Stern and Malakar deserve each other

Ok, back to Sanjaya, one last time. I am loathe to revisit this
pseudo-saga because I don't much like this kid and would prefer to just
ignore him. I consider myself generally a pretty tolerant person. And
I'm particularly tolerant of guys who can sing. But I don't like his
voice, I don't like his look, I don't like his performance style, in
fact, he's kind of like a tick - I just don't want to deal, you know?
It's BORING and annoying and weird. And I really don't like all this
gimmicky cheap-fame VFTW fuss.

So why do I join the fray? To take Howard Stern to task. IMHO, he has just totally annihilated any credibility he had left by assuming he is influential enough and smart enough to "corrupt the entire thing."

“All of us are routing ‘American Idol.’ It’s so great. The No. 1 show in television and it’s getting ruined.”

By promoting Mr. Malakar, Mr. Stern says, he hopes to turn the talent competition into a farce and destroy its popularity.

I have at least two problems with this. The first is that he treats the whole concept as if it's his brand
new brain-child and perhaps the most brilliant thing that has ever been
thought, ever. Second problem is that VFTW doesn't work. Neither the
group, nor Stern, came up with this idea yesterday. It started three
seasons ago and ultimately the most genuinely popular contestant still
wins. Not necessarily the best (see the Ruben and Taylor years), but
the one who wins our hearts. If Sanjaya wins, it won't be because some
obnoxious attention-and-maturity-starved group of kids that have too
much spite and too much time on their hands conspire to collectively dial
in every week. Aside: I often wonder just how big the contingency is
and whether it holds a candle to home-town contingencies, vote for the
cutest guy or girl contingencies, and other fanatic groups that don't
get as much press but that probably have similar success... Back to the point: If he wins it will be because
enough people (you know who you are....Althouse, L, and the crying girl) genuinely adore him. God help them.

These are not empty threats Mr. Stern. There is a mathematical proof that explains why the VFTW
candidate can't prevail and it goes like this. When voters have a dozen
people to choose from, it's easier for any organized group to amass a
simple majority. But as the field narrows and fans of good performers
have to choose one out of two or three, they concentrate in larger
numbers on the better contestants. Also, people start
to care more towards the end of the show because the stakes seem higher
and more tangible. And they start voting. So if it comes down to Sanjaya and Blake, VFTW is going to have to outnumber those against VFTW + those for Blake.*

*I imagine (and hope) it's possible for this whole Stern thing to have a "Newsom effect" whereby people opposed to VFTW
suddenly take notice that they better start proactively guarding their
values by passing constitutional amendments against the heathens. For
example, I'm definitely planning to start voting to combat this radical
and unhealthy movement. Maybe.

Has Mr. Stern's endorsement made a difference? The founder of VFTW claims yes, unsurprisingly.

According to Mr. Della Terza, votefortheworst.com
had been receiving a million or so hits per “Idol” show this season;
that number jumped to more than three million after his first
appearance on Mr. Stern’s show.

But he forgets to mention that if you visit the mail bag full of comments on votefortheworst.com,
messages left by these 2 million more people reveal a virulent hatred
toward the group and what it's doing. The 'comments' are comprised
almost entirely of misspelled and grammarless complaints and lawsuit threats as infantile and misguided as the group itself.

Ok,
that's my rant, I'm really going to try to stay away from this whole
mess now. It makes me irritable. My pics for the top three: Blake,
Melinda,Jordin. In that order.

Get your elitist patriot propaganda off my treadmill

Gone are the days when finishing a marathon is challenge enough. A woman is about to attempt the Boston on the international space station 210 miles above the Earth. Why not just do it in Boston, you ask? Well, two reasons really. One is that you don't really need to be in Boston to compete in the Boston. Two is that she's simultaneously trying to break the record for longest continuous time spent in space of any American ever.

An American astronaut will run this year's Boston Marathon on board the International Space Station.

Sunita Williams, 41, a US Navy commander, will be tied to a treadmill to combat the effect of weightlessness.

She qualified for a place by finishing last year's Houston Marathon in three hours 29 minutes and 57 seconds.

But she blasted off on board the Discovery space shuttle in December, prompting her decision to try to run the race in space on 16 April.

This is nice, I guess, to allow her to compete. I wouldn't begrudge her that chance since she's clearly qualified and has gone through a lot to make it happen. But, what's the point, exactly? Doesn't it turn into a completely different exercise when you're running in zero gravity? Even if you're strapped to a treadmill....no wind resistance, climate control, regulated oxygen level, maybe a cath, you could sort of float above the treadmill as the miles tick by. And doesn't the treadmill itself add a bit of fallacy to the whole thing by enabling you to be hyper aware and in control of things like your pace, incline (and note, no decline possible), stride, time, etc.? Plus, there will be no weight bearing which is pretty much what sets running apart from things like swimming and cycling (also, it seems to frustrate her complaint that she won't have a bath waiting at the end).

So what does the Boston Athletic Association have to say about the attempt? Well, Jack Fleming of the BAA is setting his own record for the most offensively misguided digs that could possibly be packed into one short sentence.

For Suni to choose to run the 26.2 miles (42.2km) in space on Patriots Day is really a tribute to the thousands of marathoners who are running here on Earth."

Ok, first, wtf does patriots day have to do with it? And second, I'm pretty sure this is not about the runners on earth. It's about running in space. She's doing it for herself, for the Navy, to set a record, but not for the people on Earth. There's not much remarkable or tribute-worthy about running on Earth anymore, precisely because of what she's doing.
This whole thing is a little strange - this performance, though obviously a test of physical and mental strength and stamina, really doesn't seem to quite count as running. Not only because of the things I alluded to above, it also raises a whole litany of potential injuries and difficulties that differ from those suffered by marathon runners:

Nasa has built a "vibration isolation system" to keep the space station steady as Ms Williams runs, but this places extra strain on the runner's hips and shoulders.

"That harness gets hard on her back and her shoulders or her hips," said the astronaut's sister, Dina Pandya.

"Her foot was going numb because the strap was on her hip so much."

I think my problem with this is that it's arbitrary and not really about 'running' the 'Boston' marathon. It seems suspiciously like a 'rally 'round the flag' publicity stunt. Apparently great lengths are gone to in order to accommodate qualifiers who can't actually be in Boston for the marathon. And the only example given is that US soldiers abroad are given the chance to compete by being sent care packages of finishing line, watter bottles, and trophies. Which is nice. But when did marathons become marketing billboards for Patriots Day and US troops and war and astronauts?

I have a plan that would fix everything without expanding the fiction.... that is without expanding it beyond what is clearly already acceptable. Instead of saying she's running the Boston marathon when she's actually 210 miles away from Boston, she should just say she's 'continuously' in outer space by fudging the detail that she spent a day in Boston...

But lest I miss a chance to exploit such a fine-tuned loophole, I'm going to complete the Boston Marathon by sitting on my ass for five hours strait finishing up my workshop papers. On Patriot's day of course. And to simulate running I will consume nothing but Gatorade and that Cliff goo until hour 4 when the sustinance stations close up.

"A little [alcohol] may be better than none...

...but a lot is worse than a little." So don't be a lush.

Last year, with the support of the Unilever Health Institute in the Netherlands (Unilever owns Lipton Tea), a panel of experts on nutrition and health published a “Beverage Guidance System” in hopes of getting people to stop drinking their calories when those calories contribute little or nothing to their health and may actually detract from it.

