Miscellaneous

Good interview/profile of Linda

Posted on March 11, 2009
Good interview/profile of Linda Barry. It is interesting to think about people who are uniquely American characters, and Barry is certainly one. In that awkward time leading up to the 21st century we had a number of them, and I connected to quite a few through the Village Voice, which is where I came to know Barry's work...

I like the alternative Shamrock

Posted on March 08, 2009
I like the alternative Shamrock course. It is hillier, sort of, but the climbs are shorter, and it took us through parts of the Ward that I'd never seen, past bars I'd never heard of. (Tuni's Tavern looked good.) They should consider alternating this course with the "classic" course-- it would be interesting to have a race with that sort of variety...

Scott Lemieux is good on why the

Posted on March 06, 2009
Scott Lemieux is good on why the Yoo memos are so troubling: bottom line, we're lucky the worst fantasies we had about Bush didn't come true, because he was being counseled that he could do anything he wanted. "Among other things, these memos asserted that the "war on terror" might trump first and fourth amendment rights, that the Posse Comitatus Act would not prevent the military from being used for law-enforcement purposes if terrorism was involved, that statutory restrictions on warrantless surveillance could be ignored and that Congress could not in any way regulate the detention or interrogation of terrorist suspects...

Posted on March 05, 2009

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This coming fall term I'm going

Posted on February 25, 2009
This coming fall term I'm going to be teaching a seminar at UB called "Lawyers in Movies". The idea is to "explore the cultural attitudes towards law and lawyers by discussing the way the profession has been portrayed in movies". I have some movies in mind, but I'd also like some suggestions...

When a vacancy occurs in New York

Posted on February 24, 2009
When a vacancy occurs in New York State Supreme Court a merit selection process is used to fill the spot. A judicial screening panel all applicants, then makes a recommendation to the governor. The committee is composed of five appointments made by the governor, two from the Legislature, two from the state's chief judge, one from the New York State Bar Association, one from the presiding justice of the Department of the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court where the vacancy occurred and two from the attorney general...

One more for the Perils of an Elected

Posted on February 20, 2009
One more for the Perils of an Elected Judiciary file. According to the Buffalo News "Joseph G. Makowski is expected to resign his seat as a State Supreme Court justice?possibly in the next few days? amid a state judicial investigation and a potential grand jury probe of written claims he made trying to clear a friend in a drunken-driving case"...

Serious comic book fans will tell

Posted on February 18, 2009
Serious comic book fans will tell you that what makes the form great is that it is all angst-y, and that as a storytelling medium comics are cinematic, and Marvel was better than DC because Spiderman was such a realistic teenager. I say, sure, okay, but beat the Space Canine Patrol Agency! You can't, can you! What possibly could? I had this comic, and I morn its loss even today...

The revelation that A-Rod was using

Posted on February 15, 2009
The revelation that A-Rod was using steroids back in in '03, and the subsequent hubbub has been percolating in my mind for a few days. What is there to say about it? I liked the crack that some sports radio character made: "If he was going to take steroids, why didn't he take the good kind that get you hits after the seventh inning?" That gets close to the problem, but not close enough-- it's a snarky way of saying that Rodriguez has never seemed clutch, but it ducks the statistical reality-- by the numbers he's already one of the all-time greats...

The plane crash is certainly horrible.

Posted on February 13, 2009
The plane crash is certainly horrible. In a city the size of Buffalo there's usually only about three degrees of separation from an event like this, which means that just about everyone will have either a personal connection to one of the 50 people that died, or know someone who does...

Governor Paterson was pretty unhappy

Posted on February 11, 2009
Governor Paterson was pretty unhappy with the process that brought him Jonathan Lippman as his nominee for Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, and Wayne Barrett is fuming. It is a little troubling that Judge Lippman has only ever worked in the court system-- some time actually representing clients is a nice qualtity in any judge...

