Renoir, Beethoven and the Power of Publicity

No. 1,223

Some guy named Geller (no, not Yuri) has been complaining about the Renoir exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Art. He has an Instagram site called “Renoir Sucks at Painting” in which he is calling on Bostonians to join him in a picket line protesting the exhibition. That ought to bring out record crowds, just to see what is so bad about the Renoir paintings on display.

What an excellent idea! We need to adopt this approach in Pittsburgh, too. For example, why isn’t someone protesting the emasculation of Beethoven by the Pittsburgh Symphony next week? Of course we’ll have to call the TV News people. We love Beethoven and we don’t want to hear it mashed up with anything. And by the way, who is Coldplay?

Francis, Conscientious Objection and Stralimitate

No. 1,222

Summary: Pope Francis stated that conscientious objection is a right which must enter into every judicial structure.

Image: cbc.ca

On the plane after leaving the United States, Pope Francis conducted an hour-long press conference which ranged upon many topics. That is amazing in itself, since most of us would be ready to dive into bed after such a grueling week and stay there until the plane landed in Rome.

Here is what he said about conscientious objection, as reported by Time:

“If a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right. … Conscientious objection must enter into every judicial structure … Otherwise we would end up in a situation where we select what is a right, saying ‘this right that has merit, this one does not.'”

He also used a word, which Time described as a “mash-up of Spanish and Italian.” He described New York City’s unlimited exuberance as “stralimitate.”

A perfect description of the energy and enthusiasm that Pope Francis demonstrated on his journey to Cuba and the United States: stralimitate.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
Tags: conscientious objection and the law > Stralimitate

The Good Shepherd and the Lost Sheep

No. 1,221

SUMMARY: The Papal visit to America is, above all else, an evangelical outreach to lost sheep who want to be found.

Image: saltandlightly.org

The press coverage on the papal visit to Cuba and the United States was extremely interesting. I actually heard a commentator express the opinion that the Pope went to Cuba first because he shares the ideology of the Cuban regime.

Well, maybe she was asleep in the pew on Sunday morning when the Gospel passage was read about the shepherd leaving the flock to search for one sheep that was lost. Cuba officially left the fold almost sixty years ago. The news photos of Fidel and Raul Castro each engaged in earnest conversation with the Holy Father, in my opinion, said it all. Such a tableaux would have never happened in the early days of Communist Cuba.

Just as these two old men are ready listen, so perhaps is the Cuban nation. Pope Francis did Cuba a singular favor by mediating the secret negotiations to re-establish diplomatic relations with the United States. Now it is pay back time. And don’t believe that this Pope is so nieve or unworldly not to know it.

And now he is in America. A different story, perhaps, but not totally. There are a large number of lost sheep here, too. And it seems to take an event such as this to cause us to reflect on things we should have known anyway. With the prosperity of the Twentieth and Twenty-first Century has come a culture of materialism. It is invisible, like air. But it affects us all.

One essential factor in the shepherd-sheep story is easily overlooked. The Shepherd can come looking, but the sheep must want to be found. Francis is betting that there are many millions of sheep on this continent who want to be found.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
Tags: Pope Francis in America

As Generation Z Comes of Age, What Does It Mean For The Rest of Us?

No. 1,219

SUMMARY: Generation Z, which is starting to enter college, is reputed to be the most digital generation yet, with an attention span of eight seconds.

We, the Baby Boomers, haven’t even figured out the differences among Gen X, Gen Y, Millenials (if that’s something different) and now (ta-da!) Generation Z.

There have been a few articles in the national media about the subject, but they aren’t that enlightening. You can Google them if you are interested.

As best I can discern, the up and coming group is digitally adept, just like their predecessors, only more so. They are comfortable with everything out there and ready for the next wave and the one after. According to Fast Company, they have an attention span of eight seconds. This is not necessarily bad. If you can get the gist in eight seconds and move on, that’s great.

The freshmen class in the universities of the world are, according to these articles, getting the first wave of Generation Z. This group, which grew up in the 21st Century, won’t have much patience with us old timers unless we get to the point. Those of us who get business through the internet will see it first. Unless we can state our case succinctly and persuasively in eight seconds, we will lose them.

And so, in recognition of this trend — which is infecting all of us in various degrees, I am commencing immediately to place an eight second summary at the head of every blog post and every other document where a summary makes sense.

By the way, does anybody have any idea what will come after the letter Z?

