Two important military announcements today.

One about the expanding role of women (here) and one about an American hero's passing (here).

Congrats to Prof. Jean Sternlight and the Nevada Law Journal on the publication of this great symposium issue.

Here.

So nice to see a friend's column in Forbes!

See here.  Congrats, Chenglin!

Happy 240th birthday, Marines!

See here.

What a $20 self-parking charge cost the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel.

I used to like the Renaissance Las Vegas Hotel.  It was a great place for business breakfasts and lunches, and it was where the Law School Admissions Council held one of its conferences this year.  But I won't go back there.  As I pulled in this morning, the cost to park was $20--not just for valet service but also for self-parking.

For those who are not Las Vegans, $20 for self-parking is pretty much unheard of.  The point of free (or near-free) parking here is that we want patrons to enjoy the premises and spend their dollars elsewhere.  So $20 for parking goes against the Las Vegas culture.

But the story gets worse.  I asked to see the manager.  No luck.  I asked to have the manager drop by while I was having breakfast.  No luck.

If I had more free time, I would do a powerpoint on the order of this classic one (here).

Goodbye, Renaissance.  Let's see how the Las Vegas market treats your new changes.

A cool article about luck.

Forwarded to me by the wonderful Tom Piechota, who read it in Southwest Airlines's monthly magazine (here).

Brilliant idea for those who, like me, hate where name tags fall.

From the wonderful Karen Gross (here).

The 17-month wait (!) is over: our Virtuous Billing essay is finally out.

Randy Gordon, my co-author, and I turned in this essay, Virtuous Billing, in July 2014.  The Nevada Law Journal has now published it as part of a symposium issue that my amazing colleague, Jean Sternlight, put together.

At some point in the not-too-distant future,* the whole symposium will be out.  I enjoyed each and every paper presentation that I saw, and it's lovely to be able to tout a lot of people's very hard work.

* Based on my own experiences with last year's editorial board, I can make no promises as to timing.

The Onion for the military

Sent to me by one of my fave law students (here).

R.I.P., Malcolm Gillis

So sad to hear about President Gillis's passing.  He served Rice exceedingly well.

Great way to start the day.

Sent to me by my wonderful colleague Linda Edwards (here).  Enjoy!

The power of a great teacher.

This lovely WSJ essay about a great teacher (here) triggered a couple of thoughts:

(1) I still believe that it's possible (and more common than people might think) to be a strong scholar and a strong teacher, but I'm glad that people who have particular strengths can get rewarded for doing what they love.  The essay reminded me about one of my favorite teachers at Rice, Dennis Huston, who took my breath away when I was a student.  First, he intimidated me; then he challenged me; then he encouraged me.  So many students loved him, in fact, that when he needed blood transfusions, several alumni lined up for the privilege of helping.  Want to get a glimpse of this marvelous professor?  See here.

(2) We need to remember that great teaching can have the same ripple effects as great scholarship.  Yes, great scholarship can live on long after the author has died; but great teaching gets carried on, person to person, as well.  (The opposite is also true:  weak scholarship doesn't even make a ripple, and weak teaching does nothing to enrich students' lives after the course is over.)

What a great opportunity for us to thank the great teachers in our lives!

Two great ways to start the week:

Here and here.

A good reason to be proud of the University of Houston Law Center (10th anniversary of doing something very good).

See here.

Hooray for Judge Phyllis Frye!

Front page of the New York Times (here)!  I've known Judge Frye for around 15 years, and she and her wife Trish are lovely, warm, wicked-smart people. 

I wish that her time at the University of Houston Law Center had been more welcoming.  The story captures some of what she went through:

The self-defense, combined with a charm offensive, began in law school itself, at the University of Houston. During her first semester, she felt shunned. Determined to break out of her isolation, she requested the seating charts for her classes, memorized her classmates’ names and approached them one by one. She tussled with the administration to gain access to the women’s restroom, the kind of fight that continues to this day.

 I'm so proud of her that I could burst, and I know that her story will inspire others.

Tale of a customer service fail (GrubHub)

Last night, we decided to order in and catch up on some shows, so I did what I often do when I'm out of town--order from GrubHub.  I ordered nice and early (yes, we're early risers, so we're early diners, too), on the theory that the food might take more than an hour to arrive.  I got a confirmation number with my "yes, you've made an order" notice (below).  After more than an hour had passed without getting the food, I called the restaurant, which told me that I had no such order on file.  I started to order directly from the restaurant, because we like the food there a lot, and then decided that I'd order elsewhere instead (which we did).  I told the restaurant that we didn't want to order, after all.  I tried to contact GrubHub, but the website was down, the phone was busy, etc.  So I tweeted my problem to +GrubHub Seamless.  Radio silence.

Three hours later, the restaurant's delivery person showed up w/our order.  Apparently, GrubHub put the order through once its website was back up.  We told the delivery person that we'd canceled the order three hours earlier. 

I got back on Twitter and on Facebook.  The Facebook site indicates that the same thing was happening to more people.  I posted another tweet, and once I finally got the GrubHub email that "my order was in the works" (three hours too late), I replied and explained my problem--and asked that I not be charged.

STILL radio silence.  Let's see how long it takes for GrubHub to get back to me and others affected by yesterday's webfail.

Banality of hate (repost, with a comment).

Professor LeRoy makes an important point about failing to realize the precursors to evil (here).  By staying silent when evil occurs, we are making our world less safe and diminishing our civilization.

Proudest moment of my time at UHLC.

I had so many good times at UHLC, including (surprisingly enough) the post-Tropical Storm Allison time, when everyone at the law school -- including those inside the school and our alumni and other supporters -- pulled together to rebuild just under $50 million in damage.  But probably the high point was working with UH's then-president Art Smith, with Sondra Tennessee, and with Seth Chandler on the decision to move Loyola-New Orleans's law school INTO UHLC after Katrina.  Loyola's community became wonderful neighbors and friends.  As we remember Hurricane Katrina, it's a chance for me to thank again all those who made that temporary arrangement seamless.

So proud of UNLV's Howard R. Hughes College of Engineering!

If you ever want to see the value of research in action, watch this clip.  Thanks to Professors Brendan O'Toole and Mohamed Trabia and their team, Hailey Dawson now has her "special hand."

I'm not a ConLaw person, but ...

I'm really not a ConLaw person--you can tell that from my law school transcript--but I think that there is a difference between saying something where people can walk away from the speaker and saying a lot of things where people are stuck listening to that person.  It's a hard issue, though.  I get that.

The tough issue that the Salaita case raises is that no one knows if what he says outside of class (hateful, but entirely his right, and I'd be first in line to defend him--and then first in line to meet his speech w/different speech) would also affect how he'd treat students inside class (where he would have to create a learning environment in which students would be treated fairly).  I'm glad that Prof. LeRoy is part of this debate.  I'm glad that others are, too.  What I hope is that everyone understands the complexity of the issue.

Too often, unfortunately, people say that there's only one side of a particular issue and that anyone on the other side is wrong-headed, or discriminatory, or dumb.  And that's no way to debate a peer.