Summer Work

People keep asking me what I'm going to do this summer, and I still don't know. I've been looking, and it seems a lot of internship application deadlines have already passed. I figured I'd just work temp jobs or something. Then again, I could do what Dave Winer is doing:

I'll be visiting Dartmouth College (in New Hampshire) on May 9, and then will return during the summer, perhaps often, to interview candidates, and write about it on my weblog.

I wish.

Could weblogs improve our elections? Winer thinks so. I'm not sure, but there's a lot of potential there and I'd love to be part of testing the hypothesis. Philip Greenspun has some good thoughts and comments on ways of doing just that. But since I don't have a private stash of cash that will enable me to spend the summer following candidates around and blogging about it, I'll need to come up with a better idea. If you have any suggestions or tips for finding something interesting and useful to do this summer in the D.C. area, please let me know.

Posted 01:00 PM | meta-blogging

Damn Debt

jd2b recently linked to some uplifting thoughts about the debt involved in law school. First, the title of "The Indentured Generation" pretty much sums it up: People are going deeper and deeper into debt, which then limits the choices they make in their lives. The best thing about this is that the demographic hardest-hit by this phenomenon is, not surprisingly, the group of people w/the fewest resources to begin with:

Students who graduate with the highest levels of credit-card debt also have the highest levels of loan debt and are more likely to have attended expensive four-year colleges and be from low-income families. This suggests that they're either using their credit cards to supplement their loans for educational expenses or for the higher level of personal expenditures that are the norm at institutions geared toward the wealthy.

Gotta love those "institutions geared toward the wealthy." And if that wasn't enough to shock you silly and make you immediately write your law school to withdraw this fall, there's more. Fun.

Finally, on a related note, check out this gem from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Four-year colleges have increased their financial-aid offerings in the past decade, but students with the highest incomes have received the largest increases, according to a new report by the U.S. Department of Education.

Sounds fair to me. Not. So if we're going to continue stacking the deck so that the rich can just get richer, does this mean the poor will just eat cake?

Posted 12:51 PM | law school

Blog Design Notes

After praising DG's innovative blogging yesterday, it's time to promote Andrew Raff's Shameless Self-Promotion. Raff's great blog innovation is the "Linky Linky" column on the right-hand side of his blog, which contains "miscellaneous links that didn't quite make the blog." What a brilliant idea! How many times do you find an article you'd like to make note of, but about which you don't really have a lot to say? Often, there's no need to say much about these articles or sites—they speak for themselves. Yet, who wants a bunch of little one-line posts that say nothing? "Linky Linky" gives you the link, but lets you off the hook for commentary.

Let's just say the days for ai's current design are numbered.

Posted 06:10 PM | Comments (1) | meta-blogging

iBook Design Flaw

In an effort to be a fair mac partisan (whatever that might mean), I just noticed a possible flaw in my otherwise wonderful iBook: The back of the screen is too transparent. This is a problem because if you use the computer in situations where bright light is hitting it from behind, your screen will dim significantly. Would this happen if the plastics behind the screen were more opaque?

See, I'm no mac fanatic. No, really, I'm not.

Posted 06:09 PM | Comments (4) | mac geek

Thank You Labor

Happy May Day, everyone. Next time you begin to doubt that labor unions are a good thing, ask yourself if you enjoy your weekends. If you only have a minute, read this short history of May Day; if you have a few minutes, there's much more to the story.

In Finland, May Day is known as Vappu and I can attest to the fact that this is a party you won't soon forget.

Posted 07:42 AM | general politics

Popdex Picks

Officials: 9/11 Was Main Reason for War: Well, no kidding? This is old news—the peace movement has been saying this for months—but at least ABC finally deems it worth serious mention.

Revealed: How the Road to War Was Paved With Lies: Yes! Yes! We know! So why doesn't this matter? Ah, gee, it's all just so complex. Let's go buy another dvd that glorifies war or promises that the American Dream is still alive. We'll think about important stuff like war and lying governments tomorrow. Perhaps instead of calling ourselves "Americans" we should call ourselves Candideians" or "Scarlett O'harans" because if we ever start to suspect that this isn't the best of all possible worlds we always seem to want to think about it tomorrow. Tomorrow may be coming faster than we think.

Gibson Kicks the Blogging Habit: William Gibson (author of the ground-breaking, perhaps genre-establishing Neuromancer and, most recently, Pattern Recognition) has given up his blog. I rarely found the time to read it, but when I did it was always worthwhile. It's ok, though; I'd rather have another book from him than a daily post on a weblog.

