New Year – Law Street https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com Law and Policy for Our Generation Wed, 13 Nov 2019 21:46:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.8 100397344 ICYMI: Best of the Week https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/icymi-best-week-12/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/icymi-best-week-12/#respond Mon, 05 Jan 2015 17:09:59 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=31117

ICYMI, check out the Best of the Week from Law Street.

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Welcome back to work! OK, so if you’re like me you’ve been back to work for a week now, but it still feels like the first Monday after vacation doesn’t it? In case you weren’t into your normal routine of obsessively scrolling through the news last week, you can catch up on Law Street’s top three articles. Number one was brought to you by Marisa Mostek in her series about the dumbest laws in the United States–this time it was Utah and Nevada. The number two story was from Hannah R. Winsten who had five actionable ideas for making this your most feminist New Year yet. And the third most popular story of the week was an issue brief on hacking as a tool of war by Mike Sliwinski. ICYMI, here is the Best of the Week from Law Street.

#1 The Dumbest Laws in the United States: Utah and Nevada

Nevada is home to legal prostitution and Sin City. Yet, it is surprisingly not home to many stupid laws. However, its neighbor Utah makes up for that with a whole long list of weird laws on the books. Let’s start with Nevada. In Reno, sex toys are outlawed, and it is illegal to lie down on the sidewalk, no matter how drunk and tired you are. Read the full article here.

#2 Five Resolutions for a More Feminist New Year

Folks, the New Year is upon us. Time to break out your most bedazzled dress, pop the champagne, and party your way into 2015, am I right? Fuck yeah I am. But, while New Year’s Eve is a night of epic intoxication, huge crowds, and glittery debauchery (if you’re at the right party), it’s also notorious for being the pre-game to a little thing we all do every New Year’s Day. Resolution making. Read the full article here.

#3 Hacking: The New Kind of Warfare

Following the recent fiasco at Sony, hacking has been catapulted squarely into the spotlight. But hackers are doing more than just delaying movie premieres–they are causing serious damage and have the capability to cause much more. Before we get too scared of these anonymous boogeymen, however, it is important to understand what hacking is and who the hackers are. Read the full article here.

Chelsey D. Goff
Chelsey D. Goff was formerly Chief People Officer at Law Street. She is a Granite State Native who holds a Master of Public Policy in Urban Policy from the George Washington University. She’s passionate about social justice issues, politics — especially those in First in the Nation New Hampshire — and all things Bravo. Contact Chelsey at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The Top WTF Moments of 2014 https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/top-wtf-moments-2014/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/news/top-wtf-moments-2014/#comments Thu, 01 Jan 2015 15:15:39 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=30815

Check out the list of things that made us say WTF in 2014.

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Image courtesy of [Airflore via Flickr]

Well 2014 has come to a close. It was…well it was a year. A weird, occasionally amusing, mostly f’ed-up year. And now that the year has come to a close, we thought we’d give you one more dose of WTF. Without further ado, here’s a timeline of the biggest WTF moments of 2014.


February: Dexter Copycat

In February, a 19-year-old woman who’d clearly been watching way too much Dexter admitted to killing somewhere between 22-100 people, we’re still not really sure.

Nevermind the fact that that would be an incredibly impressive resume for a 19-year-old serial killer, the entire story was weird and didn’t add up, and definitely a total WTF moment. Read the full story here. 

April: Cliven Bundy 

In April, conservatives found a new cause celebre in the hands of poorly-vetted Cliven Bundy. Bundy’s beef with the government was pretty simple–he didn’t think he should have to get a permit to allow his cattle to graze on Federal land. However, the entire thing led to an insane standoff between Bundy, his friends, and some federal agents. He became the poster boy for the small-time farmer standing up to the oppressive government…and then he said a whole bunch of racist shit, including that black people may have been better off as slaves and all of his former friends ran very, very far away.

Read the full story here and here.

May: Donald Sterling

Speaking generally of racism, one of the most WTF situations was definitely the whole Donald Sterling controversy. He is, of course, the flaming asshole former-owner of the Clippers. An audio recording features Sterling asking his then-girlfriend things like “It bothers me a lot that you want to broadcast that you’re associating with black people. Do you have to?” Oh Donald Sterling, the fact that racists like you still exist and make a lot of money is a giant WTF is my book.

