Becky and I missed last night’s episode of 24 because of the Sabres game, so I bought it from iTunes and we watched it this evening. Eh. Not a terrible episode, but not great either (in Dave Barry’s words, “For the record: Drums in the soundtrack are not a substitute for action”)… and I’m still not sure how much I care about the rest of this season, now that I know no major cities are going to asplode. Anyway, Doug Mataconis says 24 has jumped the shark and Salon calls this the longest day ever. (Hat tip: Dave Barry.) WARNING: all links contain spoilers about last night’s episode.

Just to be sure I won’t forget this time, I’m posting this now: after tonight’s show is over, put your American Idol predictions here! Who’s getting voted off this week?

Also, for future weeks (maybe starting when we get to the Top 4), would anyone who isn’t participating in the contest be willing to serve as the e-mail point person for collecting everyone’s picks and then revealing them on the blog each Wednesday just after the deadline? There will come a point where we’ll need to vote anonymously in order to avoid blatant strategic voting. (For example, when there are only two contestants left, everyone would want to vote for whoever the leader didn’t vote for, which could in turn encourage the leader to try and change his vote at the last possible second, etc.)

P.S. Current standings after the jump.

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Amen, amen, amen:

HOW COMMON ARE MASS SHOOTINGS AT U.S. SCHOOLS? Not very. And they don’t appear to be getting any more common, though 24/7 cable news coverage may give that impression. Ilya Somin writes: “The extreme rarity of such incidents should be kept in mind as we decide what, if any, policy changes should be made in response to the Virginia Tech tragedy. Some changes may well be warranted, but we should guard against costly overreactions such as the draconian ‘zero tolerance’ policies implemented in many schools after the Columbine attacks in 1999. As a professor in the Virginia state university system (of which Virginia Tech is a part), I hope we can resist the temptation to enact similar measures.”

Me, too. But I’m quite certain we won’t resist. It’s nearly impossible for politicians to resist the siren song of zero-tolerance crackdowns when it’s young people they’re ostensibly protecting, because the rallying cry “if it saves just one child’s life, then it’s worth it” is as emotionally powerful as it is intellectually bereft. No politician is going to stand up and say, “Actually, yes, preserving freedom and quality of life is worth one child’s life. It’s worth many children’s lives, in fact.” That’s what we call an inconvenient truth. So nobody points out that the zero-tolerance mentality leads directly, on a linear logical progression, to fascism. Because logic doesn’t matter when “it’s for the children.”

Perhaps we’ll be a little more reasonable here since most college students are technically adults. But I doubt it. I suspect that, just as Columbine and its ilk led to what I call the “Columbinization” of high schools nationwide — i.e., ridiculous, over-the-top, largely ineffectual (because both overbroad and underbroad) security measures — I suspect we will now see the Virginia-Tech-ization (or Hokie-ization?) of college campuses nationwide. And that sucks.

P.S. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that colleges shouldn’t take any additional security measures. There are obviously legitimate lessons to be learned from this tragedy (though it’s too early to mistakenly think we know what all those lessons are). But we must not approach the problem with a zero-tolerance mentality. It’s the mentality that I’m objecting to, not any specific measure. All I ask is an honest assessment of the costs and benefits, rather than the typical approach that usually characterizes the response to this sort of situaiton, namely a bunch knee-jerk half-measures that are never subjected to any sort of real scrutiny. Usually, the “cost” side of the cost-benefit analysis is largely ignored, because the costs are intangibles like quality of life for everyone, while the benefit is more tangible, even if sometimes vanishingly small: the marginal chance of perhaps saving a life here or there. If we care about freedom, we need to recognize that sometimes, that’s not good enough.

(And yes, before someone says it, this same logic applies to the war on terror, to some extent at least. There are, of course, major differences between the justification for anti-terror measures and the justification for anti-school-violence measures — in particular, the fact that in the former case, we face a determined and unified enemy who seeks actively to destroy us (thus significantly increasing the odds that any obvious holes in our security will, in fact, be exploited), whereas in the latter case, there is no organized opposition conspiring against us, just a handful of isolated deranged people. Still, the fact remains that there are instances when the cost is too high to be worth the benefit; hence my opposition to, for example, torture as a matter of national policy, or anything resembling internment camps, or various other overzealous measures. Even if there’s a marginal chance that something might occasionally save lives, it should not be taken for granted that that’s enough to justify it.)

Here’s a partial, unofficial list of victims of the Virginia Tech massacre, and here is some biographical info about some of the victims. May they all rest in peace.

The Facebook group Remember Virginia Tech has a whole bunch of graphics showing the VT logo and other schools’ logos with the motto, “Today, we are all Hokies.” Patrick made one for Notre Dame, which I’ve placed in the sidebar at left.

Just a reminder that there’s a memorial mass at the Basillica tonight at 10:00 PM.

UPDATE: Inspired by Patrick’s graphic, I created one for USC and another one for both USC and ND, which is now displayed at left. Full-size versions after the jump.

UPDATE 2: by David K. Inspired by Brendan and Patrick, I added a Husky version as well, also after the jump.

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I think this is a pretty accurate representation of our cats’ attitude toward Robbie. Heh. (Hat tip: Becca.)

