ESSAY: Law School

So, this is a little personal, but I wanted to have this on the web for my future viewing and posterity.

I am trying to get into law school. I have attended several colleges and up until last year, I fucked up my education really badly. I was given opportunities that I was too young and too arrogant to appreciate and now, I really regret the person I was and how I stupid I was for not taking advantage of them in the first place.

It's trite, but those mistakes brought me to where I am today and as painful as it is to look back on them, they were an unfortunate necessity to make my current quest have any meaning. I wish I could be one of those people who were driven by an unseen, constant force. I wish I could just be one of those people who work hard without need of constant validation for themselves as people or for the goals they're seeking. Anyway, I'm not one of those people. I do need constant validation.

I think if I make my quest to get into law school public, it might help motivate me to avoid the public embarrassment of going back against it.

Why the hell would I torture myself with law school?

So, some of you might ask, why law school?

Mort importantly, What do you want to do?

The answer is, I'm not exactly sure but I'd most like to be in public policy, and law school helps with that. Law school, as far as I can tell doesn't close any doors. If I want to be a professor, a law degree helps that. If I want to get involved in the background of politics (I do NOT want to be an actual politician), it helps with that. If I decide I want to get involved in the corporate world, it helps that. Maybe, while I'm in law school, I may decide that I actually do want to become a lawyer. Right now, though, I'm not so sure.

Let's just say it this way: for some time, I've loved the idea of becoming a history or civics professors and I can't imagine being laughed at when I apply for a job as a history teacher with a law degree. On the flip side, if I study history and try to apply for a job as a lawyer, the same could not be said. They'd definitely laugh at me.

Law school only opens doors. Yes, I know its hard. Yes I know its unbelievably expensive especially if I'm not sure that I ultimately even want to become a lawyer. Whatever. It's a good investment in the long run no matter what path I follow career-wise.

There are other factors why I want to as well:

1) Going back to school has been an enormous boon to my self-esteem. The last 18 months in school have been the only time in my adult life where I can see with absolute certainty I have been a success. I have grown to love, if not going to school itself, then the feeling of knowing what is expected of me, with constant evaluation to show if I'm doing a good job.

2) I have been a near constant disappointment to my family and I want them to be proud of me. They will be proud of me if I go to law school

3) It seems hard and I like the challenge of it but unlike the challenge of say, my band, it's an inherently winnable one. If I try my best, I WILL succeed at law school. Trying my best at my band provides no such certainties. That's not to say I don't like the challenge of my band, but it will certainly be nice to take on something that as not open-ended and near impossible to quantify victory.

4) The period of my life after I was thrown out of Loyola was the first time in my life where I felt I had no options. Until I went back to school and allowed myself to start dreaming for bigger things again, I didn't realize how downtrodden I'd become: looking forward to a life of drudgery where I don't have enough money and I can never make up for my past mistakes. Having possibilities again has given me new optimism. Suddenly I'm that same kid I was in high school: not perfect but not a total fuck up anymore, either.

I have accrued 42 credits over the past 18 months (nearly as many as whole time at Loyola) at a 4.0 GPA. For the first time in 8 years, my name has value again, I can use it to attain a better life. Anything that opens up new doors is good for my well-being, and law school opens more doors than anything I can imagine.

5) Most importantly, I owe Cole my very best attempt at a great life for her. I can't think of anything that would allow for that more than law school. If nothing else, I will go to law school because I love my fiancée.

Grades - the sad truth about my past.

"Alright, great Matt, then go to law school!"

Yeah, I wish it were that simple. I'm still not positive I can.

So here's the thing: I have 57 credits from Loyola University (nee Loyola College in MD)

From there: I have a 1.9 GPA.

Yikes, right? Yeah, I really screwed up.

Anyway, I returned to school in 2009 at Suffolk: I took 18 credits there for a 4.0 GPA.

I have since taken 24 more credits at NYIT, again for a 4.0.

"Great, Matt!" I can hear you all saying. "Surely the admissions officers will see you've done so much better since returning to school and forgive your horrid 1.9 from Loyola!"

You think so? Yeah, a lot of people have told me that same thing, and while I hope it's true, I am not planning on it. So I'm just assuming that the schools will calculate my cumulative GPA amongst all schools right now and just say that's my GPA.

So what does that mean? It means, basically, I've got a big, big hole to climb out of.

Even with 42 credits of 4.0 schooling, I've still only got about a 2.8 cumulative GPA. Applying to law school with a 2.8 will not be a fun experience, but luckily, I've got about 36 more credits to go. Assuming I get a 4.0 I will have somewhere between a 3.1 and a 3.2 when I apply to law school, which is about a B/B+ average and while that's not nearly as bad as a 1.9, it's also not very good for my law school prospects, overall.

The LSATs - my only possible saving grace

The LSATS are like the SATs for law school. They test logical reasoning, analytical ability and reading comprehension. They're scored on roughly a bell-curve, scaled from 120 - 180, with about 152 being average.