RIAA's Rosen 'Writing Iraqi Copyright Laws': This is rich. The leader of the "sharing is illegal" thugs is going to set up the intellectual property system in Iraq? Up next: Former Enron leaders will write the rules for financial reporting. Iraq is going to be one heckuva place to be a capitalist. But, um, perhaps Iraqis should get water and electricity first?

Posted 07:10 AM | general politics

Ditzy Genius Really Is

Tip: If you're not getting the daily lowdown from Ditzy Genius, you're missing out. DG often uses an innovative posting structure I haven't seen anywhere else, beginning with a Quote of the Day (usually humorous), followed by an Article of the Day (also often humorous, but always interesting) w/pithy comment, followed by DG's thoughts of the day on a wide range of topics, from law school to work to entertainment to shopping. Some posts also feature punchy lists like "5 Comments About Stuff in the News" that allow DG to cover a lot of ground in a short space. DG's posts are always funny, always provocative, and I never finish a post feeling like I've wasted my time reading it. If I thought I could pull it off, I'd copy DG's format, but I just don't think I've got what it takes. Check it out—you won't be sorry you did (And this despite the fact that DG is not only a Windoze-user, but a MS-defender, as well. ;-) )

Two recent examples of DG goodness: Last Friday DG pointed to the BBC Chief's criticism of U.S. media. (Think about this the next time you think about a "free press." I guess thought police work better when they're in our heads (and on our televisions) instead of on the street wearing uniforms.) And yesterday DG offered up a link to Ted Rall's scathing little ditty, "Bush Comes Clean: It was about oil." Finally, don't forget today's lesson about the Stereotypical Ghetto Princess.

See what I mean? Varied, provocative, funny, and always interesting. Get your dose of Ditzy Genius today!

(Disclaimer: No animals were harmed during the writing of this post, nor have I received cash or any other form of material compensation from DG or any of its affiliates or subsidiaries. Void where prohibited and among people who wish the whole U.S. would just go "red" in 2004. And in my best legalese: YMMV.)

Posted 06:45 PM | Comments (2) | meta-blogging

Completely Random

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.

Posted 06:34 PM | life generally

Building Karma Telepathically

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.

Posted 09:17 AM | life generally

DFW

Fans of David Foster Wallace should not miss his interview with Paul Brownfield for the LA Times. Wallace is the author of Inifinite Jest, which Brownfield fairly accurately (if reductively) summarizes as:

a 1,079-page, obsessively footnoted, high-comic novel -- that made Wallace a literary cause celebre. The book is set in a near future in which years are not numbered but corporate-sponsored ("Year of the Trial-Sized Dove Bar," etc.), and within its world are a junior tennis academy, a band of Quebecois separatists and addicts of various stripes and substances.

Wallace is something of a recluse so this interview is a rather rare look into his life at the moment. The interview touches on his new life in CA (he's the "Roy Edward Disney Professor of Creative Writing" at Pomona College), and on the whole Franzen/Oprah fiasco, about which this quintessentially DFW excursion:

[Wallace] expressed "admiration mixed with a mild contempt for the increasingly savvy way" Franzen handled the controversy that ensued when he spurned Winfrey's selection of "The Corrections" for her book club. He said the Franzen incident illustrates the trouble with whirlwind book tours, wherein the author moves in a state of surreal fatigue from airport to hotel room.

"There's something very uncomfortable about the whole thing, and yet on the other hand, what kind of prima donna says, 'Thank you, major corporation, for your advance, but now you're not allowed to use your marketing tools to try to recoup your investment'? You know, the head just goes around and around and around."

...

"There's a weird illogic about it, because the less important literary fiction gets to the culture, the harder those corporations who for whatever reason keep wanting to publish it, have to market it. So in order to keep it alive, you have to murder it to save it."

"Shall I say something so obvious that you just won't even put it in the article?" Wallace said. "A book is also a product. At least the books that we're talking about.... Even a book that's about living in a culture that relentlessly turns everything into a product is a product. There are not very complicated ironies built into that situation. But you know that happens maybe four or five times a year. There are these legions of very smart, nice, usually Seven Sisters-educated young publicists for all the different publishing houses whose entire job is networking and lunching and hanging out with the book reviewers and opinion makers again and again ... hoping the cultural and marketing motor will catch, which one out of 200 times it does.

