I like lunch

Live From Everest...

This is cool. It is daily updates from an expedition attempting the South Col Route on Everest. The main contributor is team leader Mark Tucker, who guided my Aunt and I when we climbed Kilimanjaro last August. Needless to say, Mark was way overqualified for the relatively straightforward Kili climb. Good luck to all. They seem to be close to attempting the summit soon. Here is the intro page with background info. Makes you wonder- do they have WiFi at Base Camp?

Carl Lewis Loves the 80s....

He's made a work out video here. Scary. Weird. Wrong.

apparently....

...there are tons of shit inside of us that never comes out. Check out how you can solve the "problem." Click on the pictures, if you dare.

10,000 hits and counting

Well, the onslaught of Greedy Clerks (see comments to "Fire This Clerk") has pushed The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party well over the 10,000 hit mark!

While I do have my loyal fans (thank you!), it seems that some are not as enthusiastic. It has been pointed out to me that being hated by someone calling herself "Angry White Clerk" is probably like being loved by the vast majority of humanity. But, it still hurts to be called the "worse blog ever" [sic].

Man, if I had only known.....

....tips from AOL on how to act like an ivy-leaguer.

Sick Sad (academic) World....

I love my alma matter, and looking over the past few Tufts-related posts here, I've realized they were a little negative. So, rather than put some positive stuff about Tufts, I figured I'd throw out some trash regarding Yale and Harvard.

First, I just saw this, I hope its a hoax or something. If its true that undergrads are spending their time painting Louis Vatton symbols on the sidewalks of Yale, god help us all. I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, THE YOUTH ARE OUT OF CONTROL.

Second, this is really old news, but I realized that most people here at NYU never heard about 2002's near-race-war at Harvard Law School. It all started when a 19-year-0ld wunderkind (you can read an interview with him here, or check out his latest academic work here)* posted a 1L property outline to the HLS outline-bank which summed up Shelly v. Kraemer as, "Nigs buy land w/ no nig covenant; Q: Enforceable?" Understandably, many in the black community took uberance. Things devolved from there...highlights include a reactionary tirade from some anonymous white kid lamenting that Kiwi's intellect had been silenced (he was banned from posting outlines to the website) and an anti-semitic pamphleting that seems to blame the anonymous tirade on the Jews.

There's a whole book on the subject. I think this is the most erudite summary. A prospective (black) student published his experiences in Legal Affairs. HLS' newspaper (Americas oldest law school newspaper!) also has its own coverage here.

*let me also note that I, for one, find it kind of sad that the young man in question worked his tail off to graduate from law school before he was 20 (Harvard, no less) just so that he can be another miserable legal academic. Come on, go home to the Philippines and affect some change! The whole profession is going to rot I tell you, rot!

FIRE THIS CLERK

Footnote 1 of USA v. Murphy (opinion by Judge Evans, of the Seventh Circuit) is as follows:

1. The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called
her a snitch bitch "hoe." A "hoe," of course, is a tool used for
weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar
with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden's
response. We have taken the liberty of changing "hoe" to "ho," a
staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris
raps "You doin' ho activities with ho tendencies."

What a disgrace. Let me start by saying first, there is long tradition of legal opinions citing to important works of art. Second, I have no problem with clerks trying to spice up their miserable, self-important lives by planting funny little references in their opinions.

Here's my problem with the opinion, which is making the rounds at every law school in the country (footnote 1 is the gravamen of the excitement..but you can find the whole opinion here for now). First, Ludacris sucks. He has no business being referenced in the lofty halls of the Seventh Circuit. Second, calling use of the word "ho" a "staple of rap music vernacular" reeks of white-boy suburban arrogance. Many, many black people have serious misgivings about the treatment of women in mainstream hip-hop. It is by no means uncontroversial or settled lexiconography that the word "ho" is acceptable or tolerated. Especially in the context of confirming a criminal conviction, you'd think that someone in the editing process would have a little more restraint. Finally, there's no doubt in my mind that that smart-ass clerk who wrote this is the one who started all the emails. Congratulations, dick. We're all proud that you are so "cool."

So anonymous clerk...think before you write next time. I know that all these affirmed criminal convictions tend to blend together, but some poor bastard is going to jail...and you used that as an opportunity to show your law school buddies how much power you have and how you're still "keeping it real."

Also, the writing style is just shoddy. I thought this was a hoax after reading the line "Hayden was smoking crack with three other folks at a trailer park home on Chain of Rocks Road in Granite City, Illinois." I've read enough cases to know that that line is supposed to be "Hayden, along with three associates, was smoking crack cocaine at a trailer park home..." I mean, why not go the whole nine yards and say they were "smokin the criz-zack."

