Note Maples had a local lawyer who did receive the mail and did nothing:
Mr. Maples's case, Maples v. Thomas, No. 10-63, is complicated by the fact that a third lawyer, in Alabama, had indisputably received the crucial document.
That lawyer said in a sworn statement that he was Mr. Maples's lawyer in name only, serving as local counsel because the New York lawyers were not licensed to practice in Alabama. He added that he had not passed the ruling along to his co-counsel or to his client.
IANAL but I'd expect that James has an accurate take of how the Supremes will view this case. As LB says:
if you miss a deadline to appeal, you're SOL
Still, the Justices sounded sympathetic, and they did agree to take the case in the first place.
That certainly might affect how it comes out (and does make the Alabama court's handling of the returned mail look less irresponsible). On the other hand, it doesn't have much of an effect on Sullivan's responsibilities.
In practice, the local lawyer's description of his role is pretty standard -- it's not unusual at all to have local counsel who doesn't do any work on the case but is admitted in the appropriate jurisdictions. His failure to contact Sullivan with the mailing is a screwup, but not a particularly surprising screwup; I wouldn't expect local counsel under those circumstances to do anything without having been specifically instructed to do it.
Actually, come to think, I wouldn't even call the associates' failure to inform anyone outside the firm they were leaving S&C sloppy. I'd have expected them to turn the case over to someone else within S&C.
JFC. You enter an appearance in a case and you're responsible. Period.
JFC = Juice for Counsel, the new scent from Clifford Chance.
What new rule would like the Supreme Court to establish? As I recall you are only entitled to effective assistance of counsel at the trial level.
Yup. I wonder what sort of malpractice damages are available for "I'm going to be killed because you screwed up."
Varies widely in the medical context.
Before reading this post -- and pretty much all the way through reading this post -- I thought you meant Andrew Sullivan's mailroom, and I was like "aaah, his readers are crazy anyhow."
The hell, me?
8 was my first thought, and it's infuriating. If this had happened to any of Sullivan's "real" clients in a significant matter, they've be facing (and settling, because they're so obviously culpable) a gigantic malpractice suit. But, because this is just some poor schlub on death row, I guess they get some minor about of negative press coverage and then just go on with their lives?
... I wonder if Sullivan's blaming their mailroom for a ghastly mistake by their pro-bono coordinator or something.
Is Sullivan actually blaming the mailroom? Have they explained what happened?
7: I honestly don't have a strong opinion on this case as a legal, rather than as a lawyering, matter. The general rule that defaulting on an appeal deadline is completely unfixable bothers me, but I don't have a constitutional argument that the SC should change it.
I'm just stunned that "Send an unopened envelope back to a court" is something that is a possible action for a law firm mailroom to take. "We dropped it behind a filing cabinet and lost it" could happen to anyone. "We stamped it 'Return to Sender' and sent it back to the court" is bizarre.
10: I made the same Sullivan assumption regarding the title, but I think Andrew Sullivan and his staff do a nice job of curating his readers' comments, including the crazy ones. I can't think of a blogger who I regard as substantively wrong on important issues as often as Sullivan who I nonetheless like to read. He's got a weird knack for aggregation.
Data point: I only know two people who worked at Sullivan (neither is still there), and they were/are both enormous assholes.
4 -- Even if they had, would the mailroom have done anything different?
12: Well, I'm relying on the Times -- that's what the story says happened. Presumably the Alabama court has the unopened envelope with the "Return to Sender" stamp in its file, so someone stamped it and sent it back.
17: I'd think a sane thing for the mailroom to do with mail addressed to a lawyer who'd left the firm is open it to see what case it related to, and then look up who's handling the case now, and forward it to the appropriate lawyer within the firm or to the addressee wherever they are now. But god knows what they'd actually have done.
17: presumably, in that case the mailroom would have had a list of attorneys to whom the departing attorneys' matters were transferred, and would have routed the letter to one of them. But that relies on assumptions of rationality that make the story in the OP sort of incomprehensible, so without more facts, it's hard to say what could have produed a different result. Maybe the same thing would have happened if the original attorneys had still been with the firm. Who can say?
I only know two people who worked at Sullivan (neither is still there), and they were/are both enormous assholes.
People who work at Sullivan are like opinions.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/03/pro-bono-and-big-law-firms-or-who.html
There's a wrinkle: the firm says it's not representing pro bono clients, but that it allows individual lawyers to do so on their own.
18
Well, I'm relying on the Times -- that's what the story says happened. Presumably the Alabama court has the unopened envelope with the "Return to Sender" stamp in its file, so someone stamped it and sent it back.
But that doesn't mean the mailroom did anything other than obey instructions they were given.
23: Oooohhh. Now it makes a certain amount of sense, but I think S&C's handling of pro-bono matters is fucked up, and in a way that is an invitation to malpractice.
24: Giving instructions that would allow the mailroom to do that would be malpractice if it applied to any actual client of the firm. With the new information from Charley's link to Balkanization it's different, but still screwy.
And at oral argument in the 11th Circuit, Maples' lawyer said that new lawyers had been assigned, and that it really was a mailroom screw up.
http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/07-15187/200715187-2011-02-28.html
See n.3
23: That is bizarre, at least w/r/t this case. I have never heard of a large law firm handling a death penalty case without one or more partners in charge.
Also, at least in NYS, there are plenty of ethical issues implicated in a firm's lawyers representing or "representing" clients "on their own," as S&C should know.
27, 28: And that's back to being really strange again. First, if S&C is coordinating the assignment of new S&C associates to the pro bono case, their claim not to be actually representing the pro bono client seems to me (offhand) to be bullshit. If they're involved in the representation, they're involved in the representation.
Second, the idea that "return mail to anyone unopened" is in the menu of options for a lawfirm mailroom seems completely weird to me. "We lost it", possible. "We forwarded it to the wrong person at S&C and they did nothing" also possible. But I don't know why they'd even own a "Return to Sender" stamp in the mailroom.
29.2: Yeah, this, even without the level of participation in the case indicated by assigning a new associate.
But I don't know why they'd even own a "Return to Sender" stamp in the mailroom.
Maybe it came in a set with stamps for "Fragile," "Printed Matter," "Air Mail," and that type of thing?
2: I haven't read the briefs, so I have no business predicting how the case will come out. But I did read the argument transcript!
JUSTICE ALITO: [To Alabama's SG:] You concede from these questions that the arguments that you are making in this capital case, which is sui generis, are pushing the Court to consider rules that would have far-reaching effect, such as a rule that places upon a clerk of the court a constitutional obligation to serve counsel with important documents in the case similar to the constitutional obligation to serve initial process in the case. And the question that I would like to ask is whether this -- the -- whether you as the Solicitor General or the Attorney General of Alabama have an obligation to push this matter in this way. . . .
And when a Justice who ought to be one of the state's easy votes is asking why on earth the state thought it was a good idea to put a case with such lousy facts in front of the Court, that's usually a sign things aren't going to go well for the state.
(Also Kennedy's questions were pretty friendly to Maples, which is what really matters, but they were less eye-catching.)
from 28: n. 3 in the 11th Circuit opinion from 2009 that CharleyCarp mentions:
"3 At oral argument [in the appeals court], Maples's attorney also acknowledged that, per Sullivan & Cromwell's internal policy, the Alabama court's Rule 32 Order should have been forwarded to the Sullivan & Cromwell attorneys who had taken responsibility for Maples's case after Munanka's and Ingen-Housz's departures. But due to a clerical error in the Sullivan & Cromwell mailroom, the firm instead returned the Rule 32 Order to the trial court clerk."
