What is the math equivalent of a Hallmark Holiday?

Seen on Facebook. Posted there by... I don't know who because Facebook decided it should refresh its page on my screen and send the post from which I had grabbed this photo swirling into the depths of the algorithm. An extensive search has proved fruitless.

My apologies to the original poster, to whom I would surely have given credit if only Facebook had let me.

In the course of my search, though, I did find this Facebook post, which I grabbed from Anna Konya:

There are those who insist that puns are the lowest form of humor. This cartoon, by Grant Snider, from Incidental Comics, is typical:

Puns may not be the most sophisticated form of humor, but to rank them beneath scatalogical humor is just so many road apples.

But to return to the topic, one more post, that I saw on Lynn Dowd's Facebook feed today, attributed to a site called Only Engineers Can Understand:

Enjoy the rest of Pi Day... but beware tomorrow.

Tomorrow... you know... the Ides of March?

If it ain't broke, don't replace it -- even if it is avocado

Persons who spend too much time online -- a group that probably includes you inasmuch as you are reading this (it certainly includes me) -- will recognize this meme from Facebook or IG or, as Bill Belichick might put it, Snap-Face:

I can't credit the originator of this work, but I tracked this image down this morning on a site called MemeZila.com.

In The Free Press this morning Walter Kirn offers a more literary, and therefore lengthier, take on this fundamental truth. In Kirn's essay, O Holy Crap, the indestructible appliance is a citrus juicer, not a sickly green refrigerator (marketed as "avocado").

But the idea is the same: After introducing us to his immortal juicer (it dates to about 1940, he has determined), Kirn recounts a host of appliances, large and small, all purchased with the best of intentions and often from the very tip-top shelves (Kirn has enjoyed some material success as a novelist) that have wound up consigned to the local landfill, exposed as mere gewgaws and gimcracks, and all too soon. He writes:

It’s important to get to the essayistic part, where I ask what it means when the objects in our lives demoralize us in a blizzard of malfunctions that seem to be hastening by the month. But it’s also important—to me, emotionally—to bury the reader in details of the unceasing material disappointments I’ve faced. Disappointments of the sort we will all be facing en masse in a few days. Merry Christmas!

I could also cite several examples of my own seemingly indestructible appliances, surviving long past their freshness date. I won't, of course, because, well, karma. Don't tempt fate; that's my motto.

But I have to admit that the idea of older things lasting longer and working better than their newly-minted, would-be replacements is one that has become increasingly appealing to me as time goes on. I can't imagine why....

Ephemera on Facebook triggers a memory

The late Avy Meyers, of blessed memory, used to suggest that this blog (he was talking about page one, not this adjunct, though it has the same name) was named for the Buffalo Springfield song.

Of course, I never contradicted him -- though, truth to tell, the real reason for the name was more lawyerly. Particularly in a bench trial, when a judge receives a piece of contested evidence, perhaps of dubious provenance or relevance, usually over the vociferous objection of opposing counsel, and to just get on with it already, the learned jurist will say (often with some exasperation) that the evidence will be admitted "for what its worth." Often signalling that its worth may not be much at all.

Still, when I saw this on Facebook this morning, I couldn't help but think that Avy would have liked it:

You know what? This guy makes a lot of sense

Not me, certainly. I refer to the creator of the above Facebook meme (I believe that's a correct usage of the technical term).

We are, as of this morning, five weeks out from Christmas.

Granted, those five weeks will pass by in a flash -- an eyeblink -- a heartbeat -- unless, of course, you're six years old. In which case, these weeks will seem to drag interminably.

It always amazes me that former six-year olds get to high school and claim to be baffled when the physics teacher instructs that time is relative. Somehow they most always forget their own personal experience of relativity. (They will be forced to learn the truth of the teacher's words later on, too, such as when they stop off at a tavern on the way home from work: Inside only a few happy minutes will seem to have gone by, while, outside, dinner plans will be ruined -- but that's outside the scope of our discussion today.)

