Phew!

Finals are over. Law school is 1/2 over. I am trying to relax. But I haven't had more than a few days off in a year and a half, and even then, work loomed ominously on the horizon. So I am trying to remember what it's like to spend an unhurried day.

And I can finally take this li'l macbook of mine to the "geniuses" at the Apple store. The high-and-mighty apple customer service refuses to provide customers with estimates of how long a repair will take. So I have been unable to take the heavily used notebook for much needed maintenance. My computer has several problems common to early macbooks: the white faceplate where I rest my wrists while I type and the trackpad have become discolored (from sweat I presume). The case has small cracks around the edges from where the screen contacts the base of the laptop while closed, and, worst of all, the battery has a problem that causes the computer to shut down without warning when there is less than an hour of battery life yet. It forces me to run on AC power almost all the time or risk losing documents. Luckily, autosave and recovery features have become quite good. It also has a problem not common: the hinge is missing a chunk o plastic that broke off when the poor thing was dropped. So if I try to view the screen at a 75 degree angle, it kind of just flops back to 45. On the plus side, the macbook has a motion sensor in it so that it realizes it's falling and shuts down to protect your data. It did what it was supposed to do.

And I get to reinstall Leopord, which is a pretty great OS. Sadly, I had to uninstall it in order to run SJU's exam software.

Anyway, it'll be kind of nice to not even have this thing here. Out of sight out of mind. Time to buy a christmas tree, play some video games, and actually do some reading for pleasure. Maybe I'll finally finish Against the Day.

I'm sure there are some X-mas parties I'm supposed to go to as well. That's not the worst thing in the world.

Reason for Concern?

I have found myself in agreement with Justices Scalia's and Thomas's dissenting opinions with some frequency. It distresses me a bit because they are politically aligned with an ideology I often disagree with.

My admirations for the dissents' arguments comes from the fact that Thomas & Scalia are originalists: they think the interpretation of the Constitution should be confined to the plain meaning of the language in the document and the framers' intent. It is a much easier position to argue than one that teases contemporary ideas and meanings out of the language of the document, because it has clear guidelines and set parameters. Dissenting opinions are also not as likely to be the product of bargain and compromise as are majority opinions. The writer of the dissent is not constrained by needing to temper the language to satisfy a swing vote. Similarly, it is easier to tear down an argument than it is to build one up.

I also like Scalia's dissents because they are entertaining. I spend enough time reading opinions that a Scalia zinger is a welcome occasional diversion.

It's Hot in Here

Um . . .

from NY Times, 10/23/07

Bush to Warn Cuba on Plan for Transition

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 — President Bush is planning to issue a stern warning Wednesday that the United States will not accept a political transition in Cuba in which power changes from one Castro brother to another, rather than to the Cuban people.


We don't accept their government at all. We have an embargo against them. What will he be warning Cuba of? His stern disapproval? Will he really "not accept a political transition"? When he speaks strongly to Cuba about democratic reforms, will he pretend he's addressing Fidel & not Raul?

Do see:
Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson-style storytelling; every frame is perfect and the story keeps you right with it. drawback: overwritten. Anderson's movies usually get better with each viewing, so really liking one 1st time out is a good sign.)

Michael Clayton (Lawyers and agri-business doing bad things together. The least plausible part of the movie, which inolves murder, cancer, nudity in a deposition, and haggard, soulless lawyers and businesspeople, is George Clooney being broke. Hollywood did mess up parts of this movie, but it is worth a watch. Fine acting.)

Don't bother with: Eastern Promises (very overrated, very derivative, crap script; it looked amazing, but didn't add up to much).

CA wildfires rage. Every year. Was it always like this? How long has it been like this? And can we blame it on illegal immigrants?

I Will Not Become One of Them

This is harder than I thought it would be.

It is not easy to differentiate myself from a culture I'm immersed in. Their values start to seem like normal values. Their worries start to seem like legitimate worries. Fear rules, and fights to the death are encouraged.

But I will not go over to the Dark Side. I am in law school by choice, not by the direction of some cruel dictator. I knew it would be a little like taking medicine. But I didn't realize how strong the tempation would be to convince myself that I like the medicine.

I have been away. For that I am sorry. I will try to come by more often.

