eMarketing reflections - a new blog from Australia

Jeroen Hoekman, an eMarketing specialist, has started his new blog eMarketing reflections. The content, however, is not only relevant to eMarketers, but to all who use or may be thinking of using social media. After all, when we use social media (facebook, twitter, etc.) to communicate with others, not all of those "others" are so-called "close friends" that we might want to trust with certain information. I find that some of the concerns about using social media for eMarketers which Jeroen Hoekman expresses apply to us all. For example, think of the things you have said on Facebook which you would definitely not want some prospective employer seeing or learning about. Some good counsel in some of those reflections by Jeroen. I invite you to take a more in depth look at his blog, which is just starting out.

Nuevo Blog - Puerto Rico

If you can read Spanish and are interested in Puerto Rico's history, you will find the columns appearing at the new blog - Puerto Rico - authored by Francisco Ortíz Santini, quite interesting. The blog consists mostly of his columns published in El Vocero newspaper. Here, from his introductory post, is an idea of what the author wants to do:

Lo que usted encontrará aquí, son una serie de columnas sobre temas de Historia de Puerto Rico y el Caribe, previamente publicadas en días viernes alternos en el periódico El Vocero de Puerto Rico. Las mismas no necesariamente llevan una secuencia cronológica o analítica de la historia. Son más bien el fruto de un modesto esfuerzo por provocar la discusión de temas históricos, políticos, jurídicos y antropológicos, más allá de los espacios académicos. No son textos para citar ni mucho menos; pero son un esfuerzo.

El paso de los años no debe ser óbice para la rectificación y la iluminación del entendimiento opacado por el barniz de la leyenda.

The discussion of the Insular Cases from the beginning of the 20th Century is very good, one covered by my former boss, Judge Juan R. Torruella, U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in his book The Supreme Court and Puerto Rico: The Doctrine of Separate and Unequal (1985), as well as other scholars. I invite you to check out this new blog.

New Look for Macondo Law

Perhaps getting a new look on Macondo Law will make me want to post more regularly. It's not as if I don't want to post, or have run out of things to write about. Recently I have had a lot of work to get out. I can say that I am cautiously optimistic about the outcome of Gall v. US, No. 06-7949 and Kimbrough v. US, No. 06-6330. (Briefs and Oral Argument Transcripts added to the sidebar).

On the Puerto Rico front, we had the recent embarrassing news spread all over the world about the dozens of pets seized from their owners and thereafter apparently thrown over a bridge some 50 feet to their deaths (for the most part). The pet owners resided in public housing and had been threatened with eviction unless they handed over the pets. A lawsuit requesting in excess of $20 millions has been filed in U.S. District Court against the municipal government of Barceloneta, PR, the mayor, personnel from the municipality, as well as a private entity --Animal Control Solutions, Inc. (ACS)-- alleged to have carried out the part of taking the pets away and throwing them over the bridge to their deaths. ACS owner Julio Díaz has also been sued.

More news on this later as it develops.