check out the cookie curmudgeon
February 05, 2005
For a take on the Colorado Cookie Kids that is not as half-baked as you'll find in the major media, and the blogiverse (e.g., Walter and Fedster; Denver Post story; ABCNews/GMA), see the cookie curmudgeon checks in (f/k/a, Feb. 5, 2005). skepticalEsq presents a fuller version of the facts (Durango Herald, "Friendly gesture ends in court" (Feb. 5, 2005), offers some advice to the young women involved, and concludes:
Do those who mock this case and want to cuddle the baking duo have suggestions about what the justice system did wrong here? Do they doubt that the cookie-delivery incident caused Young's anxiety attack and that her medical expenses were reasonable? Do they think the girls acted with reasonable care? That they are too young to understand that they did something good in an irresponsible manner? Do they doubt that an in-person apology would have ended all this without a day in court?
- Their parents and their lawyer should have insisted the girls head over to the Young home and apologize.
Suggesting that this episode means no one should act kindly toward neighbors or strangers, or that doing so in a thought-full, thought-through manner raises unacceptable risks of being sued, is simply asinine. Almost any case can be made to sound like a miscarriage of justice, or a symbol of what's wrong with our society or legal system, if you leave out enough facts. I have little hope for the main-stream media, but I wish my weblawg colleagues would try a little harder to present cases in a fair manner.