President Biden caused a little brouhaha when he said that the pandemic is over. I think that he was trying to convey that what I called the “crisis new normal” had given way to a “normal new normal.” Indeed, life is very different than March 2020, when we didn’t know much about the virus. Remember … Continue reading The Normal New Normal in the US, Circa September 2022
I just watched the incredibly heartwarming Netflix TV series, Heartstopper. It focuses on the relationship between two teenaged high school students in England who are grappling with their sexuality. Charlie is a nerdy guy who had come out as gay and Nick is the star of the rugby team who comes to realize that he … Continue reading A Heartwarming TV Series
HBO recently presented a great two-part documentary, George Carlin’s American Dream. He started as a conventional, clean-cut comic in the 1960s, and evolved into a counterculture icon in the 1970s. He continued performing until shortly before his death in 2008. This post is another in my What I’m Reading series. Mr. Carlin really came to … Continue reading HBO Documentary on Social Critic George Carlin
What’s sex education got to do with dispute resolution? If you have to ask, maybe you should go back to high school. Wait, that’s a terrible idea. Instead, you might watch the Sex Education series on Netflix, which just dropped its third season. The premise is that an unlikely duo of high school students set … Continue reading Sex Education
Mary Pat Treuthart (Gonzaga) wrote a terrific article describing how to use the Netflix film Marriage Story to teach law students: Marriage Story: A Tale of Divorce, Love … and the Law, 45 Journal of the Legal Profession 65 (2020). You may recall my thumbnail review of the film, Somewhere Between Reasonable and Crazy, suggesting … Continue reading Teaching Dispute Resolution with a Marriage Story
Have you heard? After all the lousy movies and TV shows that provide ghastly depictions of mediation, Fox TV has produced a series, The Mediator with Ice-T that shows the public exactly how mediation works. What Judge Judy et al. do for courts, Ice-T does for mediation. Disputants tell their stories. Ice-T consults experts. Then … Continue reading Finally, A Mediation TV Program That Tells It Like It Is (Not)
Perhaps less terrifying than watching the political campaign on TV, we soon will have the chance to watch another TV treatment of so-called “mediation.” Fox will show “The Mediator with Ice-T, a weekday, half-hour legal series hosted by the veteran rapper and actor, will get a limited four-week run on Fox-owned stations, including stations in New … Continue reading The Dream-Team Of Conflict Resolution TV Shows
I recently wrote a post about the film, Marriage Story, which depicts a somewhat bad divorce. That story fit into very common negative narratives about bad divorces and divorce lawyers. Of course, there are bad divorces and divorce lawyers – though probably not as many as suggested in popular culture. Indeed, to reflect some balance, … Continue reading A Story of a Good Divorce
There’s a very common myth that all divorces are bitter cat-and-dog struggles like the movie, The War of the Roses. (Of course, many cats and dogs get along just fine, like mine do.) This myth just ain’t so. Although the couple in Marriage Story had some angry fights, they retained a reservoir of love and … Continue reading It’s Not All the War of the Roses
The very touching Netflix movie, Marriage Story, provides an unusually realistic depiction of divorce dynamics. I particularly appreciate the portrayals of the spouses and their eight year-old son, reflecting the complexity of their conflicts and their ambivalences. Both spouses are decent people – and both have their foibles. They struggle with the tension between caring … Continue reading Somewhere Between Reasonable and Crazy
