The Post Final Colloquialism

After certain final exams, the class as a whole feels roughly the same. Sometimes it is a wary hopefulness, other times it is a deep and abiding terror of the outcome.

In the latter scenario, in the hallways, in text messages, on Facebook, catastrophic similes abound and they all seem to revolve around scatalogical mayhem, various kinds of hydraulic systems and invasions of the person. It’s almost an implied contest to see who comes up with the most awesomely cringe-inducing line:

“I just got my ________ with a ________ made out of _________” or;

“That test just _________ my ___________ with a 2 ton brass ________” etc.

Well today was perhaps one of those tests that inspires that kind of madlib contest. There was a powerful storm during the exam. At times I hoped a tornado would touch down in the parking lot so that the test could be postponed. No such luck.

Anyway, BLS teaches you to keep moving even when you’ve just had your ass handed to you. See, I did it right there! (Except in a very PG-13 form).

Onward and forward, maybe not upward, but definitely forward.

Rankings

So I hear the USNWR Rankings are upon us and ol’ BLS dropped ten spots.

First I pose a question to you: Have you ever asked your physician what medical school he or she graduated from? Have you ever asked your dentist what dental school he or she graduated from? Didn’t think so.

Next, I’d like to note that I rank USNWR as fifth among major newsweeklies. The Economist is first. Take THAT USNWR! How’s it feel now?

Third, if administration responds to this by noting “rankings don’t really matter, we are special and they just can’t see it!” I’d like for them to erase my second quarter grades since rankings don’t really matter. I’d also like to use that line on my resume or during my next job interview.

As we’ve seen on so many t-shirts, we BLS denizens know full well, if law school rankings were based on pain and suffering, we’d be number one. Without a doubt.

Last, I propose that the law school separates itself from Baylor University and rebrands itself “The Brazos River Institute of Legal Knowledge and Happy Good Times.” That will surely provide a boost since everyone loves good times and rivers.

In all seriousness, yes, a drop in rankings is disappointing. 37k a year is a lot to pay for a school that was a tier 1 when you entered and is now a tier 2. Part of what we pay for is reputation, not just educational quality. And to be quite frank, I’ve been in many classes where I may as well have just been given the syllabus and the casebook and told to come back in 9 weeks for the exam.

But I digress from whatever point I was making. I guess I wasn’t making one besides who cares? I guess if you really want that job at Big Law Firm with three patrician names strung together it matters, but if that’s your situation you should’ve applied to Columbia.

Still Alive

I’ve been threatened with great bodily harm unless I update. Please forgive my month long absence.

You see, this has been the quarter from hell. I’m taking 16 hours worth of classes, 11 of those hours are mind-numbing. No offense to the instructors of Tax, Trusts and Estates and Business Organization, but reading statutes is about as enjoyable as reading the phone book. Some people love this stuff and I’m very happy for them. I prefer my fuzzywuzzy policy driven classes like family law. Man, I love standards that have no inherent meaning like “best interests of the child.”

In any case, it’s been a fairly joyless and soul-sucking quarter. On top of a class schedule that is brutal, there have been other unwelcomed stressors. Sometimes life gives you lemons. One would think you could turn them into lemonade, but sometimes you have no water or sugar and the lemons are rotten, so you really just have rotten lemons. But so it goes.

It’s during times like this that I spend time doing quiet introspection. That kind of stuff is not blogworthy because all personal difficulties translate poorly online – they sound whiny and trivial. It’s better to keep it to yourself.

With that said, all difficult times, all those times that kick your ass, are good lessons for the future. I’m trying this new thing where I just accept the crappy time as crappy instead of lamenting the current situation in hope of what could be without law school – an alternate universe where I get to lounge in fields of wildflowers, surrounded by stacks of cash, steaks and Swedish masseuses.

I suppose it’s a sort of complacency. There’s no point in being permanently bent out of shape over bad news that has come and gone.  Circumstances always change, and in my experience, given a few months, less fortunate times always yield to pleasant events if I just let things progress as they will. That sounds pretty fatalistic and I’m not advocating inactivity, just acceptance so that the march forward isn’t made even more torturous by angsty thoughts. Let’s call it passive optimism.

And now I descend from my Tony Robbins, feel-good, self-help soapbox and return to toil. Damn I love corporate formation!

Legal lol.

I think an elective should be devoted to absurd cases and controversies. The casebook would be filled with opinions like this:

United States ex rel. Mayo v. Satan & His Staff, 54 F.R.D. 282, 283 (W.D. Pa. 1971)

Plaintiff, alleging jurisdiction under 18 U.S.C.  241, 28 U.S.C.  1343, and 42 U.S.C.  1983 prays for leave to file a complaint for violation of his civil rights in forma pauperis. He alleges that Satan has on numerous occasions caused plaintiff misery and unwarranted threats, against the will of plaintiff, that Satan has placed deliberate obstacles in his path and has caused plaintiff’s downfall.

