A Few Good Questions (take 2)

In the context of an open thread, Mark Daniels asks some very interesting questions:

(1) Any particular goal/s for the blog?
(2) What's your most important animating value and why?
(3) When you were in school, what were your favorite subjects?
(4) Two choices only: Rap or Country. Which one and why?
(5) If you could meet any figure from history, who would it be?
[My Question 6: Why am I still using Blogger - Pooh]

Let me take them somewhat out of order:

What is my "most important animating value and why?"

I'm not exactly sure what's meant by 'animating value', but if it means what I think it means, I'd say "merit". Fairly early in life, I discovered things were not necessarily merit based. Growing up in the late 80's/early 90's, it's entirely possible that 'popular' music was my first clue. Hair bands and Debbie Gibson/Tiffany (I can never tell them apart)?

I think this pushed me towards competitive activities, i.e. sports, and later into fields of study were the merit of ideas and actions were 'testable' to a degree, first economics, and then law. It also explains why I'm a minor stat-head with regards to sports, as I like seeing why teams win.

What were my favorite subjects in school?

In high school, it was probably various history classes. In college, it was the 'microeconomic' series, intro to micro, price theory and game theory (the single hardest class I've had, Law School very much included). Also the films classes, and of course the class in Blues history, though those weren't classes as much hobbies for which I got credit. In Law School, the class I hated least was probably a Contract Theory Seminar, I had my second year. 12 very smart people from a variety of viewpoints feeling free to take any position on a wide range in topics (from the market in organ donation to what 'facts' should be disclosed when selling a reputedly 'haunted' house, to the consumer protection vs. paternalism dichotomy). And the Professor liked to mix it up as well.

Rap or Country?

Unsurprisingly, rap. Somewhat by default, because modern 'popular' hip-hop is no prize. However, modern country seems soulless, formulaic and uninteresting to me. That being said, I love Hank Williams the First and Johnny Cash.

The Classic any figure in history test

Abe Lincoln. So much has been said about his motives, his intellect and his advocacy. His speeches are some of my favorite to read, and the closing of his first inaugural almost always causes me to choke up a little:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

I am not a religious man, but calling on "the better angels of our nature" is as elegant an appeal to human decency as I can imagine.

And lastly, the biggie: What are my 'goals' for this blog?

Well first of all, I'm naturally somewhat loquacious, as shocking as that may be, so the there is an element of talking to hear the sound of my own voice. I also have often lost a lot of my best ideas by simply not writing them down, so this is a chance to fix that problem.

But probably most importantly is for the conversation between and among blogs. Since I left Minnesota last summer, I don't really get the lengthy bullshit sessions that I'm used to. And the things that I talk about here are pretty much the things we talk about (though I tend to get thrown in the nearest lake as soon as I make the lawtalk.) So to the extent that the conversation continues, I will consider the goal met. Cheers.