My three kids have three Spring Breaks, one after the other. At any given time, the one on Spring Break is indolent and the other two are insolent and resentful. I may be working late a lot this month, and my wife is going all Lifetime Movie of the Week with the wine fridge.

But elsewhere, across America, kids are still learning. Their impressionable little minds are absorbing the important lessons offered to them — lessons about math, lessons about English, lessons about science, and always lessons about civics — the relationship between the state and its citizens.

Take seven-year-old Josh Welch of Maryland. Josh was suspended because a teacher says he bit a pastry into the shape of a gun and waved it around. Josh learned a valuable lesson about the amount of trust and respect he should have for government actors.

In Pennsylvania, five-year-old Madison Guarna was suspended for "terroristic threats" when she told friends she was going to shoot them with a Hello Kitty toy that makes soap bubbles. Madison learned an important lesson about how government actors will use citizens' fear and uncertainty to convince them to surrender rights and to increase the government actors' power.

In South Carolina, six-year-old Naomi McKinney was expelled from school — and threatened with criminal trespass charges if she returned — when she brought a clear plastic toy gun to school. Naomi learned an important lesson that government actors like broad rules that give them substantial power over citizens, and dislike requests that they exercise judgment, proportion, or what non-governmental actors might call reason.

In Philadelphia, fifth grader Melody Valentin arrived at school and realized that in her pocket she had a paper gun her grandfather had made for her. She tried to throw it away, but another student saw her and informed on her to the principal. School officials scolded her publicly and threatened her with arrest and searched her. Melody learned a valuable lesson about how state actors will maintain power by turning citizens against each other and making citizens extensions of their own control.

Finally, in Lodi, California, school officials propose to teach children many messages at once through an "anti-bullying" initiative forbidding students from "posting crude or disparaging remarks via electronic media."

First, arguing that after-school activities are a privilege and not a right, Lodi school authorities argue that they have the power to impose such a broad policy on outside speech upon students who want to participate in such activities:

Extracurricular activities are privileges, not rights, district officials said. With athletes and club members, they have a vehicle to take away an activity that students enjoy. They don't have that leverage for students who simply attend their classes and go home, officials said.

This teaches children the important lesson that everything the government gives you or does for you comes with a price — and that the price is often a piece of your liberty.

Second, Lodi officials are arguing students and parents can't be trusted to handle this issue themselves:

However, a sampling of Lodi High students say it's an issue that students can address on their own without adult interference.

Administrators and trustees in the Lodi Unified School District don't agree, saying that some students cross the line when it comes to posting comments about others.

This teaches children that government actors do not view them as capable of thinking or acting for themselves, and crave ever-increasing authority over them.

Third, Lodi officials are crafting a broad, vague, subjective policy:

Beginning in the 2013-14 school year, student athletes and club members will have to sign a contract promising that they won't post remarks that can emotionally harm others online. This includes social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr.

The policy applies to students both in school or out. This teaches children the lesson that government officials seek control over every aspect and every moment of their lives. The policy makes students responsible for the subjective emotional reactions of others. This teaches students that government actors like rules that are subjective (giving them more power) and rules that expand their power into the realm of feelings rather than actions (giving them more power). The rule is exceptionally vague. What types of emotional harm is covered? If a student complains that a particular person is bullying her, and the bully is embarrassed, has the bullied child broken the policy? As a tweet "our team crushed your team," causing despair, a violation? It's hard to tell. This teaches children that the government favors vague and ambiguous policies that maximize their power over citizens, and that often induce citizens to remain silent rather than speaking at all and risking violation of the policy.

Some look at these educational policies and despair. I, on the other hand, look at my kids and see how sharply they observe the world around them. Surely the children in Maryland and Pennsylvania and South Carolina and California are watching their teachers and taking away the right lesson — the lesson about how much they should trust, respect, or defer to the government.

Hat tip to Nathaniel.

When a public official acts like a censorious asshat, and flogs one of my least-favorite stupid pro-censorship quotes, and is named "Nutter," my fundamentally suspicious and misanthropic nature leads me to look around nervously. Am I being Akbarred here? Or is this giddy warmth and pre-pounce quivering anticipation I feel further evidence of a God that loves me?

