divine angst

I don’t know if this conversation is more depressing because of its sheer inanity or because of the complete lack of broader social view among the average commuter on the bus.

Background: My Metro Area is about to experience some public transit cutbacks because the Transit Agency in our area has been historically mismanaged as well as chronically underfunded by the state. People are starting to get worried and concerned about what this will mean for their commutes. I don’t want to make it seem as though I am making light of those concerns. Instead, I am commenting on how little people know about the actual circumstances that are leading to the transit cutback, leading to their concerns.

Scene: Three women get on my bus, headed to a commuter rail station, heading home at the end of the day. After some conversation about increasing costs of everything and the looming inconvenience of transit cutbacks, the following exchange occurs:

Woman 1: You know, I think all these downtown businesses should move out of the city, into the suburbs, and stick it to [Transit Agency].

Woman 2: Yeah! Stick it to [the mayor] and [Transit Agency].

Woman 3: If they’d just all move out to the suburbs, we could just drive to work.

There are so many things wrong with all of these statements. The first just doesn’t make sense. Businesses moving out of downtown won’t affect [Transit Agency] at all, except to relieve some of the congestion on buses and trains. That could actually have a net positive effect on [Transit Agency].

The second statement—the part about the mayor—is accurate. Businesses moving out of downtown would hurt the mayor, or the city government, by depriving him/it of tax revenue. So, OK. I’m not sure why sticking it to the mayor is the way to go, though, since the big funding problem here is at the state, not municipal, level.

The third statement I just find ridiculous. Yes, all the businesses downtown could move out to the suburbs and everyone could drive. That’s absolutely true. Except, of course, that those of us without cars wouldn’t have a way to get to work. And, of course, that would have its own repercussions—quicker degradation of highways, increased wear and tear on individual vehicles and more money spent on gasoline, and, of course, massively increased congestion on all the highways circling the city.

As I listened to their conversation—the part of it preceding this little bit—I was mentally shaking my head. They seemed so much like my family, complaining (as we all do) about all kinds of rising costs, about cumulative inconveniences that make our lives more difficult, every day.^[1] But that final snippet of conversation was different. It really drove home that people will blame whoever is most visible—in this case, [Transit Agency] and, I suppose, the mayor. And that is the crux of this particular problem. [Transit Agency] has been encouraging people to contact their state legislators, but that message is apparently not sinking in. This is not something [Transit Agency] can fix on its own. It doesn’t have the money and it needs more from the state. There’s a trade-off there, of course: if you don’t want higher taxes, don’t push the state to give [Transit Agency] more money. But accept that the consequence is that your bus service will probably get cancelled.

1. One interesting thing, though: they were talking about increased phone bills, and one insisted to the others that they should never cancel the add-on line-protection service on their home telephones. She had just had a problem with her line, and the telephone company came out and fixed it for free, when it would have cost $350. She’s been paying that fee for 15 years, and it’s $4 a month. Guess what? She’s paid for that repair twice over! I couldn’t help but do the quick math in my head right then and there. ↩

Because I largely agree with Dorf on Dumbledore’s sexuality.

I don’t think Dumbledore isn’t gay; it’s just that I don’t care. Harry Potter has never been about the inner lives of the adults he’s surrounded by. Sure, we get flashes of that—as when Mrs. Weasley faces the Boggart—but otherwise, it’s just not relevant. And it is particularly irrelevant when it comes to Dumbledore, who took great pains to separate himself and his own history with Voldemort from Harry and Harry’s experience with Voldemort.

So, while I respect Ms. Rowling’s declaration, I don’t necessarily buy it. I don’t disbelieve her—I just don’t buy that Dumbledore, as written from Day One, was always conceived as a gay character. I think Ms. Rowling has looked at what she wrote—and maybe looked at it a few years ago as she was wrapping up the series—and thought, Huh. Dumbledore could be gay. Much like writers of fanfic did after Deathly Hallows. (I hear the Dumbledore-Grindewald pairing was quite popular in fanfic.)

