Chicago Typewriter

New blog site - switch those links!

2007-03-11T20:02:00.000-05:00

I've moved over to a Wordpress blog, and will be updating there instead of here from now on.

If you've bookmarked this page or subscribed to the feed, head on over to ChicagoTypewriter.net and change your links. Thanks, guys!

McCain to speak at Creationist Institute on Feb. 23. I just threw up in my mouth a little.

2007-02-18T22:55:00.000-06:00

On February 23, 2007, the "maverick" John McCain will address the Discovery Institute, the privately funded vehicle for Intelligent Design nonsense.

For a really good response to this creationist drivel, the following link is great:

Scientific American: 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense.

For the record, I mean no disrespect to whose who choose not to accept the scientific reality of evolution by natural selection on religious grounds; you have a right to do so, and I respect that. However, please do not try and wedge faith conclusions into scientific discussion. My morality is not based on scientific proof that human beings should be good to one another; likewise, my rational interpretation of facts should not include, in its calculus, faith-driven thought.

A transcript of emails sent from me to my mom.

2007-02-12T15:45:00.000-06:00

Hi Ma -
Thanks for the message. I haven't had a chance to call you back because I'm really busy. How's Pa?
- Mark

***

Hi Ma -
No, I AM paying the bill. I just don't clean out my voice mail very often. I promise I am being responsible with my money, ok? As responsible as anyone who is over $150,000 in debt can be, anyway.
School is fine; my professors have stopped writing my name on the board when I turn assignments in on time, so clearly my lawsuit had an effect.
- Mark

***

Ma,
For Pete's sake it was a joke. I don't even HAVE assignments in my classes! How can I turn them in late when they don't exist? You know, I told you a long time ago I'm not going to actually tell you anything substantive that is going on, either at school or with my girlfriend (she says "hi," by the way.)
- Mark

***

Ma,
Christine was the girl I dated at the end of college. That was seven years and FOUR girlfriends ago. Remember? That was the one who was a vegetarian, and got into an argument with Pa? I know you remember, because that's what got Pa started on his whole "chicken is a vegetable" thing.
Oh, how is Uncle Ernesto?
- Mark

***

Hi Ma,
She still won't take him back, huh? Its probably for the best. How did Aunt Nilda even find out about MySpace? She can barely operate her car radio.
On a related note, I saved the actual webpage as a PDF if you ever want to see it.
- Mark

***

Hi Ma,
A PDF is a file format that records the way the webpage looks at the time you save it.
Please tell Pa to stop sending me the email jokes. I've heard them all, and none of his friends ever delete the headings. I'm getting sixteen page emails for the sake of a one-line joke.
- Mark
P.S. I do like the new drapes.

***

Ma,
Great. Now he's emailing me video clips. Tell Pa next time to just put the LINK to the video in the email, not to send the actual video file.
To answer your second question, I already told you, several times, that DC is really, really far from Baltimore. Also, "The Wire" is fictional, and so is "24", so don't believe everything you see on TV, ok? Its really safe where I am. Plus I own a gun.
- Mark

***

MA
I AM KIDDING. Sheesh. I don't own a gun; just a really, really big knife.
- Mark

***

Dear Pa,
I'm sorry for upsetting Ma. I know she's just worried, but does she have to freak out everytime they raise the terror alert from fuchia to teal, or whatever? If someone wanted to hit DC, I promise they will not attack Adams Morgan or Dupont Circle.
- Mark

***

Hi Ma,
Firstly, I am sorry for being so flippant about the fact that you worry about me; I really appreciate it. Secondly, I PROMISE no one will attack my neighborhood with a bomb. Thirdly, there's no such thing as a "Dirrty Bomb." I think you are mixing "dirty bomb," which is an actual weapon, with "Dirrty," which is a song by Christina Aguilera. Please stop watching VH1, ok? I hate explaining cultural terms to you.
- Mark

***

Ma,
I don't really care where you heard the term; if anything, E! is an even worse channel than VH1. You definitely shouldn't be getting your information on current events from there.
"Crunk" means, basically, to have a lot of fun with your friends, but it's not the proper term for your ladies group.
- Mark

***

Ma,
I am *not* explaining that to you. Look it up on urban dictionary if you must.
- Mark

***

Dear Pa,
I never actually meant for Ma to look that up. Really, I didn't. I was just trying to avoid one of those discussions where she asks me what something means, I tell her, and then she gets mad at me for knowing the term in the first place. Remember what happened when I explained to her why everyone in high school called me "Bong?"
- Mark

***

Hi Ma!
Thanks for sending me that link! I AM excited about Obama running! Woo hoo!
- Mark
P.S. He didn't grow up in Chicago; he grew up in Hawaii.

***

Ma,
Yes, I'm sure that means he had lots of Filipino friends growing up.
- Mark

***

Dear Pa,
Well, people other than Hawaiians eat Spam, too; I doubt he eats much Spam in DC. Hell, sometimes I think I'm the only one in the city who cooks it regularly.
- Mark

***

Ma,
I don't care what Pa says, I do NOT cook Spam, ok? I only eat vegetables and chicken stock.
- Mark

To the memory of Professor Robert Drinan, S.J.

2007-01-30T14:55:00.000-06:00

This column first appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly on January 30, 2007.

Normally, this column is dedicated to complaints or bragadoccio about my lack of work ethic, the proper way to trick a GULC pop machine into accepting money from a MetroCard, cheese, etc., etc. Right now, I'd like to depart from the low-brow gallows humor to write a few words about Robert Drinan.

I first met Professor Drinan my 1L year, at a reception for the Jesuits from main campus hosted by the law center faculty. Someone foolishly informed me that there would be free food (thanks for the heads-up, Sister!), so I signed up to attend as a student representative. I was seated at a table with Professor Schrag, Professor Drinan, and several visiting scholars and priests whose names have permenantly escaped me. Fr. Drinan had the unpleasant task of being seated next to me, and had the unfortunate luck to do so on a night where the wait staff was especially diligent in refilling my glass of Jamesons-on-the-rocks. We spoke at length throughout the evening, about my time in law school, my background, my career goals, etc. We also spoke about what he was planning to do in the future, and that is what stuck me the most. Every obituary about him that you've read or will read will emphasize his time on Capitol Hill as a congressman, every blurb will mention his dual role as priest and legislator in the 1970's. To hell with those obits. Fr. Drinan was passionate about the state of the world, today. At an age and time of his life where most of us with as many accomplishments as him would have been content to relax, Fr. Drinan continued to put himself out, politically and morally. The attempt by Congressional Republicans to remove the filibuster last year was met with angry scorn by Fr. Drinan, and he opened the Georgetown rally against it with speech that was less polished and yet more honest than most of the speeches of the day, heavy and wet with rhetoric.

He spoke out, repeatedly in print and in person, against human rights abuses and what he felt was the willingness by many, Democrat and Republican alike, to sanction torture, the suspension of habeus corpus, and other abuses for political expediency. I should add a caveat here: I took his human rights class primarily because I heard there was a lenient grade curve. That idea failed, as I managed to pull a B- in a class where the questions on the final were distributed ahead of time. Unlike the other classes I've taken where my incompetance has shone through, his actually taught me a few things. First, violating a person's physical sanctity is demeaning to those who do it, individual and government alike. Second, good and evil are real concepts, but the world does not paint them for us in black in and white; even priests see grey, and the greatest see the most grey.

There are those who would demean his intellectual stature by pointing out that his classes have not been the most... linear in their progression. This is not a fluff piece; I will not disagree with the criticism that his lectures were not terribly organized. To those who had him for professional responsibility or human rights who felt that (actual quote) "his classes were a waste of time," I wish you could have had a chance to speak to him in person. He was as observant as ever, and still able to be riled. I did not take professional responsibility with him, but I learned about ethics from him, informally yet concretely. One of the questions I've often asked myself is in the form of a thought experiment: "What side would I have taken in the Spanish Civil War?" As a Catholic (if an especially faulty one), I sometimes fear that I would have sided with the Fascists, due to Franco's professed piety and defense of the Church. After speaking from Robert Drinan, S.J., I have no doubt in my mind that he would have opposed them.

His two recent books, Can God & Ceasar coexist? and The Mobilization of Shame were about the state of the world, today. The former (and more recent) book was about the interaction between religion and government, a subject of which his viewpoint will be simplified or assumed ad nauseum, but was very nuanced and complex. The latter book was about the international human rights movement, his most passionate cause. To all the ink spilled on the Catholic viewpoint regarding the headline-grabbing topics of birth control, abortion, sex, and homosexuality, Fr. Drinan reminded us that being a Catholic means caring about human dignity in general, opposing even politically-expedient torure, fighting for the freedom of conscience for people of ALL religions, and the importance of dialogue.

Fr. Drinan, it must be said, was persona non grata to many conservative Catholics. He was an unabashed liberal, was against the Vietnam War, was the first congressman to call for Nixon's resignation, and opposed governmental bans on abortion. The website of the Cardinal Newman Society, a conservative Catholic organization, linked to a story that mentioned none of his human rights work, and none of his international accolades; to them, he was merely the "partisan" Jesuit who "defied Rome." Thank God that sometimes defiance is obedience.

I was privileged to be present at Fr. Drinan's last mass as celebrant here at the Law Center. I was privileged to be a student of his. I am privileged to have him as an example to follow. I hope I have the courage to be defiant.

RIP Robert Drinan, S.J.

2007-01-29T09:43:00.000-06:00

Father Drinan passed away on Sunday, Jan 28, 2007. I was privilaged to have been present at the last mass he presided over as celebrant, and to have taken his human rights class.

Here's the obituary at CNN.com.

R.I.P, Fr. Drinan.

Across the Great Divide

2007-01-24T13:40:00.000-06:00

This column originally appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly on January 21, 2007.

