Law blog: Sunstein-Power engaged

AboveTheLaw.com, the widely read legal blog that first reported the budding romance between celebrated legal scholar Cass Sunstein and human-rights researcher Samantha Power, is now claiming the couple is engaged. Neither Sunstein nor Power is commenting, but Sunstein did recently ditch the Windy City - not to mention his longtime partner and fellow University of Chicago faculty member Martha Nussbaum - to take a job at Harvard. The pair became friendly while working on the Barack Obama campaign. Power was a foreign policy adviser, and Sunstein is often mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee in the event the Illinois senator is elected.

He doesn't know who he'll be facing in the fall, but Senator John McCain does have an inkling who his favorite baseball team will be playing in the World Series. Walking the red carpet at the Time 100 gala this week, the Republican presidential candidate predicted that the Arizona Diamondbacks will face the Red Sox in the Fall Classic. Others at the New York City soiree included Eric Chivian of Harvard Medical School, who shared a table with B.J. Novak of "The Office," and Cambridge-based video game creators Eran Egozy and Alex Rigopulos, who sat with Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman and Mary Lou Jepsen, chief tech officer of One Laptop Per Child.

The Bay State's big-screen bonanza isn't sitting well with Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governator told reporters in California yesterday that he wants his state to increase tax incentives to movie and television studios to prevent them from moving their productions elsewhere. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Michigan, have all approved generous tax incentives for film and TV projects. Schwarzenegger said such incentives are luring studios away and costing California tens of thousands of jobs.

"The Surrogates," the Bruce Willis flick now filming in Boston, boasts a few local folks, both in front of and behind the camera. Lynn native and Boston Conservatory grad Jack Noseworthy plays a nefarious character whose actions in the opening scenes help hatch the plot of the sci-fi thriller. Then there's executive producer David Nicksay, who graduated from Hampshire College and worked here on the Danny DeVito/Martin Lawrence, um, comedy "What's the Worst that Could Happen?" Another of the film's producers is Pittsfield native Elizabeth Banks, who probably won't be on set much because she's busy playing Laura Bush in Oliver Stone's biopic "W." (Her character's on the cover of the new Entertainment Weekly.)

By all accounts, this week's fund-raiser for Room to Grow was a smashing success. The highlight of the event at the Hotel Commonwealth was a fashion show ably emceed by Magic 106.7's Candy O'Terry and Paul Epstein. (We're told Theo's twin participated as a Mother's Day tribute to his wife, Room to Grow's new executive director Saskia Epstein.) Walking the makeshift runway were a few familiar models, including Epstein; Patrick Lyons's wife, Kristina; NESN's Jayme Parker; WTKK talker Margery Eagan; and Mindy d'Arbeloff of Elevate Communications. Begun by filmmaker Ken Burns's wife, Julie, Room to Grow helps parents of babies born into poverty.

Famed Latin American artist Claudio Bravo lunched at his namesake restaurant, Bravo, at the MFA yesterday. He dined with museum director Malcolm Rogers and artist Rafael Cidoncha, in front of "Interior With Landscape Painter," one of the 12 pieces by Bravo owned by the MFA. . . . The editors at Esquire have good taste. The men's mag's annual Best Bars list is in the June issue, and Garrett Harker's Eastern Standard makes the cut. Other local bars on the list are the Beachcomber in Wellfleet and People's Republik in Cambridge. . . . Actor Scott Lowell, who played Ted on "Queer as Folk," dined with four friends at Hungry Mother in Cambridge the other night.

And then there were two. Gang of Four drummer Hugo Burnham reports that he and bassist Dave Allen have left the protean post-punk band for good. Burnham, who lives in Gloucester and teaches at the New England Institute of Art, says singer Jon King and guitarist Andy Gill will carry on and plan to record new music. "It was a great couple of years of intermittently reminding people old and new, far and wide, just how powerful the original four of us were together," says Burnham, who's about to start work on his doctorate. Not to worry, though - he isn't giving up music. He's writing and recording with Boston noise merchants The Bags and former Minuteman bassist Mike Watt.

He's best known, of course, as The Fonz, the leather-clad cad on the '70s sitcom "Happy Days," but Henry Winkler's a man of many talents. In addition to acting, directing, and producing, he's also a writer. His latest book, written with Lin Oliver, is "The Life of Me: Enter at Your Own Risk," part of the best-selling "Hank Zipzer" series. Winkler, who'll be at Andover Town Hall and Porter Square Books tomorrow, is an Emerson alum and member of the school's board of trustees. We reached Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli in LA.

It's early here. If you're not ready, we could call you back later .

No, our dogs get me up at 3:18 a.m. every day. . . . And besides I did brush my hair for you. I'm so ready to talk to Boston.

How did you get started as a writer?

When I was first asked to do it, I said no. Then there was this - how can I put this? - lull in my career, and the friend who asked came back to me again. I met Lin Oliver for lunch. I remember two things: The fish was terrible, but I was convinced we were going to do a book. Now we're 14 books later. That's really something for someone who's dyslexic and thought reading a book was something.

Is that the best part of writing a book for you?

It was, initially. I remember being overwhelmed holding a book the first time and thinking this book exists and my name is on it. Then, later parents, teachers, and young people - kids - started writing me and I realized this was something I wasn't going to do just for me. It's the fulfillment of a dream I didn't even know I had. I was recently in Boston where I spoke to 1,000 special education teachers and administrators. That's not something I ever thought I would do.

You're in Boston regularly?

I'm not a good trustee. I'm not a good meeting go-er. Luckily [Emerson President] Jackie Liebergott lets me just do what I can. I'm proud of my time there, it was like one block of buildings then. Now it's an actual campus.

What is your relationship with The Fonz?

The truth of the matter is he's cooler than I ever was. He gave me so much. I was picked for the lead of a play when I was at Emerson, and one of the other actors said to me, "I don't know how you got that role. I'm better than you." I thought maybe he was. Then, later, after I was The Fonz, I went out to get some furniture for my first real apartment in LA and that same actor sold me a lamp. So, no, I can't complain about The Fonz.

It doesn't bother you that people still equate you with that character?

No, you deal with it. I'm proud of it. I got a family out of it. Ron Howard, he's like my younger brother. Marion Ross calls [he then impersonates her]: "Darling, I just absolutely think you should do 'Dancing With the Stars.' " And I say, "Marion, there's absolutely no way I would do that, and the producers would be crazy to ask me."

Sam Malone, a.k.a. Ted Danson, joined Senator Ted Kennedy and his son, Edward Jr., at this week's party hosted by the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship. The younger Kennedy is a cancer survivor, having had his right leg amputated in 1973. The three Teds posed with Ellen Stovall, CEO of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship.

Material from wire services was used in this report. Names can be reached at names@globe.com or at 617-929-8253.