« October 21, 2006 | Main | October 23, 2006 »
October 22, 2006
Amsterdam, languages and fun facts.
On a book/film project, and as a respite from contentious IP and environmental disputes back East, I'm likely headed to Amsterdam, a favorite European city. Amsterdam is poorly understood by Americans, with our oftimes Victorian and morally pretentious view of real life. This city is about beauty, great art, great food, healthy free-thinking people, and genuine class--not just the Sex Museum, social welfare, cathouses along canals in the de Wallen or smoking hash at the Betty Boop coffeehouse. Cosmopolitan, the Dutch like other languages. In the Netherlands, the official ones are Dutch and, in the north, Frisian (which many believe is the closest thing to Old English still spoken). But about 85% of the total population has basic knowledge of modern English. German and French spoken here, too.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Doing Business In China: The Basics.
From Seattle-based Dan Harris's China Law Blog, here is "Doing Business In China: The Basics Of The Basics".
Posted by JD Hull at 06:01 PM | Comments (0)
Speaking of Candor...
Speaking of KFB, political incorrectness, wild men, anti-weenies and just saying it, from Salon, here's an interesting piece about Edward Abbey, "Where Have You Gone, Edward Abbey"? Abbey (1927-1989) was a writer, essayist, radical environmentalist and thinking person's loose cannon who lived in the desert American southwest. He made conservatives and liberals nervous, and many wanted him put to sleep. People confuse Abbey with Edward Albee, a still-living playwright, when they see his name in print. Different guy.
Let's note that back in the day, WAC? and his college girlfriend--now a lawyer but despite this is still creative and able to think, speak and write--were charter subscribers to Ms. magazine. Ms. is a real American achievement, even if you hate it. To the then 2-year old "Mizz" Abbey wrote in 1973: "Some of us menfolks here in Winkelman [Arizona] ain't too happy with this magazine of yourn". He didn't like Texas, either, writing in 1954:
...it combines the bigotry and sheer animal ignorance of the Old South with the aggressive, ruthless, bustling, dollar-crazy brutality of the Yankee East and then attempts to hide this ugliness under a facade of mock-western play clothes stolen from a way of life that was crushed by Texanism over half a century ago. The trouble with Texas: it's ugly, noisy, mean-spirited, mediocre and false.
Today, and more than ever, Salon Salon writer Philip Connors concludes, "America needs the ornery writer".
Posted by JD Hull at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)
Charon QC
Saturday is a particularly good day to visit my friend Charon QC. Here's a Brit who works harder than most of us Yanks, and has fun doing it. He's got a dang good WLB, too. WAC? has it on good authority that Charon loves the law, clients, hard work, counting his money, thinking, ideas, politics, reading, action, talking, sports, smoking, drinking and biking. Only Bill Clinton is better connected, or as dynamic and fun. Charon blogs at least once a day--but just for the bloody hell of it. Meet Mike Semple Piggot, Renaissance chap.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)