Category: Manhattan

Other Stuff

Crazily enough: the Jets have beaten Indianapolis and New England and will be playing Pittsburgh next week.  Crazy!

PBS posts the view of Brianna Lee, as her father, Edwin Lee, is sworn in as interim mayor of San Francisco, the first Asian-American in the position of mayor of SF.  Lee would be different than the previous mayor (and… he’s an APA lawyer!).

Brooklyn Historical Society and the 1770 Map restoration.

An interesting look at old Tavern on the Green, while it’s not in operation (or awaiting something to replace it, whatever that might be).

I didn’t even realize it: the comic strip of Brenda Starr came to an end.  How sad.  She was a  pioneer woman journalist with the mysterious love interest in Basil St. John (the man with the eye patch) and funny friends and weird adventures.  They really don’t make comic strips like that anymore.  Then again, were there still readers of comic strips, much less readers of dead tree newspapers?

And, oh yes, as this is triscribe and we’re APA’s and lawyers: let’s not forget the reaction to Yale Law Professor Amy Chua’s book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.”   Wall Street Journal did an excerpt, which sent the APA bloggers into Red Alert.  Via San Francisco Chronicle, Jeff Yang gets further perspective from Amy Chua concerning that excerpt.   On Disgrasian.com, the point is that the book is a memoir, not a how-to – but, as Disagrasian notes: it’s not clear why Chua still had to take the perspective of Immigrant-1st Generation Parent to torture her kids to success – when maybe it wasn’t that necessary to take the hard line.

Sure, I suppose reading the whole book gives a better sense of Chua’s view of parenting, but still: all that controversy with the book – I doubt that Chua will cry to the bank. (though: I kind of expected that a Yale Law prof would have better sense of responsibility about all the craziness that ensued. Just sayin’).

And, because we’re APA lawyers: please note that Yul Kwon’s leaving the FCC (them’s the feds) to go back to tv (PBS, but still – tv!). He will likely not be shirtless on PBS. That’s ok. Sort of.

Slate’s Farhad Manjoo points out why we don’t need to do two spaces between sentences anymore.  Sorry, but I was taught to use two spaces after a period when typing. Yes, it is an ingrained and arbitrary habit done over 20 years now. But, it’s not like I’m really wasting space. Plus, I find seeing space is easier on the eyes. But, that’s just me… 😛

The new horoscope sign: Ophiuchus.   CNN notes that there’s more to this whole horoscope change than we think though.

So it goes, I guess.  I’m not impressed by 2011 so far (besides the Jets making the universe all very weird).  Maybe 2011 will get better.  Eventually.

Martin Luther King, Jr., Day 2011

Among the things we remember when we think of Martin Luther King, Jr., is the “I Have a Dream Speech,” as David Weigel of Slate notes.  The story behind the speech, in the Washington Post, by Clarence B. Jones, MLK’s lawyer and speechwriter.  Thanks to a hat tip from Swampland at Time.com, I also link to the Stanford collection of MLK materials.

Thought that it was interesting that the NYC Bar posted this on their website: a reflection of Martin Luther King’s speech at the City Bar in 1965.  Institutions with long histories have really fascinating histories.  The City Bar notes:

In his 1965 speech, Dr. King called on the moral and practical obligations of the legal profession to justice and the rule of law in America:

“Standing before you in the House of this Association, whose very cornerstone is an abiding respect for the law, I am impelled to wonder who is better qualified to demand an end to this debilitating lawlessness, to better understand the mortal danger to the very fabric of our democracy when human rights are flaunted.”

He reaffirmed that, despite violence and legal segregation, his faith in the law and lawyers as instruments of justice had not been shaken, continuing:

“Your profession should be proud of its contributions. You should be aware, as indeed I am, that the road to freedom is now a highway because lawyers throughout the land, yesterday and today, have helped clear the obstructions, have helped eliminate roadblocks, by their selfless, courageous espousal of difficult and unpopular causes.”

Finally, Dr. King expressed hope that America, even in the face of fierce opposition, would ultimately fulfill its promise as a country of legal equality, proclaiming that “I do not despair of the future.  We as Negroes will win our freedom all over our country because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is America’s destiny.”

NY Times’ City Room blog, with a post by Sam Roberts, notes MLK’s relationship with NYC.

