Le Lion est mort. Vive le Lion!

March 31, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

There is only one man that I have ever called ‘Papa’. And he died Thursday, peacefully apparently, leaving the world behind. Papa Leo, was technically speaking my Father’s maternal uncle but by the time my father hit double digits and had lost both his parents, he took my Father in. So Papa Leo and his wife Cecilia (called Nana-of course) raised my Father along-with their four children and were parents to him. Nana & Papa’s kids were my Father’s brothers and sisters for all practical purposes and we treated them and they treated us as such. My Father was their big brother. My Father referred to Nana & Papa as his parents and one of my favourite memories I have of my Father is him telling me why he wanted to stay with them when he lost both his parents: Because they gave him scones and cupcakes for tea.

When I was younger, I got to know Papa Leo and Nana well. I remember spending the summers at their house alongside the boulevard of huge oak tress and eating the half-formed blackberries still on the vine behind the house. One of my favourite places in Houston is where South Main meets Montrose at a round-about by the Warwick Hotel and the Museum of Fine Arts and right next to Rice. If you’ve ever been there you would have noticed that stretch of Main was arched with 100year old oak trees shading the street below. That’s what it was like by Papa’s house. Actually one of the neatest things about my day job is that the place where I work has this huge blackberry tree that’s fruiting right about now and everyday when I walk past it I’ll pluck a few and think of Papa.

Papa I’m sure lead an interesting life, I remember spending hours looking at pictures of him when he was serving in the Navy during World War II as part Her Majesty’s Royal Navy. Knowing someone who was part of something that I only read about in books fascinated me. He didn’t talk much about it but I don’t remember asking really.

Thinking about how Papa outlived his wife, two oldest sons, my father and most of the people he probably grew up with says a bunch. I won’t say it’s because of good clean living but I think more of a stubborn spirit that wouldn’t relent. He was a funny guy who liked his drink and loved his family and my Father very much. To me that’s plenty. To me that’s Papa.

He was 87.

Posted in Family, Life. No Comments »

Heartstring tugging courtesy of NPR

March 25, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

I have been a long-time fan of NPR. A long time fan of radio too. I remember mucking about with the radio receiver we had at home in Bahrain and picking up on Voice of America (VOA) broadcasts on shortwave from some place in Europe, destined no doubt to save the ‘godless souls’ in Communist Russia or even enjoying the english broadcast of Radio Tehran. People who live in major metropolitan areas don’t really know much about shortwave and most people born in the late 80’s onward never cared because almost anything they wanted to hear now broadcasts over the internet or via satellite radio. But there is still something to be said about listening to a show on the radio. Maybe that’s why, one day, on my many back and forth trips between Austin and Houston, I stumbled on The Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor and have been hooked on public radio ever since.

Now unlike my Brit friends across the pond, who are ‘forced’ to pay for that spectacular media machine that is the BBC through the infamous TV and Radio License ( and live gloriously ad free as a result!) we in these United States aren’t forced to pay for anything. What a wonderful American notion. Here public radio stations are entirely funded through a mix of federal funding, corporate grants and listener support. While this is may seem all very charming unfortunately it also means that the poor chappies at the local NPR affiliate are forced to come a-begging every 6 months of so to keep going. This bi-annual event is sweetly referred to as the bi-annual pledge drive. My NPR affiliate is KUHF, which is based out of that bastion of educational excellence-the University of Houston, does a good job with its pledge drive and usually does a good job of being the least annoying it possibly can.

So why you ask, did I say I was affected so much by NPR? Here’s the rest of the story as Paul Harvey might say….

This morning I was listening to one of my favourite shows on NPR: This American Life with Ira Glass from Chicago Public Radio. Now if you’ve never listened to this fantastic show, I can best describe it as being granola-crunchy liberal meets Euro-Indie film-maker in Paris for coffee to talk about life & death. It is fascinatingly poignant and one of the best showcases of answers to the question ‘Why?’. But I digress…..so here we are in the middle of the bi-annual pledge drive and NPR solicits the help of Ira and his short audio stories to solicit listener donations. So Ira decides to showcase a story broadcast a few months ago from an episode called ‘Shouting across the divide’. Ira says, it was stories like this that would never be heard if it wasn’t for listener support. And the story in question was Act I from that episode called ‘Which one of them is not like the other’.

