Welcome, Pope Benedict!

I'm very happy about the pope's visit to the U.S. this week. While I can't go to the Mass at RFK on Thursday or see the pope along his route at all, probably, I am excited that I get to attend the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Friday morning in D.C. - I was invited by a pro-life policy group that I recently did some pro bono work for, which is extremely nice of them (the invitation, I mean, not the sublease :). So, I'll be working out of my old office on Thursday and Friday (although they gave my actual old office to someone else), and attend the breakfast on Friday morning, where we will pray the rosary, hear Bishop Robert Finn and another speaker, and then watch the broadcast of Pope Benedict's address to the United Nations. It will be wonderful to be a part of a group equally as happy to have His Holiness here in America - and D.C. being as small a community as it is, I probably should expect I might even recognize a few faces there. (I've run into a surprising number of people I know at Federalist Society events, blogger meetups, National Review meetups, etc. Am I phrasing that right? I mean to say the same conservative Catholic types seem to show up at all these events. One of the many reasons I'll probably always miss living in Washington!)

EWTN has posted an interview with the president that Raymond Arroyo conducted in advance of Pope Benedict's visit. President Bush is, as Arroyo notes, amazingly on-message in all of his replies, bringing most things back to Iraq and the war on terror (where I believe he has made some moral misjudgments), but he also makes several comments that remind me why I still admire his character in many ways. I certainly appreciate his admiration for the pope, and found this comment impressive:

And I don't know what's going to happen in American politics, I really don't. I do know that in order for a President to be effective he better bring a set of principles from which he will not deviate, and articulate them as clearly as he can -- or she can -- and then not worry about immediate popularity, because popularity comes and goes, but what doesn't change are solid principles. And I'm going to remind His Holy Father how important his voice is in making it easier for politicians like me to be able to kind of stand and defend our positions that are, I think, very important positions to take.

(That view of leadership has always been something I like about President Bush.) The statement that he values the pope taking strong stands on moral issues is also interesting. Does the president really feel that because popes speak strongly on matters of life, he has more confidence in taking his own positions? I'm not entirely sure with regard to Bush in particular, but I hope it's the case for other pro-life (for instance) politicians. (Not to mention bishops.) In any event, I look forward to reading more of what the Holy Father has to say this week. And happy 81st birthday to him, too!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! This weekend my brother-in-law was confirmed into the Church, so we went to see him at Kansas, where he is a student. It was my first trip to that state and the campus seemed pretty nice - not unlike most other college campuses, but, surprisingly to me, hilly. The Catholic church on campus, St. Lawrence, was pretty stripped down, but it did have good artwork, a lovely organ, and important details such as, you know, having the tabernacle in the right place. It also had a hymnal I haven't seen before - the St. Michael Hymnal - which, while unfortunately retaining a few Haugen classics like "On Eagle's Wings" - mercifully kept those to a minimum and actually seemed very solid.* Quite a few chants were included, and several hymns were older Latin ones. It's great to have the options - sometimes I think that efforts to reform ordinary parishes are hampered just by the tools they have (you can't sing the Sanctus in any traditional settings, even if you want to, if the ubiquitous "Breaking Bread" doesn't even have it). The prayers for Stations were much better than those I've seen in recent years - no focus on how I'm feeling and what I'm doing, but rather almost entirely composed of Scripture and petition prayers. Following up on the strong musical and prayerful indicators here, Saturday's Vigil was absolutely beautiful. The choir and organist were amazing. I got a bit emotional both with joy at the power and beauty of the "Sicut cervus desiderat" (Psalm 42) in particular - and sadness at the fact that so many, many churches in this country are so far away from it. It was also unusual in that the seminarian, who is being ordained in just a few months, sang the entire introductory part of the Mass and the gospel as well. I usually only ever see that on EWTN with the Vatican Masses. He said afterwards that he is learning the Extraordinary Form but he is excited to be a part of the new generation of clergy that is truly restoring reverence to the Ordinary Form as well. What a blessing to the Church!

My brother-in-law picked St. Thomas More as his confirmation saint. I've always liked his motto of "The King's servant, but God's first." It was fitting for someone who wants to go into government. It was a great thing to witness his confirmation and the baptisms in the quiet of the darkened church. Christ is risen!

