Uh...did I just become a hippie?

"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian."
--Paul and Linda McCartney, 1996



(Just for starters, that's a picture of live and dead baby male chicks who were thrown out from the chicken processing plant.)

I randomly followed one of Andrew Sullivan's links today to some award-winning cartoon movie called the "Meatrix" which laid out the framework for agri-business and the meat processing industry. As usual, I sort of rolled my eyes and immediately shut down any and all receptors as soon as the phrase "Greedy Agriculture Corporations" was uttered. (I have the same reaction to people using the words revolution, abortionist, sodomite, fascist, Islamofascist, stay the course, Rush Limbaugh, Moby, the "system", PETA, Greenpeace, John Kerry, neo-con, Che Guevara, Lenin, Marx, Federalist, Rawjer Sakker (that's for your mother), vegan, corporate profits, Lindsay Lohan, Steve Forbes, queer, unamerican, AZN, the WTO, no blood for oil...shall I continue?) But I kept on it because...hey, it was a cartoon...and the Morpheus figure was a cow named Moo-pheus. Yes. This is Moopheus.

Anyhow, after having my interest in factory farms piqued, I decided to just go trolling on the internet for gruesome images of factory farms. We're so oversaturated hearing irritating environmental activists trumpeting animal rights and moral equivalence between animals and humans and the evil corporate regime that we associate their idiocy and annoying behavior with their cause...thereby ignoring everything they say because they have curly, unwashed hair, a dirty bandana, and reek of marijuana and B.O. That's not fair guys!

Ok. So she's not quite a dirty hippie. And uh. Yes, she is hot and naked. (and as it turns out, it seems like every single PETA protest involves nudity.) I'm totally not kidding.

Anyway, the real point of this post is that I wanted to actually see some of the corporate agriculture and meat plants for myself without the hippie intermediary. The "Factory Farms" as they're called. And so...International Trade Law went out the window, and in came socially conscious time-wasting.

And I was actually a little bothered by what I saw. Not because I wasn't aware of the meat industry or the implications of slaughter (having read Fast Food Nation and worked on a meat farm in Switzerland briefly)...but I felt something a little more visceral and disturbed....I believe it was the machines. It's just very strange to see cows all lined up like this, hanging upside down, having their throats slit as they bleed themselves out.I mean...cows are really big animals. Like mini-dinosaur big. You know how we have this scale of what we're willing to step on? Small ants? No Problem. Bigger ants? No problem. Small cockroaches...a little more wary. Huge cockroaches....a lot more freaked out. And by the time you get to like, something with bones like a baby rat or a baby frog...you're just NOT gonna step on it. So what happens when you get to cow? You close your eyes and let the Mexican do it. And then you have these huge cows up here, and they just slit their throats and rip them to pieces without any real concern for any other considerations.


I think it's just a little difficult for me to deal with the sheer volume and brutality of the whole process. Assuming a large number of the cows don't get properly stunned, as I'm sure they don't...(This is the stunning process below)
We're just talking massive numbers of animals being ripped to pieces while fully conscious in the most brutal ways. (by the way that blood in the picture is messed up) And, of course, I found my way through interviews with workers who have done this so much that they really can't find any "life" left in the animals, so they basically "play" with them by mutilation and pushing the limits of what they can get the animals to do.

In any case, there was no real moral to the story. I don't care if you eat meat, and I'm not entirely sure whether or not this will have any effect on whether I eat meat. The brutality we witness in the slaughterhouses is no less brutal than what people somehow are still doing to each other every single day, so if I get a steak out of it...maybe I'll decide that it's worth it. I dunno. I have no fucking clue. I love my meat. But something is wrong, whether or not I do anything about it. It is hard, though, to match those images up to this wonderful looking steak. Is this what commodification means? When we can no longer recognize muscle and a sliced bone, and instead just see "steak"?


In any case, the real point is just to post a few things that I saw today that were new to me...and hopefully new to you...just to lend some perspective. (and ultimately make like you just like me.) Hopefully I'll share a steak with you soon.


And how did I have the time to do this during exams? I didn't. I'm a moron. I'm fucked.

Pet Peeve

I have a minor pet peeve about the way almost ALL professors answer a similar question students invariably ask, from high school to law school. And it's incredibly boring.

BUT...

When students ask about the level of detail they need to use on the exam, for example, if we need to use citations. The response is always something to the effect of: "Well you don't need to give the name, the citation, the state, the year, the justice, and what page of the reporter it's on, and the name and year of the publisher. Ha ha ha."

Does no one else get annoyed by this response? Well, no shit. Of course we're not going to have to use incredibly irrelevant details that we wouldn't possibly be expected to know, you clod.

This is something that happens all the time. And not even in class. You ask a question about some sort of continuum, and the answer is always some ridiculous illustration of an extreme that is abundantly, and stupidly obvious, that doesn't explain a goddamn thing. And they pretend it does.


And that's my post for today .
I spent precisely 12 hours working all through the day with a single 20 minute break. I don't get much more interesting than this.

And if nothing else, here's a great article/review/take on Jack Black. Something about reading someone analyze and think about Jack Black is just more interesting to me today than reading about Ahmadinejad holding a "Holocaust is a Myth Conference" in Iran. Sigh. The world is certainly getting better.

Guess the Fat Chinese Kid.

In spite of the absolute bust of the last "Guess the Blank" post, which elicited absolutely zero responses...here I go again. Becuase when I stumble across interesting things, I would like to share those moments with you. Whether you care or not, or want me to die in a fire.

In any case, for those like Mr. SJBoy (for those of you unaware, whenever that dude posts as SJ, that's an abbreviation for "Super Jew"), let your prejudices and stereotypes wash over you when you guess who this little porker is. On top of his lineage, he's a real lameass douchebag.



And I do admit, Chinese people do look alike. This guy could easily be the grandson of Bruce Lee, Chiang-Kai Shek, Chow-Yun Fat's son, Jackie Chan's brother, or Confucius' great great great great great great grandson (as are we all...)

