But we've got to do it soon. Justin takes his New York bar exam on Tuesday and Wednesday, and our resident new car guy is no John F. Kennedy Jr. Fortunately for TTAC, the chances that Justin will hang out his shingle are about as high as a basil smoker (true story). In this job, I read hundreds of comments, dozens of articles and at least one porn site's fiction section per day. I can tell when a writer knows how to winkle-out the salient fact or dramatic moment that makes the story compelling. ("The western end of the beach has a 'certain' reputation. Nearly two miles from the access road it is the place where people go who want real peace and quiet, without interruptions.") It's an instinctive skill that Justin brings to this job. A skill shared by Frank, Eddy, John, the rest of the TTAC writing team and, of course, Lyle Lovett. When I began this website, I never thought I'd be spending most of my day polishing other writers' prose. But I got tell you guys, my hat's off to you. It's a privilege.
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I’m taking the New York Bar as well (it’s on Tuesday). TTAC makes for a nice study break.
Does NY require that you pass both portions. In Michigan we are allowed to “multistate out”, that is, if we performed well enough on the multistate we passed and the essay portion was not even considered or read. The only essay requirement was that we put forth a “good faith effort” meaning that you actually wrote an answer.
As I recall, I got a 162 on the multistate, good enough to “multistate out”. Although, it is impossible to compare as I think the results are weighted differently ever year vs the prior year depending on the perceived difficulty. The curve so to speak.
Good luck Justin.
Good luck.
Good God, you’re all lawyers, “Soylent Green is made out of people”
Do you get your name on a plaque in New York like you do in Delaware?
First they took out the coke. Next, the removed the real sugar. What next, the seltzer?
Title sounds good to me…but good luck with the bar exam!
And I just saw Lyle Lovett last night, as always…a great performance.
Err…two nights ago.
There’s this old story about a lawyer who packs up and moves to a small burg where he’s the only attorney in town. He hangs out his sign and sits in his storefront office. Days pass, then weeks, then months, and no prospective client ever crosses his threshold. He’s thinking that this was a really big mistake and he sadly begins planning a move back to the big city.
Then one day, another lawyer shows up in town and opens up an office right across the street.
After than, both of ’em had more work than they could handle.
As a 20+ year civil litigator, here are my wishes that you ace the bar exam, Justin. But my motives are not entirely altruistic. More lawyers means more work for everyone!
“More lawyers means more work for everyone!”
No offense to the author, but there you have it.
If there were more car review authors, Justin and any of the TTAC gang might feel their job in jeopardy by an abundance of new and gifted writers. But an abundance of more lawyers means even more work for the labor pool. How great is that!
Well that’s just wonderful… not. Now he is gonna pass and then he will have to slave away 80 hours a week for some mega-firm for 10 years before they let him outside to see the sun. Will he be able to continue to write?
Don’t more lawyers equal less work for the rest of us? Michigan is a great example of a place with a glut of attorneys.
Let us know how that NY bar exam goes!
TwoTwenty . . . good to see i’m not the only one taking the bar in a few days who also checks TTAC religiously . . . ok, gotta go study.
re- the Ford Brand
The problem is not that a Ford Brand is hard to define. Henry Ford did it and I think it still holds true “Cars for the Common Man”.
You could even argue that one could sum up Ford as “honest”.
The problem is that none of the marketing mavens at Ford want to build a brand that’s “common”. They want advanced, sexy, leading edge… anything but the brand for the Average Joe.
I once wrote a brief that illustrated the Taurus as a Sears-Roebuck suit in an Armani world. Nothing wrong with a suit from Sears, in fact several generations of folks bought `em, wore `em, even got buried in `em. My creative guys got it, the client did not. They wanted to talk about the new Taurus’ (this was `96 at the time) bold design and advanced thinking.
And so, here we are with a company that still tries to say “Look at us! We’re advanced too! So advanced we’re bringing all our super-cool European vehicles to you because we couldn’t make them here (for a multitude of reasons)”
Instead they should be saying, “We build honest cars for the Common Man (and Woman)”.
It ain’t sexy, but that kind of brand identity might just be what sells these days.
PS- Enjoyed the podcast. Sounds like Justin could use a case of Red Bull.
>>>”Nuclear power looks good to me.”
where’s the beef, guys? Texas has plans to install the equivalent of 25 nuclear plants’ worth of wind, equivalent to one quarter of all the nuclear in the US, and probably about one third of all the nuclear in France. It will go up a lot faster, just because wind turbines are not nearly as complicated as nuke plants. There is tons of wind in the Great Plains, and tons of additional space, especially since very few people live there. Proper siting mitigates the bird problem (Mass Audubon has signed off on Cape Wind). And about ten times as much wind power as nuclear was installed around the world last year.
Yes yes, I know nuclear sounds macho, but that doesn’t mean it’s cost effective, or quick to install. It’s neither.
And that wind turbine at the union along Route 3 (not 128) going into Boston? I think it’s beautiful. Wind plants are very graceful. I’d love to see them in Boston Harbor.
David, re wind vs nuclear
I currently work in the nuclear industry and am all for wind power as a suppliment, but from what i see, that is all it can be. We have quite a few wind projects going up in my area and i think it is great, I think wind farms look like progress, but I do not believe that they are the answer.
Right now we have 6 units running at about 842 MW each. If you go to the Vestas website (one of the companies building the farms around my area) you will see that they have 3 models, the highest rated is 3MW. It would take 281 wind turbines at 3 MW to replace ONE of our reactors, and those wind turbines would need to be spinning all day, every day. If you were to replace 25 reactors that would be 7,025 wind turbines. Where do you get the land for that many turbines?! With all six running we are producing 5,053 MW, enought for 1,685 wind turbines, but we only take up a few square miles. I am not arguing that nuclear is THE answer, because it is not, but neither is wind. We need a combination of many forms to keep a sustainable and affordable grid. If you don’t believe that, then turn off your air conditioner.
That’s right, you’re not from Texas. Texas wants you anyway.
cgraham Says:
July 25th, 2008 at 8:28 am
David, re wind vs nuclear
Where do you get the land for that many turbines?!
Nantucket; just down the road from Ted Kennedy’s mansion. ;)
I haven’t listened to the podcast, because I am a much faster reader than anybody is as a speaker; and I just don’t have the time to be a captive audience today…
I guess I don’t get the “kill all the lawyers” title in the context of Justin’s upcoming Bar Exam. If society’s problem is the lawyers, then what makes anybody think that just getting rid of existing lawyers would fix the problem?
I think most of our problems can be attributed to lack of education. Or biased, slanted education.
Major societal/legal/political shifts usually take a generation’s worth of time for the “old guard” to retire, and for the new-thinking in education to percolate from kindergarten to adulthood.
So it didn’t happen overnight. It took a couple generations for us to end up with what we have today. It will take just as long to reverse the process. If people cared, that is.
We (as a society) are basically happy with what we have now. So I submit to you all that it ain’t gonna change much, and it ain’t gonna change quickly…no matter how many lawyers are … retired.