Blog of law articles

Several in-the-know readers have passed along an incendiary anonymous memo making the rounds among administrators and trustees regarding financial mismanagement at the University of Miami.

Thanks folks, but I'm not touching it -- it's even too hot for your humble crappy (lawsuit-averse) blogger.

Instead, let's regale over Greenberg's request for an incentive award of $4 million on top of their $20 million in fees for handling the Southeast Bank bankruptcy. Those greedy plaintiffs' lawyers!

(Young ones, Southeast Bank was something big and powerful that existed a long, long time ago, like dinosaurs and David Paul).

And get a load of this hilarous column by Virginia Heffernan in which she finds that online commenters to Anne Applebaum's NYT column are pretty much uninformed, mean-spirited, anti-semitic, sexist pigs.

In other words, dog bites man:

Commenters, in short, rarely really sock it to a columnist. They also too often go automatic, churning out 100-word synopses of one stock ideological position after another. But most disappointing of all, for readers, is that commenters don’t, as literary critics say, read an article against itself to show how, for example, an argument framed as incendiary is in fact banal, or one that’s meant to be feminist is retrogressive, or one that touts its originality is a knockoff.

Instead, paradoxically, commenters frequently reiterate Applebaum’s own arguments in the service of their would-be critiques. Last year, for instance, when Applebaum described her newfound disillusionment with John McCain, whom she supported for president in 2000, many commenters criticized her bygone support for McCain by doing little more than rehashing her new case against him, which she had just presented.

This echo-chamber effect is unpleasant, and it makes it hard to keep listening for the clearer, brighter, rarer voices nearly drowned out in the online din.

I immediately thought of the comments posted on the Miami Herald website. Can you imagine if someone took the time to break those down? Oy, oy, and triple-oy.

I meant to put this up Friday, but it's a slow news day so enjoy this silver lining from our friend, Mr. Deepening Recession.

Other tips always welcome!