Just discovered this little gem. 'Useless shower of bastards.' Brilliant. Sure, it's probably not a real letter but forgive it that. Just enjoy the sheer limey rage that is the letter...
Oh, and I might be running for the position of 'section rep' in the student bar association at Suffolk. Vote for Pedro.
S.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
More Stuff Three of You Will Read
The dreams, they don't quit. I can honestly say that I haven't had a solid night of sound sleep since the first week of classes. Perhaps that's what's meant when they say that your first year at law school is hell. Every night, I go to sleep and into completely normal and innocuous dreams creeps The Law. Either I start applying it or the reasoning is applied to the dreams structure. Imagine having a dream where you're angry at someone for a slight. A normal person, dreaming, would do something imaginative like kill them (psychopath), pout (passive-aggressive) or go to the greatest Phish concert imaginable (hippy). The (lawyer), however, would start applying the rules of intentional tort and start building a case. Alas, I've been a (lawyer) in my dreams for weeks now....
I remember when I got my first job, which I held for all of a month, at McDonald's. Being gangly and zitty, I got saddled with the fryer and the clam-shell grill rather than the 'window'. It was my first experience with an assembly line and when it got busy, it sucked. After my first day working a rush, I recall having a repetitive dream about working the grill line but just not being able to keep up. I only had the dream once in that situation but I can say for certain that nearly every job I've had since then, I've always had a dream about the job and not being able to keep up after my first full day. Maybe I'm processing my anxieties? Or perhaps I'm burning a circuit into my brain in my sleep to assist me in my basic functions at work. Building a BIOS, as it were. I rather like that notion, actually.
Again, these dreams have always followed the first full, stressful day of work...they've happened once and then gone away. Now, however, I seem to be regularly burning circuits and I think that I know why. I'm not creating peripherals here, I'm soldering a new motherboard. For better or worse, I'm training my brain to process information in a (lawyer) fashion. Such retooling apparently requires a month plus of the aforementioned dreams. I hope that the plus is shorter rather than longer because I could really use some non-repetitive dreaming...
I remember when I got my first job, which I held for all of a month, at McDonald's. Being gangly and zitty, I got saddled with the fryer and the clam-shell grill rather than the 'window'. It was my first experience with an assembly line and when it got busy, it sucked. After my first day working a rush, I recall having a repetitive dream about working the grill line but just not being able to keep up. I only had the dream once in that situation but I can say for certain that nearly every job I've had since then, I've always had a dream about the job and not being able to keep up after my first full day. Maybe I'm processing my anxieties? Or perhaps I'm burning a circuit into my brain in my sleep to assist me in my basic functions at work. Building a BIOS, as it were. I rather like that notion, actually.
Again, these dreams have always followed the first full, stressful day of work...they've happened once and then gone away. Now, however, I seem to be regularly burning circuits and I think that I know why. I'm not creating peripherals here, I'm soldering a new motherboard. For better or worse, I'm training my brain to process information in a (lawyer) fashion. Such retooling apparently requires a month plus of the aforementioned dreams. I hope that the plus is shorter rather than longer because I could really use some non-repetitive dreaming...
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
More Stuff You Won't Read
Deb's clever little ruse worked, it seems. Not only do you get the joy of a missive-free inbox, ya'll get the guilt-free pleasure of completely ignoring me. If you're not doing either (and you're not my mother), how about hitting me back with a little feedback. Otherwise, this feels like I'm keeping an online diary which is about as cool as acid washed jean shorts. That's why I liked emailing you all...even if it was angry, I still felt like there was a dialog. Now it's like I'm monologing and we all know that is only cool if you're a supervillian.
Speaking of, the new DangerDoom album will be out on October 11th and I've been told not to buy it by Brooke. She would neither confirm nor deny that she got it for me for my birthday. For those of you without such restrictions (and know who Viktor Vaughn and/or Dangermouse are...Mom, this excludes you), I highly recommend picking it up. I got Dangermouse's Grey Album on vinyl last month...one of only 3000 pressed. I think, in fact, that means that I rule. If you haven't heard, google it. Well worth the bandwidth.
How's law school, you ask? It's good. It's nowhere near as scary as they make it sound. They alternate between telling use we should treat it like a job and that we should be spending 50-60 hours a week on our studies. I don't know about you but I'm not down with overtime unless it pays and I have yet to put more than 40 hours in in a week. I go to school at 8 and I leave between 3:30 and 5 depending on the amount of reading required for the following day. The concepts aren't too terribly difficult to fathom, really and the reading, though dense at times, is pretty straightforward. Well, it's straightforward in the sense that after awhile, you start seeing patterns and you become adept at understanding the significance of aspects of those patterns...at least in regard to how they add to or modify previous patterns. Anyway, it's not bad...
Ok, it's time to spend some Q-T with Brooke. We're watching 'The Celebration' tonight. If you haven't seen it, I suggest you rent and/or buy it.
I hope all is well on your end...S.
ps- one more music note: The Bad Plus are playing near our place on October 1st. Anyone interested in catching the show with me? I promise it'll be the best jazz show you'll see this year, if not in your life...
Speaking of, the new DangerDoom album will be out on October 11th and I've been told not to buy it by Brooke. She would neither confirm nor deny that she got it for me for my birthday. For those of you without such restrictions (and know who Viktor Vaughn and/or Dangermouse are...Mom, this excludes you), I highly recommend picking it up. I got Dangermouse's Grey Album on vinyl last month...one of only 3000 pressed. I think, in fact, that means that I rule. If you haven't heard, google it. Well worth the bandwidth.
