Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Before a Suicide, Hints in Online Musings

Excerpt from The New York Times: (click for entire article)

The young man writing on the gay chat site was torn: he had discovered that his college roommate had spied on him from another room with a webcam as he kissed a male friend. Should he complain to the school? Would officials assign him someone worse? Or would he simply risk angering the roommate?

After all, the man wrote on Sept. 21, aside from some occasional bad behavior, “he’s a pretty decent roommate.”

The next night, Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University freshman, walked onto the George Washington Bridge and jumped over the edge; the authorities said his roommate had streamed a live Internet feed of Mr. Clementi’s encounter with another man in their dormitory room. Mr. Clementi’s body was identified on Thursday.

Video: J.K. Rowling discusses Deathly Hallows' last words on The Oprah Winfrey Show

Excerpt from Snitch Sneeker: (click for entire article)

Scholastic's Harry Potter page has updated with a new clip from J.K. Rowling's interview on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which will air tomorrow. In the preview, Rowling spoke about how she changed the final words of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows epilogue from 'scar' to 'All was well.' That can be viewed below.

The full interview, which took place in Edinburgh, Scotland, will be aired tomorrow.

In memory: Tony Curtis, 1925 - 2010

Excerpt from RogerEbert.com: (click for entire article)

When his handsome face and a stroke of luck brought Curtis to Hollywood in 1948, he was 23 years old and felt as if he was in heaven. That wasn't because of the acting opportunities. It was because of the women, and Tony was one of the town's best-known lotharios for decades. He loved acting, too, and made great films and bad ones with the same sense of fun. He was also a lifelong artist, whose paintings commanded decent fees, and a party animal until he got clean and sober in 1982. One thing you will not notice in the obituaries is anyone with a bad word to say about him. He was fun, and few had more fun than he did himself.

Curtis, born Bernard Schwartz in 1933 and raised in poverty and in an orphanage, finished Navy duty in World War Two, took acting lessons in New York, and in 1948 was spotted by a talent agent and signed by Universal Pictures. He was one of the most beautiful men to ever appear in the movies, and stardom came quickly. One day in 1985 at the Cannes Film Festival, he told me of those days:

"Let me tell you a story, sort of a parable. One day in 1948 I went to Hollywood. My name was Bernie Schwartz. I signed a contract at Universal, and I bought a house in the hills. It had a swimming pool. Unheated, but it had water in it. One night I came home late, I jumped in the pool, I swam a few laps, I got out, I dried myself off, I put on my clothes, and I walked directly into this room and sat down and started to talk to you. Do you see what I'm saying? Thirty-eight years, I don't know where they went. Gone like that.”

Assistant AG with antigay blog appeals order to keep off U-M campus

Excerpt from Freep.com: (click for entire article)

Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell  has been banned from the University of Michigan campus, and the student leader he’s been attacking via a blog has filed a personal protection order against him.

Meanwhile, the U-M administration issued a statement today supporting Chris Armstrong, the president of the Michigan Student Assembly and target of Shirvell’s blog, saying U-M “does not tolerate bigotry of any type.”

Shirvell was issued the trespass warning Sept. 14, said Diane Brown, spokeswoman for the U-M Police.

“He can’t come onto any campus property,” Brown said.

University of Michigan student body president seeks restraining order against assistant state attorney general

Excerpt from AnnArbor.com: (click for entire article)

University of Michigan student body President Christopher Armstrong is seeking a restraining order against an assistant state attorney general who has been publicly accusing Armstrong of pushing a radical homosexual agenda and showing up at places where Armstrong is, court records show.

Armstrong will go to court next week for a hearing on the personal protection order that would prohibit Andrew Shirvell from contacting him or coming near him.

Judge Nancy Francis denied Armstrong’s request to immediately issue the order, instead setting a hearing for 1:30 p.m. Oct. 4. Armstrong is asking that Shirvell be banned from appearing within Armstrong’s sight, from having e-mail or Facebook contact with Armstrong and to be prohibited from approaching “current or former university students or MSA reps.”

Record number of children die in hot cars in 2010

Excerpt from MSNBC: (click for entire article)

Between the unanticipated expiration of the federal estate tax in 2010 and its abrupt resumption in 2011, many clients are revisiting their estate plans to take into account all implications of the legal fluctuations over recent years. A decade of incremental benefits for million-dollar-plus estates is scheduled to come to a screeching halt at the end of the year.

