Bull Moose Strikes Back

• Yet another study where they could have saved the grant money by just asking me. In my house if you were born under President Ford you took the most beatings. If you were born in President Reagan’s second term the least. there was a pretty linear line for beatings vs. year born between those two points.
• “Prostitutes are a product, like cereal,” said one man. “You go to the grocery, pick the brand you want and pay for it. It’s business.” Hmm…. I just got a good idea for a niche trademark practice.
• I noticed that Senator Obama used “The Rising” as his theme music in North Carolina. That made me think: If The Boss is looking for another horrific terrorist attack to use as the inspiration for another great album, he’s endorsed the right man.
• How much wood do you think Al Gore was sporting as the death toll from the Burma typhoon kept going up? He couldn’t hold his wad even a tasteful period before blaming it on manbearpig global warming. Because everyone knows there were never powerful typhoons before the industrial revolution.
• I flipped to a random Simpsons DVD and played three consecutive episodes the other night. It turned out to be three Season 5 episodes that had a now-dead guest star in each one: “$pringfield” with Robert Goulet, “Bart’s Inner Child” with James Brown, and “Boy Scoutz ‘N the Hood” with Ernest Borgnine. I wonder if a show has been on too long when each episode from the fifth year it was on contains a different dead person. UPDATE: Apparently Ernest Borgnine is still alive. Who’d have thought?
• Today on the ferry I had three Mormons share my booth with me. Far be it from me to stand in judgment of any man’s religion - as long as that man isn’t trying to kill me in the name of it - but those people are too nice. Maybe we should all be Mormon. For how wacky I find of some of their beliefs, I can’t say I’ve ever had an ill word to say about any Mormon I’ve personally known, other than being too nice, and I’m generally not one to spare ill words.
• And what’s with the all the good looking Mormon women? Included in the people sitting with me was a young couple - a kind of ugly dude and an extremely cute girl. I can see them at the meeting where they assign husbands: “Sorry, to get a plain dude you need to be smokin’ hot. In the Mormon community extremely cute only gets you kind of ugly.”

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The suspicious ferry riders have been found and cleared. I’m sure the Seattle PI feels vindicated in not running their picture. They shouldn’t. They should feel like they dodged a bullet.

I’m writing this on the ferry, and there are about 1000 people on board with me right now. The ferries on the routes we meet up with on the way into Seattle have even more people on them. The Seattle PI decided that it was OK to gamble with our safety because running pictures of olive skinned people in connection with the word “suspicious” made them feel funny in their politically correct pants.

Never mind that 25 of the last 27 people to commit horrific terrorist attacks inside the borders of the United States happened to have olive skin, if they look middle eastern, they must be given a greater benefit of the doubt, right? And spare me any politically correct lectures. From my my college roommate of Pakistani decent to my Iraqi and Iranian first bosses to my wife’s Iranian uncle, I am well aware that Middle Eastern does not equal terrorist. But that does not translate into someone should never be called a suspicious person if they have olive skin.

I’m not sure where the Seattle PI got the idea that one has to be convicted of a crime before their picture can be shown in the paper, especially if the FBI wants to talk to them. Especially when they were acting weird enough to get the attention of a ferry crew that is used to all kinds of weird behavior, and see many more than two dark skinned people a year.

And what horrible fate befell these men when they talked to the FBI? They checked out their story and cleared them. What a horrible fate! The men were here on business and had never seen a car ferry before. Fine. No one’s rights were violated, no one was whisked off to Gitmo in the middle of the night. You couldn’t have helped out with that Seattle PI? You’d rather play your idiotic political correctness games with the safety of thousands on a what has been established to be a possible terrorist target? Jerks.

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Ugh… My son gave me the cold that put him out of commission. I came down with it on Friday, and it hasn’t gotten much better. The main problem with all of that is that I have my exam in Income Tax Law tonight and was supposed to be studying for it over the weekend. I did study, but it’s hard to concentrate either coughing and blowing my nose or drugged up on cold medication. That’s also the choice I face for taking the exam.

Fortunately the material is pretty straight forward, so hopefully I can concentrate enough to pull a decent grade. It is a 4-credit class, after all.

UPDATE: Done! I think I did pretty well, though I think I might have boned one of the Section 1031 questions by not watching the original basis close enough. Oh well, that’s just one subpart of one question, and the answer I gave was probably chalk full of partial credit. Feels like a B+, though there might be enough graduating full-time 3Ls who have ceased giving a crap about their class standing since they’ll never pull out of the bottom third of the class, that maybe I can sneak an A-. Either way, I won’t lose any sleep over it.