According to these slightly outdated numbers mathematically oriented majors like Physics and Economics tend to the best with a 160 average score while Criminology and Pre-law majors, ironically, tend to do the worst with a below-average 145. For what its worth, Political Science students, of which I am one, score almost exactly average with a 151.8.

In my estimation, to have any shot at getting into law school given my poor performance record, I have to get at least a 160, which would put me in the 81st percentile. And even then, I'm relying on some measure of charity from the university to which I am applying.

If I am able to get a 165 (92nd percentile), things start to get more interesting. I have to get, on average, 7 more questions right of the 101 question test if I'm to get a 165 vs. a 160.

If I get a 170 (97.5th percentile), that would mean getting 7 MORE questions right, I have some small shot at getting into some of the best schools in the country.

If by some miracle I get a 175, which would put me in the 99th percentile and I have way, WAY more options.

Don't think that much can hinge on 7-14 questions on one test? Unfortunately, (and at the same time I guess, fortunately) it does.

This website and this one aggregate admissions data from law schools and estimate your probability of getting into them based on your cumulative GPA and your LSAT scores. There is no way to measure things like your essay or interview with admissions the only other modifier is whether you are an under-represented minority (as a white, male, middle class, heterosexual New York State resident I am literally the walking, breathing embodiment of the anti-under-represented-minority)

But I digress, 3.12 GPA is just about the best I can realistically hope for without any weight being given to my later work by admissions officials given my vastly improved performance.

According to US News and World Reports rankings, the top 10 law schools in this country are:

Yale

Harvard

Stanford

Columbia

University of Chicago

New York University

UC - Berkley and the University of Pennsylvania tied for 7th

University of Michigan

University of Virginia

For those of you kids counting at home, that's 4 Ivy League schools and some of the best public schools in the history of mankind with dozens of the best known professors and alumni including hundreds of famous politicians, litigators as well as many noble laureates to their collective credit.

In other words, I won't be getting into them under any circumstance, so we'll exclude them.

Law school and LSATs, what I need to do

So, to start with, here is the bleak picture I'm faced with of the number 10 - 30 law schools if I get a 160 on my LSATs:

Yeah, so... not ideal. And just so you can see how high the stakes are here. This is the lower quintile of the US News and World Report's top 100 list:

I am not much better than a 30% shot at any school if I get a 160 on my LSATs. However, I think I can do better than that. And if I do, all of sudden the world of my future at law school looks brighter.

Here's what it looks like if I get a 165, or 7 questions better:

But look at how much better I do with those schools a little lower on the list. Remember this is just 5 points better:

Look at all that green! Damn son, I might even get some money. See, this is where I start to feel really good because the first 3 practice tests I've taken I scored a 164, 166 and a 166. So basically, unless I really let my nerves take over it looks like I've got a realistic shot at schools like Syracuse, DePaul, NorthEastern, UNLV and the one most exciting to me in that group, Oregon! Hell yeah, son, I would be a duck! Anyway, I would be ecstatic to go to any of these schools.

So basically, now comes the challenging part. My REAL goal, is to get higher than a 175 on the LSATs and I will study everyday to make that a reality. LSAT scores follow you for 5 years and when they transmit your score to schools, they transmit ALL your scores. So I have to make the first time count.

Anyway, just for a "dream a little dream" moment here, this is what happens if I get a 170 with those top 30 schools:

All of sudden, I'm not an outright rejection almost anywhere. Mort importantly, I'm getting strong consideration at places I would LOVE to go to: Indiana, Wisconsin, Davis? These are places I would LOVE to live

The last level I dare to look at, is if a miracle happens, and I get a 175:

There's a couple real dreams schools in here: first is UNC which is near my Uncle Pat and just somewhere I've had in my head for some time that I'd like to go.

The second is the University of Illinois near my sister Jessica. Third is Notre Dame, which all Catholic school kids would love to go to.

But last, and the one that almost makes me get a little emotional is that little "admit" next to Cornell. A lot of you don't know that when I was in high school, I always talked about going to college (not unlike they way I'm doing now) and nothing ever topped, in terms of emotion and anticipation for me the weekend I went with my dad to visit Cornell. I knew getting into an Ivy League school would have made my parents happier than anything and I really wanted it too.

Cornell was something I dreamed about and talked about for years and when the time came and I was rejected, I wasn't surprised but I felt like I had given up my family's first great hope at greatness for me.

Anyway, I'm trumping it up, but the opportunity to even once again dream of the possibilty of going to a school like Cornell has got me very, very excited.

So, anyway, that's that. Get 175 and make myself into a new man. It's just that simply. Now, all I have to do is execute it.

Get on my ass, tell me to study. I'm trying to go 45-an hour every night. Hopefully I can get there.

Wish me luck and thank you so much for reading this. I know it's not interesting to anyone but me and if you've read this far, that must mean you really care about me.

MUSIC: What does Joe Jackson's "Look Sharp" Know About Alex Chilton?

