Counter-Productive

The fun continues...

2009-02-09T10:08:00.000-08:00

... at my new location, Below the Beltway: POTOMACkin'.

Driving Haikus

2009-01-26T15:09:00.000-08:00

Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink

Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink Blink.

Someday you'll turn left.

Lumbering monster.

Imports scatter before me.

Fear my Escalade!

I'm in a hurry.

You are driving too slowly.

I must gesture now.

It's always the same:

"Next exit 84 miles"

When I have to pee.

Emits pollution

And spews poison gases. Car?

No, it's John Rocker.

Ooooh, there's a Starbucks!

Let's pull over and buy some

Four dollar coffee.

H2 SUV

Traffic jam, gas tank on E.

U R SOL.

Run, pedestrian!

I can't stop! Jump that curb! ... Damn.

Bumpers are NOT cheap.

An exact-change lane,

And you've only brought Visa?

Please, never leave home.

Wheels are like mountains

In your giant monster truck.

Your schlong? Still compact.

Ponytailed boomer

Doing thirty while singing

"Life in the Fast Lane."

Self-important prick!

Signal turns, or you may find

Baby on DASH board.

Cut ME off, you scum?

Pass you on the right! I win!

Morning, officer.

Something just happened

between me and the leather.

Please crack a window.

My toll-booth hottie

Can't hear my smooth pickup lines

Over the car horns.

Awesome commercial

2009-01-25T11:37:00.000-08:00

Fun with "balloons."

President Obama's Speech

2009-01-20T09:59:00.000-08:00

Click here for the historic text.

Oh, CANADA...

2008-12-22T23:47:00.000-08:00

Some Antics with Semantics

2008-12-22T09:25:00.000-08:00

If you imagine listening to this conversation, but even more esoteric, then you will have some idea about what it's like to sit in the Georgetown Law Journal office.

More about neighborhoods (and theology?)

2008-12-04T19:56:00.000-08:00

I took a Religious Studies course my senior year in college; it was called The Problem of God. The course studied four theologians' attempts to define God and, indirectly, religion itself. The final, most recent theologian we read was Kaufman (a former professor at Harvard Divinity School who is still alive, I believe). He argued that religion is merely a socio-psychological construction of human societies, but that religion was nonetheless important because having an overarching theory of what draws the universe together leads to socially desired behavior.

In essence, he argued that as individuals we should recognize that relgion is not literally "true" but merely a construction, but at the same time we should continue to adhere to those beliefs because they will continue to orient our lives toward the good.

I followed the first part of Kaufman's idea, but I found the second hard to swallow. It was as if he was asking us to turn a blind eye toward the truth - that religion is just made up - because concentrating on the fact that it's made up will lead to socially bad behavior.

But now, like in so many situations, an analogy helps me understand what he's talking about.

I don't like my neighborhood. It's not a "rough" neighborhood, but it's not great, either. My house is across the street from a charter school where plenty of non-student hooligans hang out and cause trouble. This evening, a guy on the street tried to con me. Later, a girl might have gotten raped by her "persistent" guy friend not 50 feet from my front door if my neighbor hadn't scared the guy away. It's worse a few blocks away; my own friends have been mugged and beaten for sport on the other side of 7th St. in Shaw. Some people really are just low-lifes, and I feel like I'm faced with them all the time here. To make a slight overstatement, living in this neighborhood makes me pessimistic about human nature. Being surrounded by people who are violent, rude, selfish, and/or angry makes me a bitter person, and that totally sucks.

So yeah, I want to live someplace better. I want to live someplace where I'm more often faced with good-natured people who help restore my faith in human nature. I want to live someplace where I'm reminded of how often people treat each other right just for the sake of treating each other right. Being around those people will have the opposite effect that living where I do now has on me: I'll be happier, and more optimistic about the kindness that the average person I encounter is capable of. But NOT everyone is like that, as I've already experienced. Thinking this way would mean having to forget what it's like to live here. It would mean fooling myself into thinking, on some level, that all people are like the people who live around me.

But wait a second... On some level, I'll ALWAYS know that shitty people who only care about themselves are exploiting others. By living someplace else, am I not turning a blind eye to this "truth"? Aren't I just sweeping some of my life's negative experiences under the rug so I can fool myself into thinking humanity consists of a cloistered haven of disproportionately happy and kind people?

Yes. And?

If that's what it takes for me to be a better person, so be it. I wouldn't be doing anyone any good by immersing myself in the "truth" if it just made me a cold-hearted bastard to be around. I'm sure plenty of people here can come to terms with the bad people they encounter daily and maintain a resiliently positive attitude. But it's not me.

So maybe this is what Kaufman was about. It's kind of a slap in the face to Thomas Jefferson's "You must not be afraid to follow the truth, wherever it may lead." Kaufman says that if concentrating on the truth (i.e. that the worldview you've been using to orient your life toward good living is not reality) leaves you without the moral compass that makes you kind and caring, then maybe the "lie" is more important.