Three classes and six credits down, two classes and five credits to go.

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THE BEST-KNOWN appearance by a Bull Moose here in recent years came in 2000, as Sen. John McCain brought his “straight-talk express” to Seattle and then took it across the water to Bremerton.

Says Comrade Joel Connelly before laying ground work for what is sure to be the Seattle PI’s war on McCain to start after the Democratic nominee is settled. Washington might be a critical state and a real fight for Hillary against McCain. (It won’t matter for Obama, but Washington might be one of the ten states that would tip for him if he gets the nod.)

First of all, the people of Seattle and Bremerton are treated to a Bull Moose sighting almost every day.

Second of all, while his claim to the Teddy Roosevelt mantle was one of the things that attracted me to McCain in 2000, I think that needs to be reevaluated. McCain supports a strong, aggressive foreign policy, at least talks a good game on conservation, claims to be against corruption to a fault (I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he learned his lesson after the Keating Five scandal), and can be dangerous when pissed off - all TResque.

However, I’m pretty sure TR wouldn’t close the prison at Gitmo. TR was one of the men responsible for having Gitmo in the first place, and I’m sure he’d love to see it being used as a good place to store dangerous enemies to the United States.

Second, though McCain has changed his tune on this a little bit, I don’t think TR would be very excited about the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill. Allowing Spanish to become the defacto large minority first language and allowing those in this country illegally to march down the streets of our major cities proudly waving the Mexican flag on May Day probably would have made his blood boil, as this oft-quoted passage from 1919 would suggest:

In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

Since McCain seems set on continuing to use the Bull Moose mantle to get the votes of people like me, I wish he’d recalibrate himself a little, especially since he is starting to look like a lock for the presidency.

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The biggest mystery of the Iraq war for me is no longer “Why did Saddam pretend to have WMDs,” but it is why the “Mission Accomplished” banner on the Lincoln was so misconstrued. (Well, besides the people who were intentionally misconstruing it.) But I can’t really remember what I would have thought about such a thing before living in a Navy town.

I’m guessing it would have been the same, though. Then again, I have always had a larger than average interest in military things… so I don’t know.

In any case, I have a hard time taking an article seriously when it dates “American involvement” in the Revolutionary War as July 1776 to April 1783. Technically, I suppose that’s correct, since it was technically a British civil war before July 4, 1776, but one doesn’t think of George Washington commanding rebel British troops in 1775 during the siege of Boston. Or at least I don’t…

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I’m getting pretty good at these screening interviews. Maybe one day I’ll actually get one past the goalie and get a call back. (Meaning I’m getting good at them inasmuch that the reasons for not getting a callback is the answers, and not the manner in which they are given.)

It’d actually be nice if it was this firm that gave me a shot at a callback. It sounds wonderful. Their billable requirements are under 1800 hours, meaning very little late night or weekend work. (Billables are generally about 2/3 - 3/4 the hours at work.) They do interesting work - I’ll patent the hell out of some fruit trees. And it is located in an area that is 1) an outdoor recreation paradise 2) contains more people who will vote for McCain than Obama/Clinton (unless they abstain for McCain reasons) and yet 3) is not too far away from the MLB/NFL/concert venues of Seattle.

Here was my question for the interviewer that I was fretting over: “It’s April 30 and you’re interviewing for this summer. Is there really anyone better than me left at this point?”

OK, not really. I asked about the requirement of volunteering in the community to advance at the firm or some such jive.

He said they are screening 10 people. That means I have to beat 9. Except for the guy interviewing before me walked out of the room with a three-day beard and no tie. So I have to beat 8. Plus, I think the guy behind me was late. 7.

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I love this time of year. It’s the last day of classes, and I’m killing time before my interview sitting on a couch outside of one of the 1L classes. One of the classes just ended and a bunch of them just realized that law school was a huge mistake and are now consoling each other. That’s a defining moment in every law student’s career. The “WTF did I do this for?” moment.

You’re trapped now, suckers! Just like the rest of us! BWA HA HA HA!

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A seventeen year-old Sheboygan girl, 5 months pregnant with her third kid, smacks her baby daddy upside the head with a waffle iron. Kind of makes me homesick.

I’m going to assume she went to South before transferring to Riverview “Academy.” Or quite possibly she came right from Fond du Lac to go to Riverview.

I have to hand it to her. I raised a lot of hell in Sheboygan, but I don’t think I ever hit someone in the head with a waffle iron.