I remember listening to an old interview of Alex Chilton that aired on the radio shortly after he passed away and more than anything else I was struck by the diffidence and blasé attitude he seemed to have about his own place in the history of pop:

“I guess in the late '70s. I spent some time in New York, and it seemed like everybody I ran into there, you know, claimed to be a fan of the Big Star albums, and that sort of stuff. And so, you know, I guess it was around then that I began to see that even though we hadn't sold any records or made any money out of the albums, that they were still some kind of success in a way, you know.”

It wasn’t quite stunning but I’d always heard Chilton spoken of in the most reverent terms; he was a man who had more credibility with indie pop hipsters than the Pope has with Catholics and he spoke of his own brilliant musical career like a dentist discussing his unsuccessful private practice at a holiday party.

The fact is, when it came down it, he lived a modest middle class life, he played golden oldies at state fairs because the money was good and the sets were short and he died in large part because he put off going to the doctor for days because he didn’t have health insurance. It’s an obvious point but it’s one that isn’t made very often: you can’t pay your damn bills with credibility.

The way the word “pop” was applied with reverence to Chilton long after the last Big Star record was released, “pop” has been used as a baton to beat Joe Jackson repeatedly about the head. To wit, you won’t find many descriptions of Jackson’s early work that doesn’t use the word in the first couple sentences and its used with some measure of distaste.

For both men, though, pop music seemed to be more a means to an end – just what you did because that’s how you made music. Jackson says in his own autobiography: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around does it make a sound? Or: Does music even exist, if no one's listening?” Both Jackson and Chilton seem to have a workmanlike attitude toward their own music. Sure, follow your muse, make music you can be proud of, but why even bother if no one’s going to listen? Making pop music wasn’t a conscious choice any more than it was a conscious choice to make music at all. It’s just what you do.

For his part, the line on Joe Jackson in the early days was that he married an acerbic wit with a decidedly pop aesthetic. He was too poppy for the punk-rock kids but too smart for the room; that’s the reputation anyway but I think that misses the mark pretty substantially on both accounts.

Take as a case study Jackson’s debut Look Sharp! Which has a great share of both pop craftsmanship as evidenced by the smash hit “Is She Really Going Out with Him?” and sharp wit with lines like “If you want to know about the gay politician / if you want to know how to drive a car / If you want to know about the new sex position” from the trade winds groove of “Sunday Papers.”

But the reason I say any focus on the pop aspects of or the clever wit of Look Sharp! Misses the point is because, this is an angry and if you can pardon the buzzword, edgy album and more to the point, it possesses the unsubtle obtuseness one would expect from an angry record. More often than not Look Sharp! Is not particularly incisive, nor is particularly polished.

Take for example, the little bit of rock n’ roll perfection that opens Look Sharp, “One More Time:”

“One More Time” is angular and open and incredibly fresh sounding even 30 years after the fact. It’s not that Jackson isn’t working within the pop milieu, it’s that the label is being applied in a more specific and pejorative sense. Sure, there’s a verse-chorus structure but is it really that much easier to swallow than “Radio, Radio” or “Kick Out the Jams?”

In a backwards way, I think critics like to reference Jackson’s wit almost as a way of punishing him. Eventually, he followed his muse out of rock into low-middlebrow forays into the worlds of jazz trios and classical. In the end, he was a quick-hipped dilettante with one eye toward the door and the scions of rock and new wave hated him for it. In other words, we were almost threatened by Jackson and it was easier to just toss a pithy reference to his wit or intelligence and dismiss him. He wants to leave? Fine, fuck him. Mr. Big Shot.

But again, I think this misses the point and in a strange way gives him too much credit. Take “Fools in Love” which I can only guess was received as a little too clever for the charts when it was released as a single with its mellow ska upstrokes set against an evisceration of modern love. I mean, I guess but there simply isn’t the poetry to back it up:

“Fools in love they think they’re heroes / ’cause they get to feel no pain / I say fools in love are zeros / I should know, I should know / Because this fool’s in love again.” Nothing about rhyming “zeroes” with “heroes” strikes me as interesting poetry.

The fact of the matter is the “clever diatribe” is a difficult thing to pull off without sounding affected (just ask Dennis Miller). Either Jackson was a painfully obvious lyricist with little sense of nuance, or he was, as we all were, angry in his early years and struggled, as we all did, to convey that anger in a logically cogent way.

Labels are a tricky thing, and the stickiness of “pop” when it comes to Joe Jackson is a sort of interesting exemplar of the arbitrariness behind how we raise up some men and sort of relegate others to certain purgatories. In a way, Jackson was always treated as a sort of craftsman first, as if we were being sold a bill of goods by a cynic. I don’t hear much evidence that there is any less sincere emotion to Look Sharp! than any of his peers and more importantly, Look Sharp! from a qualitative perspective stands up nicely against This Year’s Model as an artifact of the time.

