Blogroll up and ...tripping

Yes, I finally posted sidebar links to favorite blogs.
No, it was not as easy as I thought it would be.
Yes, it took a lot of time.
No, it's not working perfectly.
Yes, I emailed those with troubled and troubling URL's asking what the buzz was.
No, I do not intend to fix the two one defective links tonight. [UPDATE: they're fixed.]
Yes, I'll add others. Please, go easy on me. This was hard enough.
No, I do not pretend to be facile with HTML. I don't even know what it stands for. Hateful Technological Manipulative Disorder? I don't care that the letters do not match.
Yes, that's all I have to say about this for now.

I would not be one of THEM if I did not write a comment about the hot topic of the day

There is much discussion currently in our Law School about Internet use in the classroom. I’ll permit a reasoned guess as to how the troops appear to be aligning themselves. You are correct! Most faculty (of those who have bothered to post on this) favor placing some limits on Internet use (in the name of etiquette and pedagogy) and most (though not all) students favor leaving this to their own judgment.

I am in the collegial minority – I have gobs to say about etiquette and not a whole lot on the matter of how pedagogy is affected by Internet surfing. Because, in truth, I do not know that much about pedagogy, except what I see students responding well to, as evidenced by their class participation, attendance, exam performance and course evals. I trusted them with fashioning their own learning styles before and I am ready to let them judge now how they wish to listen and learn. [My guess is that the educational professionals (the school teachers) who these days clutter school rooms with visuals, know what they’re doing. By comparison, our Law School walls are bare. Clutter on the screen may be an antidote for some students whose eyes glaze over when they have to look at just ME.]

On the matter of etiquette, I feel myself to be on firmer ground. I am an etiquette buff. Some people are fastidiously precise with putting on make up in the morning, some iron their sheets and towels, still others use actual shoe polish on their shoes instead of spitting on a rag and wiping off the mud. Me, I like etiquette. I like polite, I like courtesy, I like good manners and good behaviors. I just like all that stuff that paves the way for pleasant, cordial relations. It makes life so much easier to proceed with respect. And so, I am convinced that rules of laptop ettiquette should appear in every spot on earth where laptops are permitted (these would include no porn, no distracting visuals, nothing that may be intrusive, rude, inappropriate, etc.).

As for me, up there in the front of the room, at some point there will be a student who will come to class with an iPod in one ear and a laptop under her arm and she will take off her glasses and close her eyes and snore and the snore will flutter the newspaper where she has been doing the crossword to the floor and that, most certainly, will be a distraction for me. At that moment I say take that piece of technology and find yourself another rest station. But it hasn’t happened yet. From my vantage point, students appear to be decent and polite. Especially when they understand that they are being graded by the prof who is watching them every single minute of class time.

Bewitching

Since I have lived in this house (17 years this summer), I have never had a backyard neighbor. The house on the adjacent lot stands empty, neglected. Upon occasion one can talk oneself into seeing lights at night there, shadows on the blue snow, moving images and shapes, signs of life, but not really, because, unless one is under a martini haze, there is no life there. The house is truly deserted.

In the morning, of course, it is obvious that any noises or dancing shadows from the night were all in one’s head. Add a pinkish orange morning tint to the scene and you’ll have a house that is truly bewitching, if not bewitched. I’m looking at it now as I work away at the kitchen table. So tranquil, so pretty! So deserted.

morning light, the "witches' house." 

A Madison March morning

So, you, dear reader from a southern state, you wanted to see the way spring makes its way to our doorstep here in Wisconsin? Alright. A photo from this morning:

Backyard steps. (Were you expecting crocuses? On March 3rd? In Madison?) 

You never know: that person riding the subway with me in NYC? She may well be a former student of mine.

One of the fantastic things about teaching is, of course, that sooner or later, the student is done with your classes. By that I mean that they move on. I have already rhapsodized about keeping connected to those who that stay in town. Over the years, as their numbers swell, they fill the firms around Madison and you get to the point where you never know (especially if you are like me and have a problem keeping a name to a face) when you are going to be passing each other on the street. I feel like inevitably there will come a day when someone will come up to me and do one of those “Moonstruck” numbers of spitting at my feet or slapping me down for something that I said or did that irritated them back in 1989. To date, they have been more gracious than that, but you never know.

Those that go away typically are gone for good. Occasionally they will email, but that conversation usually fizzles after one round of “how’s it going?” I love the updates, but absent a more current mutual stomping ground, we simply don’t have the time to take things further than that.

Enter the world of blogs. Yesterday I heard from one of my students of many, many years back. She had discovered Ocean a while ago and, probably in the spirit of “if she can do it, it can't be that hard,” her NYCbeauty blog was born. She had always been a clever and audacious writer. She now joins the ranks of others around town and out in the world who have taken up this hobby and are producing some of the funniest, punchiest posts out there. Check out her introduction to her blog. It’ll make you chuckle for sure.