Other items of note:

Coffee is truly majestical. Up to 30oz of coffee a day is advantageous w/ few downsides, but don't drink the expensive stuff like french-pressed or espresso....

Several good studies have linked regular coffee consumption to a reduced risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer and, in men and in women who have not taken postmenopausal hormones, Parkinson’s disease.

Most studies have not linked a high intake of either coffee or caffeine to heart disease, even though caffeinated coffee raises blood pressure somewhat and boiled unfiltered coffee (French-pressed and espresso) raises harmful LDL and total cholesterol levels.

Caffeine itself is not thought to be a problem for health or water balance in the body, up to 400 milligrams a day (the amount in about 30 ounces of brewed coffee).

Mice prone to an Alzheimer’s-like disease were protected by drinking water spiked with caffeine equivalent to what people get from five cups of coffee a day. And a study of more than 600 men suggested that drinking three cups of coffee a day protects against age-related memory and thinking deficits.

Back to alcohol...

Moderate consumption — one drink a day for women and two for men — has been linked in many large, long-term studies to lower mortality rates, especially from heart attacks and strokes, and may also lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes and gallstones. The panel found no convincing evidence that one form of alcohol, including red wine, was better than another.

Coffee is even better than milk (but water still comes out on top).

[The panel] rated low-fat and skim milk third, below water and coffee and tea, as a preferred drink and said dairy drinks were not essential to a healthy diet. The panel acknowledged the benefits of milk for bone density, while noting that unless people continue to drink it, the benefit to bones of the calcium and vitamin D in milk is not maintained.

Tea.

Tea lowers cancer risk in experimental animals, but the effects in people are unknown. It may benefit bone density and help prevent kidney stones and tooth decay. And four or five cups of black tea daily helps arteries expand and thus may improve blood flow to the heart.

Soy milk.

“Fortified soy milk is a good alternative for individuals who prefer not to consume cow milk,” the panel said, but cautioned that soy milk cannot be legally fortified with vitamin D and provides only 75 percent of the calcium the body obtains from cow’s milk.

American Idol meets The Story of Orange

Does anyone else think Sanjaya looked like the Sunbow fairy tonight?

beef hormones = infertility

As a rule, I try to avoid being propaganda-ish, absolutist, or pushy, but this isn't far from the truth, turns out. As if the world needed another reason to be vegetarian.

Scientists have produced evidence to suggest that Europe was right to ban the beef industry from using growth promoters to increase yield.

A US study has linked use of the chemicals to damage to human sperm.

It was only a matter of time...

Before blog commentators started making anonymous death threats.

Prominent blogger Kathy Sierra has called on the blogosphere to combat the culture of abuse online.

It follows a series of death threats which have forced her to cancel a public appearance and suspend her blog.

Ms Sierra described on her blog how she had been subject to a campaign of threats, including a post that featured a picture of her next to a noose.

I don't mean to make light of this but I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often.

And forgive me for being critical in the face of potentially grave circumstances, but this:

"I agonised about making this post but I hoped it would start a dialogue," she told the BBC News website.

"I never thought it would become so big or be this positive," she said.

While blogging feuds are common, she believes the campaign against her is more likely to be because she is a woman in the male-dominated technology world.

Coupled with the facts that she stopped her blog for a while and cancelled appearances, seems inconsistent with this...

"If you want to do something about it, do not tolerate the kind of abuse that includes threats or even suggestions of violence (especially sexual violence). Do not put these people on a pedestal. Do not let them get away with calling this "social commentary", "protected speech", or simply "criticism"," she said on her blog.

Another prominent blogger, author, and speaker, Roger von Oech has experienced similar troubles with public exposure:

One of the weirdest and spookiest packages I received was from a reader who had gone through "A Whack on the Side of the Head" and cut out many of the drawings in the book. He then cut out the eyes in the drawings and pasted the drawings on a piece of cardboard with the note: "These people all look dead. Do you like death, Roger? Would you like to be dead?" No return address. Just a cowardly act.

You shake your head, speak out against it, take preventive measures, and move forward.

Probably the numbers of celebrities and quasi-celebrities that make it through their 15 minutes without at least a few such threats is low. So was Sierra right to publicize the incident on an international scale? Will this make such behavior more or less likely in the future? Was she right to speculate that it's all about gender? Or is she at once hypocritically glorifying the cowards that do this kind of thing and crying victim at a time when feminism desperately needs a voice of bravery and maturity?

Probably when all is said and done, speaking up is a good thing. Exposing the issue and rallying people against something as potentially serious as death threats can result in positive change. The linked article reveals that at least one blogger has eliminated the option to post anonymously on his blog. It's a step.

But let's be frank, this episode has indeed put the perpetrators on a pedestal. Bad actors like this are not seeking fame in the sense that most of us understand it, they aim to invoke some perversion of respect and fear, rather than adoration. Look at John Mark Karr's false confession to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Any exposure at all feeds this culture. Public criticism and anger is not a deterrent, it's exactly what they're looking for. So what is needed, it seems, is exposure only insofar as it effects meaningful techniques to prohibit the behavior.

Lest anyone be confused, I am a fan of free speech, but I also think the 'time, place, manner' restriction is appropriate in circumstances like this. Though I also question the potential for effective enforcement of such a restriction in a medium like the blogosphere.

"Sweat equity may be the best social security"

And maybe, in the case of me and my contemporaries, the only social security.
Inspiring...

84 year old triathelete:

[At age 54,] a stress test had detected an irregular heartbeat, and the doctor felt that sustained aerobic activity such as running — not Bell's old love, golf — would fix the problem.

Yeah, 'cause golf = NOT exercise. L, you should start running between tees. Or do a lap around the course every time you go OOB. It'll be like a drinking game. Only not.

He began logging 11 to 12 miles before work every day and began building an athletic r–sum– of 158 marathons and ultra runs, including 14 marathons in one year.

Before long, the father of three and grandfather of eight would set his sights on the most exalted "letterman's sweater" in the endurance sports world: A Hawaii Ironman finisher's T-shirt.

Today, he has 17 of them — 32 counting non-Hawaii Ironmans.

In 2003, at 80, he retired from Ironman competitions — but not from triathlon.

"My advice to anyone is simple," Bell says. "Keep moving. I call it the 'lawnmower theory.' If you leave a lawnmower out on the grass and it rains, you better get out and push that thing before it gets rusty.

84 year old marathon runner:

When Davis won the 75-to-79 age group in 6 hours, 3 minutes, even beating the men, the cat was out of the bag. She and her youngest daughter, Colleen Heublein, now 51, began training together in earnest, starting with a climb up Mt. Whitney to celebrate Davis' 80th birthday that August.

Eight months later, after running side-by-side the whole race, Davis dropped Colleen at mile 22 and won the 80-and-older age group at the 2003 marathon in an eye-opening personal record of 5:37:15, again beating all the 75-year-olds, men and women.
Since then, Davis has run five more marathons — three L.A.s and two San Diego Rock 'n' Rolls — and 10 half-marathons. Her time of 5:42:49 in 2005 was recognized as the fastest marathon in history for any 82-year-old in the U.S.

Davis says she can't afford to slow down. "I hear rumors of a woman up north who can run a sub-five marathon — and she's 84 too. She'd clean my clock if she came down here."

"My real secret is cod liver oil," she says. "When I was 12, it cleared up the terrible psoriasis we'd get in the cold New Jersey winters. Ever since, I've taken a couple spoonfuls of the cherry flavor nearly every morning — and haven't had an outbreak since."