In addition, for half of you, I bet I've already exhausted the list of Chinese people's names that you recognize. Except one. Which makes you racist. Whitey. Just try and think of another Chinese person without looking it up...I dare you. Without mispelling the name.

And finally, I'd like to note, it's probable that he has a bigger dick than Gandhi's grandson. It's scientifically proven. AZN!


P.S. - I just found this, and I had to put it up...so for those of you less "Racism-Inclined" and more "Puppy-Inclined" and "Kick you in the face" inclined, here's another quality headline from CNN.

Exams...

There's really nothing I want to say right now. I'm in my...9th? hour of studying today and I'm a little drowsy from the big dinner I just made, and I thought I'd just post something to move on from the all-too-repetitive gun post.

I will say though, that I really hate some of my classes this semester. It's like I'm back in college. Instead of learning about law and trying to piece together doctrines with their philosophical underpinnings and trying to construct a coherent framework from the thousands of fragments we get in class, I'm in two classes that are all about history, random facts, and fragments of knowledge that lead nowhere and pretty much stand on their own. It's boring, it's useless, and I hate reading about it. I've come to the conclusion that I actually like the law because it is a lot less dependent on memorization than most disciplines. Of course we have to remember lots of little things in order to integrate them together into a larger whole, but at least once you understand it, you can not worry about the details.

Instead, in my Chinese law class, I have to read through a 7 or 8 inch binder full of law review articles, stupid opinions, historical remnants, and entire bodies of law...and try to figure out what to do with it. (Yes, entire bodies of law. So far we've had to read the Chinese Constitution, and 13 or 14 Chinese Legislative Acts in full. Not commentaries about them. Not explanations of the law. Not cases. But just the statutes. Hundreds of pages.)

Anyway, enough bitching. Best of luck to all you law school students out there as we trudge through yet another hellish few weeks of exams...

Guns without the Lecture

Not gonna go through the whole schpiel, but I figure I'm gonna continue to report random gun violence as it appears. Just to see as it piles up.

Gunman kills three in office building in downtown Chicago before being killed.

Passing the Torch

The Myth of the Chinese, is now forever replaced by the Truth of the Indians.

The Indian Council of Medical Research says Indian penises are too short for standard condoms. Condom failure rates in India range up to 20 percent; to figure out why, the council has "just concluded an extensive two-year study of the penis sizes of Indian men." Council researcher: "As per international standards, most condoms are 150 mm to 180 mm in length and 44 to 56 mm in width. But data collected in Mumbai till 2001 showed that 60% of the participants measured 126 to 156 mm in length and 30% between 100 and 125 mm." Translation: Thirty percent of Indian men are 1 inch short, and another 30 percent are 2 inches short.

I, Triumphant.

That's right. All you motherfuckin' CPAs better watch your ass, because I, Triumphant, have reached a new level of success.

I passed my 1 credit pass/fail "Accounting for Lawyers Exam."


Implications? Harvard is my bitch. My dynasty is in ascendancy. My face will grace the walls of every home in America. Nothing can stop me now. Derick Albers, you better watch your ass because I'm coming for your house, your car, your wife, your CPA certificate, your leather couch, and Omaha. (Ten bucks says Derick hasn't come to the blog in 3 months. And just kidding about the wife.)

For the Law-Nerds...

If you have any interest in constitutional law, or the fundamental debate over originalism, textualism, and the living constitution...apparently there was a debate between Scalia and Breyer this week, and although it's not a briliant, penetrating analysis of the issues, I just thought this was great article, so I'm just recommending you take 5 minutes to take a look. If you like Dahlia Lithwick's pieces in general, this is just another great one.

Apparently the video is available here, which I will watch as soon as this exam hell goes away. And yes, I'm ten days into this exam push with 14 left to go....

Slow News Day? Awesome Headline.

Notwithstanding.

I hate this word. "Notwithstanding." Every single time I read it in a case, or in a text-book, or whenever, my mind simply goes blank and I have no idea what the sentence means anymore. It has the misdirection of a double negative...and all it does is vaporize the sentence out of existence. It just becomes no longer available to me.

And I admit. I'm an idiot. I don't pretend this is a common problem.

I looked it up, and apparently it means "in spite of." Yet I still can't figure it out. Does it make sense if I say "not withstanding" in two pieces or "not with standing" in 3 pieces?

If I try to work this out and say "you're guilty notwithstanding the evidence"...to me it sounds like "You are guilty. Though the guilt doesn't withstand the evidence. Meaning, you're not guilty." Although if the dictionary is to be believed it means "You're guilty in spite of the evidence." I don't get it. It hurts. I'm a computer dividing by zero, Einstein standing at the darkness hiding the unified theory, a fresh-faced immigrant watching Arrested Development. It does NOT compute.

Guess the City: Procrastination Edition

My international trade class was discussing development issues in trade and so I started looking through Wikipedia for cities to see if my stereotypes about the place were completely wrong...or if I actually had ANY idea whatsoever what some of these places looked like.

So, I decided to post one. Guess the city. (Some of you might recognize one of the buildings, but if you did, then you're a step ahead of me)






If you have absolutely no idea...here's a final hint...which is probably not helpful. This man had an enormous role in the destiny of this country/city.

Lovely lookin' man isn't he? Filthy rich though.

World AIDS Day 2006

I tend not to speak much about HIV/AIDS on a regular basis (at least I don’t think so), mostly because I don’t really know what can be done to stop it, and I’m not even sure most people want to hear it. But I’m going to say something useless and stupid, but hey, it’s World AIDS Day, and if the entire readership of the blog (2) read this…then at least it’s something.

I have a thousand stories to tell about this wretched disease. Some of them are wonderful stories about humanity in the face of AIDS, and some of them are awful stories about the ravages of the disease, and some of them are eye-witness accounts of visceral incarnations of tragic clichés so foul that I get upset just thinking about them. In my daily life since I’ve returned to law school, it’s sometimes hard to remember that AIDS is still out there. That my old friends from Freedom still spend every single day trying to help people cope with the devastation of a virus. A virus.