It is unbelievably sunny and bright outside. I am absolutely thrilled to be getting back to a writing project I let slide last month. I am greatly looking forward to munching dried organic white peaches that I picked up in SF. I just booked a flight to Poland in May. Pictures of crocuses are about to make an appearance on this blog.

There. Ocean is all about balance.

I am inviting Larry Summers to our next blogger dinner

I noted earlier that last Wednesday, a game was hatched between Bozzo and Oscar. Basically the goal was to outsmart (in a mechanical way) the ecosystem link count by mutual link-adoration. Freese joined within hours and as of yesterday, they appear to have succeeded in pushing the blogs toward link stardom. B,O,F: Are you doing some harmonic belching yet in celebration of your achievement?

And the girls? Why weren’t we playing? Some words the capture for me the spirit of their game: “silly,” “competitive and pointless” “doesn’t go to the relational aspects of blogging.” It seems clear that I refuse to play with blogs in the way that these three are doing. I can just imagine what Larry Summers would say.

A post on how Ocean inspires young attorneys to engage in the august, the exemplary, the most noble of pursuits

A wee part of me had always hoped that Ocean would entertain, yes, of course, but occasionally also maybe elevate and inspire – to travel, to learn about Poland, to be forgiving of human foibles, to write and pursue one’s artistic streak… I get all choked just writing about the possibilities.

I was, therefore, gratified to learn that one wonderful former student who has recently entered the ranks of the legal profession has taken to blogging. Moreover, he is an Ocean reader and I can tell that I have indeed inspired. Read about it here and here.

UPDATE ON BOZZO LINKS: After my earlier run in with the Maiden of Nuremburg, I did not have it in me to work on the Ocean sidebar last night. I will get to it by tomorrow, for sure!

Is Ocean joining the ranks of Very Strange Blogs?

I noticed that the side bar with a blogroll is up and running! But….are you saying that the only blog you read is that of Bozzo?
What makes you think that?

Take a look: it’s all about Bozzo
Bozzo rules. Actually I should go ahead and change that. Bozzo & Lee rule.

Who is Lee?
Lee is in on the partnership. You know: There are two Bozzos and then two Lees in the household.

I see. How delicate.
No, you don’t understand. It’s all one family and always has been. And they rule.

Obviously they rule your blog. Again, have you looked at your sidebar lately?
Looked at it! I created it! Actually, big Bozzo created it. Hence this moment of Bozzo stardom. The blogroll is all about Bozzo. At least for the next hour or so.

Big Bozzo. Suddenly you’re writing about size. So…crude.
My eating companions tonight included a big Bozzo and a little Bozzo. And a Lee. Look – the last time I had such a roll of bad days (weeks? months?) was decades ago where I said to those within spittin’ distance (that would be my immediate family): get me out of this funk! I need to go to Canada! They knew not to tinker with that one. We went to Canada. But times have changed. Everyone’s going to Canada these (post election) days. It doesn’t provide the exotic relief it once did. All is not lost, however. So long as I have advice from afar (thank you), a reader for my text (thank you) and Bozzo, Bozzo, Lee and Lee cooking me up spaghetti and meatballs, I’ll be okay. Here, before I get to work on my Bozzo sidebar (by tomorrow, this post will totally not make sense, as all but one of the Bozzos will be erased), admire the photo of one of my Bozzo hosts for the evening:

my dinner host let me know: utensils are passé.
 

March came in demonstrating that if things are rocky rocky at the outset, they can get even worse!

I would be remiss not to blog about the 11th hour today (it is the one that immediately follows my teaching). It could be that, if I spent a day at a spa doing total body relaxation, I may let my mind reach for memories of worse work hours, but I would be hard pressed to do so.

Hard pressed, Exactly. I would say that this hour, and therefore this day could provide nice competition in terms of evil and torture with what once was endured by a person locked in the Maiden of Nuremburg, an ancient contraption looking, to the best of my web searching efforts, something like this:


Oh, not threatening enough? The Maiden of Nuremburg is described thus (and please read it carefully because the highlighted by me phrases quite nicely replicate my 11th hour of today):

This instrument has four main features, whose wickedness … deserve to be analyzed. The inside of the sarcophagus was fitted with spikes designed to pierce different parts of the body, but miss the vital organs, so that the victim was kept alive, in an upright position. Its second feature is that the victims were kept in an extremely confined space to increase their suffering.Its third feature was that the device could be opened and closed without letting the victim, who had been pierced from the front and the back, get away. Its fourth feature was that the container was so thick that no shrieks and moaning could be heard from outside unless the doors were opened. When the sarcophagus doors were shut again, the spikes pierced exactly the same parts of the body as before, and thus no relief was ever possible.

Spiky wickedness, with targeted suffering, no chance of getting away, no relief in sight. Exactly!

Where Ocean strives to encourage feelings of empathy among those living south of us:

March 1st:

Temp outside: 15 degrees F
Windchill: something like 5 degrees F
Snowcover: more than it was on the day I decided to forego shoveling thinking it would all melt before my eyes imminently.

