Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr., has personally intervened in a pending immigration case in which a foreign national who is in a same-sex civil union with a U.S. citizen of the same sex is facing removal from the United States. In Matter of Paul Wilson Dorman, 25 I&N Dec. 485 (A.G. 2011), announced today, May 5, the Attorney General stated:
"Pursuant to my authority set forth in 8 C.F.R. sec. 1003.1(h)(1)(i), I order that … <Read More>
I attended last night's performance of "Catch Me If You Can," a new Broadway musical with music by Marc Shaiman, book by Terrence McNally, and lyrics by Shaiman and Scott Wittman, at the Neil Simon Theatre. Interestingly, earlier yesterday the nominating committee announced that the show would be up for a Tony award as best musical and co-star Norbert Leo Butz for a Tony as best actor in a musical, but that the other co-star, Aaron Tveit, … <Read More>
I had never seen the musical show based on the film "La Cage aux Folles." I remembered the original French film fondly from when it was first shown in the U.S., and I remembered, a bit less fondly, the American knock-off film, the title of which, "The Birdcage," was a literal translation of the French title… the story shifted from a French coastal city to Miami. Somehow I had never stirred my self to see … <Read More>
The last concert of the season in Peoples' Symphony's Arens Series was a piano recital by Vladimir Feltsman this evening. I approached this with great anticipation, but my hopes were only partially fulfilled.
Feltsman began with a suitably improvisatory-sounding rendition of Mozart's D Minor Fantasy, K. 397, and then completed the first half with four Impromptus by Franz Schubert, collectively published as Op. 90. By his body language and the quick transitions between numbers, Feltsman … <Read More>
U.S. District Judge James S. Gwin rejected a motion to dismiss a sexual orientation discrimination claim asserted by a lesbian employee against an Ohio county in Hutchinson v. Cuyahoga County Board of County Commissioners, 2011 WL 1563874 (N.D. Ohio, April 25, 2011). Although he dismissed some of plaintiff Shari Hutchinson's claims as time-barred, and also rejected an ancillary claim regarding the amount of monetary credit for opting out of the county's health insurance program, … <Read More>
Tonight I was at Carnegie Hall to hear Yuri Bashmet and Evgeny Kissin perform Dmitri Shostakovich's Sonata for Viola and Piano, Op. 147. This was truly an important musical event of the first order. Bashmet is undoubtedly the greatest violist of his generation, and Kissin is among the greatest pianists of his generation. They both grew up in the Russian musical education system in which Shostakovich was the looming great creative figure, and are fully … <Read More>
The Court of Appeals of Minnesota ruled on April 26, 2011, that a district judge had appropriately ordered a lesbian mother who had relocated with her child to Arizona to pay half the costs of transporting the child between Arizona and Minnesota to effectuate the third-party visitation rights of the mother's former partner. The unanimous ruling in Hay v. King, 2011 Westlaw 1546586 (unpublished), found that the lack of specific statutory authorization for the award … <Read More>
I'll go to see anything that Mark Rylance is in… The man is a most wonderful actor, who totally transforms himself to inhabit each role, and brings such sheer zest to his work that he is always a pleasure to watch. I loved his performances in La B
I wasn't sure what to expect when I attended the matinee of "WarHorse" at the Vivian Beaumont Theater on Sunday, April 24. The reviews had suggested a miraculous theatrical accomplishment in the context of an illustrated children's novel. And that's definitely what it is. The characters are a bit two-dimensional, the plotting predictable – and predictably tear-jerking at the end – but this is an extraordinary accomplishment in the theatrical arts of staging, choreography, costuming … <Read More>
I've spent several days mulling over what to say about Stephen Schwartz's opera, "S