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January 29, 2010
Jerome David Salinger (1919-2010)
Salinger changed writing. He died Wednesday. There are hundreds of articles out today but see The Boston Globe.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
January 26, 2010
Patrick Lamb: Sane writing serves clients.
Here's another good piece on writing for lawyers. Visit our friend Chicago trial lawyer Patrick Lamb at his enduring and pioneering In Search of Perfect Client Service. Read "Writing Plainly Is Good Client Service". Come to think of it, Pat Lamb and his colleagues have a lot of good client-centered ideas.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
Angry Writing.
"Being right", a writer-lawyer here said years ago, is "very expensive". John Day at Day on Torts picked up on this gem by Max Kennerly at his Litigation and Trial: "Always Draft Angry Briefs. Never File Them". We read it twice.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)
January 24, 2010
Muse
Dina Vierny (1919-2009) was Aristide Maillol's model and real life muse. She died January 20, 2009.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2010
Sarah Kate Silverman doesn't like PC, either.
Sarah Silverman is saucy and attractive, too. If you don't think that's very important, you're wrong--but you can write us an angry letter, not invite us to parties, or tip off Nina Totenberg and NPR.
The Future is Not for Weenies. We have this Vision of It:
When politically-correct culture, and other goofy forced-conformity social agendas wane and disappear, you will be able to say what you want. (Okay, anything that puts kids at risk--and about Mothers--will not be fair play.) You will use words like "secretary", "stewardess"--and even "stew", if you've had a few drinks on the plane.
If you're a lawyer, you will start using the term "Chinese wall" again. You will be able to swear, and loudly, in the workplace, and start war stories with: "You know, I had this case in the Southern District, back in 1987, when men were men."
After the Revolution, you will be able to flirt, and be playful and even a tad eccentric, at work.
If someone you work with is lazy, you will be able to say things like, whoa, that dude Josh "is lazy" rather than have to say it's so awesome that Josh is "low profile/independent/a team member requiring minimal face time/empowered by his flexible hour arrangement/a pioneer in work-life balance".
The expression "Not Work-Oriented" will be okay, too.
Using "not work-oriented" rather than "lazy" is also a proven attention-getter. Granted, it's too indirect. It's soft. Sounds a bit PC. But think of it as a transitional term you can employ until people start saying what they mean.
For example, we have used "not work-oriented" frequently in recent years in telephone conversations with people, unknown to us, who check references, of former employees, who we know too well. Saying that your ex-employee Kendall, who had top grades at Dartmouth and Duke Law, and had interviewed well, is "not work-oriented" is easier, faster and frankly more fun than struggling through on the phone with:
Mr. Bloor, it just wasn't a 'fit'. Kendall has many gifts. But we always knew she would flourish more in an alternative work setting where, you know, team members were, uh, not required to do any work per se, or actually perform, or add value. You know what I mean.
After the Revolution, you will also be able to use your real name when you give your opinion in the ether of the Internet.
In fact, anonymity will be banned--and reserved for rape victims, Iranian and Cuban dissidents, Ned Beatty "Deliverance" casualties, and the ballot box at primary and general elections. You will be able to utter all manner of potentially rude, offensive, defamatory and even straight-up tacky things--but you will take responsibility by backing it all up with your real name.
More great news: In the New Order of Things, long after PC culture has dissipated and died, the Seas will not turn Red. No One will go to Hell. The Family Unit will not Implode. The Clintons won't Abduct Your Kids.
You get the idea. We don't like "PC culture" that much--sane First Amendment people of any political persuasion never do unless to make fun of it--and so we do cherish Sarah Silverman.
Right now, America needs shock troops. Yanks don't think much on their own anymore. So Sarah's our girl.
Besides, Sarah is saucy and attractive. If you don't think that's important, you're wrong--but you can dash off an angry letter, not invite us to parties, or report us to Nina Totenberg and NPR.
Silverman's also a fine comic, writer, actress, musician, and rebel's rebel who never met a taboo she did not like.
While at first blush Silverman's humor may seemed based on stereotypes, she's smart and ironic, not mean, and an unrelenting satirist of life and priorities in America.
Meet Lenny Bruce's adorable grandchild who has escaped from Scarsdale, New Canaan or Shaker Heights and now has a bunch of uncomfortable questions for us all. She's going to ask them, e.g., "Sell the Vatican, Feed the World".
Let's see, what else?
Her sister is a Rabbi. But Jesus is Magic? She's ethnically Jewish--but for years allegedly wore a St. Christopher medal from her boyfriend Jimmy Kimmel ("It was cute the way he gave it to me. He said if it doesn't burn a hole through my skin, it will protect me...").
