Happy (Belated) Thanksgiving

I didn't get a chance to do a Thanksgiving post this year. So, since ingratitude is a sin, I figured I should rectify that by posting something now. Better late than never. (I'm really trying on that whole procrastination thing.)

I spent my Thanksgiving weekend writing about the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. (RLUIPA for short.) It sounds like a strange juxtaposition of ideas, and honestly, it is. (I won't bore you with the details of why land use and institutionalized persons ended up in the same statute.) Anyway, lots of ink has been spilled about the land use portion of the law. Not too many people have dealt with the institutionalized persons section. Since I have to make a unique contribution to human knowledge (pesky requirements for getting a doctorate and all that), I'm writing about the institutionalized persons section of RLUIPA. As a result, I've been reading about all the stuff that goes on in prison.

So, I'm grateful that somebody taught me to read so that I could read these cases. (I don't remember learning to read, so I'm assuming my parents were the ones who taught me. By the time I was in school, I already knew.)
I'm grateful that my professor didn't yell at me when I turned in a really lousy draft. I'm grateful to the other professor who (according to the rumor mill) convinced my professor to chill out a bit.
I'm grateful that I'm not in prison. It's really a nasty place there. I'm also grateful that I can practice my religion without having to sue for it.
I'll really be grateful when this paper is done. The scary thought is that when I'm finished, I'll probably be one of the leading authorities on the institutionalized persons section of RLUIPA. I'm not sure if I'm ready to be the leading authority on anything. (Well, I'm the leading authority on how to use the HR database at work, but that's much less complicated than federal law. All I have to do is check the code every now and then to make sure the HTML gremlins haven't misplaced a tag. It's amazing how often that happens.)

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and that you're having a wonderful Advent season!