Jim Cooney Representing Duke

Jim Cooney Representing Duke
No, I have not given up on the front page. I have just been busy with other projects this summer. I have some more time now so do keep checking here on your way to the media page.

Yesterday, it was announced that Jim Cooney who so ably represented Reade Seligmann during the criminal case would be representing Duke University in an unrelated suit against it by golf team member Andrew Giuliani. Some have worried that Mr. Cooney has gone over to the dark side.

That Jim Cooney was hired by Duke does not, by itself, trouble me. The right of all persons and entities to have the effective assistance of counsel is a fundamental norm of the profession and an indispensable feature of an adversarial system such as ours. The duty of lawyers to supply such representation unless actually unable to do so or prevented from doing so by a conflicting interest or duty is part of this norm. Because Reade settled with Duke, there does not seem to be a present, direct conflict. Indeed, from the administration’s perspective, it is a smart move. The administration is either getting wiser in its choice of legal representation (something I want to explore in a future update) or it fancies its chances in court and wants to try and fight a case on the merits for a change.

I am, however, troubled by some things Mr. Cooney had to say in two articles in yesterday’s Herald-Sun, here and here.

Here is a quote from the first article:

Charlotte attorney Jim Cooney shed some insight Tuesday into Duke President Richard Brodhead’s involvement with one of the university’s three lacrosse players falsely accused of rape in 2006.

Brodhead “personally assisted Reade [Seligmann] in transferring” to Brown University after the players’ exoneration, by going “out of his way to contact the right people,” writing letters of support and doing “everything he could to make sure Reade landed at a good school,” Cooney said.

I heard early on that Reade was contacted by the coach of an Ivy League school (not Brown) shortly after he was indicted. He remembered what a great kid Reade was from the recruiting process and indicated that he would be interested in having him once his legal problems were over if Duke did not want him. Largely from just getting to know him, the coach seemed to assume that the charges were bogus. This was at a time when Duke kicked Reade off campus and pretended not to know him. We know what a great person Reade is. Do not forget that he was also an outstanding student and a formidable athlete. The idea that Reade would find it difficult to land a place at another good university is far fetched. Also keep in mind the tremendous mutual animosity between the lacrosse families and Brodhead. I cannot imagine Brodhead writing anyone on Reade’s behalf without a gun to his head. If he did so, it was either as part of the settlement or for his own self interest.

This situation seems analogous to the extensive lobbying Brodhead did with the presidents of the other ACC schools to get an extra year of eligibility for the team members from the NCAA. Was that effort made out of the goodness of his heart or because of his concern for the players? No, it was purely an exercise in mitigating damages in the anticipated lawsuits. Brodhead was the one who cancelled the season in the first place with full knowledge that the charges were bogus. Indeed, Brodhead’s actions after the hoax ended resembled the old slapstick comedy routine where a character knocks over a priceless piece of art in a museum and then franticly and futilely scrambles to put the pieces back together before anyone notices.

If Brodhead had such good things to say about Reade, why did he not say them at the beginning of the case when his words might have made a difference? If he had spoken up sooner rather than later, perhaps Reade could still be a student at Duke University and not Brown. Brodhead did not just remain silent as Reade was slandered. He actually went out of his way to condone the actions of some of those who were doing the slandering.

The article also states,

The school, beyond saying OK [for him to represent Reade], encouraged him to help Seligmann because officials there thought the youth “needed the strongest representation possible,” Cooney said.

Again,one has to keep the context in mind. The statement ignores the fact that the case should have never reached the prosecutorial level in the first place and should have been dismissed after it did. Yet, not only did the administration refuse to speak out against the injustice being perpetrated against its students, it actually worked to keep the case on course for trial. That is not my conjecture, the administration said as much. You can read all of Duke’s press releases and public statements and see for yourself. Bob Steel was gambling that Reade, Collin and David would be acquitted. In that case, the administration could have it both ways. It could avoid angering certain narrow constituencies whose it approval it valued and it could say, “See. Everything turned out okay!” (a projected $5 million or more in attorney’s fees later). The perverse thing about the situation was that, the more the revelations revealed how false the charges were, the more the administration seemed encouraged not to do anything. Yes, the administration probably did want Reade, Collin and David to have the best counsel available, but first and foremost because it solved a problem for the administration.

What if Reade, Collin and David did not end up being acquitted? The administration was positioning itself for that eventuality as well. Remember the key talking point asserted by both Brodhead and Steel: “I believe in the system.” Think about the full implications of that statement. Think also about President Brodhead’s repeated assertions that only a jury could say what the facts of the case were and that no one else, including himself, was even entitled to an opinion on the matter. Had they been convicted, the administration would have turned on Reade, Collin and David and called them rapists. Given the extent to which the jury pool had been tainted, not only by Nifong, but also activists Duke whose favor Duke was soliciting, there was a very real danger of that happening. The results of polling done by the defense were quite disturbing. Indeed, Jim Cooney drafted the Motion for a Change in Venue. Convicted or acquitted, the one thing the administration was never going to do was say anything that might anger one of those narrow constituencies.