If you really want to understand this post you need to go listen to that episode so get to it: ‘Shouting across the divide’

So now I’m assuming you listened to the show and listened to Act I. In my prior post today I wrote about something that I said I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to laugh or cry about. Listening to Act I certainly didn’t make me want to laugh. It is stories like that, that keep me coming back to NPR, This America Life and KUHF. I mean here they are on the radio saying, if you don’t support public radio, voices like Serry’s from Act I won’t get heard. How do you say no to something like that. So, of course, I forked over some change to KUHF and hopefully my two cents went into helping a voice be heard. I hope.

Posted in Bahrain, Faith, KUHF, Media, NPR, Politics, Public Policy, Radio, Religion. No Comments »

Overheard at a cocktail party

March 25, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

I repeat this only because I can’t tell whether I should laugh or cry about it. You decide.

So I have a friend who, quite like me back in the day, is involved in a million and one social/networking things around town. My friend, let’s call him Bubba, is part of the Rotary Club, the Downtown Alliance, the Art Crowd, the Young Professionals Group at the World Affairs Council etc. Bubba has a happy knack of throwing a great cocktail party. Lots of people from all around the world, at least 20 languages spoken between the bunch and almost everyone has a good story to tell. Last night was one of the most well attended ones I’ve been to and I don’t think I’ve seem as many representatives from the consular corps in Houston is a very long time.

So there I was trying to see if I could get a soccer team going to play a few pick-up games by Rice University or at one of the fields at University of Houston, when a potential left-winger ( and by left-winger I mean someone that plays forward on the left side in a football match ) and his girlfriend join in the heady discussion on whether our possible motley crew might actually get off the ground.

After all the talk about cleats and shin-guards was over and done with I had a chance to engage the left-winger and his significant other ( “S.O.”) in the usual pleasantries that accompanies a Yellow Tail Riesling ( which I have to admit was quite good ). After a few good laughs about  ” what’s a lady like you doing with a fella like that” talk S.O. prods in with a question or two of her own:

S.O.: Aren’t you seeing anyone right now?

BrownBoy: No, not right now. Women, you know, are an awfully expensive habit.

S.O.: I would think that with your effusive personality that you’d have a girlfriend. A personality like yours, it makes up for so much.

BrownBoy:   [                                             This space intentionally left blank                                            ]

Posted in Dating, Friends, Houston, Humor, Networking, Relationships. 2 Comments »

Underrated but overperforming; University of Houston Law Center- The little law school that could.

March 24, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

Thanks to Gilman for pointing out Vault’s article on the most underrated law schools. Houston as a city gets a bad rap. From being boom town in the 80s where “if you got out of bed, you made money” ( according to a retired lawyer from Fulbright & Jaworski ) to a place that elicits winces when you state that you live there.

What a lot of people don’t know about UH Law Center and the University of Houston s the dismal amount of funding it gets compared to other state schools. In fact much to most Texans’ chagrin, there are only two Tier-1 universities in the great State of Texas: UT-Austin and Texas A&M. California by comparison has 10, New York 8. What does that bode for Texas? Well as large as we are and as much populace as we have that resides within our borders we simply don’t have as many well funded academic/research institutions as we should. University of Houston suffers as a result and UH-Law Center shares that burden.

This doesn’t undermine the level of scholarship that UH as a university is capable of but a cutting-edge academic research institution can’t be had without financial support from the center. The curious thing is that once you have an institution going, it will spin off and self-fund through a great extent but not without the original impetus of state funding.

Frankly UH Law Center, UH and Houston as a whole really is worth it ladies and gentlemen. In fact there’s a whole website dedicated to just that.

www.HoustonItsWorthIt.com

Posted in Houston, Law school, Rankings, UH Law. 1 Comment »

Spring Break 2007, A Eulogy

March 18, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

It was taken from us before we even knew what we had. Today marks the death of my first Spring Break since I got done with Grad School many moons ago. 

