Hertz Changing Loyalty Program

This is news to me. 

Greenfield on Non-lawyers Practicing Law

Scott Greenfield has a post at his blog, Simple Justice, responding to the idea that some of the simplier areas of law should be opened to non-lawyers:

The simple will, for example, which, assuming it satisfies the needs and desires of the testator, can be prepared from a fill-in-the-blanks form. Whether it's the correct vehicle for a fellow requires a judgment call, of course, but once past that decision, the blanks themselves are fairly self-explanatory. But does the guy who bought the $19.95 will know that he can't cross out his brother's name when he has a falling out and fill in his sister's? Does he realize that his executor may have to locate the witnesses some day to prove the will, when he pulled a couple folks off the street to complete the execution? Of when he rips the will in half to show his kids what could happen if they continue to piss him off, does he realize that he can't tape it back together?

Greenfield suggests that the solution is not to allow non-lawyers to practice law, but to expect more of practicing lawyers:

Maybe the reason the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Brookings and Cato think we don't deserve the exclusive right to practice law is that we have forsaken our intellectual and educational authority to help others. But the solution isn't to place law in the hands of everyman, but to elevate the profession to those worthy to practice it.

Reading Roundup: August 25, 2011

• Who Needs Him? by Farhad Manjoo [Slate]
• AFL-CIO's Trumpka Outlines New Strategy by Sam Stein [Huffington Post]
• Liberals' Wisconsin Waterloo by George Will [Washington Post]
• Psychic Benefits and the NBA Lockout by Malcolm Gladwell [Grantland]

Reading Roundup: August 24, 2011

Good morning everybody, below is some of what I am reading today.  As always, feel free to let me know if there's anything you're reading that I should be reading as well.  Have a great day!

• Why Another Democrat Wouldn't Do Better Than Obama in 2012 by Nate Silver [Fivethirtyeight]
• Rick Perry for President, Y'all [Baseball Crank]
• How Hard Is It To Get a Cartoon in The New Yorker by James Sturm [Slate]
• An Unholy War on the Tea Party by Michael Gerson [Washington Post]

Reading Roundup: August 23, 2011

• Politico's Alexander Burns has a story today about how trial lawyers are preparing to campaign with their time and money against Rick Perry should Perry win the Republican Presidential nomination.
• Partners by Jeffrey Toobin in the upcoming issue of The New Yorker.
• Republicans for Tax Hikes by Dave Wiegel [Slate]
• Who's Afraid of Digital Natives by Cathy N. Davidson [Slate]
• Direct to Kindle Publishing by Don Taylor [The Incidental Economist]

What is Huntsman's Strategy?

I thought the same thing as Dave Wiegel about Jon Huntsman's telepromter comment on ABC's This Week. Said Huntsman about Obama's approach: "He should have walked away from the teleprompter. The people want you to speak from your heart and soul."  Weigel's words are nearly the same as I yelled at the TV (yes, I yell at the TV during Sunday morning political shows the way many yell at the TV during football games):

Huntsman has to know that he's dog-whistling to conservatives who think Obama's use of the teleprompter is proof that he's at best an empty suit, at worst a shadow candidate that a lazy media puffed up and foisted on the electorate.

When Tapper asked about the 10:1 spending cuts/revenue increases question from the Iowa GOP debate, Huntsman completely blew off the question:

Jake, it was a nonsense question. And the fact that you can even ask a question that is that important with such profound implications for the United States, to answer by show of a raised hand, I mean, come on. What have -- you know, what have debates gotten to, in terms of how we discuss the truly important issues of the day? I don't think tax increases are good for this country right now. In fact, I think it'd be the worst thing that we can do.

To his credit Tapper followed up seeking an answer and got the following:

TAPPER: So are you sorry you raised your hand for the, quote, "nonsense question"?

HUNTSMAN: Well, I'm just sorry that the debate resorted to a raising of hand as opposed to some discussion about where this country needs to go in terms of overall tax policy.

I'm just not quite sure what Huntsman's play is here.  After spending a week calling for more substantive debate and saying things on Twitter that caused Roger Ebert to suggest: "Huntsman simply says things everybody knows, and he contradicts all the other GOP candidates," Huntsman goes on "This Week"with the opportunity to start building a base of moderate, educated Republicans as well as independent voters and he pivots to the right and starts speaking in talking points.  I honestly don't get it.

