Category Archives: Uncategorized

Odd Names and the Theft of Racism

I’m bad with names. I’m so bad with names that for a year in college, I only dated women named “Sue” so I wouldn’t get in trouble. I can remember faces, people, things we did and things that happened, but I just can’t pull a name out of the mush in my head when I need to. It can be very embarrassing when someone I know comes over and I need to introduce them, but can’t recall their name. My practice has become to just admit my failing and ask for help. Most people laugh at me for my inability to remember names and life goes on.

There seems to be a lot more people with unusual names these days. By unusual, I mean not the typical popular names that all the kids had when I was growing up. John and Mary are still around, of course, as are Jordan and Tiffany, but the other day I wrote about a woman with an apostrophe in the middle of her name. I have no idea what it was doing there, but there it was.* Continue reading →

Short Take: Democracy or Bust

The Texas Tornado, Mark Bennett, poses a question that probably won’t be popular with many youngish lawyers, not because he doesn’t have a point, but because they’ve never given it much thought and instead cling to the dogma that’s been drilled into their noggins.

We have to prove democracy still works.

—President Joe Biden, in an Address to a Joint Session of Congress, April 28, 2021.

When did democracy ever work?

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Inflation By Degrees

It was only a life in being ago that a bachelors degree in liberal arts was the key to the American Dream. It was a rigorous course of study, deeply steeped in classical literature and philosophy, that provided a student with the best thought of the past to be applied to the world they would soon enter.

It was about thinking. It was also an opportunity, not an entitlement, and it was commonplace for the dean to give an opening talk to students: Look to your left. Look to your right. One of you will not be here to graduate. Failure was not merely an option, but a guarantee. Some of you would not be up to the task. Some would fail. Don’t let it be you. Continue reading →

Seaton at the Movies: Mortal Kombat

Like many wayward youth, I loved the video game “Mortal Kombat.” I poured endless quarters into the violent arcade game, practicing combos and learning the ways to finish opponents with the ridiculous “Fatalities” each character utilized.

When I learned a movie was coming out in 1995, I was naturally excited. There was no reason to be. It stunk to high hell, with Christopher Lambert hamming up the screen as Lord Raiden and Linden Ashby’s cornball delivery of lines like “This is where you fall down.” Continue reading →

Scott Stringer, Now Accused

Sexual assault accusations, not to mention sending olds to die in nursing homes, against Andrew Cuomo came fast and furious, but he’s still in office. He had an advantage. He was already governor, even if every other New York Democratic pol called for his resignation. He could just shrug, ignore them and his own stunning hypocrisy, and wait until the public’s eight second attention span lapsed.

That’s not likely to work for Scott Stringer, currently the NYC comptroller and mayoral candidate. He’s not flashy, but he’s been grooming himself for the job for decades.

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Short Take: Tensions And Ignorance at University of Arkansas

They’re angry. And they’re protesting, because they’re angry. The Chronicle of Higher Ed explains why.

Amid a fresh wave of national attention on campus sexual assault, accusations are swirling at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where the official responsible for handling those matters has resigned, and student leaders say the administration has repeatedly failed to support victims.

Campus outrage reached a peak last week when Gillian Gullett, a 2020 graduate, found out — from a reporter, not the university — that Arkansas had paid a $20,000 settlement to the now-former student she accused of sexual assault in 2017.

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Death and Murder After Chauvin

Julia Sherwin is the lawyer representing the family of Mario Gonzalez, a 26-year-old man who died in police custody in Alameda County, California.

“His death was completely avoidable and unnecessary,” she said, adding, “Drunk guy in a park doesn’t equal a capital sentence.”

She’s quite right that his death was completely avoidable and unnecessary. If no one called the police, they wouldn’t have come. If the police ignored the two 911 calls, they would never have encountered Gonzalez. If there were an alternative to the police, such as mental health professionals, and they were dispatched instead, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Or maybe it would have. Or maybe Gonzalez would have harmed the mental health people, Or maybe not. But there were two 911 calls. Continue reading →

Care and Feeding of Poor Children

There is probably no agency of the government that does more to help and harm than Child Protective Services. It is simultaneously a bureaucratic nightmare, a functional cesspool of dangerous callousness, and the savior of last resort for abused and neglected children. And on top of its untenable mission to make snap decisions about kids brought on their radar by mandatory reporters, nosy neighbors and well-intended if hyper-sensitive scolds, California CPS is now saddled with a new criticism.

“It’s racist. It’s sexist. It’s ableist. It’s classist.”

Why? Mother Jones explains. Continue reading →