PROCRASTINATION IS NOT A PLUS

Check out this post to Faye Cohen’s blog Toughlawyerlady!               

In matters involving the law, procrastination is not a plus. Although one can procrastinate in other areas, persons who sit on their legal rights or do not take action in a timely manner can lose their ability to bring a claim, file a lawsuit or defend themselves. I highly recommend discussing with a lawyer in a speedy fashion, whether you have some legal rights that require action in a certain timeframe. It may seem pretty obvious that if one has a legal question they should consult with a lawyer, and not the Internet, their friend, a relative, or a lawyer practicing outside the jurisdiction where the event occurred, yet I sometimes think that people expect to find the answer to their legal problem in a universe not set in reality. That doesn’t mean that different lawyers will not provide different perspectives on a problem, but at least one is consulting with people who are actually trained in the law.  Some examples in which procrastination can harm one’s legal rights in various areas of the law are:

Employment and Civil Rights:

• You are on your way to losing your job. If you have had several warnings, suspensions, and/or received a performance improvement plan, consult with a lawyer. Many people think they cannot lose their jobs unless it is for good cause. That is not usually the case. Many people also resign first, and then try to pursue their legal rights. This is a poor idea because it not only limits your ability to start a possible wrongful termination claim at a later date, but it also makes it very difficult to receive unemployment compensation. It is always a poor idea to wait until you are fired to consult a lawyer. If you think you may be fired, consult with a lawyer immediately. It is often too late to raise issues after you are fired, if you have not set the groundwork for them.
• If you feel you have been the victim of discrimination, there are almost always stringent filing or lawsuit deadlines which must be met, so consult with a lawyer. It is also a poor idea to endure problems for years, which often lead to physical or emotional health problems. Determine your legal rights and timelines. Even if you have union representation, union representatives are not generally knowledgeable about civil rights laws and deadlines, and one should therefore seek outside advice in these areas. Do not wait for a grievance or arbitration decision, because that will often result in missing a filing deadline in civil rights cases.

Disability:

• There are usually stringent filing deadlines for filing any sort of disability claims, and if they are missed a claim cannot be brought.
• There are stringent appeal deadlines for disability claims, and if those deadlines are missed, the claim can no longer be brought, or it can be brought for a shorter time frame and less benefits.

Real Estate:

• If someone has transferred title into their name illegally, a tenant is living in a house and not paying rent, or someone is illegally squatting, it is important to take action as soon as possible.  Failure to do so could result in that person asserting some legal right to the property over the true owner. If that property belongs to you, your credit can be damaged, and some expenses may become yours if you sit on your legal rights.

Estate and Probate:

• We frequently receive calls from people who have lost their inheritance because someone  overstepped their legal rights, unduly influenced their relative to leave their property to them instead of the rightful beneficiary, or forged some documents. Some of these people have waited 10 to 15 years to raise this claim. If you feel that you are a victim, contact a lawyer immediately.

Bishop’s Suit for Indemnification Dismissed On Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine

This is from religionclause.blogspot.com which you can find here:

In Kawimbe v. The African Methodist Episcopal Church, Inc., (ND GA, Aug. 27, 2028), a Georgia federal district court dismissed a suit by the Bishop of a church district covering part of South Africa.  The bishop’s suit sought indemnification from the Church (a Pennsylvania non-profit corporation) for his successful defense before a church tribunal of charges bought against him by a minister in South Africa. The court held that the suit is not precluded by the ministerial exception doctrine because “the Church’s decision to deny Kawimbe indemnification does not implicate its right to select its ministers.” The court concluded however that the suit should be dismissed under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, saying in part:

Under Pennsylvania law, if a representative of a non-profit corporation succeeds on the merits in an action or proceeding brought against him “by reason of” his representative status, the non-profit corporation must indemnify him…

To determine whether Kawimbe is or was a representative of the Church, the Court would be required to scrutinize “the composition of [the Church and AMEC’s] hierarchy,” including the nature of Kawimbe’s role as a bishop, which are matters of “core ecclesiastical concern.”…

[T]o determine whether the internal proceeding was brought “by reason of” Kawimbe’s role as a representative of the Church, the Court would have to consider the responsibilities and powers given to Kawimbe in his role as bishop and whether the accusations against him involved those responsibilities and powers. This inquiry would necessarily entangle the Court in matters of church governance. 