So maybe I’m really a textualist. If it’s in the text, solidly and without question, then it’s there, part of the canon. It has to fit in the four corners of the text, so to speak. Dumbledore’s sexuality never appears in the four corners of the text. Ever. He could be gay, he could be straight, he could be asexual, completely wrapped up in his work. There’s just no evidence anywhere in the books that Dumbledore has a sexual life. It’s just not in the character. Sure, Ms. Rowling and her readers can look beyond the text and explore her characters and their lives—inner, outer, and sexual. But that’s not canon.

Ooh boy! If you are interested in employment law or discrimination law, this is right up your alley.

I’ll be interested to see how this shakes out in the legal profession. Good thing for the law firms that it wasn’t a court decision, for what that’s worth.

There’s just too much to post about today.

The thing a lot of people are writing about is the horrific incidents at Virginia Tech. But it’s too awful for me to really speak or write about it yet. I’m still processing.

Because of that, all the other things I’d thought about posting through the day seem sort of silly. Maybe I’ll be back up for it tomorrow.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have EVER heard. Because pretty much NO place is far enough from children such that a registered sex offender could live there, the state is SANCTIONING and MONITORING the offenders’ residence UNDER A ****ING BRIDGE.

Sexual offenses, particularly against children, are heinous, to be sure. But offenders are still people and shouldn’t be FORCED to live under a BRIDGE! Isn’t this a pretty clear example of a Due Process violation? Does the government have a compelling enough interest to allow it to deprive free men of the ability to sleep indoors?

I mean, gah.

This is the most hideous thing I have EVER heard. This made me very sad, and then I went and hugged my dog, and he squirmed and bonked his head into my chin and I may have a little bit of a fat lip now. But I’m OK with that, because I have my dog. This poor girl.

Today, I actually have a law-related (sort of) substantive question.

What do you all think are the pros and cons of students uploading their unpublished work to SSRN? My question would encompass all situations in which that might happen–it’s forthcoming from the student’s own law journal (in which case the SSRN copy is just to get it out there sooner), it’s been rejected from the student’s own law journal and the student is sending out to other journals for consideration, etc.

I’m just curious–SSRN is back on my mind this morning since it seems the latest download data by law faculties is now up. I know some students have uploaded work to SSRN–though in that case, the student was anticipating publication in her journal (and she has some really good questions about posting to SSRN in general). But I don’t see much other evidence of student stuff on SSRN, and I’m curious to hear what people thing are the reasons for that. (Or if those reasons are bad or wrong.)

So weigh in, readers! Pro and cons!

Every now and then it occurs to me how strange it is that we can get news of occurrences within moments of their happening. I’m watching breaking news right now, and I am simply stunned by how short the chain of communication is. Think: someone in the middle of an event picks up a cellphone and calls someone elsewhere on their cellphone. That person elsewhere passes the information on, and suddenly a situation that might have been known only to law enforcement is available to the public. The news providers start collecting this information, and transmitting it on the TV and on radio, and it gets passed back into the situation.

It’s just amazing.

Mr. Angst tried to take the Amtrak today, on an unexpected trip out of town. Unfortunately, all that winter weather interfered and he got stuck 3/5 of the way to his destination, and was stuck there for more than six hours. Now, he tells me, the train is going backwards, to the last stop, where passengers can board buses to take them to their destination, 2 and a half hours down the highway.

I understand the vagaries of transportation when the weather is bad–certainly it’s no shock that his train was delayed some. But the more I think about it, the angrier I get–why couldn’t Amtrak figure out five hours ago–when the train had been sitting for two hours–that the tracks really were going to be impassable? Why did it take close to eight hours for them to decide that whatever was blocking the tracks really couldn’t be moved? Why did it take them so long to decide to look at alternatives for getting the passengers to their destionations? Mr. Angst’s trip, which he decided to take at the last minute and for family reasons, is now shortened by at least several hours and possibly by a full day. What guarantee will Amtrak give him that this problem won’t recur on Sunday, when he’s trying to come home?

As you can see, I’m a bit preoccupied with this. So I looked up Amtrak’s various legal statements on their website. And I am APPALLED. Amtrak basically disclaims ALL liabilities arising from their failure to keep to a timetable or for equipment failure and the like, so long as a given state doesn’t disallow such disclaimers. Snort. So when Mr. Angst’s 5 hour train trip ends up taking him three times that, what happens to Amtrak? Nothing. There’s no legal recourse, no way to get refunds, nothing. We just have to suck it up.