It's the giddy warmth one.

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Friends and fellow citizens:

Almost twelve years ago, you elected me as your Mayor with what I consider a sacred trust: to look out for the health and welfare of all of the citizens of the greatest city on Earth.  As I look back on what we've accomplished together over these twelve years, I'm filled with pride.

Two thousand years ago the Emperor Augustus boasted that he found Rome, the Big Apple of its day, a city made of brick: He left it clad in marble. I like to think that twelve years ago I found New York City fat, wheezing, diabetic, and dependent on addictive chemicals put into our food by the Merchants of Death: I hope to leave New York fit and trim, with clean air and a sensible, healthy diet for all.

There have been stumbles along the road to a healthy city for sure. While we've made great strides in taking away so-called "choices" such as trans fats and needlessly high sodium, some have claimed that our policies, enacted for the health and safety of all New Yorkers, fail to comply with outdated laws and customs. But over my career I've never let roadblocks like antiquated judges or slanders from the forces of Big Fat, Big Salt, Big Sugar, and Big Tobacco stand in my way. Today I'm as dedicated to improving your health, and that of your children, and leading you to a healthy life as I was when I started.

You probably heard that yesterday we announced a ban on open display of tobacco products in all stores throughout the city. This is a big thing. Make no mistake. When a child sees a pack of cigarettes displayed behind a counter at the local bodega, it tells the child that smoking is a natural and healthy way of life. Nothing could be further from the truth! Cigarettes are killers, and we're going to put a stop to them.

You see, sometimes we need to alter people's behavior. Smoking is just plain disgusting. It provides no benefit whatsoever, and is known to cause harm. Most products are legislated to ensure they are safe, yet cigarettes are allowed to kill with impunity. Even guns have more restriction on them. In Canada this has been the norm for years, and the rates of teen smoking have dropped. I'm hoping that within my lifetime, smoking becomes a footnote in historical textbooks. And for the people who would go on about their freedom of choice I ask you, if it was fashionable to smoke dog dung, would you do that too?

I rest my case.

And yet, as proud as I am of the legacy I'll leave this city, I feel not just pride, but worry. We've done so much, but clearly there is so much more to do. I'd like to give you a preview of forthcoming initiatives, which we'll roll out over the coming months during this, the final year of my term as your Mayor, to bring you the happiness, health, and safety that you, as citizens of the world's greatest metropolis, so desperately need.

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Speech has consequences. Some of these consequences are legitimate; they are reflections of other people's speech. You might disagree with them, but if you have any self-respect, you won't whine that they constitute censorship.

But some consequences — often, but not always, inflicted by the government — are illegitimate. Warren, a business owner who writes at Coyote Blog, encountered such a consequence. When he expressed himself on his blog and linked to a negative Yelp review of a government agency, a functionary from that agency threatened him with loss of government contracts:

Well, one day I got a letter via email from a regional manager of the state parks agency whose park was the subject of that Yelp review I linked. I was notified that I had 48 hours to remove that blog post or I would lose all my contracts with that state. In particular, they did not like a) the fact that I linked to a negative Yelp review of one of their parks and b) that I impugned the incredibly noble idea that state parks are all operated by law enforcement officials.

There are a lot of things Warren could have done. I'm sure there are a lot of things he was tempted to do, as I would have been. Instead of doing the most viscerally satisfying thing, the most "just" thing, or the most "righteous" thing, Warren did the most effective thing for his business and for the immediate preservation of his freedom of speech: he engaged with the grown-up in the room.

Fortunately, I was able to write the acting General Counsel of the agency that afternoon. Rather than sending something fiery as the first salve, I sent a coy letter observing innocently that her agency seemed to believe that my contracts with the state imposed a prior restraint on my speech and I asked her to clarify the boundaries of that prior restraint so I would know what speech I was to be allowed. To her credit, she called me back about 6 minutes after having received the letter and told me that it was void and asking me to please, please pretend I had never received it. So I did, and I reward her personally for her quick and intelligent response by not naming her agency in the story.