Read the full story here.

June: Slenderman Stabbing

In June, two preteen girls were arrested for stabbing their friend 19 times. They claimed that they were forced to do so by “Slenderman,” an internet character/urban myth. As soon as the horrific incident occurred, a lot of people wondered whether or not these girls were suffering from mental illness, could actually go to trial, and what exactly caused them to become so obsessed with “Slenderman.” As of now, they have been declared competent to stand trial. But there’s no doubt that the entire thing was incredibly creepy and very much WTF. Read the full story here.

July: Inappropriate Evidence

In the slow, hot, days of July, one story really made us scratch our heads. In Manassas, Virginia, a teenage boy was accused of sending a sexually explicit video, starring himself, to his girlfriend. But there wasn’t really any identifying information in the video, so the police tried to figure out whether or not it was a video of the young man. The only way they could think to do so was to take him into a hospital, induce an erection, and play a game of spot-the-differences with the erect penis in the video and the 17-year-old in their police station.

Read the full story here.

August: Homophobes…I Mean Homophones

In August, we saw the story of an employee at Norman Global Language Centre, Tim Torkildson, who was fired for writing a blog post on homophones. Homophones, being, of course, words that sound alike but having different meanings. Homophones, however, does contain the prefix “homo” and the Norman Global Language Center worried that it could be linked to gay sex. Never mind the horribly bigoted and ridiculous reasoning there, that’s shitty logic all around. Read the full story here.

September: Urban Outfitters and Kent State

Urban Outfitters–your go-to destination for a flower hair crown and general Coachella-inspired fast fashion–made headlines in September when it attempted to sell this sweatshirt:


Yup, that’s what you think it is. A Kent State sweatshirt, spattered with blood stains. Whether Urban Outfitters wanted to generate some controversy–and publicity–or the people who greenlit this genuinely have their heads so far up their asses they’ve lost their eyesight, I’m not sure. Either way, it was certainly a major WTF moment. Read the full story here and here.

October: California Highway Patrol

In October, a few California Highway Patrol officers were caught playing an incredibly sick game. They were stealing nude photos off of suspects’ phones while the phones were being held in evidence, and then sharing them among themselves. Oh, and then they’d text offensive sexist and lewd things to each other about said photos. Great job guys.

Read the full story here.

November: No Feeding the Homeless

In November, some attempts at good deeds ended up going horribly wrong. Two pastors and a 90-year-old man got in trouble with the law for feeding the homeless in Florida. They were all cited for violating a Fort Lauderdale ordinance, which apparently forbids anyone from feeding homeless people. While I guess it could be considered some sort of public health problem, that seems a harsh law for those trying to be a good Samaritan. Read the full story here.


It’s truly been a WTF kind of year–here’s to 2015 being better.

Anneliese Mahoney
Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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5 Resolutions For a More Feminist New Year https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/happy-2015-5-resolutions-feminist-new-year/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/happy-2015-5-resolutions-feminist-new-year/#comments Wed, 31 Dec 2014 14:30:23 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=30782

Five resolutions for a more feminist New Year in 2015.

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Folks, the New Year is upon us.

Time to break out your most bedazzled dress, pop the champagne, and party your way into 2015, am I right?

Fuck yeah I am.

PARTY

But, while New Year’s Eve is a night of epic intoxication, huge crowds, and glittery debauchery (if you’re at the right party), it’s also notorious for being the pre-game to a little thing we all do every New Year’s Day.

Resolution making.

And this is where New Year’s turns into a giant letdown.

Because who really keeps their resolutions? Who really follows through on any of this crap? Hardly any of us. But this year, loves—this year’s going to be different.

Why, you ask? Because we’re not making resolutions that are steeped in the bullshit ways of our racist, sexist, patriarchal culture, setting unreasonable standards for ourselves that we don’t even actually want to fulfill.

Nope.

