Preparation

As time has gone by, I have questioned more and more the value of my college education.  I never had such qualms about law school; I knew by the end of my first year I'd made a rum investment I was unlikely to see a decent return on, and the years have proved me exactly right.  So ram all your donation requests sideways, Michigan Law.  But it took quite awhile to start questioning the value of my time at Utah State.  My posts here and here, though, show that I finally got around to it.  My attitude is even worse now.  Apart from Alder giving me the worst advice I've ever followed, the place simply did not prepare me for anything.  It did not prepare me for finding a way to make a living, going to law school, or dealing with my law school classmates.  It did not clue me in on the problems a kid with my background would have to identify and overcome (Sorry to the late Bob Cole, you may have grown up on a farm, but you did not come from the kind of hardscrabble background I did.  And to the extent you did, you came out at a time when there were opportunities by the bargeload.).

And I have to say it goes beyond my own time there.  I have to ask just what the place is teaching in general.  So many graduates, people with alleged science degrees, are climate change deniers.  Several of them I know personally, but I'll just leave that right there.  None of them have degrees in climate science, which means that if they were intellectually honest they would admit they were operating outside their expertise regardless of their science backgrounds.  Instead, they rant away with an arrogance and butt-ignorance that matches the worst QAnon clowns.

I will say right up front I am not a scientist, let alone a climate scientist. I have read a number of their comments, though, and they boil down to this: 1) We have a pretty good geologic and biologic record of climate changes over a pretty long stretch of time; 2) the rapid changes have overwhelmingly (and effectively uniformly) been caused by some catastrophe such as meteor strike or increased volcanic activity; 3) we are experiencing rapid change now; 4) there has been no catastrophic event; 5) the only identifiable difference between this rapid change event and all the others is the existence of H. sap. and its industrial activity. Nevertheless, the deniers know better. In the Winter 2020 alumni magazine, Frederick Su, a retired physicist (specialty: optics) who received his bachelors and masters from USU, claims that because we can not do control and variable experiments on climate, it's all bunk (I wonder what his attitude is on astrophysics.). This of course ignores the archeology and the fact that human activity is the one data point different from all other climate events. Yes I know correlation is not causation, but when you have just one correlating data point.... Anyway. It should come as no surprise that this guy is a raving ammosexual (He once said that the NRA is "the greatest civil rights organization in the world".) and LDS (He once actually wrote, "Hence, the Constitution was born, the greatest document ever conceived by man. The Founders were touched by God."). Just wow.

Then there is Bruce Nieveen, a civil engineer who I assume received his degree from USU, who in the Fall 2020 alumni magazine claims that we should not listen to climate scientists because they use models and models are wrong, quoting George E. P. Box out of context that, "All models are wrong, but some are useful." It's a fun aphorism, but as Box himself, who created a great many mathematical models in his time, would explain, its real meaning is, "All models are incomplete and therefore wrong at some point, and it is necessary to be mindful of their limits for them to be of use." Nieveen then accuses USU and climate scientists in general to be taking bribes to reach their conclusions. Talk about reaching a conclusion with no evidence.

USU, like Michigan Law, should not be expecting a positive response to any of the donation solicitations it sends me.

Diversity

Went to a CLE today, "Why Diversity Matters", largely to pick up that bloody civility credit for my CLE requirements.  On the panel was Cecelia Romero, who is now a U.S. Magistrate but who 14 years ago was an associate at Holland & Hart when I was a contract attorney there.  The firm was doing a lot of hand-wringing about why they weren't retaining minority and women associates, but it really wasn't doing anything about it.  There were four of us contracted on this project, and at the end of the contract, they ostensibly interviewed us for permanent positions.  I say "ostensibly" because we all knew they were only hiring one of us and we all knew which one she was (The woman they hired is long gone out of there, BTW.).

I interviewed with the HR manager (who is also long gone out of there) and decided that, rather than wholly wasting my interview time, I would tell her why I thought they had a problem with associate retention.  First, if you are from a disadvantaged background, you have a real shortage of contacts who will allow you to build the book of business a firm requires you to have (voice of experience here).  Second, if you're LDS, which the overwhelming majority of people in Utah are, and you are a young associate at a firm, you are in a singles ward or a young marrieds ward, socializing almost exclusively with people of your own age and social status, not executive types who make attorney hiring decisions for the kind of corporations firms want as clients.  So your success as an associate boils down to this: Without some exceptional input (a genius-level mind or an extraordinary mentor who will help you get that book of business), you had better have been born to the right parents, ones who socialize with the kinds of people who will channel meaningful work your way.  Without that, all the voyage of your career is bound in shallows and miseries.