Unless you work in retail, the Christmas season can not and should not start until after Thanksgiving.

The creator of the above Facebook meme refers to the "war" on Christmas.

There are grumblings and rumblings about this "war" every year. But the battlefield has certainly changed in my lifetime.

When I was young, the perceived problem was that Christmas had become too commercial. That was the central complaint in the 1947 classic, Miracle on 34th Street. (One further necessary digression: Miracle on 34th Street is perhaps the greatest movie ever made about lawyers, if you think about it -- in what other movie are all the lawyers good guys?)

Commercialism was still on the front lines of the War on Christmas in 1965, when A Charlie Brown Christmas first aired.

Now, though, commercial establishments are themselves the front lines of the "War on Christmas," because some people take umbrage when store clerks say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Aren't we making Christmas less commercial when we use the generic "Happy Holidays" greeting?

Christmas is originally a religious holiday, obviously (we'll leave aside, for the moment, the discussion over whether the early Church coopted the Roman feast of Saturnalia or decided to celebrate the birth of Jesus on the proclaimed birth date of Sol Invictus), but, over the years, Christmas has acquired an enormous, even overwhelming, secular overlay -- Ebeneezer Scrooge (and his many spectral visitors), Christmas trees (pagan in origin, popularized by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert), Santa Claus (popularized by Clement Clarke Moore, Thomas Nast, and whoever drew the artwork for Coca-Cola), Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (originally a promotion for Montgomery Wards), chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Frosty the Snowman.... So many non-Christian stories and customs have been piled onto Christmas that it can be arguably compatible with the traditions of persons of any faith or none at all. Anyone who aspires to peace on earth and good will toward humanity can celebrate it, regardless of whether they believe the message was delivered by angels we have heard on high.

But, however you want to celebrate the holiday season, just hold off until after Thanksgiving, OK?

When you think about it... this is exactly what a cat pretending to be a lawyer would say....

I saw this on Facebook this morning and felt compelled to share.

Laughter is the best medicine...

Except, of course, if you're sick. In that case, efficacious medicine would be infinitely preferable to laughter.

And, if you're not sick, an effective vaccine would do you far more good than even a hearty chuckle.

At the present time, however, we have neither a vaccine to prevent, nor medicine to treat COVID-19. We can merely laugh at our fears.

In this post, therefore, I've collected a number of posts that appeared on Facebook or that I shamelessly stole from others who were aggregating these gags for their own selfish purposes. I can't credit the original creators of this content because I don't know who they were.

But I do know that all of these made me smile. Perhaps some will make you smile as well.

Kind of funny, isn't it, how reality has a way of undermining expectations?

When the schools shut down, this one struck me as 100% true. But, then, my wife, and one of my sons, is a teacher.

But parents are nothing if not resilient...

Fortunately for the future of the world, teachers are not permitted to simply declare victory and retire.

Still, standards and fashions may of necessity be revised on account of the coronavirus shutdowns. Hopefully, however, not to this extent:

When the history of this unhappy time is written, academics will be puzzled by the fact that, to address the threat of a respiratory disease, American consumers hoarded toilet paper.

Yet this is what happened, and the Internet made fun of it accordingly:

We can all hope that this is not an accurate prediction of how a future monument to this time may look:

There are any number of TP-related jokes. Just this morning I saw this one online: Last night someone TPd my house -- and now it's worth $875,000.

I don't think this will work with TP...

...but I believe it is a proven method for starting a potato plant. My ancestors thrived on these... before the blight. If things don't get better soon, we may have to remember how they did it.

It's all too easy to get depressed, watching the news, and reading social media accounts. We are supposed to be hunkering down in our homes -- but first responders and medical personnel aren't allowed to shelter in place. They must brave the storm despite critical shortages of personal protective equipment. Some solutions to ease the PPE shortages will work much better than this, but none will be sillier:

Social distancing is nothing new to me. People have crossed the street to avoid me for years. But it can be hard to handle for some.

