Yesterday, Susan Cartier Liebel (of “Build a Solo Practice, LLC”) posted a Taoist parable about the importance of keeping your perspective from getting too narrow. Here it is:

There once was a Taoist farmer. One day the Taoist farmer’s only horse broke out of the corral and ran away. The farmer’s neighbors, all hearing of the horse running away, came to the Taoist farmer’s house to view the corral. As they stood there, the neighbors all said, “Oh what bad luck!” The Taoist farmer replied, “Maybe.”

About a week later, the horse returned, bringing with it a whole herd of wild horses, which the Taoist farmer and his son quickly corralled. The neighbors, hearing of the corralling of the horses, came to see for themselves. As they stood there looking at the corral filled with horses, the neighbors said, “Oh what good luck!” The Taoist farmer replied, “Maybe.”

A couple of weeks later, the Taoist farmer’s son’s leg was badly broken when he was thrown from a horse he was trying to break. A few days later the broken leg became infected and the son became delirious with fever. The neighbors, all hearing of the incident, came to see the son. As they stood there, the neighbors said, “Oh what bad luck!” The Taoist farmer replied, “Maybe.”

At that same time in China, there was a war going on between two rival warlords. The warlord of the Taoist farmer’s village was involved in this war. In need of more soldiers, he sent one of his captains to the village to conscript young men to fight in the war. When the captain came to take the Taoist farmer’s son he found a young man with a broken leg who was delirious with fever. Knowing there was no way the son could fight, the captain left him there. A few days later, the son’s fever broke. The neighbors, hearing of the son’s not being taken to fight in the war and of his return to good health, all came to see him. As they stood there, each one said, “Oh what good luck!” The Taoist farmer replied, “Maybe.”

According to Taoism, the true significance of events can never be understood as they are occurring, for in every event there are elements of both good and bad. Furthermore, each event has no specific beginning or end and may influence events for years to come.

Now that I have passed the California bar exam on my first try (which, by the way, is not statistically significant because three-quarters of first-time takers passed), I thought I’d share some thoughts on the process for future supplicants to the Office of Admissions for the State Bar of California.

First, the one thing that is most immediately bearing on my mind is the surprising fact that it was much easier to sleep the night before the results came out than the night after. Other people might have a different experience, but Mary and I were both unable to sleep for most of last night. There was just too much running through our heads. While you are waiting for the result, the best approach, in my opinion, is the stoic one: there is nothing you can do to affect the outcome, so there is no point in worrying; put it out of your head. But once the result comes, and it is positive, you have passed a huge milestone that will undoubtedly irrevocably alter the rest of your life. There is a lot to think about. It’s a lot like trying to sleep through the night before Christmas when you are a kid.

Second, regarding how to pass the bar exam, there are really only three things you have to do: work hard, learn the law, and practice. Ignore anybody who tells you different, or tries to give you some kind of snake-oil formula that does not primarily involve hard work and long hours of intensive study.

Likewise, be wary of the advice of the people who say things like, “The bar examiners just want to see if you think like a lawyer; it doesn’t matter if you know the law.” In some very important ways, that is good advice, but it can be perilously misleading. The only way to learn how to think like a lawyer is to learn the law. You need to get deep inside the mechanics of how the law works before you can truly think like a lawyer. So craft your outlines, make your flash cards, or both, and get ready to memorize a whole bunch of information.

Probably the most important part of the bar review process is getting a broad knowledge of the law into your head. This will almost force you to see patterns, recognize relationships between different areas of the law, and begin to synthesize those deep, underlying theories that cause you, almost unconsciously, to think like a lawyer. You will need that ability on the bar exam because they will give you essay questions with issues that seem completely foreign and you will need to reach into those deep patterns and find something that has both analytical integrity and reasonable applicability to the situation at hand.

If you are thoroughly prepared, because you have been working hard, studying, and practicing for the ten weeks or so before the exam, you should find that the experience of actually taking the exam can be a relatively relaxing event, because it is so cathartic. You have brought yourself to this peak of knowledge and mental agility with the law and you will find yourself in the weeks leading up to the exam wanting nothing more than to give the people around you a short dissertation on just about every legally significant event that you witness. You will find yourself standing in line at Starbucks one morning on your way to the bar review course and thinking about when, exactly, title to the coffee passes from them to you, or whether the menu on the wall is an offer to form a contract, or whether your order is an offer to form a contract. Everywhere you go, it will be law, law, law. So when you finally get to the bar exam, and you get to put all that down on paper (or, more likely, into your SofTest word processor), it will be an enormous relief. Suddenly that crazy urge to lecture everybody on the law will evaporate, like it never existed at all.

