Rep. Steve King, one of the craziest of the crazy, explains to us how gay marriage is a socialist plot:
So in the end this is something that has to come with a, if there’s a push for a socialist society, a society where the foundations of individual rights and liberties are undermined and everybody is thrown together, living collectively off of one pot of resources earned by everyone. That is, this is one of the goals they have to go to is same-sex marriage because it has to plow through marriage in order to get to their goal. They want public affirmation. They want access to public funds and resources. Eventually all those resources will be pooled because that’s the direction we’re going. And not only is it a radical social idea, it is a purely socialist concept in the final analysis.
A couple of quick questions:
1.) Does this mean marriage is socialism?
2.) You know what actually is the most socialist thing in the state of Iowa? Farm subsidies. I wonder what Rep. King thinks about them?
3.) He spewed this gibberish on WorldNetDaily. Looks like that boycott of WND is really paying dividends. Will the folks at the Next Right show they are serious and work to primary King?
It is worth repeating- until recently, this is the type of moron who was running out country. Why does anyone care what these people think about health care reform? They are insane.
joes527
So let’s see ….
All pornography is gay.
Gay is socialist.
So that means FREE PORN FOR EVERYONE!!!
Or did I miss something?
Amy
OMG – I share a checking and savings account and mutual funds with my husband.
It’s socialism!!!
Cialis Shoes
OK. so, who is the wise guy putting up a post about socialism when socialist is a banned word?
aimai
Oh my god, this is really, really, Old Shit. He must have gotten a hold of Engels or maybe he just delved really deep into the footnotes of the Communist Manifesto
The idea that there was a “community of women” in which the proto state, or the clan, shared women was lobbed over and over again at lots of out groups through history and especially at anarchists and communists.
aimai
demkat620
Well your wingnut comprehension is better than mine, cause I didn’t understand a word of that.
r€nato
Of course gay is soc ialism, everyone knows that. I’m just disappointed at whoever let the cat out of the bag to that Schwartz guy that all porn is gay.
MikeJ
He’s right. Jesus lived with twelve guys and they pooled everything and was pretty explicitly communist. Gay marriage is a plot to make everybody be more like Jesus.
General Winfield Stuck
<em They are insane.
Yes
Public affirmation, why the fuck not Von King. As far as access to public funds, WTF? is he talking about welfare? You don’t need to get married for that if your an American Citizen. But maybe that’s the point. Only white, hetero, god fearin; wingnuts need apply in this jackass’s America.
Martin
This is the same argument that was used in the 50s and 60s against civil rights. The social!sm rant has never really been about economics (which is why so many poor people are willing to rant about it) but about status. The gay marriage people are trying to knock down the status of regular marriage, Obama is trying to make black people equal to white people, and taking away that hard earned white privilege.
Nothing new here – it’s all just more ‘I got mine, fuck you’.
asiangrrlMN
@joes527: This is teh best. Made me laugh. Thank you!
Good god. The wingnut in this one is very scary. He and Michele Bachmann should run away and hike the Appalachian Trail together and leave us poor Midwesterners the fuck alone.
Mark
Same King who said his greatest vote was no to Katrina relief. Of course he was all for a federal declaration of a disaster area after Iowa had devastating spring and summer floods.
jl
It is very obvious to me that John Cole is socialist.
Balloon-juice is socialist.
Everything is socialist except snaggle toothed grits standing at the doors of their bunkers with shotguns, defending their submissive wimmin and childrin from marauding bands of mutant beings who have been degraded to subhuman status by observing any social norms that span across the hereditary patriarchal clan which are ruled by a crazy abusive hysterical coot.
And rich guys. Rich guys are not socialist. Also.
General Winfield Stuck
Would it be too much to ask Mr. Cole for the BJ blog lords to fix the soshulist word in your posts so we don’t have to, to stay out of moderation. We are but minions afterall.
jl
I said that John Cole is socialist in my last comment and it is in moderation.
Pretty heavy hand around here at Ballon-Juice.
And look at this here: Tunch’s defintion omits a very salient fact.
r€nato
I keep re-reading the last half and I can’t understand what he’s trying to say. Public roads and schools are gay? Gay money has gay cooties and he doesn’t want it infecting his straight tax money?
Just Some Fuckhead
All the ghey people I know will be voting a straight Republican ticket as soon as Democrats finish securing their marriage rights.
schrodinger's cat
Shorter King:
I iz in Ur Congress, being an idiot
AkaDad
Moderation is Soshulist.
beltane
Steve King’s “analysis” is proof of the fact that wingnuts lack sufficient brain power to analyze anything. Truly, this man would be lucky if he had even a fraction of my cats’ intelligence. Rather than try to refute all these accusations of socialism, we should embrace them. Maybe we should wear T-shirts that say “Proud socialist: coming to take your god away”.
JK
All you need to know about Steve King:
h/t http://www.spencerdailyreporter.com/story/1316727.html
freelancer
“He and Michele Bachmann should run away and hike the Appalachian Trail together and leave us poor Midwesterners the fuck alone.”
Yet another dictionary entry
bdc
When I was a kid I commies were the boogie man of choice so I, jokingly, called everything I didn’t like “communist”. When anyone disagreed with me they were a “damned commie”. The phrase was short hand for “I don’t like this”. I was 15. I grew out of this habit.
freelancer
“He and Michele Bachmann should run away and hike the Appalachian Trail together and leave us poor Midwesterners the fuck alone.”
Yet another dictionary entry!
beltane
@JK: Oh goody. Obama was elected president which means This War on Terror is officially over.
MikeJ
He’s waiting for his webmistress to apply the fix I suggested, but I think it’s simple enough even an ex-republican could do it.
Go to the Options > Discussion > Comment Moderation panel.
In the Spam Words textarea box, find the boner pill. Add a space in front of it.
jl
The practice of putting any comment with the word soshulist into moderation is probably is hold over from the old days.
The Bearded Blogger
@joes527: I harbor the hope that all this crazy conspiracy theorizing might lead republicans to a spiritual epiphany in which they comprehend the fundamental interconnectedness of all things… Obama is connected to Acorn and Stalin, which are connected to Gay Marriage and, umm, France… I am here as you are me as we are all together… Rush is the Walrus!
Ash Can
Good Lord. This poor man needs an intervention before he OD’s and kills himself.
Dave C
As Josh Marshall noted, this is great Sully bait.
Joey Maloney
OT- the BJ dictionary has me rolling on the floor. You do need an entry for the 101st Chairborne, since they’re referenced in an entry.
John Cole
I think I fixed the socialist thing. And shoes.
General Winfield Stuck
socialist test shoes test
General Winfield Stuck
Nope, not fixed yet. but thanks for trying.
Brian J
What about Cantor’s remarks that a woman who has tumors but no job and thus no insurance should look to either government programs (after she’s poor enough to qualify, of course) or charitable organizations? Subbing in for Olbermann, Lawrence O’Donnell is rightfully highlighting this garbage. I hope the DCCC finds a candidate who will hang that clip over his head and run him right out of congress.
Tattoosydney
Shoes. Shoes. Socialist gay shoes.
ETA: Nope, not fixteth.
MikeJ
My apologies if it didn’t work. Putting both words in your test post makes it impossible to tell which didn’t work, but I’d put money on soçialist.
The Bearded Blogger
@Martin: Anything that erodes my privileged status is soshalism!
@bdc: Brussel sprouts are fucking communist.
The Grand Panjandrum
1. Read Playboy and turn gay!
2. Then find a nice same sex spouse.
3. Socia1ism …
I think I’ve got it.
General Winfield Stuck
@MikeJ:
Well I ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, specially when computers are the topic.:)
Roger Moore
@joes527:
I don’t think so. A quick check of the Net suggests that there’s already plenty of free pr0n out there. I guess that just proves the point that pornographers are evil socialists.
JK
Joe Wilson is Steve King’s BFF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vv-X_DpMgg
The Bearded Blogger
@Brian J: I don’t know, but I’d guess Cantor’s district is deep red crazy territory. We need a new Cantor’s theorem, something like, “If x is a human being in great suffering, then the role of government towards x is to tell x to fuck off and find a charity”
Mark
He sure was a socialist last summer after his state was repeatedly hit by disasterous flooding. This from the Rep who said his bestest vote was no to Katrina relief (that passed anyway).
JK
@Tattoosydney:
OT
I was watching the news earlier and saw a report about the dust storm in Sydney. It was very disturbing. How bad are conditions where you are?
Linkmeister
As I said at my place, can the rest of us Steves sue this clown for defamation of our name?
The Bearded Blogger
@Dave C: Judging by the rose colored glasses through which he sees everything in the right, he’d see it as a positive sign that the troglodytes are turning towards fiscal isssues. Poor Sully, trying to be an American Tory… the conservatism he craves died a couple of centuries ago, if it ever existed.
jl
@The Bearded Blogger: Cantor has no trope, no tag, no nickname, no leitmotif. I propose ‘Cantor Dust’ to describe Cantor’s mental processes and statements, either oral or written.
It’s a math joke.
Tonal Crow
Doesn’t that mean that corporations — in which everyone works for maximum profit, which management then metes out to employees and owners — are also sockialist? Or is it sockialist only if King says it’s sockialist?
Molly
Went Galt at work today in a moment of piqué, and found myself slogging my way through the entire Hamsher thread of 2006. Notable:
1. Amazing how little some things change, including the civility of our national discourse.
2. DougJ was a great troll.
3. John, I am proud of the man you have become.
geg6
I have read this idiot’s comments about three times today and I still think the wheels came off at some point there. That is, if he actually intended to make sense there. He may not have. In which case, he was very successful. So kudos, Rep. King!
Wile E. Quixote
Soⅽⅰaⅼⅰsm
Soⅽⅰaⅼⅰst
Ⅽⅰaⅼⅰs
Ⅴⅰagra
Pharmaⅽy
Aⅾⅾeraⅼⅼ
Oⅹyⅽontⅰn
JK
@Brian J:
Eric Cantor should be the first member of the House of Reps to receive a punch in the neck from John Cole.
Last night, asiangrrlMN sounded amenable to the idea of giving Cantor a kick in the groin.
Wile E. Quixote
Unicode glyphs are your friend.
Wilson Heath
So “a society where the foundations of individual rights and liberties” prevent two people from associating with each other as they choose, huh? Rights, liberties, and freedoms must mean something else in Bizarro World. Where’s Inigo Montoya when you need him? (The “you keep using that word” bit, not the “prepare to die” one.)
Just Some Fuckhead
Finally, I can sell cialis on this limp blog.
kommrade reproductive vigor
O, you take the straight road, I’ll take the gay road, and I’ll be in San. Fran afore ye!
jl
@JK: Let’ s not mention Asiangrrl’s proposal to kick Cantor, or any wingnut, in the groin.
That brings up the issue of eugenics, which bring up sensitive issues at a soshulist blog like this.
Tattoosydney
@JK:
Yesterday was odd – the sky was bright red early in the morning, and the sun was blue. Then everything turned yellow as the sun rose, with squally winds that would knock you over… it was all very “The day after”.
About 3pm yesterday the winds finally started blowing in the one direction and blew the dust out to sea, except for the 4000 tonnes of dirt that are now covering all parts of Sydney, including our car and garden.
It’s all over now, except for the rash of sinusitus cases, and every car wash owner on the east coast of Australia raking in more money in the next week than they have all year….