Newspaper horoscopes used to be prepared months in advance. If this had really been prepared some months ago, it would have been quite impressive:

Pets were overjoyed when the work from home orders came out.

But even for Man's Best Friend, too much of a good thing can become a problem....

There are very few places that we can go during the lockdown, and the grocery is one of them. This church sign offers shoppers a tip from the Old Testament that is very relevant.

Somebody else was channeling their inner Steven Wright when they posted this gem:

They said a mask and gloves were enough to go to the grocery store.

They lied. Everybody else had clothes on.

But even though the grocery store is a permitted destination, it is not necessarily a safe place to go. In fact, you are only as safe at the grocery as the store's least careful customer. That's why this one made me laugh so hard. That, and the fact that I am of a certain age and level of nerdiness:

I initially thought to close this collection with something snarky, like this:

But this seems more appropriate to the seriousness of the times:

If you're supposed to stay home, stay home. And if you can't stay home, because you are keeping the rest of us fed, or keeping us safe, God bless you. Either way, be well.

Don't put a kid in charge of your professional image

Someone named Brad Friedman posted a link to this article on LinkedIn's Legal Blogging Group.

The article, "11 Reasons a 23-Year-Old Shouldn't Run Your Social Media," by Hollis Thomases, appeared August 10 on Inc.Com. An excerpt:

Just because you don't understand social media doesn't mean you should forfeit all common sense and hire your niece, nephew, or any other recent college grad (say, your best friend's sister-in-law's kid) because "they're really good on Facebook."

If your business targets the young and hip, most definitely look to a recent grad or young social-media nerd to help your business. But don't assume, either, that you need to hire someone young to manage your social media "just because."

Thomases goes on to detail all 11 reasons, and they're all good -- but to Ms. Thomases' list I would add one more: Don't let someone launch a social media strategy for you unless you can understand both what the strategist is trying to accomplish and how the strategist proposes to accomplish those goals.

If you can't understand what the heck your social media maven is doing or how he or she is doing it, it might be because you are old and dense and simply no longer 'with it.' Or it might be that your social media wunderkind works only with smoke and mirrors:

From Randall Munroe's webcomic, xkcd
(click on the link to see the cartoon in situ -- and
to read Mr. Munroe's embedded comment)

At depositions lawyers typically ask a number of background questions of a witness. Sometimes these questions are necessary in case the lawyer needs to locate the witness later on for trial, but most lawyers go beyond 'name, rank, and serial number' when starting a witness deposition.

What the lawyer is doing is getting a 'feel' for how the witness answers uncontroversial questions -- how the witness speaks normally and without stress. This preliminary testimony provides a baseline for comparison. Does the witness talk easily and expansively on softball, background questions -- and in clipped monosyllables when the 'meat' of the deposition is reached? Those differences in tone and inflection and speech pattern tell the lawyers something about the credibility of this witness or, at least, the likelihood that the witness will come over well before a jury.

I had a deposition recently of a young man who was employed by some advertising concern in some social media capacity. He had no difficulty expanding on his explanations about his job and his duties -- but every expansion made his testimony more opaque than it was before. None of this mattered to the case and I had to move on -- but, if I was interviewing this same man to market my firm, I would be profoundly concerned by his inability to tell me what he does and how.

If your strategist can't explain to your satisfaction what he or she proposes to do and how he or she will do it, can you really hope that this same strategist can adequately explain your business to potential clients?

In which the blogger tries to figure out what Google+ is supposed to be

The Tribune's Eric Zorn wrote Sunday that the sudden growth in Google+ is "making it increasingly likely that those of us who try to stay current with social media will have One More Darn Thing To Do Every Day."

And what is Google+ you ask?

