Miscellaneous

Integrated Pest Management Fail:

Posted on September 19, 2010
Integrated Pest Management Fail: NYC thought that retaining a gang of possums to control a rat problem in Brooklyn would be an excellent plan. Now the city has a rat problem and a possum problem. North America's only marsupial, run amok! Ol' possums aren't really know for their rat-hunting prowess...

Carl Paladino's website, which

Posted on September 18, 2010
Carl Paladino's website, which is pretty well done, has a big banner that says, "The last NY governor from Buffalo became president of the United States." It's a cheap shot to note that Grover Cleveland also fathered an out-of-wedlock child, but what the hell, why not? The New York Times is not above it, and the guy is bulletproof the way that David Paterson tried to be...

Daisy Owl hasn't updated in four

Posted on September 17, 2010
Daisy Owl hasn't updated in four months, so now I'm reading Hark! A Vagrant

GeoTagged, [N42.93376, E78.73245]In

Posted on September 15, 2010
GeoTagged, [N42.93376, E78.73245]In my basement there is a collection of lawn signs, a sort of museum of the quixotic. We have never had a winning candidate advertise on our lawn, a pretty remarkable streak when you think about it. Allen's sign joins the gallery today...

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Interesting. Via The Volokh Conspiracy,

Posted on September 14, 2010
Interesting. Via The Volokh Conspiracy, Real-time Googling of Jurors During Voir Dire. (But first an aside: is that correct usage for "via", since I am linking to the Volokh post, and not to the site that the post references? A pdf of the decision is here...

My Uncle Fred was in town on his

Posted on September 13, 2010
My Uncle Fred was in town on his way to the Toronto Film Festival, so we enjoyed the sort of relaxed, thoughtful weekend that characterizes his visits. Elsewhere you can read my thoughts on the lawyer movie he brought along, but this observation, by Joe Conason, reminded me of one of the things we talked about as we drank our coffee and read the paper:"[U]ntil the advent of the Obama presidency, Republicans had no reason to scapegoat Muslims or demonize Islam -- and indeed, they could not have inflamed those prejudices without damaging their own leaders, especially George W...

It was big day for Canisius-- their

Posted on September 12, 2010
It was big day for Canisius-- their QB was 4 of 10 for 152 yards and two touchdowns. He also rushed four times for 101 yards for two more TDs. Their starting RB had 122 yards and two TDs. The Crusaders D did not allow 100 yards and had five sacks. Two of the Canisius TDs came on the first plays of drives...

Scott D. Nostaja update: He's asked

Posted on September 11, 2010
Scott D. Nostaja update: He's asked that his name be withdrawn from consideration as interim president of UB. This whole thing was handled very badly, and I'm surprised by that: UB usually has a better handle on perceptions than this. Simpson's announcement, timed as it was with the first day of classes, was tin-eared to say the least, and Jeromy Jacobs' announcement that the UB Council had appointed Nostaja was way off base...

On the way into work this morning

Posted on September 10, 2010
On the way into work this morning I noted that the marquee in front of Canisius High School announced that that their football opponent this weekend is "St. Johns LI". I checked, and it is indeed St. John the Baptist DHS. It'll be the first SJB football game I'll have attended since I was a freshman (I went to one-- Cross-Country meets conflicted), but I can't not go-- Canisius is closer to my house than St...

I'm still slugging my way through

Posted on September 08, 2010
I'm still slugging my way through Underworld, and still enjoying it. It is best taken in bigger bites, I think, but that's probably generally true of fiction. DeLillo references Lenny Bruce at several points, so I've been watching some YouTube clips of Bruce...

I've been trying to process the

Posted on September 05, 2010
I've been trying to process the abrupt resignation of UB president John Simpson since it was announced last week. He had a clear vision for the direction he wanted the institution to move in, and he was clear in articulating it. When the legislature passed on implanting the changes his team proposed Simpson jumped ship, and that troubles me...

Mark Evanier makes a good point

Posted on September 03, 2010
Mark Evanier makes a good point about Sarah Palin: "There's "running for president' the way people named Bush or Clinton run for president, which is because they think they have a good chance of winning and that's the goal. There's also 'running for president' the way it's been done by Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader and (I guess) Ron Paul and others, which is as a way to get attention and to perhaps attain other, lesser goals...

Once I think Albany was one of

Posted on September 02, 2010
Once I think Albany was one of the state capitals most likely to trip up guessers, but Albany's brand has increased its visibility and people probably pretty much know it now. Actually, when you run down the list there are fewer obvious guesses than not-- Indianapolis, Phoenix, Honolulu, Boston,Lincoln...

When in NoHo I like to stop in

Posted on September 01, 2010
When in NoHo I like to stop in at The Raven, the local used bookstore. I don't think I've ever found something I was actually looking for there, but it is a window into what people are teaching (who would teach The Reivers I wonder? If it isn't Faulkner's slightest novel it has to be close...