So when you take the exam, stop studying. There is nothing you are going to learn the night before the exam, or on either of the two nights in the middle of the exam, if you failed to learn it during the weeks before the exam. Once you get to your hotel, the time to prepare is over. So just stop studying.

And stay at a nice hotel. The State Bar will give you a list of hotels where you can get a bar exam discount, and there will be good places on that list. Eat good food, go for walks in the evenings, and enjoy yourself. Mary and I stayed at the San Mateo Marriott and ate most of our meals in the hotel restaurant. We still talk about how good that food was. It was pretty expensive, but in the grand scheme of things, the bar exam is an enormously important task, and you do not want to screw it up by increasing your stress level with uncomfortable or less-than-enjoyable surroundings. If you expect to be cash-poor by the end of bar review, like I was, then keep a few hundred dollars worth of credit open on a credit card to pay for your bar exam accommodations. When you pay the bill later, with those exorbitant finance charges, it will sting a little, but you will be glad you did it.

So, to sum up, here is how to pass the bar exam. Work hard, learn the law, and practice before the exam. Relax, enjoy yourself, and pamper yourself during the exam. Try not to think about the results after the exam. When the results come, you will feel relieved, elated, excited, and terrified all at once. Good luck sleeping.

In case anyone is wondering, or cares, I passed the California Bar Exam.

This solo practitioner in Texas might want to meet up with Mayor Alan Autry for a beer sometime:

An Austin, Texas, criminal defense attorney challenging his conviction for contempt of court for making an obscene gesture during an appearance before a judge faces a new hurdle: The State Bar of Texas has filed a grievance against him.

. . .

“This is fascism,” Reposa says of the Bar’s grievance.

Maybe, but when you’re dealing with the court, and with the state bar, they sort of have, you know, your livelihood in their hands. So you don’t do things like this:

The Bar . . . alleges that when [Judge Jan] Breland asked the prosecutor to recite the terms of the plea offer, Reposa began whispering in [his client] Williams’ ear and made a masturbatory gesture when the prosecutor said something about the continued whisperings.

But, like I said above, he might have good company with Mayor “Bubba,” who made a fool of himself and Fresno when he said, in federal court, to a federal judge: “I didn’t think I was in the Soviet Union.”

Over at the New York Times, Sam Tanenhaus has written a helpful analysis of the two major parties’ positions. Here is an excerpt, citing Michael Gerson:

“The issues that have provided conservatives with victories in the past — particularly welfare and crime — have been rendered irrelevant by success,” Michael Gerson, the Bush speechwriter turned columnist, wrote last week. “The issues of the moment — income stagnation, climate disruption, massive demographic shifts and health care access — seem strange, unexplored land for many in the movement.”

In fact these “issues of the moment” have been with us for years now, decades in some instances, but until recently they were either ignored by conservatives or dismissed as the hobby-horses of alarmist liberals or entrenched “special interests.”

He continues with a brief recap of the last thirty years in Washington, with observations that, to my perception, demonstrate that while the Republicans have been making a lot of noise with their ideological agenda, the Democrats have, slowly but surely, been developing a pragmatic approach. The election of Barack Obama, together with Democratic gains in Congress, appears to be the fruit of that labor.

Throughout the campaign there were plenty of people who criticized Obama for choosing too vague a theme with “Change.” At the same time, there were lots of Obama supporters who worried, up until just a month or two ago, that he was not mean enough, not aggressive enough in partisan combat. But I think both groups missed the real message of Obama’s campaign, which was wisely concealed right out in the open. As Marshall McLuhan famously said, “the medium is the message.” Barack Obama conducted himself and his campaign in a way that distinguished him from recent politics; he brought a reasoned and measured tone to everything he did. Melding smarts with rhetorical finesse, he managed to appear both pragmatic and inspirational.

The idea of “change” as a campaign theme was a brilliant move because the word evokes something different for everyone. People feel involved. They begin to cause changes. And now, after the campaign has ended, it leaves Americans the way an artful and thoughtful movie leaves them: with something to talk about. What was the “change” Obama kept talking about?

First time I ever voted for a winner.

