With some regularity, someone writes about cute popular words and phrases that are played out. Some are trite. Some are memes. Some just outlived their useful lifespan. Some people will disagree, and words, being words, will either continue to be used or not, because they don’t like being told what to do. But what about the dictionary (forgive the personification, for a moment) telling us what words we’re allowed to use?

We all misspeak or misuse words sometimes. Maybe we’ve latched onto phrases our parents handed down incorrectly. Or perhaps we picked them up from a movie, television, or social media with no clue they were being used inappropriately—or even worse, offensively.

It’s OK; most of us unknowingly use problematic words and phrases from time to time without thinking about their origins or how they could hurt some groups of people. What’s not OK is to keep doing it once you know it’s wrong.

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Aside from the current dalliance into anti-Trumpism, there is nothing the media cares more about than itself. That would be entirely understandable at P.J. Clarke’s after a hard day’s reporting, but this isn’t about the ordinary griping about how hard they have it or how unfair it is they aren’t loved and appreciated, and since many don’t actually “go” to work anymore, and wouldn’t know P.J. Clarke’s if they tripped on it.

This is about using the unique tool of the media to express their self-adoration and obsession, and in the process of doing so, say the words out loud that we believe to be the case but usually can’t prove. In defending his colleague, Felicia Sonmez, Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle did it. He said it out loud.

Sonmez kept both eyes on the truth — or more precisely, on one particular truth, namely that somewhere a woman was experiencing this outpouring of adulation for a man who choked and lacerated her during an encounter that she called a rape, and which he acknowledged was very much like one.

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The name “Sonmez” really didn’t mean much to me, so when the shitstorm over Felicia Sonmez’s compulsion to twit about an unproved rape allegation upon learning of Kobe Bryant’s death, I didn’t connect the dots. Now I know, and it makes a difference. This is the same person who “canceled,” as the popular word goes, or destroyed the life of, as I prefer to describe it, Jon Kaiman.

Kaiman’s name may not be much more of a household name than Sonmez’s, and that may well be why someone like Sonmez could so easily ruin his life. As Emily Yoffe put it:

Journalist Jonathan Kaiman is one of the least famous, least powerful men to be brought down by the #MeToo movement.

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Is marijuana legal? Decriminalized? Still a schedule 1 drug while shops selling edibles open their doors and farms run by Big Agra grow tons of it? In Austin, Texas, the city council decided to make some changes.

The day after the Austin City Council approved a resolution to stop arresting or ticketing people for most low-level marijuana possession offenses, the police chief made clear he had no plans to do so.

“[Marijuana] is still illegal, and we will still enforce marijuana law if we come across people smoking in the community,” Chief Brian Manley said during a news conference Friday afternoon.

How could this be? Things are changing, but not necessarily in a consistent or coherent way. Continue reading →

The reaction to news of the death of Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, in a helicopter crash* was a terrible shock the millions. To Washington Post national politics reporter, Felicia Sonmez, it was a mandate.

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Last week, after more than 48 years, I resigned my membership in the American Bar Association, after very carefully reading the exposure draft of Advisory Opinion No. 117 of the Committee on Codes of Conduct of the Judicial Conference of the United States. I encourage you to read it carefully.

Essentially, the Codes of Conduct Committee suggests that judges should no longer remain members of the American Constitution Society or the Federalist Society. However, the proposed opinion suggests that judges may continue to be members of the American Bar Association. I strongly agree with the opinion insofar as the American Constitution Society and the Federalist Society are concerned. With regret and respect, I strongly disagree with the exception for the American Bar Association. Continue reading →

With some regularity, someone will say that something I wrote is great, but with the preface, “I don’t agree with everything he says.” It’s curious that anyone would say this. Agreeing or liking one thing doesn’t logically implicate agreeing or liking everything. But logic plays no role when disapproval is grounded in the expression of any wrongful thought.

My best understanding is that this Gertruding isn’t a signal to me, but a signal to others: it’s assumed by those looking for a fight that approval of one implies approval of all. This is the way for people to disavow assumed culpability for liking someone whom someone else does not. It strikes me as bizarre that anyone would agree with me about everything. Continue reading →

Sauntore Thomas probably felt pretty good about the fact that he, with the representation of his lawyer, employment law attorney Deborah Gordon, settled his employment discrimination suit against Enterprise Leasing Company. No, he didn’t hit the lottery, but he had three checks in hand when he walked into TCF Bank.

Thomas presented three checks written from Enterprise that day: One for $59,000. One for $27,000. And one for $13,000.

He wanted to deposit the first two and cash the third.* Continue reading →

One of the great curiosities is how the same folks who are outraged by junk science in the courtroom when applied to certain cases, certain crimes, “bite mark” analysis for example, or “bullet lead” analysis, aren’t perturbed at all about the testimony of someone like “forensic psychologist” Barbara Ziv.

Ziv, a professor at Temple University, may be remembered from her testimony against Bill Cosby. Her putative “expertise” is in dispelling “rape myths.” To put it differently, she’s an expert in promoting the #MeToo narrative, the litany of excuses for why anything a self-identified victim does proves their truth. Remember everything? Guilty. Remember nothing? Guilty. Remember some but not all? Guilty. Ziv gives the excuse for why, no matter what the case, it proves guilt. And she’s quite good at it. Continue reading →

The Grassy Knoll Pub is one of two watering holes in Mud Lick. With decor best described as “delightfully tacky conspiracy theorist,” it attracts residents and out-of-towners who enjoy the proprietor’s rants, free with every pint. Plus, the walls nearest the restrooms are usually redecorated each week with a brand new collage of photos, newspaper clippings, thumbtacks and yarn strands.

One night, the proprietor, a man named Jesse Custer, noticed a new customer in his mid sixties with graying hair and an authoritative demeanor. Even more noticeable were the men in matching black suits and earpieces who accompanied this new customer into the Knoll.

Custer, a lapsed Southern Baptist minister turned barkeep, was far less detached from the world than most of Mud Lick’s citizenry. As the graying, tired man asked for a glass of Bowmore 18, Custer politely asked him to wait a moment, then turned to the Knoll’s doorman. Continue reading →