When you deal with government agencies, you often deal with people who are entitled, or stupid, or indifferent. But there are also people who are capable, dedicated, and principled. There are grown-ups in the room. You can rail against the government — as I do here — but, if you want quick and painless results, you can also look for and politely engage the grown-up. Maybe the grown-up is genuinely concerned with your rights. Maybe the grown-up is genuinely concerned with the government agency staying out of the headlines, or out of unnecessary trouble. Maybe both. You could vent your spleen to them — you could point out that they are surrounded by thugs and jackasses. That would be satisfying. That would be true. That would be just. But it wouldn't be effective.

Sometimes you just want a swift, effective outcome. When in doubt, find the grown-up in the room, and be civil and understated to him or her.

Rick Horowitz is an unapologetic blogger and a vigorous criminal defense lawyer in California. This is an unusually mouthy combination. Rick pulls no punches blogging at Probable Cause, where he enjoys the broad protections of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

But the First Amendment is but a law, and any criminal defense attorney will tell you there is a wide dark gulf between the law and the application thereof.

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Four years ago, I created a Facebook account. Just so that one day, I could do this.

TSA MEMORANDUM

FROM: JOHN S. PISTOLE, TSA ADMINISTRATOR

TO: TSA EMPLOYEES

RE: HELP US HELP KIDS!

Dear TSA Team:

I hope that 2013 finds you, like me, fit and optimistic and recommitted to our core mission of protecting Americans.

Our society is increasingly arrogant and uncooperative. We need to assure passenger compliance with our core message. What better way to achieve that goal than with a new TSA theme? I'm excited to announce that the new theme is Think of the Children!

Now, the TSA has long been at the forefront of serving young Americans with innovations like its "Cool Strangers With Candy" and "And Your Little Child, Too!" programs. But we haven't been focused enough on how we can serve adults by serving kids.

Americans love their children. But Americans need to recognize that their children are in grave danger. I'm not just talking about the danger of terrorists attempting to travel by plane, one of which we will, without a shadow of a doubt, catch or detect any day now. I'm talking about a far more insidious danger: terrorist recruitment.

Too often our nation's pre-kindergarteners are adrift, lacking leadership and a firm grounding in core American values like unquestioning compliance and complete absence of critical thinking skills. Their young minds are a playground for terrorist indoctrination and so-called "questioning." If the terrorists believe that we won't screen these children strictly, thoroughly, even ruthlessly, then the terrorists will redouble their recruitment efforts, sparing no expense to sway children with sweets, rhythmic songs and bright colors and/or shapes.

That's why we must redouble our efforts to search young children. It's for their own good. It makes them a less attractive target for terrorist and libertarian recruitment.

I'm pleased to report that Operation Think of the Children! is proceeding successfully. Dedicated TSA agents all across America are reaching out to protect America's children by sending them for special screening, discouraging parental interference, and separating them from potentially hazardous stuffed animals and whatnot. They're protecting children from possible bad influences.

I'm particularly glad so see that our TSA agents have absorbed their training and recognized that disabled children — too often shunned and belittled by our society — are at particular risk for terrorist recruitment and therefore should be given additional scrutiny.

Remember, if passengers are non-compliant with our efforts to secure their children, law enforcement is there to help. Don't take any back-talk! Parents may talk to you about "rights" and cite "rules" at you, but you're the one in charge. Tell them what you think the rules are, and we'll work out the nuances later.

Look, people: I know you have a tough job. I know that you're not paid as well as you should be, and that you've taken this job, stepping up to offer careful hand-screening to dozens of children a day, out of to fulfill a compelling need. Keep doing what you'll do. Meanwhile I'll keep the naysayers off your back.

Now, go screen a kid for me.

