Yeah, ok, the contracts final wasn't so bad. I'm in no hurry to get the grade, but I'm sure it could have been worse. On to ConLaw and ppppppProperty!

But not just yet. First, I want to read about Dick Cheney's absolute right to know and not tell, which is much more fun after a CivPro exam than I'm guessing it would have been before. I'm all over that writ of mandamus!

I also want to see what John Kerry Is A Douche Bag But I'm Voting For Him Anyway.com is all about. I mean, I think I can figure it out, but I'll take a few moments to ponder the implications, nonetheless.

And what about Operation Take One For The Country!? I think this will take some rigorous analysis. [UPDATE: Link via Three Years of Hell. Sorry I forgot to mention that in the first place.]

Then maybe I'll put my music library online with iPlaylist so you can all mock my musical knavishness, then add some recommendations to the Music Recommendation System for iTunes. Seems like a good idea, at least in theory.

Or maybe I'll just watch some crap tv. ;-)

One year ago yesterday I sold the cutest little house I'll ever own. It was the cutest, because it just may be the only house I'll ever own, but after all the work I and my parents and sister and friends put into it, it was darned cute. One year later, looking at the pictures, I really miss that house. Damn nostalgia! But it's not just nostalgia. In Urbana, IL, where I used to live, I bought a two-bedroom house in 2000 for $50,000. My monthly mortgage payment was about $420/month. (I also paid $100-$300/month for utilities and whatnot; it varied a lot depending on the weather—poor insulation.) But that mortgage payment was more like a bank deposit because I got it back w/interest when I sold the place. Here, in the middle of D.C., L. and I each pay $850/month for rent alone ($1700/month total), and that's really a pretty great deal for around here. The kicker: We pay twice as much, and not one cent of that money is coming back. When we move out of this place, we'll be lucky to get our deposit back. Renting just blows. And don't even get me started on car parking (which is impossible around here; plan to spend minimum half hour circling the vicinity every time you want to park unless you just get really lucky) and the lack of a yard.

I want my house back.

I hereby predict the definitive "indie" rock anthem of Summer 2004 will be: "Float On" by Modest Mouse. [video, lyrics] If I were you, I'd follow this advice:

you MUST TURN IT UP LOUD SO THE DRUMS AND BASS MAKE YOU CRAZY. holymoly! dan!!

Now accepting nominations for other contenders in this or any other category of must-listen music. Studying requires a good soundtrack, no?

BTW: Several free (legal) and yummy mp3s here. And Better Propaganda also promises to be a treasure trove of great new tunes.

Ok. Back to making Erie my docile little plaything.

Due to what must be a magical alignment of the planets, this week, the week I'm supposed to be spending every available minute studying (obviously that's not working) is also TV Turnoff Week! We didn't realize this until Tuesday, but the TV has been dark since then. It's kind of nice, actually. Of course, our friend Tivo is saving up a few goodies for us to watch later, like The Daily Show and Survivor All-Stars, but, well... That's not really cheating, is it? Oh, that reminds me, have you heard about what's happening on The Apprentice? Now that's what I call must-see tv!

Jerry Seinfeld and Superman want you to use American Express. I hate that I enjoyed this so much. It's an advertisement, fergoodnessake! I saw the Daily Show episode last week where Seinfeld was talking about the extra-long commercials he was making for AmEx, and as a matter of principle I was determined not to go watch them. But then I was supposed to be studying for finals, so any distraction is a good distraction. Yesterday I turned over our washing machine to see if I could figure out why it was making such loud banging noises. (Answer: It's broken.) Yeah. Distractions are good. And then Scott at L-Cubed had to go and link to the Seinfeld ad, so of course I had to watch it. And then it had to feature Wyoming. And Superman. I mean, maybe I would be able to dislike the ad if I weren't from Wyoming, but I am, and the poor state just takes so much grief that even an ad that makes fun of Wyoming is a heartwarming change. And this ad is funny. It is. Dangit. And it has Superman wiping mayo off his face with his cape that is impervious to stain.

Just watch it. Give in. Succumb. You will be assimilated.

Knowspam claims it will eliminate 100% of spam. I discovered it by sending email to someone who uses it; I got a quick reply from Knowspam telling me to click a link to verify the email I'd sent was coming from a human. No big deal, but a bit of a hassle.

Anybody have any experience with/thoughts on Knowspam?

Knowspam: It works well! I love it. OR: It's a pain in the arse! Discuss.

Maybe you're spending the day doing last-minute taxes, or maybe you're heading into finals period, or maybe you're just at work wishing it were Friday instead of Thursday. Whatever the case, you need some mental breaks. So, for your viewing pleasure:

• The M&M's Easter Commercial I mentioned the other day but couldn't find. I knew it had to be online! Thanks Cinnamon for finding it!
• We Like the Moon, apparently the inspiration for some Quizno's ads I haven't seen. This is far and away the funniest use of flash animation I've ever seen. Every time I watch it I bust out laughing again. Of course, YMMV. The first few seconds I watched it the first time, I didn't really get it. It just seemed dumb. But by the time it reached the end of its first loop, I was hooked.
• The great Cat Smackdown: A hilarious home video compilation of two cats, well, smacking each other down. Mostly it looks like Bumpo smacks down Francis on a regular basis, but it looks like Francis mostly enjoys it.

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!

If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!

How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

This is so not true, but I'll take it. Now where's my crown and fiery halo? They were here just a minute ago and I think they might come in handy when I have to go to school and try to convince my professors not to flunk me. ;-) [link via a mi parecer]

UPDATE: It looks like Windoze users should not take this quiz —it might be loading crapware onto your computer! See the comments for more info.

Speaking of bikes (see the last post) check out the cool new Electra Townie. It's an upright (traditional) bike that's supposed to put you in a sort of recumbent position so you can put your feet flat on the ground when you stop, while still maintaining the proper distance from pedal to seat when you're pedaling.

Although it seems many people aren't aware of it, you generally should not be able to touch the ground when sitting on the seat of a traditional bike. If you can touch the ground w/more than a tiptoe while sitting on the seat, your seat is probably too low and you're not getting maximum efficiency out of your pedal stroke. Worse, you could damage your knees riding with the seat too low. Trust me on this. When I started riding 70-120 miles/day, I found out the hard way how much difference proper seat adjustment can make. After the first week, I could barely walk because my knee was so sore, and I couldn't figure out why. But I raised the seat a few centimeters and suddenly, all was well. The knee pain magically disappeared. All was right with the world. So, long story short, if you're riding a traditional bike, stop/go traffic can be kind of a pain because if your seat is at the right height, you have to keep coming off your seat every time you stop.

That's why the Townie makes so much sense -- it's the perfect commuter bike. Not only would it be good for stop/go traffic, but also the upright riding position would give you a great view of the road and traffic. The 8-speed Nexus hub and the fenders on the Townie 8 also help make it the ultimate commuter. Suddenly my Bianchi Milano -- with it's loose bottom bracket and off-true wheels from a hard winter of commuting — appears out-classed and out-cooled. Good thing I can't possibly pay for or store another bike right now, or else I might be in trouble.

Oh, and congrats to SuperD, who just got a neato new bike of her own.

* Kudos to anyone who can name the source of the title to this post, but since that's so random, I'll give you more: It's a song title. Who's it by? Of course you can do a search, but that's cheating.

Random related: The Macintosh was briefly and unofficially codenamed "bicycle,"— it was like a "bicycle for the mind" because it allowed your mind to move faster and more efficiently, just as a bike allows your body to move faster and more efficiently. The name didn't stick, but how cool is that?

You know you live in a consumer society when you associate holidays with ads as much as with anything else. I can't think "Happy Easter!" without thinking of a 1980s tv commercial for M&M's candy, that featured a kid in a chicken suit saying "Thank you Easter Bunny! Bawk! Bawk!" If you know of an online version, please point it out because I can't find it and I'd love to see it again.

Nostalgia for television commercials. How sad.

For Christians, this is supposed to be a day of happiness, and I hope it is. Yet, regardless of your religious beliefs, today might also be a good day to think about the world we're living in. Just about a year ago the U.S. went to war in Iraq for no clear reason. Thousands have died in the last year — for no clear reason.Now, the Bush administration has declassified the August 6, 2001 memo saying Bin Laden was determined to strike in the U.S., that al-Quaida cells were in the U.S., and that their plans included hijacking planes. It's no coincidence that this memo was released on a late Saturday afternoon on a holiday weekend; clearly, Bush and Co. are hoping people will be too absorbed in their holiday observances to pay close attention to the significance of this development. Meanwhile, the completely lackluster walking corpse that is the Democratic nominee for president is MIA. Oh happy day!

I've been so absorbed in moot court competition (I didn't make the board, by the way), the auction and the finals looming over my head that I haven't had time to pay much attention to the news. I'm sure I'm not alone; it really is easier in many ways to concentrate on your own life and what's going on w/in your immediate sphere of existence than to devote time and thought and energy to the larger world. And there's certainly a bliss to ignorance, but where is our bliss leading us?

But what am I saying? It's Easter. We have funny television ads. Thank you Easter Bunny! Bawk Bawk!

p.s.: I really didn't sit down to write such a bitter pill, but then I read that memo and there you go.

Which Colossal Death Robot Are You?
Brought to you by Rum and Monkey

I am Optimus Prime!

Vast, red and ready to turn into a lorry at the slightest provocation, you are a robot to be reckoned with. Although sickeningly noble, you just can't resist a good interplanetary war, especially when Orson Welles is involved. You have friends who can shoot tapes from their chests. Tapes that turn into panthers. And other friends who are dinosaurs. Dinosaurs who jump out of planes. Will you have my children?

Link via Screaming Bean.

One thing that makes busy-ness (bisy backsons are us) better is great music, and in that area Elevator Ride will give you all you crave and more. For starters, you can't beat four free songs, especially when one of them is "Nervous Breakdown Prevention Day," which, as I mentioned before, is in heavy rotation on the iPod and iTunes. Rockage makes all the difference. If you are about to rock, check out Elevator Ride. And I salute you once more.

For those about to rock, I salute you.*

I mean, congratulations to all the winners of the 2004 Bloggies . The list of winners and nominees includes so many great links it would take a week to look through them all. (Maybe I should take another spring break.)

A few quick favorites:

1. Blogumentary: A Documentary about Blogs. Hmmm....

2. Weblog Wannabe: Check out the "Distractions" in the right column. I really can't believe the Firdamatic. Incredible. Very distracting.

3. Photoblogs.org: Just the other day I confessed my fascination with Ten Years of My Life. Little did I know (although I suspected) there were so many more variants on the theme. This amount of awesome imagery is truly humbling. But perhaps it's not so humbling that you won't want to make your own .

* Sorry. I had iTunes on random and it played one of the Dean Scream Remixes, so now I have AC/DC stuck in my head. But still, if you're about to rock, I do salute you, really.

Oh no! It's back to school! Runaway!

Here's a cool photo for your Monday. Now it's back to the books for me...

There must be something about spring that makes people think about getting new cars. Maybe it's increased advertising? But as a quick followup to the car-focused post of a couple of weeks ago, Consumer Reports has announced its best automobile picks for 2004. DG will be thrilled to hear that the Ford Focus is the best "small sedan." (Check out DG's "enemies" list in the lower right column.) Scheherazade should also be pleased to hear the VW Passat tied with the Honda Accord for "best family sedan." FWIW, except for two versions of the Focus (the "SVT" model won for "fun to drive"), and the Passat tie, the top 10 cars are all Japanese.

L's car continues to have an annoying little coolant problem; there's a tiny leak somewhere, it seems, even though it was supposedly pressure-tested about a month ago and no leaks were found. Cars drive me nuts, which is why it's so great to be in a situation where I almost never need to drive (not to mention the joy of not having a car payment!).

Nearly two years ago I heard about an idea for a "reality" tv show called "American Candidate," where contestants would somehow compete to become "the people's candidate" for POTUS. For a while, it looked like the show was really going to happen, but then I didn't hear anything more and figured the producers or networks or whomever had changed their minds. I was wrong.

So what are you waiting for? Get yourself an application and apply to be the people's candidate! According to the FAQ, the candidates will not actually run for president (obviously), unless they choose to after the show:

What the participants decide to do with the visibility and momentum they will have at the conclusion of the series is entirely up to them. If a participant in American Candidate chooses to run for president, he or she will have to follow the same process and operate within the same laws and regulations that govern all presidential candidates. We anticipate that if a participant does run, he or she would be doing so on a write-in basis. Of course, with the publicity and attention the candidate will have received, it is feasible there could be a substantial amount of public support for him/her.

Interesting, no? Theoretically, something like this could throw a huge curveball into what otherwise promises to be a mean and dispiriting general election. Of course, (and probably more likely) the "American Candidate" could also be a big flop and have no effect on anything whatsoever. Also, the show is allowing anyone 18-yrs-old or over to apply to compete. If anyone under 35 "wins," it won't matter if he/she gets "a substantial amount of public support" because he/she won't be eligible to actually be POTUS. (See U.S. Const. Art. 2, § 1, clause 5.) But then, maybe the kiddies will be eliminated in the early rounds...

Thursday = Survivor Day. After last week's episode of Survivor: All-Stars, Just Playin asked: "Will Sue sue?" For those of you who didn't see it, Professor Yin has a detailed summary of the episode, but surprisingly he doesn't address the potential legal questions it raised.

But while Professor Yin was sympathetic to Sue, Salon's Heather Havrilesky weighed in with a scathing denunciation:

How much more pathetic could this season be? Sue chose to squeeze past Richard in the Balance Beam challenge instead of taking an unobstructed route, despite the fact that he was naked, he's insane, and he hates her. Richard flapped his genitalia in her direction and now she can't sleep at night, because she's been humiliated and abused and harassed and demeaned and whatever other words she screeched at Jeff Probst. Unhinged outbursts like hers give victims of real abuse a bad name.

And if that doesn't make it clear enough where Havrilesky stands on this burning question, she goes on to say:

It's also obvious that [Sue] needs to talk to a licensed professional about the fact that a glancing blow from a gay man's limp penis can transform a trash-talking trucker (who last week urinated while she was on the same raft with three other people) into a jumble of tearful recriminations and enraged outbursts. It makes me wonder if the Survivors are allowed to continue their usual doses of psychotropic drugs while they're in the wilderness.

Context is pretty important here, I'd say. Yet, the question remains: Will Sue sue? If she were going to, wouldn't she have done so by now? These and more burning questions next time on: UnReality TV Minute!
______
Posted while listening to: The Dog-End of a Day Gone By from the album "Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven" by Love And Rockets

Ten Years of My Life.

I don't know how I stumbled on this, but for some reason it's fascinating. And of course there are many variations on the theme, including the Arrow of Time (a family portrait taken on the same day every year since 1976), and the Daily Photo Project (one guy taking his own pic every day for, well, a lot of days), which includes links to several others.

Oh, am I supposed to be working on spring break instead of trying to get to the end of the internet? Oops.

Just two:

1. What happens when you become unable to stop collecting "stuff."
2. Racing through Chernobyl, 18 years later. (You may need to start here, but it looks like suddenly the pages are "under construction" or something.

The weather in DC recently has been perfect. I want it to be like this all the time. The daily temps have been ideal for shorts and a light shirt and jacket while it cools off just enough at night to remind you this isn't summer yet. Plus, it's been raining at night (very early morning), then clearing through the day, allowing us to wake up mornings to a crisp, clean, shiny new city. The trees are budding and the moisture on the grass gives it a healthy, organic scent, as if to say: "Hello, the process of turning green has now begun." Or something like that. It's just wonderful.

