Señor Jehuda, aka "El Blogo de Liberto", is an attorney and media professional with a background in TV marketing and production, copywriting, independent filmmaking, and spontaneously speaking perfect Spanish. A proud Texan who recently escaped from Los Angeles to Albuquerque, he spends far too much time thinking about movies - especially since his job requires it. Jehuda is also a contributor at YesButHowever.com and PJ Lifestyle.
I’m intrigued by this collection of essays titled Law and Magic, which “explores a unique and interesting area of legal study that covers a breadth of topics from the historical persecution of alleged witches to contemporary cases of intellectual property law surrounding magic tricks.”
I just learned a former professor of mine wrote one of the essays in it – one about copyright protection for magic tricks and performances. Who knew?
It’s available through Amazon
Who is Kerwin Swint?
Film School has been a bad deal for a long time, actually, but it may be easier to come to that same realization in these tough economic times.
As I’ve said before: go to the library instead, it’s cheaper.
Take it from me. I graduated from one of the university film schools mentioned in the article almost 20 years ago. I’m still paying the student loans, have been working in the industry for over 15 years; and realized about a decade ago that the degree itself contributed little or nothing to my career. No one in the biz really cares about what your diploma says, anyway. It’s all about what you can do.
UPDATE: Link was bad. Just fixed. Sorry about that!
MORE: Related: John Stossel on the College Scam.
A little late in coming, for an update, but bears mentioning 6 days after the fact: “Former UNM President F. Chris Garcia was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center this morning on charges of promoting prostitution, tampering with evidence and conspiracy, according to Bernalillo County Detention Center records.”
So who takes the cake? UNM or Columbia? I’m not talking academics, either.
NYT: The Lawyer Surplus, State by State.
Not quite a dime a dozen, but I suppose things could eventually get to that point if the schools keep churning out these many J.D.’s…
Well, to be more precise, it came from Sweden: Genderless pre-school bans “him” and “her”.
The name of the institution will make you chuckle…
Enforcing politeness at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.
This needs to happen more often. Fun video at the link, but NSFW. The ejected texter uses plenty of profanity.
What’s the matter? The Nazis weren’t evil enough for them?
UPDATE: A film critic I know who writes for a magazine in Europe reminds me on Facebook that Europeans don’t care either. “Bunch of thankless punks.” Memories are all too short…
FSFF: Undead Links to George A. Romero Studies.
…or for the budding zombie movie scholar, too.
You can’t lose credibility when you don’t have any, so I guess they thought it was worth the shot…
Lesson Plan: “One day in 1967, a Palo Alto high school student asks his history teacher how the German people could have missed the signs of the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by the Nazis. This innocent question ignites an idea, and teacher Ron Jones launches a classroom ‘simulation,’ or experiment, to illustrate how good Germans -how anyone – could fall prey to totalitarian thinking.”
It’s not a high-concept Hollywood studio release. It’s an indie documentary. The experiment actually took place, with pretty creepy results. It’s a piece of recent American history with which I wasn’t familiar. I wonder if I’m the only one? Amusingly enough, the teacher who launched the experiment wasn’t exactly a right wing extremist. On the contrary. Let’s just say this docu might bring a smile to Jonah Goldberg’s [happy] face. Anyway, Read the whole thing™.
Lesson Plan was screened at the Newport Beach Film Festival last week. I can’t find any information on whether it’s available for home watching just yet; but a decent documentary can often find distribution pretty easily, compared to fiction movies. It may be coming to Netflix instant before you know it…
UPDATE: If you’re near Vancouver, you may be able to catch a screening this week. The movie’s official site is here.
MORE: Linked by Ed Driscoll at Insty’s. Thanks!
Also, compare and contrast with actual, college-level, non-simulated instruction in the methods of labor union shocktroop tactics. Astounding, when you think about it, the sort of conduct that can be excused in the name of pursuing certain political goals. But then again, (More …)
Professor Douglass: College lecturer Don Giljum is out of a job over his pro-violence instruction at the University of Missouri.
But he resigned under union pressure, so no First Amendment issue (evidently)…
“A man trying to pay a fee using $2 bills was arrested, handcuffed and taken to jail after clerks at a Best Buy store questioned the currency’s legitimacy and called police.”
NYT: Yale Law School library will allow students to check out “therapy dog” to help manage stress.
Dogs are great. And I know The Rhetori-canine made a big difference in my life when I was in law school. But keeping a dog on campus to help de-stress 1L’s smells of animal cruelty. Plus, what if it eats your homework?
WSJ: Selling Video Scoops Online.
In the era of the ubiquitous camera, websites that syndicate amateur video for professional news organizations had to emerge sooner or later. Is this another nail in Old Media’s coffin? A great deal of images for news has traditionally been provided by the likes of Reuters, AP and AFP. On the other hand, this is great for independent journalists such as Michael Totten and Michael Yon.
But perhaps it’s great in general. Journalism is hard. And many who practice it professionally are obviously unfit for it. We need more James O’Keefes and less Dan Rathers. And we simply can’t expect journalism schools to fill that void.
The Law Movie Review blog.
