More "Progress" At USU

 I see they're tearing down Reeder, Greaves, and Moen Halls.  Back in my day they were the "women's cooking dorms", i.e. they were women-only and had kitchens instead of relying on a cafeteria.  It's bad enough they had to go, but the replacement is obscene: expansion of the Business School.  Oh yes, let's expand that shrine to unfettered crapitalism and outright fascism.  They might as well put a 50-foot statue of Ayn Rand on top.  And as if that weren't bad enough, it's going to be yet another monument to the megalomania of Kem C. Gardner, who is treated as yet another business genius when all he did was the standard move of starting with a lot and then piling up a lot more by grifting his way through an endless parade of "real estate developments".

Choir

For those who don't know, I sing in the choir of the Episcopal Cathedral Church of St. Mark here in SLC.  Tenor.  We had our usual two-service gig for Christmas Eve, with the second being the more musically intense.  We finished at 12:30, and I had long since descended into a very bad mood.  Hells I was writing dirty, alternative lyrics to carols in the program from the beginning of the second service.

I felt burned out at the end of the last liturgical calendar in June, but everyone was.  We'd reactivated in May 2021 after the COVID lockdown, then we went straight through the Summer and the entire 2021-22 liturgical year.  13 months straight.  We were all ready for a break.  This time is different.  I've felt this way toward music just once before: late 1989.

Back in the 80s I was very involved in music.  In college because it was my first chance to play regularly with really good musicians.  In law school because I could play with even better musicians, and because music was the only thing that kept me from going up in Rackham with a sniper rifle.  In Salt Lake after law school because it was fun and I wanted to avoid dealing with being on a career path to nowhere.  Things didn't last, though.  First both Connie Brannock and Alta Dustin got screwed by the record companies, and the local rock scene kind of dissolved, leaving only a punk scene still wrapped up in "authenticity" arguments and a pop scene suitable only for ortho-Morms.  The instrumental groups I was in dissolved as well.  I was left with First Unitarian Choir and the Ad Hoc Singers, a Renaissance and Reformation group.  And I was getting tired of both.

The Unitarian choir was decent enough, but we weren't doing anything as exciting as what we'd been doing in the Unitarian choir in Ann Arbor.  More importantly, though, I was tired of the church's namby pamby, middle of the road message.  There were a lot of things that needed calling out, and the entire denomination was disinterested in doing any calling.  With a new wife who wasn't Unitarian and one toddler and a baby on the way, I didn't have time for such things.  I had one foot out the door by the end of 1989.

The Ad Hocs tore themselves apart.  Part of the group wanted to perform more seriously.  Another part had no time for that.  On top of that, my wife joined the group, replacing a soprano who had left, and two of the members decided to be totally toxic toward her and also target me.  And I doubly didn't have time for that shit.  We'd have been gone, but the Ad Hocs broke up first.  And so I found myself outside of any musical group for the first time in over 20 years.  And I thought to myself, "You know, I don't care.  This has stopped being fun."  I did a jam session in April 1990 at the long-gone Blind Pig in Lincoln Park, and that was my last public gig.

For over 27 years.  Until wife talked me into joining the St. Mark's choir for Advent 2017.  It's been pretty good, even with wife off to Washington, and even with the COVID lockdown.  But Christmas Eve the old feeling crept back: This isn't fun anymore.

Part of it is physical.  I probably have a hiatal hernia, although since there's nothing simple that can be done about it, and since this is the United States and we can't have nice things like affordable health care, I'm not going to have it diagnosed until I'm on Medicare.  Let's just say it negatively affects my diaphragm.  But there's also a social aspect.  I've always generally gotten along with everyone, but there's always been something off between me and the tenor and bass sections heads, and that offness is getting offer.  And I have a lot less time for that shit than I did 33 years ago.

A Halloween Tale

We've lived in this neighborhood for years, and in all that time, we never had anyone come by on Halloween.  Until last year.  I came rolling in from the office, and standing on the sidewalk about to approach the house were an abuela and two little girls.  I got the impression during our conversation that a) one girl was the grand-daughter and the other was her friend, and b) Grandma didn't speak much English, so her grand-daughter had to do the talking.  I explained to her we had given up on having candy because no one had ever come, and I apologized.  She said that was OK, and they started to head on up the street.  Then she turned around and said, "No one's ever come?  That is so sad."  She wasn't upset because she didn't get candy; she was upset because I was alone.  I'm a pretty hard case for...reasons...but it was all I could do to keep from turning right there into the meme of David Tennant's Doctor crying in the rain.

This year I had candy.  One trio came by, but it wasn't them.  I hope nothing has happened to them, like being deported or some other patriotic American bullshit.  Because those three are worth more than 70 million pieces of Trump MAGAt fascist filth combined.  And choosing which ones I'd rather build a country with is truly a no-brainer.

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.