Stuff

Saturday: Alma Mater’s Asian Alumni Lunar Banquet at Peking Park Restaurant, midtown. Food was okay; company was interesting.

February/March reading:

Gideon’s Trumpet, by Anthony Lewis
, on the US Supreme Court’s Gideon v. Wainwright, right to counsel in a criminal trial. Lewis was at his best towards the end, in detailing the results and the growing dilemmas of the 1960’s – almost editorial, even if he was trying to be observational. And, even though it was published in 1964, it felt timeless – and yet very contemporaneous – clearly the feeling of reading a primary source, or at least a book that did not know or could be certain what the next 40 years might bring.

Monster Careers: Networking, by Jeff Taylor, founder of Monster.com, and Doug Hardy, editor in chief of Monster – liked this book. Broke down what is networking at a very basic level.

And, the passing of Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., historian. I’ll spare blog readers of my idea of linking just about everything written so far in observance of Schlesinger (great stuff, I might add – Schelsinger being a scholar but also a participant of history), but I’ll note that American historians – particularly the Schlesingers (father and son), the Beards (Charles and Mary), Richard Hofstadter – were who I read when I was taking AP American History in high school – such great stuff that later inspired me to become an American History major in college, and – maybe? – what made me care about what this country may mean. I may not have always agreed with their outlook, but their writing and learning from their work made me think. As for Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., we might be missing a certain type of historian/intellectual/political participant; we all still have much to learn.

Weekend

Saturday: watched “Letters from Iwo Jima.” What a movie – Clint Eastwood’s quite a director. The movie, if nothing else, does quite well in showing how War Is Bad – and how one’s culture affects how one conducts a war. Actor Ken Watanabe – he is the man – as he plays a general caught in circumstances you’d wish he wasn’t in, as a character who had enjoyed his time in America and learning from American counterparts – but sadly fighting against them and misses his family. Tsuyoshi Ihara is a cutie – but more importantly strongly played Baron Nishi, a guy who also enjoyed his visit in the States as an Olympic athlete but also facing reality. The other soldiers prove to be quite human, ranging from the baker who just wants to go home and the young man who thought he had it in him to police others on their patriotism. Even the glimpses of the Americans at Iwo Jima were fascinating – this was no pretty battle for anyone. Check out the NY Times’ review by A.O. Scott – expansive view of it.

Speaking of how War Is Bad – the comic strip “Funky Winkerbean” kind of irritates me – a recent storyline took the comic strip back to Iraq, to follow up on Funky’s cousin, Wally (on his second tour in Iraq). Then, it looked like Wally was blown up by an IED and you’re left thinking: damn – you just knew something bad was going to happen, since Funky’s best friend’s wife survived breast cancer so someone else was going to have the bad luck. But, the next day, it turns out that Wally didn’t die/get injured – he was just playing a role-playing video game, and he “blew” up. Lousy – just lead on your readers why don’t you?!

Watching the Oscars as I write this – curiously interesting funny bits so far – but they’re dragging it out again – can’t you let the winners say a few words by cutting back on the skits? Hmm…

Who gets Blackacre?

I was going up the elevator in the New York Hilton at a bar association dinner Thursday night, and I saw on the mini TV screen in the car the news of Anna Nicole Smith’s death. While most will be thinking about the parallels to Marilyn Monroe, others in the legal community will be thinking of the twisted bar exam question this has become (AP Wire article). Things still pending include the J. Howard Marshall II estate resulting from the ultimate May-December relationship. Both contestants to the estate, Marshall’s son and Anna Nicole, are no longer alive, leaving an unknown number of heirs of Marshall’s son, Anna Nicole’s long time lawyer and questionably married companion Howard K. Stern, a 5 month old daughter that have three possible dads, and a choice of Texas, California, Florida, or the Bahamas for residency.

Before becoming an oil tycoon, Marshall was an assistant dean of Yale Law School and apparently taught trusts and estates. I wonder if this was what he was thinking of?