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September 30, 2006

Bush’s (and Woodward’s) State of Denial ::
politics — tagged , , , and
9:47 am

I started my weekend catch-up-on-the-news routine with finding out that Bob Woodward has a new book coming out, State of Denial, which is apparently is much more critical of the Bush Administration’s handling of his job—from Iraq and the War on Terror to just about everything else the President has been demanding unchecked authority to control—than anything else Woodward has previously written. Apparently Republicans, particularly members of the administration, are in damage control mode. And I would be to if I had to deal with anecdotes such as these:

Laura Bush telling her husband he should fire Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Vice President Cheney pushing aides to call the chief weapons inspector in the middle of the night with coordinates for a site in Syria that might have those elusive weapons. Secret White House visits by Henry Kissinger. Bush having to tell Rumsfeld to return Condoleezza Rice’s calls. Memos describing Rumsfeld’s “rubber glove syndrome”—he didn’t want to leave fingerprints on decisions.

Ouch. What’s funny is that I noted Woodward’s use of anecdotes in my review of The Brethren. On the one hand the device is useful for telling a compelling story, but on the other hand it sometime seems that Woodward will lay them on too thick, the story at some point becoming more about Woodward and the amount of access he has than it does about the subjects of his stories or the value of investigative journalism in holding elected officials to account. The effect is similar to that of too much mayonaise on your sandwich: what should be just one flavor and texture of the experience becomes the whole experience, and it’s a pretty nauseating one. But what’s particularly interesting here is Woodward’s central theme in his book:

He charges the president has not been straight with the American people about how bad things are in Iraq and how much worse it’s going to get. But his most damning claim—screaming at you right there in the title—is not that Bush is deceitful; it’s that he’s clueless. People many not care if Bush admits reality to the public, but they hope he’s admitting reality to himself.

Yeah, no kidding. My guess? The book will be worth reading because it sounds like Woodward’s first honest account of what’s probably been a reality of Bush administration culture since Bush took office in 2001. But publishing the book likely comes at the expense of Woodward losing the access he he formerly enjoyed with the Bush people. So I guess that means he’ll be going back to his old style of writing while hoping for an understanding candidate taking the White House in 2008.

September 27, 2006

The Devil and the White City by Erik Larsen ::
books — tagged , , and
1:27 pm

Here it is, The Devil and the White City, another in a long line of pop history books I love to read. And yes, as is the case with anything written by Simon Winchester or Mark Kurlansky, I read this book in something like three days. The speed with which I got through this was just as much a testament to my love of the pop history genre as it is to Erik Larsen’s mastery of writing within it. Which reminds me: I have this vision of the publishing industry employing armies of editors and marketing geniuses who hunt down these authors and vet them for exactly the right sort of talent and story ideas, and then run the story through an editorial machine in order to create another book that really is the same—if only in form, not subjectmatter—as all the others I’ve read. And I consume them like processed food.

But getting all that cynicism about marketing out of the way, the book was really quite gripping, and everything that all your friends said it was who talked to you about it at that last dinner party. The story is a study in contrasts, really—on the one hand you had Daniel Burnham, an accomplished yet decidedly non-Ivy-League-Educated architect with something to prove who is charged with building the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, on the other H. H. Holmes, a serial killer trained in medicine who used his knowledge and skills in some of the most gruesome ways imaginable. What tied the two worlds together was the utter lack of rules of Chicago in the 1890’s. It was only in such an environment that you could see the extremes of both individual and societal behavior that was emblematic of pre-progressive era America.

In many ways Chicago was a pioneer city of the time, where a lack of environmental, health and safety, and business regulations allowed the owners of the Worlds Fair to construct it so quickly and without regard to the impact it would have on those building it. And the lack of law enforcement allowed a serial killer to remain undetected and act so brazenly for so long. The lawlessness of the time made me appreciate the relative safety of our current regulatory state, and the increased quality of life it has brought. But it is in that crucible of extremes that a truly great story was able to take shape. So go and enjoy it.

