Look at me, Michael Barbaro

If you didn't already see this, Joe Biden used the word "shylock" in a speech the other day, which triggered a little backlash. I don't care about that. This isn't a piece about how Joe Biden is an idiot. You already know that. That would be like writing a blog post about the sun rising in the east. It ain't exactly breaking news.

However, the really intelligent people who report for the New York Times had this to say:

Raise your hand if you were not familiar with the word "Shylock" before it became a controversy in past 24 hours?

— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) September 17, 2014

Ok, so maybe Mr. Barbaro doesn't have a passing familiarity with The Merchant of Venice. That's somewhat surprising, but fine. I guess they don't teach that kind of esoteric stuff at fancy ivy league colleges anymore.

I love that this reporter at the New York Times, who I'm sure, considers himself smarter and more worldly than us morons down in South Carolina doesn't know the word "shylock". I find that truly hilarious.

Here's the thing. I get that maybe Mr. Barbaro isn't up on his Billy Shakes, but how is that he hasn't seen the movie Get Shorty, either? That's just an unforgivable sin. There's no excuse for not seeing this movie that came out in the John Travolta renaissance. The entire movie is about...a shylock.

Here's a great scene:

If you haven't seen this movie, your homework assignment is to go watch it this weekend.

Look at me, Michael Barbaro. Look at me.

NY Times Legal Analyst Writes Column to Make Democrats Feel Better About Things

That's basically all I can think of to say about her piece analyzing the Noel Canning case, because there's no other logical explanation.

Protip for all you non-legal scholars out there: When one side loses a case 9-0, it's not a victory.

"But as Mr. Obama’s second term nears an end, some experts say the president’s words were a fantasy."

...says The New York Times in discussing the failure of the Obama Administration to deliver on it's promises of high speed rail.

I think this would apply to a lot of things he said.

UPDATE: Welcome Instapundit Twitter followers!

What is a Photocopier?

Dear aspiring lawyers: If you are planning on engaging in civil litigation, please watch this video. This is the kind of stuff you have to deal with.

I've taken plenty of frustrating depositions, but this has to be the most frustrating thing I've ever seen. Having said that, I was dying laughing watching this, so I thought I would share.

If you're a a civil litigator, I know you'll enjoy this. If you know one, pass it along.

US Economy's Growth Was Slower Than Expected in 4th Quarter

GDP revised down to 2.4% from 3.5%

As Instapundit would say, it was Unexpectedly!™ revised downwards. Sure. Who could have seen this coming, right?

The President has been telling us that the economy is "poised" for growth. He's been saying that for about five years. At some point being poised for growth isn't really growth. It's failure.

It's like a parent saying that their child has lots of potential. You can say that when your child is 8. When your child is 28 and still doesn't have job, you can't keep saying how much "potential" your kid has. He's a loser.

My Dialect Map - I Can't Name the Area Between the Sidewalk and the Road

You see that picture? I have no idea what to call the grass between the road and the sidewalk.

You've probably already taken this quiz from the New York Times. It's exploded across the internet faster than knife fight in a phone booth. Likely, it's gone viral because people love to talk about how they talk.

I don't normally take quizzes (online or otherwise) but since I had plenty of time this Christmas Day, I decided to go for it. It actually doesn't take very long and it pegs you pretty close to where you live. (At least it did for me and Mrs. Permanent Press). I can't show you my map because it's not linkable for some reason. Take my word for it, it's pretty accurate for someone who lives in Columbia, has a father from Augusta, GA and went to college in the Shenandoah valley of Virginia.

To me, the most interesting question was "What do you call the grass strip between the sidewalk and the road?". It just blew my mind. It's so common and everyday, but I've never given that a second thought and I don't have a word for it.  It's not like some weird thing that only exists in Norway.

Anyone got a word for that?

Anyway, I used to think that I had no accent at all, but that changed when I went to Northwestern Indiana for law school. Most of my classmates were from the midwest or the upper midwest. I certainly didn't sound like them. I'd be interested to see their maps. Maybe they have a word for what the grass between the sidewalk and the road is.

Married Cancer Patients Live Longer than Single Ones

This comes to me via a New York Times piece quoting a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology stating:

[S]ingle patients were 53 percent less likely to receive appropriate therapy than married patients. The finding suggests that maintaining grueling chemotherapy and radiation schedules and taking medication as prescribed is easier for people who have help from a spouse compared with single people who must manage the logistics of cancer treatment on their own.

This makes logical sense to me. If you're on your own, you don't have someone else pushing you to go to all the treatments and get things done when you're tired.