I am also taken aback by Jim Cooney’s words because they eerily seem to correspond to the administration’s current public relations strategy. Based on what I have been hearing and seeing, Duke is concentrating all of its efforts in protecting Brodhead and isolating him from the actions taken by other members of the administration. I hope Mr. Cooney is merely speaking off the cuff and from another set of the University’s ham fisted talking points. Any participation by him in Duke’s spin machine concerning the lacrosse litigation is above and beyond his duties in the Giuliani case. I also hope that he is simply misinformed about what Duke actually did and did not do during the lacrosse hoax.

In the second article there is this:

Cooney said Tuesday that he’s “honored to be representing Duke,” his undergraduate alma mater, in the Giuliani case.

“Duke as an institution has always tried to do its best,” Cooney said. “There are times when it doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean it’s not always trying to do the best it can. Trying to represent an institution that’s trying and that has learned from issues in its past is exactly what I ought to be doing.”

The facts adduced at trial in the lacrosse civil cases will show otherwise. The administration’s actions were always about their individual personal needs and desires and nothing else. They were certainly not about Duke University’s interests. For his own sake, Mr. Cooney would be better served confining his efforts to defending Duke in the Giuliani case and leaving the lacrosse situation to speak for itself. A connection between the lacrosse litigation and the Giuliani case is not one he really ought to invite.

I have tremendous respect for Jim Cooney. As a concerned alumnus and lawyer, he is more than welcome to join us in throwing tomatoes at the administration when he is done with the Giuliani case.

As for the Giuliani case, I do not know the merits of it. However, regardless of whether or not Andrew Giuliani should be a member of the golf team, showing that Duke did not give him a fair hearing should be fairly easy for him to do given the way the University conducts its internal procedures. The Chronicle exposed many of these problems in a devastating series of articles last year. If the administration had really learned anything from the lacrosse case, the Giuliani case would have never reached the litigation stage and it probably could have been settled in a manner consistent with everyone’s best interests a long time ago.

Pubmed Faceoff: The Extreme MakeOver MashUp For Search Results
Friends/

A Most Impressive Development !

/Gerry

Pubmed Faceoff

What’s this all about?

This site applies a simple, photorealistic variant of the Chernoff Faces visualization technique

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernoff_faces]

[http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Human%20Engineering.files/Chernoff/Chernoff%20Faces.htm]

to impact factor data for papers in the PubMed database of biomedical literature. Basically it allows you to search PubMed and have the results represented as a set of human faces. “I was published a couple of years ago in a crap journal and nobody is citing me.”

The theory is that mapping multidimensional data (in this case the age, journal impact factor and citation count associated with each paper) to facial features takes advantage of the fact that our brains are highly tuned to recognise, process and differentiate between human faces.

Each paper is represented as a face. The ethnicity and gender of the face is selected at random for visual interest – you can turn this feature off if you so choose.

“I was published recently in a good journal. Citations are as expected.”

The age of a face correlates with the publication date of the paper. Younger faces are more recent papers. “I was published recently in a good journal and I’m getting lots of citations.”

A smile means that the paper has been cited more times than expected (based on its age).

Larger smiles mean more citations.

A frown means that the paper has been cited far less than you might expect.

The raised eyebrows correlate with the impact factor (sort of – actually the Eigenfactor) of the journal in which the paper was published.

[http://www.eigenfactor.org/]

Source
[http://www.postgenomic.com/faces/index.php]

Thanks To

/ Frank Norman /Librarian / National Institute for Medical Research / The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK /

THE FUJITSU ASIA PACIFIC SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM 2009

THE FUJITSU ASIA PACIFIC SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM 2009
A full-tuition Scholarship
For Management Training in Hawaii
Fujitsu is a leading provider of customer-focused IT and communications solutions for the global marketplace, established the
Fujitsu Asia Pacific Scholarship Program in 1985. The Scholarship was
established to enhance international understanding and cross-cultural
communication through management education and training. Fujitsu is
committed to promoting the development of both technology and human
resources at global level.