*Their website says "We believe that it is very usable in a parish that would like, without moving precipitously, to reclaim and restore some of the traditional music of the Church." So for the liberal parishes resisting traditional music, it keeps some contemporary hymns in there, but the majority is more solid. Sounds a bit subversive! That works for me :)

Irish day

This morning we headed out to the Sam's Club parking lot on Greenville and Park to "tailgate" for the St. Patrick's Day parade with the ND Club. Thanks to my sister the coordinator, the Club had a float with some food, t-shirts, plenty of ND-Irish decorations and beer. The staging area was next to the Hare Krishna float. (?) But we were clearly more Irish. It was so much fun to meet new people, including one family with 5 (and almost 6) six kids, another with an adorable baby boy, and a few transplant couples with kids out of the house (including a few working in D.C.). That was one thing I noticed, by the way - an awful lot of people are transplants here and a lot of people seemed to have lived in D.C. at some point. The other main place of origin seemed to be Chicago (well, with any ND Club that makes sense). I guess Texas is a pretty welcoming place.

The tailgating was so much fun, I wanted to watch a football game afterwards, but unfortunately, it's March. Instead, we jumped onto the flatbed and rode (near the back of the parade) a few miles down Greenville, throwing beads and dum-dums to all the parade-watchers. The route was pretty packed. It was a beautiful day and really a fun event. Yay to my sister for planning such a successful Club event!

Now that I somehow survived the bar exam, I feel like I am starting to settle in here (except for the bugs, who keep making unwelcome appearances - ugh, time to call the exterminators back). It's nice to have people to go to lunch with at work (and visit with during not-lunch times while the market's slow!). We're also starting to drive around and look at neighborhoods so we can find a house by end of summer/fall. I'm excited about the process but I'm trying to set myself up for compromise in terms of the house itself. The problem here is that my "Not So Big" houses, which I have loved ever since I read about the concept and could put words to why I hate two-story foyers, are actually not completely the stuff of future dreams here, but are available and in our relatively modest price range (like, $200,000 or less for a four-bedroom - inconceivable in D.C.) from certain builders. Walking through some of these models is fantastic - cozy spaces, good sight lines, open floorplans, spaces with multiple purposes. So it would all seem to be within reach! Oh, but the catch is, none of these is in the established school districts, and/or has much longer commute times. I may end up just being practical for the sake of the future family, and stay within the better school districts closer in - and get a completely uninspiring house. But we'll see...

Flotsam and the bar exam

I have made it seven weeks through this move, job transfer, studying, and two days of the bar exam without a meltdown, but I don't think I can make it through tonight. This test is just really difficult, and tomorrow is twelve essays that you can pretty much guarantee will include some issues that I just flat have no idea where to even start on. At least you can get partial credit (I hope!). Who knows if that's enough to pass?

Seriously, I found myself buying conspiracy theories yesterday because the Texas Procedure and Evidence exam included questions that weren't even of the "I recognize this, just can't quite remember the answer" variety, but were of the "I have never seen or heard of anything that would answer this question" type. I went back and verified in our BarBri lectures on a couple - flat out no reference to them at all. And I thought: do the bar examiners get copies of the BarBri books and then deliberately try to write questions that aren't in the study materials or past exams, just to think themselves all clever and to stump us? Like it's not enough material to pull from already - there were three, three-hour lectures and 130 pages of notes on crim pro, two three-hour lectures on civ pro, and two entire days of a review - plus multiple past practice exams, and hours of individual review. And are they happy they came up with some things nobody's ever seen? Well, bully for them. Way to NOT test what people have been studying (it's hard enough to get down the main testable areas in each of a dozen subjects) or what they might actually know. Memorization of stupid little details really are the true measure of a lawyer, after all. I'll be so excited to encounter that tomorrow on the essays. "Hey! They'll never get THIS arcane rule on probate!"

No conspiracy theories necessary for multistate. Those questions are just designed to be obnoxious and test the twists of all the rules -- you read through a fact pattern and think you recognize the rule they're looking to test, and then the question deals with a completely unrelated matter that just throws you for a loop. One thing that kind of surprised me this time around was that the subjects I thought were hardest three years ago - evidence, real property, and criminal law - were actually stronger for me on all the practice tests, where contracts and con law just seemed harder. (Also intentional torts, though negligence seemed fine.) There's just no way to know how you did on this until you see the grade, given the number of questions with hard to distinguish "right" and "also right but slightly better" answers.