A freakin’ virus.

AIDS is not going away. Even though we’ve all been talked to death about it, and it’s all over the media, and it’s the trendy band-wagon issue for celebrities, GAP, and whoever else to jump onto…AIDS is a forgotten epidemic. As the third biggest cause of human death, how is that? We’ve been oversaturated with shrill doom-and-gloom, we’ve been smothered with sob stories, and AIDS has become a warm and fuzzy issue that we universally recognize but fail to actually think about. It’s almost as if the more we talk about it, the less we think it’s necessary to do anything. And even when we do hear the "new ideas" about AIDS, especially in this country, it’s controversy over some stupid, moralistic crusade against condom use -- Actual debate over the utter idiocy of abstinence-only AIDS policy.

Why have we really forgotten? AIDS has slowed among the affluent. Among whites. Among the middle class. It can no longer scare us. It’s someone else’s problem, like malaria. Like malnutrition. What're the fears we really talk about? Bird flu. West Nile Virus.

AIDS has not stopped, and it has not slowed, it has realigned its rampage. In the US, AIDS is now accelerating in amongst poor black women. In India, AIDS is exploding amongst monogamous Indian wives. Like so many things, AIDS has become an affliction of groups without the ability to fight it. Sure it’s a disease, a virus…but it’s the cause, the effect, the catalyst, and the result of so many things that’re wrong in this world: poverty, failed governments, human error, human desires, failures in public health, lack of education, patriarchy, cultural conservatism, sexual repression, homophobia, the war on drugs, ignorance, failed prison policies, discrimination, collapsed economies…and the list goes on and on. And if you don’t understand how any of the things I just said feed the cycle of infection, just ask. With so many causes and effects, there is no magic bullet. Not even the Warren Commission could believe there's a bullet that could do this.

So I’ll be perfectly frank: There's nothing simple we can do about this. The massive movements in AIDS policy towards massive distribution of antiretroviral drugs, in my opinion, may just be the trigger for a more powerful, drug-resistant epidemic. The inability for policymakers to move behind lunacy like abstinence-only, or prevention-only, or antiretroviral drugs-only is not going to help us stop the problem. Any solution requires everybody.

The only thing I can say is this: AIDS will not be solved by concerted government action or by action by UNAIDS. It will not be soothed by the passion and compassion of the few. And it will not be something that “others” will remedy. Unless a medical cure comes to light, this is simple fact. To end the physical infection of a virus, to end the devastation of stigma, and to save the lives of those infected and affected has nothing to do with a few dedicated people trying hard, or pushing themselves to the limit to find a solution. It’s not about grandstanding, or making a scene, or a huge demonstration of energy. This problem, like so many others, simply requires that each person make the tiniest decision to not make things worse, but better. By not getting infected, by not passing it on, by not stigmatizing the infected...Having each and every person make the tiniest commitment. And for Americans, the decision is usually pretty easy. Getting the rest of the world to a position where they can be faced with the same decisions, and find the same ease in making them is the challenge...

Scalia

So I went to see a Scalia Q&A today, as Harvard is celebrating his 20 years on the Court with dinners, events, and this afternoon's "A Conversation with Justice Antonin Scalia."

The room was packed, and overflowed into another huge auditorium...and the room was filled with the loud chattering of any auditorium. I spent the hour reading my Corporations and looking around the room, and confirmed, again, that I don't really like it here all that much. (Why? I noticed a lot of expensive clothing...which always puts me off. And it's not when someone buys a nice suit or a few nice things, or even owns all nice things...it's when seemingly everyone wears all nice things that annoys me. And not even really interesting nice things...but normal things, in the more expensive version. Like a 200 dollar dress shirt type shit.) Anyway, I digress. And in walks a group of people, with a short, chubby man who waddles just a little, and the silence is immediate. Awesome.

Anyway, Scalia is really a remarkable man. I think he's wrong of course, but he's got an intellectually defensible position that brilliantly binds philosophical consistency to conservative outcomes, though that's apparently just a fortunate side effect (ie. destroying the legacy of the Warren Court). In essence, he deflects all questions of substance with method. And it just so happens that the method would probably result in substance closely aligned with his own beliefs. I won't really go into what he actually discussed, but the man is certainly eloquent, witty, and very charismatic. (And short. And rotund.)

The only point he put across that I still can't get around is that the most important and pressing issues in our lives should not be placed into the hands of lawyers. That is, legal practice and lawyering provides no institutional competence for decision-making. This isn't a new problem that's just been revealed to me, but my distrust for the competence lawyers is a hurdle I can't get over.

And of course, when you open the floor to student questions, it can be annoying. As expected, a shrill global warming activist decided to try and deliver an opening statement about global warming with all of the fear-mongering imagery and moral coercion nakedly revealed...which, as usual, was as profoundly unhelpful as can be imagined. I've noticed a phenomenon since arriving here and watching speakers...the crazies always stand up with a piece of paper with crap scrawled all over it...and as they begin talking, you can sense the beginning of a speech, and as the "question" gets longer and more awkward, their voices start to go flat and they read stupid cliche statements in the same stupid voice as they lose eye contact with the target and bury their faces in the handscrawled notes. This is the 8th time this has happened since I arrived. (If you count the 7 that happened at the WTO speech)

The rest of the 15 questions were the same question, over and over again: "Doesn't (blank) prove that originalism is wrong?" The blanks ranged from technological change to Brown v. BoE, to the meaning of language...and whatever else. Essentially, we spent an hour attacking Scalia's originalism, and he spent an hour deftly stomping down every single argument.

In any case, I'm bored and decided to just post something.