Related:

September 26, 2006

Transferred ::
meta — tagged and
11:24 pm

Ok, so if you’re reading this then it means that your DNS records have updated and you’re at the new version of the site. I’m now set up over at Text Drive, which I have to say is pretty awesome so far—with the combination of terminal and web admin controls, I’m able to do all the stuff I ever wanted to do at my other hosts but had to beg for (why is it so wrong to want to edit your files with Vi?). And the best part is that I don’t have to hound any administrators to get what I need. So if things continue like this, I’ll happily stay here indefinitely. Or until I’m asked to leave. Hooray, progress!

September 25, 2006

The large abuses of tiny courts ::
legal — tagged , , , and
7:56 am

The New York Times has an interesting piece on the small, rather unceremonious courts of limited jurisdiction in New York State and the types of abuses that go on there. Since these courts lack the high profile of general jurisdiction courts and often have people substantially less qualified presiding over them, they do not get the same level of attention as the Supreme Court of New York. The article, noting first that “[n]early three-quarters of the judges are not lawyers…have scant grasp of the most basic legal principles, [and] never got through high school,” goes on to explain why the underqualified nature of these judges is such a Big Deal:

But serious things happen in these little rooms all over New York State. People have been sent to jail without a guilty plea or a trial, or tossed from their homes without a proper proceeding. In violation of the law, defendants have been refused lawyers, or sentenced to weeks in jail because they cannot pay a fine. Frightened women have been denied protection from abuse.

Given the lack of attention that these courts garner (who really cares how your challenge to that traffic ticket was resolved?) what springs to mind for me is the dialogue between Holmes and Watson in The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, in which Holmes notes that it is places isolated from greater society and hidden from public scrutiny that are ripest for abuses and crime:

But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

September 24, 2006

Vermonters secede! ::
vermont — tagged , , , and
8:36 pm

The LA Times has an article about the Vermont secession movement (NB: I, like 92 percent of those polled in the state, do not support it). Overall the article is ok, though its general tone is a little glib. And the two main problems I found? The article refers to the Ethan Allen Institute as a “non-partisan” think tank. However, for anyone who pays any attention at all to politics in the state, the EAI is famous (or infamous) as a group of conservative free-market zealots. So sure, they may be non-partisan, but who do you think they support come election time? Certainly not the party that advocates for single-payer healthcare.

Secondly I noted something about the leader of the Second Vermont Republic, Thomas Naylor. According to the LA Times piece, Naylor grew quite wealthy after running an software company early in the PC era. (His bio substantiates that he did work in tech, but didn’t mention that he might have gotten rich off it.) But now Naylor spends much of his intellectual efforts (when he’s not defending holocaust-questioning anti-semites) railing against the economic systems and cultural phenomena that made him rich and allowed him to pursue his ongoing political ends. Note particularly his complaints in the Technofascist Manifesto (whatever that may be), e.g., Article 1, entitled “Affluenza,” in which he asks some unnamed vaguely defined body of robot citizens to “[t]each me how to be a moneymaking, money spending machine.” Then in Article 2, “Technomania, he longs to “[m]ake high-tech mountains out of low-tech molehills.” And then my two favorites, Articles 3 and 4, in which he complains of the Internet: “our information, communication trade, and entertainment medium of choice – is a wellspring from which money, meaning, power, and instant gratification flow.” (Please note, I found all this on the Vermont Republic’s website.) And finally, of course, the general complaint in Article 4 that we Americans are under the minstaken belief that “[b]igger and faster make better.” So there is clearly some dissonance between Naylor’s professed beliefs and the reality of his life.

For me, I’m really not even interested in debating the merits of the argument that Vermont should secede. In fact, I have to work hard not to dismiss the argument out of hand, because I just can’t get past the stark hypocracy of the movement’s leader.

