| |
Friday, April 09, 2004
Leaving The Toilet Seat Up
The wife and child are gone. I am home alone this weekend. They went down to see family in Zanesville, while I stayed behind nursing this cold -- a lovely parting gift from my daughter. I have a free weekend and my vices cannot be indulged.
I can't drink, because its Passover -- eliminating beer, bourbon and the like. I can't smoke cigars, because of the cold -- smoking would just aggravate it and push it closer to the dreaded sinus infection that I am prone to this time of year. Oh, woe is me.
About the only thing I can do is watch pr_on and some action movies we got on DVD but haven't had a chance to watch because of the kid. Well that and watch sports. Two NBA and 2 MLB games on tonight.
Going to be a long weekend.
Wednesday, April 07, 2004
Not a Health Issue
I'm sorry, but doesn't the World Health Organization have anything better to do than to try and expand what falls within the realm of health issues?
Road traffic crashes of all types are an enormous, largely overlooked world health problem, second only to childhood infections and AIDS as the killers of people between the ages of 5 and 30, according to a major report released today.
Shouldn't they be spending more time on AIDS, cancer, immunizations in the 3rd World, malnutrition? Anything, other than declaring that traffic accidents are now a major world health problem? Of course not, because this would mean passing on an opportunity to engage in pushing their ideas for social engineering.
You Mean He's Not Going Back to Youngstown?
From the SI.com Peter King Column on Monday:
I think it was interesting to hear Browns president Carmen Policy talk so longingly at the meetings about the 10 prime acres of Napa Valley vineyard land he purchased with an adjacent plot to build his dream home. He's going to have his own Cabernet label soon. It made me wonder how much longer Policy will toil in Cleveland instead of on his beloved wine-producing soil. Two years? Two weeks? Not that he said anything about his imminent departure, but I got the impression from our chat that Policy could leave the Browns' front office very, very soon.
Breaking story today on Cleveland.com this morning:
Carmen Policy said Wednesday he intends to leave his role as president and chief executive officer of the Cleveland Browns following the 2004 NFL season.
Policy announced his intention in an interview broadcast this morning on WTAM-AM, which airs the Browns' games. Messages seeking direct comment were left at team offices Wednesday morning.
I don't think many Brown's fans are going to miss Policy. The team has disappointed, and Policy's evasive verbosity continually annoyed the fans.
Tuesday, April 06, 2004
Explaining A Dislike
It is commonly noted that one of the reasons that there hasn't been many successful runs for the President by members of Congress, is that their voting record is there for everyone to see. That comes back to haunt them. Another, good reason, the press corp has had experience with the members, and it influences them. Of course, since the press doesn't want to admit a bias, and most members believe they are able to compartmentalize their personal feelings about the candidates in the name of journalistic integrity, we never get to read some of the good stories. Well, some, but never directly attributed. They always show up in little anecdotes that have no one taking credit/blame for leaking. There are exceptions, like, say, P.J. O'Rourke (via Tim Blair) explaining why he has "had a nonpartisan grudge against John Kerry for 18 years."
Ranking Case Law
If you read lawyer-bloggers and law professor bloggers, you probably know that the much anticipated US New & World Report Rankings of law schools (paid subs. only) came out. My other alma mater, Case Law, was ranked 56. A one spot uptick from last year, but still down from the 1990s when it was in the mid 40s. As always, the law schools around the country decry the results -- saying they aren't truly accurate, unfair, don't measure enough data, biased, etcetera. No surprise. These results are really the only guide most potential law students have to the best schools -- once you get beyond the top 20 or so. When I was considering my choices, I ended up picking Case, in no small part because it was the highest ranked law school that admitted me without sticking me on a wait list.
So naturally, Case is trying to minimize the importance of not being in the top-50 (paid subs. req'd.).
