Road Warriors

And I thought springtime baseball in Rochester was rough.  

Bloodletting in BigLaw (or, Lawyers are People, Too)

I understand that it can be hard sometimes to find sympathy for corporate lawyers, but waves upon waves of layoffs have rocked major law firms the past two weeks, with today bringing news of Latham and Watkins laying off 440 employees (190 associates, 250 staff), making it the largest layoff of its kind, according to industry blog Above the Law. The severance package is sizeable, to say the least, but the sheer size of the cuts--12% of associates, 10% of staff-- is eye-opening.  

One of the interesting trends that surfaces in this cut is the firm extending stipends for incoming associates to defer starting with the firm and work for community service organizations during the "gap year" in between 3L and the first year on the job.  Given the dire situation facing legal aid organizations and public defenders, one hopes that, if there is a silver lining to this recession, it's a renewed commitment to providing legal aid to those most in need.

Lefty! Lefty!

Story of my Little League career.   As it was, I seemed to prefer hitting it to left field, particularly as I got older, so they could shift all day.  

Can't wait for baseball season.

To Whom It May Concern:

Can we please arrange so that one of our players gets introduced like this on Saturday? I'm thinking Groove Theory could channel Jabbawockies.  All we need is a Shaqtus stand-in.  

Change We Can Believe In

Georgetown 65, South Florida 40.  So starts the 6-0 end to the season that will propel us to the tournament... right?

New Blogs, Please

Stumbling upon that marketing blog has also nicely broken up a bit of a Google Reader rut I had been feeling, something that coincides with this post from Andrew Sullivan.

What's the deal with Twitter?

I stumbled upon this blog via a friend's Twitter feed.  I haven't quite digested all of it yet, but these posts on Twitter strike me as being roughly accurate.  Maybe my environment--Twitter-happy Washington--makes me sympathetic/adhere to Twitter, maybe my upbringing (AIM, Gmail, and Facebook status updates) attract me to it, but either way, I think it's an enjoyable--and potentially useful--medium.  

Back

After a long weekend and illness-induced absence, I am back and will be posting this evening. 

Quote for the Moment

America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again, but baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, it's a part of our past, Ray. It reminds us of all that once was good and could be again.

-Field of Dreams

The sports question at Pres. Obama's press conference? Not Michael Phelps.  Not Super Bowl-related.  Baseball.  For the wrong reasons? Yes.  But the game endures, and the quote continues to remain relevant.  Much better than "if you build it, they will come."  

Things I Didn't Expect to Read Today

Indulgences return to the mainstream in the Church.  On a related note, expect McDonald's to peg its Filet-O-Fish price to a mark slightly below the recommended donation level for an indulgence during Lent--though in past years, they've been selling them 2/$2 on Fridays, so they should be in the clear.  

I'm envisioning a price war between indulgences and Mickey D's. Sacrilege, I know, but isn't this the policy outcome of putting a price tag on bad behavior? It's Holmes' bad man formulation, only with the Afterlife, instead of the law, as the forum.  If it's easier to continue living a sort-of sinful, yet enjoyable life while making charitable donations that shave some time off of a stay in Purgatory than it is to live a slightly more virtuous, yet less enjoyable and more arduous life and require fewer indulgences, then the incentive is for Catholics to choose Option A.  The here and now will be more pleasant, and there will be negligible, if any, impact on the Afterlife.  

And this line cracks me up: "You cannot buy one — the church outlawed the sale of indulgences in 1857 — but charitable contributions, combined with other acts, can help you earn one. There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day."  Talk about a distinction without a difference. 

A-Rod

Point of inquiry: did people really think A-Rod was clean this whole time?

Lock It Up

Read Frank Rich this morning--the piece seems a little all over the place, which usually I appreciate, but I think it's Rich's attempt at being "fair and balanced."  

That's not to say that he doesn't have legitimate beefs with Geithner, Daschle, and the Bob Rubin contingent (to say nothing of the revolving door culture of politicians and business lobbies).  I could do without the I-bank alumni who are going to have a big say in sculpting the regulation of Wall Street, and it's bizarre that so many of the high profile nominees have tax problems (and if they need some part time help vetting from a law student, they should give me a call).  Obviously, not exactly Team Obama's finest moments from my perspective.