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I have one of those law firm screening interviews tomorrow. Because it’s wedged into the last day of the semester, I’m kind of scrambling tonight to research some intelligent questions for the interviewer.

Really, why am I expected to ask them questions? I’m not hiring them. Can’t we all be happy with the system that the person with the money asks questions in an interview and the person who wants the money answer them?

Yeah, I have two questions: How much are you going to pay me, and do you have a locker room so I can ride my motorcycle to and from work so I can feel at least little better after spending the day being emasculated by partners with Napoleon complexes?

Anyway, all of this interview prep reminded me of the bit below written by an anonymous law student. I didn’t write it, but I almost could have. Warning, some naughty language:

One of the worst experiences in law school has been the ritual of submitting applications for summer employment and then going through a series of 20-minute screening interviews that would put a marine drill sergeant to shame when it comes to humiliating and dehumanizing you. Here are my top-ten (least) favorite questions, and how I actually answered them as opposed to how I would have liked to answer them.

Why are you interested in this firm?

What I said: Your firm handled (insert name of case I read on their website) which I found to be exciting because it was just like another case I was reading in this class I got an A in. I’ve also asked some (read: none) upper class-men about your office and they said it’s a great work environment.

What I thought: I looked through your attorney roster and saw that you hire people who do not appear to have any honors and come from bad law schools. That made me think that I have a chance to work here.

Why did you go to law school?

What I said: I went to law school because I want to be able to make a difference. Legal work allows me to be competitive and to work for justice, both of which are important things in my life.

What I thought: That’s a good question, and I ask myself it daily. I’d have to say the answer is, stupidity.

Do you think your grades are an accurate reflection of the kind of work you will do as an attorney?

What I said: Law school has been a challenge, and I think my grades reflect that. More important than my grades, which by the way have steadily improved over my academic career, is my dedication to the work I do. My performance during my summer jobs is the best indicator of how I will work, and you will find that my previous employers were all pleased with me (or at least forgot who I am and so will not remember the fuck ups).

What I thought: My grades are absolutely a good reflection of how I will work. I will put in the minimum amount of effort needed to not get fired, and I will approach my job with contempt and disinterest.

What would you say is your greatest weakness?

What I said: My greatest weakness is that I get too personally involved with my work. For instance, when I am working on trial prep, and then the case settles favorably, I feel as though it should have gone to trial anyway, despite knowing that the settlement is what’s best for our firm and our client.

What I thought: Pussy. If there are any females in your office, you can be certain I will work twice as hard to get into their pants as I will to make my billables. And yes, since you require us to bill 1,900 hours, that means I will be sexually harassing my co-workers 3,800 hours a year.

Tell us about a recent mistake that you have made.

What I said: I accidentally misfiled a case at work that was set to go to trial the next week. As soon as I realized this, I alerted my supervisor and disaster was averted.

What I thought: An even bigger mistake I’ve made has been wasting 20 minutes of my life in this interview instead of taking a dump, that would have been much more satisfying and productive.

What do you do for fun?

What I said: I enjoy jogging, skydiving, and traveling to exotic countries.

What I thought: When I really want to have fun, I grab my “Big Butt Sluts # 24″ DVD, a bottle of Bourbon, and a bottle of lube. By the end of the night, both bottles are empty, and my room smells like jizz and puke.

Tell us about your style of leadership.

What I said: I lead by taking the initiative and working proactively with my peers to come up with solutions.

What I thought: I lead by playing “The Eye of the Tiger” on a boombox while pounding my fist on the table and shouting insults. (It works, I’ve done it)

If you don’t get hired by this firm, what will you do?

What I said: I will analyze what I could have done better during the interview and take that knowledge with me into my next interview with [rival firm name].

What I thought: I will breath a sigh of relief that I won’t be working for an asshole like you. Or I will stalk you and slit your throat. I haven’t decided yet.

Do you have any questions for us?

What I said: Will I have a key so that I can come in and work on the weekends?

What I thought: Will I have a key so that I can come in and have sex with my girl friend on my desk on the weekends?

We value creativity among our associates. With that in mind, what kind of plant would you be, and why?

What I said: I would be a tree, because they are tall, strong, and live a long life.