CWRU law school dean Gerald Korngold said the school's modest rankings in recent years haven't affected application levels. The number of applicants for the 2004-2005 school year should be in the range of 2,800 to 2,900, more than double the approximately 1,200 applicants in 1997, said Mr. Korngold, who besides heading the law school recently was named interim dean of CWRU's Weatherhead School of Management after Mohsen Anvari resigned from that post.
Mr. Korngold said the rise in applications is one reason why the rankings are not a main focus at the law school, though it does pay close attention to them.
"U.S. News has proven influential to potential students and their families, so it's something we keep an eye on," he said. "But we won't simply cater to U.S. News."
All the high volume of applicants suggest is that there are a lot of people trying to go to law school. It says nothing about quality.
As far as not catering.
Nonetheless, Mr. Korngold said the law school always looks for ways to improve, such as in the job placement rate of students upon graduation, that might bolster its ranking in U.S. News.
Right. That's a load of crap. Their "career planning" office sucked when I was there (94-97), and apparently it still hasn't gotten any better. The person in charge of the office changed every year -- they kept leaving for a new job at other schools. The common complaint then (and based on the comments from some present students I spoke to at a seminar a month ago) and now is that after the top 10% of the class, the office just points you at some books on resumes and jobs and that's it. No real feedback on developing your resume, no real help in figuring out how to approach the job search. Much like their financial aid office, it's self-service so they don't have to do much real work.
Some conflicted messages, as Dean Korngold puts on a brave face about the rankings, reality is a little different
The law school last year formed a committee to prepare a report on what the school could do to improve its ranking in U.S. News, said Dale Nance, a professor at the law school who was on that committee.
Mr. Korngold would not discuss the recommendations or the outcome of the report because he said it was an internal issue. However, one CWRU law professor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the committee agreed that incoming class sizes needed to be reduced dramatically - an idea Mr. Korngold didn't support, according to the professor. The 2003-2004 incoming class totaled about 280 students.
Reducing the size of the incoming classes would show the law school is being more selective, which could help boost its place in the rankings, the professor said.
"We are studying what to do, but it's not clear we're doing anything about it," the professor said. "There are quite a few faculty members who are concerned about this."
So, while they keep their eye on the rankings, would consider some things that might improve the rankings, and formed a committee to look into how to improve their rankings; they won't cater to the US News report. Uh-huh.
In a surprising development, they are ending their LLM tax program.
One adjunct professor of the law school said the mediocre results in the U.S. News rankings have led to at least one change at the school - the pending elimination of the master's tax program. The 13-year-old program, which offered a master's degree in tax law to existing attorneys, will come to an end in spring 2005.
"They did that, in part, because of the rankings," said Terrence G. Perris, who teaches in the master's tax program. He's also a partner and head of the tax department at Squire Sanders & Dempsey LLP in Cleveland.
"While they were making money on it, they wanted to put that money toward something that might help them improve in the rankings," Mr. Perris said. "Frankly, what they kept telling me was that it wasn't doing them any good in the survey."
Mr. Korngold said he didn't remember the rankings as a factor in canceling the master's tax program. He said it was canceled because it wasn't the quality program the school was looking for and it did not have the potential to become stronger.
This program was fairly new when I was there, but students in it were raving (well, as much raving as tax attorneys can do) about the program.
Monday, April 05, 2004
On This Day in 1994...
So, this is the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide.
I actually remember that day. I was living in Chicago, but drove to Pittsburgh for the weekend. A get together with a bunch of friends, all of us in our early 20s. Well, more like a binge was the plan. I got in on Thursday night, and Shawn and I were in Jack's bar on the South Side within the half hour, pounding away at their pitchers of shots -- leading to the first and only time of ever being cut off at that bar. It essentially stayed at that level for the weekend.
Friday late morning/early afternoon, a few of us were drinking at John's place when the news broke that Cobain was dead.
