Only in West Virginia could lawyers get away with calling a simple breach of contract matter “the case of a lifetime” on the front page of the Sunday Paper.
I don’t care how much money was, in theory, at stake. It was a slam dunk. As Lawbot aptly said, if
Flaherty Sensabaugh & Bonasso’s client was anyone other than the State of West Virginia, they’d be getting audited right now.
But once again, I’ll say that these sorts of giveaways go on all the time. This just happened to be the one I read about today.
It’s a sad day for people who read the news, and especially for those who gather it.
I didn’t know Tom that well at all, but he’s been a fixture in the pages Gazette as long as I’ve been reading newspapers. It’s truly strange imagining this town without him in it.
Joe Manchin likes to say things like “West Virginians have a Ph.D in life.”
I happen to think that most West Virginians don’t even have a GED in life.
West Virginia ACT scores, however, are up one tenth of a point to 20.7, but still lag behind the national average of 21.4. Math scores are even further behind. And there they will probably stay for 150 years.
Oh, but Joe just wanted to make sure DuPont’s case received a fair hearing before the Court. Yeah. Silly me. He was just looking out for us all by trying to combat West Virginia’s reputation as a “judicial hellhole.”
I remind every one that the Chamber of Commerce’s solution to West Virginia being a “judicial hellhole” was to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars behind Spike fucking Maynard.
So I’ve started watching Mad Men on AMC. It’s a good show. And I freely admit that I also watch for the boobs. Really now, who can resist.
But I also watch it because it’s almost like science fiction. At least to some of us. Stay with me.
For those not in the know, Mad Men is “about” a fictional Madison Avenue ad agency, and is set in the early 1960’s. Wikipedia says that the show is notable for its depiction of “society and culture of the early 1960s, highlighting cigarette smoking, drinking, sexism, and racial bias as examples of how that era, not so long ago, was so radically different from the present.”
In other worlds, what Don Surber thinks of as “the good old days.” That is, assuming that he would have worked in an office in 1962. Which is a hell of an assumption in West Virginia.
Because when I watch Mad Men, it’s not the smoking, drinking, and luscious bosoms that seem so radically different from the world I’m familiar with. What I want to know is this: Who were all these people who wore suits and ties to work, or worked in an office at all in the 1960’s? Aliens?
I can confidently say growing up I didn’t know a single person of my grandparent’s generation who had a white-collar job. This includes the old-timers in the church I grew up in. Nobody. My Grandmother was a teacher, and I might have known a couple more teachers who were around her age. But that’s as close as it gets. Other than that, absolutely every single male of the “Greatest Generation” I grew up around worked a blue or red-collar job. Every single one of them. And I think my experience is typical for a lot of people who grew up in West Virginia.
I realize that Mad Men is set in a metropolis full of office buildings, and that I’ve lived all of my life in the second most rural state in America, but. It’s pretty remarkable that I basically didn’t know anyone my grandparent’s age that didn’t work in a plant or coal mine until I went to college. And what’s more remarkable is that I thought that was perfectly normal.
Most remarkable perhaps is that I can hardly think of anyone I knew from my parent’s generation that worked a white-collar job, or anything close to it. A friend and I went through our high school yearbook and determined that out of our entire class, there was only one student — just one — who had a parent with a “real” college degree. (And even though his degree was in chemical engineering, he spent most of his career as a science teacher at our high school.)
Anyway, I bring this up because I think it’s a pretty good example of how so many of us come from what are in fact wildly different backgrounds, and don’t even realize it.
Chances are though that if you are 30-ish and reading this blog, you were at least expected to go to college and have something resembling a white-collar job one day. But yet so few of my high school classmates actually did that — and I don’t think there’s a great mystery as to why: If you’re trying to do something in life, anything — you are at a tremendous disadvantage if there is no one in your family or support network who has done it before. Period. It’s one of those cruel secrets in life that seems obvious, but we seldom talk about. When you literally do not know what you’re doing, and you have no one close by to ask for help or advice, even the most simple thing can become a devastating setback, no matter how determined you are. This is true in everything from baking a loaf of bread to opening a bakery. But going to college and landing a career might be the best example.