27-28, 34: That was a rep by an S&C lawyer, though, right? Because they were still representing him at least through appeal. There was a suggestion at argument before the Court that the record was "irretrievably corrupted" and "tainted by conflicts of interest," which is why I ask -- see the colloquy between Kagan and Garre at 25-26.
Someone talking about what should have been done "per . . . internal policy" doesn't seem to me to carry much weight. In particular I don't read that footnote (which of course is second-hand) as an affirmative statement that anyone actually was assigned to that particular case.
I made the same Sullivan assumption regarding the title, but I think Andrew Sullivan and his staff do a nice job of curating his readers' comments, including the crazy ones. I can't think of a blogger who I regard as substantively wrong on important issues as often as Sullivan who I nonetheless like to read. He's got a weird knack for aggregation.
I thought this was specifically about Sullivan's recent flurry of responses to Occupy Wall Street, consisting of "Hm, this seems like something that I need to dismiss soon as unserious." "Hm, I can't believe I haven't dismissed this as unserious yet. Still waiting for that perfect angle." "Aha! A reader has made it all clear. Because the word "Adbusters" is involved, we can tell it's all a bunch of rich teenaged possible cult members. I feel so much better."
33
And when a Justice who ought to be one of the state's easy votes is asking why on earth the state thought it was a good idea to put a case with such lousy facts in front of the Court, that's usually a sign things aren't going to go well for the state.
But actually it was Maples appealing to the Supreme Court as Alabama had won below. And it seems that under existing law Alabama has a good case regardless of the "lousy facts".
37: Yes, that's just it. Alito wasn't even asking the state SG why the state had sought review -- because, as you say, the state hadn't. Alito was asking why the state didn't give this issue up voluntarily rather than make Maples seek review and put the question before the Court on these facts. Not a good sign.
36: This is all true, and it seems objectively like it should piss me off, but it doesn't. I have three thoughts on this:
1 One gets the sense that Sullivan genuinely goes through a process on this stuff, and that he really is above average in his open-mindedness, even if a lot of his prior biases are stupid.
2. He's really good about listening to and giving space to intelligent dissenters. He doesn't nutpick.
3. I take seriously the concept of existing within a media bubble, and I can't read Red State or National Review or whatever, so Sullivan is about all the contact I get with the Right.
so Sullivan is about all the contact I get with the Right
And 90-99% of the American right considers Sullivan to be part of the Left. Not that I blame you for not reading Red State or National Review. I certainly don't.
I haven't read the thread at all, but,
1) the fact that the error was in the S&C mailroom makes me think that the Supremes are likely to create some kind of bulllshitty one-off rule that allows for justice in this particular case while not setting out a general rule that would protect defendants otherwise. Maybe I'm too cynical, but welcome to class issues in the world of law. We will see.
2) The position that the pro Bono criminal defense clients were clients of the individual lawyers but not the firm is ridiculous. Did S&C charge the lawyers fo the firm's resources in the representation? Were they able to bill those hours as (pro bono) time? Does S&C promote it's opportunities for pro bono, and use it as a cheap way of associate training?
3) It is an outrage that two extremely junior lawyers were allowed by the firm to handle a death penalty case completely unsupervised by a lawyer with experience in the area. That is true regardless of the lawyers' pedigree and firm. That they were able to do so also goes to the class issues mentioned in (1).
The general rule that defaulting on an appeal deadline is completely unfixable bothers me
I had assumed that the Alabama rule (like the federal one) was jurisdictional and unfixable, and that's why things had reached this stage. But looking at the exchange widget points to in 33, it looks like it's not. Out-of-time appeals are permissible in Alabama for cause. Christ, what assholes.
pro Bono
Holy smokes. Does the iPhone autocorrect fucking Bono's name?
2) The position that the pro Bono criminal defense clients were clients of the individual lawyers but not the firm is ridiculous. Did S&C charge the lawyers fo the firm's resources in the representation? Were they able to bill those hours as (pro bono) time? Does S&C promote it's opportunities for pro bono, and use it as a cheap way of associate training?
This sounds to me like the sort of thing you find elsewhere in the economy, where for legal purposes or to deny them certain rights, a lot of employees are technically "independent contractors".
?I only know two people who worked at Sullivan (neither is still there), and they were/are both enormous assholes.
But, did either work in the mailroom?
43: Oh, ok. Later on it 's lower case. That was going to be too much.
Is S and C's policy of that the individual lawyer and not the firm being the representative in pro bono cases just to avoid bad press? (like the DOJ person fussing about treasonous law firms helping Gitmo prisoners?)
Shame on them.
Does NY not have a rule that one lawyer in the firm is the firm?
43 -- yes! It is totally amazing.
I corrected the later capitizations. The autocorrect is Bono.
The position that the pro Bono criminal defense clients were clients of the individual lawyers but not the firm is ridiculous.
I particularly like this bit from S&C's affidavit (quoted at the link in 23):
the lawyers who first appeared in this case, and all lawyers who have participated thereafter, have done so on an individual basis, and have attempted not to use the firm name on correspondence or court papers.
Emphasis added. Yes, sometimes, despite their best attempts, they simply couldn't avoid using the firm name!
And based on the thread questioning seems consistent with my guess in (41) that the SCOTUS will find a way to treat the case as sui generis and let S&C off the hook (I haven't read the transcript or gotten into the facts or law).
51: I have the same suspicion -- that the underlying rule that makes this case sympathetic isn't the criminal defendant who's going to die because his lawyers screwed up, but the BigLaw firm who's going to look bad.
49: It's both horrifying and perfect.
and 41.2 and 3 are both absolutely right. The individual associates aren't innocent either -- they should absolutely not have taken on a representation like that as individuals. I'd bet the explanation is that they thought of the firm as supporting them, and the 'individual representation' status as a formality, but an explanation isn't an excuse. You don't take on a case you're not competent to handle.
Jesus, anybody who watched My Cousin Vinny with the attention it deserved should know that.
I'll admit to having watched Ms. Tomei with the attention she deserved.
The S&C associates should have withdrawn, and new S&C lawyers entered their appearance.
The dissent in the 11th Circuit points to a non-bullshit way out.
Intelligent death penalty advocates should want this one reversed.
And if they had taken the case on as individuals, they were absolutely responsible for contacting the court and informing it either that their addresses had changed, or getting permission to withdraw and be replaced by new counsel. That seems like something they should be losing their licenses over. (Which doesn't diminish S&C's responsibility.)
The HuffPo story on this I saw yesterday put quite a bit of emphasis on the colloquy between Alabama's lawyer and CJ Roberts over Alabama's repeated charge that Maples' lawyer was misrepresenting the record concerning the local counsel's involvement. Roberts called Alabama out, and Alabama retracted. Given the long and well known relationship between Roberts and Maples' lawyer -- which Alabama must have known about, even if HuffPo didn't -- this is pretty egregious stuff. Not that the case should turn on it, but there's no reason to go around alienating votes you're going to need.
Something to add to Halford's point about class consciousness, anyway.
