Lyrical hat-tip to Ann "Boom-Boom" Althouse.

A."B.B."A. writes today:

"I don't feel safe in this world no more." ...

Shall we join in, everyone?
*LOUDLY*

I don't wanna die in a nu-cular war!
I want to sail away to a distant shore,
and make like an apeman.
Oh come on and love me, be my apeman girl
And we'll be so happy in my apeman world!
Oh I'm an apeman, I'm an ape, apeman,
oh I'm an apeman...

*Time out everyone to chug-a-lug....*

~Kinks.
----------------------------


re. "I wonder what my 'controversial political views' were. I mean, what, really?"

I think, for me anyway, it was the way Boom-Boom continually advocated the position of the businesses being sued, over those hurt by their inferior, shoddy products which were proven to have caused damages and injuries.

This is Civ Pro folks, where you determine who even gets through the courtroom door for a shot at proving their case. Keep that door closed, sure the corporations can win. When you stand in front of a class everyday with the attitude that all plaintiffs are poor folks looking to cash in, rather than to hold the businesses/manufacturer's liable for their products, there's likely to be no accountability and recompense for those truly injured.

IN fact, I think many people object to the lack of accountability in America today, which really is Boom-Boom's calling card: politically, militarily, in the business sense and tenured academic world...

The classroom highlight for me was ALLSTATE v. HAGUE, the Civ Pro choice-of-law case on stacking the insurance policies, where the plaintiff's had paid premiums all along on more than one vehicle in Wisconsin, but had significant contacts in Minnesota whose law courts ultimately chose to apply. The plaintiff's dead husband who was killed in the motorcycle accident (and Boom-Boom is anti-bike, it came out in class) had commuted daily to Minnesota, where the widow relocated before proceeding with litigation. I think what really galled me was there was nothing in the facts, despite Boom-Boom's cynical in-class insinuations, showing the plaintiff had deliberately moved across the border to MN before suing just to apply that state's law. Rather she was a widow who had relocated to be closer to family/friends and eventually remarried. For years before her first husband's death, the couple had lived in Hager City, right on the border; it wasn't a "big move" necessarily made for legal reasons. But that's what we must think of all folks suing the big boys, I suppose.

All State was basically trying to weasel out of stacking the $15,000 uninsured motorists claim on the 3 vehicles, wanting to apply Wisconsin's weaker law. They lost on summary judgment, but Boom-Boom still wanted to convince the class the insurance company was in the right. To save a few dollars ($30,000 is peanuts really) for the corporation, of course. Never a shy one, she kinda lost control of the class when I suggested, "Hey, if they didn't want to stack em, maybe they shouldn't have cashed the checks for the three vehicle premiums paid in to them all those years..."

She had to revisit the topic the next day, after she'd composed herself. Funny how too many students these days just want to know what the teacher thinks, to regurgitate and score well in the class, nevermind what the law actually tells us, or what conclusions a brief but independent thinking-through by a student would bring.

You think I'm puffing on the facts here, but the truth is Boom-Boom's a Delaware* girl through and through, intent on preserving systematic advantages for the more financially fortunate ones. So much for business accountability, honest competition...

* There's a reason more than half of America's publicly traded businesses are incorporated in Delaware:

According to Elson, though, Chancery has moved steadily in the investor's direction. "Traditionally, the court's view was that shareholders were not sophisticated and needed to be protected from their own foolishness," he says. "Today what they need to be protected from is managerial overreaching" (see "A Delaware Dozen" at the end of this article).

**Oh, and I don't think the nickname's being disrespectful at all. I mean, if you're going to use your assets, stick 'em on display like that, it means you welcome folks poking fun at 'em. Indeed?

Plus, it plays on her self-styled reputation as the quintessential Boomer blogger, eh? "Back off. The Beatles are mine!" Me? I'm just hoping somebody hits her tip jar, soliciting her to slurp down a ice-cold popsicle stick***, akin to the creamy egg salad she ate for pay.

And the sad thing is: the commenter putting her up to that stunt and started the bidding? 3 disabled kids in the home! Now you tell me if those children could have used the $50 in some way better than Boom-Boom. Not too classy to take money from (handicapped) babes, if you ask me; I kept waiting for her to publically decline that one, but go figure.

*** Yeah, I'm kinda sick like that. Though I do skip the "Look at me! Look at me, V-Logs." Especially hoping that creamy egg salad thing would pass quickly, no such luck. I mean, she was my professor, and it's disheartening to see her perform for cash like a carnie, like that. Similar in a way to that J.Geils seeing 'em out of the classroom song: "My blood runs cold! My memory has just been sold... Boom-Boom is the centerfold!"