Behold the cover of DC Universe Holiday Special #1, published not so long ago in 2008. We find it appropriate for the occasion. Our question: Where’s Batman?

In 1964, famed writer Isaac Asimov penned a piece in The New York Times predicting what life might be like in 2014. To read that fascinating article, click here. Three years ago, in December of 2010, we commented upon a series of New York Times articles written in 1931 predicting the world of 2011. (Hat tip: Treehugger).

Here’s one we ought to read: “16 Habits That Are Killing Your Productivity and How to Fix Them.” (Hat tip: Lee Rosen).

Our favorite tweet of the week: “Decided against being the first attorney to be subject to an objection for wearing Google Glass in a deposition.” (Via @BytePatent).

Of late, we’ve been enjoying the Libation Law Blog, which bills itself as a source for “[n]ews, insight and commentary on liquor law and legal developments in alcohol regulation, and the brewing, winemaking, and distilling industries.” It’s run by Ashley Brandt, an attorney in Chicago with Freeborn & Peters LLP. (We note with interest that Mr. Brandt features a Christopher Hichens quotation on his official firm bio.).

Well, this is our last edition of Friday Links before the Christmas holidays, so we had to bring you the cover above, that of Batman #33 (published way, way back in 1946). Surely, Batman and Robin have been things to be doing, right? I mean, isn’t Alfred the butler employed to handle this very type of situation? Something is askew.

Over at his Torts Blog, Alberto Bernabe directs our attention to some songs about tort reform.

We’re pleased to see that Jeff Richardson at the iPhone J.D. blog fondly remembers the days of computer BBSs. For more on that, see here. Those were definitely the days.

Oscar Ramallo of The Hollywood Reporter offers this piece: “In Search Of A Lawsuit-Proof Band Name.”

Ron Nixon of The New York Times reports on the departure of Inez Tenenbaum as the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.  Her term expired in November. Tenenbaum, as you might recall, is a South Carolina lawyer.

Congratulations to GWB’s Curtis Ott, a partner in our Columbia, South Carolina office, who was recently sworn in as President of the South Carolina Defense Trial Attorneys Association (SCDTAA). For more information, see here.

Jennifer Johnsen, a partner in our Greenville, South Carolina office and the chairperson of our firm’s diversity committee, published an op-ed this week entitled “5 Strategies for Promoting Diversity in the Workplace.”

“There’s the jewel thief — He’s escaping in the stolen ‘Flying Patrolman ‘Copter!” yells someone on the cover of Mr. District Attorney #60, published way, way back in 1957. Here’s our question: Why is the district attorney on the roof of the building apparently chasing a jewel thief? Isn’t he making himself a witness to a crime which would preclude him from prosecuting the thief?

It is Friday the 13th. Yikes. We thought about using the cover of one of the many Friday The 13th comic book adaptations in today’s post, but they were all too violent.

Okay, so, Macaulay Culkin released a pizza themed tribute to the Velvet Underground. Much confusion followed. Take a listen right here.

What happens when a brewery sues a moonshine maker for trademark infringement? See here. (Hat tip: Beer Pulse).

Thanks to the TortsProf blog for linking our recent interview with Professor William Janssen.

Rest in peace, T.R. Fehrenbach. If you’re into Texas history, you must go read his masterpiece, Lone Star: A History Of Texas And The Texans.

You know, we usually feature law inspired comic book covers in our weekly edition of Friday Links, but today, we thought we’d showcase a legal themed beer label. What better name for a beer than voter fraud? Apparently, Asheville, North Carolina’s own Burial Beer Company teamed up with Oskar Blues Brewery – the Colorado brewery with a heavy presence in Western North Carolina – to create this new concoction. Unfortunately, we’ve yet to try it! For more on the Voter Fraud beer, see here and here.

Headline of the Week: “The Hells Angels Are Surprisingly Litigious.” Now those will be some eventful depositions, we suspect.

You can check out the December 2013 issue of the South Carolina Bar News here! On pages 18 and 19, you can see our own Stuart Mauney’s article on “Revisiting The Lawyers’ Epidemic: Why Lawyers Are Vulnerable To Depression, Suicide, And Substance Abuse.” (That article originally appeared right here at Abnormal Use back in October of this year.)

Samantha Gilman of The Charlotte Observer reports: “Workplace injuries and illnesses drop in North Carolina.”

Get this: A blog called iClass cited our prior post on a federal court using the word “selfie” in a judicial opinion. How about that?

We hope you are continuing to enjoy your Thanksgiving weekend. Above, you’ll find the cover of Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories #63, published way, way back in 1945.

