Buh-bye, GateHouse

A former co-worker just emailed to inform me that my old employer, GateHouse Media, is now worth 7 cents a share. Seven...cents...
Thanks to its nauseating plunge to the bottom of the deep end, GateHouse stock was de-listed from the NYSE today. It's market capitalization is now about $4 million dollars. Um, yeah. That means the Register Star could sell its $27 million press for scrap metal and come up with enough dough to buy all 100 newspapers in the chain.
This is what happens when a fledgling corporation builds an acquisitive business plan dependent on leveraging easy credit -- and then the entire global lending system collapses. It shows just how negatively Wall Street views newspapers that no investor has swooped in to snatch up the company; GateHouse's collective paper clip supply is worth more than $4 million.

A tour for Nicholas

This is a tour of my Iowa City apartment for Nicholas' benefit.

Wake up Mr. West!

On Thursdays and Fridays, my law school section has an 8 a.m. class. It's the only one we have all week, but I've noticed a trend. On Fridays earlier in the semester, a couple students would straggle in late. Once a rather bleary-eyed, scratchy-faced student trudged in an hour after class began. One of the legal fraternities sponsors a weekly after-hours at a different local tavern on Thursday nights. It's pretty popular among law students. Seems to have an effect...
But now the trend of blowing off the subsequent morning class is picking up speed. This Friday, half a dozen students didn't bother to show up. Because the professor teaches the same class later in the morning, several students have taken to showing up to that one instead.
I sort of have to chuckle to myself when observing the hibernation habits of the recent undergraduate. You just can't get away with rolling in whenever you want in the "real world." And there aren't make-up work days. Oh well. They'll figure it out...

Where have you been?

My friend Jay pointed out that I've been derelict in posting here since I started law school.
True dat.
I just don't have the time to think through a decent post. Yeah, I know it may surprise you that it takes more than 5 minutes to rip one of these babies off and post it, but it does.
My schedule is packed. I come home every weekend to see Nicholas, which is definitely worth it, but it doesn't leave much time for chitchat during the week. So most of my contact with the outside world is limited to conversations with fellow students at school (usually about whatever happened in class), Facebook status updates and cell phone calls on the drive to and from Rockford.
The rest of the time I spend in class where I learn about escheat, assumption of risk and unconscionability. Which is AWESOME. It is really is a blast to be challenged intellectually. And when I'm not at home sleeping, I live in the law library in one of these carrels (pictured). Sweet, huh?

How we really chose presidents

Today's N.Y. Times op-ed page has a great graphic comparing the height and weight of presidential candidates.
Taller guys beat shorter guys by a 2-to-1 margin and heavier guys prevailed over lightweights with equal dominance. But I took the N.Y. Times analysis one step further and combined the two measures. In the 28 elections since 1896, the winner was either heavier or taller than the loser in all but three cases, thus proving beyond all doubt that Americans want the bigger guy when deciding who should run the free world. The most recent exception was Bush v. Gore; Al Gore is an inch taller W, but we all know he actually won the election, so there's an exception that proves the rule.
Harry Truman, a man of average stature, beat Thomas Dewey, who stood a full three inches over him. Likewise, Teddy Roosevelt was two inches shorter than Alton Parker when he won in 1904. But both men had reputations for their outsized personalities, so again, I say they're exceptions that prove the rule.
Where do these statistics leave our current candidates? Obama is 6' 1½" and 180 pounds. John McCain is 5' 7" and 165 pounds. There hasn't been a president as short as McCain in a hundred years. The closest weight was Calvin Coolidge, who was only four pounds heavier, but he was still three inches taller than McCain. Turn-of-the-century president William McKinley was 5' 7", which was the last time such a short man was president. And, well, he was shot to death in office.
Every president in the television age has been at least 6 feet tall (Well, Nixon was 5' 11½").
Who will win in November? You decide.