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December 31, 2011

If Groupon and its competitors can help people get health care, what's not to like?

Unbundle. Lower Prices. Offer Choices. Forget for a moment that the Net has helped dumb-down our social and political discourse to Neanderthal and hopelessly dishonest levels. Commercially, and at the very least, the Internet does the aforementioned three things quite well. Have at it, Groupon. See via MSNBC this AP piece: "Uninsured Use Groupon, Other Daily Deal Sites, for Health Care". Warning: Some of the comments to the article are revolting, even to me.

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 30, 2011

China in Ethiopia: Let the Big Dog Eat.

Century upon century, Africa has inspired. The beauty, mysteries and vibrancy of the African continent has steadily catapulted novelists and poets to their best stories and verse for over 3000 years. And the very old, enduring and populous civilization of Ethiopia, even in all of Africa's drama and cultural diversity, and with its ringside seat at the Horn of Africa to both the rest of the continent and the Middle East, has always stood out. Me? I'm shallow, if romantic. I like the people--they are the handsomest on earth--and to hear Amharic suddenly spoken and flow over you in the middle of breakfast at the upscale Afterwords restaurant in Dupont Circle is like hearing Flaubert stand up and recite his best two sentences in a bowling alley. China, too, is discovering the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia--and state-sponsored China business and industry likely focuses on the landlocked country's non-oil natural resources, its livestock, coffee and other agriculture, and its human capital, which includes 80 million potential consumers. See at The Guardian today "Ethiopia's Partnership with China" and think about how a planned, careful and respectful investment approach--at least ostensibly--to a weaker nation could be a win-win. Some excerpts:

Ethiopia at the end of 2011 reflects the surprising complexity of Chinese engagement in Africa, how it differs from that of the west and – possibly of more significance to the continent – how central is the role of African agency.

China is no newcomer here. In 1972, China financed the Wereta-Weldiya road across Ethiopia's Rift Valley. Between 1998 and 2004, the Chinese contributed 15% of the cost of Addis Ababa's ring road (Ethiopia paid the rest).

Ethiopia is clearly in charge in this engagement. Chinese traders and shopkeepers, who are fixtures across many African cities, are absent on Ethiopia's streets. These positions are reserved for locals, and Ethiopians enforce their rules.

And China listens. A decade ago, Chinese companies building the ring road complained they couldn't find enough local skilled workers. The Ethiopian government asked China to establish a college that would focus on construction and industrial skills. The fully-equipped Ethio-China Polytechnic College opened in late 2009, funded by Chinese aid. Chinese professors offer a two-year degree with Chinese language classes alongside engineering skills.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, August 15, 2011. China had just given $55 million for food to drought-striken areas in Ethiopia's troubled western region. (Photo: China Daily/Xinhua.)

Posted by JD Hull at 11:42 PM | Comments (0)

World-Class Talent in the Queen City: Megan Heekin Triantafillou.

Get to know the artist Megan Triantafillou now. Revel in her work. Tell people you discovered her. I am doing all three.

Posted by JD Hull at 02:08 AM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2011

Overheard on Delta Flight 1537: The State of Facebook, Twitter, Social Media and other Cyber-Society.

No one wants to be alone. So what does the Net offer non-business humans? Only this: the illusion of companionship and support without the demands and responsibilities of friendship.

--A passenger.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:55 PM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2011

Is China and China business really all over Africa? If so, just how much? Discuss.

Finally, there's a site that covers the above inquiry. See by American University's Deborah Brautigam the blog China in Africa: The Real Story. Start out with this one, "China's 'Checkbook Diplomacy' and Overseas Investment Reconsidered".

Workers at Imboulou Dam, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a power plant funded by the China National Mechanical & Equipment Corporation. Photo: Paulo Woods.

Posted by JD Hull at 04:45 PM | Comments (0)

December 24, 2011

Even at Christmas, Mother Russia Screams Like a Banshee.

