But here are a couple of quick legal ones for you legal motherfuckers out there:
Last week a State appellate court in New Jersey created a duty not to text someone you know to be driving. This would be a great discussion in Torts class.
The NFL reached a $765 million dollar settlement in its concussion related class action, and The New Yorker claims it's a victory for the league. I don't know. First they cite the NFL's 10 billion dollar revenue to make the $765m seem small, but 7.65% of a company's annual revenue is not insignificant. Second (and more convincing) they say that because settlement was made pre-discovery, the NFL avoided revealing what they knew about the long term effects of concussions.
It doesn't take a neurologist to figure out that 20+ years of violent collisions might lead to some serious brain damage. In this story from a few years ago, Kris Jenkins lists some of the crazy injuries he played through. If I slipped and fell, the impact would probably affect me for the next couple of years, and these guys are out there getting hit full speed by the best athletes in the world ---- and I've probably said this before, but: if there was an objective way to measure the best athletes in the world, my guess is that 170 of the top 200 play in the NFL
Look at this guy:
5'10, 235lbs.
Probably 2% body fat.
And he's a running back! And he's not even known as a great or physically dominating running back. He's a slightly below average running back. Imagine the impact when trying to tackle this guy. I'd rather get hit by a smart car.
(And you're telling me that if someone put him in a swimming pool fifteen years ago that we'd have any idea who Michael Phelps is?)
(I think you could take Cam Newton today, teach him how to swim, and he'd break swimming world records in the 2020 Olympics.)
(If someone gave Drew Brees a tennis racket 20 years ago, Roger Federer's life would have been a lot different.)
(ok, sorry, this subject can get me going.)
(Can you imagine LeBron James serving a tennis ball? He's 6'8. A tall tennis player might be 6'4, and he's probably known for his big serve, and he's probably gangly and un-athletic as hell. Lebron's serve would be the equivalent of trying to return an overhead smash. They'd have to change the rules of the game. They'd have to either back up the service line, or raise the net. Or make players serve underhand.)
(In addition to being the longest and most powerful tennis player in the world, he'd probably also be the quickest.)
(ok, sorry.)
(Tom Brady is probably a scratch golfer.)
(Tom Brady is probably very close to being a scratch golfer.)
(ok, sorry.)
(You're telling me if Michael Vick got his hands on a javelin or a pair of skis in high school...)
(ok, ok, I'm done.)
Ok, anyway, if NFL officials knew about the dangers of repeated concussions, maybe they could have warned players or been more vigilant about diagnosing concussion symptoms in the first place. But given the amount of money on the line and the short careers of NFL players, it's probably not easy to tell one of these guys he can't play.
Ok, what else? Anyone watch Orange is the New Black on Netflix?
I thought it was decent, but wouldn't go so far as to recommend going out of your way to watch it.
I'm towards the end of Bonfire of the Vanities. I highly recommend it to someone looking for a long borderline-journalistic novel, especially to you legal motherfuckers out there.
Oh yeah, so what's going on in Syria? The dictator used chemical weapons to suppress a rebellion, and now people want us to step in?
Is it because we draw the line at chemical weapons? So if he dropped conventional bombs on his people or machine-gunned them in the streets it would be ok?
Is there a school of thought that says we sit this one out?
I feel like our success rate in the Middle East is not very high. If we go in there, we might as well colonize the country, right? What's the point of regime change? It's just going to be another guy like the current one --- or worse, as seems to be the case in Egypt. We shouldn't go into a country lest we're ready to make them the 51st state.
This article called "Long Odds for Authors Newly Published" gets into how JK Rowling published a book under a pseudonym and it didn't sell much even though critics are now giving it rave reviews. Yikes.
I've been working on a book, it's kind of a compilation of old personal blog entries and some other stuff. It'll probably be finished in a few weeks. If you're interested in reading and giving me feedback on the first draft, let me know.
I've never cared for Paul Simon but, I like this song.
That's all it takes to make it on my blog. That song played a minute ago on XRT, and I posted it. That's all it takes to make it on here.
Speaking of songs, I heard this fairly recent but fairly kick-ass Heartbreakers song on Millis's iPod at the football draft. I didn't know the 'Breakers had something like this left in the tank.
Part of me wants to post my and Spencer's weekly football plays, but we didn't get off to such a hot start last night.
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