Plaintiff alleges that by reason of these acts Satan has deprived him of his constitutional rights.

We feel that the application to file and proceed in forma pauperis must be denied. Even if plaintiff’s complaint reveals a prima facie recital of the infringement of the civil rights of a citizen of the United States, the Court has serious doubts that the complaint reveals a cause of action upon which relief can be granted by the court. We question whether plaintiff may obtain personal jurisdiction over the defendant in this judicial district. The complaint contains no allegation of residence in this district. While the official reports disclose  no case where this defendant has appeared as defendant there is an unofficial account of a trial in New Hampshire where this defendant filed an action of mortgage foreclosure as plaintiff. The defendant in that action was represented by the preeminent advocate of that day, and raised the defense that the plaintiff was a foreign prince with no standing to sue in an American Court. This defense was overcome by overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Whether or not this would raise an estoppel in the present case we are unable to determine at this time.

If such action were to be allowed we would also face the question of whether it may be maintained as a class action. It appears to meet the requirements of Fed.R. of Civ.P. 23 that the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable, there are questions of law and fact common to the class, and the claims of the representative party is typical of the claims of the class. We cannot now determine if the representative party will fairly protect the interests of the class.

We note that the plaintiff has failed to include with his complaint the required form of instructions for the United States Marshal for directions as to service of process.

For the foregoing reasons we must exercise our discretion to refuse the prayer of plaintiff to proceed in forma pauperis.

It is ordered that the complaint be given a miscellaneous docket number and leave to proceed in forma pauperis be denied.

Class would be filled with laughter and clapping instead of nervous sweat and mild shivering.   Discussion would take the fact pattern and run with it. Could the Devil implead God for giving humans free will? What are the existential limits of jurisdiction? I mean, corporations are fictional people, right? If the Devil needs a physical headquarters, BLS is a sufficiently tragic locale. I’m sure the Prince of Darkness would feel right at home (granted it’s a part of a Baptist university. I’m pretty sure we on the river have been forsaken – those undergraduates who used to come by to exorcise the first floor haven’t been around in a long time).

I’d also like to note that Satan was the nickname for the party in breach in our K I and KII classes. Oh, those wonderful days of yore, circa 2008, how I miss them.

Dusty the Cat

As usual, while I’m strapped to my laptop for class assignments, whether my actual goal is compiling legislative histories (yessssss so ‘engrossed’), or maybe finding SEC filings for PepsiCo, I multitask and see what’s happening on the intertubes. It’s that or I fall asleep.

There’s one phenomenon in particular that fascinates me – internet users who at one time merely produced memes, but now pursue a kind of internet troll vigilantism. For the uninitiated, let me define some terms first:

Internet Memes: A catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an inside joke. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information. For example, LOLcats, the Hamster Dance, RickRolling.

Internet Troll: These are folks between the ages of 15-35 who are on the web a whole lot. A whole lot. They post to a variety of link aggregator websites/forums/chatrooms. The topics are usually prurient and NSFW. Activities include Photoshopping of pictures, gross out/shock humor and conspiracy theorizing. They use a distinct set of internet slang and dialect not too dissimilar from any other slang system used by other subcultures.

That’s a pretty cursory overview. The point is is that there’s a widespread and pervasive internet culture that the masses  are unaware of because, well, it’s pretty damn nerdy and below the radar. I suppose that’s why it’s a subculture. Besides that, who’d own up to knowing the difference between the LOLLZ and the LULLZ or the fine variation between !! and !!!1!.  Maybe I just did. This all seems particularly ridiculous to people who remember a time before Google (B.G. and A.G.).

In any case, during the past year or so, this subculture has been congealing at the edges. There’s been a kind of increasing uniformity and coherence. The latest trend is that this culture gets a kick out of causing benign mayhem outside web forums, and engaging in a kind of privacy shattering vigilantism.

You see, sometimes there are wrongdoers in the real world who get caught in the act, yielding a great amount of web-indignation. The latest example is this serial killer in training who beat the crap out of a cat and posted the video on Youtube. Within 24 hours the internet community figured out who the kid is, where he lives, where he goes to school, who his parents are and other vital information, all posted on a website (probably not safe for work). Once he was identified, the local media and police were bombarded with phone calls and emails, resulting in the kid’s arrest tonight.

But because I’m primarily a law school nerd (there is no escape), I thought man, this has the makings of a  good law (review) article.  I doubt the common law is currently equipped to deal with issues stemming from instantaneous, aberrant social interaction on a massive scale. The web provides anonymity on the one hand, destroys personal privacy on the other, gives anyone a megaphone, removes all kinds of consequences and liabilities, and makes the dissemination of information completely fluid.

