News - Friday, April 13, 2012

Attorney Neil Brunetz is all relaxed smiles and genial platitudes. As he leans back in his chair at the table in one of the many conference rooms at Miller & Martin, he talks warmly about his practice and his time with the firm. Given his unassuming manner, it’s unlikely there’s any part of him that’s hiding even a hint of unhappiness with his life or career.

Legal Aid of East Tennessee has received the final tally for the number of pro bono hours attorneys donated to help indigent persons in the Chattanooga area in 2011: 2,203 hours, which amounts to over $400,000 in legal services at no cost to the people helped. For reference, Chattanooga’s neighbor, Knoxville, a significantly larger city, had well under 2,000 hours reported. “That’s pretty impressive and speaks a lot to the strong culture of community service present at the Chattanooga Bar,” said Charles McDaniel, pro bono project director for Legal Aid’s 10-county region. Pictured above are a few of the many Chattanooga attorneys who contributed their time and expertise, including (L-R): Charles “Buz” Dooley of Leitner, Williams, Dooley & Napolitan; solo practitioner Tiffany Campbell; McDaniels; Marcy Eason of Miller & Martin; and Kevin Hudson of Miller & Martin. (Photo by David Laprad)

Throughout April, the City of Chattanooga is organizing Earth Month events around issues that touch every citizen and command a large share of tax dollars.

In years past, Earth Month has been geared toward environmental activities residents and businesses can do. But for Earth Month 2012, the city government is taking a hard look in the mirror. At issue are the government’s energy bill, water planning and millions of dollars of potential savings.

Saturday, April 14

Organized labor went on record Saturday as supporting Mayor P.R. Olgiati in the governor’s race. The endorsement of Olgiati was in the form of a voice vote at the brief state convention of the Committee on Political Education.

April 14

The Art of Bicycling

Outdoor Chattanooga and Hunter Museum of American Art will host a public art bike tour, ending with the HATCH art car and bike parade, beginning at 11 a.m. at Outdoor Chattanooga. Participants can bring their own bike or borrow one from Outdoor Chattanooga. Call Ruth Thompson at (423) 643-6889 to reserve a bike. Helmets are required. The ride is appropriate for adults and kids ages 16 and older when accompanied by an adult.

The great recession might be letting up, but it has taken its toll. Law firms have done reasonably well, some laying off lawyers and staff to keep profits up, and many others have recently suffered from a decrease in hours billed. However, the plight for the common laborer, who lives closer to the subsistence level than lawyers do, has been tougher.

Razorback fans got a rotten egg in their Easter basket this year. To say that there is trouble in “Hog Heaven” is an understatement and a little bit tongue in cheek, since it coincided with a major religious holiday. The question at hand is one that was asked of Bill Clinton and many other leaders past and present: How perfect do we expect our non-religious leaders to be? Do we accept unethical behavior from these people if it has little or no effect on the job they are hired or elected to do? Maybe the simpler question is whether it is forgivable to lie about a sexual dalliance or at least to prevent people from thinking that one has or was going to occur?

CBL & Associates Properties last week announced the appointment of Jeff Curry as chief legal officer for the company. Curry has been serving as interim chief legal officer for CBL since February 2012 and has served as an external legal advisor to CBL since 1986. In his new role, Curry will oversee all of the company’s legal services, including real estate, corporate, securities and tax.

In response to recent media stories, Randy and Leah Ann Ingram, who took over the charter agreement for the National Historic Landmark Delta Queen steamboat in 2010, last week said the vessel has not been sold and will remain in Chattanooga. The Ingrams and the boat’s owner, Xanterra Parks and Resorts, acknowledged that over the years, there has been some interest from other companies in possibly purchasing the Delta Queen, but currently, there is no deal on the table or in play. “There was a story that came out of Fla., that indicated a letter of interest had been submitted to the city to try and make the necessary arrangements to accommodate the boat down there,” said Albert Waterhouse, spokesperson for the Delta Queen. “This was a simple first step formality that any potential owner might take and a long way from the purchase of the Delta Queen.” (Photo by David Laprad)

The first and only time I fired a gun, it was a moment of staggering idiocy upon which I look back with profound relief. There’d been a knock on my front door, and when I’d opened it, the neighbor lady had been standing there with tears in her eyes and a pistol in her hand. My heart rate had doubled, and I’d choked out an apprehensive “Are you OK?” while tensing up to dive for cover.

While moving through the security area a few weeks back at Little Rock’s airport, I was reminded of another trip I took almost 40 years ago. It was the summer before my fifth grade year. The previous year, my family had moved back to Little Rock from Oklahoma City, and I had returned to Sooner land the next summer to spend a week with my friend Rusty.