What I thought: I would be a tree, so that I could fall on you and kill you

UPDATE: The Volokh Conspiracy had some suggestions more tailored to my problem:

1. “How would you describe the atmosphere here — Is it more like a labor camp or a slave ship?”
2. “I heard there was this guy who came here and only billed like three hours a week. They say it took the firm two years to kick him out, and they gave him a nice bonus to leave, too. Is that true?”
3. “Is it as bad as they say?”
4. “No. Should I?”
5. “I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?”
6. “Is your managing partner qualified to be on the Supreme Court?”
7. “Is there a bathroom on this floor?”
8. “How many partners here are still on their first wives?”
9. “Where am I? All of these firms look alike.”
10. “Where else are you interviewing?”

There are also some more good ones in the comments there.

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• Study: “Praise as good as cash.” Me: “No. It’s really not.”
• What? I can only by one 50 pound bag of rice at a time at Costco? OK, but the Chinese laborers in my basement working round the clock on BMSB.com t-shirts are going to have to eat something. Is there a limit to the number of 2-packs of 1-pound jars of Nutella I can buy at once?
• There are some words and phrases that one shouldn’t use to describe one’s self. I’ve run into two of these in the last week: “driven” and “rising star.” When I heard the people say these words referring to themselves, I immediately doubted that they were driven or a rising star.
• Good riddance to Madison’s Capital Times. Another lefty political rag posing as a legitimate source of unbiased news bites the dust. Now Madison will have to make due with the only slightly left of center daily Wisconsin State Journal and the Village Voice (enough said) owned weekly Isthmus. It warms the heart to see that a rag like the Cap Times, which was founded to counter the patriotism of World War I, can’t even survive in the People’s Republic of Madison anymore.
• If I were Senator Obama, I’d start to think about having Jeremiah Wright killed. It would shut him the hell up and generate a large sympathy vote. (This all presupposes that anyone in this day and age who comes this close to becoming POTUS on either side is pretty much a sure thing for hell anyway.)
• 2008 may finally be the year when race-hustlers figure out that someone can tell the difference between racism and legitimate criticism of stupidity. Every time Obama or Wright try to tell us that criticism of statements by Wright is racism, they might as well be calling us stupid. I don’t want a president that thinks we’re stupid.
• Another victory for common sense in the SCOTUS. This is starting to get weird.
• Speaking of common sense and the SCOTUS, Justice Scalia’s advice that the left “get over” Bush v. Gore was spot on, but I hope they don’t take it. The more time and energy the left wastes on Bush Hatin’ ™ the less time and energy they have to waste on people who won’t be gone in January. I think BDSFS (Bush Derangement Syndrome Fatigue Syndrome) is starting to set in in much of the electorate and they want to hear some ideas other than “hang Bush.” If Republicans can give some to them while the Democrats and Daily Kos piss away their resources, they might have a shot at staying even.
• BTW, I have an ice cold case of Milwaukee’s Best Light Ice for anyone who can demonstrate how Gore could have legally won Florida in 2000, even if the SCOTUS didn’t take up the case, like they probably shouldn’t have. If you think you can, you know far less about the case than you think. (Florida SC making up new law out of whole cloth as they go =/= legal.)
• A WR and a QB for the Packers first two picks in the draft last weekend isn’t exactly what I envisioned. At least we took a CB third. At least Jordy Nelson can try to continue the great Packer tradition of white WRs which include Jeff Query, Don Bebe, and Bill “The Sheboygan Flash” Schroeder. I think by taking two QBs, Mike McCarthy and Ted Thompson were telling Brett Favre not to worry about coming back mid-season to relieve Aaron Rodgers if he gets injured.
• $10 per gallon of gas? At least I-5 would be nice and empty for me to ride my 60+ mpg motorcycle.
• My two-1 credit classes are in the books. Tax ends tomorrow and Patent Law and Trademark Law end on Wednesday. The TM law prof wants to take us out drinking after class on Wednesday. I may have to take him up on that.

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This lady is getting a lot of flack for letting her 4th grader take the New York subway home by himself. Despite both her and her kid looking exactly like the kind of New Yorkers that irritate the hell out of me, I’m going to side with her.

I’ve never been on the New York subway, but I have been on the Washington, D.C. subway and the Chicago el train. I’m going to assume the situations are somewhat similar (and not at all like the Seattle ferry/bus system.) The kid is nine? He should be able to get from Point A to Point B during daylight hours in Manhattan by himself. I distinctly remember wandering around both Milwaukee and Chicago as a kid younger than 9. Now, that might not have been by the design of my parents (I tended to wander off from the group and still do) but I knew not to walk into traffic, get into vans with strangers, and, in the case of Chicago, knew how to bribe a cop, so I didn’t end up dead.