She claims ancestry from Hungary, Poland, France and Slovakia. She does not drink. For you snobs, she graduated from a prep school in New Hampshire. She attended NYU. She turns 40 this year.
How about this: Can we run her for Congress in, say, California, New York, or New Hampshire, this year or 2012?
That might help move things along.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:45 AM | Comments (0)
January 18, 2010
Dude, where's my MLK Day?
UPI reports that, in Cincinnati today, "Construction work faces MLK Day protests". It's nice to see that Americans everywhere remember and honor a great man and world leader. But implying that people who want to work today cannot work on a public school construction site?
Hey, Cincinnati NAACP Chapter, we love you. We love Dr. King. We love the Queen City. But the entire U.S. in not yet a nationalized Oberlin College. Not yet, anyway. Get the net. Excerpt:
CINCINNATI, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- An NAACP official said Cincinnati Public Schools construction sites faced protests Monday because of work taking place on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Christopher Smitherman, president of the local chapter of the NAACP, said while students and school staff had off for Monday's holiday, construction workers were busy working on the day honoring the fallen civil rights leader, The Cincinnati Enquirer said.
"The public school offices are closed, the teachers are not working, the children are home from school, but, for some reason, Cincinnati Public Schools allows this work to go on on Martin Luther King Day,'' said Smitherman, whose fellow NAACP members were joined by Baptist Ministers Conference officials Monday.
School board president Eileen Cooper Reed defended the construction work on the public holiday, saying the administration allowed contractors to decide whether or not work would take place Monday.
"These are for the most part hourly employees,'' Reed said of the construction workers. "If they don't work, they don't get paid. There are a lot of people working today."
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
Greenfield: When is anonymity "all talk, no responsibility"?
"Okay, kids, get your learn on. Today we will learn about the right of all Americans to throw stones at your house and run away like thieves into the night." Do see "All Talk, No Responsibility" at Scott Greenfield's Simple Justice. It's a piece we wish we had written about a new U.S. Supreme Court case (cert. just granted) that we will follow. Doe v. Reed, No. 09-559, concerns the "right" of Washington state petitioners to be anonymous after successfully bringing a referendum to the ballot for the November 2010 general election. The referendum seeks repeal of a controversial law on domestic partnership rights. Frankly, we could care less about the law at stake here. (We haven't read it.) The item on the ballot is not the issue. Anonymity in "getting it there" is. The Supreme Court's decision is expected early this summer.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
Hassan: You can't teach attitude.
Sorry--but I'm no Stephen Covey. Most employees cannot be "saved". Burning inside 99.5% of all employees worldwide is an overwhelming ambition to Get Home, Eat Twinkies and Watch Wrestling.
What About Clients?, July 2, 2009
But some of us keep make-believing we can "inspire" attitude. We get hurt. Worse, buyers, customers, and clients get hurt.
This MSNBC video is worthwhile. The attitude "can't be taught in a course" part starts at about 2:50. A native of Pakistan, Fred Hassan was chairman and CEO of Schering-Plough from 2003 until late 2009, when in merged with Merck & Co. (Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. outside of North America). Hassan is now on Time Warner's Board.
Nearly everyone sane believes what Hassan is saying. But hardly anyone (except maybe Jack Welch) has the sand to both say and act on it. You don't need to be mega-rich and have attended HBS to tell the truth. Straight talk is not a luxury of the world's elite.
Say it out loud first: "Very few humans will amount to the dream employees my customers and my firm want and deserve."
To be sure, "nice", "intelligent", "good", "talented" and even "brilliant" is not enough. It was never enough. You need people on fire. Is that what you have? Do you feel as though you have to demand quality? (If "yes", a bad sign.) Are you hiring and keeping people who are poor to mediocre--and then "pretending" they are good or will come around? (If "yes", a bad plan.)
Unless you have it in writing from your buyers, customers and clients that retaining "so-so" employees thrills them, get a new strategy.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:57 AM | Comments (0)
January 14, 2010
More on law schools providing value some day and hopefully before we all die.
Or, "You Got Anyone On That Campus Who Can Chew Gum, Cite-Check, And Look You In The Eye At The Same Time?". We note that practical skills are being mentioned more in writings about law school education. Bravo. Show us. We're tired of wasting our money.* Last month we wrote about American law schools--and this time only a few people complained. More recently we noticed these: "Problems in the law school 'business plan'" at From Burke to Kirk and Beyond, which shares a few things in common, mostly good, with this blog, and "The changing face of the early stages of law practice" at Libertas et Memoria, which comments on the recent ABA story about a possible new premium placed on practical skills that got us so excited we forgot to fire people last Friday.