Corner Stone
Can I just say that I think the whole denying Qaddafi a place to raise his tents while at the U.N. is really fucking childish and bush league? Yeah he’s an abomination on the world stage. And we prove what exactly by telling him he’s too stinky to sleep on our soil? He’s not a good guy by any stretch but come on.
This reminds me of the the whole debacle over refusing super scary terrorists from Gitmo into Supermax prisons.
Just grow up already.
Makewi
It’s kind of an interesting discussion in a crazy sort of way. I’m not sure where King would source this idea from, but it is an idea that has sources.
I haven’t yet read Marx, Engels, Shaw, Babel, etc. I am somewhat familiar with the discussions regarding marriage, where the saner elements (IMO) came down on the side of greater freedom on the issues of marriage and religion than on the that of wages and prices.
camchuck
The Steve Kings of the world: creative and scary, for sure.
RedKitten
@Molly: Christ, you too? I just slogged back through it now, and it was a real trip down memory lane, if only to see some of the people who used to comment here. I wonder where some of the old gang went to — Ancient Purple, capelza, Blue Neponset…hell, we haven’t even seen Pooh around here lately.
/starts humming “Sunrise, Sunset”
bellatrys
I’m gonna make a wild-ass guess and say that US Political Reality is going to force WP to drop “socialist” from its list of bad, bad words…
Brian J
@The Bearded Blogger:
While Cantor defeated his opponent by 26 points, McCain defeated Obama in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District by only seven points. Perhaps the margin is smaller only because of the Obama campaign’s machine and would have been larger in its absence, it doesn’t look to be so reflexively right wing as to be a waste of time. The people at an organization like the DCCC probably know better than me, but we keep hearing about the likelihood that Republicans are going to win seats, perhaps a lot of seats, in 2010 and how the Democrats need to motivate their base to stay competitive, among other things. Things can change quickly, and perhaps they won’t look hopeful in 2010 or 2012, but we have another example of a Republican making a fool of himself while representing a district that is more conservative than most but not so conservative as to be unattainable. Why not expand the map, if possible? Hell, I hope to be in law school at the time, but I’ll throw in some money if it means seriously challenging these guys.
Via Wikipedia.
Corner Stone
@Brian J:
Don’t do it.
Corner Stone
While I like teh edit, why do I get trapped there after saving an edit to a comment?
The Bearded Blogger
@Brian J: It does sound doable… also, it would be sweet to deprive republicans of their last non-lilly-white congresscritter, and their majority leader, to boot. In this kind of district, it would not only take the incumbent’s being an ass (a given), but also an exceptional candidate, someone with a story to tell.
MikeJ
1) Out party always picks up in off year elections.
2) The GOP is down so low it would be difficult to not improve.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Now, wait a minute. It was JK’s suggestion that I kick Cantor in the groin, not mine. I just merely agreed to give it serious thought.
shoes.
Brian J
@Corner Stone:
Why?
GregB
We went to war in 1776 over the words of a King.
Down with monarchy, down with Steve King!
That makes about as much sense as his effing gibberish.
-G
asiangrrlMN
Ok. Footwear went through.
Socialism.
Sockulism, not so much.
RedKitten
testing shoes
bellatrys
FYI re the dictionary, I *think* that Corrente (the original, pre-schism edition) was responsible for coining the term “Clenis.”
(The fact that our national dialogue needed such a coinage so desperately says a heckuva lot about the Nineties, none of it very inspiring.)
jl
@asiangrrlMN: Oh. Sorry. I thought you were going to go do it, and it would be big news, Balloon-Juice would be famous, there would be a commenter who wrote from the pokie for awhile, and all Balloon-Juice commenters would become rich and famous from interviews and the books we would write about the infamous history of the event.
My bad. But I have already spent the money. Can you help me out a little on that score?
Corner Stone
@r€nato:
What would one have to do to score some of this gay fat cash?
Wilson Heath
@Corner Stone:
Yes, seriously. I would generally recommend against law school for most, especially if student loan debt is part of the equation. Legal education, even at public schools, is ridiculously over-priced and the legal market isn’t just in the doldrums, it’s on a cusp of an epochal change. Really big money was only ever in play for some, not most, graduates, anyway, and the market probably won’t ever support big legal fees in the same way. Look up the bi-modal distribution on Bill Henderson’s Legal Profession Blog and generally poke around there.
Doing law can still be right for some people, but it’s an opportunity cost to do law school and non-dischargeable debt is a hell of a risk. Forewarned is forearmed.
The Bearded Blogger
Toilets are sossialist. I mean think about it. All your private, personal and individual cah-cah is going to the same place. It all ends in the same public cesspools and eventually the ocean, an institution more soshalist than any, belonging at once to a huge number of people in many nations. All poop is pooled because that is the direction in which we are going. And not only is it a radical social idea, it is a purely sochialist concept in the final analysis.
I think they are fighting sowsialism with surrealism
Corner Stone
@Brian J: Unless you’re intent on going into your local D.A., or public defender, then I have to warn you that the law industry is in a state of flux and all the shiboleths will be shaken down over the next five years.
Private law is being commoditized as we speak, and unless you strive to be a top 5% out of the top 10 or 20 law schools – you’re done.
asiangrrlMN
Ok. Footwear went through.
Sockulism, not so much.
@jl: Well, if you can promise me all that, I would certainly do it! Anything for the greater good of BJ.
Demo Woman
cialis shoes
JK
@Tattoosydney:
Glad to hear that the worst part appears to be over.
I’m not familiar with Australia’s weather patterns, have you ever experienced anything like this dust storm before?
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Fake hubby, I’m glad you are OK. Good to see ya!
freelancer
This just in, gay things are like things that are not gay.
This applies to sockalism, also.
Drugs are like that too.
Demo Woman
The mod is going to be up all night while we test various words.
JK
@jl: @asiangrrlMN:
This is my fault for being sloppy in my previous post.
jl – asiangrrlMN is absolutely correct that I came up with the proposal to kick Cantor in the groin. I thought it was a neat idea.
joes527
That’s it Cole.
Let my sock puppet die in moderation.
What kind of blog is this anyway?
Can’t run a perfectly honest sock puppet.
Can’t flog dick pills.
Can’t even offer dicount footwear.
It is S*O*C*I*A*L*I*S*M I tell you.
Corner Stone
@Wilson Heath: If we were both Native American Indian our name would be “Speaks with one tongue”.
gwangung
What? Socialism?
Dang. Still being moderated.
Brian J
Wilson Heath and Corner Stone:
Way to bring me down from the good mood I was in.
Seriously though, elaborate more, if you don’t mind.
Corner Stone
@Brian J: FSM but I don’t know where to start. Do you feel like you may go public or private? What law school?
salparadise
This is the kind of post I come here twenty times a day looking for – it really is that simple, “this is the type of moron who was running out country.”
May you be touched by his noodley appendage, John Cole.
Brian J
@Corner Stone: Does that mean Flying Spaghetti Monster or something else?
I’m not sure yet, but a big part of me wants to go to a part of the country besides New York. I tend to cast a wide net and will probably apply to a lot of schools, so in addition to something like places like Hofstra, Brooklyn, St. Johns, and Cardozo, I’ve been looking at schools across the country. The problem is, a lot of them that justify a big move are hard to get into. I might apply to a few like UCLA or Berkeley if I get a high enough score just to see what happens, but my guess is, I’m aiming for something more on the level of UW-Madison to name one public and Pepperdine to name one private.
Or were you referring to public law or private law? If that’s the case, I’m even less sure, because I’m not entirely settled on what sort of law I wish to pursue.
thomas Levenson
@MikeJ: Not to mention that one of my favorite cousins, Bishop Hugh Montefiore, Anglican prelate of the diocese of Birmingham (and why should a nice Jewish boy not be a bishop) who as Dean of the Chapter pointed out to a group of Cambridge women at a University Women’s lunch that Jesus himself was likely gay, given the implications in the Roman Palestine Jewish community of being 33 years old and single. The supposedly private lecture leaked, leading to the tabloid headline “Dean Says Jesus Was A Bugger.”
snetzky
I live in Iowa (though not in Steve King’s district, thankfully) and he is an embarrassment on almost a daily basis.
I keep going back to thinking perhaps we are not so much Mayans as Romans watching our country crumble as we wait at the gates for the Barbarians of the right wing to destroy us instead of standing up to reclaim our country.
Cavafy had it right.
freelancer
@Molly:
@RedKitten:
I’m about 1/4th of the way through that thread now. I think I started lurking in like ’07. Still, Fuckin’ WOW!
Tattoosydney
@JK:
We are a big arid country – effectively about 7 million square kms of desert surrounded by a band of green stuff that only stretches about three or four hours drive inland… most inland areas have been pretty much drought declared for the last 30 years, so drought is not unusual at all.
Duststorms are not common, but happen every now and then… In 1983, our second largest city, Melbourne, was hit with about 50,000 tonnes of finest topsoil that had blown away…
Yesterday’s storm seems to be being reported globally as much worse than it was – really it was a few hours of creepy darkness and some red dirt inhalation…
Tattoosydney
@asiangrrlMN:
Hello. Is it the weekend yet?
asiangrrlMN
@snetzky: Like me and Bachmann. I am so goddamn embarrassed by her, and yet, I am thankful for not being in her district. Like I said, the two of them need to hike the Appalachian Trail tout de suite and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
asiangrrlMN
@Tattoosydney: Not quite yet, babe. But in your part of the world, closer than it is here.
Josh Huaco
This idiot makes me ashamed to be from northwestern Iowa.
JK
@Tattoosydney:
Unfortunately, the state of the MSM has been in steady decline for some time. They’re far too prone to hype. The storm provided dramatic visuals and we all know how much the MSM loves dramatic visuals.
JK
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN COLTRANE
September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967
My Favorite Things
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_n-gRS_wdI
So What
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGrUDAzlXzI
JK
HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAY CHARLES
September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004
America The Beautiful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRUjr8EVgBg
In the Heat of the Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCs4F2_8BWw
jl
@JK:
I have had a conversion. The commenter who pointed out the socialism of public sewer systems made me see the error of my liberal ways.
I am going back to the purity of my previous quasi-glibertarianism.
If John Cole and his suspicious ACORN like minions of Balloon-Juice are not total SOSHULISTS, they will go on a ‘Bring Back the Privy” Campaign.
Why, I ask, has John Cole and Balloon-Juice blog borg not denounced sewer systesms?
You see how this collectivist rot seeps through the soil, er, sole, soul, Whatever.
JK
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
September 23, 1949
Thunder Road
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KngiJUNdsu0&feature=related
Detroit Medley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYJ2PLwlgpg&feature=related
Corner Stone
@Brian J: Yes, the Flying Spaghetti Monster may She be praised!
I was referring to your ultimate goal, practice public or private law.
But the choice of law school is instructive. The fat cash days of being an attorney in a medium to large-ish private law firm are over. They aren’t coming back. For reasons too numerous to go into here – but essentially the client has changed due to crushing business pressures. They want more, and they want it for free or flat fee or heavily discounted. They won’t pay for 1st or 2nd years on their case, they’ll expect the Billing Partner to write off chunks of 3rd or 4th year work, and they’ll want a Partner’s time on their billed at a 5th years’ rate. The Realization rate is dropping from 93% down to closer to 86% and the PPP is getting squeezed. Know how the Partners are countering? Firing staff, holding associates from moving forward in Class Years, and generally pulling up the ladder after them. They aren’t passing hours down to associates so they have none, don’t get any complicated work, don’t develop client contacts and essentially repeat Kindergarten for a few years.