Spring Break ‘07 led a brief but fruitful life. It’s early days were known by a leisurely pace and its last days were marked with an emerald green hue that culminated in a leaping leprachaun based St. Paddy’s Day reverie.

Alas Spring Break ‘07, you weren’t the best, you weren’t the first but you were the latest. 

We had a good thing going there Spring Break ‘07 but we’ll just have to write this off as a lesson learned.

Spring Break 2007. R.I.P.

Posted in Law school, Vacation. No Comments »

Dating: An economic perspective

March 17, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

While many of my fellow students are in the throes of hedonism as part of their spring break and others are trying in earnest to eradicate the beast that is law school papers ( a la Ana ), my spring break has sunk to new lows because I am filling in an online dating profile. What makes it even worse is that it isn’t even for me. I don’t know how I get stuck with these gigs but somehow my Rasta friend sweet-talked me into writing her profile because she isn’t too keen on writing those things. As if anyone wakes up in the morning and thinks to themselves, ” Gee today I’m going to write the best darn dating profile in the world”.

I guess this really is all my fault. When she asked me to look at her profile and tell her what I thought, this crazy brown boy did just that. My response was just that it didn’t sound like her and what was the point of putting something out there if it wasn’t even going to be a good reflection of her person. After I descended off my soap-box I got a firm “well if you don’t think it sounds like me, then you write it” and me being the fool that I am said ” And just maybe I will”.

So here we are.

The closest thing to an online dating profile I’ve ever written was my statement of purpose for law school. I know, dear reader, that you may find that to be a rather noxious thought but I think the approach worked ( well I am in law school you know). Here’s why. Online dating, like statements of purpose or any other partnership transaction is an effort of one party to tender goods ( in this case the person or commercial entity ) under terms that would be acceptable to the other. I realise how awful this analogy is and how much my law class on Contracts has completely pervaded my brain. Indeed I am a lost cause. Light a candle, say a prayer.

So this leads me to my next assertion that isn’t this whole dating thing a glorified marketplace? Aren’t we all ( us single + you philandering allegedly-committed types) just tendering ourselves up to the most viable buyer? Aren’t we all just in a modified version of the ancient bazaars that tantalise shoppers with attractive facades and hollow promises of long term worth? Suddenly the notion of meat market is not too far off.

Consequent assertion: Things like online dating and matchmakers etc. even though they might seem expensive could actually reduce the overhead and transactional costs associated with traditional “go out there & mingle and fend for yourself” dating.  Dare I say it, online dating is remarkable in its economic efficiency. Let’s work the numbers. Let’s say that average brown boy goes out on the town trawling for viable co-conspirators in the game of life. Through random searches and expensive weekends at clubs etc. spends say $150 per week in search efforts. Say that at the end of 4 weeks avg. brown boy nets 2 good possibilities. 6 dates later ( assuming 3 dates a piece) and $210 later ( assuming $35 a date-which we know is on the low end-), avg. brown boy still might not be any closer to intended goal. Compare with the likes of online dating sites which at least help you separate the wheat from the chaff where one would at least, as the website claim, have more first dates and better second ones. ( Speaking of wheat & chaff I wonder if one engaged in that date-filter process on the weekend, would that count as not keeping the Sabbath? Good question for Rabbi Love…) And I’m tempted to believe most online dating sites cost far less. I’m unfamiliar but I don’t think they are more than $100/month. Fundamentally though the hypothesis that online dating is more efficient is predicated on the fact that their ’success’ ratios, whatever ’success’ is defined to be has to be greater than or equal ( and if the site is cheaper maybe even slightly less) than traditional dating methodology.

The more I think about things, I realise that market & economic theory can be used to explain a host of things. I’m really tempted to dive into more of this stuff academically. I shall have to speak with BelleWeather about this because this is absolutely her bag.

Posted in Dating, Economics, Friends, Internet. 4 Comments »

Et tu Brown Boy?

March 16, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

So yesterday was the Ides of March, made notorious because the big JC ( no not that JC, the other big JC: Julius Caesar) was assassinated by the treacherous members of the senate and his dear friend Brutus on this day.