This year, we’re keeping it simple. We’re keeping it real. We’re going to do this.

rob-yeah-gif

So here, my dears, are five totally rad resolutions for a more feminist New Year. Happy 2015!

1. Don’t lose weight.

BRAD

How many times have you woken up from your New Year’s Eve bender to solemnly swear that THIS YEAR, you’re going to get super healthy and drop all of your excess body fat and become a granite, kale-worshipping tower of flawless muscle tone?

Like, practically every year. Because we’re all constantly barraged by magazines, TV shows, movies, and commercials that feature super thin, Photoshopped millionaires looking unattainable and telling us that we’ll be our happiest selves if we can get our bodies to look the same way.

This year, forget it. Reject all the media bullshit that encourages you to hate your body. Give the middle finger to all the Photoshopped images that you can’t possibly replicate in real life because literally no one looks like that. Fuck all of that noise.

Instead, resolve to love yourself exactly the way you are, right now. Because you’re fucking fabulous, and owning that is a revolutionary act all to itself.

2. Learn to be a better ally.

do-it-better-o

We’ve seen it time and time again—well-meaning people in positions of privilege who want to support those of us who are on the outside, but who do so kind of terribly.

I’m talking about the white people who wore “I am Trayvon Martin” hoodies in 2013. I’m talking about the #CrimingWhileWhite movement that took over Twitter a few weeks ago. I’m talking about folks who encourage women not to walk alone at night, who chastise fat people while insisting that they’re only concerned about their health, who spend money with abandon and shame peers who can’t or won’t do the same.

If you have racial, gender, sexual, class, body, or any of the other myriad types of privilege you can possess—own it. Investigate it. Question it. Understand that you’re not Trayvon Martin. That you’re not a health or safety expert. That you don’t know the specifics of any person’s situation.

Instead, ask people in the community you’d like to ally with about how you can better support them. And then, resolve to sit down, really listen, and do it.

3. Follow your passion.

passion

What makes you as happy as this panda bear?

Resolve to do more of it.

I’m not talking about the thousand things on your to-do list that you really should do. Put that list down and walk away from it. Tear it up into tiny little pieces and burn it.

Subtract all of the things that you really should do—like learn Spanish, or read more books, or do more sit-ups—until you’re left with the one thing that you are irrationally excited to do. Or the handful of things that you’re stupid happy about doing!

We all have a tendency to spread ourselves too thin—especially in a world that encourages shorter attention spans while claiming that it’s easier than ever to accomplish more.

Fuck all that noise. Every moment that you spend feeling overwhelmed and scatterbrained is a moment that you don’t get to spend fighting the good fight.

So, resolve to give yourself license to have a shitload of fun. Do more of what—or who!—you love.

4. Practice better self-care.

self care

Are you taking care of yourself? Like, really taking care of yourself?

I’m willing to bet that more often than not, the answer to that question is no.

While you’re busy challenging yourself to love your body, become a better ally, and follow your little heart’s true desires, it’s reasonably likely that you aren’t also making time to cook healthy meals or sleep a solid eight hours. Not to mention, leaving space in your schedule to sit quietly with a good book, snuggle with your favorite people, or drink your coffee while strolling through the park.

Here’s the thing—we aren’t encouraged to take care of ourselves. We aren’t taught to stop and really appreciate our lives, ourselves, or the people who love us the most.

Instead, we’re pushed to do more, eat more, buy more, sleep less—because all of that constant energy keeps us distracted, exhausted, and unsatisfied. And who can smash the patriarchy when they’re that frazzled?

No one. So, seriously, resolve to practice better self-care this year. You’ll be amazed at how much more positive change you can affect in the world when you’re grounded and cared for.

5. Let things go.

BETTER

Finally, folks, let’s just admit it. This world is rough. It’s filled with people and messages that are constantly telling us that we aren’t good enough. And it’s ridiculously easy to internalize all that shit.

Don’t. Resolve to let that fuckery roll right off your back. Because you know what? In a world filled with negativity, inequality, and brutality, it’s a beautiful act of resistance to just be at peace, or even—gasp!—genuinely happy.

So, take a lot of deep breaths and smile, lovelies. You’ve got this.

