Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The barista . . .

. . . just made me a double macchiato when I ordered a single.   But she's smart, she's pretty, she plays in a rock band . . . and she's new.   I'm going to drink half of it and not say anything.   When it comes down to it, I'm basically a wimp.

Monday, February 23, 2015

I'M SORRY I MISSED THAT COULD YOU POSSIBLY REPEAT IT

Why is there an inverse correlation between the interest level of people's conversations (especially cellphone conversations) and the volume at which they conduct them?   If I hear another conversation on the level of  "OK THE DRYWALL WILL BE READY ON TUESDAY MORNING" I am going to scream.   But only at low volume.

Sunday, February 15, 2015

the rutgers law "merger": lots of form, not much substance



I believe it was Fred Rodell who said there were only two problems with most law reviews: style and content.   I think a lot about that remark when contemplating the proposed merger of the Camden and Newark Law Schools into one "R-Law" brand.   The proposal is high on form, but low on content, and the style is--well, read on.

The merger was originally prompted by a desire to fend off a proposed takeover of the Camden law school by Rowan University, which was perceived as less prestigious than Rutgers.   An unstated goal is to distract attention from the relatively poor performance of both, but especially the Camden, law schools since the Rowan proposal was blocked.   In the most recent US News survey, the Camden law school ranked 81and Newark 83; since Camden has since been forced to accept more (read weaker) students by the central administration, there is a good chance it will fall out of the top 100 in the next survey.    It is important to remember that these are relative numbers, so the excuse of the national law school crisis doesn't really apply.

What else has Camden done since the Rowan fiasco?   So far as I can tell three main things.   First, it hired about a half dozen new faculty, all or nearly all women and heavily concentrated in the areas of law and philosophy, on the one hand, and what might be called progressive social change--primarily race and gender studies--on the other.   This is at the same time that at least two practice-oriented faculty have retired and the salaries and research budgets of remaining professors have been frozen or reduced.   To remedy the deficit in business subjects, the law school administration proposed to hire a Canadian legal philosopher with a side interest in business transactions and little if any practice experience.

Second the Camden campus--the one whose largest unit (the law school) is supposed to be merging with Newark--has decided to spend an extraordinary and unprecedented sum on administrative expenses.   There is currently a campus-wide "chancellor" (salary in the $400,000 range); provost ($300,000); and there will soon be a highly compensated campus research director, for aggregate salaries of about $1 million on a campus that one can literally throw a stone across in a good wind.    This is, in fairness, a university-wide problem, which the faculty union is bitterly protesting and may need to a campus-wide strike next year.

Finally, the law school has actually reduced the budget for adjunct faculty, who are the most cost effective and the most likely to have contacts that can help students get jobs.

Oh, did I mention that the law school emphasizes two-year employment statistics and brags of its placement of students in judicial clerkships?   The vast majority of these clerkships are with local New Jersey courts and there is little if any evidence that they lead to permanent jobs.

Not surprisingly for a school that emphasizes race, gender and philosophy and has a history of misleading employment statistics, the Camden law school has had trouble attracting students.   Hence the merger, which it is hoped will improve its marketing or (at very least) distract attention by rolling the law school's statistics into the larger university.  

The problem is that the merger, as almost anyone can say, has little if any substance.  As best as I can tell, it consists largely of an administrative reshuffling together with the addition of one small distance learning classroom, with a capacity of perhaps 30-add students, and for which there will be a waiting list to be filled.   Even if this room were in nonstop use, that would leave something like 90-95 percent of the students in each law school having essentially no contact with the other school at any time in the day.   Camden and Newark are 100 miles apart, and (so far as I know) there has been no effort even to introduce the two faculties to each other, although one if apparently planned later this year.

Nor will the merger do much to promote diversity, which the administration likes to talk about but does relatively little to accomplish.   Camden has a reputation as a largely white law school, with Newark somewhat more open-minded: in the last three years I don't think I've had more than a handful of minority students.   With the two school rolled into one, there will be little if any incentive to change that.

The Rutgers merger is a good example of how form frequently trumps substance, especially when the industry in question (here law schools) is in a crisis mode.   Will they get away with it?  For a time, perhaps.    But the facts have a way of catching up with you.   Instead of dealing honestly and forthrightly with a crisis--one largely, although not exclusively, of its own making--Rutgers is attempting to pull a fast one.    I think that, deep down, the participants themselves realize this.    Do they really think nobody else will notice?

