A young boy once interviewed the great trial lawyer Clarence Darrow for his school newspaper. “How did you become such a successful attorney?” the boy asked.
“Hard work,” Darrow replied. He nodded a couple of times while the child wrote this down. “I tried it once and hated it, so I became a lawyer instead.” Continue reading Honest labor
Let me tell you something you already know in the abstract. But because big numbers have a way of dulling my perceptions, I’d like to start by breaking them down a little bit so that I, at least, have an idea what I’m saying. To help us both, I’ve enlisted the aid of Alina Kroll. Continue reading Where are the heroes?
I do not know to whom the fates will award the national plebiscite in 2016, and neither does anybody else. Recent history has been for the most part an unilluminating guide; recent Presidents have come from big states like California and Texas and small states like Arkansas; have been (moderately) conservative and (moderately) liberal; have been tall (Clinton) and short (Carter); have been from the East (Kennedy) and the west (Nixon, Reagan); the North (Kennedy, Ford, Obama) and the South (everybody else). We have not had a woman president but it is just a matter of time.
So who will win two years from now? How can we tell? I do not know the particulars, but I offer this reliable guide: the person we elect President in 2016 will be the person with the most awful father. Continue reading Here’s how to pick the presidential winner in 2016
“Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”
Who writes stuff like that? Like minor characters in an uninspired episode of The Sopranos, minions of the Governor of New Jersey cut off all but one lane of the George Washington Bridge to New York City, causing misery, frustration and – at least arguably, in one case – death. Continue reading Why I Believe Chris Christie
In the waning days of 1989 I moved, for professional reasons, from Buffalo to Chicago. It was not an easy thing to do; my family was all in Buffalo, as were almost all my friends. I was at home there – familiar with the streets, the bistros, the politicians, the theater, the Sabres. I knew no one in Chicago. Still, I had been offered a job in Chicago for more money than I ever imagined making – nearly fifty thousand a year, which was roughly forty thousand more than I had cleared in the previous year’s solo legal practice. Continue reading We Are All Ukrainians
So I got up yesterday morning around five thirty, staggered down and made the coffee, collapsed into my chair and looked out the window. Continue reading Beautiful and deadly