NICKI

What do you think, people of the Internet? Can you keep these resolutions in 2015? Do you have some awesome resolution suggestions that I missed? Blow it up in the comments.

And in the meantime, have a happy, healthy, patriarchy-smashing New Year!

Hannah R. Winsten
Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Your 2014 Career Horoscope https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/the-jobs-blog/your-2014-career-horoscope/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/the-jobs-blog/your-2014-career-horoscope/#respond Tue, 07 Jan 2014 22:27:08 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=10401

Well, it seems like I’m just riding this New Year train for inspiration, huh? Last one, I promise! Just kidding…this is a two-parter. Tomorrow will be the last one…that I actually promise. One of the most trending stories on Yahoo! over the past week is the 2014 Horoscope. Below is the career advice Yahoo! gives for each sign […]

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Well, it seems like I’m just riding this New Year train for inspiration, huh? Last one, I promise! Just kidding…this is a two-parter. Tomorrow will be the last one…that I actually promise. One of the most trending stories on Yahoo! over the past week is the 2014 Horoscope. Below is the career advice Yahoo! gives for each sign and our take* on how you can translate that to your work life.

*I am not an astrologer. I don’t even read my horoscope on a weekly basis…so don’t go out and quit your jobs based on anything in this post. Thanks!

Aries

Yahoo’s Advice: If you’ve wanted to rework your image, mission statement or just reintroduce more creativity into your career, this is the year to do it, Aries! It’s time to bring more sweetness and beauty to your brand.

The Takeaway: Time for revamping yourself! Rework that resume. Update your LinkedIn. Build an online portfolio (better yet – participate in the Capitalista Contest and have us build one for you). Whether you’re switching careers or happy as a clam where you are, it’s never a bad idea to polish your image.

Taurus 

Yahoo’s Advice: 2014 starts off with Mars — the planet of drive and ambition — amping up your work zone. In fact, this aggressive planet will be running an unusually long stint in this part of your horoscope (six months to be exact). This gives you the entire first half of the year to apply your energies wholeheartedly to your work.

The Takeaway: Sounds like you have a busy six months ahead of you! Time to channel your inner Britney and work, bitch. I’m glad I’m an Aries and all I have to do is dust off the old resume. Hey, if you’re feeling extra ambitious use it while you have it. Apply for that out-of-reach job. Take a class or two. Learn a new skill. You know, work, bitch.

Gemini

Yahoo’s Advice: All work and no play was turning Gemini into one cranky camper last year. But not to worry, that level of burnout is so 2013. This doesn’t mean you’ll suddenly turn into a hedonistic slacker, but you will remember why you’ve been working so hard in the first place.

The Takeaway: Maybe it’s time to take a breather from the computer screen. A stressed employee is not always a good employee. If you feel close to burning out, that will only lead to frustration. And a frustrated employee is definitely not a good one. Enjoy something in your social life. Work on a project that’s not career related for a while.

Cancer

Yahoo’s Advice: Your worldly life and professional dreams should still feel incredibly blessed in 2014. Having the support of Jupiter in your stars backing your biggest hopes and dreams isn’t shabby. You’ll be working that influence most strongly during the first half of the year right up to your birthday until the big guy moves on to your money zone in July.

The Takeaway: Way to make us all jealous, Cancer. Don’t relax just yet, though! Just because everything is smelling like roses right now doesn’t mean that is always will be. Keep up the hard work! And when the money does come in – save, save, save.

Leo

Yahoo’s Advice: You’re the golden child in 2014, Leo! This is your year to make your next big mark on the world and take your rightful spot in the spotlight. Everything you’ve been working on for the past 12 years is ready for the pay-off zone!

The Takeaway: Like your Cancer friends, life is looking good. You also need to fight the urge for complacency though! Keep your eyes on the next prize. Now might be a good time to expand your work horizons. Look into opportunities to do more at your current company if you’re happy, look to make a move if you’re not.