CLT

Category: News Commentary

If Deer Could Read . . .

No. 1,219

THEY WOULD STAY ON THE PATH.

Excuse me, but I think I’ll stay out of the park entirely.

And what kind of permit is required to do what?

Category: Signs of the Times
Tags: deer culling > pointless endeavors

Ahmed’s Clock

No. 1,218

By now, if you watch the news, you’ve probably heard about how a geeky junior high school kid named Ahmed Mohammed brought a clock he had built to school to show his teacher. All was well until the clock beeped in the back of the room and various other teachers, so we are told, suggested it might be a bomb.

Ahmed was cuffed and arrested, but never charged. When his school suspension will be lifted, soon, he intends not to go back, but to find another school.

Naturally, Ahmed became an overnight hero on the internet, much to the embarrassment of the school administration. He has been invited to the White House, to visit Mr. Zuckerberg and to intern at Twitter. He says he wants to go to MIT. After such favorable publicity, he probably will.

I don’t know anything about clocks or bombs, but based on James Bond movies, the device pictured above looks like it might just be a bomb. So I don’t blame the school for being concerned and even taking precautions, like evacuating the building until the clock could be examined by the bomb squad. But perhaps they went a little too far by handcuffing Ahmed.

We occasionally hear about a much younger child bringing a gun or knife to school, perhaps under innocent circumstances. The only solution to this problem is to establish a protocol and to conduct classes for both parents and teachers.It doesn’t have to be an expensive process. It would be an easy task to produce a tutorial on the subject. Perhaps Ahmed could star in the tutorial.

CLT

Category: News Commentary
Tags: school security > Terrorism

Fiorina Shines in Second Republican Debate

No. 1,217

At the beginning of the second debate of the eleven top-polling GOP candidates, Jake Tapper of CNN announced that he would focus on statements the candidates made about each other. He certainly did. Under the “lets you and him fight” ground rules, anyone criticized would have a chance to respond. This format frequently produced multiple responses and rebuttals to a single question.

The night was fast-paced and at times gripping. Donald Trump had the most opportunities to speak, since he was the author or recipient of most of the barbs. But quantity was not quality and he clearly lost in many exchanges with other candidates.

His first salvo, which was not responsive to the question being asked, was to attack Rand Paul for appearing on stage with the A group, given his low poll ratings. Rand shot back that Trump’s behavior in leveling such a criticism was just the latest example of his headline-grabbing “sophomoric” behavior. Trump immediately confirmed Paul’s observation with another sophomoric remark about Paul’s appearance.

Trump did not help his cause by constantly making facial expressions during other presentations. It was definitely not his best performance. He frequently came off as petulant, vindictive and a bully. In addition, he had nothing substantive to add to the conversation. Nevertheless, if his goal was to continue to get maximum exposure, he succeeded.

And Trump the bully was no match for Fiorina. Mr. Trump had made himself famous for not apologizing for personal attacks on other candidates when he should. Bush tried to get such an apology on stage and failed. But Fiorina was able to score big on Trump’s remark to Rolling Stone Magazine concerning Fiorina’s face, and his later attempt to explain himself. It was interesting, she observed, that Trump refused to accept Bush’s explanation of his statement about reducing the budget for women’s health services, arguing that the people had heard what he said. The women of America, Fiorina stated, “heard very clearly” what Trump said about her. Trump responded by stating that Fiorina had a beautiful face. That is as close to an apology as the Donald ever gets.

She also clearly won the exchange over her management of Hewlett Packard as contrasted with the management of Trump’s New Jersey Casinos, including trips to the bankruptcy court. Trump accused Fiorina of destroying HP and being fired for it by the board. Her defense of how she addressed the company’s problems and brought it through hard times was pointed, passionate and convincing.

On the other hand, Trump argued that his Casinos’ corporate Bankruptcy filings were smart business moves to reorganize the businesses and that he showed savvy by getting out of the New Jersey casino business when he did. Unfortunately for Trump, his presentation sounded rather lame. Expect to hear about the New Jersey bankruptcies frequently in coming weeks.

In a field of eleven, where nearly everyone had their moments of glory, Ms. Fiorina shined. In response to the question whether she would trust Donald Trump with nuclear weapons, she shrewdly passed up the offering of red meat and stated that the answer was not hers to make. The American people will have the opportunity to observe all of the candidates under pressure during the entire campaign, she said, and they will decide. When Tapper pressed the question in an attempt to draw her into attack mode, she firmly repeated the same words. Good answer, Ms. Fiorina. Very good answer.

