Weeknote 31, 2023

§1 Arkansas Act 372

The willingness of conservative politicians and opinion-shapers in these days of Trump to speak ignorantly, lie brazenly, and act rashly has made it worthwhile to read how judges respond when their work is challenged in court.

The latest worthwhile opinion (49-page PDF document) was written by Timothy L. Brooks, a United States District Court judge in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in response to the Arkansas legislature expanding the existing state law forbidding the provision of obscenity to minors in such a way that it would, in effect,

forbid the provision to anyone else

severely limit the access of minors to libraries and bookstores. (The legislature's re-writing of the law would have other unadvertised side effects as well, which Brooks describes in his opinion.)

§2 “A Haunting in Venice”

Casting Tina Fey as Ariadne Oliver is as perfectly right as casting Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot is perfectly wrong.