Every six months or so, there’s a news item about how Amtrak is hemorrhaging money, how it can’t turn a profit, how it’s being propped up by subsidizes in all but the DC-to-New York market. And no wonder! There are no negative incentives! If Amtrak screws up, what do they have to lose? Not reputation, certainly. And they won’t lose any money, since there’s no way to impose such penalties on them.

Maybe the ten hour delay is an extreme (it will be a ten hour delay by the time the buses get there). But I know Amtrak delays aren’t rare, and hearing about the way this particular situation has been handled makes me want to avoid the train in the future. Even if it is less expensive than renting a car.

Update: A five-and-a-half hour train trip turned into almost 20 hours for Mr. Angst. Even worse? Amtrak apparently intended to leave them on the train even longer, but some passengers began calling 911 and complaining that they were stranded. Only then, it seems, did Amtrak make the “radical” decision to back the train up 20 miles to the last stop and allow passengers to debark. And then it took them over three hours to provide buses to transport everyone to their destinations. Even better? There were no trains today, nor likely tomorrow. In the end, Mr. Angst will have to take a bus back home.

Now here’s the crux of my irritation. Amtrak, yesterday, was unable to provide information to passengers who called asking for information. Why? Because the channels of communication aren’t really set up to allow for that. Amtrak, at least in this part of the country, leases rail lines from freight companies, so when problems arise with the rail lines, Amtrak can’t really do anything about it–they have to call the freight companies. And, as I understand it, they are at the whim of the freight companies for rail maintenance–Amtrak doesn’t budget for maintenance. They just pay their rent, as it were.

Surely it would be better to establish some sort of centralized communication system, even if it’s just a more sophisticated version of a phone tree, right? I mean, people at all levels of government have been calling for Amtrak to overhaul how they do business–but aren’t there less expensive measures that could be taken to at least improve the customer experience?

Finally, I know there are so few people that take the train that the media doesn’t care. But I had no end of frustration last night trying to see if there was any information on the news about the rail lines. And there wasn’t. Consequently, the only way I was able to find out that tomorrow’s trains won’t be running was to call the train company–there were no news items, nothing on the TV. And I live in a state which sends a fair chunk of money to Amtrak! Egads.

Update 2: Well, Amtrak did call Mr. Angst this morning to tell him his train would not run. I’m glad they did. He’ll be on a late bus into town, and hopefully there won’t be any problems on the highway.

I just read in the news that a woman was sexually assaulted getting off the train one stop up from my stop. Some guy followed her off the train to a side street, put a knife to her throat, took her stuff, and assaulted her. Notably, the stop where this occurred is not in a bad or sketchy neighborhood–though it’s urban, it’s also in the middle of a long string of bars and clubs which is well-lit and generally crowded till the after-hours places close at 4 am. (The assault happened at 3 am.)* The clientele of those bars and clubs is what I would kindly call “fratty” but not what I would call “really scary.” But someone got off the train at this particular stop, followed a woman, presumably towards her home in a not-inexpensive neighborhood, and assaulted her at knifepoint.

In other words, just because the people around you are spending a fortune on rent and mortgages doesn’t mean the area is antiseptic. Also, if this whole event isn’t a good reason for cab vouchers, I don’t know what is. Until I have access to cab vouchers (next summer), I think I’ll be throwing all of my loose change in a “cab fare jar.”

Update: The police have arrested a suspect. They tracked him down through his frequent-buyer card, which was attached to a set of keys he dropped at the scene. I’m still not taking the train that late at night, though.

*I NEVER take public transportation alone after about 10:30; I would definitely not do so at 3 am on a weekend. But I can understand feeling complacent, getting comfortable with your area, and deciding to go ahead and take the train. The tragedy is that, for this woman, this time, things didn’t turn out OK.

