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.

Unbearable.

It's so fucking unbearable to comprehend that individuals exist who would intentionally bomb a wedding party, face to face, in hopes of getting the other side so angry that they would precipitate sectarian civil war. Apparently attacking wedding parties has become common practice. And not just killing them...but finding the necessity to commit such an atrocity to be so compelling that they give up their own life to do it.

It's even more unbearable to realize that there are apparently, tens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions who would do the same.

This isn't a megalomaniacal dictator with dreams of world domination...or someone who wants power. There isn't a shred of the rationality or even the basic humanness of self-preservation or a sense of humanity in any of it. It's so otherworldly that I simply can't comprehend the act, the origins, or the solution.

Ah, the Naivete!

I remember when I first arrived in law school I was utterly confused about the concept of law firms. I mean, of course I knew that there existed an entity called a "law firm," most probably only because of the Tom Cruise movie, but I wasn't aware that lawyers practiced law in firms. More appropriately, I didn't understand the legal market at all. For example, I came into law school believing that big shot lawyers were the ones who had advertisements on television. That personal representation is what they meant by "practicing law." I believed that when people talked about obscenely rich lawyers, that they were referring to those who brought suits against the tobacco companies, or the people who chased ambulances, or who sued doctors. I mean, John Edwards was an extremely wealthy trial attorney who made his money practicing medical malpractice law. So, when the Career Services meetings discussed "getting the job at the big firm" I remember looking around the room to see if that registered for other people...if that was something they already knew in the first few weeks of law school.

I imagined law to be much like a glorified liberal arts degree. An extension of political science, public policy, and philosophy. Of course there were lawyers doing dry things like practicing law for businesses, and ambulance chasers without ethics. But I thought I would be going somewhere else. I imagined that international law really existed. That there were international lawyers practicing international law. That there were human rights lawyers standing in international court rooms decrying the human rights abuses of the world. That there were plenty of people like Mark Darcy (from Bridget Jones' Diary. Shut up) who were "human rights barristers" who were somehow wealthy and doing human rights law at the age of 30-something. I thought maybe I would go to the UN, or work for the World Bank, or be involved in something sexy, international, and humane. International Human Rights Law. It just sounds cool.

Unfortunately, no. Once. Twice. Three times! No.

The law is not sexy. Turns out it's fascinating, interesting, engaging, complex, and important. And I've also met some of the best people I will ever meet through the law. And I think the law is definitely a worthwhile place to be, and an admirable profession in the right circumstances. But definitely not sexy. International law is corporate transactions. International law is domestic law practiced over a long-distance phone line and fax machines (or PDFs if you're going to be nitpicky.) Human rights law is arguing cases about employment discrimination. Even at its sexiest, it's about the interpretation of the word "reasonable" or "necessity" in arguing that a government went too far. International trade law is, and believe me I now know, the most boorish and meticulous textual analysis you will ever see. The dispute resolution body of the WTO would make Scalia glow.

So here I am...having made the transfer to Harvard (that's a picture of the library) ... wondering just where on earth this road goes ... and hoping that I've chosen the right path to find a place where I know I belong. It seems so hard to get out of law now that I've gotten in. Not that I want out of the law, but you hear so often that lawyers leave the law. Where do they go? Anyone have an answer besides business or banking?

As a final note, the Me who wrote his Personal Statement when applying to Harvard would be proud. It appears that I got what I wanted. I wanted to be intellectually challenged? Got it. I wanted to feel like an idiot, like I was floundering and forced to improve and struggle to survive? Got it. I wanted to feel overwhelmed, naively believing it would make me stronger? Got it. I wanted to find myself in a difficult situation where it's not clear whether I would sink or swim? Got that too. I can't say whether whether I wanted to be lonely and alienated...but I'm sure somewhere deep down I was aware it would happen. So got THAT one too.

The question now is whether any of this was worth it.

Tiding myself over post.

I'm too tired to post for real, so this is just to tide the whole process over.

Anyone able to identify what's significant about this photo? Shouldn't be too difficult.

And...I'm a little anxious about two of my callback interviews, so I'm on edge waiting for a response....

That's all 'Til next time...or in 5 minutes. or whenever...

Excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is totally irrelevant to all of you, and you probably don't care...

