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November 30, 2006
The last good day of the year
...was two days ago.
Posted by rj3 at 1:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The history of Bluestate, Part I: Would you go to Zeal?
The first in a series. Expect a surprise ending.
In the beginning, they wanted to call it "Watch Me Jumpstart." Then, NM tried out some other name suggestions:
since jumpstart may not work out, i went through a dictionary picking out random catchy words.melt
twirl
ardor
zeal
facade
plexus
capsize
bang
antennaand if we want to go beyond one word, my favorite from kyle's list is
still "nowhere fast."
As usual, I didn't help much at first:
what about a made-up word?Schtonk!
Flazzle!
Romki!
But I got on the ball:
Umm, I think I speak for the males in the group when I say that Twirl may not cut it.How about "Bluestate"?
Posted by rj3 at 12:52 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 29, 2006
Treated like a piece of spiritual meat
Fundie N.C. family views a Polish exchange student as vessel for international prosthetizing:
They wanted me to help them set up a Fundamentalist Baptist church in my home country of Poland. It was God's will, they said. They tried to slip the topic casually into conversation, but it really shocked me -- I realized that was the only reason they had welcomed me into their family. They had already started construction work in Krakow -- I was to help them with translations and with spreading their faith via the media.It was clear to me that there was no way I was going to do that. The family was appalled.
Needless to say, he fled. But this whole sorry story begs the question of how many foreigners come here for an educational and cultural experience and end up in the home of aggressive evangelicals, many of whom are quite scary to the non-initiated, even if they're unfailingly "nice," if once can still be nice while telling you that you're going to hell unless you accept their particular doctrines word for word.
Once, I spent 20 minutes stuck in on a ski resort chairlift with the leader of a travelling evangelical puppet troupe. I let it slip a little too early in the trip that I wasn't one of their kind, and I ended up suffering through what seemed like endless prodding to change my sinful ways. What struck me most about my encounter with the puppeteer and with this poor Polish kid is that in both cases, they didn't really care about the individual. The more extreme members of the evangelical community (none of what I'm saying applies to more mainstream evangelicals, just the aggressive types) will always direct the conversation to your eternal soul. Rarely will they ask you what you want, whether you want to be saved, let alone badgered. You're not a person, you're potential spiritual cannon fodder.
Look at the "Quiverfull" movement, the goal of which is to pump out babies, not to be valued and loved family members, but to be "Arrows for the war" in the race war they're so worried about:
Only a determination among Christian women to take up their submissive, motherly roles with a "military air" and become "maternal missionaries" will lead the Christian army to victory. Thus is Quiverfull part of Mary Pride's whole-cloth solution to women's liberation: embracing an opposing way of life as total and "self-consistent" as feminism, and turning back the tide on a society gone wrong by populating the world with right-thinking Christians.[...]
Population is a preoccupation for many Quiverfull believers, who trade statistics on the falling white birthrate in European countries like Germany and France. Every ethnic conflict becomes evidence for their worldview: Muslim riots in France, Latino immigration in California, Sharia law in Canada. The motivations aren't always racist, but the subtext of "race suicide" is often there.
I don't pretend to know everything about the extreme evangelical movement in this country, but what I do know scares the heck out of me. How does this worldview, much like the extreme Sharia-imposing Islamist movement, coexist in a pluralistic democracy?
Posted by rj3 at 1:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 28, 2006
Do you think Easterbrook is roaming the World of Warcraft?
BoingBoing: Judge Richard Posner Coming to Second Life. I know a U of C law student who helped him with this project - frankly, I didn't believe it at first, but this is just too weird to make up.
Sure beats Hyde Park.
Posted by rj3 at 2:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Video Tuesday
I'm crashing hard on work for my final mock trial of the year, which is scheduled for Dec. 9. That's two days after I'm supposed to get another draft of my journal submission/directed reading in, which is earlier than it should be, because my advisor is going on vacation. Needless to say, I'm in no shape to pontificate at this very moment. Here's some eye and ear candy:
Posted by rj3 at 10:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 27, 2006
An analogy for everything
Thanksgiving Day in Des Moines was beyond beautiful. The sky was clear save a few wispy clouds punctuating the sky, if only to heighten the effect of the brightness and clarity of the rest of the horizon. It was 64 degrees outside and the rolling hills of central Iowa are as verdant as one could possibly expect for late November. Inside, the soft roar of the football game competed with the jostling of pots and pans as the pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes are readied for the eventual emergence of the 20-pound centerpiece turkey from the oven.