It reminds me of living in the Berkeley hills in, oh, about March or April of 1997. I'd wake up to the sound of water dripping on the roof from the night's rain, and my little apartment would be surrounded by fog. The bike ride to work was brisk and refreshing, and by the time noon rolled around the sun was out and the temperature would be somewhere around the mid-60s. It was like living in paradise, in a way.

Why can't D.C. be like this year-round?

Everyone's getting new cars these days, it seems. Sherry was looking and looking, looking, and thinking and looking and trying to choose between practicality and seduction, and then she bought and loved. You might sift through the comments to some of those posts if you're shopping for a car -- there's some good advice in there, including a link to the Confessions of a Car Salesman. Gotta know what you're getting into.

I was surprised to see that no one recommended the Prius. (Review, specs.)If that's not a dream car, I don't know what is. Wouldn't you just feel great driving a car like that? And isn't that what cars are for? To make you feel good? But ok, even if cars are for transportation and practicality, what's more practical than 60 mpg and super low emissions? Good for your wallet, good for the planet, just plain good.

But perhaps a good (or any) used Prius is hard to come by. They're still pretty new and there just aren't that many of them around, especially out in the wild wild west, where my sister and mother also just got new cars. Sis got a little red wagon, and mom got a little red toy (the 1999 Import Car of the Year!) Both got great deals on cars I would love to have. I've wanted an Outback since I first saw one; it's the perfect vehicle for throwing your bike in the back and going anywhere. And, of course, who wouldn't want a Beetle? And this one's a diesel, so mom's looking at 40-45 mpg. That's not quite Prius-level and there's still the emissions issue, but it's a definite step in the right direction.

Finally, someone else I know is shopping for a new new car, but she has to buy a GM, and maybe specifically a Chevrolet. So if you were shopping for a new car and you were forced to buy GM, what would you buy? If I could get any GM make, I'd probably look closely at the Saturn ION in rain forest green (roomy, cheap, fairly economical at 26/35 mpg w/manual trans.) . If the choices were limited to Chevrolets, I'd have to go for the 5-door Aveo in spicy orange (small, cheap, but sporty; good economy at 26/34 mpg), or maybe the Venture van (roomy and peppy, although it doesn't get great gas mileage at 19/26 mpg).

Of course, I'm not buying a new car or a new used car, which makes me think of the Dead Milkmen song, "Everybody's Got Nice Stuff But Me" (scroll down a bit):

People in nice cars how'd they get em? I close my eyes try to forget em Went out swimming got hit by a jet-ski Everybody's got nice stuff but me I wanna car I wanna jet-ski

Ok, so it's not true. I have lots of nice stuff, but I'm thinking of the song, anyway. It's a fun song.

And but so: Congratulations to all these new car owners (and the future new car owner). Good luck with those wheels, and may they roll long and trouble-free.

Have you ever had anything stuck to your eyeball that you just can't seem to get off? That's what happened to me on Sunday; while biking to school, something -- probably just a little spec of dirt -- flew into my eye and started irritating me to no end. It was crazy; I've biked literally thousands of miles through all kinds of terrain and conditions and never has anything like this happened before. The worst part: I couldn't read because my eye just kept tearing up and it felt like something was constantly scratching my eyeball (which it was). I could see the thing, but no matter what I did, I couldn't seem to get it out. I tried flushing with water, dabbing with Q-tips and tissues, and just rubbing at it with my finger. None of that's fun, since your reflex is always to blink to keep anything out of your eye, and none of it worked, either.

So yesterday morning, instead of attending ConLaw, I lined up at the GW Student Health Center, not sure what they could do, but hoping they could help. And help they did! They saw me almost immediately and the doctor had the speck out of my eye in about one minute from the time she said hello. She simply put some anesthetic eye drops in my eye, then dabbed at the spec with a Q-tip and the speck was gone. Sure, I'd done the same thing, but I'm no doctor. She said the cornea was slightly scratched and would hurt for a while, and she was right, but I still felt a zillion times better immediately.

Regular readers may know that I haven't found much about GW to praise, but that changes now: Thank you GW Student Health Center! You're the best!

While the thing was in my eye, I just kept wondering if it symbolized anything. Specifically, I wondered if there's something especially big or glaring I've been hypocritical about recently. Why would I wonder that? Well, this might be the first time ai has quoted from the Bible, but heck, there's a first time for everything, so here you go:

1: Judge not, that you be not judged. 2: For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. 3: Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4: Or how can you say to your brother, `Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye? 5: You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:1-5)

This passage was used to great effect in "Iron Jawed Angels,", which, btw, I highly recommend. That aside, it's really pretty good advice to live by. Funny how those specks in your eye seem to bother you more than the logs.

Valentine's Day. Ready or not, here it comes. But there's no need to give Hallmark any more of your money. Instead, download one of the amazing cards at YouYesYou [link via SuperD], or send an e-card from Meish.

Dropping them a couple of bucks via PayPal only takes a few seconds and will greatly increase the chances you'll get whatever it is you're longing for this v-day.

Two women are playing endless and intense rounds of competitive Scrabble. Their board appears to be a custom job, with the top cut from a "deluxe" board and mounted on a wooden turntable (looks a lot like one of these). Perhaps the board belongs to the coffee shop. But what about the Adjudicator 3500? That's right: The Adjudicator 3500. It appears to be a timing device with two lights and two little plungers on the top. When a player hits her plunger and calls out her score, it becomes the other player's turn. Both players write down each others' scores, to keep each other honest, I suppose. Their letters are guarded by the lions and toucans adorning their cloth letter-bag. These two just don't mess around.

At another table, a man reads a thick ream of laser-printed pages (a manuscript of some kind, perhaps?), and a paperback novel, alternately. He also seems to talk on his cell phone a lot, but I've never heard it ring or seen him dial.

Behind me a couple silently signs to each other, pointing at our table and making keyboard tapping motions. Are they signing about how much they covet the coolness that is the iBook? ;-)

Not far away, two men play chess. One of them discusses each move before he makes it. Is that a wise strategy?

At the window, a man on a cell phone calls the movement of traffic below as if he's calling a football game. It seems he's trying to lead someone to an open parking space. We're on the second floor, overlooking a parking lot, so he has a great view of spaces as they open, then all too quickly close again. I imagine this man does this for a living. He's the B&N parking man. For five dollars, you can call him and he'll guide you to a parking spot. He's always here, come any time.

I see a lot of what I would guess are married couples, men and women at that point in life where their kids no longer live at home and their jobs no longer demand long hours. They come to the bookstore on a Saturday night to browse and people-watch, then they drive home in their SUV-variant to watch the evening news on their large but not too large screen tv. Life is good.

One of the scrabble women is slowly making her way through a nice piece of choclate cake. They don't use the rotation feature of their special board; one of them appears to prefer playing upside down.

I know nothing about these people, they know nothing about me. There's a line for coffee, a line to pee, and every table is taken.

Saturday night at the Bethesda B&N Cafe. Who knew?

For fun and money, or just because everybody else is doing it: The states I've visited:

(Make your own state map.)

States I've either lived or worked in, include: Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts. The others I've mostly just driven through or stayed a few days and nights in here and there.

The countries I've visited are much fewer:

(Make your own countries map.)

I lived in Finland for 9 months, then biked through Europe for a summer, which is how I saw the rest of those European countries. I also spent a month traveling in South Australia many years ago. Someday I hope to bike from the U.S. to Tierra del Fuego, but first I'd like to bike across the U.S. itself. Don't attorneys get lots of time to travel? ;-)

The recent "arctic blasts" in the northeastern U.S. has brought miserable cold, but it has also revealed a weakness in the "roller brake" on my bike—it simply doesn't work when the temperature falls too far below zero. I have a Bianchi Milano, which I bought on eBay about two years ago, primarily because it's one of the few bikes available with Shimano's Nexus hub. As Shimano describes it:

Nexus is unique in that its internally geared rear hubs and hub roller brakes (or coaster brake) eliminate the need for derailleurs and brake calipers. The result is a more streamlined, cleaner-looking and less complicated bike that requires less maintenance and adjustment. The Nexus bike is just the thing for commuting, fitness cycling, fun riding, or going on errands around town.

See that part about "less maintenance and adjustment"? As far as the hub itself goes, that's absolutely true. In two years of almost daily riding (commuting, mostly), I haven't needed to do anything but keep the chain lubricated. But while shifting still works like a dream, the rear brake just seizes up when the temperature gets below a certain point. Thank goodness the brake gets stuck open, so you can't pull the brake lever; otherwise, the rear wheel wouldn't move at all. When this happens, I can still ride mostly safely because the front v-brakes provide plenty of stoppage, regardless of the temperature—especially with new Kool-Stop Thinline brake pads. But still, having no rear brake is annoying—especially when dumb car drivers decide you don't deserve space on their road and cut you off. (Note to car drivers: Do bikes on city streets annoy you? You annoy the bikers. So there.)

A guy rode up to me the other day at stoplight on a brand new, shiny black Milano. From him I learned that City Bikes in D.C. sells and services the Milano. Maybe they can figure out the brake issue...

Twice since moving to D.C. proper I've been stopped on the street by people who speak little to no English trying to get directions to the Embassy of El Salvador. Twice I've just had to say, "No se." But here it is, not far at all (map). But look at those streets! Giving directions in Spanish should be fun. But at least I'll be helping out next time if I can say, "El calle California y veintetres." Yeah, I need to remember that.

NPR's Morning Edition is running a story on the Fastback Book Binder from Powis Parker, Inc.. The story's teaser is that, with this new, simple, low-cost book binder, there's no reason for any book to ever go out of print again. Why? How?

This booklover's utopia would happen like this: Publishers would put their book catalogs online (probably within a subscription-only database). Bookstores would own Fastback book binders. When you want a book that's not in your library, you'd go to the bookstore. If they don't have the book on the shelf, they could go to the online catalog of books, download the one you want, and print and bind a copy for you in a matter of minutes and at a cost of a few dollars. How awesome would that be?

But even if we don't reach that point right away, how cool would it be to replace all your three-ring binders and plastic-spiral bound photo-copied packets of paper with real bound books? It could happen:

Though Parker is still interested in expanding his firm's geographic reach, these days he's also using technological breakthroughs to enter new areas—most notably the rapidly growing on-demand publishing market. Later this year, he plans to unveil a new digital machine, called Model 8, that can be used to create documents and books from a desktop environment.

The digital version of Fastback will be able to bind documents up to 350 pages in the time it takes to walk to the water cooler.

"Right now, 98 percent of these kinds of documents created in offices or homes are bound with punch holes and rings," Parker said. "That gives you a pretty good idea of the size of the market we can go after."

I believe the NPR story pegged the price of these new digital machines at only $1300/ea. Cool.

A bit of a tangent: After reading a post and comments at Glorfindel of Gondolin about why she doesn't link to Amazon.com when she refers to books and other kinds of things Amazon sells, I'm experimenting with alternatives myself. One thing I've seen people do rather than link to Amazon is to link to a google search for the title, which allows those interested to easily get more info about the book or whatever, but gives them the choice of whether to go to Amazon or some other source for that info.

I'm not really sure how I could give up Amazon for a lot of things, and I'm extremely ambivalent about whether doing so is really necessary. Is Amazon the Wal-Mart of online stores?

In the "yes" column, Amazon probably dominates a lot of online sales categories, and this is almost certainly hurting lots of smaller players and local businesses—it has absolutely decreased the sales of many local bookstores. These are bad things.

In the "I don't know" column, does Amazon pay workers poorly and mistreat them? Does Amazon give its employees quality benefits? I doubt Amazon is unionized, and I'm almost certain that Powell's Books is.

In the "it may already be too late" column, so many independent booksellers have already been forced out of business by competition from Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Amazon, that probably the majority of those left standing have a loyal customer base that's not going to be affected by online links to competitors.

Let me know if you have any thoughts on this...

Whoop! Here it is. Ready or not, 2004 (and for me, the second semester of law school) is upon us. I know, I know, it's actually been upon us for several days now, but I've been out of town and far away from blogability. In fact, I was so far out of the news and information loop, I didn't even realize I was supposed to be on heightened alert. The past two weeks were filled with ping-pong, pinochle, and poker, ice fishing, ice skating, snowmobiling, driving, getting stuck in the snow, getting unstuck, wrapping presents, unwrapping presents, playing a newly discovered card game called Wizard, and eating lots and lots of very good food. Best of all, I spent the whole time with friends and family and hardly thought about law school at all. :-)

But now it all begins again—law school, that is. GW Law School will begin this semester on a sad note, mourning the unexplained death of a one-L whose body was found floating in the Potomac the morning after finals ended last semester. It looks like "foul play" was involved, but regardless of how it happened, it's a tragic loss. Welcome to the nation's capital, everyone!

Of course, we'll all have to move beyond that, and this semester should be packed, not only with classes, but also with the summer job search (which I've yet to begin) and the planning and execution of an EJF Auction. Of course, the classes are supposed to be the priority. This semester they'll include two carryovers from last semester—Contracts and CivPro—and two new contenders: Constitutional Law I and Property. I'm looking forward to ConLaw because, well, I'm more big-picture than fine detail, and questions of Constitutional law are more often big issues. Property I'm just not going to speculate on; I've heard bad things, but then, I can say that about every class/subject. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt; innocent until proven guilty and all that.

Good luck to everyone. May we all have a great 2004. (Only 10 short months until Bush loses in a landslide and gets a one-way ticket back to Crawford, TX!)

It is done. Finals are over. Can you say anticlimactic? But it's a wonderful thing, nevertheless.

And now it's time for me to head off to the Mitten (Michigan) and the Mountains (Montana) for family time. I'm looking forward to reading some good books, playing cards, and probably eating way too much great food. Holidays are wonderful, aren't they? I hope yours are.

I'll leave you with Golum W. Bush (flash animation) who says:

http://flash.bushrecall.org/It's the ring ring, and the bling bling, and the power thing, and the right wing!

Also, if you haven't heard of it already, don't miss Bush In 30 Seconds —over 1,000 30-second commercial produced by folks around the country to highlight the most important reasons they think we need a new president in 2004. Hours and hours of holiday cheer.

God bless us everyone! See you in 2004!

Monday's are better when they don't include class or finals. Sure, there's always studying, but... Today is an extra-good Monday, in light of yesterday's big news. But what to say that hasn't been said? This is good—a recognition that taking Saddam alive rather than killing him on sight was a testament to American ideals of justice and due process.

Beyond that, since the media orgy (capture porn!) started yesterday morning I've been longing for some perspective. What does Saddam's capture really mean? The talking heads keep saying "this changes everything" and I've even heard some calling Bush's statement yesterday a "victory speech." So "winning" this war means capturing Saddam? The goal of the conflict changes so often I just can't keep up.

But the talking heads have incredible power. Friday night's study break (my life is really just one big study break; I should talk about breaks from breaks, which is the time I actually study) was a screening of "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," an incredible documentary about the attempted coup in April 2002 against Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected leader of Venezuela. The coup was led by the upper-middle and upper classes, neither of whom like Chavez because Chavez's basic goal is to redistribute the proceeds from Venezuela's vast oil resources among all Venezuelans, rather than allowing a small elite siphon those profits for their personal gain, which has been the status quo for the past century. The leaders of the coup used Venezuela's private television stations to convince people the at Chavez was a brutal dictator; the tv stations told outright lies and lied by omission—showing only certain clips edited to make Chavez look as bad as possible, while withholding footage that made Chavez look good. There's evidence that the U.S. backed the coup, but of course, the U.S. officially denies it. At any rate, the coup failed, largely because the mass of people who voted for Chavez demanded he remain in power. Today, Chavez does remain in power, and his efforts to redistribtute Venezuela's wealth more equally among all its people continue.