But on Andrew Sullivan's blog for the past few months, there has been a series of photographs he receives from readers entitled "View From Your Window" which is composed of various vistas, from the most mundane backyard in Iowa, to a cityscape in NYC, to (rather infrequently) foreign countries where his readers live. I had taken a few pictures of my backyard in New Delhi, a Bangladeshi garbage processing slum, and had never sent them in to him over the last 3 months...figuring he wouldn't post them, as he often makes comments about the MASSIVE number of shots he gets, and how certain aspects of photos (like a windowframe demonstrating that it's really a window shot) make them more eligible etc.

So, I finally sent in a couple photos. And it was posted within a couple days!! (His actual blog link is here...just scroll down to Oct. 25, 12:15 p.m.) He gets over 50,000 hits a day, so I just find it exciting! Yay! Blogs Rule.


And...Boo-Yah! Progress on the Gay Front! Of course it's an "activist court" doing "Un-American" things, like upholding equality, progress, and individual freedom...but at least it's good to realize that not everyone is a dipshit.

For all you fellow folks who have some exposure to Con Law, is there anything more disrespectful to American constitutionalism than Constitutionalizing the anti-homosexuality issue? I mean...Jesus FUCKING CHRIST. Support state laws illegalizing homosexual marriages on federalist principles if you really want...but next to all of those principled Amendments and rights determining the superstructure of our society...they want to insert a Gay Marriage Ban? In the same Constitution where they interpret the phrase "In Commerce" to mean so much, with such complexity, and such nuance with the deepest philosophies of governance, government, and controlling humanity...they want to add an Amendment about the definition of marriage? Ironically, I'm going to have to exclaim: Jesus Christ!

Evil. Next?

I interviewed with two firms, back to back today. These firms were my "backup" firms, although I'm now under the impression that you don't really need "backup" callback firms, because 5-7 callbacks with firms is apparently plenty to guarantee a callback (Note: I took 3 callbacks from firms I never intended to accept an offer from. Fantastic.)

The first firm, abbreviated SA, was filled with people who genuinely seemed to like their lives as lawyers. Aside from a corporate partner, who had the most absurd, caricaturish glasses I have ever seen in my entire life and spoke extraordinarily fast and put me on edge, I just had great, free-flowing conversations with the rest of the group. The office was beautiful, located right in the bustling areas of Times Square, and I had some pleasant conversations.



Then came lunch, where I was taken to the highest rated restaurant in New York, Le Bernardin. The associate who took me to lunch, however, was less than spectacular. It's not that he wasn't friendly. He just seemed to embody multiple negative stereotypes all at once. He was focused completely and utterly on money, he had no interests, he had a definite twitch, he was overly self-assured, he was abrupt and rude, and he just did not feel put together as a human being. He sent back his fish, which had bacon in it (he's Kosher), blaming it on the menu, he said if he wasn't a lawyer he'd be a banker for the money, he doesn't even like what he does, but he likes that he gets to rub shoulders with the richest, and hopes to make connections, and doesn't seem to have any life outside of his work. He wasn't evil or soulless...he just seemed lost. I felt uncomfortable discussing AIDS in India with him, because he was struggling so hard just to ask me questions about it.

Of course he treated me with extreme politeness, but I could see that if I were a paralegal or even conceivably a law student he could have treated as inferior...then he probably would have. In any case, him aside, SA had the nicest people I had met to date. People who were firmly determined to remain people. And that's a good thing.

The second firm, WC, was in a really retro looking building. I believe this is an issue for several of the major NYC firms, which is that their decor reflects an earlier era of decadence, which today looks extraordinarily backwards. I can't quite explain it, but the signage and the decor just seemed oddly 1980's. It doesn't actually matter to me what the offices look like, but it's bizarre to me that people who spend so much time and money on other worthless items don't spend any money on their own surroundings. I distinctly recall walking by an office with an associate sitting alone at his desk...and the room was just four white walls, a desk, and a computer. Maybe it's because I like taking the time and energy to make my living/working spaces more full and ultimately more organic, but man...that is some stark shit. As for the people at W&C, once again, I thought they were fantastic. One woman partner looked COMPLETELY like some normal, completely harmless woman. Another Partner spent 10 minutes talking to me about guitars. A third one left the art world to do Trusts and Estates (?!?!?!). And the fourth was a British Indian woman who was just an intense conversationalist. All said though, something about the office reminded me far too much of "Office Space" so I think I'll have to pass. Plus, upon mentioning the name of this firm to a professor of mine, the immediate response, and I'm talking immediate, was "Evil. Next?"