The only thing that could make it more like a commercial for GM, the National Poultry Board or the Republican Party was a friendly game of catch in the backyard. My roommate (whom I'm staying with for the long weekend, since I haven't made that clear) fished out two semi-deflated footballs from the basement. Out we went to toss the pigskin while the bird browned. Norman Rockwell had nothin' on us.
After a few minutes of back-and-forth during which I displayed my rustiness with sports, my roommate tried a high lob over the power line after a few long bombs unceremoniously bounced back by said wire. This one cleared the power line, but hit the tree and cascaded down through the branches like a shiny silver ball in a pachinko machine. It settled on an area of a main limb about 15 feet up, wedged precariously at the intersection of large limb and small branch. This tree is featureless for its first five and a half feet or so, making it more or less impossible to climb without serious equipment (roommate and I were also dressed nicely in anticipation of dinner, which didn’t help.)
What was once a way to spend the hour or so before dinner would be served turned into a serious mission. Roommate grabbed the other football, and we began taking turns chucking it up in the tree in an attempt to dislodge the first football. It was fun.
“You know, it would be hilarious if the second ball got stuck up in the tree.”
“Yeah, but what are the odds of that?”
On queue, I lodged the second ball in the tree right next to the first.
We then went back inside to look for some other balls to throw at the two now stuck up in the tree. We came out with two softballs, two tennis balls and a golf ball. The golf ball was an immediate failure since it didn’t have the heft necessary to take down the footballs. The softballs made a satisfying thud on the limbs, but our aim was weak. The tennis balls were easiest to throw, but they too seemed ineffectual.
By now, roommate’s father and older brother had joined us and we each took turns throwing balls at the tree. After a few minutes, I was able to dislodge one football from the tree, which, for a time, sat at the base of the tree while the softballs and tennis balls went up then either bounced off a branch or flew inches above the football, landing in a clean arc on the other side of the tree.
Then, one of the softballs got stuck in the far end of the tree. Then, I picked up the football to replace the softball. It took about three throws for the second football to get stuck in the tree with the softball and the first football.
Throwing continued for about 10 more minutes until dinner was served, but to this day (four days later), two footballs and a softball remain in that tree, awaiting a strong gust, a very tall ladder or a chainsaw.
When I looked at that tree on the day after the big toss-off, I realized how a reasonable person would have used the spare football for catch instead of using it to dislodge the other football, which, while perfectly good for catch, had the disadvantage of getting stuck in a tree. I saw about a dozen points in the entire convoluted episode at which an outside observer would have decided to stop tossing balls at the tree.
But we weren't outside observers.
Keep that in mind the next time you double-down at a casino, try to salvage your pride after getting shot down at bar review or decide how to progress with a major armed international conflict. It's called a sunk cost. Learn it, love it.
Posted by rj3 at 1:08 PM | Comments (514) | TrackBack
November 23, 2006
Revenge of the cities
One of the reasons the Republicans have so thoroughly lost the urban vote is that they have spent the last 30 years demonizing the culture of big cities – from Reagan’s welfare queens to the recent scaremongering about San Franciscan Nancy Pelosi becoming speaker of the House. City dwellers, we’re told, are not part of “real America.” No doubt this division made more sense in the early days of the Republic, when the U.S. was more than 90 percent rural. But today, only 20 percent of Americans live in rural areas. And whatever you think about the culture of urban life, it is an undeniable fact that the big cities are footing the bill for the residents of so-called “real America.” Blue states consistently pay more in taxes than they receive in federal assistance; the opposite is true for the red states. Why? Because cities like New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco, despite their welfare queens, are tremendous engines of wealth creation. The right wing might still evoke gay marriage and beatniks when it slurs the “radical” Bay Area, but in terms of tax revenues – not to mention global brands – Apple and Google are much more representative of Bay Area values.
I never believed that the attacks against Nancy Peolsi and her "San Francisco values" were that effective in most parts of the country, especially the politically contested parts. Millions of people visit San Francisco (or New York for that matter) and enjoy themselves. Attacking major cities as big, scary dens of sin doesn't work in a mobile society with advanced communications technology.
Anyway.... Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by rj3 at 1:11 PM | Comments (352) | TrackBack
November 22, 2006
I take it back
Not only does Iowa have the Internet, they have wireless at all of the rest stops along I-80.
