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March 10, 2012
Writers Gotta Write: The Return of Simple Justice.
New York criminal defense lawyer Scott Greenfield teased us (me, anyway) at first in a few outings for old times' sake soon after he shut down Simple Justice, his enormously popular blog, on February 13, the day of the site's fifth anniversary. It was hard to say what, if anything, a post-closing post here and there at the old site signaled about the trial lawyer's plans for the future. Don't jump the gun, you told yourself. It might not mean anything but a cooling-off gesture, a victory lap or two around the track for a winning half-decade of quality. But two days ago, in this post, Greenfield made it clear that he was back to his Spartan early morning keyboard regime of reading, thinking, evaluating, reacting, calling-out and inspiring and irritating a remarkably broad spectrum of people in several English-speaking nations. The Return of Greenfield is very good news for a notoriously dodgy and new world neighborhood: The Internet.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)
Stanford Law's Amalia Kessler: Adhesion, Arbitration and the American bias against ADR.
Full Ajudication: Expensive but American. For an unusually good explanation of why Americans historically have resisted arbitration and other ADR, see the op-ed piece by Stanford law professor Amalia Kessler entitled "Stuck in Arbitration", which appeared earlier this week in the New York Times. Excerpt:
The standard historical account begins with the Federal Arbitration Act [1925], but the practice of extrajudicial dispute resolution has a much longer history.
Mid-19th century Americans across several territories and states — including Florida, California and New York — engaged in a nearly forgotten debate concerning “conciliation courts.”
Widely adopted throughout Europe and its colonies during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these were institutions composed of respected community leaders seeking to persuade disputants to accept an equitable compromise in secret, lawyer-free proceedings and without regard to the formal rule of law.
Despite the efforts of American proponents of these courts, proposals to establish them went nowhere.
In the view of their opponents (including businessmen and lawyers), such courts were incompatible with the American commitment to freedom. Adjudication, they successfully insisted, was a vital bulwark of liberty. It enabled individuals to publicly assert their rights as equal citizens under the law.
As one delegate to the 1846 New York State Constitutional Convention argued, “In a free country like this” — one “where every man was the equal of his fellow-man” — “there would always be litigation.”
Posted by JD Hull at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)
March 07, 2012
The American Prospect: On Newt Gingrich's Super-Bad Super Tuesday.
"Newt Gingrich had a terrible Super Tuesday." Even if they are waning, let's give Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Ron Paul (and especially Paul) some credit for adding to the conversation America has every four years. I can't and won't vote for any of the GOP candidates we've been forced-fed so far. But each, especially Paul and Santorum, warts and all, is more authentic--i.e., like me, you may not "like" them or buy into them, but at least they actually believe what they are saying--than Romney, who America is about to meet on a much larger scale. While he is talented, smart and accomplished, Mitt is one very insular and uber-eccentric man, folks. My prediction: he will give most of us, at least us Yanks with intuition and horse sense, the King-Hell Creeps. See at Jay Harris's greatly new-and-improved The American Prospect this piece: Newt's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Super Bad Tuesday. It begins:
Newt Gingrich had a terrible Super Tuesday.
Yes, yes, he won Georgia, his home state, going away. But he not only failed to win any of the other nine states that held elections, he failed to place second in any of them as well.
He came in third in the other two Southern states that held contests—Tennessee and Oklahoma. In five states—Alaska, Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Vermont—he ran fourth, behind Ron Paul.
Newt Gingrich in early 1995
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Esquire Magazine: "What the Hell Is Happening in Russia?"