You can learn more about this issue here.

Inspiring Philosophy: God’s Hand was not Forced

Saint Peter instructs believers to “[a]lways be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence’ (1 Peter 3:15). Over the course of its existence, the Church has called the process of explaining, arguing for, and/or answering questions about, the Christian Faith apologetics (see here). Apologetics is defined as the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Someone who engages in apologetics is an apologist.

Perhaps my favorite apologist on Youtube is Michael Jones who creates videos for the channel Inspiring Philosophy. I find his work engaging, his arguments sound, and the topics he covers broad and interesting. As a result, I have decided to post his videos here and, as I usually do for these sorts of things, I will keep a running list of links to prior videos with each post of a new video.

Past videos:

• What Atheists Confuse

Please be edified by this video:

Joe Arcieri Songs: Como Dibujar Una Rosa

Joe Arcieri is a friend of mine who I worked with for many years during my ten years working for Acme Markets.  Joe, when not stocking milk or saving lives as a nurse, is an excellent guitar player.  I have had the privilege, from time to time, of (badly) plunking my bass guitar with Joe as he melts a face or two with a great solo.

As great musicians do, Joe has written some of his own songs and keeps a soundcloud site to post them.  When I have opportunity, I will post his music here as well.

Here is his composition called “Como Dibujar Una Rosa” which you can find here.

Here are the links to the previously posted songs by Joe:

• Long Walk of the Navajo 3
• Dualidad de diversos estilos de la guitarra
• Electric Echoes
• Digital Journey Ver 2
• Leap of Faith
• Black Magic Mix
• 3 Mod Not So Medley 2
• eJam
• Raw Track Mix 1
• V Jam
• Vela and Carina
• The Mixer
• The Mixer Part IIb
• Unfinished Business Part 1 (Stealth Mix)
• Serra
• Old School
• Siddhartha
• The Untamed
• The Siren’s Song
• Soul Divine
• Whistle (Rock Instrumental Version)
• Hall of Fame
• Under Pressure (V3.6)
• Bad Romance (Maximo Guitar Slinger Version)
• Diamonds Rock Hard Mix
• I’m With You
• Die Young (A Much Needed Rockover)
• Valles Marineris
• Try (Less Pop More Rock!)
• Hey Porsche (Hard Rock Instrumental Version)
• Crash My Party (Ver 2.1)
• Come Undone (Rock Ver 1.6)
• In the Ayer (Guitar Slinger Version)
• Sure Be Cool If You Did
• Get Your Shine On (Mezclador de Tejas)
• In My Head (Fiend Without A Face)
• Hot and Cold 5
• 22
• The Other Side (El Horror De Dracula)
• Safe And Sound (Maximo Metal Mod) 3
• Cool
• Heaven (Nelly)
• Timber (Tribute To The Duke)
• Burn it Down
• Let Her Go
• Bottoms Up
• Get Me Some of That
• Play It Again
• This Is How We Roll (Homage To “A Fist Full Of Dollars”)
• Nature’s Law
• Yeah!
• Cracks In Time
• The Burning Mirrors Of Archimedes
• Between Two Worlds
• The Nile Deep
• Lady Luck
• Mirror rorriM
• The Petting Zoo
• Native
• Neverwhere
• Sovereignty Of The Holy Sea
• Legion
• Fly Eagles Fly (with a touch of heaviness)
• 11:11
• No Code (Aka Outlaw)
• U-Knighted
• My Beautiful Wickedness
• Rehab (Hard Rock Version)
• Jenny
• Raise Your Glass (A Mixer)
• Indigenous
• Expedition De Sonic-a
• Ligeia
• 5 Little Sinners
• The Siege Of Rome
• Rise of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Version Alternte de Seige of Roma)
• Devil Woman
• The Sign Of The Cross
• BaBy!
• Aelois Dorsa Delta
• Minnie The Moocher
• Girl Crush
• Rescue Me
• Within Kingdom Walls
• Dive!
• Popular (Gettin’ It Right!)
• Bonded By……….
• Noir
• Together
• Parody
• Secrets

Intelligent Life Really Can’t Exist Anywhere Else

Hell, our own evolution on Earth was pure luck.