...because nothing can hamper a marathon training program like.....psoriasis...? I wonder if that comes in vegetarian?

There are also stories about an 88 year old swimmer and a 94 year old cyclist. But I have to stop, I'm starting to feel like a slacker and have a strange craving to go hang out with the old people in the lap pool. Just to make sure I still got it.

Who needs underwear anyway?

Three people made off with nearly $12,000 worth of bras and panties at a Victoria’s Secret at the Newport Center Mall here as customers milled about on Tuesday night.
In all, the police said, the take was $6,921 worth of panties and $4,905 in bras.

“That’s a lot of underwear,” said Lt. Edgar Martinez, a spokesman for the Jersey City Police Department.

Clearly this guy has never shopped at VS.

“That stuff is pretty expensive,” said Nancy Bochenek, 29, who works nearby at ISO, a risk-analysis company. She said she buys pajamas and panties there. “So a few bras?”
The theft was the latest in a run on undergarments at the store in Newport Center Mall, which investigators and employees said had become a popular target for thieves.

“Sometimes, there aren’t enough people on the floor,” he said, then added that he felt that a full-time security guard was needed.

Another employee said no one should be surprised at the appeal that women’s underpants hold for thieves.

"Underpants?" Seriously? Who says that?

Perhaps the garments wouldn't have to be guarded like fine jewelry if they weren't priced like fine jewelry.

"Cheap Wine Works Fine"

Hell yeah it does. Particularly when it comes out of a box.

Said Julia Child: “If you do not have a good wine to use, it is far better to omit it, for a poor one can spoil a simple dish and utterly debase a noble one.”

And so we came to a new gospel: Never cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink.

But it is not always helpful in the kitchen....short of a wine that is spoiled by age, heat or a compromised cork, there are few that I categorically would not drink.

Enough said.

What is VFTW to do?

If you're a proponent of the "Vote for the worst" conspiracy, you may have found yourself in quite the pickle last night. Sanjaya, this season's indisputable VFTW frontrunner simply dominated. So one can't help but wonder...will they pick a new 'worst' to vote for given the glut of votes sanjaya is likely to pull in after his uncharacteristically out of control and out-of-tune rendition of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me."

No, he's still their man.


And here's what they had to say about last night's performance:

Sanjaya's number tonight is 1-866-IDOLS-08 (1-866-436-5708). Dial it as much as you can between 10 PM and midnight (9 PM and 11 PM central), or if you have Cingular Wireless, you can also text the word "VOTE" to 5708. If you get busy signals, keep dialing. Vote for the full 2 hours for the highest impact. Sanjaya NEEDS our help and this is the big week so vote as much as you can. THAT WAS THE BEST DAMN VFTW PERFORMANCE IN THE HISTORY OF THE SHOW. We can't stop laughing.

Weird that they don't recognize that their meticulously-crafted surreptitious plans are crumbling around them. To be fair though, I still don't think sanjaya has a chance. Notwithstanding the conspicuous appearances of his super-hot sister in the audience with her super low-cut, super clingy tops. We get that he needs all the help he can get, but he's running out of cards and obviously quite desperate. On the other hand, this is the country that elected Taylor Hicks. And Bush.

But he's also caputred the hearts of pre-teen girls, which I can't understand. Perhaps it's because he sort of resembles a pre-teen girl.

Ashley Ferl, 13 from riverside, sobbed uncontrolably through Sanjina's performance last night, it was a little scary - watching it last night, I wondered for a while whether the cameras had mistaken claustrophobia or panicked fear or the news that her cat just died, for adoration. But apparently she really is that star struck.

The family obtained tickets on a website to attend a taping of “Smarter Than a 5th Grader” a day passage that included not just the taping of the show itself, but also the dress rehearsal of either “Grader” or “Idol.” The fates were kind, and the mother and daughter found their way to the “Idol” rehearsal, where Ashley’s waterworks began. Her prowess was quickly brought to the attention of “Idol” producers who summoned the clan to a ringside seat of honor at the final taping.

Sure, it's cute now, but wait 'til she's 25, in therapy 3 times a week, and taking 6 kinds of meds for being uncommonly emotionally disordered.

The Frog Princess revisited

In response to stocious' comment earlier, which I think warrants a whole 'nother post...question was: will disney manage to create a black character with actual black features? Or will she look like black Barbie?

Princes "Maddy" is still on the drawing boards (film to be released in '09) but here is the latest:

I'd say she looks about as African-American as Pocahontas looks Native American and Mulan looks Chinese. And she sort of looks like tinkerbell in the frame on the right.

Brilliant comment on another blog said "What's next [for Disney] -- African-American executives?"

Would be hilarious if it weren't so true.

Aren't you involved in that?

"When Rendering Decisions, Judges are Finding Law Reviews Irrelevant," goes the headline in one of today's TimesSelect articles.

Many law professors seem to think they are under no obligation to say anything useful or to say anything well. They take pride in the theoretical and in working in disciplines other than their own. They seem to think the analysis of actual statutes and court decisions — which is to say the practice of law — is beneath them.

I can't begin to count the number of times I've applied this same critique to law school lectures by these very same professors. It's especially true, I think, of professors and lectures in "the twenty schools in the top 10" where classrooms become sounding boards for normative policy arguments and the prof's next letter to the ALI or to Congress, the next amicus brief, and of course, the next law review article.

The upshot is that the legal academy has become much less influential. “I haven’t opened up a law review in years,” said Chief Judge Dennis G. Jacobs of the federal appeals court in New York. “No one speaks of them. No one relies on them.”

Well now that can't be true, the big selling point to prospective law journal members around here is "Whateverjournal is one of only 8 law reviews in the Supreme Court chambers" or in this court or that, or the most cited by other articles...someone must be reading them, right?

In the 1970s, federal courts cited articles from The Harvard Law Review 4,410 times, according to a new report by the staff of The Cardozo Law Review. In the 1990s, the number of citations dropped by more than half, to 1,956. So far in this decade: 937.


Patterns at other leading law reviews are similar. And the drop in the number of citations understates the phenomenon, as the courts’ caseload has exploded in the meantime.

Even when courts do cite law review articles, Judge Robert D. Sack said at Cardozo, their motives are not always pure. “Judges use them like drunks use lampposts,” Judge Sack said, “more for support than for illumination.”

The article blames searchable legal data bases, and blogs, which I think is fair. Though much of my experience with Lexis has been searching the journal databases for various research papers, law review articles are 'forbidden fruit' at the firm - which is to say they can be looked at but never used (and don't dare bill those hours).

To an extent, her plea has been answered by the Internet. On blogs like the Volokh Conspiracy and Balkinization, law professors analyze legal developments with skill and flair almost immediately after they happen. Law professors also seem to be litigating more, representing clients and putting their views before courts in supporting briefs.

And a nod to the hard-working journal members that spend upwards of 30 to 100 hours per semester diligently editing, scrutinizing, re-formatting, dealing with 'difficult' authors, managing the journal itself like a well-greased non-profit machine...

Judge Sack mentioned that he had written a number of law review articles. “I feel your pain,” he said. “As far as I can tell, the only person to have read any of them was the person who edited them.”

Sounds about right, but he forgot the submissions readers.

Bottomline, from personal experience: Journals are for resumes.

