Furlough Food Recipe

Polenta is easy to make, inexpensive and comes packaged dry. It has common characteristics with grits and is very versatile. My favorite restaurant polenta dish is from Wolfgang Puck American Grille in the Borgata in Atlantic City, and I just recently decided to try preparing a polenta dish myself. This dish started with a box of Colavita Polenta, but feel free to use your favorite brand.

You will need:
1 Box Polenta Cornmeal
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 jar sliced button mushrooms
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Cilantro, fresh or dried.

Boil some water. The ratio for preparing polenta is 2:1, water to polenta. I used two cups of water to prepare 1 cup of polenta.
Pour water into a saucepan, when the water reaches a boil, pour in the polenta. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil and some salt and pepper to taste, and use a whisk to smooth it all out. From the time you pour in the polenta, it will be less than five minutes for the polenta to be cooked. Turn off the flame.

Add your extra ingredients. Mine are mushrooms and parmesan, but you should pick what you like. I added a quarter cup of sliced button mushrooms (from a jar) and a quarter cup of grated parmesan cheese. Blend these ingredients and then pour the mixture into a baking dish. Refrigerate for at least an hour. Now you have the basic component of your meal. You can keep this in your fridge for at least a week, so make this on a Sunday and then use as needed throughout the week.

The last steps:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take a half inch slice of polenta from the baking dish and bake for 5-6 minutes. This will remove some of the moisture from the polenta slice. Remove from oven, brush on some olive oil and fry or grill for about three minutes. Sprinkle on some cilantro. Enjoy! Makes a great side dish to soup, especially if paired with guacamole.

Happy Birthday America

Ah, privacy. Everybody wants more for themselves, perhaps at the cost of the privacy of others. What a conundrum.
Using Facebook Graph Search I ran a search for "Persons who work at NSA" and got back over one-thousand search results. Interesting, in and of itself since this would imply that even potentially  sensitive information faces its eventual demise at the hands of crowdsourcing and self reporting. The photos have been retouched to observe privacy.

What will we, collectively, do with all of that information? Learn the Bill of Rights, I hope. Here are the results for a graph search for "People who work at NSA who like the US Constitution."

As you can see, only one person of the "more than 1000 people" fit this criteria. A friend reminded me yesterday that the greatest battle Americans have ever fought is with ourselves. I wholeheartedly agree.
So, on this, the 237th birthday of my native and most beloved country, I want to wish the USA a happy birthday. To those in other lands who hate us because we are a vibrant, free and diverse culture: stuff it. To those who protect us, often in silence: Thank you! Please read the Constitution, it's awesome.

To Endorse or Not To Endorse

Well, this tweet got my attention this morning:

LinkedIn Endorsements 101 | Law Technology Today bit.ly/Y5JnWa via @ltrc
— ABA Antitrust Law (@ABAantitrust) March 23, 2013

And brought to mind some potential pitfalls with regard to privilege: When the endorsee has no publicly available content on the subject for which they are being endorsed, the first question that usually pops into my head is, "How do they know this about the individual being endorsed?" That inquiry makes me a bit nervous, especially if I imagine a scenario involving a member of a licensed profession, under scrutiny for some alleged act of malpractice. As a plaintiff's advocate or on behalf of the defendant, contacting all the people who clicked that "endorse" button might make the short list of people from whom some statement might be sought.
When there is publicly available content such as a treatise or a published note on the part of the endorsee, stated scenario seems like much less of an issue, and thus reinforces the old adage of "Publish or Perish."
My tip for staying out of trouble? Endorse for attributes for which information is publicly available, i.e. public speaking or subject matter pertaining to publicly accessible skills such as litigation or the subject matter of a recent treatise.
Also, kudos to the writer of "101." It treats the subject matter at a very basic level and this may give us a clue as to where many LinkedIn users are right now with regard to this feature.

Untitled 13

Fortune's Thorns, again

grass oak lemon  | breathe outside

#ForAll Dearest Lost

Happy Holidays!

"... freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science." 