Well, the November issue of the G-Bar News, the official publication of the Greenville, South Carolina Bar Association is out. Click here to read the full issue in PDF format! Check out page 3 of the newsletter for an announcement related to our firm being honored with the 2013 Defense Research Institute’s Law Firm Diversity Award as well as our recent ranking as a “Best Law Firm” by U.S. News & World Report. Then check out page 6 for a “Young Lawyer Profile” of our own Amity Edmonds, one of our workers compensation attorneys in our Greenville office.

News Flash: The updated versions of the U.S. District Court for the District Court of South Carolina’s Local Civil and Criminal Rules – with revisions through November 15, 2013 – can now be found online here.

More GWB news: The South Carolina Bar Young Lawyers Division Foundation just elected our own Lindsay Joyner to its Board of Governors. Lindsay is an associate in our Columbia office.

South Carolina lawyers, please take note that the Souther Carolina Supreme Court has revised the standard subpoena for use in civil cases. The new form can be found here.

Congrats to Jeff Richardson of the iPhone J.D. blog on five years of legal blogging! That is a huge accomplishment. Way, way back in January of 2011, we interviewed Jeff about legal technology issues, and you can revisit that interview here. Later that year, in June of 2011, we met Jeff – as well as legal blogging guru Ernie Svenson – in New Orleans (about which Ernie wrote here).

Today, November 22, 2013, is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In the days and weeks leading up to this somber occasion, you’ve probably seen dozens – perhaps hundreds – of news stories both about the legacy of President Kennedy as well as the most minute details related to his tragic death. We encourage our readers interested in these topics to visit Twitter today, as we are quite certain that it will offer as much information as anyone could ever read.  Here at Abnormal Use, our own Stuart Mauney is a bit of a history buff.  He offers these thoughts on this day:

Where were you when JFK was assassinated 50 years ago today?  I was two years old, probably sitting in front of our TV watching “The Three Stooges” or “Captain Kangaroo.”  At some point, years later, I became fairly obsessed with the assassination and the Kennedy family.  I remember Bobby Kennedy’s body being carried by train after he was killed.  I watched intently as Ted Kennedy tried and failed to win the presidency.  And, I have read several of the hundreds (thousands?) of books on the JFK assassination.  After reading all of that, and watching some of the TV documentaries this week, I have concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman and that there was no conspiracy.  There are many unanswered questions and some inconsistencies, but they do not equal a conspiracy by the CIA, Cuba or the mafia to take down our president.  Do you agree?  Let us know.

There are those of us at Abnormal Use inclined to agree with Stuart. After all, if one places a large historical event under a microscope, inconsistencies are bound to surface. For a truly excellent take on that point, you must watch “The Umbrella Man,” a six minute documentary by filmmaker Errol Morris profiling one of the witnesses in Dallas that fateful day. But, as Stuart requested, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Of course, there are comic books dedicated to the legacy of President Kennedy.  Above, you’ll find the cover of John F. Kennedy published by Dell Comics in the mid-1960’s, likely 1964. Below, we have the cover of Personality Comics Presents John F. Kennedy (American Heroes #2), published not so longer ago in 1992.

After interviewing Tiger Lawyer creator Ryan Ferrier earlier this year, we couldn’t resist posting the cover of Tiger Lawyer #3, which you see above. Apparently, it features a story called “Tiger Lawyer Must Die,” so there could be trouble for our protagonist. In case you’ve missed it, we’ve previously mentioned Tiger Lawyer a number of times (including here, here, here,here, and here.)

In last week’s edition of Friday Links, we posted the cover of Public Defender in Action #9, which depicted a gentleman – with a gun! – sitting at counsel table in a courtroom while the title character cross examined a witness (presumably on behalf of the firearm-toting figure).  In our post, we wondered who that mysterious gentleman might be and whether it was the defendant. Well, in response, a diligent reader – and the father of one of our writers – responded with these thoughts (which we have dutifully secured permission to post here):

As you may recall, we occasionally write about beers with legal sounding names.  Well, Stone has released a spicy pair of brews called Crime and Punishment. Apparently, it is so spicy that the brewery filmed people taking a sip to capture their reactions.  Here’s a quote from the brewery’s YouTube page:

We have created what could arguably be described as some of the spiciest beer on the planet. Then we asked people to try it…just to see how they’d react. Hijinks ensued, dutifully recorded in slowwwww motion.

To watch the video in question, see here.

Speaking of beer, you may recall that not too long ago we interviewed Daniel Hartis, author of Charlotte Beer: A History of Brewing In The Queen City. If you missed it, you can read that interview here. Well, this week, The Charlotte Observer published Daniel’s thoughts on the opening of two new breweries, those being The Unknown Brewery and D-9 Brewing Company.  You can read that article here.

Over at Above The Law, Tamara Tabo writes about the interesting intersection of public safety laws and freedom of religion. Check it out, as it’s not what you think.