Professor and "Formidable Law Blogger" Ann Althouse weighs in in defense of the process, starting with a long-overdue counter-critique to the honorable Judge Jacobs et al.

[O]the theory that I've got some judge and law clerk readers, let me put in my request that they write their damned opinions in a quick, plain and accessible style. Because I'm getting pretty weary of their obfuscatory, evasive, rambling scribblings myself.

Do you feel sorry for the law review editors who work so hard on what the professors write? The editors still get their editing experience. They get their lustrous credential to put on that résumé that will land them the judicial clerkships where they will get more experience working on judicial opinions -- those lengthy, obfuscatory judicial opinions that fail to cite law review articles.

If the very persons who just spent two years working closely on law review articles don't find a way to work law review citations into the opinions they draft and edit, that says a lot about the value of what they chose to publish.

After three years of living, breathing, and trying to emulate these obfuscatory, evasive, and rambling scribblings, I am craving some black-letter. Luckily, I got an email today that my second PMBR shipment has been sent.

Disney is moving left...

...by about an inch away from the very furthest point to the right.



No, Randy Newman isn't new. And if history is any teacher, I'm betting his theme song won't be either. But it will still be an academy award nominee. The princess in this one is black, which has never happened before.

Can you name a non-Hallmark holiday?

The world needs more of these types of celebrations - selfless, non-commercial, uncontrovercial....

From the BBC:
"Elephant Day" is marked in Chiang Mai province in northern Thailand with
a feast for the elephants of banana trees, sugarcane and fruit.

From my mom (who it turns out did not discover the Large-billed reed warbler):

The Elephant Conservation Center
doesn't let tourists in on National Elephant Day because it's a vacation for
the elephants. Thailand used to have a cool flag with a white elephant
against a red background. Can you believe they changed it to mimic the super
powers, so now it's boring red, white and blue.

What year is it?

Stark comes off as heroic and brave and highly controversial for something that maybe shouldn't be so extraordinary in this day and age.

Cue the jokes about godless politicians and Bay Area liberals.

Secular groups Monday applauded a public acknowledgment by Rep. Pete Stark that he does not believe in a supreme being, making the Fremont Democrat the first member of Congress — and the highest-ranking elected official in the U.S. — to publicly acknowledge not believing in God.

Being religious is apparently a safe harbor for being electable.

A USA Today/Gallup poll last month found that 45% of respondents said they would vote for a "well qualified" presidential candidate who was an atheist. Ninety-five percent said they would vote for a Catholic candidate, 92% a Jewish candidate and 72% a Mormon candidate.

Ok, blame the White House...

...just not Bush.

The White House was deeply involved in the decision late last year to dismiss federal prosecutors, including some who had been criticized by Republican lawmakers, administration officials said Monday.

But the article makes sure to exculpate Bush from any wrongdoing.

The president did not call for the removal of any specific United States attorneys, said Dana Perino, a White House spokeswoman. She said she had “no indication” that the president had been personally aware that a process was already under way to identify prosecutors who would be fired.

But Ms. Perino disclosed that White House officials had consulted with the Justice Department in preparing the list of United States attorneys who would be removed.

Is it supposed to somehow mitigate the problem that the President wasn't the first to suggest which specific attorneys would be 'replaced?' The White House and Justice Department, who appear to be trying to maintain the position that their decisions were reasonable, have really just shot themselves in the foot. By 'shielding' Bush this way, the administration seems to imply that the rest of the executive branch is responsible for some bad decisions.

“We continue to believe that the decision to remove and replace U.S. attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the president was perfectly appropriate and within our discretion,” Ms. Perino said.

“We stand by the Department of Justice assertion that they identified the seven U.S. attorneys who were removed, as they have said, based on performance and managerial reasons.”

Ok, performance-based firings...

In the other cases, though, the department at first denied that the dismissals were performance related, and then said they were, citing managerial problems, lack of aggressiveness and conflicts over seeking the death penalty or enforcing immigration laws.

Waffles anyone? And how is lack of aggressiveness and willingness to seek the death penalty or enforce laws NOT performance based? And what exactly are 'managerial problems?'

Another rationale for the firings cited the White House - failure to pursue voter fraud cases. Which is ironic.

And who had the idea initially? None other than the straw-woman would-be Chief Justice:

In early 2005, Harriet E. Miers, then the White House legal counsel, asked a Justice Department official whether it would be feasible to replace all United States attorneys when their four-year terms expired, according to the Justice Department. The proposal came as the administration was considering which political appointees to replace in the second term, Ms. Perino said.

Ms. Miers sent her query to D. Kyle Sampson, a top aide to Mr. Gonzales, the Justice officials said. Mr. Sampson, who resigned Monday, replied that filling so many jobs at once would overtax the department. He suggested replacing a smaller group, according to e-mail messages and other memorandums compiled by the Justice Department.

Next Steps?

This week, the United States attorney dispute will be aired on the Senate floor during debate over legislation to roll back a provision of the antiterrorism law that allows President Bush to appoint interim United States attorneys indefinitely.

Read: use grants of discretion and immunity for attorney firings as a consolation for rolling back antiterrorism legislation.

Oh, and subpoena Karl Rove. Schumer's on it? Great.

And lets get just one more thing strait...or at least one thing strait...prosecutors don't serve at the pleasure of the president - they serve the public.

More bad news...

For those of us still inclined to believe in antioxidants and that wine is good for us and that one can live on luna bars (in other words, the very busy and the very stressed):

Why do humans and their primate cousins get more stress-related diseases than any other member of the animal kingdom? The answer, says Stanford University neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky, is that people, apes and monkeys are highly intelligent, social creatures with far too much spare time on their hands.

"Primates are super smart and organized just enough to devote their free time to being miserable to each other and stressing each other out," he said. "But if you get chronically, psychosocially stressed, you're going to compromise your health. So, essentially, we've evolved to be smart enough to make ourselves sick."

Here's how it works:

In the short term, he explained, stress hormones are "brilliantly adapted" to help you survive an unexpected threat. "You mobilize energy in your thigh muscles, you increase your blood pressure and you turn off everything that's not essential to surviving, such as digestion, growth and reproduction," he said. "You think more clearly, and certain aspects of learning and memory are enhanced. All of that is spectacularly adapted if you're dealing with an acute physical stressor--a real one."

But non-life-threatening stressors, such as constantly worrying about money or pleasing your boss, also trigger the release of adrenalin and other stress hormones, which, over time, can have devastating consequences to your health, he said: "If you turn on the stress response chronically for purely psychological reasons, you increase your risk of adult onset diabetes and high blood pressure. If you're chronically shutting down the digestive system, there's a bunch of gastrointestinal disorders you're more at risk for as well."

And the worst part? If we're smart enough to stress ourselves and each other out enough to inflict psychological and physiological harm, we don't even get to enjoy the smartness. Because stress prevents smartness.

"Furthermore, if you're chronically stressed, all sorts of aspects of brain function are impaired, including, at an extreme, making it harder for some neurons to survive neurological insults," Sapolsky added. "Also, neurons in the parts of the brain relating to learning, memory and judgment don't function as well under stress. That particular piece is what my lab has spent the last 20 years on."

And it gets worse for those of us planning to work for a firm next year or who are not religion.

According to Sapolsky, happiness and self-esteem are important factors in reducing stress. Yet the definition of "happiness" has less to do with material comfort than Westerners might assume, he noted: "An extraordinary finding that's been replicated over and over is that once you get past the 25 percent or so poorest countries on Earth, where the only question is survival and subsistence, there is no relationship between gross national product, per capita income, any of those things, and levels of happiness."