I am not a fan of Mitch McConnell, even though I am impressed that he has a lifespan of over 100 years and is the 10th-heaviest living reptile. However, I lack any animus against him based on the ethnic background of his wife. This distinguishes me from a PAC called Progress Kentucky

This attitude earned Progress Kentucky not only the anger of conservatives, but the scorn of the New York Times, the Huffington Post, and Talking Points Memo. And you know what they say — if you've lost the New York Times, then you're not going to get a trend story about you, even if a New York Times reporter hears about you from her Pilates instructor.

Progress Kentucky's response to criticism has not been exactly on message. They've gone with a modified sorry-if-you're-offended-by-our-intern:

A spokesman, Curtis Morrison, told WFPL, “It’s not an official statement. It’s a Tweet. And we will remove if it’s wrong.”

They've also asserted that accusing them of race-baiting is unfair, because when we accuse them of emphasizing McConnell is married to a woman of Chinese descent, we ignore that her father is also Chinese and is reputed to have gone to school with Chinese people.

As you can see from that tweet above, Progress Kentucky cites and promotes — and might have picked up its public relations skills from — Rense.com, a site that stands for a great American political truth: the more fearless and truth-seeking a political organization, the more likely it is to advertise questionable herbal supplements. Give Rense.com its due — would non-Progressive sites promote and link you to multiple posts disclosing the alien threat, or would they conceal it from you?

Hi, welcome back to 1996.

And what can you learn through those links?

Why would humans, (no matter how psychopathic), poison our environment with radiation, crude oil & chemtrails and put cancer causing GMO’s in our food? Answer, they wouldn’t, and they aren’t. These things are being done by the same cold, calculating pernicious evil that has controlled the course of events on this planet for thousands and thousands of years. Evidently the talking monkeys figure things out after enough time goes by, and they revolt, and have to be put down, hard. No problem, pernicious evil is patient, and will begin all over again after each mass extermination, uh, er, extinction event.

We are in Progress Kentucky's debt for its willingness to point out the threat of each and every type of alien.

But you probably shouldn't take my word for it. Like McConnell, I'm in league with them.

Let's start with the tweet and get it right out there. Last night, The Onion tweeted this:

That, needless to say, was not a good idea. It was not a good idea for a lot of reasons. The simplistic version is "you don't call a 9 year old a cunt." That's pretty close to my more nuanced version too, but it helps to show your work to get to that conclusion because it is unfair to The Onion – to their intent and real target – to reduce the tweet to "The Onion called an amazing young girl a horrible word."

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Last week I posed this question: sure, bloggers are biased and sloppy and agenda-driven and more than a little nuts, but compared to what? What is the logical basis for reposing automatic trust in "professional" "mainstream" journalists, and given them the presumption of thoroughness, good faith, or neutrality?

I'd like to thank Jan Caldwell, Public Affairs Director for the San Diego County Sheriff's Office, for helping me make my point.

Recently Ms. Caldwell — who is responsible for the relationship between the Sheriff's office and the press — was on a panel called "Grade the Media." As LAist reported, she explained why she thinks bloggers shouldn't get the same respect — or press credentials — that "professional" journalists do:

You can sit with your Apple laptop and your fuzzy slippers, you can be an 800-pound disabled man that can't get out of bed and be a journalist, because you can blog something. Does that give you the right—because you blog in your fuzzy slippers out of your bedroom and you don't go out and you haven't gotten that degree—should you be called a journalist?

Or should you be like Pauline [unclear] who graduated from journalism school and has been doing this a long time or JW or Dennis? Are you on the same par? In my estimation—and I'd like to hear from Darren and Michael on that—no. Because Pauline and JW and Matt and the others that have been doing this a long time and they know the questions to ask, as will you. But if you're just sitting at home with your laptop blogging and you just want to get under my skin or you're CityBeat—left to Lenin, oh my God—then, yeah. So I drop that out on you all: what do you all think of that?

That is no normal act of public relations. That is the behavior of a public relations professional.

Perhaps even more revealing, though, was this:

To start, spokeswoman Jan Caldwell explained to the room full of journalists why it is so important to be nice to her: "If you are rude, if you are obnoxious, if you are demanding, if you call me a liar, I will probably not talk to you anymore. And there's only one sheriff's department in town, and you can go talk to the deputies all you want but there's one PIO."