A Georgia blawger says "Google+ seems to be attempting to combine Facebook (Stream), Twitter (Following and Inbox), Skype (Hangout), and pick your own flavor of photo sharing (Photos) and instant messaging (Huddle), with its own RSS/news feed thrown in (Sparks)." If you know what all that means, you and Eric Zorn are probably already traveling in the same circles. (Yes, that's an actual attempt at a Google+ joke.)

For my part, I only know what I read in the comics. I'm pretty sure that this episode of the webcomic Scenes from a Multiverse is talking about Google+:



And this episode of the webcomic xkcd provides an explanation of Google+ that even a Luddite like me can understand:



The explanation makes even more sense when you read Mr. Munroe's embedded rollover comment: "On the one hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch. On the other hand, you'll never be able to convince your parents to switch!"

Juror tips vote on Facebook, removed from jury

Maybe what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But anything on Facebook is there for the whole world to see.

Today's illustration of how Facebook isn't as-private-as-everyone-thinks comes from Macomb County, Michigan. Hadley Jons, a juror in a criminal case was removed after she posted this message on her Facebook page:

actually excited for jury duty tomorrow. It’s gonna be fun to tell the defendant they’re GUILTY. :P.

The trial started on August 10 but court was in recess on August 11 when the juror made that post.

Talk about prejudging the case: Jameson Cook's article for The Macomb Daily notes that the prosecution hadn't even rested when the juror announced her views to the world at large.

When jurors returned Aug. 12 for the resumption of the trial, Jons was brought into the courtroom alone by the presiding judge, Diane Druzinski, and asked about making a comment. Jons initially denied making a comment. But when the judge recited her words to her, she “put her head down” and didn’t respond, according to a court observer.

“You don’t know how disturbing this is,” Druzinski told her.

“Nobody could believe how cavalier she was about it,” said Saleema Sheikh, the defense attorney for the woman on trial.

And how was the juror found out?

My kids would call it "Facebook stalking": Defense counsel's teenage son (who just graduated from high school and was helping out in his mother's office to gain practical experience) was "surfing the Internet and plugging in jurors’ names," just to see what he could see.

Facebook posts get kids -- and teachers -- in trouble

A University of Oregon wide receiver has been booted from the school's football team, apparently because of "an expletive-filled statement on Facebook," according to a story posted Monday on SI.com. While Ducks Coach Chip Kelly did not explicitly say that the Facebook rant was reason why Jamere Holland was "dismissed from the team," according to the posted story, that is what he hinted.

Closer to home, Justin Bird, a 16 year-old sophomore at south suburban Oak Forest High School, is fighting a suspension, according to Kevin Roy's story on ABC 7 News, because Bird "created a Facebook fan page on which he called a teacher a derogatory name." The page promptly attracted nearly 50 fans, according to Roy's story, but Bird took the page down the next day. ABC 7 reports that "High School District 228 Superintendent Bill Kendall says what Bird wrote was 'disrespectful, inappropriate and lewd.'" Exactly what Bird wrote has not been reported. While Bird wrote whatever he wrote on his home computer, the school administration considered it so "disruptive" that a suspension was warranted.

Bird's parents are contemplating legal action.

This is understandable in one sense: Students have complained about teachers since time immemorial. It's almost a sacred tradition. What right do school administrators have to interfere? Of course, there is another equally ancient tradition that may be applicable here: Students are usually careful to grumble in places where they can't be overheard by the teacher in question -- or the teacher's colleagues -- lest they get in trouble.

The ACLU has expressed sympathy with Bird's plight, according to the linked story. An ACLU spokesperson, Ed Yohnka, is quoted in Roy's story as saying, "We don't need a sort of governmental agent in the form of the school reaching into that household and correcting that behavior simply because the school thinks it somehow involves them."

With Facebook, though, kids like Justin Bird aren't merely griping in someone's household; they're making derogatory statements about unpopular teachers right in the middle of the electronic public square, in front of the persons they think they're criticizing only among themselves. Perhaps merely by posting on Facebook -- and almost certainly in creating a fan page -- a student like Bird may have made it impossible for him not to be overheard. There is as yet no consensus on the etiquette of this situation.

