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The essence of jazz is the same as that of democracy: the greatest
amount of individual freedom consistent with a healthy community. Each
musician is allowed extraordinary liberty during a solo and then is
expected to conscientiously back up the other musicians in turn. The two
most exciting moments in jazz are during flights of individual
virtuosity and when the entire musical group seems to become one. The
genius of jazz (and democracy) is that the same people are willing and
able to do both. - Sam Smith
THE TECHNOLOGY of torts, with its tyranny of precedents and its
infatuation with retribution over resolution, has, in the words of the
country & western song, walked across our heart like it was Texas. No
politics, no ideology, no culture has been immune. All of American life
has been hauled into court. Thus we find in our path not only the
endless droppings of corporate attorneys, but civil rights advocates who
insist that the law will lead us to love each other, feminist counselors
who believe that the world's oldest conflict can be settled on appeal,
colleges that publish what amounts to a lawyer's guide to correct sex,
and public interest activists trying to run a revolution out of the
courthouse. Obviously the law has had a crucial role in such matters as
civil rights and bringing the megacorporation to heel. But its
achievements hardly justify an exclusive contract to direct the course
of social change. If today's lawyer-leaders had come to the fore thirty
years ago, the 60s would have been just a lawsuit, not a cultural and
political revolution. There would have been no music, no madness, no
drama, and without them, probably not much change as well. - Sam Smith
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The essence of jazz is the same as that of democracy: the greatest
amount of individual freedom consistent with a healthy community. Each
musician is allowed extraordinary liberty during a solo and then is
expected to conscientiously back up the other musicians in turn. The two
most exciting moments in jazz are during flights of individual
virtuosity and when the entire musical group seems to become one. The
genius of jazz (and democracy) is that the same people are willing and
able to do both. - Sam Smith
THE TECHNOLOGY of torts, with its tyranny of precedents and its
infatuation with retribution over resolution, has, in the words of the
country & western song, walked across our heart like it was Texas. No
politics, no ideology, no culture has been immune. All of American life
has been hauled into court. Thus we find in our path not only the
endless droppings of corporate attorneys, but civil rights advocates who
insist that the law will lead us to love each other, feminist counselors
who believe that the world's oldest conflict can be settled on appeal,
colleges that publish what amounts to a lawyer's guide to correct sex,
and public interest activists trying to run a revolution out of the
courthouse. Obviously the law has had a crucial role in such matters as
civil rights and bringing the megacorporation to heel. But its
achievements hardly justify an exclusive contract to direct the course
of social change. If today's lawyer-leaders had come to the fore thirty
years ago, the 60s would have been just a lawsuit, not a cultural and
political revolution. There would have been no music, no madness, no
drama, and without them, probably not much change as well. - Sam Smith
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