Author Archives: 40andover

Why I love twitter

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It is a good thing I am more or less anonymous because no one I know would believe me when I say that I love twitter.  Let’s set some ground rules: there are inane tweets and spam tweets and creep tweets.  But there are moments when it is a social support system.  A few days ago, a mother with a young child tweet that she was feeling as if she had nothing left to give her child — she was worn out  and out of patience.  I tweeted her to give her support and tell her that every parent reaches that point many times in the first few years and it gets better.  I also told her that people who make it look easy are lying.  Others tweeted their support.  Real time support for a true (and virtual) stranger who was overwhelmed and needed a reality check.

She tweeted her thanks.  That a few words from me helped a stranger made my day.  And I am grateful.

Ah, sweet tweets.

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Crazy is as crazy does

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Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome.  Every time I watch a reality TV show, I last through the first 3 minutes.  My tastes are not mainstream (but they are not crazy weird either).  Every time I pick a check-out line, it is the line on which a person doesn’t have a credit/debit card and wants change of $100 bill for a 89 cent purchase.  So, what was I thinking when I was looking on Amazon for DVDs to purchase?  I was looking for indie films — not ones that made the big screen because I am trying to support living artists.  I went by customer reviews.  Based on the reviews, one would think the ones I bought were cinematic experiences of a lifetime.  My partner and I settled in to watch one of the movies and we were sucked in, not by the plot line but, by the low quality of the writing, the acting and the cinematography.  It was a cinematic car crash  — we couldn’t look but we couldn’t look away.

Ok, I learned my lesson this time.  But next time . . . .

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Another transit experience

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Tonight, on the train, there is an older man with great posture and bearing with dreds piled on top of his head wrapped in a turban the color of ivory with a hint of pink.  The turban is high like a Cat in the Hat hat.  My first thought was “penis head”.  Remember, I’m a lesbian and my heterosexual man-woman sex days were decades ago. So, believe me when I say that it looks like a penis because that is not the first thing that might pop into my mind unless compelled from my memory cells deep in the recesses of my brain.

I decide not to share this with elegant-man-but-for-the-penis-on-his-head.

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Gun Control

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My sister — who is a frequent contributor of ideas for my blog — sent me this announcement from New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.  This was one of our mom’s favorite causes. 

Let’s do something about the gun violence in our city and our country.
 
PLEASE HELP: THE U.S. SENATE IS ABOUT TO WEAKEN NEW YORK STATE GUN LAWS

An amendment allowing concealed carry gun  permit holders in any state to carry in every state is up for a vote as early as Monday afternoon.  After some horse trading late last week, the Democrats were able to add the hate crime bill as an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill and in return Republicans were permitted to add the national concealed carry amendment.
Calls are needed to U.S. Senators all over the country.  Please take two simple steps.

Please help stop this madness.  Imagine walking along the Hudson River next to someone with a  LOADED gun tucked in their shirt or rubbing elbows with tourists packing heat in Times Square or on the subway.  This could be a reality.  New York State currently has the best gun laws in the country and New York City is the safest large city in the country.  In New York City it is very hard to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon on the streets.  In other states it is easy and many people have them.   More than 500,000 people in Florida alone have such permits. Do we want them visiting New York WITH their guns?

1)    Reach out today to at least five people you know from out of state and ask them to call their Senators’ offices on Monday morning.  The message is simple. Please call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Monday at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your Senators. Tell them to vote NO on Senator Thune’s Amendment No. 1618 to the Defense Authorization Bill (S.1390).

2)     Go to Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand’s Websites and send them a comment asking them to work with their colleagues to defeat this amendment.  Particularly ask Schumer to work with those Senators he helped get elected.  Don’t allow New York’s safety to be sacrificed to other political agendas.