I think we’re living in a time where a strange thing is happening: In many respects kids are being robbed of their childhood - hypersexuality of the MTV culture aimed at kids, for example - and in other respects, kids are being treated like they need to be protected and have their days always structured, which prevents them from maturing at an appropriate pace.

This lady at least gets it mostly right:

“At Free Range Kids, we believe in safe kids. We believe in helmets, car seats and safety belts. We do NOT believe that every time school-age children go outside, they need a security detail.”

Lose the stupid bicycle helmets and you have a deal. (I strongly believe the several bicycle-related concussions I received between the ages of 6 and 15 just tenderized my head to an appropriate level.)

There is a giant field in a schoolyard about five blocks from my house, and another pretty big field in a park three blocks from my house. Unless there is an organized league soccer or baseball game going on there, they are almost always empty. When I was a kid my friends a giant field was more precious than gold. My friends Bryant, Josh, Scott, our brothers, whatever other boys around our age happened to be around, and I were always playing pickup football or baseball at the local park, the farmer’s hay field across from our house, or across the three connected lawns belonging to Bryant’s parents and his two neighbors. So I always feel kind of depressed looking at the giant, empty fields.

I know there are kids around. The field is adjacent to a giant school, after all. I occasionally see kids scurrying between one house where there is a PS3 to the other house where there in an Xbox360. And they play on those soccer and baseball teams with hoards of parents watching. So why aren’t the kids out playing by themselves?

I think some of it that video games are so much more prevalent and, frankly, fun. Parents need to step in and tell us what our parents told us: You can play video games when it is dark or raining. And even then you can probably find something fun to do outside. I won’t tell you my friends and I didn’t play the hell out of our Atari 2600s and our NESes, but that was usually when it was too cold, rainy, or dark to be outside.

I think a lot of it, though, is that parents won’t let their 8, 9, 10, and 11 year old kids have a little independence. This is opposed to how my friends and I were raised. Here’s the day of my friends and I on about any summer day or weekend from grades 2 to college: Crawl out of bed, go have some cereal, complain to mom that the cereal she bought is terrible, get in a fight with the sibling until mom throws everyone out, grab the bikes go looking for friends, find friends, play, descend en mass to one of the houses for lunch, play, realize that it’s almost dark, go home and eat. Repeat the next day. If we did stick around the house it’s because we had a pool and a nice woods to roam around in.

One parent I talked to about this said she was scared off all the sexual predators the police website indicated were around. But those guys were around when I was a kid. And unlike today, we didn’t have a handy website to indicate who some of them were. In fact, I think I would pity the guy who would have tried to kidnap one of us. We would have had him stabbed (boys were allowed - no encouraged - to carry jackknives in those days, as long as they had their Boy Scout totin’ chit) and my friend Scott probably would have had either him or his car on fire that was less encouraged - Scott was just a pyro) within 14 seconds of the guy getting aggressive.

Of course, that’s if a predator could catch us in the first place. With our bikes and hard-earned knowledge of every shortcut, animal trail, and, most importantly, fence in town on both public and private property, anyone on foot or in a car would have been hard pressed to catch one of us if we could get to our bikes. In fact, a great number of the local citizenry and law enforcement officials that we annoyed in some way or another to the point of pursuit were hard pressed to catch us on more than one occasion.

Remember the scene in E.T. where the boys are fleeing with E.T. on their bikes? Spielberg got that kind of right, but I always thought those kids would never have needed E.T. to bail them out with flying, especially when facing federal officials unfamiliar with the local area. In contrast, the FBI where I live now would have their hands on E.T. in about 10 seconds of the kid getting on the bike, assuming the kids even had a bike or the cardiovascular capacity to operate one.

I wonder if someday I’ll watch E.T. with my kids and have this conversation:

Me: How did you kids like the movie?

Kids: It was OK, but kind of unrealistic.

Me: Oh? Weren’t the alien effects good enough?

Kids: Oh, no. E.T. was fine. We just have a hard time believing that there would be a horde of boys riding around on bikes without helmets or their parents hovering nearby. And don’t get us started on how the kids went out in their neighborhood unsupervised on Halloween.

I thought maybe it was just peculiar to the Northwest. I didn’t grow up here, I figured maybe it’s just how kids are here. So I asked around to friends in the Midwest who live near fields. After convincing them that I’m not some kind of pedophile who wants to know where the young boys are, they told me they don’t see a lot of kids playing pick-up ball or otherwise marauding around outside in large groups.