Rolling Stone wrote of Jackson:

Ironically, the borderline-nasty wit and unchecked exuberance of these albums quickly gave way to self-seriousness and a middle-brow disdain of rock itself. Jackson turned into a bigger crank than his two old rivals parker and Costello put together - and that's saying a lot! The remainder of his in-print catalogue is marked by restless wandering from one musical genre to another. Sometimes the experiments works brilliantly; more often, they simply bewilder

I think the phrase “turned into” a crank is exactly the dismissal that drives me nuts. He didn’t “turn into” a crank, he started that way and while we were willing to follow Costello into whatever genre experiments he decided to cook up or alternatively, laud Alex Chilton for his steadfast worship of the pop gods, we didn’t give Joe Jackson the same room to operate. He was too pissy to satisfy our desire for pop music in easy to eat, bite-sized morsels and he didn’t condescend to us so we felt little danger of looking stupid if we ignored him.

You have to wonder if Jackson would trade his career for Chilton’s credibility. Or maybe, more importantly for us, the consumers of music, the critics and the scholars, what it says about us that we would give with one hand while slapping away with the other two different men, who followed the same exact impulse: to make music people would like, because that’s what you do. And since the reward for a lifetime of our admiration is dying too young because you can’t pay your bills, you have to wonder if anyone should really care what we think anyway.

POLITICS: The Nature of Efficiency

From the book "Introducing Public Policy:"

What the would-be reformers so often forget is that government operations are not inefficient because stupid people work there; they are inefficient because they have been designed by the legislature to reflect the competing interests of patronage, representativeness, and due process. Efficiency has to take its turn with these other factors. And no upstart executive from a hotshot corporation is going to push these other factors out of line— because they are just as much part of the agency’s legal mandate as efficiency.

(168).

Efficiency isn't everything. It isn't efficient to deliver mail in rural Montana at a cost to the consumer tantamount to the rest of the country even if its more expensive.

It would be efficient to throw criminals who have confessed in jail with no trial, but all that would do would be to incentivize police to work around due process.

When someone says a government policy is inefficient don't argue, it is. It is by design. The question when evaluating a public policy is "Are we prepared to deal with the consequences if we don't have it?" It is very, very rare that public services can be fair and efficient simultaneously.

SPORTS: The Best QB's in the NFL

I should open by saying a couple of things that may bias me:

1) I like stats and I hate when people use short, dismissive statements about single games or super bowls to dismiss the amount of hard work and dedication it takes to be great year in, year out. One or two Super Bowls does not invalidate what a guy does in the regular season. Dan Marino is still one of, if not the greatest QB of all time without having won a Super Bowl. Sinning the Super Bowl for a QB is about luck and how good the team is around you then it is your individual will. The fact that Joe Montana won multiple Super Bowls and Marino didn't win any does not automatically make him better.

Terry Bradshaw won 4 super bowls while throwing only 2 more TD's then INT's for his career. Joe Namath won a Super Bowl in a year he didn't even complete half his passes. Bob Griese, Jom Theisman, Bart Starr and Ben Roethlisberger won multiple Super Bowls and none of them can even touch Marino. Getting to the Playoffs is a sign of greatness, winning in the Playoffs is about greatness but its also about luck.

2) I'm from Long Island and I'm a Giants fan. I absolutely despise the Eagles and Cowboys and I really, really don't like the Jets.

3) Dan and Dominic are the only people in the league I know personally.

That all having been said, these are my top picks for the best QB's in the NFL.




Tier 1 - (Elite)

1) Peyton Manning
Manning is having his worst year in seven years and still has a 91.2 passer rating, almost exclusively because of picks he's throwing. Those picks probably wouldn't be as much a factor is he wasn't passing 50 times a game to compensate for all the injuries on his team, as well as the mediocre run game and defense he's been handed. If he was able to pick his spots like he should there's no way he'd be throwing this many picks.

2) Phillip Rivers
This will be his third straight year with a passer rating over 100. Tom Brady has never had 3 straight years with a passer rating over 90. Is probably at this moment the best QB in the league but Manning has been so good for so long its hard to unseat him at #1

3) Tom Brady
Having his best year since that nuts year he and Moss had in 07. Controlled, consistent, solid.

4) Aaron Rodgers
Probably the most consistent, unshakable scrambling QB of all time. He;s thrown a few more picks than last year but has fumbled only 1 time against 8 last year. Combine that with average of a little more than 10 picks per year and Rodgers may be the QB least likely to hurt you in football.

5) Drew Brees
Brees is the least solid but also most spectacular of the elite QB's. My guess is this is Brees last year at elite production

Tier 2 - (Very Good)

6) Tony Romo
Romo has been the Cowboys QB for five years and he has performed very, very well for all five of those years. He is a model of consistency which is, ironically, why its so easy to take him for granted. During the five years he's started, the Cowboys have had a top 5 running attack 0 times and a top 5 defense 0 times.

7) Ben Roethlisberger
Which brings us to why despite his rings (for the love of God, stop counting rings to tell me how good a QB is - Jeff Hostetler, Trent Dilfer and Doug Williams have all won a Super Bowl) Roethlisberger has had a top 5 defense 4 of the last 5 years, including the #1 defense in 07 and 08. In addition, he has always had better RB's than Romo. And while he has put up individual seasons better than anything Romo has done, he has peppered in some mediocre ('08) ones and some outright bad ones ('06). Roethlisberger has been very good but an argument could be made, especially since he's such a pain in the ass off the field that on most teams (like Oakland, for example), he'd be a bottom 1/3 QB.