So here’s the thing: the Electoral College. The idea is to ensure that less populous states remain in play. Why should “states” matter instead of “people”? Because we’re supposed to be a “federation” of sovereign “states” electing the President. That’s the story, at least, if you’re of “federalist” bent—never mind the first three words of the Constitution: “We the People” (not “We the States”).

Right now, it seems pretty clear that Barack Obama is more popular than John McCain among the people. According to the polling data at RealClearPolitics, on average, national polls show 51.6% of people favoring Obama, but only 44.3% favoring McCain. Assuming the “popular vote” works out like that, shouldn’t Barack Obama be the president? Not necessarily. Not under our system, where we insert the Electoral College to siphon some power from the people and give it to the states. Of course, there is no good reason to do that unless you believe that the entities (be they geographical, economic, administrative, imaginary, or some combination) known as “states” have an important interest—independent of the people—in who occupies the Oval Office.

Personally, I don’t put much stock in that idea. States may have an important interest in electing members of Congress, who, under one understanding, are supposed to advocate for interests unique to their states. (Never mind, I guess, that when they do advocate for their state interests, it tends to be stuff like “pork” and “earmarks.”) But then, I’ve always thought that Andrew Jackson’s “Proclamation on Nullification,” in 1832, made much more sense:

The people of the United States formed the Constitution, acting through the State legislatures, in making the compact, to meet and discuss its provisions, and acting in separate conventions when they ratified those provisions; but the terms used in its construction show it to be a government in which the people of all the States collectively are represented. We are ONE PEOPLE in the choice of the President and Vice President. Here the States have no other agency than to direct the mode in which the vote shall be given. The candidates having the majority of all the votes are chosen. The electors of a majority of States may have given their votes for one candidate, and yet another may be chosen. The people, then, and not the States, are represented in the executive branch.

In the House of Representatives there is this difference, that the people of one State do not, as in the case of President and Vice President, all vote for all the members, each State electing only its own representatives. But this creates no material distinction. When chosen, they are all representatives of the United States, not representatives of the particular State from which they come. They are paid by the United States, not by the State; nor are they accountable to it for any act done in performance of their legislative functions; and however they may in practice, as it is their duty to do, consult and prefer the interests of their particular constituents when they come in conflict with any other partial or local interest, yet it is their first and highest duty, as representatives of the United States, to promote the general good.

The Constitution of the United States, then, forms a government, not a league, and whether it be formed by compact between the States, or in any other manner, its character is the same. It is a government in which all the people are represented, which operates directly on the people individually, not upon the States; they retained all the power they did not grant.

In other words, the United States government, what we often call the “federal” government, is a government of the people, created by the people—not by the states acting on behalf of the people. And even in the House of Representatives, and I would argue the Senate, too, the members are not truly representatives of their respective states, obligated to steer the small end of the funnel of federal funds toward their constituents as often as possible, but representatives of the United States to their constituents, liaisons between Congress and the people. They are not puppets of the masses. Their job, as Jackson’s “Proclamation” said, is “to promote the general good.”

And the same is true, I think, of the President, though the responsibilities elucidated in the Constitution are outward-looking in scope. The President is the representative of our people to the rest of the world. When I read Article II of the Constitution, I see the job description for a combination commander-in-chief and ambassador-in-chief. (Obviously, lots of people disagree with me.)

So, in my view, the people and not the states should elect the President.

But we have the Electoral College, which is just a system that candidates and their operatives can “game.” And they do. Why do we have “swing states”? Why do the candidates spend so much time in places like Florida and Ohio and Pennsylvania talking about issues, but only come to California when they need money? They are gaming the system, allocating their resources where they know a race can be won or lost. So instead of empowering the less populous states, the Electoral College confers an arbitrary benefit on states where, due to some demographic fluke, people seem to take a lot longer to make up their minds.

And since the abolition of the Electoral College does not seem likely anytime soon, maybe We the People should start gaming the system, too. Maybe we should start lying to pollsters more, to give them the impression that states like California and New York will stay “in play” right up to election day. If we can convince the pollsters and the news media and the candidates that we are all ”swing states,” then maybe we can all become “battleground states” and all our votes will count again when we vote for the President.

Next time around, I guess.

Me, I’m just keeping my fingers crossed, I guess. In 2000, the people voted for an exceedingly smart fellow, but the “system”—together with the Supreme Court—gave us “Great Moments in Presidential Speeches.” It’d be nice to have a commander-in-chief and ambassador-in-chief who can represent our people to the rest of the world as the great people we really are. But there’s the system, just itching to be gamed. We’ll see tomorrow night. I hope.

