Milt

The corona virus is a serious thing and I won’t make light of it, but dwelling on doom and gloom doesn’t help. Depression is bad for you and, if you’re like me, it’s easy to start imagining symptoms. Nothing good will happen if we’re all in a black hole.

Now I know why we need meditation — there are demands for our attention everywhere. I realized this rather suddenly the other day when I entered a restaurant restroom and found a television screen implanted in the urinal.

When you order a large cup of coffee, do you do it to get extra caffeine or because you want more to drink?

As a fan of professional wrestling and horse racing, I enjoy both cheating and betting. The two don’t normally go together — I’d advise against wagering on Wrestlemania, and horses need to be left alone — but if a sport routinely combines both, is there a problem?

Are glasses technology? Yes, this is an idle question, but I love idle questions, so bear with me. Of course, glasses are technology — they enhance your vision.

The lawyer versus raccoon controversies continue. You may recall a few weeks ago a lawyer in Florida got sent to a professionalism workshop for knocking a raccoon into the ocean. Now a lawyer in Pennsylvania has filed a federal suit claiming he’s been harassed by law enforcement after he shot a raccoon.

Is civility really the answer? And if it is, how do you get all those terrible people out there to be civil? I bring this up because the president of the American Bar Association, Judy Perry Martinez, last week published a letter titled, “Make 2020 the year of civility.”

You may not have realized this, dear readers, but I’m a skeptic. My career in journalism has taught me time and again not to believe most people’s descriptions of events. I also almost never buy into conspiracy theories — most conspirators are way too inept to conspire. But I think I’ve come across a conspiracy to believe in — a right-wing joke.

Those of you who enjoy surrealism as much as I do may want to look at a somewhat frightening ruling by a Texas appeals court the other day. It seems that 13-year-olds and younger are now free to commit sexual assaults in Texas without punishment. They know not what they do.

Favorite headline of the week: “Clearwater lawyer who shooed raccoon off boat needs ‘professionalism workshop,’ Florida Bar says.” I want to attend this workshop.

What’s the value of a congressional reputation? You’d think it would be pretty low these days but that doesn’t mean that legislators don’t think highly of themselves.

We’ve legalized sports betting in a lot of jurisdictions, so why not legalize sports litigation?  I say this because sports are so much more fun if you have a real stake in the outcome.

I’m one of those people who has trouble being present. I had dinner with friends the other night and the only thing I remember about it is the spicy chicken soup. We could have been plotting the overthrow of the government for all I know.