I seem to remember packs of girls roaming around, too. But this was before girls were supposed to be interested in sports, so we never really noticed. But I think they were probably playing the same as us.

I wonder about this: How will kids be able to negotiate adult life if they never learned how to master their neighborhoods as kids? We learned how to get from place-to-place, settle disputes amongst ourselves, deal with the adults we inevitably pissed off, exact revenge on said adults after they called the cops and/or our parents, apply basic first aid, and in general make day-to-day decisions all without being able to rely on our parents. Where will the kids who have parents that are afraid to let them or make them leave the house learn this?

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Even a stopped clock is right twice a day: Robert Jamison is right on target with this column about the “arrogant and self-indulgent” Seattle teacher who was suspended for refusing to administer the WASL standardized test in his classroom. (The WASL, while used to measure standards for No Child Left Behind, predates No Child Left Behind and President Bush, just to get that red herring out of the way.)

I’d like to know why he was only suspended and not outright fired. (Well, I know why.) In almost every other job in the world, if you decide to override decisions of the boss four or five levels above your position you’d be fired. This is the equivalent of a seaman first class on an aircraft carrier deciding not to carry out the orders of his captain because he doesn’t believe in the policy being executed. (The Seaman could be thrown in jail or shot, so not quite, but you know what I mean.)

Another reason he should be fired: One of his reasons for opposing the WASL was that “it is written in the language of white, middle-and upper-class students…” You and I may know that language as proper English. I have little use for an “educator” who thinks proper English is something to be worked around. And the kids are only being asked to read and understand the “upper-class English.” Why is that too much to ask?

That excuse list reads like a list of reasons why children fail in public schools: Chew is more worried about the kids feelings than whether they can perform and that teachers have to “teach to” the WASL’s subjects of math, science, and reading which apparently annoys them because it leaves less time for multicultural indoctrination.

My favorites on the list are the couple reasons about the teachers feeling undervalued, used, depressed, over the test and upset over strained relationships with their bosses. No kidding. It’s called a job.

No matter what the teacher’s union says, I think their main opposition to the WASL is that as passing it moves towards becoming a requirement for graduation, it’s going to expose how many kids can’t read or do basic math despite 12 years in an expensive school system. There may be calls for reform that loosen their icy grip on the public school system in Washington.

And just for the record, I’m sick of statements like this from his list of excuses:

“For meager pay, teachers are asked to work in extremely challenging situations, keep absurdly long hours and, when it comes to the WASL, function in an atmosphere of fear.”

According to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, in 2006 Mr. Chew was paid $17,943 + $2439 in benefits for a 0.4 FTE. Leaving out the benefits, that’s the equivalent of $44,857.50 for (being generous) 10 months of work. While I grant that few teachers will be going out and scoring a yacht and BMW, I’m not sure I ‘d call that “meager pay.” Scanning up and down that list I see quite a few salaries in the 60-70 k area for more motivated teachers. Not too shabby.

As for the “atmosphere of fear” I’m not sure what all the fear is about. As far as I can tell unless a teacher has sex with a student they’ll never get fired. Their union wouldn’t allow it.

I think Mr. Chew should take a job outside of the public school system for a few years and see what it’s like to worry about performing to expectations.

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Do we need a children’s book about plastic surgery?

No.

Gather the kids around, I’ll explain it all right now:

You see kids, after mommy squeezed you out, fed you in the way in which mammals have become accustomed, and dealt with your crying, illnesses, and other assorted bullshit on the nanny’s day off, she started to look a little “run down.” Because of this, Daddy started eying up his secretary. Mommy had to cut that off at the pass. Mommy wasn’t one of those women who had much to offer outside of being a trophy wife, so Mommy paid a nice doctor to perk up her hoo-has, tighten up her face, and rejuvenate her mommy area. Now Daddy has a reason to stick around and the doctor can buy a new car.

But don’t worry if Mommy’s plan doesn’t work and daddy does leave, you’ll see him every other weekend, which is more than you see him now, because Daddy’s a shallow prick who only cares about his BMW and golf handicap.

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I saw this on a bulletin board at school a few weeks ago and it struck me as funny:

“Look at this somber, heart-tugging picture of people being separated by harsh, unfair laws. Come and join us for a serious discussion of this problem and FREE BURRITOS!!! “

For those of you who haven’t been around a college campus or other “open-minded, diverse” instutions lately, LGBT = Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgendered.

