Category Archives: Public Agencies

Litmus Tests

As many of you may know, I am currently knee-deep in the law school application progress. At this point, I’ve received some acceptances, some wait-lists (the most maddening of all,) and of course some rejections. Although a rejection is disappointing, I did aim high, so when Harvard wrote back replying that it would not be reserving a seat for me, I was not terribly shocked. This is not to knock the schools which have accepted me, (indeed I should have a definitive announcement soon,) but just a reflection of fact. There are simply more highly trained applicatants than there is space for them. To get into one of the top three law schools (Harvard, Yale, Stanford – or HYS in the jargon,) you not only need a perfect LSAT score and undergraduate GPA, but also have interned at the UN, started your own business and successfully managed the subsequent IPO. So, while I’m not Harvard material (sorry Mom,) I am confident in my abilities to do well wherever I attend and create a distinguished career.

One of my interests is environmental law, and I sometimes think about working for the EPA or other governmental agencies. This said, I realize that the competition for such important jobs will be fierce and that I will have to contend with the likes of those who graduated from HYS. Or at least I did before reading this article in the Boston Globe. The article discusses Monica Goodling (the former top aid to Alberto Gonzales who has resigned and pled the 5th) and the law school from which she graduated, Regent University School of Law.

This little known law school was founded by Pat Robertson, the Christian Dominionist who wishes to turn the United States into a theocracy. In the law school’s about us page, it claims: “The mission of Regent Law School is to bring to bear the will of our Creator, Almighty God, upon legal education and the legal profession.” Digging further, the student handbook (PDF) turns up some interesting details:

1. The Equal Opportunity Policy professes not to discriminate in regards to: disability, veteran status, age, geneder, race, color, national or ethnic origin. From this list, we can assume against whom they do reserve the right to discriminate.

2. In addition to the usual exhortations against drugs, alcohol and tobacco is prohibited. The motivation for this is stated as thus: “The Apostle Paul exhorts the body of Christ that, if they truly loved their fellow man, they would set aside their personal freedom by refraining from behavior that might be a stumbling block to their weaker brother.”

3. Sexual Misconduct. Disorderly conduct or lewd, indedent or obscene conduct or expression, involvement with pornography, premarital sex, adultry, homosexual conduct or any other conduct, which violates Biblical standards, is prohibited.

Not to belabor the obvious, but I also found out that John Ashcroft often teaches courses at the law school, although he is listed as a faculty member for Regent University’s Robertson School of Government. He taught a class titled “Human Rights, Civil Liberties, and National Security.” Regent is a Tier 4 school with a median LSAT score of 153.

The Boston Globe article outlines the history of the school and why over 150 Regent University alumni have been hired to Federal Government positions since the beginning of the Bush administration. One of the most blatant reasons for this alarmingly high number is the fact that Bush nominated the Dean of Regent’s School of Government as director of the Office of Personnel Management; the OPM is responsible for hiring civilians for Federal jobs. Regent Law boasts that 1 out of 6 of its alumni work for for the Government. Since those with law degrees tend to end up in the Department of Justice, it should come as no surprise the Goodling ended up in a senior position there. The article further describes that Ashcroft, while AG, changed the hiring rules for the DOJ: “Conservative credentials rose, while prior experience in civil rights law and the average ranking of the law school attended by the applicant dropped.” As Paul Krugman notes, this is but one example of the, “infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda.”

The United States has never been perfect, but an important ideal it embodies is meritocracy, rule based on demonstrated ability. As a 162 LSAT recipient, I realize that Harvard isn’t interested in me. But in my rejection, I rest assured that those who were accepted did better than me on the test, and thus, supposedly, are more prepared for certain endeavors. I accept this without bitterness and understand that there is a class of people smarter than I am; I hope that these people put their skills to good use in the form of public service.

If an unexperienced graduate of a 4th tier law school established only to further a narrow-minded and undemocratic agenda is promoted to great heights in the DOJ, I can only wonder how many more such individuals are crafting policy within our Federal Government. Although it seems that the Bush house of cards is starting to tumble (see banner, top right) the damage that has been done will take years if not decades to reverse. When qualified candidates are passed over for at best partisan hacks, or at worst fascists bearing flag draped crosses, the peril to our democracy can not be over-stated. This, and Iraq, and Katrina, and Walter Reed, this is the face of compassionate conservatism, this is the revolution started by Regan and re-awakened by Bush post-9/11. This is what our country has become under Bush and these are the “values” to which roughly 1/4 of our own citizens apparently adhere. If we do not all do our part to stop this, the world will have lost a beacon for enlightened government.