More attitude, more outrage, and it's continuous and fearless. You think OWS protesters have moxie? Well, lots of them do. But consider Mom and Pop Russia over the past two weeks. Don't ignore this history being made--and what it might mean to any nation: a super-power, a comer or a tiny new unknown. Even at Christmas, there is increasing pressure on Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the Russian government from its traditionally reticent citizenry to re-do the December 4 elections. See MSNBC's 'Russia will be free'.

The protests reflect a growing public frustration with Putin, who ruled Russia as president in 2000-2008 and has remained the No. 1 leader after moving into the prime minister's seat due to a constitutional term limit. Brazen fraud in the parliamentary vote unexpectedly energized the middle class, which for years had been politically apathetic.

A protester today in Vladivostok.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2011

Queen of the Pantheon: Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (1932-2011).

Seventy years as a stand-out in the toughest profession there is. Mean, beautiful, elegant, driven, funny-catty, suffering, sensitive, compassionate and enormously and mystifyingly gifted, both Dame and Gorgeous Auntie Mame, she was the Goddess of the Greatest Generation. Forget about husbands and tabloids and gossip and Burton-era schmaltz. Remember her for talent, hard work, spirit and endurance--all in proportions we may never see again. Elizabeth Taylor is the violet-eyed Queen of the only Pantheon that matters at WAP.

February 27, 1932 - March 23, 2011.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2011

"Nihil est incertius volgo." In 2012, may bloggers everywhere Think On Their Own again. Too much "me, too" Lemming-Think in 2011.

Nothing is more unpredictable [or wimpier] than the mob.

--Cicero, Pro Murena 36

Franciabigio, "The Triumph of Cicero" (c. 1520), fresco at Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano, Florence.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2011

Beyond E-Mail, Social Media and Buying: So what happens if The Net follows you around and becomes your new bud?

If sensors are everywhere, what result? Advances in digital technology are not only more proof of what teams of inspired humans can do. They are a tribute to the human spirit itself. And our new digital world promises to grow bigger, more layered--and more encompassing. But what happens down the road to that "spirit", the seemingly eternal spark in each of us, if the Internet can now recognize our faces, pick up on our emotions, regulate the temperatures in our homes and offices, record our movements and habits, remind us to do important things and otherwise becomes a new entity with which we'll daily "speak".

Will humans need each other less and less? Or will the Net free us up to make our interactions and relationships with each other deeper, better and more satisfying? I get that my relationship with the Internet and its sensors is about to become more nuanced and richer, but what about mine with you? Whether you're a Luddite or Embracer of All Technologies, ask yourself these questions. But first read "The Internet Gets Physical", a fine snapshot of where we probably are by Steve Lohr in Sunday morning's New York Times. Excerpt:

[T]he protean Internet technologies of computing and communications are rapidly spreading beyond the lucrative consumer bailiwick. Low-cost sensors, clever software and advancing computer firepower are opening the door to new uses in energy conservation, transportation, health care and food distribution. The consumer Internet can be seen as the warm-up act for these technologies.

The concept has been around for years, sometimes called the Internet of Things or the Industrial Internet. Yet it takes time for the economics and engineering to catch up with the predictions. And that moment is upon us.

“We’re going to put the digital ‘smarts’ into everything,” said Edward D. Lazowska, a computer scientist at the University of Washington. These abundant smart devices, Dr. Lazowska added, will “interact intelligently with people and with the physical world.”

Posted by JD Hull at 12:46 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2011

Lower Manhattan's Trinity Church has a "Solidarity" Problem.

Say it isn't so, Muffie. Over three centuries ago--and just about two decades after the English finally achieved permanent control of Dutch-built Manhattan--then-local Anglo-Saxon politicians and families did things that made Trinity Church, now standing at the corner of Wall and Broadway, a major landowner in Lower Manhattan. And nowadays, Trinity (and probably just trying to be a good landlord to its tenants) has a bit of Episcopalian egg on its face: it supports the Occupy Wall Street movement, but does not want protesters doing their protest thing actually on some of its real estate holdings. Surely, this is making some of the first English settlers of New York City spin in their churchyard graves. See at The Gothamist "Occupy Wall Street May Occupy Trinity Church's Property Today."

