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July 18, 2009
Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. (1916-2009)
Yesterday's NYT: "Walter Cronkite, Voice of TV News, Dies". Cronkite was part-Midwesterner, part-Southerner, and started out in print journalism. He earned his reputation as a war correspondent in Europe, covering some of WWII's major campaigns. Recruited to CBS in 1950 by Ed Murrow, he was America's first "celebrity" anchor, and we saw him nightly from 1962 to 1981. He took what he did very seriously: broadcast journalism as religion, the fourth branch, and something to be done the right way.
A studious-looking Lefty, Cronkite likely thought of JFK as "his" president. The two men were born eight months apart. We and our parents saw him choke up on the air--even if barely--just that one time: November 22, 1963, reporting JFK's death in Dallas. Cronkite had just turned 47. But he always seemed older somehow. He had this reassuring voice: authoritative but never affected or self-important. You never got the impression when he reported one crisis after another--there was a new one every month from 1963 until 1975--that he was telling you that things would be "okay". Rather, he was telling you the truth--and that it was his mission to get it right.
He served you. He was the soundtrack of every American Boomer's youth: from Kennedy's somehow promising but wistful and aborted New Frontier, Viet Nam, more assassinations, GOP and Dem party conventions that were serious brawls or riots, the Johnson, Nixon, Ford and Jimmy Carter administrations, and up to the start of the overly-serious, and some think seriously-demented, Reagan Revolution that gave us the Newt Brigades. Nearly 20 years.
(Photo: Washington Post)
Posted by JD Hull at 02:14 AM | Comments (0)
Creation.
There is no joy except in creation. There are no living beings but those who create. All the rest are shadows, hovering over the earth, strangers to life. All the joys of life are the joys of creation: love, genius, action...
--Romain Rolland (1866-1944), Nobel Prize winner, in "Lightning Strikes Christophe".
Posted by Rob Bodine at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)
July 17, 2009
Breaking news: I will name my next three children after Jack Welch.
Query: In the United States in the year 2009, must you be Jack Welch just to tell the truth any more? And please note, everyone: it's not a Mommy, Woman, Man, or Gen-Y thing. It's about customers, quality, and not alienating the productive workers at your shop so irretrievably that they vote with their feet.
Tons of coverage--and oddly much of it negative--on this story. WAC? is so outdated, irrelevant, and old fashioned. For now see "No Such Thing as Work-Life Balance for Women, says Jack Welch" by Alpha Mummy at The Times of London.
We are indebted to Redford for the heads up on the Welch story. We've been working too hard lately to notice coverage of the WLB swan song. But this is great. I was getting tried of going to my meetings, anyway:
Hello everyone. My name is Rob, and I'm a recovering workaholic. Feels really good to be able to say that today. My life was unmanageable. My co-workers did an intervention--and they saved my life. You see, one year ago today was the end of my last work bender....
"Work-Life Balance Is A Dumb-Ass Issue" and related posts dating from 2006 can be found in the Running Firms archive at this blog.
Life ain't easy for a little girl on the playground known as "Jackwelch". But we are too inspired to change it now.
Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:59 PM | Comments (3)
July 16, 2009
The Economist: Goldman Sachs's record profits.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.
--Erasmus of Rotterdam (1468–1536)
But a win is still a win. See yesterday's article in The Economist, "Keeping Up with the Goldmans". Excerpts:
This windfall will eventually dwindle. Goldman and other survivors will benefit from the coming wave of debt issuance by federal, state and local governments. But dealer spreads are sure to shrink as markets normalize and those that have retreated return to the fray.
This is likely to be offset only partially by a pick-up in businesses tied more closely to economic growth, such as advising on mergers and acquisitions.
Wall Street will also face tighter shackles. Regulators are on the warpath against commodities speculators. A clampdown is also coming in credit derivatives; this week America’s Justice Department joined those probing that market.
Erasmus, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1523, Musée du Louvre
Posted by Rob Bodine at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
The Divine Mr. Greenfield: Policing Your Kool-Aid for You.
Because let's face it: a lot of us drink the work-life balance Kool-Aid before we even read the instructions. See Scott Greenfield's from-the-heart "'Cause You Got To Have Friends". This is the most eloquent writing we've seen this year on (1) the meaning of lawyering, (2) why clients matter most, and (3) the hard but important reality that there are simply no short-cuts in this profession. Excerpts:
There are clients, real people who suffer real consequences, as a result of the delusions perpetrated on the internet.