8) Matt Schaub
Schaub is like Romo lite - he's been very good consistently over a long period. He's also 29 years old and seeing as how he has the best WR in the league (and with the emergence of Foster) one of the best RB's in the league, this year is probably as good as he's ever going to be.

Tier 3 - (Rising Stars)

9) Michael Vick is obviously a very special case. People don't say it this way much, but Vick was out and out bad as a passer in Atlanta. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me logically that he would go away to prison and come back with a change in attitude and improved football IQ to the tune of a 30-35 point increase in his passer rating. He's been phenomenal this year, obviously, but after only 9 games this year I'm very hesitant to declare him an elite QB. He could be great or he could be a novelty. I'm guessing after this season he settles into a top 10 spot but does not ever again replicate this years off the charts production

10) Joe Flacco
Flacco is improving steadily in a town where defense rules all. Something about the history of the Ravens makes it seem like a truly elite QB in B-more in unlikely, but that could just be a dumb stereotype. Regardless, at 25 Flacco looks to be a future perennial top 8 QB, even if he never cracks that upper echelon

11) Matt Ryan
I do not understand why people fall all over themselves talking about how great Ryan is, especially on ESPN. He's the same damn player as Flacco. Like, literally, they've put up almost identical stats so far and Ryan is treated as a Tom Brady in the making and Flacco is like the next Kerry Collins or something... solid and unspectacular, they're the same player!

Tier 4 - (Merely Good)

12) Eli Manning
The guy just throws way too many picks and doesn't pay enough attention. It's worth mentioning that he has had way more than his share of tips right into the defenses hands so his 17 INTs this year so far are a bit of an abberation, but in all seriousness, he's had all the tools to succeed (good WRs, great pass rushing Ds, a solid running game, his own talent) and just seems to stubbornly refuse to take that last step into the elite

13) David Garrard
Garrard is one of those guys who's always better than you'd think but still not that great. He's never really had a great WR but he has, in fairness had a consistently great running game and special teams. And he's definitely not consistent. But he's better than a lot of QB's who get a lot more hype than him, like...

14) Jay Cutler
Holy jeez, I can only imagine Cutler has incriminating pictures of the heads of ESPN, CBS as well and FOX sports because what in the world has this guy done to merit all the attention he gets? He has a 92 passer rating this year. Do you know how many times he's had a passer rating higher than 90 before this year? Let me be the first to dispell the myth - Cutler was NEVER good AND he's a pain. Winning combination if ever there was one.

Tier 5 - (Average)
15) Kyle Orton
Did you know over the past 3 years Orton and Cutler have put up very similar number? Their progression has mirrored each others nicely, actually and both are doing better with their new teams than they had been. I only have Cutler a tier up because I'm assuming that the guys who make their living at this must know SOMETHING I don't know

16) Matt Cassell
Cassell is a pretty simple guy to describe, when his team is good, he's very good and when his team is bad, he doesn't quite have the talent to raise them up. This year, he has a good running game and emerging WR's so, he's having a great season. Next year? Who knows.

17) Josh Freeman
If he has two more years as good as this one then I will declare Josh Freeman "good." I'm very skeptical he will, he just seems wild and uncontrolled. It seems like he's been very lucky this year. On the other hand, these are just my impressions and I might be underrating him.

Tier 6 - (Over the Hill)

18) Carson Palmer
He can still make plays and he still scores a lot of TD's. He just throws too many picks, plain and simple. He doesn't see the field as well anymore and he doesn't move around as well as he used to, but he still has the ability to be good. I wouldn't be shocked if there was a year in the future where he surprises us by returning to the top 10

19) Donovan McNabb
McNabb is another guy who as recently as last year would have been a tier or two higher. This might be the year of his descent into mediocrity but I'm sort of having a hard time believing he's really THIS bad all of a sudden.

20) Matt Hasselbeck
I do not see a similar possibility for a late-career upswing for Hasselbeck. Even at his best he did not have elite capability. This may very well be his last season

21) Brett Favre
Who the hell knows anymore? I'll just stick him here. He's obviously capable of greatness, he would have been in the 2nd tier last year. He's not even really worthy of this high a ranking based on this years performance but the guy was in the MVP conversations last year. A 3 tier fall is pretty sharp. Luckily he's gone for real next year, finally.

Tier 7 - (The Folly of Youth)

22) Sam Bradford
As far as rookie seasons go, he's had a very good one. An 81.0 rating is nothing to sneeze at. I would not be shocked to see him join Matt Ryan and Joe Flacco in that 9-12 QB ranking range next year. On the other hand, I wouldn't be shocked if he fell off the face of the planet either.