After I left the office, and spent 30 minute fruitlessly trying to hail a cab near Times Square (Jesus Christ, suck), I received a call and an offer from SASMF (I figure that one should be fairly obvious). So the tally is two. No matter what I'm safe. Now it's a matter of seeing if I can get these last two, STB and DPW...and if I do...then comes another round of annoying decisionmaking.

Turns out I'm getting at interviewing though. I actually think this has made me a better conversationalist. Not that it is anymore interesting to talk to me now, but it's just easier for me to sound natural and genuine when I make transitions like "Wow, you moved ALL the way from structured finance and market securitization to debt restructuring and bankruptcy? That's fascinating?...well that's great. So where did you grow up?"

Tally:
SC - Check
SASMF - Check
WC - Confident.
SA - Not sure. A little too loose tongued.
STB - Hope!
DPW - Hope x 2!
Milbank Tweed Hadley and McCloy: Not so much. The name itself...jesus.



You'd think I'd have better pictures...but it has been what I have looked up in terror at...but it's all I can find. Short of this:

Weighty Matters.

Sounds like normal blog post title about to say something faux-weighty...but it's actually just a brief message to proclaim that I've clearly gained weight...again...due to the law school lifestyle.

Unfortunately, I'm not actually working so hard that there is a clear tradeoff. In actuality, I'm watching a lot of television and eating any food in my apartment. Life is good.

Or not.

Oh. And jesus christ. A 100 dollar tab a day in a 4-star hotel with room service is such an exacerbating circumstance.

One down!

So at the tail-end of my interview session, on a Friday afternoon, with lawyers who ranged from the obviously miserable with their jobs, to those who seemed enthusiastic about their work...I received my first offer! The interviews didn't go particularly well, and this was the most prestigious of the firms with which I interviewed, and they just said "well...you have an offer."

So...just a little minor boo-yah because now my backup firm is the top of the firms with which I interviewed!

(although 5 years ago in the superlatives category they were known as the "worst firm to work for in the country"...so we shall see)

Anyway, I'm at a Kinko's using the internet because my hotel is charging 10 bucks a day for wireless and I'm totally not up to that...so I gotta run.

Not Another Political Post

Disclaimer: This post is particularly self-indulgent, dry, and boring. Read at your own risk. The good money says you won't make it to the end. More normal posts will hopefully resume again sometime soon.

Of course the title is a riff on that movie (which, of course, I’ve seen), which in turn means that this is yet another political post. Since I’m flying out to New York (and St. Louis!) for the next 9 days for interviews…I will likely mostly be posting about that, maybe…for the next few days so I thought I’d squeeze in this last one…

As a completely non-political science theory person, I’m going to outright disclaim how simplistic my analysis is here, and how doubtless, most of you are already aware of what I’m posting about…but basically I was reading Haubenreich’s blog and got into thinking about the left/right political spectrum…and thought I would post about an idea that hit me like a bolt of lightning a few years ago. (The fact that this hit me like a lightning bolt shows how early in the stages of developing I really am…hence…the blog name.)

So, I had never really known what to say when people ask me where I stand politically. On one hand, it’s abundantly clear that I am socially liberal. But it’s not safe to say that I’m liberal. I generally believe in personal choices/self-determination for sexuality, race, abortion, drug use, victimless crimes, and personal morality, which all belong with the left. On the other hand, I think Communism is retarded. Maybe it’s the fact that I studied so much economics in college, or maybe it’s the fact that I do believe market mechanisms, capitalism, and the idea of economic incentives will increase productivity and growth at a much higher rate than a centrally planned state with all of the weakness of political infighting, massive bureaucracies (and their petty bureaucrats), and the complete lack of personal incentive for improvement in productivity. (Of course all this is obvious and incredibly simplified, I just wanted to explain why I think Communism is retarded. Not just ill-conceived, but retarded. Not necessarily a slam on Marxism per se, but at least a slam on communism. I also find it unfortunate that market economics is so clearly considered a "right" position, since "left" policies also harness market forces and market theories to reach the same goal. (ie. in a recession, "liberals" would advocate the "injection" of government stimulus and government spending close the recessionary gap, while "conservatives" would advocate cutting taxes to increase investment/consumption to close the recessionary gap.)

