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Support the Troops!

http://www.mywarvideo.com/play.php?vid=132

Is this how you motivate troops?

Rep. Gary Ackerman from NY ripped into the SEC the other day regarding their failure to investigate Madoff and his ponzi scheme.

Check it out. As has been stated,

"Ackerman’s righteous anger would be funny if it weren’t so damn tragic, our economy and world economies on the brink, ignored by the people whom we trust to protect us, now hiding behind the veil of ‘executive privilege’ because they know they’ve screwed us."

http://weblogs.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/politics/blog/2009/02/video_gary_ackerman_goes_off_o.html

Separately, those words are fine to use. CULS, of course, means "ass" in French. IT, to most people, means Information Technology.

Combine those words at 303 E. Broad Street in Columbus, Ohio, and you will assuredly get a most vile response. Indeed, the thought of the CULS IT department being given access to anything more advanced than an abacus will spawn more than a general malaise or feeling of lament. No, the students that have been subjected to the maniacal exploits of this very department have bodies that are conditioned to go straight to DEF CON 1; pure Fear and Loathing.

Have no fear, I am not on campus, I am at home. Ergo, I have internet access and can expose these frauds from the comfort of my kitchen table.

Despite being obviously highly proficient experts with an understanding of microprocessors and broadband rivaled only by those currently developing SKYNET, this elite crew has been fighting and losing a battle with the CULS network and server for at least the last four years.

To call it a fight would be a misnomer. Doing so would imply that there had at one time been some sort of competition to the whole thing. Alas, our hero crew has been vanquished by the dragon that is the network and server. This dragon has absolutely dominated the mighty IT department. "Dominated" isn't the right word either; it is an insult to the dragon. In high school physics, our teacher, Mr. Winston gave us tests so hard he called them "whoopins." I think this word fits. The dragon has dealt our champions a whoopin' over the last few years.

As an example of just how fucking great this gaggle of awesomes are, I offer the following example (as usual the names have been kept the same to charge the guilty),to wit: this group of highly skilled professionals hooked the entire dragon to a light switch. Of course, said light switch was then placed in the "off" position and chaos ensued. As we were told, the server started to crash. While it was crashing, it began to delete email addresses from the server, along with other vital information. The supermen that are the IT dept. leaped to the rescue, blades drawn and charging into the fire of the beast, and stopped the end of the world just in time. Ye gads man, this is horrible.

The newest campaign to defeat the dragon came in the form of "upgrades." These "upgrades," I assume, were meant to make the network more secure. The reality is, on our end, was inoperable email for days at a time, a network that can be accessed intermittently at best, and here, a week later, we still lack the ability to hook to the network and print. Words cannot explain the evils these fascists have waged against us for the last couple of years so I will simply leave you with an email I wrote hoping to address their latest failure.

The latest failure I discovered was that names had been randomly deleted from my email mailing lists. The bastards. This is all a conspiracy, I am convinced; nobody can be this bad. As you can probably guess, these "upgrades" did nothing but complicate a system already in complete state of failure.

[Read from the bottom up]

Andy,

The only list that I have not re-established at this point is the one titled, "MLS 2008-2009." Also, for whatever reason, Robert Franco (rfranco@law.capital.edu) was not only eliminated from all of the distribution lists he was associated with in my account, but his email address was also erased from my contacts list. In speaking with some of my other classmates, this phenomena of contacts disappearing from distribution lists is not only not limited to my account, but is fairly widespread due to the "upgrades."

Now, on to what is seemingly the most important subject of any day and with the exception of the existence of opposable thumbs, the one thing that separates us higher life forms from the beasts that roam the wilds of this filthy rock upon which we live: grammar. In your response to my email, you saw fit to put the word 'all' in quotation marks. I feel it is my duty as a literate being to point out this folly. Perhaps I have a limited world view, but I can only see a couple of reasons why this would occur; the first being that you severely misunderstand the application of quotation marks. Another possible explanation for your action could be that you fail to grasp even a rudimentary understanding of sarcasm. Finally, there is the possibility that this was your attempt at either humor or vengence in response to my using quotation marks around the word 'upgrade' when describing the "upgrades" that have been made to the webmail service.

No matter what the cause, it is my understanding that when something is "upgraded" it is made to work better, or at least smoother. Whatever the difference is on your end, the result on our end is a service that is new, flawed, and frightening to those of us that live in fear of the gestapo like tactics of the IT department. The "upgrades" the IT department made not only frustrated those of us relying on the webmail over break, they came without any explanation of just how the "upgrades" would affect the service. Emails were lost due to the new timeout function we were not made aware of; fists were pounded into desks in hopes the lost words would magically re-appear on the now blank screen; hair was removed from heads at the root in frustration over the this culmination of failures stemming from a very real lineage of problems the IT department has had with the CULS servers (of which it seems I am not yet ready to declare IT a winner in that extended battle); and finally, ridiculously long winded and misguided emails were launched towards the IT department like a mis-timed and third rate SCUD missile assembled of junkyard parts, fueled by angst and guided by a drunken, yet blind and very obviously incapable, operator.

At any rate, thank you for repairing my inert distribution list. Have a nice day.