Charles Darwin

POTUS, Hizzonor And My Senators Hung Out In SI Today and Did Not Invite Me; Instead I Wrote This Article

Well, if the media reports are to be given any credence, the Director of the CIA got pwned. By now hopefully we can all agree, stealing email is not particularly difficult, that is to say, you probably know at least one person who knows how to do it.
But what are the legal repercussions?
We could start by acknowledging a preliminary binary that underpins our process of analysis: What are the legal mechanisms that protect the disclosure of an electronic communication? There is the military related "classified" communications regime. This group of categorizations is brought to you by your local governments. The private sector has its own scheme: Privileged Communications. Therefore, in addition to "Classified" the government may use privilege as their justification for not disclosing a communication.
The private sector does not have the same leeway to use "National Security" as a rationale for not disclosing a digital document, but give them some time to refine their agenda.
So far no one commenting on this fracas has referenced this law: good old 18 USC §2517; you may be particularly interested in Section (4): No otherwise privileged wire, oral, or electronic communication intercepted in accordance with, or in violation of, the provisions of this chapter shall lose its privileged character.
What does it mean? It means stolen emails, if privileged, cannot be used in a court of law, only in the court of public opinion.

The Big Bang

Grounding for a metaphysics of legal theory in cyberspace: Informed by my failures and... You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge.

Theory of distributed liability in the cloud. For what? Corporate? Criminal? What are we shooting for here Legal Eagles? Is this about process? What about distributed computing is like the corporate veil/hierarchy? How is use of cyberspace analogous to corporate action? If it is distributed computing, why not apply corporate theory, corporations are all about distributed authority and, like cyberspace, the reach of a corporation is usually spread across various jurisdictions that often overlap. Toward a theory of rights in cyberspace. Remember the SETI project. Are distributed rights akin to shareholder voting rights? Does Citizens United apply? Perhaps that action in the cloud should be regarded by the same standard as that of an individual stakeholder in cyberspace. Could rights that would imbue to a holder of 1 share per URL edited; be the model? And thus, could there be voting trusts, proxies, and, liability for wrongdoing. Conflicts could be settled according to the shareholder's agreement. What are the basic shareholder rights? Voting, proportionate stake, buy-sell agreement? Dissolution upon what? What is required for a quorum? How does this relate back to liability? What about a criminal act? What about a tort? What is crowdsourcing? Why am I thinking about RICO? How and what kinds of conspiracies can be claimed via communications made on social networks? Argue for a theory against this! This is a terrible and frightening idea. Where is cyberspace? The cloud is a social construct. Many simple corollaries apply in existing law that will give rise to an acceptable theory. Why do these standards not apply to wikileaks? We could write it on Wikipedia. Here, I'll start:...

Is a discovery related Listserve discoverable? Shouldn’t you append a confidentiality notice for the sake of the clients? Recently I tried to friend a deceased person. What happens to your FB page after you die? All that IP... Leave the rights to it in your will. And the password. Several childhood friends have made a career of politics. When I friended one recently, I deleted that headline from my wall. Was that the right call? What if you use FB to disseminate your employer's ideas or improve the pecuniary value of her brand? Does that make all your content subject to his Licensing Agreement?
What is the difference between a FB wall feed and a blog? HTML features, for starters. Is there a legal difference? Isn't code protected expression via the First Amendment?
The great redistribution of wealth will take place when monetizing one's blog becomes part of the standard canon of knowledge. To protect? To liberate? Publish means you put something out there in the world, irrevocably. Privileges will not apply. (Attorney-client, doctor-patient, cleric-penitent) HIPPA sanctions might. The rules that apply to all American legal proceedings are the rules of evidence. Who is on you FB block list? Why? Drop the names of people when you network socially if you are willing to accept responsibility for the legal fees associated with a lawsuit for violation of privacy or libel or anything else someone like me might think of. When the news broadcasts Sara Palin’s FB page, are they really being her Friend? What does it mean to "like" something, legally? It's a subscription, isn't it? Does MTV owns some rights to your page bc you use your FB page to to disseminate the articles you write for them? Google case says maybe, no?
If you need a warrant to go into a hotel room whilst a guest is checked in, shouldn't you need a warrant to access that individual’s browsing history if they purchase internet access whilst lodged in said hotel?
Should I friend my husband's tenants? Can this status be used to conflict me out of a legal matter? Is having something appear on your wall an effective form of notice? Can you credibly say you didn't know if it was on your wall? What is a permalink? What if someone who owes you money and claims poverty posts pics of a fabulous vacation on FB? Isn’t that art?
Why are people so rude in the virtual world? Is writing on someone's wall like visiting their porch or patio? Is Twitter like a CB radio? Foursquare and Gowalla are games! If I can drop a virtual balloon animal at a building that I have never visited, why do you think it pertains to your criminal investigation? Who owns the rights to an image you upload to Foursquare? Geo-tagging is the essence of these issues because it had limitless applications and has the potential to be borderless.