Virgo

Yahoo’s Advice: This is the year for really honing in on the powers of visualization and your imagination, Virgo. Work smarter not harder in 2014, especially after July. In fact, this summer you may be ready for a serious retreat, so you may want to get as much off your plate as possible during the first half of the year. Reward yourself in the summer with a blissful escape into nature.

The Takeaway: You can pull serious hours at the office and not be content with where you are. For Virgos this is the year to plan ahead. Think as hard as you work. Make strategic moves to get ahead at work, or look into what your resume might be lacking and get yourself there. Knock off that to do list. And also, apparently, take a walk outside. But wear layers if you choose today to do it. It’s freezing.

…to be continued!

Happy Hunting!

xo The Capitalista

Alexandra Saville (@CapitalistaBlog) is the Media and Writing Specialist at Law Street Media. She has experience in the publishing and marketing worlds and started her own publishing company right out of college. Her blogs, The Capitalistaand Capitalista Careers, focus on the young and the entrepreneurial.

 

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Alexandra Saville is the Media and Writing Specialist at Law Street Media. She has experience in the publishing and marketing worlds and started her own publishing company right out of college. Her blogs, The Capitalista and Capitalista Careers, focus on the young and the entrepreneurial.

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New Career Resolutions https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/the-jobs-blog/new-career-resolutions/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/the-jobs-blog/new-career-resolutions/#comments Tue, 07 Jan 2014 02:59:42 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=10355

Happy New Year, everyone! We’re a week in…so how are those resolutions coming? One of the most popular proclamations around this time of year (behind getting to the gym more/at all, of course) is the goal of furthering your career. Below are a few examples of career oriented resolutions that will help anyone – for […]

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Happy New Year, everyone! We’re a week in…so how are those resolutions coming? One of the most popular proclamations around this time of year (behind getting to the gym more/at all, of course) is the goal of furthering your career. Below are a few examples of career oriented resolutions that will help anyone – for the hunting and for the settled.

1. Grin but don’t bear it. It’s a new year. I’m just as guilty of breaking resolutions by February 1st, but there is one that I think we all need to try our best to keep all year: positivity. A little of it never hurt anyone. Sometimes we have jobs that suck. Sometimes our boss isn’t the best. Making yourself a Debbie Downer won’t help, but job hunting might. So slap a smile on your face and do it up.

tumblr_mgzx0ykc8a1s3hileo1_400

No one wants to share a cube with this chick.

2. Plan ahead. You know that rushed feeling you get close to deadlines? That panic? The sweaty palms? The overwhelming desire to hide under your desk when you don’t feel prepared? Well, guess what! You don’t have to feel that way! You’re in control of 90 percent (rough estimate) of your procrastination anxiety. Yes, there are some stressors and deadlines that you can’t help. But chances are, if you do little things (like – gasp – managing your time) most of this can be alleviated. You might even get to snooze a little the morning of that big meeting.

3. Be a good coworker. That person at work who is a constant annoyance? Try not to care so much. Bitching about him/her doesn’t help and just adds to the stress of your day. Let’s all take a collective deep breath and try to make 2014 as enjoyable as we can.

Ready! Set! Go!

Happy Hunting!

xo The Capitalista

Alexandra Saville (@CapitalistaBlog) is the Media and Writing Specialist at Law Street Media. She has experience in the publishing and marketing worlds and started her own publishing company right out of college. Her blogs, The Capitalistaand Capitalista Careers, focus on the young and the entrepreneurial.

 

Avatar
Alexandra Saville is the Media and Writing Specialist at Law Street Media. She has experience in the publishing and marketing worlds and started her own publishing company right out of college. Her blogs, The Capitalista and Capitalista Careers, focus on the young and the entrepreneurial.

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It’s 2014 and Everything Changed! https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/its-2014-and-everything-changed/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/its-2014-and-everything-changed/#comments Thu, 02 Jan 2014 23:26:22 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=10268

Happy New Year! I need to be honest with you guys.  A lot has changed in my life since the clock struck 12 on January 1: I won the lottery, got married, started working at my dream job, and got to babysit Blue Ivy.  It’s been an awesome year already! Okay, so none of that […]

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Happy New Year!

