLawyer]

Making fun of him on the comments of his blog... yeah

I'm not sure why you think that's so damning.

[ah....Clem]

And if he wasn't freeloading on an otherwise interesting site we wouldn't be paying attention at all.

But when we come to the VC to see some insightful posts about the law from a libertarian perspective, we have to wade through a dozen posts a day from a professor from a fourth tier lawschool who seems to have diarrhea of the keyboard.

Dude, put a cork in it. Quality, not quantity.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Dude, put a cork in it. Have you no free will, can you not choose to ignore posts by authors you don't like?

Limiting oneself to known likes is a terrible way to learn. Limiting others by your diktat is a terrible way for societies to learn.

If you don't like Josh's posts, don't read them. The fact that you not only feel the need to read them, and then disparage them in comments, tells far more about your self-discpline and propensity to dictate what others are allowed to do.

And as for his third-rate university .... he has a blog which alarms you so much that you waste considerable insulting him and his school. Do you have a blog? How can that be, that he has a blog and you don't, when you are such a much more capable and intelligent beastie?

[Queen Amalthea]

" Have you no free will, can you not choose to ignore posts by authors you don’t like?"

He said, while writing comments criticizing comments to said posts.

Self-awareness, how does it work?

[David Nieporent]

And as for his third-rate university …. he has a blog which alarms you so much that you waste considerable insulting him and his school. Do you have a blog? How can that be, that he has a blog and you don’t, when you are such a much more capable and intelligent beastie?

Um, he doesn't have a blog; that's the problem.

[DaivdBehar]

David, aren't you a lawyer? Can you please, stop humming?

[Don Nico]

"his third-rate university"
David,
Why do you think that JB's university is so highly rated?

[IPLawyer]

My post was a lot shorter than yours, I'm not sure you are clear on who exactly is wasting time here.

[Don Nico]

Alphabet soup,
"his third-rate university"
it is not that good.

[Miss Greenparker]

Despite this post's image looking very much like an assumed masked salute to the health Nazi authorities in this country and to WHO, Blackman has been doing something completely right over the years to merit such ugly pushback from the diseased totalitarian globalist Progressives here.

May this Professor never knuckle under regarding individual conscience and personal-body autonomy, when it comes to mandated shots, creepy surveillance, and identity.

Should he choose to accept injections for himself, may he never endorse coercive infliction of them upon others who may be of different mindset and who possess their own and intimate awareness of the bodies they inhabit.

[Sarcastr0]

Blackman has been doing something completely right over the years to merit such ugly pushback from the diseased totalitarian globalist Progressives here.

By this pristine logic, Hitler musta been awesome - so many leftists had such horrible things to say about that guy!

[Miss Greenparker]

Godwin's or God wins?

Btw, how are today's leftists not race-based and obsessed and intent on social, economic and medical intervention totalitarianism in order to globalize a technocratic empire of wokesters ruled by unelected el-ites?

Not so very different, eh?

[Queen Amalthea]

"Not so very different, eh?"

Yes, more like incredibly different. This kind of, at best, incredibly sloppy and reckless hyperbole does a disservice to your cause while also diminishing the threat and harms actual totalitarians have wrought. If the Nazis had been guilty only of taking mild measures to stop a pandemic and teach some woke social studies lessons they'd be a footnote in history. Your inability to distinguish between that and a truly totalitarian regime that murdered millions via concentration camps and total war is beyond obtuse.

[Miss Greenparker]

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/global-covid-19/shielding-approach-humanitarian.html

Camps:

Here is a Covid response plan drawn up last summer by the CDC to "shield the most vulnerable of the population", ostensibly
"focused on camps, displaced populations and low-resource settings", but entailing coercion and the separation of family members, should someone be labeled "vulnerable" due to age, weight, mental health, diabetes, and other "co-morbidities" assessments carried out by bureaucrats in charge, and with no recourse to challenging their decisions. It is very likely that medical interventions will be forced on the inmate guests in what is described as "humanitarian" settings, to include the dangerous use of respirators, Remdesivir, and the mRNA shot. All for their own good, of course.

"The shielding approach aims to reduce the number of severe COVID-19 cases by limiting contact between individuals at higher risk of developing severe disease (“high-risk”) and the general population (“low-risk”). High-risk individuals would be temporarily relocated to safe or “green zones” established at the household, neighborhood, camp/sector or community level depending on the context and setting.1,2 They would have minimal contact with family members and other low-risk residents.

"Current evidence indicates that older adults and people of any age who have serious underlying medical conditions are at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19.3 In most humanitarian settings, older population groups make up a small percentage of the total population.4,5 For this reason, the shielding approach suggests physically separating high-risk individuals from the general population to prioritize the use of the limited available resources and avoid implementing long-term containment measures among the general population."