The Nazi Taboo

I just read a really fascinating article in Slate discussing the taboo against comparing any modern event to Nazism or the Third Reich. I highly recommend checking out the article (even though, as the article points out, any comparison to Nazism will immediately evoke an eye-rolling, "jesus christ here we go again"-type response. I promise the article's not like that.) But if you don't check it out, here's a few passages that really struck me:

The taboo [of comparing ourselves to the Third Reich] is itself a precept of the propaganda state. Usually its enforcers profess a politically correct motive: the exceptionalism of genocidal Jewish victimhood. Thus, poor Sen. Richard Durbin, the Democrat from Illinois, found himself apologizing to the Anti-Defamation League after Republicans jumped all over him for invoking Nazi Germany to describe the conditions at Guantanamo. And so by allowing the issue to be defined by the unique suffering of the Jews, we ignore the Holocaust's more universal hallmark: the banal ordinariness of the citizens who perpetrated it. The relevance of Third Reich Germany to today's America is not that Bush equals Hitler or that the United States government is a death machine. It's that it provides a rather spectacular example of the insidious process by which decent people come to regard the unthinkable as not only thinkable but doable, justifiable. Of the way freethinkers and speakers become compliant and self-censoring. Of the mechanism by which moral or humanistic categories are converted into bureaucratic ones. And finally, of the willingness with which we hand control over to the state and convince ourselves that we are the masters of our destiny.

* * *

And so it was under the open-ended emergency created by 9/11 that Bush's Military Commissions Act, passed in September, gave the president authority to designate anyone he so deemed, citizen or no, an 'unlawful enemy combatant' and, habeas corpus having been nullified, send noncitizens away indefinitely.

In an interview on MSNBC the day the bill was signed, Jonathan Turley, constitutional law professor at George Washington University, declared the date one of the most infamous in the history of the republic, and amazed at the "national yawn" greeting this "huge sea change for our democracy." Where was the public consternation about this reversal of our founding principles? That interested me more than the brazen coup of the administration—which Carl Schmitt might argue was a categorical imperative. Why had the decent people of the country mounted no serious protest even against something as on-its-face objectionable as the bill's sanction of torture?

My Relationship.

After corporations today, where a guest lecturer came in and talked about the new trends in Mergers and Acquisitions, I messaged AHJ to note that (even though I suck at it) corporate law and M&A has some interesting aspects to it...and after a few exchanges back and forth on the topic, we ended with four messages, but four messages that I believe nicely exemplify the relationship:

AHJ: Gunner.

Me: White.

AHJ: Love you

Me: Love you too

(And off we went in our respective schedules)


Now that's a foundation.

Quick Update.

I'm starting to get increasingly harried and freaked out about exams, because, all exaggerations aside...I totally blew off this semester compared to the past. I'm a total of 15 days behind (if you count all the days I've not prepared)...and I simply don't know what's going on in Corporations still. I think I can figure International Trade and Chinese Law out...but this Corps stuff is killing me.

A coupla things:

1) Thanksgiving was fantastic. Just awesome. Not necessarily Thanksgiving itself, but the 6 days of not working, eating, watching (and rewatching) TV shows with AHJ, sleeping in her apartment, seeing old friends, being back in St. Louis...etc. Definitely good.

2) I accepted an offer today...I'll be working at Davis Polk & Wardwell this summer. Not entirely clear on why I accepted, except that I used their name whenever people asked me where I was going when I called to reject their offers. (I'm going to take down the firm name tomorrow or the day after, because, as I learned this weekend...certain individuals, and probably institutions, Google their names or the names of their Jewish sons...leading them to this blog and believing ever after that I am an anti-semite. see picture below, apparently that's me now.)

Ahh my Bangalore No More.

Amongst the various emails I receive from India from ex-co-workers, children, and other buddies, they've all alerted me to a recent change in Bangalore. Not because anything really happened to it...but merely because Bangalore has gone the route of all of the other major Indian cities and decided to adopt a more Indian name for the city (ie. Bombay-->Mumbai, Calcutta-->Kolkata, Madras-->Chennai, and just for shits and giggles to demonstrate the humor....Trivandum --> Thiruvananthapuram (pronounced Thiruvananthapuram.))

Thus, from now on, and forevermore, Bangalore will be known henceforth as...

Bengalooru ("boiled beans")

Which is basically, although not precisely, Bangalore-oo. Well done on the poverty, AIDS, and economic policy Bengalooru. Your democracy is functioning well and your priorities are spot-on!

Fuck you and your guns.

Nothing in particular behind this post...I was just reading the news and noticed, as usual, three stories about gun violence. One involved 5 people being shot in 10 minutes, with two dead. Another involved thugs robbing and shooting people waiting in line for PS3, and the last involves some other jackass going postal and shooting his boss in the parking lot.

Why on earth do we grant the explicit right of life or death to every single person we meet? It's not like trusting other people to drive cars, and being aware that they could end our lives at any moment...because cars serve a function besides killing people. Guns exist solely to end life, or threaten to end life.

What is it going to take before we do something about guns? We're not gonna stop people from killing each other with more conventional weapons (O.J. Simpson), but we sure as shit reduce the impact of moron dirt-bag thugs robbing gamer dorks in line at a Wal-Mart, or preventing a disgruntled loser from walking into his workplace and randomly killing people. Is there some sort of breaking point that will actually make these douchebags believe in gun control? (I guess it took a bullet to the head for Brady to become a gun-control activist...) Couldn't we turn the resources on parts of this ridiculous war on drugs to a war on gun violence or availability?

It's not even that all guns should be banned all the time for everybody...but we don't even ban assault rifles?! ASSAULT RIFLES!?!? (of course, freely available at gun shows.)

Ugh. Buncha fuckin assholes.

Just in case you hadn't heard...

This is honestly the amazon listing for O.J. Simpson's forthcoming book "If I Did It", which apparently contains graphic and "chillingly accurate and realistic" descriptions of what happened and how he murdered his wife and Ron Brown...which is considered to be a true factual confession of the murder. I just wanted to post a picture of the cover if you hadn't heard of it yet. It's awesome.

No one will care...but...

I know that I am easily influenced by my classes. As I was super into con law last year, and I read financial stuff now because I understand the accounting of it...and now international trade law...but here's something very interesting that I found on the WTO website...