Monday, February 9, 2015

Dylan and Sinatra: So Different, and Yet . . .

I happened to finish reading a biography of Bob Dylan, and start reading a biography of Frank Sinatra, and more or less the same time that Dylan released an album of Sinatra covers ("Shadows in the Night") last week.    The two have more in common than might first appear.

Both Sinatra and Dylan came from places--Hoboken, New Jersey and Hibbing, Minnesota--that were well off the beaten track at the time.   Both came from minority groups (Italians, Jews) that--again, in the relevant time and place--were considered cultural outsiders.   Although Sinatra obviously has the more pleasing voice, both sang in a markedly different way than anyone else, and achieved fame less by having a "better" voice than a more distinctive and recognizable one.

There are some interesting similarities in their career trajectories, as well.    Both rocketed to fame in their twenties and were considered washed up somewhere in their thirties, Sinatra's comeback beginning with From Here to Eternity and the Capitol recordings in the 1950s, Dylan's arguably waiting until Time Out of Mind in the '90s, although there were several intermediate "comebacks" before that.    Both balanced a number of marriages against a habit of indulgence with other women, although there is no legend of Dylan's physique to match Sinatra's (it must be noted that the latter is based on circumstantial evidence, all of it provided by people who, well, liked him).  

And of course, both were rather difficult people, but that pretty much goes without saying.   (They did meet, Dylan performing at Sinatra's 80th birthday party, although I suspect this was a bigger deal to the former than the latter.)

There are a lot of differences, of course.   Dylan remains counterculture-oriented, at least in theory, even in his old age; Sinatra was resolutely mainstream.   Dylan had a middle class upbringing that was, if anything, somewhat boring; Sinatra's was anything but.   Dylan, for better or worse, writes nearly all his own songs; Sinatra almost never did.   And it would be hard to confuse them, in person or on their records.

The Dylan/Sinatra album has received excellent reviews, BTW, although I suspect he could record the Friday night service and get good reviews at this point.   Come to think of it, he DID record a version of the Amidah ("Father of the Night") once, together with a song ("Forever Young") that's more or less a takeoff on the priestly blessing.   Which leads to one final difference: Dylan, who was born and by most lights remains Jewish, had a born again Christian period.  Sinatra didn't have to.

Friday, February 6, 2015

harvard bans faculty relationships with undergraduate students

It's hard to escape the implication that relationships with graduate students are, well, OK.  OTOH a great question for my Legislation final.    I wonder if it has a retroactive effective date?

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Netanyahu and Congress

I feel about Netanyahu's speech to Congress more or less the way I feel about Pete Carroll's decision to throw the ball: I think it's a dumb decision but I think it's being overrated.

Granted it's foolish to go behind Obama's back, at least without a heads up.   But is it really that unprecedented for foreign leaders to appeal directly to Congress?   All sorts of people have done this and everyone knows that they're trying to put pressure on the President by doing so.

I'm also concerned about the implicit stereotypes in Netanyahu's portrayal.   He pushed to the head of the line in Paris.   He's rude to Obama.   You don't have to be paranoid to see a certain cultural archetype being presented there, or in the whole "good Israeli/bad Israeli" way in which the country's politicians are depicted.

I don't like Netanyahu because I think he's an ineffective leader.   But any Israeli prime minister would be frustrated with a dysfunctional American political system and the weak, quasi-isolationist foreign policy that goes with it.   I don't think he's really disrespecting Obama any more than Putin, the Chinese leadership, or for that matter our European allies.    If the US continues to vacillate between periods of excessive intervention and periods of retrenchment, driven by domestic politics rather than foreign realities, it is going to lose people's respect and they are going to act accordingly.  Israel is just one example.

Monday, February 2, 2015

the super bowl call

It was a bad decision to throw instead of hand the ball to Marshawn Lynch, but I think too much is being made of it.    The slant works about 80 percent of the time.   The defender just guessed right and made a great play.   Also, luck sort of evens out over time.   The Patriots lost two Super Bowls they probably should have won: now they won one they should have lost.

I think Brady would be wise to retire, but I don' t think he will.   I do think it's the last Super Bowl that they'll win.    Unless they get lucky again.