I need to be honest with you guys.  A lot has changed in my life since the clock struck 12 on January 1: I won the lottery, got married, started working at my dream job, and got to babysit Blue Ivy.  It’s been an awesome year already!

Okay, so none of that is true (yet), but I have decided to be positive and upbeat this year. That doesn’t mean I won’t be snarky or sarcastic; just that every time I write or think something negative, I’ll try and counter it with something positive.

Fireworks

Courtesy of _Dilexa via Flickr.

 

The Bad

So far, what makes 2014 a great year is waking up to the obligatory “Happy new year!”/ “Hapye newx yeark!” texts (Lay off the booze, friends). I have yet to respond to any of these messages because I’m lazy, but I appreciate them!  As far as “Happy New Year!” drunk dials and voicemails? Let’s leave those in the past, OK?

Speaking of things I’d like to leave in the past, have you guys heard of shitlawjobs.com? In the spirit of positivity, we’ll just call it…hilariously realistic. I find this site funny because it aggregates all of the terrible job postings that many people on the job hunt view multiple times a day. It’s shocking, really.

Shocking that some of these salaries are below the poverty line for a family of 4.

Shocking that unemployed law school graduates could make more money being an uberX driver than a lawyer.

Shocking that I made more money as a barista at Starbucks in high school than some of these hourly postings.

I could go on, but you catch my drift. Pretty hurts, and so does being a law school grad who doesn’t work for a top law firm.

The Good

During these first few hours of 2014, I needed something to remove the foul taste that shitlawjobs.com left in my mouth. Luckily, Amazon suggested that I read Beyond L.A. Law: Break the Traditional “Lawyer” Mold.

This book contains more than forty essays written by professionals in various fields who happen to have law degrees. I have not read the entire book, but I did peruse a couple of the essays. Many of the writers went on to legal jobs that they love, which is cool, but not really up my alley. Some of the essayists have awesome non-legal jobs: one is an author and publisher, while others used their entrepreneurial instincts to develop or lead companies. It’s inspiring to see people use the skills law school teaches them and then transform those lessons to fit their lives.

The Takeaway

That, my friends, is what 2014 is going to be all about. Figuring out how to make sense of this degree in some sort of meaningful way.

To the ones who have it all figured out: you are awesome. In 2013 I would have been jealous, but this year I’m just happy for you. To the ones who are going to sprint over to ShitLawJobs.com and apply to every single post because a shit job is better than no job, you are better than me. I mean, I will likely apply to some of these jobs too but…ugh. I guess I was right, beggars can’t be choosers.

2014 is the year where we’ll begin to be choosey though, I know it.

Deuces, 2013! And take “twerking” and “turning up” with you. Thaaaaanks.

P.S. This is my first post using a swear word and I feel like a rebel. Watch out 2014!

Peter Davidson is a recent graduate of law school who rants about news & politics and raves over the ups & downs of FUNemployment in the current legal economy. Tweet him @PeterDavidsonII.

Featured image courtesy of [George via Flickr]

Peter Davidson II
Peter Davidson is a recent law school graduate who rants about news & politics and raves over the ups & downs of FUNemployment in the current legal economy. Contact Peter at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Happy New Year! Your Birth Control’s No Longer Covered https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/happy-new-year-your-birth-controls-no-longer-covered/ https://legacy.lawstreetmedia.com/blogs/culture-blog/happy-new-year-your-birth-controls-no-longer-covered/#comments Thu, 02 Jan 2014 23:12:15 +0000 http://lawstreetmedia.wpengine.com/?p=10276

Happy New Year, folks! Welcome to 2014. This is going to be one hell of a year — and it’s already kicked off with a bang. Not a fun, happy, feminist bang, but a bang nonetheless. During her final moments of 2013, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor signed a temporary stay on the enforcement of […]

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Happy New Year, folks! Welcome to 2014.

This is going to be one hell of a year — and it’s already kicked off with a bang. Not a fun, happy, feminist bang, but a bang nonetheless.

During her final moments of 2013, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor signed a temporary stay on the enforcement of the contraceptive coverage requirements in the Affordable Care Act. What does that mean? Basically, she just made it that much harder for women across the country to access birth control.