One thing I notice during tests is that once my brain starts focusing and being active, all sorts of weird stuff floats to the surface along with (hopefully right) rules of law. So, Kanye West songs were playing in my head all day today (I know: que?) along with dinner options, house flipping TV shows, friends I need to get in touch with, and other things that just raced through along with contract formation, mortgage deed recordations, specific intent crimes, and strict liability theories. But that's all gone now. Time for wills and consumer law and commercial paper and oil and gas. Oh yeah, and my horrendously high electrical bill and house that I haven't had any time to help clean in weeks. Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow

No, that's not a reference to the latest amazing message of "hope" from the Dems (although, even more than when John Edwards promised to make the lame walk, Obama's promises to "heal a nation and repair the world" - and attendant Messianic swooning by voters and media alike - are both hilarious and cringeworthy).

Ahem. But, this post is supposed to be about football. Having put last year's excruciating season behind us, the Irish had an excellent day at National Signing Day two weeks ago, and we have a few graduated players with good prospects at the NFL combine coming up. At National Signing Day, the Irish landed a balanced class - ranked in the top two recruiting classes in the country by most observers - of 23 very promising players. Blue-Gray Sky ran profiles of each player when they originally committed, and they have a nice roundtable summing up the outcome. For myself, I've enjoyed watching the highlight videos of Dayne Crist in particular (and also WR Michael Floyd - great receiver, and doesn't go down easily!), and his enthusiasm for coming to Notre Dame is a great thing. He commented (although I can't get the video to play on NBC) that he isn't fazed at all by coming in only a year behind Clausen, because he thinks the competition will be a good motivator for both of them and he welcomes the challenge. With regard to coaching, Charlie Weis has already made a lot of changes for the coming year - e.g., he'll step back from offensive playcalling and focus a bit more on special teams; Jon Tenuta is joining the staff as assistant head coach, but will work with the linebackers in particular - which hopefully will have the effect of correcting a lot of last year's problems.

Finally, for the few players we have heading to the NFL, check out Trevor Laws's blog here. He always seemed to have a lot of energy on the field and in interviews - it absolutely comes through on his blog, too! Good luck to him - and to Zibby, Carlson, and Sullivan, who are also preparing - at the combine.

Sunday school teacher smackdown

Inside Catholic tracked down this great clip from the Colbert Report the other night. He discussed the Fall with Philip Zimbardo, a guy who apparently argues Lucifer didn't act wrongly because God was being unjust, or something like that. I was watching the show after class (I can be awake for it now that I live the Central time zone - ha) and remember sitting forward a bit stunned at the intensity of Colbert's explanation of how Hell was created that he launches into at the end of the interview:

This is from a guy who's recited the entire Nicene Creed on his show in thirty seconds before. Now, he can mock Christian conservatives and Republican right-wingers quite a bit on the show - but sometimes he turns those parodies on their head and makes some pretty good points while people are laughing at him. Nicely done.

BarBri's over

Next step, bar exam. I'm running into an unexpected impediment to studying, though: this *!@#$$%^ dog next door to our townhouse, that starts barking incessantly every morning around 7:30 and won't shut up. Wow, it's annoying - and really hard to shut out. Earplugs aren't helping at all. In the neighborhood we're in, I'm not really inclined to try knocking on the neighbor's door, either. During my first summer in D.C., I once had to take a final exam with jackhammers going on the roof above us in the classroom building at GWU, but even that wasn't too bad since a steadier sound like that can kind of fade into the background. But not barking. I may have to retreat to a library or Panera someplace.

The last few days of class went well enough. The lecturer for Texas wills, trusts, guardianships, community property and family law (he did all of them!) was pretty good, although he never explained who the "Hobie Gates" of his hypotheticals was. (He said it would come to us in a revelation someday.) One thing that struck me during family law, as it did during the Florida segments a few years ago and would with any other state too, is how sad it really can be. Aside from the much more brief body of law dealing with marriage or adoption, the bulk of this law deals with divorce and its related subjects (spousal maintenance, child support, child custody, etc.). Once you get divorced and especially if you have kids, the government thereafter gets to be involved in your life indefinitely, weighing the "best interests of the child" standard, making social services visits, dividing time between parents, evaluating parenting skills, sometimes terminating parental rights, withholding money from paychecks, and holding hearings upon various life events (new spouse, new kids, new cohabitations, underemployment) to adjust the withholdings. And throughout, the kids get shuffled back and forth between houses ("between two worlds," as Elizabeth Marquardt puts it). The lecturer said you can always tell when it's visitation weekend in Texas (first, third, and fifth weekends of the month I believe), because the Southwest terminals are full of kids travelling solo. How sad is that? No matter how common divorce may be overall, it's still a tragedy for most of the individual kids who have to go through it. (Not to mention the 1/3 of American kids who are born out of marriage in the first place, who get the often tougher situation right from the beginning.)