Wake Up

I have told just about anyone who I've spoken to today that I got a mere two hours of sleep. I take a sort of pride in it; maybe as a symbol of how hard I work, or how unorthodox I am. It was work that drove me to it. But what drove me to the work in the first place? I went from the wildly fluctuating pressures of acting to the unremitting pressures of school. Why should I lose sleep over finding sources for footnotes? And why am I so proud of it? The pride can be attributed partly to satisfaction in completing a difficult task. I think I still equate worth with measurable achievement, and praise. Measurable achievement and praise are positive, but it is a mistake to rely on either in order to think well of myself.

Taste the Stupidity

Has it come to this? Have we become so desensitized that we need a bottle to change color to let us know when it is cold? Coors trumpets this can as an innovation: the only bottle that let's you know when it's cold. Maybe Coors should add little chimes to alert its stupefied customers when they have successfully opened the bottle. And maybe the bottle can change color a second time to let drinkers know that their booze has run dry and that it is once again time to check the next bottle to see if it is cold enough to drink.

They call their technological breakthrough a "cold-activated bottle." All these years, I have been yearning for an activated bottle.

When the most compelling attribute you can come up with to sell your beer is that it is cold, it is a sure sign that you are selling swill.

Pan's Labyrinth

I had heard good things about Pan's Labyrinth. I had seen a commercial or two a while back suggesting a fantasy. So, when we happened upon it on HBO the other day, we watched it without much expectation. What a gripping film. I was not prepared for how dark it was. Amazing that the same director was also responsible for Hellboy, a mildly entertaining comic book film. If you haven't seen Pan's Labyrinth. Do it now. I am not promising you'll be choked up at the end like I was, but I am promising it is worth seeing. Among other things, it contains the single most disturbing creature I have seen on film.

In more mundane news, the semester has started and I am splitting time among the American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review, job interviews for next summer, and the always pressing classwork. Beckett's Labyrinth is not nearly as entertaining as Pan's.

That is all.

Braaaaains

Here.

I got jumped

I was just about to walk up to my outside door when a kid that was like five feet tall pushed me. I thought it was weird, and I said "Hey, what you do that for?" The another kid pushed me from behind so I went forward, and then another one punched me. I think it was a girl, but I didn't really see. I tried to run away, but I couldn't. They knocked me down, and then just started grabbing in my pockets and kicking me. They took my wallet, which had my foodstamp card in it. I'm really sore today, like it hurts a little to breathe.

Remember last year when that little girl shot that woman on the Lower East Side. Sje was like 14, and she had a gun, and when the drunk woman said what are you going to do, shoot me?, she did. And the little kid's fatwer was a cop.

Ages

I am just about to embark on another decade. One day being the same as any other, this day is yet invested with much expectation. I don't know what to make of getting older. Don't know how to understand it. I resist the notion that my youth is something to be mourned, and tighten at the certainty that each day brings me closer to my death.

Every moment is new. My understanding of zen is that pain comes from attachment to moments past and moments future. We can visualize and emotionally relive the future and the past, but cannot control them. The past and future moments that dominate thought are populated by awful choices we cannot unmake, unbearably joyous moments we cannot prolong. We treat the past and present as bars or walls confining us in the present, when in fact the singular continuing moment is boundless.

Pottersville

I have never seen so many people reading the same book. The closest I've seen was when many folks were reading Motherless Brooklyn on the subway. This is a whole other level, though. On the subway, at work, on the Long Island Railroad, adults not only do not hide their engrossment in children's literature, but flaunt it.

I have staunchly resisted reading the Potter books, as I resist most trends. Generally, I find the taste of the masses to be not only not my taste, but flat-out terrible. (See Chuck & Larry, Beyonce, and Tom Clancy, W., for instance.) I think, though, I will start reading the Potter books, beginning with number one. I have been turned, not by the release of the new book, but by the Goblet of Fire movie, which played on HBO ceaselessly for a while. It's really enjoyable.

Sometimes the masses are right, I guess. (See the Beatles, for instance.)