"At a certain point," Wallace said finally, "I just stopped thinking about it."

If you didn't find that both fascinating and funny, don't read Wallace.

Posted 08:11 PM | ai books

Thanks

Thanks to jd2b for the mention w/regard to the comments on this post (the link was posted on April 23). Note to the folks at jd2b if you happen to read this: Can you add permalinks, please? And comments? Your readers will thank you!

Posted 08:37 AM | Comments (1) | law school

Sold?

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.)

Posted 02:10 PM | Comments (3) | life generally

Daily Outrage

I know I should stop this. Really, I do. By "this" I mean the regular posts about the newest outrage from Yubbledew, Inc. I mean, what's the point? The conservative, imperialist offensive is so outrageous there's no way to keep up. (And besides, it just invites me to use high-flown rhetoric that makes me sound like a raving partisan. Oh wait, perhaps I am a raving partisan.) In the past week we get this from Republican Senator Rick Santorum:

Santorum compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. He also said the right to privacy does not exist in the Constitution. *

And, of course, Yubbldew, Inc. (figureheaded by "the most dangerous president ever") backs Santorum all the way. Wonderful. (See also the full transcript of Santorum's comments and Greg Goelzhauser's links to blawg comments on this issue.)

Meanwhile, Dumsfeld (Mr. Untidy)also continues to spew his own special style of imperialist hubris as he dictates exactly what the future will not hold for Iraq:

"A vocal minority clamoring to transform Iraq in Iran's image will not be permitted to do so," he said. "We will not allow the Iraqi people's democratic transition to be hijacked by those who might wish to install another form of dictatorship."

Where do you even start with that? If it's "the Iraqi people's" future we're talking about, then if they decide to follow their religious leaders instead of the leaders the U.S. picks for them to follow, what grounds does the U.S. have to stop them? And, if it's "the Iraqi people's" future, then won't it only be a "democratic transition" if the Iraqi people want it to be? Enter Rumsfeld, blowing the whole little lie wide open. The future of the Iraqi people depends little on their desires; instead, it's going to be dictated by the U.S., or more precisely, U.S. interests:

Like one of the 19th-century European colonial empires, the Bush government is calling on Bechtel, Halliburton, and other major corporations to take over the job of running the Iraqi colony. These companies are to act in the name of the government. They are to be paid out of our taxes. It might just as well be the British East India company. The colonial corporations become the instrument of the nation-state, in this case to undertake the reconstruction of Iraq. They, not the government, are the purveyors of laws and customs and democratic ideals.

And even as I wonder how those who supported this war can see a difference between American imperialism today and British imperialism 150 years ago, I have to remind myself that such distinctions don't matter to neoliberals and neoconservatives because everyone else on the planet is, by definition, just plain wrong. These distinctions also don't matter because everything comes down to markets and money, which is why the empire being protected and developed in Iraq is not a United States Empire, but the Empire of Western Corporate Interests. The U.S. gov't. and military are the instruments we see at work, but they are not working for their own benefits, they are working for the corporations that will profit from those markets.

What's more, this imperialism is happening here at home. The Yubbledew, Inc. agenda is clearly calculated to bankrupt the public sector (via tax cuts and military spending) in order to make the world in its privatized, corporate-controlled, someone's-going-to-earn-a-profit-from-every-breath-you-take worldview. (As Eric Alterman notes, Yubbledew, Inc's actions certainly aren't calculated to increase security within the U.S. Oh, and in this world you can't be gay, ok?) It's much like Morpheus' explanation of "The Matrix":

Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.... Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

Which brings me back to where I started: What's the point of these political rants? If you have to see the Corporate Empire for yourself, my thoughts on these matters aren't going to do any good. I don't have any red pills, and I am not "The One" ("yeah, the Oracle hit me with that, too"). I realize that. Yet, you still find these rants at ai because they are a growing record—for me, mostly—of where we are, where we're going, and how we're getting there. I compose these posts because they cover things I don't want to forget and because tomorrow I want to be able to easily find the articles and quotations published today. It's ok if you don't read them. I understand.

Footnote:
* I don't know what to say about Santorum's claim that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to privacy—I'll save that for after I've taken Con Law, maybe. (Anyone care to explain?) But on the subject of, um, "creative" readings of the Constitution it's worth noting that Molly Ivins' latest column in The Progressive quotes Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia saying the government has great power to ignore civil rights during war time. (Unfortunately the column doesn't seem to be online.) Scalia said:

The Constitution just sets minimums. Most of the rights that you enjoy go way beyond what the Constitution requires.

