The big (college) basketball game is on the horizon, and the playoff fight is officially on. Our own University of Houston Cougars are in the 2025 NCAA basketball tournament as a top seed, for the third time in a row! The tournament is one of the NCAA’s biggest successes, with the event bringing in $1.29 billion in 2023. As we celebrate this great achievement for the organization and its athletes, it seems worthwhile to remember the organization’s missteps toward its athletes as well.
Read moreMission 2025: Lunar Eclipses, Moon dust, and the Law
Buckle up Houston, because we’re in for a sight. This week, on March 13th and 14th, we will be treated to a total lunar eclipse. Total lunar eclipses are rare, and we’re on the right side of the world to enjoy a prime view. Starting at 10:57 PM on March 13, 2025, residents of the Earth’s western hemisphere can watch it all go down.
A lunar eclipse is sometimes called a blood moon, because of the orange or reddish color it turns. The more clouds or dust that are in the Earth atmosphere, the redder it turns! No equipment is needed to watch the lunar eclipse, so you could stay up late and see the whole event go down with your own eyes. For any night owls hoping to catch totality, that will be at 1:26 AM. The eclipse will end at 5 AM on March 14, 2025.
“During a lunar eclipse, the Moon appears red or orange because any sunlight that’s not blocked by our planet is filtered through a thick slice of Earth’s atmosphere on its way to the lunar surface. It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the Moon.”
While a lunar eclipse would be a spectacle no matter where on Earth you’re seeing it from, this time, we’ll have visuals from space! Blue Ghost Mission 1 is on the moon and will capture the total eclipse, and a lunar sunset for the first time ever on March 16th. But why is Blue Ghost Mission 1 up there in the first place?
To study lunar regolith! Regolith, also known as “moon dust,” proved quite the challenge for the Apollo Moon missions. NASA has come pretty far since then, but they hope to expand their understanding of how the moon’s dusty surface interacts with spacecrafts and payloads. Not only will this new data help support future lunar missions, they’ll also help in Mars exploration as well.
Here on Earth, we’ve discovered that moon dust isn’t a challenge just restricted to astronauts. Quite a few people have found themselves in legal crosshairs over out-of-this world marvels. For more information on the fascinating question over who owns space objects, check out our Who Owns Space Stuff? blog.
For further reading:
Still interested in the growing field of space law? Take a look at our digital exhibit!
And if you’re interested in seeing those amazing shots of the eclipse and lunar sunset, follow the live updates from Blue Ghost Mission 1!
Judge, Attorney, Plaintiff: 3 Oscar Films You Should Watch
The Academy Awards are a time to celebrate cinema by honoring the best films of the year.
Do filmgoers always agree with the Academy about which films are best? No, but among the 2025 Oscar nominees are three stories involving the legal system, and they are all worth watching.
The Judge: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
If a judge is told what his rulings will be, is he really a judge? And if he is told what his judgments will be, what is the worth of law in his decisions? These are some of the many questions this film presents.
Iman is an honest lawyer and a devout Muslim. He has a wife and two girls. Their mostly comfortable lives in Tehran are disrupted when Iman is promoted to investigating judge, while Iran itself is rocked by protests. Then Iman discovers he is meant to sign off on judgements his superiors want, without review. Including cases with death sentences. All of this is recipe enough for a disaster, but then another volatile ingredient is added: a gun.
Iman was given the weapon for his safety. During the course of the film, in which his daughters’ disgust with the regime grows as his connection to them falters, it disappears. Who could have taken it? The only possible culprits are his family. Corruption and paranoia lead Iman to believe he can pass judgment on his family.
Judges are not immune to corruption or unjust rulings, in any country. This film is an intimate view into how intelligent and thoughtful people can be made complicit by the systems they work under.
“...when someone submits to an authoritarian situation and becomes devoted to its system, and gradually becomes biased about it, the question is: how could this bias lead to great violence, even against people close to you, not just against those outside your family...In the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, there are many examples in which even fathers played a role in the executions of their sons...”
Nominated for Best International Feature Film
The Attorney: I’m Still Here
Eunice Paiva was a world renowned lawyer, and the first waves she ever made were over her husband. Rubens Paiva was a civil engineer and a former congressman. And he was on the wrong side of the new regime in Brazil. One day, their home is raided and he is taken. Eunice is left with their five children and no answers as to what happened to her husband.
She realizes early on that he has been killed. One of the many people who were vanished by the regime. But Eunice never stopped asking questions. It was a defiance that put her in the crosshairs and began her years long crusade against the government. She enrolled in law school and became a leading expert on indigenous rights in Brazil. She went on to work with the Brazilian government, the World Bank, and the United Nations.
While the film revolves around the mystery of what happened to Rubens Paiva, it is more concerned about the justice he was owed and the people who mourned him. How do you live with a loss that has no answers—or rather, what happens when the government is the one who wrongs you?
You right it.
“...She always said she understood that what happened to her family was no different from what happened every day with minorities in the suburbs of Brazil. She fought for Indigenous reserves and consulted with those who wrote Brazil’s constitution in 1988. She was a woman ahead of her time, and she became herself when her family’s father figure died.”
Nominated for Best Picture, Best International Feature Film, and Best Actress (Torres)
The Plaintiff: Black Box Diaries
Shiori Itô’s story is both familiar and also the snowball that became an avalanche. In 2015, Shiori was a young journalism student. She agreed to a meal with Noriyuki Yamaguchi, the Washington Chief of the Tokyo Broadcasting System. They were to discuss a possible internship. Instead the night ended in sexual assault.
Despite there being video of an inebriated Shiori being pulled into a hotel by her assailant, she faced an uphill climb to get justice. The police did not want to accept her report and later dropped the charges against Yamaguchi. According to prosecutors, there was no evidence. Unable to bring a criminal case, she went public and filed a civil lawsuit against Yamaguchi. The blowback she faced was immense, and from every sector of Japanese society. It forced a light on the ways legal systems can leave victims like Shiori with little recourse. Shiori became the face of the #MeToo movement in Japan.
Black Box Diaries is the experience of a reporter telling her own story, to find her own resolution. The film ends with a court ruling in her favor, but leaves viewers with a sobering reminder of how harrowing a plaintiff’s experience with the legal system can be.
“No matter where there is a better law to protect survivor, I see every single audience eyes that they are carrying something similar or they know someone they love. I feel it, and it’s really emotional moment every time I go into the theater and feel it. How universal this experience is.”
Nominated for Best Documentary Feature
Each story is from the perspective of someone with a different, yet vital role in the legal system. The reasons behind how people end up in these roles are important. This Oscar season, we hope you enjoy this look inside why people make the decisions they do inside, and outside, the court room.
Interested in more of our Oscar takes? Check out last year’s post on The Barber of Little Rock, Justice Goes to the Movies: CDFIs and the Racial Wealth Gap!
It’s Día de Muertos! Remember That Time When Disney Tried to Trademark It?
All publicity is good publicity—until the ghost of bad PR comes a knockin’.
Earlier this year, Disney tried to argue that by agreeing to the terms and conditions of a Disney+ account, the account holder couldn’t sue them for wrongful death. They quickly backtracked after a huge outcry, but this isn’t the first time Disney has landed themselves in the court of public opinion due to their legal maneuvering.
Disney’s legal arm is very long, experienced, and generally pretty successful. For example, did you know Disney impacted U.S. copyright law to the point that the 1998 extension is nicknamed the Mickey Mouse Protection Act? Currently, copyright lasts for the life of the author, plus seventy years after the author’s death. If you’ve ever wondered, huh, that seems rather long? Well, Disney, and other companies interested in protecting their IP, had a hand in that.
Suffice to say, Disney has never been one to shy away from protecting their intellectual property. So with that in mind, you can sort of follow the logic behind the disastrous attempt to trademark “Día de Muertos.”
“A trademark can be any word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination of these things that identifies your goods or services. It’s how customers recognize you in the marketplace and distinguish you from your competitors.”
A trademark is meant to identify the source of goods or services, provide legal protection for a brand, and help guard against counterfeiting and fraud. And back in 2013, Disney knew they wanted to make a film about the Mexican holiday Día de Muertos, also known as Día de los Muertos and Day of the Dead. So they decided to establish their trademark for the film.
The idea was to trademark “Día de los Muertos” and any themed merchandise, such as “fruit preserves, fruit-based snacks, toys, games, clothing, footwear, backpacks, clocks and jewelry.”
Unsurprisingly, there was massive backlash. Día de Muertos is a beloved holiday in Mexico and observed throughout Latin America and in the U.S. It’s a time to honor loved ones who have passed and celebrate their memory. Even the suggestion that a U.S. based company would try to trademark such an important part of Mexican culture, inspired some passionate responses. The most memorable of which was political cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz’s take on the the situation, Muerto Mouse.
Disney appears to have taken all that criticism to heart, as Alcaraz went on to join Pixar as a consultant for their Day of the Dead film. In this case, listening to the backlash resulted in a more authentic story that eventually became Coco. The film was wildly popular, especially in Mexico. Reader, I saw that movie twice in theaters.
If you’re interested in learning more about Día de los Muertos, like the fact it’s actually two days, please check out this wonderful guide by the National Museum of the American Latino. There are a lot of ways to celebrate Day of the Dead and not a lot ways to get it wrong.
Unless you try to trademark it, of course.
It's Time to Vote in Texas!
Election Day is still a few weeks away, but you can cast your ballot today. Early voting in Texas runs from October 21, 2024 to November 1, 2024. Election Day is November 5, 2024. The Harris County Attorney Conference Center is an early voting center and will be an Election Day voting site.
The Harris County Attorney Conference Center is on 1019 Congress St, Houston TX, 77002. Voting is downstairs, at the basement level. Upon entering the building, there will be election workers in the lobby, ready to assist you.
For more election information, please visit harrisvotes.com and check out our blog, Your Guide to the General/Presidential Election 2024. Happy voting!