They come to lawyers believing them to be competent, even expert, and willing and capable of helping them, saving their lives sometimes. And the lawyer's primary focus is to get paid and be home by dinner, with the client merely the conduit for the transfer of revenue and proof of the mastery of the secret to success.
So I leave my niche in criminal law from time to time to be a voice in the wilderness, that we are not selling laundry detergent, but are lawyers, professionals, in whom people repose their trust. I've seen their children cry when their lawyers fail to fulfill their duty. The need to enjoy a happy lawyer life will never wipe away their tears.
The Divine Mr. G, without eyeglasses. Scott Greenfield worries about the the profession because you and the WLB consultants won't.
The Divine Ms. M never mailed it in, either.
Posted by Rob Bodine at 09:57 PM | Comments (1)
July 12, 2009
London: The Good Ship Rioja.
South Coast of England. Speaking of people who can still drink safely, more or less, mainly, see Charon QC's "Postcard from The Good Ship DOOMED". Excerpt:
I sit here on the bridge, a glass of Rioja in my hand. It is 9.45 am, but even though there are no icebergs on the Medway, Horatio Charon is not terribly good at sailing and if we go down I would not wish to do so without a wine glass in my hand. This is my new mantra.
The pathologist will not find anaesthetics, painkillers or enough dope inside me to kill a herd of elephants, but I would like him to write on my death certificate, should my soul be lost this day at sea.... “He died with an acceptable level of red wine inside him for a gentlemen of letters”.
An earlier famous Charon trip on the River Styx.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:32 PM | Comments (0)
London: GeekLawyer does Glastonbury.
Woodstock for Brits. Organized WAC? is up to his summer red bow ties in work--and is even behind on some non-client duties. Saturdays usually help to catch up. [If you're Gen-Y, don't try to fathom that last six-word sentence--you'll get a rash, or pull a hamstring. Pretend it's not there. Keep reading.] However, brief homage to some international incidents--even in a work crunch--is still critical. We could perhaps ignore the annual, world-famous, always-Woodstock-trumping Glastonbury Music Festival in southwest England.
However, we could never pass on reporting the attendance of it by certain of Albion's luminaries. See GeekLawyer's "Glastonbury All Done For This Year" from earlier this week. In this July 7 post, GeekLawyer, a London barrister, and author of several pamphlets on Etiquette: Summering in Aldeburgh, did seem to threaten a fuller report later--with "graphics". Last summer's video interview he did with a famous, shapely and sultry Brit solicitor, is here.
GeekLawyer Chambers: West London branch, Servants' Entrance.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:10 PM | Comments (0)
No-Name, No-Publish. What About Clients? is now a proud Wuss-Free Zone.
Effective July 1, 2009, and absent compelling reasons, this blog will no longer print any comments of anonymous bloggers and commenters.*
Nameless blogosphere participants, in our view, are rarely worth anyone's time, thought, or respect. Anonymous writers have already "discounted" themselves. You can discount them, too, without worrying you're missing anything. They are second-class citizens, at best. See our past posts on the subject here and here.
Policy: On this blog, the ethos is Step Up: (1) Say Who You Are, and then (2) Say What You Think. We need both bona fides to publish. Exceptions are special needs cases: e.g., CIA undercover operatives, abused housewives, Cuban or Iranian dissidents, ex-hookers who work with severely retarded children, Gen-Ys, or unwed teenage moms, bona fide members of the dreaded Club Ned, and serious non-wimp trailblazers. Garden variety risk-averse lawyer/CPA dweeb life forms need not apply.**
Everyone else: get a spine. Above: The highly-respected French Resistance in action. Twenty-first century counterparts may qualify for a WAC? No-Anonymity Rule special needs exemption.
*We can't read it, either. We simply don't have the time. Please find other passive aggressive exercises--or maybe just a part-time job--to fill your spare time.
**Since 2005 we have received hundreds of comments/e-mails from the likes of Zorro, Publius, Sweet Lorraine, Wanker Emeritus, Little Sammy, The Humongous, and Alexander Madison in which the writer asserts that, in a previous life, he or she was a Federalist Papers author, Mahatma Gandhi, or member of the French Resistance. No more comments, you folks, especially. Just get some help.
Posted by Rob Bodine at 12:00 AM | Comments (1)