RedStateSongsBlog

Summer is coming to a close and it is time to start my second year of law school. It is a strange time. On the one hand, I’ve learned a lot. On the other, I see how much more I need to learn before I’m ready to practice.

The summer was a great learning experience. The McGill summer program in International Arbitration Law exposed me to areas of business and law I was completely unaware of, and living in Montreal for six weeks gave me an interesting perspective on the United States. I worked at an intellectual property law firm for the rest of the summer, and again, while I learned a lot, there is still much to do before I’m ready to practice.

The good news is that one year it I still think changing careers was a good idea, and patent prosecution looks like a great fit for both my interests and experience. I have no pangs of regret about leaving engineering. My family has transitioned well to Concord and are starting to feel like part of the neighborhood and community.

So am I ready to start classes again? Hard to say. The thought of jumping back into 16 hours a day of non stop law, seven days a week up until Christmas is daunting. Some of my classmates have decided that one year was enough. But I’m not sure there is a way to prepare for it. Last year at this time I had no idea what I was in for. This year I do, but I’m not sure that this knowledge will change my approach much. I think the best thing I can do is follow through with after-class activities: write a brief summary of the class and what the professor seemed to be stressing, and then note any areas I was unsure of. Last year I felt it was enough just to keep up with the assignments, but sometimes had trouble with retention. Hopefully reviewing after class and then again at the end of the week will help me keep the big picture in focus.

Last year the worst part was fear of the unknown. This year I merely fear the known.

Cover me, I’m going in!

-Jonathan

I just finished the last exam of my first year in law school.
It was the most intense and exhilarating year of my life. The highs and lows are pretty extreme, sometimes within minutes, like the judge ripping the heart out of my argument at the county courthouse and then in chambers congratulating me as a natural litigator. Finding I’d bombed the exam I thought I’d aced. Landing a plum summer internship. Being scoffed at by a professor in front of 140 classmates. Realizing that gambling my life savings and up heaving my family was actually working out well for all of us.

The best part is the friends I’ve made. Men and women from 21 to 50 from all over the country and world, all with their own gifts and perspectives. The professor who was toughest on me in class has become a friend and mentor. And most of all, my family has been super supportive … I wasn’t always easy to be around. But I suppose that’s true in general.

What a ride!

-Jonathan

All this McCain bashing by the Coulter-Limbaugh types has prompted me to wonder: If McCain isn’t a conservative, who is? What is the definition of a conservative candidate in 2008?

It occurs to me part of the problem is that while there are many criteria that qualifies one to be a true conservative (belief in small government, low taxes, strong military, individual liberties), there are far more criteria used to bar membership to the club. For instance: A candidate who believes in every other conservative value can be excluded for any one of these reasons:
1. Being pro-choice.

2. Voting against any tax cut.

3. Being an atheist (or even “not religious enough”).

4. Supporting worker visas.

5. Supporting campaign finance reform.

6. Believing in global warming.

7. Opposing the Iraq war.

8. Questioning “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.”

9. Supporting any type of gun registration legislation.

10. Making any concessions whatsoever to the Democrats, or any attempt to work with them.

There are many others. While I think it is fine to have well defined boundaries on your ideology, the Republicans are finding a hard time finding anyone who actually falls within them. Conservative Republicans may have that big tent they espouse, but there don’t seem to be many people under it these days.

Wasn’t it just four years ago that the Democrats were scrambling to define themselves? I’m not sure that they have: it has been relatively easy to build support for the opposition party under the unpopular Bush administration. But I suspect recent Democratic popularity is more because of who they are not instead of who they are and their vision for the country. Still, in the primaries the Democrats have had to decide among several choices they found attractive, while the Republicans appear to have settled on the candidate they find least offensive…and to all public appearances, he’s still pretty offensive to many who consider themselves the core of the party.
So I wonder, is there a “true conservative” candidate out there, or have the requirements become so restrictive that no actual candidate can qualify?

