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May 28, 2007
I'll take The Nobody-ever-thought-they-were-rapists for 200, Alex
Despite the loss, Duke's performance effectively purged any remaining bitterness from an agonizing 2006 season that was canceled after eight games.
It's not bittersweet for everyone - don't rain on our parade just because it serves your ideological ends..
Posted by rj3 at 4:17 PM | Comments (483) | TrackBack
May 27, 2007
Bill Richardson on MtP
Up until now, I've been a supporter of Barack Obama, but watching Richardson this morning makes me wonder if I should re-examine who I like and why. After eight years of Bush, someone needs to act forcefully to rehabilitate the federal government, replacing partisan hacks and true believers from offices large and small. Will Obama, with his platitudes, actually do anything of consequence? Richardson knows facts, has specific ideas and seems to grasp big-picture issues in a practical way.
This is why Senators rarely become presidents and Governors do. I don't subscribe to the MBA theory of governance by which business is the only acceptable model for running an organization, but there is a difference between being a chief executive and a co-equal member of a team.
Posted by rj3 at 9:40 AM | Comments (430) | TrackBack
May 22, 2007
Actual music videos!
New must-watch TV: New York Noise on Channel 25. It's got great bands, full videos (can you believe it?) and even a sense of humor: the episode I'm watching features senior citizens announcing and reviewing the songs. Sadly, the grandpas didn't like Malajaube, The Hold Steady or Albert Hammond, Jr., but they did enjoy some of the more easy-listening chanteuses.
Best quote: "I can't listen any more to that horrible music! ... I've never heard anything like it, it's horrible!"
Strangest of all, it's on a station run by city government. Bloomberg for President!
Posted by rj3 at 9:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 21, 2007
Answers to your questions (anticipated) about my first day of work
First meal: Scallops ceviche, olive oil infused swordfish with black rice. Awesome.
Drinks after work: Brooklyn Summer, 4.
Sign everyone will be cool: iTunes pre-installed on the computer, lots of shared music.
Blackberry: Already hooked.
Feet: In tremendous pain from breaking in new shoes.
New shoes: Not from DSW. I'm moving up in the world!
Posted by rj3 at 8:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 18, 2007
I thought working with glass required a steady hand and an even temper
Posted by rj3 at 10:36 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 17, 2007
The exception that proves the rule
In any big city, there are a few uniquely urban disasters that people worry about. We fret about falling on subway tracks or discovering a crocodile in Central Park, even though getting pushed on to subway tracks by a crazy man is less likely than getting struck by lightning. Still, every once in a while, these terrible things happen to people, like when a woman fell through a Con Ed grate:
Shortly after seven in the morning, a woman was walking along the sidewalk on West 51st St. when the grating she walked over collapsed beneath her and she dropped 12-feet.According to Con Edison, the hinges on the grating that covers a transformer vault underground, gave way. Crews were called to turn off the power so firefighters could pull her up from beneath the sidewalk.
“I was walking in front of her and all of a sudden I heard somebody yelling, somebody fell, and I turned around and there was a hole in the ground,” said Danny Bancherd. “That’s when I ran over, saw it and ran to my job and called 911.”
Makes you want to walk around those things, doesn't it?
Posted by rj3 at 5:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Bucktown ain't got nothing on Williamsburg
I'm in a coffee shop. Like everyone else (probably), I'm blogging. Unlike everyone else, I'm not using a Mac.
Outside, lithe women with severe new wave haircuts walk Dobermans down Havermeyer Street.
Even though it's 65 degrees, someone is wearing a headband.
Posted by rj3 at 12:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 16, 2007
Where the rubbers hit the road
On the minus side, my apartment would be considered big if it was on a cruise ship, but not on land. The four flights of stairs I have to take to get to it don't help either.
On the plus side, I've been amazed by how nice New Yorkers are. Seriously. From the man on the train who offered his seat to a pregnant woman, to literally helping old ladies cross the street. Maybe this has always been the case, even when I lived there, but the general prosperity of the place could have allowed people to let their guard down a bit.
Posted by rj3 at 8:08 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 14, 2007
Good morning, Manhattan
My first morning here, I was awoken by the sound of a man yelling at his dog for barking at a car alarm. The car alarm didn't bother me, as it had insinuated itself into my dream. I probably could have slept through the dog, but the yelling man put me over the top.
It's going to be a great summer, I can feel it.
Posted by rj3 at 1:43 PM | Comments (470) | TrackBack
May 9, 2007
Once, twice, two-thirds a lawyer
Although I handed in my last final a few days ago, I haven't felt as if the semester ended until today, when all the stragglers turn in papers and take finals. None of my friends finished until yesterday, so I've been in semi-limbo, idle but bored. Now, it's finally over.
Some things I learned during 2L year:
- Dating in law school is generally a bad idea, but it's the best option available if you don't know anyone else in town;
- Some junk about the Copperweld doctrine;
- The location of every bar in the American Airlines terminal at O'Hare;
- Only masochists enjoy working for a journal;
- Don't mentor 1Ls. Anonymously mock them;
- People love those Eastern Motors ads;
- Four below zero is survivable, but it puts a damper on the post-Super Bowl looting. I really wanted a flat-screen TV, but I'll have to wait until I can actually pay for one;
- Middle America does Thanksgiving right;
- You know when you say a word over and over again until the syllables start running into each other and it loses all meaning? Law firm interviewers have permanently done this to the word "collegiality.";
- Evidence sucks. There's no getting around it;
- Just leave the listserv alone.