As reported in the Washington Post, the McCain campaign is encouraging supporters to spam a select group of blogs with ready-made talking points. And as Raging Red first noticed, Lincoln Walks at Midnight is the list of “selected blogs.”
What’s totally awesome is that for each pro-McCain comment you cut and paste leave, you earn reward points, redeemable for fabulous prizes at the McCain store. You can even win a ride on the Straight Talk Express! My friends.
Presumably if you earned enough reward points, you might even get to ride on his wife’s private jet, or spend the night in one of his 10 to 13 homes. As long as you promise to keep telling people that the other guy is an uppity, elite celebrity.
But what I really want is to be invited to the next barbecue McCain hosts for the press that’s supposed to cover him. It’s worked out well. Although if McCain would learn to throw a Halloween party as awesome as Alex Macia’s, there’d probably never be another critical word written about him again. My friends.
Even I was shocked to discover how genuinely awful McCain is at public speaking, or sounding like he knows what he’s talking about at all. And that, my friends, is because for the past 8 years, the media has not been reporting what McCain said, but rather what he meant to say.
I particularly like the moment about 40 seconds in.
But there’s still time for him to turn it around. He can always throw a bitchin’ Halloween party.
We all know now that most West Virginia University professors are significantly underpaid when compared to professors at peer institutions.
But the thing is, West Virginia University is pretty well off financially, thanks to rising enrollment and weekly tuition increases. But if I’ve learned one thing about my alma matter, it’s this: while WVU might not pay the profs so well, it loves to throw enormous wads of cash at administrators. Administrators who all to often prove themselves to be not very good at what they’re actually paid to do.
I mean, the most obvious example ever can be found in Lang, Sears, Walker, Case and Macia. Never has a group of men have been paid so well to fail so miserably. This year.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had any sort of professional (i.e., not as a student) interaction with WVU, but I remember being struck by how top-heavy everything is. Even the most simple of operations was assigned a director of this and a coordinator of that, with even more deputies and assistants. All of whom were very well compensated for their “work.”
But look — as I’ve said before I’m all for paying people what they’re worth. You can’t get something for nothing. But there’s just no way justify Julian Bailes’ salary. There just isn’t. But he’s obviously convinced the right people.
Or dear god, Gerry Lang. In fairness, he makes several million dollars less than Bailes, but still. I’ve got more to say about Lang next week, but am I the only one who thinks that moving him to the Bucks for Brains job was an excuse to keep paying him $200K a year? God forbid they knock him back down to regular professor pay. Now, if any university could have gotten away with paying a disgraced professor $200K to go on sabbatical, it’s WVU. But this certainly makes things easier on all parties. I mean, who better put in a major academic fund raising role than a disgraced professor who gave a bogus degree to the Governor’s daughter?
It’s sad that the sum of Lang and Sears’ pay cuts — which we rightfully called insignificant — if given to the average WVU employee, would likely double his or her salary. The concept of “paying people what they’re worth” seems to only apply to people at the very top.
WVU, like state government, is a winner-take-all system. The overwhelming majority of employees are paid modestly at best, and have to scratch and claw for the smallest raise. And that’s because all the money has been put aside for a small, elite class of “winners” like Gerry Lang.
These guys need to send Rich Rodriguez a nice fruit basket.
Now I admit that on its face, spending $330,000 to recover $4,000,000 doesn’t seem like a bad deal.
But $330K for a breach of contract case so simple a third grader could understand it? Really? I don’t think I’m alone in wondering why fancy downtown lawyers had to be involved at all.
Like they say. It’s nice work if you can get it. I wonder how many struggling businesses there are in West Virginia that would just love to get $330,000 of easy work?
Did the University even bid this out? I’m asking in all seriousness. Because as complex as the idiots on Hoppy’s show wanted to make it sound, this had to be like shooting fish in a barrel. The students in College of Law legal clinic could have done this in their fucking pajamas.
