Yearly Archives: 2010

Bad Advice from My Bank

I went to the bank today to deposit, among other things, a $5 rebate check for a piece of computer gear purchased before my illness. The check said on its front that it was “Not Valid Unless Cashed Before April 28, 2010”. Today is April 27, 2010. The teller refused to accept the check. “It says April 28. I can't accept it before that date. Come back tomorrow.” Of course, had I done so, the check would have been invalid. I protested that the words “not valid unless cashed before” had some relevance here. The teller was adamant: the check couldn't be cashed until tomorrow. I was adamant too: the check would be worthless tomorrow.

I was invited to go sign in at the front desk and cool my heels in some other queue for an indefinite period of time until the manager (“he's busy with someone right now”) might deign to speak with me to resolve the issue. I refused and suggested I would stay put in front of the teller until the manager arrived. The teller went to see her non-manager supervisor. Amazingly, the supervisor agreed the check couldn't be cashed without the branch manager's OK. I stood there. Eventually, the teller found the manager, who never appeared to speak to me, and announced that since it was only $5 they would do me the great favor of taking the check.

Short Citibank now? Or is it a good business model for them to alienate customers who bother them by depositing pesky $5 checks?

Posted in Econ & Money | 9 Comments

The Distance

According to Walk Jog Run my current figure-eight walk around my block and the one north of me totals 0.87 miles, which seems significantly more than I would have guessed. Anyway on a good day I do that route in about 30 minutes, which given my condition would be very good for .87 miles, and isn't bad for the .6 or so I thought it really was.

Is Walk Jog Run (which is based on Google Maps) reliable for short distances? I could imagine an evil business model based on making runners feel good by making them think they were going farther then they really were….

Posted in Personal | 2 Comments

The Weather is Here

It's raining like crazy out there — wet enough to be a tropical storm, although I guess the wind isn't strong enough to qualify.

UM just sent out the following oh so helpful note by email:

The University of Miami administration is monitoring the severe weather impacting South Florida.

At this time, all classes, events and clinical activities are on a normal schedule.

You are urged to monitor media reports and official reports posted online by the National Weather Service, http://www.srh.noaa.gov/mfl/ghwo/

(Why the passive voice?)

Anyway, the national weather service is all excited

HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK FOR SOUTH FLORIDA…UPDATED NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FL
1125 AM EDT MON APR 26 2010

FLZ063-066>075-168-172>174-270630-GLADES-HENDRY-INLAND PALM BEACH-METRO PALM BEACH-COASTAL COLLIER-INLAND COLLIER-INLAND BROWARD-METRO BROWARD-INLAND MIAMI DADE-METRO MIAMI DADE-MAINLAND MONROE-COASTAL PALM BEACH-COASTAL BROWARD-COASTAL MIAMI DADE-FAR SOUTH MIAMI DADE
1125 AM EDT MON APR 26 2010

…STRONG TO LOCALLY SEVERE STORMS POSSIBLE EXTREME SOUTHERN PORTIONS OF SOUTH FLORIDA TODAY…

THIS HAZARDOUS WEATHER OUTLOOK IS FOR SOUTH FLORIDA.

.DAY ONE…THIS AFTERNOON AND TONIGHT

THUNDERSTORMS: THUNDERSTORMS ARE LIKELY ACROSS EXTREME SOUTHERN PORTIONS OF SOUTH FLORIDA THE REST OF TODAY. ANY THUNDERSTORM COULD PRODUCE FREQUENT TO EXCESSIVE LIGHTNING, VERY HEAVY RAINFALL, STRONG WIND GUSTS AND SMALL HAIL. ADDITIONALLY THERE IS AN ISOLATED TORNADO
THREAT ACROSS THE REGION, ESPECIALLY ACROSS PORTIONS OF MIAMI-DADE AND MAINLAND MONROE COUNTIES.

TORNADOES: THE STRONGEST STORMS MAY BE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING AN ISOLATED, BRIEF TORNADO OR TWO ACROSS SOUTH FLORIDA TODAY, ESPECIALLY ACROSS MIAMI-DADE AND MAINLAND MONROE COUNTIES.

WIND: ISOLATED SEVERE WIND GUSTS ARE POSSIBLE WITH THE STRONGEST THUNDERSTORMS TODAY. THESE WIND GUSTS COULD BRIEFLY EXCESS 58 MPH.

HAIL: THE STRONGEST STORMS MAY PRODUCE SMALL HAIL UP TO PENNY SIZE ACROSS THE REGION.

WATERSPOUTS: WATERSPOUTS MAY FORM WITH LITTLE OR NO WARNING ACROSS ANY OF THE COASTAL WATERS.

FLOODING: LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL IS LIKELY WITH THUNDERSTORMS AS THEY PROGRESS SOUTHEAST TODAY. THESE RAINS MAY CAUSE LOCALIZED STREET FLOODING AS WELL AS FLOODING OF URBAN AND POOR DRAINAGE AREAS. THIS MAY BE ESPECIALLY LIKELY ACROSS MIAMI-DADE COUNTY THE REST OF THIS MORNING AND EARLY AFTERNOON HOURS.

RIP CURRENTS: SOUTHWESTERLY WINDS OF 10 TO 20 MPH WILL LEAD TO A MODERATE RISK OF RIP CURRENTS AT THE GULF COAST BEACHES TODAY.

Looks like I'll have fun driving to physical therapy today.

Posted in Miami | 2 Comments

U. Miami Law Brags About Recent Faculty Hires

The University of Miami School of Law sent out a deservedly self-congratulatory announcement bragging about our new hires:

Four legal scholars – Lawrence Lokken, Mary Ann Franks, Tamara Rice Lave, and Carrie Bettinger-Lopez — will join UM Law next year, bringing with them a rich array of professional and scholarly experiences. Experts in taxation, human rights, criminal law, and law and gender, these recent hires represent a diversity of interests that will enrich the Law School’s research and teaching enterprises.