Teeth

Things not good for teeth: grinding, sugar, being in my mouth. A tooth in my mouth is as likely as not to be part tooth, part amalgam. One tooth has been tunneled through to kill the nerve and drive a post to anchor a crown. Tomorrow, the dentist will "open up" a decayed area around a big gumline filling. If the nerve is infected, root canal. If not, we save the tooth with more metal.

Also on the schedule: full-mouth debridement. Also called a scaling.

My teeth ache thinking about it.

On the plus side, the beckett household has gone hiking five weeks in a row.

Monolith

One of the things law school does is cast work at you at such a clip that nearly ceaseless effort becomes normalized. It takes training to be able to work at a high level while exhausted, bored, and anxious. Another thing law school does is make everything a competition. That way, when in our offices in the years to come, staring at a stat-sheet profiling every attorney's billable hours, ranking them first to last, instead of feeling like a second-rate salesmen in a boiler room, chasing the same leads, we'll feel like the best, most worthy human beings among all humanity.

There are some positives. For instance, this.

Did You Stutter?

I met someone the other day who stuttered. Listening to a stutterer causes me about twice the anxiety as speaking with someone with a lazy eye.

I am gripped by the fear that the speaker is going to give up mid-sentence, mid-word, unable, finally, to utter sound. Every moment almost touches catastrophe. I try to pretend I'm not transfixed by the stutter. The stutterer is complicit in the fiction. I wonder "I wonder if he gets embarrassed every time he stutters."

This means, of course, that I end up trying to be polite while never really understanding what the stutterer was saying.

When I was around 10, I met a stutterer. It must have been the pre-teen version of Sunday school, where, instead of playing "Ring Around the Rosie," and singing "Deep and Wide," we talked about the Bible.

The kid said something like: "I think that D-D-D-David showed that um..."
Me: (in a mock-retarded voice) "Duh-duh-duh-duh."

Then I laughed, and everyone was silent. No one acknowledged it at all. The pretty Sunday school teacher, whom I must have had a pre-sexual crush on, didn't laugh. I must have thought it was a good bet to mock the weakest kid there to try to achieve some status in the little group. That is how it was done by the kids I knew. Often to me, but rarely by me.

I was desperately abashed by the Sunday School teacher's silent rebuke of me--and from the fear that followed the realization that I had horribly misjudged the situation. To this day, I am grateful the whole room didn't turn on me at that point. I don't think I could have taken it.

The Things I Haven't Done Lately

1. Respond to emails
2. Bake
3. Return phone calls
4. Read (outside legal junk)
5. Meditate
6. Feel totally untroubled
7. Write (outside legal junk)
8. Clean
9. Work out

I admit, two of the above I never did with any frequency, and one of the above, I have no desire to do with any frequency.

I blog now because I have work to do and am not feeling it, as the youth are wont to say.

The neighbors' dog is barking ceaselessly to be let in. It is to the point where one wonders how they can stand it. One of these days, I am going to break down and go up to the roof with a carton of eggs and repaint the back of their house. What stops me is knowing that I could be arrested for such an activity, and the worry that I would break a window or hit the dog by mistake. But the day of retribution draws inexorably closer, I fear.

All our first year results are in: I did not get Law Review, but that's all that did not go as well as I could have wished. The troubling thing (as most things are at FALS) is that I am thinking of working at a law firm next summer. I would much prefer to work at a public interest organization. But one summer could pay for a year of law school. And that much off my debt now could well allow me to do more later. On the other hand, stifling careers are begun such.

Oh, how I go on.

La Misma, I am sorry I did not respond. I liked Robot Secretary and I encourage all of my readers who are not you to watch it at your site, which is linked to on the right of the page.

The picture above was unceremoniously dragged and dropped from "wing's (mostly) food blog", http://www.nimes.wingerz.com/?cat=8, because I liked it. Should word get back to Wing that I have stolen his or her artwork, I will take appropriate measures at that time.

Moving On

1L gone by, feels like an extended hallucination. So much stress. So little exposure to the world. Now the real world is returning day by day.

I hope at some point my motivation will return to me, though sleeping, watching the Yankees, playing video games and going to work an't the worst life.

