What About Paris?™

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December 31, 2014

Speakers Corner, London, New Year's Eve, Any Year: Happy New Year, Ya' Bastards

Posted by JD Hull at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

Pantheon: Janus Blythe

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

William Carlos Williams: On Reinvention.

Without invention nothing is well spaced,
unless the mind change, unless
the stars are new measured, according
to their relative positions, the
line will not change, the necessity
will not matriculate: unless there is
a new mind there cannot be a new
line, the old will go on
repeating itself with recurring
deadliness.

William Carlos Williams in Paterson, Book 2 ("Sunday in the Park")

Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)

December 30, 2014

The Last Boomer: "It was the rock 'n' roll, mate".

I see them in the streets
I see them in the field
I hear them shouting under my feet
And I know it's got to be real.

Oh, Lord, deliver me
All the wrong I've done
You can deliver me, Lord
I only wanted to have some fun.

--Blind Willie Johnson

Even if he or she had been a head of state or Nobel laureate, I predict that the last thing the Last Baby Boomer says is this: "The best part? That's easy. It was the rock 'n' roll, mate". This year I am thankful for Jimmy Page. When England's best session guitarist finally chucked the Yardbirds, not as many people believed that fellow ex-Yardbird "Eric Clapton is God", and 4 guys started writing and playing about everything from femme fatales to The Rapture or something like it. Don't be fooled by the outfits or the legions of half-wit lemmings who followed them around. Led Zeppelin was the best band of musicians in rock and were otherwise, well, on to something. My bet? Centuries from now people will talk about them and listen to them more than the The Rolling Stones, Cream, The Beatles, The Who and The Doors combined.

Posted by JD Hull at 09:34 PM | Comments (0)

December 28, 2014

Can you sneak your client's church cred into federal court? Do you even want to?

My business litigation practice over the years has been chiefly in federal courts before one of our roughly 900 appointed federal judges. Trials get conducted under the straightforward federal procedural (FRCP) and evidence (FRE) rules. Only occasionally are my clients in state courts where in my experiences most jurists (1) are popularly elected, (2) openly provincial, (3) not overly-concerned with legal scholarship and (4) have their thumbs up their asses. Call me an elitist, a bomb-thrower or disrespectful but I'm fed up with judges who don't give a shit--and federal judges usually do give a shit.

Anyway, I've long thought that nearly all evidence/mention of person's religion or 'church life' has zero place in the courtroom. Interestingly, one longstanding general evidence rule in support of that idea is coming up a great deal more in the last 10 years or so. Rule 610 of the FRE is brief. "Religious Beliefs or Opinions: Evidence of a witness’s religious beliefs or opinions is not admissible to attack or support the witness’s credibility."

It's a good rule. A witness while testifying should not mention his or her faith or religion ("I'm a Baptist" or "I attend the Church of the Final Thunder) or say things like "I was talking the other day with [Pastor Joe/my Bible Study Group]" as it tends to suggest that the witness is more worthy of belief or a "good" person as a result of the connection to a religion. For purposes other than supporting or attacking credibility, a witness's religion or indicia of that religion ("I was in church when my ex-wife was blown away") can come in as evidence and regularly does. Religion, church and church life are still a big part of the lives of many.

It's interesting to think about. I learned this witness rule (i.e., FRE Rule 610) 25 years ago in law school. But it has been only in the past 10 years or so witnesses, often aided by their attorneys, seem to be trying to score brownie points with a judge or jury by sneaking their religious life into the proceedings. Why? I have no idea--except to speculate that with some populations in America religion or faith is a kind of moral merit badge people think they need to be socially accepted. That may be true, for instance, in certain parts of the American south, Appalachia and the Midwest. And, sure enough, that's where you see it the most.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, Madison, Wisconsin, the northwestern states, and several California counties, on the other hand, religion may be much less important--and even a bad thing to some jurors. There is a growing chorus of respectable people all over the world who think that every religion as embraced by some is unproductive if not a form of mental illness. America contains a few geographic areas where groups of these "progressive" anti-religion people seem to live, too.

The way to keep this information out as an indicia of character or credibility? That's easier. You will probably first hear this kind of testimony in depositions before trial. If it comes up, you can file a motion to exclude (or motion in limine) under Rule 610 before trial for an order that this kind of testimony will not come in as evidence. Failing that, you can object to the testimony as it comes in, move to strike, and ask the judge to tell the jury that they must disregard the testimony. You may want to think carefully about how you do it if you do it in front of a jury.*

*My thanks to two fine trial attorneys, Oregon's David Sugerman and New York City's Eric Turkewitz, for a few if not all of the better ideas in this post.

