Easter Eggs: Enjoy Them Safely

6 pp.Easter egg hunts can be fun and safe for all if you follow a few simple guidelines. This publication gives tips for buying, storing, cooking and serving eggs for the Easter holiday and other times. Included are instructions for using natural dyes and two recipes for hard-cooked eggs

Freud on the Court: Re-interpreting Sexting & Child Pornography Laws

Although many developments in child pornography law are troubling, perhaps the most disconcerting is the growing number of cases in which children are being charged with violating child pornography laws for engaging in “sexting,” or sending sexually explicit photographs via cellular phones or over the Internet. Although the law implicitly considers children the victims of child pornography and the photographer and audience as punishable perpetrators, this logic is challenged by sexting cases. Yet in many instances, children who take and send “lascivious” pictures of themselves have been charged with violating the very law designed to protect them from the harms associated with child pornography. As a result, many scholars have recently decried the law as unjust and questioned its confusing motives. Existing scholarship has roundly criticized the situation’s ostensible absurdity, but little work has been done to understand the legal motives for charging juveniles in sexting cases. This Article endeavors to better understand the motivation behind the law’s perplexing stance on teenage sexting. A close analysis of recent sexting cases reveals a remarkable correlation between Freud’s theory of sexuality and sexting jurisprudence. Beginning with the first Supreme Court decision on child pornography, New York v. Ferber, subsequent Supreme Court and District Court decisions on child pornography and sexting have been based on a strikingly Freudian logic. Perhaps fittingly, the alignment with Freud is subconscious: no court has acknowledged that its decision rests on a reading of Freud. Yet, as this article shows, Freud offers an extraordinarily accurate theoretical account of what judges have done in recent sexting cases. Understanding sexting cases in light of Freud does more than just explain the bewildering decisions of state and federal courts to uphold convictions against children for violating child pornography laws. In light of this unexpected finding, this article also provides a new basis from which to assess the goals of the law. As prosecutors continue to bring charges against teenagers for sexting, this article offers judges an alternate model for thinking about these difficult cases. Moreover, as more state legislatures draft new rules governing teenage sexting—in 2012 thirteen states considered resolutions aimed at sexting—this article proposes that lawmakers either abandon or correct their subconscious Freudianism in sexting cases, offering suggestions about how better to deal with teenagers who sext

The Indigenous McClain Doctrine: A New Legal Tool to Protect Cultural Patrimony and the Right to Self-Determination

In December 2010, the United States endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which obligates the United States to respect indigenous self-determination and protect Native American cultural objects. Yet, nearly a decade later, the United States has made little progress to meet these commitments, resulting in growing frustration in the indigenous and international human rights communities. At its 2017 meeting on the implementation of UNDRIP, the U.N. expert group condemned the United States for its inaction. But the failure to act is not the result of indifference. Current U.S. law makes it impossible for the United States to satisfy its human rights obligations. This Article identifies a paradoxical conflict resulting from the dual obligation imposed by UNDRIP: the current statutory scheme for protecting indigenous cultural property in America (NAGPRA) actually undermines tribal self-determination. By carefully analyzing NAGPRA case law, this article shows that non-indigenous judges, lawyers, and defendants identify what constitutes Native Americans’ cultural property. Tribal law represents the ideal legal scheme for respecting self-determination, but tribal criminal law cannot be extended over non-Indians, making it an ineffectual safeguard of cultural heritage. The seeming irreconcilability of these two goals amounts to the “indigenous cultural patrimony problem.” Can a law effectively protect Native American cultural patrimony while simultaneously respecting the right of indigenous peoples to exercise cultural self-determination? This article offers an innovative solution by applying art law jurisprudence to Federal Indian law. Specifically, this article argues that the paradox can be resolved by utilizing the legal instrument deployed to address stolen foreign cultural property (the McClain doctrine) in the domestic context. This Article proposes a new legal tool: the “indigenous McClain doctrine,” which effectively extends criminal tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians in cases involving stolen Native American cultural property, thereby resolving the conflict and meeting America’s obligations under UNDRIP. Importantly, this article demonstrates that the “indigenous McClain doctrine” faces no jurisprudential bar—despite the prohibition of extending tribal criminal law to non-Indians—and it makes recommendations on how to achieve its implementation