The point? Simply another illustration of the powerful role the media can play in defining an event. Just something to think about as you digest the constant stream of pronouncements on what the capture of Saddam Hussein means to you, the U.S., the U.S. presidential race, Iraq, or the world.

And while you're digesting all that, consider something you're probably not going to see on tv—Michael Moore's perspective:

Stay strong, Democratic candidates. Quit sounding like a bunch of wusses. These bastards sent us to war on a lie, the killing will not stop, the Arab world hates us with a passion, and we will pay for this out of our pockets for years to come. Nothing that happened today (or in the past 9 months) has made us ONE BIT safer in our post-9/11 world. Saddam was never a threat to our national security.

It's brash and bold, and definitely polemical in the current context. For a slightly less abrasive take on what Saddam's capture might mean outside of the media frenzy, leaders in other nations are expressing hope that it will mean a quicker return of Iraqi sovereignty. Finally, the Washington Post already has poll numbers on how the capture affected Americans' perceptions of the war, Bush, etc. Interesting, but probably not worth much so soon after the fact. Only time will tell. For now, I hear the siren song of CrimLaw...

Have you noticed how many extremely fun things beg for your attention when you're supposed to be doing other things (like studying for finals)? There are so many diversions, it's hard to know where to begin.

But first things first: Be sure to chew gum during your exams! It supposedly improves your memory performance. Thanks to Ditzy Genius for the tip (and these other tips), and congrats to her as well for surviving exam numero uno.

On to study breaks and things to think about other than law school exams! First, Three Years of Hell (TYH), who is also studying, recommends the "I Hate Republicans" song, which is certainly entertaining, if a bit bracing. The same site (Bushflash.com) also created this "Mission Accomplished" animation, which it then adapted for the Dennis Kucinich campaign. TYH doesn't agree w/any of this, by the way, but it was nice of him to point it out.

In a similar vein, you might enjoy FOXed, which ingeniously combines that disconcerting "Matrix"-themed Poweraid commercial from last summer with clips from those fair and balanced folks at Fox. Sure, it's a 2.2 MB download, but you can study while you wait!

If you feel like doing something a little more than watching movies, you could chip in a few dollars to a good cause. Here's an appropriate one for me at the moment: "Procrastinators for Dean." Or donate something for the troops via a USO Care package. Donate in someone's name as a Christmas gift to them, or donate in your favorite candidate's name as a way to promote your candidate. Or just donate. It will build good karma that you can harvest on your exams.

Want a break from politics on your study break? Then take a gander at this gigapixel image of Bryce Canyon National Park. Very cool, but what will we do with gigapixel images? I mean, yikes, it's almost too much information, isn't it? And here's another great gift idea: The Pop-up Alice in Wonderland. If you don't feel like buying, you can listen to an interview with the bookmaker, or even better, make your own pop-ups!

Finally, you could begin getting into the Christmas spirit by reading or listening to John Henry Faulk's Christmas Story (sappy/touching), or listen to David Sedaris' Santaland Diaries (hilarious).

I'm off to a torts final soon. I just hope no one assaults me along the way. Again, good luck to all test-takers!

For the last two or three days the local media have been giddy with predicitons of winter stormy doom.

Finally, something like said stormy doom has arrived here in DC, although as you can see, it doesn't seem all that doomy.

Still studying. The doom is this: I'm going to spend way too much energy on torts, then fail crim. The solution? I'll just make mediocre effort for them all! [Insert mad scientist evil laugh here. Yes, it's like that.]

If you live in DC, try to avoid shopping at Safeway for a while.

Why? Something like six weeks ago, grocery workers walked out of Vons stores in California after Vons offered them a contract that would effectively eliminate health care benefits for workers over time. Then Kroger and Ralphs stores locked out their employees to show their support of Vons. Isn't it nice to see corporations showing such solidarity? Apparently no grocery corporation in California wants to provide its workers with health care benefits, even though they've all been doing so for decades. The CA Attorney General thinks the grocers are perhaps a bit too solid—he's investigating them for anti-trust violations.

Safeway owns Vons. Safeway has stores all over D.C. Now, the UFCW (Union of Food and Commercial Workers) has expanded its picket lines to D.C. Safeway stores. The union hasn't asked D.C. Safeway employees to walk out—yet. At this point, the union just wants to keep shoppers out of Safeway so that Safeway will understand that it's going to lose more money by fighting the than by simply agreeing to a reasonable contract.

So why are Safeway and its fellow grocery chains fighting so hard to reduce worker benefits? According to the corporations, the reason is . . . Wal-Mart. Safeway argues that because Wal-Mart is a non-union employer (Wal-Mart has a very aggressive union-busting organization that successfully fights every effort of its workers to organize), Wal-Mart can pay workers less (and not provide health care), therefore it can charge less for goods, and therefore it can drive the grocery chains out of business. Welcome to "everyday low prices."

And welcome to The Wal-Martization of America.

Did you hear the one about FAO Schwartz? It declared bankruptcy yesterday:

FAO has been losing money for nine years, battered by the deep-discounting tactics of top toy sellers Wal-Mart and Target.

Hey, look—it's Wal-Mart again! In the 1990s, Wal-Mart, the ultimate "category killer," put thousands of mom and pop stores of all kinds out of business on main streets throughout the U.S. Now Wal-Mart is taking over groceries and toys, even in big markets. What's next?

Two to four inches of snow expected by morning!? Whaaa? Why start now?

Disturbing evening headlines:

1) Justice to review request for medicare vote probe: Did someone attempt to bribe retiring Rep. Nick Smith of Michigan to get him to vote for the medicare bill?

2) Missing prosecutor found shot, stabbed:

Luna was trying the case of Baltimore rapper Deon Lionnel Smith, 32, and his one-time associate Walter Oriley Poindexter, 28. The two men were accused of heroin distribution and running a violent drug ring in part from their Stash House Records studio.

Luna and the defense attorneys negotiated through the afternoon Wednesday and reached a plea deal about 5 p.m., Quarles said. The men entered their guilty pleas about 11:30 a.m. Thursday, and they remained in custody.

Smith agreed to plead guilty to one count of distribution of heroin and to possession of a weapon for the purposes of drug trafficking. Poindexter agreed to plead guilty to three counts of distribution of heroin to a government witness.

The parties were expected to appear Thursday morning to enter the agreement, but Luna was not present, the judge said.

Crazy. Who knew being a prosecutor could be so dangerous?

December already. Hard to believe, isn't it? Where did November go? For L, it went into writing a novel—congratulations, L!

Fifty thousand words (approx. 200 pages) might not sound like much, but try pulling 50,000 words out of your head in 30 days or less and you may find it's not as easy as it sounds. I stalled out at almost 28,000 words, but I did find some interesting characters and an interesting story I might come back to someday. Perhaps I'll return to it in March for NaNoEdMo.

The campaigns for president are heating up. Bush is raising money like crazy and his campaign claims it wants to build the biggest grassroots organization the U.S. has ever seen. That's a scary thought. Dean and Gephardt are locked in a tight race for Iowa. Meanwhile, MoveOn.org continues to grow and gain attention—both positive and negative. This weekend, MoveOn is sponsoring nationwide screenings of the new film, "Uncovered: The whole truth about the Iraq war."

The Dean campaign continues to grow; however, the dirty laundry is beginning to come out. Apparently, Dean sealed his records last year to diminsh the amount of ammunition his opponents will have against him. One source of ammunition may be statements he made about judicial appointments. Hmmm.... This appears to be politics as usual, which is what makes it so disturbing. The big advantages Dean has as far as I'm concerned is that he seems to be doing something unusual with his campaign—he appears much less compromised by special interest money than the other candidates, and he appears willing to stand behind his ideas and actions. So why seal his records? I understand his fear that his opponents won't play fair with whatever they might learn about his past, but the idealist in me would have more respect for him if he'd simply say, "Hey, I've done things that people are going to say were wrong and bad. I'm human, and I learn from my mistakes, just like everybody else." The idealist in me says Dean should believe in voters enough to trust that we'll be able to tell when his opponents are unfairly smearing him, and when a past mistake really does matter. But, of course, we don't live in my ideal world, do we?

Another election development I just learned about: America Coming Together plans to campaign to defeat Bush in 17 swing states. Great idea, no? One problem: their website only offers one way I can help—they, like everyone else, want me to give money. I don't have money. I don't even have time. But I coulde "make" time, and I do have skills and energy they might use if they'd provide a way for me to do so. This really is one thing that has made the Dean campaign very different—it says "help us," then it provides the tools for you to help in whatever way you can. Just about every other political group that would like to change U.S. policy on some issue would do much better if they'd stop simply asking people for money and start giving them ways to take action for their cause.

Oh, and Dennis Kucinich hasn't found love yet, but it sounds like he's having fun looking.

I'm supposed to be thinking of nothing but finals, but I'm having trouble focusing. Stay of Execution has some good, practical, and calming study tips for 1Ls, although it feels a little late for making posters. Still, posters would be better than outlines; Mixtape Marathon has restored my faith in the humanity of law students (a faith I think I pretty well lost somewhere in November, but that's another story) by noting that law school outlines are evil. Some of my professors have sometimes sounded as evil as the outlines we're supposed to create for their classes, so I fear section IV of Bekah's wonderful outline could begin: "Many law practitioners transfer the soullessness of their outlines and exams straight into practice." I guess we'll see.

Three Years of Hell doesn't think much of the idea of Buy Nothing Day, and I'm sure he's not alone. To me it's a symbolic protest, a thought exercise as much as anything. If the idea of buying nothing on the biggest shopping day of the year only makes you think of buying something you really don't need, something you "just couldn't justify to yourself," so be it. Such consumption is, in fact, the yin to Buy Nothing Day's yang; the protest (symbolic as it may be) would be impossible without the "sheerly pointless" consumption it attempts to comment on.

But that was so yesterday. Now it's time to shop! The Nation offers some nice political protest gifts for not too much money. But that will only please a few, so tell me: What's your favorite online shopping site? What's the best gift to give this year? And what do you hope to get?

I should be thinking about outlines and finals, so while I'm doing that, please fill the comments with gift ideas so that when I come up for air my holiday shopping will be quick and painless. Thank you.

It's probably too late for a lot of people, but in case you haven't headed out to shop yet, don't forget that today is Buy Nothing Day.

Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! When you've finished your turkey or tofurkey or whatever is on your holiday plate, how about filling your mind with some incredibly satisfying thoughts. Here are a few:

First, an interview with Studs Terkel, author of Working and many other "memory books," including his latest, Hope Dies Last. If you don't have time to read the whole thing (and really, it's worth your while), think about this little bit:

There's a poem by Brecht: "Who Built the Seven Gates of Thebes?" When you ask who built the pyramids, the automatic answer is: the pharaohs. But the pharaohs didn't lift a finger. I was told, by Mrs. O'Reilly at McKinley High School in Chicago, that Sir Francis Drake conquered the Spanish Armada. He did? By himself? Brecht in the poem says that when the armada sank, we read that King Philip of Spain wept. Here's the big one: "Were there no other tears?"

To me, history is those who shed those other tears. Those whose brains and whose brawn made the wheels go around. I hate to use the word "the people." The anonymous many. But they're it. I know that the Internet has all sorts of democratic possibilities: That's how Howard Dean came up so fast, isn't it? At the same time, there's a fear of so much in the hands of so few.

I was also going to talk about the perversion of our language: To go more "moderate" means to go more toward the center, and to go toward the center means to go toward the right. If you could see me now, I could do a demonstration: If our physical posture followed our political posture and the perversion of our language -- I'd have to act this out -- we'd walk around leaning to the right. That's the normal way of walking. And then, the guy who's walking straight: "Look at that leftist!" Or if the guy who's walking straight leans a little bit to the left: "He's a goddamn terrorist!"

In a similar vein try listening to Christopher Lydon's interview with Joe Trippi, Howard Dean's campaign manager. (Scroll down; links to the mp3 files of the interview are near the bottom of the page). Trippi discusses many of the reasons why people like Midge Farmer, a proud representative of the great state of Wyoming, are supporting Howard Dean. (This comment on Farmer's letter from the Kiwi Cowboy is also pretty good.) There's too much in Trippi's interview for me to transcribe; just listen and you'll see what I mean. He basically argues that if Dean can win the nomination—and then the Presidency—without being bought out by corporate interests, his election will be revolutionary because it will break the stranglehold big money has over politics.
So far, Dean's proving to be a people's candidate, not a party candidate:

He rarely smiles during his 30-minute stump speech, which he delivers without notes. He does not make small talk, does not open with cute quips and does not engage in self-deprecating humor. He does not talk about himself, nor does he tell members of the audience how wonderful their questions are. He does not pretend to feel their pain.

But Dean still has an incredible amount of work to do. For example, check out what New Hampshire cab driver David Berthiaume has to say about the election:

"I'll tell you where my vote's going: to our president. I'm not a Republican, I'm an Independent. And I'm pro-choice. But I think he's done a good job, and so does at least 51 percent of the country. Fine, he might have been misled about Iraq, but it needed to happen anyway. We kicked Saddam in the teeth, and now he's gone. We should all be happy about that."

Dean's probably up against countless numbers of people who think just like Mr. Berthiaume, and it's precisely this kind of thinking that is unlikely to be changed by tv ads or newspaper articles. The only way to reach people like this is in person, one on one, listening to their thoughts and concerns, and explaining why Dean is a better solution to them than Bush could ever hope to be. If you listen to Trippi's interview, you'll have a much better idea of what I'm talking about.

Today I'm thankful for many things, but foremost among them is that I think Terkel is right: Hope dies last. But we can't just hope that our world will become a better place; we have to work to make it happen. The pharoahs didn't build the pyramids, Sir Francis Drake didn't defeat the Spanish Armada, and George Washington didn't win the revolutionary war. People did that. People like you and me. And it's only people like us who can change the direction our country is headed today. I'm thankful that for that, too.

Which 20th Century Theorist Are You?

I'm....

You are Louis Althusser! You tried to bring
together structuralism, Marxism, and Lacanian
psychoanalysis. Your brilliant analysis of
ideology and the state is still widely
influential. You murdered your wife, were put
in a sanitarium, and lived the last decade of
your life alone before dying in 1990.


What 20th Century Theorist are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

How many lawsuits would you guess are filed each year in the U.S.? Before starting law school, I would probably have guessed a few million, at most. I would have been wrong. According to Joseph P. Glannon's Civil Procedure: Examples & Explorations, I would have been very wrong:

In 1998 an astounding 91,000000 cases were filed in the courts of the fifty states, while some 1,700,000 were filed in the federal courts (56).

Holy litigious society, Batman! Yikes.

p.s.: Batman can't fly, but the batmobile can. Discuss.

Farewell to Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death (among other things). The book has been sitting on my shelf for years; I bought it simply because it had such an incredible title and because I'd seen it mentioned in so many other books. Judging from the Forward, now might be a very good time to dig it out. Comparing Aldus Huxley's Brave New World to Orwell's 1984, Postman wrote:

Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

Postman claimed Amusing Ourselves to Death was "about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right." It's definitely a thesis worth re-examining in light of, oh, I don't know, the events of the last 50 years or so.

UPDATE: Another Postman tribute.

Yesterday Brian Leiter pointed to "Critical Mass," a blog written by Erin O'Connor, who is apparently a tenured English professor at the University of Pennsylvania. I don't have time to say all I'd like to about O'Connor's blog, but suffice to say it's a very scary thing. And then there's the Erin O'Connor Watch, which I've got to think will only make things worse.