Slowly Returning to Normal

1L is finally done. Not totally and completely. But no more work. Legal writing was back-breaking, finals were intense and exhausting, and the writing competition was 10 days long, working all day every day, and I still had to write the footnote numbers in myself right before I had to hand it in. That was what, yesterday? I started a new job on Monday, at a small public defense firm. That's my part time job. I don't start doing the US Atty thing until Tuesday. We only have 2 grades so far, and they were OK. Not great, not bad. Still have to wait for 3 more and the results of the writing competition. The competition is to get onto a journal. The most desirable is Law Review, for which you need to be in the top 1/3 and write a really good paper. The other journals havel lower standards (and smaller offices). But I am looking forward to law school leaving my mind for a couple months and going in and doing some real work.

Things are looking up: the Yanks took 2 of 3 from the Sox. I am 1/3 done with law school, and I just wrote a 22-page paper, 12 pages of which were endnotes.

All that proofreading experience payed off, maybe.

I look forward to experiencing a bit of the world again. Playing some video games, doing some reading for pleasure, playing basketball, and generally living the good life.

I finally got a disposable camera developed that I shot while my brother & I were on Mt. Washington last summer. What an awesome trip that was. I hope I can get out and do some camping this summer very much.

Holy Shit

That's the only way I can respond to this little news item:

Teachers Stage Gun Attack on Elementary Kids

Microsoft Attacks

Microsoft Claims Patent Infringements in Open Source Software

It's so easy to hate Microsoft. It's like hating Starbucks or McDonald's. But they just keep doing things to make me hate them. I haven't been following this closely, but, apparently, Microsoft, losing profit as companies make the switch to open source, has decided that it will not tolerate companies using open source software without paying Microsoft for it. Not that Zerox and their ilk can't defend themselves from Microsoft's lawyers, but I am sure Microsoft's ultimate goal is that every user of open source software must pay a license fee to Microsoft.

I have an idea for you Microsoft: why don't you return to your "core competency" of making operating systems that infringe on Mac's intellectual property rights. Or try and get some idiot to buy the hapless Zune. Just leave OpenOffice alone!

Congestion Pricing

Once again, finals are bearing down. I take a respite from considering the law of torts to deliver a rare post to my loyal readers. Next Moday is when the nightmare begins again in earnest. That is when I measure my knowledge of contract law against 30-something multiple choice questions and 2 essays. Then torts. Then crim. Then property. My prediction? A, A+, A-, A. I should be so lucky, because it would take a lot of luck as well as knowledge to post such grades. We shall see. All I can do is prepare. I will update as the grades some in in June. I am sure you will await my report with hungry anticipation.

Bloomberg made an earth day speech. A big part of it was his proposal for congestion pricing. London and some other cities already do it. If you travel in Manhattan below a certain street (90-something?) between 6AM and 6PM, you must pay something like eight dollars. They will employ camers that capture plates and use an EZ Pass-like system.

Great. Please do this. I have a car, but anything to encourage mass transit use and decrease congestion is welcome. The city's getting more crowded, and we must reduce auto emissions.

Predictably, the plan has fierce opponents. One borough politician thought it sounded like a secret tax on the poor. Nice try. The poor in NYC don't have cars, and if they do, they already can't afford to drive them into Manhattan to work. Parking is $30/day in midtown. Not many truly poor people can afford $150/week in parking on top of tolls and gas.

I think, rather, the people he's thinking of are his upper-middle class constituents; Those folks who can afford to drive in and pay for parking but for whom the congestion tolls would be a real hardship.

But there are a couple benefits that may make the plan attractive to those who feel they must drive to work: 1. less traffic on their daily commutes. 2. Cheaper parking. If there are fewer cars, parking rates might go down as the garages compete for fewer customers. Thus, the congestion surcharge could conceivable be substantially offset by parking and time savings.

That's all I've got.

A Picture of a Cat: That's All I Got

A cat even a Mouse can love.

Back Again

It seems like forever since I wrote. Beckett moved, and he didn't tell me where he moved. I didn't even use a computer for the whole time. I've been out of work for a few months. That means I'm living at home with my mother. I didn't think I'd be here again.

I was lucky I saw Beckett at Boston Market. Otherwise I'd probably feel like I had no one to talk to. It's good to write, I think.

I asked Beckett what he did. He works at an ad agency. I asked him if I could maybe get a job with him. He said he'd talk to the mailroom for me.