[Miss Greenparker]

More "camps":

Signed and enacted into law by Florida Governor DeSantis July 1, 2021:

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2021/2006/BillText/er/HTML

1056 (d) The State Health Officer, upon declaration of a public
health emergency, may take actions that are necessary to protect the public health. Such actions include, but are not limited to:
...
1097 4. Ordering an individual to be examined, tested, vaccinated, treated, isolated, or quarantined for communicable diseases that have significant morbidity or mortality and present a severe danger to public health. Individuals who are unable or unwilling to be examined, tested, vaccinated, or treated for reasons of health, religion, or conscience may be subjected to isolation or quarantine.
a. Examination, testing, vaccination, or treatment may be performed by any qualified person authorized by the State Health Officer.
b. If the individual poses a danger to the public health, the State Health Officer may subject the individual to isolation or quarantine. If there is no practical method to isolate or quarantine the individual, the State Health Officer may use any means necessary to vaccinate or treat the individual.
c. Any order of the State Health Officer given to effectuate this paragraph is shall be immediately enforceable by a law enforcement officer under s. 381.0012.

[Miss Greenparker]

Based on their studies, numbers and the "science", Nazis called different groups of people "dirty" and declared them a danger to others and unfit to be free in society at large.  Theirs was a hideous program of discrimination, eugenics, "sanitation," and medical experimentation, while ours, so far, is only one of an RNA and society modifying experiment foisted upon entire governed populations for "cause."

Note as well how Fascism, or Corporatism, occurred by design during the German Reich and Mussolini's Italy, due to an encouraged alliance, a corrupt and incestuous relationship, between Government and Corporations, which enhanced the upper echelons' ability to profiteer and control the people.

What we're experiencing now is a pandemic of intentionally induced panic of a more invisible Enemy of the State, allowing governmental and corporate takings of liberty and property.

The CDC has imposed eviction moratoriums on private property holdings, hurting and crippling many middle class owners and small businesses.  The mega corps can handle the current losses, to be made up by cashing in on the avalanche of distress sales to come and monopolizing the real estate market, even more. 

Patients admitted to hospitals for non-Covid maladies are forced to take the swab up their noses and, then often, after suffering a false positive, be forced into an unsalutatory regimen of isolation, even from family members, dangerous ventilators, and highly questionable Remdesivir.

The "vaccine passport" is currently being considered as a "must have" for interstate travel within this country.  Your papers, please.

Many employees are forced to mask up or wear tags as to whether they've taken the Covid series of shots and even to take the jab or be fired.

Increasingly, both employees and customers are forced to wear uncomfortable and medically unsound "personal protection gear," in order to enter and conduct business on commercial and institutional premises.

The Philadelphia mayor has recently imposed a double mask mandate on those who have chosen not to take the Covid jab for whatever personal, religious, or health reasons.

Other cities have mandated the Covid jab and proof of it, in order to patronize government offices and any retail store or public venue, despite the documented lack of efficacy of these "vax" and the talk of requiring boosters for endless variants.

And much more, all effected in light of the hysteria whipped up by confused, conflicted and conflated numbers that are often much later revised downward, sometimes significantly so, with next to no notice by the press.  Revised stats are mostly relegated to the back pages, so to speak, and are rarely noticed in the din of further screaming headlines.

Who knows if there is an agenda, but a troubling and undemocratic Resetting (TM) of our governance, economy and society is taking place here and around the world, which, unfortunately, looks to become permanent and expanding, as to be known as the advertised "New Normal." 

Is there:

Vastly increased governmental control at all levels?  Check

An increasingly obscured line between US Government and global governing entities and between our government and global corps (corpse) ?  Check

Obscene profiteering by Big Pharma, all Covid related industry, and Big Business on the receiving end of HUGE corporate "welfare" hand-outs on account of Covid and a concomitant diminishment of the middle-class economy and small business?  Check

A developing policy of apartheid and demonization of those not cooperating with the medical tyranny agenda, to include talk of camps and forced "medication"?  Check

Were the elderly force-shunted into group home institutions, isolated from family members, and left to die en masse in the State of NY (and elsewhere), and the NY Governor lauded as a hero?  Check

Have many people died from other medical conditions as a result of not being able or willing to risk the Covid protocols in hospitals?  Have many committed suicide due to losing their businesses or property and life savings?  Check

We're getting there, as fear and hate are being stoked up against the dirty unvaxxed and Big Business and Gov making out like bandits and killers, really.  There is so much worse to come, they tell us.