Is FB the largest trove of ethnographic information ever collected? I regularly weed, or edit my FB page. This is less about censorship and more about tweaking for anyone who joins later and wants to get a comprehensive look. Doesn’t that make my page more like art? How long does something deleted stay on the FB servers? What's their document retention policy?
You usually hold the copyright to any photo you take. Post it if you like and tag it so the subject is aware of its existence in cyberspace. If they don't like it, they can untag it. (Issue of notice- I didn't know it was out there.) If there are people in your photos you don't know, crop them out. Karma. Do you want people uploading your image to the web? Remember Photoshop exists, as does GIMP. Are you sharing, as opposed to publishing?
What happens when you introduce two attorneys who are both related to you via a social network? Should you get a referral fee?
If you generally make it a practice to go to a party and spend the whole night talking about politics, then the fact that everything on your FB page is about politics reflects who you are.
Many people will never meet you in veridity and the only thing they will know about you is the you presented via social networking. Who are you?
Jurisdiction? Read the terms of use and email yourself a copy, take a screenshot. Just because it is stated in the TOU does not necessarily make it so. If you use SKYPE to communicate with your clients, have them sign a release entitled “Informed Consent.”

Reread Citizens United. Read Warshak UNTIL YOU KNOW IT INSIDE OUT. Teach it to everyone who can read and argue for its adoption in foreign countries. What does it mean to publish something? Are there degrees of published? What's the framework? How is it different from "sharing" via a social network?
If the ultimate issue in law is related to conflict of law principles, where does a theory of individual rights in cyberspace fit? What are the relevant laws? Electronic communications. Cross border communications. Long arm jurisdiction. If the ultimate game is about _by whose rules will we play_? Then the ultimate question becomes, who has the sufficient balance of reason and force to decide?
What does it mean to be a citizen of the US when we live in a world where we can conduct cross-border communications with few constraints and no apparent contact with Homeland Security? Can voting machines be hacked? Methods of authentication... PKI keys... Enable Authenticity, storage or preservation duty, permanent public access. Does Public Access mean free?
What if someone makes a practice of viewing the private page of another in order to spy on one of the other's contacts? ie: Person A and person B are FB friends (they are friended via that social network). Person C logs into person B's account (w/B's consent) in order to view information on person A. This is not addressed by the recent ethics opinions in Pa and NY.
We know person B can't be a lawyer with intent to fool. What about business contacts? Can your assistant log in and let C look at her friends? By making it prohibited for C, it is harder for C to be coerced. *Coercion is what concerns me most.*
What about those fed statutes that make intercepting an electronic communication illegal? Can't they be used to argue that intercepting a person's FB page is illegal. It is an electronic communication, is it not?
Neuroscience Axiom: When it gets dark enough, we begin to see in black and white and our mind fills the blanks in with color. Perception.
Rights relating to the stuff we upload. Remember Steven Jackson Games, 1986 electronic communications privacy act. Publishing photos containing children. Minors following you on Twitter? Posts and Tweets. Fifth Amendment right to self incrimination. Why can’t every country adopt our corporate bylaws and TOU?
What about a model TOU, like the NYC and San Francisco rent stabilized leases? Landlord-tenant issues. Some inalienable basics, ie a corollary to having heat and running water. If I let the city install a water meter on my property that transmits data to a third party contractor that is not the government, isn’t that a taking pursuant to theory of eminent domain?
Electronic discovery/satellite law offices. What if your discovery database got hacked? Do the people who telecommute at your office access sensitive corporate communications via WIFI for which the encryption is no longer secure?
How about a central databank to keep track of important pieces of art, kinda like Foursquare for works of art. They’re doing this in Iraq, just found out via NYT.com. Germany has a (draft?) law about not using an individual’s FB content in hiring. Florida bar uses social networks in admissions process. Why can’t all the apps for my phone have a standardized privacy provision? I’m worried about installing them and having my clients sue me. Should several small groups control the flow of information the way they control oil? Freedom of speech. When indemnity does not apply. Publishers have legal immunity sometimes. Are you a publisher?


(Author is an enthusiastic member of the Science and Technology Committee of the American Bar Association and gratefully acknowledges her interaction with the other members of this group in inspiring the thoughts contained in this Big Bang.)

