Stop me if you’ve heard this one…
My favorite Valentine’s Day memory comes from when I was a student at Harvard, directing my first show at nearby M.I.T. I had bemoaned to my cast how the holiday was bound to be a lonely one for me, as I had no girlfriend at the time and my room mates, who were all from far-flung states, where certain to be getting copious love notes in their mail boxes while mine would be, as usual, empty. (My home was in Arlington, Mass., a quick bus ride from Cambridge.) When February 14th arrived and the usual morning mail call with it, my room mate who was on mail duty that day announced, “Dick, you have eight cards. Slip, you have two. Mark, you got 12 cards. Worldman [he was Hawaiian], you also have 12. I have three, and Shithead (my room mates often called me “Shithead”) you have…these.”
And he poured out 58 little envelopes on the floor, each containing one of those little Valentines we used to exchange in elementary school. An M.I.T. coed named Nancy Green (not the original Aunt Jemima) in my chorus had persuaded every student in her dorm to write a personal message on one of those little cards, and she stamped, addressed and mailed them. It was a classic random act of kindness. Thanks, Nancy—wherever you are.
Meanwhile…
Ethics Alarms 
3. Regarding insults: I found it enlightening in my reading of early-American history that calling someone a “rascal” (which now barely registers on the “insult scale”) was often the catalyst for pistols at ten paces.
4. Would a D.C. grand jury indict anyone for anything?
Oh. Wait. They’d indict Trump or any of his administration or voters or supporters for anything and everything. What was I thinking.
How did juries become partisan?
I had not heard of such a thing in 2010
Good point. Probably around the same time prosecutors became political.
#3: When trying to appropriately acknowledge a complete moron, and a customary reference isn’t suitable, Bespawling Addlepate will usually suffice.
Old English Insults supplies some real doozies.
PWS
Jack: The “common law citizenship” concept is creative, but historical and legal fantasy.”
I am more fond of a “statute of limitations” style argument, which I believe existed at one point. Upon illegal entry or overstay, you become deportable. After a certain period of time (say 15 years, which is one of the longest statutes of limitations out there), you are no longer deportable, but not a citizen. (Because I am just as disgusted by the Government’s incompetence or outright disregard for enforcing the laws as I am by those who are unlawfully present here.)
No automatic pathway to citizenship; you are just a resident.
However, if that non-deportable resident commits a deportable act (aggravated felonies or crimes of moral turpitude), the clock starts over and the resident could be deported.
-Jut
Shouldn’t the statute only start running when the illgal status is discovered, under SOL principles?
Kind of like the statute not beginning to run unless and until you file a tax return.
That really gets into the legal weeds Jack.
Sometimes it is upon discovery (fraud and some malpractice rules); sometimes it is upon the triggering event. Adverse possession is a good example of that. It typically has the longest term (15 years) because land ownership is easy to prove and “real” property remains your property if you leave it sitting there. But the statute does not start to run when you discover the squatter.
Similar with criminal laws. Misdemeanor theft has a 3-year statute in my state. if I stole something when I was 25, I can’t go in to the police station 30 years later, confess the crime, and expect that I will be prosecuted.
Then, you see some cases where a loan is delinquent for 8 years before they decide to sue. Banks will argue that every missed payment is a separate triggering event. So, they are not completely barred by a 6-year statute, just the two years beyond that.
Some would argue that immigration proceeding should count each day of unlawful presence as a new triggering event, but that perspective would simply eliminate the whole notion of a statute of limitations.
-Jut
As you know, certain crimes have no statute of limitations.I wouldn’t object to illgal immigration being one of those crimes because of its unique nature.
I like legal weeds! Just not legal weed…
3 – George Will is a snobby elitist who castigates J.D. Vance for his language in order to illustrate that he regards J.D. Vance as somebody of lower class. People who regard themselves of the upper class often use putdowns to tell social climbers that they lack class and “are not our kind of people”, and J.D. Vance has made a magnificent social climb from a poor family of hillbillies to Vice President.
We need to keep this class dynamic in mind when words are condemned as uncivil and vulgar, and use of those words as unethical. Vulgar words are words that are used by the vulgus, the common masses, the uneducated, the rubes and the proles. The vulgus tend to use simple, monosyllabic words to refer to bodily matters such as disease, sexuality, and excretory functions. The upper classes tend to use multisyllabic Latin terms for essentially the same matters. This has become especially pronounced since the Victorian era when sexuality and other bodily function were clouded by a sense of shame, starting with the upper classes.
My take is that there is nothing perse unethical about using any of words that according to George Carlin could not be mentioned on television, although use of those words may indicate an low class. George Will simply act as an elitist snob here. My impression is that snobbism and classism explains a lot of Never-Trumpism.
Althouse also discussed Vance’s mother and her using all the colorful words George Will is upset about. Vanc is a hillbilly and the son of a hillbilly. George Will is a New England patrician’s patrician. He’d just as soon the South simply drifted away.
Yes, the so-called Intellectuals. Our social and educated betters.
So, Jack, did you follow up on any of the myriads of girls who sent all those Valentines?
They weren’t all girls. Half were men. They also had the funniest messages on them.