Super Tuesday

For a relatively political person, I paid little attention to the 2008 race all of last year because I was annoyed it had started so early. Now that actual primaries are happening, I've missed them all between work and class. Mostly, I'm still bummed Fred Thompson never took off; Romney is otherwise closest to my positions, and I would vote for him in Texas if my registration is processed in time, but now it looks like McCain will finish strongest tonight. His next question will be, can he make nice with all the conservatives who, while respecting him personally and for many of his votes, are quite skeptical about issues like illegal immigration and campaign finance?

Multistate musings

On January 2, we packed up the apartment. On January 3, we drove to Nashville, and on January 4, we arrived in Dallas. On January 5, I encountered my first Texas-sized bugs - several of 'em - running across the kitchen floor in the empty townhouse we were renting, and I promptly freaked out. Luckily I'd brought the roach spray in the car with us. Before starting at BarBri and at work here, before the movers caught up to us, the first trip was to Target (purchases included roach bait) and the first call was to the exterminator. Well, yes I'm a wimp, but when I thought we'd move away from a "luxury" apartment into a perfectly fine-but-not-luxury much cheaper place here, I didn't intend to sign on for the bugs. So, they had to go. Things are much better now! (Our stuff made it all right, too.)

However, I'm still in BarBri, getting ready for the bar exam. It's about as much fun as last time, which is to say, not at all. At least all the MBE topics are sort of coming back to me - the practice test was all day Saturday, with review all day Sunday and yesterday, and I did all right. The review person, Rafael Guzman, was the same as three years ago; I imagine he does this every six months. He's pretty helpful for doing a 16-hour wrapup of topics. I remembered Joe Tom Easley's property review as well - apparently he does multiple states. (Even though I am a real estate lawyer, it doesn't mean I know anything at all about the Rule against Perpetuities.) But the Texas torts and evidence lecturers weren't as memorable as the Florida ones. I suppose it's a testament to how good the last guys were that I can actually remember some of their anecdotes. Does anyone else remember the example of fettuccine alfredo being used as a memory aide for a little old Italian lady witness for present recollection refreshed? Or the loathsome disease of the pox for defamation? Okay, maybe that's just me. (Ah, I just googled torts guy: Professor Roger Schechter from GWU. That guy was funny :) He does have other fans out there. Looks like evidence was by Professor Faust Rossi.) Class has been about every day since I arrived after work, and Saturdays. Still three weeks to go to study Texas subjects and do a few performance test practices. I just took tonight off since it's the first weekday in four or five weeks without class. Three weeks to go... Welcome to Texas.

Merry Christmas

Everyone has their Christmas traditions in terms of what films they watch, and mine is like half of America's: watching a Charlie Brown Christmas (with popcorn and hot chocolate). Given how popular it is, I'm always amused to read how the network executives were originally horrified by the show, with jazz score, lack of laugh tracks, and - oh, yes - Scripture reading. (Execs would still be horrified today by that last.) But of course, those are the very reasons it became so beloved. And the message against commercialism is only more relevant today.

Merry Christmas!

Not as SAD

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving - I enjoyed the vacation days and had a very nice holiday eating good food (everything from turkey to ceviche) and watching football (the biggest reason I love fall). Aside from that, however, I have been more listless and down for several weeks, struggling, as I customarily do, to adjust to the time change. For some reason it's just difficult to adjust to it getting dark before five, and my situation at work, while pleasant enough in terms of the actual work I am doing, has been less than ideal lately in terms of interaction with other associates and team members (because, in short, there aren't any I work with here). So I have resolved, in the last few days since I realized what was going on (I never remember that I get affected by S.A.D. until a few weeks after I've gotten mildly depressed), to make a positive change to regain focus and energy - not sleeping in, exercising more, working harder, being more social with family and friends outside of work, and finally looking forward to the big change coming up in a few more weeks: we are moving to Texas in January! So, Irishlaw will be soon be a Domer in Dallas, not D.C. I'm excited about the professional opportunities this transfer will create for me at the firm - to work more directly with other practice group members - and I think for the long term, it should be a great place to settle down and start a family.

