Links for 2010-05-20

"I thought I'd take another look at cell phone damage, coming at it from a different direction than my colleague. Mostly I just want to consider the energy of the radiation that cell phones produce, and compare that with the other relevant energy scales for molecules."

"What I see in the national obsession over Kagan's unmarried status is precisely the same thing I saw in the national obsession over David Souter's: We want Supreme Court nominees who are diverse and interesting, but as soon as we get one, we treat their unique qualities like hideous communicable diseases. Sonia Sotomayor was the first Latina. So we called her a racist. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was a feminist legal pioneer. So we called her a radical. And we thought David Souter (mother, farmhouse, perennially unplugged TV) was just so much tragic marital roadkill. "

"Tonight, 13 actors will take the stage at Shakespeare & Company in "Henry V.'' Nothing so unusual in that -- except that these are teenagers, none older than 17, and they have been sentenced to perform this play.

The show is the culmination of a five-week intensive program called Shakespeare in the Courts, a nationally recognized initiative now celebrating its 10th year. Berkshire Juvenile Court Judge Judith Locke has sent these adjudicated offenders -- found guilty of such adolescent crimes as fighting, drinking, stealing, and destroying property -- not to lockup or conventional community service, but to four afternoons a week of acting exercises, rehearsal, and Shakespearean study."

"At Hinds Community College, swearing can get you in trouble. "Public profanity, cursing and vulgarity" are all punishable with a $25 fine for a first offense, and a $50 fine for a second offense. Further, the offense of "flagrant disrespect" (which may be demonstrated by swearing, as became clear Tuesday when a controversy over the code went public) can earn a student demerits that could lead to suspension.

Hinds appears to be relatively rare among public colleges in regulating speech in this way. And the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has taken up the case of a student who faced charges following an incident in which -- after class, but in the presence of an instructor -- he said that a grade he had just received was "going to fuck up my entire G.P.A." The instructor first threatened to place the student in detention and when the student pointed out (correctly) that the college doesn't have detention, the "flagrant disrespect" charges were made."