THE BEST AND WORST OF HUMANITY

The Damar Hamlin incident last Monday night at Paycor Stadium is getting intense attention, as it should.  I saw this Opinion piece on Cincinnati.com that did a nice job of highlighting the amount of decency that shone through this tragic event.  According to the author, the reactions to Hamlin’s injury restored her faith in humanity.  I agree.  I’m so sorry that Hamlin and his family had to go through this. But I am inspired by the players who looked out for one another and the outpouring of support from across the country.  It is reason to be optimistic.

And that ray of hope was especially welcome in a week that showed us that people can be unbelievably callous and uncaring.  Just last week, a Connecticut judge suspended for six months the law license of Norm Pattis, an attorney for Alex Jones. Pattis allegedly released confidential files that included the personal medical records of several Sandy Hook families during the libel trial that took place there in 2022.

This is the quote that caught my eye:

“We cannot expect our system of justice or our attorneys to be perfect but we can expect fundamental fairness and decency. There was no fairness or decency in the treatment of the plaintiffs’ most sensitive and personal information, and no excuse for [Pattis’] misconduct.”

We saw last week the uplifting effect of fundamental fairness and decency, and we saw the ugliness that comes from unfairness and indecency.  Let’s hope we see more of the former in 2023.