Grappling with the Hard Issues

A new reader to this blog (and my other blog The Union Lawyer) asked two very good questions:

1. Is it "to wit" or is it "to whit"?

2. Where does the kerfuffle over Flightplan fit in these blogs? Who gets first blogging rights to it?

These are pretty hard hitting questions. The answers:

1. "To wit". In the future, I will be more careful with my idiomatic toss-offs.

2. I think the Flightplan boycott discussion belongs in this blog, if it belongs anywhere. I feel this way for a couple of reasons. It's celebrity news, so unless it concerns Sandra Feldman's passing, then The Union Lawyer probably won't blog about it. And Sandra Feldman, godresthersoul, was not really a celebrity. The other reason is, this boycott is annoying. (Sub-reason: I like Jodie Foster.) People can tell the difference between real flight attendants and fake-ass flight attendants in a movie, and flight attendants should not getting all heroic over nothing, i.e. this movie. This boycott does nothing to illuminate the labor struggles of workers in the airline industry (which are legion) and everything to (a) publicize this movie and (b) make the flight attendants' union look like they are pitching a fit til their next order of bon-bons arrives. Not that I think flight attendants eat bon-bons or anything (although a publicized boycott of this website might get it some actual readers), but you can well picture the scene.

I would just note that labor lawyers did not boycott Enemy of the State, even though Will Smith was a labor lawyer in that movie (okay, so he was the good guy), and his labor lawyer bosses and clients were protrayed as weak or mafioso. I recognize that my point is not well-made by this comparison. But I recommend this tagline from Enemy of the State to the Flight Attendants: "It's not paranoia if they're really after you."

In the case of the Flightplan boycott, I say this: Flight attendants: they are not after you; it's paranoia.