Congress began to pare back the estate tax in 2001 by increasing the amount of an estate's value that was exempted from taxation. In 2001, that figure stood at $1 million, and by 2009 it had risen to $3.5 million. The tax is scheduled to return to 2001 figures on January 1, 2011, authorizing a levy of as much as 55% on decedent estates valued at more than $1 million.

Congressional gridlock that allowed the tax to expire in 2010 suggests that any last minute effort to reduce the impact of its reinstatement is unlikely to succeed. But for the beneficiaries of decedents who passed away in 2010, the absence of an estate tax will likely have a tremendous impact -- some estimates suggest an extra $500 million will be passed on to the beneficiaries of George Steinbrenner's $1.15 billion estate.

Estate Tax Changes for 2011: What to Expect and How to Plan

Excerpt from 24-7 Press Release: (click for entire article)

Between the unanticipated expiration of the federal estate tax in 2010 and its abrupt resumption in 2011, many clients are revisiting their estate plans to take into account all implications of the legal fluctuations over recent years. A decade of incremental benefits for million-dollar-plus estates is scheduled to come to a screeching halt at the end of the year.

Congress began to pare back the estate tax in 2001 by increasing the amount of an estate's value that was exempted from taxation. In 2001, that figure stood at $1 million, and by 2009 it had risen to $3.5 million. The tax is scheduled to return to 2001 figures on January 1, 2011, authorizing a levy of as much as 55% on decedent estates valued at more than $1 million.

Congressional gridlock that allowed the tax to expire in 2010 suggests that any last minute effort to reduce the impact of its reinstatement is unlikely to succeed. But for the beneficiaries of decedents who passed away in 2010, the absence of an estate tax will likely have a tremendous impact -- some estimates suggest an extra $500 million will be passed on to the beneficiaries of George Steinbrenner's $1.15 billion estate.

Who can inject insulin at school? Court to rule

Excerpt from SF Gate: (click for entire article)

The state Supreme Court has agreed to review a ruling by its chief justice nominee and decide whether trained school employees who aren't nurses can give insulin shots to diabetic children.

In June, a state appeals court in Sacramento said California law allows only doctors and nurses to administer medication, including insulin injections. The ruling, which overturned an agreement between the state and the American Diabetes Association, was written by Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, nominated by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in July to succeed the retiring Chief Justice Ronald George.

George and his Supreme Court colleagues voted unanimously Wednesday to take up the diabetes association's appeal of the ruling, which came in a lawsuit filed by the state nurses' union. If voters confirm Cantil-Sakauye in November, she would join the high court in January but would be replaced by a randomly selected appellate justice when the court heard the insulin case.

John Steinbeck heirs fighting 40+ years after he died

Excerpt from The Probate Lawyer Blog: (click for entire article)

American icon John Steinbeck, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature and Pulitzer Prize, having authored such classics as Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden, died at age 66 in 1968.  Even a mind as creative as his likely couldn't have envisioned a fight over his property continuing to rage more than 40 years after he died.

When he died, much of his estate passed to his third wife, Elaine (whom he married in 1950).  He did  not specifically include the literary rights to his works, so they passed under the residual clause in Steinbeck's will, to Elaine.  Elaine, in turn, died in 2003.  She left those rights and other property to her family members, excluding Steinbeck's children.  This included her husband's summer home in upstate New York, which passed to her sister, Jean Boone.

The New York Times recently wrote an interesting article about the lawsuit by the children against Boone and others, which sought to reclaim the house and obtain compensation from Elaine's heirs.  Initially, Steinbeck's living son and granddaughter had sued the publisher which owned the publishing rights to his works, trying to reclaim them for his descendants.

High-Tax States Still Grow Millionaires

Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal: (click for entire article)

Some new data expected out tomorrow suggest that tax-driven wealth flight and wealth destruction may be exaggerated.

The Phoenix Affluent Marketing Service, a Phoenix Marketing International practice, will release its annual state ranking of millionaires per capita. The Wealth Report got an early look at the data, which are a ranking not just of the raw number of millionaires, but also the ratio of millionaires to total state population, or what I call “millionaire density.”

First, the data show that the overall number of millionaires in the U.S. rose 8% in 2010 to roughly 5.6 million households.

The data also show that the two states with the highest millionaire density–Maryland and Hawaii in 2010–also have some of the highest marginal income-tax rates in the country. Hawaii has an 11% tax rate on those earning $200,000 or more (the highest in the nation), while Maryland has a special millionaire’s tax of 6.25% on those earning more than $1 million. At No. 3 is New Jersey, which has a rate of 10.75% on those earning more than $1 million a year.