I haven't read the thread or the linked article, so clearly I'm in an awesome position to give informed comment, but one of my closest friends used to be an associate at S&C, and spent much of her time on pro bono cases of similar type, and this is the first time I've ever heard that S&C considers pro bono clients to belong to individual attorneys, rather than to the firm. That's shocking. I mean, she was like a first year associate, for crying out loud.
I have a real problem with the pro bono model, and this story certainly doesn't make me think better of it.
Yeah, it's not an excuse -- if you're out of law school and you're admitted to the bar, you're expected to be a grownup practitioner who's responsible for their own actions. But given that the leaving associates didn't contact the court and say they were withdrawing in favor of new counsel, I wonder if they really understood that they were representing the client individually, or if they believed that S&C was responsible for the representation as a firm. No excuse, but junior associates are pretty clueless.
S&C considers pro bono clients to belong to individual attorneys, rather than to the firm
I'm having a hard time figuring out how this position isn't in every way worse for S&C than just admitting they had a fluke mailroom mistake. It makes it a look like a huge systemic dysfunction, rather than a bizarre mistake.
And even if you only focus on this particular situation, wouldn't S&C's position still involve a mailroom error? If pro bono cases belong to individual attorneys, and an individual attorney leaves the firm, shouldn't correspondence on the matter be forwarded to that attorney (at the forwarding address they surely have), rather than just returned unopened to sender?
Also, have we heard anything from the disappearing associates? Did they consider this case still to be "theirs" after they left the firm?
It makes it a look like a huge systemic dysfunction, rather than a bizarre mistake.
Yes. It looks like a massive ethical problem for the firm as a whole to me. Like, something that should lead to disciplinary action now that it's public (although I admit that I'm really unclear on how such disciplinary action would take place procedurally.)
Are Big Firm lawyers subject to disciplinary procedures?
a grownup practitioner who's responsible for their own actions.
Shudder - honing in on the "their" there.
63: A WEASEL HATH NOT SUCH A DEAL OF SPLEEN AS YOU ARE TOSS'D WITH!
re 64:
To quote Ms. Bennet, "I do not know any body who seems more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy."
QUOTING ME TALKING ABOUT A SINGLE IDENTIFIABLE PERSON WITH A KNOWN GENDER ISN'T APPLICABLE. TAKE A LOOK AT MY USAGE TALKING ABOUT SINGULAR SUBJECTS OF UNKNOWN OR UNDETERMINED GENDER. AND THEN SEE 64.
I'm going to guess that the whole 'it's not really S&C' thing was an afterthought, by some geniuses who think "creativity" is a positive attribute. (I.e, transactional lawyers). Not exactly well thought through. But then, I can also see why they'd be desperate to say just about anything that came into their heads, what with a guy going to the chair, and their having missed a bright-line filing deadline.
You think? That'd be truly incredible chutzpah.
It would be really incredible chutzpah if their clients were their parents and they'd be made orphans if they lost the appeal.
Or maybe some genius thought it up before hand, as a shield should exactly the sort of thing -- poorly supervised junior lawyers messing up a case -- happen. And no one ever thought it through, or even said it out loud. Because it really does sound ridiculous.
68: But it seems so disprovable. At my old firm, pro bono cases went through conflicts checks. There was an engagement letter between the firm and the client. There was a matter number. Costs -- from phone calls and copies to expert witness fees -- were paid by the firm. We used the firm's letterhead. We used the firm's name on the signature blocks of pleadings.
I work at DOJ now and -- while you can use DOJ computers, printers and copiers as long as it's de minimis -- it is crystal clear that you have to keep pro bono matters separate from your real work. In fact, you're supposed to take leave if you work on pro bono matters during office hours. And you absolutely cannot do anything to give the client the impression that they're represented by DOJ.
68-72: Maybe they're literally hoping that no one follows up. Maples isn't going to -- they're still representing him. And I'm completely clueless about how any kind of disciplinary action for unethical behavior would take place if opposing counsel didn't bring it. There must be some process but I've got no idea what it is.
The most bizarre aspoect to me is that a law firm mailroom doesn't open or forward mail to former employeess, especially from a Court. I regularly get case-related mail addressed to me personally at the law firm address, that should name the firm but does not. Once I received a seven figure check written to me personally, although it was intended to settle a case.
Our firm did have a potentially comparable situation when a partner died while still officially on several cases and it took a few weeks for anyone to think to check his email. We didn't have a procedure in place, even though lots of official notices arrive that way. Happily no death penalty (or parking violation) cases were lost.
75.1: Yeah, that exactly was what boggled me -- not that there was a mailroom error, but the type of error.
[S]ome geniuses who think "creativity" is a positive attribute. (I.e, transactional lawyers).
Ouch.
55: I'll admit to having watched Ms. Tomei with the attention she deserved.
During some adventures in NYC several years back, I spent part of a wintry morn in the small office of an auto repair shop in Midtown waiting while a relative's car got repaired. A "colorful" place, the walls were adorned with heroic posters from American Towman in this vein and the manager/owner was an ebullient woman who could have been the model for Tomei's accent in that movie. For the most part I sat there quietly soaking in the ambiance, but had a hard time holding it together when during a phone negotiation on a part number she came out with, "Are you sure?"
And then they charged me $5 (±$673).
Tomei looked fabulous in Before the Devil Knows You Are Dead.
OT: Not being a woman, I don't regard her with magnesium-hot hatred, but this Katie Roiphe thingy in Slate smacks less of the "superwoman looking deep into the cultural imagination" thing that she is going for than garden-variety defensive narcissism.
80: This part was great, I thought
Before going to bed he howls like a wolf, then says, "I am a wolf," then says: "Where is my bottle? Where is my mango? Where is my ketchup?" then very deliberately climbs out of his bed and walks through the halls saying, "I am lost, Mama, I am lost." It occurs to me that in this unfiltered, unmediated environment I am passing everything along to him. In any event, that's exactly how I feel at 2 in the morning--somewhere in the middle of "I am lost" and "Where is my mango? Where is my ketchup?"
81: Speaking of which, I would pay $5 to watch K/atie R/oiphe fight A/yelet W/aldman for Anna Quindlen's "mother whose children say adorable things to justify her new column" crown. Brooch? Gorget? Tennis bracelet? Elsa Peretti cuff?
||
We are all Alberto Gonzales now:
LEVY: Do you consider yourself responsible for seeing that EEO laws and policies are followed?
BLOOMBERG: You just asked that question. I don't know what the word "responsibility" is and I can't answer your question.
LEVY: Well do you consider yourself responsible in any sense?
BLOOMBERG: I don't know what the word "responsible" is, counsel.
LEVY: Did you ever hear the phrase "The buck stops with me," or "The buck stops with him"?
BLOOMBERG: I have heard that.
LEVY: Does that refer to you?
BLOOMBERG: I have heard that.
|>
84: wow. That fills me with rage.
A politician swearing under oath that "I don't know what the word 'responsible' is" seems like it ought to be pretty easy for an opponent to pull somewhat out of context and make the centerpiece of an extraordinarily effective campaign. I'm honestly a bit surprised that Bloomberg didn't find a less politically inept way to weasel out of answering that question.
I'm honestly a bit surprised that Bloomberg didn't find a less politically inept way to weasel out of answering that question.
Almost anything would be better. He could have said he got his balls twisted in his shorts and needed a recess and then ran to the Hamptons.
86: He's not much of a politician -- he's been winning in NY on incredible amounts of campaign spending and unattractive alternatives. I don't really see him having much of a political future after he's termlimited out of being the mayor.
