We are at it again – working on one of our posts about movies and the law. This time we are looking at movies which depict murder trials. Although posts about movies and the law might seem somewhat lighthearted, movies are a powerful cultural force which often reflect society’s attitudes and understanding of various ideas. To …
April 2014 marks the 450th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. As a way of combining a salute to Shakespeare and continuing our fascination with all things Magna Carta, I thought I would take a look at Shakespeare’s play, “King John.” The play is believed to have been written in the 1590s, but it was not …
The following post is cross posted on the From the Catbird Seat: Poetry & Literature blog. Magna Carta is coming to the Library of Congress in November 2014! This document is regarded as being one of the foundations of representative government and at the same time marked a defeat of the king by his barons. But long before 1215, …
This is a guest post by Dante Figueroa, a senior legal information analyst at the Law Library of Congress. Some of Dante’s recent posts include Introduction to Canon Law – Global Legal Collection Highlights, Resources and Treasures of the Italian Parliamentary Libraries, and A Fresh Update on the Canonical Rules on the Election of a …
Although I grew up in an arid western state, my first real awareness of the complicated rules governing water usage came when I saw the movie The Milagro Beanfield War in 1988. The action in the movie centers around the accidental and illegal diversion of water by Joe Mondragon, which brings down the wrath of the state government …
At 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 9, it will once again be time to reset our clocks an hour ahead for daylight saving time (DST). Under the Energy Policy Act of 2005, Pub. L. 109-58, daylight saving time was extended by several weeks. Previously, DST ran from the first Sunday in April to the last …
This week’s interview is with Anne Guha, an intern with the Public Services Division at the Law Library of Congress. Describe your background. I was born in Boston and grew up in various places all along the East Coast. I spent most of my childhood in New York City, North Carolina, and Florida, finishing high …
As Andrew mentioned in his 2010 post, Our Hours Thanks to 2 U.S.C. 138, because of this law, if Congress is in session during a blizzard someone must come in to provide coverage in the Law Library Reading Room. Since I have been one of the staff members who helps provide coverage during bad weather over …
Since our post on Christmas Movies and the Law was so successful, we decided to try our hand at a post about movies, love, and the law in celebration of Valentine’s Day. As with our Christmas post, we found some of our colleagues were cynics, but although they may have a jaundiced eye regarding love they …