And here I was thinking I was the only non-practicing lawyer obsessed with movies…
A friend just alerted me to how bad our cultural elite is at spelling the name of what must now be the most talked about city in the U.S.
Credentialed, not educated.™
Soros-funded, University of Maryland poll concludes “Fox News viewers were the most misinformed during the 2010 election cycle”.
Yawn.
Of course, no need to research which Americans were the most misinformed about Barack Obama during the 2008 election cycle. They know who they are…
(Via TheCableGame)
Columbia University: First a student drug ring, now this: Palin-hating Columbia University prof busted for incest.
Related content at TOM.
Ivy Leaguers busted in drug ring.
MPAA to universities: curb piracy or lose federal funding.
NYU professor has camera installed on the back of his head.
He teaches at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, too. My alma mater…
American Power: Fresno State Student Body Prez is illegal alien.
He may not be in the U.S. legally, but he’s eligible for in-state tuition…
California dreaming…
Slate: Law Schools are manufacturing more lawyers than America needs.
Which explains why I still work in TV production…
NYT‘s Frank Rich can’t tell the difference between a tax credit and a tax cut?
Just another member of our undeserving elite…
Lefties love revising history. But Obama has taken this practice to a whole new level…of clumsiness…
L.A. school officials name school built on polluted lot after Al Gore.
Student Loans, Gateway Drug to Debt Slavery: How we got here; and how it fits in with out-of-control tuition prices.
Note the Obama boosting towards the end: “Obama’s changes are big wins for the government and taxpayers…all loan profits that used to go back to private lenders, now go back to the government.”
That doesn’t mean they’ll go back to taxpayers, though. I doubt very much Obama will cut taxes so as to reflect this putative windfall to government. And what’s wrong with profits going to private lenders? It was their money to begin with. What were they supposed to do? Lose money?
Something else the authors don’t mention is that Sallie Mae was a government-sponsored enterprise – like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae – until a few years ago.
Ultimately, though the infographic doesn’t quite spell it out, it does make evident that out-of-control tuition prices – like the increasingly poor quality of a higher education – are a government-created problem.
Related content at Instapundit: Is the Higher-Ed bubble about to burst?
UPDATE: The original source of the infographic is here, where it’s a lot easier to read.
Bar Exam Question of the Day: “Could a person be convicted of the crime of ‘making a material misrepresentation to a woman to get her into bed because that’s what guys do’”?
Houston Chronicle: University of Texas to mull taking Klansman’s name off dorm.
At AbovetheLaw.
AboveTheLaw: Reality TV On Mission to Destroy Reputation of Law School Students Everywhere.
Really? Sounds to me like the reputations of certain law schools is what will suffer instead. But then again, that’s all part of a larger trend.
TOM: Newsweek proto-journalist attempts to describe Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, elicits comedy instead.
Bonus question: where were the editors? Oh, wait. This is Newsweek.
Who knows? Perhaps Princeton is not what it used to be; and expecting this Princeton senior to grasp a treatise by Hayek is just plain unreasonable. But that’s no problem, because we have cartoons!
UPDATE: Taking Hayek Seriously links. Thanks!
From fear of American flags to fear of…toy soldiers!!!
Not Part of the Utopian Curriculum…and it shows. Zogby International survey: Compared to conservatives and libertarians, ” the left flunks Econ 101.”
Economics was required during my freshman year at UT San Antonio, but then again UT San Antonio is in Texas…
UPDATE: Liberals livid. And of course they’re calling the survey flawed and slanted. But the questions seem quite basic and straightforward to me.
If your intellectual aspirations drive you to pursue Religious or Women studies, don’t pay $50,000/year for the privilege. Go library-hopping or shop for used books on Amazon, then devour every book in your fields of interest for 4 years.
By the time you’re done, your education should be comparable to that of your average liberal arts school grad (tons of knowledge with few marketable skills). Maybe you won’t get a diploma out of it, but given the cost/benefit differential, would you really want one?
(H/T: Instapundit)
UPDATE: I suppose the internet can be of some use as well.
The award-winning documentary The Lottery follows four families hoping to get their kids in a charter school and out of failing public schools.
Predictably, the film shows teachers’ unions and ACORN - among others – standing in the way of better schools nationwide. To them, the kids come second (as if we need any reminding). Their cushy monopoly is priority one.
We need more charter schools nationwide. Or vouchers. I’ve been volunteering at a charter school in South Los Angeles one day a week for several weeks now. South L.A. is one of the poorest and most gang-ravaged areas in the county. But I remain amazed at the quality of the students I’ve met; and the quality of the facilities and the people who work at this charter school. And these kids are not just bright. They have big plans for the future because they know that they can succeed.
We need more kids like that everywhere, but especially in our poorest neighborhoods.
Texan third-grader gets one week’s detention for possession of one single Jolly Rancher candy.
This war on child obesity gets stupider every day. A week’s detention for a piece of candy is overkill any way you look at it; but ironically this poor kid would have likely fared better if she had been caught carrying a 1/4 pound’s worth of pot, or tagging, or indulged in criminal mischief where the damage is less than $500.
No way to teach healthy eating habits, any way you look at it…