This is my last semester of law school, presuming that 1) I have correctly tallied my credits for the year, and 2) that I pass all of my classes. These are both large assumptions, but for the sake of simplicity we shall say that both are true and I will graduate in May. Introspection tends to come near the end of something long and arduous, like law school, the iditarod dog sled race, dinner at the Golden Corral, etc. There is a bittersweetness in the air, as I have to say goodbye to so many people I've met and loved, but on the other hand I get to say goodbye to so many, many people that have hated me. Looking back, it is now easier to evaluate what I've learned and what I haven't here in law school.

Will it be just as painful paying rent in DC two years from now, or will I adjust? Answer: Yes. Rent in DC is the most blatant reincarnation of the Dutch tulip market I have even encountered, and that is saying something because I once bought a Shivan Dragon in "Magic: The Gathering." I spend more on rent, utilities, and cost of living in one month than I used to pay in three months when I lived in Michigan. Granted, in Michigan I shared a house with eight people, never purchased or used cleaning products, and ate stolen ramen. Still, it is ridiculously expensive to live here. Thank goodness I was completely undateable my 1L year, because dinner and a movie would only have been affordable if the dinner was Dinty Moore and the movie was a rental of "Breaking 2: Electric Boogaloo." To save space in the tiny apartment I AM able to afford, the TV is on top of the fridge, the fridge is in the bedroom, and the bed is a futon I found outside an American University dorm. And by "futon" I mean "couch with the back broken off."

Did the people generally accepted to be the biggest jerks during 1L actually turn out to be jerks? Answer: Yes, we did. Think back to your first week of school; for my fellow 3Ls, that means harkening back to when you were thinner, less bitter, and $150,000 richer. Anyway, try and remember week one. From the moment classes started, you knew who was going to be the most annoying, who mas going to be the most misogynistic, the most politically correct, and the most unpleasant to be around. I know, because people avoided talking to me alone, which is the first sign that someone is a jerk. If you find yourself wanting witnesses to the ridiculous statements someone makes, I can promise you that person will probably not be any less offensive when the time comes to graduate. An arrogant person does not become less arrogant after a $3,000 a week firm job, I promise. A self-righteous crusader does not become less frighteningly self-righteous after an internship at the National Association of Some Cause or Another. A political true believer does not mellow and see more grey after law school, it turns out. I will state an exception to this rule, howeveer, to be known hereafter as Mark's law: "If the political persuasion of a person is different than the majority of the other students in law school, that person will moderate their stance in order to date more."

Will I ride the learning curve of law school? Answer: No. Law school requires you to learn a new way of thinking, according to the "Law School for Dummies" book I bought before moving to DC. When i first got here, I wondered if I was going to have hard time for the first year and then get better. Did my grades need time to get better, like cheese, or were they going to get stinkier over time, like other, more different cheese? The answer is: I get a B- no matter how much or how little work I put into a class. In Land Use Law, I put in hours and hours a week in meticulously reading, highlighting, and studying, and got a B-. After my corporations final, I sold my textbook back to the bookstore having never opened it. My grade: B-. It turns out that I was admitted to Georgetown with the understanding that I would allow better, more handsome students to live at the left end of the grade curve by inhabiting the right end of the curve. You're welcome, Frank.

Will the Bears make it to the Superbowl before I graduate? Answer: YES. The Bears are going to superbowl, and suddenly there is nothing wrong with the world. Remember that there is no amount of of stress, no amount of homework, no grade, that is better than your NFL team going to the superbowl. As long as I have my health, my loved ones, and the Bears deep into the playoffs, then all is well in the world. In fact, scratch the first two; my health and my loved ones can't contribute to the Bears winning the Superbowl.

Mark Nabong submitted a photo for this piece that had nothing to do with the article, and moreover was offensive. We're glad he's leaving. His columns can be found at chicago-typewriter.blogspot.com.

Before the Music Dies

2006-12-09T17:52:00.000-06:00

This is a trailer for a documentary about the production of music today. I don't know you care much about music, but if you do it will make you angry to see how the art of music is being created in a lot of places today. If you don't care about music, this may point to the reason why. For more information, go to www.BeforeTheMusicDies.com.

I am thankful I am not you.

2006-11-21T16:34:00.000-06:00

This column was originally published in the Georgetown Law Weekly on Nov. 21, 2006.

We are in the midst of finals, of the stress of dealing with family for winter break, and of the end of college football. This is therefore an extremely emotionally trying time, and at such times it is easy to forget that we are all extremely lucky, and that is a shame. When I stop and think (read: sober up) I realize how truly fortunate I am, and how truly fortunate we all are. In the spirit of the holiday season, I am dedicating this column to a list of people I am not, behaviors I don't engage in, children I am not related to, and schemes I am not part of.

I AM THANKFUL I AM NOT A 2L.
As a 2L, my bitterness reached cataclysmic levels. That's not hyperbole; I had a disastrous 2L year, and I'm relieved to see the back end of it. 2L year is like the adolescence of law school, complete with crying, awkwardness, self-esteem issues, and, in at least 15% of all cases, a resurgence of acne.

I AM THANKFUL I AM NOT TRYING TO LIVE IN NEW YORK.
New York is a great city; it is the beating heart of America, like it or not. New York is the yard stick by which all other US cities are measured, and New Yorkers are right to be proud of it. It is also the most expensive place in the world, ever. I thought my tiny studio apartment is DC was expensive; I pay $900 a month for a place so small I can cook and go to the bathroom at the same time. Little did I know that the same square footage in Manhattan would fetch approx. $4,000 a month, and seventeen years rent as a deposit. New York is so expensive I couldn't even afford McDonald's the last time I visited. "Uh, I guess I'll have a number three." "One goose-liver value meal coming up. Would you like to try our apple pie, served in a box make of pure platinum?"

I AM THANKFUL I TOOK SEVERAL YEARS OFF BEFORE COMING TO LAW SCHOOL.
Many of you came straight out of college to law school. I don't want to rag on your decision making, but: HA. You'll never know what it's like to have to re-adjust back to school. You'll always think your grades actually say something about your worth as a person, and you'll never really know what its like to go without medical insurance for years at a time. You will also never get to wear the self-satisfied smirk that we older students wear whenever you open your mouth to deliver a heart-felt opinion. That smirk just might be my favorite thing about law school.

I AM THANKFUL I AM NOT A SELF-LOATHING TOOL.
I am thankful that I have never compensated for my own lack of self-worth by sending angry letters complaining about EJF to everyone who is required, in their job description, to take my whining seriously. I am thankful I have never sat in a room of people happily enjoying the moment of student unity, bonding, and charity, and thought "Hey! I should b**** about something, so people will see me as an outside-the-box thinker!" As a completely unrelated and somewhat ad hominem aside, I am also thankful I am not ugly.

I AM THANKFUL THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO DON'T CARE IF I MUCK UP LAW SCHOOL.
Even if I s*** the bed here, there are a good number of friends and family who wouldn't give a darn. There are probably whole sections of my support network, in fact, that already assume that I'm going to flunk out. That's the beauty of decreased expectations; if I keep my bathroom clean enough to stave off legionnaire's disease, I've already beaten most estimates. I have at least one signed statement from my high school AP Chemistry teacher that reads something to the effect of "If Mark makes it through college without getting beaten up by any faculty, I'll be shocked." Guess what, Ms. Levinson: That didn't happen until law school.

I AM THANKFUL THAT LAW STUDENTS ARE MUCH, MUCH COOLER THAN I EXPECTED.
Before coming to school here, I have people tell me that law students were worthy of a whole host of negative adjectives; those same people also told me that I would fit in with such students. I can honestly say that neither prediction has come true. There is way more diversity of opinion in the student body than I expected, and way more diversity in career goals than I imagined. I thought that every law student would be a big firm/future politician type, and I am glad that that applies to only 89% of us.

I AM THANKFUL THAT NO ONE WITH THE ABILTY TO HARM ME READS THIS.
With any luck, all copies of any Law Weekly that I've written in will be lost to history once I graduate. I'd hate for anything I've written here to rise up and bite me years from now.
Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy New Year, etc. Come back safe.

Mark Nabong will pay for making me edit the profanity out of this thing. His columns are online at chicago-typewriter.blogspot.com.

Going to school & the fall season

2006-11-16T20:06:00.000-06:00

I just realized that this is the last time for the foreseeable future that I will get to experience fall semester. It is the last time I will enjoy the leaves on the ground on the way to a campus for class, and the last time I will be a student for the season we most associate with school, autumn.

I've spend a good number of years in school; most of my adult life has been in a school, and I am not as young as I act. I'm going to miss it, however excited I am about the next phase.

I didn't go to a sports-heavy college; The University of Chicago is Division III, which meant we put the biggest nerds in pads and left them on the football to scramble with other nerds in pads from Washington U. and Emory. Nevertheless, fall football reminds me of high school, and college, and grad school. It reminds me of eating steaming hot dogs bought from a pleasantly semi-hygienic stand. I went to my first big football game in high school, Northwestern-Penn State 1995, the same year they first went to the Rose Bowl. I started my adoration of Notre Dame football that same year, watching them trounce Southern Cal 38-10. I started really following the Bears in college, sitting in the TV lounge with football fans from a half dozen teams, all of use with books half-heartedly opened on our laps.

Autumn is my favorite season, and that's in no small part due to reminders it leaves me of schools and people I've left.

Extra Point has a great video of his trip back to Notre Dame for the UNC game this year, and it really does take me back.

Extra Point: Yea! Woo! Nostalgia!

Apparently not every evening student has kids

2006-11-12T15:05:00.000-06:00

This column originally appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly, Nov. 14, 2006. For those who don't know, evening law students at Georgetown graduate in four years instead of the normal three, and are designated as Section Seven.

