Black’s Law Dictionary definition of “smoking gun” could be Dominion Voting System’s brief supporting its motion for summary judgment against Fox “News.” Dominion’s argument is summed up in a Washington Post headline, “Fox News feared losing viewers by airing truth about election, documents show. ‘Everything at stake here,’ billionaire founder Rupert Murdoch wrote to a … Continue reading Fox’s Smoking Gun
New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote a touching essay about his reactions to a lifelong friend’s struggle with depression and ultimate suicide. Mr. Brooks gave Pete advice about how to deal with his depression – and found that his efforts were counterproductive. It’s only later that I read that when you give a depressed … Continue reading The Gift of Really Listening
Question: Where does conflict come from? Answer: Normal, unconflicted life. Building on Felstiner, Abel, and Sarat’s classic article describing the genesis of disputes, Naming, Blaming, Claiming, this overgrown blog post uses memoirs to analyze how people develop “perceived injurious experiences” (PIEs), some of which become grievances (when they blame others), and some of which become … Continue reading Slices of Conflict in Life
Passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes $392 billion of federal investments in energy and climate policies, reflects a complex political evolution over recent decades, as described in this Washington Post article. Multiple Political Changes The bill was adopted on a purely party-line vote, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans opposed. … Continue reading A Long, Hard Road to “Yes”
For a long time, Donna Shestowsky has conducted empirical studies of litigants’ perceptions about dispute resolution processes. CPR’s Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation magazine just published an article summarizing her study about parties’ expectations about the process used to resolve their cases. The article is Why Client Expectations of Legal Procedures Must Be … Continue reading Shestowsky’s Study Supports Value of Lawyers’ Early Education of Clients About Their Procedural Options
Your answer to this question probably is a good indicator of your degree of introversion or extroversion. In an article, How Many Friends Do You Really Need?, confessed introvert and New York Times writer Catherine Pearson describes an argument she has with her husband about how many friends they should have. We both have one … Continue reading How Many Friends Do You Want?
Mediators have long recognized that they can use humor to help disputants deal with conflict (though it can really backfire). What about using humor when it seems like the world is going to hell? In her essay, Please Laugh About My Abortion With Me, comedian Alison Leiby describes experiences with her comedy show “Oh God, … Continue reading Humor Theory for When Everything Seems Like it is Going to Hell
That’s the title of an article by New York Times reporter Max Fisher. He summarizes, “By most measures – with one glaring exception – people around the world are better off than ever. So why doesn’t it feel that way, especially to Americans?” Scanning the headlines, it’s easy to conclude that something has broken. The … Continue reading Is the World Really Falling Apart, or Does It Just Feel That Way?
Princeton sociology professor Paul Starr wrote an essay in the Washington Post, Conservatives Hope to Turn Back the Cultural Clock. Can They Succeed? He writes that “[r]etrofuturism is a term for imaginative works that envision a future out of the past,” and he compares the Supreme Court’s abortion and other recent decisions to “prohibition and … Continue reading Retrofuturism on the Supreme Court
New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie is an avid reader with a particular interest in American history. In today’s column, he describes various books he has been reading lately. Two of the books are relevant to the recent audacious decisions by the Supreme Court majority to radically redirect legal doctrine by using dubious jurisprudential methods. … Continue reading What Jamelle Bouie is Reading