I can tell you that in some firms in 2001 first years started at $110,000 w/ IP premium at $115,000. Last year the first years were bumped to $160,000. Next year? If they get hired at all for full time they may get $135,000 or so but most will come in at .75 or .50 FTE and pay. That’s if they get brought on which all will not be.
Now, I hear the collective groan out there when they see the six figure salary, and I agree. But we’re talking about a lot of people who graduated top 10% from the best 30 or so schools in the US. They speak 3 or more languages, have either lived in or traveled extensively through other countries, have family money and/or connections and impressed the balls off the hiring partner when they Summer Clerked.
It really is a different world.
Normal people get through 3 years of law school, rack up $100K+ of debt and are lucky to find a slot in a beautique shop at $70 – $80K per year. And yeah, that’s a lot of scratch. Until you consider what you have to do for it. And people say, “I’m not afraid of hard work. Let me at it!” But they don’t realize the hours, the drudgery, the partners they have to deal with, the expectations and the crushing pressure of billable time.
It used to be that if you worked hard, billed 2200+ hours a year for 8 years you had a decent shot at partner and eventually the cash. Now, not so much. (And to bill 2200 hours you have to work about 2800 hours or so – 55 hours a week, every week)
I could write a pamphlet but I won’t. Bottom line – being an attorney has changed, is changing and will continue to change. It’s not going to be what it was and I feel bad for the people who thought it was a path to something better.
arguingwithsignposts
Let me just drop in here to say we all have idiots for Reps. to be ashamed of. I’m from Texas, and we have so many blots on our record it’s not even funny. Pick a state. Sure, the southern states have a higher percentage, but even the liberal bastions of Cali and NY have their special K reps.
So don’t be ashamed. Find the good in the bad and fly that freak flag. S.C. has James Clyburn. Ga. has Carter. Miss. has, well, my mind is blanking… Iowa has marriage of teh gheys, etc.
arguingwithsignposts
@asiangrrlMN:
Re: King and Bachmann – the only problem with that scenario is that they might spawn.
Bill E Pilgrim
Well, at least we understand what the connection between cialis and socialist really was.
Meaning, of course, that right wingers seem to be obsessed with both.
joes527
@freelancer: I stopped at the comment explaining how Red Dawn was a really good movie.
It is beyond words.
Bill E Pilgrim
Ah. Yes, of course, the one is unblocked but the other not. How silly of me. Repost:
Well, at least we understand what the connection between c i a l i s and socialist really was.
Meaning, of course, that right wingers seem to be obsessed with both.
Brian Griffin
@Martin: Martin nails it at #8:
In fact, I feel kind of stupid for not making this connection the very first time I heard someone call obama that. It all makes so much more sense now.
bellatrys
@snetzky:
Nah, yer buying into the ancient rightwing frame which has been used to justify natalism and Know-Nothingism for longer than any of us have been alive: the real histories are much messier and subversive, many of The Barbarians were desperate immigrants fleeing famine and war in their homelands (there’s a reason it’s called The Age of Migrations) being used as cheap disposable labor/ballista fodder who eventually got seriously POd by this for obvious reasons, the kleptocrats who were using them were many of them the “finest families” of Old Rome *or* the nouveau riche who’d bought their way into the halls of power and over all the many attempts at preventing fiscal conflicts of interest in the Senate – the parallels to the Mayflower Mayberry crowd and the current insourcing/outsourcing to keep sucking off the fruits of the laborers’ work are only rivalled imo by the original 19th-century tactics of bringing in new batches of desperate immigrants to undercut the latest group of attempted unionizing, accompanied by the inevitable freakouts over the dilution of Pure American Stock by these non-English-speaking degenerate Frenchies and Eyetalians and Greeks and so on…we want our mills SUPERPROFITABLE DAMMIT – but we DON’T want all these scary furriners living in the same towns as us! When are we getting our steam-driven ROBOT WORKERS to make the wretched refuse GO AWAY?
[/Henry Cabot Lodge’s Id]
Plus ca fucking change, like I always say…the victors who finally took over from the collapsing Imperium tried to maintain a symbolic continuity with the past, something you learn if you study art history and architecture which doesn’t jive with the “Barbarians At The Gates” narrative either…
Captain Goto
Did someone say, “Ray Charles?”
[I hope this works…]
asiangrrlMN
@arguingwithsignposts: Ew. Just, ew. You are right. That would be a very bad thing. Seeing you post is a very good thing!
JK
@arguingwithsignposts:
Like Nina Simone said, everybody knows about Mississippi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W3xDasB1Yk
Captain Goto
One more time:
Did someone say, “Ray Charles?”
freelancer
@joes527:
Heh. I went a little past that, got halfway through the thread til Hamsher herself gave up because the whole thing turned into a hair-on-fire Hockey fight about semantics.
Gah, this place has come a long way.
Kayla Rudbek
@Corner Stone: @Wilson Heath:
So I should get out of patent law and go back to school then? (which is the way the wind seems to be blowing…unemployed for over a year now, I should have gone to med school instead…)
Martin
@Brian Griffin:
Anything in this photo look familiar?
Communism?
Anti-christ?
They’ve been doing this for half a century.
bellatrys
@arguingwithsignposts:
We’re *trying* to get rid of Judd Gregg – the thing is, he’s so low key and canny about not saying egregious things that sheer inertia has kept him pretty safe. The fact that local grass-roots were able to stamp him with the “Rubber Stamp Republican” label along with Sununu and Bass in the last election is helping, since what he was *not* saying got highlighted, namely that he *wasn’t* actually differentiating himself from the Bushies any more than they others, for all their talk of being some of the sane, moderate, normal ones.
It would almost be easier if he *were* as awful as Bachmann or King – but if he were he wouldn’t have ever been elected…
Honus
“While Cantor defeated his opponent by 26 points, McCain defeated Obama in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District by only seven points.”
The 5th district went democrat last year. the 7th could easily go that way. Much of Cantor’s appeal came from the perception that he was a thoughtful, moderate republican republican, being jewish and all, something he has spent the past few weeks undermining.
Martin
I should point out that the wingnuts of the 50s and 60s were not only better spellers, but were conscientious enough to get professional signs made.
Brian J
@Corner Stone:
I don’t mean to be invasive, but is the situation you describe the same one you’re in? I ask because I’ve heard stories that suggest the opposite, sort of. Not that it’s a cakewalk by any means, but I’ve heard of people through family and friends who aren’t superstars who are still doing well. Is that entirely part of the past? What makes you so sure?
I understand that conditions change, but all things considered, is really that worthless? To perfectly honest, that doesn’t sound that bad to me. As long as there’s a chance to move forward, it’s still possible for me to do so. Or are you that certain that the chance to move up and make more money ends after a certain point?
Corner Stone
@freelancer: Couple things stand out from that thread.
Where is this “Slide” character? I’d like to see more of him/her here.
JK
@arguingwithsignposts:
If you look around, you can find a few progressive minded people in Mississippi
http://www.greenpartyms.org
jl
I had a comment blocked that contained some derivative of shoshulist. I think the filter is seeing the drug name in the variants.
Which brings to mind, why is the s o s h u l i s t Balloon-Juice blocking drug names? What does Balloon-juice have against patent drugs? The hard working drug ad spammers? When will John Cole denounce poor people who need drugs? And commenters who are eager to enjoy the informational advantages of the genius of capitalist marketing entrepreneurs?
Do you see how this oh so innocent looking s o s h u l i s m rolls down the slippery slope into oppressive totalitarianism?
Corner Stone
@Kayla Rudbek: Patent law is doomed.
Many, many, many companies are shelving/settling everything but the “bet your company” issues. Couple that with the inevitable rewrite of copyright/patent law in the next decade.
Can’t tell you what to do but…doomed.
Brian J
@Kayla Rudbek:
If you already graduated with a JD, what would you go back to school for? Also, what part of the country are you in?
arguingwithsignposts
@JK:
I give miss. some props for some progressive ppl (had a friend who lived there for 20 yrs), but the gov’t component is pretty backwards.
BTW, did I just hear AutoTune in the finale of “Glee Club” first episode?
freelancer
@Martin:
I got $10 that says Tbogg uses this image in his forthcoming post about King.
Corner Stone
@freelancer: Cole still does all the same things. He caustically dismisses any position that goes against his internal set, then gets called on it by a ton of commenters, he fights his way through for what seems like ever, then toward the end of the thread he admits he gets why people fought so hard to set the argument in the correct frame.
The question of pot smoking that Obama made a joke of, for instance.
Corner Stone
@Brian J: Passing the Patent Bar adds a premium to your compensation. But I’ll let Kayla speak to that situation.
Also, you don’t have to go back to school to study for the Patent Bar – if that’s what we’re all talking about here.
JK
@arguingwithsignposts:
I think any progressive who lives in Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Alaska, Arizona, or Wyoming deserves sympathy and a medal.
Anne Laurie
@Wilson Heath:
Just out of curiosity, what’s your take on paralegal programs? I’ve gotten the impression that a lot of lawyers who couldn’t rely on family connections and/or Ivy networking are now doing what used to be considered paralegal jobs, which would be okay if they hadn’t incurred so much student debt getting those JDs…
freelancer
@JK:
Not according to Dreggas.
Kayla Rudbek
@Corner Stone:
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. The USPTO is currently losing money on the patent side of the house, currently has a hiring freeze on examiners, and if my gut is correct, the Supreme Court will really mess things up for patent law within the next year or so. (Not that they have not done such already within the last 8 years, but I could see things getting even worse).
@Brian J: Probably a p h a r m a c y degree or forensic chemistry, maybe medical school or nursing, based on the way that demographics are going. Currently in the Midwest, was out in California for the last several years. I’d either get out of law entirely or else switch to writing biotech patents (if there is anything left by the time I’d be out of school again). So I’d welcome health care reform quite enthusiastically (as long as we expand the medical school and nursing school admissions)
The Dangerman
I may have dropped some cialis into one of my shoes.
Mike in NC
“If I were an idiot, and if I were a Congressman, but I repeat myself” – Mark Twain
The Dangerman
My first moderation; I’m having a Macy Gray moment here.
geg6
All you Iowans can relax. Here in most-of-the-time-blue PA (thank FSW for Philly and the ‘Burgh), we have Pat Toomey and Tim Murphy of the fascination with pens in the congressional gift shop when FDL was filming congresscritters who wouldn’t admit Obama was American. And we used to have Melissa Hart and Man on Dog (which should be in the dictionary, by the way). Your state, too, could get sick of the wingularity in its midst and toss this crazy fucker out.
geg6
Oh, and by the way, I must go OT to report that the G20 hysteria has reached peak. I was just just treated to a breathless report that began, “Maybe I’m a geek but…” and went on to spend 2 minutes on empty planes from foreign countries sitting on the runway at PIA. And now another on swearing in the out of town police volunteers. It’s gonna be a long two days around here.
JK
@Mike in NC:
Win.
Corner Stone
@Brian J: No worries, not invasive.
I’m not an attorney, thankfully. Let’s just say I deeply understand the business model.
It’s true – lots of people are making a lot of money and if you’re not too far in debt it can all be pretty sweet. Mercedes coupe convertible, downtown loft, etc.
But what I’m saying is that the lifestyle associated with private law associates is over. Over.
When the Profits Per Partner get squeezed because their 20 year clients start asking for flat fees, or 10% discounts uo front with a backend nod-wink-10% extra (that their partners don’t approve), what do you think will happen?