In a previous column, I revealed that I do not know all that much about evening students. Apparently, not every section seven student is raising children; for many, their kids have already left home for college. My apologies. I have been told by evening students that they are often the forgotten Georgetown students, as most events, talks, lectures, and classes are aimed at the full-time days students.

Evening student Morlocks deserve respect.

Why is that? Why do we neglect the evening students so much? They are valued members of the GULC community, and should be accorded respect. In many ways, they are superior to the day students.

1) Evening students have done more in their life then run for Fraternity Treasurer.
I'll like to invite all the day students to look at their resumes. See all the fictional crap you listed under "accomplishments?" Evening students have actual accomplishments there. You interned for Harper's Monthly? An evening student founded Atlantic Monthly. You worked as a paralegal after college? An evening student was a paratrooper during college; he studied during drops. You studied abroad in Europe for a semester? An evening student did, too, except it was called Pangaea back then.

2) Evening students know how to cook.
The section seven students have to know how to cook, because the cafeteria is closed by the time they get here. When your corporations class goes on break, you run down and grab a sandwich; when the evening corporations class goes on break, the law center has transformed into a Mad-Maxian wasteland, where there is no food, the pop machines only have ginger ale and Yoo-hoo, and wild packs of roving Gewirtz 1Ls roam the land looking for booze. There is no one to make over-priced chicken fingers, no one to refill the soup tureen, no one to grill panini sandwiches. The evening students have to make their own sandwiches, their own soup, their own Thermoses(TM) full of Jello(TM).

Trying to get food at Georgetown after 6pm is tough.

3) Evening students do not have tawdry flings with other law students.
Maybe it's because they are all married, or maybe it's because they know how stupid it is to become romantically involved with people with whom you work, but no evening student will date any other law student. It is just as well, because when would they have the time to date, really? There are section seven classes every night of the week, and exams on Saturday. That leaves Sunday for dating, which is impossible because that's where football lives. Go Bears.

4) Evening students are less politically irritating.
Everyone has strongly held beliefs, but evening students do not believe in purchasing silk-screened t-shirts displaying those beliefs. In the entire history of Georgetown Law, there has never been an in-class screaming match over a politically-charged topic during an evening class. Not so with day classes; I have never taken an class for an entire semester without discovering what each and every person thinks about the President/School Prayer/Gay Whales at extraordinarily high volume. I expect the rancor in the day classes to get worse now that there are a whole lot of GOP staffers without jobs.

5) Evening students do not blog about everyone else in class.
All I know is that I read a blog someone posted about a stupid thing I said in class while I was saying it. That is not ok. It is also not ok to blog about law school drama in general, even if you disguise people's names. You are not clever enough to hide it, because if you were you would not have started the blog in the first place. I once read a blog from another student who listed people he hated, and the pseudonyms he gave people rhymed with their actual names. Someone came up to me after one particularly venomous post and asked, "Did you read that blog last night? Apparently he really hates this guy Narc MaBong."

6) Evening students actually donate money back to Georgetown.
Look around at the major contributions to the GULC, and you'll see that many, many more of them come from evening students than you might expect. I suspect that they donate at a higher rate because the bitterness of law school is spread out over four years instead of three. Perhaps they give back at a higher rate because they see people they entered law school with graduate a year ahead of them, and realize everything actually turns out ok a year after law school is over.

These reasons, and more, say to me that we should do better about reaching out to the evening students. Administrators can insure that cafeteria services remain open until after every evening class goes on break. Student groups can make sure that some of their events reach people in section seven. And if you are a full-time day student, introduce yourself to an evening student and offer to baby-sit.

Mark Nabong is finally some other editor's problem. His columns can be found online at chicago-typewriter.blogspot.com.

Rumsfeld resigns, despite FOX News

2006-11-08T12:30:00.000-06:00

Hahaha...

(Thanks to VT for the pic)

Happy Election Day

2006-11-07T08:26:00.000-06:00

No column today, as I was pretty busy this weekend. Instead, I want to kick off the 2008 Presidential campaign officially by asking everyone to to visit Obama/Affleck 2008 and leave a comment.

Barack and Ben, for America.

The door's open but the transfer ain't free

2006-10-31T08:00:00.000-06:00

This column originally appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly Vol. 43 No. 6 on October 31, 2006

I had originally promised that I would devote this column to my personal struggles as a grab-bag of genetic detritus, but I've decided to renege on that promise. Reading about someone's difficulties in life is about as fun as listening to someone describe their dream from the night before, which is to say that it is not fun at all and kind of makes your angry.

Why do we insist on explaining our life story at every possible moment? Every discussion class I've ever had has involved someone describing their background, parentage, and major political views in detail before even answering the damn question. That is not warrented except in two instances: (a) you are in a class named "The Legal Philosophy of Second-Year Law Students," or (b) You are a transfer student.

If you transferred here from another law school, then congratulations! You've done two wonderful things by tranferring here: (1) You decreased the number of people at the top of your class at your old law school by one, thus making it easier for your old friends to get jobs and date the people who used to have crushes on you. (2) You've taken the place of one of the top students at Georgetown, who left for the bright lights of an even bigger pond. That is the feeding chain of transferring: we get some of the best students from The University of X, and we pass some of our best up to Y University. I'm almost certain there is some Buddhist theology that would be helpful here, but as a devout Catholic I don't actually read religious texts.

Before I get in trouble here, let me emphasize something all the students reading this, transfer or otherwise: don't base even a little bit of your self-worth on the fact that you're a law student at Georgetown. If I ever catch you making fun of a law school that happens to be lower-tier than here, I will personally hunt you down and kick your leg, Vossberg-style. The rankings that make you feel good when you talk to some people will make you feel like ass when you talk to other people. Go to ANY law school faculty web page and you'll find that they all went to the same six law schools, and Georgetown is NOT one of them. Go to any law school in the country and I will find students that are smarter, have better legal minds, and are less ugly than you. Everytime you look at a school lower on your preference list and breathe a sigh of relief, remember that there is someone at another school looking at you and breathing a sigh of relief themselves. You are lucky to be here, five minutes from the U.S. Capitol, at one of the best-regarded (rightly or wrongly) law schools in the country, and that is the extent of it. Be happy, but don't be arrogant.

Before I get in trouble for different reasons, let me emphasize this: This is a great place to go to law school. I've loved my time here, and that is despite the fact that the academic niche I've managed to fill here is not, shall we say, what I expected. The students who are my classmates are some of the most brilliant people I've ever met, and the facilities are top-notch. This truly is a wonderful school, and I'd like to thank Harvard and Yale for producing such amazing faculty members.

Anyway, back to the transfer students: welcome to Georgetown. I know you might think of yourselves as isolated, like it's hard to fit in, and that's understandable because it is. The untold story is that it is hard for the rest of us to fit in too. Everytime you walk into a room and think, "crap, I don't know anyone here," one of people who's been here as a 1L also walked into the room and thought, "crap, all these people were in a different section than me." You actually have an advantage, as you are an unknown, an exotic figure; people haven't heard you tell the same stories over and over again, read the same columns over and over again, etc. At the moment you arrive here, you have something many, many of us do not have: an impeccable academic record. One of the great things about law school is that status really is determined by academic acheivement, kinda like living in South Korea. Use it to your advantage! Your A-average brain probably remembers more about torts, property, and Con Law I than most everyone else here. Hell, Section 3 people didn't even learn the difference between contracts and torts; you could rule like a king over a group of Section 3 people, assuming you want a kingdom of ambiguous language and hemp clothing.

I know that it's not as easy to get to know people as it would have been had you been here as a first-year student, but think of how hard it must be for the evening students: those guys all have kids.

Mark Nabong is wondering who the 3Ls are who transferred away from Georgetown. His columns can be found online at chicago-typewriter.blogspot.com.

So you're not getting any callbacks: a primer.

2006-10-24T07:00:00.000-05:00

This column originally appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly Vol. 43 No. 6 on Oct 24, 2006.

I have a secret to confess: When I was a 2L I did not get a single call back from EIW (Early Interview Week, which is the on-campus interview program). Not one. I went on thirty-three (thirty-three!!!!) interviews during EIW, and snagged zero of them. I write this column for all the students here who have a rejection letter stack bigger than they ever expected; if you have a job/clerkship/rich spouse, then congratulations. This column may not make much sense to you.

Let's review: I have approximately a 2.8 GPA. Please do not freak out because I told you my GPA; I have revealed much more damning, and much more biological, information in this column over the last three years. I have what is generally considered a "B-" GPA, which is totally and completely adequate so long as I do not try and become an actual lawyer. I have heard tell of law firms that hire people with such a GPA, but most of those turn out to just be Nigerian scam artists. The job search experiece was not an exercise in self-empowerment for me; it was an exercise in reliving junior-high era self-esteem issues.
Getting a job is stressful in general, whatever your profession may be. What makes getting a job as a law student more emotionally crippling is the fact that your very best friends, the ones who drink with you, study with you, and occassionally make out with you, are so much better at getting them than you. People who are your peers, who take the same classes and eat lunch at the same time, are much, much more desireable lawyer-material than you are. You know that because you see them take time off from class to "go on callbacks," "fly to interviews," and "get offers." You, on the other hand, are busy trying to network with your mother's dentist's brother, because that is the only personal leverage you've got left.

Why am writing about all this? I'm writing about all this because there is a series of untruths we've been spoonfed, and I want to relieve you of them. I will be the ipecac of untruth.

Untruth #1: EIW is stressful.
Bullhockey. EIW is an annoying meat market, but you at least leave it with some honor. The real stress is the four, five, eight months you spend after EIW getting rejection letters and waiting for a job offer. You think dressing up in a suit and lying for fifteen minute interviews is bad? Try sitting in the cafeteria and overhearing people at another table discussing the pros and cons of accepting one of their offers versus another. THAT is stressful, not EIW.