Ivins replies:

He is dead wrong. The only right affected by war is the Third Amendment: "No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house, without he consent of the owner, nor in tie of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law." The Ninth Amendment specifically says: "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

So what's story here? Ivins is no lawyer (I don't think), but is Scalia "dead wrong"?

Posted 01:47 PM | general politics

Safari Beta 2

From about 199-2000 or 2001, web browsing on a Mac meant you had one choice: Internet Explorer. IE worked fine, but it was MS, and since it was the only real player in the browser market, you just had to accept whatever MS gave you, which wasn't much. Opera and iCab tried to add some new features to the browsing experience, but since they were buggy and didn't have all the basic features IE offered, they never gained much ground. When OS X came out, the default browser was still IE, but the Omni Group came on strong with OmniWeb, which showed a lot of promise. Of course, then came Mozilla, then Chimera (now Camino) and the mac browsing market was blown wide open. Enter Apple with Safari, now in its second "public beta." It's fast, it works on almost everything, it's not MS, and it adds some neat features. Here's a tip from Small Dog Electronics' weekly email newsletter, Kibbles and Bytes #312:

Here's a handy tip if you frequently use a particular set of sites and want to open them all in tabs. We use quite a few Web-based applications here at Small Dog, and I use this trick to open a window in Safari with each of these URLs open and then minimize it to have it in my dock for quick access. If you take a group of bookmarks and put them in a folder and then put that folder into the "bookmarks bar," you can select "Open in Tabs" and all the URLs will load in their separate tabs. Even faster, you can simply "command-click" on the folder and it will open all the enclosed links in tabs. If you have a bunch of tabs open and want to close all but one, you can option-click on one of the "close" buttons on a tab and all but one will close. A very handy little undocumented feature.

Also in the Mac world, Apple's scheduled a "media event" for tomorrow and it's calling it "Music to Your Ears." Will it announce a new online music distribution service? We'll see. For those of you who prefer Windoze or who have wondered what might be appealing about the Mac OS, check out "A Windows user spends a week with a Mac" for a mostly fair "hands-on" comparison of the two OSs.

Posted 12:00 PM | mac geek

Master Satirist?

Reading Philip Greenspun's blog is like reading "Alice In Wonderland" —you never know what's real and what isn't. I mentioned Greenspun a while back when he made the claim that public schools should not teach critical thinking. Of course, if you check out his biography, it becomes pretty clear that he was being facetious; he just does it so well that you constantly have to ask yourself, "Is he kidding?"

Greenspun followed that little piece a few days later with this polemic which argues that schools should be in session for 50 weeks each year, 12 hours each day, to allow students to get a B.A. in 2 or 2.5 years so they can get out into the working world. Hmm... The comments on this post are all over the place, but I think this one nailed Greenspun's intent:

What I think you're obliquely poking at with your mention of cubicle farms is that higher education (indeed, all of what passes for "education" in this country) is nothing more than boot camp for drones in the ranks of corporate feudalism. The mesne lords insist on that funny piece of pseudo-parchment not because of what a potential drone has learned during his or her sentence at the university, but because it's proof of qualification. What the paper means-- especially when combined with excellent grades-- is that the graduate has a proven ability to devote the requisite hours to grinding out arbitrary and capricious assignments of often dubious relevance as ordered by Authority Figures. That's exactly what's expected of corporate drones. So putting drones-in-training in cubicles for 12 hours a day, interrupted only by class meetings, is the ideal training for the drone-hood to which all students aspire.

Does this describe your experience with formal education? This attitude—that education must lead to drone-hood—has been the bane of my educational life as long as I can remember. Now I'm going to law school, which may take the exercise of "grinding out arbitrary and capricious assignments of often dubious relevance as orderd by Authority Figrues" to all new extremes. Again I wonder: Am I insane?

p.s.: Greenspun has since posted "Teaching them to become lawyers," which paints a far different picture of lawyers than I've been getting from lawyers themselves. In a story about the history of broadcast radio, Greenspun says:

The only people in the drama who made millions without taking tremendous risks, working very hard, and occasionally going bankrupt, were ... the lawyers in the patent and regulatory disputes.

I wonder if the lawyers involved would tell a different story.

Posted 11:54 AM | general politics