Matt Lutz opens at Persuasion with a great anecdote that I never heard before.

In “The Imaginary Invalid,” a play written by the French satirist Molière, a doctor is asked why opium makes people fall asleep. The doctor replies that “there is a dormitive virtue in it, whose nature it is to make the senses drowsy.” In other words, opium makes people fall asleep because it has the power to make people fall asleep. That joke has since become a favorite among philosophers and historians of science because it is a wonderful example of an explanation that doesn’t explain. Rather than provide an understanding of why opium causes sleepiness, it’s a tautology dressed up in jargon.

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Derek Chauvin has already been convicted for the murder of George Floyd. To the extent any conviction “sends a message” to anyone, the message has been sent. But the trial of the three officers working under Chauvin’s training eye is set to commence today, and the hope is that it sends another message. Where the Chauvin message was that cops can’t recklessly kill people, this message is that cops have a duty to intervene when a “superior” officer engages in improper conduct.

Former Minneapolis officers J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas K. Lane and Tou Thao are charged with failing to render medical aid after Chauvin pinned Floyd’s neck to the ground for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020. Additionally, Kueng and Thao are charged with failure to intervene to stop Chauvin. Legally, the trial is unprecedented. Continue reading →

As some of you have noted, I’ve largely stayed out of the comments recently. Some think my involvement, from reminding people to use the reply button to keeping comments on topic as they spiral down the rabbit hole, is too mean and harsh. I long ago decided that it was necessary to play SJ janitor lest a few things happen that I, as the guy who runs this hotel, didn’t want to happen.

I didn’t want this place hijacked by partisan crazies of any flavor, which was a frequent issue as a post was seized upon by some interest group and their minions show up by the hundreds to take over the comments. Continue reading →

It’s fatally vague, backward and fundamentally flawed, so naturally Syracuse University made it a regulation, the violation of which was subject to punishment. To its credit, FIRE took up the cause of Syracuse freshman Samantha Jones, who was found to have inflicted “mental harm” on another student by asking a question.

“Syracuse’s nebulous ban on ‘mental harm’ means students don’t know if they can ask questions or discuss sexual misconduct without getting in trouble,” said FIRE Program Officer Alex Morey. “Administrators should take action now to ensure these kinds of vague policies don’t infringe students’ core expressive rights.”

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In law school, a prawf said something that stuck with me. I paraphrase here, as the original was quite sexist.

Children feel.
Priests believe.
Lawyers think.

John McWhorter writes about a shift in language usage that reveals how the distinctions above have been, and are being, lost. Continue reading →

Police officer Jason Rivera, 22, had only been on the NYPD since November, 2020. Barely enough time to scuff his service belt. Lashawn McNeil, 47, shot him and killed him. The first question was why, and it took reading through 12 insipid paragraphs in the New York Times to find out.

Three officers answered a 911 call from a woman who said she was fighting with her son. When the officers arrived at the apartment, they were met by the woman and a second son. There was no indication from the 911 call, officials said, that there were weapons in the apartment. Continue reading →

Sheriff Roy Templeton was in fourth grade. Again. The irony was not lost on Mud Lick’s top cop, who spent many a day dealing with adults who behaved like fourth graders.

Today was different. The Sheriff had been summoned to Bear Bryant Elementary School at the request of Ms. Furstenburger, Roy Junior’s fourth grade teacher. Apparently the boy’d been up to some mischief and the Sheriff had been summoned to deal with his son’s behavior. Continue reading →

There are different types of dirty cops. There are the ones who steal from people. There are the ones who use their shields to trade sex for a break. There are the ones who coerce confessions. There are the ones who just lie. The system was never crafted to deal with dirty cops, expecting cops to be honest and trustworthy, and thus entrusting them with a gun, a badge and the authority to do massive harm to human beings in the name of The People.

The irony is that it can be impossible to distinguish the good cop from the bad, not just because we can’t see what they’re doing but because they can be the same person. Cops are funny that way. Today’s hero on the news was callous and brutal to some poor guy yesterday. Continue reading →

It has no traffic light, and the only commercial enterprise in town is a Dollar Store, which is still a bit pricey for the residents of Brookside, Alabama.

Brookside until recently was known for its quirky Russian food festival and the state’s only onion-domed Russian Orthodox Church. It’s a former mining town, its population about the same as it was a decade ago. Fewer than 100 of its residents graduated college.

Brookside is a poor town, 70% white, 21% Black, with a small but growing Hispanic population and a median income well below the state average. The town survives on the fringes of Birmingham with tax revenue from the Dollar General, which forms the totality of its commercial district.

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Much as we’re understanding drug addiction, as a stand alone state, to be a health problem, the need to get the next fix causes people to do terrible things. Patrick Baker, 43, did something terrible.

Posing as a United States marshal, Mr. Baker killed Donald L. Mills Jr. during a home invasion in May 2014, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Mr. Mills’s wife and children were held at gunpoint while Mr. Baker ransacked the home for oxycodone pills, the office said.

In 2017, Baker was convicted in Kentucky state court of reckless homicide and robbery, and sentenced to 19 years in prison. His incarceration didn’t last long. Continue reading →