In newly published research from Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, scientists study the likelihood of key times for evolution of life on Earth and conclude that it would be virtually impossible for that life to evolve the same way somewhere else.

Life has come a very long way in a very short time on Earth, relatively speaking—and scientists say that represents even more improbable luck for intelligent life that is rare to begin with.

For decades, scientists and even philosophers have chased many explanations for the Fermi paradox. How, in an infinitely big universe, can we be the only intelligent life we’ve ever encountered? Even on Earth itself, they wonder, how are we the only species that ever has evolved advanced intelligence?

There are countless naturally occurring, but extremely lucky ways in which Earth is special, sheltered, protected, and encouraged to have evolved life. And some key moments of emerging life seem much more likely than others, based on what really did happen.

“The fact that eukaryotic life took over a billion years to emerge from prokaryotic precursors suggests it is a far less probable event than the development of multicellular life, which is thought to have originated independently over 40 times,” the researchers explain. They continue:

“The early emergence of abiogenesis is one example that is frequently cited as evidence that simple life must be fairly common throughout the Universe. By using the timing of evolutionary transitions to estimate the rates of transition, we can derive information about the likelihood of a given transition even if it occurred only once in Earth’s history.”

In this paper, researchers from Oxford University’s illustrious Future of Humanity Institute continue to wonder how all this can be and what it means. The researchers include mathematical ecologists, who do a kind of forensic mathematics of Earth’s history.

In this case, they’ve used a Bayesian model of factors related to evolutionary transitions, which are the key points where life on Earth has turned from ooze to eukaryotes, for example, and from fission and other asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction, which greatly accelerates the rate of mutation and development of species by mixing DNA as a matter of course.

Most of these “evolutionary transitions” are poorly understood and have not been very well studied by the scientists of likelihoods. And using their model, these scientists say that Earth’s series of Goldilocks lottery tickets are more likely to have taken far longer than they really did on Earth.

There’s an iconic scene in the 2001 movie Ocean’s Eleven where George Clooney explains the series of escalating improbabilities of his planned crime. After several hugely unlikely outcomes, he says, “Then it’s a piece of cake: just three more guards with Uzis, and the most elaborate vault door conceived by man.” In a way, the unlikely hurdles to the rapid flourishing of complex life on Earth are the same way.

First, we win the lottery for surface temperature and protection from spaceborne dangers. Second, we win the lottery for the presence of building blocks of life. Third, we win the lottery for the right location for the right building blocks. That’s before anything like the most primitive single cell has even emerged.

Using some information we do know, like the age of Earth and the expected end of its habitable lifetime due to the expanding heat radius of our sun, these researchers have turned evolutionary transitions into a series of existential scratch-off tickets. Read the whole fascinating study here.

By Caroline Delbert and published on November 24, 2020 in Popular Mechanics and can be found here.

ANGELINA JOLIE LEGAL VICTORY

Angelina Jolie recently had a major victory in court regarding her child custody battle with ex, Brad Pitt. Jolie and Pitt share six children, however their oldest is 19 so their child custody case only concerns their remaining 5 minor children.

Jolie was successful in disqualifying the presiding Judge, John W. Ouderkirk. Orange County Superior Court Judge Erick Larsh determined that Judge Ouderkirk never properly clarified his business relationship with Pitt to the court. Thus, the almost-concluded custody case between the two stars, which has lasted for four years, will be terminated and a new one will begin. Jolie previously asked the judge to remove himself from the case in August 2020, but he did not do so. The court questioned Judge Ouderkirk’s relationship with Pitt’s counsel and his ability to stay impartial in the case. Ouderkirk has a history with the couple, as he previously married the two stars in 2014. Jolie’s attorneys argue that the Judge did not play by the rules and needs to face repercussions.