There is consensus among the experts only that threatening harm on a site like Facebook is never appropriate and will -- and should -- get the poster in trouble.

Thus, 18 year-old Joshua Walker is in trouble in downstate Benton, Illinois, "arrested and taken to jail after he posted some threatening and harassing remarks on his ex-girlfriend's Facebook page," according to a story posted tonight on MSNBC.com. Adriana Correa's story, originally for NBCChicago.com, says Walker allegedly "began posting death threats on the social networking site shortly after the girl ended their relationship." The girl's family called the police -- which is pursuing felony harassment charges, according to the story. Correa quotes Franklin County Sheriff's Police Captain Don Jones as saying that what Walker is alleged to have done is "just another form of domestic violence."

But it's not just students who can get in trouble on account of their Facebook musings.

Meet 24 year-old Ashley Payne.

Until last fall, Ms. Payne was a teacher at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia. She lost her job, though, after an anonymous email was sent to school administrators complaining about pictures like this one, taken on a European vacation. In the picture -- and in nine other pictures of the roughly 700 vacation pictures she posted -- Payne appears to be drinking an alcoholic beverage. *Gasp!* She was also accused of using the word "bitch" on her Facebook page.

Maureen Downey wrote about Payne's case in a November 10 article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and again on November 13.

Downey's articles make clear that, although she did "friend" some of her teaching colleagues, Ms. Payne did not "friend" any of her students. Nevertheless, the writer of the anonymous email that cost Payne her job claimed to be the mother of a student who had access to Payne's Facebook page. (Downey's November 13 article suggests, persuasively, I think, that the anonymous email came, not from a student's parent, but from a fellow teacher.)

A February 19 story in the Barrow Journal updates the saga: Payne is suing the school district -- but settlement negotiations have recently broken down.

Overheard in Cook County

At the suggestion of Kulmeet Galhotra, I've become a "fan" of a Facebook page, Overheard in Cook County. It turns out there's a Blogger version, too, called On the Record in Cook County. I've added a link to that site on Page One, in the Sidebar, under "Just for Fun/ Recommended Reading."

What will you find if you visit either of these sites? Well, put it this way: If Art Linkletter had named these pages, he might have called them, "Witnesses say the Darndest Things."

Too connected? The Facebook experiment -- Day 2

From the comic Daddy's Home by Tony Rubino and Gary Markstein.
That link will take you to the source of the image, but I actually
read the comic in print in this morning's Chicago Sun-Times.

I had 21 new emails when I signed on this morning, all Facebook related. The good news? All of my kids have 'accepted me as a friend.' My daughters even 'tagged' me with family photos they'd long since posted on their own Facebooks.

The bad news? One of my nieces seems to be involved in a "flame war" with a high school classmate of hers... over a boy... and there seems to be some collateral damage on my "wall." And, also, I might add, some rather coarse language. But I'm not entirely certain what of this is visible to the world at large. For her sake, I would hope that none of it is... or that I can figure out how to delete it. I have solicited the assistance of one of my sons in this regard.

I have also learned that Facebook status updates must be no more than 420 characters -- at the current exchange rate, I believe that comes to three "tweets." Thus an old dog learns new tricks.

Sticking my nose in Facebook

From Real Life Adventures by Gary Wise and Lance Aldrich.
This image was obtained from UClick GoComics, but I read it
back in August -- in print -- in the Chicago Sun-Times.

It's not that I haven't been aware of Facebook. My kids have been on it for some time. Occasionally I'll find new horror story about Facebook -- or something funny about Facebook and email them or post it here. (In the latter vein, I'd suggest that this link is worth following. If you're in a more serious mood, consider this ABA Journal Law News Now story from early September, in which Martha Neil reported that the Florida Board of Bar Examiners has announced plans to search applicants' social networking sites, such as Facebook, "on a case-by-case basis, focusing on those who have demonstrated problem conduct in the past.")