The convergence of privacy rights, First Amendment concerns, jurisdictional issues etc. with regard to the web,  as far as I know, have yet to be addressed. And so I wonder, what if an individual is harassed by thousands of people who are all linked to a few websites?  I suppose the easiest thing to do is to go after the website proprietor, but is it really their fault? Who’s culpable in a situation like that under existing laws? (See for example the Megan Meier case). How flexible are privacy torts when it comes to this?

I do think we’ll slowly start to see new causes of action that are specifically tailored for the internet. It’ll be interesting to see how that body of law evolves. I’m very much unaware of any of it because, well, I’m stalking Coca Cola’s balance sheet right now for Tax and Accounting.

Sidenote: While I’m glad the cat beating child has been apprehended, aren’t there more egregious things that the combined powers of web lurkers could address? Just saying.

The Oregon Trial

I’ve become addicted to beating The Oregon Trail – that old school game for the ancient Apple IIe . (www.virtualapple.org). I haven’t played it since I was maybe 10 years old. Back in those fabled and wonderful days of yore, I always picked the banker as my starting profession, giving me nigh unlimited resources for my journey. I could load up on ammo for my hunting needs, plenty of clothes for my children, many yokes of oxen and ride to Oregon with ease.  Capitalism paved the way for luxurious pioneering – why play the game at a disadvantage? That’s just stupid.

On the other hand, choosing the farmer always seemed like a death march. How could I possibly reach my goal on $400? That’s madness. Never in all of my youth did I choose to play as the gentle yeoman.

After finals concluded, I stumbled across the game and figured why not try as the farmer.  And so it went – my family was forced to live on meager rations, traveled at a grueling pace and only had 1 set of clothes. They suffered from dysentery, broken arms and highway bandits. Life on The Oregon Trail was tenuous and hard but I beat the game and made the high score.

It was actually more fun to play the game with little on hand. The trick to beating it as the farmer is to load up on a lot of bullets and little food at the outset, and then hunt while on the trail. I tried the game as the banker for comparison. The banker was constantly beset with problems, never had enough quarry to hunt and suffered innumerable broken axles. While things were tough for the farmer, luck favored him.Was Apple trying to send a message to the youth of a generation about excess, life, making your own opportunity and hard work?

And so, as I sat and drank my adult beverage after finals, I wondered, am I here at this school because I think becoming  a member of the banker class will lead to a life of ease? Or are all of my oxen going to die anyway? And then I realized that there’s nothing quite like the supreme, angsty arrogance of questioning the merits of your own privilege or analogizing it to a video game.

Life is ok and the blog title was intentional.

It is haunting my dreams

I am connected to the Internet at almost all times. This is a sad statement, I know. Anyway, I visit a lot of websites during my daily information scavenging. There is one advertisement I see on nearly all websites. It is legion.

And it’s starting to drive me insane. No one wants to see muffin top, dunlop guts while peacefully eating an Egg McMuffin in the morning.  Perhaps what is most startling is how pervasive this ad is – someone paid a lot of money for whatever it is they’re selling (presumably sexy abs or pink shorts, maybe both!). They paid no attention to demographics, the content of hosting websites, the placement. I’m sure the person in charge of advertising for this company was asked by their boss …

Boss: “I need you to put some advertisements out there, I’m on a mission. A mission to rid the world of paunchiness.”

Ad Slave: “Sure boss, where should I advertise? TV commercials? Newspapers?”

Boss: “No, no. That’s old school. Think big. Think…. the Internet!”

Ad Slave: “Ok, good idea. What kind of websites are you thinking about?”

Boss: “I already told you where I want to buy ad space. The Internet.”

Ad Slave: “Wait… you don’t mean… the entire Internet? You’re mad!”

Boss: “Exactly.”

And so it was.

The Con Law Prayer

I’d like to begin this by issuing a warning to you. If you do not enjoy puns, awful law school humor or the like, you should just leave right now. When it comes to finals time, I’m easily distracted. And then I spit out idiotic poems.

---

O! Nestled in the bosom of the Eleventh Amendment I rest,
Sweet, sweet immunity – shield me
For judgment day looms in the morn’

Yea! Hear me Son of Mann Act!
I cannot, for I am no sovereign
And I act not under color of law

Lo! Spawned in 1984 was I
Yet 1983 is my sword of vengeance!
My rights floating within the penumbra
Seize and onload thine rights
The pasties await

As I walk through the Valley Forge College
I fear not the Wickard nor the Fillburn
For I walk forth, towards the City of New London
Free, knowing, without Quarles, nor Dred
And I Wade into the stream, launch my boat
And I Roe into the mists of process due
For my goal, I will know it when I see it

Panda Update – Video

Video

Google is the keeper of all knowledge

What do the Intertubes think about law school?

Apparently lamentation is a universal emotion felt by almost all law students. If you read “blawgs,” these are many of the key topics bloggers write about ad infinitum.

Since most of the above things are true, you find joy in little things, like this:

Photoshop parodies are a bright spot in life.