Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's downstairs platform bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This week's topic: Does anybody remember their usual garbage pick-up day?
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
23 February 2010
20 February 2010
How a young lawyer saved a family from foreclosure
Underemployed recent law school graduate opens up can of whup-ass on Wells Fargo over a family's stated-income loan, wins:
There is a trustee sale date scheduled for August 25, 2009. The borrower has already submitted a viable loan-modification package that was confirmed as received. The borrower was informed that his loan modification application was denied on August 14, 2009 because his expenses exceeded his income. This conclusion is blatantly incorrect based on the information provided, which shows the client—with the financial assistance of his domestic partner—made an income that is above his current expenses. This denial, based on an inaccurate assessment of the documents, represents either gross incompetence on the part of the Wells Fargo loan-modification department or a fraudulent misrepresentation in order to deny a viable client a suitable loan modification. The borrower is now re-sending a loan modification package with all the appropriate information requested.Your feel-good story of the week.
18 February 2010
An American terrorist in Austin
The dude (bowdlerized PDF or non-bowdlerized HTML screenshot) who crashed his plane into the IRS building in Texas today could have been the cover photo for Susan Faludi's Stiffed, her 1999 work on how American men have been sold a bill of goods since the Second World War.
Not really sure what he was hoping to accomplish, even after I've read the note. He arsonated his house, too, so it's not as though his homeowner's insurance policy payout will cover his back taxes.
Not really sure what he was hoping to accomplish, even after I've read the note. He arsonated his house, too, so it's not as though his homeowner's insurance policy payout will cover his back taxes.
16 February 2010
That bill in Iowa that eliminates protection for LGBT people from bullying
The bill in question, HF 2291:
Wasn't this kind of thing determined to be unconstitutional "animus" in Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996)?
A BILL FOR
An Act relating to protected traits or characteristics of students under public and nonpublic school harassment and bullying prohibitions and policies.
[ ... ]
Section 1. Section 280.28, subsection 2, paragraph c, Code 2009, is amended to read as follows:
c. "Trait or characteristic of the student" includes but is not limited to age, color, creed, national origin, race, religion, marital status, sex,sexual orientation, gender identity,physical attributes, physical or mental ability or disability, ancestry, political party preference, political belief, socioeconomic status, or familial status.
EXPLANATION
This bill strikes sexual orientation and gender identity from the definition of the term "trait or characteristic of the student" used for purposes of protecting students in public and nonpublic schools from harassment and bullying.
Wasn't this kind of thing determined to be unconstitutional "animus" in Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996)?
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's downstairs platform bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This week's topic: Luckily for you, I can't be there this week due to a previous commitment. So instead, I leave you with the Norwegian men's curling team:
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This week's topic: Luckily for you, I can't be there this week due to a previous commitment. So instead, I leave you with the Norwegian men's curling team:
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
15 February 2010
10 February 2010
Finally! A trial for a Gitmo detainee: the Canadian child
Yay! The Obama administration is finally taking a Gitmo detainee to trial! Oh, wait, it's the brainwashed child soldier (and Canadian citizen) Omar Khadr. You remember him. When he was a young child, his father took him to Afghanistan, where he brainwashed him into fighting for al-Qaeda. After a firefight in eastern Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15, Khadr was found huddled in a bunker out of which someone tossed a grenade at some American soldiers. One of the soldiers was killed. The others identified Khadr as the grenade-thrower. So Khadr was shipped off to Gitmo, where he's remained the facility's youngest prisoner.
After seven-odd years of sitting in a cage, and about 18 months after his trial was supposed to start, he's going before a judge, "probably . . . the first full military commission trial under President Obama" (Washington Post).
After seven-odd years of sitting in a cage, and about 18 months after his trial was supposed to start, he's going before a judge, "probably . . . the first full military commission trial under President Obama" (Washington Post).
09 February 2010
New adventures in loan servicing
GLOMARIZATION, ESQ.: "Hi, I'm calling to find out why I haven't heard back about a call I made last week. I have an e-mail here that says I would get a response by Friday or Monday."