East-West Knowledge Leader Program (EWKLP)
An intensive three-month
Graduate diploma program at JAIMS in Honolulu, Hawaii
JAIMS is a nonprofit postgraduate institute that has been a pioneer
in intercultural management education since 1972. Over 22,000
participants from 59 countries have come to JAIMS to learn skill
essential for success in the international arena.
JAIMS
* Intercultural Business Leadership
* Global Marketing
* Cross-Cultural negotiation and Problem-solving
* Business Plan Development and Entrepreneurship
* Business Communication
* One-week field study in Japan

Program Information: www.jaims.org

Application Deadline:January 31st, 2009

Please send your application letter and CV to:
PT. FUJITSU INDONESIA
Wisma Kyoei Prince 10thFloor
Jl. Jend Sudirman Kav.3-4
Jakarta 10220
Indonesia
Attn: Mr. Raditya Padmawangsa
Ms. Ella Lamzia
E-mail: scholarship@ id.fujitsu. com
Scholarship information: www.fujitsu. com/scholarship

Portable Windows Doctor 1.6

Portable Windows Doctor 1.6
Windows Doctor 1.6 Portable | 7.45 MB Windows Doctor is a top professional program on the security protection and system optimization of the Windows operating system. It thoroughly scans patch vulnerabilities, Startup items, plug-ins, services and processes, etc., in the system with its rapid and stable search engine to diagnose possible security threats and protect your system from the threats

Portable ImTOO ISO Burner 1.0.31

Portable ImTOO ISO Burner 1.0.31
ImTOO ISO Burner 1.0.31 Portable | 7.16 MB ImTOO ISO Burner is a professional and comprehensive ISO burning utility enhanced with an intuitive interface. And it can burn ISO file to CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD R, DVD-RW, DVD RW and DVD R DL. With the burning software, you can choose the write speed and it will verify written data after burning process to ensure the usability of the disc content. The

Portable WinZip Pro 12.0 Build 8252
WinZip Pro 12.0 Build 8252 Portable | 8.34 MB WinZip® is the most trusted way to work with compressed files. No other compression utility is as easy-to-use or offers the comprehensive and productivity-enhancing approach that has made WinZip the gold standard for file-compression tools. With the new WinZip 12, you can quickly and securely zip and unzip files to conserve storage space, speed up

Contest – - Rinascimento virtuale

Contest – - Rinascimento virtuale

Mario Gerosa, known as Frank Koolhaas on Second Life, will be presenting his new book, “Rinascimento virtuale” on Friday 11 April 2008 at noon SLT (9pm italian time), in the Toscana sim, in Second Life http://slurl.com/secondlife/toscana/85/215/105. The book, which has been published in Italy, is about the art generated in social network, avatar branding, grassroot culture, virtual tourism and much more.

For the occasion, a contest will be open to all SL residents, called “Second Renaissance.” The competitors must create one or more pics (max 3) inspired by famous Renaissance paintings, with the photos being entirely taken in SL. The avatars should take poses and situations by famous masters like Botticelli, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raffaello.

Submissions are due by 3 pm slt, Thursday, April 10 (midnight Italian time) and must be submitted in .jpg format, no larger than 250 kB, to secondlife@intoscana.it. The submissions will be shown during the presentation on April 11. The jury wil be comprised of Mario Gerosa, journalist and writer; Mirko Lalli marketing and communication officer of Fondazione Sistema Toscana; and Sergio Tossi, gallery owner and curator of contemporary art exhibitions in Florence, Italy.

The three top pieces will receive these prizes:

1st prize: Weekend in a Tuscany agriturismo offered by B&B LA VILLANELLA (http://www.villanella.it, lavillanella@katamail.com – 0575.48394). Winner to provide their own transportation.

2nd : 5 books by Meltemi, shipping prepaid

3rd: 3 books by Meltemi, shipping prepaid

Oil rises above $109 as regional gas prices ease slightly – Herald Tribune

Oil rises above $109 as regional gas prices ease slightly – Herald Tribune
Oil prices rose above $109 a barrel Wednesday as investors waited for details of a proposed $700 billion plan to buy bad mortgage debt and stabilize the U.S. financial system. Oil traders are scrutinizing the plan because of its possible impact on the global economy — and demand for oil. “There

2 die of Legionnaires’ disease in NJ hospital – Miami Herald
New Jersey health officials say two men have died after contracting Legionnaires’ disease in a hospital. Health Department spokeswoman Marilyn Riley said Wednesday that one died Sept. 12 and the other Monday at St. Peter’s University Hospital in the city of New Brunswick. Four other people at the

Paulson, Bernanke Defend Rescue Plan Before Congress – RTT News
(RTTNews) – Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spent much of their time before Congress Wednesday attempting to address alternatives raised to their $700 billion Wall Street bailout proposal. One of the most persistent questions was why the federal government

A Steady Diet of Medals and Fast Food – 2008 Olympics

A Steady Diet of Medals and Fast Food – 2008 Olympics

A Steady Diet of Medals and Fast Food – 2008 Olympics – Sports and News from China – The New York Times – Michael Phelps High Calorie fast food Diet

The papers recently are full of stories of olympic swimmers living off a diet of fast food but Ryan Lochte and multi gold medalist Michael Phelps are both only 23. The worry is the effects on their bodies in later life.

Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte’s high calorie fast food diets are similar to american footballers high in saturated animal fat dripping with cholesterol there’s no doubt you need those extra calories andprotein to feed those muscles that burn calories faster than fat and also to fuel all that extra energy expenditure but it could be plant based instead.

Former champion weightlifter now Foods for life Sports nutritionist Gareth Zeal used to lift more than weight lifters twice his size. The beauty about plant based protein and plant based fats is that they can provide real power without the bulk and without the detrimental ramifications on long term health.

Many American footballer find themselves crippled in later life and their average life expectancy can be 20 years lower than the American average.

But what young man wouldn’t want a body like Michael Phelps??

London nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston says “So many kids will be influenced by this very talented and driven gold medalist and no doubt there will be many that use this extreme case to try to justify high fat fast food is good for you. If only they could see 20 years into the future they might think again. The English Ruby team have been using organic conconut fat to achieve power and energy with great success. Our nutritionist Gareth is living proof you can have pure power on plant based protein and essential fats and grow old gracefully without aches and pains and the after effects of mutating your body. I sincerely hope it inspires many more kids to get excited about exercise and swimming rather than burgers and cheese”

London Nutritionists Yvonne Bishop-Weston and Gareth Zeal can be contacted via www.optimumnutritionists.com

Cartoon – Designer Toys

Cartoon – Designer Toys

Dave’s place – Chiefs’ historical strike-out celebrates 21st anniversary
The most fervent fan of the Kansas City Chiefs would be hard pressed to recognize a single player from the team they fielded when the National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) went on strike 21 years ago this week.

On Sept. 21, 1987, members of the NFLPA made good on their threat not to participate in any football games until a free agency settlement was reached with league team owners.

Postdoc positions in MSE/NTU

Postdoc positions in MSE/NTU
Post-doctoral Research Fellow position No. 1:
A position is open at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The candidate is expected to hold a PhD degree with experience in the area of polymer matrix composites (design & fabrication, characterization, strengthening & toughening mechanisms) and multi-functional composites. Knowledge in electromagnetic wave propagation in material structures will be an advantage. The initial appointment is for one
year, with the possibility of extending to another two years upon satisfactory progress.

Post-doctoral Research Fellow position No. 2:
A postdoctoral research fellow is needed at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore to work on a photocatalytic research project. The candidate is expected to hold a PhD degree with experience either in the computational chemistry or surface chemistry. For the computational work, the candidate should be skillful in band structure calculation. Knowledge in photocatalytic materials and redox reactions will be an
advantage. For the surface chemistry work, the candidate should ideally have experience in in-situ surface spectroscopies and/or photo-reactors. Experience with Attenuated Total Reflectance or Diffuse Reflectance spectroscopy would be an advantage. Initial appointment is for one year, with possibility of extending for another one-and-a-half years upon satisfactory progress.

If you are interested in any of the above positions, please send in your resume to Prof. Chen at aszchen@ntu. edu.sg before 30 September 2008. Candidate selection will begin in October 2008 till the positions are filled. The estimated commencing date of these posts is 01 Jan 2009.

Chen Zhong
School of Materials Science & Engineering
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore 639798
Tel: (65) 6790 4256
Fax: (65) 6790 9081
E-mail: aszchen@ntu. edu.sg
Web: http://www.ntu. edu.sg/home/ aszchen

THE FUJITSU ASIA PACIFIC SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM 2009
A full-tuition Scholarship
For Management Training in Hawaii
Fujitsu is a leading provider of customer-focused IT and communications solutions for the global marketplace, established the
Fujitsu Asia Pacific Scholarship Program in 1985. The Scholarship was
established to enhance international understanding and cross-cultural
communication through management education and training. Fujitsu is
committed to promoting the development of both technology and human
resources at global level.

East-West Knowledge Leader Program (EWKLP)
An intensive three-month
Graduate diploma program at JAIMS in Honolulu, Hawaii
JAIMS is a nonprofit postgraduate institute that has been a pioneer
in intercultural management education since 1972. Over 22,000
participants from 59 countries have come to JAIMS to learn skill
essential for success in the international arena.
JAIMS
* Intercultural Business Leadership
* Global Marketing
* Cross-Cultural negotiation and Problem-solving
* Business Plan Development and Entrepreneurship
* Business Communication
* One-week field study in Japan

Program Information: www.jaims.org

Application Deadline:January 31st, 2009

Please send your application letter and CV to:
PT. FUJITSU INDONESIA
Wisma Kyoei Prince 10thFloor
Jl. Jend Sudirman Kav.3-4
Jakarta 10220
Indonesia
Attn: Mr. Raditya Padmawangsa
Ms. Ella Lamzia
E-mail: scholarship@ id.fujitsu. com
Scholarship information: www.fujitsu. com/scholarship