Possibly Labor Day Picnic, 2011, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, New Canaan, CT.

Posted by JD Hull at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2014

The real St. Nick: 4th Century Trust Fund Kid. Secret Giver. Popular Bishop. Skilled Pol. Mensch.

Happy Holidays from What About Clients/Paris. Our best wishes for you and yours--and for whatever celebrations or rites you find time for this week. A word about the real Santa, however, is in order, and we are happy to report that the real Santa is not a misty pagan or Druid hangover, as is so often the case with Christmas lore. He is based on a real and really admirable guy. The Bishop of Myra--or Santa Claus to most of the world--lived around 270-345 AD in what is now the Lycian region of Turkey. Both of Nicholas's parents died during an outbreak of the plague, leaving him a great sum of money. This Byzantine trust-fund baby entered the clergy, and became popular for his kindness, generosity, willingness to take on Rome on behalf of Myra, the town he served, and many instances of anonymous and secret gift-giving that his fortune made possible. After he died, the area around Myra became a major pilgrimage center dotted with new churches, including a church named after Nicholas, which is still popular with visitors to this region of Turkey. Anonymous giving, by the way, is the best kind. I like to believe that the life of St. Nicholas was a major inspiration for Magnificent Obsession, the acclaimed 1929 novel by Lloyd C. Douglas, which twice was made into a movie. One theme of Douglas's book is the importance of giving, and other acts of kindness, without wanting or expecting any type of private or public recognition.

Fresco of St. Nicholas in the Church of St. Nicholas in Demre, Turkey

Posted by JD Hull at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2014

John Robert Cocker (1944-2014). lls ne savent pas ce que c'est l'amour.

Everything you did had all your heart and soul, Joe. Thanks, sir. They don't know what love is.

Posted by JD Hull at 06:50 PM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2014

Lingering in the ruins of the old tent: What would this old German-American farmer say?

To us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not advancing, resisting, not cooperating with the divine expansion, this growth comes by shocks. We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in.

We are idolaters of the Old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent.

--R. E. Emerson (1803-1882), Essays, First Series, "Compensation" (1841)

Once they let you get away with running around for ten years like a king hoodlum, you tend to forget now and then that about half the people you meet live from one day to the next in a state of such fear and uncertainty that about half the time they honestly doubt their own sanity. These are not the kind of people who really need to get hung up in depressing political trips. They are not ready for it. Their boats are rocking so badly that all they want to do is get level long enough to think straight and avoid the next nightmare.

--H.S. Thompson, in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 (1972)

Middlebrook, Augusta County, VA (near Charlottesville ). Population about 250. In my tribe you can live a long life if you don't drink too much or work at the wrong jobs. This Daniel Hull (1765-1832) was my great-great-great grandfather, then a third generation German in the U.S. This is not my photo--an older Missouri-based cousin took it 6 years ago--but I finally saw his grave on December 10th on the way back to DC. There is no picture of him; photographs were, however, taken of his children and all the next generations. I know some but not enough (85 years, what wonderful stories will never be told...) about this fellow, a farmer who was the last of my line to die in Virginia, shortly after the family changed the spelling from Hohl to the more English-like Hull. His son, also a Daniel, moved to the Ozarks where every one of these John Daniel Hull creatures afterwards were born since save me. I just know I owe him and need to promise him that every generation gets better as life in America becomes easier. Are we doing that? Is that happening? Or do we armor ourselves with conformity and settle for ordinary, even though we know it's not enough? Or, as Emerson would ask, are we happy to be "idolaters of the Old." What would this old German-American farmer say?

Posted by JD Hull at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

December 20, 2014

Tintern Abbey

The River Wye at Tintern Abbey, 1805, Philip James Loutherbourg.

Posted by JD Hull at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2014

Big day Sunday for all you pagans in New York, DC, LA and Dublin.