Weekend round-up ::
personal — tagged , , , , and
12:13 pm

Well, quite a bit has happened since the last time I posted about passing the Vermont Bar Exam. (Yes, by the way, I mention it again because I’m still so psyched about passing.) Mostly my life has involved not having enough time during the day and not getting enough sleep at night. But I’ve been reading a lot, keeping up with things online, hanging out with friends, and travelling. So all in all, the fact that I’m exhausted really isn’t that big of a deal—I’ll be sure to get some sleep sometime soon.

So on Friday evening one of my roommates comes home with a friend of his from high school. They were planning on going out to eat, I asked to join them. We decided on this local Indian place, which is attached to the lobby of this hotel just south of town on Route 12. So it’s kind of an innately surreal place to begin with. We get there and I find that it’s one of those places run by an Indian family—it’s clear from watching the four or five people standing at the front counter that they all know each other and are chatting about whatever.

So we come up to the front counter, and the guy there says to us in heavily accented English, “hello, 27!”

We tell him we want to place an order, and his response is the same: “27.” But this time he hands us menus. One of us said we loved Chicken Tikka, I told him that I would like the Chicken Vindaloo, extra spicy. Then one of the other guys of the restaurant group says that it will be the best Indian food I’ve ever had. Anywhere. Something about his use of superlatives made me trust him less. But before my roommate could place his order, everyone in the restaurant group cleared out and filed into some back room, leaving us there alone.

It was unclear what was happening. I asked myself if I’d even placed an order. Then we started looking around and noticed that only a few of the tables were actually set, and others had pots and pans strewn all over them. The room smelled like paint, and the kitchen wasn’t in working order—there was equipment pulled from the walls and more pots and pans strewn over countertops that should have had dishes in various stages of preparation. Then when I noticed the table with the half-empty bottle of Black Velvet on it I realized what was going on—the restaurant wasn’t open, it was in the midst of renovation. And—could it be?—the proprieters of the restaurant were getting drunk.

Oh and 27? The restaurant is scheduled to reopen on September 27th. I’ll be sure to be there, ready to order my Chicken Vindaloo.

So then yesterday Brian and I headed up to Montreal to see Lambchop. The show was really great—Lambchop is a particularly interesting band for their ability to fuse soul and country western music and come up with a gentle, folky, but impassioned sound that is very unique. Also, I was really impressed with the crowd at the show—whereas in many venues in the US crowds would only give half their attention to a band like Lambchop, whose music lacks the immediacy of other louder and faster bands on the indie rock scene, I really got the sense that the crowd was paying attention to the music and getting into it, even though it took a certain amount of work to do that. And they cheered like crazy at the end of every song. So how great is that?

September 22, 2006

Vermont bar results (the news is good) ::
personal — tagged , and
7:26 am

Just a quick note to announce that I passed the Vermont Bar Exam. Needless to say, I’m absolutely extatic about this. Since I received the notice (last night at 9:30, I was the first one home so I got the mail) I’ve gone through feelings of excitement, relief and, this morning, an odd sense of calm. The net result being that I woke up really early and couldn’t get back to sleep. Strange, that.

So now that period of my life is over and I can start figuring out what to do next. In the meantime, if you’re inspired to extend job offers or just notes of congratulations, you can reach me by email, which is linked on the left there.

September 21, 2006

VDB on those Vermont Senate ads ::
politics, vermont — tagged , , , , , , and
3:13 pm

So, Vermonters aren’t that accustomed to negative campaigning. Well, at least we try not to be accustomed to such things, wishing instead to exude a stoic, detatched understanding of politics, all the while shaking our heads in exasperation at the depths to which political candidates in other states can stoop just to get elected. Well, things are changing this election with the new television ads from Republican Rich Tarrant. And by far, Vermont Daily Briefing has the funniest review of them:

And the ugly, sour, unforgiving hits just kept on coming: every spokesperson in every Tarrant ad looked like your high school gym coach after a three-day bender; more uglythe old woman who lives in the deserted house at the end of the block who chases kids away with a tarnished Civil War saber; or the evil old fart who monitors your apartment from his dank porch in the shade of a diseased elm down the block.

