THE ADVOCATE 633
VOL. 79 PART 4 JULY 2021
1976 Copyright Acts”: Martha Graham School and Dance Foundation, Inc. v.
Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, Inc., 380 F.3d 624 (2d Cir. 2004).
Amber K. van Drielen was reappointed as a member of the board of the
College of the Rockies for a term ending July 31, 2024.
Rene-John Nicolas was reappointed as a member of the board of Vancouver
Community College for a term ending July 31, 2023.
On a sad note, Vern Smith recently passed away. For litigators who frequented
the Barrister’s Lounge at the Vancouver courthouse, Vern was the
long-time coffee attendant and locker steward. He was one of the characters
that populate our legal world and was always unfailingly pleasant and
jovial. He had been a probate registry clerk in Vancouver for about 40 years
before becoming the Barrister’s Lounge custodian. He will be missed.
Donna Mary Turko, Q.C., was reappointed as a director of Legal Aid BC for
a term ending April 22, 2023.
Maze ransomware targeted law firms, among other businesses, in 2020.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently married his latest fiancée at
Winchester Cathedral, a Catholic cathedral. The Catholic Church typically
will not marry people who are divorced, let alone twice divorced like Mr.
Johnson. It turns out, however, that in this case the church did not recognize
the previous marriages, as they were not performed in Catholic ceremonies,
and the two previous wives were not Catholic. Accordingly, since
Boris was never previously married, he is not previously divorced!
June 2021 was proclaimed both Deafblind Awareness Month and Myasthenia
Gravis Awareness Month.
An upcoming production of Hamlet being staged in London is being billed
as an age-blind production, which is probably just as well because the Dane
is being played by Sir Ian McKellan, who is 82 years old. One wonders how
old Sir Ian was when the actor playing his mother was born …
Could tax law be described as labyrinthine? In Ambac Industries, Inc. v. Commissioner
of Internal Revenue, 487 F.2d 463 (1973), the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit wrote: “we are constrained to enter the labyrinthine
structured tax laws, knowing full well the difficult and tortuous path that
may lie ahead. Learned Hand so eloquently observed: ‘In my own case the