23) Chad Henne
It's a little on the early side to say Miami should pack it in and call it a day on Henne but with 3 years, no demonstrable signs of improvement and no winning record to lean on to say he's got "intangibles," his day of reckoning will be soon.

24) Mark Sanchez
Most of you guys don't live in New York so I'm guessing you don't have to deal with this as much as I do but... did you know he had 64 passer rating last year? Did you know he has a 77 passer rating this year? Weird, I didn't either since the media are falling all over themselves describing how amazing a job he's doing with the Jets.. My recipient for the Vince Young/David Carr Memorial Supremely overrated Young QB Award.

25) Colt McCoy
He hasn't exactly set the world on fire with 3 TD's against 3 INT's in short work but he definitely hasn't been bad either. I think he has the highest ceiling of out he, Stafford and Bradford and for the time being, he and the Browns are ok to grow together


Tier 8 - (Huge Question Marks)

26) Vince Young
I kinda think Young should be done. He has really never been that good as a pro and he only ever shows signs of improving in short increments before regressing to his mean which is about a 75-80 passer rating and a guy who kills you in big moments as often as not. He's going to get more time since he seems to have won the Great Young-Fisher clash of 2010 and in fairness he has put up a solid performance this year but I guess I just don't buy it

27) Ryan Fitzpatrick
I completely reserve judgment until next year. For the moment, though, I am very, very skeptical he will ever be as solid as he's been so far this year again.

28) Matt Stafford
He's here on his draft pick and nothing else. While strictly speaking there's nothing to specifically say he won't be good, I can't put him ahead of any but the worst starters in the league

Tier 9 - (Not Good Enough to Start in the NFL)

29) Jason Campbell
Another guy who the media is always saying is right on the precipice of greatness. I really have a hard time believing that at this point. I would guess he gets another half a year, tops as a starter when the Raiders inevitably fall apart next year after thinking 2010 will have been the year where they turned the corner

30) Jimmy Clausen
Clausen is really not looking good. He's young but Carolina has not yet shown any ability to develop good young quarterbacks. It's a troubling trend for Jimmy. Clausen's <60 passer rating is way below replacement level and he's only THIS high because of how young he is

31) Alex Smith / Troy Smith
He showed signs of being a league average QB last year and honestly, I really think that's his ceiling. Given that, it might be time for the Niners to end the Alex Smith era. Troy Smith has not been very good in the short amount of play he's gotten. It's still way to early to tell but the early returns are that he might be a great college player turned pretty bad pro

32) Derek Anderson
Anderson's trevails have been well-documented. He's been riding the coattails of one Pro Bowl season that really wasn't even that good to begin with to become one of the worst QB's in recent memory to have started multiple seasons. I can't imagine he'll be a starter anywhere again next year but I've been wrong before.

SPORTS: My Plan for NHL Realignment

Ok, the NHL is in a strange place. More than 50% of NHL players come from Canada but Canada only has a hand-full of teams. This is not a way to run a league. The NHL, in its efforts to expand its appeal beyond the small collective hardcore fans that mostly live in Canada and the northern United States has way over-expanded into the south.

I don't the think the expansion impulse was wrong, just misplaced. Great hockey towns like Hamilton and Quebec City go without hockey teams while players are greeted with low attendance and shrugging shoulders in places like Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Anaheim and perhaps the greatest crime of all: Phoenix. Ice is made from frozen water. Phoenix is like, the opposite of ice, why do they have a team?

I propose a massive realignment of the NHL, an acknowledgement that ice hockey is, for the most part, a regional phenomenon, and that that doesn't represent a failure. American football is enormously popular in the U.S. and a fourth class citizen everywhere else in the world. Why can't we just embrace that? Baseball has been fervently adopted in countries as diverse as Cuba, Japan, Venezuela and Taiwan but not much in the U.K. or Turkey. Is that a failure or should we just be grateful for whomever has embraced it?

The NHL is a cold temperature sport. The players come from cold temperature areas and so do the fans, by in large. Expansion can be achieved, but not into the southern U.S. It can be achieved into northern Europe.

I propose that we realign the NHL into 3 conference of 10 teams each: 10 in Canada, 10 in America and 10 in northern Europe.

The new conferences would look something like this:

European Conference:

Prague

Bratislava

Stockholm

Moscow

Helsinki

Berlin

Oslo

Copehagen

Kiev

St. Petersburg

American Conference:

Boston

New York

Philadelphia

Detroit

Chicago

Pittsburgh

Buffalo

St. Louis

Minnesota

Washington

Canadian Conference:

Toronto

Montreal

Vancouver

Calgary

Quebec City

Hamilton

Edmonton

Ottawa

Winnipeg

Victoria

More to come...

ESSAY: The Saddest House

NOTE: I originally published this on another blog in early 2007. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was having one of my earliest firsthand experiences with the mortgage crisis that has become part of the country's day-to-day lexicon since. I'm not saying there's anything particularly prescient about this post, in fact, it's really more a meditation on the nature of family, money and the suffering that's caused by the absence of either of those two things. It seems, every year, there's less and less to be thankful for, but I remain optimistic things will get better and mindful that things could be much worse.

