bowlinger qua bowlinger

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Of interest is a recent appeals court decision in Wisconsin v. Hathaway. Here’s the opinion.

The appeals court ruled that by pleading out at the trial court level, he failed to preserve his appeal on the live/dead animal issue. I was worried about this kind of thing at the time, but a guilty plea was probably in the best interests of the defendant.

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I think it’s all the driving up Hwy 23 I’ve been doing lately, but I really have a craving for chicken.

Anyone want to take a road trip this weekend? If so, any preferences? I vote for the “chicken plus one meat” combination, but would be willing to consider the “Family-Style Ultimate Bavarian Combination” for just $2 more.

Gandy Dancer Taps into Staff Tips

From the article:

Earlier this month, the upscale Ann Arbor restaurant began charging its servers 1.5 percent of the tips patrons leave on credit cards to help the restaurant pay credit card processing fees.

Turns out The Gandy Dancer is owned by a restaurant conglomerate, Landry’s, a “Texas-based chain that operations a casino, five hotels and more than 180 restaurants in 30 states, including seven others in Michigan.”

As if we needed another reason to hate Texas.

From Charles Dickens, Bleak House (1853):

[A copyist at the Court of Chancery has died of an opium overdose, and the coroner is conducting the inquest. There is testimony that the decedent was only ever seen talking to the boy who sweeps up.]

Says the coroner, is that boy here? Says the beadle, no, sir, he is not here. Says the coroner, go and fetch him then. In the absence of the active and intelligent, the coroner converses with Mr. Tulkinghorn.

Oh! Here’s the boy, gentlemen!

Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But stop a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary paces.

Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don’t know that everybody has two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don’t know that Jo is short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for HIM. HE don’t find no fault with it. Spell it? No. HE can’t spell it. No father, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. What’s home? Knows a broom’s a broom, and knows it’s wicked to tell a lie. Don’t recollect who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can’t exactly say what’ll be done to him arter he’s dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it’ll be something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right—and so he’ll tell the truth.

“This won’t do, gentlemen!” says the coroner with a melancholy shake of the head.

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Doing some research on Bell v. Southwell, 376 F.2d 659 (5th Cir. 1967), I came across this:

CUTHBERT — Clara Etta Avery Dunlap Massey Taylor, 86, of Cuthbert died January 4, 2008, at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital.

Funeral services will be conducted Monday at 11 a.m. at Cuthbert First Baptist Church with interment at 3 p.m. in Thomasville City Cemetery in Thomasville, GA with Rev. Houston Perry of Americus officiating.

Mrs. Taylor was born January 22, 1921, in Iron City, GA, the daughter of the late Benjamin Franklin and Mary Lipham Avery of Thomasville. She graduated from Thomasville High School in 1939. She was Probate Judge in Randolph County filling the unexpired term of her late husband, W.B. Taylor. She also served as Probate Judge in Webster County filling the unexpired term of her late husband, Carl O. Massey. She was also preceded in death by her first husband, Aubrey Paul Dunlap of Thomasville.

In Corpse Episode, Echoes of a Grittier Time

charged with: attempted forgery, attempted possession of a forged instrument and petty larceny.

Interestingly, according to section 170.35 of the New York Penal Code, you can’t be convicted of both “criminal possession of a forged instrument and forgery with respect to the same instrument”. I wonder if that applies to attempt as well.

Why, oh why, can’t this have happened when I was in either Criminal Law or Secured Transactions?

Yesterday while I was doing research on westlaw for my paper, I needed to find the SCt opinions for those famous affirmative action cases. I didn’t have the citation, so I used the “look up by party name” function. But I called the case “Gutter v. Bowlinger” rather than the name the rest of the legal world knows it by. Of course westlaw told me “no results found…” for the name of our bowling team! I laughed silently to myself about it for, like, 5 minutes and wished one of you were around to share in the hilarity. But no one was, it was just me, so I figured I’d write about it here so you could know how pervasive our name is in my mind.