If you're currently in English academia, you might recognize what's going on here from your own experience or from things you've seen or heard about. The bottom line is that making a profession of English at the university level requires very different types of thinking than most people will have experienced elsewhere. That thinking is not necessarily "liberal" or "conservative," it's critical. If you're unwilling to engage in critical thinking, you're likely to be shunned. O'Connor obviously exhibits an ability to think critically; some of the letters she posts from former grad students and undergrads—not so much critical thinking.

I think all academics should have blogs; if "Critical Mass" was but one among many, readers could easily evaluate its claims about academia. As it is, "Critical Mass" is like a squeaky wheel, and academics might want to take care that it doesn't get the grease.

Instead of revising my first memo, reading, working on my legal research homework, or preparing for the ADR competition tomorrow, I'm being held hostage by the web's goodness. For example, who could tear themselves away from this letter slamming the hypocrisy and anti-competitiveness of Microsoft? And don't you want a MSfreePC? And whoa, Time Magazine's cover story this week is Mission NOT Accomplished. You know things are bad for Bush when you see Time shouting about it. Professor Cooper has the roundup on that, including a breakdown of the poll numbers.

In a more law-schooly vein, but also sticking with the anti-corporate fun, I'm loving the rants against Lexis and Westlaw at Three Years of Hell and MyShingle.com.

For great fun during a study break, you can't beat The Mr. Sanffleburger Corporation Children's Show! (I't a flash animation w/sound, so be careful if you're in a quiet office or library.) Conform. Consume. Obey. [link via TYoH]

Last night we had sangria and tapas at Jaleo, then we saw Lost in Translation, which was an incredibly great movie largely because it walked the line of being a horrible movie but just never really crossed over. In that' way it's a refreshing departure from the Hollywood norm, and it's also refreshing because its pace is human. Instead of relying on quick cuts and lame action scenes to keep viewers engaged, the movie relies on great character development to keep the plot moving. Both Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson give stellar performances. We were going to see School of Rock, but it was sold out. Lucky us; "Lost in Translation" was just that good. Highly recommended.

Ok. Must. Work. Now.

Ok, so we've moved. Last Saturday we went from zero (nothing packed) to completely moved in 18 hours or less, which was a new record for me. It's great fun. If you get tired of your job or law school or would just like a change of scenery, I highly recommend just picking up and moving across town. You'll be so busy sweating your ass off, you won't have time to think about anything else. I really have no intention of passing my classes this semester, anyway, so it's all good.

But yeah, ai is now coming to you live from just outside Dupont Circle, which I like to tell people is the heart of the heart of the heart of the ____________ here in D.C. You can fill in the blank w/just about whatever you want—museums, coffee shops, book stores, live music, political activism, good restaurants, cool movie theatres, and on and on—it's all here or a short walk or metro ride away. Now my stroll to school is about 20 minutes, and by bike it's like I blink and I'm there. Life is good.

Bonus: We moved in to find full cable already in effect, including wireless internet access! I don't know who's paying for this, but I'll be happy to make use of it while it lasts. The only problem with the cable is that it includes HBO, which is basically video crack—like playstation, but maybe worse because it calls you at regular intervals to say "watch me, your favorite show is on! you can't miss this! drop everything and watch watch watch!" Last night featured a HBO-crack binge of epic proportions, beginning at around 8 p.m. with reruns of the Sopranos, followed by some SITC action (I've always loved Steve, too), and then we had to check out Carnivale (trippy—by far the most Twin Peaks-ish tv since Twin Peaks), and we just couldn't tear ourselves away from K Street. Holy firetruck, after all that, I practically had to be peeled off the couch, not only because all that programming was such an mental overload, but because well, what the heck is up with Howard Dean being on K Street and what the hell are he and HBO trying to do!? If you didn't see it, Salon summarizes most of the Dean part in its coverage:

In a debate prep with Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean -- which Dean agreed to partially because he was thrilled to get some free advice from two of the highest-profile political strategists in Washington -- Begala comments on one of the current president's strengths: "One of the ways that Bush is an enormously disciplined politician is he never answers hypotheticals. He doesn't entertain that option." Begala also says that the best way for Dean to "chip Bush down" is with humor. It's tough not to be interested and engaged with such slices of strategy-building.

Well, if the percent of minorities that's in your state has anything to do with how you can connect with African American voters, then Trent Lott would be Martin Luther King.

After watching the K Street, I couldn't decide if James Carville, et al, really fed Dean that line, or if the show's editors had just made it seem that way. Salon seems to think it wasn't just the magic of editing. I don't know. Does it matter? I don't know. Dean's blog went wild with comments after the show; I think they mostly liked it. The Washington Post seems a little baffled by the show. Ah well, it certainly entertained me.

And now CivPro beckons. Do you think 10 hours of homework/reading time/week is sufficient to achieve success in law school? ;-)

Monday already? Where did the weekend go? According to The Tao of Pooh, Chinese philosopher Chuang-tse told this little parable about being busy:

There was a man who disliked seeing his footprints and his shadow. He decided to escape from them, and began to run. But as he ran along, more footprints appeared, while his shadow easily kept up with him. Thinking he was going too slowly, he ran faster and faster without stopping, until he finally collapsed from exhaustion and died.

If he had stood still, there would have been no footprints. If he had rested in the shade, his shadow would have disappeared (92-3).

Isn't that a great story? It's the best explanation I can offer for ai's silence of late. Catching up from the sleep deprivation of Vegas took several days, and then there's that thing known as homework that seems to take some time. So far I'm getting by on doing the bare minimum, but I haven't really been called on in any class yet, so I'm sure my slacking is going to tell on me soon.

This past weekend I thought I'd do all my catching up, but instead L. and I spent much of the two days scouting for a new place to live. She said all along that we should plan to live closer to GW so I could come and go from classes easily, walk the dog, go back to school for evening meetings or study sessions, etc. I disagreed, saying we should live further away to save money. She was right, I was wrong. The daily commute and trying to keep the dog adequately exercised is killing us, and already I've missed a number of extracurricular events that might have been fun, interesting, and certainly worth attending. Now it looks like we'll be moving downtown—perhaps as early as next week. What homework?

One tidbit from school: Some of the most annoying comments in class are those that attempt to tell the professor and the class what the decision in a case should have been, or what the rule should be, or how the law should or does work. Come on, people! Stop and think for a second how ridiculous these pronouncements sound! I've heard this advice before, but now I can say from experience that it's excellent advice: Talk in class only when you have something really good to say, and if you must speak, make it a question, not a pronouncement.

Bisy. Backson.

Since I don't want to maximize my chances of success in law school or anything like that, I'm off to spend the next 5 days in Lost Wages, NV (aka: Las Vegas). Did I mention I'm a gambling addict?

Oops! That was a lie. There's a wedding. In Vegas. Imagine that! I'm best man. And I made the promise to be best man long ago, so there's really no getting out of it now, no matter how badly I want to get to CrimLaw today to hear what PCrim has to say about retributive theories of justice. And I do want to hear it, because he's talking theory, and theory is where it's at, in a two turntables and a microphone rockage sort of way.

By the way, what I think I understand about the rich, creamy horseshit about holding people to rules we can't live up to ourselves is this: Coleridge was a servant of the law and felt he had to send a message that murder is wrong by sentencing Dudley and Stephens to death, but in his decision he encoded a hint to the queen that only she had the power to show mercy to these poor chaps, and that's exactly what she did. If it wasn't 5 a.m., I'd find the quote for you, but as it is, I'll leave it there and hope all you brilliant and knowledgeable people will tell me what you got out of the case or Coleridge's standard of law.

So posts probably be zero until sometime next week, when probably I'll flunk out of school, both because I'm missing two days of classes and because I don't have this software.

Have a great Labor Day holiday!

Congratulations to Reichen and Chip, winners of the latest circuit of The Amazing Race on CBS. The couple claimed victory for gay people everywhere, and they earned it—especially against the subtle homophobia of second-place-finishers, John and Kelly. Of course, some people won't be too happy for Chip and Reichen, but the rest of us can be thrilled about the serendipitous synchronicity that put a married gay couple on national TV for 8-10 weeks just as the Supreme Court was striking down U.S. anti-sodomy laws. Not only that, but as Heather Havrilesky noted last week on Salon, they seemed to be the most compatible, well-adjusted, and likable couple on the show.

Rereading that article also reminds me of the irony in the fact that the team that made each other the most miserable on this season of the Amazing Race may have been the self-proclaimed virgins who have dated for 12 years, Millie and Chuck. They crashed and burned a few weeks ago and seem destined for eternal unhappiness if they insist on staying together. Meanwhile, Chip and Reichen will have $1 million with which to show each other the depth of their love. Perhaps there is justice in this world, after all.

We survived Six Flags without incident. The Batwing was a little disappointing, really, but still plenty thrilling. Ranked in order of ability to make you feel queasy were:

1. Two Face: The Flipside
2. Joker's Jinx
3. Batwing

Notes for if you want to go: If you want to order tickets online you'll save $10/person, but you have to do it far enough ahead so that the tickets can be mailed to you. Parking is $9, and that's pretty unavoidable. If you plan to dip in the water park, inner-tube rentals are $6/ea. You don't have to rent a tube to ride the slides, but you'll wait much longer if you don't. Total cost for the day for two people, including two meals at Subway (the healthiest option in the park, it seemed): approx. $110.

And with that, it seems my life of leisure has come to an end. I'm off to law school orientation, trying not to think too hard about what a lack of respect GW has shown by refusing to tell us what time orientation will end today. I do have a dog to walk, people! Oh well. As Beanie said when I complained about this before, I better get used to it. All my time are belong to them.

In the ongoing saga of the country bumpkin (me) trying to take advantage of all that DC has to offer, I forgot to mention the joy that was ours the other night when David Rees, the satiric mastermind behind Get Your War On, spoke at Politics and Prose. He shared the bill with Mark Andersen and Mark Jenkens, authors of Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital (reviewed here). At first the pairing seemed a bit odd, but it turned out to be a nice combination since punk is all about alternatives to mainstream culture and GYWO is certainly that. But mainly L. and I were there for Rees, who impressed us as an amazingly deadpan comic; if you think his comics are funny when you read them on the screen, imagine having them read aloud to you in a crowded room. It was almost like a form of therapy.

Since I knew that proceeds of his book go to landmine relief efforts in Afghanistan, I've wondered how Rees makes a living. Someone asked that very question and the answer is he's now creating GYWO for Rolling Stone magazine, so he's finally making some bank for his brilliance. You can also give cash to him directly through the paypal link at the bottom of his comics page. Read the comics, throw the man a few bones for those laughs. Buy the book and help make Afghanistan safer. Everybody wins!

In a related vein, we also went to see "The Weather Underground" at Visions Cinema:

Thirty years ago, a group of young American radicals announced their intention to overthrow the U.S. government. In THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND, former Underground members, including Bernardine Dohrn, Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, David Gilbert and Brian Flanagan, speak publicly about the idealistic passion that drove them to bring the war home and the trajectory that placed them on the FBI's most wanted list.

It's an incredible film about an incredible time and phenomenon in U.S. history, and provides invaluable lessons about the best (and worst) ways to bring about political change in a "modern" (really postmodern or postpostmodern or whatever) society. Short lesson: Violence against the state only gives the state license to use increased violence in response. See also Sept. 11, 2001.

Toward the end of the film, Naomi Jaffe, a former member of the Weather Underground, says something like, "even though we didn't achieve our goals, I think what we did was worthwhile because it shows future activists what's possible; it provides a history of resistance and activism that future revolutionaries can build on." And the thing is, she'd be right except for 98% of the planet, the Weather Underground never existed. History belongs to those who write the history books, and if history books ever mention the Weather Underground, you can bet they do so as minimally as possible and in the context of words like treason, radical, insane, tiny fringe, etc. Have you ever heard of the Weather Underground?

Finally, to come full circle, in addition to being one of the authors of Dance of Days (mentioned above), Mark Andersen is also the founder of Positive Force, a DC activist group. Andersen will join Sam Green, director of "The Weather Underground" (the movie) for a Q&A about the movie and about activism on Aug. 23 at visions. You know, if you want to boost your countercultural cred. a teensy bit, it could be cool.

Now, for something completely different, L. and I are headed off to Six Flags (MD) for a day of mass consumer debauchery of the junkfood and thrillride variety. It's my last day of "freedom" before law school starts, so I figured I'd go out with a bang, of sorts. Batwing, here we come!

Whoops! Friday was Fair and Balanced day in response to response to Fox v. Franken. See also "Freedom of Expression."

ani difranco played a terrific show at Wolf Trap last night. Best lines from her new song, "Serpentine":

cuz the profit system follows the path of least resistance and the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked makes it serpentine capitalism is the devil's wet dream

Ain't that the truth. Ani has kindly made more of her goodness available for download with her poem in response to 9-11-01 and the aftermath.

Hamell on Trial opened the show with good humor, high energy, and amazing guitar strumming. I got a good laugh out of "I Hate Your Kid," and I'm still wondering how one guy can get so much great sound out of one guitar.

Wolf Trap itself is quite possibly the best concert venue I've ever attended. Open air venues are usually great fun, but Wolf Trap lets you do it in style by letting you bring just about anything you want onto the lawn. We took a picnic and a cooler full of wine and beer and had ourselves a fine time. Highly recommended.

(Note: If you're transportationally-challenged or just prefer to rely on mass transit, the shuttles between Wolf Trap and the metro line work great and I think Wolf Trap tries to schedule events to end in time for you to make the last train into the city. At least they did with the Ani show....)

Why didn't someone tell me about Brickfest? Maybe because you don't know what it is. I didn't either until I heard a brief mention of it on NPR this morning. A quick search revealed that

BrickFest is a yearly gathering of AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego™) from around the world.

And it just happened this past weekend at George Mason University in Arlington. Aside from a few fun hours many years ago spent wandering among the fantastic creations at Legoland in Billund, Denmark, I haven't been a very active or dedicated AFOL, and now I've missed a perfect chance to make up for my infidelity.

*sigh* I miss all the good stuff. (Come on, you know you loved your legos (or "lego bricks," as their maker wants us to call them) when you were a kid. Didn't everyone spend hours—nay, days!—building fantastic futures out of little plastic bricks?)

I think JobforJohn would like this joke from the latest installment of Get Your War On:

1: Knock knock. 2: Who's there? 1: Jobs and Growth. 2: Oh, shut the fsck up! I mean, really! 1: Jobs and Growth of a sneaking sense of betrayal!

Observation 1: There's something not quite right about a 6-8 year-old boy wearing a suit and tie. The rightness is even more questionable when he's sitting with a man (his father?) who seems to be wearing an identical suit and tie. Suits and ties are just wrong. Suits and ties on 6-8 year-old boys should be criminal.

Observation 2: The waterfall that looks like it's always about to stream right through the window is very very cool. The reflective, stainless steel ceiling and lights in the back portion of the cafeteria is very very uncool. What were they thinking?

Observation 3: A Handspring Visor Deluxe combined with a Targus Stowaway Keyboard is a much more chic and, um, novel way to write a novel than is a slightly worn Apple iBook. Damn! Out-teched again!

Question: Which came first: The glass pyramids at the entrance to the Louvre in Paris, or the very similar (if much smaller) glass pyramids in the courtyard between the east and west wings of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.?

