This isn’t really so much of a legal situation as it is just a general evaluation of a parenting technique. ReShonda Tate Billingsley punished her child when she found a picture on Facebook of her kid holding a picture of vodka — while saying she wished she could drink it. ReShonda drew a sign that said “Since I want to post photos of me holding liquor I am obviously not ready for social media and will be taking a hiatus until I learn what I should + should not post. BYE-BYE.” and had her child hold the sign while she took a picture of it. Do you think that is too tough of a punishment?
I think the bigger issue is why her teenage daughter wants to drink vodka, not so much that she posted the picture to Facebook. I am hoping that the mom is addressing that piece of things but I think the punishment is a good idea. ReShonda made a comment that if she had just grounded her, 20 minutes later she would have forgotten the punishment and that this punishment was fitting the behavior. I completely agree as it is important I think for anyone to understand the consequences of social media. Interesting technique but I do think it will work. Thoughts, anyone?
Wooooow. Usually I don’t throw out the “wow” with the extra o’s but even I am surprised about this one. I have a video I am going to post about John Travolta and things are moving so fast with this situation that it is hard to keep up. As most of you may know, John Travolta was sued by two different men alleging that Mr. Travolta, well, was inappropriate during his massage(s). Long story short, the attorney representing both plaintiffs told one of them to get a new attorney. One went with Gloria Allred and then eventually the other followed suit but both claims have been dropped. The claims were dismissed with prejudice so they are not barred from bringing a claim if they want to but NOW, guess who else is getting sued! Gloria Allred. The initial attorney is claiming Ms. Allred stole his clients.
Talk about crazy. It is pretty easy to figure out that if one plaintiff went to Gloria Allred that the other would follow suit (no pun intended). The ego of the other attorney is kind of comical. Maybe he needs a good massage.
I love lottery tickets. I also love Vegas. I am not a big gambler but I love playing a few slot machines every now and then. I don’t, however, dig in the trash for lottery tickets to see if maybe a thrown away ticket might be a winner.
A women in Arkansas made a ritual practice of searching trashcans for discarded tickets, scratch off tickets, etc and actually found a ticket that was for ONE MILLION DOLLARS. Can you imagine? Talk about a lucky find! Not so fast because the woman who initially bought the ticket decided to claim the ticket and says she is entitled to the money.
In order to claim the “finders keepers” law so to speak, the item needs to actually be abandoned. The woman who bought the ticket said the machine told her she didn’t win but the machine was actually broken. Is that de facto abandonment? The court didn’t agree and the woman who initially bought the ticket is entitled to her winnings.
I kind of like the idea of a woman searching the trash to find her millions. Too bad the court disagreed.
Guess who is in NYC. Me. Guess who found a place that sells mini pies! Me. I may or may have not tried the chocolate mini pie. I am a big fan of desserts — usually chocolate or cheesecake and rarely Nutella. Why do I mention Nutella? Nutella is made by Ferrero, an italian confectionary group and they were on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit by a woman who sued them after discovering that nutella chocolate spread had more calories than jam or syrup. Is it just me or isn’t that obvious? Strawberry jam or Nutella? Oh definitely Nutella since I am trying to keep my girlish figure. No. Nutella is CHOCOLATE. How someone would think that Nutella would be the obvious lower calorie choice makes no sense to me. The first article I read about this case didn’t have too much detail so I had to investigate further.
Apparently Nutella was advertising that their product was somewhat healthy so the lawsuit was about deceiving the public since the product actually has as many calories as a candy bar (which, you can easily read on the label). They settled for 3.5 million which means roughly $4 – $20 to any person that had the product during the time in which the lawsuit was alleged.
Sigh. This is a case where I get that it is frustrating to feel like you are eating something you were told was healthy but then you find out it isn’t….but a lawsuit is one step too far. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to perhaps question how healthy a chocolate spread could actually be. It is pretty self-explanatory. BUT, what if you saw this commercial?
http://youtu.be/ThIrw_LpuRA (I also posted it in its own separate post below)
Now suddenly this case gets interesting. Even after watching this, I still thought — seriously? Nutella as a healthy breakfast for kids? Even when I look at products that “seem” healthy or are advertised as such, I can always look at the ingredients to really get a sense of things. I champion the idea that it would be fantastic if all advertising was created to give the honest truth to the consuming public but we all know there are tricks to the trade that entice us to buy. It is one thing if it was called carrot delight and you found out it was super unhealthy but Nutella is used in desserts and doesn’t lend itself to some type of healthy concept. Moral to the story is don’t feed your kids Nutella for breakfast and if you want to have chocolate cake, just have it and call it a day.
I’m going to the airport in a week or so. I don’t always enjoy the airport process, particularly the part when I arrive at my destination to find that piece of paper in my suitcase that lets me know that someone searched my bag. I am not sure if it would be better to watch someone search through my bag while I was standing there but I don’t really like getting home later to find out that it actually happened.
In light of the story about John Tyner, the man who refused to be searched at the airport in San Diego, it does make me re-think the whole airport process. I have only had to go through the process one time where they puffed the air on me — where you stand in the glass corner and they puff air, sort of like you are at the tanning salon except you are not getting tan — and my sister laughed at me as we thought it was kind of amusing. However, it certainly does seem like an invasion of privacy knowing that some machine gets to look through your insides just because you want to take a trip. Even though I am not a fan of the process, I still would rather have that process than nothing at all.
In a strange twist, the man I think of as being a total slut of a governor, actually does have a spine. Eliot Spitzer is in a movie. Client 9 is a documentary about his rise and mainly his fall from grace. I have watched the trailer and interestingly enough, Mr. Spitzer actually does talk about what happened and from what I can tell, his views on his mistakes. I am curious to see how much more Mr. Spitzer has to say other than what I saw in the trailer. It is oddly refreshing to see him be able to actually address what he did, rather than running away from it.
I noticed on the Huffington Post today that they are dedicating a site to being divorced. I know a lot of people are divorced and I guess it is a helpful site but I wish there could be a site dedicating to getting people back together (I am sure there is one but nothing is coming to mind at the moment). When I started practicing law, I always said I couldn’t practice family law because I would always help the people get back together. I know there are those relationships that are not meant to be but I wish there could be more information dedicated to people staying together and how to make a relationship stronger, rather than ways to get out. Even though I find it stunning that Eliot Spitzer’s wife was able to stand next to him as he apologized at a news conference, she was somehow able to make it work. I don’t agree with the choice but it was still her choice nonetheless to stay together rather than break apart. Interesting I think. Very interesting. I am hoping they interview her in the movie.
Let's make the law entertaining, shall we? 