Surveys show that in Greece, for example, one of Western Europe's poorest countries, people are much happier than in the United States, the world's richest nation. And while Greece is ranked number 30 in life expectancy, the United States--with the biggest per capita expenditure on medical care--is only slighter higher, coming in at 29.

"The United States has the biggest discrepancy in health and longevity between our wealthiest and our poorest of any country on Earth," Sapolsky noted. "We're also ranked way up in stress-related diseases."

Japan is number one in life expectancy, largely because of its extremely supportive social network, according to Sapolsky. He cited similar findings in the United States. "Two of the healthiest states are Vermont and Utah, while two of the unhealthiest are Nevada and New Hampshire," he noted. "Vermont is a much more left-leaning state in terms of its social support systems, while its neighbor New Hampshire prides itself on no income tax and go it alone. In Utah, the Mormon church provides extended social support, explanations for why things are and structure. You can't ask for more than that. And next door is Nevada, where people are keeling over dead from all of their excesses. It's very interesting."

Religiosity in and of itself is good for your health in some ways, although less than some of its advocates would have you believe," Sapolsky said. "It infuriates me, because I'm an atheist, so it makes me absolutely crazy, but it makes perfect sense. If you have come up with a system that not only tells you why things are but is capped off with certain knowledge that some thing or things respond preferentially to you, you're filling a whole lot of pieces there--gaining some predictability, attribution, social support and control over the scariest realms of our lives."

So....any advice?

Some people clearly never can overcome it. But the same things that make us smart enough to generate the kind of psychological stress that's unheard of in other primates can be the same things that can protect us. We are malleable.

My take: We are only as malleable as we are effective at mind control. Let's just all move to Greece.

The continuing debate on antioxidants

The claim:

Most long-term prospective trials have shown that using antioxidant vitamin supplements does not prevent heart disease or cancer, with the possible exception of prostate cancer.

In a study published last month in The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers in Europe analyzed data from 68 large trials in which more than 232,000 adults were given antioxidant supplements.

In a subset of those studies, the scientists concluded, subjects taking vitamins A and E and beta carotene saw a slightly increased risk of death compared with those who did not take supplements. (Vitamin C had no effect on mortality, the team found.)

And the Opposition:

Dr. Stampfer and others say [the study's] analysis is methodologically flawed, because it includes data from widely heterogeneous studies, excludes data from hundreds of others for unclear reasons and does not try to detail the causes of increased mortality among supplement users.

“It just seems implausible that antioxidants should be killing you by several different means,” said Dr. Jeffrey Blumberg, a nutrition professor at Tufts. “I don’t buy it.”

Dr. Andrew Shao, vice president of the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a trade group for the supplement industry, said, “Most of these patients already had disease, so the conclusions simply aren’t relevant to a healthy population.”

I think one of the problems is that when studies first started to uncover the correlation between antioxidants and health, researchers made the mistake of assuming there was a causal relationship. When really the healthy people were not healthy because they took vitamins. They took vitamins cause they were healthy. And probably did a lot of other healthy things too. But once the cat was out of the bag - well, we all know how much we love a quick fix.

In hindsight, it was naïve of scientists and consumers to hope that the relatively short-term addition of one or two antioxidants would be enough to counteract decades of poor diet and inadequate exercise, not to mention the genome.

This article follows a 12 pg essay by a nutritionist published in the times a few months ago touting the benefits of eating whole foods. The gist was that when we eat processed foods, we're eating food that has essentially already been digested and our system gets flooded with sugar and doesn't know what to do with it all. Hence, love handles. Whereas eating whole foods enables us to digest antioxidants, etc. the way nature intended.

Despite the proliferance of fad diets and endless reams of conflicting information, the bottom line always seems to be the same:

The good news is that a diet rich in fruits and vegetables contains literally thousands of antioxidant nutrients. Prevention begins in the kitchen.

Would that we all had the kind of lifestyle that allowed us to go into the kitchen to do more than microwave a frozen pizza. And would that vegetables tasted like baileys and ice cream. And that Splenda was really made from sugar and made the whole world look like a scene from Big Fish.

More from Moschella, Master of Logic

Waffling like a pro.

Compare this....

William E. Moschella, principal deputy attorney general, said that each of the dismissed prosecutors was a "talented lawyer." He said the firings could have been handled better too, but sharply denied anyone was pink-slipped out of retaliation or for base political motives.

With this...

"If a judgment is made that they are not executing their responsibilities in a manner that furthers the management and policy goals of departmental leadership, then it is appropriate that they be asked to resign so they can be replaced by other individuals who will."

In other words, they weren't fired for their base political motives. They were fired because their base political motives were not aligned with those of departmental leadership.

So they weren't fired for what their base political motives were - they were fired for what their base political motives were not? Still, I don't think this exactly exonerates the justice department.

You start to realize that PhD is useless when...

Researchers at the University of Leuven recently concluded the "Royalty Society B' study (pretentiousmuch?); the outcome came at great expense and involved 176 test subjects, relentless game-playing, and world-renowned academic and empirical expertise. The result? Before I tell you, keep in mind that the study has not yet been peer reviewed and we can't be sure that the conclusions are reliable, but here it is...

Men are distracted by beautiful women.

Men about to play a financial game were shown images of sexy women or lingerie.

The Proceedings of the Royal Society B study found they were more likely to accept unfair offers than men not been exposed to the alluring images.

The suggestion is that the sexual cues distract the men's thoughts, preventing them from focusing on their task - particularly among those with high natural testosterone levels

Was anyone confused about this? Is this really press-worthy modern science? I would posit that the grant was made and the stories were written for the simple reason that it gives everyone an excuse to talk about sex without feeling perverted or inappropriate. What is the obsession?

And it is an obsession, why else would any respectable university sanction what appears to be a scientific process modeled on methods of a 3d grade science class? We've seen that the more testosterone a guy has the more dramatic the distractive effect of a woman is. So how did they measure the subjects' levels of testosterone? Did they use a blood test? A pee-in-a-cup test? No, they used the technologically advanced and supremely accurate method of measuring the guys' index and ring fingers to see which was longer. A longer ring finger means testosterone at the 'high' level.

All you guys are checking out your hands right now, aren't you.

Does the same go for women?

The researchers are conducting similar tests with women. But so far, they have failed to find a visual stimulus which will affect their behaviour."

Curious. I wonder if it's possible that women have less testosterone then men. Also curious is that the study rather needlessly restricted the scope of their potential findings by excluding gay men from the subject pool.

Any concluding words?

"If a man is being asked to choose between something being presented by an attractive woman and an ugly man, they might not be as dispassionate as they could be."

This was the very last statement in the article. While true, it doesn't really have anything to do with the study. The findings suggests only that the man would have an easier time understanding the ugly man's presentation than the presentation by the woman. The reason he chooses the attractive woman's idea has nothing to do with how well he understands the presentations.

I'm guessing, I mean I'm not a doctor or anything and could be totally full of crap. But I have a feeling not.

Reasonable minds may differ

I get a little annoyed when things like this show up in my inbox from friends and family members who know I'm not religious.