I got into the University of Michigan Law School on affirmative action.  Now you may ask, "How did you, Whitey McMalerson, get in on affirmative action," but Michigan's system was based on general diversity and not exclusively on race or gender.  They decided they needed a token hick to provide a diverse experience for all those suburban preppies, and I was it.  They didn't bother to tell me that, though.  No, I had to figure out for myself that I wasn't supposed to go anywhere important after I graduated; I was just supposed to go back to Turdville and practice Turdville law for the rest of my life.  I had trouble figuring this out for two reasons.  First, it made no sense, at least not to anyone in any way familiar with Turdville.  You could make a far better living in Turdville doing plumbing and electric than law, and you wouldn't have to worry about student loans.  Second, a significant disadvantage to being a white male is an underdeveloped ability to recognize when you're being patronized.  You think that, at least relative to other white males, you're competing and winning on merit.  Which is bullshit.  But it was my third year before I even got an inkling of what was going on and years before I got it figured out.  I can be slow.

So.  If you're going to bring people from atypical backgrounds on board, you should do one of two things: 1) Be honest with them up front that you're just going to use them for a few years and then boot them, or 2) help them overcome the systemic barriers they have to satisfying your expectations.  Because if all you're going to do is throw a kid from Turdville or the inner city in to sink or swim against a bunch of "peers" who grew up in Grosse Pointe Shores and went to Choate and then Princeton and then Yale and whose parents are feeding them a steady stream of corporate business courtesy their country club circle, you are a cruel, ignorant shit.

Lawyer Fashion

I'm sticking with men's clothing here.  Women's clothing is  a mystery wrapped in an enigma locked inside a sales pitch, and I'm not going near the issue.  So I'm asking, what is it with the crayon-blue suits?  Suddenly, they're everywhere.  And they look gods-awful.  The guy who thought this was a good look was probably the same guy who thought mustard-colored shoes were a good look.  They aren't.  They look like your dog blew it out both ends all over your shoes, and you haven't had time to clean them off.  And don't think you're fooling anyone with the puckered edge stitching either.  We know that isn't hand stitching, just an over-tensioned machine trying to look like hand stitching.

Speaking of colors of clothing, I wasn't wearing white pants, as you ridiculed me in the middle of the street for wearing, Nate Alder.  They're khaki.  You should know that, but since you're from Logan and haven't lived anywhere more appreciably advanced since, I suppose it's possible you missed that memo.

The Door to the Last Alternative Slams Shut

Well, there I was in the Spring of 1981, basically up the creek without a boat, let alone a paddle.  I was finishing up my BA in history, I didn't have a teaching certificate, and I couldn't afford grad school.  Lovely.  But I had one ace left up my sleeve, or so I thought.  I nailed my first round Foreign Service exam and had a happy facility for languages, so I figured either State or the CIA would pick me up.  So off I went to Germany, and after a couple of weeks of acclimatizing, off I went to the US embassy in Bonn to meet with a man from USAID (which meant he was on the TO&E chart under State but was actually CIA; bases covered).  He noted off the bat that Utah State was not on the normal list of colleges they recruited from, at least not for nontechnical positions (STEM, STEM, STEM, STEM, STEM, STEM, STEM, STEM), he would look at me for my language skills.  He then asked where I had gone on my mission.  I said I wasn't LDS.  I could see it on his face as he mentally ran my application packet through a shredder.  (I've often wondered since if he was really that bad at maintaining a poker face or if he was deliberately giving me the signal.  Another thing I'll never know.)  The only reason I had gotten through the door was because they had thought I was Mormon.

The letter arrived a couple of weeks later.  They thought I was a fine specimen, but they had no room at the inn at the moment, although they would certainly keep my application on file.  Read, "You aren't Ivy League, you aren't LDS, we might be able to use you as an occasional asset sometime, but we will never let you into the company."  My ace had been trumped, and now I was stuck with law school.

More Cluelessness from the Reich Wing

I've already had one go at Brian McCoy (formerly an attorney in the Tacoma area, currently a resident of Riverton, and typical BYU grad) for an anti-transgender rant he got the Washington State Bar to publish (It wasn't his first phobe letter to the Bar.  He had a major rant against gay rights published in August 2007.).  Now he's back, and again he isn't alone.  In the November NWLawyer, our new Bar president committed the egregious sin of saying she was no lady and did not want to be.  In the February NWLawyer, McCoy comes riding to the rescue of what he views as proper female behavior.  It's standard, BYU fare that models women from a hybridization of a Jane Austen novel and "A Handmaid's Tale."  Then in the March NWLawyer, Barbara Jo Sylvester (another Tacoma attorney and active in the Calvary Community Church of Sumner) piles on with more of the same, showing that Evangelicals and Mormons actually do agree on one goal: the second-class position of women.  And both of them ignore or thoroughly straw-man Ms. Haynes's argument.  They both take the "There's nothing wrong with being a gentleman, so there's nothing wrong with being a lady" tack.  Talk about your false equivalents.  There is nothing about the statement "Act like a gentleman" that is code for "Know your place and stay in it."  On the other hand, that is exactly what "Act like a lady" is code for, and that was Ms. Haynes's point.  Neither response actually addresses that point, employing instead the usual Religious Reich barrage of bogus outrage it directs at anyone it perceives as a threat to its continued use of state power to coerce the rest of us.

Continuing Collegiate Cock-Ups

So I went to college, and I was in everything.  I figured I was making connections that would help me, since I was at least aware I needed some and didn't have any.  Foolish child.  Lynn Eliason got me to Germany, an opportunity I punted back through the end zone.  Anything from any other faculty?  No.  Linda Milbury Chappell helped Daughter 2 get into firefighting.  Anything from anyone else?  No.  Several college friends have become extremely successful, and justly so.  They're smart, they're focused, and they deliver the goods.  And they haven't tossed me so much as a chump collection case.  They don't even respond to my holiday and birthday messages anymore.

If I remove my degree from the equation (and its value remains highly questionable), I am compelled to write Utah State off as a loss.  Well, at least I was on scholarship.

Continuing with the Screw-Ups

We all receive lots of lousy advice.  It's part of life on Earth.  What makes the difference is whether you follow it, either because you see it's crap but you're stupid, or you just don't see it's crap.  I like to believe that, in this instance at least, it was the latter.

Doug Alder was a History professor and the head of the Honors Program when I was at Utah State.  He later became President of Dixie and has since retired.  His son, Nate, whom I have known since he was a little fritter and actually shorter than me, is a past Bar President (Fat lot of good that connection has ever done me, although Nate is far from unique in this, and that's a load of bile for another day.).  Doug was really grooming me for grad school, and along the way gave me the bar none worst advice I have ever followed: He told me not to get a teaching certificate.  He said it would look bad to graduate programs I applied to.

I ate that up with a big spoon.  My parents were teachers, so naturally I wanted to advance beyond that, so why waste time doing otherwise?  Dad was the generation past blue collar (in this case farming) and Mom was the generation past decayed, Southern aristocracy, so it was time to advance the family to white collar, upper-middle class status.  With hindsight, I can see the fallacies were as thick as fleas on a hillbilly hound.

First, Doug had no idea what he was talking about.  Although he tries to deny it or at least hide it, he is a silver spooner with precious little knowledge of anything outside academe.  He pokes fun at his bourgeois father, but that's where the money cushion came from that allowed Doug to become The Great Scholar with minimal pain to him and his.  And that's the thing about academe: If you're going to be in it in a non-tech field, it really helps to have a trust fund.  I most assuredly didn't, and I could see that five years of grad school followed by a questionable quest for an assistant professorship was unlikely to be a good idea without such a supplemental income.  After deciding not to pursue grad school, though, and not having a teaching certificate, my choices ran the gamut from law school to law school.  Hobson's Choice is not a good strategy.

Second, my assessment of my situation was, shall we say, overly optimistic.  Some might say delusional.  Contrary to my frankly uninformed read, the family had not really had that middle class generation that is necessary to launch into a contact-based profession, of which law is the ultimate example (Finance, accounting, architecture, and business are others.).  My folks had only managed to grub out an unstable, lower-middle class existence that gave me no connections nor any of the skills needed to acquire some.  STEM professions (engineering, health sciences, etc.) would have been tough, but at least they would have been in the realm of the possible.

Let's do a compare and contrast.  My best friend, Dave Weeks, was a year ahead of me in high school and was likewise the eldest son of two teachers.  His parents too were the generation that moved from blue collar (his mom off the farm, his dad out of the stone quarries).  He bummed around through college and finally got a Life Sciences degree.  Then he became a pharmacist, and now he's a successful MD.  He went STEM, and even with a slow start he took off.  I went humanities without connections, and I've spent three decades slowly spinning in the doldrums.

And so I have hammered on my kids to avoid my egregious mistake: Get the teaching certificate!  In my in no way humble opinion, if you get a non-STEM degree and no certificate, you just pissed away college.  Even if you get a STEM degree, the certificate doesn't hurt.  Have they listened?  Hmm.  Well, Daughter One really isn't the school type and is now married, but at least she found a Navy nuclear tech, so they have a STEM hook.  Daughter Two is in biology, so she's in STEM, moving slowly, but at least she's moving.  Daughter Three, the jury's still out, she has decided that she isn't doing STEM if she's in school, and we'll see where her probable husband is able to take her.  As for Boy, his interests are artistic, but he knows he'll need a day job, and he thinks EMT could do it for him.  Works for me.  In this economy, why bother with college?  Get technical training, preferably something with STEM.  EMT would be portable, flexible, and provide a paycheck, benefits, and a pension.  Good luck finding all that with a liberal arts degree.