In case the firms really DO Google you...

Hello, dear Recruiting Coordinators of the legal world. After sifting through a few dozen pages about the poet who wrote "Elegy in a Country Churchyard" (Sir Thomas Gray) and the guy who executive produced the old live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies (Thomas K. Gray), you've finally found the blog of Thomas M. Gray III, AKA Thom Gray, rising 2L at the University of Virginia School of Law.

Unlike many of my peers, who delete their web sites, pictures, and any indication that they have any life outside of class, I am actually quite glad you happened upon my little corner of the intertubes. You'll find my Facebook profile equally unaltered for your discerning eyes.

The reason for this is not that I don't take your interest in my personal background seriously. I am not "fighting the man" with this post, or belittling the necessity of a presentable public image for a lawyer at a major firm. No, the reason I haven't change anything about my blog, my Facebook page, my Myspace, or any other public profile I have on the Internet is simple:

I have nothing to hide, and I want you to see that I have nothing to hide.

I have never been photographed in a compromising position while intoxicated. I have never committed some sophomoric prank leading to property damage. I have never worn a Halloween costume mocking a racial group or national tragedy.

The reason is not because of some sense of conformity or social duty. The reason is because I have actual substantive character and morals. I don't act like a child in a man's body, because I am not in a child's body. I don't act like a fool, because I am not foolish, nor do I desire to be foolish.

I may not still agree with everything I have ever said here; certainly my politics (and, frankly, the depth of my interest in politics) has evolved as my education has progressed. But I am proud of my work, and confident that it portrays me as someone who thinks before he speaks, and who both thinks well and speaks well.

And if you think I'm wrong, well, at least you made that decision with as much unfiltered, uncensored information about me as I could possibly give you.

I appreciate your taking the time to check into me on some level beyond my resume and transcript. I feel that the more you do so, the better the chance you will want to hire me both for next summer and in the long term.

Have a nice day.

Don't Tell My Boss, My Achy Breaky Boss

This morning I woke up to yet another story about racy photos of 15-year-old uberstar Miley Cyrus, this time leaked cell-phone pics that she sent to her ex-boyfriend Nick Jonas. Readers my age will understand Cyrus' plight better if they know that she's Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter and has been his meal ticket since those of us old enough to remember "Achy Breaky Heart" stopped putting money in juke boxes. Younger readers may know Miley better as Hannah Montana, Disney's meal ticket since John Smith copped a feel on Pocahontas, or since parents found the giant hidden penis on the cover of The Little Mermaid and decided they'd rather expose their children to overt sexuality instead of implicit sexuality.

Most of you should recall the giant stink Disney made over some pictures Cyrus did in Vanity Fair in which she was "artistically" nude under a blanket. These new ones are basically your typical "Myspace whore pic" fare. I will not link to them, because unlike Disney, I do not peddle kiddy porn. You can Google them if you're that desperate to see a teenage girl's bra.

Apparently, Disney is already making an equivalent stink over these leaks. I can't help but make two observations:

1. Chances are that when Disney throws out a press release, it will be directed at Cyrus herself. Yet Disney employs and promotes Nick Jonas and his band the Jonas Brothers, too. Where's the outrage at his betrayal of Miley's trust? She could have sent him all the pics she wanted if he knew how to keep something private (or, if the leak was accidental, if he kept better track of his cell phone). Isn't he the one who has created a huge PR quagmire for Disney this time and risked bringing down one of their biggest two-headed monster franchises?

2. Why the hell do girls send these pics to guys anymore? Seriously. They all end up plastered all over the Internet. All. Of. Them. Wanna know why? Look at our role models. Billy Ray Cyrus: peddles his own daughter semi-nude for big cash because he didn't invest his own one-hit wonder money better (for counter-example, see Vanilla Ice). For the younger kids, Nick Jonas. Dude doesn't even comb his hair. How's he supposed to be trusted?

Have a nice day.

Yet another piece of hard-hitting Internet journalism

I wish Hilary Clinton would just drop out of the race already so I can stop feeling sorry for her. I mean I know somebody had to prove that America was not ready for a cutthroat, self-serving, self-important, egomaniacal head case of a woman to be President. But really, couldn't it have been someone who looks less like a wounded puppy?

Anyway, that's not the hard-hitting Internet journalism. No, tonight, what's keeping me up at 1:30 A.M. when I have work in the morning is, stupid Facebook photo trends that just need to die. As you might imagine, it is largely my female friends who have propagated these. So this one's for you, girls.

1. Pictures of huge piles of feet

Why girls take pictures in large groups is no mystery to me: girls are social animals. Why girls get dressed up just to take pictures for Facebook isn't really a mystery, either: girls like to look pretty. But why girls would stand in a circle and touch their feet together, then take a picture...that one is probably somewhere in the DSM-IV, or more likely one of those books the psychiatrists keep on their bookshelves in case something isn't in the DSM-IV. I'm not about to look it up, either.