September 20, 2006

Why Entourage is so great ::
narrative — tagged , and
7:57 pm

Slate has an interesting piece on the greatness of Entourage. It reasons that people, particularly men, love the show because it represents something called “attainable greatness”:

Every guy between the ages of 13 and 30 has got that one friend destined for greatness, either at the minor or major level….For those of us sneered at by cruel nature, this person represents our only chance for sampling the run-off glory of vicarious accomplishment. Wingmen, moochers, and hangers-on—we’re usually the guy’s best friends, and we’re remunerated for being just that.

I sort of agree. After seeing two seaons of the show, I find I gravitate toward the character Eric more than any of the others. He’s the most responsible of the characters, and also the one who actually treats his life in Hollywood as real work. And he’s weird and awkward and has that East Coast neurosis that makes him really stand out among the beautiful people of LA. But yeah, at the end of the day, they guy would be working as a manager for Sbarro in New York if his friend hadn’t taken him out to LA to be his manager. So Slate does have a point, as much as I hate to admit it.

September 19, 2006

Added tags, moving on ::
meta — tagged , , and
2:27 pm

Well, thanks to the Ultimate Tag Warrior plugin, this site now has tags. I found that I was having a bit of category creep, which you might have noticed from the ever-expanding list of categories on the left. I have plans to consolidate many of those categories under single general headings (e.g., the legal category will take over for all the other law-oriented categories) and then use tags to categories some of the more specific like crime, con law or—oh, man—tort reform).

In other site-related news, I’ll be switching hosting providers in the next week or so, so regular readers should plan on some of the sketchy web presence that comes with the attendant DNS transition. Unfortunately, this site was inaccessible all Sunday—who knows why—and my log files seem to disappear from time to time without any explanation. That, combined some extra free time I’ve had lately, suggests that the time is ripe to try another hosting provider. Oh, what fun!

September 15, 2006

Google + TOR = fun new searches! ::
tech — tagged , , , , and
10:19 am


Google when using TOR
Originally uploaded by gjs.

Yes, fun new searches that don’t make any sense, unless you understand German, Italian or French. There are work-arounds, of course, but the whole world of Web anonymization does take some getting used to. Here’s my favorite passage from the Wiki FAQ:

If you really want to see Google in English you can click the link [on the search results page] that provides that. But we consider this a feature with Tor, not a bug—the Internet is not flat, and it in fact does look different depending on where you are. This feature reminds people of this fact.

So there.

Slate on that weird 9/11 photo ::
photos — tagged , and
10:00 am

Slate has an article written by the photographer who took that creepy photograph of young hipsters who appeared to be relaxing on the Brooklyn waterfront on 9/11 (the photo is included in the story). The photographer’s commentary particularly piqued my interest:

Four and a half years later, when I was going through my archive to assemble a retrospective exhibition of my work from more than 50 years, the color slide from Brooklyn suddenly seemed to jump at me. Now, distanced from the actual event, the picture seemed strange and surreal. It asked questions but provided no answers.

For me, the photo screamed cynicism, to a degree that was nearly unbearable. The photographer noted that as well. But at the end of it all, we really don’t know at all what was going on—the appearance of not caring could simply be an illusion. Ultimately, I think the photograph reveals one of the great shortcomings of visual media, rather than of people roughly my age.

September 12, 2006

Live music! ::
music — tagged , and
10:46 am

Update: Brian has a review of the show up on his site.