Bryan Pritikin

-----Original Message-----
From: XXXX, Andy
Sent: Mon 1/5/2009 11:11 PM
To: Pritikin, Bryan; IT
Cc: XXXX, Jonathan
Subject: RE: Email Accounts

Bryan,

I am sorry to hear that "all" of your distribution lists have been disturbed... It would be of great help if you can let IT know what lists you've tried that are missing recipients so we can fix them.

We are working to update the group/list memberships, but need the help of the people who use them. This is a relatively easy fix once it's identified...

Thank you for your patience as we finish the remaining items post-migration/upgrade

Andy

________________________________

From: Pritikin, Bryan
Sent: Mon 1/5/2009 10:32 PM
To: IT
Subject: Email Accounts

Is there a reason why ALL of my distribution lists have been disturbed? Every list I have is missing AT LEAST half of the recipients I had listed prior to your "upgrades." Also, curiously, I have had people eliminated off one list yet remain on another list. How long will it take you to repair my lists so that they contain all the recipients I had listed prior to these "upgrades?"

Bryan Pritikin

I will end this little tirade with a wonderful quote:

"If you haven't got anything good to say about anyone, come sit by me."
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth

I posted a link to the Community of Veterans site to the "links" on the side of the page, but I wanted to draw some attention to it here as well. This is a "social networking site" for returning veterans (although I assume that all veterans are welcome).

There are many good links on this page including a link to a family & friends website. Additionally, there are links to help navigate the VA site, to news services, to mental health resources, and of course, the requisite blog.

So, if you know a returning veteran and you think they might be interested in the site, then by all means, send them the link.

http://communityofveterans.org

- Bryan

Here is something pretty cool that Xerox is doing.

If you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com you can pick out a thank you card and Xerox will print it and it will be sent to a soldier that is currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets it, but it will go to some member of the armed services.

- Bryan

UPDATE: due to the concentrated efforts of Professor Lazaroff, CULS has decided that I meet the requirements to graduate with the civil litigaiton concentration on my transcript. Therefore, for all intensive purposes, I will be the first person to graduate with the new designation. Thank you, Professor Lazaroff.

One and a half years ago I began lobbying CULS to implement a litigation concentration. Well, my litigation concentration was finally approved and will be in place for Spring semester, 2009. I suppose joy and accolades all around should be bestowed upon me as I am a real man of genius for initially submitting this concentration. I mean I changed the CULS curriculum forever, right? However, I deny your ticker tape parades, your massage parlors, and your offers for lascivious acts. I mean after all, “I do not think there ever could be a conqueror so bloody that most women would not willingly lie with him in the hope of bearing a son who would not be every bit as ferocious as the father.” - Gore Vidal. That's me, right?

The cloud on this silver lining is that CULS implemented my litigation concentration. Part of my original pitch included a list of classes that, in my opinion, would be the most applicable to such a concentration. I took time to walk through the catalog of suggested classes to extract the most appropriate classes. I pitched the idea to the SBA, and asked them throw their support behind it, which they did so very willingly. I took this list and then ran it past Professor Brad Smith who approved of it as well as the concentration and resultingly pitched the concentration to the Academic Affairs Committee (AAC). The AAC approved the concentration but felt the need to appoint someone special to review the list of suggested classes. So, they approved the concentration but not the class list. Fine, I wasn't too worried about that, I knew the overall class list and believe that even if they made small changes, it wouldn't make that mush difference, and the concentration as I invented and pitched it wouild remain intact. I underestimated the group mentality process.

The AAC pitched the concentration to the faculty committee. I have a certain opinion of the majority of the decision making faculty at this school. This isn't everyone, just a majority of the people I have interacted with in one way or another. My belief has been 100% cememted as accurate to myself, if nobody else. The faculty, in approving my concentration, split it into a criminal litigation concentraiton and a civil litigation concentration. My question then, is why? In a school that strives to give their students the most well rounded and general education possible, why would they pigeonhole a concentration like this? I wrote to a number of people asking them for the reasoning behind this, but have yet to receive a response.

I knew something would get fucked up when I gave control of this thing over to someone else. I did everything I could to stay in the loop and even offered to make oral arguments at every step of the way to ensure that my concentration was kept intact. However, once the concentration left my hands, only Professor Smith kept me updated and I thank him for that. As for everyone else, well, see generally my feelings about this faculty. As much as I tried to stay in touch with everyone whose fingerprints were on this, it proved impossible through email. I learned long ago that the only way to deal with this faculty is face to face. The only way I even found out about the concentration being approved is because one of the Deans told me about it.

My initial reaction upon hearing that the concentration was split was that I would not qualify for the concentration because I wouldn't have the requisit classes. Therfore, I would not be able to graduate with MY concentration on my transcript. Emails to the professors that have been placed in charge of each concentration have confirmed this. There is a possibility that I could take a 3rd legal drafting class (LD I being the first and General Practice being the second) and possibly qualify for the criminal concentration. However, (1) at this point I don't know if I want to take another drafting class in my last semester; (2) Since they haven't listed the requirements yet, I don't know if I would qualify anyway because I don't know what the other classes are and (3) I don't know that I want to pigeonhole myself with either a crmiinal or a civil litigation concentration. This is why I pitched a general litigation concentration.

Do I want some recognition for this? It wouldn't hurt but I won't lose any sleep over it; that is not the reason I initially pitched the idea of a litigation concentration. Do I want to graduate with MY concentration on my transcript? This is the only reason I pitched it in the first place.

Fail - CULS.