LOAN SERVICER CSR: "Oh. We've had a snowstorm and a lot of the phone reps couldn't make it in--"
GLOMARIZATION: "Well, ma'am, we had a lot of snow here in Philadelphia, too."
Pause.
LOAN SERVICER CSR: "Oh. We've had a snowstorm and a lot of the phone reps couldn't make it in--"
GLOMARIZATION: "Well, ma'am, we had a lot of snow here in Philadelphia, too."
Pause.
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This week's topic: Same thing every year, people complaining that Black History Month is February, the shortest month of the year. People. Blame Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Black History Month is February because that's the month when they were born (or, at least for Douglass, when he died). And it used to be only a week, not the whole month. Now, there are good reasons for moving it to another month -- June comes to mind most obviously, because of Juneteenth, but it's a nonsense argument to complain that "they" chose February for Black History Month because it's the shortest month of the year.
In conclusion, blame the Romans.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This week's topic: Same thing every year, people complaining that Black History Month is February, the shortest month of the year. People. Blame Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Black History Month is February because that's the month when they were born (or, at least for Douglass, when he died). And it used to be only a week, not the whole month. Now, there are good reasons for moving it to another month -- June comes to mind most obviously, because of Juneteenth, but it's a nonsense argument to complain that "they" chose February for Black History Month because it's the shortest month of the year.
In conclusion, blame the Romans.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
08 February 2010
Army sergeant home from Iraq service accused of waterboarding 4-year-old daughter
It was only a matter of time before something like this happened:
An Army sergeant who served in Iraq for 15 months has been restricted to his Washington military base after being accused of waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter because she refused to recite her ABCs.Police responded to a report that the soldier had been storming up and down the street threatening neighbors. When they got to his house, they found the girl cowering in a bathroom.
[Yelm, Wash., police chief Todd] Stancil said that when the cops coaxed the little girl out of the bathroom they saw that she was covered in "multiple bruises pretty much all over her body."
"She was very open with us," Stancil said of the young girl, whose name is not being released because she is a minor. "She basically came right out and said, 'Daddy does this to me. He uses his hands.'"
07 February 2010
Driberally this evening
It's Drinking Liberally Center City's second annual Superbowl party! Meet us at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 p.m. until the end of the game. Kick-off is at 6:25.
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This year's topic: If you spell it "Geaux Saints," then you'd have to say "Joe Saints." In French, a g followed by an e is always a soft g. To get a hard g sound you should really spell it "Gaux." People fuss about how silly and difficult French is, but the orthographical rules are very regular and strictly related to pronunciation. There are very few exceptions to the rules; English is monumentally more difficult.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This year's topic: If you spell it "Geaux Saints," then you'd have to say "Joe Saints." In French, a g followed by an e is always a soft g. To get a hard g sound you should really spell it "Gaux." People fuss about how silly and difficult French is, but the orthographical rules are very regular and strictly related to pronunciation. There are very few exceptions to the rules; English is monumentally more difficult.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
06 February 2010
It's snowing today in Philadelphia
There are worse ways to spend a snowy afternoon than camping out on the sofa reading a 45-year-old mass-market paperback edition of Notes from Underground while the neighbors take turns shoveling the sidewalk even as the snow continues to fall.
Didn't we have a really mild winter last year? I remember it took a long time to warm up, but winter was more damp and disagreeable than it was snowy. I guess it takes two extremes to make a happy medium.
Didn't we have a really mild winter last year? I remember it took a long time to warm up, but winter was more damp and disagreeable than it was snowy. I guess it takes two extremes to make a happy medium.
02 February 2010
An ABA "Legal Rebel" is an ABC entrepreneurial no-go
The American Bar Association named attorney Jeff Hughes of Santa Monica a "Legal Rebel" for his brilliant idea of opening up a coffee shop where you can get low-cost legal services. Since 1996 he's owned and operated the Legal Grind café, which employs 10 other attorneys. The ABA thinks this is awesome, but the ABA never asked if this is a sound way to do business and try to raise a family.