Here we have the heart of the matter. "Professional" journalists may, indeed, be brilliant, talented, well-trained, professional, with an abiding appetite for hard-hitting but neutral reporting. Yet professional journalists also depend on relationships. Ms. Caldwell calls that fact out, sending law enforcement's core message to the press: if you want access, play the game.

The game colors mainstream media coverage of criminal justice. Here's my overt bias: I'm a criminal defense attorney, a former prosecutor, and a critic of the criminal justice system. In my view, the press is too often deferential to police and prosecutors. They report the state's claims as fact and the defense's as nitpicking or flimflam. They accept the state's spin on police conduct uncritically. They present criminal justice issues from their favored "if it bleeds it leads" perspective rather than from a critical and questioning perspective, happily covering deliberate spectacle rather than calling it out as spectacle. They accept leaks and tips and favors from law enforcement, even when those tips and leaks and favors violate defendants' rights, and even when the act of giving the tip or leak or favor is itself a story that somebody ought to be investigating. In fact, they cheerfully facilitate obstruction of justice through leaks. They dumb down criminal justice issues to serve their narrative, or because they don't understand them.

This "professional" press approach to the criminal justice system serves police and prosecutors very well. They favor reporters who hew to it. Of course they don't want to answer questions from the 800-pound bedridden guy in fuzzy slippers in his mother's basement. But it's not because an 800-pound bedridden guy can't ask pertinent questions. It's because he's frankly more likely to ask tough questions, more likely to depart from the mutually accepted narrative about the system, less likely to be "respectful" in order to protect his access. (Of course, he might also be completely nuts, in a way that "mainstream" journalism screens out to some extent.)

Recently Radley Balko has been doing a "raid of the day" series for the Huffington Post, in which every day he profiles a brutal or incompetent or outrageous police raid, thus calling into question our system's tolerance for lawless police tactics. This is the sort of reporting Radley has been doing for years. You will find very, very few "mainstream" reporters engaging in such relentless criticism and questioning of the criminal justice system. That's not because there aren't many talented reporters. There are. Rather, I submit that it's because too many reporters find the price too high. Too many reporters would rather get that hot tip from a cop about a piece of evidence against a defendant than risk alienating their state sources.

Too many people would rather have the approval of the Jan Caldwells of the system than call the system out.

I'll keep my fuzzy slippers, thank you.

The members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church are coming to Los Angeles and planning to picket at Santa Monica High School.

WBC will picket Santa Monica High School to tell these students the Gospel truth which their parents, teachers and preachers try desperately to hide from them. Every adult in their lives has taught them that they can disobey God and still go to Heaven, that it is OK to be gay, and that God is not cursing this doomed nation for the sin of embracing sodomy. Believing these lies will send these children straight to Hell so WBC must deliver the only message of hope and redemption they will ever receive: that you must repent and obey, for there is no other way!

We come with weeping and sorrow that the parents, teachers, preachers and leaders of St. Louis and of that school, hate their children and have stolen all hope from them. They are without God in this earth. How horrible and sad is that?!

They are also protesting at Malibu Presbyterian Church, Waveside Church in Malibu, and Our Lady of Malibu, all for not being sufficiently anti-gay.

My response will be governed by the good example of Congregation Beth Simchat Torah of New York — I'm going to donate to causes of decency and justice for every hour that the WBC people protest at these places.

(They're also protesting at the Oscars. I think the stars can arrange their own donations. Also, sweet merciful Lord those things drag on forever. I'd be bankrupt.)

For every hour they protest at the high school or the churches, I'll be donating fifty bucks to a charity that provides support and love and affirmation to gay and lesbian teens — especially organizations that provide outreach to troubled and suicidal and bullied teens. Here are the charities I am looking at:

The It Gets Better Project
The Trevor Project
Colors Youth
LA Gay And Lesbian Center

I don't know if the WBC people are sincere, or money-seeking trolls. I don't particularly care; I don't imagine the impact on a teen at Santa Monica High School would be any different.

