The Creative Lawyer

My Rules for Living - in Video!

Or at least two of them.

My friend Gretchen Rubin, who runs the fantastic blog The Happiness Project (and who by the way is also a creative lawyer) is introducing a new feature called "True Rules," which are basically observations from various people about how life works.  Sort of like, "you gain fifteen pounds as a freshman in college," except more unique and unexpected. 

And her first video interview is with me!  So check me out right here, where I talk about my "Grocery Store Rule" and my "Law School / Baby-Having Uncertainty Principle." 

Creative Lawyer Annette Gordon-Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed is a graduate of Harvard Law School. Since 1992 she has been a professor at New York Law School. She teaches American Legal History, Criminal Procedure and Property, among other courses.

She is also a famous historian who has written pathbreaking, scholarly works. In 1997 she published Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (University Press of Virginia). Her new book, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (W. W. Norton) has just come out.  It follows four generations of Hemingses from the early 1700s to 1826. One her goals in the book was to tell the story of individuals, to “see slave people as individuals” as opposed to incidental figures in some larger social drama.

One Jefferson scholar quoted by the New York Times calls Prof. Gordon-Reed's new book “the best study of a slave family ever written.”

Hats off to the intelligence, diligence and originality of creative lawyer Annette Gordon-Reed!  Read the Times article about her and her book here, "Seeing Past the Slave to Study the Person."

Saudi Arabia Hearts Oprah

In the dabbing-away-tears department, a cute story about Oprah's popularity among Saudi Arabian women (and presumably their secret gay male friends), from today's New York Times. 

For a clear-headed description of what's going on in the financial markets

See this Freakonomics column. It's still complicated, but now I get it. Mostly. 

Network and you, too, can be Vice-President!

Anyone who doubts the efficacy of networking should check out an article by Philip Gourevitch about Sarah Palin in this week's New Yorker:

"According to 'Sarah,' a biography by Kaylene Johnson, Palin had got into politics after she befriended the man who was then mayor [of Wasilla, Alaska] and his police chief at a step-aerobics class. She made them her allies and ran for City Council."

Just remember, people -- use your powers for good!

 

Gail Collins Demonstrates Why Real Journalists are Better than Political Bloggers

Here are some reasons why New York Times columnist Gail Collins is my hero:

She's smart.
She writes well.
She has a point of view.
She's witty.
Probably if we had gone to Valencia High School together she would have sat across from me in Math Analysis.

Here is link to a wonderful column by Gail Collins from today's New York Times, basically on the theme of "Don't freak out, Democrats." 

There are tons of political bloggers now, including many big liberal ones, with supposedly millions of readers. There are seemingly tens of thousands of people who add their opinions in the comments section.  There's lots of material, at least in word count. 

But I have to say that what I feel reading political blogs is exhaustion, a mild sense of panic and a pervasive sense of meanness. I question whether political bloggers and their followers have any actual connection to politics on the ground, or are merely lots of people yelling at each other over the computer.

In contrast, when I read things written by real, trained, edited journalists (a category that does not include TV "journalists"), I usually get something out of the experience.  They think critically and as a result I do too. And I'm probably more likely to actually do something.

Paul Theroux, on travel writing

There's a good interview in USA Today  with travel writer Paul Theroux, who is known mainly for all those books he wrote about taking trains.  Click here to read it.  My favorite quote:  "If you're planning to write something about your travels, go alone, go overland, go cheap, and leave all electronics behind." Also:  "Travelers don't know where they're going and tourists don't know where they've been."

Here at my hotel in West Lafayette, Indiana, I am filled with great aspirations to see the world. China here I come!

Interesting Legal Job? How about In-House Counsel at the National Enquirer?

I am very curious what it would be like to be in-house counsel at the National Enquirer. 

Here's an interesting statement, issued in response to the Republicans threat to sue the tabloid for libel after certain allegations it was making about Sarah Palin's domestic affairs. 

Yes, I too write about Sarah Palin

Check out my post, Sarah Palin and the Republicans' Favorite Sport: Extreme Affirmative Action! in the Huffington Post. 

Indian Vogue shakes things up

There's an interesting article in today's New York Times about a Vogue India spread featuring poor people modeling things (e.g. an impoverished wearing a $100 Fendi bib). Feathers were ruffled! Umbrage was taken. How dare the fashion people be so insensitive! 

I have another view on this.

Notwithstanding my longstanding love of Project Runway, I have limited expectations for what fashion does or should accomplish in the world. Fashion is really just about making pretty things. So I get kind of embarrassed by Kenneth Cole's ads that purport to make political commentary and I resist the idea that buying a certain consumer product I am serving a global cause.

That said, fashion people are creative people and, let's just put it out there, artists. And sometimes artists brilliantly articulate some truth that others fear or can't see.

In the case of the Vogue India spread, what the magazine's antagonists have said is that it's insensitive to use poor people as backdrops for fashion.  That it is gross to have people who make a hundred dollars a year modeling a single item of clothing that costs a hundred dollars.  The real story is that these photos show explicitly what goes on every day in the world, and not just in India. Namely, that the rich and middle class live alongside, and dependent on, the extremely poor. They are just as human as we are but live subhuman existences, and we prefer not to think our lives have anything to do with them.

Showing the Fendi-bibbed kid gives rise to the immediate thought of, "gee, there are probably better ways that we could spend a hundred dollars than on luxury clothing."  It also points out the truth that for all our complaining, the lives of those of us who can read or comment on Vogue are a thousand times better than the lives of half the people on the planet. This is inconsistent with our view of ourselves as having complicated, stressful lives controlled by forces outside of our control.