Every month, both Esquire magazine and the Russian people get feistier and funnier. And although this Esquire piece appeared on March 2, just before Vladimir Putin's reelection on Sunday, March 4, it's the best current report on The Russian Bourgeoisie Gone Wild you could visit. Much of its power, and charm, comes from its timeline summaries of the uprising beginning with the December 4, 2011 protests. The truth--and the truth is especially important here, as we watch eastern Europeans change before our eyes into different kinds of voters and humans--is also hilarious. Note: If you don't think Russian politics affects your customers, clients, business or professional practice, think again. Excerpts from December 10th and 24 summaries:
DECEMBER 10: As more evidence of fraud and abuse from courts, police stations, and prisons hits Facebook, protesters organize another rally. Fifty to sixty thousand people (half of them registered in a Facebook event called "Rally for Fair Elections") come to Moscow's Bolotnaya Square, right across the river from the Kremlin, and meet under banners that vary from serious to silly: "No Taxation Without Representation," "I Didn't Vote for These Bastards, I Voted for the Other Bastards".
Even though the protesters chant, "Putin, Leave!", the mood of the whole movement is decidedly less aggressive. And even though the protesters' demands are clear — cancel the election results, fire Churov, punish those responsible for fraud, and set up fair elections — nobody really listens to the people who speak from the stage, mostly old-school oppositional leaders, from the Right and from the ultra-Left, who have fiercely fought Putin's regime for the last decade without much success and without many followers. Most of the protesters simply stand there, talking to their friends about where to go on YouTube to see fresh evidence of election fraud and where they should meet for drinks after the rally.
DECEMBER 24: Seventy thousand to eighty thousand people meet on Sakharov Avenue, and this time they are pissed. They meet under banners that read "We Are Not Monkey People, and Russia Is No Jungle" and play on Putin's "condom" comment by referring to him as a "scumbag." They reiterate their calls for free and fair elections, and in theory the authorities could easily go through with all these demands. In the twelve years of Putin's reign, the Russian parliament has become totally dependent on the presidency, its members — irrespective of party affiliation — voting according to instructions from the government.
Esquire/(Top) Denis Sinyakov/Reuters; (bottom left) Max Avdeev; (bottom right) GREENFIELD/SIPA
Posted by JD Hull at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)
March 06, 2012
Think I'm turning Ayn Rand again. I really think so.
Only Twitter Wisdom so far in 2012:
@robdelaney Hey Ayn Rand's ghost, what if Atlas *HUGGED* instead? Think about it, get back to me.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:01 PM | Comments (0)
Over at A Public Defender: "The United States of China".
They’ve struck viewership gold, with 40 million viewers every Saturday night for 5 years.
Here's a short but powerful new post--and disturbing glimpse into China entertainment and sensibilities, as well as its justice system--by one Gideon at A Public Defender. On its own, this kind of writing and useful spotlighting may redeem much of the lameness, irrelevancy and provincialism that is too often legal blogging. See for yourself. Meet China's family horror death penalty reality TV show in "The United States of China".
Posted by JD Hull at 11:00 PM | Comments (0)
March 05, 2012
Right on schedule, Mom-and-Pop Russia claw again at Putin.
CBS News at Pushkin Square today: Russian cops violently break up Putin protest.
RIA Novosti/Ramil Sitdikov
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
King Putin: "I promised you we would win. We have won. Glory to Russia".
But Mother Russia? She'll still take Gandhi-like to the streets today. She still doesn't like the dog food. Her Mom-and-Pop middle class and younger professionals finally got an outrageous mojo working last December and they are hungry and poised for more protests. See at Reuters "Russia's Putin Faces Protests After Poll Triumph". Vladimir Putin won yesterday, even if you accept as true allegations of violations and fishy votes, but he's:
on collision course with the mainly middle-class protesters who have staged rallies in the capital and other big cities since a disputed parliamentary poll on December 4.
The protest organizers, who see Putin as an autocratic leader whose return to power will stymie hope of economic and political reforms, said their demonstrations would now grow.
Despite the opposition, mainly among well-educated and relatively well-off young professionals, Putin's support remains high in the provinces and his victory had not been in doubt.
But the mood has shifted in the country of 143 million and the urban protest movement portrays him as an obstacle to change and the guardian of a corrupt system of power.
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Reuters: The triumphant but spooked Putin yesterday.
Posted by JD Hull at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)