When I started college way back in the early ’90’s the groups were only “L&G.” Sometime before I graduated they had changed to “LGB.” Then when I went back to school, I found that the “T” had been tacked on. After I’m done, I’ll be afraid to go back to school to see what else has been added. I have a vision of dropping my daughter off on her college campus in 15 years and seeing a sign for “LGBTDHZAYERWX Rights.”

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I’m pleased to report that my impressions of the first three parts of the HBO mini-series “John Adams” held true for the last four. It was truly a remarkable mini-series from start to finish.

The last Episode “Peacefield,” was aired yesterday. I had questions about how an episode that took place after Adams was out of the White House and necessarily would be full of death would stay interesting. It ended up being the most poignant episode of the series, mostly because it took place in a time where Adams and Thomas Jefferson had the time to write philosophical letters to each other and wax on the meaning of life and the American Revolution. Plus it was fun to see Paul Giamatti playing Adams as a grumpy old bastard (instead of a grumpy middle aged bastard like the rest of the series) in the last episode. And it didn’t hurt that it has one of the best natural endings of all time - the wouldn’t-believe-it-except-that-it-happened occurrence of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson dying within an hour of each other on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And I defy a true American to not tear up in the last 30 seconds when John and Abigale are reunited over a quote from John Adams imploring us to use the freedom that he and his contemporaries fought for, lest he curse us from heaven.

I’ve heard a criticism a couple times that there wasn’t enough depiction of the war of the American Revolution. That seems to miss the point that the series was called “John Adams” and John Adams was in Europe during the war. Besides, there are plenty of Revolutionary War movies and series, and I imagine there will be more in the future, and as I said, one of the things that made this series great was the fresh perspective from one of the minds of the American Revolution rather than the soldiers.

I’ve also heard a criticism that too much material was skipped. That is a function of only having about 8 hours of screen time. I have a quibble tangential to that, however. It would have been helpful for the filmmakers to have put up a title card with the year more often. The narrative of the story flowed so well, that often it was hard to tell that 3, 4, 5 or more years had passed between the scene changes. I’ve got a fair grasp of that period of American history, but got confused once in awhile as to where we were in the time line. But that is just a small quibble, and I imagine it probably bothered me more than it would bother most people.

Once again, if you didn’t see it, make sure to check it out when it hits DVD in June.

“John Adams”: Solid A, flirting with an A+ (I’d have to watch it again before handing out an A+).

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Spotted this weekend in the parking lot of a restaurant:

Please note, that’s a Dodge Caravan Minivan, not a jacked up pickup, where at least those stickers wouldn’t have been so jarringly out of place.

Sometimes having all of those sailors around can be a special treat.

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I’m in the process of bidding for interviews for the patent law interview fair in Chicago. (Last year’s trip here.)
One of the firms had this posted under criteria (emphasis mine):

We seek to employ students who attain high academic achievement (top 10% of class), have a commitment to diversity, initiative, willingness to assume early responsibility, maturity, judgment, non-academic experience, extra-curricular activities (including Law Review, Moot Court, and other journals).

They seek to employ people with a commitment to diversity? What the hell does that even mean? If anyone is supposed to have a “commitment to diversity” isn’t it the people hiring rather than the people applying? How does that come up in an interview?

When an interviewer says, “Tell me, what is your commitment to diversity?”
Is the applicant going to say “Oh, I’m against it. I think only Jews should be lawyers”? Probably not. I’m sure they’ll get an answer about how the rainbow is best when all the colors are there or something.

The firm that posted this is a well respected firm with a no-nonsense reputation. Someone should tell them that their recruiting department had a buzzword explosion. Not that it matters, year in and year out, this firm’s recruiting class demographic is going to look awfully similar to the demographic of the graduating classes of Harvard, Yale, and Stanford that year. (I really had no business even looking at their hiring criteria in the first place.)

