PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’45” N 9°9’35” W October 15, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C
Today was a grey, drizzly Sunday, not exactly perfect weather for exploring our neighborhood, but we did. Joe's phone shows he walked 5.3 miles, slow and steady, but he did it!
An important part ofRead more
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’41” N 9°9’36” W October 17, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C
It’s hard to dig very deep in a two week class, especially when the students for the most part have no idea about any aspect of the US legal system. But it is always a lot of fun and I always try toRead more
Traveler It’s nice to get a better sense of what you teach in Portugal, Laurie! Thanks for bringing us into your classroom. And, tragic, the choking out of a neighborhood that no longer has an acceptable level of economic worth for a chosen few (at least that’s how I interpret it ). Happens everywhere (hello, American cities), and cries out for a Camino spirit of social justice in ALL our work. I suspect in your presentations you are able to inspire thoughts of cultural respect, quality of life, and inclusion, in your students 😉. Enjoy!
PortugalLisbon DistrictSocorroSão MamedePraça da Alegria38°42’57” N 9°8’46” W October 20, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C
We took an Uber to Conserveira de Lisboa, the traditional old store that has been selling canned sardines, mackerel, tuna, mussels, etc. for a long time. I bought some for my hometown buddies who likeRead more
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’44” N 9°9’35” W October 21, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ 🌧 17 °C
That stands for Museu de Arte, Arquitectura e Tecnología. We met an old friend from Champaign there. She has been living in the Lisbon area for 4 years but it was only last year that we reconnected.Read more
Traveler Descriptions of the city remind me of our visit there in 1975, just weeks after the revolution and the return of democracy. Everyone was on strike, no telephone, little electricity, garbage everywhere, but very interesting and exciting. The soldiers, returned from Africa had beards, sandals, and beads. How about coming home one of these days?
Nils Jacobsen The MAAT looks fascinating. Vasconcelos' works seem to have a somewhat orientalizing aspect.
Nils Jacobsen Is your jotel practically across the street from the university? That looks like a busy street.
Laurie Reynolds The hotel is on a busy street that doesn’t go to the university. From that busy street I have to walk up two flights of stairs to an elevated road that takes me to the University eventually. It is not a pedestrian paradise around here. And when it rains, the sidewalks are impassable, so I just take my shoes off and go barefoot.
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’44” N 9°9’35” W October 22, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☁️ 16 °C
About 8 Km outside of Lisbon, the Queluz Palace is “Portugal’s Versailles,” much as La Granja is Spain’s. None of the crowds and not as excessively ornate, with gorgeous gardens that weRead more
Traveler
looks delicious! I actually made Brazilian cheese rolls for lunch and they look very similar to your breakfast rolls
Traveler
Those tiles are fantastic! In Spain and South America they are called "azulejos." Perhaps because the original ones are blue? These two cultures are so close, I bet the Portuguese have a similar-sounding name for "tile." Lovely!
Laurie Reynolds Tile is azulejo in Portuguese — with a voiced zzzzz and a “j” like in John and the final o pronounced as “u.” So yes it’s the same word!
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’45” N 9°9’34” W
October 23, 2023 in Portugal ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C
A couple of my friends want to know more about the class I’m here to teach. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, since they are educators themselves! So here goes— The class is part of theRead more
Traveler Thanks, Laurie. I'm not a lawyer, so I may get the terminology wrong as I try to articulate a couple of questions. I'm assuming Portuguese law is Code-based, like Spanish, French, Argentine, etc. law. That means law students need to know the Civil, Criminal (Penal), Commercial, etc. Codes in order to be allowed to practice law. In the U.S. and England, there are no such Codes governing the law, but instead jurisprudence. That is why you teach U.S. law case by case (please correct any of what I just wrote if it is not true). My two questions are: 1. Do you think Codes are mostly found in countries heavily influenced by Ancient Rome (where Romance languages are official) vs. Anglo-Saxon countries? 2. Do your Portuguese students (and others from "Latin" countries) find it difficult to process U.S. law, in the absence of Codes?
Laurie Reynolds We can have a good long chat when I’m back but here’s my non-comparativist take on this. Imho (but it’s an uneducated opinion) the differences between civil and common law systems in terms of legal analysis are not so tremendously different. The US probably has more statutes per person than Portugal. But there is a layer of uncodified common law principles that underlies, coexists with, supplements, modifies, or is abolished by statutory law (depending on the situation). So that makes for some fancy footwork analysis that’s not needed in a civil law country. In terms of statutory analysis, when I say “ balancing test” my civil law students say “ concordance” or “subsidiarity” or “ proportionality” but we all look at the same things. I do think common law judges feel less constrained and freer to do their own thing than civil law judges but I think that in the final analysis there is no such thing as neutral objective legal principles - they are all value-laden. And civil law judges have values just like common law judges.
Laurie Reynolds One big difference is in terms of precedential value of cases/ judicial legal opinions. At least as far as I understand it, civil law cases have little or no precedential value for future cases, while they are extremely constraining for common law judges.
Laurie Reynolds But I am just shooting from the hip so someone who knows their stuff may totally disagree
PortugalLisbon DistrictNossa Senhora de FátimaSete Rios38°44’44” N 9°9’34” W
Traveler Have a good start of your two weeks of teaching, Laurie! Hopefully when the weather clears up you will be able to take pictures of places you visit in Lisbon.
Traveler
Interesting mural. Its themes (work, industry, liberation -- see the bird motif) remind me of a mural in the lobby of a large building on the campus of Purdue Univ., as well as a famous mural by Diego Rivera (who of course was a communist) featuring a portrait of Lenin, along with similar allusions to technological progress. This mural might have been destroyed, I can't remember.
Laurie Reynolds I think you’re right. Joe remembered that it was in Rockefeller Center, and Rockefeller was not amused by Lenin’s depiction. Rivera redid it down in Mexico, where it’s still on the view. Amazing what little tidbits are still in Joe’s memory!
Laurie Reynolds It was done by more than 20 artists, so it’s kind of got a scattershot theme. But it’s very pretty, especially bright in this drab neighborhood of ours!