Untruth #2: You may not be at the top of your class, but interviewers will get a sense of how great an addition you would be.
The average interviewer has the following ability to bump you to the top of this list if you have sub-par grades and a great interview: none. Interviews are done via committee, and no one impresses so much out of a 15 minute interview that they can convince the firm to hire you over someone with a so-so interview and a 3.8. What the interviewer CAN do, however, is write you a nice email back to elaborate on the rejection letter's opinion that you do, in fact, have a bright future ahead of you in law. And that there were many qualified applicants. Note, however, how few rejections letters say that you are one of them.

Untruth #3: It was a mistake to come to law school.
You're just thinking this because you'll have almost a quarter of a million dollars in debt to pay off. You're worried that it was a mistake to come here, that maybe you should have accepted that offer to go to Local Regional Law School on a full scholarship, or that maybe you shouldn't have come at all. This is crap: you're not even halfway through law school, and the reason you've soured on it is that you haven't done anything yet. You think your difficulties during 1L mean that you won't be good lawyer? The only people who care about what happened 1L in the long run are people who write law school guidebooks. You haven't hit the meat of law school, which come up in your 2L and 3L classes, or in your clinic, or in your internship. If you want to feel better about yourself as a future lawyer, sign up for pro-bono work; I guarantee you'll be less likely to feel bad about the privilege of being a law student.

Now, let's move on to some truths.

Truth #1: You only wanted a firm job because that seemed to be the thing to do.
You don't actually want a firm job. What you want is to be a lawyer, which is not the same as being a firm lawyer. Everyone around is getting firm jobs, and that gnawing chasm between you and them feels the same as when everyone else saw The Matrix without you and kept making references to it you didn't get. You feel like you're doing something wrong because you're not juiced into the $$$ for the summer, and that you're in trouble. THAT'S why you feel bad, not because you were really dying to work as a summer associate for the firm of Wasp Name, Wasp Name, Jewish Name, LLP. You haven't considered what more there is to do as a lawyer and with a law degree because no one really talks about anything except applying for a big firm; there's more and you shouldn't be afraid to look for it.

Truth #2: Oddly enough, your future happiness is independent of the crappiness of your job search experience.
This is not a feel-good statement; it is the truth. If you think having a big firm job right now will make you happier in the long run, then you are just projecting your self-worth onto something you think you can control. A big firm job will not make you happier; it WILL make you richer. Now, money is a good thing. Anyone who tells you that money is evil has never been broke (Credit: Ice Cube). No, my point here is that, if you look at the top partners and the senior associates at most any law firm, you will not find people happier or more intellectually challenged than in the population at large. Is the rate of alcoholism greater or less in the big firms than in the population at large? You know the answer to that question without even having to look it up. Don't trick yourself into creating any surrogate for happiness; only happiness is happiness. You WILL get a job, you WILL end up hating in about five to seven years (this applies to everyone, the bad and the good students), and you will take up a hobby that you will like more than your practice. "Yes, I'm a lawyer, but what I really like doing is Indonesian cooking."

Next week, I'll discuss what it is like to be a 3L, jobless, and with a family history of diabetes and heart disease.

Mark Nabong's columns can be found online at http://chicago-typewriter.blogspot.com.

Bears 24 Cardinals 23 - Urlacher defeats Leinart in the "Slept with Paris Hilton Bowl"

2006-10-17T00:45:00.000-05:00

I am just now recovering from one of the most exciting games I've ever seen. The Bears rallied from a 20-0 halftime deficit to claw their way to a win. On the road. Despite six turnovers. WITHOUT SCORING AN OFFENSIVE TOUCHDOWN.

Find the story on CNN/SI here.

And for those of you wondering, Brian Urlacher is the Bears middle linebacker, Matt Leinart is the Cardinals quarterback. Urlacher slept with Hilton first, so technically Leinart only got sloppy seconds. Just like in this game.

Autumn Reading

2006-10-11T18:06:00.000-05:00

I put up a short list of books that I like in the News section of ChicagoTypewriter.net. If you have any suggestions about what you think I should read this fall, leave me a comment.

P.S. Go Bears.

Foreign LL.M.s: Smarter, more attractive, and having more fun than you, too.

2006-10-07T18:35:00.000-05:00

This column originally appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly, Vol. 43 No. 3 on October 13, 2006.

The biggest conundrum you will face here at the law school is not whether or not you should take Tax II (you should not), not whether or not you should accept that job offer with the firm that requires 23,500 hours billable a year (you should, then film your quitting speech). The biggest boondoggle is how much you choose to get to know the foreign LL.M. students.

Why should you try and hang out with foreign LLMs? You have plenty of friends already, and most of them don't hold you personally responsible for the ludicrous actions of President Bush. You're comfortable, and you don't really need to add more complication to your life. If you are like the typical American in her or his mid-twenties, you already have the following:

-Two (2) Parents.
-One (1) Step-parent.
-One-point-three (1.3) Siblings, at least one of which is trying to stop using drugs.
-Two (2) close friends from college.
-Two (2) friends from college whom you actually dislike but you have to see sometimes because they now live in the same town as your parents.
-One (1) ex that you would like to begin dating again if you could.
-One (1) ex that would like to being dating you again if they could.
-One (1) pet that you left with your parents, or, if you are Asian, an elderly relative.
-Twelve (12) "close friends" here at law school, which actually consists of five people you will stop talking to by your third year, four people with whom you will try unsuccessfully to hook-up, and three people you only know from IMs and Facebook.

That seems, to you, like plenty of people in your circle. I urge you, urge urge urge, to broaden your horizons. There is a wealth of untapped experience here, and it comes in the form of the foreign LL.M.s. The LL.M.s are ALREADY lawyers, so you can rest assured that they already know how stupid you are as a J.D. student. You don't have to fake intelligence like you do with your other friends, and you don't have to pretend like you know what do do about their landlord problems. Also, every LL.M. is hot. Every single one. Why? The reason is that there is a definite association of "foreign" with "hot." If you have a non-American accent, you can immediately seem at LEAST 15% above your normal attractiveness level, and that is the minimum. Canadians, for example, seem 15% above their objective attractiveness level. French people are 30% above, while French Canadiens are 20% above (it would be 25%, but there is an 5% penalty for Avril Lavigne marrying the fugly primate-dude from Sum 41).

The foreign LL.M.s are also much, much smarter than you. While YOU can barely speak English without dropping an F-bomb or dangling participle into every sentence, the foreign LL.M.s speak grammatically correct English in addition to their native language. While you absorbed your knowledge of the English language from Jeff Foxworthy DVDs and Nelly albums, the foreign LLMs were studying proper grammar, vocabulary, and relatively little porn dialogue. They probably also speak many more languages, especially if they're Swiss or West African. By the end of their LL.M. year, they will have gleaned a proficiency in another seven or eight languages, too, thanks to their classmates. In fact, by the end of their year here, many foreign LL.M.s no longer speak one discrete language; they instead speak a conglomerate pidgin of French, Spanish, English, German, Urdu, and Hindi, with up to five Filipino words (all curses). The guy who invented Esperanto did it in Washington, D.C., while trying to hit on a Venezuelan LL.M.

Speaking of dating, there is a significant advantage to dating an LL.M.: they will leave within a year. There messiness of "where do we go from here?" is alleviated because whomever you date will have to leave in eight months to take a job in Brussels, Jarkarta, Narnia, Waterdeep, etc.

You: "Baby, after you get your degree, where do you see yourself going to?"
LL.M.: "I think you mean to say, 'To where do you see yourself going?' Your English is very bad, lazy American middle-class student."

The number one complaint by the foreign LL.M.s every year is that they do not know many American J.D. students. The number two complaint is that our beer tastes like it came from a stadium trough, but that is a story for another time. (To my foreign friends: please do no blame us for the current administration or the beer. We did not elect either of them.) You should get to know the other students who share your classes, your school, your bathrooms. They're great people, and I guarantee you the stories you hear will be better than anything "Glen," the guy who sat next to you in torts, has to say. The next time you spot a group of LL.M.s (the proper term is a "murder" of LL.M.s), stop by and introduce yourself.

One caveat, however: do NOT date the taxation LL.M.s.

The author wanted this to run last week, but he turned it in two days after the paper had been printed. It can also be found online at http://chicago-typewriter.blogspot.com. The author can be found napping in the first floor of Hotung, or at paleobiology(at)mac.com.

Sign up for the my stand-up mailing list!

2006-10-07T18:03:00.000-05:00

I've made a mailing list for those who want to know when I'm performing stand-up. The sign up box is both below and in the sidebar to the right. You can also find show times at www.ChicagoTypewriter.net.

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The Holy Grail of the Class of 2007: The PBA Bowler

2006-09-25T13:05:00.000-05:00

This column originally appeared in The Georgetown Law Weekly Vol. 43 Issue No. 2 on September 26, 2006.

Two years ago we 3Ls sat in Hart Auditorium waiting for Dean Aleinikoff to address us. We were excited, nervous, and $150,000 richer than we are now. I suspect that his speech was inspiring, uplifting, encouraging, and challenging; I don't know for sure because I don't remember a single word of it. Actually, that's not precisely true. I remember one bit from the speech, and it has stuck with me: one of us was a PROFESSIONAL BOWLER.

In case that did not come through, let me repeat: a professional (as in paid) bowler (as in the Fred-Flintstone-Kingpin-What-angels-do-to-make-rain variety) is a 3L or 3E at Georgetown University.

I must find this person.

Someone who got a paycheck doing what my parents did three nights out of seven during my childhood woke up one afternoon three years ago and decided to go to law school. Someone turned down a run at the PBA championship for the chance to write onto The Tax Lawyer. No disrespect to the good people who staff The Tax Lawyer, but in a three-way choice between bowling, reading tax law submissions, and eating nails, I would have to put eating nails as the middle preference.

