October 2010
2 posts
Connecticut Law Trib Profile
Here is a link to my profile from a few weeks ago in the Connecticut Law Tribune. Very happy with how it came out and honored to be recognized in a great paper.
WatchHere I am, finishing the ING Hartford HALF marathon a few weeks ago - I’m the guy in the yellow hat behind the tall guy in the red shirt. My actual time was 2:01 - slow, but I finished.
Next up: 26.2.
September 2010
1 post
January 2010
5 posts
Great way to start the year...
running the Frosty 5K:
52 Jeffrey Brohel 40M M4049 22:13 7:09 17/83 20
For the record, my personal goals for 2010 are to run a 10K, and finish a 5K in less than 21 mins. Would also like to compete in a mini-triathlon, if I can find a bike I like this year maybe I’ll do it, we’ll see…
December 2009
21 posts
Obama continues to struggle with leadership...
President Obama is taking heavy criticism for his bizarre actions, and those of other members of his administration, following the attempted terrorist attack on a Northwest Airlines flight several days ago, this from the New York Daily News:
The attempt to blow Northwest Flight 253 out of the air was planned as an attack on the United States and very nearly succeeded in accomplishing that...
Feeling old
Just reading a blog that shall remain nameless, and came upon the following exchange:
xxxFan December 29, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Those rotary phones look quite fun. I still don’t get how to use them though.
yyy December 29, 2009 at 6:48 pm
put ur finger in the number then scroll it all the way to the (counter clockwise i think) end. Do that for every number… I never see it as that big of a...
Death of the newspaper (and, oh yeah, the mall...
Powerful article on Mediate about the decline and fall of the newspaper industry and the mall during the Aughts, and why the two are linked:
The blossoming of the Internet in the Aughts, a time of political and economic instability, has hastened (though not completed) the demise of many cultural components tangential to its core functionality. The slow sublimation of newspapers is understood to...
Fortune favors the brave...
This is an excellent - if short - expose at the Work Matters blog on one of the legal industry’s ailments: a failure of courage in the practice of law. Here’s a bit of it:
As lawyers, we often do — not what is needed — but what others cannot criticize: We take the unneeded deposition, file the meritless motion, pile on the repetitive witness.
I see lawyers making their lives and...
Another ding in the public trust...
The big story today: Senator Max Baucus of Montana apparently nominated his girlfriend for a United States Attorney position last March. Here are some juicy details from the New York Times today - which, strangely, isn’t featuring this story at the top of its site “above the fold”:
The girlfriend, Melodee Hanes, worked for Mr. Baucus as his state office director and as a field...
Gifts for lawyers...
Here are three good ones.
Or, you could try giving yourself the gift of happiness in 2010, or even a pizza place.
Here’s an idea: give yourself new partners for the new year!
For your peers tasked with end of year collections, you could give them a Pulling Teeth metal sculpture.
Whatever you do, though, don’t give yourself your clients’ money.
Happy holidays!
Our vital national interest
I’m pretty sure Michael Moore and I are not of the same species - I just don’t see how it’s possible. Here are some of Moore’s profound words of wisdom for President Obama, written prior to his speech last night announcing a large increase of United States troops to Afghanistan:
Don’t be deceived into thinking that sending a few more troops into Afghanistan will...
Imagine if this guy put his powers to good use...
Scott Rothstein, of the now defunct Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler firm in Miami, Florida, accused of orchestrating a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme, ”appeared nonchalant as he stood in handcuffs and leg restraints before U.S. Magistrate Robin Rosenbaum, who ordered him held without bail because he is a flight risk.”
Some of the gruesome details of Mr. Rothstein’s alleged scheme are...
Everything is relative I guess...
From a piece in the New York Post today, much gnashing of teeth and ranting and raving about Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippmann’s apparent end run on a judicial pay raise:
As The Post’s James Fanelli reported Sunday, last month he doubled, by diktat, state judges’ annual expense allowances, from $5,000 to $10,000 — an unauthorized de facto pay hike.
Most...
Good night, Mike
From the New York Times today, regarding the role of former Arkansas governor and current Fox Newsie Mike Huckabee in the slaughter of four Washington police officers over the weekend:
Trying to explain how such a man could be on the streets, despite five felony convictions in Arkansas that should have kept him locked up for life, Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said,...
November 2009
38 posts
WatchI am not a big fan of Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald, Jimmy Fallon, sailor hats or David Wells, and yet when all of these things are mixed together in this clip it somehow produces an absolutely divine, brilliant result. Enjoy…
You get what you get...
…and you don’t get upset. That’s a big saying around my house, and I think it applies quite nicely to Saab.
