State of the Union
I’ve been “studying” for the bar exam for the last several weeks and so far I’ve learned that I have retained a lot more from law school than I thought…and about subjects I hated. The best example so far is Evidence which, despite doing alright in the class, I never found to be that captivating. Yet my retention is off the charts compared with Constitutional Law, a subject I find exceedingly more fascinating. I’m not sure any real conclusion can be drawn from this fact other than, perhaps, I really should have pursued that litigation career after all.
In other bar news, Character & Fitness contacted me with a claim that I have three outstanding debts with three different creditors. They are requesting that I provide an explanation of what I am going to do about these supposed debts and why I am not a dirty rotten scoundrel for allegedly failing to disclose them on my Character & Fitness affidavit. The problem is, I have no outstanding obligations to any of those creditors and so I am awaiting confirmation letters from them. This is especially vexing since one of the creditors is notorious for not following up on proper credit reporting and I’m worried my letter won’t make it to my front door. If this is the only hurdle I face with Character & Fitness, I’ll consider myself fortunate.
I recently found myself in the midst of an e-mail “debate” with a fellow GVSU graduate on the issue of her ironic use of a quote from a decidedly Christian writer despite proclaiming she is an agnostic. (She later recanted and claimed to be a Buddhist, though I’m not sure that shifted the issue any.) I’ll admit that I was bored and probably shouldn’t have pressed the question, but not surprisingly the entire thing melted down in a hurry once I started making peripheral remarks on the nature of her online presentation-my favorite being the all-too-frequent posting of scantily clad photos followed by the claim from said poster that she was neither intending to draw attention to herself or ought to be seen as lacking taste for doing so. Also, since she is apparently enrolled in a PhD program in psychology (Heaven knows where), she decided to break out every tagline analysis from Law & Order: SVU imaginable. The one vexing question I still have from it all is if she was even being truthful about being in a PhD program and, if she was, what that says about the quality of PhD programs at her particular school (or in the field of psychology as a whole). I realize the Internet is not the beast way to measure the quality of another person’s intellect, but for Heaven’s sake, I don’t think I’m out of bounds in expecting a bit more. Maybe smart people just don’t post on the Internet…which says a lot about me, I guess.
I’m two weeks away from losing my modest source of income from my employer in Chicago. My boss claims that he’ll try and find funds for me to pick up work again in August, though who knows where I will be by then. I’ve enjoyed the work over the last fifteen months, but the problem with working in the public interest is that there’s no money in it and almost all income depends on the kindheartedness of giant funding institutions. If I could continue doing the type of research work into anti-terrorism and counter-proliferation that I did there, I would be a happy camper. But again, the avenues are few and the rewards-aside from some personal satisfaction-are even fewer. I am now quite adept at discussing public health measures that ought to be taken if someone executes an anthrax attack on Grand Rapids and what the state of measures against bioviolence are in Eastern Europe. In other words, my stock as a tavern buddy has really shot up.
And in final news, my article on historicism in the Supreme Court’s Punishments Clause jurisprudence is due to go to the printers soon. Apparently, I get a whole box of copies of the article. I’m thinking they’ll make fantastic Christmas gifts when accompanied with an 8x10 glossy photo of yours truly.