I don't know if you read this column, Professional Bowler Woman or Man, but I call to you. Please, please, please stand up and claim the title you deserve, "Coolest Job Before Law School EVER." I don't know who you are, exactly, or even if you are still in law school here.

"What did you do before transferring to Yale?"
"I was a 1L at Georgetown."
"Oh? How was that?"
"It was like my time as a professional bowler, but with less locker space."

I am reminded of the fact that we have a bowler in our midst whenever I notice a fellow law student with talent; I find myself thinking "Wow! That is some talent!" and in the next thought, a picosecond later, "almost as cool as the bowler!" Most of us had something we were reasonably good at before coming to law school; we may not have gotten paid or had specially dedicated shoes, but we had enthusiasms before matriculating here.

The existence of the bowler puts to lie the old stereotype of law students being just failed pre-med students. Some of us are also failed professional athletes, failed artists, failed writers, and failed lovers. All of us have stuff we enjoyed doing "before law school" that we hope to take up doing again "after law school." There are talents and interests we had that we have almost forgotten about. (1Ls: you are in the process of forgetting your talents now. The beer helps.) We put off doing what it is that we love because we "only have to make through the next few years" and "there'll be time for doing that later." I call shenanigans on that. If you can't make time to write/paint/direct a pornographic film now, while you have a student's schedule, you will never get around to it.

Here's a thought you can take home: right now, as a student, you have the most free time you will have until you retire or die.

There will never, in your entire life, be a better time to learn kickboxing, take up a language, or enter an eating contest. If you used to play harpsichord, keep playing it. If you have corporations reading to do that would prevent you from practicing, it is vitally important that you learn this phrase: "Aw, **** it. I'm gonna play harpsichord."

The typical 1L thinks thusly: "I have to get through this year. Everyone says it's the toughest year. I just have to work and read and binge drink and work and read and next year it will all be different."

The typical 2L thinks thusly: "Wow, this year is even harder than last year. I just have to improve my grades so I can get more call-backs next year. No more binge drinking; I need a job. I just have to work and read and then I'll get a job this summer and I'll be set and then take it easy."

The typical 3L thinks thusly: "Man, firm life sucked this past summer. I don't want to work that hard. I'll have to it easy this year, because then I'll have to pull 70+ hour weeks for the next few years until I make partner. I'll relax for the next few months, then I'll just work and write and work and write and pay off some debts. Maybe then , in my mid- to late-30's, I'll go to grad school."

I was reading an article the other day about CEO's of big companies. They are mostly type "A" women and men who need to be the best at everything that they do. They all try to be authors, musicians, skydivers, etc. That is not what I am suggesting you do; you should not just take up hobbies so you can be well-rounded. I'm saying you should do the things that you wish you did more of RIGHT NOW. If it's playing basketball, cheers. If it's cooking at home, cheers. If it's getting yourself or someone else pregnant, cheers. For me, I just want to sleep for fourteen hours a day and eat bacon, because that is what I wish I had done more of these last few years. We don't have to have the most impressive life resumes; we don't all have to be a lawyer/ politician/ scientist/ fighter/ mage/ thief to pursue what it is we're good at. We just have to do something, now.

I hope that the Bowler still bowls.

Mark Nabong needs to move his crap out of our office. His article can be found online at http://chicago-typewriter.blogspot.com

I'm a 3L now; how's the weather down there, 1Ls?

2006-09-19T16:58:00.000-05:00

This post was originally printed in the Georgtown Law Weekly, Vol. 43 No. 2

I have reached the zenith of lawschooldom, the highest peak of the mountain range of Georgetown: I have achieved complete and utter apathy. Thanks to my new-found status as a 3L, I have stopped doing the following:
- Attending class regularly;
- Avoiding profanity when making in-class comments;
- Brushing and flossing.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. "Wait, Mark, you never did any of those things." You're right. The difference is that now many of you have joined me, in a land I call Shangri-Lazy. I've seen you here with me. You've stopped even pretending to open Word in class. Half of you are working on your fantasy teams WHILE ON CALL. The other half of you aren't even in class. No longer do you bother to ask someone to take notes for you; you don't even want to take the time to get to know 2Ls so you can have that option. Your standards of dress have slipped to one of three low points: (1) dirty frat boy, (2) dirty hippie-girl, or (3) slattern. I know of at least one guy in my Federal White Collar class has managed to somehow combine both (1) and (3).
What does this mean for you 2Ls? It means, firstly, higher grades, as 3Ls will not even bother to try for A's on the final. In fact, the registrar considers it a victory when 3L test papers are turned in without any coffee stains, fingernail clippings, etc. on them at all. it also means that the gym will be full of 3Ls trying to burn off the fat gained from their 2L summer, when firms wined and dined them on a steady stream of beer, steak, and palak paneer. If you ever wanted to date a 3L, do it now while their weight is high and their self-esteem is low. Also, do not wear your interview suit to class. It will be the mission of the worst of us to leave ketchup stains and/or vulgar Post-it(TM) notes on said suit. Just relax and enjoy the dead weight in your corporations section.
For you 1Ls, it means this: Please do not let us hear any 1L jokes. We don't care about Vosburg v. Kelly, we don't care about Con Law, and in fact we don't care about the black letter law at all anymore. It's like being in Section Three, but with less marijuana. If you want outlines from us, catch us fast before we start flushing them down the toilet, or, even worse, before we start intentionally adding false case law for our own amusement. If you choose to start dating other 1Ls, please do not be distressed if we laugh and place bets on which month you will break up. If the over/under we give you is more than two weeks, you're alread in at least the 50th percentile.
For you professors, you already know what to do. Just keep the B+'s coming, and we won't share any of the rumors we've uncovered about you with the 1Ls. We won't share the fact that we have a complete list of every "extemporaneous" story you've ever told in Rich Text Format. We won't pass on the unofficial professorial evaluations that refer to your ego as "Brobdignagian." If you violate any of these requests, we will blog about you incessantly.
For you former law fellows of ours, it was great hooking up with you on the sly. We know you've moved on to fresher meat, but you were by far the least repellent of all the illicit power-imbalance relationships we've ever had. Enjoy your clerkship, and try not to sleep with the Judge.
For you staff members out there, we're sorry we were such jerks. We were stressed about jobs, classes, and our impending break-ups/divorces. We should have been better about cleaning up after ourselves like normal civilized adults, we should have held off on crying in your Career Services office all the time, and we should have held the elevator door open for you more often.
For the administration, begin preparing to hit us up for money every chance you get. While it is highly unlikely anything will ever be named after anyone in our class, it is not outside the realm of possibility. The "Frank Walsh Republican Refuge" will someday serve as a haven for both of the GOP law students at Georgetown. Be prepared for the public Interest people to make sad/jealous jokes about being too broke to kick back into the school.
And to my fellow 3Ls: what are you doing on campus?
***
Mark Nabong is a jerk who never turns his columns in on time. Reach him at mcn22@law.georgetown.edu.

Stand Up tonight!

2006-09-05T11:19:00.000-05:00

In the pursuit of the attention I crave, I'm doing another small set tonight at Cafe Japone (upstairs) in Dupont Circle.

SHOWTIME 8:30 (but I don't know exactly which spot I'll have or when I'll be going up)
Cafe Japone
2032 P St. NW, Washington, DC 20036

For more info, go to: http://www.iansalmon.com/Japone.htm

To sign up for the mailing list, go to http://groups.google.com/group/PaleobiologyStandUp

To view a list of upcoming dates, go to http://www.chicagotypewriter.net

Back in DC!

2006-09-04T01:40:00.000-05:00

Ok ok ok

I didn't post at all this summer. I had major writer's block.

But NOW I'm back, both of you who read this.

The long kiss goodnight, and good luck.

2006-05-01T17:00:00.000-05:00

Categories: Humor, Law School

The following column first appeared in the Georgetown Law Weekly on April 18, 2006.

So, here I am, a few weeks removed from my last year of law school. I will do my best to avoid any complaining, whining, non-to-subtle allusions to illicit online activity during my corporations exam, paeans to candy or beef jerky, or negativity in general. Self deprecation will be kept to only half capacity.
Instead of the usual mix of profanity and beta-male angst, I present to you a list of the thing I’ve enjoyed most about the last year, both at Georgetown and in general. This is a feel-good story, and you should read it as such. Unless, of course, the reason you’re reading this is that you’re in Courtside, someone left this on the table, you want to read something, and there is no Washington Express available.

THERE IS FINALLY ADEQUATE LOCKER SPACE IN THE GYM.
Thanks to the general lethargy of everyone else here, the gym is less crowded than ever. People are studying, running outside, or sitting on their soft butts at home watching “Lost”, which gives my soft butt the chance to finally fit all of my bags and my coat in one of the long lockers in the gym. Until now, there was no way to fit a backpack and a gym bag and a coat into one of the little plebeian lockers, so you had to take two. Thanks to my classmates’ out-right laziness, broken New Year’s resolutions, and bouts of depression resulting from failed relationships, I can finally store my dirty clothes in a spacious locker. Wow, that seems kind of petty, now that I think about it. I’ll keep trying.

THE GEORGETOWN LAW FACE BOOK
I have forgotten more names than I can count, and I one counted to 129,625 on a dare. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about that here, because I can always do a quick scan of the face book and look up the name of the guy who was trying to talk to me in the bathroom. Or, I can look up the name of the girl who intentionally doesn’t make eye contact with me in the cafeteria. Also, other people can look me up, which is just perfect for when I’m having an argument with my mom in the atrium of the library, or when I’m passed out and drooling on the couches in Hotung.