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• R.I.P. “Phantom” Dan Federici. When I saw The Boss a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned that Federici had played with them a week before and that he was expected back, so I wonder if he knew how little time he had left.
• Speaking of The Boss, his endorsement of Obama may be the least surprising political endorsement ever. I’m just surprised it took this long. I love Springsteen’s music, but he strikes me as a guy who would believe that Obama will be able to solve the world’s problem with his magic Hope Ray that shoots from his chest, much like a Care Bear.
• When Expelled comes out on DVD, I’m going to watch it back-to-back with An Inconvenient Truth to see which movie is funnier. What isn’t funny is that science, at least in popular culture, seems to have turned into dueling propaganda pieces from noted scientists like Ben Stein and Al Gore.
• Speaking of the Global Warming, we’re expecting an inch of snow. In Seattle. On April 18. It will be the latest snow has been recorded here. I for one welcome my new Global Warming Overlord.
• With GPS navigation systems becoming more and more prevalent and affordable, I wonder how often we’ll hear this excuse for clusterfucks. Someone should tell the bus driver the GPS doesn’t know how tall the bus is. Or rather was. My GPS receivers have told me some pretty stupid things in the seven years I’ve been using them. The fact that computers are stupid is lost on a lot of people it seems.
• Prince Fielder finally hit his first home run of the season last night. I was starting to think he needs to put a few more donuts on his bat.
• On the ferry this morning, I was unfortunately subjected to a phone conversation in which a woman was being dumped by her boyfriend. I only heard the woman’s side, but when she said “Sorry, I’m just not horny after working 14 hours,” I turned the volume of my XM radio up to the point where it was painful to my ears. It was much less painful than the conversation. I’m not one of those people who are intolerant of cell phones. In fact, I figure it’s way better than having to listen to two people talk. But I do think people often forget that they are in public when they use them. Why is that?
• What a surprise, the “Abortion Art” was a fake. Like I said elsewhere, she didn’t need to fake abortions to outrage me. The phrase “Yale art student” outrages me enough as it is.

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If anyone is looking for me between the end of finals and the start of summer classes, I’ll be here.

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The guy who created this list is so obviously a closet case, I wonder how he even found out about the one thing every hetero man between 27 and 42 knows like he knows the sun will rise in the east tomorrow:

Tecmo Super Bowl was the greatest video game ever created and stop arguing otherwise.

Excuse me if I don’t take “how to be a real man” tips from anyone who uses the word “maniquette.” And the fact that he went to law school isn’t helping much. (As far as I can tell there can only be one manly lawyer a century. The 18th century had John Adams, the 19th century had Lincoln, the 20th century had Scalia, and my Marine classmate seems to have dibs on the 21st century, so it’s not looking real good for Clay Travis.) I think this may be another trap by the crab-people. He seems awfully insecure in his “manliness.” Some of his list points are just trying to hard to show how manly he is:

Don’t wear lifting gloves to the gym unless you would feel comfortable with the result of taking said gloves off and slapping the largest man in the face with them.

So if you can’t beat down the biggest dude in the gym, you can’t protect your hands? Brilliant. Is that like saying “unless you’re willing to pour the strongest acid in the lab on your face, you shouldn’t wear safety glasses?”

If you strike out in a Wiffle Ball game, you must drop your bat and squarely face the pitcher. He may then choose to peg you with the wiffle ball if he so desires.

Wiffle Ball? That screams “manly.” How about, “If you’re playing Wiffle Ball, there better be a kid less than ten years old who you are related to playing with you.” The same goes for Horse, from earlier in the article.

If your wife or girlfriend ever says while watching football, “I just don’t understand why they don’t score more touchdowns,” you have two possible responses: a) Ignore her b) Reply, “I just don’t understand why we don’t have sex more.”

Translation: “I’ve never had a real relationship with a woman.” Or if he has, that’s what he wishes he could say if he wasn’t emasculated.

Occasionally, apropos of nothing, put on a football helmet and spend all day wearing it in your office. When people ask you what you’re doing say, “Just wearing a football helmet.”

So, I can wear a football helmet around public, but not a football jersey?

If someone invites you to a game and then won’t drink any beer because it’s “not a microbrew” and won’t eat a hotdog because he is on a diet, it is OK to ditch him to find another seat. You don’t want to have to listen to him talk about his wife’s venereal diseases she got screwing another guy during the game, anyway.

I actually agree with that one. I think he might have learned that one the hard way.

Once during the football season, a man is allowed a bye-week, where he may choose to not watch any college or NFL games for the whole weekend. Spelling is important: a bi-week, which is when a man chooses to try out sex with another man for seven days, is not the same thing at all.

No. Just no. If you are going to take a bye-week, you might as well take a bi-week. There’s no reason to at least not have a game on the TV in the background or on the radio. Legitimate reasons for a bye-week: 1) You are in Iraq or Afghanistan or otherwise in the military and out of the country; 2) someone in your family is dying; or 3) something other than just “I don’t feel like watching football.” I think this guy knows a lot about bi-weeks, however.

I should thank Clay for giving me a new reason to wear my Reggie White, Aaron Kampman, or Prince Fielder jersey: To be as little like an elitist, wannabe, douchebag as possible.

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