So, in an effort to take my mind off of—or possible revel in—the fact that I’m unemployed and my ability to practice law is still in a state of limbo, I headed out to a triple bill show last night with Josh and Brian at Higher Ground. The lineup consisted of California Folk-Rockers Foreign Born, erstwhile Broken Social Scene member Jason Collett, and headliners Rogue Wave. The show was really interesting, mostly because of the fact that many of the high points came at totally unexpected points in the show.

Rogue Wave’s performance was extraordinary because of how consistent it was with what I imagined it would be. They’re music is always tight and polished, and is a strange crossection between rock, folk and electronic atmospherics produced by keyboards played by both the lead guitarist and drummer. It’s funny, but I always think of their songs as well-engineered software applications. And while their tunes were catchy, definitely, and the band loved what they were playing, there was something, I don’t know, missing from the show. And it was the same thing missing from their music on the record. So while I could always think to myself, yeah, this music is definitely good, I couldn’t let myself just fall in love with it.

Contrast that With Jason Collet’s set. At one point Jason Collett noted how much he liked Vermont, and someone mentioned that he should stay an extra day to take a walk down to Lake Champlain (one of his favorite things to do in Burlington, apparently). When Collett said that he was sorry but he had to head down to Massachusetts, someone in the crowd yelled “Hey, New Hampshire Liquor Store is on the way, yeah!” And without missing a beat, Collett said, “thanks for the tip!” The band then launched into the upbeat acoustic number “I’ll Bring the Sun.” And that was just one interaction with the audience. The set was punctuated by a number of these incidents, which I found to be so disarming and infectous, and made the music that much more enjoyable. Comparing Rogue Wave with Jason Collett, it made me realize how the deciding factor of what makes a good show—at least for me—often has almost nothing to do with the music and everything to do with the performers.

Foreign Born started out the night, and they were a lot of fun—like I mentioned, a definite California folk-rock group, complete with the frontman playing a plugged-in acoustic guitar that, except for the pick-ups looked like it could have come from Woody Guthrie’s collection. The band played well and got into their music. At one point they played a song that they asserted that had written just the other day in Canada. Since I’m not familiar with their ouvre, there was no way for me to verify this, so I had to take them at their word. But overall it was a fun set, a nice surprise, and a great way to start of the evening.

The bar exam stress index? ::
meta, personal, legal — tagged , and
10:05 am

So, I was looking at my site usage stats this morning, and noticed a pretty clear pattern emerging. Of the top 20 search terms that resulted in links to pageswithin.com, I found six that had something to do with the bar review or the July bar exam: “july 2006 bar exam results,” “pmbr lawsuit,” “bar exam results july 2006,” “pmbr,” “bar exam blogs,” and finally, “bar exam results.” That’s kind of surprising, since I really didn’t post all that much about my bar exam experience.

But then, to be fair, I didn’t post all that much generally to this site during that time.

September 10, 2006

Enjoying the view ::
personal, vermont — tagged and
12:38 pm

So, this weekend has proven to be quite an adventurous one. Yesterday Josh and I headed out to the Millstone Pathways festival, which consisted largely of our participation in a biking parade that went from the Barre Granite Museum to the start of a newly-opened bike trail in Barre Town. We had lunch, and I learned about the current status of the trails. And most importantly, I got some maps and some great ideas on for bike rides that I’ll be able to take before winter sets in and makes biking pretty much impossible.

Then today I got up kind of early and headed out to explore the trails, using the maps I’d collected from yesterday’s festival. I got all the way to the Grand Lookout at the top of Millstone Quarry, which has some truly stellar views (see above, as well as here, here, and here). Really, it was one of the best bike rides I’ve been on in recent memory, and as summer ends and autumn makes its presence known, I’ve started to remember how much I love the season, with its chilled northwestern winds, gorgeous foliage, and thoughts turning toward winter.

Oh, and get this: there was a raffle at the Pathways Festival, and with my registration I won second prize, which was a two-day stay at the Millstone Hill Lodge. Not too bad. I can’t be sure, but I think this is the first raffle I’ve won. So not too bad at all.

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