My kids' involvement with Facebook has provided me with one consistent reason why I have not plunged in previously. The kids told me I'd have to apply for and be accepted by each child as their "friend" -- and I have only recently been assured that my requests would be given due consideration. (Even now, no absolute promises have been made. So I'm still worried about how I might have to cope with rejection.)

But... I've tried to keep up to date on the subject, reading and only partially understanding articles like this one, from the June 22, 2009 edition of Wired Magazine, about "Facebook's Plan to Dominate the Internet -- and Keep Google Out." In the article Fred Vogelstein reports that "the Google-Facebook rivalry isn't just going strong, it has evolved into a full-blown battle over the future of the Internet—its structure, design, and utility."

Who knew?

And, in the meantime, it isn't just Facebook that has passed me by. Something called Twitter seems to have caught on -- although more, according to this August 25, 2009 article in the New York Times, with businesspeople than college students. I might have imagined that "micro blogging" amounted to something along these lines:

From the web comic Luke Surl.com

I asked my kids about Twitter and they were all nonplussed -- leading me to conclude, until I saw the New York Times article anyway, that Twitter would be just a passing fad. And then I read in Bethany Krajelis' article for the September 2, 2009 Chicago Daily Law Bulletin that the Illinois Supreme Court had "signed on to Twitter."

On Twitter, as I understand it, people -- or courts -- sign on to post and others may choose to enlist as "followers." Oprah gathered tens of thousands of followers for her "tweets" in a single day. If I sign up to tweet and somebody signs up to follow me and if I also sign up to follow that person, who's following who? Aren't we then just going in circles? I suppose I'll have to figure all this out next.

But one crisis at a time: I have now successfully signed on to Facebook. *Shudder* One thing only is certain about this brave new experiment in social networking: From tonight on, Facebook will not be as "cool" as it may once have been.

For my children... Facebook users all... a cautionary tale

Presented just the way we watched movies in high school science classes... or driver's ed.

I first saw this at By Ken Levine, but this copy was lifted from YouTube.

For my daughter with the English degree -- and a Facebook account

Something called "Austenbook." A 'snapshot' excerpt from the linked site:

(Click image to enlarge.)

The site is not interactive and its creator acknowledges that the news feed should be in reverse "but this makes for easier reading." Which, of course, is true.

This explains my reservations about Facebook

English humor, and over the top in terms of language.

But very funny.

Facebook update -- are there really angry pitbulls?

Rob Manker's March 26, 2008 article on the Tribune website, "Flushing common sense down the Facebook toilet," serves as a kind of humorous reinforcement of the story I ran on Page One on March 25, "Another Facebook security breach."

Manker recounts how, with management's urging, he joined Facebook. (Apparently, the newspapers have finally figured out that this Internet thing may not just be a fad after all. And, sad but true, a Facebook presence gives professional reporters immediate access when tragedy strikes -- for example -- on a college campus.)

Anyway, having joined Facebook, Manker writes, he felt compelled to participate. He "made friends, joined groups, built a photo gallery, drank virtual beers and became a vampire. The standard stuff. I even logged in a few times a day to update what I was doing...."

Here was where he ran into trouble. He posted -- for all the world to see -- that he'd be on vacation. Manker said he felt "so compelled to keep everyone abreast of my every move that I flushed common sense down the cyber-toilet."

He tried to rectify things with additional announcements: "Rob is on vacation, or is he? ...Rob is an expert marksman.... Rob is hoarding angry pit bulls."

It may or may not have been necessary for him to make these declarations -- but apparently no one burgled his home while he and his family vacationed.

Several comments posted to the article scoff at Mr. Manker's old-fashioned (if belated) caution, citing Facebook's privacy settings and so forth, but I applaud it. He says, in an entertaining way, what I've tried to say a couple of times at least: Anything you put onto the Internet can be seen. Maybe it won't be seen... but maybe it will burble up and wound you at just the wrong time.