Covington Public Works: Fill & Download for Free

This is the most interesting defamation case in recent memory, and presents difficult questions on many issues:Going in reverse, it's obvious that the kids/school suffered real, and long-term, damage. Even weeks after the truth about this matter came out, there are still hateful individuals out there talking about how the Covington kid is “obviously an asshole” and his school is a “training ground for bigots” etc. (Seriously, I saw this on Facebook just yesterday.) A lot of people bought a false narrative about what happened, and in an era where no one admits error (most coverage, for example, eventually switched to how things were “more nuanced” than originally reported, not that Nathan Phillips's story was objectively untrue in many ways), we just move on to the next faux controversy. People have received death threats, are still being maligned on social media, etc. So if the plaintiffs get the chance to prove their damages in full, the total figure is going to be a doozy.But the challenges for the case start at the beginning, which is that defamation requires a false statement in order to be actionable. For those of you who are old enough to remember, Richard Jewell, the falsely accused 1996 Olympic bomber, received significant settlements from media outlets that reported he was on the verge of being arrested for the crime and repeated false claims about his employment history/personal life. That's an easier case of defamation than what we have here, which is something distinctly of the internet era. That is, following their cues from the national media expressing outrage at the students, social justice hate mobs went on Twitter and other forums to parrot their disgust over the Covington kids and their school/teachers. It all brought to mind a Maoist struggle session, but under American law, opinions are not actionable, even if they are damaging/misleading. Even if it's grossly irresponsible to look at an image of someone you've never met and try to analyze the meaning of his “smirk,” saying that you believe a young man is privileged/a jerk/needs punching/is a terrible human being is all protected speech. That's the big problem for the plaintiffs, that most of what got out of hand in this process wasn't a lie per se, but rather, people repeating hyperbolic and ill-informed opinions and then building upon them with their own.Now that being said, there were some legitimate untruths reported about the Covington incident, with most of them coming from Nathan Phillips, so it's not as though there's nothing for the plaintiffs to sue on. But my guess is that Phillips isn't rolling in dough, so he's probably not an ideal defendant. Instead, the plaintiffs have sued the media outlets, such as the Washington Post, that uncritically repeated Phillips’s story. The next problem for the plaintiffs is that it's unclear that any one particular falsity damaged them. Again, to go back to Richard Jewell, when NBC falsely claimed that law enforcement already had a case against Jewell but was perfecting it before making an arrest, it's easy to trace a lie to its origin. But here, the damage was caused by millions of people getting themselves worked up about how this event made them feel, not the particular facts involved. It's unclear whether the damages stemming from a single source are significant.The next issue is what state of mind is required to prove defamation. The Covington students were not well known prior to this event, and while it's debatable, I don't believe that merely attending a public event makes someone a public figure for the purpose of defamation law. Therefore, the plaintiffs will likely be entitled to some damages if they can show negligence (mistake) by the publisher. This should be an easy hurdle to clear, but again, for the reasons stated above, it's unclear how much damage any one report caused in this fiasco. In order to get larger damages, such as a punitive award, the plaintiffs will have to prove actual malice, i.e., that the publisher knew it was lying and/or recklessly disregarded the truth. Knowing falsity seems unlikely here based on the facts as I know them, but it's possible that some outlets recklessly disregarded the truth. Either way, this is a high bar to clear, and we shouldn’t assume it will be met, as most defamation suits fail here.Finally, there's the question of libel per se, which allows presumed damages for certain types of defamation that are known to be bad. I don't practice in Kentucky—whose law would presumably apply here—so I don't know precisely what allegations qualify there, but I wouldn't think that calling someone privileged or even racist would make the cut. Still, if plaintiffs can find a way to combine the negligence standard above with libel per se, they could have a route to larger damages.In sum, it appears as though the Covington plaintiffs have some case, which likely means that, as with Jewell, there will eventually be settlements, but my guess is that they will be far short of the $250 million presently sought.