"With hurricanes, tornados [sic], fires out of control, mud slides, flooding,
severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and
with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, "Are we sure this is a
good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?" - Jay Leno

This
showed up among a collection of other inspirational messages in an
email from a family friend entitled 'Sayings to think about.' I know
they mean well and it doesn't offend me or enrage me enough to call
them up and give them my two cents. But it does make me wonder how,
when they send these emails (forwards typically, I average about dozen
a week) trying to persuade us heathens to believe in God, as if a
belief is something you could 'try harder' to have, how the glaring
circularity of the messages doesn't occur to them.

I saw this the other day, and my instantaneous willingness to get behind it made me wonder if I was being a hypocrite.

Four years ago Mr. Ball,
the executive director of the nonprofit Evangelical Environmental
Network, and his wife, Kara, drove thePrius from Texas east across the
Bible Belt in a provocative stunt that, in keeping with the core
mission of his organization, awakened evangelical churches to the
threat of global warming. It also awakened Americans to the existence
of the human hybrid known as a Green Evangelical.

But
upon further reflection, I don't think my support is hypocritical, I
haven't changed my position on Christianity or global warming. I just
like that people are getting excited enough about the environment and
the pri -i(?) to make a difference, however that inspiration manifests.
These people are doing more good for the ultimate beneficiaries than a
lot of athiest vegan activists I know.

It
turns out that Jim and Kara Ball spend a lot of time thinking not just
about what Jesus would drive, but also about how his people should wash
their clothes, light their bathrooms, clean their windows, shop for
groceries and furnish their living rooms — the day-to-day elements of
what some Christian environmentalists call “creation care.”

“We
like to buy used — we do that intentionally,” Mr. Ball said, surveying
a desk, television cabinet, dining room table and end tables that the
couple bought at their favorite thrift shop in rural Maryland, run by a
Navy veteran named Bill. “Our stuff doesn’t necessarily match, but it goes enough.”

At
the nonprofit I worked with a few years ago, we thought of ourselves as
non-elitist quasi-purists and were well aware that our dedication and
passion was not shared by everyone. Or by very many people at all. We
were surrounded by groups (and sometimes legislators) both more and
less liberal than we were who picked every battle, refusing to
compromise, figuring one win would outweigh the damage to themselves
and their cause wreked by what many viewed to be irrational stubbornness
or extremist tactics. Our observations of these litigious, costly, and
ultimately unproductive dealings taught us that it's often a good idea
to keep bridges intact, even if those bridges lead to a place you would
never ever go.

For example - we were an environmental group
and often found our interests aligned with those of hunting
enthusiasts. While there is not much in this world that I consider more
grotesque and inhumane than hunting, the fact that uniting with an
enemy would increase the chances of defeating a 3d party enemy was
undeniable. Damage to reputation is also a consideration, but we
weren't an animal rights group, we were working for the same thing
which was conservation.

Another example - a certain dean of a
certain public law school embarked a few years ago on a fundraising
campaign that was initially unpopular because it entailed securing significiant
amounts of private funding for a school that purports to be very
protective of its reputation as being public interest-oriented. But
today I don't see any of the students complaining about the new library
or Aeron chairs.

I'd like to now share some advice one of my wise colleagues
was once good enough to share with me, and that is: "Fuck 'em." This
advice applies in many contexts but here I suppose "'em" would be those
who would question your loyalty and passion when really you're just
doing whatever it takes to get what you want. There may be a fine line
between compromise and being a pushover or a sell-out. But I think
there is a line.

Conflict waivers anyone?

In another brilliant move by the administration:

IRS staff has been cut by a fifth over the last decade. At the same time, Congress has made increased the complexity of the CODE. In a recent formal notice, the agency has said it lacks resources to issue as much guidance as taxpayers are seeking.

The answer?

Let the lawyers write the CODE so they wont need to ask for guidance!

The logic behind this new policy proposal is consistent with Captain Destruction's prior legislation aimed at curbing wildfires by leveling forests (see the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003).

This is like asking hackers to write encryption software...and then sending the hackers back out into the world to do what they do. It's like sanctioned hacking.

The Internal Revenue Service is asking tax lawyers and accountants who create tax shelters and exploit loopholes to take the lead in writing some of its new tax rules.

The pilot project represents a further expansion of the increasingly common federal government practice of asking outsiders to do more of its work, prompting academics and other critics to complain that the government is going too far.

They worry that having private lawyers and accountants draft tax rules could allow them to subtly skew them in favor of their clients.

“It’s not the fox guarding the hen house, it’s the fox designing the hen house,” said Paul C. Light, a professor of political science at New York University, who studies the f ederal work force.

What say you, IRS?

Donald L. Korb, the I.R.S. general counsel, defended the plan, saying in an interview that he believed that the pilot project was “not changing this process one iota.”

Well stated. But there is one change that could have some interesting implications, which is that the law will be different. Oh, and that the changes will be made by corporate attorneys. Korb must've just skimmed this part of the plan. Lawyers don't get around the CODE by exploiting the process. Ok, no that's not true but you know what I mean. I mean that's not the only way they get around the CODE.

“Whoever’s pen the first draft comes out of has a big advantage,” said Dr. Graham, [who has a PhD in Statements of the Obvious and] who ran the Office of Regulatory and Information Affairs for the White House before becoming dean last week of the graduate school at RAND, the nonprofit research organization.

Several regulation experts and tax lawyers warned of dangers if the tax police must enforce rules written by those skilled at devising tax-free paths through the maze of the Internal Revenue Code.

I'm not really sure what they're implying here. If they're trying to say there's a risk that unscrupulous lawyers will take advantage of this plan by changing the subtleties of the CODE fo favor their clients, I'm deeply offended. I don't know any unscrupulous tax lawyers and this is just plain irresponsible, Matt.

But then, a voice of reason rings out:

Gary D. Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization that tracks the Office of Management and Budget, warned that the Bush administration was turning over too much government responsibility to those it is supposed to be keeping an eye on.

“Why don’t we just privatize Congress and outsource the development of our laws?” he asked.

Indeed, why not? I love this country. Where you can criticize your government without fear of persecution, where you can follow whatever religion you like without fear of unequal protection (as long as it's some denomination of Christianity), you can marry whoever you'd like (wait, scratch that), and where corporate tax lawyers write the tax laws (this one's true). And if that wasn't enough, the implications of this greatly improve my chances to get a good grade in int'l tax this semester.

Bush is a Moops

Our president landed in San Paulo, and to the great surprise of absolutely no one...

some 10,000 people spilled out along one of the city's broadest avenues, in
the heart of the financial district, banging drums, waving red flags
and carrying banners reading "Bush Go Home".

At least 20 people were hurt in clashes between demonstrators and riot police.

Demonstrators
threw rocks, fireworks and homemade "potato bombs" - made from
gunpowder wrapped in foil - at some of the 4,000 police patrolling the
streets during Mr Bush's visit.

Riot police responded by firing tear gas and lashing out with their batons.

So why all the fuss? Is it Iraq?

Yes,
in part, but it's also about (what else?) fuel. Together with Columbia,
Brazil produces 70% of the world's supply of ethanol (bio-fuel) which
powers 8 out of 10 cars in the country. The accord Bush is pushing
would make ethanol an internationally traded commodity and promote its
production in Central America and Caribbean.

Sounds ok so far....

But the cultivation of sugar cane which is used to make ethanol is water intensive and responsible for stripping the Amazonian rainforest. Plus, the production process is concentrated in the hands of a few powerful families and corporations.