Hef more significant than Castro? I’d have to agree. For one thing, I bet more American men would recognize Hef from his picture than would recognize Castro. (I won’t go so far as to say they wouldn’t know who Castro was, if only because of the embargo on Cubanos, but it’s entirely possible most young American men wouldn’t know who Castro was.) For another, um, sex! A decaying communist regime might be interesting to some folks, but sex is interesting to almost all folks.

That being said, I’ll note that Playboy, as a “sex” publication, is pretty outdated. I know their circulation numbers are down, and I know they have a hard time attracting that golden demographic, the 18-24 year-old set. Maybe it’s because Playboy actually has good-quality journalism. It’s not always stuff I agree with, but it’s at least well-written. In some ways, Playboy is like Vanity Fair, but with naked ladies. There’s always a celebrity interview, to bring in the casual reader, a selection of political articles, and fiction. If Dominick Dunne wrote for Playboy, there would be NO difference between the two (except, again, naked ladies).

So, yes, Milbarge, Hef is more significant than Castro. But maybe he shouldn’t be.

What is it about telecommunications companies? Our cable was out for two days because a cable company employee saw that our cable hookup on the roof wasn’t marked–and disconnected it. Why wouldn’t the employee put in a quick call to find out if this apartment number has a valid and current account with the company? Why wouldn’t he or she make a note of the disconnection so that when we called in to find out what was going on, we’d get an answer?

So many whys, so few answers.

At any rate, our internet access at home has been restored, so I can once again work in the comfort of my pajamas if I want to. And thank goodness for THAT!

Meanwhile, has everyone seen this? It’s not bad enough that attachment parenting types harangue women about breastfeeding, now the government is going to, also? Yes, yes, yes, breast is best. But as the article rightly points out, not all women CAN breastfeed (physically, I mean), and many others don’t, because they have to go back to work and can’t pump at work, or work in jobs where pumping is impractical.

Is anyone else mystified by the status of parenting in this country? On the one hand, more and more women are undergoing elective C-sections with scheduled delivery dates–often for convenience, not for health reasons. But rather than decry that increasingly popular practice, public health officials choose instead to speak out about the dangers of not breastfeeding–when most women will hear throughout pregnancy, and after delivery, that breastfeeding is the best choice.

This is yet another New York Times article that makes me sad. I understand that because school funding is tied to test performance, schools’ hands are somewhat tied as they try to improve the performances of the students who struggle the most. What I don’t understand is why all subjects are dropped except reading and math. Don’t students read in social studies? Or in history? And don’t they do math in (certain) science classes? So, OK, I can see that some students might need extra math. But why can’t social studies and history teachers incorporate reading skills into their lessons? Why do the subjects have to be dropped?

I understand that there are pedagogical differences in the teaching of reading, as a skill, than in the teaching of history. But students who are learning to read must be learning by reading something. Doesn’t it seem like there’s an educational market out there for textbooks and other materials that present history or social studies in ways that are consistent with reading pedagogy? If that market doesn’t exist, is it because there’s no money in it? After all, the school districts that can afford the best materials are those that tend to have fewer problems meeting the standardized test benchmarks. The poor urban and rural schools that need the most help can’t afford it. And that’s unfortunate. A generation of young people will leave school without experiencing the wonder of history or biology or chemistry, because, pedagogically, no one could figure out how to teach them those things while tying in sufficient math and reading skills.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been ruminating on the New York Times article on women in the law. I wanted to write something substantive about it, but really couldn’t get past my first impression–the article leaves me feeling vaguely sad. The fact that my career will likely be more difficult than my male peers’ is frustrating, and is only made worse because I know that, in large part, that difficulty will arise out of my/our desire to raise a family. I’m not oblivious to the fact that I won’t be able to be a stay at home mom–but that’s OK, because I’ve never wanted that. Furthermore, having been raised by a single mom who worked and went to school, I know that kids still turn out OK even when their parents aren’t always around.

But still the article makes me sad. First, it approaches the career of a woman in law as one with a specific trajectory–into partnership. Sure, the author interviewed women who have done different things, but the general tenor of the article suggested that, by leaving the partnership track, those women were somehow failing. Or, that, because many women don’t make it to partner, the “system” has failed them.