The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party would like to announce that, along with the student body of Tufts University, we too hate hate. We also love puppies, respect the elderly, and eat our vegetables.

The anti-hate protest was in response to this. You can see TV coverage here.

NOTE: The fact that I find generalized anti-hate rallies to be a tad absurd should in no way be read as any comment on the underlying hate crime at issue. The boys over at Sig Ep really fucked up this time. Dragging the victim inside to plead with him not to call the police is a new low. And no Virginia, ignorance is not an excuse.

NY Times Responds

> Dear RFN:
> I am an editor on the Culture Desk of The New York Times and your
> e-mail about Jacques Steinberg's story was forwarded to me. First, thank
> you for being a loyal reader. We greatly appreciate them. And thank you
> for your e-mail. You're quite right that Colbert said his father was a
> "turd miner.'' We checked the transcript, and at the end of the
> "interview,'' he also described himself as "the son of a turd farmer.'' It must be
> a hard life, akin to that of the Hungarian velcro farmers featured in Not
> The Wall Street Journal many years ago.
> -Ed Marks
> Culture Desk

Attention: ERROR in the New York Times

One of many favorite (and LOYAL) readers, RFN, is in the process of sending a missive to the NY Times, but I thought I'd beat her to the chase. She rightly noted that this article incorrectly states that Steven Colbert (from the Daily Show) admitted to being raised by "turd farmers." Actually, he was raised by turd MINERS. The gaff shows how little respect the the high and mighty at the Times have for us lowly Appalachian folk.

Here is her letter:

To Whom It May Concern:

Re your May 3 profile of Stephen Colbert, "'Daily Show' Personality Gets His Own Platform," I regret to inform you that your reference to Mr. Colbert's father's occupation as "turd farmer" is short of entirely accurate. While the term does indeed capture the humbleness of the comedian's fake origins, it exaggerates somewhat the earthiness of his early life of squalor, as Mr. Colbert, Sr. was reported to be not a farmer, but rather, a turd-miner. Admittedly, it's neither an easy nor an especially glorious task to attend to such scatological niceties, but that, as Mr. Colbert might say, "is life in the turd belt."

http://anitasdailyshowpage.tripod.com/transcripts/2004turdminer.htm

Your loyal reader,
RFN,
Brooklyn, NY

Winning Presidential Ticket, 2016

You heard it here first: Oprah and Tom Brady.

America....FUCK YEAH!

I'm really tempted to think this video is a joke, but with the dead firemen in the clouds and the 911 widow by her husband's grave, I'm thinking it has to be serious.

rfn: just who's this fellow on your website who's waging war with me for the title of most valued reader?!?
jsanjana: its a fell-a
rfn: yes that one
jsanjana: i mean, she is member of the gentler sex
jsanjana: and you know her
rfn: pish tosh, no one i know could be so fiendish
jsanjana: au contraire
jsanjana: her initials are MJ
rfn: never!
jsanjana: indeed
jsanjana: pistols at dawn?
rfn: ra-ther
rfn: the opening salvo has been fired
jsanjana: i'm excited
jsanjana: i never said most valuable
rfn: i'll get back to you when a find an appropriate second
rfn: why the veil of anonymity?
jsanjana: no idea
jsanjana: it is dishonorable
rfn: i believe it's time to pierce that veil, to employ a corporations metaphor
jsanjana: dirty

Read all about dueling here. This conversation is response to some "chatter" (in the parlance of our times) regarding this post.

Florida: Where its good to be a gun-toting deadbeat.

Florida has long been known for its crazy, hillbilly laws....FL is famous for its no-limit homestead exemption to debt collection, which basically means that deadbeat dads and OJ-types can come to Florida and sink their entire fortune into a mansion on the Intercostal and still remain judgment-proof.

But, the FL Legislature outdid even themselves last week when they passed an egregiously expansive self-defense law that

1) presumes reasonable fear of imminent bodily harm or death in situations where one is being attacked (no more pesky issues of fact for the jury, like if a 400 lb. football player can be reasonably afraid of an unarmed starving carjacker)

2) expands Florida's already asinine "castle doctrine" (no duty to retreat) to all public spaces... "A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

Read some critical perspectives: here and here. I like the comment "this legalizes dueling."

Some big douche at the American Enterprise Institute attempts to explain that there still is a reasonableness inquiry under the new law by noting: "Shooting someone in the back who was running away would not be viewed as a reasonable response." GREAT.