Speaking of Becca, on her other blog, she recently posted this really beautiful picture of a recent snowy morning at Notre Dame, and these nice ones too. And if that wasn’t enough, she also offers a good music alert, which I will be intergrating into my iCal momentarily.

P.S. LOL!

The rumored follow-up Observer article about law-student discontent in the wake of the recent NDLS rankings drop is in today’s paper. Excerpt:

Notre Dame’s recent six-spot drop in the US News and World Report Law School rankings has highlighted feelings of discontent among Law School students… [M]any have questioned the leadership of Dean Patricia O’Hara…

“I can appreciate that for students it’s very unsettling when there’s a drop in the rankings,” O’Hara said. “And so…it’s very understandable that students would be upset by that decline and that there be a certain amount of conversation and dialogue going on within the Law School community as a result of that.” …

One area in which Notre Dame’s base score dropped for the rankings was in its selectivity rating. For the 2006 incoming class, the Law School’s acceptance rate jumped to over 21 percent. But, O’Hara said, an analysis of other school’s numbers showed similar jumps in acceptance rates around the country, minimizing whatever effect it would have had on Notre Dame’s final ranking. …

For many students, however, the drop is already a sign of lost potential: where Notre Dame should be excelling, instead it is declining, at least in relative terms.

“To me, when there are things that are holding it back from the potential that it has. It’s kind of frustrating when you know it could be so much better than it is,” said Jake Kiani, a third-year law student. “It’s great already, so why shouldn’t it be better?” …

“Either Patty O’Hara needs to change … the way she runs the Law School or … they just need a new dean, to be frank,” she said. “There’s a lot of reasons the school, in my opinion … isn’t doing its best to be a [top] university law school.” …

[T]hird-year law student Derek Muller…, who said he worried about an overreaction to the US News and World Report rankings, said the administration was not vocalizing support for young faculty members to the extent that it should. Nonetheless, he stressed caution to those criticizing O’Hara.

“When people tie the U.S. News rankings to the current performance of a dean, it only makes the law school look very, very bad in the eyes of the legal community,” he said in a follow-up e-mail to his interview. “The rankings are kind of like the 800 [pound] gorilla in the room, but it’s generally agreed that most law schools detest them, even if they do well.” …

O’Hara said she believed she could do a better job in communicating with students.

“I think there’s room for improvement in my relationship with students,” said O’Hara, who works in her office at night and often leaves the door open. “Deans wear a lot of different hats, and many of my responsibilities have demanded a lot of time and energy. … I think I can always improve on my access to students.”

(Hat tip: 3L No. 108.) The above excerpts are just a small portion of the six-page-long article; you can read the whole thing on one page here.

I’ve gotten some criticism for blogging so much about this issue, and providing a forum for commenters to air the law school’s dirty laundry on a blog that has a much wider audience beyond just the NDLS community. The fear is that all this public kvetching will only make things worse, in terms of the school’s reputation. I understand that concern, but I’m not sure what the solution is. I’m pretty sure it isn’t to just shut up and ignore the issue, and I’m not going to apologize for the fact that my blog is popular, both inside and outside NDLS. But for what it’s worth, I’ll say this: I think Notre Dame Law School is a great place, and part of a great university. I think significant portions of the criticism, especially of the school’s ideological bent, are overblown, and I would encourage anybody who wants a good legal education from great professors in a collegial setting at a world-class university to attend NDLS. This school isn’t perfect; it has issues that need to be addressed. But that’s inevitably going to be true of any large institution, and I think it’s a good thing that we have strong opinions about how to make this place better. Perhaps the public discussion of those opinions will hurt our reputation, but it shouldn’t.

The Children of Hurin, a posthumous J.R.R. Tolkien novel “edited” by his son Christopher, goes on sale today. I’m anxious to read it, but I think I’ll wait until after graduation and probably after the bar exam (unlike Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which I’ll be reading the day it comes out, bar-exam prep be damned). It’ll be a post-exam treat. Well, maybe not such a treat, depending on whom you believe. But I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. I mean, I liked The Silmarillion! ;)

In other Tolkien-related news, Entertainment Weekly is reporting that Spider-Man director Sam Raimi “is seriously interested in directing The Hobbit,” depending on how the whole Peter Jackson vs. New Line battle plays out. That could seriously disrupt plans for Spider-Man 4, with Kirsten Dunst saying she wouldn’t want to make a Spidey movie with anyone other than Raimi.

Speaking of Spidey, I haven’t previously linked to the extremely spoileriffic final Spider-Man 3 trailer, but there you go. (Hat tip: Andrew Hiller.) As noted in my sidebar at left, the movie debuts in 17 days, on May 4 — the first of a trio of highly anticipated “three-quels” debuting next month (Shrek the Third on May 18, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End on May 25). I can’t wait!

Sources say CBS will renew Jericho for a second season. Yay!

Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff, contrasting the Islanders fans’ reaction to controversial officiating Monday night with the Sabres fans’ reaction to controversial officiating two nights earlier: “Our fans were pretty upset, too… they just didn’t throw stuff.” Heh.

Here’s Bfloblog’s wrap-up of the game. 2 down, 14 to go.

The gunman in Monday’s Virginia Tech campus shootings has been identified as Cho Seung-Hui, 23, a student and native of South Korea, campus police chief Wendell Flinchum said.

Visit CNN for the latest.