It also shows that men benefitted from being married more than women did. It's not to say that men don't support their wives, but rather, single women were more willing to reach out to friends and form their own support network.

That also makes sense. Men are more "I don't need to ask for directions" than women are. I'm not sure why that's hard-wired into our Y chromosome, but it is.

My takeaway is that you have a better fighting chance against cancer when you have a support network. Joining together with a partner has advantages in almost everything we do in life. Doing things on your own has certain advantages, but for the most part, many hands make light work.

Speaking of cancer and teamwork, I'm walking in the Columbia Relay for Life to raise money for breast cancer research. If you're feeling so inclined, here's the link to donate on my page. Any amount is greatly appreciated.

Many hands make light work.

68th Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing

Sixty-eight years ago, the Enola Gay dropped "Little Boy" on Hiroshima Japan in the first ever use of a nuclear device in warfare. Here's how the New York Times covered it the next day:

With the hindsight of history, many people have argued over whether using nuclear weapons was necessary. If you want to argue that it wasn't necessary, it's important to remember the historical context in which the bomb was dropped. An Allied invasion of Japan was expected to be extremely costly. I know that every soldier, sailor, and airman who didn't have to invade Japan was happy that the US decided to use the atomic bomb.

All I have to say about dropping nuclear bombs on Japan:

Mess with the bull, get the horns.

An Example of Gun Ignorance

I don't get this. There's a left-wing blog, you may have heard of it, it's called The New York Times. You should check it out every once in awhile. They wrote a blog post that is essentially about understanding the AR-15 and guns. Here's an interesting line:

Mr. Diaz said semiautomatic weapons, including the AR-15, are increasingly being used in the killings of police officers, whose vests often provide little protection against such firearms.

Let's take the first part first: "Semi-automatic weapons" are apparently "increasingly being used in the killings of police officers". Ok...semi-automatic guns are most guns. Unless you're using a bolt action rifle, a pump-action shotgun, a revolver, or a slingshot, you're probably talking about a "semi-automatic".

Saying "semi-automatic gun" is almost redundant. It's like saying a "flat-screen TV" nowadays. Yes, there used to be big vacuum tube TVs, or big front projection TVs, but does anyone really have those anymore? A semi-automatic gun comprises most of the new guns out there, especially handguns. In the same vein, you would expect most TVs to be flat screens now, right? If someone said, "Flat-screen TVs are increasingly being used to watch television" would you really be surprised? The funny thing is that semi-automatic handguns have been around for a long time. This semi-automatic handgun has been around for more than a hundred years.

Ok, so we have figured out that that the semi-autos are being used more, because they dominate the market-share. Now, let's get to the really weapons-grade stupid part.

"whose vests often provide little protection against such firearms"

Seriously? The word semi-automatic describes the action of the firearm. Got it? It describes the mechanism of the gun. It does not describe the velocity of the projectile as it leaves the gun, it does not describe the nature of the projectile (weight, shape, composition), and it does not describe the trajectory of the projectile. All of those things that the word "semi-automatic" does not describe are the relevant factors in whether a projectile can penetrate a vest. The manner in which the gun functions is entirely irrelevant to whether the projectile can penetrate a vest.

It's just an insane proposition to write the quoted sentence. It's almost like Mr. Diaz at the VPC doesn't know jack-crap about guns. Maybe they should have interviewed me.

The NY Times on Southern Manners: Bless Their Heart.

A PP reader brings a New York Times article to my attention. It is titled: "Southern Manners on Decline, Some Say". Since the New York Times always has their finger on the pulse of the South, I was keenly interested to be educated on the cultural decline of my native South. First, I was very impressed with the article's title. Whenever some people say something, I'm all ears because it's always spot-on. You know how accurate, expert, and reliable some people are.

The article then opens with an anecdote about two men in a fancy restaurant in Atlanta who are seated at the full bar and refuse to give up their seats to two women standing behind them.

One August night, two men walked into a popular restaurant attached to this city’s fanciest shopping mall. They sat at the bar, ordered drinks and pondered the menu. Two women stood behind them.

A bartender asked if they would mind offering their seats to the ladies. Yes, they would mind. Very much. Angry words came next, then a federal court date and a claim for more than $3 million in damages.

Ok. First, $3 million in damages? Please. Is your ego that big? In any event, we have a situation where two men don't yield their seats to two ladies in a restaurant. Is that a federal cause of action now? If so, I'm going to have to re-focus my civil practice and make a fortune. Let's see what happens next...

