Hope Springs Eternal.

Notorious Cubs fan George Will,
73 and aging comfortably,
tells us to think positively,
everything is wonderful
where he's at in life.

Cubs Gonna Win the Pennant!


(I miss Mike Royko's "voice" too.
More realistic than optimistic.)
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IN OTHER NEWS:
The big news at work yesterday was that William Mitchell Law School in St. Paul, and Hamline University Law are merging their programs on the Wm. Mitchell campus.

The Mitchell|Hamline School of Law will offer more enrollment options than any other school in the country, including full-time, weekend, and part-time programs, as well as a hybrid, on-campus/online JD option. In addition, students will be able to earn dual degrees through the school’s affiliation with Hamline University, and they will have access to Hamline’s athletic facilities, library and cultural programs.
...
“It will leverage the best of two outstanding institutions to create a stronger law school with the ability to put a greater focus on helping students prepare for the new realities of the profession, which is increasingly competitive, specialized, and technology-based,” said Eric Janus, William Mitchell president and dean.

The consensus -- in my room of temporarily employed attorney document reviewers -- being this is a good thing, as the combined program will likely graduate less lawyers each year, flooding an already saturated market (U of M, and St. Thomas in Minneapolis have law schools too).**

Like with the national tests,
Minneapolis is a prime location for New York firms, and other players in the big legal markets, to locate their scoring centers or coding projects because there is an abundance of educated (and underemployed, some say) teachers and attorneys to work as contract employees... at less than big, big city rates, and with no need to pay costly benefits locking employees into the job.

Minnesota especially is adapting well to the shifts technological changes are making in the expanding information economy*, which are now impacting the educational and legal industries as they did newspapers 25 years ago.

It changes the way you do business, the way the workforce functions, and what skills are valued on the job.


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** I am not saying I join in this opinion, not because "the more, the merrier". But because I think the pool -- of first-generation professionals, say -- is more apt to enlarge more diversely when there are more guilded slots available to compete for, and less "legacy" additions likely when the pool is smaller and limited to those connectedly better prepared and with financial resources immediately available after undergrad. Wm. Mitchell especially, has traditionally had a "working-class" lawyer's appeal, with an emphasis on night school, working while studying, and balancing family life too. (= older applicants).

* Would that we could say the same for Wisconsin.

I do think -- as someone with a foot in each state, paying taxes in both -- that it will be interesting to compare and contrast the economy and educational systems in coming years between the two formerly equitable states, and note any disparities based on leadership values and business policies being implemented today.

Both states have traditionally ranked well nationally, but while Wisconsin has shed its progressive mantle and appears to be retreating into the more fearful McCarthy years, Minnesota is absorbing and assimilating African and Hmong immigrants and turning into a rather bi-coastal-like, "flyover" state that values, rather than fears, diversity.

And sure, the Packers are superior in brute football terms today.
but I'm telling you: Teddy Bridgewater has an arm, and every day, workers are putting up that new stadium, I see coming in on the bus...

Damn it, George.
You've talked me into some optimism, locally at least!

Good day, everyone.
Good Saturday, at that.