And maybe that’s where the sadness comes from for me. Because while I know that law firms have done things the way they’ve done them for many, many decades, I don’t necessarily think the law firm system–overworked associate toiling towards partnership–is the best one. The article, for instance, touches on the problems with billable hours:

Over the last two decades, as law firms have devoted themselves more keenly to the bottom line, depression and dissatisfaction rates among both female and male lawyers has grown, analysts say; many lawyers of both genders have found their schedules and the nature of their work to be dispiriting.

And that’s a great observation, even if it’s not breaking news to me or any of my classmates. The problem is that the author doesn’t really impugn the actual concept of the billable hour. Instead, it focuses on firms that use other factors when making compensation decisions: “Compensation is also based on a number of other factors, including leadership and business development activities, among which billable hours are just one component.”

What I wanted the author to get to–and what he very carefully avoided getting at–is that billable hours are inherently NOT family-friendly. What I’m saying is not new stuff, either–people like Matt Homann have written more and better about the problems with billable hours. I just want to point out that, from a family standpoint, working in a system that rewards more tasks, done more discretely does not reward the innovative or efficient employee. And the one thing that all the working moms I know have in common is a passion for doing more, more efficiently.

Further, the article didn’t address any of the other inherent shortcomings in the law firm system. It didn’t shine a spotlight into the perhaps outdated methods law firms use. One woman interviewed said,

“We have a long way to go. It’s my dream that more women will stick it out in the law until they get to the fun part, and it just breaks my heart to see them giving up the dream.”

But why does any young lawyer have to “stick it out”? Why isn’t it fun from the beginning? The irony is pretty thick here–gosh, it’s pretty bad that women don’t stick it out, when, after all, the way we treat our employees means they won’t have any fun for the first several years. The article acknowledges the mentoring problems in law firms without pointing out that any career which requires three years of (expensive) graduate education should perhaps offer more for the junior associate than several years of expected drudgery before the job gets “fun.” So, sure, shucks, I’m sorry too that career paths at law firms for women, with or without families, are so difficult or are so uncertain. And gee, I’m sorry that, in the hard-bitten law firm world, women who don’t learn to say “I want” don’t go places. But maybe, you know, the problem is really the business model that rewards only a single kind of aggressiveness and farms out its dullest tasks to the most junior employees–employees who, particularly if they are women and mothers, will rarely hesitate to walk away from it all.

So the article made me sad. Because it didn’t say anything I hadn’t already thought about, it just put some hard facts on paper. It seemed to accept that the law firm environment is a fait accompli, perhaps changeable in some ways (considering, for instance, an associate’s ability to work in a team along with her total billable hours when handing out bonuses), but not substantially. And if we, meaning female lawyers and law students, accept that, then it really won’t be substantially changeable. Nor will it be if the problem is seen as confined to women. The last line of the article is really the most true, even if it is clichéd:

“I think diversity is a beneficial thing in an organization,” she adds. “Without it, you have a loss of different points of view.”

Men, women, law firms, everyone (the WORLD) suffers when women are driven out of the workplace. I bet a lot of women thought that fundamental problem had been solved decades ago. Well, not in law firms. How much longer will take?

I may be sick.

Sigh.

Today I saw a woman wearing the largest, most absurd hat I’ve ever seen. She was tall and queenly, covered in a full-length fur coat and carrying a Lord & Taylor bag. The hat was big, wide-brimmed and over-feathered. She was walking with two men, who I assume were her husband and her grown son. The son was developmentally disabled, and walked between his parents, holding hands with both.

I caught myself staring at her hat. And then I wondered if she chose her hat deliberately for its large absurdity, so that passersby would stare at her instead of at her son.

Over the holidays, Mr. Angst and I discovered that one (well, two) of our friends are getting a divorce. It was a weird revelation. Before Mr. Angst and I started dating, he was in a close circle of friends that consisted of a couple and two other guys. Then he started dating me, and the other two guys started dating seriously, and, within a matter of months, we were a circle of four couples. A few years later, we all got engaged and then married, also all within a matter of months of each other. The divorcing couple was the first to get engaged and the first to get married. They’re quirky and fun and I always thought that each was probably the only person the other could ever be with. Their quirkinesses matched.