Audible.com

Visiting friends this weekend, I was introduced to Audible.com.  This morning I signed up for the three month trial period ($7.50/month for the first three months) and downloaded Hemingway's Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.  I listened to almost two hours of it at the gym and on the way to work.  So far pretty impressed - the narration isn't dull or monotone and they even bring in another reader when there is an exchange and it might be unclear which character is speaking.

I would welcome any input from any Audible.com veterans.  Do "books on tape" work better for fiction than non-fiction?  As many of you know, I travel a good deal for work and am often not able to sit down with a book, but could certainly press play on my iPod.  This seems like a great way to take in 10-12 books a year during what otherwise would have been time spent staring at the wall. 

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

I finished Stieg Larsson's The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest yesterday morning after beginning the series about two months ago.  This particular book was the third and final installment in the "Millennium" series that was published shortly after Larsson's death in 2004. It is not without significant effort that I have searched for enjoyable fiction for the last four or five years.  These three books mark a run of fiction I have enjoyed that I have not seen since I stopped reading R.L. Stein's "Fear Street" books back in grade school.

As I have told some, I am no judge of the quality of fiction.  I had a brief flirtation with John Grisham books during college but have since stopped reading those.  Maybe that is a function of my job more than the quality of the books, I don't know.  I do not see these books as being any kind of high minded literature, but an interesting story was told and there seemed to be at least some level of writing ability present.

I'm hesitant to tell too much of the story as it reveals parts of what happened in the previous book.  I can say though that the characters are insightful and the build up to the presentation of Salander's legal defense is fascinating.  It also provided a fascinating insight into Sweden's litigation procedure and how it differs from the system used here in the United States.

If you are familiar with the series, you know that this book is actually a continuation of a story started in The Girl Who Played with Fire, which I thought dragged a little bit.  That said, I can say that if you're looking for a good quick read the first one makes a nice stand alone story that you can read and move onto other stuff if the number of books on your bookshelf waiting to be read is long and growing, you can do a lot worse than The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.        

Mosle on Brill's "Class Warfare"

Sara Mosle has a review today of Steven Brill's Class Warfare in the New York Times.  I generally hold high regard for what reformers like Michelle Rhee and Joel Klein did/are doing for public education, but Mosle does provide a few points of pushback that are worth considering.

Start with the idea that unions are holding back public schools from engaging in real reform.  According to Mosle though, a particularly rigorous 2009 study, which surveyed approximately half of all charters nationwide and was financed by the pro-­charter Walton Family and Michael and Susan Dell Foundations, found that more than 80 percent either do no better, or actually perform substantially worse, than traditional public schools. The study [which she does not link] concluded that “tremendous variation in academic quality among charters is the norm, not the exception.”

Moving onto the idea of teacher quality, Mosle suggests that Brill conveniently ignores evidence that  most of the variation in student performance is explained by nonschool factors: not just poverty, but also parental literacy (and whether parents read to their children), student health, frequent relocations, crime-­related stress and the like. She suggests that movies like "Waiting for Superman" show less the benefits of Charter Schools, but actually the benefits of academically effective parents: "mothers and fathers who, despite difficult circumstances, read with their children, push them to do their homework and actively seek out exceptional charters, which (unlike the mediocre or failing ones) are oversubscribed and thus rely on lotteries with long odds for admission."

Like I said, I'm very sympathetic to the idea that things need to change in public schools. I think President Obama and Secretary Duncan are on the right track with programs like "Race to the Top" and that if we are going to get a lot of public schools to the "excellent" level we're going to have to have more flexibility than a lot of the unions currently allow.  I also think the issue is a lot more complex than reformers portray (particularly the idea that three years of excellent teachers will eliminate gaps in achievement among poorly performing students).  It seems like schools like KIPP benefit from higher scores as they enjoy a self-selected group of kids who have motivated parents who care about their education. Certainly application of KIPP-like models would seem to raise scores, but it does not seem like that alone is going to solve the problem of poorly performing schools. In short, my instinct tells me this: Parenting. Does. Matter.  So do excellent teachers.  Both are necessary, neither is sufficient for high levels of student achievement.

As for the point about elimination of unions not solving the problem for charter schools, I can only respond that this doesn't surprise me at all.  I am not sure what this is supposed to prove other than the fact that elimination of unions will not alone solve the problem.  I have not heard this argument, but I suppose this pierces the heart of it once and for all.  That said, schools have to have the ability to move in a way that unions often will not allow.