I seek comment on potential places to live the lie.

Santa's Gmail account exposed

2008-12-03T15:18:00.000-08:00

Click here

I'm particularly fond of the Gmail statuses.

Isn't it quaint...

2008-11-13T18:56:00.000-08:00

...that the "save" icon in Microsoft Word is a floppy disk?

By now there must be children using computers who have never even seen a real floppy disk before. The floppy disk is to them what the rotary phone is to the rest of us: we recognize it, but it's widely accepted to be a relic.

Fist Bump for Change

2008-10-31T16:56:00.000-07:00

You know what's weird?

2008-10-31T16:23:00.000-07:00

Seeing a law professor in the locker room.

There's nothing quite like seeing the guy who taught you about federalism change out of his gym clothes and into a towel.

This is the man who made you see the gray areas in non-delegation issues. He made you see the sweeping evolution of the Commerce Clause, and of executive privilege. And now he's making you see his ass.

Weird, right?

Conversation between brother Paul and his fiancée Christa

2008-10-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

Christa: "Andrew has a blog now!"

Paul: "Who?"

Christa: "Your brother!"

Paul: "Which brother?"

Christa: "ANDREW!"

Paul: "He has a blog?"

Christa: ***teeth grinding***

2008-10-28T20:49:00.001-07:00

When I saw this, I had to do a double take to make sure it didn't say "Harvard teen"

Israel teen 'gunman' wanted an A+

Suspected militants risk being shot on sight in Israel
An Israeli teenager has been arrested after he donned a mask and prowled the streets of his town with a big rucksack and toy gun for a school project.
The boy, 15, was seized by police in the southern town of Ashdod suspecting he was a Palestinian militant.
The student was quoted as saying he was researching police reactions in the town and "just wanted to get an A+".
The stunt was considered highly risky in Israel, where attackers are often shot by police or civilians.
Ashdod police commander Chief Superintendent Danny Elgarat told the BBC the Jewish teenager in question was "normal" and could even be considered a "gifted" pupil.
Shooting risk
He carried binoculars and wore his father's military fatigues as he made an appearance near one of the city's malls.
Anxious residents soon began calling the police, fearing the rucksack contained an explosive device.
After a search, armed officers located the youth, surrounded him and ordered him to freeze, at which point he revealed his identity.
"Had he attempted to flee he would unquestionably have been shot," the Israeli newspaper Yehdiot Ahranot pointed out.
The youth was later released on bail and was not charged.
"It's fine - he tested the police reaction," Mr Elgaret said.
Israel has faced numerous attacks on civilians by Palestinian militants in recent years, although there have been few in the past year.
Ashdod is located not far from the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the militant group Hamas.

Good Stuff

2008-10-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

I complain a lot. For contrast, here are some things that I find awesome:

Yeah, your neighborhood's "real" - real shitty.

2008-10-08T20:21:00.000-07:00

When looking for a neighborhood to live in, it seems that yuppies have two options: find a GOOD neighborhood, or alternatively, find a shitty neighborhood, call it "real," and be condescending toward your friends who chose the former option.

A "good" neighborhood is exactly what you think it is. It's safe, it's clean, it's aesthetically pleasant, it has convenience stores and groceries nearby, and it's easily accessible. A person who looks for a good neighborhood wants time away from school/work to be easy, fun, and relatively stress-free.

A "real" neighborhood, on the other hand, is none or very few of these things. It's high-crime, dirty, dilapidated, and you have to take a bus that stops every 20 feet in order to reach any goods, services, or people who don't resent every fiber of your being. A person who actively seeks out a "real" neighborhood wants his time AT school/work to be spent making his friends feel racist, classist, or unadventurous for not voluntarily living among "real people." This feeling of superiority far outweighs the time spent AWAY from school/work, which closely resembles life in one of the Soviet bloc countries in the '70s.

Let me be clear: I'm not drinking the haterate on artists who move to rough neighborhoods for financial reasons and to have enough space to create. True artists (and many who aspire to be artists) don't give a damn what people think, and move to rough neighborhoods for perfectly valid reasons that have nothing to do with social status.

However, when it comes to posers who complain about taking the bus an hour and a half each way to get to school/work, but then follow it up with, "But you know, it's worth it to live in [insert ghetto neighborhood here]... You get to experience the REAL [insert city name here]"... that is haterade I will readily drink.

The people I'm talking about never even fully commit to the experience; they still buy all their housewares at Best Buy and Bed Bath & Beyond (with the possible exception of the odd rug or DVD player that was bought at a weekend flea market, both of which will inevitably have a story about haggling). The only difference is that they have to lug these things 2 and a half miles farther and hope they don't get jacked on the way.

Why would someone CHOOSE to live in the kind of neighborhood where even the RESIDENTS don't want to be there? Is it an ironically pretentious way of "playing poor"? Are they trying to build street credit? Or is it some misguided, Catholic-esque attempt at habitational penance in the hopes of erasing their own past classist or racist transgressions? It's anyone's guess.