I think this is a great example of everything that is currently wrong with America.Let’s assume for a moment that all of the critics of this teenager are correct in every respect. Let’s say he walked up to the Native American and started a confrontation. Let’s say he taunted him and chanted “build that wall.” Let’s say his facial expression was truly insufferable. Let’s say he was wearing a MAGA hat, and hell, let’s throw in a “Lock Her Up” button to boot.Now, I know there’s extended video footage of the encounter which puts this in a different light, but let’s just assume. Call it a hypothetical.Assuming all that?Who gives a ****?Nobody was killed. Nobody went to the hospital. As near as I can tell, there wasn’t even physical contact.We are literally talking about an incident which is less violent and less meaningful than a kindergartner's playground spat.“Teacher, teacher! Sammy called me a doo-doo head!”Try to wrap your head around how catastrophically messed-up the world must be for this to qualify as national news?This is the state of America. Perpetual outrage.Listen, I’ve worked as a teacher. I’ve been a youth counselor. I spend a significant amount of time with teens. I can’t believe I’m the only one.Newsflash: teenagers don’t have great social skills.Shocking, right? Appalling! However will the nation go on now that we’ve firmly established, with video evidence, that a teenager was once *gasp* rude to an elderly man?Oh, and let’s bring up his stupid hat! Because heaven forbid an entire country fail to notice his poor fashion sense!And remember, I’m assuming that the video isn’t edited to be misleading, and assuming that the news which is reporting on it is accurate.Even assuming that all the negative publicity this has gotten is the literal gospel truth, I am still appalled by the sheer audacity of those who are tying to pass this off as a headline.I don’t like Trump, and so I want to disbelieve him when he opens his mouth about “fake news” but you guys are making it really hard.In any other generation, running a headline like this would be considered tabloid journalism fit only for a rag paper next to “Kim Kardashian’s new jogging outfit” Hell, at least Kim is a celebrity. At least there’s a reason for the papers to think people might want to hear what she’s wearing on a given day.But, of course, the media isn’t stupid. They’re not creating this frenzy, they’re just capitalizing on it. You know why stupid-maga-hat-boy is making news? Because newspapers realize we’re buying it.This is our fault. We are the ones supplying the demand for this frankly insane diet of outrage. Because heaven forbid we wake up one morning without that little angry feeling in our stomachs because there’s one disrespectful teenager somewhere in America.So you want to know how I feel about that video? It makes me furious.I think that video is everything that’s wrong with this country.Because it’s proof that substantial portions of the human race have nothing better to do than to find a stranger halfway across the country to be angry at.I want to believe our society is better than a three-year-old having a temper tantrum. But some days, it’s hard.

Between 1996 and 2009, I lived in the Bay area three times. In 2009, we moved back to the panhandle of Florida for the last time.The first time I lived in the Bay area was in 1996-98. I lived in hotels and a tiny apartment in Palo Alto. I worked as a management consultant for Accenture and traveled back home every weekend or two. I got to know a lot of people and was exposed to the startup world for the first time. Exciting.The second time, in 1999, I moved my family to Mountain View. We lived in a 2BR condo near a busy street. It cost 2X as much as the 5BR house we had in FL.I left my consulting job to join a young software company that really took off during the Y2K boom. We were building and selling eCommerce software as fast as it could be written. It was a 24x7 grueling job, similar to the startup grind in the Valley.During this period (1999-2001), I didn't do much except work. But my wife made good friends with a few other families who had also recently moved there to 'go for the gold'. My wife and I used to joke that Silicon Valley was just 'Hollywood for geeks'. In a lot of ways, it really is. Just replace 'actors' with 'programmers', and substitute 'VC' for 'producer''.Luckily, our company was acquired for $9 billion on the day the Nasdaq last peaked (talk about luck!). I made a ton of money on stock options. Enough to retire on.Whoo-hoo!So, we moved back home to Florida with dreams of boating and raising our children in a small beach town, which is how I grew up.But I got bored. And two hurricanes slammed our small community. We lost our home and our elementary school for a while.Then, my old boss from CA called and made me an offer I couldn't refuse.My third gig in Silicon Valley was during 2006-2009. I