Will you join me? If so, kindly announce your pledge here in comments, or on Twitter, or Facebook, or your favorite blog or forum, and spread the word.

That's not all.

For every hour the WBC protest at the school or the churches, I'm going to spend an hour reading and considering the viewpoints of people with whom I vehemently disagree on political and social and moral topics. It won't necessarily be on this topic. It won't necessarily change my mind on anything — though I hope it will educate me and sharpen my positions and help me articulate opposition to actual positions rather than my characterization of those positions. It's not going to make me a supporter of going to a school and gleefully telling the students there that they deserve to suffer. But considering the opinions of others, and acknowledging their humanity, is an act of defiance against the WBCs of the world.

Nearly eighteen years ago, the day O.J. Simpson was acquitted, the feds began their attempt to train me as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. One of the first things my supervisor told me was never to flash my modest federal prosecutor badge for any private purpose. That's an automatic 60-day unpaid vacation, she said.

I was a little insulted. What kind of moron has to be told that? What sort of self-involved twit uses a prosecutor's badge for private gain?

So: in my years as a federal prosecutor I never used my badge to intimidate or impress or harass, and therefore never got that 60-day unpaid leave. I did once absent-mindedly use it as identification while checking in for a flight. I realized my mistake and ran to the bathroom and hyperventilated for ten minutes. It's possible I'm not cut out for a life of crime.

But they gave us those stern warnings for a reason. Prosecutors are human, some of them are morons, and some of them abuse their badge for silly things like drunkenly demanding a free hot dog.

Case in point: Ari Pregen.

Ari Pregen was, until recently, a Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney. Not anymore. Pregen has been fired. Pregen, witnesses claimed and an investigation determined, flashed his badge for personal purposes.

How personal? Getting into a strip club without paying the cover, and then avoiding a credit card surcharge for lap dances personal.

This invokes what I call the Gary Hart Rule: some behavior does not merely show bad character. It displays a level of stupidity so alarming as to render the bad character secondary. It raises a serious question as to whether emergency personnel should be rushed to the scene to equip the subject with a ventilator in case he forgets to breathe.

Doubling down, Pregen denied misusing his badge, only to be confronted with photographic proof:

According to a termination letter written by Salomon, Pregen "denied having engaged in any inappropriate conduct and denied violating any office policies." However, his bosses subsequently received additional information from Levy such as a still image of Pregen flashing his badge inside Goldrush. Levy also told Mansfield that, despite being told not to return to the club, Pregen visited Goldrush February 2 "and repeated the unbecoming conduct."

On February 8, for the second time in two days, Pregen falsely denied acting a fool and abusing his position. "Because we had proof that Mr. Pregen's assertions were false and we found his statements not to be credible, Mr. Pregen was terminated," Salomon wrote.

By now you may be thinking that Ari Pregen is a pathetic figure, and that I'm rubble-bouncing.

Before you decide, consider this: Ari Pregen was the prosecutor who pursued photographer-rights activist and Photography Is Not A Crime blogger Carlos Miller — unsuccessfully. Ari Pregen is the one who argued this:

A real journalist, he explained, was supposed to follow police orders without a second thought. A real journalist would never back talk to police. A real journalist would never question a direct police order as to why he was not allowed to stand on a public sidewalk.

Character is destiny, you statist thug.

There was a time when I was confident that I knew exactly what "bully" meant.

That time was the early 1980s. Mr. T offered wisdom regarding fools and jibber-jabber. People wore their Izod collars popped, never dreaming they would rear a generation of children too dull-witted to learn from their mistake. Vice President Mondale concluded that he had a chance. Teachers gamely trained us to duck under our desks in the event of a nuclear strike like we had seen in The Day After, politely ignoring that my school was two miles from Jet Propulsion Laboratories. Nuclear war seemed like a real possibility those days, what with the Russians shooting down jetliners and Matthew Broderick being kind of a jerk and thus-and-such.

