Alive, mostly

I've mostly recovered from the Michigan bar exam. This is the second state whose exam I've taken, and there won't be a third. Even having done it once before, it's a grueling, unpleasant endurance test. That it takes almost 4 months to get the results is the insult added to the injury. Fortunately, I think it went alright and I don't plan to lose much sleep over it.

Now that it's over, I can get back to watching the Connecticut primary, along with the Michigan governor's race. I realize that Jennifer Granholm is not particularly popular in Michigan, but how Dick DeVos has managed to avoid fallout from his job-outsourcing history is a minor political miracle. Of all the states where having a track record of shipping jobs away should be political suicide, Michigan is it. Whether or not the free trade agreements of the last decade have been good for the country, they have not been good for this state. Here in the western end of things, vacant factories are within stones' throws of each other, and many of the remaining factories are operating under constant rumors of closure, as whatever they're producing gets moved to places that don't place quite as much stock in minimum wages, collective bargaining, workplace safety, or health benefits. Seeing the effects of industry emigration first-hand is sobering, to put it euphemistically. And yet, a man who has done the same thing with Amway is getting a lot of support. Whomever his advisors are...the Democrats need to hire them away, and kick Bob Shrum and Donna Brazile to the curb.