So, there’s an amazing article you should read in the Michigan Daily. dm’s certainly aware, as are we all, of the pathetic state of Thai food in the Ann Arbor area. I had some masaman curry yesterday that cost close to $15. FIFTEEN DOLLARS  (?!?!) for extremely mediocre curry served in the restaurant portion of a nearly-abandoned hotel out by the highway.

Anyway, maybe part of the difficulty Thai places are having in Washtenaw county is related to issues like these:

Rackham student Sirarat Sarntivijai said she was confused and offended when a restaurant called No Thai! opened on South University Avenue in September 2005. She thought the name suggested that Thai people were not welcome in the restaurant.

Members of the Thai Student Association, including Sarntivijai, its president, said they find the name deeply offensive.

I could go into a lot of the details of the article, but the gist is that the Thai Student Association thinks that the (admittedly stupid) name of a Thai-owned Thai restaurant signals that Thai people are discouraged from eating there. The TSA helpfully suggested some (even more insipid) names for the place, including “No Thai!: by Mr. No”.

As long as we’re suggesting bad names for a crypto-racist Thai restaurant, how about “White Thai” or “Black Thai” (depending on how formal the table service is), or maybe “Colombian Neck Thai” (for the forthcoming Latin-Thai fusion endeavor).

The menu: beef chili, lentil soup with ham, foccaccia, two kinds of tea

 The topic: Civil liability and fast food restaurant chains. Should fast food chains be subject to tort liability when people eat their food and become obese or have diet-related medical issues? Can we liken this kind of suit to those against drug companies, i.e. a “design defect” products liability claim? Can we compare this kind of suit to those against tobacco manufacturers, which 30 years ago might have seemed impossible for plaintiffs to win? Will civil liability not do anything to solve the real problem, and this should be purely a regulatory issue - smaller portion sizes available, healthier options available at the same cost as cheap “bad for you” products, nutrition facts made clear and available, etc. Or, is all this paternalistic and the real problem comes down to human choice and responsibility?

The best part of the evening was OB-S admitting that he actually likes eating at McDonald’s and his favorite are the Chicken McNuggets. He said, “No one eats Chicken Selects. They are just not as tasty.” And he ate the famous 7 oz. burger at Jackson Hole Burgers in NYC.

Next class: packaging and labeling concerns

my dear pastor smackdown fans, it is with a heavy heart that i inform you that my dream of visiting Fiesta Mexicana on Cross Street in Ypsilanti and reporting back to you on it today was dashed by the misfortunate event of the restaurant being closed on mondays.

undaunted, i deftly switched cultures and hemispheres and went to Dalat Vietnamese Cuisine on Michigan and had the beef noodle soup(you may know this soup to be called pho). it was good. not Pho 777 in Chicago good, or Pho Pasteur in Boston good, but for the middle of stinkin’ Michigan, i’d say it hit the spot.

i’d give it better marks if it had come with a better assortment of condiments.

here’s what you get at Dalat: a bowl of noodle soup with sliced beef(you can also order it with meatballs or tendons or tripe), a dish of condiments including a wedge of lemon, bean sprouts, and sliced jalapeños. there are squeeze bottles of hoisin sauce and chili sauce on the table.

i’m partial to having basil in my pho, so i would give Dalat higher marks if my little side dish had included basil.

i also got a vietnamese iced coffee. the total came to $8.70 before tip. god bless ypsilanti.

of course, now i’m tempted to go try Miss Saigon on Stone School road tomorrow for a proper pho smackdown… unless of course popular opinion merits a re-visit to Fiesta Mexicana and a continuation of the pastor smackdown ASAP.

let me know, dear readers. let. me. know.

i shall do your bidding.

update:
Fiesta Mexicana Hours : 4-9 p.m. Mon., 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Tue.-Thu., 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Fri.-Sat.