That's probably just really lousy witness preparation by whatever lawyer was preparing Bloomberg. How about, "I'm not sure what definition of "responsible" you're using. I'm the mayor of the City, so do I bear some responsibility for the City? Absolutely." Then the cross-examiner is forced to ask some question about legal responsibility, which gets an objection, etc., etc.
And, glancing through that opinion Minivet cited, it is clear that whatever the City did or didn't do, the Corporation Counsel did a really lousy job of defending their client in that case.
I'm the mayor of the City, so do I bear some responsibility for the City? Absolutely.
But this is so obvious that I have to assume it's exactly the answer he was deliberately trying to avoid, for some reason.
I think it's hard to do witness prep on a billionaire. The instinct to answer every question with "Because fuck you is why" has to be very strong in the absence of any possible personally meaningful consequences.
93 is framed theoretically, but I choose to believe that LB is speaking from experience.
93: there was a terrific short new yorker piece a few years ago about what lead rich people to act like unthinking jerks. Might have been malcolm gladwell? I forget. Ask my assistant.
94: From experience, I can say that the instinct can be frighteningly strong even in the presence of personally meaningful consequences.
In further news, I'm considering changing the nameplate on my door to Bartleby. This is still the best lawyering job I've ever had (leaving pay scale out of it) but I would prefer not to actually do it. The last couple of weeks has all been about messing with deadlines, and not getting anything done, and I'm finding that I'd simply rather never do any work ever again.
I'm not quite sure how to make that work financially.
Time to finally go back for that art history degree?
80, 81, 83: I liked this bit:
Quentin Bell once wrote about growing up with his single-ish mother, the painter Vanessa Bell: "We had to balance the comforts of being so well loved against the pain of being so fearfully adored." And that seems like a fair assessment of what goes on in my house. (The grown son of one of the single mothers I know refers to this same thing as "the unparalleled intimacy.") But if I am being honest I like the fearful adoration, the too-muchness of it, the intensity, the fierceness. I don't actually believe "healthy" is better.
I'm glad Ms. Roiphe has chosen a somewhat unconventional path. It's hard to imagine how insufferable she would be to people like her if she were not, in fact, a person like her.
It was also nice to see her acknowledge the particularity of her own situation:
To be clear, I am writing here about myself and the handful of other single mothers I know, specifically women who conceived children in some sort of relationship that they are no longer in and had the baby: a tiny, arguably privileged subset of single mothers.
And journalistic convention is probably more to blame than Roiphe for the fact that she felt the need to add this unhelpful observation in the very next sentence:
(It's worth noting, though, that nearly four in 10 babies in this country are currently born to single mothers, and a rapidly growing percentage of those mothers are adults.)
93: Bill Gates had the same problem, didn't he?
Have you considered marrying into wealth?
I've thought about it, but I don't think I have the necessary skill-set.
All you need is a short skirt and enough income to sit around at the bar at the St. Regis all day. Actually, maybe I should try this.
The richest person I've ever had to deal with, a doddering old real-estate mogul and client of my company, kept me on the phone and two personal assistant in his office on tenterhooks for about ten minutes while he admired the way a balloon was floating over a pond in the park.
The rich may be like you and me, but lots more subordinates have to pretend like it's not annoying.
101: Hmm, I doubt that. But anyway, I sympathize. I hate my job. Most days, there's nothing I'd like to do more than absolutely nothing.
Then it's time to buy lottery tickets.
98: I'm sympathetic to Ms. Roiphe's plight, and I'm sure that people do say stupid, insensitive things to single mother, but I think Flippanter's description ("garden-variety defensive narcissism") gets it exactly right.
It's getting dark and I am stepping into a taxi, the parlor window is lit, the children at home in their pajamas, smelling of Johnson & Johnson, domestic peace descending, and I go off in the taxi to meet a man at a hotel bar. This will seem to many people like the wrong structure; they will tell me how unhealthy it is, how unsustainable, how unstable, and they may be right, but there I am speeding nonetheless over the bridge.
OMG! She's a mom and she's dating! I'm appalled!
(wait a second! did she just leave her little kids alone without a babysitter? No, but to mention something as quotidian as a baby-sitter would ruin the romance of her self-portrait)
"[U]nsustainable" isn't really the right criticism. The state of raising little kids isn't one that has to be sustained. It has to be done for several years, but then it is done. (Unless your kids move back in with you and you have to do it again with your grandkids.)
||
I am really having some Unfogged posting writer's block, this week.
|>
104: I'm counting being single as part of the necessary skills. I think you also probably have to be able to walk in heels.
108: do a post about math! Tell us about uh representation theory!
109: Well, okay, I'm not sure about heels, but sure. You're selling yourself short, I think--I bet you could aquire both of those skills fairly quickly if you really set your mind to it.
101: There's always the "befriend old rich people until they die" plan:
A 42-year-old, newly adopted Maui man who stands to inherit $70 million from a millionaire's estate had previously inherited a Kula gasoline station from one elderly woman and a Kula home from another, according to court documents.
I'm terrible at math small talk. I can't remember any vocabulary after I leave the context that I learned it in.
Half the nerds here could outtalk me because I have to go back and re-read every definition in order to use the word. The other half believe themselves to be bad at math, but if they'd had a few more classes, they could outtalk me, too.
108: That's what comes from there not being any personally meaningful consequences for not posting.
You could post more photos of your home renovation. Or your kids. Or your thoughts on OWS. Really, anything but Rick Perry.
Also this school is engaged in a wretched curriculum redesign that could possibly entail:
1. A set of ~12 skills
2. which must be assessed in every class which claims to teach them, and
3. if a class doesn't claim to teach one or more, it risks being underpopulated because students need so many courses in every skill, and
4. these skills might also arise in extracurriculars
5. so we must module-ize all our extracurriculars, and assess those, and figure out units, and credit.
6. Does someone not graduate if they lack enough extracurriculars? FUN!
7. What skill does Math Club teach? Want to assess it? Want to see your numbers drop if it doesn't teach a skill? FUN!
8. Obviously everyone's time will be duly compensated for these multi-dimensional tracking matrices we'll be filling out with all of our students when we advise them. Obviously we will all buy in to the spirit of this awesome redesign.
I am seriously considering advocating for a secret ballot when it comes to a ballot so that I can vote no.
112: Melvin and Howard remains one of my favorite movies. Not very ambitious, but well-done with good performances from Paul Le Mat and Mary Steenburgen..
Or your thoughts on OWS.
I've almost posted about this a bunch, but all I have to say is how wonderful it is to see this end of protesters get some media attention. I suppose I've read some nice links that I could post. Inevitably I got them from someone here, though, so it always seems a bit silly to post them. Like I'm the mom of a teenager telling them about this neat new Music Television channel on the television set.
There's always the "befriend old rich people until they die" plan:
Seems like he's turned into more of a career.
Even unsatisfying work provides an environment where someone will notice if you are gone.
For a post, how about the contrast between Occupy Wall Street (Stop Corporate Greed!) and how it came to pass that Elizabeth Warner is not heading the CPFB, which is itself now so restricted in scope that it's useless.
Here's one link about Warren:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/06/inept-obama-anybody-but-warren-stance-reveals-fundamental-bank-v-middle-class-fault-line.html
I am curious about how much of this was steered by Third Way, and about how much Democratic legislation comes verbatim from Third Way. The details of how CPFB died are basically fine print, of interest only to procedural geeks, but the outcome really matters.