On the way here, we stopped at a Culver's in Dixon, Illinois, the birthplace of Ronald Reagan. Ironically enough, ketchup was the only vegetable I ate.
Posted by rj3 at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 21, 2006
Things that make you go "Yearrrrrgh!"
Like a politician with a newly-minted exploratory committee and delusions of grandeur, I'm going to Iowa!
Blogging will continue if they have the Internet out there.
Posted by rj3 at 12:09 PM | Comments (346) | TrackBack
November 20, 2006
"When I have some money"
Now that most 2Ls have settled on summer employment, the dream of getting paid like bigshot lawyers is closer than ever. To nobody's surprise, most of us went the biglaw route and can expect $2400+ per week, depending on the market. As a result, people are starting to talk about what they're going to do "when I have some money."
It's all well and good to think about paying off some credit cards or getting that functioning kidney you've always wanted, but the reasonable needs soon start giving way to desires. Some people even have a list. Still, I have to constantly remind myself that New York City rent is going to eat up almost a quarter of my earnings, schlepping most of my stuff out east isn't free and I'll want to have some money left over to pop the occasional bottle or Cristal during my 3L year. After all, I'll have the time.
Still, I can't help but think that maybe I can make room for one of these.
Or an awful lot of these.
Or one of these (for root beer, of course.)
Or all of these.
Perhaps I should just lock it all up in a Certificate of Deposit.
Update: Hey! I just thought of a great wasteful buy: I'd like Tom Tomorrow to illustrate a new design for this blog. Can you do that?
Posted by rj3 at 6:56 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Wire'd: That empty feeling
I really enjoy this season of The Wire, but I can't help but feel that it's coming up a little empty compared to previous seasons in terms of plot progress. Let's break down the elements:
The Cops: Lt. Marimow, a stock charachter with no motivations or background, ruins the Major Crimes Unit. Herc, a bumbling idiot, digs himself in deeper and deeper over the lost camera. His indifference toward Bubbles leads his best C.I. to turn on him, giving Herc bad information and causing him to rough up a minister. While this may be great for Mayor-elect Carcetti, who may now have the support of the ministers to oust Burrell, the BPD plot is painfully thin. Are we really supposed to be satisfied with little to no interesting police work all season long, only to have the moronic Herc act as kingmaker, not once, but twice?
The Gangs: Unlike Stringer Bell and the Barksdales, we know nothing about Marlo Stanfield, who appears to be an entirely uninteresting cold-blooded bad guy right out of central casting. One day in Season 3, he doesn't exist, the next, he's competing for the West Side with the Barksdales, this season, he's nearly free and clear. Chris and Snoop seem like they could have an interesting backstory, but we never hear about it. Is hs cops-and-gangsters motif supposed to be on hold this season while we learn about the hopelessness of the school system?
The politics: I think last night's episode holds the record for the longest "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet" of the series. Bravo, guys.
The schools: This is where the action is supposed to be, and I suppose that we are learning, through Bunny and Prez, how things work. Perhaps most the most illuminating parts of the last episode was Namond's arrest odyssey, which had a fantastic (if predictable) conclusion when Bunny brought him home to his fur-clad mom. I certainly can't wait to see what will happen to Michael and Randy in the next episode. So why do they get such a modest slice of the show's running time?
Posted by rj3 at 10:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 18, 2006
Note to CNN
If you don't stop shilling this self-serving Warrior One promotion, I'm switching to MSNBC, even if it means sitting through three hours of "Headliners and Legends" before getting any actual news.
Posted by rj3 at 1:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 16, 2006
LexisNexis, I hardly knew Ye
When I become a bigtime New York lawyer, I will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of my career using LexisNexis or Westlaw. The people who run those services know this, and cater to my every whim as a law student in a formative period, at least as legal research is concerned. Lexis has kept me stocked with water bottles, while Westlaw has me covered in the coffee mug department. Both services offer free online chat-based help and an 800 number to call if I can't find what I need. Both LexisNexis and Westlaw are free for me to use while I'm in law school and have free printers in the library that link up directly to their websites. All told, the services are almost identical in form and function.
How does one decide which service to use?
The LexisNexis printer is on the second floor of the library. The Westlaw printer is on the third. I like to work on the third. Therefore, my hundreds of thousands of dollars of research charges will go to Westlaw when I start practicing. They probably didn't even have to give me the mug.
Posted by rj3 at 10:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 15, 2006
Kyle's Top 40 Bands in America
TV on the Radio as #1 in the country? Puh-leeze. Back when I was cool, I was consulted for such things, and the results were a little more, umm, sane.