Freud on the Court: Re-interpreting Sexting & Child Pornography Laws

Although many developments in child pornography law are troubling, perhaps the most disconcerting is the growing number of cases in which children are being charged with violating child pornography laws for engaging in “sexting,” or sending sexually explicit photographs via cellular phones or over the Internet. Although the law implicitly considers children the victims of child pornography and the photographer and audience as punishable perpetrators, this logic is challenged by sexting cases. Yet in many instances, children who take and send “lascivious” pictures of themselves have been charged with violating the very law designed to protect them from the harms associated with child pornography. As a result, many scholars have recently decried the law as unjust and questioned its confusing motives. Existing scholarship has roundly criticized the situation’s ostensible absurdity, but little work has been done to understand the legal motives for charging juveniles in sexting cases. This Article endeavors to better understand the motivation behind the law’s perplexing stance on teenage sexting. A close analysis of recent sexting cases reveals a remarkable correlation between Freud’s theory of sexuality and sexting jurisprudence. Beginning with the first Supreme Court decision on child pornography, New York v. Ferber, subsequent Supreme Court and District Court decisions on child pornography and sexting have been based on a strikingly Freudian logic. Perhaps fittingly, the alignment with Freud is subconscious: no court has acknowledged that its decision rests on a reading of Freud. Yet, as this article shows, Freud offers an extraordinarily accurate theoretical account of what judges have done in recent sexting cases. Understanding sexting cases in light of Freud does more than just explain the bewildering decisions of state and federal courts to uphold convictions against children for violating child pornography laws. In light of this unexpected finding, this article also provides a new basis from which to assess the goals of the law. As prosecutors continue to bring charges against teenagers for sexting, this article offers judges an alternate model for thinking about these difficult cases. Moreover, as more state legislatures draft new rules governing teenage sexting—in 2012 thirteen states considered resolutions aimed at sexting—this article proposes that lawmakers either abandon or correct their subconscious Freudianism in sexting cases, offering suggestions about how better to deal with teenagers who sext

Poking Holes in L.A.’s New Condom Requirement: Pornography, Barebacking, and Speech

In November 2012, California voters approved the County of Los Angeles Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act, known as ―Measure B. The law requires producers of erotic adult films to overcome financial hurdles and complete educational training to secure filming permits and also mandates the use of condoms during the production of adult films. If a movie‘s producers shoot a scene involving anal or vaginal intercourse without a condom, they will lose their Measure B permits, face fines, and be forbidden from engaging in any future filming for an unspecified period. Although the purpose of the law is laudable—to minimize the spread of sexually transmitted infections resulting from the production of adult films in the County of Los Angeles—the regulation functions as an outright ban on the filming of unprotected, or bareback, sex scenes and is an impermissible infringement on protected speech. Since Measure B‘s strict requirements do not leave open alternative channels of communication, the law will fail constitutional scrutiny under a content-neutral standard. This conclusion, however, may be difficult to reach if the value of barebacking as speech and the alternative means of expression are only evaluated through a traditional heteronormative lens. Queer theory offers a distinctive platform from which to challenge the law, and a careful analysis of bareback sex within the gay community brings the importance of this speech into sharper relief. Barebacking constitutes a unique identity within the gay community, namely hypermasculinity. Forcing a gay porn star to cover his penis during filming is tantamount to sheathing his sword, blunting his masculinity, power, and speech

Predicate Offenses, Foreign Convictions, and Trusting Tribal Courts

Concerns about the reliability of criminal justice systems in foreign countries have resulted in uneven treatment of foreign convictions in U.S. courts. Federal courts, however, have historically accepted tribal court convictions as predicate offenses under recidivist statutes. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently rejected the uncounseled convictions obtained against Michael Bryant, Jr., a serial domestic abuser, in the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Court. The court dismissed a federal indictment that had been brought against Bryant under 18 U.S.C § 117, which makes it a felony to commit domestic violence against a spouse or partner in Indian country if the perpetrator has at least two prior domestic abuse convictions, because Bryant’s convictions did “not comport with the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.” The Ninth Circuit decision jeopardizes the health and safety of Native American women and stymies federal efforts to prosecute domestic violence in Indian country. Available studies suggest domestic abuse is a grave concern among indigenous communities. For instance, over half of indigenous women respondents to a Department of Justice survey reported being stalked, physically assaulted, or raped during their lifetimes. But the stakes of the case also extend to the legitimacy of tribal courts. Because federal courts often allow the use of foreign convictions as predicate offenses or factor them into sentencing decisions, even where those convictions would have violated the U.S. Constitution if obtained domestically, the Ninth Circuit’s rejection of the uncounseled conviction in United States v. Bryant implicitly suggested that tribal courts are less reliable fora than many foreign courts. This year the Supreme Court will have the opportunity to repudiate the Ninth Circuit’s distrust of tribal court procedures and affirm its commitment to the integrity of tribal courts

Tenfold your photons -- a physically-sound approach to filtering-based variance reduction of Monte-Carlo-simulated dose distributions

X-ray dose constantly gains interest in the interventional suite. With dose being generally difficult to monitor reliably, fast computational methods are desirable. A major drawback of the gold standard based on Monte Carlo (MC) methods is its computational complexity. Besides common variance reduction techniques, filter approaches are often applied to achieve conclusive results within a fraction of time. Inspired by these methods, we propose a novel approach. We down-sample the target volume based on the fraction of mass, simulate the imaging situation, and then revert the down-sampling. To this end, the dose is weighted by the mass energy absorption, up-sampled, and distributed using a guided filter. Eventually, the weighting is inverted resulting in accurate high resolution dose distributions. The approach has the potential to considerably speed-up MC simulations since less photons and boundary checks are necessary. First experiments substantiate these assumptions. We achieve a median accuracy of 96.7 % to 97.4 % of the dose estimation with the proposed method and a down-sampling factor of 8 and 4, respectively. While maintaining a high accuracy, the proposed method provides for a tenfold speed-up. The overall findings suggest the conclusion that the proposed method has the potential to allow for further efficiency.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Bildverarbeitung f\"ur die Medizin 202