Thanks, if you read this, Beckett.

I have two goals: get a job and get a girlfriend. Then I'll be happy.

Lamest Post Ever

I admit it. This is a very lame post. A rambling update. A placeholder.

First, let me say: there are few things more annoying than other people's cell phone conversations. Their conversations never fail to sound petty, superficial and smallminded. One tough guy nearby just got off his phone, then another chap got right on his. I could sit in the library, but then what oh what would I write about. My cell conversations on the other hand I am confident give pleasure to all lucky enough to overhear them.

I have a Tibetan sounding bowl. Maybe that sentence alone will counter somewhat the tension of the previous paragraph. Just imagine it ringing now.

Ah.

What are the concerns of the day? Well Gonzalez may lose his job over these US Attorney axings, which seems a bit silly, since they are political appointments. The guy who was fired at the behest of a dsigruntled senator: that may have some teeth. Segue warning.

So I got an intenship with the local US Attorney's office for the summer. Odd work for a public defender wannabe, you ask? Well, it's all about the credentials and the experience. They are a top organization, and I'm in school for the education and the connexctions. I also signed up to do a public defense externship for the fall to balance things out.

In other small world news, legal writing is wrapping up for the semester. On track for another A- I think. I'll take it. I'll just add that I pretty much spent 2 weeks busting my ass on a daily basis to earn that A-. That's the world I chose.

The Sean Bell cops were indicted for manslaughter of all things. You would think that one who fires a gun at another is intentionally killing, and thus a murderer if not acting in self defense, but the Queens DA probably thought it would be easier to get manslaughter convictions: for that he must prove that they were trying to inflict serious bodily harm. I bet they get convicted of the even lower Manslaughter-2 reckless killing. I'm not sure what happened when the man was slain, just inetersting to see how politics inevitably shapes the way it plays out.

As I was driving to class yesterday,traffic stopped dead outside the Queens Cty Courthouse. So I looked, and saw none other than Al Sharpton leading a group into the courthouse. I think he had just finished giving a press conference.

That's all I got.

sestina

Almost no one there to help the push,
near sixteen men unholy strong just watch
a tire just ruptures not a villain's chest.
Some horror day and day and again
see why sometime, although, you know, forget.
It stands to see the fitting of your reason.

Big brightness beams for more than reason
tomorrow night when gallants brave and push,
no rather, new bought know now, now forget
that once was will admired. Tonight just watch
again the friend of gallantry and laugh
til booming fills the hollows of your chest.

Resonant full the flouncing of her chest;
we of no care and no why and no reason.
The day must stand be still be smooth again
sometimes, somehow still now, no rush, no push—
old hum electric. The sound is now click watch,
the old always want life the young still know.

Do please be passive you may need not know,
but flick the irritation from your chest.
Here ample sentries keep the keenest watch;
let fallow fall the fields, the folds of reason,
because the moment has been lost to push.
Amore the room abuzzes, more redoubled again.

The difference may be taken out again
and several few be shown the pieces so they know
the flashing button is the one to always push,
regardless of the rattling hollows of your chest;
regardless, wanting necessity or reason,
we never will be found without to watch.

If we perform an act or more you'll watch
and lick your lips and salivate again
without resort to wickedness of reason.
Will you pretend there is no way to know
your sensitivities creep close below your chest?
—undone, unclasped, embarrassedly push

Almost sixteen there, no one was to push;
near holy flattened back, bent, forced to watch
a brand way hot stitched steaming on her chest.
All moments may bear visitors again.
Evading horror's probably honorable. You know
you radiate bliss, you know you are the reason.

Thank You, NeoOffice

Finally!

I am one of those who refuses to buy Word. Having found Open Office several years ago for my PC, I have been unable to justify the expense since. Open Office is an open source, free office suite that has most of the functions of Word, and allows you to read and create word documents, so your unenlightened colleagues can share information with you.

Unfortunately, open office on the mac OS with Intel chips runs off something called X11. As far as I understand, this provides a bridge between the old macs and new, so that a program can. Unfortunately, it was limited: it would not print or find print drivers, so I had to create pdfs every time I wanted to print. It had drawing problems and was crash prone.

