Sure, I get my say, but only because this is my blog. And now is your chance to get yours. This is essentially an open thread, so knock yourself out, get it off your chest, beat me up, whatever is in there that’s been yearning to breathe free.
And let’s not get all smarmy or mushy, please. Yeah, yeah, happy new year everyone. There, it’s said. Move on.
*Tuesday Talk rules apply. Try not to be an asshole.
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Save it for another year, when the decade really ends. But it’s okay–none of us lawyers went to math school.
Well, that didn’t take long.
When you were 3 or 4 or 5, and asked by your mother to count, it was to 10, amirite? And did you start at zero when doing that?
I didn’t think so…
But, if you did, you might have been a computer programmer
The Real Kurt
We had this battle at Y2K. Skink can start any damn year he wants. This is America and he can be as wrong as he wants to be.
If you want some REAL fun on the “any damn year you want” thing, google these two fine scholars… Anatoly Fomenko and Gleb Nosovsky.
Not a tempting enough reason for me, but then I try to avoid REAL fun.
I can help you with that. You got my address. Send the keys to the Healy. I’ll stop by and pick it up next week.
That’s not fun. That’s how I rule the world (see @37 seconds)
If you’re persnickety enough to make the “2019/2020” decadal argument, but not to remember the “in a Gregorian calendar” part, you’re not persnickety enough to be making the argument at all.
After all: It’s been 5780 for a while 😉
Happy New Year, all, and thanks for the writing, Scott.
Happy new year.
What a cool song. Who knew?
It certainly was a momentous year in the blawgosphere, as 2019 saw rapid acceleration of the decline at ABA Journal. At the year’s beginning, the ABA comment boards had become a cesspool of incivility, rife with personal attacks, obscenities, and even death threats. By April, the Board of Editors had to pull the plug, as it was clear the staff could not competently oversee the comment feature. During the annual meeting, changes to ABA’s organic documents formally divested the Board of Editors of financial oversight, and in October, Molly McDonough abandoned ship as Editor and Publisher.
More staff cuts followed. Sarah Mui, previously kicked down the masthead from Assistant Managing Editor to Chief Copy Editor, now has only a single minion to supervise. It appears there are currently only three writers for the nine people in the various “editor” positions to edit, and the publication schedule for the magazine has been slashed in half. With only six issues per year, this likely presages further staff cuts. As 2019 comes to a close, the ABA has yet to complete the forced migration of the Journal to its .org site, which will almost certainly result in further degradation of the online operations. Down by the bow, ABAJournal.com is poised to slip beneath the waves without much fanfare.
As a person who has spent waaay too much time listening, learning and playing other peoples songs,( and writing a few that i didn’t trash) I think this song here has the qualities that could make it another Auld Lang Syne type standard. It has a real year-in-review thing going on. Of course, it may be that I just relate to it a bit to well…but it does pass a all of my criteria for a truly great song…it holds up well to repeated listening, and has a part that everyone can sing along with.
PS: Couldn’t find the album take, or any good take on YT, so, with my apologies to your ears, and Mr.Costello, for hackin’ up his tune, here’s the GD version.
PSS: I highly recommend you add the whole album, River in Reverse, to your music library. It’s a modern classic, IMHO.
Elvis would be proud.
Thank you, Howl. I hope you have a healthy and prosperous 2020.
A decade? I didn’t notice, it went so quickly… Nothing’s moved, the world has stood still since the ’07 crash, wages are still at ’07 levels and printing billions in money has not solved any economic problems.
I suppose the pertinent question is, are there more lawyers now than at the start of the decade? Are lawyers becoming efficient enough that they can handle more population per head, or are they expanding the money society pours into people who sit around interpreting the laws politicians make at the expense of really getting society ahead.
Seeing politicians never remove laws, they only add to the burden, what will we be like after another 100years of adding laws? Is the endpoint a society of only politicians and lawyers with robot farmers and factories making everything needed to keep those humans alive?
Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of “This is your lawyer life!”
Nice hat. Is that real tin foil?
Depending on how the court-packing thing goes, it is possible that about 50 lawyers will be trying cases, and the rest will be on the U.S. Supreme Court.
I am so grateful for this post, because I do indeed have a question that I have been dying to ask for some time now.
What the hell are the Tuesday Talk rules?
lol. That goes back to the original TT.
Scott, I forget how I first came to your blog many years ago but it was most likely because you wrote something that pissed off the youth and I was probably one of them. I found you to be an obnoxious prick.
But over the years, I noticed your tone has changed a bit. And I liked your writing style, an analytic yet concise style that seems to be going out of style.
I still think you are a prick. Just no longer an obnoxious one.
Has my tone changed or have you? Maybe it’s not the old guy’s job to change his tone to soothe the delicate feelz of the kids.
I know you said not to get mushy, but I’m going to take a risk and say I hope you curmudge for at least a decade more.
Can anyone curmudge for so long? I can try.
I disagree with the “tone” has changed. My trail to SJ started in 2008 during the democratic primary via an author who published two books (controlling people and emotional/verbal abuse) to help decipher the rhetoric. The distortions, lies, distractions & blaming. How quaint. Feels like a lifetime ago.
I didn’t read SJ faithfully until 2010 as much of what was written dealt with criminal vs civil law and I was lost. But I did go back to his first post and read with interest to learn.
It’s unfortunate where we are today & that a song recorded in my teens would still be so relevant today.
The olden days of SJ, especially before the move from GoDaddy to WordPress (before I had editors, and before the switch blew the coding of my posts), seem like ancient history now. I don’t think my tone has changed either, but I’ve watched a lot of readers grow up here, and a few die, and I like to think it helped to broaden people’s perspectives, particularly since the past few years have been very hard on people who believe in liberal values and think the world has gone nuts.
Oops – meant to reply to tone deaf.
P.S. Not a resolution gal but a tad more settled now & hope to find my way around the social media payment pitfalls & support this (I hope long term enduring) endeavor.
Since it’s TT, you get a free pass on the reply.