My fundamental, underlying value, however, remains individual human experience…thus my beliefs are all guided towards enabling personal freedom and the ability of each person to not be hampered in pursuing happiness. So, if you really had to boil it down…I am a "regulated free-market", social liberal who believes government has a role to mitigate poverty, inequality, and systemic repression, whether economic, social, or political, but should not replace the role of civil society and self-determination. Thus, I was always somewhat conflicted because I believe that government should keep its heavy paws off of personal (social) choice, but I wasn’t sure how to draw a principled distinction between non-interference in personal (social) choice and personal (economic) choice (ie. taxes).

Under the current framework, I’m either 1) kinda sorta liberal, 2) kinda sorta conservative, 3) not really, but kinda libertarian, or the dreaded 4) Centrist, which doesn’t really seem to have any meaning. I just felt confused.

Thus comes what is called the “Political Compass,” a paradigm revision (not really a shift I guess) that helped me clear things up a bit.

It's not really much of a change, but social and economic philosophies are nicely broken apart. Here's another version...apparently with where modern politicians and famous people fall. I don't know if I actually agree with the placement of certain people (Tony Blair?), and I never even considered that people like Robert Mugabe had actually governing philosophies...I just sorta assumed they were mindless demons. But clearly, figures like Mao and Stalin would fall on the top left, Andrew Sullivan would fall on the bottom right, and I think that I would fall very slightly right or left of center in the bottom right quadrant, although not too far down.

Clearly, these are inelegant and lacking in precision. But then again, I don’t think it’s necessary or useful to be precise here. I would say that the terms “Authoritarian/Fascism” and “Libertarian/Anarchism” are a little unhelpful as they embody more specific end goals instead of values...and so I would prefer “Order” on top and “Freedom” on the bottom or maybe even “Social Order” and “Social Freedom”…which more fairly puts both ends of the spectrum on equal footing as plausible and positive alternatives, instead of two doom and gloom labels like "Fascism" and "Anarchism."

There’s two more axes that I think should be accounted for, but I’m not sure how they would fit into the picture. One axis (making it 3-D!) would be a way to account for the relative weights of the other two axes (ie. Hippies would put increased weight on the social/vertical axis, while Milton Friedman's super-free market fiscal policy would put increased weight on the economic/horizontal axis). I think given those three axes, it would be quite simple to place people relative to each other, although the final product would be a 3-D cube with 8 quadrants. (would they still be called quadrants if there are 8 of them?)

...as for the second axis...I was thinking about it during my international trade class this morning, but at this point I have completely blanked and I have no idea what I thought it was going to be. Maybe it's takin the axis and wacking me over the head with it for wasting your time.

Did I even make sense? It's actually a really simple thing where left and right get broken up into left right economics, and up down social policy. I just babbled my way around it. Any Thoughts?

Anyway, boobies, farts, poop, asslick. And Angus Bethune. (This is your reward for making it to the end.)

Wish me luck over the next week.

P.S. - On a lighter note, concerning Madonna's adoption of the Malawian child:
--She went to the Malawian orphanage and handed out signed copies of her book.
--She adopted a child whose father was still alive.
As brilliantly put by TheSuperficial:

So instead of food or medicine, this egotistical bitch handed out signed copies of her book. To starving Africans. Who probably can't read. She might as well have given them autographed pictures of herself. Not only that, but the child she chose to adopt still has a father. Instead of saving a true orphan, she chose the one kid that actually has family. She's doing pretty much every wrong thing you can do when adopting a child. If she was making a pizza, right about now she'd be smashing some glass into the dough and looking for some watermelons for the pizza sauce.

While I DO hate the French...

Another completely unrelated, random post about world politics...This time about France. And while I do find the French people to be annoying, whether in their ultra-liberal politics, socialism, snootiness, pomp, or sense of superiority...I do think that their lame stances on the war in Iraq and on Middle Eastern policy are entirely justified because of their immigration problems. The Lady has made it perfectly clear to me in the past that the French take their soft-against terrorism stance due to the massive numbers of Muslims in France, who have formed their own ghettos and slums, and who are increasingly violent and in a state of unrest due to the inability to find work, a la socialist economy, and the feeling of discrimination (which seems perfectly reasonable, considering that they live amongst the French.)