Finally, however, I found NeoOffice. Based on Open Office source code, it runs natively in mac OSX aqua. Which means I have the word processing I've dreamed of for my macbook. Glory, glory, all hail NeoOffice.

Silence

I had a few readers. Now they've gone and left me. Because I never update this thing. And when I do, my posts are all about how taxing law school is.

I will speak to the void, if it must be so.

Had a bunch of interviews today and yesterday; even the summer internship scene is competitive.

I'll give a quick rundown of my top picks:
1. Federal Defender for the Eastern District
2. Public Defenders of the District of Columbia
3. Legal Aid
4. Orleans Defender
5. South Brooklyn Legal Services
6. Queens Legal Services
7. NJ Legal Services

I have an interview w/ an Appellate Term judge at the end of the month, but i hope to have an offer by then.

I want to go back to New Orleans and continue the work I started over winter break. The problem is I don't relish spending the summer away from kith and kin, especially in sweatbox Narlins. It would be both incredible and awful. DC is also far away; but not quite so far. The DC Defenders are renowned as the best in the nation.

All the interviews were a result of the Public Interest Law Career Center Job Fair at NYU. Pretty cool. They also had maybe 100 informational tables where you could take a seat, talk to a person from an organization and give em a resume. One of the most interesting I saw was the Southern District Pro Se Office. I didn't even know there was such an office. It makes sense: pro se motions need to be screened. It's the office's job to assist people representing themselves and screen their filings to make sure jurisdiction is proper, etc. Interns reserach and write. Pretty interesting stuff, but not much direct client interaction, if any.

Anyhow, emusic is the best.

Just downloaded the new Bonnie Prince Billy, some Johnny Cash, Decemberists, Beethoven, and Surfjan Stevens.

Anyone on emusic? We can add each other as friends. Not on emusic? If you join, let me know first, so you can say I sent you and I can get free songs!

I enjoy this little game of pretending that there are multiple viewers of this blog.

Hello, World

I have such short windows of free time anymore.

I desire more.
I hope it doesn't stay like this forever.

I'm trying to write a sestina. The structure is crazy:

stanza 1: 1 2 3 4 5 6
stanza 2: 6 1 5 2 4 3
stanza 3: 3 6 4 1 2 5
stanza 4: 5 3 2 6 1 4
stanza 5: 4 5 1 3 6 2
stanza 6: 2 4 6 5 3 1
stanza 7: 1 2 3 4 5 6


Sorry I've been out of touch.

A new

Semester has begun. I only have half my grades. 3.7 so far. Still waiting on 5 credits' worth. The above is my present petty concern. Below is what matters.

Just got back from New Orleans.

It is still an absolute disaster down there. The 9th ward looks like a war zone. 4 PM. Saturday afternoon. Not a person in the streets. House after boarded-up, sagging, crumbling, water-logged house. Every so often, a FEMA trailer parked on a lawn or in a driveway.

There is construction here and there, but even in the center of town, where there was minimal storm damage, the vacancy rate for businesses is staggering. Movie theaters, souvenir stores, sneaker shops, restaurants, hotels, all closed. If you never leave the french quarter, you might guess that the rebuilding is done and the city is back.

And then there's the Louisianna justice system. What a clusterfuck. I'll just list a few of the practices and let you imagine what kind of Kafakaesque situation has resulted: The Sherrif runs the prisons. The sherrif's dept. gets $35 for every person in prison per night. The court does not keep the court records. Those records are kept by the sherrif. A large part of the public defender's budget comes from a per-case stipend. Public defenders get $20 for every conviction. The courts get a cut of bail bonds, thus encouraging high bonds. It is common to look at a court record and see the notation: "Defendant in custody, did not appear." What that means is the sherrif's dep't tasked with delivering the prisoner for his court date, didn't bother. The official court records include months-long gaps in which it's anyone's guess what happened. After Katrina, during which the prisoners were trapped in their cells with water levels rising, the prisoners were moved all over the state and out of state. It has taken until now for the system, and those working doggedly outside the system, to find these people, and where proper, get them released. Orleans parish jails people for misdemeanors. Although this puts a severe burden on the courts and the overwhelmed public defenders, it puts more $$$ in the sherrif's pocket.

The moral: don't get arrested in New Orleans.