I'm a big fan of public transportation, but this morning it came a little too close for comfort. My dog and I were out for our usual morning walk today when she (the dog) decided to stop and sniff something near the corner of a major intersection. No problem there; stopping to sniff is just what dogs do. So we stood there for perhaps a minute until her sniffer exhausted whatever little treasure it had found, then we resumed our walk. But that's when things went a little weird because suddenly the quiet of our pre-dawn neighborhood was broken by the incessant blaring of what sounded like the horn of a big vehicle. To my left I saw a large truck following a city bus, but before I had time to really connect the truck, the bus, and the honking, I was startled by a strange "splat!" directly behind me, followed by a sinister whisper that seemed to be dopplering toward my right side at high speed. I spun around just in time to see a huge tire and wheel flying by me through the grass. And as I watched it roll and bounce down the grassy slope and smack to a stop against the wall of an apartment building, my brain finally caught up with events to bring me to the realization: My dog and I were nearly killed by a flying bus wheel!

But, we weren't.

And no, we wouldn't have died if it had hit us, but it wouldn't have felt too great, I'm thinking. Fun in the city just doesn't stop, does it?

Ok. After the interesting comments about various types of stress bombers, I really wanted to say something today about the "zero summers" and other personality types so well described in Brush With the Law. However, the day is slipping away so that'll just have to wait, along with all the other things I'd really like to wax poetic about, including:

"Congress to Bikers: Get a Car: Cutting money for sustainable transportation alternatives to cars is so short-sighted and stupid I just don't know where to begin. This is countered at least a little by "A green revolt against Bush," which I Hate Stupid People calls faith restoring. I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's a start.

Bradley's Almanac points to a frightening account of the FBI investigating what a random person was reading in a coffee shop (the guy was reading an opinion piece called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity"). Any faith previously restored is now gone.

L-Cubed continues its streak of provocative posts with a comparison of the different ways the Democrats and Republicans respond to criticism. Scott reports, you decide.

Dan Gillmore says "Voting machines need paper trails" and I couldn't agree with him more. He also provides some suggestions for action to make sure we can trust our elections in the future.

Unlearned Hand reports that the the pro-life movement has effectively stolen millions of dollars from U.S. charities (most of which have nothing to do with abortion, pro or con) and at least one of its members is fairly gleeful about that. Can you say "forest for the trees"?

Finally, Professor Jeff Cooper has returned from a brief break with a great roundup of the coverage of the Bush administration's alleged attempts to smear "whistleblowers" and some nice thoughts on the Tour de France and Apple's advertising.

So much to read and process, so little time.

DayPop's Top 40 rarely fails to offer links to flabbergasting or otherwise outrageous material, and today is no exception. Did John Gilmore really get ejected from a British Airways flight for wearing a "Suspected Terrorist" button!? Has this been in the news anywhere? I mean, doesn't that sound completely nuts? I agree with the guy—airport security is a farce to make us feel "secure" while adding very little in the way of real additional security. Gilmore has filed a lawsuit against a plethora of parties (FAA, TSA, etc.), specifically the legality of requiring all passengers to show identification before they travel. Reason Magazine ("the monthly print magazine of 'free minds and free markets'") is covering the suit. Why isn't anyone else?

And in a related vein of the insults we suffer under the name of "homeland security," "Bush Suckers the Democrats" argues that the scandal over the African uranium claims in the State of the Union Address is just an empty show to make the Democrats look foolish—planned every step of the way by Yubbledew and Co. (I guess that's why Bush's approval rating is dropping like a stone then, huh?) Whew! That's a relief! Just when I was starting to think the world was a complicated place, The Weekly Standard pulls through to reassure me that everything is, in fact, very simple. You just have to stick with the truth. And we all agree about what that is, don't we?

Also from DayPop: The Dallas Morning News has a blog on which its editors hash out their opinions on various issues. How cool is that? Now if we could just get the Bush administration to do this, we might just have something like a democracy again.

It was a beautiful weekend in the DC region, so on the spur of the moment Saturday night, I decided to take a little hike. I'd previously searched for recommended hikes in the area, and found Local Hike's list of 5-star hikes , and of course I wanted to do the one billed as the "best hike in VA!" L. and I did the Bull Run "hike" a few weeks ago and found it to be less hike than walk, except for the low spots, which at the time were filled with water, making the "hike" more like a "swalk"—a swap walk. We also picked up some friendly tics there, as did our favorite dumb animal (our dog), so all in all Bull Run was nice, but I hoped that Old Rag Mountain would offer more climbing, varied terrain, and better views.

Old Rag did not disappoint. As the picture below should suggest, aside from the "smokiness" of the mountains, the views were pretty darned good.

And if you want climbing, you'd probably be hard-pressed to find more of it in the DC area than you'll find on Old Rag. As the Local Hikes description indicates, you climb over 2000 feet in around 4 miles. The "rock scramble" is also no joke; there were places where the rocks were so vertical I had to stop and examine them pretty closely to find a way up. However, since Old Rag is such a popular hike those few tough spots aren't really so tough—all the likely hand holds (including nearby trees and branches) are worn smooth from all the hands that have grabbed them over the years, and all the good toe holds are blackened by the scrapes of shoe rubber. So although it's a pretty challenging hike, it's well-traveled so you can hike in the knowledge that if you get in any kind of trouble someone will likely be along shortly to help you out.

If you want a great hike in the D.C. area, I highly recommend Old Rag. However, I'd add a couple of things to what the Local Hikes page says about it. First, it took almost exactly 2 hours to reach the trail parking lot from the Bethesda, MD area—follow directions to Nethers, VA if you want to look it up on Yahoo maps or something. Also, since you have to park 0.8 miles from the trailhead, this is really an 8.8 mile round-trip, not 7 miles. Finally, the 4-hour pace is a pretty brisk one. I did it, but it was kind of a forced march and I only spent about 10-15 minutes at the top. I imagine most hikers will want to take a more leisurely pace, so plan for 5-6 hours, at least. Other than that, take lots of water and have a great hike.

So what's next? If you have recommendations for hiking or biking (mt. or road) in the DC area, the comments link is calling your name!

Kick off your week with some award-winning wretchedness! Feast your eyes on this:

They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white...

So begins the winning entry of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest ("where WWW means Wretched Writers Welcome"). The BLFC is "a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels."

But what if you like string cheese?

[Link via Random Neural Misfirings which is definitely random and includes this nice little roundup of recent events.]

I'm increasingly late to these fun link parties (i.e.: when someone finds something so insane or cool happens that everyone links to it and sends it to you in email), but it's better late than never in the case of Paul Kelly Tripplehorn Jr., the brilliant Washington intern who wrote such a horrible breakup email [pdf]—both humanly and grammatically—that he ended up losing his job. See Life, Law, Libido for more insight on the issue (also a follow-up here, plus a bonus link to the most hilarious thank-you letter [pdf] I've read in a long time. (And that's saying something; as a recovering business writing teacher, I used to teach students how to write interview thank-you letters, so I've read quite a few in my day.) To fully appreciate the letter, don't miss the recipient's interpretation of it at the end of LLL's post. What's funny about this is that, after having read so many letters like this, I know people send crap like this all the time; maybe not quite this bad, but bad. Perhaps that's something to think about that the next time you get worried about your competition in law school (or just about any other field, for that matter).

All this hilarity and horror comes via DG who, despite being "busier than a one-legged man at a butt-kicking contest," * is still somehow able to offer up daily posts that never fail to entertain and inform. She recently checked out the Dean for America and to me her comments demonstrate what I've been thinking more and more: Dean is looking like the best candidate to beat Yubbledew because Dean's not just some lefty wacko. Instead, he is (or he is selling himself as) a pragmatist who doesn't want a revolution, just a few changes here and there so people will have health care, a quality education, and a safe world. But who knows. Someone told me the other day that Dean is "losing his luster," so we'll see.

While clearing my desk I ran across the receipt for the car I rented during my recent travels West. The total bill was $423.16 to rent for one week a recent model Chevy Cavalier, 4-dr., automatic, w/air conditioning and cd-player, and unlimited miles. It was a good car, it did the job nicely, and the rental company was fine. The problem is that I reserved the car and made all my travel plans based on the fact that it was supposed to cost $127 for the week. That's right: I was quoted a price of $127, but I ended up paying $423.

SO, this receipt reminds me that I wanted to rant about what a rip-off car rentals are and how there appears to be no such thing as "truth in advertising" when it comes to this crap and why aren't innocent and naive consumers (like myself) protected from this kind of scam!?

But why bother? In a few years I'll be a lawyer, and then, well, let's just say the car rental business better watch out. Paybacks are a bitch.*

*Yeah, I know having a J.D. won't probably enable me to sue the pants off of car rental companies for lying to their customers, but I'm told an active fantasy life is healthy, ok?

I may be going to law school this fall, but some part of me is still a writing teacher—specifically, a business writing teacher (at least some of the time)—and there's lots of good stuff going on these days in the wacky world of business writing. First, one of the "Big Three" accounting firms has declared war on just the kind of nonsense business-speak I spent the last four years trying to get my students to recognize, abhor, and never write again:

Deloitte Consulting admits it helped foster confusing, indecipherable words like "synergy," "paradigm" and "extensible repository," but it has decided enough is enough. It is releasing Bullfighter, a new software program to help business writers avoid jargon and use clear language.

Yay Bullfighter! Even the name is pretty straightforward. Be sure you don't miss Deloitte's own speil about its new program—you can even take it for a test drive or download it yourself (if you use Windows 2000 or XP). And best of all, send an ecard to all your friends who are full of bull!

Yeah, this is going to take the business world by storm. Not. But hey, at least now we know that some business people know they write nonsense, and as GI Joe always said, "Knowing is half the battle!"

For still more fun with corporate America using language as if they're just making it up (wait! they are!), check out this exchange between Coca-Cola and a former English teacher. And remember to treat yourself well. Ordinary. Drink Dasani bottled water. ;-)

Stuff like this almost makes me wish I was going to teach business writing again this fall. (Wait. Did I really write that? What I really meant was I think it's time for more Playstation....)

One of the great things L. and I have been looking forward to about moving to a city is the chance to see more live music. Last Friday night we checked out one of the top picks recommended by the Washington City Paper—Evan Dando at the Black Cat. Back in the day I was a fan of Dando's old band, The Lemonheads, so I knew the show had potential, but I was skeptical; when lead singers go solo sometimes they change things up so radically that they're hardly recognizable. I'm glad to report that's not really true of Dando. He played some great new music from his album, "Baby I'm Bored," and jammed out on some old Lemonheads tunes to please the old fanbase.

Dando hit the stage alone with his acoustic guitar at about 12:15 to play five or six solo acoustic tunes, including notably "Favorite T" from Come On Feel. Dando's voice seemed older (it is) and rougher, like he's smoked a few too many cigarettes, perhaps, or is just out of practice. His range seemed smaller and his voice sometimes cracked on transitions between notes. His acoustic guitar was also jerky and at times it sounded and looked like he was working really hard to find the right chords and transitions. But hey, I don't play, so what do I know?

After the short acoustic set, Dando was joined on stage by a three-piece band featuring none other than Juliana Hatfield on base. Hatfield played and sang with the Lemonheads on several albums—not to mention putting out a lot of great music in her own right—so in a lot of ways, it was like seeing the Lemonheads reborn. The band performed some of the major Lemnheads hits, including: It's A Shame About Ray, Drug Buddy, Big Gay Heart, and Rudderless. Highlights for me were a super rockin' doublespeed version of Down About It and a slightly slowed but still energetic version of Confetti, one of my favorite songs that features exactly the kind of almost-too-cute-yet-nonetheless-poignant lyrics that always made the Lemonheads great: "Well he kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he coulda, the story's getting closer to the end. He kinda shoulda sorta woulda loved her if he coulda, but he'd rather be alone than pretend."

In all, it was a great show. If Dando comes your way, and if you were ever a Lemonheads fan, don't miss it.

Hey Survivor fans: Jenna in the buff. She's making hay while the sun shines, I guess.

Hi. Sorry for the silence at ai. The trusty ai production iBook is now winging its way to Houston for repair -- most likely it will receive a new hard drive and return to me within a few days as good as new. Meanwhile, I'm getting by w/L's trusty Dell Inspiron, which is older than my iBook and is still working w/out problems, so chalk one up to the evil empire. ;-) (Note: When I first started using this machine to surf the web a week or so ago it was crashing 3-5 times/day. I downloaded the Mozilla Firebird browser and quit using Explorer and guess what? No more crashes. Chalk one up for open source!)

Andbutso, the lack of my very own dear computer has meant many things, one of which is no ai posts, though it appears the world has not stopped turning while I:

• Drove a 17-foot U-Haul tornado (which is what it sounded like from inside the cab) halfway -- ok, a third of the way -- across the country towing L's car and all our worldly belongings. L drove some, too. Scratch "truck driver" from the list of things I might possibly want to do for a living in my imaginary romantic future. Not fun.


• Unpacked (mostly).


• Learned that driving anywhere w/in the D.C. metro area takes at least one hour, usually three. Hooray for the Metro! Every time I ride the train I'm fascinated anew by the wonder of public transportation. It works so damn well it's almost a miracle!


• Saw "Gigantic," the huge documentary about They Might Be Giants. We saw it at the new AFI Silver Theatre, to which we happily live quite close. We'll be seeing lots of cool indie films here maybe. Yay!


• Saw Illegal Art, an exhibition of "art that uses copyrighted or trademarked material without permission." Check out the Visuals page for some samples. Don't miss the story of Kembrew McLeod, the University of Iowa professor who trademarked the phrase "Freedom of Expression" and is now apparently suing AT&T for using that phrase in its advertising. Ironies abound. Kieran Dwyer's "Consumer Whore" Starbucks satire is also notable, especially since Starbucks has gone to so much effort to make sure no one sees it. (More on that story here and at Dwyer's site.) Link to the anti-logo and tell all your friends! And hey, "Illegal Art" is heading to San Francisco soon, so if you're there, I recommend it.


• Saw one of Sam Shepard's many great American dramas, "A Lie of the Mind." We also saw "True West" at another DC theatre while visiting sometime last year, so seeing Shepard in DC is becoming something of a tradition.


• Played Texas Hold-Em w/L.'s sister and friends. Lots of lawyers and political activists in the mix, which made for interesting conversation, much of which I mostly stayed out of for fear of outing myself as the leftist radical I think I am. See, strategically I'm thinking I need to try to get along w/people who love Scalia and think the way Yubbledew was placed in office was fair and legitimate. I'm going to be working w/people like this for the foreseeable future, right? So I need to learn to find a way to do that, it seems, without constant battling and flaring tempers. But L. asked a great question after we left: "When does thinking strategically slip into selling out?" Ah yes, it's the question of law school, isn't it? Because law school is a strategic move for me -- it's an attempt to do something from within "the system," rather than from the fringes (academia) where it seemed all I'd ever be able to do was bitch and moan. (No offense to current academics -- that was just how I came to see my future and it has nothing to do w/what you're doing and going to do.) When does strategy become strategery?


• Saw "Coupling" Disc 1 via our brand new NetFlix subscription. Hilarious. The setups for the jokes are often long and layered, leading to huge, belly-laugh payoffs at the end of each episode.

So you see, it's really just all about the entertainment here in summerland. I should be getting a job or something, but, well, I'm well-fed and protected from the rain, so it's kind of hard to be bothered. Perhaps the motivation will strike soon. I moan that all the good jobs are unpaid, but I'm fully aware that's no excuse for sitting on my ass gorging myself on the copious produce of the various segments of the U.S. entertainment industries. I mean, if I'm not going to be getting paid for the next two months, I might as well see if I can help someone out in some way, right?

But until that happens, perhaps I'll just help Unbrand America to make up for some of my consumer guilt. And then, of course, there are all those books I was going to read. After reading Brush With the Law, it's pretty hard to fight the "screw it, I'll worry about it later" attitude w/regard to law school prep. Maybe I'll just ride my bike.

