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June 29, 2012
Paul Fussell (1924-2012): Wit. World View. Punditry. Courage. And His Enduring "Class".
The Bible of American Social Strata. Do you dress up to ride on planes? Are your clothes always new? How about your car? Is it usually a newer model? Do you routinely use words like interface, lifestyle and bottom line? Do you display "collectibles" in your home? And does it have wall-to-wall carpet or hard wood floors? If the latter, are your oriental rugs threadbare or new? In his 1983 non-fiction book Class, Paul Fussell, the professor, polymath, author, WWII veteran and wit who died last month at the age of 88, wrote a tongue-in-cheek marvel and satire on American manners that is funny, nasty and true. Upper classes, in Fussell's world, drink Scotch on the rocks, and say “Grandfather died”. Middles: “Martoonis” or "Teenies" and “Grandma passed away”. Proles: beer in a can, and “Uncle Tommy was taken to Jesus.”
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Lawyers with Fight.
Posted by JD Hull at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)
Radical Replevin: Secret Diaries, a Vampire-Hunting A. Lincoln and the Lawyer-Pol as The Anti-Wimp.
Preposterous but fun. A beloved leader and lawyer as the Anti-Wimp. But Confederate soldiers at Gettysburg as the Undead?
Benjamin Walker plays a Radical Dude.
Posted by JD Hull at 02:18 AM | Comments (0)
June 28, 2012
No matter what your politics are, National Review's Dan Foster hands-down wins prize for best media quip on today's SCOTUS ACA ruling.
The News Editor of the conservative National Review Online this morning on Twitter:*
Daniel Foster @DanFosterNRO "Kennedy is a pimp. He never could have outfought Santino. But I never knew until this day that it was Roberts all along."
*Via the always-excellent Colin Samuels, Godfather to IP Wonks.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)
SCOTUS sidesteps the Commerce Clause, reaches to hang hat on Power to Tax--and upholds ACA. You wild man, John Roberts.
Fancy if surprising footwork there, John Roberts. And it was interesting to everyone to see how SCOTUS got there. Today by a 5-4 vote the U.S. Supreme Court surprisingly upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act passed by Democrats in 2010. And it did that with a ruling penned by Chief Justice Roberts which--to the Court's credit--did not create commerce when none existed to even regulate under the Commerce Clause. Bad constitutional lawyering by Roberts was avoided by his reaching to uphold ACA under the Power to Tax. The decision has a long-term effect on SCOTUS practice (and to a much lesser extent on constitutional law) and powerful short-term effect on, of course, the 2012 elections. CNN, by the way, had first reported that the ACA's mandate to make people buy insurance (clearly if unfortunately unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause, in our view, and the biggest problem with the ACA) had been struck down--but finally got it right. Excerpt:
The most anticipated Supreme Court ruling in years allows the government to continue implementing the health care law, which doesn't take full effect until 2014. That means popular provisions that prohibit insurers from denying coverage for pre-existing medical conditions and allow parents to keep their children on family policies to the age of 26 will continue.
In the ruling, the high court decided the most controversial provision--the individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance -- is valid as a tax, even though it is impermissible under the Constitution's commerce clause.
"In this case, however, it is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. "Such legislation is within Congress's power to tax."
Posted by JD Hull at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)
June 27, 2012
A Few Words About Nora Ephron (1941-2012).
We should have put her in our Pantheon long ago. In 1972, in her essay "A Few Words About Breasts", she changed things for me and others who aspired to be writers and journalists. Why? It was the fun and moxie of her. And of course that killer last sentence of the now-famous Esquire piece no one will ever forget. Essayist. Funny Girl. Author. Screenwriter. Director. Mother. Role model for women and writers. She was, everyone learned in a flash, and then over and over again, much more than talented Carl Bernstein's talented writer ex-wife. Too young, at 71, but what a life. LA Times obit here but none of the hundreds of pieces in last 24 hours really do it for me. Ephron was, in a sense, the classic comic. She was at heart a soldier, a survivor and brilliant essayist who could take her own pain, face it, learn from it, use it--and make us all feel more alive. And make both herself and us laugh about it a bit.
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Nora/Meryl and Carl/Jack
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
Thank you, Frisby & Company, Solicitors, Stafford, England, for having me speak today.
Because all three--Harvard prof Alan Dershowitz, my friend trial lawyer Dave Boies and one of our U.S. Supreme Court justices I've met and don't really like that much--needed to cancel at the last moment, my longtime Cambridgeshire-based friend Ruth Barber, a talented commercial lawyer and Director (i.e., partner) with Frisby & Co., Solicitors, asked me to speak by Skype this morning at one of Frisby's regular UK-styled in-house continuing legal education programs.
Frisby is a 30-lawyer firm based in Stafford, England, in Staffordshire, in the West Midlands. It focuses on contentious commercial work, particularly in the area of serious fraud and environmental health and safety. Frisby also has a newer--but exploding and very successful--white-collar crime practice.
Ms. Barber employed a talk-show format--and asked most of the questions. Told the group (in a local hotel conference room) what I could in 45 minutes about American law markets, new law firm models and lawyer training; the federal vs. state court system in the U.S., the importance (in my view) of keeping cross-border commercial disputes out of our state courts, the problems with popular election of state judges here and our small but more talented efficient federal bench; and finally whether Anglo-Irish American lawyers were even more long-winded and full of themselves than Brit solicitors and barristers (answer: oh yes). Seriously, a wonderful and impressive program I'd gladly do again.
Thanks for having me, Ruth, and Frisby lawyers. Appreciated. And I learned much.
(JDH with D. Jackson)
West Midlands of England, where Frisby is based, are beautiful. Above: Grounds of a local rehab (folks at time told me it was like a "camp") I was guest in in early 1980s.
Posted by JD Hull at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2012
Dee Briggs Studio: This Summer in Pittsburgh and New York.
Intimate Friction
The Mattress Factory
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Curated by Mary-Lou Arscott
Now through September 1
www.mattress.org
Group exhibition: Dee Briggs, Nina Barbuto, Nick Durrant, Jeremy Ficca, Pablo Garcia, Jenn Gooch, Claire He, Matt Huber, Nick Liadis, Transformazium, Gill Wildman, and
Factory Direct
The Warhol Museum
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Curated by Eric Shiner
Now through September 9
www.warhol.org
Group exhibition including: Chakaia Booker, Dee Briggs, Thorsten Brinkmann, Todd Eberle, Jeanette Doyle, Fabrizio Gerbino, Ann Hamilton, William Earl Kofmehl III, Ryan McGinness, Mark Neville, Sarah Oppenheimer, Edgar Orlaineta, Orlan, and Tomoko Sawada.
55th Chautauqua Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Art
Chautauqua Institution
Chautauqua, New York
Curated by Judy Barie
Now through August 25
www.ciweb.org
Posted by JD Hull at 11:02 AM | Comments (0)