AND THEN WE READ ABOUT THESE POOR BASTARDS AND REMEMBERED THAT SOMEDAY ALL OF THIS WILL BE WORTH IT

The promise of future earnings wasn't our only (or even our biggest) reason for coming to law school. But no matter how much we're cursing our fate as we sit here teaching ourselves contract law at two in the morning, it's nice to remember that things could always be worse.

We're Writing a Movie About One of Our Professors, Too

...but the Working Title of Ours, as We Sit Here After Midnight Slaving Over an Outline, is "Damn You. Damn You to Hell."

Two Columbia 3Ls have landed a development deal for a movie about the life of one of their professors, the legendary civil rights lawyer Jack Greenberg.

Yeah, Because If College Football Has Taught Us One Thing

...it's That Nobody REALLY Wants an Undisputed National Champion Anyway

The NYU student newspaper has this story about a federal antitrust suit filed by the owners of the NIT college basketball tournament (the owners apparently include Fordham and NYU) against the NCAA.

Iraq War Monday

We published a post last Monday about casualties in Iraq. We think we'll revisit those numbers each week. You can look up the latest figures on your own here.

As of today:
US troops killed in Iraq: 721 (up 19 from last week)
US troops wounded in action: 3,864 (up 595 from last week)

Where Are They Now?

A concerned reader e-mailed us recently, pointing out that we are not quite alone in the Fordham blog waters. He directed us to Budgie Roo's Rants & Raves, a blog published for a few months last year by a Fordham law student with the guts to admit in public that her boyfriend's nickname for her is Budgie Roo. We admire that, we wonder why she stopped publishing so soon, and we wish she'd come back. The more the merrier.

Why Couldn't We Have Seen This Before We Evaluated OUR Professors?

We haven't had a thought of our own today more worthy of publication than this posting from buffs law:

We've been filling out teacher evaluations the past few days. I insist the only fair way to do this is to grade on a curve. As it stands now, everyone gets As and Bs on these things, and every professor averages between a 3.5 and 3.6. So we don't express our true feelings, and the professors all win. And then next week, half of us get B-s and C+s. I don't see the justice in that. So why not fail a few professors? Throw in a few Cs. You have three good professors, but can only give one A, so the other two get Bs. The final two professors are pretty decent, but hey, sorry, you only have a C and a D left.

It's the system baby, can't hate the system.

And the 2004 John Mitchell Award for Alumni Achievement Goes to

...this couple, members of the class of '97.

Art Imitates Life

We swear we hadn't seen Doonesbury's current storyline when we wrote our previous post.

Some War Reporting We'd Like to See

We are having trouble getting control over the sinking feeling that overcomes us in response to the news out of Iraq this month. Our impression is that, as ominous as things sound, the reality over there is even worse. It seems to us we read somewhere a while back that the death count of U.S. troops is not a reliable indicator of the level of mayhem our men and women in uniform are actually experiencing. Our understanding is that advances in battlefield medicine are saving many more lives than was possible with the same injuries in Vietnam. The flip side to this, of course, is that, while spared from death, many of our troops will now live with debilitating injuries.

The problem with the casualty reports we've seen -- 702 U.S. troops dead, 3,269 wounded in action as of today, according to CNN.com -- is that the wounded aren't classified by severity. As far as we can tell, the 3,269 includes everything from minor flesh wounds to permanent disfigurement or paralysis. That doesn't tell us much. So, what's the information we'd like to see reported? We'd like to know how many soldiers have been injured to the extent that they'll likely never again be fit for combat duty. That would be the best measure of the true human cost -- in terms of American blood spilled -- of the conflct. And we doubt it would make us feel any better about the job the Bush administration did in preparing for war.

U.S. News & World Report Rankings

The U.S. News rankings for 2005 came out a few weeks ago, to much chatter on other blogs. We were surprised that, to our ears at least, there wasn't much comment among our classmates, especially as the Fordham news wasn't so encouraging. This year, Fordham tied for 34th place with Brigham Young, University of Washington, and Wake Forest. Last year, we shared the 31st spot with Brigham Young, UC-Davis, the University of Georgia, and the University of Wisconsin.

Why the drop three spots? What do we have in common with any of the schools near us on the list? We don't know, and we don't have time to analyze the rankings. Even if we had time, we aren't sure the analysis would be worth the effort. We tell ourselves we don't care about rankings. We do, however, find it interesting that no one at school seems to be talking about it.

A Voice in the Wilderness

We are not experienced bloggers. We have not even read many blogs. We began to get into them when, during the first semester of law school, we Googled around trying to find study tips online. We enjoyed the wealth of information and the humor (tip of the hat to BuffaloWings&Vodka on this score) on the law school blogs (who knew there would be so many) and wished that little old Fordham Law had a blog of its own. And eventually we conceived an experiment. We decided to start publishing this blog to see how long it would take for someone to notice us. Our thought is that one day someone might type "fordham," "law," and "blog" into Google and arrive at this site. Not being very tech savvy, we have no idea whether this is possible without active networking on our part. We don't have much time for that sort of thing. But we are happy to sit back and see whether simply publishing regularly will put us on someone's radar screen.

The Splendid Bauble FAQ

WHO ARE YOU?
We are in our first year at Fordham Law School in New York City.

ARE YOU ORIGINALLY FROM NEW YORK?
We prefer not to disclose any more identifying information than we already have.

WHY ANOTHER LAW SCHOOL BLOG?
Why not? As far as we can tell, there's not another one published by a Fordham Law student. Maybe people don't know enough about Fordham. For example, did you know that Vince Lombardi attended Fordham Law as a night student before embarking on his storied professional football coaching career? You did not. And did you know that John Mitchell, Nixon's disgraced former attorney general, is a Fordham grad? No. We doubt you knew that either.

WHAT OTHER BLOGS HAVE YOU BEEN A PART OF?
No others. This is our first.

I DON'T BELIEVE THAT.
Perhaps the Splendid Bauble's sophisticated design is deceiving. But it's true -- this is our blog debut.

IS IT TRUE THAT "MY BIG, FAT, GREEK WEDDING" IS THE MOST OVERRATED MOVIE OF ALL TIME?
No. The most overrated movie of all time is "Signs."

WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE CLASS IN LAW SCHOOL?
Yes, we believe North Dakota IS the "Flickertail State."