Sonia Sotomayor

Not your finest moment, Justice Sotomayor. Courtesy of the Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States, Steve Petteway source via Wikipedia.

Here’s how it went down. As of December 30, 2013, the Affordable Care Act requires employer-sponsored health insurance to cover birth control. So, basically, if you get health insurance on your day job’s dime, you legally cannot be prevented from using it to snag some birth control pills. Awesome.

But! As always, some folks were pretty pissed off about this. Namely, Christian folks. A whole slew of Christian-values nonprofits and businesses objected to this piece of the ACA, claiming it infringed on their religious freedom. The logic here, is that if Christian values include not supporting contraception or abortion, a Christian employer shouldn’t have to subsidize those services for its employees.

Fair enough, churchgoers. The government can’t force you to support — financially or otherwise — actions that are forbidden by your religion. That’s what religious freedom is all about, right? Getting to practice your faith freely, without anyone telling you it’s not allowed?

Yes! Absolutely. But, there’s another side to the freedom of religion coin. While the government can’t prevent anyone from freely practicing their faith, it also can’t push any particular faith on its citizens. So, while the government can’t stop Catholics from attending church on Sundays, it also can’t force Jews to celebrate Christmas. The street runs both ways.

And this is where things get tricky. While Christian organizations have a fair point — being legally forced to subsidize contraception if they’re religiously opposed to it is majorly problematic — they’re also forgetting the other side of the coin. They’re right in asserting that they can’t be forced to do anything that interferes with their religious beliefs, but they can’t, in turn, force their religious beliefs on anyone else.

And that’s the tragic flaw in their anti-Obamacare logic. If Christian businesses were given their way — and allowed to forego contraceptive coverage for their employees — they would be forcing workers to live by a set of Christian standards, unless they paid a steep price tag. What happens when the employees of a Christian company aren’t Christian themselves? What happens when they’re Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, or Atheist? Can those employees be forced to live by Christian values?

Absolutely not. Now you’re infringing on their religious freedom.

And here lies the central problem. Forcing Christian businesses to pay for contraceptive coverage might be infringing on their religious freedom — but allowing them to not pay for it might infringe on workers’ religious freedom.

It’s a lose-lose situation.

But! As per a compromise cooked up by the Department of Health and Human Services, there seemed to be a solution. Under this plan, Christian companies and nonprofits had to sign a form stating their religious affiliation, and instead of paying for contraceptive coverage themselves, the insurers paid for it, and were reimbursed.

yay

Yay solutions!

Awesome! Way to use your problem solving skills, people. This way, religiously opposed employers don’t have to pay for contraception, but employees can still access those services if they choose.

But, this wasn’t good enough for many a Christian employer. Signing a form was, apparently, too much to ask. So lawsuits poured in. And Justice Sotomayor was sympathetic.

So, with the hourglass running down on 2013, she signed a mandate preventing this piece of the law being enforced. What does that mean? Religious employers can deny workers contraceptive coverage. For folks working at Christian institutions, birth control will only be an option if they can afford to pay a whole ton of money out of pocket. Which really means, birth control won’t be an option at all.

kristenwiigThe Obama administration has until tomorrow to respond. From there, we’ll all just have to wait around for the Supreme Court to make a final decision sometime this summer, after it’s had a chance to sift through all of the case filings. And, mind you, things aren’t looking too good on that front, considering this problem was brought about by one of the most feministy of Justices. If Sotomayor is making it hard for women to access birth control, who the fuck is going to make it any easier?

We’re looking at you, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The tricky business of religious freedom has been a constant roadblock for women and feminism. What do you think about this latest Obamacare battle?

Hannah R. Winsten (@HannahRWinsten) is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow.

Featured image courtesy of [Parenting Patch via Wikipedia]

Hannah R. Winsten
Hannah R. Winsten is a freelance copywriter, marketing consultant, and blogger living in New York’s sixth borough. She hates tweeting but does it anyway. She aspires to be the next Rachel Maddow. Contact Hannah at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Happy New Year! Your Birth Control’s No Longer Covered appeared first on Law Street.

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