We visited Our Old City in October, and they were still quite happy. They’d been married just over two years. He was working on his degree and had a great internship. She was working in a good job and preparing to finish her own degree, once he was done. But a month later, they started talking about separating. And by Christmastime, they were talking divorce. (Very amicably, though–he’s still on her insurance, and he didn’t move out until after the new year.) Their interests, I guess, had just diverged too much. They had different friends, different goals. And I guess they felt that being married was only going to hold them back or keep them from growing.

I admit that I don’t quite know what to think about it. As I said, I always thought they were really perfect for one another–I still think they match pretty well. For them to split up now, too, seems so strange, since things are going well for both of them. But instead of the bright future making their marriage stronger, it’s pulling them apart. Maybe they fell into together on the basis of shared angst, and without that angst, they don’t need each other anymore. But what about the other elements of a marriage? What about love, companionship, a shared life?

A lot of marriages fall apart when the going gets tough; it seems like this one did when things starting looking up. Something each of them thought was foundational to their relationship is different now and so the marriage doesn’t make sense to them anymore. And I have a hard time accepting that.

This isn’t a post about The Importance Of Fidelity And Loyalty In Marriage. I think divorce is too easy and an overused option, but heaven forbid I make any sweeping pronouncements about what reasons for divorce are Good and which ones are Bad. It doesn’t change the fact that I just don’t get it in this case. As a matter of comparison, another friend of mine got divorced a few years ago–interestingly, also right after the two-year mark. They had no change in financial circumstances and there was no adultery, but one of them did lose interest in intimacy (I believe it was pharmacological in origin). A basic assumption of their marriage had utterly changed. And while I didn’t necessarily think divorce was the best option in that case, either, I understood the decision.

Arguably, a change from dire financial straits to flushness could be a change in a basic assumption of my friends’ marriage, but what does that say about relationships today? I know that the thing most married couples fight about is money. That seems to extend even to improved finances. People are entering marriage because of shared dependency and, when they become less dependent on one another, they are walking away from it. And that’s a sad thing. Because what does that say about the emotional and psychological benefits of marriage, the love and companionship? That they are secondary? That they are unnecessary? Is a spouse fungible?

I wish my two friends the best, and I’m glad their breakup is amicable, if only for them. But it’s almost worse when a divorce is on good terms, because it suggests that other options might have been available and that divorce was simply the easiest means of solving whatever problems the marriage had.

As I walked past American Girl Place today, I noticed the contingent of protesters standing outside. They were armed with large placards reading “Moms for Life” and “Dads for Life.” They were handing out flyers about abortion. And they were doing this in front of swarms of little girls and their families. (In case you don’t know, American Girl has joined with Girls, Inc., an advocacy group. Girls, Inc., supports the right of women to have abortions and opposes abstinence education, and some conservative groups don’t like that the money they spend on “wholesome” American Girl products goes to support these programs.)

As I walked past this demonstration of free speech, I thought what I usually think when I see people protesting abortion. Is abortion really the most important social issue in our country today? I wondered what those men and women thought of the dozens of homeless people who shuffled past them during the day–people with nowhere to shelter when the weather drops well below freezing. Did they spare a thought for the children who won’t get Christmas presents from American Girl Place because their families are poor? And just to take this train of thought to its logical conclusion, do they think of the young women who would want to provide nice toys to their little girls but can’t because they were unable to finish school and get good jobs because of unexpected teenage pregnancies–pregnancies that resulted because they had no information about contraception?

There are so many injustices in this city, in our country, and in the world. (And yes, some of those injustices are the direct result of unwanted pregnancies or overpopulation.) Wouldn’t it be better to work toward easing some of THOSE social problems, the ones that have a deeper and more scarring effect on crime and on the economy?

I’ve heard the argument that, because abortion is a moral ill that subverts our ethics as a country, it should be a high-priority concern. I’m not going to discuss the validity of that argument on its face (although I’ll say that I have a hard time buying it). What I will say is that other moral issues should take more precedence under that argument. Don’t we have a moral imperative to provide for the less fortunate? To remove disparities in education and housing that are undeniably connected to racial and ethnic discrimination? How about we find good ways to prevent THOSE problems, then start looking at issues like abortion?