Protesters outside Trinity Church last month (Gothamist/Mattron).

Posted by JD Hull at 02:24 PM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2011

Christopher Eric Hitchens (1949-2011): Warrior Essayist.

He will be admired most because he was authentic and incapable of following anyone's script: of the Right, the Left, America, England, the entire West. As hundreds of news items from all over the world note this morning, Christopher Hitchens, the frighteningly-gifted author, essayist, pundit and student of the world, died yesterday at the age of 62 after an eighteen month battle with cancer. Adored, reviled and never boring, Hitchens was a Brit who moved in 1982 to America, where he quickly set up shop as a fiery amalgam of H.L. Mencken and George Orwell (with a dash of Hunter Thompson). Reams of copy and second-guesses will be written on his books, essays, television appearances, works, travels, career, life and personality. His two most famous books, God is Not Great (2007) and his biography Hitch-22 (2010), only scratch the surface of what he achieved. My two favorite pieces on his death are in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Washington Post. But I think the word "contrarian" (a word Hitchens even used to decribe himself) in both articles is a misnomer. Oh, Hitchens was much more than that.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:25 PM | Comments (2)

December 15, 2011

Russia: More Moxie in The Motherland.

Is the era of the cowed comrade about to end? With a population of over 140 million people, a land mass of 6.5 million square miles and enviable natural resources (including oil and gas) that are important to Europe, the Russian Federation, as a nation-state alone, will continue to occupy a huge role in global economics and politics over the next few decades. But recently (see our recent posts here and here) we've seen what might be the first stirrings in a new consciousness--a sea change in the way Russians feel, think and act--in the ideologically mercurial, troubled Mother Russia of the last 100 years. See by Charles Clover in the Financial Times "Russia’s Middle Class Finds Its Feet".

Mother Russia calls for More Attitude.

Posted by JD Hull at 10:35 PM | Comments (1)

December 13, 2011

Property Rights Dissipate in Keystone State: "Police Dude, where's my marijuana?"

A modest proposal. This all happened in Beaver County, Pennsylvania where I know from personal experience it's considered overly-formal and pretentious for lawyers to wear socks in open court. As reported by AP, and via Fox News, no less, see "Pennsylvania man asks officer: Can I have my weed back?"

Fair but unbalanced.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2011

Fear and Loathing on Russian Facebook.

More Big Ones from Mom-and-Pop Russia. Here's a headline you don't see every day. See at MSNBC "Angry Facebook Backlash After Medvedev Announces Russia Election Inquiry". Dang. Excerpt:

He [President Medvedev] announced the inquiry on Facebook--the same site used by organizers of mass rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg on Saturday--that called for the elections to be annulled and rerun. The protests were Russia's biggest opposition rallies since Putin rose to power in 1999.

Within hours, Medvedev received one insult after another on the social media website from people who made clear his response to the demonstrations was insufficient.

NBC correspondent Stephanie Gosk said the majority of the 12,000 comments were negative – a remarkable act of open defiance in a country where political activists are jailed and hostility to the government would have been unusual only a few weeks ago.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Is law developing to make Gaming the Net actionable?