I am sitting at a table, reading my text, waiting for the tires to be fixed…

…and I notice he is back. Have you ever seen him? He comes to the Borders Café with his computer. He gets a drink. He goes to the newspaper shelves and picks out a few fat papers from all over the country. He takes these to his table and he reads them. Then he folds them up (more or less) and proceeds to do his computer stuff. Hours later he throws the papers over to the bench, packs up and leaves.

I cannot stare him down into shame. And it really is none of my business. Borders can afford the loss of a paper or two. People (myself included) leaf through books. Why not newspapers?

Because what small pleasure remains in the reading of a paper is in the freshness of it, the smell, the neatly folded sections, corners uncurled. And he ruins it for the next person. Oblivious. It bothers me that he is so oblivious to it all.

In defense of good counting skills

Ann writes this in support of her position that Chris Rock inappropriately brought anti-Bush material to the Oscar podium last night and alienated with it a great number of viewers (bold emphasis is my own):

Actually, I think the people who voted for Kerry should be worried. But they'll have to get past their in-group enjoyment of themselves and their own imagined superiority and get some concept of how the people who didn't vote for Kerry -- AKA the majority -- respond to this sort of display.

True, the majority of the viewing public did not vote for Kerry. But nor did they vote for Bush. The crude statistics told us that 60% of eligible voters cast a vote in November. Of those, 51% voted for Bush (CNN). That would put a generous bid of 60,608,582 who may have been offended.

But wait. Current support for Bush in this country is a more relevant marker of audience disenchantment with the jokes. According to a 1/05 NYT/CBS poll , 56% say things are worse now than five years ago. Let’s give the benefit of the doubt to Ann and agree that those who believe things are the same or better might be offended. That would be 44% of the viewing American audience. So perhaps it is more accurate to say that maximally, 19,140,000 were offended (based on New Yorker stats that about 43.5 million Americans, or about 15% watch the Oscars).

Assuming that none of them had a sense of humor. Because I, for example, would have laughed at a good anti-Kerry joke last night if Kerry had been our president. I would have been so tickled at having him there that I would not have cared that Chris Rock compared him to a clerk in Gap pretending that Banana Republic had tanktops. I’d say a whooping ha ha to that! So let’s reduce the numbers by a bit – Bush supporters at this point are a somber lot so assume that only 10% can be discounted for having a sense of humor. So, we are now at 17,226,000 of Americans watching offended.

Still more: what of the rest of the world? Assume none of them cared about the budget deficit joke, so all offense has to be taken with respect to the anti- Banana Republic (targeting the war, but with no countries mentioned) humor campaign. Assume that only a percentage of the audience, perhaps corresponding to the Coalition of the Willing would take offense (though I have to say, anti-Bush sentiments are growing even in Poland these days). But I think I can safely say that the international Oscar audience does not consist of many from the Coalition of the Willing. Why? Because 1. the vast majority does not have cable access and therefore does not carry the Oscars (see New Yorker article for more accurate analysis of this) and 2. Just about every one of them do not have a Gap, nor a Banana Republic and so that what meager audience is generated from Bush-supporting (Coalition) countries, it will not get the joke, thus being spared the offense (honestly, you cannot be offended if you do not get the joke). I think that just about leaves all foreign audience (the distributors of the show put it at “several hundred” million in the international category) unoffended. Conservatively, that’s 200,000,ooo unoffended on both sides of the ocean and north and south of our borders. Okay, I’ll generously throw in 5,000,000 offended just to show I am not skewing the numbers here.

So, Ann, out of a conservative audience of 243,500,000 (international + national), 22,226,000 (17,226,000 offended American viewers and 5,000,000 generously granted international offended viewers), or fewer than 11 % may have been offended. A humoirist takes his/her chances. These are pretty good stats in favor of the joke, in my opinion.

Blame it on your agent. Or maybe your lawyer?

Thanks to jwz for the link to the other awards: the Razzies (given by the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation on the night before the Oscars), where Halle Berry was named worst actress of the year for her appearance in Catwoman.

Showing up for the award, she offered this:

"I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of shit," she said as she dragged her agent on stage and warned him "next time read the script first."

Other winners: George W. Bush picked up a Razzie as worst actor of the year for his performance as president in Fahrenheit 9/11. I'm not sure who accepted the award on his behalf (given his need for a rest after his travels to Europe last week, I'm certain he had to send his personal regrets).

Good Monday morning to you, too

Starting the day with two flat tires is a good indication of where this week is heading.

What will you say when the clock is ticking and you have only ten seconds of breath left?

If you are Hillary Swank (on stage at the Oscars and the trumpets are sounding), you’ll say --- wait! wait! I have been saving Clint Eastwood for last, don’t cut me off. Oh, but let me just say this: I want to thank the lawyers...

You're welcome.

Surviving, though not thriving...

A little one said this once and I drag it out on evenings like this one. I will be glad when the Oscars are over. Blogging about them proved impossible for a million reasons. This is as simul- as I get tonight.

To a better week!