I hate to get involved in the abortion argument because it’s one of those debates that ends up being pointless because people on both sides approach the subject with different primary assumptions. So this post should not read as disapproving of a particular side. Rather, it should read as disapproving of the entire discussion. In other words, we should be focusing on other issues first. And leave the little girls, who are visiting a wholesome toy store with their families, alone.

This blog is working on a fantastic concept.

I’m sure that the author of the blog, Toby Stock, has started the blog because he believes there should be more transparency in the law school admissions process. And I bet there are students who are convinced that’s why he’s doing it, too. And I am sure some transparency will result. But this blog is also a marketing technique, and one geared at a particular brand problem: yield.

Harvard Law School is a great school. Some wonderful people I know went to HLS and I know some wonderful people are at HLS now. I sincerely hope that everyone at HLS is there because they want to be. But I know that Harvard is also concerned about its reputation among the subset of law school applicants who can be reasonably certain they’ll get into HLS as well as into one or more of the other “super-elite” schools. And it’s concerned about losing students to those schools. I know because Toby posted this the other day.

I was bothered by this entry. Granted, I’m not really part of the blog’s intended audience, but it still left a sour taste in my mouth.

Look, a lot of prospective law students–particularly the ones who can get into HLS–are not interested in law school because of the number of prestigious faculty. (I think they’re more likely to say, “HLS has So-and-so, but Yale has Such-and-such”; not “HLS has twenty and Yale only has five.”) And a lot of the prospective students who can get into HLS know that they’ll be surrounded by really bright and interesting people no matter what school they go to. So maybe the fact that some students chose a different school over HLS isn’t because that school is “better” but because it’s smaller.

I chose my law school for a number of reasons, but one of the big reasons I even applied to my school was because of its student-faculty ratio. One of the other schools I applied to, which didn’t accept me, was even smaller, and was even higher on my list. The biggest school I applied to was lowest on my list. Basically, I wanted a small student body.

I know I’m not the only law student who values a small student body. I also know that a lot of law students are NOT like me. They do not WANT to go to small law schools. They’ve been at institutions of every size, from large state university to small liberal arts college. And for whatever reason, they don’t want a small law school environment. They want a LOT of people around them–for the intellectual stimulation, for padding, for whatever. And I think that’s great. If they know they want a larger student body in which to blend, great. But I just hope they KNOW it. Harvard seems to be implying, though, that the larger student body is the best student body. The PREFERRED student body. And more so, that people who choose “other” schools over Harvard are doing so for the “wrong” reasons–or at least are completely unaware that “bigger” equals “better.”

I hope Harvard’s blog gives prospective law students some insight. My suspicion, though, is that it won’t. Because it’s nothing more revealing than information they’ve heard over and over and over again from other sources–both official and non-official. Harvard is big? Yep, Toby will tell you that–and tell you why it’s a good thing. Applications get read carefully? Sure, Toby will tell you that, too. And then you can get on the boards and read about the student perspective. And share information with other applicants. Are you any more informed than you would have been without the blog? Probably not.

I think everyone should blog. So I am glad HLS has a admissions blog. But I’m not convinced that, in this case, there’s a lot of value added by the blog. I hope I’m wrong.

This story is fantastic! (I’m a sucker for a brainy girl-hero story….)

Here’s a sample:

Suddenly, “I saw this bubbling on the water, right on the edge, and foam sizzling just like in a frying pan,” she remembered. “The water was coming in, but it wasn’t going out again. It was coming in, and then in, and then in, towards the hotel.”

She recognized it as an indication that earthquake-driven waves were only minutes away.

Tilly turned to her mother, Penny, “and I said, ‘Mum, I know there’s something wrong, I know it’s going to happen the tsunami.’”

OK, so not so great with the editing on the news story, but wow!

(I got to the story via Salon.com which also mentions that the beach in Phuket where the family was staying was one of the few beaches where no one was killed or seriously injured.)