FRIED CHICKEN
Man, I love fried chicken. I’ve more than once left in the middle of the day to find fried chicken. Sadly, DC is a fried chicken-deficient area, so I have to trek to a Chik-fil-A in either Ballston or in Catholic University’s campus. There is something inherently demeaning about eating thirty-six chicken nuggets while squealing in pleasure, especially when you’re surrounded by a bunch of 18 year old college students. I’m sure I’ve broken some kind of prohibition against gluttony, but in another case of fortuitous planning, the National Basilica is right there for quick and easy confession. Of course, my confession probably rings hollow since I have to make it again every week.

WIKIPEDIA / ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA
How many times have I been stumped about a tiny, insignificant fact almost killed me before the advent of these wonderful electronic resources? Wikipedia is free, obviously, but with Encyclopedia Britannica I get to have actual references and a reasonable expectation of non-lunacy. No longer will I wonder for days if it was Perceval or Galahad that encountered the Fisher King. No longer will I wonder about the nature of Urey’s experiments until I can’t sleep. No longer will I wonder what Prince’s childhood was like for longer than a few minutes.

ACS AND THE FEDERALIST SOCIETY
Thanks to these two student groups, almost no one else gets any money come budget appropriation time. That, by the way, is a good thing; how many kegs on the quad do we need? How many excuses for subsidizing Armand’s pizza do we need? Most talks given here are cases of preaching to the choir, which is fine, but we go to them to cement what we already believe. If I wanted to do that, I would just start an R.S.O. named “Mark is awesome but deserves more money for some reason.”

PUPPIES
They’re high in protein and the meat is nice and tender.

EVENING STUDENTS
Thanks to these students, the rest of us have a chance to take classes after 3 in the afternoon, which makes for some great naps. Also, they keep things in perspective, since the majority of them are older, have kids, and think the day students are a bunch of hyper-stressed morons. I appreciate that, as I am. Also, they make up the majority of our big-name alumni, and thank goodness for that.

VAN MORRISON
This is an important one, as “Astral Weeks” has gotten me through more days than I can count. Also, he shows us that Irishness, Protestantism, rock ‘n roll, and soul can all safely coexist.

DOMAIN NAME SQUATTING LAWS
There is another Mark Nabong out there, as I learned while doing a Google search for my own name. Thanks to the first-come, first-serve nature of domain name registration, I will always own the rights to marknabong.com. Take that, punk. You won’t be bringing respectability to our name any time soon. This is just the first salvo in what I believe will be a long-running war of attrition between me and the other Mark Nabong for the next forty years. It will culminate in a rooftop battle to the death in 2046, where I finally defeat my nemesis. There can be only one.

NATALIE PORTMAN
While I do personally think she is an attractive women, my respect and fear of my female friends dictate that I add, “not that attractive, though.” That’s not even what this point is about, though. I’m thankful for Natalie Portman because she keeps the dude who sits next to me in Education Law preoccupied like 90% of the time during lecture, which increases my chance of scoring high on the curve. Way to go, Ms. Portman; keep that guy busy.

GEORGETOWN LAW
This will not be sappy, don’t worry. Just remember that for most of us this will the last official schooling we have for the rest of our lives. This place has given us the ability to be students one last time, and I’m thankful for the chance to be here, despite a crushingly low college GPA, a record of intoxication and minor confidence games, and a questionable personable hygiene. Thanks, Georgetown. I’ll try to take advantage of my last two semesters next year by burning as many bridges as I can.

The author was bested at the Nerd Challenge by Jenny Foreit, 3L, who scored a 98 and beat the author’s now-paltry score of 94. Congratulate her when you see her.

How to avoid being cold-called in class.

2006-04-19T17:09:00.000-05:00

Category: Humor, Law School.
This article was originally published in the Georgetown Law Weekly on April 11, 2006.

This is Georgetown, and Georgetown has a lot of professors. By “a lot”, I mean like Wu-Tang Clan size numbers. There are so many professors here that, as a demographic, associate professors lag behind only Ethiopians and Salvadorans in the District of Columbia. Interestingly, Amharic and Spanish are easier to understand than Legalese, and allow you to order tasty food, to boot.

Given the number of professors here, there is an equivalent amount of styles when it comes to cold-calling. Some professors assign specific people to specific days, thus guaranteeing a minimum amount of delinquency per class. If you are a professor and you worry about class size, just assign specific people to be on call. The classroom will empty out. Other professors assign students to specific subjects, which is the reason I know all about fee tails but absolutely nothing about anything else about porperty, including spelling. Finally, there are those professors who continue to just cold-call in an old-fashion way. These professors are normally fall into one or two categories. One, they are old. Like, Magna-Carta old. These are the professors that actually studied under Charles Langdell, and still remember how Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. used to tip. These guys still cold-call because that is how they’re wired, and believe that absolute terror is the proper condition for a law student. These are the guys that have someone else check their email. I use the term guys because they are all men. The grim specter of the “emeritus” label is breathing down their throats. The second group of professors who cold call are what I will label “turtles”, because they are hard. They tend to be adjunct professors or newly-minted full time professors freshly released into academia. The student surveys about them typically have the terms “hard-ass”, “mean”, “tough”, and “knows their stuff”. You hate taking this professor, but you love asking him or her for a recommendation.

At any rate, there are going to be times in law school when you will be cold-called. I therefore present to you the following:

HOW TO AVOID BEING COLD-CALLED
Avoiding a cold-calling is easy to do if you do it right. The most important thing about any of these methods is to act with confidence. Professors can smell weakness, and so can gunners. If either detects a lack of confidence in you, you will be demolished. Try supplementing your confidence with whiskey ahead of time.

1) DON’T ANSWER - This method is the simplest, but only works early in the semester or with a befuddled prof. Simply wait when your name is called, and pretend that nothing is happening. The prof will call your name again, then move on. Caveats: Make sure you only do this for a class that actually cold-calls, and NEVER for a class where the readings are assigned. Also, warn your friends ahead of time that you will be doing this, because otherwise they will all turn and look at you, or, ever worse, visibly elbow you thinking that you’re not paying attention.

2) ESTABLISH A REPUTATION FOR UNHELPFUL, POSSIBLY UPSETTING COMMENTS. This one requires some preparation. First, volunteer often early in the semester with stunted, profanity-laden comments. Through in some low-level racism or accusations of racism. Use the word “disestablishmentarianism” as often as possible. Spit when you talk. After, say, a half-dozen of these in the first few weeks, you should be relatively cold-call free the rest of the semester. It helps to establish a particular nutty persona, so that you are not only unhelpful but also repetitive. In International Law I related everything I said early on to the injustice of the lack of full U.N. recognition of the Knights of the Order of Malta. Caveat: Make sure ahead of time that you pick a persona of craziness that is NOT in line with your professor’s own views. For example, do not be the right wing psychopath if your professor is a right-wing psychopath, and do not be the crazy left-wing radical if you are in Section 3.

3) FEIGN ILLNESS. Carry a box of tissues into class, then blow your nose often. Make hacking throat noises while the professor is trying to lecture. Moan and pretend like you can’t tell you’re moaning. Close you eyes and sign during the class break. This should prevent the prof from wanting to hear any noises that come out of your mouth at all. Caveat: Do not just pretend to be hung over. Professors like to call on drunks, as it reminds them of their own law school days.

*************

A friend of mine here in law school recently started dating a medical student. My buddy tells me that he is dating her because she is brilliant, gorgeous, and is willing to date him. This was a dumb idea on her part for the following reasons:

(1) As a medical student, she will, eventually, blame him for the horrendous malpractice insurance costs she will be paying.
(2) The relationship leaves them open to Cosby Show/Huxtables jokes, and those are never funny. Unless you’re Bill Cosby, and even then they’re funny only before the introduction of Olivia.
(3) My friend is really ugly.

No, I’m just kidding. My friend (hereafter referred to as “Chuck”) is a guy, and, as far as I know, just fine attractiveness-wise. I’m not sure, though, because thus far in my life I am a heterosexual male, and as such am physically unable to correctly evaluate the attractiveness of men in general and my friends in particular. Is this because there is anything wrong with being able to say another man is attractive? Of course not. I am just incapable of doing so. I would love to be able to tell if other men are attractive; it really impresses the ladies. It’s like a party trick, and you guys should try it sometime. Just frankly pretend to have an opinion about how handsome and/or hot some other dude is at a party and watch all your lady friends gasp in surprise. Soon, they will ask you to evaluate the other men there, and you can bask in the glory of female attention for at least 20 or 25 minutes.

Ostensibly platonic female friend: “Mark! Mark! Would guys think that the guy in the corner is hot?”

Me: “Uh… yes. Lean in closer and I will tell you why.”

Basically, I assume that Chuck is somewhat attractive, or is at the very least not grotesquely squid-hideous, because the med student, “Diane”, is dating him. Good on him. I cannot tell when other men are attractive, but I’m happy for them when they find a woman they can trick into dating them. That said, I want to show support for my fellow males who ARE able to evaluate honestly other men’s attractiveness, and you should too. On Wednesday the 12th there will be an Anti-Discrimination keg on the Quad (is there one every dang week?) sponsored by Outlaw and other groups. It is not just a gay-lesbian-bi-trans event, but that’s how I heard about it. I told them they should call it “Queer Beer: The Queg on the Quad” but nobody seemed to want my suggestion. Anyway, come out and have a beer.

Editor’s Note: We looked up “Order of Malta” in Wikipedia, and would not call on the author, either.

Poker, Batman and nerds. Who needs a title after that?

2006-04-15T14:02:00.000-05:00

Category: Humor, Law School

This article was originally published in the Georgetown Law Weekly on March 21, 2006.

There is a sense I get when I sit in class that people behind me do not approve of what I do on my computer during class. Don’t get uncomfortable: I do not view pornography, overtly violent pictures or Quicktime versions of Knight Rider. Nothing obscene. What I DO do is play online poker almost nonstop.