While covering the Oklahoma Sooners, an uzi machine gun was fired from the balcony of the athletic dormitory. A mother of a player that I knew said her younger son spent one night with his older brother at the dorm and came home never wanting to go back. He was that scared of the place. Incidents like that and players arrested for drug trafficking led to the resignation of head coach Barry Switzer.

I hadn’t thought about a Volkswagen Rabbit until a few weeks ago, when I saw one driving ahead of me with a “For Sale” sign in the back window. Traffic wasn’t moving very well in the rural town I was driving through on my way to work, and the Rabbit I was following seemed to have seen better days. Being primer gray, running sporadically with a worn out diesel engine, as well as smoking like a steel mill smoke stack, the little Rabbit was doing its best to “hop” on down the road. The signage on the bumper promoted “Mother Earth,” and if I had followed that little car very far, both the planet and myself would have been in major respiratory trouble.

During the past 16 months, NPR has featured a couple of creative police-blotter writers in stories filed by Don Gorenstein and Alexandria Gutierrez. In January 2011, Gorenstein reported on John Nolan, editor of the Rochester (NH) Times, who writes up the local police’s doings, and is known to inject puns and rhyme into his work. For example:

There’s something primal that leads people to wonder what’s lurking below the surface of any large river. Humans seem to be hardwired to be both fascinated by, and somewhat fearful of, Volkswagen-sized catfish. Soon, a remarkable collection of freshwater fish that can reach such legendary sizes will be on display at the Tennessee Aquarium. The new River Giants exhibit, opening April 28, features amazing species that grow to enormous proportions in the wild. “These guys are the Goliaths of freshwater,” said Thom Demas, the Aquarium’s curator of fishes. “And, for the first time anywhere, people will have an opportunity to see a global collection of these giants in a single display.”

Lucille Jones is a legend of local real estate. The owner of Chattanooga Realty in Hixson for more than 30 years, all of the seasoned veterans working today know her name. Her daughter, Julie Cooke, grew up in that atmosphere, taking appointments and caring for her three siblings while her mother managed the family business.

Anyone involved professionally in real estate transactions in Tennessee probably knows that Tennessee law requires every instrument conveying an interest in real estate – such as a deed, a lease or a deed of trust – to contain a description of the real estate. The required description (commonly referred to as a “legal description”) usually takes the form of a “metes and bounds description” prepared by a land surveyor or a reference to a lot designated in a subdivision plat that’s been recorded in the register’s office of the county in which the real estate is located. If the legal description in an instrument erroneously describes the land being conveyed, is the instrument invalid? A recent opinion from the Tennessee Court of Appeals says not necessarily.

The Chattanooga Film Society will conclude its presentation of the Southern Circuit independent film series on April 16 with a screening of “Lunch Line” at Loose Cannon, located at 1800 Rossville Avenue. The film follows six kids from one of the toughest neighborhoods in Chicago as they set out to fix school lunch — and end up at the White House. The film tracks the behind-the-scenes details of school lunch and childhood hunger from key moments in the 1940s, 1960s and 1980s.

In 1948, Alfred Hitchcock released a movie he shot to mimic a single take. Called “Rope,” it tells the story of two men who murder a colleague before a dinner party to demonstrate their intellectual superiority. Each shot lasts about ten minutes, and then Hitchcock tracks into an object, such as the back of a man’s jacket. This allowed his cameraman to load more film.

It is not that the Asian culture is generally smarter than Americans (that opinion comes from an American and is probably not shared by Asians!); however, their practice of drinking tea over soda makes you stop and wonder! Although the health benefits of tea have been professed for centuries, only lately have the medicinal properties been scientifically investigated. As far as the health benefits of soda – sorry, but there are none. Zero.

Test your knowledge on this grab-bag trivia. Good luck!

1. The motto of the U.S. state of Virginia is “Sic semper tyrannis,” a phrase meaning, “thus ever (or always) to tyrants. Who said this while performing a homicidal act? Marcus Junius Brutus; John Booth; “Crazy” Joe Davola

Every now and then, I hear from one of my readers asking me to re-run a certain recipe or just to let me know how much they enjoy my recipe. Thank you for that! Sometimes, I get notes from readers letting me know that I have made a mistake, such as the email I received last week. In fact, I received two emails. They were both about mistakes in last week’s paper. Oops! (I’m chalking this up to “getting old” and my mind not being quite as sharp as it used to be.)

In the late 1800s, an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto observed that, in Italy, a small group of people held nearly all the power, influence and money, which they used to create a significant advantage over the rest of the population. He theorized that, in most countries, about 80 percent of the wealth and power was controlled by about 20 percent of the people. He called this a “predictable imbalance,” which eventually became known as the 80:20 rule.