The LeBrondown, the World Map, and the Final Law School Update…

1. Final Law School Update – As I’m sure you all know, several months ago I was accepted to the University of Michigan Law School. I’ve been 100% sure that I was going for a while, but just for kicks I decided to keep my name on the Georgetown waitlist just to see what would happen. Well yesterday I found out. Turns out I didn’t get in.

For those of you keeping score at home, that makes a total of five acceptances and eight rejections. The funny thing is that all eight of the schools that rejected me are ranked lower than Michigan in this years U.S. News and World Report rankings. Go figure…

2. The Rich Man’s Sport – I was supposed to play a round of golf tomorrow, until I found out that with the club rentals, greens fees, and transportation, I was going to end up paying more for 18 holes than I make in an entire month. Considering I also spent more than a months salary this week on Michigan Football tickets, it’s probably for the best that I wait until I get back to America to reignite my golfing habit.

3. The World Map – Yesterday I finally got around to writing the names of the countries on my school’s world map. Project completed! Here are a few pictures of the group who worked with me from start to finish…

4. “Don Not Try To Do Too Much With Your Own Hands” - When all is said and done I’d by lying if I said the map looks as good as I hoped. Most of the islands in the world are missing, the paint is already fading, and the names of the countries look sloppy and rushed. Yet throughout my entire two years here and at moments like this I like to think back on the following quote from T.E. Lawrence: “Do not try to do too much with your own hands. Better the Arabs do it tolerably than that you do it perfectly. It is their war, and you are to help them, not to win it for them. Actually, also, under the very odd conditions of Arabia, your practical work will not be as good as, perhaps, you think it is.” (In no way am I trying to compare the world map to a war… I just like the general idea.)

5. Game of Thrones - Well I’m taking a break from West Wing this week and starting The Game of Thrones. Has anyone out there been watching it? I’ve only seen the first episode and it’s not the type of show that I’d normally watch, but at this point if you told me that HBO was making a show about grass growing, I’d still probably give it a shot.

6. Let Him Stay – I’ve honestly stopped caring about Weinergate.  While it’s fun to hear the juicy details, the whole “should he stay or should he go” game gets old really quick. As far as I’m concerned as long as you don’t break any laws, you can go ahead and do whatever you want. Let the voters decide his fate.

7. The Enthusiasm Gap - Remember how pumped up young people were about Obama in 2008. Do you think there is any chance that he generates that type of excitement again in 2012. I don’t. Neither does the NYT. Check out this story about Oberlin College: A Love Affair With Obama That Cooled. “A professor of politics at the college, describing Oberlin students’ judgment of President Obama, said it had cooled significantly — sometimes to the point of disillusionment. At the same time, a commentary in The Oberlin Review, signed by four of the newspaper’s undergraduate editors, bemoaned that ‘much of the campus community’ had left political activism ‘to a small subset of engaged students.’… Surely, it’s hasty to extrapolate from a unique Oberlin sampling… If Barack Obama believes in 2011 that his student activist campaign base of 2008 is totally intact, he may be more than just a little out of touch.“

8. Money Money Money - From Think Progress: “U.S. defense spending dwarfs over one hundred countries’ GDPs, and 2009 spending is over $500 billion more than what China reportedly budgets, the world’s next highest military spender. Defense spending has accounted for 65 percent of the discretionary spending increase since 2001, making it a key factor in the growth of the U.S. budget deficit since then.” (Think Progress) Now it’s true that our budget problems aren’t caused by the ridiculous amount of money we spend on our military, but any serious effort at balancing our books is going to have to take this money into account. The fact that Congress hasn’t been having this conversation and has instead been fighting over things like funding for Planned Parenthood and NPR is quite frankly… a joke. Isn’t it crazy how little talk there is about defense spending?

9. Holy Sh*t -  From the Daily Beast: “Think about this next time a flight attendant tells you to turn off your phone. According to a confidential industry study, cellphones and other personal electronic devices really do pose a safety threat to airplanes. A report by the International Air Traffic Association documents 75 incidents of possible electronic interference linked to cellphones and other devices. And they’re scary incidents, like the autopilot disengaging itself at 4,500 feet. Other incidents show interference with the navigation and communications systems.”

10. LeBrondown Part II - Unfortunately I didn’t get to watch the game or gamecast this morning, but I did read Bill Simmons’s awesome article on LeBron’s inability to come through in the clutch: It’s Time for LeBrondown Part II. If you’re a sports fan it’s a must read…

If Miami blows this Finals after choking away Games 2 and 4, after everything that happened since The Decision and The Gratuitous Party One Night After The Decision, the Internet might explode. I’m not kidding. You’re going to log on the next morning and there will just be a picture of a mushroom cloud.

It’s better for the NBA that LeBron James melted down in Dallas, disappeared and extended his “Wait a second, what the hell just happened???” streak to two straight years. Now it’s threatening to become a late-spring tradition along the lines of Father’s Day, the U.S. Open,and MTV cutting a “Real World/Road Rules Challenge” trailer that ends with someone about to be punched in the face. Why isn’t LeBron shooting? Why isn’t he driving to the basket? Why does his face look like the face of a little kid who just got called in front of the entire class? Why is his performance making me want to google the Wiggles’ “Hot Potato” video? Does he realize this game is being televised? You can’t call it a meltdown or a breakdown; that would belittle what happened. Call it a LeBrondown.

You better believe I’ll be watching live on Monday morning. Go Mavs!