I will pause for a moment because I realize I just typed “do do” in a newspaper column and am currently laughing uncontrollably.

Ok, back to the story. I play solitaire, and it is almost an addiction. I choose to play poker because it is less committed than, say, World of Warcraft. I can play a hand when someone makes an asinine comment and finish well before he stops droning on and on.

I will pause for another moment and say that I am speaking specifically to the guy in my anti-trust class. Dude, shut up. You’re not a 1L anymore, you’ve got a job, stop it. The professor doesn’t care, no one else in class cares, the IM chat rooms talk about you and you make my soul tired. There is a reason we have call lists, and the fact that you speak every day may in fact show mastery of the subject on your part, but the only people who thank you for that are the people who are actually on call. Actually, now that I think I about it, keep talking. Especially next Monday; talk as much as you want then. In fact, I’ll give you a topic: the current system is antiquated and could be improved by you… discuss.

Anyway, online poker is great because I can actually stay better focused on class because I’m playing it. By injecting a sense of urgency at all times, my notes become more and more succinct, almost to the point of non-existence. Remember: brevity is the soul of wit, and me and my two-pages-of-notes-since-the-beginning-of-the-semester are witty to the tenth power. Here are the actual cut and pasted notes I took today:

I. Shareholder Suits.

A. Derivative
B. Direct

II. Recall: Pillsbury

A. 10Q clubs
B. All in

III. Deference to BoD decision

e.g. [some said by the tool man I hate that guy]
ii) GMU in Sw16 WTF?

In case you’re worried, I don’t play with real money. It is just loan money. If worst comes to worst and I don’t get a job, I’ll just fake my own death at graduation. I have the perfect plan: I’ll just go hunting with Dick Cheney. I’m not saying he would shoot me; those jokes are just plain old lame. Instead, one of my hippie-liberal friends will pretend to kill me out of disgust that I would go hunting with Cheney. We would then collect on the life insurance, because if there is one thing liberals like to do it is to stick it to the man. Speaking of sticking it to the man, one thing lost in all the Brokeback Mountain v. Crash furor is that Batman Begins got jobbed. I don’t think I’ve reacted as emotionally to a movie in recent memory as I have to that film. Best line from the movie?

Bad guy: “That’s all I know, I swear to God!”
Batman: “Swear to me!”

I think Chief Justice Robert should use that line when he swears in the next president.

Anyway, faking my own death has a lot of benefits. For example, my false death will allow to me turn into a traveling seer, akin to Ibn Battuta or Marco Polo, and I will wander the Mid-Atlantic seaboard dispensing poor legal advice to anyone who would be willing to risk the shoddiness of my work. I will be able to do this because I will take the California bar, which, as I understand it, allows you to take the bar even if you’ve never been to law school, even if you’ve never been to college, and even if you can’t actually produce a photo ID. I’m just kidding; those are just the qualifications to sit on the ninth circuit bench.

I realize that the last joke makes it seem like I am have something against the ninth circuit, but I don’t. What I would normally do right now to bolster my progressive-voter cred is to make fun of President Bush, but I gave that up for Lent. I was going to give up candy, but since last week’s column, people keep leaving me candy in my mailbox.

Falsifying my death will also give me a brief, beautiful respite from spam email and tele-marketers for at least three or four days. I can actually check my email account without having to hear about a Nigerian who needs help stashing $14 million or the Information Systems Broadcast.

By the way, I’ve decided to stop playing online poker for the next weeks. I tried to balance juggling poker with following the NCAA tournament last week, and it didn’t work out. I can only have so many windows open on my computer before the internet connection starts to slow down, and that is beginning to affect my ability to bid on Ebay items (again, loan money is fake money). The connection is only part of the story; the girl behind me keeps making angry noises when she sees me playing poker during class, as I mentioned at the beginning of this rambling, disorganized, pointless article (kinda reminds you of customary international law, huh?). Anyway, she sits behind me in Corporations and gets really irritated when I’m playing. For privacy’s sake I’ll call her Aurenlay. I thought she was mad because my playing was distracting her from class, but then I realized that she gets annoyed because I play so badly. I had misread a guy’s betting pattern after the flop and ended up losing a hand that I should have totally cleaned up on. For those of you who don’t know what any of that means, let me translate: I’m as incompetent in a virtual poker room as I am in Evidence. Both the cards and the judges are unforgiving.

***

I have been polling my friends and so far, there is only one person I know who has beaten me at The Nerd Test. I swore to her that, at the very least, there is no one around that can beat me at the Law Center, as it is heavily weighted towards science nerds. In the interests of proving that, I offer this challenge: anyone who can beat my high score of 94 in the Nerd Test (available here) will have receive an ice cream or sorbet from HaaaaagenDaz from me. You are on your honor to take it honestly. If you send me your scores, and nobody beats me, I’ll pick a lesser-nerd at random to receive the ice cream. Nerd on!

Note: the nerd ice cream contest has ended. T.S.

Lack of posting

2006-03-21T23:35:00.000-06:00

Well, Blogger went down for a week, so I haven't gotten to post. I will shortly.

To all my fellow law students or former law students

2006-03-01T22:57:00.000-06:00

Category: Humor, Law School

I have a new column over at the Georgetown Law Weekly, found at

http://www.gulawweekly.net/?p=333

I hope you guys like it.

The Fightin' Infections

2006-02-28T13:53:00.000-06:00

Category: Humor

I'm trying to get over a cold right now, and other than the hacking, painful, dry cough, I'm doing pretty well. I think the best thing to do at this point is to use the illness as an excure to avoid the gym, my law readings, and calling my family back. Hell, I may even trot out sickness as a reason to not call people back even when I'm healthy.
"Hello?"
"Hi Paleo, this is your first girlfriend from high school. Do you have three hours to talk and catch up?"
"Oooooo, no. I've got... syphilis?"
This is a great idea. There is no way it can backfire.

***

I think if I were to win the lottery, the first thing I would do is donate a ton of money to my college alma mater, then demand that they name every men's room after me. Not "Paleobiology's bathroom" or anything like that; I actually want the bathrooms to be named "Paleobiology." That will totally mess up the students in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology program.
"Hey, are you going to Paleobiology class today?"
"Yes, but first I have to stop by Paleobiology."

***

If that doesn't fly, I'll donate a ton of money to a small college and have them rename the sports teams "The Fightin' Infections." It has the benefit of being offensive to nobody, plus it sends the right message: get well.
After the success of The Fightin' Whities intramural team at the University of Northern Colorado, I anticipate this to be a big moneymaker for both the lucky college and for me. We could even get pharmaceutical conglomerates to sponsor us. The marketing pretty much writes itself.

Randy Barnett to join Georgetown, Mark Tushnet to leave

2006-02-25T13:56:00.000-06:00

The word on the street is that my libertarian friends are ecstatic at the news that Professor Randy Barnett, formerly of Boston University Law School, will join the staff at Georgetown Law. Info about him can ber found at his personal web page. He is a libertarian of the true variety, as opposed to those who use the term as simply a nicer way fo saying "conservative".

To make sure that we are at push, Professor Mark Tushnet has accepted a post at Harvard Law School, meaning we have no net change in the number of constitutional scholars. He is one of the main proponents of Critical Legal Studies, a field of legal philosophy that states that the law is indeterminate.

The constitutional philosophies of the two men are quite different, and it will be interesting to see how Georgetown's Law Center will react, if at all, to the change.

Members of the clergy join in the Natural Selection/Intelligent Design debate, and on the side of science, too...

2006-02-20T18:13:00.000-06:00

From Reuters, via CNN.com:
Scientists enlist clergy in evolution battle.
The nice part about this article and the Clergy Letter Project itself is that it reframes the debate between NS/ID in terms that reconcile materialistic, empirical science with moral, value-driven religion. That reconciliation comes not by marrying the two fields, but clearly articulating the differences between the questions that science tries to answer and that religion tries to answer.
It was a shame when so-called "social-Darwinist" tried to use evolutionary theory to degrade human dignity and justice through eugenics and other deplorable practices; it will be shame if religiously-minded people water down the teaching of science and the wonder of the world around us.
I will also admit that as a practicing Roman Catholic and lover of science and evolutionary biology, I am hearted by the words of Father George Coyne, a scientist and priest at the Vatican: "The intelligent design movement belittles God. It makes God a designer, an engineer...[t]he God of religious faith is a god of love. He did not design me."

Immigration and the Minutemen

2006-02-18T12:02:00.000-06:00

There is a perception that illegal immigration is tearing apart the fabric of the U.S. economy, and that the economic and criminal costs of supporting such a large number of illegal immigrants is an unbearable burden on the U.S. I wonder if that it true.
Let me start by saying that I firmly believe that the U.S., and every country, has the right to secure its borders. The ability to exclude is an important one, and border security is not something to be taken lightly. That being said, you can probably guess that I do not agree with the hard-line to illegal immigrants; I hesitate to say that, because I do not approve of visa overstays or forged document-facilitated entries. My problem is with a blanket "export 'em all" rule, and with the aggressive targeting and harassment of individual illegals by citizens. The Minutemen are by far the most visible group today, but that is not the only group, and many many more people hold similar policy views as the Minutemen while disapproving of their methods.
I have three basic issues with hard-liners towards illegal immigration. Firstly, they are off the mark with regards to good public policy; their proposed solutions are out of proportion and off the mark with regards to fixing the problems caused by illegal immigration. Secondly, the Minutemen and their ideological brethren frame the debate in economic terms, but actually give battle on cultural terms; this is xenophobia in a milder form. Thirdly, the minutemen are targeting a group that is easy to attack because the individuals have less rights, tend to be poor, and are easy to blame for a multitude of problems.
I should start with a disclaimer; I volunteer for an immigration charity (Catholic Charities DC) and am an immigrant myself, so there is an initial bias. However, my family and almost all of the people I've worked with had legal status when entering the country, and legal status when staying. It is possible that I would be resentful of those who do not enter through the proper channels, as my parents worked very hard to do. Let's call my situational biases "mostly harmless", then.