2. Pictures of girls jumping up in the air at the same time

Are we supposed to think this was spontaneous, that someone with a camera just happened to catch you all in a moment of simultaneous gravity-defying jubilation? Come on. I've seen girls jump. With the notable exception of Candace Parker, it usually doesn't last very long. Conclusion: every picture like this on Facebook represents at least ten takes. Further evidence: most of the "smiles" in these pictures look like grimaces of pain, possibly the early symptoms of several dislocated bones in one's ankle.

3. Pictures of stuff you baked

It pains me to say this, but if there's one thing that my recent foray into cooking has taught me, it's that most girls actually don't know BEANS about cooking. They watched their moms read the Bettie Crocker box, and they read it too. So I'm not especially impressed when they post pictures of something they baked that looks exactly like every other thing that comes out of said box. Call me when you whip the icing yourself, ma'am. And when I say "call me," I don't mean call me so I can take a picture. I mean call me so I can EAT IT. And then marry you promptly if it is tasty.

Have a nice day.

Someone insisted that I write a blog. Well, I'm going to be clearing my brain from my second volley of law school finals for some time. So here's the blog you get, a simple question that I'm not sure I want the answer to:

How would a man receive oral sex from a cow?

Bonus: best cow/oral sex pun receives a fabulous prize to be determined at a later date.

Have a nice day?

Just a thought...

Why exactly does the government jail polygamists, but not men who create multiple mothers? At this point in our history, who is actually the greater social criminal?

Have a nice day.

Moot THIS

Several people have asked how my team did at our Moot Court competition this past weekend. We won. As in, won the whole thing, versus seven other teams of mostly 2Ls and 3Ls. I'm still shocked. Apparently we get some kind of plaque at some point. I have no idea where to put it.

Have a nice day.

-TG

"Get Over It." -Justice Antonin Scalia

If you had the opportunity to learn from one of the nine most influential people in your profession -- in the country, for that matter -- what would be on your mind? Would you pick his brain about his area of expertise? Would you ask him how he got to his current position and what you could do to better yourself? Or would you insult him and rant at him about something he did eight years ago, which can never change and the effects of which are about the expire?

Apparently for some people who are supposedly very smart, the lattermost is the most legitimate answer.

So what got Thom all pissed off this time, you ask?

Friday morning, every 1L at UVA Law got to take a Constitutional Law class with Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court. Let me repeat that is case it didn't sink in: we got to learn a Con Law topic from one of the guys who decides what Con Law IS. It wasn't just an opinion lecture or something of that sort, either: we had homework for it, and the lesson (on standing and judicial restraint) was on a topic you would normally learn in a Con Law course.

At the end of the lecture, we had a chance to ask questions. Once again, I cannot stress this enough: there was a Supreme Court Justice standing twenty feet away, and we had a chance to partake of his knowledge.

So I raised my hand, hoping to get to ask about the fundamental difference between secondary sources in Constitutional interpretation and statutory interpretation and why Justice Scalia's philosophy on the two is so disparate (NERD ALERT). Yet I had to watch in amazement as instead, every goddamned hippie idiot in my class addressed one of the nine most respected judges in the entire f***ing world like he was some worthless schoolboy -- or worse, a politician.

"While I admire your constantly overstepping your bounds as a judge..."

"Didn't you once say you were like Clarence Thomas except not an idiot?" (apparently he didn't)

"Why should we care what the Founders said about..."

And then there was one moron who actually had a question written out so he didn't forget to use all the fancy big words that he couldn't remember himself, probably for lack of knowing their definition. Luckily Scalia cut him off before he could bore us all to tears. ("Are you reading that? Come on. 'Primeva?' 'Chimera?'")

But the absolute most amazing one was the guy who stood up and challenged the decision in Bush v. Gore.

You read that right. At one of the ten best law schools in America, some idiot is still so pissed off about an election that happened while he was in high school that he attacked a Supreme Court Justice on it now. In person. During a class. While blatantly misquoting the decision, I might add.

I was frankly embarrassed. It was clear that this moron hadn't even listened to the lecture, let alone formed a cohesive thought or opinion on the topic at hand. It was even more clear that not only was he asking an irrelevant question, but he wasn't even asking it for scholarly or legal reasons: he was exhibiting nothing but the most useless partisan hackery. He was wasting an golden learning opportunity in the name of pointless whining.

I use no hyperbole when I say that I didn't think people that blindly stupid went on to do anything with their lives. And I pull no punches when I say that I am saddened that I will potentially have to work around people so obsessed with their own viewpoints and politics that they can't even approach learning without constant self-reference.

Of course, I could just be pissed off because now I'll never know why Scalia thinks The Federalist is a more legitimate source of legislative/Constitutional intent than Senate and House Committee Reports. Such is the refuge of the statutory interpretation nerd.

Have a nice day.