We saw Blossom Dearie play a couple

Posted on February 10, 2009
We saw Blossom Dearie play a couple of times with my parents when we were living in New York (I don't think it was at Michael's Pub, but it might have been). We saw her again when she came to Artpark in the Church (she had a cold that night). She was one of those performers that are kind of a test...

I've had a venison tenderloin in

Posted on February 08, 2009
I've had a venison tenderloin in the freezer for a bit. I love game, but my politics make it impossible to go get my own-- until I can hunt deer with a brick we are forced to depend upon the generosity of friends. The gift of the tenderloin-- a prize cut-- was pretty special, and I wanted to use it in something good...

When Obama tapped Tom Daschle for

Posted on February 06, 2009
When Obama tapped Tom Daschle for Health and Human Services I was disapointed. The pick made sense-- obviously Daschle was being called upon to help move the levers. Obama hasn't logged the kind of Washington time necessary to aquire the backroom arm twisting skills on big stuff like healthcare reform, and he took a lesson from the Clinton crash-and-burn and turned to someone who knew the ropes...

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent

Posted on February 05, 2009
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery today for what is being described as "early-stage pancreatic cancer". This is her second bout with cancer-- She was treated for colon cancer ten years ago. She is 75, and about as tough as can be. From ana actuarial standpoint I think it has been pretty widely assumed that her seat was likely to be one that Obama would have to fill.

This recipe for Cajun Sausage Bread

Posted on February 03, 2009
This recipe for Cajun Sausage Bread has a sort of church cookbook style that I like, basically because it uses those bake-and-serve biscuits. The filling is the real deal, aromatic and spicy, and I suppose you could make the dumpling dough from scratch, but why go to that effort? I found the recipe itself to be written in a somewhat confusing way-- what you want to do is set up your mis, with a chopped onion, chopped green pepper, chopped jalapeno, and chopped celery...

The experience of spectator sports

Posted on February 02, 2009
The experience of spectator sports is a varied one, I think. I like baseball so much that I'll pause in the middle of a run to watch a few at-bats of a high school game, and there are few pleasures in life greater than settling into a seat at a game with a scorecard in my lap and a beer in my hand...

To Dr. Lonnie Smith, Bruce Eaton's

Posted on February 01, 2009
To Dr. Lonnie Smith, Bruce Eaton's Super Bowl Program in the Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz program at the Albright-Knox. This is the first time we've had organ jazz in the series, which is funny when you think about it. Dr. Lonnie, who is probably the most important musician working in the form today, is from Buffalo, and the city has deep roots in that sort of chitlin' circuit sound...

I know I had occasion to appear

Posted on January 31, 2009
I know I had occasion to appear before Charles L. Brieant Jr. at some point, but I never had occasion to hear him tell about this portrait. That's Martin T. Manton, who sat for two decades on the Second Circuit in Manhattan, and who was almost appointed to the United States Supreme Court...

Governor Paterson has been getting

Posted on January 30, 2009
Governor Paterson has been getting blistered for his appointment of Kirsten Gillibrand to the Senate seat HRC left to become Secretary of State. It seems to me that he more or less had to pick a woman after he made such a point of criticizing the Commission on Judicial Nomination for failing to include a woman on the roster of candidates to replace Chief Judge Judith Kaye...

I like Neko Case, and I think it

Posted on January 29, 2009
I like Neko Case, and I think it is very cool that this for every blog that reposts this song she will make a cash donation to Best Friends Animal Society.

The wheels of the law grind slow,

Posted on January 29, 2009
The wheels of the law grind slow, but fine. It has taken a generation, but New York's No-Fault law has finally been sufficiently defined by the courts to be coherent-- and to have its intended effect. We are at a place where a "serious injury" and the criteria that define how to determine the issue can be articulated, and this, in turn, means that the overwhelming majority of automobile accident cases are no longer actionable...

I think what I like best about

Posted on January 28, 2009
I think what I like best about the idea of the Presidential vinyl collection is its time capsule quality. Accumulated between 1973 and 1979, and judging from the titles we know about, it probably looks a lot like mine.

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