Ability to create fire from bare hands
Super shitting
The calculus
Drunken bobsledding
Falconry
Can list all major Spanish-American War Generals
Draw a monkey that totally looks like a real monkey
Intermediate Latvian
The art of the cocktail
Game
Basic blackjack strategy
The Foxtrot
That's 12. Curriculum done and done.
106: No, but to mention something as quotidian as a baby-sitter would ruin the romance of her self-portrait
We'll have you know that we lead rich inner lives, redolent with pathos and l'amour fou.
122: No, no, those are canon-based. We want to have a gen ed which is both canon-based and skill-based. That's why you need a higher-dimensional matrix tracking system. It's going to be really pleasant.
Be bold -- say it's stupid and counterproductive up front! Although I don't remember your tenure status.
Once you have an n-dimensional continuous skill-space, it'll be a simple matter to devise an SVM classifier that will sort students into able- and unable-to-graduate.
We committed to the board of regents that we'd pass something this year.
I've been advocating that our assessment should be all aggregate data, and no individual tracking whatsoever. I think you can make a really sound argument that this is the only assessment method that won't poison the process, and I think people are starting to get frustrated enough that they're starting to listen.
But who knows.
Barring that, I want to create a distinction where you can graduate with an incompetent degree, showing that you graduated but you're unskilled.
Will there be a distinction between skills and mad skillz?
128 -- I thought that was what Art History was for. ZING!!
125: Yes I think you should prioritize proactively establishing your image as a stakeholder with legitimate instructional concerns on a go-forward basis. Maybe hit someone to demonstrate your bias for action.
Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.
That's 12! Not canon-based.
I'm not sure what a "skill" means. Is "writing papers" one of the skills? Or say "making an argument"?
Ability to create fire from bare hands
Sounds painful. Maybe "with bare hands"?
127. My land-grant Graduate U did this. Admission for state residents was nonselective but admission to most degree programs worth having happened after Freshman year or students having earned a requisite number of credits.
133: Like I said, being single and able to walk in heels.
But anyway, I sympathize. I hate my job.
I like my job and this continues to be good news but, oh gosh, is life going to be a bit painful when I do finish the project and the adrenaline starts to drain off.
Critical Thinking, Problem-Solving, Inquiry and Analysis, Quantitative reasoning, Qualitative reasoning...you know, well-defined terms that everyone would agree on.
Aesthetic Expression. Ethical Reasoning. Global Knowledge. Oral Communication. Reading Rubric. Self-Development. Scientific Literacy. Written Communication. Foreign Language. Engaging Faith Traditions. Civic Engagement.
I don't understand how the number of skills can be smaller than the number of majors. I could imagine something reasonable along the lines of "having a degree in X means you've acquired the following 5 skills." But the overlaps between different departments aren't going to be very big.
You know, really accessible goals that a typical third year undergrad should have a dazzling mastery of.
Self-Development.
I'm just going to sit and look at this one a little.
140: This will all happen during your first two years, before you get into your major coursework, of course.
Reading Rubric
Geez you'd think you'd rather they learn English than some crazy dead language.
We want to have a gen ed which is both canon-based and skill-based. That's why you need a higher-dimensional matrix tracking system. It's going to be really pleasant.
One of the best parts of my college experience was being an undergraduate member of the faculty committee that was working on redesigning the general education requirements. The final program was skill-based but implemented in what I think is a sane way.
Students are required to complete work (with a minimum grade of C-) in six broadly defined M/odes of Inquiry; although these six experiences can be acquired in a variety of contexts, the Wil/lamet/te faculty believes they can best be learned in general education courses that are explicitly designed for all students. ... M/odes of Inquiry courses may be designed and designated to satisfy one or possibly two of the six categories, but not more than two. Those designated for two categories must meet the full requirements and conditions of both M/odes. Even though courses may be designated to satisfy two categories, each student must take at least five courses in satisfying the six requirements. In addition, students will not be allowed to satisfy more than two of the M/odes with courses from any single department.
Don't all classes teach the first three of those skills? And aren't the others just disguising subject matters as "skills"?
Oral Communication
Self-Development
Engaging Faith Traditions
Sounds dirty. Real dirty.
And! Each has 3-5 subskills. I shit you not.
I feel that this model student may be overfitting the data.
Spatial logic
Emotional logic
Foundational logic
Informal logic
Classical logic
Linear logic
Dialethic logic
Demonstrative logic
Intensional logic
Paraconsistent logic
Substructural logic
Nonmonotonic logic
I'm quite skeptical that there's actually two different dimensions here.
We committed to the board of regents that we'd pass something this year.
What's the total time-line? In the process that I was involved with they had begun the discussion about gen-ed at the faculty retreat prior to my Freshman year and the final program was approved to begin with Freshmen entering the year after I graduated.
151: Our current model says "Take two natural sciences, two social sciences, a math class, two humanities, two arts..." etc.
The problem is that resources are at stake, so everyone is tacking on skills that will protect their departments from being losers when resources are redistributed.
Also some departments feel they'll lose if the content-based model is abandoned. Etc.
In the process that I was involved with they had begun the discussion about gen-ed at the faculty retreat prior to my Freshman year and the final program was approved to begin with Freshmen entering the year after I graduated.
Good lord, that is so much more reasonable. No, this was determined last January, and must be voted up or down this December.
Engaging Faith Traditions? I thought Heebie U was public.
Also, to lw up in 121 - I clicked through and got depressed. I've been having trouble with depressing news lately and just wanting to stick my head in the sand.
Good lord, that is so much more reasonable.
Also! During the process they occasionally brought in people from other universities to talk about their experience revising general education programs. I wasn't present for those events, but it seemed like an important thing to do.
I'm sure there are better models out there but could you just steal the material from the link in 145?
157: inside of the sand, it's too dark to sad.
You have my sympathy.
The process I was involved in was long and difficult but clearly benefited from having high levels of buy-in from the institution and the faculty. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to get anybody to budge if there wasn't a general consensus that reform was necessary and was going to be a benefit.
inside of the sand, it's too dark to sad.
It's too sad everywhere.
It's funny thinking about those memories. I haven't thought about it in years and it isn't the sort of thing that comes up in conversation, but it really was one of the highlights of my undergraduate experience.
I don't know if it was a highlight, but the part of my undergrad experience that was most like my daily work experience was being on the committee to organize our big annual tkd tournament. Nothing else I did prepared me so well for my adult life.
What? Not even integration by parts? No way.
157:More, or the same depression about Warren from Ian Welsh...sorry he has a slow blog, link not working
Apparently Warren came out in opposition to OWS
Leaving all else aside, this is awful politics in the most technical sense. Her statement, if she didn't want to endorse #Occupy should have been something like "this movement shows that until we reform Wall Street and the Banking system unrest will continue to grow," or something similar. As a politician, when asked about something, say it proves the need for your program. In Warren's case it's even plausible....WelshBut let's be frank, she is a stalking horse for Obama. She is deep in his pockets, supported strongly by his organization.
I always knew she was a phony, "safe" reform for the banking industry. Now she will be the second Democrat helped by the Obama administration to lose to Scott Brown. Obama does not want 60 Dem Senators.
After all, Warren was associated with Harvard. Fucking great takedown at Digby's of Harvard, its "liberal" graduates, Yglesias and the fake student support of the living wage protests in 2001
You guys are my heroes. Everything I do, I do for you.