To the Show Me State last week,

Posted on August 31, 2010
To the Show Me State last week, in particular Columbia and St. Louis, a city that was new to me. Some observations: Columbia is to Bloomington as Geneseo is to Northampton. I like all four, but there is more to like in some than in others. Lots of cities, including Buffalo, have phallic symbols as their central civic icon...

We had these ants as neighbors

Posted on August 24, 2010
We had these ants as neighbors at the CEPA Gallery two years ago. In fact, that's the Buffalo skyline in the diorama-- you can see City Hall, and the Liberty Building. It was an interesting exhibit, from an interesting artist-- Elizabeth Demaray's work is about the intersection/imposition of nature and the manufactured world...

To NoHo, and Capen Hall, where

Posted on August 23, 2010
To NoHo, and Capen Hall, where CLA will spend her senior year.

I'm doing a little food writing

Posted on August 23, 2010
I'm doing a little food writing for Spree this month, and it got me thinking a bit about writing generally. In an introduction to one of his Consumer Guides Robert Christgau described how his job gradually became more and more like work. In writing his reviews he felt the obligation to be as comprehensive as possible, and over time that meant that he was listening to more and more music, and never having time to go back and listen to any old favorites...

I'm sure I posted this once before,

Posted on August 21, 2010
I'm sure I posted this once before, but I can't find it so here it is again: Gary Giddins' Post-War Jazz: An Arbitrary Roadmap. "If you want to play, you have to abide by the rules, mainly one big rule: A musician may be listed only once as a leader." Naturally there is quite a bit here that is familiar, but it is nice to be reminded of those tracks...

Earlier this year I was approached

Posted on August 20, 2010
Earlier this year I was approached by a prospective client who wanted to make a wrongful death claim. The facts of the case presented some tricky questions. The decedent had shared custody of a minor child-- around eight years old or so. The child had called 911 and reported that the decedent would not wake up...

Excellent post on standing from

Posted on August 19, 2010
Excellent post on standing from Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy. "The real purpose of 'standing' doctrine is not to keep out frivolous cases, but to make it more difficult to bring meritorious ones, and thereby insulate potentially unconstitutional practices from legal challenge...

Until I saw a picture of it in

Posted on August 18, 2010
Until I saw a picture of it in the Wall Street Journal I didn't realize where the proposed Cordoba House was. I've been buying suits there since I was on high school-- how dare they turn a discount haberdashery into something I'm less likely to use!

Although we did other things over

Posted on August 16, 2010
Although we did other things over the weekend, we also watched two of my favorite movies, M*A*S*H and The Godfather. CLA had seen neither, (actually, none of her sisters have either), and watching her watch both gave me some insight into the way the students in my class experience media...

It has been a long time since I've

Posted on August 13, 2010
It has been a long time since I've taken a look at the jurisprudence of Article III standing. If you told me that the last time was when I was taking Al Katz' Federal Courts class in law school I'd believe you. So I don't really have a strong opinion about whether the Prop...

For some reason I drifted to sleep

Posted on August 11, 2010
For some reason I drifted to sleep last night thinking about constitutional law. One of the things that impresses me as peculiar about Originalism is that its proponents seem to overlook the fact that the document has changed 16 times since its periwigged drafters first set pen to paper...

From time to time we are asked

Posted on August 09, 2010
From time to time we are asked to appear for a client in traffic court. It's an interesting process in its way, a great leveler, and of course it is very much bulk justice. In fact, many district attorneys, their resources taxed by other priorities, delegate their authority to prosecute VTL cases to the police agencies which issue the tickets, including the Division of New York State Police...

05:06:07 08/09/10

Posted on August 09, 2010
05:06:07 08/09/10

We caught up with Shakespeare In

Posted on August 07, 2010
We caught up with Shakespeare In Delaware Park's production of Macbeth earlier in the week, an interesting take on the Scottish Play. On the theory that Buffalo has a lot more talented woman actors than roles for them to play, the producer decided to mount the play with an all woman cast...

A friend alerted me to the American

Posted on August 06, 2010
A friend alerted me to the American Bar Association's list of the 25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers. They did a similar list of great movies about the law two years ago. The Great Legal Movies list is different from my own Great Lawyer Movies list-- the ABA's ontological scheme includes Twelve Angry Men, for example, which is not a Lawyer Movie at all...

I'm pleased with the District Court's

Posted on August 06, 2010
I'm pleased with the District Court's decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger--most right-thinking people would be. I'm glad that Judge Walker's decision is fact intensive. Everybody knows it's going up, and the Reagan-appointed Walker has done the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court a solid service by laying the record out there for them...

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