What a strange word that is, "catsup." It sounds funny, and it's spelled funny. How do you say it? Some people say it like "catch-up," which is what I'm doing now. The following are links I don't have time to really comment on, but which are worth posting anyway:

• Earth to Bill Gates: Thank You—I saw the NOW program last Friday and I'll be damned if it didn't make even me, a hardened anti-M$ partisan, think twice about refusing to give my software dollars to M$. (But Gates still didn't pay for his coffee [link via Scripting News.
• TV social experiment involving student ends—Still more proof that more money is not the complete solution to problems w/public education. For those of you who played LSAT games some time in the recent past, this story shows that money is necessary but not sufficient for a good education.
• Type-Ho's—It must be hard to be a legal secretary.
• Law Review: Worth it or not?—A must-read for people unsure of whether they'll pursue a spot on their law review. Don't skip the comments. [link via jd2b, I think.]
• Senate broadens terror surveillance law—This is not good news.
• Democrats flee Texas, freeze legislature—This also does not seem like good news—neither the Dems leaving or Delay's open attempt to rig the 2004 election in the Republicans' favor. If we thought American democracy could survive the gross influence peddling that is campaign finance, the debacle of election 2000, and unending wars on terrorism that are used to justify what increasingly looks like an unending war on civil liberties (not to mention a corporate press with goals contradictory to those of democracy), we might have to think again.
• Verizon to turn pay phones into WiFi hot spots—This, on the other hand, does seem like good news.

Many of us don't trust what we see, hear, and read in the media, but usually it's not because we think the media is deliberately lying to us. Now that the NY Times has dismissed a reporter who has been doing exactly that since at least last October (possibly for the last four years), we now have more reason than ever to doubt the media—especially the mainstream media, since you don't get any more mainstream than the NY Times. Jayson Blair's list of lies is incredibly long; as the Times admits, he tried just about every form of prevarication known to man:

The reporter, Jayson Blair, 27, misled readers and Times colleagues with dispatches that purported to be from Maryland, Texas and other states, when often he was far away, in New York. He fabricated comments. He concocted scenes. He lifted material from other newspapers and wire services. He selected details from photographs to create the impression he had been somewhere or seen someone, when he had not.

(See also: This Editor's note.)

Meanwhile, if you watched "60 Minutes" last Sunday, know that Blair's trail of deception is nothing new. The show took a look at Stephen Glass, a writer for The New Republic, says he lied for the thrill of being able to give people the stories they wanted to hear. But whereas much of Blair's lying seemed to be plagiarism, Glass mostly just made stuff up out of thin air:

He made up people, places and events. He made up organizations and quotations. Sometimes he made up entire articles. And to back it all up, he created fake notes, fake voicemails, fake faxes, even a fake Web site -- whatever it took to deceive his editors, not to mention hundreds of thousands of readers.

That was five years ago. Glass has since earned a JD from Georgetown but is having trouble gaining admittance to the NY State Bar because of ethical concerns. Go figure. (But note how he turned to law for legitimacy after being utterly discredited on both a professional and personal level. Does law often attract shady characters simply because they're looking for its imprimatur of legitimacy? Damn, am I a shady character!?)

The fact that journalists are lying comes as no surprise to most writing teachers, who have seen an enormous explosion of plagiarism since the Web replaced the library as the source for research. At the major midwestern university where I've spent the last four years, Triple L has tracked down 13 cases of plagiarism among her students in the last year alone. They do exactly what Blair did—steal whole paragraphs and sentences from multiple sources, patch them together, revise a little, and hope no one notices. And the killer is that when you confront students with concrete evidence that they blatantly cheated and lied, they think you're going to believe them when they tell you they didn't realize what they were doing. At many universities, plagiarism is officially cause for expulsion, or at the very least automatic failure for the course in which the student plagiarized. And while it's possible some universities enforce their strict policies forbidding plagiarism, here at my school the customer—meaning the student—is always right; students generally get warnings and slaps on the wrist (failure on the paper in question, for example, or more often, just dropping its grade by a letter). What's more, the university (as far as I've been able tell) keeps no records of these offenses, so serial plagiarizers get a clean slate every semester to try their games again. This is at a major American university. Is it any wonder we've got young college graduates lying in the media?

(And don't get me started on the example set by politicians who "spin" everything to accomplish their goals. Not to mention Triple L's experience grading for an ethics in engineering class, in which she learned that the vast majority of college students seem utterly unable to recognize an ethical dilemma when it slaps them on the face. The there's the infantilization of American college students which leads them to think they'll never be held responsible for.... Like I said, don't get me started.)

Add a little extra to your Mother's Day gifts this year by slipping a copy of the original Mother's Day Proclamation into your card.

Heard this on NPR's "All Things Considered" tonight: A family-owned grocery store in Roundup, Montana closed down in the 1950s. Since then, no one has even gone in the building. Now, the items that have sat in this large tomb for 50 years are being auctioned off in Billings. You can bid by phone, and I know you want some Shinola.

Reason I care: My parents lived in Roundup for a few years. I'm not kidding. It was actually not a bad town.

Dear <i>ai</i> readers: If you happen upon this before 1 p.m., Eastern, please stop at that time, take a moment and send positive thoughts toward D.C. A special someone has a job interview today, and in this economy, we can all use any help we can get.

As some of you know, I've spent a good deal of time over the past couple of months working on my house to get it ready to sell. The generous and talented parentals also came and did a huge amount of excellent work— the bulk of it, really. My mom's an expert painter, so she transformed the kitchen from a dark and dingy pit to a bright and beautiful place that now looks like this:

Meanwhile, my dad has mad construction skilz of all kinds so he framed up the opening from the ceiling to the roof so the light from my skylight could finally come into the house instead of just illuminating the attic. (We installed the skylight 3 years ago when we put on the new roof, but I never really got around to finishing the job. This is why I should not own a house.) Dad's work transformed the living room into the bright, roomy, comfy place I always knew it could be:

Now it looks like all that work may pay off. I listed the house for sale at about 3 p.m. Weds. Someone came to see it at 5:30 Weds. By about noon Thursday, I had an offer, just a little below the asking price (which I'd thought was too high to be reasonable). I thought about the offer for a few hours, then, on the advice of my realtor, I counter-offered to meet the buyer halfway between his offer and my asking price. Twenty minutes later, the deal was done. Almost exactly 27 hours from the time I listed the house, it sold at a good price. Needless to say, if this deal goes through it will make everything about the coming months infinitely easier. I'll actually be able to rent a moving truck, afford that first month's rent in MD, pay the rest of GW's initial payment ($600, I think?), and best of all, I should be able to afford a cable modem w/wireless network in the new apt.!

(If you have any suggestions for a good cable/dsl internet provider in the DC/MD area, please share.)

This week's Chronicle of Higher Education featured a personal essay from "Catherine Evans" (not her real name), a tenure-track faculty member in the humanities at a major, "near-Ivy" university. This professor is leaving academia (in the humanities) for a lot of the same reasons I've decided to leave—the work is never-ending, thankless, isolated and isolating, and invades every aspect of your life. Her moment of truth sounds like the future in which I worried I'd find myself trapped if I stayed in academia:

So there I was, caught in a job that made me miserable rather than excited, modeling for my toddler son a disheartening priority of rationalized duty over fulfillment, and apologizing to colleagues for the activities that energized me the most. I thought about spending the next 30 years or so of my professional life as an academic. I began imagining alternatives.

Alternatives are good. L. (who is also leaving academia) and I like to joke about academia as a deep hole and academics as diggers. You start digging when you head to grad school, and the closer you get to tenure, the deeper your hole becomes. And as your hole becomes deeper, you steadily lose your ability to see the world around you; dig long enough to get tenure, and the only part of the world you'll be able to see is the tiny speck of sky at the top of your hole high above you. (Imagine being trapped at the bottom of a deep, deep well.) This is why it's so hard for academics to see alternatives and pursue them—they're too deep in their academic holes. I'm sure climbing out was hard for Evans, but once you start, it certainly gets easier.

(If anyone reading this is thinking about going to graduate school in the humanities, please read Invisible Adjunct's advice and think again.)

There's a first for everything. This week's Friday Five:

1. How many houses/apartments have you lived in throughout your life?
21 (soon to be 22). Those houses/apartments have been in six states (Wyoming, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, California, and Illinois) and one foreign country (Finland). I guess I get around a little.

2. Which was your favorite and why?
For about three months in 1998 (or was it 1997?) I sublet a tiny, one-bedroom apartment high atop the Berkeley hills. It was the top floor of a garage, but it had a huge window and a big deck overlooking Tilden Park (on Wildcat Canyon Road). It faced East, so I was greeted every morning by the rising of the sun before I climbed on my bike to coast downhilll all the way to work (which was near 4th street in Berkeley, if you know the area). It was spring and the mornings were brisk and often foggy, the air heavy with moisture that would wrap around me as I zoomed down from the hills. I I was often nearly dripping when I arrived at work, but the ride as always a great, bracing, wake-me-up—a great way to start the day. Of course, the downside (punny!) was the ride home at the end of the day—uphill all the way (and steep in some places like you wouldn't believe). The ride to work took about 15 minutes, depending on traffic; the ride home took 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how gonzo I was feeling. Those were the days...

3. Do you find moving house more exciting or stressful? Why?
It's generally both. I've done it so much that I think of it as more of a hassle than a stress, but there's always excitement about new beginnings. But it's easy to get excited about moving because it's easy to believe that anything is possible when you move, that everything about your life could become completely different in this new place. It's taken me a long time and too many moves to realize that's not really true. What doesn't change is that you can't escape yourself. As Dr. Seuss says, "Wherever you go, there you are."

4. What's more important, location or price?
It depends, doesn't it? Location is always more important, if you can afford it. ;-) But yeah, I've learned it's a good idea to stretch your budget a bit (sometimes a lot) to live in a place in which you feel comfortable, so I'll go with location.

5. What features does your dream house have (pool, spa bath, big yard, etc.)?
I dream of house in the mountains with a sort of big turret on top of that commands a 360-degree view of the surrounding (breathtaking) landscape. In that room I will write little novels about the human condition. And since I can afford that room in this fantasy, I won't care whether anyone buys or reads my books. Also, my family and friends will frequently visit me in this house, which will be big enough to accommodate a large number of visitors at one time. Some of them will stay months at a time, some will only come for a weekend now and then, but the door will always be open so they can come and go as they please. Yeah, that would be nice.

Today, deep into Week 2 of our very own personal version of "Changing Rooms," my parents and I are covered in paint and layers of dust from various sources (wood, sheetrock, fiberglass insulation, and countless years of attic residue). Good times. And while we're hard at work putting things back together, the world continues to fall apart (more or less). How can our elected representatives be so absolutely stupid?

*Sigh* I'm going back to the dust, thanks.

Caring for Your Introvert explains a lot of life's mysteries.

The hot new game for your next party.

I used to work right next door to where this picture was taken. [Link via Scripting News] On alternating days my "office" was either a bicycle seat in which I'd ride 20-120 miles, or the driver's seat of a 15-passenger van in which I'd drive 40-250 miles. I guess you could say I worked in a big "office" park -- perhaps the world's largest -- known to most of you as Bryce Canyon National Park, Zion National Park, Grand Canyon National Park, and lots of beautiful country in between. Since my "office" was mobile, I got to work in lots of other cool places, as well; for example, I had some swell times in and around Camden, Maine.

It all sounds great, doesn't it? And it was. There are books that list "dream jobs," and the job I had was often listed in those books -- it probably still is. Leaving that job was in many ways one of the hardest things I've ever done. Ask my friends. Every year I'd say I was finished. The next year I'd be back saying "just a few more trips." It was like a drug -- a whole different kind of "tripping out." But for lots of reasons, I finally broke the habit. That was three years ago. Now I'm going to law school.

Moments like this make me wonder if I should seek professional help.

The latest fashion. No comment, really. [Link via Scripting News]

You know, I’m tired of waiting with baited breath every day for the mail to come, only to find there’s nothing but bills and credit card offers and coupons I’ll never use. So I’m not going to do it anymore. Instead, I’ll read the Onion, and I’ll laugh. Yes, that’s exactly what I’ll do. What fun! Try this on for size:

Saddam Enrages Bush With Full Compliance

WASHINGTON, DC—President Bush expressed frustration and anger Monday over a U.N. report stating that Iraqi president Saddam Hussein is now fully complying with weapons inspections. “Enough is enough,” a determined Bush told reporters. “We are not fooled by Saddam’s devious attempts to sway world opinion by doing everything the U.N. asked him to do. We will not be intimidated into backing down and, if we have any say in the matter, neither will Saddam.” Bush added that any further Iraqi attempt to meet the demands of the U.N. or U.S. will be regarded as “an act of war.”

Wait. Is that funny, or scary? Today the game is to oscillate wildly (a la The Smiths) between the two interpretations: laugh your head off, scream your head off, laugh your head off, scream you head off. Whooh. Now catch your breath and try this one:
N. Korea Wondering What It Has To Do To Attract U.S. Military Attention
Ok. If you’re up for more (and if you happen to be a fan of David Foster Wallace, which, I’m guessing, does not apply to many people, but still, if…), then feast your eyes on this great parody: Girlfriend Stops Reading David Foster Wallace Breakup Letter At Page 20. Ha! The paragraph supposedly on written by Wallace is strikingly like certain passages especially of Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.

And finally finally, if you haven’t already reached your daily limit of laughs-a-minute vs. bowel-shaking-fears (now channeling Cake), get yourself on over to the latest two installments of Get Your War On:

Where the hell is my “Missle Defense Shield????”

ROTF, I‘m telling you. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

I like how Dave Winer of Scripting News is handling the disintegration of Space Shuttle Columbia yesterday. He begins this DaveNet with, "Here are some points of view you won't get from TV coverage of the Columbia disaster." He goes on to repeat a few of the things I've been thinking since about noon yesterday when it was clear that just about every U.S. media outlet had shifted into "shuttle porn" mode. Winer doesn't make light of the Columbia crash, and I don't want to either. But his concluding point about the seven people killed is what I think we should remember as we move on:

Yes it's sad they died. Yes. But it's great that they lived.

And jumping off from that celebration of life, perhaps as we mourn the loss of the Columbia crew, U.S. citizens (and especially U.S. political leaders) should question more seriously than ever the value of dropping bombs on Iraq or anywhere else. Perhaps we should consider the contradictions between non-stop media coverage that makes it appear that the world is ending when the U.S. loses *seven* astronauts, even as the U.S. moves almost full steam ahead toward a war that will kill thousands. If the lives of those seven astronauts were worth so much (and they were), then are the lives of Iraqis or the American soldiers who will die in a war against Iraq worth any less?

As I wait to hear if any law school is going to let me in, I've got to say it's not a lot of fun watching JCA go through a similar apply-and-hope-and-wait process trying to line up a good job for the summer after her first year as a law student. Is this what every spring is going to be like for the next three or four years (until I get a "real" legal job)? Probably. But then, a lot of law is probably like that—aren't you always filing papers of some kind, then waiting to see what people (i.e.: judges, juries, other lawyers) think of them? If so, I guess I should just get used to it. And anyway, here's where a desire to do something outside the mainstream of law might come in handy—perhaps when it comes time to look for jobs, I'll like the sound of the kinds of things that other people dread, which would, maybe, increase my chances of actually getting those jobs. Maybe.