Ann Althouse predicted it earlier this week. And now it’s happened.

I won’t deny that I’m pleased Miers isn’t the nominee anymore. But now we have the unknown staring us in the face again. Who will Bush nominate this time?

I wonder how all the attachment parenting folks are going to take this recommendation? I have no problem, per se, with attachment parenting. I wholeheartedly support any philosophy that encourages women to breastfeed as long as possible. I even think babywearing is a great idea, if your lives are flexible enough to accomodate it.

But having an infant sleep in the bed with adults seems inherently dangerous, and I’m glad the AAP has come out and said so in no uncertain terms. The increased risk of SIDS is the AAP’s primary concern in the announcement, but they also mention the danger we all must intutively be aware of: suffocation.

I hope I haven’t offended anyone who belives co-sleeping is the only way to go. I know many families have successfully shared a “Family Bed” without incident and I think they are probably very lucky, both in the bonding and in the continued health and wellbeing of their child(ren).

I am a little nervous at Bush’s latest Supreme Court nominee. Others can speak more eloquently about the pros and cons of the nomination than I can, but my two cents go something like this:

I am bothered that Miers has never been a judge. I know, I know, it’s not a prerequisite for the job of Supreme Court Justice, but it certainly helps establish one’s bona fides for sitting on the nation’s highest court. Miers, for the last several years, has been, instead, a member of the sitting administration. She has not been in courtroom in several years and (seemingly) has no particular scholarly brilliance that might offset her lack of experience. In fact, given reports of her calling Bush the most intelligent man she’s ever met, I am inclined to compare her (favorably or not) with Condoleeza Rice. Rice has stepped up to the plate and performed adequately as Secretary of State, but we all know she’s out in 2008. Miers will be around for quite a long time to come if she’s confirmed.

I predict a battle. I don’t know if Bush nominated Miers because he wants to avoid a battle or if he really does think she’s the best person for the job, experience be damned. Either way, I do not see her confirmation going smoothly. Will she eventually be confirmed? Probably. But it will go badly.

The smoking bans are following me! My Old City passed a ban right before we left town (it didn’t take effect until after we left). Now Our New City™ is on the verge of doing the same thing.

I don’t listen to the radio anymore, largely because I don’t have a car. I listen to my iPod for music on the commute and if I need news, I turn to the internet (and, occassionally, a podcast). So I haven’t heard any of the ads I heard in My Old City, the ones blaming Big Government for interefering in our lives. I’m sure they’re out there, though. This city seems particularly prone to that sort of rhetoric.

I also don’t know what general public opinion on this is. I don’t yet know any people who are “from” here—my circle is mostly students, newcomers. (And you know what? A lot of them are from cities with non-smoking bans. So there seems to be general approval among students for the ban.) But the actual people who live here in this city? I can’t imagine there’s overwhelming approval. People smoke here a lot. And I don’t mean smoking while out at bars or clubs, I mean smoking while walking down the street. Lighting up on the stairs on the way up from the train. Lots of congregations of smokers huddled outside buildings at mid-morning, lunch, and tea time. They smoke a lot.

But it doesn’t matter whether or not the people of the city approve or not, except in the broader sense that they elect local representatives. Why is that? It’s because there’s not going to be a public vote on this particular ban. It’s an ordinance being passed by the City Council. Maybe this is paternalistic Big Government out to get us! I know many of the other big cities that have passed smoking bans have done the same thing and it’s probably the only feasible way in such large metropolitan areas. Still, I liked that My Old City, despite the annoying ads and ridiculous mudslinging that resulted, let the citizens vote. And you know what? It still passed.

I don’t like smoking. I used to smoke, I quit. I don’t like going out and reeking of cigarettes when I’m ready to go home. I don’t like having to avoid going out at all nights before I’m supposed to sing or speak, because I know the smoke will completely wreck my voice. I just don’t like it. So in that sense, I am in favor of smoking bans, when they are reasonable. But I am bothered by a “decree from above” ordinance for a ban. Representative democracy, my ass. Everyone’s local rep has his or her own agenda, just like our Congressmen and Senators do.

So let the people decide if they want smoking bans. The results might be surprising.