Miscellaneous

I knew that Dorothy Parker had

Posted on December 10, 2008
I knew that Dorothy Parker had left her estate to the Rev. Martin Luther King, and that Lillian Hellman, her literary executor, had been a poor guardian of her memory, but I hadn't known the details. In her Paris Review interview she talked about F. Scott Fitgerald: "Terrible about Scott...

So, who's the Lieutenant Governor

Posted on December 09, 2008
So, who's the Lieutenant Governor of Illinois, and who do you reckon he's going to pick? Blagojevich makes Spitzer look pretty good, and Patterson looks better by the minute.

I've mentioned If Charlie Parker

Posted on December 05, 2008
I've mentioned If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger, There'd Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats previously; every now and then it's fun to dip in and think about what it was like back when men wore hats. The last time I was there I noticed that they have a gallery called "American Mouthpieces", which is where I found this image...

Although Brian Higgins' name is

Posted on December 04, 2008
Although Brian Higgins' name is frequently floated as a prospective pick to fill HRC's Senate seat, I don't see it. Higgins is a rising star in the House, and is apparently after a seat on the Ways and Means Committee. With a Representative on Ways and Means, and Louise Slaughter chairing Rules Western New York would have a pretty potent delegation-- and one that would probably be more useful to the region than having a junior Senator.

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The 10 things Bush should regret

Posted on December 03, 2008
The 10 things Bush should regret most. Why stop at ten? Is there a single thing that he did right? It doesn't have to be a big thing-- maybe he went a whole day remembering to always say "please" and "thank you". Maybe he made his bed for a whole week.

Somewhere I got the notion that

Posted on December 02, 2008
Somewhere I got the notion that the Judicial Nominating Committee's list for the spot being vacated by Chief Judge Judith Kaye had already been announced. I was wrong--it came out yesterday. George Carpinello, Evan Davis, Steven Fisher, Theodore Jones Jr...

To David Byrne at UB's Center for

Posted on November 29, 2008
To David Byrne at UB's Center for the Arts last night. It's interesting to think about where Byrne has been, and what he has become, because in a funny way it's a journey pretty much everyone in the hall has been on too. Back in 1977 he was gawky and peculiar, and we identified with that, because we were too...

  CLA joined the longstanding

Posted on November 27, 2008
  CLA joined the longstanding tradition EGA and I have shared and participated in her first Turkey Trot. (It's the oldest continually run road race in North America, you know-- and CLA's first road race ever.) Over 10,000 starters this year-- pretty amazing.

Here's an amusing Court of Appeals

Posted on November 26, 2008
Here's an amusing Court of Appeals decision that says that service in a foreign country need only comply with CPLR 313 and not that country?s requirements-- unless a treaty is implicated. Why wasn't the Hague Convention implicated here? Because Brazil is not a signatory to the Hague Convention...

The other highlight of the weekend

Posted on November 25, 2008
The other highlight of the weekend just past was that we went to the Burchfield-Penny opening. The organization really deserves a great deal of credit-- from a small gallery in converted classroom space it has now become a major museum. I feel somewhat proprietary about the place because they gave us the run of it to do a fashion shoot for Buffalo Spree, but that was before they moved the art in...

Captain X lent me Robert Greenfield's

Posted on November 24, 2008
Captain X lent me Robert Greenfield's "Exile on Main Street: A Season in Hell With the Rolling Stones", a good supplement to Robert Janovitz' 33 1/3 volume on the same subject. Greenfield is more gossipy-- who slept with who, and who the Euro-trash hangers-on were; Janovitz approaches the side as a text, and breaks down the songs' meanings...

To the Dave Liebman Quartet last

Posted on November 23, 2008
To the Dave Liebman Quartet last night at Bruce Eaton's Hunt Real Estate Art of Jazz program at the Albright-Knox. I have posited that many jazz performances can be described to someone who wasn't there by referencing a specific period in Miles Davis' career; a corollary proposition may be that playing with Miles is something like having been on the Harvard Law Review...

To a lecture and wine tasting last

Posted on November 19, 2008
To a lecture and wine tasting last night, put on by Alliance Française de Buffalo. A. has decided to take French language lessons, and learned about this event, which would be, she reckoned, amusing, or possibly diverting. We entered a lecture hall at Buff State and took our places...

John Edwards is not useless, and

Posted on November 18, 2008
John Edwards is not useless, and I believe he is well-intentioned. He's not helping, though, and someone should tell him that. When Edwards was a trial lawyer he worked to secure justice for people who had been injured through the carelessness of others...

Most media descriptions of New

Posted on November 16, 2008
Most media descriptions of New York judicial selection refer to our process as a hybred, because some of our judges are elected and some are appointed. This is true enough, as fear as it goes, but it is not a very accurate description of how the process really works...

