For a while now, Jon Haidt has been arguing that social media plays a significant role in the spike in anxiety and depression in teens. While it hasn’t received universal approval, it also hasn’t received much condemnation. There just aren’t a great many people who want to argue that social media in excess is good for anyone, particularly when it comes to kids using their smartphones to access social media during school.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has come up with a solution: Put a surgeon general’s warning on social media. Continue reading →

My father died in 2019. Dr. SJ’s father passed last November. Neither of us has a dad to send a card to, make breakfast for or give a gift to. The days of doing that are behind us now, but we don’t forget.

Mothers were the ones who nurtured us, fed us, wiped our tears and kissed our boo boos. Dads? They were the ones who would be stern when they got home. Things were a bit different back when Dr. SJ and I were young.

Dads were the ones who fixed things that broke and were too busy mowing the lawn to play catch. When we misbehaved, they were the ones mom told us we should wait for when they came home. We didn’t really appreciate dads as children. But we grew up and realized how important they were in our lives. Continue reading →

Not being a gun guy, it’s unclear to me what purpose a bump stock serves other than to allow someone to shoot a lot of bullets very quickly by using the rifle’s recoil to do the trigger pulling work. They are useful to people with disability, or so I’m told, though I’m not sure why and it doesn’t really matter. And after what happened in Vegas, I can well appreciate why bump stocks can present a horrific menace that should no more exist than machine guns in civilian hands.

Your mileage may vary, but I just can’t see any reason to allow the sale of bump stocks, other than to prepare for battle with…someone. Continue reading →

It may be hard for some SJ readers to believe, but there are good cops out there. While we often hear of those officers who process every encounter into a beating, shooting or tasing, there are many who actually take into account the considerations of the community and act accordingly.

One of my favorites was Deputy Dennis,* a Sheriff’s deputy I interacted with almost daily in my hometown during my first few years of practice.

Small town law is a strange bird. You’re expected to follow the “adversarial system” that pits the State against the individual, but there’s often times when you’re waiting on the DA to hear out your case or plea deal and you have nothing else to do but jaw with the cops or other lawyers in the room. Deputy Dennis was one of the fun ones to shoot the breeze with. If you wanted a good story, he was the first person to ask. Continue reading →

Every once in a while, someone who sees herself as a radical reveals more than they intend. This twit is one such time.

I can't imagine wanting to go to work at @citi this badly. Get a coffee dude. Listen to the scientists. #summerofheat pic.twitter.com/muUNJJYytD

— Valerie Costa (@valeriecosta) June 12, 2024

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Cold cases are cold, and the failure to close old, cold cases is often used to condemn law enforcement with good reason. After all, cops are brilliant on TV shows, capable of using a combination of intuition and magic to figure out whodunnit. But that’s not working in Florida, so the attorney general, Ashley Moody, has come up with an alternative plan when CSI fails her.

Attorney General Ashley Moody, with the Florida Association of Crime Stoppers, Florida Sheriffs Association and Florida Department of Corrections, at the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office today announced the launch of Cold Case Cards. Each playing card features a photograph and information about an unsolved homicide or missing-person case. More than 5,000 decks will be distributed to Florida jails and prisons to generate new leads and insights from inmates to help solve longstanding criminal investigations.

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In contrast to the kerfuffle over Justice Sam Alito’s answers to Lauren Windsor, Chief Justice John Roberts said all the right things.

Ms. Windsor pressed the chief justice about religion, saying, “I believe that the founders were godly, like were Christians, and I think that we live in a Christian nation and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path.”

Chief Justice Roberts quickly answered, “I don’t know if that’s true.”

He added: “I don’t know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not, and it’s not our job to do that.”

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It’s normal for a justice or two to show up at a black tie affair of the Supreme Court Historical Society, so Justice Sam Alito’s presence, along with C,J. Roberts, was nothing out of the ordinary. But a progressive activist, Lauren Windsor, seized upon the opportunity to engage the justice by pretending to be a religious conservative. She recorded the discussion.

“One side or the other is going to win,” Justice Alito told the woman, Lauren Windsor, at an exclusive gala at the Supreme Court. “There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised.” Continue reading →

My old pal, Roger Stavis, with whom I’ve tried cases and prosecuted appeals, knows what he’s talking about. In a New York Times op-ed, he explains with the same fair and neutral perspective the mechanics of an appeal in Trump’s conviction in the New York County “hush money” case. Forget all the academics and pundits, if you want to know how it really works. Roger has spent decades in the trenches and knows what he’s talking about.

Mr. Trump’s legal team can approach his appeal on several fronts, but only one, concerning the legal theory behind the falsifying business records charge, is likely to hold out anything more than the slimmest of hopes for the former president. Continue reading →

Pamela Paul wrote about the disconnect between what the college students today were taught as being virtuous and why these pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel protesters won’t find their activism embraced by their future employers.

Activism has played a big part in many of these young people’s lives and academic success. From the children’s books they read (“The Hate U Give,” “I Am Malala”) to the young role models who were honored (Greta Thunberg, David Hogg) to the social justice movements that were praised (Black Lives Matter, MeToo, climate justice), Gen Z-ers have been told it’s on them to clean up the boomers’ mess. Resist!

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