The End of Cyber Creeps? No one wants to chill speech. And last week's opinion and jury verdict in Obsidian Finance v. Cox (D.C. Or.) may not be black-letter law perfect. (Despite Cox's post-trial comments that she can't pay the $2.5 million verdict against her, watch for some serious interest in and help with her appeal.) But something new if tricky might grow out of Obsidian and other extreme cases like it. Bloggers of the on-line hater and notes-from-the-underground persuasion may no longer have the luxury of what I call "Cartooning": (1) purposely attempting to mar reputations of non-public plaintiffs through malicious, bad and incomplete "reporting" in non-hot news scenarios and (2) manipulating the Net to make sure tabla rasa humans or those with no axe to grind see it. Do see in Forbes by Kashmir Hill (she handles a very difficult bit of news and its issues deftly) "Why An Investment Firm Was Awarded $2.5 Million After Being Defamed By Blogger". Lots of relief in these cases could come from the common law of nearly all (about 45) of the American states. Now, let's see. What were those four categories of defamation per se again? And the elements of false light privacy? And...

Posted by JD Hull at 08:36 PM | Comments (3)

December 11, 2011

In Russia: "I want new elections, not a revolution."

Decades-long totalitarianism casts a long and powerful shadow. It keeps good people wimpy but "smart" long after free elections and other democratic engines are triumphantly installed. Visit Moscow, Prague, Budapest--and even towns in eastern Germany. Caution and endearing caginess: it's all there in gestures, speech, eye movements and personalities of entire families. For too long they were told what to think, where to work, what to say, what to write. But Russia, the Big Dog in all this, might be changing. In a country and culture where since 1917 no one likes to diss The Man--ever, for any reason, and even after the institution of elections in June 1991--Russian citizens might be finding a voice. See, e.g., MSNBC's "Russians Stage Mass Protests Against Putin" on the perceived election-rigging in Russia earlier this month and general revolt against Vladimir Putin and his younger sidekick Dmitry Medvedev. What these protesters are doing takes big ones--and Spirit. Russian Spring is something we all should watch.

Big Ones.

Posted by JD Hull at 02:30 PM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2011

Query: Has David Cameron won a short-term political boost at the cost of isolating and hurting the UK long-term?

Did the Prime Minster demand an opt-out for London and the UK from EU financial services regulation? If he did, did he go too far? See at BBC News "Cameron Blocks EU-Wide Deal to Tackle Euro Crisis" and at Bloomberg "Euro Weakens After ECB, EU Leaders Fail to Boost Confidence".

Eton's Pride: Cameron last night protecting UK sovereignty.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:34 AM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2011

Today: Just Santa Monica.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2011

DC-based global IP voice Timothy Trainer: See video of his talk to US foreign service officers on importance of strong IP rights regimes, given at the USPTO.

Don't miss this video of a compelling and wonderfully practical talk our friend and veteran DC intellectual property rights lawyer Tim Trainer gave in the summer of 2010 to US State Department foreign service officers at the USPTO on the effect of strong IPR regimes on economic growth and development. The video was finally made available last month. Trainer spends much of his time all over the globe raising awareness of intellectual property rights--and educating a broad spectrum of people on the importance of strong IPR regimes to business, and to specific economies, nations and governments. For two decades, he's worked for both government and private industry in everything from developing early IP infrastructure to anti-counterfeiting and enforcement strategies in Asia, Egypt, Brunei, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Philippines, and Vietnam, to name a few. Trainer also directs the well-regarded Washington-based Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center, or GIPSC, and is President of Galaxy Systems, which develops innovative ways of providing intellectual property training and education. Galaxy has already developed an engaging and interactive online game in which the player--using IP and an allotment of money--builds a business, and develops a local economy.

Trainer with university students after June 2011 talk in Tbilisi, Georgia, its capital and largest city.

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2011

Mercer: "Oh, Vienna!"

And who could disagree? Mega-consultant Mercer has ranked Vienna as the best place on earth to live. See this recent piece in The Economist, which begins:

Vienna is the best place in the world to live, according to the latest annual survey of living standards compiled by Mercer, a consultancy. With three German and three Swiss cities, the top ten has a very European feel, something Mercer's Slagin Parakatil attributes to the fact that European cities "enjoy advanced and modern city infrastructures combined with high-class medical, recreational and leisure facilities."

Gustave Mahler at the Vienna Court Opera, 1903.

