Taking a break from misanthropy today. Well, not really, just from the Anthropic settlement; recent events and announcements have more than justified disdain for at least certain segments of humanity — especially when they're not just tolerating, but celebrating, hypocrisy.
- From the all-too-densely-populated Department of Ignorant Politicians and Wannabes, there's an unusually ignorant screed from some asshole Texan "protector" of "Our Republican Legacy" at The Hill claiming about all Democratic Socialists that:
[A]ny political candidate who supports essentially canceling the first three Articles in the Constitution cannot truthfully say he or she will support and defend the Constitution. To take the oath would be to commit perjury.
Two obvious rejoinders:
- So, those who supported Amendments XIII, XIV, XV, XVII, XX, and XXII perjured themselves whenever they took the oath, right? Because those amendments — separately and together — cancelled significant elements of Articles I and II, and impliedly cancelled a part of Article III. They're called Amendments for a reason, and they're specifically contemplated in Article V.
- This ignorant screed provides no evidence — not even any specific identification of offending provisions — that any element of the "Democratic Socialist" purported "platform" linked within it does anything more than advocate policy changes accomplished inside the rubric of Articles I-III. There's nothing there relating to "an entirely new governing system." Not even an overreaching assertion that the stated policies would impinge on states' rights (which Amendments XII, XIV, XV, and XVII certainly did!) matters in light of Article VI cl. 2.
I've come to expect this sort of narrowness, of inability to read a document as a whole, from theologians, politicians, and other cranks (not to mention waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many lawyers). I invite Matthews to take his bloody Old Testament fundamentalism somewhere else… unless, that is, coming from archly Protestant Texas, he wants to emphasize the "Judeo-" part of "Judeo-Christian" and contend that later fundamental changes mandated by fundamental changes in conduct and nature of the population can never be discussed, let alone advocated. If that's his test, I'm happy to be an apostate. I've taken, reaffirmed, and exerted myself in support of that oath quite a few times; contrariwise, Matthews's semiofficial bio at the Federalist Society doesn't disclose that he has done any of that. <SARCASM> I therefore claim Greater Authority, all cynical misuse of methods of formal argument entirely intended and in parallel to those embedded in Matthews's screed.</SARCASM>
The moment that "advocating for policy change" is equated with "disloyalty to basic values," we're back before HUAC and/or the Inquisition. How'd that turn out? Oh, wait, that both the subject screed and this response have reached our respective readers via electronic distribution has no dependence whatsoever on opposition to, and rejection of, theocratic statements of orthodoxy; there's nothing, after all, unorthodox as of 1947 about semiconductors.
- Speaking of bad lawyers and bad people, the technologically-challenged bar regulators in this state demonstrated that they couldn't supervise/test technology, or properly specify it, to enable the hazing ritual for pledges to Sigma Beta Alpha to go ahead. (And really: Yakima? In July? That's hazing in itself!)
I call this a "hazing ritual" because the bar exam demonstrates precisely nothing about knowledge or fitness to practice law. At best, it's aimed at testing the ability to be a 1930s small-town "does everything" lawyer… and misses that mark badly. (Plus, you know, it's a century later and there are no more small-town "does everything" lawyers fresh out of law school.) The selection of subjects is at best inept, and more to the point not readily reducible to multiple-choice questions or short essays produced from sanitized fact patterns and not real clients. And at worst, both the questions and answer choices/expected "essay" answers are several years out of date, and insensitive to statutory and binding-precedent opinions that question so-called "black-letter law."
- When one must praise this particular US Attorney for the District of Columbia — however faintly, particularly given her track record (not just, but certainly considering, as a Faux News sock puppet) — for belatedly following the ethics rules that bind all attorneys, let alone those specific to prosecutors, and withdrawing prosecutions whose only basis is as a convenient cover-up (however implausible) for her current boss and lack any plausible factual support, things have gotten really bad. Which shouldn't surprise anyone these days. Of course, none of that is tested on the bar exam; no exam can test whether a lawyer will actually tell his/her/their client "You're in the wrong, and I won't facilitate misuse of the law to further that" — especially not when that client's temper tantrums would shame the average two-year-old.
- [AALA,] I regret that your submission does not meet authors' needs at this time. Best wishes with your future writings.