I — sartorially challenged, but not wearing any popped collars, thank you — knew plenty about bullies. I was a pudgy, clumsy, nerdy kid with — and I know this will shock you — a smart mouth. So bigger, stronger, more athletic, more popular, more socially adept kids bullied me. By that I mean, despite my best attempts to ignore and avoid them, they sought me out, singled me out, and variously pushed, tripped, punched, or slapped me, or put nacho cheese in my bookbag (you'd think you could scoop it up with chips and eat it if your books are reasonably clean, but you can't), or let the air out of the tires of the bike I rode to school, or called me derisive names for no particular reason, or snickered and hooted and mocked my reedy voice when I answered a question in class.

I was fairly comfortable with the definition of bullying including that behavior. I was resigned to the fact that there wasn't much I could do about it. At that point, at least, bullying existed on a seemingly ethereal plane imperceptible to adults. I was suspicious of cinematic training montages and didn't think that working out would turn me into a victorious bully-puncher. Nowadays some people recommend that kids offer clever comebacks; I was capable but learned that quickly that the sort of verbal salvos that satisfied me either led to more punching or sailed without apparent impact over the bullies' head like an algebra problem. So: I worked, I played with friends, I tried to be true to myself, I tried not to bully the few weaker than I, and I endured, believing that in the long run things would get better. I was right, at least in my case, as it turned out.

I knew then what bullying was. I'm not so sure I know now. I know what I think the word means, and has always meant, and ought to continue meaning. But other people seem to be trying their best to make it mean something else. People seem to want "bullying" to mean "criticizing" or "making fun of" or sometimes "disagreeing with" or "condemning" or "uttering unacceptable opinions about" or "challenging and examining."

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Noted First Amendment scholar Earnest Smith, a Democratic member of the Georgia House of Representatives, had this to say in support of his co-sponsorship of a bill that prohibits photoshopping people into nude pictures:

“No one has a right to make fun of anyone. You have a right to speak, but no one has a right to disparage another person. It’s not a First Amendment right,” he said.

This is, of course, a riotously wrong and transcendentally stupid and un-American statement.

Rep. Smith gets a certain amount of credit for the fact that the bill he is sponsoring is actually far narrower than that ridiculous proposition, criminalizing only the act of "wrongfully" creating a fake "obscene" photoshop depicting another person when a reasonable person would be fooled into thinking the picture was real. He also gets a certain amount of credit for helping to teach children that nothing that drips or slithers or plops from the mouth of a politician should be believed.

On the other hand, contrary to his oath of office, Smith is wantonly promoting abject ignorance of the most fundamental law of our nation. So: let's photoshop him. No nudes or obscene pics please. A suitable prize will be awarded to creator of the photoshop that best captures the stupid violence Rep. Smith has inflicted upon the truth about free speech.

A few starting examples below the fold.

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Today the Los Angeles Times ran a review of a book by a professor named Grace Lasdun. Lasdun describes her terrifying ordeal of being stalked by a madman. "Imagine," the review bids us, that a stalker "seemed affectionate, then convinced of a deep connection, then became furious and set upon destroying your life." The book — and review — tells the tale of how a stalker became convinced of a relationship with Grace Lasdun, then went on campaign of deranged hate, deluging Ms. Lasdun with dozens of anti-Semitic emails and an internet campaign of untruths, accusations of plagiarism, and vile communications with Lasdun's employers and colleagues. Her life was changed.

But this review asks something that is too rarely asked. What responsibility does Lasdun bear for a deranged stalker pursuing her, imagining a relationship that she did not want? Did she lead him on? Did she give the wrong signals? Does her language in describing the stalking suggest an unbecoming entitlement? "This lack of perspective," as reviewer Carolyn Kellogg calls it, calls into question the entire way Grace Lasdun describes her stalking. Kellogg explains how Lasdun's description of the stalker suggests a preoccupation with appearance and a lack of awareness of power differentials that might have contributed to the stalking — "Lasdun reveals actions that may have contributed to her problems without seeing the connections. She likes their flirtatious emails but at one point realizes they have become too much and suggests breaking off contact."

Reviewer Carolyn Kellogg also shows an admirable sense of empathy for the stalker, asking us to question "could Lasdun have managed his growing affections differently"?

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