Posted by JD Hull at 01:16 PM | Comments (0)

Finally, Europe may embrace audit reform: Sarbanes-Oxley Lite.

Nearly 10 years after enactment of the American Sarbanes-Oxley Act (also known as "the Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act"), and just as many years of hearing Europe-based lawyers and their clients complain about it, Europe may get its own legislation: a kind of Sarbanes-Oxley Lite, proposed last week by the European Commission. If passed, the legislation would require more stringent but not draconian oversight of the auditing profession in the European Union. See for details this one at Broc Romanek's TheCorporateCounsel.net

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 10:31 AM | Comments (4)

December 05, 2011

Part 2 of McIlwrath CPR Interview with William Ury.

So, again, what is a BANTA? The continuation of the November 23 William Ury interview is at IDN Podcast #102. In episode two, GE's Mike McIlwrath and Ury discuss the art of negotiating with difficult people. Now in its fifth year, the CPR-IDN podcast series on international dispute negotiation is always excellent. McIlwrath's to-the-point introduction, and some feisty jazz violin, open every interview.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

"A First-Rate Madness": A Book that Expands Your Take on Leadership Styles.

If you think your boss might be a whack job some days, bet on him anyway. While its writing and organization could have been even better, and the research perhaps deeper, the ideas in A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Ghaemi, who runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center, will likely change the way you think about leadership. At the same time it gives you an empathy for both internal personal pain and exterior quirk in decision-makers you almost certainly never had. It's also a brave book. "Mental Illness" is given a broad definition here but most of Ghaemi's subjects--he includes among others Churchill, Lincoln, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Kennedy, General W.T. Sherman and Ted Turner--are explained according to biologically-inherited and/or drug or chemical-induced traits (usually a combination of the two) that will stand the genre of biographical "psycho-history" on its already tormented head. The thesis: In times of crisis, leaders with abnormal or even "bad" mental health are much more effective than sane ones. And, of course, they are a lot more interesting to consider.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

GE's Mike McIlwrath interviews Negotiation-Dispute Resolution Pioneer and "Getting to Yes" Author William Ury.

You can hear the first episode here, taped on November 23. McIlwrath interviews "Getting to Yes" author William Ury on credibility and trust in negotiations, reducing tensions at the bargaining table and even Ury's role, after a request by the Carter Center, to mediate a standoff a few years ago in Venezuela between President Hugo Chavez’s supporters and the opposition. This podcast is #101 in the well-regarded International Dispute Negotiation (IDN) series of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution (CPR). The second episode (#102), on negotiating with "difficult people", airs later today. McIlwrath is Senior Counsel, Litigation for GE Infrastructure-Oil & Gas, and works out of Florence, Italy.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:20 AM | Comments (0)

December 03, 2011

Expat Mixology in Marrakech: Name Your Poison.

American expat Maryam at My Marrakesh runs a boutique hotel in a Marrakech olive grove. There's something for the stimulant lover of every addiction in this series of her photos: gin, triple sec and Peacock prohibition tea. But we like most the Mixer in Red.

Posted by JD Hull at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)

December 02, 2011

The Mitt Romney Syndrome: "But the dogs don't like him..." Bring back Dick Gephardt for Dems?

Mitt Romney can't "connect" with y'all. See at today's MSNBC "Voters remain cool toward Romney".

You see The Mitt Syndrome a lot in U.S. presidential politics. The guy is exemplary in nearly all respects: mega-smart and mega-talented (he is--don't kid yourself), well-spoken, energetic, good-looking, celebrated for past successes, did well at the best schools on earth, has family values up the wazoo and a squeaky clean past. He has, in short, a golden résumé. He's a little too perfect maybe?

And for whatever reason, Romney is hopelessly incapable of making a connection with other humans (i.e., voters) outside his admiring circle of family, friends and allies. He's detached and remote--qualities which even John F. Kennedy often displayed but somehow made work for him.