The rest of this year's list seems fine, except for Ghostface Killah at #4 and My Chemical Romance at #12 (stop trolling for listmakers at the Montgomery Mall, KG!). Sure, I could complain about the Fiery Furnaces, but what's the use anymore?
Posted by rj3 at 5:51 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
More yuppie problems
Back on the East Coast, I used to get the Economist on Fridays, allowing me to read it on Friday afternoon or on Saturday, when the news it contained was still fresh. Now that I'm here in the soft, chewy center of the country, it doesn't arrive until Monday or Tuesday, well after nearly everything inside it has become hopelessly out of date.
The only stuff that's new to me anymore is the international coverage that doesn't even get mentioned in U.S. news, like rebels in the north of Cote D'Ivoire, Turkey's bid to join the E.U. and the comings and goings of the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Basically, my yuppie problem has prevented me from enjoying the parts of the paper dealing with other yuppies' problems.
Posted by rj3 at 4:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 13, 2006
The first wave of panic
I have two finals this semester - they will be in about a month. I came to the realization this morning that I have not learned a gosh-darned thing in either class all semester.
Posted by rj3 at 11:22 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 12, 2006
Give the kids something to do, keep them off the street
It's simple history, folks. Congressmen lose presidential elections, and governors win them. So why did the Democratic primary race include Senator Kerry, Senator Lieberman, Senator Edwards, Senator Mosely-Braun, Congressman Gephardt and Congressman Kucinich and just one governor? What could possibly make these milquetoast helmet-headed white guys (Carol Mosely-Braun aside) think they could do what no Member of Congress since JFK has done?
Perhaps these delusions had less to do with the percieved ability to win and more to do with the crushing boredom and futility of being a member of the minority party. All of those closed rules, hidden conference committee meetings and committee-level legislative deathtraps make being a minority legislator not much fun at all. With no hope of actually doing anything, the more ambitious pols start looking for a way out, and all they see is the way up.
Now that Democrats have control of both houses of Congress, these wayward non-youths now have an outlet for their energies, and it's paying off. As Scott Lemieux points out Sen. Russ Fiengold decided not to run for president because he now has some hope for his legislative agenda. Locally, Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. has decided not to run for Mayor of Chicago. Hopefully, Sens. Biden, Durbin, Kerry, Bayh and Obama (yes, Obama) will similarly be too busy on legislative matters to bother pressing the flesh in all 99 counties of Iowa or flipping pancakes at some New Hampshire Elks Lodge, guaranteeing another Democratic loss in 2008. As for Hillary, she's going to run no matter what and while I hope she loses in the primary, I don't think there's any way to keep her out.
Posted by rj3 at 11:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 10, 2006
Music Video Friday
Here are some selections for the new majority:
Virginia, Kansas and Montana aren't exactly Blue States yet, but they certainly aren't Red States anymore. They're a color somewhere in between...
Gogol Bordello, "Start Wearing Purple"
Remember the last good election? You'll have to go back a while. Set your wayback machine back to 1992...
Fleetwood Mac, "Don't Stop" (live at the Clinton inagural)
Allow the Fastest Band in the World help you say goodbye to the...
Bad Brains, "Right Brigade" (live 1984, H.R. sounds a little horse)
Posted by rj3 at 12:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 9, 2006
The last good day of the year
It's been nice enough outside that I haven't needed a jacket since Sunday. Sadly, just as the weekend gets underway, the weather goes to the dogs. That's Chicago for you: there are more than a few perfect days each year, but they're always when you're least able to enjoy them.
Posted by rj3 at 4:48 PM | Comments (367) | TrackBack
November 8, 2006
Neither "Denial" nor "Completely Friggin Blind" is a river in Egypt
Some people don't get it.
Sadly, No! has a good analogy to explain why we ought not let faux "bipartisanship" get in the way of turning the country around:
"Let’s say you’ve been on a road trip for – oh, I dunno – about six years. Nearly everyone in the car agrees that you’re headed in the wrong direction, and have been for a long time. Your driver ran a whole bunch of red lights to take you into a damn war zone to look for something that wasn’t even there, and now he won’t admit that he doesn’t know where he’s going. He couldn’t be bothered to stop and help those hurricane victims you passed a while back, and he’s run up incredible debts at no-bid check-cashing places to buy stuff for his friends. He refuses to let you see any of the receipts, and is particularly secretive about what he’s doing when he stops at the gas station. Everybody’s starting to go broke, you’ve driven past a torture parlor and you just saw a sign that says “Fascism: Next right.”So what do you do when you finally get a chance to sit up front with the driver, where he has to listen to you? Tell him to take a left and hope for the best? Hell, nah. As soon as you stop paying attention and fiddle with the radio or something, you know damn well he’s gonna take another right – and then you’re going the wrong way again."