It was maybe 10 days before Christmas. My second of three appointments was a medium sized cape code; a two family home in Staten Island.

Maybe I should backtrack one second. I'm a real estate appraiser: I go to people's homes, I inspect them, I compare them to other houses in the area and finally ascertain value through a series of systems that are so excruciatingly boring seppuku or some other violent self-flagellation would probably be preferable to me actually describing them.

I mention my job because it has me meeting strangers everyday. Many of the strangers I meet walk-up up to the door when I knock and stare at me, without greeting, as if they were thinking the well-coiffed-chubby-white-boy-fairy had unexpectedly paid their doorstep a visit and they simply did not know what to do with me.

Often, even after I'm greeted with nothing more than a vaguely enraged eyelid-half closed silence and some dogs barking in the distance I politely identify myself: "My name is Matthew, I'm the appraiser for your house." Often, I motion to the tidily written piece of paper on my clipboard which contains their name, address, phone number, appointment time and exact loan amount from the bank, they themselves hired, as proof that I have indeed not materialized out of thin air to steal their muumuu or 15" Maury Povich-viewing television.

I explain that I simply have to perform the service they authorized and leave... quickly... because for real, this place reeks of cigarettes and dirty dishes.

Very often I am greeted with only a hesitant "Yeah, whatever." They let me in, I finish and I leave.

I digress, though. This hypothetical only serves to contrast what happened to me about ten days before Christmas. I approached the house and took an outside picture, as I always do, but when I looked down at the view screen of my camera I noticed that a man had walked out of the house and into the shot. When I looked up he was waving politely and smiled. I introduced myself, he put down the to Dell computer boxes he was carrying into the large trash pile already on the curb and invited me inside.

I don't remember his name. I suppose I could look it up but it doesn't matter very much. He was mid-40's, slightly graying full head of hair, average build, in pretty good shape and he had that gruff, manual labor coloring to his hands and face. He didn't look beaten down or old for his age, though, he looked like my grandfather -- like a man who worked his whole life -- like a man who worked harder than me.

Inside, he offered me a bologna sandwich and I said no thank you. He motioned to the fridge anyway and started pulling out cold cuts. I politely told him that I had another appointment and that, while this was a unique and very appreciated gesture -- and it was -- I simply didn't have the time.

The inside of the house was clean, but seemed empty. There was a brown leather couch on the far wall facing the large flat screen tv. I remember noticing stockings hanging from the chimney with three boys and one girls name on them; as well as one that said mom and one that said dad.

The home market is not very good right now for people who already own houses, interest rates are higher and many people are paying off loans on houses that are not worth, or barely worth, the loan amounts on which they are paying their mortgages. People who refinance their homes right now do so for a reason and very often they tell me about it.

This man was no exception, he casually explained to me:

"Money got a little tight around here these past couple weeks."

He said to me "I mean, you know how it is, I haven't been able to work these past few weeks because I've been trying to take care of all this bank and lawyer stuff."

He said to me." I mean, money was tight before my wife took all my kids and took off."

He clarified: "Well, all except my oldest boy, he decided to stay here with me."

he said to me: "I haven't talked to her since. I'm not even really sure where to send my kids' presents."

He said all of this to me pleasantly with an almost smile. The type of smile you could only have when you're pouring your heart out to a complete stranger.

This man was easily one of the nicest I'd come across in my time appraising, or really in my life. He just had that air of accommodation and decency.

He was seated at the dining room table ashing a cigarette into a half-full tray with a half opened Milwaukee's Best can on the table in front of him and another empty one beside it. It was just before 11 am - my only insight into where his wife went.

I finished inspecting the downstairs and we went upstairs to the bedrooms: the purple one, bed half-unmade with at least 10 dolls sitting slouched over waiting for their mom to return. The next room over with the John Cena poster on the wall across from the picture of the Playboy logo, with a perfect dust spot under the television in the shape of an X-box and finally to the loft upstairs where his last remaining child was sleeping. His son. About my age.

In my eyes, Christmas transcends cynicism and the idea of "glory to God in the highest, peace on earth and goodwill towards all mankind" sounds so complete in its unbroken loveliness I have a hard time understanding why people would let concerns like commercialism or generalized counter-culture cynicism get in the way. I stand by my childish belief that Christmas is the most beautiful and enchanted time of year for anyone who lets themselves feel any foolhardy altruism.

But Christmas has a cruel way of bringing the harshness of real life into clearer focus.

Towards the tail-end of the appraisal, the man left my side and went downstairs to answer the phone. I didn't hear the particulars, but the tone of voice he had conveyed the desperation people have when they simply cannot do what they need to do to satisfy whatever person or company or agency is on the other end. He got off the phone when he saw me coming down the stairs, returned the smile he wore the entire appointment and asked one more time if I would be interested in a sandwich.

He paid me what looked like pretty close to his last $500 when I told him we couldn't accept personal checks. He did so pleasantly and with that same air of accommodation.