Sunday the 21st is the winter solstice. It has big meanings in science, spirituality, religions and world history and culture. Many scholars believe that winter solstice, in effect, drove the date for celebrating Christmas. The retention of pagan forms and the practicing a newer religion like Christianity at the same time is an historical pattern. Rome is one example. And it certainly takes nothing away from either co-existing faith in matters of worship, spirituality, beliefs or mythology. A good live example of this is in the world today? Catholic Ireland. Things Druid still inform most facets of day-to-day Ireland life. Completely sane Catholics in Ireland still believe in the little people.

Tower Hill, 1957

Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

December 18, 2014

Cuba

Statement by the President on Cuba Policy Changes

Posted by JD Hull at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2014

One remarkable upside--yes, upside--of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee's torture report.

Last night North Korea blasted the United States over the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's report released last week on CIA interrogation practices--now known by most of us simply as "the Senate torture report". Last week, similar indictments and gloatings came from China and Russia almost immediately on the report's publication. These condemnations were of course predictable paybacks by three nations the U.S. has consistently attacked as abusers of human rights. The report has been an international comeuppance in the extreme and, for my money, the story of the year: world's longtime human rights cop loses much of its moral ground.

But there's a bright side. How many countries--how many developed nations that call themselves democracies--would "self-report" in real time heinous violations of its own rules on the conduct of war, its own interrogation/torture policies or indeed its own cherished human rights principles? America may be unique here. The release itself of the Senate torture report last week is something I, for one, am happy about in that sense. As egregious as its contents are, we can take certain pride in its publication to the world. Would any other nation do that?

Posted by JD Hull at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

Is Sen. Elizabeth Warren fun or what?

Not sure I would vote for her for anything. But I do like her in the conversation. She scares the smug and comfortable shitless. In fact, she reminds me of what H.L. Mencken once said about newspapers.

Posted by JD Hull at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2014

Suggestion: Read Alvin Toffler's Future Shock over the holiday to see what he got right.

Which was quite bit. Toffler's Future Shock (Random House 1970) was published nearly 45 years ago and was, in hype terms, the late 60s-early 70s equivalent of Tom Friedman's The World is Flat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2005). Like Friedman's classic, Future Shock is brave and thoughtful--but much more ambitious as a possible guide to the future. Friedman tried to show how us how globalization was changing and would continue to change everything we daily experience. Toffler, who came up with term "information overload", had the idea that too much change too fast is overwhelming and bad for us. The two bestsellers are very different and, in a way, companion works.

Posted by JD Hull at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2014

Clients don't want perfect. They want excellent. Excellent is way harder.

Clients 99.5% of the time are not paying you to be perfect. Clients don't want perfect. In the rare instances they do want perfect, they will let you know. So clients want excellent. Be excellent, not perfect. See, e.g., "Rule 10: Be Accurate, Thorough and Timely--But Not Perfect" of our world-famous and irritating but life-changing 12 Rules of Client Service.

Perfectionism: The horror, the horror.

Posted by JD Hull at 12:18 AM | Comments (0)

December 14, 2014

Pantheon: Happy Birthday, Ms. Remick.

Actress Lee Remick died of liver and kidney cancer in 1991 at the age of 55. If she were alive today, she would only be 79 and, I like to think, still working. Born this day in Quincy, Massachusetts in 1935, Remick was 5'8", with amber hair and stunning blue eyes. She studied acting and dance as a teenager and continued with drama at both Barnard College and at the Actor's Studio in New York City. Although she is best known for her roles in two iconic movies, Days of Wine and Roses and The Omen, she worked both stage and screen during her busy career, which started at the age of 18. She had grace and natural class. She lit up rooms without smiling, moving or gesturing. In 1988, near the end of her life and in her early fifties, Remick sat in the row behind me during hearings in the Rayburn Building. I was attending as an associate for a firm client. (Unannounced and not testifying, she was there as an observer.) I have no idea why I looked to the row behind me but, after I did, it was hard for me to keep my eyes off Remick, even in her obviously plain clothing, and with little makeup. I was staring. She was 25 years older. I still can't explain it.

Posted by JD Hull at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2014

113th Congress, 2nd Session: A Passion for Excellence

Attaboy, Congress. The peoples' chamber of the most elite legislative body the world has known squeaked one by to save us all. Last night the House of Representatives, at the last minute and by a narrow margin, passed a $1.1 Trillion funding bill. New York Times: House Narrowly Passes Bill to Avoid Shutdown; $1.1 Trillion in Spending.

The Last Plantation steps up.