Finally, an interesting excerpt from FBTK:
Law schools will be the last to abandon speculative debt as the means of financing themselves through their willing applicants, because a very large number of applicants are smarty-pants who couldn't make it as scientists, engineers, bankers, financiers, etc. The applicant doesn't realize how speculative his investment is until he is one to four years in.
*WAC? could care less about student debt. Your problem, Teacups. Don't any of you have family money? Enrique, would you be good enough to decant the Port? Kindly leave the bottle as well.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:44 PM | Comments (2)
January 13, 2010
More Plural Life
Whether you're a Baptist, Neo-Platonist, property law professor, or average philanderer struggling to get by, forget about HBO's "Big Love" and learn something. Brooke Adams, a Salt Lake Tribune reporter, tells us almost daily about The Plural Life. Start with her piece yesterday on "Young’s Plan":
Sally Denton, in her book “Faith and Betrayal,” observes that Brigham Young “launched the most ambitious communal socialist society” in America’s history.
She could have been describing the community in Short Creek, now known as Hildale and Colorado City, and the United Effort Plan Trust when she writes about Brigham Young’s plan. This is how the UEP Trust, at least in its inception, was designed to function — and also sheds light on why the states’ efforts to reform and reorganize it have alienated FLDS residents. From Denton:
“Young decreed that there would be no private ownership of land, since it belonged to God. The harvest would be placed in communal storage for distribution according to individual needs.” And:
“. . . There would be no private ownership of property in what one of [Brigham] Young’s clerks described as this ‘place where the land is acknolwedged to belong to the Lord.’ and each man would be assigned two plots, one for a home and one for a farm. . . ."
Posted by JD Hull at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)
January 12, 2010
"France as a model?"
As an economy? No, not yet. But we'd love it here at WAC? if the French would get back to work. Sixty-five years is a long holiday, even in Europe. President Sarkozy, a reformer who continues to impress working Yanks, wants that to happen. He's just never been sure how to get there. But the man can sell. See at Richard Lewis's Cross-Culture this week something by Jacques Méon. Excerpts:
Indeed, the French Economy has been more resilient than many other developed countries and President Nicolas Sarkozy has been quick to state that France has been one of the countries that best resisted the crisis.
The situation is in fact not that rosy and 2010 and beyond will hold many challenges for the French Economy. The pick up from the crisis is actually quite slow and quarterly GDP growth projections for 2010 are between 0.3 and 0.4%.
France is living beyond its means and President Sarkozy has again recently insisted on getting them through. One of these reforms will be the delicate one on retirement age and pension benefits, but at a time of slow economic growth, implementing all the planned reforms will not be easy.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2010
The Plural Life.
I don't think we're in Indianapolis any more. Here's something you don't see much. And it combines a serious purpose with a sense of humor. Brooke Adams, a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune writes a blog called "The Plural Life", where she covers the polygamy beat, especially polygamy trials, her speciality. Adams, who also writes regular straight news items (e.g., the usual "Polygamous Sect Seeks to Stop Sale of Farm") for The Tribune, takes you "there", using all known social media tools to do it. She has a breezy oh-well tone about this assignment. It's compelling. Like she's covering the State Fair in Oz and, after all, someone has to do it.
Raymond Jessop Trial, November 2, 2009 (The Plural Life)
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)
January 05, 2010
Our New Male Writers: Not much to talk about in the locker room?
(BBC Television)
"Justin, honey, your editor at Knopf called. He wants you to read more Henry Miller. Roth, Mailer, Bukowski, and Cleland, too. So do I." And here is some must reading for those who must employ (or date, or already married) post-Boomer adult males, or New Age guys. See Katie Roiphe's December 31 essay in the New York Times, "The Naked and the Conflicted".
Note that the handful of younger novelists she discusses are between 38 and 50 years old, American, successful and celebrated. One Pulitzer. But what Roiphe is suggesting about the emerging U.S. male, and our new PC culture, is both instructive and eerie. Moreover, Roiphe, a respected non-fiction author, novelist and NYU prof, is writing about male peers here. She was born in 1968. Three excerpts:
Our new batch of young or youngish male novelists are not dreaming up Portnoys or Rabbits. The current sexual style is more childlike; innocence is more fashionable than virility, the cuddle preferable to sex.
The younger writers are so self-conscious, so steeped in a certain kind of liberal education, that their characters can’t condone even their own sexual impulses; they are, in short, too cool for sex. Even the mildest display of male aggression is a sign of being overly hopeful, overly earnest or politically untoward.
Passivity, a paralyzed sweetness, a deep ambivalence about sexual appetite, are somehow taken as signs of a complex and admirable inner life.
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Remedial virility lessons? If it comes to that, Roth, now 76, might lend a teaching hand.
Posted by JD Hull at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)