I
was wondering how Bush jumped so suddenly (like a gazelle, one might say) and
absolutely behind bio fuel recently. This article and the Brazilian
response to his first of several stops in that part of the world make
it fairly evident that this is just one more opportunity to control
supplies of wealth abroad by oppressing foreign citizens and the last of our natural resources.

Ok,
I have to get back to a paper about another gem brought to us by The
Administration of Destruction. It's on the Restatement (1st) of Archaic
Corporate Law, Only Tweaked a Little to Pad the Paychecks of Accountants
and Lawyers and to Drive Small Businesses Under Act of 2002 (commonly
referred to by its acronym:SOX).

Just pick a scent you won't get sick of. And apply in bursts.

Just in time for the mother of all memory tests (too bad BarBri didn't attach a business practices patent to this idea before word got out):

Scientists studying how sleep affects memory have found that the whiff of a familiar scent can help a slumbering brain better remember things that it learned the evening before. A rose bouquet — delivered to people’s nostrils as they studied and, later, as they slept — improved their performance on a memory test by almost 15 percent.

No freaking way.

The brain is thought to process newly acquired facts, figures and locations most efficiently in deep sleep. This restful state usually descends within the first 20 minutes or so after head meets pillow, and it may last an hour or more, then recur later in the night. The researchers delivered pulses of rose bouquet during this slow-wave state; the odor did not interrupt sleep, and the students said they had no memory of it.

But their brains noticed, and they retained an almost perfect memory of card locations. The students scored an average of 97 percent on the card game, compared with 86 percent when they played the concentration game and slept without being perfumed by nighttime neuroscience faeries.

Evidently, olfactory sensing pathways lead more directly to the hippocampus than visual and auditory ones. Who knew? So we'd be way better off inhaling those PMBR flashcards than just staring at them. Where do I get a nighttime neuroscience faerie? Is that like a sprite?

In the News

Ten or twelve of us tax types were sitting around one side of a conference table this afternoon in a classroom that for the past three years I had assumed was a broom closet but that turned out to be more of a sanitarium cell, waiting for our prof (who was lost somewhere in the building) talking about the day's top news items - specifically, Coke Plus and Harry Potter's nude role in Equus (because really, how else could you follow an act like Harry Potter?) (I'm serious, I think this was a good move)
when one of my classmates laid down the thinly veiled accusation that the world is paying insufficient attention to the recent wave of US attorney firings. I agree, but things seem to be at a stalemate. So far, the response from the justice department has been, predictably, a nonresponse:

A Justice Department official acknowledged to the House Judiciary Committee that the dismissals could have been handled better. The official, William E. Moschella, a top aide in the deputy attorney general’s office, told the committee: “These U.S. attorneys could have been informed at the time that they were asked to resign about the reasons for the decision. Unfortunately, our failure to provide reasons to these individual U.S. attorneys has only served to fuel wild and inaccurate speculation about our motives, and that is unfortunate because faith and confidence in our justice system is more important than any one individual.”

The department said recently that the prosecutors had been fired for performance problems or for failure to carry out department policies. But some Democrats have charged that the dismissals were intended to squelch corruption investigations or replace independent-minded prosecutors.

Notice how slick Moschella is, all this talk about the importance of faith and confidence in our justice system almost made me not notice that he's not only blaming his victims, but also calling them selfish.

In other news...

This photo, taken by Erik S. Lesser, was under the headline: Clinton & Obama Unite in Pleas to Blacks. Fake smiles all. This reminds me of one of those West Side-esque musicals where the two gangs group up on both sides of the stage and do some singing and dancing just before the fight. This is the singing part. Why is Obama refusing to hold hands like everyone else? I think it shows lack of commitment. Or maybe it's some subliminal hands-dirty confession about his investing habits.

This bird, thought to be extinct for 130 years, was recently found in a sewage treatment plant in Thailand.
The bird goes by the stunningly inappropriate name, Large-billed Reed Warbler. As it turns out, my mother, a bird watcher, is in Thailand right now. On a bird watching trip. And I would not put it past this group to brave a sewage treatment facility for this kind of find. I hear developers partying in the streets - new mitigation plan under the ESA: forget old growth and wetlands, just make sure your subdivision has an open-air sewage treatment facility.

Onward...but to what?

I have three homes away from home. One is the law school. One is the gym. And the other is Starbucks. I am an unapologetic regular, various branches have provided the venue for a panoply of minor but cumulatively integral events in my life: social dates, business meetings, a breakup, interviews, more study hours than I care to remember, I was in one this morning when the Libby jury verdict was broadcast... and the day after Chairman Howard Schultz wrote his recently exposed and misguidedly celebrated memo to CEO Jim Donald, I spent just over six hours in one of the (only) two branches in Davis, CA. I wish I could say it was my own private protest in solidarity with Mr. Schultz and all the baristas who are no longer having 'intimate experiences' with patrons because the espresso machines that replaced the La Marzoccas are too high. But I wasn't. I was there for the coffee, the plush chairs, the most productive study time of the week, I guess you could say I was there for the 'Starbucks experience.' And I wasn't disappointed.

Schultz masterfully plays both sides of the fence in his memo, defending decisions he had a hand in making as being good business at the time they were made and then condemning them in hindsight. In addition to the La Marzoccas, Schultz mourns the loss of fumigation-by-roasted beans at the hands of new flavor-lock packaging.

Schultz is valiantly trying to reinvigorate the 'magic' of Starbucks by calling for the return of the shorter, slower espresso machines, making their merchandise more functional than artful, getting the scent just right. I get that he's referring to the 'overall experience, the feel of being in a trendy, indie coffee shop where the beans are organically shade grown and roasted to order right behind the counter, where everyone knows your name - but his tactics seem miscalculated and are not likely to mitigate the company's most pressing problems which involve not aesthetics, but involve fair trade, environmental and corporate responsibility, social accountability, workers' rights (globally), and the risk of becoming a symbol of oppressive world domination by a multinational corporations that profit by selling addictive products and imparting mass externalities upon the environment and their labor forces. Oh, wait.

I'm not pro or anti big box/corporate America per se. I'm pro environment, pro worker's rights, pro fair trade, anti anticompetetive practices, pro social and corporate responsibility...If these are the issues changing my wait from 2 to 10 minutes, I'm happy to accommodate. But don't do it so I can watch the milk being steamed.

Schultz seems to be barking up the wrong tree. And the tree is so wrong that I wonder if he's not mounting a strawman mea culpa to divert attention from the company's real problems by 'confessing' that the stores aren't as cozy as they could be and that he's really sorry and you saw the memo, he's working on it. Give 'em a break. If it's not a strawman, then I still maintain it's the wrong tree - If you ask the 16th person in line who has to stand outside in the 30 degree morning, propping the door open with her new leather 3.5'' knee-highs while she clutches an umbrella in one hand and her 'tote' in the other what she thinks of the new espresso machines, she'd probably say "what new machines...those are new?" and upon being apprised of Schultz's dilemma, she'd probably prefer them because they're faster. And don't get me started on the scent. Where are these warehouse-sized, wind tunnel-ventilated Starbucks stores where the opening of one of the new flavor lock packages doesn't instantly saturate the air with the unmistakable smell of - is that coffee? Can we be sure?