I’ve seen it, I’ve predicted it, and by goodness it’s coming. The cramdown is real.
You say that doesn’t sound too bad to you – and I agree to an extent. But who says you’ll get a chance to work that hard and bill 1800, 1900, or 2050 hours if you’re lucky? And getting started is the easy part. You’re protected for the first 18 or so months, then you become fungible. The larger firms have to keep recruiting from premier law schools or lose their spots for 3 – 5 years after they stop. So you’re fighting against younger students who don’t know anything either – and both of you are fighting against lower cost jurisdictions as big firms offshore their template work. The best work product from each firm, also called Knowledge Management, is bubbled up and scrutinized so that anyone can take the best examples of pleadings, deal docs, etc and fill in the blanks while still maintaining the firms’ good brand. Know how much they charge in Southeast Asia?
Anyway – yes – a lot of people have made a lot of money grinding their gears. And they will continue to do so. But it’s like a funnel. Each year there are fewer and fewer doing that well and more and more circling the rim.
Sorry, but that’s IMO.
jl
@Kayla Rudbek: There is still a nursing shortage, but I think there is a reason for that. Nurses work under high pressure, have to punch clock, have to deal with some segments of doctor community that are still pretty arrogant.
Pharmacists have a good job market. There has been a pharmacist shortage that seems to have gone on forever, and is always supposed to be ending. But job market is still there. Pharmacists are moving more into clinical work with patients, and health systems management side of clinical work and less and less pill counting and selling, since that side of it is so automated now. Most work in filling prescrptions is done by pharmacy technicians with a pharmacist reviewing the Rx on computer screen.
You have to have to be a pretty buttoned down disciplined person to work in pharmacy though. It is exacting work, and it seems to attract exacting people without much slack cut for sloppiness.
Physician assistant has good market too, but they don’t have much autonomy.
If a person has the discipline to do it, I think fields like pharmacist, physician assistant, nurse practioner.
Kayla Rudbek
@Brian J: @Corner Stone:
Yep, Corner Stone is right. In order to be a patent attorney, you have to be an attorney with a science or engineering undergrad (or college credits equivalent to such), and the Patent Office (USPTO) administers its own bar exam. However, the USPTO allows non-attorneys w/ the science & engineering background to take the exam and then practice as what’s called a patent agent.
Currently there are close to 9,500 agents and a little over 29,000 attorneys on the USPTO’s roster (although some of those people probably are effectively retired, or unemployed), but there are law firms and companies who will hire non-registered people to draft patents and then have the agent or attorney review, sign off & file.
So back before Dubya took office, there was a strong demand for patent attorneys & agents, but Dubya and his wrecking crew had roughly the same effect on the USPTO’s operations as they did on the rest of the country. And to make this on topic, Rep. King sounds like another one of the same ilk as the rest of the Republican wrecking crew. Consequently, I will never, never, never knowingly vote Republican again.
Punchy
Brad Lidge blew ANOTHER save. God damn he sucks. Good that he’s on my oppy’s fantasy b-ball team.
jl
I am in moderation again because I talked about the job market for p h * r m * c * s t s in response to another comment.
Geesh. Heavy manners around here now. Big discipline and punish for any infraction. We are always in violations!
We need to revolt against our oppressive Balloon-Juice overlords! To the barricades!
I’m not sure how blog readers revolt. Should I hit my computer?
Brian J
@Kayla Rudbek:
I was thinking about something in the intellectual property law field, because it seems interesting. I’m in the process of reading a book about it–or should I say, was in the process of reading about it, since I read books the same way a bad ADHD sufferer has a conversation–entitled Free The Market!: Why Only the Government Can Keep the Marketplace Competitive. I can’t I understand it all, but it certainly is interesting.
If I still go to school, which if I had to guess I will end up doing, I don’t know if I’d end up making that my focus. For one thing, I’ve been told a science background is usually necessary (not required, but necessary in the sense of the field being too hard to crack without it). Is that what you have? If so, isn’t there stuff you can do without going back to school?
Fulcanelli
@Brian J:
Civil Rights Law seems like a safe bet these days, dude.
ellaesther
@jl: I believe the standard procedure is to launch your own, FAR less popular blog, in which you rail against the overlords, and are slowly maddened by your low hit numbers.
/checks manual/
Yep. That’s it.
Corner Stone
@Anne Laurie: Paralegals are useful but it depends on what practice group and seniority. You can make $45,000 a year to start and still have 1600+ hour billable requirements.
LIT paralegals get worked/stressed to death and are interchangeable. Corporate paralegals have some late nights when deals are getting done but otherwise have some steady week in week out duties.
Personally, to be serious, I would recommend being a legal secretary. You get 3 or 4 assignments, work from 8 to 4:30 with some overtime and you only take shit from 3 people. (Really only 1 if you have a Partner and 3 associates) Good secretaries can make $60 to $70K+ with no worries. Become an Executive Assistant and own that Partner and never have any worries.
Martin
Environmental law. You heard it here first.
jl
@ellaesther: That’s a lot of work. Why can’t we just meet some place and yell and throw stuff? What a downer.
Brian J
@Corner Stone:
I have to say, you’ve had me worried enough that I’ve been typing e-mails to people to get their take on what you told me.
Anyway, not to be dense, but are you saying that the career is only going to get worse and worse as an option, so that even the available jobs won’t become much more rewarding (in any sense of the word) than any typical office job? Or is your point more that while the good lifestyle of the nice car and other material things is still possible, it’s not going to nearly as sweet ($100,000 for someone who is pretty successful versus $150,000 now, for instance) as it was–and that the jobs probably won’t be as plentiful anyway? In other words, is your point that it’ll be good, just not as good as it used to be, or are you saying that it’s going to suck suck suck, and then suck some more?
Also, to what extent do you think this is attributable to the economic downturn? If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better–not necessarily the same, just better–once things come back?
Kayla Rudbek
@Brian J: I have the science background, but I’ve been out of the lab for several years now, so I’m not entirely certain how I’d be regarded if I was trying to get back into the lab. I may try to start sending out resumes to see whether I can get an entry-level lab job.
Without a science/engineering background, you could do trademark law, copyright law, patent litigation, and maybe cyberlaw. My impression is that there is probably more demand for trademark paralegals than there is for the trademark attorneys, at least if you want to work for a law firm. Copyright law — you’re probably working for a publishing company, the media, or the RIAA. Patent litigation is still going on, but again I don’t think the demand for that is as strong (and may go down if fewer companies are filing patents).
Brachiator
Happy Birthday, Euripides
ca. 480 BCE–406 BCE
According to legend, Euripides was born in Salamís on 23 September 480 BCE, the day of the Persian War’s greatest naval battle
Euripides: Iphigenia (1977 film) – Ifigeneia begs to live
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lrv-IuUy5xE
It is better to be unhappy and alive than dead and glorified.
arguingwithsignposts
Can I just say the lawyas have nothin’ on the journalists when it comes to cratering job markets? Seriously. I’m sorry to rain on the discussion, but just wanted to throw it out there. The only growth markets seem to be things that involve fixing things – like plumbing. Digging around in other ppl’s shite is always going to be an industry that pays.
Medical? Even that’s shaky these days.
steve s
Always? Please provide evidence.
Robertdsc-iphone
In the early days of the Administration, I wished mightily for the President to do an event in King’s district & squash him like a bug. Alas it never came to be & King still spouts off. Le sigh.
steve s
While you’re at it, please look at the congressional elections of 2002.
jl
I just checked the dictionary and still no entry for Lily. I propose the following definition:
Lily: Ooooooh aren’t we a good dog! Aarf aarf! aren’t we the sweetest doggy of them all? Gooo Steelers. Woof. Aren’t we the goodest bestest doggy goooood doggy! Prefers green sh*t for rolling.
I also think the entry for Tunch is inaccurate, due to important omissions of fact.
Tunch: Large dignified white mammal currently classified as a cat. Known for ostentatious distain for its loving owner, who may be killed and eaten in his sleep if Tunch finally gets fed up, or misses another bed time snack. The exact mass of Tunch is subject to rancorous debate, but the lower bound estimate is enormous. It is rumored that Tunch appears on Google Earth, and may be responsible for mysterious tidal forces that produce unexplained perturbations in Earth’s orbit.
I assure people that these suggestions are not revenge for me always being in moderation because of the jihad against p h * r * m * c * * t * c * l terms being conucted this blog.
Brian J
@arguingwithsignposts:
If you’re not a journalist, then perhaps you can’t answer this, but it sounds like you are, and that’s why I’m asking. How do people who aren’t journalists by training, in the sense that they didn’t work their way like I imagine the majority do, but instead doctors or lawyers or something else get high profile jobs? Is it really as simple as taking an alternative route the top, like being a guest on a radio show, then authoring a few articles, then getting feedback to the point where it becomes a semi-regular thing, or is there something a little more unusual happening?
arguingwithsignposts
is there some new thread coming up?
freelancer
@arguingwithsignposts:
You kill me.
Fulcanelli
@Brian J: I don’t know where you are but the legal field isn’t looking too good here in New England: Economic Woes Limit Law Students
Civil Rights and Constitutional Law is the way to go. I’m in New England, and I know a number of Family Law attorneys and nobody’s doing well anymore in Family Law, they’re chasing ambulances or handling foreclosures.
But at least part of it is their own damn fault. I’ve never met a member of any profession that exploits and has so little basic human respect for their clients as a successful Divorce lawyer and I know quite a few of ’em.
JK
@Brachiator:
Nice clip. Too bad there aren’t any clips of Euripides playing his lyre. It would have fit together so nicely with the music clips of his fellow birthday boys John Coltrane, Ray Charles, and Bruce Springsteen.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian J:
Part of that is the problem. The definition of “journalist” has been bent just like the def. of “graphic designer” precisely because there is no professional accreditation like there is for “lawyer.” I’m not saying there should be, but …
I don’t consider a “professional journalist” as being someone who just spouts off (like I do) on a blog, or even goes to a meeting and reports what happens. Unfortunately, that’s what gets thrown into that definition.
I want fact checking, calling bullshit, writing like there was no tomorrow, backing up assertions. Matt Taibbi is an example. The McClatchey crew is as well. Hell, the Woodward and Bernstein that I saw in “All the President’s Men” would make the cut.
I want the NYT and WaPo to be clothed in sackcloth and ashes because of their transgressions against factuality. But what you seem to be addressing is the “expert” or “drip under pressure” syndrome, which I don’t consider anything near “journalism” in any decent sense of that word. /rant
Corner Stone
@Brian J: I hope you’re not e-mailing associates for their take on the situation because they are fucking clueless. They have no idea how their direct is charged, how overhead is figured, where their portion of their secretary is charged, how business development gets allocated, how associate profit is derived, etc etc etc.
They stick their head down and bill 2000+ to 2300 hours per year and have no idea how to talk to a potential client. They can’t develop business, can’t pitch an RFP and can’t first chair a trial. Because the partners are not incentivized to see to it that they can do any of these things.
Jeebus.
Not to be directed at you – I just always find it fascinating at the things people making $200K per year total compensation do not understand about their profit model.
Anyway, I’m saying it’s going to become a tighter and tighter spiral where you have two tiers – the top 5% of their class (aka superstars) and everyone else. Sure, super bright people, hard working people, total badasses will rise from the “everyone else” category but as far as the powers that be are concerned they will divide everyone into these two groups to start out.