Jeff and his wife are exploring franchising their coffee-and-a-prenup model. So they went to the ABC television show Shark Tank and pitched for funding for franchising. They sounded foolish, unable to answer the most simple questions, and were deservedly turned down:
If their entitlement complex gets on your nerves, just skip ahead to 37:30. They explain that they need funds because they don't know how to manage a franchised operation, even though they have "over a hundred" people asking to be franchisees. The panel asks them how they'd learn to be franchisors, then. They answer that they'll use the money to "hire legal consultants" to do it for them.
One, these guys are entrepreneurs? He's an attorney? Why can't he teach himself how to be a franchisor? Why hasn't he done it long before now? If there are, indeed, dozens of people knocking down their doors to be franchisees, then why, to paraphrase one of the panelists, are they wasting the show's time and taking the space of some entrepreneur who really deserves a chance in front of these guys? They don't even need the venture capital or a business loan themselves; they can shift that burden to the people who are begging them to be franchisees. Which is kind of the point of being a franchisor.
Two, I think that their plan to hire legal consultants must be an ABA-inspired jobs program. Hire consultants! They'll be self-employed 1099 contractors! No fuss, no muss! No need to put them in offices, pay their health insurance, or throw holiday parties for them! Wait -- maybe you can even offshore their work to India!
Earlier in the clip, the Hugheses say that their salaries are only about $50,000 annually (it's not clear whether each makes that, or if it's $25K apiece), and and they're barely clearing a profit above that. How would they possibly convince a potential franchisee to buy into such low returns? Consider that running a coffee shop is a 7-day-a-week gig, even if the legal services are available only on weekdays. In an ordinary coffee shop, the average ticket is probably under $10; this is why coffee shops open at 7:00 or even 6:00 and close at midnight. Adding legal services to a coffee shop, or a coffee shop to legal services, is a fun little side-line. It's a gimmick. But it's not a business model. I'll take them at their word that they have "over a hundred" requests about franchising opportunities, but I gotta wonder how serious, and perhaps how dated, most of the inquiries are. And how serious they'd continue to be once they hear that you have to start with a law license, something that ain't cheap to begin with, and ain't easy to pay off in $10 or $50 increments.
God bless the ABA for showcasing these people as exemplars of the profession. They're so out of touch with business reality, they should be law professors.
The phrase "legal rebel" is kind of meaningless, of course. I think the ABA intends it to connote a sense of empowerment to those of us who graduated in the bottom 90% of our law school graduating classes, who've been laid off from our firms, and who otherwise are significantly underemployed lately, due in large part to some of the ABA's policies and decisions over the past several years. The ABA's Legal Rebels are "maverick[s]" and "pathfinder[s]" who are "committed to innovation" during "this time of economic crisis." The Legal Grind café looks good on paper -- but only on the paper they use for my monthly ABA Journal, not on a spreadsheet.
Jeff and his wife are exploring franchising their coffee-and-a-prenup model. So they went to the ABC television show Shark Tank and pitched for funding for franchising. They sounded foolish, unable to answer the most simple questions, and were deservedly turned down:
If their entitlement complex gets on your nerves, just skip ahead to 37:30. They explain that they need funds because they don't know how to manage a franchised operation, even though they have "over a hundred" people asking to be franchisees. The panel asks them how they'd learn to be franchisors, then. They answer that they'll use the money to "hire legal consultants" to do it for them.
One, these guys are entrepreneurs? He's an attorney? Why can't he teach himself how to be a franchisor? Why hasn't he done it long before now? If there are, indeed, dozens of people knocking down their doors to be franchisees, then why, to paraphrase one of the panelists, are they wasting the show's time and taking the space of some entrepreneur who really deserves a chance in front of these guys? They don't even need the venture capital or a business loan themselves; they can shift that burden to the people who are begging them to be franchisees. Which is kind of the point of being a franchisor.
Two, I think that their plan to hire legal consultants must be an ABA-inspired jobs program. Hire consultants! They'll be self-employed 1099 contractors! No fuss, no muss! No need to put them in offices, pay their health insurance, or throw holiday parties for them! Wait -- maybe you can even offshore their work to India!