The men, a former professional basketball player and a lawyer, also happen to be black. The women are white. The men’s lawyers argued that the Tavern at Phipps used a policy wrapped in chivalry as a cloak for discriminatory racial practices. After a week’s worth of testimony in September, a jury decided in favor of the bar.

Oh right! I totally forgot! Everything that happens in the South is because we're all racist! Silly me. And I bet the all-white jury of men decided against the black men. Darn racists! But wait...is that the point of the article? If so, why isn't the title of the article something like "Racism in Atlanta Bars and Federal Courts!". What does this have to do with "Southern Manners"? The jury enforced the idea of giving up your seat to a lady, so doesn't that mean that Southern Manners are alive and well? Were the two men even from the South? The article doesn't say. Wouldn't that be the whole point? Maybe the idea of painting the South as racist was just so natural for the NY Times. Just like an old horse going to the barn; it knows the way.

So, what else is in this insightful article to conclusively demonstrate that Southern Manners are on the decline? As Jerry Seinfeld would say, "Who are these people?"

“Manners are one of many things that are central to a Southerner’s identity, but they are not primary anymore. Things have eroded,” said Charles Reagan Wilson, a professor of history and Southern culture at the University of Mississippi.

Aha! An expert. A professor, no less, informs us that "Things have eroded". I'm sure the next sentence is the results of his scholarly study, or something with....oh yeah, evidence supporting his allegation that "things have eroded". Ok, I'm ready. Amaze me with your evidence.

To be sure, strict rules regarding courtesy and deference to others have historically been used as a way to enforce a social order in which women and blacks were considered less than full citizens. In the Jim Crow era, blacks and whites lived with a code of hyper-politeness as a way to smooth the edges of a harsh racial system and, of course, keep it in place, scholars of Southern culture say.

Oh wait, never mind. We're back to racism. It's like playing Chutes and Ladders. You take a few steps forward, and then you go back to the racism area. So, manners are the veneer to cover racism. That's the point they're making and they're happy that manners are in decline, because that means that racism is in decline, right? Or does it just mean that people are being overtly racist? I'm confused.

As those issues faded, proper manners remained an important cultural marker that Southerners have worked to maintain. Since the Civil War, any decline in Southern civility has largely been blamed on those damn Yankees.

Newcomers still get much of the blame. In the past decade, the South has seen an unprecedented influx of immigrants from other states and countries. The population in the South grew by 14.3 percent from 2000 to 2010, making it the fastest-growing region in the country.

So "some people" are saying that it's not Southerners who are simply letting manners fall by the wayside, but it's other people (Yankees and newcomers) who don't share the same values coming in and watering down the existing values? Why would they come to such a racist region? I can't imagine.

I know what you're thinking, dear reader. What about the children?

Dana Mason, who teaches second grade in Birmingham, says manners have been at the lowest level she has seen in her 36 years in the classroom. Parents who move South tell her they don’t want their children to learn to say “yes, sir” or “yes, ma’am.” Too demeaning, they say.

Right, it's totally demeaning to show respect for your elders. Who needs that? Also, notice that it's "parents who move South" requesting that their children just say "Yeah" or "Nah". when asked a question from an adult. My position on this can best be summarized by Bocephus:

                 We say grace, we say mam, if you aint into that we don't give a damn

                                                                                                           

Also, you don't see Southerners moving to Buffalo and demanding that the tea be sweetened. Seriously, if you're going to move somewhere, getting used to the cultural differences is baked into the cake.

Manners also helped create the South’s famous “bless your heart” culture — a powerful way of seeming to be polite without being genuine.

“Manners are often a way of distancing and maintaining space,” said William Ferris, a University of North Carolina folklorist who edited the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture with Professor Wilson. “If someone is polite, you better be careful and consider what that politeness veils.”

Oh, now I get it. If someone is polite to you, they secretly hate you. Another professor nails it. Manners are bad because people can be nice on the outside, but they really are being mean. It would be much better if we were all just overtly mean to each other. That would be so much more authentic. Who needs all that fake niceness anyway? Children should just be authentically disrespectful to adult strangers if they feel like it. That would be so much better.

“As a whole, we are now more willing to say what we think,” she said. “And that is a good thing for the South.” 

I guess we can throw out: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." That rule was probably originated by some racist white guy anyway. We should all teach our children: Say what is on your mind, even if you want to tell someone how much you hate their outfit. Our society will be better off with this free exchange of opinions.

Way to go New York Times. Since I'm sure you're all on board with this new era of saying what we think to each other: Here's my opinion of your article: [below the jump]

The Diminished President

Little Miss Attlia found a good NYT article. Go read it.