In order to avoid a conflict of interest, it helps to be able to spell, punctuate, and define "conflict of interest," at least in an I-know-it-when-I-see-it fashion. On the evidence of its recent update to its so-called "Canons of Ethics" (ordinarily honored only in the breech/breach), the Association of American Literary Agents can't, or at least won't. The opening paragraph of its announcement demonstrates this all too well, both overtly and between the lines:
The Canon was originally created in the twentieth century and was rooted in the practices of the publishing business of the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, publishing, along with the overall media landscape, has undergone a dramatic transformation. We have seen publisher consolidation, the advent of entirely new publishing models, the rise of digital media, social media, mobile technology, the challenges of AI, et.al., as well as the loss of physical retail space and traditional review media. Author/creators increasingly operate across a wide range of platforms, services, and competencies. Demands on agents, from publishers and from our clients have changed as well, necessitating some big shifts in the role of the agent.
Reading between the lines is sort of essential to evaluating manuscripts and placing them with appropriate publishers — the one job (thanks to possibly-unlawful "conscious parallelism" in commercial publishing) within the province of literary agents. In no particular order, note that this paragraph glides by its assumptions that (a) there was "the" publishing business of the twentieth century (and, worse, one that was well-served by the predecessor organization of the AALA… which, itself, arose because its predecessor had Legal Trouble resulting in its forced dissolution, even though it kept the same lawyer), (b) the "root" of those practices was in the then-contemporary late twentieth century and not earlier, from the 1950s to not later than the early 1970s, (c) the technologically-enabled explosion in the population of potential/actual authors has nothing to do with anything, (d) all worthwhile publishing efforts are at "book length" or its equivalent, (e) the AALA actually understands the changes referenced in "platforms, services, and competencies"… and, perhaps more to the point, has the humility to say "I don't know" at either the individual or trade-organization level for those parts it doesn't (in excess of 70%) and consult actual licensed professionals who do, then follow the advice given, (f) it actually enforces its Canons of Ethics… especially against members of the old boys/girls/whatever club, (g) its membership includes all legitimate agents, and the entrance requirements are meaningfully related to the rest of the Canons, and…. Oh, that's enough for now; on to the specific and fundamental problem with this revision:
Having an "agent" clinging to that name due to its implication of "protector against abuse by third parties that have superior knowledge and bad or at least adverse-interest-based intentions" is useless when that "agent" becomes that third party. New canons 10–12 function together to make the agent the watchman of its own accounting and related issues, in particular for publishing and editorial services. I'm unaware of more than about 500 or so well-documented instances of what can happen in publishing — even in the "late twentieth century" — with even purportedly "old-line" agents/agencies, let alone the invitations for self-dealing to the outright scams†. A writer would ordinarily expect his/her/their agent to scrupulously inspect a publisher's royalty statements for errors and worse; these new provisions make the agent responsible for scrutinizing its own royalty statements for errors and worse, similarly for every other outside service. (What, you really think that "ISP billing based on usage for the author's website" is free from problems?)
The community of literary agents needs to accept that its competence is limited to connecting authors to commercial publishers (when appropriate for both, which does require some judgment) and acting as a mere conduit for business communications related to that. This attempt at rationalizing diversified one-stop shopping is an ill-considered mess that refuses to learn from the organization's own history — and doesn't include minimal requirements like "There must, at minimum, be separate business structures for non-agenting activities like publishing, like editing, and so on that at least formalize separation of interests." Even law and megaaccounting/business-consultancy firms do better than that!
That these "new business lines" for agents are moving the AALA toward being a "publishing services job shop," and indeed actual publishers, is perhaps too obvious to discuss further. For the benefit of those who still believe that the only way to be published properly is through established commercial publishers, consider this the business end of a clue-by-four.
- Then there's greed and ego in H'wood. Like that's a surprise. It appears that a sequel to a blockbuster is unlikely to go forward now because a studio head thinks the proposed pay to the "talent" is too high. The implication that his feelings are hurt because the "mere employees" will get more than he does in his Very Important Job — and that he doesn't think his bosses (the Board of Directors) will bump up his salary sufficiently, which is just so insulting — is pretty clear… especially since the biggest likely "expense" for films of this nature is the advertising/promotional budget at the back end that's largely unnecessary (and indirectly flows back into that studio head's pockets via stock options, but that's for another time).
I'd ask if that studio head, or indeed any studio head, had ever gone through a six-week-long shoot on location with twelve-hour days (plus extra time in makeup, wardrobe, etc.) while separated from family and friends, but I think I can guess the answer. And, perhaps most annoyingly, this studio head (and his counterparts) is putting a limiting value on a job he's incapable of doing himself at a time that "gross receipts" for films of this nature are increasing substantially greater than the rate of inflation… well, except for the occasional bomb, and most of those are predictable for other reasons and with rare exceptions in the long run break even with real-world accounting.
† disclosure: The author was a client.