None of us actually hated Nirvana, but we weren't huge fans either. We were just sick of them, they and every wannabe version of them had made us sick of the whole thing. So we were hanging out getting drunker, seeing MTV coverage, including a documentary on Cobain's life and death that was put out mere hours after his death and on continual loop. As we keep on drinking, heading out to some of our old college bars a gaggle of drunks who couldn't go anywhere without hearing a Nirvana tune being played, and either MTV or CNN on a tv with more repeated coverage of the same clips and comments. We became more disgusted with the whole media spectacle.
At some point during the day, Shawn declared, "Our generation has its Jim Morrison." He repeated that a lot the rest of the weekend, sometimes using "martyr" or "icon" or "symbol." Have I mentioned we were drinking a lot? There wasn't a lot of original thought. There were a lot of sick jokes being made about Cobain and the way he did himself. Not to mention the media coverage that was very much like the SNL "Buckwheat is dead" sketches. "MTV Presents 'The life and death of Kurt Cobain,' brought to you by Pepsi, the choice of a new generation," was our little joke about the coverage.
By the end of Friday night, hazy as it was, we were glaring at the TV or jukebox if it was Nirvana or Cobain. People actually mistook our behavior for some sort of mourning. I vaguely recall some people actually trying to talk to us in some sympathetic way about it. I don't think we were very polite.
I was never that much of a fan of Cobain. Nirvana's music wasn't that bad, but Cobain was whiny, pretentious and ultimately a coward. Suicide is such a cheap, selfish way out, and to remember that he essentially abandoned his daughter by pulling the trigger disgusts me even more now that I have a kid of my own.
Oh, No -- Not Again
The Cleveland Plain Dealer Editorial Board (PDEB), masters of the school of "that horse isn't dead yet."
Despite the lousy weather, downtown Cleveland buzzed last week. Hotels were packed and there were lines at restaurants and nightspots. The reason: 20,000 people were in town for a major trade show.
And here I thought it was because Britney Spears canceled another concert for an unknown "illness." I look forward to her need to take a long break at a "spa" to deal with her "exhaustion."
The Material Handling Industry of America's biennial exhibition was actually some 14 miles from downtown, at the International Exposition Center, but it attracted so many people that it boosted the hospitality industry all around. The Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland initially estimated the show would generate $26 million; by week's end, there was reason to think that guess might have been conservative. In any case, it was a huge shot in the arm for an industry that's been hurting.
Yes, it's time to start pushing the idea of a new Cleveland Convention Center -- again. I really need to know how they get these numbers. 20,000 trade show visitors generating $26 million (to be conservative) in the week, or roughly $1,300 dollars per visitor. I guess if you figure each visitor actually stayed for all 4 days of the show it might be possible to get that number -- with hotel and dining costs -- with a little stretching (like assuming each visitor stayed in their own room and paid around $200 per night).
During last year's long and fruitless discussion about building a new convention center, some nay-sayers argued that Cleveland could never compete for business. They wondered aloud why anyone would ever want to come here, conveniently ignoring the restaurants, theaters and museums that charmed even last week's rain-soaked visitors.
I believe you can call this the strawman arguments. I don't recall those being the primary reason for arguing against the new CCC -- by anyone, not just me. The issues were about how much taxpayers were supposed to be expected to subsidize this. There was the argument that with all the competing cities that have built or are building new CC's that they will be forced to undercut each other on price to lure the visitors and thus cost the taxpayers even more because of ongoing subsidies. Not to mention that the city would have to pay huge sums to the present owners of the I-X Center if they built a new CCC, as part of a deal made only a few years ago. To just name a couple off the top of my head.
Though Cleveland will never be Las Vegas or Orlando - the reigning kings of the meeting business - the material handlers showed that for the right group, this is a very good location. Last week's hosts sell heavy equipment to manufacturers and distributors. Cleveland sits at the heart of a region that, for all its recent pain, remains a global hub for such companies. For these exhibitors, that's more important than sun, slot machines or Mickey Mouse.