-Jonathan

Well, I survived the first semester of law school. More than survived, I really enjoyed it. It was very intense and all consuming, but it was good to exercise parts of my brain that didn’t see much action in my engineering career. The second semester has begun and is even more work intensive than the first. But my family is solidly behind me and helping in every way they can.

I’ve started to interview for summer positions and wonder what a potential employer would think if they read this blog and see that I’ve released a CD called “Bender: Songs for the Red States.” Will they think I’m too political to hire? Too conservative? Too liberal? Is having a political opinion the third rail of seeking a job in a law firm?

And speaking of politics, I’m very pleased to see John McCain heading toward the Republican nomination. I’ve had great respect for the man since he first popped up on my radar (which would have been in the summer of 2000 when interviewed by Laura Knoy on New Hampshire Public Radio). There are plenty of positions where I disagree with him, but I believe he understands the need for the two parties to sincerely work together to solve (and salve) the nation’s problems, and I’m willing to sacrifice a few issues to that cause. But I’ll have to get a better reading on what his idea of a good judicial appointment is before I commit my vote to him.

I would prefer that Obama take the Democratic nomination over Clinton. Not that I see much diversity in their positions, but I think another Clinton in the White House would just lead to more left-right division that I don’t believe the country could afford right now. It’s not that I distrust Clinton’s intentions, it is just that such a large portion of the population is so dead set against her (fairly or unfairly), that I don’t think she is capable of carrying out her vision.
So the bottom line for me is that this election is more about practicality than ideology for me. Enough of the political bickering, it’s time for our leaders to get to work and figure out how to get together and solve some problems.

Back to the books!

-Jonathan

For the past two years my family and I have been in a state of transition. As of this summer I’m retiring from engineering and am embarking upon a new career. I’ve begun the Juris Doctor program at Franklin Pierce Law Center. My family has picked up and moved ourselves so we can be together while I’m slogging through the three year program. We’ve found a lovely 19th century carriage house within walking distance of the law center and the kid’s school. Sarah Elizabeth will be continuing her massage therapy practice in Wilton and will also be taking clients locally.

Switching from engineering to law is a big step, but I think a necessary one. I’ve always been on the liberal arts/science fence and after 20 years of engineering it was just time to make the shift. Pierce specializes in intellectual property law and a large number of my new classmates have technical backgrounds.

This will be a big change for all of us. Moving from the country to the city (albeit a very small city) and adjusting to a student’s lifestyle will take some getting used to. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have to make music, as I expect I’ll need to dedicate at least 60 hours a week to my studies and what’s left over will be devoted to maintaining as normal a family life as possible. We’ll see how it goes! For now we’re very excited and pleased with the city, neighborhood and schools we’ve found.

-Jonathan

Time and time again when Americans question the Bush administration’s policies on secrecy, wiretapping, detainment of terror suspects or Iraq policy in general, they are accused of sympathizing with terrorists. Any objections to these acts which remove, limit or restrict rights of all Americans are met with accusations of protecting terrorists.

These are precisely the tactics of the McCarthy era. The way Bush and Cheney are setting up the laws is that anyone they decide to call a terrorist must be treated as a terrorist, and this person may be detained indefinitely without due process (or even access to an attorney). The President needs no evidence to support his assertion and nobody can gainsay him. If you trust the President’s judgment this may seem justified. But the United States Constitution was written by men who didn’t trust any individual’s judgment to this extent and went to great lengths to make sure that this kind of power was distributed and balanced.

When I object to the alarming increase in executive powers under Bush, I’m not protecting terrorist’s rights, I’m protecting American’s rights. Any leader who insists that all Americans must give up their rights to protect the country (without trotting out the Benjamin Franklin cliche) either suffers from a lack of understanding of or confidence in the U.S. Constitution or is on a power grab. Neither of these inspires my confidence in their ability to govern.

-Jonathan

I think it comes down to this:

Americans are losing our right to be stupid.