So please. Exlpain to me how this is anything other than a $330,000 windfall for Tom Flaherty? They billed $35,000 for travel alone. I’ll bet you they weren’t flying coach.
To be clear though, it’s not exactly fair to single these guys out. I’d like to think that the public would revolt if they knew how much of their money is literally given away to politically connected lawfirms in this state — but we know most people are do goddamn dumb to care. They’d rather bitch about the ambulance chasers.
Persuasion is a form of social influence. It is the process of guiding people toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic (though not always logical) means. It is strategy of problem-solving relying on “appeals” rather than strength.
Argumentation is concerned primarily with reaching conclusions through logical, deductive reasoning.
I believe that argumentation trumps persuasion.
And so does just about every other institution in the world, except for talk radio, cable news, and sadly, the comment section of this blog. At least when I bring up the topic of smoking.
Here’s a fact: You don’t have a Constitutional right to smoke. You just don’t. This isn’t my opinion. It’s a fact. So just know that when you’re “debating” whether or not you have a right to smoke at the Red Carpet, you are actually arguing over a long settled point of law. You might think that you should have the right to smoke, or that you should be allowed to smoke — but that’s a completely separate issue. The fact is that until a state or federal Constitutional amendment is passed; or until the state or United States Supreme Court recognizes that your right to smoke is bundled in with some other fundamental right — you don’t have a right to smoke. Period. Just because you think you should doesn’t make it so.
In fact, it’s totally within the power of Congress to pass a law banning smoking all together. Even in your home. Why? Because unlike gun ownership, smoking isn’t a right. Got it?
What is and isn’t a right is a knowable thing. You can look it up. Want to know what else isn’t a right? Drinking alcohol. Driving. Voting in presidential elections (really, look it up). An education. And my favorite — hunting. YOU HAVE NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO HUNT. Look it up.
It drives me fucking crazy when people talk about knowable, verifiable things as if they’re some vague, unsettled issue.
For example, when a commenter said:
“The question of “is smoking a right?” is a valid question. It is a civil liberty. Smoking, it can also be said is a pursuit of happiness issue …“
Sweet fucking baby Jesus on Melba Toast.
Just to rub it in, I’d like to point out that “pursuit of happiness” isn’t a Constitutional issue, because — wait for it — IT’S NOT IN THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION. That’s from the Declaration of Independence, ya inbred sumbitch.
But wait Hippie Killer! The Constitution doesn’t say anything about smoking, either! Right?! Just like it doesn’t say anything about murder! Ergo, both are rights, RIGHT?!?!
The Constitution is also silent as to whether or not you are a dumbass. But in fact, you are.
Fuck me. I’ll keep going.
So let’s pretend that as of tomorrow, smoking, drinking and hunting ARE rights. An amendment was passed. Or whatever. Now pay attention — EVEN IF SOMETHING IS A RIGHT, THE GOVERNMENT CAN STILL RESTRICT THAT RIGHT. Would you like examples? Fine. You have a right to own a gun. But the government can absolutely restrict you from carrying your gun into a courthouse, or onto an airplane.
Want an even better example? ABORTION. Women absolutely have the right to abort a pregnancy. But the government is quite gung-ho about restricting that RIGHT at every possible turn. The discussion of which often leads to yet another pretend debate about whether or not the fetus has rights.
It’s a participatory democracy, folks. And while I’m the first to admit that there’s so much wrong with our government on the state and federal level, each of us, as citizens, have a responsibility to know how it’s all supposed to work. It’s just as important as voting, in my opinion.
Not only do you need to know what your rights are — you need to know what a right is. And you need to know how your Constitution works. How it really works — not the way you think it should work. That might make you a good guest on Talkline, but it doesn’t make you a good citizen. In fact, until you understand how the Constitution actually works, I don’t think you’re entitled to an opinion as how it should work. Why? Because you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.
Participatory democracy. It’s America, dude. Learn the rules.