Going forward, the two stars have to agree on a new private judge or Pitt’s lawyers will need to take the case to a public judge. Jolie has been attempting to block Pitt from gaining custody and ultimately sharing joint custody. Jolie would need to prove that joint custody is not in the best interest of the children. This may be a hard task to achieve, as nothing worrisome in regard to Pitt’s parenting has been discovered in the court proceedings. Some of the five children are almost 18 and may age out of this child custody case before it is even settled. Many celebrities like Angela Jolie and Brad Pitt hire private judges to keep their cases away from public scrutiny.

Faye Riva Cohen, Esquire is the founder and managing attorney of the Law office of Faye Riva Cohen, P.C. in Philadelphia, PA. She writes a blog called “Tough Lawyer Lady.” She represents clients in labor, discrimination, family law, real estate, and estate litigation issues. If you are dealing with child custody issues, please contact Attorney Cohen at 215-563-7776 or frc@fayerivacohen.com. Her office is located at 2047 Locust St. in an historic brownstone.

Attorney Cohen acknowledges the writing assistance of Gillian Southworth, one of the Firm’s summer law clerks, who is a student at Duquesne University School of Law.

Ministerial Exception Requires Dismissal Of Title VII Claims By Catholic School Guidance Counselor

This is from religionclause.blogspot.com which you can find here:

In Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis, Indiana v. Roncalli High School, Inc., (SD IN, Aug. 11, 2021), an Indiana federal district court  held that the ministerial exception doctrine bars Title VII retaliation, discrimination and hostile work environment claims as well as state law claims of interference with contractual and employment relationships in a suit brought by the former Co-Director of Guidance at a private Catholic high school. The school refused to renew its contract with Lynn Starkey, who had been employed by the school for nearly forty years, after the school learned of Starkey’s same-sex marriage. The court said in part:

To be sure, the court does not mean to say that divergent understandings of the religious nature of an employee’s role should always be resolved in the religious employer’s favor. For example, it would be difficult to credit a religious employer’s claim that a custodian or school bus driver qualifies as a minister simply because the employer said so…. But this case concerns the Co-Director of Guidance … [who] performed “vital religious duties” at Roncalli…. Employees in that position met with every student throughout the year and discussed some of the most sensitive issues in a young person’s life…. Roncalli expressly entrusted Starkey with the responsibility of communicating the Catholic faith to students and fostering spiritual growth.

Becket issued a press release announcing the decision.

You can learn more about this issue here.

Inspiring Philosophy: What Atheists Confuse

Saint Peter instructs believers to “[a]lways be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence’ (1 Peter 3:15). Over the course of its existence, the Church has called the process of explaining, arguing for, and/or answering questions about, the Christian Faith apologetics (see here). Apologetics is defined as the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Someone who engages in apologetics is an apologist.

Perhaps my favorite apologist on Youtube is Michael Jones who creates videos for the channel Inspiring Philosophy. I find his work engaging, his arguments sound, and the topics he covers broad and interesting. As a result, I have decided to post his videos here and, as I usually do for these sorts of things, I will keep a running list of links to prior videos with each post of a new video.

Please be edified by this video:

Joe Arcieri Songs: Secrets

Joe Arcieri is a friend of mine who I worked with for many years during my ten years working for Acme Markets.  Joe, when not stocking milk or saving lives as a nurse, is an excellent guitar player.  I have had the privilege, from time to time, of (badly) plunking my bass guitar with Joe as he melts a face or two with a great solo.

As great musicians do, Joe has written some of his own songs and keeps a soundcloud site to post them.  When I have opportunity, I will post his music here as well.

Here is his composition called “Secrets” which you can find here.

Here are the links to the previously posted songs by Joe:

• Long Walk of the Navajo 3
• Dualidad de diversos estilos de la guitarra
• Electric Echoes
• Digital Journey Ver 2
• Leap of Faith
• Black Magic Mix
• 3 Mod Not So Medley 2
• eJam
• Raw Track Mix 1
• V Jam
• Vela and Carina
• The Mixer
• The Mixer Part IIb
• Unfinished Business Part 1 (Stealth Mix)
• Serra
• Old School
• Siddhartha
• The Untamed
• The Siren’s Song
• Soul Divine
• Whistle (Rock Instrumental Version)
• Hall of Fame
• Under Pressure (V3.6)
• Bad Romance (Maximo Guitar Slinger Version)
• Diamonds Rock Hard Mix
• I’m With You
• Die Young (A Much Needed Rockover)
• Valles Marineris
• Try (Less Pop More Rock!)
• Hey Porsche (Hard Rock Instrumental Version)
• Crash My Party (Ver 2.1)
• Come Undone (Rock Ver 1.6)
• In the Ayer (Guitar Slinger Version)
• Sure Be Cool If You Did
• Get Your Shine On (Mezclador de Tejas)
• In My Head (Fiend Without A Face)
• Hot and Cold 5
• 22
• The Other Side (El Horror De Dracula)
• Safe And Sound (Maximo Metal Mod) 3
• Cool
• Heaven (Nelly)
• Timber (Tribute To The Duke)
• Burn it Down
• Let Her Go
• Bottoms Up
• Get Me Some of That
• Play It Again
• This Is How We Roll (Homage To “A Fist Full Of Dollars”)
• Nature’s Law
• Yeah!
• Cracks In Time
• The Burning Mirrors Of Archimedes
• Between Two Worlds
• The Nile Deep
• Lady Luck
• Mirror rorriM
• The Petting Zoo
• Native
• Neverwhere
• Sovereignty Of The Holy Sea
• Legion
• Fly Eagles Fly (with a touch of heaviness)
• 11:11
• No Code (Aka Outlaw)
• U-Knighted
• My Beautiful Wickedness
• Rehab (Hard Rock Version)
• Jenny
• Raise Your Glass (A Mixer)
• Indigenous
• Expedition De Sonic-a
• Ligeia
• 5 Little Sinners
• The Siege Of Rome
• Rise of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Version Alternte de Seige of Roma)
• Devil Woman
• The Sign Of The Cross
• BaBy!
• Aelois Dorsa Delta
• Minnie The Moocher
• Girl Crush
• Rescue Me
• Within Kingdom Walls
• Dive!
• Popular (Gettin’ It Right!)
• Bonded By……….
• Noir
• Together
• Parody

Bill Bruford: A Different Drummer

Bill Bruford, in his autobiography (see here), made reference to an interview he did for the Wall Street Journal that he thought was very effective, insightful, and substantive.  After some searching, I was able to find it and have posted it below.  I hope we enjoy reading it as much as Bill Bruford had giving it.  Is it as good as he suggests?  You be the judge:

___________

By Pam Lambert. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York, N.Y.: Aug 5, 1987. pg. 1

New York — “I`m not really a blood-and-guts drummer,” says Bill Bruford between bites of coffee-shop carrot cake. “There`s nothing wrong with power, and there`s nothing wrong with aggression from the bandstand, but I think what is attractive is control.”

Over two decades and 30 albums, control has been a hallmark of the style that`s made the British drummer one of the world`s most respected. But through the years his career has also been a search for control of another sort — control of his talent and the way it would be employed.

This quest, coupled with an insatiable appetite for exploration, has taken Bruford from mammoth arenas and the biggest of rock bands, Yes and Genesis, to jazz gigs in the most intimate of clubs. He`s gone from testing the possibilities of electronic percussion with the experimental ensemble King Crimson to recording as half of an acoustic duo. And as the possibilities for a drummer within rock have shrunk — the 4/4 beat rules the airwaves and most drumming on pop records is done by machines — Bruford has been turning more and more to jazz.

“I consider myself fortunate that I was trying to start a career at a time when you could really be quite musical; it was like a little cottage industry,” says the 38-year-old Bruford. He`s talking about the halcyon days just after Sgt. Pepper came out, when he and the rest of Yes challenged notions of pop songwriting with intricate, extended arrangements and odd meters on such art-rock albums as “Fragile” and “Close to the Edge.”  “Today,” he says, “the rock record is a kind of sonic marketing exercise that is very, very clever but doesn`t really involve us players. It has more to do with consultants and record-company bosses.

“The one thing that is still left, really, is a reactive kind of music. What a computer can`t do is react spontaneously to something that it`s just heard, which is what a jazz musician can do. It`s not possible in pop. The nature of pop is the song, and songs need a fairly smooth carpet on which to sit.”