Historic Complaint For "History's Biggest Subsidy"
Six developing nations have lodged a complaint against the US, calling the Iraq War "history's biggest illegal trade subsidy" and "market distortion on a gargantuan scale." "In a free market, companies like Halliburton and Exxon should be funding their own market expansion projects instead of depending on their government for help," said a spokesperson for the consortium.

I'm gonna need to think about it some more...but that's a fascinating claim to make. (even tho my understanding of the WTO charter would probably allow this to fall under the "National Security" exception...which the dispute resolution body wouldn't dare to challenge and enforce for fear of destroying its political capital and legitimacy).

Wah wah wah.

(Whining Post about law school)

Monday was my first Hah-vahd law exam. And it was a pass-fail. The good thing about pass-fail exams is that the threshold for passing is incredibly low. As described by my professor, we have to actively try to fail in order to fail. (He's the little old guy in the middle.)

The bad thing about pass-fail exams is that failing them is simply not an option, forcing you to drive yourself nuts making sure you don't fail the damn thing while simultaneously trying to motivate yourself to really sink your teeth into material you're acutely aware you don't need to sorry about. Of course I freaked out.

Anyway, busted my tail for solid 3 days over the weekend, arrived in the exam...and I believe I passed it. So that's the good news. We shall see whether or not my cursory glance at the actual question and fact pattern was completely off-track...The main issue, however, is that I put off all my work over the weekend to ensure that I passed this bitch.

The complication is that today I was scheduled to be "on panel" for my corporations class. What that means is that the professor, way ahead of time, schedules certain individuals who will be "on call" for the whole day. (This is him by the way.)
This means that you don't get surprised by randomly getting called on, but also that there is no excuse for not knowing the material. It's your fuckin' day. You knew it was coming. Which means that I had to prepare. In triplicate. So, with a sense of ease at 4:00 p.m., as soon as I got out of the exam, I thought I'd get started on it and just take my time with it...and do some extra background reading in some hornbooks or something (because seriously, I don't know what the fuck is going on in that class half the time. It's filled with stupid mid-career EU bastards who have taught EU corporate law are sitting in my class next to the most brilliant legal mind in India, who are sitting next to the hedge-fund investment bankers and MBAs...who all end up driving the class towards issues and a level of understanding I simply don't have because I'm not a fuckin CEO.) In addiiton, today was day 2 of Mergers and Acquisitions, which for corporate lawyers, is the sexy stuff. The stuff with all the crazy possibilities of hostile takeovers, leveraged buyouts, maneuvering, all-out warfare, discounted cash flows, and the whole gamut of fiduciary duties we've been doing for the past 8 weeks...all crammed into today.

Which is fine. Until I realized at about 8 o'clock that I wasn't going to be done until 10...at which point I realized I wasn't going to be done until midnight...at which point I realized I wasn't going to be done until 2. All said, after freaking out quite a bit, I took my 30 minute walk home at 2 am, 80% done, not entirely sure what I was going to do to be ready by 8:15 in the morning (again, factor in the 30 minute walk, so by 7:45 in the morning.) All said and done, I went to bed at 3:30, planning to get up at 5:45 to finish the rest of the assignment (by that point, reading the material was taking 3 times as long b/c I had gone stupid.) So, I set my cell phone alarm clock for three separate times to be sure I would get up...placed my alarm clock on the bookshelf away from bed to be sure I didn't turn it off unconsciously, and fell asleep 30 minutes later....stupid fuckin coffee.

I woke up at 7. An hour and 15 minutes late. But I felt good! I musta just finished my first rem cycle, thankfully. So I hurriedly read through 30 pages of material and two cases, hoping we wouldn't get to them...drank an enormously strong cup of coffee, and headed off to class.

Now I'm not generally shy about speaking in front of large groups of people. But I am "shy" about being asked a question I don't even understand in front of 100 people in a cavernous classroom...having to turn my microphone on (yes, personal microphones) and sit there in silence because I don't even know what's going on...let alone how to answer his question...even more so on a day when I can't pretend I'm not prepared. This situation is exacerbated by the fact that by all appearances, 95% of the time when the professor calls on somebody...he gets the answer he wants (about 60% of the time when he does that in class, I have no idea what the answer is.) Furthermore, the first time I was on panel...I totally fucked it up. Whenever he asked me a question, I blubbered out some rapid-fire, confused string of words that didn't make any sense...filled with qualifiers like "presumably" and "theoretically" and "realistically" and all of those stupid words you throw in to hedge against being wrong. Terrible.

But today was not that day. Not to say I performed wonderfully. Or that I blew them away. Or that anyone had any idea who was answering the questions. But I was tolerable! I mean. Passable! Nondescript! It was fantastic.


(Actually, to be totally honest, I think I did alright because I got a few questions that I was specifically ready to answer...and one answer that just popped right into my head. Gotta love that.) Oh yeah...and this is just a reward for getting through that:

A Big Decision.

Instead of studying for my accounting exam, which is in 3 hours, I have instead made a decision.


Since the Tard has an enormous new television, contrary to the wishes of girlfriends around the world, I am going to bring my playstation back to St. Louis, even if just to play for 5 minutes, kick SJBs ass, put him in his rightful "_ _ _" place, and eat some Turkey in triumph. (that's me on top. King of the motherfuckin mountain.)


I propose that we play for the drumstick. Anyone else in? (Do you even like drumsticks?)

Protect Your Banana!

So, you know how gmail always has those little advertisements above the inbox? This was the most recent one...which I just found, a little bizarre. The bizarreness, I believe, is self-evident.

Protect your Banana - www.ProtectYourBanana.com - Bananas are Sensitive things, Take Care of yours Today.

I couldn't tell if it was real or not...but I decided to share the love with you. These things are almost 8 dollars a piece.

Thank God I have an offer.

Last night was the lavish firm dinner of SASMF, at the French Bistro Mistral.

