Some critical threads on posts here depress me, and there have been two examples recently. The first is the parade of out-of-work or underemployed lawyers of recent vintage who identify with the unemployed lawyer in the Occupy Wall Street throng of last fall whose response to job-hunting frustration was to give up, hand-letter a sign and blame his law school. These commenters take special umbrage at my hardly original observation that a law degree is good for pursuits other than practicing law, and continue to insist that the degree is suddenly a handicap, as two JDs run for President of the United States for the first time since Dewey challenged FDR in 1944.

The other thread, if less vociferous and bizarre, is even more depressing. These are the tender souls who believe that Karen Klein, the inert school bus monitor shown in a viral video weeping and cringing at the taunts of the 12-year-olds she was supposed to supervise, deserves anything but scorn for stealing taxpayer money and disgracing adulthood in front of impressionable youngsters. Maybe I’ve been reading the comments for two many days, but they seem to have a theme in common, which is the avoidance of personal responsibility and accountability for setbacks and failure, and the eager acceptance of victim status in order to avoid blame and attract sympathy.

Thus I was in the perfect mood to read this spunky post from dkatt, who scored the Comment of the Day on the essay, “The Weeping Bus Monitor: A Half-Million For Incompetence”: Continue reading →