Alejandro Manevich @tritelaw

@sez @bgcarlisle This is a problem that I still haven't figured out despite over six months of use (intermittent, tbh). I think part of the challenge is that #hashtags aren't used very much, but it's all but impossible to search content without them.

And, I deactivated the #birdsite account for good, at last. I couldn't ever find a healthy use level: it was either black hole time sink or #FOMO #anxiety, plus yo-yoing dopamine didn't play nicely with mental/emotional #health #recovery. I finally accepted that no, I wasn't doing it wrong, and yes, all of that is a feature, not a bug.

For those comparing President #Trump to former Toronto mayor Rob Ford, yesterday was his "I've got more than enough to eat at home" moment. Marx's aphorism has been turned on its head: history is repeating itself first as farce, then as tragedy.

It all reminded me of the cruelest excesses of adolescence, like an online Lord of the Flies. Or a "high school cafeteria", as this piece puts it. Regardless of metaphor, though, I doubt the effect is limited to US politics. https://theweek.com/articles/702389/twitter-destroying-america

I did see one person who dared suggest that all this was edging into abuse. For her trouble, she was accused of elitist sympathies, "silencing" & "tone-policing". So much for the myth of Canadian politeness.

Breaking point for me was the recent merciless shaming of a hapless Toronto journalist, apparently for the crime of not checking her privilege. I'll concede her article came off as tone deaf, but I thought the mob's glee in flaying her for it was chilling. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2017/06/01/toronto-lifes-reno-from-hell-shines-a-light-on-the-housing-plight-of-the-poor-in-parkdale-keenan.html

Seems like the perfect metaphor -tragic and surreal - to describe the pervasive culture of smug incivility & callous indifference, and how people accept it as normal, at least when directed against those they disagree with.

"Twitter lately is like a sadness gauntlet filled with clowns and Nazis, and the light at the end of it is your house on fire." Yeah, that pretty well sums up my feelings too. https://www.fastcompany.com/40430620/this-man-spent-a-year-exploring-competitive-punning-subculture

I largely stopped using the birdsite about three weeks ago. I felt weirdly guilty about it, as though the 90 or so actual flesh & blood people following my account would feel so terribly bereft. (Ridiculous: that's anxiety talking, not reality.)

Un sábado tranquilo: yo tomo un buen #mate, mientras mi hijita menor (6 años) mira #Anteojito y Antifaz, que es–esta semana–su DVD favorito. #Argentina #castellano #animación #GarcíaFerré #Tíotíotío https://mastodon.club/media/dqtBe_kybPcgtUZPJEk

Interesting twist: does this indirectly chip away at logic of #SCC 2014 holding in Kazemi v Iran, that torture by foreign state officials is nonetheless ipso facto a governmental act, & therefore #stateimmunity must shield those officials from suit in Canada? https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc/doc/2014/2014scc62/2014scc62.html

Ontario Sup Ct last week: Torture can never fall within exercise of statutory duty, so can't benefit from shorter limitation period for acts of public authorities. Facts of case are appalling: extreme medical experiments on NCR psychiatric patients. #law #torture #humanrights https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2017/2017onsc3397/2017onsc3397.html

@Andrew I suppose I should add that I am currently looking to leave private practice. Frankly, with a decade and a half of practice and one failed law firm under my belt, I am more than ready for something else. #HeenanBlaikie

@Andrew I qualified first in Quebec and practised very briefly in Montreal, but moved to Toronto after a year, and have been here since. I'm originally from Boston, actually, but I've been in Canada since 1992.

@Andrew When I started law school (1996), all the Canadian common law schools gave LLBs. In the last few years, many of them have renamed it to JD, following the US. It was always the same degree; we were just more traditionalist about it. Seems apt: after all, we were the colonies that stuck with Britain during that revolutionary unpleasantness all those years ago...

@Andrew Oh, and full disclosure: I do not have a JD! My alma mater (McGill Law) is old school about this, and continues to call the degree LLB.

@Andrew I should do a proper introduction toot, shouldn't I? Is there a standard protocol for that? I have been all over the map in my 15 years of practice, but if I had to choose one area, it would be public, regulatory & administrative law. It's where I've had the most fun.

@DearMsDear @gargron (I asked my six year old daughter for a big smiley face, and she chose that one.)