National Disgrace

14 Replies

First off I’d like to thank Chris for his truly funny entry on vampires of the world, and apologize for posting something after it so soon. But I think the circumstances dictate.

For the past two months, Romania has been inundated by some of the worst flooding in the country’s history. The flooding here disproportionately affected poor rural communities. For the past two months, every day on TV there have been images of streets turned waterways, weeping families, and a general sense of helplessness. Now, Romania is a very poor country that is underdeveloped. Nonetheless, with every broadcast there were shown numbers through which people could donate money to help the victims of the floods. The response was overwhelming and a great outpouring of private funds – from people who have very little to give – has been assisting the unfortunate victims here.

Now, I am an American. Despite the absolutely disgraceful “leadership” we have had to endure during these dark days of Bush, I am still proud to be an American. In fact, as I prepare for my classes here in Romania, I have been reading and listening to the great speeches of leaders such as: Lincoln, Kennedy, Jessie Jackson, Barak Obama and many others. I believe that the American way has been the best that any nation on earth has ever offered.

But, here I am in Romania, surfing around the internet to find information on the Hurricane, and what do I find? Some of the most awful domestic pictures I have every seen. It’s simple what I see. I see poor black people not receiving the care that they so critically need, and I see a government more concerned with protecting TVs than distributing safe drinking water. And it makes me mad. When a few thousand people want to get on a few buses, I can understand why pushing and fights would break out. What to do? Call in the SWAT team. Send tanks down the streets and dress up our human robots in fatigues and give them machine guns. Negro steps out of line and we show them how much they hate us for our freedoms. While the living and the dead share awful conditions, we send in more armed troops to keep the peace.

From the Washington Post:

An old man in a chaise lounge lay dead in a grassy median as hungry babies wailed around him. Around the corner, an elderly woman lay dead in her wheelchair, covered up by a blanket, and another body lay beside her wrapped in a sheet.

What the fuck is wrong with our country?

Why is force – guns and tanks – seen as the primary solution for all troubles?

Why can’t the richest nation on earth take care of some of our most needy?

…and why are these people so desperate to begin with?

Of course, to answer these questions properly would require a through review of American History with a specific focus on the Republican party and the systematic acts of disenfranchisement which they have committed upon the underprivileged. These images sicken me and make me feel like shit. This is not what I represent here.

I had wanted to do a posting on Camp Casey and Iraq in general, but I figure I will let this video speak for itself. These are the people we are up against – these slime are our fellow Americans:

Windows Media: High Bandwidth – Low Bandwidth
Quick Time: High Bandwidth – Low Bandwidth

Although videos such as these and the images I’m seeing all over the American news media begin to make me doubt this a bit, I do think that most Americans are good. I know 49% of us were for change, and I know that the other 50% of us were lead by fear – of terrorists, blacks, gays, you name it – to sustain the powers bent on bringing about our self destruction. We have got to get things back from this cruel 1%. Just as many in our parents’ generation rebelled against the mindless conformist wasteland of the 1950’s, it is time for us to stand up to this new threat of neo-con domination. First we must take care of our own and then we must stop creating Iraqs. We are breeding terrorists, homegrown and foreign born. We have strayed, and we are not invincible.

I received a $25.00 check from my grandmother for my birthday. I’m sending it back and I want it to go here:
American Red Cross

We can not count on our commander in thief to right this or any other wrong, inherited or created. It is time to act.

Quality Construction

I worked once with Habitat for Humanity. Why only once? Two reasons. One, I was too busy, and two, the quality of the housing being built for these people sucked. Now, today I go clicking over to the Globe to find this article on the Big Dig. As it turns out, all the tunnels have major structural flaws and will have to be repaired at what will undoubtedly be tremendous costs. Read the article HERE.

After this disspaointing and, frankly, enraging article, I decided to visit Nate’s website. He had a particularly good editorial linking his personal goings on with the fate of something called the High Line Railroad in Manhattan. I remember hearing about this a while back, but thanks to Nate’s article, I re-discovered the project’s amazing website. Click HERE to check it out.

What’s interesting about these two seemingly unrelated incidents is Quality. The High Line, built from 1929 – 1934, is still standing today, and is in fact strong enough to begin its second life as a unique public park. The Big Dig, which consisted of a construction period of roughly 15 years, is now just being completed (though anyone who actualy drives in Boston would harken to qualify the meaning of “complete.”) Anyway, it has now been discovered that large and critical sections of the project will have to be re-built! And it’s brand new!