[David Nieporent]

Camps:

The problem is that you are a deeply stupid and dishonest person. Stupid, because you can't read. Dishonest, because rather than admitting you can't read, you spin wild fantasies as propaganda. This is about people already in camps. That is, refugees. That's what "humanitarian settings" refers to. This is about how to protect people in refugee camps from the pandemic.

[David Nieporent]

More “camps”:

Signed and enacted into law by Florida Governor DeSantis July 1, 2021:

More deeply stupid and dishonest.

1) That doesn't mention camps.
2) That was not "Signed and enacted into law by Florida Governor DeSantis July 1, 2021:"

That was already in the law. That’s why the text you quoted in the link is not in green: it's not what was added to the law.

[Don Nico]

Thanks fro the reference to the DC site.
I must admit that the CDC approach reeks of medical martial law.
I would hope the Biden Administration would distance itself from such thinking, but I doubt that would be the case.
As an advocate of vaccines and many non-pharmaceutical measures, I find such impulses to transform society into a dual class system of sheep and lepers despicable

[Don Nico]

Miss G,
You pass from objecting to measures resembling what one would see in a police state (and what Chin did in Hubei province) to a crazy screed about National Socialism, the Corporate State, and scare mongering by the CDC. In the meanwhile the US is heading toward 150,000 new cases of COVID-19 per day, a DAILY CFR >2.5% (while the UK is at less than 0.5%).
How can anyone object to a hospital testing any patient brought to the ER or for in-patient admisssion to a PCR test? Yet despite any rational explanation you'd prefer infected patients admitted with no controls. That would be an easy case of gross negligence and malpractice.
Employees are exercising their rights to protect their workforce. Your objection is you own brand of "nazism."
You then proceed with an exaggeration and undocumented list of grievances. Certainly you lower any credibility concerning the original CDC suggestions by your unreasoned scatter shot.

[Don Nico]

David N.,

I think that you are a bit hasty in your criticsm of Ms. G's description of the CDC post. CDC says, " High-risk individuals would be temporarily relocated to safe or 'green zones' established at the household, neighborhood, camp/sector or community level." That certainly does not sound like the writers' thinking is limited to people already in refugee camps.

[Don Nico]

Such blah-blah. What do you even mean?
I'll read below to find out.

[DaivdBehar]

You are wasting your breath on tax sucking parasites, rent seeking, servants of the Chinese Commie Party. Only rounding them up is left.

[Queen Amalthea]

"health Nazi authorities"

Lol, hyperbole + conspiracy=much of the modern right in America today.

[Miss Greenparker]

Still stuck in the Left-Right paradigm and calling every opinion based on documented fact "conspiracy"? Lol

That's so 90s and early aughts. You might want to catch up, or at least update your slurs.

History, to include leaders' agenda, mass opinion, and events, spirals in loose, iterative loops. No one with any elan is an actual Nazi now. They're either a prole Prog or Progressive elitist and will use Covid and Climate Change to change the world according to their vision.

[DaivdBehar]

Missie. Thank you. You are correct.

[SimonP]

Curious as to where you land on this simple taxonomy. A pesterer of pesterers, perhaps?

Anyway, it's telling that even Josh's defenders here can't seem to come up with a defense other than, "If you don't like it, leave." No one actually seems to care for OPs like this.

[DaivdBehar]

Josh is remarkably productive. His insider, informative posts are good conversation starters. He has participated in constitutional litigation. He may be smarter than Volokh.

[SimonP]

And you're psychotic, so...

[DaivdBehar]

Simon. Your comment is just frustration in the traverse. You cannot debate me. You deeply understand, the lawyer profession is in utter and total failure in every self stated goal of every law subjects. Its one success is to take our $trillion and return nothing of value. You are very good at that.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" He has participated in constitutional litigation. "

Thanks for pointing that out. Now his resume will be 174 pages rather than 173.

[DaivdBehar]

Artie, please, tell the class the length of your resume at Josh's age.

[DaivdBehar]

In academia, quantity is quality. To the extent, he has to read a lot to have such a resume, he knows a lot. He will be a better teacher, knowing a lot.

He has failed to see the failure of the profession from above. He remains oblivious. This failure is something everyone at any diner 50 miles from the coasts understands deeply.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It will be interesting to see, over time. the deficit in education that was caused by this asinine lockdown.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Any deficit in education is only going to be exacerbated by South Texas College of Law resuming normal operations.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

And yet Josh has a blog which you read and which scares you so much that you waste time reading it and telling the world how much you hate.

And you don't have a blog. How is that?

[Noscitur a sociis]

The fact that you think this is Prof. Blackman's blog is a pretty good encapsulation of my problem with him.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The fact that you think Prof Volokh needs your guidance in ridding his blog of the evil Prof Blackman is as telling as your fervent desire to rid the world of Prof Blackman.