HRC as Secretary of State? A couple

Posted on November 15, 2008
HRC as Secretary of State? A couple of thoughts. First, I'd be a bit surprised if it was a job she was really interested in. She has a sweet deal in the Senate now, and an office in Foggy Bottom wouldn't appreciably improve her visibility. If she is still interested in running for President she has to be thinking that it has been a long time since someone got there by serving in the Cabinet...

You wanna know from chutzpah? Harold

Posted on November 13, 2008
You wanna know from chutzpah? Harold Ickes says the results of the election last week are a "partial vindication" of Howard Dean. Careful followers of the past season may recall Mr. Ikes as the guy who was working for the campaign that thought the Democratic caucuses and primaries were winner-take-all (even though he helped write the rules) and counseled Hillary Clinton accordingly...

I'm not sure what I was reading--

Posted on November 11, 2008
I'm not sure what I was reading-- The Atlantic, maybe?-- but some months back I came upon an appreciation of G.K. Chesterton, and I realized that I'd read little, if anything at all, of a writer that sounded interesting. I'm easily provoked when I encounter that kind of gap, and the author of the essay knew exactly how to get to me-- Chesterton, he wrote, was probably best known for "The Man Who Was Thursday", but there were other works that should also be read...

Excellent essay (from the Wall

Posted on November 10, 2008
Excellent essay (from the Wall Street Journal, of all places) about how the American Conservative movement destroyed itself by becoming anti-intellectual."Most are well-educated and many have attended Ivy League universities; in fact, one of the masterminds of the Palin nomination was once a Harvard professor...

Wild rice waffles with smoked salmon.

Posted on November 10, 2008
Wild rice waffles with smoked salmon. That sounds mighty good.

I love maps. I have always been

Posted on November 08, 2008
I love maps. I have always been the sort of person who could spend hours gazing at an atlas. On the left is the an electoral map from the 1968 Presidential Election. Nixon states are blue, Humphrey states are red, and Wallace states are green. What's wrong with you, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana?

I was thinking about David Crosby

Posted on November 06, 2008
I was thinking about David Crosby the other day. Is there, could there be a bigger horse's ass, out of all the notable musicians that came to prominence in the 60's? I suppose Stephen Stills might give him a run for the money, but Crosby was pretty remarkable, particularly when you consider that his overall creative output was so thin...

We are extremely fortunate. We

Posted on November 05, 2008
We are extremely fortunate. We are getting a guy who is maybe the smartest person to run for President ever, but is not arrogant about it. Obama is serious about consensus building, but he's also serious about getting the job done. He is deft as a surgeon when it comes to the knife-fighting skills, and my hunch is that he is going to use the ground game that his community organizer background helped him build to help motivate Congress...

A bit slow off the mark today,

Posted on November 04, 2008
A bit slow off the mark today, the line was out the door, 15 deep at our polling place at 7:43. At 8:04 we were 140 and 141.

Here are my Upset Specials: Obama

Posted on November 03, 2008
Here are my Upset Specials: Obama takes the Kerry states plus Virgina, North Carolina Indiana, New Mexico, Colorodo, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, and Georgia. The last is my big longshot-- I just have a hunch.

The Buffalo News' candidate endorsements

Posted on November 02, 2008
The Buffalo News' candidate endorsements for judicial races illustrate one of the many reason that judicial elections are a poor method of selecting judges. Tracy Bannister and Jeffrey Voelklest are running for the one contested seat this year. There is no way that any voter, even the best informed voter, could have any insight into what sort of judges either would be, unless you happen to be a lawyer who has dealt with them...

Here's a happy thought: after this

Posted on November 01, 2008
Here's a happy thought: after this election we should be pretty much done with the Vietnam War. Who went, who didn't go, what they did or didn't do-- that generation will be mostly aged out of national politics. I predict that the next cycle will be all about Punk Rock vs...

George Will says, "Tuesday's probable

Posted on October 30, 2008
George Will says, "Tuesday's probable repudiation of the Republican Party will punish characteristics displayed in the campaign's closing days." This is because he is a moron. To be sure, the McCain people have run a catastrophically poor campaign, but the repudiation isn't going to be over tactics, it will be because the policies of the Republican Party have been established as completely wrong, and because the Republican party has demonstrated that it is not competent to govern...

People ask me, when people read

Posted on October 29, 2008
People ask me, when people read Outside Counsel what were they actually looking for? (Actually Dave asked me. Once. And it was years ago.) Sometimes what they are looking for is me-- I have lately been back in communication with a friend from college days, a nice surprise, who found me by way of this toy...

EGA. Indianapolis. 13.1

Posted on October 29, 2008
EGA. Indianapolis. 13.1

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