Apparently NMM to Sarah Palin's potential presidential run.
Let me show you how it works:
NMM to President Sarah Palin circa 2013.
Digby has a photo of a Wall street firm hanging banners:"We are the 1%"
There was another article I read this week about Harvard, this one about the huge gaps between busniess graduates and libart social science grads, but you know I think that misses the real point. What both groups share is a radical elitism.
The point is, ain't no damn puppet people gonna have any input into the decisions Warren makes about banking. She will sit down with her fellow alums who work at the banks and hedge funds and they will work out a deal.
I prefer to read scholarship from 2nd and 3rd rank universities. A study should be done to show the irrevocable damage Ivy League grads have probably done to every intellectual discipline.
By moving, I increased my chances of being read by bob.
A great, a perfect example is the New Keynesianism of Mankiw, DeLong, and Romer. Radical technocratic elites who aim for social control.
Aww, hell with it
Here is Stirling on why Krugman is full of shit. Newberry has charts! N-K quasi-monetarism won't work anymore, competitive devaluation is a fail, there will be no export escape from the "zero-bound"
We are so screwed.
This is why the evidence indicates that there needs to be a generation of global conflict, including some outright wars, but not driven by them, which leads to a complete catastrophe. If there is one lesson of 2008-2010, it is that mere economic disaster is not enough to pry the developed world of its course, or the developing world off of its course. Only at a peace conference with a devastated world will there be the kind of far reaching and international consensus required to put a system in place, and the people to run it, that have a mandate for "never again." That is what the post-war era was: the results of a peace in a shattered world....Newberry
165: Huh. Digby usually doesn't post stuff like that. It seems to be based on an absurd misreading of Yglesias, who came out expressly in favor of specific demands of the sort that characterized anti-Vietnam demonstrations (though he didn't actually mention Vietnam). I guess Stokes would like to believe that those demonstrations were effective to the extent that they were formless and nonspecific.
I also guess Stokes would like to believe those demonstrations were effective - full stop.
I think I actually disagree with Yglesias, in that I don't have any problem with hippies levitating the Pentagon or whatever. But Stokes is the sort that gives "the sixties" a bad name - quite unlike Yeselson here, who appears to have given these issues some thought - and who doesn't insist on dividing the world into an us vs. them contest that puts "us" on the side of futility.
The last should have been goodnight, but then I remembered This Post at Digby's (which supports Newberry) about how rich Greeks are the number one purchasers of top-end London real estate.
Capital controls will not work for any country. The plutocracy is global and mobile, and let me know when and how we can tax the fuck out of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi, because that is what it is gonna take.
Yeah, Ezra Klein loves Yeselson.
But when a movement does arise, it needs an articulate exposition, and the brainy liberal left infrastructure's time has come.
Social Rents.
The plutocracy's global and mobile,
The workers local and stuck,
Rich Greeks and Arabs are the ones,
Out of whom we must tax the fuck!
Apparently there are lots of people at the OWS march tonight.
I've probably already told the story about how I first met my wife, at a demonstration of which I was one of the organizers. We did not succeed in bringing down the system. We did not find $5.
We also didn't have concrete demands.
Hope this vintage does a little better.
Had I only gone to Harvard, I could have been history's greatest monster.
Really, this is great to see.
Really, this is great to see.
Worth saying twice.
I wonder if Burning Man could throw their energy and devotees behind this.
183. Because involving more naked, stoned people is how you get a winning political coalition?
Here's the thing I keep thinking, when I think about a bunch of young, well-educated protesters.
What else are they going to do right now?
Go to their jobs? They can't get jobs.
Yardwork and home repair? They can't buy houses.
Take care of their kids? They won't have kids for a few more years.
If you train a bunch of kids up, probably through college, and they're verbal and used to lots of communication technology, and you make it impossible for them to do the things that take most of our time, what else are they going to do? They also have very little to lose and are probably backed by their parents, to some extent. They can hold out.
How do you handle a hungry maaaaaaan? A Manhandler!
183. Because involving more naked, stoned people is how you get a winning political coalition?
They build a city of 50,000 people with newspapers, radio stations, and major public works in the middle of the desert and take it down without a trace every year. They have skills.
I'm pretty cynical about all of this OWS stuff. For both practical and ideological reasons. I think it is unlikely that much is going to continue in the north once the weather gets significantly colder. Also, the open organizing, consensus-based decision-making process that is going on is really, really fucking hard. Not impossible, just very, very unlikely. If the Demoncrats don't coopt this stuff right away, there's not really going to be much institutional support. And, frankly, much of what's being said is incoherent. Not in a good, May of 68, sur le paves la plage way either.
Also, there's already been some really fucked up stuff happening in LA -- names and photos of long-time organizers on a flier that libels them as violent provocateurs -- that highlights some of the ideological gulf between liberals and radicals.
...and in MPLS, the organizing has already been hijacked by pie-cards from the business unions.
If I had a nickle for every time pie-cards hijacked my plans, I could count the nickles for a clue as to what a pie-card was.
190:And then the spring again, and summer is a cummin in.
The economy will have it's say, and if it is Romney, the insanely vicious negative campaigns on both sides about absolutely nothing will drive everybody to burn shit down.
We did not succeed in bringing down the system.
But dude, you got laid. And really, if that's not the goal of most protesters, I don't know what is.
Also, Bob? I work at a second- or maybe a third-tier university (depending on how you're doing the tranches), and really, the scholarship ain't that great.
the organizing has already been hijacked by pie-cards from the business unions
What do you mean by this, Natilo?
I'd just been about to say that I'd rather see OWS turn in the direction we saw in Wisconsin; that that seems more productive than the involvement of Burners (whose skills I don't dismiss, but a broader swathe of society is needed).
The point is, ain't no damn puppet people gonna have any input into the decisions Warren makes about banking. She will sit down with her fellow alums who work at the banks and hedge funds and they will work out a deal.
As we all know, the U of Ok alumni network secretly controls Wall Street.
I'm pretty cynical about all of this OWS stuff.
Eh. I'm pretty cynical about everything, but when it comes to stuff like this, I compare it to the world where stuff like this isn't happening. This seems like an improvement.
Also, the open organizing, consensus-based decision-making process that is going on is really, really fucking hard. Not impossible, just very, very unlikely. If the Demoncrats don't coopt this stuff right away, there's not really going to be much institutional support. And, frankly, much of what's being said is incoherent.
Not to be too much of a dick, but aren't you an anarchist?
I'm kind of looking forward to the day when the worm turns and the Internet is suddenly full of "All along, I knew... What we really need..." condemnations of the protesters' privilege.
Also: "We are the 99 percent" is pretty sweet, slogan-wise.
And to 199, not that I disagree with the critique or the suspicions. Though on the other hand these folks are doing something and I'm not.
Anyway, I'm having trouble seeing how OWS is actually doing harm, though I wish to god milquetoast liberals would cease with their pursed lips and disapproval-making. A bunch of young people began an undirected protest which is now picking up steam not only across the nation but internationally (apparently); the most promising narrative to emerge thus far is the 99%ers vs. the 1%ers.
I can't say I'm a fan of the "liberal tea party" motif: that just sounds stupid, and the Tea Party doesn't enjoy a great public support at this point. I get the idea, but, uh.