Earlier in the clip, the Hugheses say that their salaries are only about $50,000 annually (it's not clear whether each makes that, or if it's $25K apiece), and and they're barely clearing a profit above that. How would they possibly convince a potential franchisee to buy into such low returns? Consider that running a coffee shop is a 7-day-a-week gig, even if the legal services are available only on weekdays. In an ordinary coffee shop, the average ticket is probably under $10; this is why coffee shops open at 7:00 or even 6:00 and close at midnight. Adding legal services to a coffee shop, or a coffee shop to legal services, is a fun little side-line. It's a gimmick. But it's not a business model. I'll take them at their word that they have "over a hundred" requests about franchising opportunities, but I gotta wonder how serious, and perhaps how dated, most of the inquiries are. And how serious they'd continue to be once they hear that you have to start with a law license, something that ain't cheap to begin with, and ain't easy to pay off in $10 or $50 increments.
God bless the ABA for showcasing these people as exemplars of the profession. They're so out of touch with business reality, they should be law professors.
The phrase "legal rebel" is kind of meaningless, of course. I think the ABA intends it to connote a sense of empowerment to those of us who graduated in the bottom 90% of our law school graduating classes, who've been laid off from our firms, and who otherwise are significantly underemployed lately, due in large part to some of the ABA's policies and decisions over the past several years. The ABA's Legal Rebels are "maverick[s]" and "pathfinder[s]" who are "committed to innovation" during "this time of economic crisis." The Legal Grind café looks good on paper -- but only on the paper they use for my monthly ABA Journal, not on a spreadsheet.
Driberally tonight
Drinking Liberally is a weekly social gathering where progressives talk politics and get to know one another. In Center City Philadelphia, we meet on Tuesday nights at Triumph Brewery's upstairs bar, where there are drink and food specials from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. I hope to see you there!
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This week's topic: You'd think that by my age I'd have gotten over my phobic discomfort when I have to make phone calls. But then, you'd think that by my age I wouldn't still be dealing with student loan servicers.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
Triumph Brewery is at 117 Chestnut Street in Old City. It's conveniently SEPTA-accessible via the Market-Frankford El (2nd Street station), all the buses that turn around at or near Penn's Landing (5, 12, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48), and a few other buses that pass nearby (9, 25, 38, 40, 44, 47, 57, 61).
This week's topic: You'd think that by my age I'd have gotten over my phobic discomfort when I have to make phone calls. But then, you'd think that by my age I wouldn't still be dealing with student loan servicers.
"Come for the beer, stay for the check"
01 February 2010
Philadelphia: the town that broke Gordon Ramsay
A recent episode of Kitchen Nightmares was hyped as truly momentous: celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay went to the one single restaurant in the history of the show that was so dysfunctional that he gave up, declared it unfixable, and walked out.
The setting? Philadelphia. Fishtown, to be more precise.
In July, 2007, the Philadelphia Weekly slammed Hot Potato Café as "Spuddy Hell." Some time in the past year, Kitchen Nightmares put Ramsay on a Girard Avenue trolley to Fishtown to see what he could do.
Ramsay is notorious for his NSFW language. I don't watch the show that often, but it seemed to me that the owners sure do give him a run for his money. Yay, Fishtown!
Entire episode available on Hulu. The Weekly has posted a new, post-Nightmares review -- obviously, Ramsay came back and the restaurant made some changes. But I won't totally spoil the ending.
The setting? Philadelphia. Fishtown, to be more precise.
In July, 2007, the Philadelphia Weekly slammed Hot Potato Café as "Spuddy Hell." Some time in the past year, Kitchen Nightmares put Ramsay on a Girard Avenue trolley to Fishtown to see what he could do.
Ramsay is notorious for his NSFW language. I don't watch the show that often, but it seemed to me that the owners sure do give him a run for his money. Yay, Fishtown!
Entire episode available on Hulu. The Weekly has posted a new, post-Nightmares review -- obviously, Ramsay came back and the restaurant made some changes. But I won't totally spoil the ending.
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