So, gussied up in my third-world outfit of Indian Made blue suit, and Indian made striped shirt, I wandered off to meet up with another transfer student to partake in awkward conversation and unnecessary indulgence. Arriving fashionably late (to ensure that I wouldn't make the same mistake of showing up RIGHT on time and be forced to mingle with people for an hour and a half before dinner...), we soon found ourselves standing next to the bar, me with a bordeaux, and he with an expensive scotch.

To be absolutely honest, I like SASMF people better than I like the people from other firms. They're more real world, rough and tumble, social, and interesting than those from the rest. I mean, I had interesting conversations...and as the wine continued to flow...I increasingly lost track of how many I had finished off. I babbled, I laughed inappropriately, I asked very pointed questions (asking a half-black, half-white man why he had an African name...believing he was just a white dude), I talked mad shit about firms, and I believe that the volume of wine I consumed simply meant that I was either 1) incredibly social and interesting to talk to, or 2) a drunken mess not even clear about what he was asking or saying.

It wasn't until I stood up to go to the bathroom that I realized that I was drunk. Like really drunk. I mean you sit down at these tables and you eat a 7 course dinner of some odd sort, and they just keep pouring you wine, even if you're not paying attention. It's just a continuous onslaught of alcohol. As is indicated by the title of this post, thank God I have an offer...and thank god I'm probably not going to take this one.

And in all honesty, I'm not really sure why I feel such an aversion to this firm. I actually think the people are great, warm, funny, and really interesting (I interviewed with a half-Indian, half-white girl who was raised in Beijing, and then went to work in an orphange in Argentina before working in finance with SASMF), and the guy who sat next to me was clearly only in it for 3 years before wanting to go into electoral politics...having been a middle school teacher for 2 years. (I know this because he leaned over and said "I'm only going to be here for 3 years.") And they're all fun, and they seem to like their lives, and they're well adjusted people. And that's definitely not something that's easy to find amongst these firms.

In any case...I came home with a pounding headache, drunk, sloppy, with an apartment in complete disarray, and an Accounting final exam on Monday. So I talked to my baby on Skype, could barely keep my head up, and went to bed. But not before I smashed my head on a window sill while lying in bed. That pissed me off.


That's all. I'm just putting off my work.

Refer to the "Stupid" Post comments...

(This is irrelevant to anyone and everyone but SJ Boy...Unless you just happen to be interested in whether Baby Jessica is Hot(t) or not(t))

Stupid.

This is a non-political post. Yay!

Anyway, this is for law students mainly...

Do any of you ever feel like you aren't able to absorb legal arguments when people say them out loud? Whenever I go to a speech, or in a lecture, or just general classroom time, I generally don't have enough of an idea of what's going on to speak confidently or dig into the issues. Someone will say something with tons of implications, and they no longer appear in my head. I just draw a complete blank. Actually, increasingly it's happening with readings too. I have to read things 3 or 4 times before I have the slightest clue what's going on.

It may just be because I haven't been resting, and my mind is rebelling against me...but I'm increasingly under the impression that I'm just a total moron when it comes to actively dealing with the law. Maybe it's classes here, maybe it's burnout, or maybe I am just an idiot...but I'm increasingly under the impression that my apparent ability in the law is a complete fluke. I am totally going to be sitting in front of a client one day and have absolutely no idea what he's talking about, and it's going to fuck me and everyone else over.

I dunno. But I feel really stupid all the time these days.

Slowly...

30 Seats in the House?
South Dakota rejects the abortion law?
First Muslim Elected?
First woman speaker of the house?
An enormous fuck you to Bush?
Second black governor in history?
Schwarzenegger with a 30% margin mandate?

The three gay marriage bans and 5 pending are not so great. In fact they're hideous...but there's hope.

I'm no longer 100% cynical about the American electorate. It's down to 80% or so. 2004 nearly broke my faith in anything.

My Sentiments Exactly...

Today's the day...in the following clip, just pretend that Cleveland is referring to the election or America...or whatever...Joe's reaction is pretty much mine for the day. (I believe that my old Duke pals are the only ones who will probably truly appreciate this.)



We depart with the words of Andrew Sullivan:

[I]n this election, I think it's vital if you're a true conservative or independent to grit your teeth and vote Democratic. This White House does not respond to measured or reasoned criticism. They need a metaphorical two-by-four in the face.

Tommy-boy style. Amen.

Mel Gibson? Not so much.

Referring to the "Throw the Jew Down the Well" video, this is an excerpt from commentary and discussion about Borat's anti-semitism.

Borat was not exposing some astonishing secret about the fact that racism and anti-Semitism is funny and enjoyable in moderate doses. And it's not terribly frightening that a lot of people despise the Jews, usually out of envy or jealousy. I'm not even a big fan of Baron-Cohen, but if it were me in that situation, I'd sure as hell be singing along with that song and probably think nothing of it. And I have a few Jewish pals I'm sure who would do the same.

It's nothing new or surprising, I just love that there's somewhat out there willing to openly publish the truth of truths: "Anti-Semitism is funny and enjoyable in moderate doses....And I have a few Jewish pals I'm sure who would do the same." It's the new John 3:16.

A Not So Beautiful Mind

It's abundantly obvious that I suck at math. Since third-grade when my teacher specifically set up a conference with my mother to explain that I was falling behind my classmates. Apparently natural ability got me through first and second grade, but that no longer cut it in the big 3. She handed my mother the assignments I had not completed: 8 days worth of math homework. And the rest is history. Nothing plagued me worse in school than math. (Actually, upon closer reflection, even though I took advanced classes, I struggled in school from 3rd-9th grade. I was the academic failure of the family.) Let's be perfectly frank here: If I were good at math, I would currently be in Med School.
Yet, I've noticed over the course of my accounting class that because of simple arithmetic relationships between the balance sheets, accounts, relationships between certain cash flows and certain other figures on income and such...I was forced to think in ways I never had to think before (although upon reflection they were startlingly simple.) And it is difficult, but after the flash of understanding and mini-epiphanies about the relationships, I feel like I've burned a new groove into my thought processes. A completely new way of thinking. In a minor respect, I think that this is the same type of radical push that happens when a political scientist or lawyer is forced to learn economics for the first time. Adding the quantitative aspects of a qualitative problem create an entirely new dimension of understanding...a shift from seeing the world in 2D to seeing it in 3D. (My own meager economics understanding has now been downgraded to such an extent that I think I'm seeing the world in 2.2D, or maybe 2.5D. Certainly not a 3.)