There's nothing wrong with saving money. There's nothing wrong with making a personal decision to build character by surrounding yourself with people different from you. And there's nothing wrong with living somewhere because the greasy spoon diner down the street makes barbecue so good you'll slap yo' mama. Any of these reasons are perfectly valid, but they are private. Keep them to yourself.

So please: if you live in a rough neighborhood you don't like in order to heighten your social status with people miles outside of that neighborhood, do me a favor and don't let me find out. Because if you do, I will invite you to all of my house parties and make sure you go home sober enough to realize exactly what you've been missing.

Quotes by Palin

2008-09-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

On Creationism:

"The simple yet elegantly awkward moose proves God's creation and not evolution is the source of all life. How could something as oddly shaped and silly looking as a moose evolve through so-called "natural selection"? Is evolution a committee? There is nothing natural about a dorky moose! Only God could have made a moose and given it huge antlers to fight off its predatory enemies. God has a well-known sense of humor; I mean, he made the platypus, too."

On Oil Exploration and Drilling in ANWR:

"God made dinosaurs 4,000 years ago as ultimately flawed creatures, lizards of Satan really, so when they died and became petroleum products we, made in His perfect image, could use them in our pickup trucks, snow machines, and fishing boats.

Now, as to ANWR, Todd and I often enjoy caribou hunting and one year we shot up a herd big-time... I mean I personally slaughtered around 40 with my new, at the time, custom Austrian hunting rifle. And guess what? That caribou herd is still around and even bigger than ever. Caribou herds actually need culling, be it by rifles or wolves, or Exxon-Mobil oil rigs, they do just great!"

On Alaskans serving overseas in Iraq:

"Well God bless them, and I mean God and Jesus because without Jesus we'd be Muslims too... or Jewish, which would be a little better because of the superior Israeli Air Force."

YEP... a star is born, all right.

1L Guide to Your Classmates, part I

2008-08-01T11:36:00.000-07:00

Gunner, Type 1: Sniper

For Type 1 Gunners, class participation is a blood sport. The object of their game is to rack up the highest body count of embarrassed or disgruntled classmates possible. They speak often, and with deadly precision. Type 1 Gunners are often future politicians/judicial appointees, so stay off their hit lists. During lecture, beware of these gunners' opportunistic tendencies as they snipe worthy arguments made by you or your classmates. Benevolent professors offer some cover, but don't count on it.

Commonly found: upper corners of the lecture hall; crow's nests
Family breeding: La Femme Nikita, Rush Limbaugh
Telltale signs: "the third" or other legacy numbers follow their last name; scope

Gunner, Type 2: Shotgun

Type 2 Gunners lack the precision of Type 1 Gunners, but not their determination. Consequently, they speak often, and in broad, unsubstantiated generalities (or "public policy" arguments) that nonetheless steer class discussion away from more refined points. Like a hunter with a duck call, they may sound like an intelligent law student, but they're only hoping to draw you into their sights.

Commonly found: in front rows, just off the aisles; bushes
Family breeding: Jessica Simpson, Elmer Fudd
Telltale signs: professors roll eyes when they raise their hands

Gunner, Type 3: Machine Gun

Type 3 Gunners never shut up. They can average anywhere from 3-10 contributions per lecture, usually in rapid succession. They are also notorious for interrupting classmates and professors alike. If you feel the need to make a counter-argument, wait for him/her to reload.

Commonly found: center of lecture hall, for maximum range
Family breeding: Elliot Reed, Al Gore
Telltale signs: highly developed shoulder/deltoid muscles from raising hand; debate team nationals t-shirt

The Perceptive Jock

Perceptive jocks make the occasional contribution to class discussion, and they do so in language that is remarkably plain-spoken (or even profane) for law school. However, the Perceptive Jock's arguments, while notably absent of terms of art, are almost always on-point and worthy of further exploration. Because they are at once intelligent and unpretentious, Perceptive Jocks are popular among most students in the class.

Commonly found: center field
Family breeding: Mia Hamm, Vinny Gambini
Telltale signs: aggravated Type 1 Gunners; plus they look, you know... like a jock.

Ways to Reduce your Moron Footprint

2008-07-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

- Do not pay $9.50 to watch Brendan Fraser

- Do not get your news from any source with "action" in the title

- Never buy anything that you've been told three times costs ONLY $19.95

- Reduce the number of words in your vocabulary that end in "eezy" or "izzle"

- Find synonyms for "awkward," and use them

- Switch off the "thump" setting on your Bible

- If you're going to vote for energy alternatives, don't drive your SUV to the polling place

- Do not speak English louder to non-English speakers

- Do not play "doorknob" when someone flatulates

- When the latest booty jam comes on in the club, do not yell that it's your "theme song"

- Limit yourself to two high-fives per day. (10 in a week is pushing it.)

- Get puns. (Please?)

- Chill the f*** out.

- Do not read blogs for life advice