The reason I wanted to post about this because I have been thinking much about politics and the reasoning of the masses these days. With the campaigns for the presidency heating up, the rhetoric flying and the spin nauseating the people, politics has been much on my mind. The Greeks and Romans knew that democracy was key but they also knew that the mob often didn’t know what was good for them ( yes I know I sound like some premonition of a dictator). 

So when I start to think of such serious stuff as politics my head turns naturally to arguably one of my favourite movies of all times, Mel Brooks’ History of the World Part I. And if you’ve never seen it, you’re welcome to watch it with me because I never get tired of it. But when it comes to politics one of my favourite scenes is in that movie when they take a sneak peek at the Roman senate. Now I don’t have video of it but I do have a great link to the audio. Turn it up and for sensitive ears there is one cuss-word.

Mel Brook’s take on the Roman Senate

Posted in Humor, Movies, Politics. No Comments »

Sympathy for the devil: Why I’m a little perturbed that the masses won’t let Wal-Mart be

March 16, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

First off you should probably know that Wal-Mart has decided to withdraw its application to be a federally-insured industrial loan corporation (ILC).  

Now there is little love lost between me and Wal-Mart but there is something that does bother me a little bit about this whole thing. The Mob screamed and hollered when Wal-Mart decided to apply to become an ILC and enter into the nexus of banking and commerce. While some argued that Wal-Mart would stifle competition by its monstrous size and its ability to exert tremendous influence courtesy of its economic might I think there’s a little more to it.

Fundamentally I think my question is: Is a monopoly or immense market share created by a better product and by better service the same as market dominance by shear volume? Why I ask is that the banks are notorious for raking in the cash. Gosh BoA charges you to breathe the cooled air in its offices when you’re depositing money. So if Wal-Mart jumped in the banking fray and started cost-cutting ( which is what Wal-Mart does best) would that necessarily be a bad thing?I’m not sure how there could be a valid argument to say that Wal-Mart would dominate over other banks and stifle competition.

What I think all those opposed to the Wal-Mart ILC are really scared of is that Wal-Mart will start shaving prices off financial services, loans etc. and then they’ll have to trim their fat profit margins to compete. And they don’t want to trim their fat profit margins.

BelleWeather often talks about the fact that the market like any system one would study in science, will find its own order and settle down to a stable state, entropy notwithstanding. I tend to share some of her thoughts ( I am drifting to the dark side I know…).  Wal-Mart has long been chided and castigated for its poor business practices in terms of worker’s rights and fair compensation and its strong-arming its suppliers and for that I give it no quarter. Though I cannot help but feel that the cost-cutting, lean-logistics and every other element to Wal-Mart is very much the Frankenstein-Monster that Dr. Masses( or Dr. Mob or whatever you want to call the populace) wanted and created.

Does the Mob suddenly not care for the progeny of its own mind and hands?

Posted in Business, Economics, Public Policy. 1 Comment »

On sacrifice

March 15, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

I discovered a gem of a blog today called Tom in the box and one of the funniest pieces of satire I have ever read.

You can read all about it here.

If any of you have been in a church youth group, particularly ones of Protestant persuasions you might be nodding your head. This is the kind of stuff that would make the DJs on KSBJ cry. Of course us Catholicos shouldn’t talk. Missionary work to us is getting our friend Ahmed hammered on green beer for St. Paddy’s Day.

Posted in Humor, Religion. No Comments »

They bought it anyway…

March 13, 2007 — Shannon Quadros

I have often commented on the state of real estate and its citizens in my days as a Xanga blogger. I’ve been in the industry for a few years now and even got my license last year. Haven’t really used it but it’s a handy thing to have.  One of the benefits of being a Realtor is that I get a monthly magazine called Houston Realtor. They’ve started a new thing in the mag called REALtor World to “share interesting stories of your life in the business. Whether funny, heartwarming or educational”.

This is an excerpt from this months column:

“ was showing a vacant house and as soon I opened the door one of the children went running through the house; and smack right into the bay window. Blood started gushing right onto the brand new white carpet. I wasn’t too concerned about the child, but since it was my listing, I was more concerned about the carpet situation.”   (Emphasis added)

!

!!

That was totally heartwarming now wasn’t it? For the rest of the story you can go here

Posted in Realtors. No Comments »
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