Let it take shape as it will. Statements supporting OWS are coming from surprising quarters already (Ben Bernanke, for heaven's sake?). The protesters don't have a slate of proposals/demands as yet, and perhaps never will, but if nothing else this voice of these people -- the more demographically broad the better -- can serve to support legislation that insists upon the needs of the middle class, for lack of a better term. Call it a public shaming.
Except for what Natilo says about the coopting, which I hadn't heard about.
It is odd that I'm shocked by 184? I suppose it's odd. But Jesus. I thought dying of cancer at 56 was mostly for people with a lot less money than him.
205: Almost, but I was thinking more of the guilty, thwarted privilege-condemnation that threatens to swamp the typing at places like Slate, not the opportunistic sniping of right-wing peckerwoods.
206: The bell tolls for rich and poor alike.
There was another article I read this week about Harvard, this one about the huge gaps between business graduates and liberal social science grads [scrivener's errors corrected]
I can't imagine how that comparison was constructed, given that Harvard doesn't award an undergraduate business degree.
196: From what I've heard from first-hand reports and in the media, it looks like the DFL and big unions are going to try to use this as just another get-out-the-vote exercise. Which, fine, whatever, that's their job, but I don't have to like it.
199: Right, it's precisely because I am an anarchist that I am dubious about using consensus in a large, amorphous, heterogenous, newly-formed group. It's really hard when you've got 5 people who listen to the same music, wear the same clothes, have the same politics etc. As one of my old anarchist friends was just saying about this issue: "consensus doesn't prevent factions, it just drives them underground", furthermore "consensus privileges underemployed educated white men" (which is an accurate description of both me and him, so I think we'd know).
So far, the biggest concern I'm hearing from the anarchist scene is that the self-appointed leadership of these protests is giving every indication that they will sell us out to the cops at the first opportunity, viz the thing in LA and similar stuff in Denver.
HOWEVER: CeCe McDonald is out on bail!!! Yay!!!
the self-appointed leadership of these protests is giving every indication that they will sell us out to the cops at the first opportunity
WTF? I really feel I need more information, Nat. What/who is this self-appointed leadership?
I'll have to figure out what the LA and Denver things are. As will be obvious by now, I haven't been reading any inside OWS stuff.
The one in Pittsburgh just had a meeting tonight. They're going to occupy Market Square, which I strongly support because I think something useful may come of this and because they're going to be no where that would mess with my commute.
A group met in Missoula yesterday. Not sure where it's going.
Oh, the Fish. Not in anyone's way. Right by the river.
212: It looks like what's been happening, from what I can pull off emails and websites, is that some cities (Mpls, LA and Denver at least), the more progressive unions are sending in paid organizers. Which, again, is exactly what they think their function should be, so I'm not particularly surprised. And these paid organizers are suggesting things like trying to incorporate as a non-profit, or producing broadsides attacking more radical activists. It's nice to be optimistic, but we saw essentially the identical thing happen just a few months ago in Madison, and we know how that turned out. I will be happy to agitate for moderate gains when that's all you can get, but it seems to me that the last 50 years of political history in the US generally supports the view that liberals will likely try to sell us out. Again, I'm not sure that this is going to happen, but it's certainly the way to bet.
Don't get me wrong, I grew up in the DFL, and I am a sucker for any union narrative, and I strongly prefer living in a progressive/liberal town where many of my prescriptions for improving things are widely supported. However, we've seen what happens in movements like this one that arise fairly spontaneously: The spontaneity is perceived (perhaps correctly) as a threat to the vested interests among the liberals. A protestor moves from being a hero to a terrorist based on nothing more than a broken bank window. I like you guys, and many of my best friends are about that far to the right of me, but I don't think I can trust you so far as a class.
I don't think I can trust you so far as a class.
We're more like a category, if that helps.
I think you know you can trust my class.
OT: holy Jesus. There is a NEST of RATS living behind my dishwasher. What the fucking fuck?!? I am thinking of either burning my house down and refurbishing it with insurance money, or possibly never eating in my kitchen again.
I hope your dishwasher isn't a person.
We were about to leave anyway. Sure, there's some cheese and meat is always nice. But we've got to get a cracker or some bread or something.
221: face this like a paleo, man! Hunt those rats and eat 'em!
221 might be one of my worst nightmares ever.
How did you find out? Dishwasher stopped because they ate the wires?
I'm wondering if there's a late night animal shelter where I can get a cat, or maybe a gun store to get a gun. HOLY FUCK RATS.
or maybe a gun store to get a gun.
Isn't there a waiting period or something? You can put out poison, keeping care to keep kids safe, but they probably won't eat it the first night. Your best bet is probably to call an exterminator.
I saw something that looked like a mouse dash under the spot where the dishwasher is, and pulled it out to take a look. Big mistake, my life was happy before.
The name of the cat in "The Rats in the Walls" makes Lovecraft's story relevant to the Perry thread.
(Did the cat always have that name? Is this one of the many things I missed when I read Lovecraft in junior high/high school?)
231: That's probably a good sign. If they haven't eaten the wires, they probably haven't been there long.
Or maybe it's a bad sign because it means you have super intelligent rats. I forget. Anyway, keep the lights on in kitchen all night.
And I'm off to find traps and poison.
I once had a mouse and watched the little guy step in a spring trap. It was kind of alarming. Probably more so for the mouse, who did not die swiftly.
232: Even allowing for turn-of-last-century blatant racism, that seems a very strange name for a cat.
238: Lovecraft was a ludicrous racist. Some of the stuff he wrote about Brooklyn (the only place he ever lived other than Providence, with his [Jewish!] wife). If you ever say to yourself, "Self, I want to read a monograph about a little-read American horror author by a French experimental novelist," Hollebecq's H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life was a very interesting read.
Hollebecq
Something something hollebecq girl something.
239: Yeah, his New York stories are pretty explicit with the racism and hatred of immigrants. I didn't read those as a kid; I hope I'd have at least caught that back then.
It's the other stories I've read - I hesitate to call them the "classic" ones, but they are almost certainly the better known - where I wonder how much I missed. Well, except for the barely concealed horror at racial mixture. I did pick up on that (cough Innsmouth cough).
If we all adopt the mumble something cough writing style we'll be protecting a certain commenter from automated detection via text analysis.
Hey, I was doing the something-something something before Flip lost the power of articulate speech.
That was supposed to be 242, amended.
238, if we're allowing blatant racism, it doesn't look much different from a cat named "Blackie".
238: also the name of Guy Gibson's Labrador dog, and he picked it as the radio brevity code to indicate that the first dam had been breached; as a result they don't show that film on TV quite as often as they might.
221 might be one of my worst nightmares ever.
You have nightmares about being hunted and eaten by Halford? Wow, dude.
I'm basically with Parsimon on the OWS protests. My sole complaint is that the idiots organizing a similar event in DC decided that Thursday was a good day for it. It's not like anyone with a regular job might be interested in attending, I guess.
Arent the DC protests extending into this weekend?
I thought the federal government was closed on Thursdays.
249: I hope so - I assumed there would at least be a rump presence through the weekend. I plan to swing by on Saturday to lend some support.
The Guy Gibson movie is "Dambusters" (1955).
This was Patrick McGoohan's feature film debut, playing a guard posted outside a briefing room where the crews are being told of their mission. His only lines are spoken to Gibson's dog.
I want to know what these lines were. Does this mean that at one point Patrick McGoohan's entire film career consisted of him saying the N-word to a dog?