Senator Gillibrand – http://gillibrand.senate.gov/contact/

Senator Schumer – http://schumer.senate.gov/new_website/contact.cfm
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Hot town, summer in the City

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Do people who don’t wear deodorant know that they smell bad at the end of the day?  A man was standing over me holding on the handbar on the subway this evening.  I had to move but I was too tired to ask him about it.  My mother would have asked.  Once she moved her seat on the bus so that she could be next to a stranger to whom she turned and asked, “you’re such a handsome man, why do you pick your nose in public?”  Now, that was a spunky (and fearless) lady.

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Thoughts for July 21, 2009 (even though it is only July 20, 2009)

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There are reports that arrested protesters of the Iranian election result are being raped in prison.  A RELIGIOUS republic is resorting to these tactics .  .  .  in the name of Allah???  How does that work?  It is an abomination for religious leaders to use such tactics in the name of G-d but really to further their very human need to maintain power.

May Allah protect those with the courage of their convictions who are made to suffer at the hands of these tormentors.  May everyone’s G-d protect them.

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Tales from the office

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A colleague walked down the hall with a Costco size bottle of orange listerine.  Time for the afternoon gargle in men’s room.  (Of course, that is better than a colleague who brushed his teeth in the convenience kitchen until I suggested ever so gently that it was gross.)

There aren’t many people at work, after all of the layoffs and attrition, so this was an exciting event in the work place, worth of twitter and blogosphere entries.

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I am 45 AND it is ok if I stand . . .

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On the way to work today, I heard a strange flushing sound.  I realized it was civilization rounding the drain.  Two elderly, infirm people were standing on a crowded subway (as was I) and no one offered up a seat.  How do young able-bodied passengers not see the infirm or pregnant passengers?  Do these young able-bodied passengers think they are themselves invisible to the righteously indignant third party observer (me)? 

Of course, there are people who get up for an older, infirm or pregnant passenger.  Sometimes, these people go overboard, though.  Just in the last two months, two young women have offered to get up for me.  Now, I have gray hair and have a few lines on my face, but I am fit AND I act like a child (ok, the latter is not that relevant).  Because these two young women were so earnest, I didn’t have to heart to torture them and ask, “do you think I am pregnant?” 

Actually once I got up for a younger woman who looked pregnant.  Then she realized that I was older and got up for her and she asked, “do I look pregnant?”  Thank G-d it was winter so I said that I wasn’t sure since she wore a bell shaped coat.  Actually, it wasn’t the coat; she really did look pregnant.  She was too young to have developed a beer gut but if she weren’t pregnant, it was not a pretty sight.  Yes, I can be snarky even in this situation.  I am not a very nice person.  I knew that.

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The Hypocritic Oath

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Senator McConnell says Judge Sotomayor lacks the objectivity he wants in a justice. He says he is worried that her opinions would shape rulings from the bench.  Senator McConnell lacked objectivity by bashing her record before she got to the hearings. 

How does he get away with hypocrisy.  Do GOP lawmakers need to take the Hypocritic Oath in order to serve?

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Re-tooling the legal profession

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Because I am still exhausted from my family weekend, and I am being prodded to write about less despairing and desperate topics, a colleague suggested to me that I write about  whether fundamental change in the legal profession is a good or bad thing.  That begs the question; change is required because the business model doesn’t work anymore.  The question is what changes will make lawyering profitable again while maintaining the ethical strictures that are so very necessary.  Reality is a bitch that way.  Doctors apprentice for 3-4 years after medical school and are not paid well during the apprentice years.  Similarly, law school graduates need to get used to the apprenticeship model and not expect insane incomes right out of law school.  Cost of legal services should be a fixed percentage of the deal but that only works if clients are loyal so that, over the course of a year, the law firm generates the necessary profit to maintain quality and generous incomes.  WAIT! STOP!! Lawyers should not have a pecuniary interest in the outcome of a case or transaction (with notable exceptions such as contingency cases that allow access to the courts).   Ok, the fix isn’t so easy.

Ok, not as interesting to me as the insane people riding on NYC transportation, but maybe worth delving into.  Or maybe too high minded for me.

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