Some years ago I walked into a Saab dealership, hoping to cut a deal on a car. Fifteen minutes later I walked out of said dealership absolutely stunned: these were the most arrogant and unyielding people I had ever encountered. The sales people made it abundantly clear...
I am thankful...
…that Michael Odent is not king of the world, for if he were I am quite sure that I would have been barred from the delivery room during the births of my three boys (Time):
Yet, now, in what is sure to stir up some fatherly frustration, to say the least, French obstetrician Michel Odent argues that fathers specifically, and men in general, don’t have a place in the delivery room.
...
Maid service
Cleaning up a mess can be expensive, we all know that. Sometimes, though, the expense is rather … outlandish? Of course, the Madoff mess is on a scale you don’t often see.
Baker & Hostetler, acting as counsel for Bernie Madoff’s bankruptcy trustee, Irving Picard (a partner at B&H), has asked the U.S. Bankruptcy Court before which that matter is pending to approve...
On the Origin of Species
Interesting piece in the Daily News today about the, um, minor baboon problem that’s developed in Cape Town, site of next year’s World Cup:
The cheeky primates have learned how to open car doors and jump through windows in pursuit of tasty sandwiches and snacks.
City officials are battling to control the increasingly aggressive troupes and there are fears the problem will only...
Terrible all around...
Here in Connecticut, sorting out a situation that just doesn’t get much worse:
A Milford police officer did not enter a plea in his first court appearance today. He’s charged with manslaughter following an on-duty car accident that left two teens from Orange dead.
Officer Jason Anderson remains on paid suspension following the crash in June that killed Dave Servin and Ashlie...
Football. That's right, football.
Make sure you get over to The New Republic and check out this article. I love when brilliant people start in on analyzing sport and its place in American culture: invariably it takes on a scientist-in-a-lab-coat-watching-the-mice feel. I do think, however, that Wilcomb E. Washburn is a football fan, in addition to being a brilliant person, and he captures, beautifully, that tension between those...
The Child Whisperer
So, apparently certain parents are taking a cue from Cesar Millan, a.k.a. The Dog Whisperer, as to how to raise their children:
But some parents — particularly those weary of never-say-no techniques and child-rearing books suggesting that children should call the shots — say they find inspiration, and even practical advice, in Mr. Millan’s approach, which teaches pet owners how to become the...
There's no such thing as global warming...
…maybe if you close your eyes real tight and say it again and again you can make those pesky ice chunks go away!
(Listen, I don’t like Al Gore any more than you do, but c’mon, some things just are.)
Fair game?
Deadspin, the sports and “human interest” blog, has always had an interesting relationship with ESPN: David poking and prodding Goliath, pestering the slow moving monolith with its unhipness, pointing out its warts with great gusto. It always seemed to me like a little brother making fun of his big brother, frantically trying to get some attention even if it had to be negative.
...
Hooray for me...
Here is an excerpt from my last column in the Connecticut Law Tribune:
Here is my hypothesis. You take it out into the world, make your own observations if you haven’t already, and see if you think I’m right. Smartphones allow us to work more and work longer, but in many ways they diminish our humanity, and create a tension in our professional lives that is antithetical to our most important...
Dead on...
I received a fascinating email from a reader - we’ll call him “Ford” - a 2008 law school grad, in response to my Counterintuitivosity post, here’s the gist of it:
As a recent graduate I find that a number of my colleagues and former classmates would actually still encourage law school for three reasons: 1. They believe it when people tell them that law school (or other...
Like no other bagel in the world...
New York Magazine reports that the owner of H&H Bagels - my personal fave bagel ever - has been indicted on tax fraud charges and faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison and $1 million in fines:
It seems it wasn’t a case of absentmindedness, since [Helmer] Toro is said to have set up six different shell companies in order to keep his unemployment insurance costs down.
If the...
That pesky 6 percent...
To ooohs and aaahhhs, Harry Reid unveiled the ”historic” Senate health care reform bill this evening:
The Democrat’s $849 billion measure is designed to remake the nation’s health care system, relying on cuts in future Medicare spending to cover costs — as well as on higher payroll taxes for the well-to-do and a new levy on patients undergoing elective cosmetic surgery.
...
All roads lead back to Dad...
Why would a man build a house around a 250 ton bluestone boulder? Because he told his father he would:
One of [John Carson’s] least favorite things is discussing money. How much it cost to build his glass-and-copper-faced house, which took four years to construct, he will not say. He is happy, however, to discuss his dreams for the house, which go back to a walk he and his father took in...
Counterintuitivosity...
I find this rather fascinating, from moststronglysupported.com:
On September 26th, more students took the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) than have ever taken a single administration of the LSAT in the history of the exam. Chalk it up to the recession, the economy, or the sudden increase in all things vampire…
As the economy foundered, the number of LSAT takers began to increase again,...