Still have posts to write on football as we move into bowl season (don't you love how all the media still manage to find ways to mention the Irish even when we're so far down the polls, we might qualify for a ranking in I-AA?) and December in the NFL. But first, have to keep my resolution to be more focused at work ... by heading there now. Ciao!

Dear PAC-10 refs: Are you totally blind or just legally blind?

Yeah.

ETA: Here is the video:

Random thoughts

1. When did Southwest Airlines stop being cheap?

2. My current daily read is the Housing Bubble Blog, which collects articles from various bubble areas around the country to marshal ever more evidence that the insanely easy access to credit and steep run-up in home prices over the last five years was simply unsustainable. When "starter homes" are $500,000, or one-bedroom condos are asking $350/sf, that's just crazy. This blog is also good for reminding you that homes should be looked at primarily as places to live, not ATMs or investments (unless you're good at timing and managing investments professionally) - since generally speaking, equity is illiquid and you can't count on appreciation like the last few years anyway. In any event, that's one of my favorite topics lately and I appreciate the blog.

3. Brent Musberger makes me want to tear my hair out. Or at least drink a lot (not usual for me). I can't even take two sentences in a row. I'll add "the gun" to the drinking game rules. Anytime Brent says the OSU or Michigan quarterback today is in "the gun," take a drink to shut out the folksy colloquialism. AAGH. You also feel bad for Kirk Herbstreit.

Dinner gala

One of my favorite things about being in D.C. these last few years has been getting to go to the Federalist Society national convention dinner each fall, since my firm usually buys two tables. (As a member, I could register for the convention panels, and they always sound really interesting, but I can't usually make it off of work.) A few years ago, Karl Rove spoke (this after the Harriet Miers incident - there was an interesting but gracious and polite reception) and last year Justice Alito spoke and Justice Scalia stepped up also (a hugely enthusiastic reception for them, naturally :). For this year's dinner we were a bit oversubscribed on the number of people interested in coming from my firm, but happily I made it on to the confirmed list of attendees. They just announced a couple of days ago that this year's featured speaker will be President Bush. What can I say, despite several policy disappointments over the past few years, I still like W. So I'm excited to attend. Should be fun!

An epic battle

...of one-win teams approaches this Saturday. We'll be barbequeing with a friend of ours (a Duke alum) and hoping to see the Irish take advantage of our last best chance to win this season. At least we don't have a quarterback controversy anymore! I enjoyed watching Clausen for the most part last weekend (except when he got leveled by unblocked defenders and receivers dropped ten separate passes - not his fault) and think it's evident he just has more a leadership presence on the field. It appears time off for his arm did him some good as well - beautiful over-the-shoulder pass on the second touchdown to Grimes really epitomized that. And yet, and yet. End result was yet another loss. Weis sounded as frustrated as he has all year with the lack of progress all around and said he needs to retool his teaching strategy:

COACH WEIS: ...So what he [Belichick] always used to teach us is that you had to find whoever the lowest level of football intelligence was in a classroom and try to gear all your teaching to him because if he could get it, then usually everyone else would be able to get it, too. So obviously part of the breakdown, to go back to answer the main part of your question, is the fact that we have to start gearing to make sure that everyone from the bottom up, whoever might end up playing in the game, is getting it, because if they're not, whether it's an experienced player or inexperienced player, then that's just not good enough.

Q. I guess the problem here at this point in the season is teaching that -- in the short amount of time left is a pretty big challenge?

COACH WEIS: Well, one of the problems is some of those breakdowns mentally were not from the younger players. You know, they were from experienced players. So it would be one thing if you had that cop out, well, it was just a freshman making a mistake. But when it's an older kid and making a mistakes or more experienced guy making a mistake, that goes back to the message that I was taught that, you know, you've got to find a way to get that done on a week to week basis. You've got to find a way to get that done so you're not dealing with the same issue next Sunday when we get together.

I do think we'll win Saturday. Same formula needed as always - cut down on mistakes, execute the plays called, improve third down conversion rates, etc. We haven't really been able to do that all at once this year. Hopefully the team will get it down this week.

ETA: If you can stand to read through the catalogue of mistakes that ND put together last weekend, BGS has the full recap. It is a pretty painful read. Of course, it was pretty painful to watch as well, since given the defense's play in the first half and the Irish opportunities, this really could have been winnable. We're just . . . not good. Sigh.