In that respect, Romney reminds you a little bit of Al Gore--but much more of Dick Gephardt, the respected Democratic former Missouri Representative, House Majority Leader, lawyer's lawyer and Eagle Scout. Gephardt impressed me both on paper and visually from the first time I saw him on a close-circuit C-SPAN system in the Longworth Building in 1980. But he couldn't and didn't turn anyone on, either. Of Gephardt, when he last ran for president in 2004, a Midwestern political consultant finally said:

Gephardt is like the Perfect Dog Food. Made with the best ingredients. Tested. Meets all quality standards. Attracts the right investors. Perfectly packaged. And the dog food industry? Competitors are envious and in awe of the product.

Problem is the dogs--the dogs just don't like it.

Dick Gephardt, now just 70, in 1988.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)

Congratulations to the ABA Journal Blawg 100 Winners.

ABA's Fifth Annual Legal Weblog Fest and Talent Hunt. The list for 2011 ABA Journal Blawg 100 is out and right here. And it's the strongest list ever--a good sign from an organization that has worked hard to make its activities meaningful to more than a few old white guys in bow ties with Nantucket getaways and mid-Atlantic accents. I looked at the list this morning and, in my view, it's the best collection of legal resources out there--traditional or digital--and certainly the best line-up of sites since the Blawg 100 started in 2007. The best of the 100? Look generally to those which are by active practitioners. One blog that comes to mind which should have made it but did not: Eric Mayer's Unwashed Advocate. Favorite newbie: Associate's Mind by Keith Lee. Cy Young Awards for Continued Excellence: China Law Blog by Dan Harris, and Simple Justice, by Scott Greenfield. And there are lots of repeat appearances by the mainstays that have served to keep the blogosphere vibrant, practical, fair, instructive, literate, well-rounded and even funny. Kudos to these folks.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2011

Breaking law firm news: "It's about you--not about us..."

On Sunday night I was at once encouraged and amused to see at Reagan National Airport (DCA) a corridor advertisement placed by an American law firm with a bold, triumphant and "innovative" reminder. Apparently addressed to Prospective Clients Everywhere, the ad proclaimed, in effect, that Clients, Not Lawyers, are the Main Event, i.e., "hey, we're your friends--we're not like the others". Well, bravo to that firm. But should it take centuries for the legal profession to catch on that lawyering is never about lawyers? Why a reminder about the most basic fact of the profession? Our Roman friend Cicero argued his first case on behalf of a charge or "client" over 2,000 years ago. Are we ever going to get it?

"Young Cicero Reading", Vincenzo Foppa (1464).

Posted by JD Hull at 03:38 PM | Comments (0)

Scott Greenfield: On Bullying, Cyber-Bullying and Real Life.

Life is Tough, Growing Up Hard, Legislation Expensive. At his enduring, highly-regarded, always-excellent and intermittently sensitive Simple Justice, see this one by Scott Greenfield yesterday: "When Bullying is Bull". Excerpts:

It's impossible to have any sort of reasoned discussion about bullying in the absence of a viable definition, and yet the conduct that is being swept into the mix continues to devolve. The overarching criterion seems to be conduct that is "hurtful," which leaves it to the person whose feelings are affected to determine that someone else is a bully. This can't be.

The issue isn't the mechanisms by which bullying occurs, even though the feds have an arguable basis for regulating these platforms or arenas. The issue is defining the conduct that comes within the parameters of regulation. The issue is that the teacups, the overly sensitive who are finally empowered to assert their feelings on the conduct of others, cannot be allowed to define wrongs based on their personal delicate sensibilities.

While most of us focus on this issue for only the few moments a high profile case arises, those who are behind the anti-bullying legislative thrust to vindicate their hurt feelings or further their scholarly niche are still busy at work pushing laws that would make most, if not all, of us and our children criminals. At some point, everyone hurts another person's feelings, whether deliberately or by benign neglect.

New York City's Greenfield in early 2010, just weeks before start of sensitivity training regimen.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)