So Bruford is now leading an electronic, improvisational British jazz quartet called Earthworks. (Any suggestion of groundbreaking is strictly intentional.) For the past few weeks the group has been on a hectic, low-budget U.S. club tour to promote its self-titled debut album (Editions EG). The release (“recorded in the time it took King Crimson to set up their gear”) has been received warmly on both sides of the Atlantic.

Bruford recognizes that his course goes against the flow — from big bucks to trying to break even, from rock to jazz (any movement is usually in the opposite direction, as jazz players chase the rock dollar). But he`s been a different drummer throughout his career. Just deciding to be a drummer was a fairly offbeat career goal in Britain, which he describes as “one of the world`s most determinedly unrhythmic nations.” As a 14-year-old at boarding school in his native Kent, he recalls the head of the music department tut-tutting, “What a pity you`re not going to play a real instrument.”

A few years later, in 1968, Bruford and a bunch of musicians he met through an ad in Melody Maker formed a band. Its name was Yes. “The only rule,” Bruford says, “was if we sounded like anybody else it was no good.” Yes didn`t, and neither did its drummer. In contrast to the group`s grandiose vocal and keyboard harmonies, his syncopated parts were spare, minimalist. Yet they commanded attention. Unlike most pop drummers, Bruford was rarely playing beat. He also had an individual sound, particularly a distinctive ringing snare (he fell into it because of a weak left-stick grip, which led him to hit the drum near the rim to be better heard). Bruford`s parts were independent, yet integral.
After six albums, Bruford left Yes for King Crimson, the innovative unit led by guitarist/theoretician Robert Fripp. “Yes was all sunny and light, vocal harmony and very pleasant, but for a drummer it was like supporting a singer,” Bruford explains, “whereas King Crimson was the minor-key group, the one that had the ability to extend, to improvise — the band where the men were really men.”

When Fripp disbanded King Crimson three years later, the drummer signed on with Genesis. But Bruford quickly discovered he wasn`t a “pay-and-play musician,” someone content just to execute what others had written. Within a year he formed his own progressive band, called Bruford, which recorded three albums primarily of his music. Even so, Bruford was a team player. During a typical concert by the ensemble, he took only a single, eight-bar solo.
In 1981, Fripp regrouped King Crimson to explore the new technology of the day, guitar synthesizers and electronic percussion. The latter allowed a percussionist to produce programmed tuned pitches. This was a breakthrough. It enabled a drummer to play melodic and harmonic lines — and to play a full role in the musical enterprise, something Bruford had strived to do throughout his career.

Exciting as this was conceptually, technically the infant electronic drum kit was “a brute.” The instrument wouldn`t hold its pitch. And in concert, the lighting triggered tremendous buzzes from it. As a result, when Fripp dissolved King Crimson again in 1984, Bruford took a sabbatical from electronics and formed an acoustic duo with keyboard player Patrick Moraz. “I wanted to remember what I enjoyed about drumming in the first place and wait for the technology to catch up.”

By last year, he thought it had. Bruford was excited by the capabilities of the new Simmons drums: When the player strikes one of 12 hexagonally shaped pads he can trigger any sound stored on programmable memory chips in the instrument`s “brain” (hand or foot switches control which effect is called up). The sounds triggered can be anything from textured polytonal chords to shattering glass.

Bruford was also excited by the explosive British jazz scene, which he calls “punk with notes.” He says young musicians who a decade ago might have turned toward punk are instead, with equal rebelliousness, blowing jazz. Their sound is raw, personal — everything the slick corporate pop being fabricated by British studio wizards like Trevor Horn is not.
From these young Turks, Bruford recruited acoustic bass player Mick Hutton, saxophonist Iain Ballamy, and keyboard and brass player Django Bates. The latter two came from the irreverent jazz orchestra Loose Tubes, which Bruford calls “the Sex Pistols of big bands.”

The result is Earthworks. As evident on the group`s impressive debut, it mixes up styles, moods and meters as effortlessly as it ignores musical boundaries. There`s everything from a film-noir ballad to hard-blowing bop, from mysterious synthesizer-processed burbles to naked sax. And through it all, making like Max Roach here, painting electronic colors there, is Bill Bruford. In control.