Fundamental questions of the day

1. Are lawyers intellectuals?
Short Answer: No.

As Joseph Bottum says:

the practice of law precisely as a practice is not directly an intellectual’s activity, however intelligent one has to be to do it well. And plenty of lawyers do no work of the mind outside their practice. Still, I’ve always imagined that the law so closely parallels intellectuals’ activity—the work of philosophers, theologians, and literary critics—that there is an intellectual tendency that exists in the legal mind by its very nature.

Bottum is an intellectual and he must not hang around many lawyers to give them this much credit. A lawyer, like any worker, must accomplish tasks as part of his job--they can't bill hours when thinking for the sake of thinking. I don't think a general intellectual tendency exists beyond accomplishing the job that they must accomplish. The only difference between a lawyer and the average person is that lawyers are trained to believe that they know everything and to think that they are always right.

2. What are libraries for?
Libraries are especially important to the Ransom family. I plan on retiring early and living off the earnings of a librarian wife as soon as circumstances make it possible. Luckily, future librarian wife agrees with me on most things and will definitely agree with this article on how to run a library. Multiple copies of the Classics; everything else may stay if there is room. (And lots of Catholic books. You would not believe how poor the selection of Catholic books is at our public library. It is a shame.)

I can guarantee that future librarian wife will not allow computers to choose what remains on the shelves:

A software program developed by SirsiDynix, an Alabama-based library-technology company, informs librarians of which books are circulating and which ones aren't. If titles remain untouched for two years, they may be discarded--permanently.

The article also once again confirms the undeniable truth that technology ruins everything (now if I could only figure out how to blog without the internet).