Thus, to say yes to any stance against an Arab or Muslim state is to invite another repeat of the riots we saw last year, where apparently 10,000 vehicles were torched.

This train of thought has been rattling around in my head for awhile, and it was recently brought back to life by this article:

France's Interior Ministry said 2,500 police officers had been "wounded" this year. The head of the hard-line trade union "Action Police" Michel Thooris... describe[d] conditions in housing developments turned slums as "intifada." Police cruisers are pelted daily with stones and "Molotov cocktails"...An average of 14 policemen a day are injured in bloody clashes with jobless youngsters.

I don't really know much about average statistics, but that seems like an awful lot to me. 2,500 a year?

There are two things that actually interest me about this whole issue. First, the rise of violent Islam internal to European states has produced an equally radical backlash, namely right-wing nationalist extremism to combat the "threat of Islam." (Not unfamiliar of course, but I won't join the hystericalm knee-jerk left in calling all our Republicans fascists.) I'm just going to end this thought by stating that I think the rise of right-wing extremism is never a good thing. Period.

Second, this seems, at least to me, to be an affirmation of the conservative belief that multiculturalism is ill-conceived, and that integration is essential to any large-scale immigration problem. (Multiculturalism being the belief that a society can/should be composed of distinct cultural groups of equal status, as opposed to a more integrationist approach). If you look at the French Riots, Van Gogh murder, London bombings, and the ghettoization of Muslims in Europe, the Multi-cultural capital of the world, it appears that allowing or encouraging these communities to remain distinct breeds identities of separateness, alienation, and division.

For example, I remember reading about the new phenomena of "Digital Ghettos" in England, that is, technology has enabled the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities to get all of their television and cultural programming directly from Pakistani and Bangladeshi providers and networks. As a result, if you live in a Pakistani neighborhood and watch all Pakistani television from your dish, and read all Pakistani papers from the internet...living in London really doesn't mean a thing.

Obviously the counterexample is the United States, which at least until recently, has been incredible at integrating its immigrant populations. I'm still not sure what to make of the current immigration issue though...considering the proliferation of "Little Mexicos" and "Little Havanas" around the country. Maybe I'm just a white kid in a Chinese body who is happy to have accepted my position in this country, but I still tend to believe that assimilation and integration is absolutely crucial. Who the fuck knows.


Does anyone not understand why I put up pictures of Twinkies?


P.S. - Should I stop posting about these random political thoughts? I mean, I don't think it'll make a difference as to whether I continue to do it or not...but I wonder if it's annoying. I like it because it helps me articulate these amorphous ideas in my head...but I don't want to drive away the 2 and a half people who read this thing. (Actually respond if you would be so kind.)

P.P.S - Is it must me, or do lots of Europeans look somewhat inbred?

The IKEA Idea

So, instead of doing my "Accounting for Lawyers" homework, I decided to a little bit of my daily news reading and I came across an interesting article about IKEA. It's not necessarily to follow the link or read about it, but there was a really interesting observation about the company and the Swedish political economy that I hadn't realized:

IKEA is staffed very sparsely, as opposed to say Wal-Mart. There aren't tons of people in the store walking around at all times helping you out, standing around and doing nothing. Furthermore, the products are largely, if not completely unassembled. Most of the products seem to be machine-produced en masse, and the assembly of the products is all done by the consumer.

The reason?

Apparently this model is a necessity of the Swedish socialist economy, which commands very high wages for even the lowest wage workers...such that they simply cannot afford to pay the high cost of labor. Instead, they've designed a business model that requires low levels of constant labor input, whether it's service provided in the stores or menial laborers in the factories. Granted, there must be much higher levels of fixed costs and initial start-up costs, but in the long-run, labor costs will not be a consistent burden on their operating costs. So, in hiking up employment protections through the public sector, the private sector has innovated and adapted to simply do away with employment. Nice.