Posted by rj3 at 4:07 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
In defense of the Federalist Society
I'm slightly annoyed when I read a lefty blog that uses past membership in the Federalist Society as some sort of marker for scary views and political ruthlessness:
House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), a member of the committee, wrote Alberto Gonzales today to ask about U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Rachel Paulose, the Federalist Society member and former senior aide in the Justice Department who was installed there last year.
Generally, I don't agree with what Federalist Society types believe in. I am more in line with the American Constitution Society. At my law school, Federalists get along with ACSers like me, we co-sponsor several events each year and they personally attend ACS speakers. They range from libertarians to the religious right, but most of them are involved in the group because law school has limited opportunities for drawn-out legal philosophy discussions, as professors have to get through the syllabus in a limited amount of class time. They don't agree, and at the law school level, they certainly don't conspire. I just don't find it as scary as, for example, the Project for a New American Century, for example.
Posted by rj3 at 7:50 AM | Comments (436) | TrackBack
May 7, 2007
Windows on the world
Since I finished my last final, I've been extremely bored. How board, you ask? So bored that I drove to Gary, Indiana, to see what was there. It turns out that there isn't much. The above photo is of the "windows" above the Palace Theatre, which improbably advertised "Jackson Five, Tonight" on its tattered marquee.
These windows remind me of the apartment buildings I passed as my school bus took me up the Bronx's Major Deegan Expressway in the early '80s and late '90s. Someone decided on a shortcut to the "broken windows" school of urban renewal - painting happy scenes in boarded-up windows instead of doing the hard work of trying to create them in real life. Since then, the buildings along the Deegan have been fixed up and there are actual people behind actual windows. The Palace, which closed in 1972, is still abandoned.
All told, Gary is a ghost town. Despite arriving on a sunny Sunday afternoon, the streets and roads were almost completely empty. Downtown, the only buildings that look as they have been touched in decades are City Hall, a Brutalist convention center and the minor league ballpark. Otherwise, it's a ghost town - like ancient ruins with less marble and no gift shop.
Posted by rj3 at 7:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 6, 2007
Sunday Sound Salvation
Today's video is inspired by the Volokh Conspiracy, of all things.
This is the famous Elvis Costello and the Attractions SNL appearance when Elvis cut "Less Than Zero" short and started playing "Radio, Radio" against the wishes of management, who didn't want to promote a song from Next Year's Model, which hadn't been released in the U.S. yet.
Enjoy.
UPDATE: When getting the link for that Elvis Costello video, I noticed Pulp's "Mis-Shapes" under the "related" tab. KG may think that "Common People" is the last relevant Britpop song, but I think this one is still pretty fresh as well:
Posted by rj3 at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 4, 2007
Ladies and Gentlemen, the District is burning
As bad as this business of the Eastern Market and a Georgetown public library catching fire is already, the fact that Mayor Fenty looks like he's dragging his feet just makes it worse. We're talking about a public facility that is at the heart of a newly-revitalized neighborhood that also serves underserved communities to the north and east with fresh food, so I would expect a real leader to get his CFO back from vacation to look for cash to build it again.
Posted by rj3 at 2:35 PM | Comments (395) | TrackBack
Can I stop worrying and learn to love Rudy?
Fellow born-and-bred New Yorker Matt Yglesias is rather surprised that Rudy Giuliani may actually win the Republican nomination. Sure, he was an unpopular mess on Sept. 10, 2001, but that time has clearly passed, no matter how much we are reminded about what people thought of him back then.
People across the political system recognize that he's a jerk and a hothead and I think a lot of voters may recognize that style doesn't work with world leaders as well as it does with, for example, the Taxi and Limousine Commission. Nevertheless, he could win the nomination, which gives him a decent chance at becoming President. I tend to think of a Republican victory as a minor national catastrophe, but I've survived Reagan and two Bushes and while things may have been quite a bit better these past eight years if Al Gore won, the bottom hasn't fallen out from the economy or society. Columnists, activists and Democrats whined and moaned about how New York had become a police state beholden to out-of-town corporate interests, but I lived through it (admittedly as a white kid in Manhattan) and things got generally better.
On the minus side, a lot of people felt harassed by the police. On the plus side, those people also feel a lot less harassed by criminals. That's not ideal, but there was active management and pressure on all the agencies to be proactive and professional, unlike the federal government. Issues like housing prices and homelessness didn't get the attention they deserved, but this is only so much one mayor can do. He cut crime, increased employment, attracted next-generation business, merged EMS and FDNY to increase performance at both and improved the subway.
In the end, Giuliani's weaknesses as mayor are multiplied when the issues are less day-to-day and more ideological. His court nominees are big risks, as is his foreign policy. His advisers will be much more partisan than they were at City Hall.
Then again, I don't think the other Republican nominees are much better.
Posted by rj3 at 2:09 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 1, 2007
What I've been up to
One final down, one to go. At the moment, I'm working on a paper I didn't know was due (to my group) today. It isn't too much work, but it's made easier by the formatting requirement. Courier New Appreciation Day came early this year!
Posted by rj3 at 4:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack