Fuck 'em, that's why.

Provided without comment.  It's so obvious now it doesn't even bear mentioning but for ridicule.

What is intelligence, anyway? 

When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)

All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. 

Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test.

Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. 

In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. 

One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. 

"The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. 

Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." 

Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." 

"Did you catch many?" I asked. 

"Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you." 

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."


And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.



~from Isaac Asimov

New Numbers! The Rats Scramble!

Holy shitballs!!!  Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza and whatever the fuck Tom Cruise does all came early this year!!

 

1L attendance the lowest it's been in decades saving tens of thousands of young people's lives from ending up like this fellow poor bastard.
---------------------



I consider this good news for one simple fact, there are now tens of thousands of young people who escaped the fate of so many of us.  What is better than going to law school? Fucking anything.  Literally anything would be a better idea.  

"What about doing nothing?  Surely something is better than nothing. Would you have me do nothing?," you say.

"Yes you magnificent bastard do nothing!  Nothing is fucking top tits!," is what I and anyone with a soul who doesn't directly profit from the status quo many others say.



Now how does the scam respond now that these facts come to life?  As one person notes if you were to spread out this loss across the board for all ABA accredited rape factories schools it's over a million dollar hit (I guess no more subsidized admin perks?).  That's a shit ton of money in the real world.  I wonder if this matters...How could I find out more?

I know let's ask an expert, learned lawyer with the highest integrity and nothing to lose...a shill for the scam...I mean a Dean.


*Pictured above, the typical law school Dean, and much like this devil they're totally ok with fucking kids (metaphorically of course, except when they get caught actually fucking kids in a sexual way...or in the case of this one just fantasizing about it).

Now we've gone and done it...we grabbed the tiger's tail and now they've sent in the best of the best.  The Seal Team Six of Scammers.  You've guessed it, they've brought out the Dean of Case Western Reserve.  Case Western Law, you know a school that every aspiring child who dreams of being the next Darrow attends because they know that educational brand will be the thing that molds them into the next great lawyer completely sucks (hint hint, they all do).  Jesus Christ, the New York Times really is going downhill if this guy can just publish whatever the hell he wants as an opinion editorial.  There's so many other useful things that could have been said in that space with that many readers...but now you give it to this jackass.

 

Oh wait, this basically sums up every law school profiteer and what should become the appropriate response. 

His argument is as valid as an obese toddler who demands a 4th helping of fried chicken from a retarded parent on a Dr Phil.

Does the dean make good points?  Persuasive arguments?  The corollary that law school insinuates in its structure and presentation is that their law school professors and deans are the "best" in the skill set.  For example, if you walked into a kids karate studio, the teacher should be able to kick the shit out of most students.  So is this what we get in persuasive argument from the Dean?

Not really...as Matt beat me to it, if one bases his or her thinking on factual logic--then this guy is full of shit. 

How full of shit?  It even draws the ridicule of a mainstream website that doesn't really have anything to do with the legal industry (except when it points out how fucked recent grads are).  

When it's that bad, should I even do one of my typical take downs?  No not really.


 
Till Next Time!!! Let Justice Be Done Though the Heavens Fall!!!

What I've Really Learned: Three Years Later

"Through humor, you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it." ~ Dr. Bill Cosby



"A population weakened and exhausted by battling against so many obstacles -- whose needs are never satisfied and desires never fulfilled -- is vulnerable to manipulation and regimentation. The struggle for survival is, above all, an exercise that is hugely time-consuming, absorbing and debilitating. If you create these ''anti-conditions,'' your rule is guaranteed for a hundred years." ~ Ryszard Kapuscinski

Well my darlings, it has been three years since I escaped from law school. I blogged about my experiences and the scam known as law school for over a year. And I took a deliberate six month break which has been fantastic for a number of reasons.



First, it's been wonderful to not think about lawyering in any way, shape, or form.  It's fucking exhausting and depressing once you fully understand the nature and scope of what you're blogging about.  Of course, the enemy relies on this weakness, but, fuck it I've done the minimum a charitable party could say I did for the "cause."

Second, and expanding on the last thought, despite anyone's best efforts with a blog--even as a background source for a "mainstream news article"--it matters little in the broader scheme of the collapse of a long-standing, well respected and prestigious profession the "legal services" industry.  No matter what anyone says or does, there just are no fucking jobs anywhere for the vast majority of anyone (yes plucky voter, despite what the Obama campaign said--I voted for him so fuck you--but he's not a secret Muslim, socialist wizard and this phenomenon exist regardless of who occupies the executive).  I can give you anecdotal evidence and stories from friends and acquaintances from a wide variety of backgrounds, whether that example is from the most successful-should-be-ruling-the-world type or can barely read.

Everyone is in survival mode.  Not a "oh where other people see risk I see opportunity" survival mode, but literally fuck you I'll drink your blood to stave off death survival mode (Ohhh but look at Axiom--fuck you asshat there can be only one).




Third, and most importantly, my attendance at law school, passing the bar, and becoming a "counselor-of-law" really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of my life.  In fact, the people that I have known in similar circumstances to mine, and in fact the most successful "lawyers" I know regardless of age, follow the the same track.

Law is something they do, it's not who they are.  It took a long time and a lot of effort for me to come around to realize that fact (something that seem particularly hard for "professions").

If you're a go-getter, type-A personality, and under 27 years old, without having done something equivalent to serving in a combat position in a theater of war like Afghanistan, who is sure in his/her heart of hearts that they "need to be a lawyer"...then just fucking kill yourself now and save the rest of us the trouble.

Just do it now and save everyone the trouble.  It doesn't get better.

If you go to law school today, with the writing on the wall in the way that it is, you're a fucking moron and deserve everything you get.

Not only is the Emperor not wearing clothes, he's slapping his bare, sweaty nutsack in your face as he screams, "Look at my tender nuts! Smell my tender nuts!"

And really when it reaches that point, you only have yourself to blame for the predicament you chose.  It may be the only time you ever see me agree with a Law School Dean.

When I "graduated" and entered the real world of the legal services industry I looked and felt like this:



After all that time now I'm rolling like this:



The shift was caused by a couple of different things:

1) Employment/career outside of the legal services industry (returning to what I love rather than what I thought I would love - the law)

2) Psychologically reflecting on the experience as a whole (blogging and writing my thoughts down without an audience)

3) The passing of time and letting go (living).

-------------------------------------------------------

So why did I start Outside Lies Magic?














*See above for the idealistic end of the spectrum.




*See above for realistic end of the spectrum.

Christ son, I don't know.  Suffice to say that this is literally the ending of my blogging time (no more breaks or shit that's just it).  I should have disappeared into the ether like many who came onto the series of tubes before me; but my personality likes a bookend to any beginning.

Let me be clear.  I benefited from this activity, not admitting that would be disingenuous.  From my perspective, the greatest benefit I think I've derived from scamblogging has been the sense of community.

Of course, and disappointingly so, the optimism that I sense we all had at the beginning in this endeavor--that things would change for the better and for the right reasons--has since gone.  I'm talking around 2008-2009, when a lot of the first scamblogs started popping up and no one was covering it in any real way (so prospective Zero Lemmings could only find someone disparaging Law School on one of those blogs).

The reality of the grind has taken its place.  People and institutions, no matter how lofty they aspire to be, are still grounded in reality.  They don't change for the reasons they should.  Law schools, and demonic learned administrators that keep them and the broader scam alive, haven't stopped destroying lives through debt and other methods (which I've covered here).

I don't think that even the boldest amongst the type of criminals that literally said torture was ok but said that Law School critics are right upstanding pillars who claim to have "acknowledged the situation," see Hastings and others, aren't really genuine in their sentiment.  If they were, they wouldn't take such half ass measures--this is just hedging behavior.

Since I first posted, there have even been some converts *See Tamanaha and Campos--both of whom have surprised me, less Tamanaha and more so in the case of Campos.

Fuck those nerds, back to me.  Scamblogging helped me understand that it wasn't my fault, that I wasn't alone, and that there were others out there going through the same thing or far worse than I ever could.

Others had fucked up like me, but I did everything right!, and that made it easier for me to personally cope and move on (for some fucked up reason).

There a literally a million different people who felt the same way about a million different things.

This has just been my insane ramblings about my own experiences and in no way is my life truly as "hard" or "difficult" as others.  Some of my posts have been better than others, but it comes down to the same core things.

Emotionally and practically, I've moved past law school.  I've done a lot of "beware the ides of march" to Zero Lemmings both online and in the real world to varying success (which I feel was my main goal in all of this).

My last post(s) will contain some of my parting thoughts for those of you still reading.

Till next time!!! FUCK YOU PAY ME!!! PARTING THOUGHTS!!!