Posted by JD Hull at 11:29 PM | Comments (0)

Pantheon: Mary Harris Jones

Put aside your party line, your ideology and anything else you use to avoid thinking on your own. School teacher, seamstress, businesswoman, community organizer, Chicago girl and Ireland-born, Mary Harris "Mother Jones" (1837-1930) had big ones. You have to admit that. What a resume, most of it from after she turned 50.

Denounced on the U.S. Senate floor as the "grandmother of all agitators."

Posted by JD Hull at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)

Prisoner of Rock 'n' Roll: Help, I'm a Rock.

How was your week, Campers?

Posted by JD Hull at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)

December 11, 2014

Dan Harris: What's your Vietnam business strategy?

Dan Harris at China Law Blog asks What’s Your Vietnam Strategy? He expands on an earlier article (May 19) he penned this year at Above The Law, intriguingly entitled China Plus One: How Vietnam’s Riots Help American Businesses. The May 19 post notes that Vietnam is becoming the number one choice for American companies looking "to diversify or expand beyond China". Read both articles. Here are two excerpts from the earlier one:

It is a safe (for Americans anyway) and beautiful country. It has great food (sorry, but that matters to me). It is a relatively inexpensive place to live well and its wages are low. Its people generally like Americans, and English is by far the leading foreign language in its schools. Vietnam (not China) is a member of ASEAN and Vietnam (not China) will be a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. All of these things are plusses for business. Its main minuses are that its electrical and transportation are relatively undeveloped and it is certainly no less corrupt than China.

But what about the rioting and the fact that the Vietnamese government has felt compelled to post 3-6 police or army personnel on virtually every street corner in both Ho Chi Minh City (where I was earlier today) and Hanoi to quell protests? Though thousands of Chinese have fled Vietnam — fearing for their lives — none of the riots nor any of the violence has been directed at any American or American company....

The Vietnamese with whom I have met on this trip and heard on the news are uniformly emphasizing that Vietnam wants American investment, and that the riots should not be viewed otherwise. Both through official and unofficial channels, the government has made clear that it values the Americans here and it badly wants their businesses to stay. The Vietnamese lawyers and businesspeople are all telling me the same thing.

The American businesspeople here are saying the riots are irrelevant to their Vietnam plans. They view the riots as having been against China and against Taiwanese factory owners whom the Vietnamese view as in league with China. Some are even saying that Vietnam’s “China problem” will better position American companies seeking to do business in Vietnam. They see the possibility of increased sales of American goods and services and Vietnamese more likely to choose employment with American companies. To a person, all are convinced that the Vietnamese government takes the rioting seriously and will make every effort to prevent any recurrence.

Image: Philip Roeland Yannan

Posted by JD Hull at 07:38 PM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2014

All Things in Excess: Hôtel Costes, Paris.

239 rue Saint-Honoré.

Posted by JD Hull at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)

Alice Roosevelt Longworth, American badass.

If you have nothing nice to say, come sit by me.

-- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (died 1980, age 96)

Posted by JD Hull at 09:36 PM | Comments (0)

December 09, 2014

Gruesome, ineffective and kept from the public, says Senate summary report on CIA interrogation program.

Well, see my post title above. This is a full Senate committee report I'll read when published, and it may be the story of the year. News services which have had a peek at it seem a bit riled and even surprised. The New York Times wrote at least 7 pieces about the 500 page summary report released today and noted that the report was the worst condemnation of the CIA since the Senator Frank Church released the "Church committee report" in 1970. Church's report led to a series of laws restricting CIA activities. For the details of the more horrific abuses set out in today's report, see 16 absolutely outrageous abuses detailed in the CIA torture report in a Vox post.

Posted by JD Hull at 03:14 PM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2014

Sensitive Litigation Moment: The Profession of Law.

The business of lawyering is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. And then there's a negative side.

--Ernie from Glen Burnie, well-known DC trial lawyer, and apparently borrowing from a famous writer of works about motorcycle gangs, U.S. presidential elections, pharmacology and deep-sea fishing in foreign waters.

Ernie celebrating a defense verdict

Posted by JD Hull at 10:58 AM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2014

Byron Galvez: Rosa

"Rosa", 1989, Byron Galvez (1941-2009)

Posted by JD Hull at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2014

Rock 'n' Roll before The Great Neutering: MC5, Kick Out The Jams,

Posted by JD Hull at 03:32 AM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2014

Dublin, Virginia

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