Lawrence Lokken is the Hugh Culverhouse Eminent Scholar in Taxation at the University of Florida Levin College of Law and has taught at the University of Georgia and New York University. He has written numerous articles and books in the field of taxation, including Fundamentals of International Taxation, Federal Taxation of Employee Compensation, and Federal Taxation of Income, Estates & Gifts.

Lokken joined the University of Florida Law School in 1974 and was named the Hugh Culverhouse Eminent Scholar in Taxation in 1994. He has served as a Research Consultant for Harvard Law School’s International Tax Program and on the United Nations Ad Hoc Group of Experts on International Tax Matters. He received his J.D. degree, magna cum laude, from the University of Minnesota and a B.A., cum laude, from Augsburg College.

Mary Anne Franks is the Bigelow Teaching Fellow and Lecturer in Law at the University of Chicago Law School. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2007, where she was Senior Executive Editor of the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender and an Executive Editor of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. She received her D.Phil. in 2004 and her M.Phil. in 2001 from Oxford University, where she studied on a Rhodes Scholarship. Her dissertation focused on philosophical, legal, and psychoanalytic constructions of sexual violence. She graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Philosophy and English from Loyola University New Orleans in 1999.

Before coming to Chicago, Franks taught courses in social theory and philosophy at Harvard University, where she received four Derek Bok Distinction in Teaching Awards. She has also worked as a senior consultant for The SAB Group, conducting negotiation skills seminars for lawyers and other professionals. Her research and teaching interests include law and gender, free speech, cyberlaw, and international and domestic criminal law.

Tamara Rice Lave is a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law. She also served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Navarro in Pamplona, Spain where she taught a course on substantive U.S. criminal law. Lave received her Ph.D. degree in Jurisprudence and Social Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, and her J.D. degree from Stanford Law School, where she served as Associate Editor of the Stanford Law Review.

Lave’s teaching and research interests are in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, evidence, jurisprudence and law and philosophy. She has published several articles, including “Only Yesterday: The Rise and Fall of Twentieth Century Sexual Psychopath Law” and “Breaking the Cycle of Despair: Street Children in Guatemala City.”

Carrie Bettinger-Lopez currently teaches in the Human Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School. She helps to coordinate the Human Rights in the U.S. Project and Bringing Human Rights Home Lawyers’ Network, a network of over 100 public interest lawyers who are actively involved in domestic human rights strategies. Her research and teaching focuses on international human rights law and advocacy, including the implementation of human rights norms at the domestic level. Her main regional focus is the United States and Latin America, and her principal areas of interest include violence against women, gender and race discrimination, and immigrants’ rights.

Prior to joining Columbia, Bettinger-López worked as a Skadden Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union, Women’s Rights Project, where she focused on employment and housing discrimination against domestic violence victims and low-wage immigrant women workers. At the ACLU, she filed a landmark case against the United States before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of Jessica Gonzales, a domestic violence victim whose three children were killed after police in Colorado failed to enforce a restraining order against her estranged husband, and whose constitutional claims against the police were rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005. Bettinger-López, the Human Rights Clinic, and the ACLU currently represent Gonzales in Jessica Gonzales v. United States.

But we've still got a LOT more slots to fill.

Posted in U.Miami | 7 Comments

How to Pay My Medical Bills: The Chicken Plan

Nevada GOP Senatorial candidate Sue Lowden has a great new plan for folks like me concerned about their medical bills: chicken.

As Steve Benen summarizes it,

To briefly review, Lowden, the favorite to beat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) in Nevada this year, recently encouraged voters to “barter with your doctor.” On Monday, Lowden reiterated and expanded upon this, praising a health care delivery system in line with “the olden days” when those seeking medical care “would bring a chicken to the doctor.” Despite the mockery this had already received, she added, “I'm not backing down from that system.”

The mockery is now in full swing. Here's an example: Sue Lowden's plan to pay for health care? “Bring a chicken to the doctor”

The folks at the hospital seemed very nice, but I don't think that turning up with, say, 2000 chickens would win me many friends or much of a discount.

Posted in Health Care | 5 Comments

It’s Official: Annette Taddeo is Running for the County Council

It's been rumored for a while, now it's official: Annette Taddeo is going to run for the County Council in a bid to replace retiring local icon Katy Sorenson.

Driven by my commitment to community service, I am excited to officially announce my candidacy for Commissioner of Miami-Dade's District 8, an area that includes the cities of Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, Cutler Bay, Homestead, and unincorporated Southwest Dade. The open seat is being vacated by the Honorable Katy Sorenson.

Leaders emerge in the face of daunting challenges. I was inspired to run because I want to offer my talents as a successful small business owner and community leader to help steer Miami-Dade through the churning seas of unprecedented economic woes. I'm a fiscally conservative businesswoman who believes Miami-Dade government should slash wasteful spending, operate transparently and provide maximum value to the real bosses, the tax paying residents.

Jobs, crime, healthcare, education and “hold the line” are priority issues. I'm going to work tirelessly to create local jobs, reduce crime, advocate for affordable healthcare, and prioritize education. I will be a vocal champion of sustainable growth, green initiatives and the preservation and protection of our natural environment with a keen focus on the Everglades.

Unfortunately, I don't live in District 8, but it would be great if Taddeo, who ran a good Congressional campaign in 2008, got elected…although as a reasonable person she could be mighty lonely on the Commission (as was Sorenson, more often than not).

Posted in Miami, Politics: 2010 Election | 35 Comments