PBS NewsHour’s Rundown blog has a nice list of MLK-related things.

Slate posts a fascinating slide show of MLK-related images.

Things to think about on this day.  It’s the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, when this country’s lack of civility and the revolution took another step to end slavery and make a better union.  Progress isn’t inevitable; but that doesn’t mean we give it up.  We need to figure that out.

Happy New Year, 2011!

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year 2011!

Andrew Cuomo has been sworn in; we have a new governor in NYS, and he acknowledges that he has a lot to do and he has already started it.

Lina Kulchinksy, lawyer-pastry chef-pretzel maker, branching out to a cart.

The very dangerous and probably illegal but terribly exciting and exotic thing about touring NYC’s tunnels.

On New Year’s Day, the NHL had to push the Winter Classic – the outdoor hockey game with Penguins v. Capitals – until the evening but still in the rain, since the temperature was too warm.  It’s possible that the tv ratings came off well for NBC and the NHL, but I kind of wondered if NBC got lucky, since the bowl games weren’t on that evening and it was otherwise a quiet tv prime time night.  The Capitals won, with the Penguins star Sidney Crosby getting dinged to the ice by the Capitals.

I personally like watching the game since it’s kind of crazy to watch hockey be played outdoors, but to make it a new prime time tradition?  Hard to say.  The stunning effect of hockey outdoors in a baseball or football stadium just looks cooler during the daytime.  But, that’s my two cents on the subject.

Also, the Daily News in the hockey section (can’t find a web version of this) posed the question of whether the NHL might consider having the NY Rangers host a future Winter Classic on New Year’s Day.  Apparently, Yankee Stadium might not be available for such a venture, since they now host a bowl (seriously?  Yes!: the Pinstripe Bowl with Syracuse v. Kansas!  And Syracuse won!).  I mean, that’s  too bad and all (Fenway did host a Winter Classic, but aren’t Bostonians bigger hockey fans than New Yorkers?).  Then again, apparently, the Daily News noted that it’d be even tougher to do a Meadowlands Winter Classic, since the Devils would want to be in on it and the national ratings for a Devils v. Rangers game wouldn’t be hot at all, even on New Year’s Day.  Oh well.  Wishful thinking!

Movies that I saw during the holidays:

Saw “The King’s Speech” at Cobble Hill.  Colin Firth really gets at the feelings and struggles of the stutterer Bertie, a.k.a. Prince Albert, the Duke of York and then George VI, and Geoffrey Rush was great at the speech therapist who had his own imperfections.  Helena Bonham Carter, as Elizabeth, Duchess of York (future Queen Mother to Queen Elizabeth II), was quite good; as Dana Stevens noted on Slate’s Culture Gabfest, Bonham Carter was acting as her old “Merchant Ivory self” rather than her recent career trend acting as crazy costumed woman – see “Alice in Wonderland,” “Sweeney Todd,” the Harry Potter movies, etc.).

The craziness and the banality of the Royal Family really got through; Firth as Bertie, who struggled with the balance of duty and loyalty to his father and his brother and a lot of other baggage – and happiness with his wife and daughters.  Bertie was also admirable for his loyalty to his country – in the face of World War II, he didn’t have actual power, but had to be the face of one of the un-invaded countries in Europe to stand up to Nazi Germany.

Is “The King’s Speech” the Best Picture for the Oscars?  I can’t really say, but it had a lot of stuff going for it, I thought, because Bertie was facing a modern world and the traditional trappings behind it.  There were the emotions, hopes, failings, and humanity in all involved.

Saw “Tangled” at the Park Slope Pavilion.  Even if a little derivative in putting together stuff from “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid,” the movie was sweet and heart-warming, in a great old-fashioned Disney way.  Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi are pretty talented voices actors.  Who knew that Levi (Chuck from “Chuck”) had it in him?  And, it was nice that Rapunzel was no wallflower; she wanted to see the world – and was willing to help everyone else along the way (which it took some time for Flynn Rider to figure out too – talk about a protagonist who was willing to make a sacrifice to do the right thing).

NY Times’ dance critic Alistair Macaulay makes some conclusions from his project of seeing way lots more Nutcrackers than most of us normal folk.

Oh, and Time Out New York on what 2011 things to look forward to checking out.

I hate that the holidays are winding up.  But, let’s see what’s next.