Back on the OWS thing, this is pretty goddamn rich: the Tea Party has taken to distinguishing themselves from OWS by complaining that is too white, too disorganized and that their supposedly grassroots origin is just a front for their high-powered backers. (In this telling, the people behind the curtain are not the labor unions, but Van Jones and Al Gore).
That's what you call chutzpah.
OT: You can get rims (for a car) and tires on a rent-to-own basis and that there is a whole chain of stores that just that as a business plan.
254: yeah; that was a big deal in LA for a while. I'm not sure I knew about the -to-own, though. People would get their car up on dubs for a night out on the town and then go back to their regular wheels.
Halford, when we were trying to evict the squirrels in my attic, we were cautioned that the risk with poison is that the critters eat it, crawl into the walls, and die -- leaving you with decomposing carcasses you can't get to filling your house with their fumes.
255: I kind of assumed it was LA's fault.
256: If you don't kill them, there will be more of them and they'll still die behind your walls.
By "a big deal" I mean "I heard about it", but I'm sure it was quite the thing. Certainly idiotic rims were quite the thing.
252: it's quite a sad story actually - the dog got run over and killed the day of the raid, and Gibson picked the brevity codeword as a memorial, and also asked one of the ground staff to bury the dog at midnight, because he reckoned that meant he and the dog would probably be going into the ground at around the same time.
260: I meant for rats. I think DK is right for squirrels. They won't live as bunched up as rats.
Squirrels still die in your wall cavities though, given half a chance.
And if they get in the house, a squirrel does damage much quicker than a rat.
So the lesson is don't name your rats with racial epithets unless you want your Patrick McGoohan rims to die of horror over all the race-mixing.
Raccoons can burst through your roof like they're exploding.
Same with gnus who have malfunctioning parachutes.
In the Lovecraft/Wodehouse parody, Scream for Jeeves, the cat in the story paralleling "The Rats in the Walls" is called "Snowman."
Mumble "Houellebecq" mumble holy crap that Lovecraft monograph is expensive on Amazon mumble.
You could probably order it from a library.
A what?
Actually, the Columbia library probably has it. I should exercise my alumni privileges now and then, if only to relive the golden moment when the girl working the computer expressed surprise that I am so old.
I've always had the hots for patrick mcgoohan despite the fact that he resembles my step-dad very strongly. FML. but patrick mcgoohan was just hot! to be fair, my step-father was an unusually handsome man, although he was an evil alcoholic fuck-up.
I know there's a number of divorced men on this thread; did you ever seriously consider murdering your wife to solve the problem? I'm answering my own question here, right? christ.
not in this thread per se, more like on the site, I meant.
270: It's in the public library here and the university library.
271.2: Very thoughtful of you to exclude the never divorced from that question.
271.2, 274: The thwarted, never-married and unloved embrace exclusion.
I know there's a number of divorced men on this thread; did you ever seriously consider murdering your wife to solve the problem?
Tons of people "wish" that their spouse or ex-spouse would disappear.
271: Bet your step-father didn't wear groovy piped jackets, though.
if only to relive the golden moment when the girl working the computer expressed surprise that I am so old
I had one of these moments yesterday. Ahh, lack of youth.
"That's what I love about these graduate school women, man. I get older, they stay the same age."
did you ever seriously consider murdering your wife
Uh, no. Can't say that ever crossed my mind. My kids have been on thin ice at times, though.
I claim that once you take the end into account, "Shadow over Innsmouth" shows a conflicted relationship with race mixing.
if only to relive the golden moment when the girl working the computer expressed surprise that I am so old
But that's a compliment, right? As in, holy shit! I am surprised, due to your appearance, that your year of birth is so far in the past!
(I had one of these while stripped naked in an OR about to have my gut opened up. One of the surgical techs said, Wow! She's 41?! Clearly this was in reference to my bangin' super-but-about-not-to-be pregnant bod, rather than to surprise at my elderly yet gravid state.)
I am surprised, due to your appearance, that your year of birth is so far in the past!
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
did you ever seriously consider murdering your wife
By firing her into a river from a giant shotgun?
my bangin' super-but-about-not-to-be pregnant bod
<obligatory>Comment is meaningless without pictures. </obligatory>
Actually, I suppose I did consider setting out poison when I found the nest of ex-wives behind my dishwasher.
well, that's only reasonable, if there's a nest.
but seriously planning it and only then deciding it's unfair to your kids and "a permanent solution to a temporary problem," strikes me as a bit off, is all I'm saying.
flippanter, I'm sorry I implied the never-married or never-divorced didn't desperately scheme to murder people. you can totally do it, I have faith in you.
Topical Thurber: That's my First Wife Up There; and This is the Present Mrs. Harris.
He [editor Harold Ross - JPS] called me on the phone and asked if the woman up on the bookcase was supposed to be alive, stuffed, or dead. I said, "I don't know, but I'll let you know in a couple of hours." After a while I called him back and told him I'd just talked to my taxidermist, who said you can't stuff a woman, that my doctor had told me a dead woman couldn't support herself on all fours. "So, Ross," I said, "she must be alive." "Well then," he said, "what's she doing up there naked in the home of her husband's second wife?" I told him he had me there.
when I wanted to commit suicide the worst I planned to jump with both kids, so I got no call getting all high and mighty about it. I figured, I'd make a rule I had to cut my left hand off first with the cleaver. if I was serious enough to do that it'd be fair to jump. see? totally logical.
I killed the blog with crazy! sorry blog. I'm totes sane now and everything.
totes sane I don't buy. but sane enough, probably.
Did you ever consider divorce? "Divorce - never! But murder, often", replied Fitzroy Maclean...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article413995.ece
Free advice: Dont say that you wish your ex was dead. Bc when they get killed, the cops will take your one statement about how you'd like to kill that bitch/ahole and convict you. It happens!
(I had one of these while stripped naked in an OR about to have my gut opened up. One of the surgical techs said, Wow! She's 41?! Clearly this was in reference to my bangin' super-but-about-not-to-be pregnant bod, rather than to surprise at my elderly yet gravid state.)
However, your medical records probably say "She is a 41 year old female who appears her stated age."
Dumbass doctors.
Write: "She is a 41 year old woman who appears to be 22." I dont care if they chopped off your arm by mistake; you are dropping your lawsuit when you say that is what they wrote.
294: If your ex dies in a suspicious manner, nothing at all you have ever said or not said will keep you from being the prime suspect.
Free advice: Dont say that you wish your ex was dead.
I think the police think it's the husband regardless.
295: this is such a great idea. Anyone doing it should get a malpractice premium reduction.
296: Let's face it, if your ex dies in a suspicious manner, it's because you did it.
alameida, I sent you an e-mail.
272: There was an obituary I read (probably linked to by chris y) about a colorful Englishwoman. Her husband asked if he had ever considered divorce during the tumultuous bits or something like that. His reply was something along the lines of:"Murder, yes. Divorce, never."
295: I've gotten "30 year-old who appears her stated age," because that was the easy thing to say. I also got an assessment which said who appears young. That wasn't complimentary. I didn't really like the person who wrote it. I asked her to clarify. She was referring to how I dress and the casual clothes I was wearing. There is a way of looking young which makes you seem unprofessional. I have a client who is 24 and in college. I'd say she looks younger, but part of that is because she seems developmentally closer to 20.