I grew up in the New York City media market, and often listened to the “Imus in the Morning” show as a teen. I’ve heard him saying outrageous and stupid things since the 70’s. I don’t think he’s a racist, I think he’s critical of everybody. I’ve never noticed a political slant to his show because he calls every politician on the carpet. Remember his White House Correspondent’s Dinner speech when he referred to the stick up Al Gore’s ass?

Whoever you are, if you listen to Imus long enough you’d find something to be offended about. Sometimes his comments were insightful, sometimes merely inciteful.

Recently the press has been rummaging through past controversies and cherry picking his racially insensitive remarks, trying to paint him as a racist. Imus was an equal opportunity critic, and loved getting the PC crowd riled up.

Imus made a career of walking on the edge, and anyone who does that will occasionally cross the line. People are now pretending to be offended by this, but that was the man’s job…if he hadn’t walked this line he’d have been off the air long ago because we’d have lost interest. Now he’s being taken off the air for one stupid remark too many.

There are superficial differences between races, genders, religions, sexual preferences and cultures. Recognizing these differences doesn’t make you a racist and neither does making jokes or dumb comments about them. The ambiguities of our language make it possible for 10 people from different backgrounds to utter the same phrase and have it interpreted 10 different ways. So there’s an unspoken code about many words, and who can use them and who can’t.

Imus was called on violating that code. He used a ridiculous combination of vaguely racially charged words and made the mistake of directing them at a group where the worst possible context for the phrase could be assumed.

The next thing that happens is what I’ll call a media vortex: the whole world of radio, TV, print and internet news exploded and it took on a life of its own. Once this occurs you can forget any kind of rational outcome…the wags come flying out of the woodwork and the thing just spirals out of control. CBS did the only thing it could under the circumstances: pull the plug. Imus may or may not resurface, but until he was canned this thing was just going to continue to escalate.

Imus had a good run. I’ll shed no tears for him. I personally think the whole shock-jock mentality lowers our national standards for rational and reasonable discourse because it glorifies the lowest common denominator.

But if we persecute stupid-speech as hate-speech we’ll be further restricting the ability to communicate important ideas. With the news media unable or unwilling to point out the stupidity, doublespeak and non-sequiturs that our public officials routinely utter, we rely on the Stephen Colberts and Jon Stewarts and, yes, even the Don Imus’s to call them out. Government doesn’t like this, and it may be the real reason we’re seeing the right to be stupid come under attack.

-Jonathan

Every weeknight at 6:30 PM New Hampshire Public Radio airs a half hour program called The Front Porch which features New Hampshire authors, musicians, artists and other people who make the state an interesting place to live. They have graciously asked me to appear next week to sing some songs and discuss my new CD.

It is only broadcast in New Hampshire, but you can stream it live on the internet. The show will be aired next Tuesday (February 20) at 6:30 PM EST. Please tune in and listen! I’ll post a link to the show so you can listen to it on your computer after it has been broadcast.

This will be fun!

-Jonathan

Sorry it’s been so quiet around here lately. January seems to be just grinding along. We’ve been in the grips of an ice storm and had an exciting 40 hours without power. That is certainly a reality check. The first 24 hours are actually kind of nice. We sit around the fire, light candles, play guitar and games and read aloud. The fireplace keeps the house from getting below 50 degrees unless it gets really cold out. It would be downright peaceful if not for the loud droning of several neighbor’s generators. But then the notion of hot showers and catching up on email creep into my head and by the time the power comes on we’re more than ready for it.

Not much happening on the musical front. I’m thinking of unloading my vinyl record collection so I’m busy digitizing the stuff that isn’t available on CD. If there was any market for obscure out-of-print mid 80’s college radio records I’d make a mint! Alas, I seem to have a large collection of oversized coasters.

Stay warm!

Over the weekend my family put together a music video. Sarah Elizabeth and the kids did the art work, and Sarah Elizabeth did all the live and still photography:

Counting Penguin Video

We had a ball putting it together and hope you get a kick out of it!

-Jonathan