Blog Posts

Wow. Just wow. A shot, or make that a judicial ruling, was just fired that should be heard in every courtroom and courthouse in the nation. United States District Judge Cormac Carney did the right, but unthinkable – he dismissed a prosecution brought by the United States Government...

Here’s a wrinkle I didn’t foresee in Covidtopia, our brave new world bounded by the pandemic.
A colleague of mine appeared in court in central Connecticut this morning. This in and of itself is remarkable. There are no jury trials taking place, and there...

I was startled during my annual physical this week when I asked my family physician how much longer he expected the pandemic to require restricted activity. “At least a year,” he said. When I asked him what he thought of my traveling by air in the near term, his answer was...

Just in case you’ve not had enough of all things pandemic-related, I recommend Lawrence Wright’s, “The End of October,” published just weeks ago. Mr. Wright, a writer at The New Yorker, previously wrote a gripping and Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the plot...

One of the most startling emails I received during the current pandemic involved a class action lawsuit on behalf of inmates in a midwestern federal prison. The ACLU wanted prisoners released on a compassionate basis due to the threat of infection. What shocked me was that obesity was a...

New York’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo earned high marks early in the pandemic for declaring that he would not put a value on human life, and that he would spare no cost to save every life. Of course, he didn’t really mean it. He couldn’t mean it. Life is risk, and, sad but...

The pandemic has revealed the fault lines in American politics, we’re told. That’s probably true. Herewith a decidedly dystopian snapshot. Simply put, our communal ties are frayed, perhaps irreparably.
Cicero observed that a republic, or commonwealth, was...

I don’t doubt for a moment that social distancing, hand-washing and covering one’s mouth and nose while out in a crowd diminish the risk of my acquiring or spreading the coronavirus.
It’s good medical advice, offered with good intentions by medical...

A friend of mine plans to attend a rally in his state’s capital. “Open up the country,” he’ll demand. He’ll be marching in the name of liberty.
Loved ones counsel vigilance. Stay home. If you must go out, wear a mask and gloves. Wash your...

In the last piece of this series on Dystopian Jitters, I wrote about how the COVID-19 pandemic has been used to foster tolerance of mass surveillance. (See, Mass Surveillance and COVID-19 – Dystopian Jitters, I) Given the imperative to survive, most everyone is willing to...