The obvious broader implication is that the Swedish economy will essentially hemorrhage away domestic industry and manufacturing (I'd be willing to bet that all IKEA products are made in China), and an inevitable loss of competitiveness and reduced growth...especially as Sweden is part of the European Union (which, I assume means that even if they have access to low-wage migrant workers...they can't legally pay them low wages). So it makes you wonder what the future of socialism is...or what it could even conceivably be. I've gotten into this talk many times about how France is equally going to buckle under the weight of competition (a government mandated 35-hour workweek!??!), so this is just a nice concrete demonstration of it in action.

I'm obviously extrapolating from the tiny fragments I've read about Sweden and the beloved IKEA, but I thought it was interesting. It's likely that I've just posted things both enormously obvious and stupid.

You Tubes.

Ten bucks says none of you follow these links, but I thought it was interesting to see a Mainstream media commentator lambast the president with such a Daily Show, sarcastic "Fuck you Mr. President" discussion of the recently passed "torture, detainment, and no civil rights in the name of fear of terrorism" bill. So here's a link to the video, which is hosted on Andrew Sullivan's blog.

And for the hell of it, I've also included Jon Stewart's interview with Bill Bennett about gay-marriage. I'm still shocked by what an amazing figure Jon Stewart has turned out to be over the past few years. Very few people have been able to articulate the conscience of so many people the way he has...Plus he's just so goddamned effective.

News Bits.

Nothing of interest, except these two brief, unrelated stories.

Texas is now encouraging their children to attack armed intruders in the school. I actually don't know how I feel about it. I mean, once a guy steps into a school with a gun out it doesn't really seem like anything is going to stop him from killing children (yes. they're all male.) But then again, I feel like if I went into a school with the purpose of killing a few specific people, getting smacked in the face with a book is going to make me want to kill whoever threw it.

And...Mohammed Yunus, the inventor of micro-credit and the Grameen Bank, won the Nobel Prize! Damn right! Relieving poverty wins the Peace Prize. I totally approve.

I know I make fun of jews, but...

I apologize for the ranting character of this post, especially following after the super bitch-tits post. But...Jesus Christ, I am fucking sick of so many elements of the Muslim world. Maybe it's a little intolerant of me, but I simply do not and will not accept a world-view that does not believe in the possibility of peaceful co-existence with other human beings. Obviously I'm opposed to all religious fundamentalism, but what the fuck is going?!?!?! The most recent problem?

Exhibit 1:
Dubbed "Apple Mecca," this glass box happens to resemble the Ka'aba in Mecca because it is cubic. In addition, it is open 24 hours a day, like the Ka'aba. Finally, it serves alcohol. Thus, an outcry from parts of the Muslim community procaliming this an offense to Muslim Dignity, which should be dismantled.

Response? Fuck you.




Exhibit 2: Left: Burger King produced an ice cream cone with a stylistic picture of an ice cream swirl on the lid. Right: The Arabic Symbol for Allah. Because of the outrage and anger over the disrespect to Allah and Muslims, Burger King was forced to pull this ice cream lid.

Response? Fuck you.


Exhibit 3: The Danish Cartoons Protest in London.

Need I say more? The only real comment is how sickened is how free speech has been hijacked to suppress free speech.

Response? You guessed it. FUCK YOU.











Of course there's no need to mention the more high profile issues like actual violence and the absolute disregard for human rights and the status of women and homosexuals.

Actually, nevermind. I'll go ahead and post about homosexuals in the Muslim World.

Exhibit 4: Homosexuality in Iran. These two boys, aged 18 and 16, were executed for having homosexual sex. A 16 year old boy. A junior in high school...was executed for being gay?



Response? May you burn in hell.

Guess the Actor.

If, somehow, you can guess who this is...then you are awesome.
Chances are you have no idea...but I'm offering you a chance at possessing my eternal esteem.


For Those of you who have no idea who Charlie Talbert is, Here you go.
Angus: Best Movie of All Time.

Actual Life.

I'm been posting a lot of random crap recently, partly because these are the things I actually look at and find amusing, and because I haven't had much time. All in all, these stupid posts are essentially what you would experience if I were still there in your immediate presence, as I would likely poke you to look at the picture of Jiang Zemin, or ramble on about the state of the North Korean government and how Pyongyang actually looks like a normal city.