took a job to build a new online business for a public company.So, we packed up the truck and moved to Los Altos... Hills, that is.We lived in a 7,000 sq ft Los Altos Hills mansion that was 3 miles from work. We rented it for less than the property tax payment. But that was during a bust cycle...On the surface, everything about my life looked like the storybook ending of a successful Silicon Valley career:I had an awesome job building a new business with people I respected and thoroughly enjoyed working with. We built a fantastic business. Our office was on the corner of El Camino and Castro Street.My kids went to Covington Elementary, one of the best in the state.I made $600,000 a year, with much larger performance bonuses looming over the next few years.Some of our best friends and colleagues to this day still live in the Valley.We took lots of weekend trips to Tahoe, Napa, Los Angeles, Hawaii...But...Real life - and a desire to raise our children in a healthier environment - prompted us to walk away from our perfect life for a less exciting (and more satisfying) life in the panhandle of Florida.Some of the reasons we left CA include the challenges many parents face living in the Valley:CA schools are terrible; even though our kids went to one of the best public schools in CA, by our estimates they lost over a year's worth of science and math education. We realized this pretty quickly after we moved there; later, when we moved back, both of our straight-A kids struggled to catch back up to their FL public school peers.strange social norms: my wife and I were raised in the South, where weekends are for family gatherings and house parties - events where work isn't discussed; instead, family, food and football dominate our time. In CA, though, pretty much everyone works HARD, so the only thing people seem to talk about is work, work, work. Every party was a networking opportunity. Few people slowed down enough to get to know each other as human beings. A lot of people were trying to become someone else. And way too many people are trying to prove how smart or how powerful they are. I'm not the most social person in the world, but this made me avoid social gatherings at all costs.disfunctional families: I've lived in a lot of places, and CA tops the list for bad parenting behavior. In all fairness, a lot of it is probably caused by the need for both parents to work all the time. As a result, many of our kids' best friends were being raised by nannies or simply left alone at home until dinner, or later. Some parents left their kids with nannies to take weekend trips. Like, once or twice a month. Let's just say that this type of parenting may not produce warm, loving and trusting human beings.taxes: I know I sound like a 1% brat saying this, but CA taxes are really high. When I added up the sales tax, property tax, income tax and special CA-only surplus taxes, I was giving about half of our gross income to the fine State of CA and to the US government. Florida taxes are far less, partly because you need much less $ to live on, so your income tax brackets are more favorable.cost of housing: we lucked out and snagged an awesome rental home at a good price, but to stay in the same school district, we were looking at buying a $2-3 million home. For a larger home in a better school district in FL, you're talking $600k.I was also motivated to return to FL for family reasons.My brother, who also lives in FL, took a new job in Africa. As a result, my aging mother was left without local family support. This was the straw that broke the camel's back, for me.But the tension of living in CA was already there. My wife and I were already questioning if we wanted to raise our children in Silicon Valley.Moving back to the panhandle of Florida was certainly a bad financial decision for us - in hindsight, I walked away from millions.Yet, I still feel great about our decision. Hard to really know, but I believe that my family is happier and healthier today than they would have been, living in 'Daddy's playground'. I certainly know my kids much better now than I would have, had we stayed.Today, I only miss four things about Silicon Valley:the professional spirit and the can-do attitude of the business community. It's a magnificent place to build something new. I miss working with so many brilliant, hard charging people.the summer weather (FL is brutal)the diversity of people, food and culture; Florida is pretty diverse, but the restaurant & cultural scene in San Francisco is second to none.my friends, several of whom continue to flourish as winning entrepreneurs (while I watch from afar... sniff)I do NOT miss the money.This weekend, I am looking forward to spending lazy hours with my family and friends, celebrating my son's high school graduation and talking about food, family and boating ('cause there's no football on right now).And no one will talk about work ;-)