The superstars will get preferential treatment due to their scores and connections and the rest will get a desk and be taught how to use Lexis-Nexis to print 100 page research projects for their Partner. I’m saying that private law will push their cost jurisdiction down to the lowest bidder, over and over again. They don’t have any choice.
If you have any friends at law firms ask them how many people advanced in class year? Ask them how many Summer Clerks they are recruiting for next year? (And if they recruit 20 SC’s they will make offers to 5 of them. This is an ahistoric time where the avg was 3/4 offers because they expected maybe 60% acceptance. Now they know if they offer 15 they will get 12 acceptances. The firm will not designate practice groups but leave it indeterminate, then defer their hiring, then offer them .75 of full time with commensurate pay and floating targets to move forward.)
It’s over. IT’S OVER!
Just like programmers got rockstar status then shoved aside, the era of the corporate associate slaving away for 7 years then making partner is over.
The jobs will be fewer, those doing the work will see more repitition and less complex work, they will have no revenue stream to point to, they will be trapped into working for one partner and will never have any leverage to move up or bargain. It’s not coming back. It’s over.
As I think was said earlier – it’s a change of epochs. They just haven’t realized it fully yet.
arguingwithsignposts
btw, i hear bankruptcy atty’s are doing well these days. But I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
tc125231
Well Jesus was a communist. Dang good thing those fundamentalist Christians got rid of that pinko.
Now their creed is based on half-baked social Darwinism.
JK
@arguingwithsignposts:
There’s still some good reporting and commentary being done in the MSM. If you’re not already reading them you should check out Bob Herbert, Clarence Page, Eleanor Clift, Errol Lewis for starters.
You should also check out these sites for good journalism from a progressive perspective
Media Consortium – themediaconsortiumdotorg
Consortium for Independent Journalism – consortiumnewsdotcom
Member radio stations of the Pacifica Foundation – pacificadotorg
Independent Media Center – indymediadotorg
Inter Press Service News Agency – ipsdotorg
Nation Institute – nationinstitutedotorg
MikeJ
OK, usually. Here’s a chart with every mid term back to ’42. 02 and 98 were exceptions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midterm_elections
Brian J
I want the NYT and WaPo to be clothed in sackcloth and ashes because of their transgressions against factuality. But what you seem to be addressing is the “expert” or “drip under pressure” syndrome, which I don’t consider anything near “journalism” in any decent sense of that word. /rant
MikeJ
@JK:
CSM http://www.csmonitor.com/
bellatrys
@geg6:
I was just just treated to a breathless report that began, “Maybe I’m a geek but…” and went on to spend 2 minutes on empty planes from foreign countries sitting on the runway at PIA.
Well, it *is* the Institute of Aeronautics – the G20 is just a peripheral/accidental thing whose importance revolves around the *sheer numbers of foreign airplanes sitting on the runway IN OUR SCHOOL*! Foreign *dignitaries*? Pfft! Who cares about *them* when you have NEW PLANES TO OGLE?
(Yes, I’m a bit of a plane geek myself – the people I was staying with when I had a chance to visit London lang syne had to deal with my ZOMGCONCORDE SQUEE! freakout my first day visiting, pity them…and yes, that’s one of the reasons I carry a monocular around at all times – the other is the Large Birds of Prey that hang around downtown.)
arguingwithsignposts
@JK:
Herbert I’ll give you. Lewis I’m not familiar with. I don’t like Clift because she kisses ass to McLaughlin. She almost seems an older Cokie Roberts.
I’m beyond the point of caring for ppl whose only job is writing a column 1-3 times a week. I know there are some who do good work, but then again, there’s George Will and Bill Kristol, not to mention David F-ing Brooks. I want journalists, not wanking shites who think they know wtf is going on – cough-thomas friedman – cough.
Hell, I have seen the future of journalism, and it’s a bunch of name-brand ppl who have a spin on things. It’s already here. And it’s sickening. I even hate Woodward for his crap.
freelancer
@tc125231:
For your consideration:
http://www.ifc.com/videos/wkuk-bus-backseat-season-3.php
Brian J
@Corner Stone:
Who else would I be e-mailing? I mean, the people I’m talking to aren’t young, but I don’t think any of them are partners.
Anyway, I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but perhaps there’s no other way. For someone who isn’t an attorney, you seem to have pretty strong opinions about this stuff. I don’t think you’re lying to me or necessarily trying to make things seem worse than they are, but it seems…hard to believe someone who isn’t directly related to the field can know what’s happening so specifically.
I mean, a lot of what you’re saying sounds convincing, because it’s not hard to imagine a lot of difficult changes happening based on economic belt tightening, but still, all the doom and gloom, and you try to tell me only a few people really know what’s going on, most of whom aren’t actually people who work in the field.
freelancer
@arguingwithsignposts:
@JK:
Guys,
I know we’re pretty much on the same wavelength here, but can Bill Moyers get a shoutout?
JK
@freelancer:
Absolutely, Moyers deserves a shout out.
asiangrrlMN
Cole! Where the fuck is the late night open thread?
tc125231
@freelancer: Yeah man. Thanks for a ride in the back seat. The back seat’s awesome.
JK
@MikeJ:
I agree that the Christian Science Monitor is very good for an MSM outlet. It sucks that financial problems caused them to give up their daily print edition. David Sterritt wrote great film reviews for them. I’ve also enjoyed their book reviews.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian J:
Hell no. But I never considered that to be journalism, either.
I’d consider helping get us into the Iraq War a pretty Fucking Low Point. Hiring and keeping on a guy who made up a lot of stuff seems like a pretty Fucking Low Point for the Damned Grey Lady. There are some great journalists there (and at WaPo), but WTF?
DeLong and Baker are funny, but they are a pair of academic economists. Their professional opinion is warranted (just like Krugman’s), but wtf actual reporting do they do? I realize this might descend into the “journalists-vs.-bloggers” debate, but I think there are bloggers who are doing real work too.
I want some f-ing IF Stone, some real journalism without the drudge bait. From the MSM. From the ppl who supposedly invented this stuff. I don’t want Tweety or Stephanopolous with their “expert panels” opining on bullshite they learned at a dinner party. The only reason Stephanopolous is a “journalist” is because he was Clenis’ right-hand man. /rant
freelancer
@asiangrrlMN:
Hon, you forgot your interrobang. “?!”
slag
Yo mama is a soci alist.
arguingwithsignposts
@arguingwithsignposts:
BTW, that goes for Chuck Fucking Todd too, and half of the WH press corps. They’re only there because they came up the right ranks, not because they do any actual reporting. I love maddow and olbermann, but I don’t consider a lot of what they do these days “journalism.” It’s “hosting,” or “asking questions” or whatever. But not what I consider “journalism.”
I give Dan Rather this credit – he went to Afghanistan. Cronkite went to Vietnam.
asiangrrlMN
@freelancer: Damn it, you’re right. I meant to use it. I really did?!
MikeJ
And Colbert went to Iraq.
Martin
Personally, I think there should. Journalism isn’t as life/death as medicine or engineering, but it’s dying a pretty glorious death at the hands of those that call themselves journalists and are anything but, and it’s a pretty important public service to have.
A little self-regulation is usually a good thing, and I wouldn’t mind utilization of the public spectrum to require some kind of accreditation of the agency.
Steeplejack
@Tattoosydney:
Is it the weekend yet?
Well, for you it’s closer than for us.
By the way, I just started The Last Continent and am enjoying the depiction of XXXX.
So far I have found the Rincewind series the weakest of the Discworld threads, but I think I was spoiled by reading the Night Watch series first. But I am still enjoying it a lot. I particularly like the Luggage, for some reason. And Cohen the Barbarian’s reappearance (with the Silver Horde) in Interesting Times, which I just finished today.
Wilson Heath
@Kayla Rudbek:
Hard to tell you what to do, but a thought that crosses my mind that probably doesn’t involve more student loan debt: have you thought of technical writing? There’s potentially a lot of overlap in skill set.
@Anne Laurie:
Re: paralegal jobs, it’s a hell of a thing to take out law school debt to do. Plus, if you follow law firm business, the firms have been cutting staff, including paralegals, as aggressively or more aggressively than they’ve been laying off attorneys. Attorneys are probably in greater oversupply because of the dreams of the big law firm lifestyle, but that’s still a tough job market right now. If I were looking to hire a paralegal, I’d prefer an experienced one over a fresh and desperate law school graduate who thinks they’re entitled to more and looking to jump out of a job that’s beneath them. And if the graduate got the job, it’s not good for their prospect of practicing law.
@Brian J:
(to your questions here generally)
Look, the rewards were always for the few. A lot of law firms just borrowed practices from top firms of hiring labor with better pedigrees and charging premium rates to their clients, and the market grudgingly accepted these changes while times were good. Well, sort of. In-house counsel bitched royally through the last couple big jumps in salary rates for associates. It was largely a signaling game by the firms — we pay top money, so we can draw talent from the best schools, and charge out the nose for it. Except a first year associate’s work isn’t worth much, or at least not that much. The clients were already pushing for different, more affordable billing models or trying to move legal work to cheaper vendors. Then the market crashed.
The firms had gotten by selling proxies for quality work instead of quality work. Not that the work was bad, but it was expensive. Attorneys from the best law schools are not reliably the best attorneys. They are, however, going to be more reliably employed because the school is a(n imperfect) proxy for quality. As the legal market peaked, the pool of the “elite” broadened to include the bottom of the class at any top school, and the top of the class at more middling schools. Good for democratization, and some great attorneys got their foot in the door and showed they were worth it, a good thing about the trend. But this created a bumper market for legal education on the possibility of a jackpot salary, and higher tuition and more student loan debt.
Even at peak legal, the bi-modal distribution was the outcome for 1st year salaries — a narrow hump around $160k a year, and a great big hump around $35-40k a year with big trough in the middle and an average salary around $65k a year. That’s gone. Firms are putting off start dates, rescinding offers, laying off staff and attorneys, and sometimes folding. Students at top schools with resumes that would have landed them the top salaries are graduating with nothing lined up. I went to a top 20 school and graduated around peak legal, and classmates of mine weren’t able to score attorney jobs then. Even when the economy improves, the law-school-industrial complex is minting more attorneys than there will be jobs for and is contributing to more debt than there will be (attorney) salary to pay.
Government attorney jobs used to be the refuge of graduates willing to work hard but in a reasonable work-life balance for steady, satisfying work and decent pay. It can be tight to live with the current typical debt load at first, but some things can help. (Research loan repayment assistance programs at various law schools, loan forgiveness for public service employees, and the repayment assistance programs of some federal agencies like DOJ and SEC.) But now everybody is scrambling for these jobs as they will still exist in nine months if you can land them. If you didn’t go to a top school, you can only hope that the hiring attorney favors genuine interest in the work of that job rather than an elite resume and the desire to just have a job.
Something has to give here. More law schools are opening every year, perversely enough. (They’re a cash cow, so I don’t say “amazingly enough.”) The state bars aren’t taking measures to limit entrants into the field — again, lack of incentive when they get bar exam fees, dues, and money for continuing legal education. And the business of law has had as much foresight as the morons who drove our economy off a cliff.
So I would advise severe caution about this road, especially if you just have a general impulse that the law might work out for you, unless you can finish school with little or no debt and that school is highly ranked enough that you have good job prospects. (Beware of exploding scholarships, though. Some schools offer full or partial tuition scholarships that the students have to requalify for after the first year, and there are so many people who have to requalify that not all can make the rank to do it. If you make the rank, you’re okay, but if you don’t, you can’t transfer so you pay full tuition or drop out. It’s basically a scam to draw in people with good GPA and/or LSAT to boost the school’s rankings.)