Anyway, this latest chapter in JCA's law school odyssey attracted this comment from Sue, who appears to be in the same boat as me right now—just wishin', and hopin', and thinkin', plannin', dreamin', and prayin' ... that we get into law school. Good luck, Sue! Perhaps we should start some sort of blog-ring of our own—the lawyers and law students have their "blawgs," so maybe we should call ours "p-blawgs," for "pre-law-blogs"? Yeah, I'll get right on that. ;-)

(But seriously, if there's anyone else out there like Sue and myself who is currently waiting to hear from law schools and blogging about it, I'd love to hear from you. And good luck to you, too!)

Just because it's there: Japanese Emoticons and the Dubya Bot. Oh, and Whitehouse.org has an Onion-esque scoop on that whole Michigan/affirmative action case.

Hi hi hi hi. After a looong and luxuriously stress-free break from school/work and other demands of "real" life, the time has come for getting back to business—both here at ai and elsewhere. But rather than bore you with a litany of the mundane and unfun things I now must do to prepare for the spring semester (which begins next week), I'm going to indulge in the belated but fun ritual of annual predictions/hopes. I'm no oracle, so these are just a few ideas that are a combination of what I think might happen, as well as what I hope will happen in 2003.

First, we're going to war. [1] I still have hope that this won't happen, but not much. What I think will happen is that the U.S. will commence battle during sweeps month (is that Feb. or March?), both to get maximum viewers for the show when they want to brag about something, as well as to make sure there are plenty of other diversions (in the form of a new tv lineup) for American couch potatoes if things don't go smoothly. There seems lots of reason to believe things won't go that smoothly for the U.S.—Iraq could attack Israel or gas U.S. troops, or the growing peace movement could reach critical mass and U.S. leadership could find itself engaged in a war w/out popular support. (This would be especially likely if Rep. Charles Rangel is successful in his attempt to bring back the draft. He won't be, but his effort has opened a new avenue for critique of Bush's war plans.) At this point it's looking like the best outcome here is that an attack on Iraq creates enough global anger at the Bush administration that the U.S. will be forced to start playing nicely with others and the Bush administration will have zero hope of being re-elected in 2004.

Many things in 2003 will likely hinge on what happens w/Iraq and N. Korea. If there is war on Iraq, and if it is "successful" (meaning not too many Americans die and somehow international and domestic opinion blesses it as a "good or at least not bad thing"), the Bush Administration will probably have carte blanche to continue its insanity of tax cuts, increased military spending, and starving all other domestic and social programs. But that's a big if. On the other hand, if the Iraqi war doesn't happen or goes south somehow, perhaps Americans will wake up and start being a little more critical of the dismal places Washington is sending our country (and our world). Already it's starting to look like Democrats (and many Republicans) are gaining traction w/their criticism of Bush's tax cut/"stimulus" plan—very few people seem convinced that allowing the wealthiest Americans to keep more cash is really good for anyone but the wealthiest Americans. [2]

In 2003 we'll see a shakedown of democratic candidates for President. I haven't had a chance to really take a look at the field as it's forming, but from the little I've seen, John Edwards looks like a great potential candidate. I'll be following his campaign via Oliver Willis' blog, Americans for John Edwards. If Edwards can maintain his "raw potential" approach as something of a Democratic outsider (and if he really turns out to be the people's candidate he claims to be), he just might be able to re-invigorate the Democratic Party and have a good chance at getting the nomination. With regard to the 2004 election, I predict (hope) that as the contest heats up, a vigorous national debate will begin about the value of the electoral college. [3] Following an earlier post on the subject, I also predict that blogs will begin to play a bigger role in the political process. [4]

In an issue of special local interest, I predict (hope) that Illinois Gov. George Ryan's commutation of death sentences in Illinois will trigger a nationwide debate about the justice and necessity of the death penalty. Have you ever stopped to think about the connection between the death penalty and the U.S.'s militant foreign policy? Is it merely a coincidence that one of the only "free" countries in the world that still sanctions state executions is also the "free" country that is most aggressive militarily? We seem to have a culture that says that when someone does something we really don't like, that person has to die. On a micro level, this means the death penalty; on a macro level, it means war. In most free countries, people do not sanction state executions; they put a higher premium on human life than we do. Perhaps this also makes them much more reluctant to go to war. I submit that this is a good thing. So here's hoping that Americans will pause to seriously examine their approach to state-sanctioned murder on both micro and macro levels.

Another domestic conversation that will continue to heat up in 2003 concerns America's dependence on foreign oil, global environmental degradation, and the morality of driving SUVs. I've talked about this before, but also look for an upcoming post to return to this—it's becoming one of my favorite topics.

In my own life, it's looking more likely that by August I will be living in D.C., where I hope to be attending law school. Right now my ideal scenario is that I'll be awarded the Public Interest Scholarship at American University, which will allow me to afford to pay rent, eat, and be a good student. Honestly, the prospect of attending law school without a really significant scholarship is looking pretty scary. How do you concentrate on your classes when every breath you take costs approximately $5?

Finally, I have yet to hear from any marketing/video maestros with brilliant ideas of how I should go about selling myself to the producers of "Survivor," so whether 2003 will see me taking a critique of social darwinism to national prime-time television remains an open question. ;-)

Footnote:
[1] This "war" will not only ultimately prove a mistake for America's long-term health and security, but it will also be illegal and reveal some of the deep problems with our so-called "democracy"—primarily that Congress has abdicated its constitutional responsibility to declare war. This is such a crazy fact that it deserves a post of its own—look for it to follow this post.

[2] I heard Cokie Roberts on NPR this morning saying that the Bush Administration is breaking new ground in attempting to use tax policy for purposes of social engineering by reducing the so-called "marriage penalty," rewarding investment in the stock market, etc. I couldn't believe what I was hearing; tax policy has always been used for social engineering—it's called redistribution of wealth! The problem with the Bush vision is that it wants to do all it can to make sure wealth is redistributed up into the higher classes, rather than the other way around. If there's anything new about this it's simply the brazeness with which it's now being done. In the past the plutocrats tried to be more discrete about their attempts to shortchange the poorest Americans in favor of the wealthiest; now they seem to feel they don't even need to pretend anymore.)

[3] For those readers who have detected any cynicism in ai, please attempt to recall the last time there was a vigorous national debate about anything. If, like me, you have trouble thinking of a recent example, I think you'll agree that my predictions in this regard are quite optimistic—utopian, even. ;-)

[4] If you haven't heard it already, check out the story of Tara Sue Grubman, the woman who sort of ran for Congress via a blog. She didn't win, but she did show the value of a blog to allow voters to get to know a candidate, and to allow a candidate to communicate directly w/voters in a relatively raw way. Sure, a blog could be "spun and polished" just like a tv commercial, so blogs will likely have a positive effect on the political process only if candidates use them honestly. Yes, another big "if."

Hi. Welcome to 2003 at ai. This promises to be a full and interesting year. I believe the theme will be Change. I hope to post a bit of a preview/prediction post sometime soon, but let's get right to the most important stuff here:

If you look at the little statistics generated by the Nedstat button in the right column, you'll see that ai is currently getting the majority of its hits from people looking for information about how John Nash's noncooperative game theory applies to Survivor. If you're looking for information on this, I suggest you read the following and you'll know just about all I know:

1. Is the Key to Survivor in 'Non-Cooperative Games'?—this is perhaps the most basic and simple explanation of the connection between the Nash Equilibrium applies to Survivor. I'd start here, then move on to:
2. Survivor, Game Theory, and John Nash—an article by a Professor of Political Science that explains a little more abstractly how the author thinks Nash's equilibrium would apply to Survivor. This article also contains three links to more practical applications of game theory to the most recent edition of Survivor.
3. John Nash's Survivor—this is a long discussion board post that originally appeared here and discusses all five editions of Survivor at length. This page is where I found the links above.

What does all of this mean to you if you're planning to apply to be on the show? Your guess is probably better than mine, but there's some discussion of that question here.

If you have more or better information, please share (click the comment link below).

Four applications to law school are now out the door and headed for George Washington U., American U., George Mason U, and Boston College. Is five enough? Hmmm.. I'll ponder that some more ... later. But first, I'm off to Michigan, then on to Montana to spend time with the famdamily, so posts will likely be fairly infrequent for the next few weeks. If you'd like to direct my Survivor application video, please let me know so I can have my people contact your people and maybe we can do lunch early next year.

Now, everybody sing:
Let's hear those sleigh bells jinglin', ring-ting-tinglin', too.
Come on it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you...

When "Survivor" first started several years ago, it spawned a wave of copy-cat "reality" television shows. The name is unfortunate—there's very little "reality" in the contrived situations "Survivor" casts have been in during the show's five seasons. Sure, they really do go hungry and have to sleep on the ground, but there is always a camera crew there with radio contact to helicopters and hospitals and whatever. That's not to say none of the so-called "survivors" has never been in any real physical danger; wasn't it the second season where Michael was choppered out after falling into the fire? So bad stuff can happen, but it's still only "real" in a very contrived sense.

So who cares about that "reality" moniker, is what I say. I find the show fascinating. "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" are great, but you can keep your "Bachelor" and "Temptation Island" and "Big Brother" and "Osbornes." The appeal of those shows kind of bothers me. Why is it so great to see people humiliated and embarrassed and cheated on and lied to? Oh wait, that's also what happens on "Survivor," isn't it?

Anyway, "Survivor 5—Thailand" ended last night and the official story says:

After 39 days on a physical and mental roller coaster, Brian Heidik, the 34-year-old used car salesman from Quartz Hill, California, won a majority of the Jury's votes, earning him the title of SOLE SURVIVOR and giving him the million-dollar prize.

One of the things that gets me about the show (and another way in which it is anything but "real") is the power the editors have over viewers' opinions of the action and the "players." I want to say that Brian was the satanic incarnation of the sleaziest used car salesman stereotype you've ever heard. But what do I know?He's also apparently an actor. So aside from internet gossip, we only know what the producers/editors decided to show, and it's obvious they do whatever they can to magnify character flaws and tensions between people. But the point is, what does it take to win? And the answer is: That depends. According to Jeff Probst, "King of the Hyenas" (salon.com's name for Probst during the 2nd season), if you want to be a survivor, you should:

Study John Nash's "non-cooperative game playing theory." All the answers to Survivor are there.

If you want to be a Survivor, here's the casting call. According the application, Survivor 7 will be filmed in June/July 2003, and the application process goes from the Feb 11 application deadline to final selection in April. You know me; I'm crazy about application processes, and heck, by now I should be a pro at them. Don't you think a few weeks as a Survivor contestant would be a good way to blow off steam before starting law school?

The application requires a 3-minute video. Does anyone have a digital video camera I could borrow for the next couple of weeks? ;-)

Footnote: A history of "Survivor" winners:

1. Survivor 1—Pulau Tiga: Richard Hatch, the 39-year old corporate trainer from Newport, Rhode Island.


2. Survivor2—Austrailian Outback: Tina Wesson, mother and personal nurse from Knoxville, Tennessee.


3. Survivor 3—Africa: Ethan Zohn, the 27-year-old professional soccer player from Lexington, MA.


4. Survivor 4—Marquesas: Vecepia Towery, the 36-year-old office manager from Portland, Oregon.

I know you probably have your holiday shopping done, but if you're still looking, you might try looking around Cafe Shops from Cafe Press. They have lots of fun t-shirts, sweatshirts, coffee mugs, etc., for the politically interested recipients on your gift list. For example, Modern Humorist offers mp3 propaganda—try a nice t-shirt that says:

When you pirate mp3s, you're downloading communism!

Or how about something from The Quotable Bush, where you'll find great apparel and whatnot with some of our President's greatest bits of wisdom, such as:

I know how hard it is to put food on your family.

And finally, Remixed Propaganda has taken American propaganda posters from previous wars (mostly WWII, I think) and given them an updated twist. Your friends will love a t-shirt that features a smiling GI with a cup of coffee and says:

Help yourself to a piping hot cup of shut your face and you'll feel a whole lot better. After all... You're not a terrorist, right?

Fun for the whole family! Plus, gifts from Cafe Press primarily support small businesses rather than huge corporations (if you care about things like that), and they're offering free upgrades to 2-day shipping until tomorrow (Dec. 17th), so if you order by then your gifts should arrive by you know when. (Note: I am in no way affiliated with Cafe Press; it just seems like a good idea and I really don't want to grade this pile of papers sitting on my desk...)

From the random files: If you need to find a gift for the person who has everything, how about a chaos tower? Looks like endless fun for all ages, plus it could easily double as a quirky and interactive addition to your living room furnishings. Just an idear.

I went to a party last night where nearly everyone in attendance was an English grad student—most of them further along in the program than I am (or was). In many ways, it's getting harder to hang out with these people who everyday become more dedicated to their profession, while everyday I grow more estranged from it. One of these grads is actually on the job market and just got a call yesterday to set up an interview for MLA. This is an amazing feat; just getting an interview is almost a miracle in a job market like this [thanks to SCW for the link]. According to the Modern Language Association (MLA):

the number of English positions fell to 792 this year, from 983 in 2001, a 19 percent decline. The number of foreign language positions fell to 535 from 675, a 21 percent drop.

I wish all the luck in the world to anyone who is willing to run the gauntlet that is the pursuit of a career in English these days. I admire your tenacity and perseverance, and sometimes I still wonder if going to law school is somehow selling out, or taking the easy way out, or ... something. And there are certainly ways that it is, and ways that it isn't; I've hashed over those pros and cons in this space before, so I won't drag you through them again. Suffice to say here that no matter how bad things get, I hope there will always be people willing to endure the sacrifices and hardships necessary to become an English academic; our world would be a far uglier place without you.

Still no word from Georgetown; maybe tomorrow.

Welcome to the random and sporadic world of ai, where there' s always something interesting going on, even if it's sometimes really hard to tell. And today it's All Alice All Day, and what could be finer? Hi Alice. Good luck on those exams.

In other news, I heard on the radio today that "identity theft is a consumer protection issue." That makes sense, considering the fact that "identity theft" is the term we use to describe what happens if someone steals our credit card numbers, social security number, pin numbers, mother's maiden name, etc. So we have these "identities" that are made up primarily of numbers and a few random little bits of information that, when assembled appropriately, tell computers and banks and businesses who we are. These identities are what enable consumption. Without these identities, we cannot consume or otherwise participate in our material culture, hence identity theft is a consumer protection issue.

However, if we were going to be precise about it, we'd have to acknowledge that these are not our "identities," but our consumer identities; therefore, the appropriate way to describe what happens when these bits of information are stolen would be "consumer identity theft." But we don't call it that. Why not? Have lost, or are we quickly losing, any idea of "identity" other than our identity as consumers? If we allow "consumer identity" to be reduced to "identity" as if the two are essentially equivalent terms, aren't we somehow also reducing ourselves to consumers, as if "self" and "consumer" are essentially equivalent terms?

There was a time when "lying politician" was not redundant. Has "consumer identity" become redundant? And if so, what have we lost in the process? I bet Professor Cass R. Sunstein would have a thing or two to say about this. (For a quick holiday read, check out Republic.com, especially chapter five.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot of holiday shopping to do.

If you're a Tori fan, be sure to check out NPR's nice report on her new album (scroll down a bit to the Real Audio link). I still haven't heard it, but maybe I will soon (hint, hint).

Random: The students at Texas A&M University just love their bonfires. Remember the fire that killed 12 people in 1999? Apparently it's a big tradition, and isn't it funny and strange how attached university students are to traditions like these? I wonder where they get that attachment. When I was in college, I scoffed at tradition, almost on principle. I thought that a healthy contempt for tradition was what defined a college student. I guess I was some kind of freak.