CLT

Footnote: Somewhere along the line, perhaps in the first debate, it was mentioned that Fiorina’s political experience consisted of a losing campaign for the Senate. This sounds like Lincoln.

Category: 2016
Tags: Carly Fiorina > CNN Debate > Republican debate

“Out out,damn spot!”: Trying (but failing) to erase history.

No. 1,216

One of the most distinguished alumni of Yale University was John C. Calhoun. The South Carolinian, who was, inter alia, Vice President during the Jackson Administration, is the namesake of one of the several colleges that comprise the University. But Yalies, or at least some of them, want to change the name, since they feel that it is wrong to honor a champion of slavery.

Strictly speaking, Calhoun was the great advocate of state’s rights, not slavery per se. But the result was the same. And today, in the era when Confederate flags are being removed from the front lawns of state houses throughout the South, it only seems right to these moralists to strip away any honor bestowed on the advocates of slavery.

Category: Pittsburgh Legal Back Talk

More Things To Worry About In Creating a Confession of Judgment Clause in a Commercial Lease.

No. 1,215

A confession of judgment clause of necessity creates a limited power of attorney empowering the landlord’s attorney to enter judgment in behalf of the tenant without a hearing. Pennsylvania law regarding powers of attorney has been changing, with the most recent change occurring in new amendments effective on January 1, 2015.Act 95 of 2014 amended Title 20, Chapter 56 of the Pennsyllvania Consolidated Statutes, specifically §§5601 – 5612.

Christina Cogdon of Pepper Hamilton has published a blog post recommending a review of commercial leases containing confession of judgment provisions.

For starters, she recommends that, in order to comply with the statute, the tenant should acknowledge his/her signature before a notary public. That was a good idea even before the statute. Just be sure that the notary is someone who can be easily found again and who is willing to go to court to testify. Moreover, the notary should not be the attorney who is likely to be confessing judgment.

However, the article also suggests that the language of the confession be written to state that the agent will be acting for the best interest of the tenant because the landlord wouldn’t have granted the lease without a confession of judgment clause.

This a long stretch, but there appears to be little choice for the landlord. As Cogdon points out, the duties of an agent under a power of attorney include the following duties:

act loyally for the principal’s benefit;
act so as not to create a conflict of interest that impairs the agent’s ability to act impartially in the principal’s best interest;
act with the care, competence and diligence ordinarily exercised by agents in similar circumstances;
keep a record of all receipts, disbursements and transactions made on behalf of the principal.

So the landlord must sugarcoat a confession of judgment clause with recitals that the clause benefits the tenant, including that there is no conflict of interest between the tenant and the attorney-agent, who will then proceed to issue writs of possession and execution against the tenant. Such an arrangement cannot fail to create a conflict of interest, nor can it fail to impair” the agent’s ability to act impartially in the agent’s best interest.”

To make matters worse, at least some of these requirements cannot be waived.

No doubt, a court could hold that the legislature never intended to apply this statutory language to confessions of judgment. If that is so, an actual amendment to the statute would be in order.

CLT

NOTE: The 1812 painting, “Sword of Damocles” by Richard Westall depicts the ever-present danger that attends being seated on the throne. See the article in Wikopedia. A confession of judgment has been likened to the Sword of Damocles by some, since it can swiftly follow default.

Category: Contract Law, Landlord and Tenant law and litigation
Tags: commercial leasing > confession of judgment > powers of attorney

Legal Elite! I’ll Take Ten!

No. 1,213

I have received emails more than once offering me the opportunity to be recognized as a member of the Legal Elite of Florida. Of course, I don’t practice in Florida and how in the heck do you define “Legal Elite”? Of course, if you have dumb clients, they might be impressed. My clients would get a big belly laugh and some of them would never stop razzing me.

I think I will pass on this one.

Category: Advertising

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CLIFF TUTTLE has been a Pennsylvania lawyer for over 45 years and (inter alia) is a real estate litigator and legal writer. The posts in this blog are intended to provide general information about legal topics of interest to lawyers and consumers with a Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania focus. However, this information does not constitute legal advice and there is no lawyer-client relationship created when you read this blog. You are encouraged to leave comments but be aware that posted comments can be read by others. If you wish to contact me in privacy, please use the Contact Form located immediately below this message. I will reply promptly and in strict confidence.

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