Mind you, I say as someone who really, really likes being an attorney and the job I have.
arguingwithsignposts
@MikeJ:
yeah, he’s a trooper. it is a truly sad state of affairs when our commedians are more on the tip than our journalists.
JK
@arguingwithsignposts:
I disagree with your assessment of Eleanor Clift. I think she’s head and shoulders above Cokie Roberts.
Given your level of discontent with the MSM, you should definitely check out the websites of those organizations I cited in my last post.
Here’s a list of political commentators I compiled after reading Doug’s post about the Atlantic’s list of the 50 most influential political commentators.
Spencer Ackerman
Dean Baker
Sidney Blumenthal
Steve Clemons
Eleanor Clift
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Juan Cole
Steve Coll
Joe Conason
David Corn
Mark Danner
Kevin Drum
Barbara Ehrenreich
James Fallows
Laura Flanders
Thomas Frank
William Galston
Al Giordano
Amy Goodman
William Greider
Pete Hamill
Thom Hartmann
Doug Henwood
Chris Hedges
Bob Herbert
Jim Hightower
John Judis
Fred Kaplan
Ron Kuby
Errol Lewis
Jeff Madrick
Taylor Marsh
Roland Martin
Markos Moulitsas
Timothy Noah
Clarence Page
Robert Reich
Laura Rozen
Greg Sargent
Dan Savage
Robert Scheer
David J. Sirota
Norman Solomon
Matt Taibbi
Ruy Teixeira
Michael Tomasky
Cenk Uygur
Katrina Vanden Heuvel
Joan Walsh
David Weigel
James Wolcott
Corner Stone
@Brian J: I understand your viewpoint, and I agree it’s good to get info from people you know, like and/or trust.
I’ll stand by what I said. But there’s no worries between us, I totally get what you mean.
But if you want a few kicks? Ask one of your associate friends how they pro rata their secretarial assignment, what their Biz Dev allotment is, who all has to sign off on it after what $ limit, and what expenses go to their direct.
But do it face to face. I’ll bet you donuts they look at you stupidly and sputter.
IOW, the absolute last person you want to ask about the business model of private law is anyone who is not an equity partner. And even then I’d take a lightning rod with me because FSM may strike them down by the time they’re done lying to you.
Oh well, no reason to take my word. I wish you luck and as I said – no worries about it all.
tc125231
@Brian J: This is a pretty fatuous argument. My brother, who is a 60 year old highly successful venture capital lawyer (and, yawn, a partner) says he has been overpaid for essentially historical reasons, and that is going to change.
I do believe that Corner Stone may have been excessively intense in one way: people in the upper 5% of ability and mastery in any profession will make pretty decent livings, and make quite a bit more than their “average” peers.
This is because, as study after study has shown in IT, they are often 3 to 5 times as prodictive as those peers.
This is not to suggest that they will make 3-5 times as much.
I have survived both the networking and dot com busts, and even flourished, modestly. That is –my income has consistently remained in the upper 5-10%. I have not, however, made anything like the money my brother has made in financial law. I think there is every reason to believe, as both Corner Stone and my brother suggest, that incomes in corporate law have been part of a sort of bubble, and are likely to go down. My brother’s arguments are pretty convincing.
The simplest one is this –whenever a profession makes above average returns for a long time, and there are not severe barriers to entry, people will flood into that market segment and returns will begin to go down.
Does that mean all is lost? No, it just means you’ll have to work for a living, as most people have since the beginning of time.
Martin
Olberman no, but Maddow gets a regular streak of it in. Not an hour, maybe 10 minutes, but it’s usually a better 10 minutes than I would get out of CNN during that hour.
freelancer
@arguingwithsignposts:
Lol, earlier today, I was on the fence about submitting the term “Glimmer Triplets” to the BJ Dictionary, referring to Tapper, Todd, and Chip Reid, being the WH correspondents for ABC, NBC, and CBS, respectively, while being absolutely disgusted that these three in-over-their-heads dick sucks are called reporters. I decided against it because I came up with the term during one of Obama’s pressers but decided it was too much an act of vanity. Still, to quote Clay Davis, “This is some shameful shit.”
JK
@MikeJ:
I wish Stephen Colbert had finally won the Emmy award for Best Outstanding Variety, Music Or Comedy Series. His shows from Iraq were brilliant. These episodes alone should have been enough for him to finally de-throne Jon Stewart.
I like Stewart, but I’m sick and tired of him having a stranglehold on this award. He’s won this award 7 fucking times already. What is Bill Maher? Chopped liver.
arguingwithsignposts
@JK:
Well, it’s not *that* hard to be head and shoulders above Cokie. She thinks Hawaii isn’t a state.
One thing I have a problem with about the Atlantic list is again, it’s a lot of bullshit artists (at least the top 50). Andrew Sullivan isn’t a “journalist.” He’s a mirror. Even though I *hate* some of Woodward’s recent work, at least he fucking interviewed people. He didn’t follow up on it, but he interviewed them and got them on record.
But I don’t put him on nearly the plane as Amy Goodman or Al Giordano. Or even Moulitsas – he puts his money where is mouth is.
I’m just tired of people equating “anything in print” with “journalist” or, more appropriately, “reporting.”
MikeJ
I don’t think those were eligible for this year. If viacom noms them for next year they’ll be tough to beat. Who wants to vote against entertaining troops?
His xmas special was the best evar second only to the Chuck Jones’ version of Grinch (or the version for the stage I produced in HS).
arguingwithsignposts
And just for the record,
It’s billy bragg, everybody
tc125231
@JK: Bill Maher is a sanctimonious twat of limited talent who rarely actually does his homework.
He can be funny, although rarely for more than 10% of a show. Bust he is rarely informative, except by accident.
tc125231
@JK: Bill Maher is a sanctimonious twat of limited talent who rarely actually does his homework.
He can be funny, although rarely for more than 10% of a show. But he is rarely informative, except by accident.
tc125231
@JK: Bill Maher is a sanctimonious twat of limited talent who rarely actually does his homework.
He can be funny, although rarely for more than 10% of a show. But he is rarely informative, except by accident.
JK
@arguingwithsignposts:
What I like about Eleanor Clift is that she doesn’t apologize for being liberal. Even on the McLaughlin Group, she does push back. She’s not a wishy washy liberal like that unbearable Ruth Marcus. Last week on the NewsHour, Marcus was constantly tripping over herself to express agreement with David Brooks.
My advice to you is to visit the sites of those progressive journalist orgs. If you like what you see, you should consider giving them a donation because all of them operate on shoestring budgets.
JK
@MikeJ:
I just want to see someone finally break Jon Stewart’s stranglehold on that Emmy Award.
tc125231
@arguingwithsignposts: This was great!
arguingwithsignposts
@JK:
She must have changed, then, from when I was watching last, when was when the execrable Mark Shields was a commenter. I have to admit, I haven’t been able to watch for more than a few minutes over the last few years. Sort of like the roundtables on most sunday morning shows.
I’m just looking forward to being in SF for the free bluegrass festival, when REK, Steve Earle and Gillian Welch will be leading the Sat. lineup. thank the FSM that some things escape corruption.
MikeJ
You can be active with the activists or sleeping with the meeja
Ever since I moved back to the states I’ve missed being able to say “meeja” (Nathan Barley taught me the word at the height of dotcom (although to be honest I was close to being as big a twat as he)) and have people understand me.
Brian J
Bill Kristol? If not, who else are you referring to? If it is Kristol, I’d say your problem is with Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial editor, as opposed to Bill Keller, the executive editor, or anyone else on the news side. Yes, I do believe there’s a pretty strong wall between the news and editorial sections at major papers, at least far as hiring goes.
My point in mentioning them was not to say they are journalists but to simply give an example of two guys who usually bash The Post on a daily basis and are almost always on target with their criticisms. That’s it.
arguingwithsignposts
@tc125231:
Robert Earl Keen: Merry Christmas from the Family
Steve Earle: Fort Worth Blues (owed to Townes Van Zandt)
Gillian Welch: The Weight (with Old Crow Medicine Show)
But I’m biased.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian J:
Not Bill Kristol, but he’s a good example from the editorial page. I’m talking about Jason Blair.
asiangrrlMN
Damn it. It looks as if there is not going to be a late night open thread for a while. I’m crashing. I’ll see ya all in four hours or so.
@arguingwithsignposts: Keep arguing, damn it!
arguingwithsignposts
Dammit, three links in moderation. But I’m bustin out the youtube, since nobody seems to want to give extra thread:
Robert Earl Keen: Merry Christmas from the Family
Steve Earle: Fort Worth Blues (owed to Townes Van Zandt)
Just search “Gillian Welch” and look for “The Weight” with Old Crowe Medicine Show for the third.
MikeJ
Not Judith Miller?
Brian J
Really? I can’t say I agree with him on everything. His rants against prescription drugs seem to go too far, for instance. But he seems pretty well informed, and besides, his job isn’t so much to inform as it is to ask questions and entertain while doing it. It’s more opinion than anything else, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Like I said, I don’t agree with him on everything, but he’s valuable because he will go where others don’t go. HBO is still pretty mainstream, so it’s nice to hear someone like Maher ask how the U.S. can remain a leading power if we consider electing someone like Huckabee, who doesn’t believe in evolution. I doubt you’ll see the same type of question asked most other places.
Brian J
Once it was confirmed he violated all sorts of standards, did they keep him on? I don’t believe that’s the case.
Brachiator
@JK:
It’s tough to find a musical clip of Euripides. How about a clip of Alan Cumming as Dionysus in The Bacchae?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnHm3IPmpuU
On the other hand, I can acknowledge another musical birthday.
Happy Birthday Ani DiFranco
September 23, 1970
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBJmyrx26Gc
Johnny Pez
Dictionary alert:
The “Bobo” entry should note that the term comes from “bohemian bourgeois” (or possibly “bourgeois bohemian”), from Brooks’ book Bobos in Paradise.
Wilson Heath
@Brian J:
If you want some more info and insight, browse the Legal Profession Blog (probably the most insightful work on market trends is here), the W$J law blog (distinct enough from their editorial page to be palatable, and fairly realistic on the business of law), and Above the Law (lots of insider view of the implosion as it’s been happening, with gallows humor to boot). Lots of feature stories in places like the NYT, as well.
I do synthesize a bit to get to my conclusions, but I keep seeing them confirmed. I don’t think there is agreement or even quite a consensus that this is happening. But I see what I see — a programmatic failure of the current system, not just a temporary downturn.
JK
@tc125231:
I think your assessment of Bill Maher is way off base. We’re obviously not going to change each other’s minds.
I think he has gotten seriously fucked over by the Emmy Awards.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brian J: @MikeJ:
Blair broke the standards, but the standards were exposed. He was allowed to walk on “hallowed ground” for quite a while while making up that stuff.
Also remember Stephen Glass and the woman from WaPo who made up the story of the eight-year-old crack addict. And the photojournalists who “composed” photos.
Judith Miller at least had quotes for her made-up bullshit. Which I mentioned as a separate level of journalistic hell.
And, btw, I still think they glossed over the blair incident. It doesn’t stop kristol, douchehat and brooks from spouting unfactual bullshit.
arguingwithsignposts
@Brachiator:
btw, that is my fav. Ani song of all the albums I have. Right back at ya.