UPDATE: More nuts going nuts. Somebody get me an epi-pen!
Posted by rj3 at 12:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 7, 2006
TV Party Tonight!
Here I am at the joint ACS/Federalist election party in the main atrium of my law school. There's an ongoing debate as to whether we watch Fox News or CNN. The A/V lady, in charge of setting the channel on the big projection TV has a comprimise:
"What about MSNBC? Nobody watches that!"
Posted by rj3 at 6:50 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
Macaca wasn't on the ballot
The polling place: A sick-old-folks home. It smelled like sickness and looked like a run-down hospital. I've only ever voted in churches or by absentee, so this polling place is by far the worst I've ever been to.
The line: Short, but it was early and the voting took a long time (see below), so it moved slowly.
The voting method: Optical scan. Good. Still, I prefer NYC's old-school mechanical booth, with all the flip-switching and lever-pulling I grew up with.
The ballot: Really long. I had to vote on retaining every judge in Cook County, which took forever. There were three ballot initiatives I had read nothing about: banning .50 caliber guns (no), increasing the minimum wage (yes) and pulling out of Iraq (dumb, but yes). The three-member board of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District ran unopposed, so I considered voting for my friends, but I decided against it for fear of spoiling the ballot.
The candidates: Shoe-ins. The Democratic primary is over.
"I voted" stickers: None. That sucks. No purple fingers either.
Historical note: The first politician I ever voted for was Bill Bradley, in the 2000 New York Democratic presidential primary.
Posted by rj3 at 10:32 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
November 6, 2006
Vote baby vote
Chicagoans!
Find your polling place here.
Posted by rj3 at 11:24 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Why can't we be in the news for something good now and then?
The P.C. battles that have raged in college campuses for decades were not really a big deal at my college, perhaps because the campus was so apolitical otherwise. But you can only keep the wider world at bay for a while:
Perched on a hill in North Baltimore, the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus is a beacon of wealth and prestige, attracting some of the finest students and faculty in the world.[...]
Like many other institutions of higher learning across the country, Hopkins has periodically had to struggle with race relations and its sometimes antagonistic relationship with the city of Baltimore.
Both relationships were in the limelight last week after a dispute fueled by a Sigma Chi fraternity party Oct. 28 that was advertised as "Halloween in the Hood."
The invitation, posted on the Facebook Web site, described Baltimore as "the HIV pit" and encouraged attendees to wear "regional clothing from our locale" such as "bling bling ice ice, grills" and "hoochie hoops."
[...]
Over the years, targets of protests have included a film club showing of Coonskin, a 1975 animated film with stereotypical characters and the university's investment in companies that did business with the apartheid government of South Africa. To dramatize the substandard living conditions in black townships in South Africa, protesters built a shantytown in the lower quad, but it was burned down by members of a fraternity.
[...]
Scott Ladd, a junior, described Baltimore as a "terrible city," pointing to the HIV rate, crime, poverty and abandoned properties as examples.
"A lot of the references made in the invitation ... are statistically proven," he said. "Baltimore is one of the worst cities. And then it's majority black, so people associate these two things. It's human nature."
How bad is this? Probably pretty bad, considering that most Hopkins students have a very low view of the city where they live and they express that view in some fairly frank racial terms because the school has so few African-Americans (a bit over 5 percent) to watch their mouths in front of.
This whole mess reminds me of an incident from my freshman year, many years ago. A frat handed out this flyer for a party:
Does this offend Japanese people? WWII veterans? Perhaps the better question is who this doesn't offend. These flyers were all over campus in the days before the party, and nobody complained. I kept it because its sheer audacity amazed me. Who on earth thought this was acceptable? It just goes to show that sometimes the PC protestors have it right sometimes.
Posted by rj3 at 9:22 AM | Comments (331) | TrackBack
November 5, 2006
In my country there is movie
I agree with what Matt Yglesias says about the Borat movie.