How's law school, you ask? It's good. It's nowhere near as scary as they make it sound. They alternate between telling use we should treat it like a job and that we should be spending 50-60 hours a week on our studies. I don't know about you but I'm not down with overtime unless it pays and I have yet to put more than 40 hours in in a week. I go to school at 8 and I leave between 3:30 and 5 depending on the amount of reading required for the following day. The concepts aren't too terribly difficult to fathom, really and the reading, though dense at times, is pretty straightforward. Well, it's straightforward in the sense that after awhile, you start seeing patterns and you become adept at understanding the significance of aspects of those patterns...at least in regard to how they add to or modify previous patterns. Anyway, it's not bad...
Ok, it's time to spend some Q-T with Brooke. We're watching 'The Celebration' tonight. If you haven't seen it, I suggest you rent and/or buy it.
I hope all is well on your end...S.
ps- one more music note: The Bad Plus are playing near our place on October 1st. Anyone interested in catching the show with me? I promise it'll be the best jazz show you'll see this year, if not in your life...
Sunday, September 04, 2005
The Consensus
So, most of this last week consisted of all the 1L's I know talking incessantly over lunch about the debacle in New Orleans. Keep in mind, none of us have been glued to the TV. It's just that CNN is the only channel broadcast on the two tvs in our cafeteria and, in an effort to avoid talking about law school, we're inclined to pick up whatever topic the boob tube has to offer. Christ, what a mess. The best metaphor that I can think of for the situation is what has happened, contemporaneously, to a pledge drive started by the proprietor of somethingawful.com (start at the bottom here: http://www.somethingawful.com/). The gist is this: Paypal, like our government, is the vehicle of our collective will. Nosh on it for a bit and tell me what you think.
My own feelings were reinforced this morning as I watched some snotty on-the-ground reporter's attempt at 'hard-nosed' journalism. Her name is Campbell something and she proceed to tear into the Mayor of New Orleans over how he handled the crisis, more or less implying that it was all his fault. Nothing like a hack pseudo-journalist raking a small-time politician over the coals for stuff that was well outside of his jurisdiction and, more importantly, his capabilities. After the commercial break, she did a heartrending spot on puppies adrift in the hellscape, left by fleeing (or dead) owners to fend for themselves. In fact, their little action news tribe had adopted and begun feeding no fewer than ten puppies. Who could worry about the dead and dying people when there are puppies to feed!?! Whatever gets you the ratings, kid...
As for who's to blame, I say the lot of them. I blame the Mayor and all the other corrupt politicians in Louisiana for their willful disregard of the pre-hurricane facts. They all knew, beyond a shadow of a friggin' doubt, that their levies and pumps were inadequate to deal with even a Category 3 hurricane, let alone a 5. And they've known this for at least a decade. This knowledge notwithstanding, I'd say that the mayor did a fairly good job handling the situation. He did what he could in the short term with the means he had. It's a given that he relied too heavily on state and federal resources that totally let him and, more importantly, the people if NO down but considering the scope of the event, it's understandable.
Ex post facto, the Department of Homeland Security is at fault for gutting and 'realigning' what used to be one of the most effective bureaucracies in the US: FEMA. Of course, by placing the blame on the DoHS, I'm really blaming the administration (I know, you're all shocked). The fact that the guy they've got running FEMA right now has absolutely NO experience with emergency management is somewhat telling. He's a monkey that got appointed as a favor because he was a Bush loyalist. Trust me, he was kicking it at his beach house, drinking Mai Tai's and collecting a paycheck before this happened. It's sick. Oh, and before I get off my soapbox, lemme just say that seeing Dubya handing out Happy Meals to those suffering in the wake of this tragedy doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies, either. A truly concerned and involved President wouldn't waste is time at a media-friendly photo-op, he'd be on the goddamn horn firing people and promoting their in-the-field, in-the-know underlings.
S.
My own feelings were reinforced this morning as I watched some snotty on-the-ground reporter's attempt at 'hard-nosed' journalism. Her name is Campbell something and she proceed to tear into the Mayor of New Orleans over how he handled the crisis, more or less implying that it was all his fault. Nothing like a hack pseudo-journalist raking a small-time politician over the coals for stuff that was well outside of his jurisdiction and, more importantly, his capabilities. After the commercial break, she did a heartrending spot on puppies adrift in the hellscape, left by fleeing (or dead) owners to fend for themselves. In fact, their little action news tribe had adopted and begun feeding no fewer than ten puppies. Who could worry about the dead and dying people when there are puppies to feed!?! Whatever gets you the ratings, kid...
As for who's to blame, I say the lot of them. I blame the Mayor and all the other corrupt politicians in Louisiana for their willful disregard of the pre-hurricane facts. They all knew, beyond a shadow of a friggin' doubt, that their levies and pumps were inadequate to deal with even a Category 3 hurricane, let alone a 5. And they've known this for at least a decade. This knowledge notwithstanding, I'd say that the mayor did a fairly good job handling the situation. He did what he could in the short term with the means he had. It's a given that he relied too heavily on state and federal resources that totally let him and, more importantly, the people if NO down but considering the scope of the event, it's understandable.
Ex post facto, the Department of Homeland Security is at fault for gutting and 'realigning' what used to be one of the most effective bureaucracies in the US: FEMA. Of course, by placing the blame on the DoHS, I'm really blaming the administration (I know, you're all shocked). The fact that the guy they've got running FEMA right now has absolutely NO experience with emergency management is somewhat telling. He's a monkey that got appointed as a favor because he was a Bush loyalist. Trust me, he was kicking it at his beach house, drinking Mai Tai's and collecting a paycheck before this happened. It's sick. Oh, and before I get off my soapbox, lemme just say that seeing Dubya handing out Happy Meals to those suffering in the wake of this tragedy doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies, either. A truly concerned and involved President wouldn't waste is time at a media-friendly photo-op, he'd be on the goddamn horn firing people and promoting their in-the-field, in-the-know underlings.
S.
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