I consider it an amazing thing that I saw her live during my lifetime.
General Winfield Stuck
Fitzmas.
Corner Stone
@Brian J:
I just re-read through some of this and it struck me – you’re saying I can’t possibly know what I’m talking about because I’m not an attorney, and I’m saying if someone’s an attorney they haven’t yet realized what the hell it is I’m talking about.
Anyway, it’s past my bed time.
It’s over! OVER! Ohhhverrr…*snort*…*snooze*…*murmur quietly*…
JK
@Brachiator:
Ah, the magic of YouTube. I love the fact that you can find a tremendous amount of amazing video of things you never knew existed. Nice Alan Cumming clip.
On the other hand, does it bother you at all that if you type And it Stoned Me and Van Morrison in the YouTube search box, you’ll get back a bunch of horrific, noxious, and atrocious cover versions of this great song by amateur musicians but you won’t find a clip of the stunning and brilliant original studio recording of this song?
This is why I have an intense love hate relationship regarding YouTube.
If YouTube and the music industry ever reached a comprhensive agreement on the copyright issue that allowed the site to re-post original studio recordings of songs, then I’d consider YouTube the greatest idea since the wheel and sliced bread. Somehow, I get the feeling that a resolution of the copyright issue won’t happen in my lifetime.
Brian J
@Wilson Heath:
I can’t say that I ever expected to walk into a “big law” lifestyle, but I did expect it to be…better than most other options I could have. I don’t want to speculate on salary, because there are a lot of factors that go into it, I imagine, but the figure I had in my head was between $150,000-$200,000.
It’s hard to know exactly what to think. On one hand, I hear your remarks. I know of people who graduated but don’t have jobs. I know of people who graduated during the good times and had to send out a ton of resumes when they wanted to change markets. But on the other hand, I know of people who supposedly make $15,000-20,000 a month after graduating from good but certainly not great schools. A friend from college who goes just an okay law school
(but who graduated in the top of his class) who seems to be destined for a Vault Top 30 firm. You read stories about middle size firms in smaller markets who are actually hiring, even in this shitty economy. Maybe their salaries aren’t as high as they might be in New York or Los Angeles, but then, living in a smaller market is almost certainly cheaper.
And nobody can say for sure what things will be like when the economy does actually recover. A strong economy might not bring back the old ways, but wouldn’t it ease the stress?
Maybe it’s because I’m young, slightly stupid, pretty damn stubborn, and arrogant to the point of thinking I can overcome pretty tough odds, but it seems like I should still pursue it. It seems like an option that is both intellectually stimulating and, even in these hard times, possibly financially lucrative. I’m not saying I plan to write the deposit check the second I (hopefully) get an acceptance letter, but I don’t think it’s a poor choice to continue to study for the test and to see what happens when I apply.
By the way, if I am coming across as incoherent, forgive me, but it’s a lot later than I planned to be awake.
Comrade Luke
I hope the BJ dictionary get nominated for some kind of award. Instant classic.
You might want to make it its own page, maybe dictionary.balloon-juice.com or something? I’d also love to someday hear if you’re making more money on ads from that one page than anywhere else. I’m sure it will get sent around by countless people when they get asked “What does mean?”.
Though I doubt “” will ever be “Two Wetsuits and a Dildo”.
Tattoosydney
@Corner Stone:
What he said.
Linkmeister
@snetzky: Posting a link to that poem can’t pass unnoticed. It’s one of the bleakest I’ve ever read. I’ve thought so ever since I first ran across it 35 years ago.
Well done.
JK
@snetzky: @Linkmeister:
I second Linkmeister. I’d love to see a poetry thread sometime on Balloon Juice.
Brian J
@tc125131:
I’m sorry if I came across as foolish. It’s just hard for me to believe someone speaking that strongly about a profession that they aren’t a part of. Or maybe I just don’t want to believe him. I’m not sure.
It’s not that I have trouble believing that salaries are going to come down after a period of being severely inflated. But, and this could just be me misreading people, it seems hard to believe things need to come down so much so as to knock down what made it such an attractive career option in the first place. I guess I’ll have to read some of the sites that have been recommended more closely to get a better idea for myself.
I don’t mind working for a living, even if I have to work more to earn a little less.
Brian J
Rumors and an elephant in a room are two different things
Brian J
@Corner Stone:
It’s not that I thought you were so wildly off base as to be a morning show host on Fox. It’s just that an insider’s perspective tends to be more revealing than an outsider’s perspective.
Wilson Heath
@Brian J:
I can’t tell you from this discussion that law school is the wrong choice for you. Just consider that student loans are generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy. I have a relatively light student loan debt load, and with a standard ten year repayment I’m over a grand a month for my payments. Double my debt load is more the norm, and not the high end. Public school in-state tuition isn’t much cheaper than private in most cases, so don’t expect big breaks there. Can you be sure you will earn enough to cover the debt in addition to the rest of the lifestyle you want to have? That’s a really scary question in this economy, and even in a vibrant recovery it would be pretty scary if I’m right about the market for legal services and the oversupply of lawyers. In my opinion, to do this you really have to be drawn to the work and not the historic lifestyle. If you accept that premise and are still on board, consider doing it. I still maintain that it’s folly in general.
tc125231
@Brian J: Yeah, not trying to run him of the air. But most view Stewart as both better informed, and more amusing.
So he wins.
Brachiator
@JK:
Nope. I don’t always have a deep need to hear the original studio recording of a song.
But more to your point, I can’t allow myself to get worked up over the deep, deep, unyielding stupidity of media companies who typically cannot see that YouTube helps them and their artists. I once ran across of a YouTube clip of a Louis Armstrong performance I hadn’t heard before, and then jumped to the All Music Guide for more info, and then jumped to iTunes and bought the album the song came from.
Louis Armstrong, I Cover the Waterfront.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIIZ3hQEsqs
I also wonder whether some artists are behind the pulling of their clips. The classic Van Morrison clips vanished around the time that Van the Man was coming out with his live re-do of Astral Weeks, and I wonder if he was being stubbornly wrong-headed about the presence of his older work on YouTube. Now the only thing left are bad covers and Van’s most recent re-working of his catalog.
Sadly, the media companies have no idea of how to exploit YouTube creatively. And they would rather suppress this stuff altogether if they can’t totally control, market and charge for the material themselves. Dumbasses.
Brian J
Fair enough.
Bill E Pilgrim
One thing occurs to me reading this, if we take his definition, then Dallas Texas was one of the most soszialist cities I’ve ever seen. There was a huge soczialist neighborhood, miles and miles, when I played in a soczliast cabaret there for two weeks one summer. That was one wild and fun soczialist scene I’ll tell you, the whole area, and I’m not even soczialist!
I wonder how he feels having just turned Texas into a bunch of commies.
Brachiator
@Brachiator:
I forgot to add that had it not been for YouTube, I don’t think that there would have been any easy way for me to run across the Armstrong video clip.
The media companies totally under-estimate the value of YouTube as a central archive where people can discover music, video, etc., more easily than any bunch of separate, company specific sources that the media companies could ever set up themselves.
They also don’t allow for serendipity, which has a value independent of a copyright.
Maybe I want the Stones original Beast of Burden.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tRdBsnX4N4&feature=fvw
But I might find a live version of interest.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZH1aOZY9Tc
And I might end up being knocked out by this wild Bette Midler cover, featuring a cameo by Mick Jagger.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4R9FiKE0Tk&feature=related
And how could the copyright weasels ever understand that the only reason I thought about Beast of Burden in the first place is because an Ani DiFranco song, Not a Pretty Girl, made me think of a piece of the lyrics of the Stones song — “such a pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty girl.”
Great stuff.
Gaucho Politico
The Legal Hiring discussion in the thread is really good. As a law student the really negative vibe you get from reading the discussion about the business model is accurate. I do know people who have had offers rescinded. I can tell you that OCI at many schools was much much more competitive than it has been in the past and that much of the offers are going to the top 3%. The way that some lawyers were making money hand over fist as first year associates was never sustainable. They dont know near enough to be worth that and they dont get the training required be that valuable. If you go into law school expecting a 150-200K job your in for a rough surprise unless your top 10 at a top ten school.
If on the other hand your able to take jobs at 100k or less things arent as appalling. The government has been decent as a market but there are hiring freezes in many areas. Family law gets killed in recessions because people cant afford to divorce. If you go to schools with really strong alumni networks and good name rec your job prospects are better than if you go to small no name schools. Yes beware the scholarship teaser as well.
Bill E Pilgrim
My two cents about the legal profession, and it really is two cents, from a complete outsider and utterly anecdotal:
I knew several lawyers quite well over the last 20 years and each of them was utterly, completely miserable with their work. One of them, who was frequently depressed to the point of suicidal, told me that she thought that far too many people were drawn into the profession because of a general buzz and spotlight on it, but that very few of them should actually be lawyers. Two that I knew had gotten the brass ring– huge salary right out of school (top law schools in both cases) and on the track to partner at the largest firms in the world. Both quit long before making partner, to go to smaller, more human firms.
This was all long before the current crisis, these were people working at the peak of things in the late 80s and through the 90s.
Of all the lawyers I know, I can think of one who seems happy with the profession, in his case as a partner for a small do-gooder firm that he opted for despite offers from the same huge firms.
My sense from all this is that a certain percentage of people really are cut out to be lawyers, and it’s a much smaller percentage of those who currently are.
valdivia
so I have to run to work to teach my students about the Mision system in the colonial period so this is sort of a hit and run but I just had to say, sort of OT:
Was it just a few months ago that all sorts of bloggers were howling about Obama continuing infinite detention? Today we hear he is NOT going to continue this policy. Think Glennzilla will accept he was wrong? No me neither.
And I am sure we will hear today from all the neocons about how the Obama administration had it right all along now that the Russians have agreed (for the first time!) about sanctions against Iran, something Bush tried to bully them into and never achieved. Yes don’t think we will hear about this either.
bellatrys
Hey valdivia, maybe GG won’t admit he’s wrong because he’s not wrong (assuming the WaPo isn’t in error/lying):
(via Kossack calchala)
Fulcanelli
@JK: Or… A naughty limerick thread. Now that could get out of control in a hurry.
There was a young lady from… (NSFW or BJ)
Or, British football songs, or German drinking songs. Righteously rude stuff.
Steve M.
It is worth repeating- until recently, this is the type of moron who was running out country.
Someone may already have said this, but what do you mean, “until recently”? Between the filibuster and Fox News, those guys are still running the country.
Comrade Darkness
@The Bearded Blogger: Glancing at a graph of the national debt under various administrations, I’d say maybe Nixon. Certainly not republican after that.
Kirk Spencer
@JK: Hey, an opportunity to hijack!
Actually we’re probably going to see a major movement in copyright within the next decade, not more than two. There are two unsustainable conflicts that need resolved and if they’re not resolved in law/court they’re going to be resolved on the streets and make the law immaterial.
Major conflict number one may already be at that state. Quite simply it’s a revisitation of the “right of first sale”. A quick description: Way back when, publishers tried to tell people who’d purchased books that they could not sell them when they were finished. The courts rules that exchange of money for property removed rights and obligations that weren’t explicitly agreed upon. (ie, the publisher could tell me I could not sell the book I purchased from him only if I agreed in written contract.)
Enter the computer, programs, and “licenses”. Licenses are essentially those explicit agreements. There has been a lot of tension from this already, but within the past year it ratcheted up a LOT. I’m referring to Amazon’s habit of removing books from Kindles, and denying the ability of anyone who’s purchased a book on Kindle to sell it to someone else.
