Basics: Contracts!

July 29, 2014

Back to basics today! What is a contract? Well, at its most basic it’s an agreement between two or more parties, where consideration passes between them.

What is consideration? Something tangible or intangible, a promise to do or not do something, or doing or not doing something. Basically, if someone gives something up, however, significant or insignificant it may be or seem to be, it constitutes consideration.

The classic contract involves an offer, acceptance, and consideration. So you offer to pay me money to provide legal services, and I agree to provide those services. We have a contract. For some purposes—like conflicts of interest, for example—we have a completed contract. That means I cannot represent someone else, adverse to you,

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Leadership 101

July 27, 2014

I heard an amazing TED talk today on Disruptive Leadership. Actually, I heard the very end of a talk by Drew Dudley—I’d never heard of him before—which, I later learned, bears the title Have You Changed Someone’s Life without Realizing It? Then I heard the entirety of a talk by Seth Godin, a rock star in the TED talk and leadership worlds. (Note which talk gets the link.)

Mr. Dudley consults on leadership in Canada. He’s a heavy-set, unimpressive guy with no evident fancy credentials. So what, for his premise and his advice captivated me!

We have made leadership into something bigger than us. We’ve made it into something beyond us. We’ve made it about changing the world.

Leadership

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Pizza

July 26, 2014

For pizza, Tucson has found its place on the map. Without taking anything away from Scordato’s Pizzeria (our favorite) and the many other fine pizza sources in my home town, Pizzeria Bianco opened on Thursday, July 24 on Congress St., downtown. As it happens, I was enjoying a fine, fine meal at Brix in Flagstaff on Thursday—no pics, as I remembered to take them as the table was being cleared—and I don’t do lines, anyway! And lines there were at PB. So I missed the opening.

Chris Bianco’s pizzas are pretty amazing and definitely worth a try. Nancy Silverton, founder of La Brea Bakery, 2014 James Beard Outstanding Chef, and co-owner of the Pizzeria Mozza chain—a great pizzeria, too—writes, in

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They’re Here!!!

July 26, 2014

We had a big deal in my home town, Tucson Arizona. (I was away in Flagstaff for continuing education.) On Thursday Chris Bianco’s Pizzeria Bianco opened its doors. (More tomorrow, but this is a much bigger deal than you might think, even for a city of one million people.) And on Friday morning, July 25, 2014, the Modern Streetcar started regular runs. Here’s a bit of background on the streetcar, courtesy of Arizona Public Media, our local PBS/NPR affiliate and a great organization.

Now, it’s no accident that a nationally acclaimed the best pizzaiolo in the country has extended himself beyond Phoenix by opening up in downtown Tucson. We can thank the Modern Streetcar for that! Sole cause?

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Pitchforks, Plutocrats, and Inequality

July 25, 2014

I’m still working on my inequality series, but I take a brief sojourn today to share with you some thoughts from the other side … the Rich Side. Compared to the world population, I’m among the very, very richest people alive (ever); compared to my fellow Americans, not as much!

Nick Hanauer is one of the wealthiest people in America, and almost surely one of 5000 or fewer richest people among the roughly 100 billion people ever born, ever. Rich! Starting with a degree in philosophy—“College need not be a trade school,” says me, a proud liberal arts grad—he’s worth $1,000,000,000 or more. He’s also the author of The Pitchforks are Coming … For Us Plutocrats from the July/August issue

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The New Yorker

July 24, 2014

Ms. J and I have been New Yorker subscribers for more than 22 years. We’ve been through or still subscribe to Architectural Digest, The Atlantic, Gourmet, Harpers, New York Review of Books, O, Saveur, Vanity Fair, etc., but the longest running magazine subscription we have, and the seeming constant to which we are attached, is the New Yorker.

Within the last week or so the New Yorker announced changes in its web issue. Here’s A Note to Our Readers from the July 28 issue. And the really big deal? The paywall has been lifted for what appears to be an undefined period of time which will end before December 31, 2014. I believe the whole archive, from forever since 1923,

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(Not So) Funny Things are Happening … at the Courthouse

July 23, 2014

You probably heard the news on Tuesday. First up:  the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a District Court ruling which had upheld subsidies for insureds purchasing health insurance on the federal exchange. Bad news for the Affordable Care Act. Then, about an hour later, came the opinion from the Fourth Circuit in Richmond, upholding a District Court ruling which had also upheld federal exchange subsidies.

So, we have an Administration victory in the Fourth Circuit (3-0), and a loss in the D.C. Circuit (2-1). A mess, for sure, but not one that cannot be understood.

What’s the fight about? Without going too far into the weeds, there’s a clause in the law which provides for subsidies for insurance

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The Wednesday Curator – 7/23/14

July 22, 2014

Back I am, with apologies to anyone who came up empty earlier on Tuesday. I had a piece up to make the subscriber deadline, but it was not ready. Sorry!

But for children at the border, war in Gaza/Israel, and an airplane blown out of the sky in Ukraine, we’d be hearing about … well, Benghazi, of course, but also about the highway trust fund debacle and possible solutions. Reinventing the American Highway:  The Promise (and Pitfalls) of Learning to Love Tolls, written by Henry Grabar and published at Salon on July 20, provides an overview of one solution for part of the infrastructure problem.

From The Atlantic on July 21, here’s David Frum’s non-ideological, tell it like

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Skip It!

July 20, 2014

One stinker of a movie! Really, really, really awful!!!

I saw Dinesh D’Souza’s America:  Imagine the World without Her on Sunday afternoon. I went with very low expectations. They were not met.

Mr. D’Souza’s film starts off oddly, with a recreated Revolutionary War battle scene involving George Washington. General Washington gets shot and dies, allowing for the conceit that the world won’t have America. (No way to win without General Washington. Really?)

We see the erasure of Mt. Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, the Iwo Jima Memorial, and maybe one other monument. The narration, during the removal of the Iwo Jima Memorial, mentions what might have happened if Hitler had a nuclear weapon. Uh, sorry, and I

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Extra: Spelling Bee Details

July 20, 2014

I’ll be a contestant at the 3rd annual Stand Up for Education Celebrity Spelling Bee on Friday, August 8. The bee starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Temple of Music and Art. Ticket info is here. Proceeds help Tucson Unified School District students through the Education Enrichment Foundation, and is sponsored by The Sakin Foundation.

By the by, I am a 3x participant, and have the runner-up trophy from year one. (Never mind about last year!) We—contestants and the audience—all have a good time in a very relaxed setting, and no cause is better than public education!

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