However, the real reason is that I've been doing OCI for the past 3 weeks. That's 3 full weeks of interviews in between, before, and after classes. For some reason, most of my interviews have fallen after my monday and tuesday classes...which means I have class from 8:15-4:30, then I have get into my suit and book it to the hotel where we are interviewed, and interview from 5:20 til about 7:00. At that point, I'm usually exhuasted for my 8:15 the next day. More importantly, I probably wore myself getting ready for 6 classes and 8 interviews the week before. In essence, it's been a brutalizing experience. The good news? I wrapped up 3 interviews today, and have only 1 more left on Friday at 5:40...and I'm not even going to take that callback if I get it.

As for the interviews, this is the ultra-boring rundown of the last 3 weeks:

Week 1: Two out of the three firms I wanted in the first week rejected me summarily, and I didn't have any callbacks by the end of the first week. It was disheartening, mostly because I began to fear that I left behind everything that made me happy for nothing...or less than nothing as I tend to think I would have been able to get callbacks from those two firms from Wash U...but who knows. I also got rejected from two firms which were my backup firms. Which also terrified me. I figured I just really sucked at interviewing. My policy of being honest, open, somewhat cynical, and just being me was basically a failure. I did, however, get a callback at my top choice in this whole damned process. I met with the career services office because of my fear that I sucked total ass at interviewing...and they just told me I'd be fine.

Week 2: I had one interview at a monstrously large and powerful firm. I ended up interviewing with the global hiring partner of the entire firm (ie. he handles hiring for the firm of like 1600+ attorneys). I was lame, bumbling, but apparently he appreciated it.

Week 3: Yom Kippur has fucked this shit up. Because of cancelled classes, I have makeup classes this week on friday, and I am designated to be on call. PLUS, this week he decided to assign our class the same number of pages it took him the first 5 weeks to cover...at the tail end of which I will be on call. I had/have 7 interviews this week, including 3 firms which I applied for purely on the basis of their rankings and Anglo-sounding names from the 1800's. Oh, and I was so tired by today that I slept right through my 8:15 class...and just went straight to my 3 interviews.

These partners are surprisingly nice people. They don't seem like they are particularly interesting, or that I have anything in common with any of them, but I've had some really interesting conversations (interesting being a relative term) with them and I've actually felt more at ease than I had thought I would feel. At this point, I have a fair number of callbacks... and I'm just fine with the ones I got...as well as carrying a grudge against the ones I didn't get (not really, but kinda)....and I'm just ready for this shit to be over with.

As for the rest of the week and a half, I have tons of homework to prepare for, a human rights advocates meeting (which for some reason requires homework, a mini-brief, and an oral orgument), international law journal editing, a flag football game (I scored two touchdowns in the rain and knocked the hell out of a girl on accident last time), one more interview, and a whole lotta fatty unhealthy foods without even a little exercise. And when I say all that...it's with a sense of relief.

Ok that's all. I've posted enough, and I doubt that any of you even read this far. So here's a nice big fuck you to all the people who haven't read this sentence, and a smile and a handshake for those who have.

Just LOOK at that Chinese Grandpa jacket.

So...notice that the elderly Chinese couple in the picture look like they bought their clothes from the same 90% off sale that all Chinese-American parents and grandparents buy their clothes. The funny grey jacket, ill-fitting, cheaply designed, worn in an extraordinarily Asian style. Like my grandfather. And the little old Chinese woman with the funny blue jacket. These people were Jiang Zemin and Lady Jiang, the ex-President of China and Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, and head of the military. The most powerful man in Asia. Ruthless. Ambitious. Consorted with the legendary Chinese politicians...and hand-picked by Chairman Mao himself. Standing with the President of the United States in plain sight of the world.

...and still so Asian it's unbelievable. What happened to the era of the bad-ass dictator? Is there any more innocuous looking couple in the world?


And just for shits and giggles...

Quote of the Day - Jon Stewart:

On Ann Coulter: I actually feel sorry for her. Once your career is based on denigrating 9/11 widows, what's your second act? Unless you dig up Mother Teresa and stick a dildo in her eye, nothing could be more offensive.

Guess the City.

I'm bored. Partially because I'm a total loser who has lost control of his life, and because I have nothing better to do. So guess the city. Anyone? Surprises me frankly...