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if my inability to do math is something I've conditioned myself to believe, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Up to this point I have been quite unwilling to consider math and quantitative modes of analysis on by vaguely and automatically invoking the hokey principle that "I suck at math." And it's true. And I've sucked more and more at it as, with the exception of the econ minor which I barely barely understood, I've ignored it for the past (holy shit) 7 years. I didn't even challenge it after I made that choice in 3rd grade. I've let an entirely crucial and integral aspect of understanding and analysis go to seed because I've actually been too lazy to face up to the challenge of struggling with it. That needs to be fixed.

Of course, this will putter out within a week's time as I try to do a geometry problem and end up crying and drunk in my bathtub, but I think it's time I sucked it up and stopped running from important things and pretending that there is some principled reason for my lazy aversion.

The question that lingers though, is the role of natural ability in mathematical thinking, which has always kept me away from it. Part of me is entirely aware that any mental ability, agility, and the force of intellect is something that has to be honed, to be developed, and that requires constant challenge. (This is hopefully what I will adhere to.) The other part of me clearly recognizes that mathematical geniuses in the extreme, are born, not bred. Anybody?

Tuesday.

I'm not hyper-political when it comes to actual electoral politics...but I believe that I am fairly, or at least above-average on current events, policy, and important issues in government and governance. That being said, I'm going to beg you all to vote democrat this year. Because it's not about the individual. It's not about their positions. It's about the party. And it's not about supporting the Democratic Party. It's a referendum on the Republican Party. The real election is coming up in 2 years, at which point the real direction of the country will have to be re-determined...This is an election to punish the corrupt, to educate the hypocritical, to remove the incompetent, and to revive some sense of an ethos driven by something more than power. There is no way this country can withstand another mandate for what has happened over the past 2-6 years. There is no way we can approve of what's been happening over the past few years, of the party in control of all 3 branches of government, of the politics of division, hatred, and fear. (I'm a little drunk.)

But...I have a feeling that out of the readers of this blog, all 1.5 of you, most won't be voting (which I actually don't hold against you in any way, although I find it interesting that I associate with so many educated people who don't vote...which leads me to wonder who IS voting?) And the ones who do...probably vote in parts of the country where it's pretty clear what the turnout will be. (Massachussets, Georgia, New York, California, South Carolina. You Missourians with the McCaskill/Talent race, however...are in a different position.)

In any case...I really don't think I can take another Republican victory this year. I just won't even know what to think. Isn't ANYTHING better than this?

Da da da Da da....news bits.

1) Ted Haggard. Oh the joy. For those of you who've seen "Jesus Camp" or followed the evangelical political movement...this is a goliath. Slightly below Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and James Dobson, there is no more wonderful person that could have been outed for sex with male prostitute and use of crystal meth than Ted Haggard. It's a warm fuzzy. Scrumptious. Shall we take bets on whose next?

2) Saddam Hussein. Not quite sure how I feel about this one. Is this 2006's "October Surprise" (yes I know it's November) that he's been sentenced to death? I mean, sure, it could be coincidental, but is it really possible to believe that these sorts of propitious coincidences during a potentially catastrophic election are accidental or just lucky? I make no judgments, but I'm so cynical about the GOP that it only gives me more reason to be sure I vote.

And if somehow the Republicans maintain their majority, this will be the second time in 2 years that I will completely despair that Americans could really be THIS stupid. I remember sitting in absolute shock in Bangalore in '04 as the results came in for Bush. And as 11 states took the time, energy, and initiative to pass outright bans on gay marriage. Not supporting their rights, or protecting their families, or doing something in any real self-interest, but just taking the time to go out of their way to actively deny rights to a group of people. I was incredulous. I honestly did not think it was possible. I'm holding my breathe for the party of mediocrity and no ideas to sweep Congress in lieu of the party of hypocrisy and terrible ideas.

I want you to want me...

So I received a big package in the mail yesterday. Exciting! I love getting packages, and I wasn't sure where this one came from. I thought my little lady might have sent it, but then it said the return address was Florida...which didn't make any sense. So I open it up and there's a little golden box inside. Like a child on Christmas morning, I pried open the box to this vision:

So, then I unpacked the box...

4 cookies, big box of Runts, big box of Nerds, little paper Frillies, and two free movie passes from Fandango which proclaimed "Say Yes!"

I ate all the cookies and now I feel guilty because I'm going to have to say no.

Good cookies though.

Throw the Jew Down the Well.

I just wanted to post Borat's infamous "Throw the Jew Down the Well" clip in case you wanted to see it. I saw the movie yesterday, which I highly recommend...but had never seen this clip before. If it seems boring, just wait until the last minute or so to see why this is so famous. Thanks to Super Jewboy for the tip...



As for the movie, it's like Jackass with much higher stakes and much more emotional/cultural pain than physical pain. It's unreal. Really. (It is interesting, however, that Borat gets 96% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, while Jackass only gets 43%.)

WTO, Frenchmen, and Hippies

This post, it turns out, is more boring than I thought it would be. As usual. I'm not a very good writer. But it's an actual event in my day, so I figure I should write about it.

I went to a speech at the Kennedy School of Government to see the Pascal Lamy, obviously French, but also the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, deliver a speech about the accountability of the WTO. As expected, there were about 15 hippies and activists standing outside banging on cans and protesting the WTO. I'm also certain, even without seeing one or hearing one, that there were bongos too. After all, they're hippies. One of them wore a paper bag over his head, curiously reminiscent to the "Anti-Mail Protest" bucket-headed postman Kramer used to wage protests against the USPS on Seinfeld. You remember:

Woman: "Why does this dummy have a bucket on its head?"
Kramer: "Because we're blind to their tyranny."
Woman: "Then shouldn't you be wearing the bucket?"