But it's a stretch to say that Slumdog Millionaire, which has grossed an impressive, but not overwhelming, $77M in the US is indicative of a populist streak tearing up the middle of the country.  A populist streak among critics and Oscar voters, maybe, but I'd pick Paul Blart: Mall Cop as an example of populism at the box office ($83M in 3 weeks, as of last week).  

And Daschle's withdrawal was the biggest news of last week until zero Republicans voted for the stimulus package, and until we found out that about 600K Americans lost their jobs in January alone.  Now I don't pretend to be anything but a partisan Democrat, but on some level, isn't it more frightening that, in the midst of losing 1.8 million jobs in the past 3 months, there is not one Republican member of the House who can get behind a package that will put people back to work and stop the bleeding?  I know the Daschle/Cabinet problems/taxes are good copy for newspapers, but I feel like the Washington élite are underestimating just how seriously screwed up our economy is.  That also includes the numerous Democrats in the House and the Senate who are proud of opposing/slashing such "frivolous" ideas like Head Start, public transit, and food stamps.

Here's hoping that Obama cleans house of both the revolving door types and the tax cheats.  Here's also hoping that someone other than the President, of any party and the media, can get it together and realize that if this nonsense keeps up and the federal government doesn't start cutting some checks, we might just find out what breadlines look like in HD.  

Hooveritis hits WMATA

Let us hope that this gets shouted down.  At a time when more people than ever are riding Metro and public transportation, they  want to cut back on the system's service, slashing not only the jobs of the people who work for Metro, but also for people who rely on it to work night shifts, get home afterward, etc.  And what the world needs now is more unemployment... 

 It goes without saying, but stimulus money should be directed toward public transportation systems for exactly this reason.  

Why would we cut these things?

Among the initiatives that could be cut are $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $14 million for cyber security research by the Homeland Security Department, $1 billion for the National Science Foundation, $400 million for research and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases, $850 million for Amtrak and $400 million forclimate change research. But so far, none of the suggestions come close to being enough to shrink the package on the scale proposed.

Mind-boggling.   Normally, cutting cyber security measures and not preventing STIs would be a bad thing.   Why is this idea even taken seriously?  I've been trying to give the President the benefit of the doubt on the strategy of getting the stimulus passed; he still gets it, if only because he seems to be the only Democrat working to get this thing passed and to drum up public support.  Congressional Democrats--one of whom, Sen. Nelson, is promoting these cuts--are not getting the benefit of the doubt.  The economy is cratering; people are losing jobs by the hundreds of thousands each month; our infrastructure is crumbling; our climate is spinning out of control.  Meanwhile, Democrats in Congress seem to be up to the same tricks they were used to during the Bush years.   

Show me numbers

Good to see my hometown making the news for relatively positive reasons.  A few quick points: 

First, I admit that I haven't kept up on Rochester news since moving (both to college, and with my parents) 5 years ago, but I don't know how "many" people think East High is the most troubled in Rochester.  It has its fair share of problems, to be sure, but it also has one of the few IB programs in the county (suburban or urban) and as a larger school, has a fair amount to offer in terms of co-curricular activities.  Its mascot is also the Orientals, so by that measure, it's probably the most troubled.  

Second, the article seems to be more interested in writing creative nonfiction.  Sure, it traffics in innuendo about the tough halls of East High-- "ambulance attendants were rolling out a young man on a gurney and wearing a neck brace."  Insinuendo, we called in it college: no actual reporting on what happened to the young man--Heaven forbid a good image get ruined by a phys. ed. accident--just a tantalizing hint at the problems at East.  Insinuation + innuendo.   Same with the 5 person calculus class.  "Not normally enough to justify a class."  Well, why aren't there more people in calculus at East? The author lets our minds wander.   No supervision at home.  Too many kids taken out on gurneys.  Wait, I thought small classes were a good thing?  It's an interesting gambit (particularly by playing against popular conceptions of class size), but I'd prefer to see some numbers about the apparent disconnect between Rochester schools' success and their teachers' salaries.  

I Got You, Babe

In honor of February 2, a look at the religious implications of the 1993 classic Groundhog Day.  Me? I always enjoyed the encounters between Phil Connors and Ned Ryerson.  I've been trying to figure out where that fits into my spirituality, but haven't figured it out quite yet.  In the meantime, enjoy one of the funniest meetings.