Public Policy
As a matter of policy the Minutemen focus on the lack of taxes that illegals pay and the cost of paying for their children's education. One effort underway locally here in the DC area is the day laborer project. The local chapter of the Minutemen is organizing observations of day laborers congregating for work everyday at a newly built area in Herndon, VA. Peter Gemma, a Maryland member of the Minutemen, wrote recently about the group in the DC Examiner. He claimed that they men and women of the organization were in attendance because "Federal politicians are unable or unwilling to respond to the security and economic threats posed by runaway immigration." Another group member apparently claimed that one in four immigrants in Virginia is illegal. The central point seems to be that all of these illegals were taking jobs from American citizens and legal residents. I doubt the statistics bear that out; most illegals take work that is highly undesirable and that would be anathema to people who had full legal protections. The Center for Immigration Studies has done an analysis that touched on illegal immigration impact on American workers and wages, and found that most workers faced no job competition from the immigrants, legal or otherwise. Although it should be admitted that of those who are harmed, the poorest Americans are the ones most harmed by illegal, predominantly Mexican or Central American, immigration. Wages decreased 3% to 8% in some occupations, but I suspect that this is what fuels the American farm and labor economy. Is this a bad thing? Probably. Is the solution to close the borders? Probably not. Guest worker programs may alleviate the tension by formalizing the economic fact that agriculture depends on cheap immigrant labor to remain competitive (a condition predicted and described 15 years ago in Labor Management Decisions). By acknowledging the existence and economic necessity of labor, a guest worker program would compel the payment of taxes and allow federal and local governments to track immigrants to protect both them and their host communities. At any rate, there are programs up for debate through normal legislative channels. Quasi-vigilantism, even by well-meaning, intelligent people, is not a viable answer.

The Scope of the Debate
If you look back over his submission to the DC Examiner, Gemma clearly draws a line: "we are like you, they are totally different." I'm not saying that he is a racist, but I am saying that he paints himself and his group as the champions of American values and culture. He makes laborers his proxy for illegal immigrants, and makes them all out to be outsiders. That may accurate in a sense, because language barriers and cultural barriers exist. The problem is that the Minutemen do not seek to provide the immigrants, legal or otherwise, with a slice of the American economic pie, and that slice is what drives integration. By isolating the group and driving it underground, Gemma tactics actually harm his image of a fluid "melting pot". If the Minutemen want to promote America, they should work to expand English instruction services to the US-born (and this citizenship-eligible) children of illegal immigrants. That goes contrary to the secondary goal of American protectionism: to deny services to the people who enter the country illegally and their children. The Minuteman position is inherently contradictory in practice.

Easy Targets
My largest problem with targeting illegal or quasi-legal immigrants is that they are the poorest, most marginalized, and least protected members of the community. If arrested (rightly or wrongly), they are often not informed of their ability to contact their local consulate. The is abuse of them by employers, because the abusers know that no one will come forward for fear of being deported (the new term is "subject to removal proceedings"). They are easy to target legislatively because no one will speak up for them. US citizens can harass people who are suspected illegals knowing that no one will protest. I have heard many, many stories about employers (who are only an indirect target of Minuteman wrath) not paying immigrants, legal or otherwise, because they know that ignorance of the law and fear of being deported will keep them silent, even if no such threat exists. Other abuse was written about quite eloquently by Laura Roberts in the the Houston Catholic Worker. To attack a population that is inherently helpless seems unjust. Overstatement of the economic harm is very possible because there are few who want to speak up for the other side, and when they do speak up it is for the farm owners or business owners who benefit from low cost laborers. The laborers themselves have few advocates. I think of it as akin to vice squads targeting prostitutes instead of the johns or, more productively, the underlying causes of prostitution in the first place. Don't read too much into that analogy; it breaks down.

***

With any luck, the Minutemen who are the most considerate and aware of the humanity of the undocumented immigrants will be willing to compromise on the harshest of their tactics; with luck, the illegal immigrants who are talented, hard-working, and responsible will be given a chance to contribute to our national economy in a legal way.

Evolution is happening right now, and it is really, really ugly.

2006-02-16T13:21:00.000-06:00

Darwinists rejoice: the cane toad, scourge of Australia, movie star, and all around nasty critter, is mutating.

Darwin's nightmare: Toxic toad evolves to secure supremacy.

Normally, evolution at the macro level does not occur at a visible level. This is a nice case because it shows evolution, natural selection, and adaptation in a species that has a high public profile.
Here's some background on the cane toad, from Nature:
Invasive species: The toads are coming!
If you're interested in cane toad biology, and it IS facinating, as well as the ecological impact of its introduction to non-native habitats, check out the movie Cane Toads: An Unnatural History. It is a hilarious and enlightening documentary about the importation of cane toads into Australia to control rats. Interstingly, the reason they didn't like the rats was because they were eating the sugar cane, a non-native cash crop.

H.L.A. Hart, Law, and Morality

2006-02-15T21:48:00.000-06:00

Ok, so I wrote this as a post for my Philosophy of Law class, but I figure I need content, and I'd like to thorw it out there.

The book referred to is The Concept of Law, by H.L.A. Hart. He was a legal philosopher who took a positivist point of view in his writings. Basically, there is no natural law that informs the actual law we have (as some, such as Thomas Aquinas and Martin Luther King, have argued). He would disagree with the notion that "an unjust law is not law."

Anyway, here is the post:

***
Positivism is a harm, but Hart says, “let them eat cake.”
***
Hart makes, in my view, a convincing argument against the “naturalness” of any specific provision of the law or human custom. To paraphrase, he believes that what we (and the classic philosophers) call “morality” and “justice” are mental and societal shortcuts. They exists because, taken in the aggregate, morally-termed behavior on the part of the majority of people tends to make society run smoother than amorally- or immorally-termed behaviors.

His is a descriptive definition of morality, not a normative one (I apologize, as I tend to harp on that theme a lot). He does not believe in a divine source for morality, but that it can be defined in humanistic terms. Note that he sees an intersection between morality an justice, but not a definite one to one relationship. Hart believes that morality can inform the law, but that that is the extent of the relationship. He also, it would appear, does not believe in much stasis in the definition of justice. Note his emphasis on interpretation and what he terms a “balancing” by judges. So much for the summary.

Here is what I don’t get, and bear in mind that it is not a criticism of Hart: What good does it do us to deconstruct the morality, then? I know that I feel that it is a “good” thing to identify the limits of morality, but is it? If morality and its influence on the law are so important, if “liability for both criminal and civil wrongs may be adjusted to prevailing views of moral responsibility,” then are not positivists harming us? If the functioning of society depends on morals being taken seriously, then by deconstructing morality are they not in fact hampering the smooth functioning of civilization? Let’s say that, to take one hypothetical example, sexually transmitted diseases are bad, and the prevailing arbiter of monotheistic morality issues a proclamation that the Goddess told her that sex without condoms is morally wrong. The rate of condom uses does up, for fear of damnation. Then lets say a legal philosopher, Bizarro-hart, deconstructs that moral proclamation and is lauded for it. People buy into the lack of moral force behind the law, and condom use goes down. Even with education programs that tell people the materialistic reasons why they should use condoms, the numbers for condom use are far lower than when under the moralistic regime. This is because, to use real-world Hart’s words, the populace has “limited understanding and strength of will”; the force of law AND morality combined succeeded better than in the later regime. I admit this is a loaded example, and not think it matches anything in our current climate (oh man, I hope not). Still, in such a world, is a positivist doing harm?

Einstein’s general theory of relativity superseded Newton’s Theory of Gravity. This was not because Newton’s theory was wrong in its calculations, but because at the really small decimals, Einstein’s theory fit the facts better. Most of the time, for many calculations, Newton’s theory works just fine and it would be a waste of resources to use a calculation as complex as Einstein’s. So, is Hart’s theory akin to Einstein’s in this regard? Is the Newtonian morality just fine for the general populace, as Hart seems to think? Is Hart setting up a world view where an elite few are able to pierce the veil of morality, but continue to support the moral system for the masses? Is this arrogant?

The manifesto, or: zero readers does not equal zero concern.

2006-02-15T20:02:00.000-06:00

Blogging always seemed like a bad idea to me, because I could easily take up too much time writing about nothing. It is strange to worry about blogging content when you simulataneously know that no one is reading.

Anyway, here is the manifesto of this blog:

I will try and write only semi-coherent thoughts. No more "cheese is tasty" pointless posts.

I will keep personal news to a minimum, to try and keep myself relatively anonymous here. That probably will not work,as there are enough links on this page to make it easy with a little snooping to find out who I am. Still, I'd like to keep personal news confined to my personal web page.

I will touch on a variety of topics, and so this blog may become filled with non sequitur posts.

I will post at least once every two days, to keep myself thinking and to keep the writing muscles working.

***

If I add more to this manifesto, I will place the new points in italics.

The Encyclopedia of Chicago is a great resource for procrastination.

2006-02-15T15:30:00.000-06:00

Man, I waste too much time on this thing:

The Encyclopedia of Chicago

Fun stuff. A couple of friends of mine worked on the entries for the print version while we were in college.

My personal web page

2006-02-14T13:44:00.000-06:00

I've created a new web page using iWeb, and I have to say it looks nice. It doesn't let you tweak the HTML very easily, but I can work around that.

First Post

2006-02-14T00:00:00.000-06:00

Man, I gotta post to these things more often.