Anyway, the Speech began. Within 5 minutes, some unshaven hippie type suddenly stood up wearing a "NO WTO" headband and begin reading loudly an anti-WTO statement: "The WTO is the pawn of the evil corporations, who rape the poor and desperate with imperialism and colonialism, counting their billions of dollars while poor farmers die!" He was dragged out the room foaming at the mouth in righteous indignation about "Imperial Dogs" or something or other. A few scattered claps, widespread giggling, and bemusement from the Frenchman, who began again. 10 minutes later, another clean shaven, but obviously hippified gent stood up booming: "Save the Earth! Save the people of planet Earth! We demand an alternative trade system not based on corporate-profits and the bottom line, but on people's needs and freedom from the tyranny of neo-colonialism and imperialism." Summarily dragged out of the room, fulminating about Colonial rape and pillage. This happened at least 6 times over the course of an hour. "The WTO prevents desperate Africans dying of AIDS from getting Anti-HIV drugs, which are a human right!" "Save the puppy otter kittens and poor desperate African people!" "Evil Corporations are evil, and they do evil things because they're evil. I hate you WTO!" It was fantastic. Hippie manhandling and self-righteous indignation by 19 year old protestors as they are forcibly thrown out of rooms is a beauteous thing.

As expected, when question and answer time came, I relearned the lesson that activists don't ask questions. Why? Because, apparently, they already have all the answers. Always. Instead of taking a moment to actually pose a difficult question to the head of the WTO, it must be more productive to pontificate in radical terms. To believe so firmly that the mere invocation of a dying African villager and shouting the word "imperialism" actually means something. That it actually DOES something.

I hate hippies. See this picture? I bet they hate the WTO too.


So Yes. The Global trading system has problems. I've always thought there were systemic failures in government and governance around the world... but I never understood the rabid antipathy super-lefties have for the WTO. (Notice that the WTO protest pictures here include "Free Mumia" and "Who Killed Tupac" signs.)

(My 2 cents. The WTO is a multilateral organization that is essentially a table for countries to talk to each other. My guess is that the WTO itself has about 15 staff members total, and the reality is that the WTO has no institutional power whatsoever. In essence, the protestors are blaming the rules of engagement for the results...analagous to blaming the simple rules of a courtroom, like taking an oath, for allowing the death penalty to be inflicted on an innocent man. Stupid.)

After the speech ended, I decided to talk to some of the protestors. I approached the skinny little ragamuffin who was the first one thrown from the building, and just calmly asked him "Can you actually just help me out and explain what your position is? What is your actual problem with the WTO?" Although not revealed, I had really had two purposes: 1) Figure out what they were actually upset about if they could articulate it because I am simply baffled by the level of venom that exists on this issue, and/or 2) Confirm my suspicions that they didn't know what they were talking about and protesting, and calmly demonstrate that fact to them without hostility. In essence and if necessary, I planned to rip them new ones, but with an air of civility. Here's what I discovered.

1) They weren't actually sure what they were upset about. Except for "The Corporations." and also "The Corporations man." and sometimes, "The Evil Corporations." (By the way, Did you know that one time, in Guatemala, a Corporation came in and privatized the water? I mean the water man! And then because they wanted more corporate profits, they killed everybody's mother? And then, like, peed on them, raped their children, and brought Satan's reign to earth? No really. I have a book you should read.) The more I talked, the more it became clear that actually didn't actually know what the WTO was, didn't know why it should be upsetting, and were fundamentally opposed to free markets, market mechanisms, basic economics, gains from trade, and every other economic concept that has served as the bedrock of all wealth creation and successful economies for the past few hundred years. Ironically, it's actually the same position taken by Creationists who flatly refuse to acknowledge something has been demonstrated, proven, verified, quantified, qualified, seen, understood, analyzed, and established as fact by many of the most brilliant minds in human history...because they don't want to.

And when asked directly if anything positive had ever come out of free trade and the WTO, the answer was flatly, absolutely, and unequivocally "No." That was pretty much the point I drew my final conclusion that I was talking to total douchebags without the slightest value...that I could learn nothing from, and would spend the rest of my life distancing myself from. Thus did the Socratic Gadfly emerge and begin tearing away at the location of the new asshole I was going to tear them.

2) By the end of about 10 minutes of friendly conversation, one of the bearded bandanna wearing protestors realized that he didn't know what he was talking about and became completely silent. I can't say I was being intellectually honest myself, but I definitely insinuated that he was ignorant and had no ground to stand on. Which he had no choice but to accept. The other bearded bandanna wearing protestor became increasingly loud as he was backed increasingly into the corner, finally declaring that he did not believe in markets or planned economies, (or even just...economics) instead believing only in "participatory economics" and positing the alternative government system of "listening to the voices of the people." As expected, their final comments were "You really should read this material on the internet man, and check out this one movie about the poor," and "you should talk to that guy, he really knows what he's talking about." Both were so confused as to what their point was, that they finally "admitted" to me that they weren't actually saying what they believed, but that they, apparently, were messengers for Third-Worlders who are suffering under the crushing weight of the WTO and merely read their words.

Let me just say this: I don't know what the answer is. But if you are going to stand up to shout against the Director-General of the WTO during a friendly speech he was giving, boo him for the state of global politics he is trying to fix, and be a self-righteous, unshaven, waste of precious calories and oxygen who believes that you have the ultimate solution for the poor and destitute of the world because you've reached the age of 18 and read a Noam Chomsky book without bathing for 6 weeks - At least know what you're protesting about. And then go fuck yourself.

...Unless you can think up something like this, which at least in my eyes, is truly effective.
P.S. - For those of you who made it this far...congratulations. But I also just wanted to add that my week in NYC has turned out spectacularly successful, culminating in a batting average of 1.00. Booyah.