So I can buy the book and if it’s format A I have total right to resell while if it’s format B I do not have the right. The copyright conflict is obvious. Given that there are a lot of advantages – economic and practical – for ebooks over print (outside the categories of children’s books and books that require large real estate for effective transfer of information – pictures, charts, etc), this is going to become a major point in the not so distant future.
I said, however, that this may already be a case of too late due to it being resolved on the street. One word: piracy. Anonymous peer sharing. There will always be scofflaws, but when the majority of potential customers decide the risk of legal penalty is outweighed by the pain of dealing with legally approved methods, the law needs major revamping. I’m going to point to the major reason Roe v Wade got decided the way it did – abortions were being done, and it was VERY public, despite what the laws were saying. The relevancy should be apparent.
The second unsustainable conflict, though less blatant, is also reaching a head. That’s the current “disney copyright law”. Sorry, the fact the law now allows copyright for over a century. The theory was that a person who created something should be allowed to profit from it for a reasonable time. (That’s patent and copyright, but I’m going on with copyright.) To encourage the creative to continue creating, there needed to be some control that ensured they got paid when others used their works to any significant degree, either directly copying and selling them, or deriving new work largely out of their work. The tension is “reasonable time”. The argument that most agree upon is that the creator should get the benefit for most if not all his life. Since the law was created at the time the creator was likely the sole breadwinner for his family, it was considered fair that his widow and dependents should get benefit as well. HOWEVER, corporations (which are persons in the eyes of the law) can own copyright as well. This muddies the picture. Adding even more confusion is the question of how long the dependents should continue to receive value from the work.
Sonny Bono decided the work should be of value for as long as it’s valuable. (No, not really a tautology.) Disney really liked that idea, and worked with him. The congress of the time bought off as well, and as a consequence the right exists for Disney for either 95 or 120 years (from date of first publication or creation, whichever expires first). For an individual it’s life plus 70 years.
In other words for the individual it’s a cash cow for them, their dependents, the dependents of their dependents, and potentially most of yet another generation. (Walk it back. 70 years ago most of our great-grandparents were still alive unless we’re approaching or over 60 ourselves.)
Again, there’s push about this. Disney isn’t the only corporation that benefits. There are some classics of movies as well as books and other art that have become iconic which cannot be shared – and are beginning to see piracy and derivative efforts without permissions that ignore the law. The copyright for Casablanca won’t expire till 2061. The Wizard of Oz will expire a couple of years before that, and Citizen Kane will be in the time frame as well. Worse, there have been some attempts to create new works that are running into these (and works from earlier) and are consequently getting cease and desist or “Pay me now” letters.
The flip side argument of copyright protection (and moreso patents) is that because they’re protected for a time they allow greater distribution which in turn inspires more creativity. The reason for ending the right is so that inspiration can be allowed to produce. As I’ve noted, the expiration dates of the copyrights are now such that this is not happening. Instead there is indication it’s stifling new work.
It’s not as well-known a conflict as the other. Further, the Supreme Court had a crack at this a while back and decided Congress had free reign. But it’s coming, nonetheless – either it gets changed (and will employ attorneys for a while dealing with the change) or it’s mooted.
liberal
@arguingwithsignposts:
You only say that because you only read Baker’s blog, apparently.
Baker runs a small think tank (which IIRC he started after leaving a larger liberal think tank). He actually produces reports. Of worthy mention are reports that showed we really were in a housing bubble, earlier than almost all others who claimed we were in one. And a report showing that defaulting on the bonds in the social security trust fund would represent a huge transfer of wealth from poorer to richer.
Baker is in that role, because Stone looked at facts and documents, just like Baker does, as opposed to just asking powerful people and official what their take is.
Richard Stanczak
John, I am sure you must have taken this quote out of context. Surely an elected Representative to the US Congress would not spew such nonsense. Is there not a requirement that you must be sane to hold public office in the US?
Forgive me but I am a
Canadiansocialist who does not know any better.Brian J
I assume you mean out of school as opposed to it never happening. Is that right?
Bender
You know, Maxine Waters is a Democrat. Therefore, no one should listen to Democrats on health care reform. Or anything else, for that matter. They are INSANE!
Thanks, John, this is a fun game!
bellatrys
ETA: actually, valdivia, Glennzilla *did* praise Obama’s recanting on a new rationale for unlimited detention as not making things any worse, at least. So…are we gonna hear *you* apologize for misjudging him with your assumptions?
Brachiator
@Kirk Spencer:
Too bad that this thread is getting so unwieldy, because the copyright issue — and Disney — illustrates some big problems with copyright.
Briefly, Disney made its bones not just with original creations (Mickey Mouse) but with stuff that was in the public domain and which Disney now is trying to monopolize forever (Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty).
One might reasonably ask, now that we are in a new digital age, why someone else shouldn’t have a bite at the apple in creating new works based on some of these characters?
Some of Disney’s strong-arming of copyright was based on their attempts to retain the rights to Winnie the Pooh and assorted characters. Part of the issue here is that producer Stephen Slesinger bought the rights to Pooh from creator A. A. Milne in 1930. Disney, the heirs of Slesinger and Milne’s descendants have been battling over the rights in one form or another since 1961. Disney lost a battle over the rights in 2007, but kept fighting and also lobbied Congress to help them.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/02/17/1850319.htm
The irony here is that Milne’s descendants are low on the totem pole to get anything, even though copyright law was obviously intended to help the author and his family,
Yeah, it is kinda, since it could allow for an infinite copyright, violating the principle of the original laws which sought to encourage future creativity by putting a time limit on copyrights and patents.
A couple of bits of trivia. Even though Ted Turner acquired the rights to Citizen Kane, according to Roger Ebert, Orson Welles’ original contract with RKO “guaranteed Welles’ absolute control over every aspect of the production – including its color, or lack of same.” And so, Kane has never been colorized.
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19910428/COMMENTARY/44010309
Disney tried to cheat Peggy Lee of royalties she felt she had earned for contributing songs to The Lady and The Tramp. Disney tried to claim that since video, etc, didn’t exist when the movie was made, they didn’t owe her anything.
Lee prevailed over Disney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peggy_Lee
gocart mozart
Was Rock & Roll a Communist plot?
http://www.wfmu.org/LCD/18/antirock.html
b-psycho
Say we humor these idiots for a moment…
The closest thing to a coherent definition of “soshulism” from them, according to this, appears to be any system the goal of which is to subordinate “traditional” family structure to the State. Problem is, if that definition is to be consistently adhered to, and they’re consistently anti-soshulism, then what is REALLY “soshulist” is the government defining what marriage is at all. The concept used to be an entirely private matter, what reason is there for the State to determine what is a legitimate relationship and what isn’t?
Corner Stone
@Brian J: Well, I’m thankful for that at least!
I can tell you this, as modesty is not one of my failings in this life – put me in a room with any equity partner of a national/international/global law firm – and I will know more about his/her business model and profit model than they do *if* they are not on the Steering committee/Big Cheese Decider committee.
I don’t mean I can tell you what their share of a secretary cost them last year down to the penny, I mean I can illustrate a deeper and more complex understanding of how they sell their services, service their clients, bill their clients, collect their bills, and determine who wins the overall profit. I can tell you about their SWOTs and how they are moving to address those issues, what they’re doing about recruiting, what they’re going to do about de-equitizing clients (and de-equitizing associated Partners too), changes coming to the Partnership track, etc etc etc.
There are a few professional services industries I know very, very well. Mainly because it keeps me employed, which I enjoy. The legal industry is one of them.
But don’t take my word for it, I’m just a stranger in the toobz, and will remain so.
I can tell you that in fact I believe you are a good fit for law school. You have internalized the belief that only attorneys understand their profession and are therefore the only ones capable of speaking to it, or making decisions regarding it. With that attitude I suggest you’ll be a partner in record time.
Pro tip – 90%+ of all non-equity partners & associates could not explain to you how their year end profitability is determined.
Jay C
Gee, it’s too bad Karl Marx isn’t around to see that Rep. Steve King, of all people, finally figured out the best way to get to the ideal of the soshialist paradise! Forget all that class-warfare and revolution stuff: King’s solution sounds like a lot more fun.
1. View lots and lots of pr0nography.
2. Turn gay.
3. Get gay-married.
4. Voila!! Soshialism!! Everywhere!! For everybody!!
Maroon.
Brian J
@Corner Stone:
I’m going to assume you are being sarcastic and not nasty and negative.
I’ll admit, part of what motivated me to look into law was the money. Not that I expected to make $300,000 a year no matter what, just that I’d make a comfortable salary with the chance to move up if I worked hard and found something I’d be interested in enough to keep me as occupied as reading blogs does. There are a number of fields that would fulfill that for me, I think. So it’s not just money, it’s also a chance to be intellectually stimulated. There are a number of things a law degree might allow me to do, especially if it’s combined with some other degree–and no, I don’t mean in that in the sense that it’s an all purpose degree, but rather in the sense that there are things besides being a traditional attorney working for a big firm that I could do. The law would obviously need to be a big factor.
Will the money necessarily be fantastic for whatever I choose. Probably not. But I’m smart enough to know how to weigh the costs with the benefits and decide to pursue a reasonable course of action.
But if you’d like to laugh, just read what else I considered doing: becoming a college history professor with a concentration in American history. Now that’s, from what I was told, a field where the job prospects are minimal and the costs extreme.
Steeplejack
@Tattoosydney:
Dude, you axed this last night, and I answered–though I can’t find the thread now. It’s closer for you than for us.
And I even left you a nice, country-specific message about how I had just started Terry Pratchett’s The Last Continent and was enjoying his description of XXXX. Laughed out loud this morning at the mention of the town Dijabringabeeralong.
Steeplejack
@JK:
Thanks for reminding me.
If you’re up at midnight tonight (Eastern time), check out the start of Abdul Taymullah’s show, Jazz After Hours, on http://www.wclk.com. He (almost) always starts with Trane’s “A Love Supreme, Part 1: Acknowledgment” and then does his nightly benediction defining jazz music and acknowledging the Creator “who is truly the love supreme.”
I’m streaming WCLK right now. The program from 9:00 to midnight, Serenade to the City, is good too.
Steeplejack
@Brian J:
It’s just that an insider’s perspective tends to be more revealing than an outsider’s perspective.
Probably too late for you to read this, but did you think that maybe Corner Stone could be, say, a non-lawyer manager in a law firm or an accountant who has lawyers as clients?
You don’t have to be the thing to know the thing, necessarily.
Steeplejack
@Kirk Spencer:
So glad to see you mention the Disney/Bono copyright fiasco. That has been a big issue of mine for a long time. The idea that Mickey fucking Mouse is sancrosanct and untouchable after a century is complete bullshit.
I can see copyright protection for the life (plus some) of the original artist, but I make a distinction between the person as artist and a corporation that just shows up in a person’s clothing to claim those “creator’s” rights. Ugh.
Steeplejack
@Corner Stone:
Now I think you’re a high-level recruiter or something similar.
invisible_hand
maybe he is trying to prove his anti-government agenda by getting elected and ruining america through governmental means.
honestly, a little less than half the government… is anti-itself. it’s insane. they keep the government from doing its job and then blame it on the abstract idea of government, not themselves.
Wilson Heath
@ Brian J, in case you’re still following this thread:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/kl_gates_chairman_advises_would-be_law_students_to_reconsider/