Fault Lines.

If you normally come here for any reason (and if you do, I thank you), you've noticed my posts here have dropped quite a bit.  That's because I've been involved with a project called Fault Lines recently, and it's been an amazing experience.  

Fault Lines is a collection of some of the best legal minds in the country writing about criminal law topics.  Among those heavyweights I share web space with are Simple Justice's Scott Greenfield, Jeff Gamso of "Gamso For the Defense," Matt Brown, Professor Jessica Gabel Cino, Andrew Fleischmann, Ken Womble (who's been absolutely tearing things up over at FL), and even the Honorable Judge Richard G. Kopf, formerly of "Hercules and the Umpire." 

Yes, that Richard G. Kopf.  The one who got subjected to immense pointing and shrieking on the Internet for writing a blog post called "On Being A Dirty Old Man And How Young Women Lawyers Dress." 

Here's a quick link to Fault Lines in case you're interested in reading all the project has to offer (and you should be, because you love intellectual pursuits and great stuff if you come here). 

Enjoy.  And thank you for your support over the past five years. 

On This Day In History (an extended rant)

Students entering college as freshmen right now were four years old when the towers fell.  And we're in a different kind of war today than the one that started on September 11, 2001.  

It's a war of feelings, a war where we must make sure our special little snowflakes are insulated from every harm, every harsh word, thought or bad decision that happens on college campuses.  

It's a war where these children are told repeatedly that things such as "microaggressions" exist that must be stamped out.  One where comedians refuse to play college campuses because making one student--just one--OFFEND will potentially tank their careers.  One where offices of "diversity and inclusivity" send out memos that encourage people to use bastardizations of words like "xym" and "zir" to talk to people in the name of equality that will never be achieved.  

These children will never know the reality of a man deciding to either burn to death or jump to the next life.  They'll never hear the horrendous sound of what a body falling over one thousand feet to the ground sounded like.  All they'll hear are concepts like "rape culture," "cisgender heteronormative oppression," and "ableism" get bandied about.  

This is to be expected in our lives.  Even when tragedies the likes of September 11 happen the world will move on.  As that day becomes just that--history--people will forget, because we're in a world where people's perceptions of reality hinge on what happens in their Facebook feed or Twitter timeline daily.  

My children will not live that life.  

My children will grow up knowing what happened that day.  

My children will know that we had a time where a group of terrorists hated us, and started a war. My children will know people got on television that night to tell us all that it was our fault.  
My children will know that men and women died on foreign soil to protect us from those events ever happening again.  My children will know that we won that war, but war still rages on.  

We really do lead a charmed life, as Scott Greenfield says, when we can lead shaming mobs over stupid jokes British Nobel Laureates make because one person took words out of context and posted them to social media.  But it's still a war we're in--this time one of feelings, rather than facts.  

My children will know what happened that day, and why we rallied as a nation.  

Because we never should forget what happened fourteen years ago today.