The sketches were much more insightful than the movie because he used to give his subject just enough rope to hang themselves. Whether at the hunting range or at the country-western bar (the important part starts at 3:30), he made everyone feel comfortable enough to say what they really think. In the movie, perhaps necessetated by plot or by ego, it's all about Borat acting like a jerk, which doesn't really tell you much about the country he's supposed to be satirizing. Borat is best when he lets people talk.
That's why the best scene in the movie involves three frat boys in an RV riffing on race and gender relations, not when he's doing the slapstick routine.
Posted by rj3 at 9:29 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
I'm good for business
Let's look at the facts:
1981: I grace the City of New York with my presence. The Yankees make it to the series that year, then again in 1996 and 1998 (and a few times after I leave). The Giants win their only two Superbowls, the Mets take the series in '86 and the Rangers win their first Stanley Cup since '40 in '94. That same year, the Knicks almost win the NBA Championship, losing to Houston in a nail-biter Then I move. The Mets, Knicks, Rangers, Giants and Jets haven't won since.
1999: I move to Baltimore. Johnny Unitas is gone, the Colts bolted in the middle of the night more than a decade prior, and the famous Memorial Stadium is being taken down piece by piece to make way for senior housing. The new football team, refugees from Cleveland, have stupid purple uniforms and little local support (the classic rock radio station was still called "The Colt"). By 2001, the Ravens, less than a decade old, won the Superbowl.
2003: I move to D.C. I'll spare you the dramatic moments of D.C. United's championship season of 2004, as we're Americans, don't hate freedom and won't bother ourselves with any pinko European sport where only one player on each team gets to use their hands. Simply put, when I got there, there wasn't even a baseball team. When I left, there was one.
2005: I move to Chicago, a city known for a strong sports culture, but little recent success, aside from the '90s Bulls, long since relegated to the scrap-book of history. The Cubs' only claim to success is that they are the best professional baseball team on the North Side of Chicago. The long-suffering White Sox, better known for Disco Demolition and godawful uniforms, had not won the World Series since 1917. Four months after moving here, they win the title.
Now the Bears have a perfect record and are off to their best start since the 1985 championship season.
Cities spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build stadiums to attract baseball teams that do badly. Low attendance negates the envisioned economic benefits of the big downtown draw. Bring me to your city for a fraction of the price of a new stadium (one-half? a third? I'm willing to bargain) and your sports fortunes are bound to turn around. I've never lived in a city that hasn't won a sports championship when I lived there.
I can make the magic happen for you.
Posted by rj3 at 12:41 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
November 4, 2006
Just one day out of life
It looks like Courier New Appreciation Day is catching on and perhaps expanding:
another2L: I'm bringing it back :-) [Courier New Appreciation Day]
another2L: In fact, it should last for the next two weeks
thrown4aloop: we may just have to stretch it out to a month
thrown4aloop: does any ethnic group celebrate their history in november?
another2L: ha - it can be Courier New Appreciation Month!
thrown4aloop: we can bring in food and get the SBA to pay for it
another2L: and have big Courier New signs
another2L: I would also like Journals are Fucking Stupid Appreciation Month
thrown4aloop: amen
thrown4aloop: perhaps I Was Suckered Into Doing A Writeon During The Most Beautiful Week of the Spring All For Nothing awareness day
thrown4aloop: with little grey ribbons
another2L: and rain jackets
Posted by rj3 at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 3, 2006
I declare a holiday
November 3 is now:
Thank you, Courier New, for being so wide.
Wide as the Montana sky.
Wide as a trailer pulling a pre-fabricated house on the interstate.
Wide as the ideological chasm between the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society.
Wide enough to make the 20 pages of Times New Roman I have written for my journal comment runneth over 30 pages and probably save a large portion of my weekend as a result.
Thank you, Courier New!
Posted by rj3 at 11:19 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
The Useful Idiot
Wouldn't it be great to have someone around the office who is always wrong about everything so you could win a series of low-stakes bets? Try hiring David Brooks.
(via Atrios)
Posted by rj3 at 10:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
November 2, 2006
Imagery
Hard Core: The New York Times carries the following remarkable headline: "Bush Works to Solidify Base With a Defense of Rumsfeld."Talk about a solidified base! Boil it down to people who still love Rummy and the image that comes to mind is that of a pot left accidentally on a burner, leaving only a strange, ugly clump. "You'll never pry me loose," it says. "I'm your base."
- T.A. Frank, Washington Monthly
Posted by rj3 at 12:23 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Please refrain from calling it a comeback
Posted by rj3 at 11:25 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack