Rethinking Rethinking: Taking Rethinking Seriously

From the "freshness of academic legal discourse department" comes this Monday morning quiz in two parts: (1) how many results does the Westlaw JLR search ti(rethinking) come up with? and (2) how many results do you get with the Westlaw JLR search ti(taking +5 seriously)?  For extra credit, name five things we should be taking more seriously.

Results after the jump (the fold? the click?)

Answers: (1) 1,176; (2) 216.  Obviously, I can't list everything we need to be taking more seriously, but basically give yourself the extra credit if you named five nouns.  Just as examples, here are some things you might have mentioned that recent articles have suggested we take more seriously: Law, Fiction, Political Science, Institutional Context, Sentinence, Information, Consumers, Justice Thomas, Evil, and Exit Row Seating.

Incidentally, there was a significant increase in the annual incidence of the "taking . . . seriously" title formulation in 2003. The three years between 2000-2002 saw an average of about 8 "taking . . . seriously"s, while the years since 2002 have seen about 15 a piece.  Clearly something important occurred in 2003 to make legal scholars think that more things needed to be taken more seriously.  Any ideas?  (please, please don't say that Westlaw increased its journal coverage in 2003.)

By the way, nothing in this post should be read to suggest that the author of the post has ever written any fresh academic legal discourse himself.