Not mentioned, that this was not the group that proponents for a new CCC want or argued would be targeted. They don't want the trade show crowd (there aren't enough any longer), they want the professional and service groups. They especially didn't want a group that will have a majority of its members be able to drive to the show -- no flights and rental cars (with the accompanying taxes to collect). Even the PDEB just pointed out that MHIA has a vast majority of members within 400 miles.
And the I-X Center, with its high ceilings and 800,000-square-foot main hall, was an ideal setting. For years, the convention bureau's main product has been the downtown Cleveland Convention Center. But that 80-year-old facility is simply not right for many meetings. The area has other venues - including Cleveland State University's Convocation Center and the new InterContinental Hotel and Conference Center at the Cleveland Clinic - that might work for various groups, and it's only smart for the bureau to pitch them aggressively, as it did the I-X Center in this case.
And that was another good argument against a new CCC. There are plenty of facilities in the Cleveland area, available to utilize and promote for conventions and meetings. The fact that the CVB has been lazy and unimaginative in trying to publicize them shows more about the CVB's incompetence than a need for a new CCC.
Still, Cleveland needs a modern downtown hall. A study on its potential niche is nearly complete. And by the end of this month, Cuyahoga County, the city and suburban officials are to name members to a convention facilities authority that will make recommendations on feasibility and, if the decision is to proceed, on where to build a center and how to pay for it.
"If the decision is to proceed?" Right. Nice attempt at pretending the outcome will be anything other than the conclusion that the process wasn't fixed already to determine the need. Why? Why is a new CCC needed downtown? Someone make the argument without using the words or similar versions of "fair share," "remain competitive," "jobs," "revitalize downtown" and "civic pride." The editorial just pointed out that the convention was held at the I-X center, which exists specifically for trade shows. It just pointed out all the other options, yet the PDEB and the businesses and politicians in Cleveland come back to the same old. We need a new big box that will spur development, create jobs, and revitalize the region.
Delays, Delays, Delays
Just got back this evening from a weekend road trip so my folks could see their granddaughter. I'm just the chauffeur in this thing. I know my place in the scheme. As for the trip and visit, well you don't have good times without the bad; this one wasn't among the top ten.
-- Weather sucked. Rain and fog all across the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes going East. Coming back, rain, then snow for a 60 mile stretch (snow!) and just cold. The 360+ mile drive is not the most fun under normal circumstances.
-- Those damn stairs. Angie took a tumble down the stairs the very first night. My reflexes were not quick enough to catch her. We were by the stairs outside the bathroom at the folks house, as the wife was drawing her bath. Angie went to the stairs, and as she put one leg down on the stair, she leaned and reached for the side railing -- and missed. She tumbled about 2/3 of the way down the steps before she was stopped by the plastic pegboard that we had slotted several steps up from the bottom to keep her from climbing too far up the steps when we were downstairs. Amazingly, she only had a small cut on her left ring finger, and a small scratch on her right arm. She tumbled down but somehow managed not to hit her head, and the stairs were fully carpeted and padded. By about the 5th step down, she had some bounce. She was highly upset -- well, we all were -- afterwards. But she returned to her normal self after being held by her mother for around 20 minutes while sobbing. Once it was determined that she had no injuries or concussions, my dad and I had some rather stiff slugs of scotch.
-- Angie came down with a cold after we got there. Obviously, she had the bug, but it manifested itself until Saturday. She's a lot like her grandfather when he gets sick. Not happy, and let everyone know that she wasn't happy. Refused to smile the entire day. Great-grandparents understood, but were definitely disappointed. When she's sick, she demands her mother to hold her all the time. When the wife needed some breaks -- bathroom, food, a moment of peace -- I stepped in and listened to her wail in my ear, slap at me and try to drive her head through my jaw. More scotch followed later.
The wife took tomorrow off, just because Angie is not the best sleeper after a long road trip. Hopefully I will get some posts out that I have been meaning to get to.
|
|
