It’s (mostly) a joke when it’s suggested that a person who says something particularly dumb should call their law school and demand a refund. But for Mark Shaffer, it’s a cause of action.

When my daughter was deciding where to go to college, we were persuaded by George Washington University’s promises of an extraordinary on-campus experience. The school’s recruiting materials tout a dazzling array of opportunities — to engage one-on-one with renowned faculty, join more than 450 clubs and organizations, or explore passions in high-tech labs, vast libraries and state-of-the-art study spaces. The university promises that living at the school opens the door to “world-class” internships, lifelong friendships with neighbors and roommates, and the chance to “become a part of the nation’s capital and make a difference in it every day.” In exchange, GWU expects around $30,000 per semester.

Continue reading →

About once every three months, some twit or Facebook post will go viral. It will be from a mother who tells the story of how her lil’ darling was almost kidnapped, be it at the Walmart toy aisle or the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly. It will put other mothers on high alert. It will raise fears. It will generate thousands of validating twits about how brave the mom was, and how wondrous a parent must be to use her eagle-eyes to spot the predator who almost kidnapped her sweet child.

The key word here is “almost,” because none of these tales involve the creepy guy in the white van offering candy to a child if they come close enough to snatch. They involve some guy who looked creepy. Maybe he did or maybe creepy looking is a by-product of paranoia. Maybe the mom’s tale is correct, that he was eyeing the child with bad intent, but no one will never know because it didn’t happen. It almost happened. Continue reading →

It was a warm, sunny beautiful day at Casa de SJ, so the time was right to do the ceremonial spring washing, cleaning and SU dash pot polishing on the Healey. As I worked my way through the car, my daughter came out to say that she wanted to wash her new Mini Cooper. It was bought just before the winter and this would be its first wash.

“Let’s do it,” I proudly exclaimed, and upon completion of the Healey, she pulled the Mini into the place of honor. But then, as she began to assess the winter’s ravages, she saw something else. There, on the hood, were the unmistakable marks of someone putting a package down and pulling it off, leaving a scrape in its wake.

It was easy enough to fix with a bit of compound, but she was astounded and outraged. “What sort of animal would do such a thing,” she cried in anguish. I felt her pain. It had to be some woman at the supermarket. They don’t care about anything but themselves. Continue reading →

If cognitive dissonance made a person’s face turn purple, there would be a lot of faces matching their hair these days. Now that Tara Reade has put the question to Joe Biden, one of the primary perpetrators of the “Believe All Women” delusion, the newly nuanced “explanation” of what they meant all along is we don’t mean believe all women, but take all women’s accusations seriously and then investigate.

It’s a good spin, and while there may be some who are sincere in their post hoc rationalization that the words “Believe All Women” don’t mean what the words say, but what they now say they mean, it’s a lie. Continue reading →

There are two ways to approach an open question. The first is to ask the straightforward question: Can this be done? It’s not only an honest approach, but one designed to get an answer, if an answer can be given. There isn’t always an answer, of course.

The other way is to ask the “begged” question, where the premise is presumed to be true and, upon that premise, the questioner challenges the answerer to explain why it’s wrong. This is the question that is not only dishonest, but so insufferably entangled in its own fallaciousness that undoing the false premise could require a tome (plus a depth of understanding that the questioner can’t possibly acquire). Only then does the answerer reach the point of addressing the negative synergy of the challenge of why it doesn’t produce an outcome that need not bear any connection, causal or otherwise, between premise and challenge. Continue reading →

Arlo Craddock was in a good mood, and nothing could change that.

He smiled as he drove a grey Toyota sedan along the highways and byways of Alabama. The windows were down so Arlo could smell fresh air, and Skynyrd was on the radio. Ironically, the song currently playing was “Freebird.”

Fortune hadn’t been kind to Mr. Craddock in recent days. He’d been in county because of some pictures he took of women. They weren’t even dirty pictures. All Arlo did was take out his camera phone, zoom in on the lady parts, and hit the picture button. Continue reading →

On the road from civil rights organization to, well, what it is today, the ACLU took smallish steps to show its spirit animals and financial backers that it was part of their tribe. First, it shifted from defending free speech in Skokie to defending free speech, but only when the targets were of the proper race, gender or ideological persuasion. It was still good at defending speech, just not for those who made its younger staff, its executive director and its supporters feel icky or outrage.

Then it used its legacy platform as staunch defenders of constitutional rights to make adjustments, modifications and a tweak here and there when the rights at issue served the wrong kind of people. Oh sure, historically, it proudly recognized that rights are defended when the worst among us was challenged, but that was when the ACLU had the stomach for the worst. Now they want to punch them, and to represent them would make their staff and supporters demand puppy rooms. Continue reading →

Public schools have been a perpetual source of complaint, aggravation and unfairness for many. For parents whose children lack text books or study in crumbling structures, it’s unfair. For homeowners who own a valuable piece of real estate but have no children in school, it’s unfair. For parents whose children are forced to attend a local public school that’s failing, it’s unfair. For children forced to ride a bus for an hour each way to go to a school where their race is underrepresented, it’s unfair. And the list goes on and on, and every complaint is legit, for better or worse.

Does every “fix” for one problem exacerbate another?

Today, the lines that define school district borders are largely arbitrary. They’re zigzagging areas of local control, a term that conflates two separate concepts: the ability to oversee a group of neighborhood schools and the right to keep the proceeds from property wealth in narrow jurisdictions. The more exclusively these borders are drawn, the more advantage accrues to wealthy districts, each of which has an independent financial structure, at the expense of the students next door.

Continue reading →

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I heard the dulcet tones of Wisconsin governor Tony Evers opine that the conservative majority of the state Supreme Court was forcing the state to reopen by overruling him. I didn’t stay awake long enough to learn whether that meant everyone in Wisconsin was going to die. I hope not. I have some friends there, and always enjoyed the Friday night fish fry and polkafest.

But it struck me as curious that the governor would say that, given the first paragraph of the court’s opinion.

This case is about the assertion of power by one unelected official, Andrea Palm, and her order to all people within Wisconsin to remain in their homes, not to travel and to close all businesses that she declares are not “essential” in Emergency Order 28. Palm says that failure to obey Order 28 subjects the transgressor to imprisonment for 30 days, a $250 fine or both. This case is not about Governor Tony Evers’ Emergency Order or the powers of the Governor.

Continue reading →

In the age of bubble-wrapped babies, many have assumed with absolute certainty that leaving a child in a car is inherently deadly. We’ve all heard the tragic stories of children baked to death when a parent goes off to party or a day in the office, while the back seat reaches killer temperatures. Yes, it can happen, just as it can happen that a child gets run down crossing the street. No, it isn’t inherently dangerous, or even an unduly reckless. The devil is in the details. And the intent.

But I’m here to tell you, literally, that it’s neither inherently deadly nor dangerous at all if handled thoughtfully. I say that because it was common practice when I was a kid, and my mother did not serve life plus cancer many times over.

That didn’t stop Philly police from arresting Dana Bazelon, sister to legal pundit Emily and my dear friend and criminal defense warrior, Lara. Continue reading →