Dear AT&T Wireless people:

As seems to be standard practice for companies these days, you do not provide an obvious or easy method to give direct feedback on your products and services. So, after rummaging around the AT&T Wireless website for a while and finding no ways to “contact” you except when I need “support,” I decided instead to write a blog post, hoping that you, like Comcast, have minions that track these kinds of things.

I have an iPhone. That means a couple days ago I received the text message you sent to iPhone users informing us that we can now access free Wi-Fi at locations like Starbucks, where AT&T provides wireless internet access.

When I received the message, it seemed like a pretty sweet deal. But this morning, while I was at Starbucks, I tried to use your system. Here’s the short version of what I think: Your “service” sucks.

Whoever designed your “free Wi-Fi” for iPhone users clearly has no idea how iPhones are actually used. Let me explain by walking you through an example of how I tried to use your service.

While enjoying my coffee and reading a book, I turned to a footnote in my book, which cited another book that I may be interested in purchasing. So I pulled out my iPhone, opened Safari, and tapped my bookmark to Amazon.com. The usual prompt to choose a wireless network popped up and I chose the AT&T “free Wi-Fi” network. Then, instead of taking me to Amazon.com, your network hijacked my browser and required me to enter my ten-digit telephone number and tap a box to indicate that I agree with your terms of service. (By the way, do you think anybody really, honestly “agrees” with your terms of service when you make that indication mandatory to even use your service? But, you know, you’re a telecommunications company, so you get to just push us all around.)

But entering my telephone number and tapping that acceptance box did not connect me to the internet and send me on my way to Amazon.com. No, instead, you told me I would shortly receive a text message with a link to internet access. So I waited a bit, maybe ten seconds, and the text message arrived. It said:

Thank you for choosing AT&T. Click the link below to connect or reconnect to this AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot today. Free access is renewable every 24 hours.

Then there was a link. Which I tapped. AT&T interface design people: nobody “clicks” anything on an iPhone. But you are clearly not thoughtful enough to realize that.

Anyway, I tapped the link, which took me back to Safari, where another browser page popped up. That means when I tapped the icon to zoom out and scroll back and forth between the various browser pages in Safari, I now had two worthless pages open from AT&T: one telling me to wait for a text message and a second one telling me that I was now connected to the internet. Did you then automatically drop me off at my original destination, Amazon.com? No! I had to pull up my bookmarks and tap that link again. Ridiculous! Way too cumbersome.

But that’s only the first part of why your system sucks.

After looking at the listing for the book I wanted to see, I decided not to initiate a purchase just then, so I put my iPhone back in my pocket and kept reading. But a few minutes later, there was something else I wanted to look up, so I pulled out my iPhone again, thinking I was still connected to the “AT&T Wi-Fi hotspot” that your irritating text message had linked. Nope. I had to go through the whole routine again! Why? Apparently because “due to inactivity,” my session was shut down, or some such nonsense.

Listen, iPhones are not like internet terminals back in 1995. People do not sit down, log on, do a bunch of different things, log off, and walk away. With an iPhone, users connect, disconnect, reconnect, go online, go offline, and carry out small tasks here and there. This idea that “due to inactivity”—for just a few minutes!—the ability to connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot should be terminated without going through your ridiculous little procedure again is preposterous from a user interface standpoint.

And if I want to use another internet-connected application on the iPhone, like the Mail application, the added steps are even more ridiculous. To check my email with a Wi-Fi connection, I have to go into Safari, then into the SMS application, then back to Safari, then to Mail. That’s just stupid.

So what did I do? I went to the Settings on my iPhone and told the phone to “forget” that network. I went back to the “Edge” data network. Even though the connection speed was not as fast as the Wi-Fi, I didn’t have to waste my time entering my number, waiting for a text message, clicking a link, closing two worthless pages, re-navigating to where I wanted to go, etc.

In other words, your “service” sucks. I put the word “service” in quotation marks because it didn’t feel like a service. It felt like a waste of my time. Your free Wi-Fi for iPhone users needs some major improvements before I’ll use it again.

Maybe you could talk to Apple and get them to add something into the firmware so that when AT&T routers detect an iPhone trying to connect, they perform some kind of “handshake” transaction with the phone to determine whether the user is an AT&T customer. Then provide seamless connectivity for people who are your customers, without making us go through all your silly procedures.