Month: October 2018

Shut Up and Give Them Candy

October 31, 2018

I hereby decree…

If they come to your door on Halloween night, give them candy.

Okay, you know that. Adorable costumed children come to the door and receive candy. That’s how it works.

What if they’re not costumed? What if they’re 15 years old?

Hey, guess what! Doesn’t matter. They still get candy.

If you’re the kind of person who says to a teenager at your doorstep on Halloween “go away, you’re too old”, you just really really really need to get a life. Here’s a better idea. Teenagers come to your door trick-or-treating? Give them candy and move on with it. What exactly have you accomplished by bitching at them and sending them away? Nothing except act like an asshole, that’s what.

And the towns where it’s actually illegal for these teens to trick-or-treat? How much of a deranged sociopath do you have to be to think a trick-or-treating middle schooler should be arrested?

So it’s the same old thing. Teens are too old to take part in children’s activities, and if they try they might be breaking the law. Teens are too young to be at (surely alcohol-oriented) adult Halloween parties, and if they try they or someone might be breaking a law. So as usual they don’t fit neatly into the hard and fast “child” or “adult” boxes, too old to be cute and “innocent”, too young to be trusted and respected, so they are cast aside for being a difficult to sort age hybrid. And where teens have their own category, perhaps their own Halloween activity, they are presumed to be vandalizing something or drinking underage or otherwise somehow breaking the law. So really, once again, teenagers can’t win and are ruining society by having the audacity to exist.

Enough of this bullshit. This is a fun night. Someone comes to your door as part of these festivities, you pass out the candy and let everyone move on with their lives. If this is something you simply can’t do, that it’s simply impossible for you to not police the costumes and ages of trick-or-treaters, then please just turn off the porchlight and leave this holiday to those of us who aren’t complete assholes.

Brett the Impartial

October 7, 2018

Last week, Christine Blasey Ford testified about how Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her back in 1982. Then it was his turn to say words. The Senate was ready to go on it, with the Republican majority ready to vote yes, but then Jeff Flake was cornered in an elevator, so Republicans grudgingly agreed to let the FBI investigate the claims for like five minutes. So nothing seems all that different as at the end of this week the full Senate voted on confirmation. Thursday evening right before, Brett Kavanaugh said some more words, this time in written form in the Wall Street Journal. Let’s see…

I was deeply honored to stand at the White House July 9 with my wife, Ashley, and my daughters, Margaret and Liza, to accept President Trump’s nomination to succeed my former boss and mentor, Justice Anthony Kennedy, on the Supreme Court.

Name dropping.

My mom, Martha—one of the first women to serve as a Maryland prosecutor and trial judge, and my inspiration to become a lawyer—sat in the audience with my dad, Ed.

Good for her.

That night, I told the American people who I am and what I believe.

Still more comprehensive than this FBI investigation.

I talked about my 28-year career as a lawyer, almost all of which has been in public service. I talked about my 12 years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, often called the second most important court in the country, and my five years of service in the White House for President George W. Bush.

Well, yeah, this process is a job interview after all.

I talked about my long record of advancing and promoting women, including as a judge—a majority of my 48 law clerks have been women

Um, yeah, about that…

—and as a longtime coach of girls’ basketball teams.

I think I know the real reason you want this gig.
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