So, over 75 years later, though our technical know how has increased, the quality of our work has decreased. Whereas the High Line will soon begin its new life, the new Central Artery Tunnels will already be undergoing major structural repairs. It’s a sad commentary on the nature of worksmanship and the larger ideal of public works projects in this country.

RR Xing – No Horns

A quick rant before I run off to watch the red sox at yankee stadium…

In both of today’s Boston papers, there is a story about a kid who was hit and killed by a commuter train in a suburban town. In the Globe, the story focuses on the fact that, to preserve the quiet of suburbia, many towns have disallowed trains to blow their horns at railroad crossings. Because of this accident, the clamor is now about reversing this trend, and forcing trains to toot at every grade crossing. In the other “paper,” the Herald, the debate was about speed, with clamor for trains to slow down to about 1/3 normal operating speed at all grade crossings.

Now, we happen to live nearby a street which is crossed by tracks for the commuter rail. As a driver, I’m frequently forced to stop as the train passes. As a rider of said train, I enjoy the relatively speedy trip downtown. Now, before a train ever crosses the road, lights flash, gates are lowered, and bells ding. I’ve been taught that when the gates go down, the bells ding and the lights flash, that a train is coming, possibly at high speeds.

I’m sorry about this unfortunate accident, however, I think that both articles completely missed the point. Trains should not have to slow down at every grade crossing; that would make for an arduously long trip. Also, trains should not have to blow their horns at every crossing; this would be legitimately annoying for those living near such crossings. The problem is not in the way the trains are run, rather the parenting of children.

I was taught way back when that when the lights flash and the gate comes down, you stop, wait for the train to pass, and then continue. I was also taught not to walk along active railroad tracks. These two lessons are ones which every parent should impart to his/her children. And, if need be, that child should be shown pictures of those whose last decision was to ignore one of those lessons.

I’m tired of the railroads being blamed for things which are not their fault. Had the gate malfunctioned, it would be another story entirely, but such was not the case. Although we all like safe environments (especially those of us living out in suburbia,) we have got to take responsibility for it ourselves. If a kid, having been told to look before crossing the street, does not, and is hit by a car traveling the speed limit, is the driver at fault? No. And any sane parent will tell his/her kid to look both ways. So instead of blaming incidents such as this on the evil trains, how about taking responsibility for a grave mistake.

MBTA Madness

I guess that anyone who has lived in Boston for a substantial period of time knows just how competent and well run our public transportations agency is. About a month ago, they started a new campaign that, supposedly, will increase security throughout the system. At first, the policy consisted of random ID checks. The idea was that MBTA police would question people behaving suspiciously; if you refused to show your ID, it was understood that you were waiving your right to ride the T. But, recent revisions to this policy now mean that not only will be people asked for ID, but their bags will be searched. The method of this, as advertised, is by bomb sniffing equipment or dogs, and, at last resort, physical rummaging.

As if this policy alone was not enough, during the DNC (when most highways will be closed and people forced to take public transportation,) the T is prohibiting any bags on the system. So lawyers can not bring their briefcases and people can’t go shopping. This is absurd. Frankly, it seems like th hassles of the DNC are going to outweigh its benefits. Bostonians are basically being asked to put their lives on hold for a week because of this event. Frankly, I think that people are already disillusioned with politics, and the democratic party at that. This ain’t gonna help. It is unfortunate that the democratic party is succumbing to the same fears so often propigated by our republican friends. I think people are not realizing that absolute freedom and secutiry can not both be had. We try to protect our freedoms by increasing security, but really have the effect of undermining that which we are trying to save.

I’ve always liked the T, I don’t know why. Maybe because, even though it is run by idiots, there is something cool about it. For a small city, it is pretty expansive, and the green line is the oldest subway in the country. It’s a point of pride. But now with these new baggage searches, which are being indirectly sanctioned by the deomcratic party, I’m scared it will become a point of shame. T officials say how they are proud that this is the first program of its kind in the country… I’m scared. If we are to be constantly screened and checked everywhere public we go, what little bit of civic pride and notions of responsibility left will soon degrade. If we live in fear of our neighbor, the guy on the train next to us, the stranger on the street, we foreclose the processes of learning, growth and acceptance. This is not the country I wish to be a part of.

So next time you see a poster on a T train or bus which attempts to scare you, ask yourself if fear will really make us stronger or whether it will signify victory for those intent on destroying our great experiment.