Okay, so let's play a quick game. I'll create a scenario and you imagine it in your heads. Just play along, it won't hurt a bit. I promise. (Classic line out of the Bob Saget playbook. See: [Reading between the lines] Full House, circa 1987-1995).
So, let's pretend for a moment that you're educated (Yeah right. First rule of blog club: Never talk about blog club; Rule #2: Know and accept your audience). And using the depth of your imagination, consider for a moment that you've spent four years and countless thousands of dollars on a post-secondary education. Now, stretching this illusion even further (a la Criss Angel), let's say you walked away with a degree in English Literature from a somewhat prestigious institution. Come on. It's not that absurd. If you can find a battalion of thirty year old man-children with lightning bolts tattooed on their sweaty, blemished foreheads waiting at Platform 9¾, King's Cross Station for the Hogwarts Express, then this story is at least plausible. And if you're thinking to yourself, "Hyperbolic much," you likely have a Lit degree and share this "hypothetical" scenario.
Rewind several years and you yourself are standing in the sweltering heat, trapped inside a large black robe originally designed to encourage clinically obese women to sweat-out-the-calories while riding their scooters in the hot sun from their front door to the local ice cream parlour. Walking off the podium, degree-in-hand and an incredibly stupid grin-on-your-face, you think to yourself what countless others have in this position, "What's next?". Well, my mom suggested I write a blog. "Find a voice," she says, encouraging me to adopt blog writing as a hobby in place of an increasingly less-than-casual drinking habit. My father, following party lines (let's be honest, the man is no Belinda Stronach...), suggests I construct a narrative about my life and my experiences in and out of the kitchen. Let me be straightforward. I have no intention of doing so.
This blog will be strictly topical, like a rash ointment. Perhaps a superficial look at discordant city life? Whoa. It may be insightful, but No. I prefer superficial, like the head cheerleader in Mean Girls (not that I've seen the movie...). Let's try to illicit a visceral response. Something cerebral? Cringing at the used Q-tip in the bathroom wastebasket? A private giggle at an ex-girlfriends' (or boyfriend) odd bedroom technique? Maybe. An unexplained hard-on at the movie theater, while watching Ratatouille? Better.
Okay, I think I'm straying from the point. So degree in-hand, you step into the real world. Most people, however, see a Bachelor's Degree as a stepping stone to a professional diploma. So, with a B.A. in English Lit, the logical choices are Law, Journalism, Academia, Welfare-junkie, [un]employed blogger, etc. Let's say for the purposes of this discussion, you, being risk adverse, choose law. And with some semblance of moral character, you decide on a particularly benign field - say, constitutional law. Remember kids, this is strictly hypothetical.
So you work hard, sweating out seemingly endless nights in dark, fluorescent tinted library basements. Most of your discretionary income is gone, spent on neon pink highlighters, 950ml cans of Monster energy drink and an immense number of chocolate covered almonds. You've gained five pounds ( a conservative estimate) and you keep finding dead, fallen hairs next to the drool stains on your textbook. Bottom line, you're a wreck. But, notwithstanding your decaying psychological and physical health, you complete your LSATs, score well and make it to a good Law School. Sounds dreamy, no?
Anyway, I know this story is dragging on but I'm trying to get to my point. Maybe 10 days ago, there was a story posted on a self described "Legal Tabloid" blog called abovethelaw.com referencing a ridiculous rumour circulating a few days earlier that Justice John Roberts, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was planning on resigning for health reasons. This story, if true, would change the political orientation of perhaps the most important judicial body in the world. It's especially resonant because of the Supreme Court's recent decision to repeal part of the McCain-Feinstein campaign finance reform law that prevented corporations or corporate entities from donating directly to political campaigns. Currently, corporations are kept at an arm's length distance through PACs, or political action committees, which limit monetary donations. This whole shit is irrelevant though and I'm pretty much just going on because I suspect my two blog followers are women and I want to show off my diction. Please see the upcoming post on "Big Werdz".
The whole point of bringing this up is that it makes me feel less of a failure for my life choices. Prof. Peter Tague of Georgetown University proved my point. In his first year law class, Prof. Tague was lecturing on the importance of interrogating the credibility of informants by checking multiple sources. This isn't a new lesson for anyone that's read a newspaper, or enjoys watching an overweight Matt Damon play discredited former ADM executive Mark Whitacre in "The Informant". However, apparently it was a very important lesson for a classroom of gullible, naive first year student. At 9:00am, Prof. Tague started his class by telling his students that Justice Roberts would be resigning from the Supreme Court, but they musn't tell anyone. 20 minutes later, the gossip rag RadarOnline broke the story, citing unnamed sources. And, ten minutes after that, Prof. Tague told his students that the story was in fact false, and this was a good lesson on how they shouldn't assume anyone to be fully credible. Basically, 4 years, thousands of dollars, countless hours spent reading poetry and chewing on highlighter tops, and you still fall for the lamest trick in the book.
Congratulations. You've made your parents proud.
For more info, see http://abovethelaw.com/2010/03/georgetown_professor_tague_john_roberts_lesson.php
No comments:
Post a Comment