The Year of the Rabbit

Hi there, faithful reader(s). This is just a heads up that I have taken a look at this long neglected blog and will be working on it again. The things I will probably write about are related to the things that are usually on my mind, like art, cyberspace, law, and perception. Please remember I am an attorney in New York State, but not anywhere else, so do not take my opinions as definitive, and do not interpret them as legal advice, that could cause me some troubles with the bar associations. Also, this may be construed as attorney advertising (which I think is silly, since I am not even using my given name) but being that may be the case, I repeat: I am only licensed in New York state, and I am not currently looking for new clients.
game on!
: )

The Exception To The Rule: Sound City Records

After one-hundred posts, I decided this blog was done, and moved on to others. But I am writing today about something that is very close to me and very much relevant to Astoria. Sound City Records, located on 30th Avenue, just off Steinway Street, closed its doors May 31st 2009. Permanently. Sound City opened in March of 1991. I should know, I begged them to let me work there. What could be cooler to a crazy music addict like me than to work at an independent record store? Gus and Chris obliged. We spent the first fifty days labeling, by hand, 45s. Do you remember 45s? I still have an adapter so I can play them on my turntable. Sound City outlasted "Nobody Beats The Wiz." The Wiz was a music store with significantly more square footage, many more top forty CDs in stock, many employees, and an address actually on Steinway Street. Its employees shopped at Sound City. The space Sound City inhabited measures less than four hundred square feet, and when Gus, Chris and I were there at the same time, we had to climb over each other to get to the cash register. Sound City sells vinyl. Sold vinyl. Sound City is on the Q18 bus route, and kids from the Astoria Houses used to come in, giving us a heads up on emerging artists like Mobb Deep, Raekwon, Nas. Gus would "special order" anything for his customers: bluegrass, Praxis, techno, hardcore, jazz, as there was just not enough room in the store for everything. The customers I remember were fantastic. They made us mixed tapes from the breakbeat vinyl they purchased. I think one of those kids (now an adult presumably) supervises the music at Central. There were suave guys with huge arms who drove convertibles and came in to buy only freestyle (c'mon, you must know who TKA, Noel, and Johnny O are!) so they could cruise their rides by Astoria Park. There were metalheads, who lined up to buy G&R "Use Your Illusion" and gave us the single best sales day while I was there (thank you!). There is Cathy, who lived nearby and spent a small fortune on country music. I think her purchases alone paid the rent. There were the crazy drug dealers, who only seemed to mind their manners when they were in our store. It boggled my mind that they had the most discerning taste in music: David Bowie, Velvet Underground, Fugazi, Madonna, Eric B. & Rakim, Apotheosis. And who could ever forget "SSD Control" a customer who insisted on categorizing every piece of music in the store, but as the nickname we gave him suggests, only purchased eclectic headbanger. Those are just the people from the first few years... Sound City passed out House of Pain's "Jump Around" before the radio was playing it. Sound City pimped Biggie before he was known to roll with the Bad Boys. My experience at Sound City rescued me from the life of debauchery towards which I was already on the fast lane. Thank you Gus, you kept me from becoming a full blown drug-dealing delinquent. Sound City was a bond... At least, a loosely affiliated group of fascinating people from which to learn, vent at, yell. At best, brunch on your favorite sun-filled day followed by a Yankee game where the winner made absolutely no difference and someone else covered the store. Or late summer nights sitting in someone's music room or rehearsal studio, talking music, waxing nostalgic, revealing secrets, laughing hard. I say we, even though at first I was the only non shareholder there. Hell, I was seventeen. Once, we were walking home from the nightclub "Silver Screen." Silver Screen was its own Astoria Institution. I was disappointed to not find any footage on the web to share. It's a Gentlemen's Club now. It used to be "Krash," and when we were goths it was called "Berlin." It's further south on Steinway. Walking towards home with a member of the Sound City crew after a night of aforementioned debauchery, I was sobered by the smell of smoke. The time was just after 4:00 AM. The storefront next to Sound City was on fire and the fine gentlemen of the FDNY were just about to take an ax to our glass storefront. Sound City was rapidly filling with smoke. We fished the keys to the store out of of my handbag instead. Sound City was completely unharmed by a fire that destroyed the adjoining cafe. those were the days my friend we thought they'd never end... Oh, I could fill a hundred pages with stories about Sound City; perhaps another time. To all the loyal customers, I do not think Gus would mind if I said "thank you" on his behalf. Over the years, customers who started off as children grew to men and women. Some died. Some met in the store and after learning they both loved some obscure piece of shit song, hooked up. It was more than a store. In the big picture, eighteen years is not a long time. But for a mom 'n pop shop in New York City, it can feel like a life. In a South American Mall in 1992 I purchased vinyl copies of Michael Jackson's double album Dangerous and upon returning to my job gave them to the guys as souvenirs. Michael Jackson died a some hours ago.