35 years here – now let’s have some fun!

I have a new blog for 2012 – Assignment 35.

In honor of the 35th anniversary of my move to Denver, I’ve adopted a random set of assignments which involve the number 35.

See you over at the new place.

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Adjusting the truth

In George Clooney’s excellent new film, Michael Clayton, I don’t recall seeing the main characters dining.  They plot, scheme, react, go nuts, negotiate, manipulate, argue, fret, and work around the clock.  They even sit down at a restaurant table.  But we don’t see them consuming food.  With one exception, food only appears with the minor characters.  It’s one of the subtle ironies in this story turning on a lawsuit against a giant agribusiness corporation – a behemoth player in production of the nation’s food supply.

These people live in an alternate universe:  the corporate stratosphere populated by CEOs and their legal eagles.  The lawyers are in-house corporate counsel and the “outside” top-flight law firms.  They probably live on coffee and catered meals in the office, room service on the road, nice dinners out – and none of that is given  a minute’s attention in this film.  They have bigger things to think about.

Mostly, they are about adjusting the truth.  The film’s tagline – “the truth can be adjusted” - refers in part to the work of Michael Clayton, a lawyer who’s “of counsel” to the Wall Street powerhouse law firm in the film.

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