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July 19, 2008
Radio Free Paris, Part 1 of 2: The ICC's International Court of Arbitration
On July 11, in-house GE lawyer Mike McIlwrath interviewed Senior Case Worker Francesca Mazza at the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce’s International Court of Arbitration in his weekly radio show for CPR, The International Institute for Conflict Prevention & Resolution. Hear Part I of II. Since 1999, the ICC's Court of Arbitration has handled about 500 cases a year. It has branches in Tunisia, Panama, the UK and the United States. Learn how ICC case management works, and how to get the most out of a proceeding before the Court.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:50 PM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2008
The Tree of Good Writing
By Andō Tokutarō, circa 1846
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2008
Hubris, Muprhy's Law, and real life.
Ah how shameless–the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes, but they themselves with their own reckless ways, compound their pains beyond their proper share.
--Zeus, in Homer's The Odyssey
Muphry's Law dictates that (a) if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written; (b) if an author thanks you in a book for your editing or proofreading, there will be mistakes in the book; (c) the stronger the sentiment expressed in (a) and (b), the greater the fault; (d) any book devoted to editing or style will be internally inconsistent.
--G. M. Wallace, in A Fool in the Forest, quoting Radley Balko.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (2)
Hermann the German: The "new" American Embassy
"Alcatraz reopens in Berlin". The Embassy Germans love to hate.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
The New Yorker is different from you and me, Ernest.
Even though I'm a native of Washington, D.C., which I love, I know The Truth: New York City is the coolest place in the world. And The New Yorker magazine, now in its 64th year, is The Program you should pick up for the show, even if you do have to pay for it. An instruction manual for the Hip-eoisie, it's still funny--but only if you're haughty-cool. Or WAC?'s astral twin Scott Greenfield. See at Simple Justice his "New Yorker: Only for Really Cool People".
Caption: Obama giving either his wife or Angela Davis the Revolutionary-Drug-Brothers/Mod Squad/New Yorker Official Handshake to show their Manhattan-ness and Solidarity with The Hip Cosmos.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2008
Oil drilling ban: Do something.
AP: "Bush to lift offshore drilling ban". The White House is a bit late. Congress is flatfooted. Burning daylight here, guys. We haven't had an energy policy since Jimmy Carter. WAC? gets good gas mileage--but is considering trains, barges and extreme jogging.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Quatorze Juillet
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
China: Corruption by the Numbers.
I have been living in or doing business with corrupt countries for over thirty years and one of the things I have noticed is corruption far more often runs with men then with women...
--Dan Harris, China Law Blog
The "politically correct" speech-and-ideas ethos... It's big here in America, of all places. Apart from being no fun at all, "PC" (a) inhibits and emasculates speech, and (b) is often out of step with workday reality. Wouldn't it help us all if we chucked "PC" and just talked? Bribery, business theft, corruption and/or high-handedness is a way of doing business in some regions of the world more than it is in other regions--and there are often good historical or cultural reasons for it. Examples are Greater China, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Yikes. If you want to really understand, you'll need to stash your Western and Anglo abstracts in the closet. See Dan Harris's post "China Corruption By the Numbers", and related links at his respected and well-traveled China Law Blog. And see his "China Corruption. It's A Guy Thing?".
Posted by JD Hull at 12:59 AM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2008
How the Marquis de Sade was finally forced into politics.
And the moral of the story is never lean on the weird. Or they will chop your head off. Take my word for it, Bubba. I am an expert on these things. I have been there. --HST, 1994
Bastille Day is tomorrow, July 14, the French day of independence. According to Hunter Thompson in "Better Than Sex" (a 1994 book about U.S. politics), and some other sources, the Marquis de Sade, Parisian artist and French nobleman, played a role in this opening drama of the French Revolution. As Doctor Thompson notes, the Marquis, a serious artist, was out-front different, wild and independent; he didn't care what people thought or said about him. On occasion The Marquis would run amok on booze and laudanum to blow off steam. The mainstream French aristocracy and clergy were never happy with him. They "not only hated his art, they hated him".
By 1788, the Paris police routinely harassed him, and jailed him a few times. The Bastille itself and then an insane asylum were his homes in the days leading up to July 14. In turn, he began to hate cops--and the government. Well, by the summer of 1789, Paris, in its oppressive July heat, was about to explode anyway and, acccording to Thompson:
The mood of the city was so ugly that even the Marquis de Sade became a hero of the people. On July 14, 1789, he led a mob of crazed rabble in overrunning a battalion of doomed military police defending the infamous Bastille Prison, and they swarmed in to "free all political prisoners"....
It was the beginning of the French Revolution, and de Sade himself was said to have stabbed five or six soldiers to death as his mob stormed the prison and seized the keys to the Arsenal. The mob found only eight "political prisoners" to free, and four of those were killed by nightfall in the savage melee over looting rights for the guns and ammunition.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (3)
Minor Wisdom
Ray Ward, of Minor Wisdom and the (new) legal writer
What About Paris? is the weekend edition of WAC? It lets us get away from subjects which occupy us during the week--like Law and Business. If you're going to have a "blog", there's no reason not to have fun with it. Besides, back in the day, many generations ago, lawyers were not just semi-literate technicians and mechanics. We were a little more. Educated, informed and curious, many lawyers could tell you the difference between Coltrane, Colbert and Voltaire. So we appreciate Ray Ward, a client-centric practitioner, lawyer's lawyer, writer, thinker, blues/jazz enthusiast and Renaissance man who lives in mystic New Orleans. Ray writes Minor Wisdom, our favorite blog. That's right, our favorite. We visit him frequently for inspiration.
And, oh yes, we thank Ray for this link--even if it is about the U.S. Supreme Court:
Supreme Court Rules Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 12:00 AM | Comments (2)
"Reading is sexier in Paris"
See The Paris Blog which is running some of the series "Why Paris?" by Laura Elkin at her Maitresse:
I hereby call for a end to clichéd articles about literary Paris, all those which invoke the names of the deities (”Sartre” and “Beauvoir”) in an incantation to raise from the dead the spirit of a Paris that never existed.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:00 AM | Comments (0)