But I do have to hand it to Schultz for sweating the small stuff. He's outing himself on subtleties that most patrons don't notice. I've worked in foodservice. I've seen corporate headquarters drive franchise chains into the ground by refusing to release their deathgrip on what Schultz terms "cookie cutter"-ness, blaming instead well-intentioned managers who try to salvage what's left of brand loyalty as they go down with the ship by daring to give a customer a combo that's (gasp!) not on the menu. But consistency isn't what ultimately does a business in, in fact there's something to be said for predictability in a chain (and no amount of coffee bean smell or chats with the baristas are going to fool Starbucks customers into thinking they're not standing in a chain store, even for a second) which is that customers know what to expect when they walk in the door. I do think Starbucks is consistent. But they are consistent with a good product and I don't think the sameness is what's causing problems. Those of us who would rather have a leisurely time of watching our morning coffee being made clearly have some time on our hands and are welcome to drive 'out of our ways' to a place that does that. I'm not saying that's not me once in a while. I'm just saying that on the days that I don't have that kind of time, I'm glad I don't have to choose between being late to class and falling asleep in class.

Recommendations:

• One thing Starbucks could do to attract those corner cafe dwellers is to expressly differentiate it's store types, like 24 Hour Fitness clubs - you have the typical Starbucks stores, and then you have Starbucks "Cafes" that bring back the heritage and passion that are apparently missing, Starbucks "Active" would sell all the functional products the French baristas can think up. They've already started this 'preference discrimination,' in a sense, by popping up inside supermarkets. There are Starbucks vending machines in my law firm, on every floor. No 'down home' plush chair feel there, but if you can get the customer a good, reliable product with that kind of convenience, run with it. The problem with this idea of course is that Starbucks would inevitably be accused (as if it hasn't been already) of removing every last niche and shred of viability of potential competition. The company could effectively stomp out the genuine heritage it seeks to copy by following this advice.
  

So for the real recommendations.

• You need to have more than two items on the menu come in below $3.50
• Turn the music down. Seriously. It's not that good.
  
• Don't try to pass of grocery store staples like yogurt and water at a 237% markup. We know what you're up to.
• If you do nothing else - bring the free wireless.

From William Hung to Paul Kim

Why does it always have to be about race? Trying to demystify the conspicuous absence of Asians from the platinum pop star ranks, Navarro looks to industry moguls and recent case studies like American Idol. But without much success.

"People in the music industry, including some executives, have no ready explanation, but Asian-American artists and scholars argue that the racial stereotypes that hobble them as a group - the image of the studious geek, the perception that someone who looks Asian must be a foreigner - clash with the coolness and born-in-the-USA authenticity required for American pop stardom."

I don't know how old these scholars are, or whether they've ever been to California, or whether they've checked out Pier 1 or junior miss clothing lines lately, or the date of choice among white males ages 18-35, but the geeky stereotype seems to be waning, at least within the segment of the population that patronizes the 'pop' page in the itunes music store. The geek factor probably doesn't do all the work of explaining the glut of Asians on the billboard charts. The scholars forget the stereotypes born of the obligatory karaoke scene in any movie featuring an Asian character whether a blockbuster or strait-to-dvd and from music videos that trickle in through various media from that side of the world. I also think Asians have a very different 'tonal quality' (thank you Paula) than mainstream pop artists. The big mystery may not be a racial issue, per se, but rather a mismatch of the Asian pop sound to what Americans have grown to expect in that genre. Pop in America is power ballads, cross-over rock or country, loud, in your face, belt it out 'till we can't really tell if you're singing or yelling so make sure you get some vibrato in there. I don't think I've seen an Asian singer do this - quite to the contrary, they usually have a soft, wispy sound that is 'foreign' to American pop fans.

"The roster tilts heavily toward mixed-race Asians whose looks are racially ambiguous..."

I'd say this is true across the race board. Unless you're a white female blond-haired, blue-eyed pixy, or a british version of Johnny Depp, purebreads seem to be disfavored in showbiz. Exotic is in.

Taboos can be broken by pop artists, make no mistake. Take Chavez's story. Just don't look for it to happen in the US anytime soon where we have a whole genre for taboo called "alternative."

A few miles away...

In Guatemala, Officers' Killings Echo Dirty War, reads the headline, as if it happened this morning. My sister, who's on a Fullbright in Guatemala, working for the UN, and teaching elementary school children, told me about this a while ago.

Last month, 3 Salvadoran congressmen were killed on a road in Guatemala, "It did not take the authorities long to find the culprits: they were Guatemalan police officers, and their unmarked police car had a tracking device that proved they were at the scene."

They confessed and claimed to have thought their victims were drug dealers and were sent to a maximum-security prison. Four days later they were found dead. The police publicly accuse rioting gang members, though inmate witnesses say the assassins were military personnel who went through seven locked doors to where the imprisoned officers were kept and killed them unfettered by prison guards.

"The whole episode has exposed to the world the rampant police corruption, lawlessness and drug trafficking that plagues much of Central America, and Guatemala in particular."

Bush will arrive next week. The article makes it sound like he's going to address the corruption and trafficking, but my sister said it has to do with free trade. How diplomatic. Having just finished watching Hotel Rwanda before reading this article, I have less faith than usual that our administration is capable of doing anything moral or militarily effective.

Pictures above were taken by Orlando Sierra/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

Those below were sent by my sister last week - above is Antiqua Congreso, below are the Quirigua Ruins

Of byproduct camps and spandrels

"Religious belief is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved during early human history."

This is one thing that scholars studying the evolution of religion can agree on, reports Hening in the NYT Magazine today. Brilliance. Lest I leave any question as to my religious leanings.

"'Natural selection made the human brain big,' Gould wrote, 'but most of our mental properties and potentials may be spandrels - [...spandrels?] that is nonadaptive side consequences of building a device with such structural complexity.' The possibility that God could be a spandrel offered Atran a new way of understanding the evolution of religion."

This whole (long) article is one brilliant soundbyte after another. But I'm reminded from somewhere over to my right that you can't prove a negative. I'm dubious.

OMG!

This might be the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life.

Taking the Bar is henceforth sexy

Particularly the California Bar. Or so implies a new documentary artfully titled, "A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar." It follows 6 people in last summer's effort to pass the 'most notorious' of bar exams. I'm a huge fan of clever titles and this one is really good, though it clearly hopes that it won't occur to us that it's mostly aspiring lawyers walking into the bar. I particularly like the warning on the film's homepage, truer words have never been spoken:

WARNING: Excessive computer usage can cause eye strain, finger injury, neck soreness, buttock fatigue, weight gain, general redness and irritation, halitosis, and possibly death.

Can't find it on Netflix but that's probably a good thing. I don't think I should watch it (or read anything else about the exam really) until after I manage positive results.

Here's a WSJ blog entry on the flick - the comments are so juvenile, makes me wonder how there are any lawyers or CPAs at all in CA.

The film has predictably not escaped ridicule. For example, Seth makes the excellent comment on QuizLaw that the story may actually be interesting if it's anything like his bar summer of "drinking, naked Texas co-eds," and (he adds, repeatedly, much to my relief and inspiration), "a lot of drinking."

Mean Mr. Mustard calls it, appropriately I think, "a new addition to my list of Things For Which the World is Definitely Not Crying Out." This post also came as a relief - after all, is it really such a big deal? I think this may all just be a product of an untrammeled proliferance of voyeurism. I can't say that I haven't contributed my fair share to that phenomenon.

My thoughts are that the film will be watched with uncommonly rapt attention by a very very small subset of the population. Myself included. I doubt that it will have a following on the scale of the "Hoop Dreams" contingency, but you never know - as we found out last month, the Academy is a sucker for atypical Oscar contenders.