[Stephen Lathrop]

There is nothing evil about Blackman. He's an annoyance. His empty proliferations make more interesting threads die quicker.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Prof. Blackman is the future of conservative legal academia.

Thank goodness.

[Darwinnie]

Ha, that was funny. We could say the same about every law school. And I’m a lawyer.

[Don Nico]

To you crazy speculations are always "interesting."

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd assumed you were vaccinated. Not so?

[IPLawyer]

Aren't all the classes at STCLH mock classes?

[DaivdBehar]

IP, where did you go to law school? I attended Concord Internet Law School, a remarkable experience.

[IPLawyer]

A school renowned for its IP program 😉

[ah....Clem]

Jesus Haploid Christ.

With the Delta variant of Covid raging through Texas at the current pace, now is not the time to go back to in person classes.

[benji]

Come for the "often libertarian" posts, stay for the comments making fun of Blackman's posts.

We all still love you Josh.

You shouldn't eat while lecturing though. No matter how good the melon is.

[IPLawyer]

He eats while he's on panels too. It's gross and he's the only person I've seen in legal academia lacking enough self-awareness to do so.

[DaivdBehar]

Hey, low life reprobates, leave Josh alone. You are criminals who should be in federal prison. He is very smart, knowledgeable, and productive. He is oblivious to the damage he is doing by being alive, but so is Volokh, and the rest of the criminal cult enterprise that is the lawyer profession. All of you stink. If you attended a Top Tier law school, or teach at one, you are twice as oblivious to your stench. You are derelict in your duty of meta-analysis of the profession and to improve it. Add oblivious lawyer academia to the list of utter failure. Nor is this any snobby criticism, since anyone you ask in a diner will tell you, you stink.

[Aunt Teefah]

Found Josh’s mom’s account.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Pro tip for Blackman, on photography. If your camera angle leaves the viewer peering up your nostrils, change the camera angle.

Another pro tip, on video. Amateur broadcasters who publish video are at a disadvantage. There are demanding lighting standards for published video—standards familiar to and expected by everyone with a television. Those standards encompass a range. At the bottom of the range you see what you get at a typical think tank symposium. At the top the range you get the near-flawless lighting presented on the sets of major TV news shows.

With video, good lighting is very, very important to the credibility of the production. During the pandemic, all the usual performers broadcasting from home seemed less persuasive.

Viewers recognize bad lighting unconsciously. They discount as amateur work any contents which come to them in bad light. The think-tank level lighting standard is barely adequate to maintain credibility among the kind of content-committed audience you get in that kind of forum. However learned the participants, those symposiums would fare far better among viewers if the lighting standard were pushed up toward the top end, to match TV-set news show production standards. That rarely happens.

If your own production lighting falls short of even the think-tank standard, don't publish your video. Almost all your viewers will think less of what you say, and less of you, if you look like an obvious amateur.

Here is a starter tip. Ditch the white shirts. Using them creates lighting problems, especially among less-skilled lighting designers. If you don't know why that is a problem, stop publishing videos until you learn basic lighting principles.

[ah....Clem]

And all this goes double for audio.

I'll watch a video with bad lighting, but if the sound makes it hard to understand what people are saying it's unwatchable.

[Brett Bellmore]

Personally, I've got extremely loud tinnitus, and am gradually going deaf. (My audiologist says they're one in the same, that tinnitus is an auditory "phantom limb" sensation that some people get when they're going deaf.)

If there aren't at the very least real subtitles, (The computer ones are a bad joke.) ideally a transcript so I can just skip the video, you've lost me, unless it's something I'm desperate to hear.

[DaivdBehar]

Brett, would you be interested in filing complaints against all these platforms that fail to provide subtitles?

[Don Nico]

Brett,
You give a reason why my university will not allow any videos made available to the general public without they're having high quality captioning.

[Don Nico]

Clem,
You are correct. Bad video is tolerable. Bad audio is not.

[SimonP]

Oy. I didn't want to mention it, because it seemed too petty. For one who has written so much, and repeatedly, about his tech set-ups, it is strange to me that Josh is so unaware of how unflattering his videos are.

[Commenter_XY]

Professor Blackman....Please, please, please keep posting your classes. I learn things from your classes (not a lawyer, so the whole 1L thru 3L thing is fascinating to me).

[DaivdBehar]

I agree with you. His classes are good for the future lawyer, and to pass the bar. They have a different purpose from those in the elite institutions. The purpose of those is to take over the country, and to rule. That is why the Top Tier Schools should be closed by force, their faculty beaten.