I finished my appointment, and I left. I wrote the report the next day. The house was worth more than enough to get the loan he needed.

I think about that day a lot. I always wonder what happened to him and his family. I think about his wife. I think about how in love with him she must have fallen when she was with that same kind, laid-back, accommodating and decent man I met.

I think about how scared and heart-broken she must have been the first time she saw whatever it is he must turn into when he's had more drinks.

I think about my parents.

My mom made a very bad decision marrying my dad -- and somehow it worked - it might have been the luckiest things she ever did. I think about what would've happened to my dad if he hadn't met my mom -- or if she refused to tolerate him as much as she did.

I have a tough time reconciling the suffering that is that family's life. I have a hard time reconciling why I deserve to be so much luckier. Who's to say that he isn't a generally well-intentioned man who loves his family but has more flaws than he knows what to do with -- like my dad?

How close was my dad to staring an empty stocking with my name on it, not knowing where I was?

In my time as an appraiser, I've seen broken down, ramshackle shells of home, I've seen a house less than a year old that looks like a warzone, babies crying in rooms with no one attending to them, and the most ungodly filth you can imagine.

I don't know why that story sticks with me.

My dad always says: "There but for the grace of God go I." Its probably the most incredibly trite thing you could hear someone say.

For my father, and I guess for me, it's also so completely true.

ESSAY: Sex and Technology Part 4: Sex and Machines in a World Beyond the Uncanny Valley

There is not a great deal of data regarding whether the uncanny valley reaction is based on social condition to fear robots or some inbred defense mechanism hard-wired into our brain. However, what little data there is seems to indicate the former:

These unsettling emotions [of the uncanny valley] are thought to have an evolutionary origin, but tests of this hypothesis have not been forthcoming. To bridge this gap, we presented monkeys with unrealistic and realistic synthetic monkey faces, as well as real monkey faces, and measured whether they preferred looking at one type versus the others (using looking time as a measure of preference). To our surprise, monkey visual behavior fell into the uncanny valley: They looked longer at real faces and unrealistic synthetic faces than at realistic synthetic faces” (Steckenfinger).

The World Beyond the Uncanny Valley

In the world of Do Androids Dream… concerns about the Uncanny Valley are obviously moot as it requires human beings with an extremely specialized skill-set to even be able to tell the difference between a human being and the ultra-realistic Nexus-6 replicants. That kind of technology simply doesn’t exist in a mass producible form today. It is, as of this moment impossible to create a face and body that have sufficiently human-like actions and reactions that it could fool most humans. “Natural human faces with abnormal visual features produce uncomfortable impressions” (Seyama).

Whether or not our attitudes towards sex with robots is based on an inherent emotional response brought on by something natural (like a built-in, uncanny valley that resides in all of us) there can be no doubt that the feelings of revulsion created by realistic robots that we are, ostensibly, supposed to feel amorously toward is the final frontier between human beings and satisfactory robotic sexual partners.

Robotocists like David Levy, however are supremely confident that crossing the divide of the valley is simply a matter of time. Levy believes that within a matter of years, robots will be able to provide for human beings a sexual experience that is satisfying, not only on a physical level, but on an emotional level as well. Moreso than the uncanny valley Levy sees the Turing test as the final frontier to creating a satisfying sexual partner

[A]s psychology and cognitive science began to consider what relationships might one day develop between man and machine, between human and robot. Suddenly it was important to think about what might happen when a robot communicates with a human on a personal level rather than merely for pragmatic reasons (Levy)

The word “partner” Levy mentions earlier is so very important when discussing these relationships because it implies a necessary reality if humans are to have robots as sexual partners, but also a tremendous ethical quandary. With obvious exception, human beings on balance prefer intimacy with someone whom the feel a connection, or with whom they feel they are on even footing. This is why, for example we have laws against statutory rape, as it is understood that a sexual relationship between a young girl and a full grown man is inherently unequal and manipulative.

Even if it’s not monogamous or a partnership in the traditional sense, many human beings tend to experience feelings of dissatisfaction and sometimes guilt when they have engaged in a sexual liaison that was not mutually satisfactory and enjoyable both physically and psychically. Such a connection with a machine may never be possible without the development of extremely advanced artificial intelligence or at the very least the development of a robot that can perfectly simulate a real sexual relationship.

[Levy] does not shy away from the details of how this could be done. ‘A robot who wants to engender feelings of love from its human,’ Levy speculates, ‘might try all sorts of different strategies in an attempt to achieve this goal, such as suggesting a visit to the ballet, cooking the human's favorite food or making flattering statements about the human's haircut, then measuring the effect of each strategy by conducting an fMRI scan of the human's brain.’ The robot would know it was on the right track when it saw brain activity in the appropriate areas, and continue the successful strategy (Trimarco)

Trimarco finds the scenario he describes above quite distasteful and one would have to assume he wouldn’t be in the minority. Thus, a logical conclusion would be that most human beings would not desire amorous relationships with a robot barring some seismic shift with regard to sexual expectations and social mores.