Anyway, those Aggies are determined to have their bonfire, so whatever. What's noteworthy about this is the way the AP story about it is written. According to this article (first seen in the Billings Gazette real paper edition, but found online at CNN):

Several thousand current and former students gathered in a darkened field about 10 minutes east of College Station for the lighting. "Burn bonfire burn" was a familiar refrain—shouted by student leaders who lit the pile with torches and flares and individuals in the crowd.

Wow. This fire is so important that student leaders had to sacrifice individuals in the crowd in order to light it! Now that's what I call a fire!

The whole notion of "Total Information Awareness" (see previous post re: Homeland Security, etc.), combined with re-reading/teaching The Handmaid's Tale sent me on a little research about George Orwell. And since I'm currently supposed to be writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month, I was struck by Orwell's explanation of why he writes. Orwell says:

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane. I cannot say with certainty which of my motives are the strongest, but I know which of them deserve to be followed. And looking back through my work, I see that it is invariably where I lacked a political purpose that I wrote lifeless books and was betrayed into purple passages, sentences without meaning, decorative adjectives and humbug generally.

Unfortunately, in unskilled hands (like mine), even writing with a political purpose can easily become rather lifeless and purple. Which is to say: Don't expect to see the fruits of my novel-writing labors anytime soon.

Over the weekend I spent some time in Barnes and Noble, writing my novel. That's right: I'm writing a novel. I have to keep saying it so I'll make it come true. Besides, it's a fun thing to say, and technically it's true. The sort of slippery part there is "novel," but for the purposes of National Novel Writing Month, 50,000 words is a novel, and I'm over one-fifth of the way there. Heck, I'm nearly a quarter of the way there, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. And of course it helps if the 50,000 words all work together somehow, in some semblance of connection, as in with a plot and characters and scenes and whatnot, but it's not critical. I'm not worrying about these things. That's the whole point. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be.

So I was sitting there in Barnes and Noble writing my novel, and I overheard some guy ask one of the employees this question: "Can you tell me how to get to Borders?" The B&N employee was pleasant, even almost like purposely outgoing and friendly. He gave good directions. And when the questioner walked away, the B&N employee said "thank you." Is that professionalism, or what? Is customer service supposed to serve the competition?

Hi. I'm not dead, although this blog has been. I hope to get back to regular posting next week. At the moment I'm cracking out a few law applications with the silly idea of maybe making some early-decision deadlines. My fingers are crossed and all that (which makes it hard to post to a blog, you know?).

A bit of fun to tide you over: Fans of Wallace and Gromit will be happy to hear they're headed for the big screen in a couple of years. For now, you can get a taste of wacky British animated fun by watching their brand new short, "Soccamatic". It's no "The Wrong Trousers," but it's still good fun.

On the comic-strip front, "Get Your War On" is back with a new installment covering a selection of recent world events in its signature, idiosyncratic way. And if you're a true fan, you can now buy the book.

What's going to happen to HBO's hit series, "The Sopranos"? According to this story in the NYT:

Officially, the show is to conclude at the end of next season, its fifth. But that plan may be changing. Executives are seriously discussing extending the show to a sixth season, though they acknowledge that it will entirely depend on the decision of the show's creator, David Chase. The show's cast, including its star, James Gandolfini, is already under contract for six seasons, if the producers decide to extend the show's run.

This is good news. I'd heard that the show was only scheduled initially for four seasons. So now we know we can count on at least one more full season, which means Tony can't die yet, which means he better get serious about getting Paulie and Silvio under control!

In my inbox today was a message that ended with the following signature:

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die You will rejoice and the world will cry.

Working on it.

If you're looking for a cool job, and if you have some "webmaster" experience and want to be a progressive webmaster, here's your chance: The American Prospect is hiring a webmaster. The job would even let you work (in a vague way) on Tapped, the TAP weblog. Sounds very cool to me, but unfortunately I don't really know Perl and, well, I'm supposed to be gearing up to go to law school. Oh yeah, there's that.

BTW: I learned about this job via the supercool resource known as Idealist.org. Tell Idealist what kind of work, internship, or volunteer opportunity you're looking for, and they'll send you daily emails listing opportunities that might fit your interests—nationwide or global. Definitely a place to look if you ever consider a career change.

[ed note: the following is a bit dated—written a little while ago for another venue—but it's closely related to the post below about anti-academic vitriol, so.... enjoy!]

So you thought academia was a meritocracy, huh? You thought the smartest people, with the best ideas and abilities, who worked really hard, were the ones who ended up with tenure? Think again: More and more people (especially women) are being denied tenure because they're not nice enough or don't "fit in" with other faculty. In academia, if you play nice with others you're called "collegial," but:

"Historically, collegiality has not infrequently been associated with ensuring homogeneity, and hence with practices that exclude persons on the basis of their difference from a perceived norm," the statement [from the American Association of University Professors] said. "An absence of collegiality ought never, by itself, to constitute a basis for nonreappointment, denial of tenure or dismissal for cause."

However:

Because tenure reviews are confidential, and based so deeply on personal judgment, it is often difficult to assess precisely what went wrong with a particular candidate.

As if the Humanities job market wasn't bad enough, now you have to be nice, too? :-)

The fact that promotions in academic fields (particularly the Humanities) can so easily become capricious and personal only proves the truth of Noam Chomsky's assertion that American universities are normalizing (read: brainwashing) institutions:

The universities, for example, are not independent institutions. There may be independent people scattered around in them but that is true of the media as well. And it’s generally true of corporations. It’s true of Fascist states, for that matter. But the institution itself is parasitic. It’s dependent on outside sources of support and those sources of support, such as private wealth, big corporations with grants, and the government (which is so closely interlinked with corporate power you can barely distinguish them), they are essentially what the universities are in the middle of. People within them, who don’t adjust to that structure, who don’t accept it and internalize it (you can’t really work with it unless you internalize it, and believe it); people who don’t do that are likely to be weeded out along the way, starting from kindergarten, all the way up. There are all sorts of filtering devices to get rid of people who are a pain in the neck and think independently. Those of you who have been through college know that the educational system is very highly geared to rewarding conformity and obedience; if you don’t do that, you are a troublemaker. So, it is kind of a filtering device which ends up with people who really honestly (they aren’t lying) internalize the framework of belief and attitudes of the surrounding power system in the society. The elite institutions like, say, Harvard and Princeton and the small upscale colleges, for example, are very much geared to socialization. If you go through a place like Harvard, most of what goes on there is teaching manners; how to behave like a member of the upper classes, how to think the right thoughts, and so on.

After nearly 20 years of formal education (gasp!), I still feel like I haven't learned how to think the right thoughts and how to behave like a member of the upper classes. More evidence that I need to find a new gig.

The other day Christian contributed a cogent mini-defense of academia as a response to a post in which I was being particularly snide about the academic life. As I noted, I agree with most of what (s)he? said, some of which includes:

Although no job is perfect, a career in academia has many unique benefits. What other job allows you the opportunity to work on the projects that interest you (and ONLY on the projects that interest you)? What other job allows you to change the projects you work on when your interests change? What other job allows you so much control over your own success and failure? What other job pays you to think and write about things that interest you? What other jobs allow you to determine your own deadlines? What other job pays you to create works of doubtful commercial value? What other job permits you so much flexibility in determining your work hours? What other job permits you so much flexibility in getting away to visit family and loved ones?

I suppose the point above that's most flawed in my experience is that academia allows you "so much control over your own success or failure." I mean, in theory, it seems that if you're smart, work hard, write well, publish, etc., you'll succeed. And it's true, these things will likely get you tenure, if that's success. Of course, along the way you'll have to kiss ass to varying degrees (depending on your department and its preferences and rituals), you may have to hide or tone down any political commitments you might have, and you may very well not be able to work on whatever you want, but be forced instead to struggle to make publishable a dissertation you might prefer never to see again. Also, if you are trying to get tenure at a major (public) university that relies heavily on graduate and temporary labor (as most now do), you'll also have to grin and bear your university's cavalier attitude toward the erosion of tenure and the abuse and exploitation of grads and adjuncts. What this means is you'll have to go to sleep every night knowing that you teach less than the grads and adjuncts in your department, yet get paid 3-10 times as much as they do. You'll also have to accept the fact that class sizes continue to grow and the quality of the education your institution provides its students continues to suffer because universities are now run like corporations and the bottom line is all that matters. In practical terms this means you'll have to accept that your department's purpose isn't actually to "teach" anymore at all, rather you'll be developing and executing an efficient "instructional delivery model." This will also make you an "instructional delivery vehicle," which should also make you feel just grand.

Of course, any sacrifices you have to make in order to get tenure will be worth it because once you have tenure you'll be free to do what you want, say what you want, make your own schedule, etc. Right? Well, yes, in theory. The current political climate means you'll still have to watch what you say and what groups you join or advocate for, but a certain amount of this would happen in any field. But here's the deal: By the time you get to that point, you're very likely to be so compromised and exhausted and indebted to the system that has granted you tenure, that you won't really care about much more than publishing a new book every couple of years and keeping your teaching and service-work loads light.[1]

In my experience, "tenured radical" is a misnomer, if not a blatant impossibility. If tenure provided all the freedom people always imagine, why don't we have a truly radical professoriate? Why aren't faculty in the U.S. the most outspoken and active citizens in our society? Why are faculty afraid to take controversial positions in the classroom and in public? Why don't faculty have any solidarity to use the power of their vaunted "freedom" to demand that education be properly funded in our country, rather than being sacrificed to corporate interests (often masquerading as "scientific" interests)?

Having said all that, let me say this: Academics are a truly vital—invaluable, even—part of our society. As a class, they have done the world incalculable good, and will continue to do so, even in their increasingly compromised and besieged state. How is it that I can sound so anti-academic one moment, yet praise academics the next? My answer is that, as Christian notes above, no profession is perfect. It just so happens that I've decided that—for me personally—academia's flaws outweigh its benefits. I'd simply rather do something else with my life. Maybe I'm dreaming to think that I can find some profession with better cost-benefit ratio for me [2], but I'm ready to find out. None of what I say here is really meant to discourage anyone from going into academia, or to disparage academia, per se. I'm just saying it's not for me.

Footnotes:
[1] See also the next post (above) about whether academia is really the "free" meritocracy it appears to be.

[2] Sorry about the crude economic metaphor, but I can't think of a better way to say this. My mind has been colonized by capital. Damn! The matrix has me, too!

Along with the new workload of the fall semester, and after nearly a year of complete physical sloth (no real exercise), I've started taking spinning classes. They're brutal.

Spinning came along and became the big new exercise activity during the years I was leading bike trips for a living. (Its popularity seems to have dissipated into pilates and tae-bo and I don't know what else.) At first I scoffed. People would come on our trips and say, "I haven't biked much before, but I've been taking spinning classes so I should be fine." These were almost always urban women, often from New York. (A high percentage of our guests were from major U.S. cities, and New Yorkers seemed more eager than most to take our trips. Of course, the demographics varied by trip and by destination. For example, our Maine trips generally got more people from CA and the midwest, while our "western" trips (Utah, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming) got more east-coasters. It makes sense. Still, it was rare to have a trip without at least a small New York contingent. But I digress....) The most memorable was a woman who was convinced by her husband to take one our highest-mileage trips—Bryce, Zion, and Grand Canyon National Parks. It's a nine-day trip, with one century (hundred-mile day), several other 80-90-mile days, and lots of big (by Backroads standards) climbs. As I was fitting her on her bike I asked her if she was ready to ride several hundred miles that week, and she gave me the extreme spinning response: "Actually, I've never ridden a bike that moved before, but I've taken a lot of spinning classes and my spinning instructor thought I'd do fine."

You've got to be kidding me! I thought. You've never ridden a real bike and you want to go out and ride 60 miles today!? Including a big (approx. 1000') climb to start, and then a 20 mile downhill on winding mountain roads? It sounded like a recipe for disaster to me. But as I'm fond of saying, I've been wrong before.

The woman seemed at first like she was going to be miserable. She could hardly stay on her bike and couldn't seem to figure out the gears (spinning bikes don't have gears or brakes, just tension knobs). But she gradually got the hang of it while circling the parking lot, and although she was nervous, she headed off to conquer the real road. Her first couple of days were a bit rough as she got used to things and got over the new fears that came with actually moving when she pedalled and seeing the pavement fly by beneath her. But by Day 3 she was kicking ass and having a great time. She was both fast and strong, so she could cruise on the flats and hammer on the hills. On the century she just wanted to keep going after she'd done her 110 miles. She still braked way too much on downhills, which always seemed like such a waste of good gravity to me, but I bet she figured she got a better workout if she didn't allow downhills to give her too much momentum for whatever came next. Whatever; she had a great time and had so much energy it was amazing.

Anyway, that extreme spinning Backroads guest made a spinning believer out of me, so when I decided I needed some sort of organized exercise to give me the discipline to get into shape again, spinning it was.So far I've been to two classes, and after about 25-30 minutes, I've been completely wiped out both times. We're talking zero energy, tank completely empty, having nothing left to give. And that's exactly what I was looking for so that's fine. What's weird is that I haven't really felt sore afterward. How can I work that hard and not be working any new muscles to the point of soreness? Am I doing something wrong?

School has begun. I teach two (undergraduate) classes, take two (graduate) classes, and grade papers for an hourly wage on the side. Lots of busy. I've decided that what kills me about academia is the summer and the regular (and rather lengthy breaks): All that time off is forever an unfulfilled promise. You begin teaching thinking you'll have such a great schedule with big, huge breaks on holidays and during the summer, but this never turns out to be the case.

The cycle begins every August when you wake up and realize that the summer is almost over. You panic and try to pack as much in to the final weeks off as possible, which usually means you have to catch up on mundane chores like yardwork or whatever that you've put off all summer. This means you don't really prepare well for the fall (by spending more time developing your syllabi and lesson plans, or by reading ahead for the classes you'll be taking). Since you start a bit behind, work begins piling up quickly and you just as quickly start mentally scheduling fall break (Thanksgiving) as a catch-up time. Work through fall break, taking a day (maybe two) to lay in front of the tv and let your brain have a bit of a breather. Then bam! The semester's over, it's winter break (Christmas), and you've postponed so much over the course of the semester that you spend half or more of the "break" finishing up a paper that you had to ask for an extension on, so that again you start the spring semester behind and without adequately preparing lessons and materials for the classes you're going to teach and take, which means you're behind when spring break rolls around so you work through that, too, and when May finally comes and summer is supposed to begin, you probably have a paper (or by this time, two) dragging into June, and as soon as you finish that (or while you're finishing it) you're frantically looking for some sort of summer income to make it through the lean months and if you're lucky you find some kind of teaching- or editing-related gig that provides you (at most) something like $1000/mo. during summer, meaning you still can't really take any breaks because you have to work and because you can't afford to travel or indulge in any extras, and then it's late August and fall semester is starting and you haven't had the time or energy to prepare your lessons and class materials and....

....and it all begins again.

The bottom line is this: You get less vacation as an academic, not more. (And this isn't even getting into the fact that you never get a free weekend since weekends are filled with grading and class prep and catching up on the reading you fell behind on during the week.)

Don't you wish you could be a college English graduate student and instructor!? Good times, man. Goooood times.

(Of course, some people love the academic life, and thrive in it, and to them I say "More power to you." However, if you're thinking of applying to graduate school in the Humanities, let me humbly suggest that you not make the same mistakes I made and ignore all advice along the lines of the above about how it's often not all it's cracked up to be. One thing I've definitely learned in the past three years is that sometimes we should listen to the people who have gone down the road before us. Perhaps that's why I've been so obsessed with finding opinions and information about law school and law before jumping in with both feet...)