Two weeks ago, we brought to your attention Public Defender In Action, a legal themed comic book series from the 1950’s with which we were previously unfamiliar.  Above, you’ll find the troubling and uncomfortable cover of issue #9, published way, way back in 1957. Let’s consider this cover. We see the judge, the bailiff, a witness, and the public defender presumably cross examining said witness. (We doubt the public defender would be gesticulating so – or the witness reacting in such a way – during a direct examination.). So who is it in the foreground producing a gun from his attache case? Is it the public defender’s client – the defendant? We doubt it, as we can’t imagine why the defendant would want to interrupt his own lawyer’s examination with a fusillade. Is it the prosecutor? Surely not.  To be sure, it’s an odd and disturbing image. We’ll see if we can track down this issue and determine what is actually occurring.

Here’s our favorite excerpt from a federal court opinion this week:  “The Beastie Boys are a famous hip-hop group ‘from the family tree of old school hip-hop.'”  See Beastie Boys v. Monster Energy Co., — F. Supp. 2d —-, No. 12 Civ. 6065(S.D.N.Y. Nov. 4, 2013) (citing Beastie Boys, InterGalactic (Capitol Records 1998)).

Jeff Richardson at the iPhone J.D. blog reviews the new iPad Air.

“With all the focus on using Facebook, Twitter, and the newest communication technologies, the basics of practicing law are often pushed to the wayside,” writes Bill Miller of Greer & Miller, L.L.P in “Witness Preparation Program,” which appears in this month’s Texas Bar Journal. To see the full article, please see here.

The ABA Journal brings us “The Top Trials That Changed The World.”

Finally, we here at Abnormal Use and Gallivan, White & Boyd, P.A. are very pleased to announce that eight of our firm’s attorneys have been recognized as being among the 2013 Legal Elite of the Midlands by Columbia Business Monthly. Those who were honored include:

• James Brogdon – Personal Injury
• Johnston Cox – Insurance
• Will Harbison – Workers Compensation
• John Hudson – Healthcare
• John T. Lay – Civil Litigation
• Shelley Montague – Construction
• Grayson Smith – Insurance
• Childs Thrasher – Environmental

Our Columbia office opened in June 2011 with six attorneys.  In just two years, we reached sixteen lawyers. How about that?

We here at Abnormal Use were saddened this week by the passing of music legend Lou Reed. It has been said again and again this week that there would be no punk rock without Lou Reed (and, of course, his band, The Velvet Underground.). Reed released some pretty darn good solo albums, as well. In fact, Reed’s influence and career highs were so meaningful that he is afforded some level of critical immunity for some of his creative missteps (placing him into a category with Bob Dylan and, perhaps, The Rolling Stones).  As we have previously mentioned, Lou Reed once released an album called Mistrial, the cover of which is depicted above. Released in the summer of 1986, the album is not among Reed’s best (but it is certain the one with the most appropriate title for use in a law blog post). Another interesting legal side note: Reed sang about the perils of divorce litigation in his song, “Baton Rouge,” which appeared on his 2000 album, Ecstasy. Whatever the case, if you’ve not already, go revisit Reed’s Transformer album and pay your respects to a musical visionary. Rock and roll is a lesser thing with his passing.

Accord to an email missive recently issued by one of our local federal courts, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina has established a Pro Se Settlement Assistance Program.  For more information on this program, please see here.

You know, with as much as we’ve written about the infamous Stella Liebeck McDonald’s hot coffee case, you’d think we would know that country music singer Toby Keith referenced it in some of his lyrics. “Spill a cup of coffee / Make a million dollars,” he sings in his 2009 song, “American Ride,” from his album of the same name. Apparently, Liebeck’s family was not pleased.

Whoa! Silly string is illegal in Los Angeles! At least, sometimes it is!

Okay, let us tell you something. After three and a half years, it is getting really, really difficult to find legal themed comic books covers.  Each week, we scour the Earth – literally, we are scouring – to find an acceptable new image for Friday Links. We do this for you, our dears readers, but of late, it’s become a challenging task. So you can imagine our elation when we discovered the 1950’s comic book series, Public Defender in Action (about which we previously knew nothing). Above, you’ll see the cover of issue #7, published way, way back in 1956.  We assume that Richard Manning, the lawyer looking gentlemen with the “Richard Manning, Public Defender” is, in fact, the title character. (We wonder if he ever encountered the title character of the comic book series, Mr. District Attorney.). We will delve into this series more in the immediate future.

Over at Lawyerist, Gyi Tsakalakis asks that question of questions: “Should You Allow Comments On Your Law Blog?”

The North Carolina Law Blog is now hosting “Business Development Fridays.” See here for the first edition of that series.

In his column this week, the Panic Street Lawyer talks briefly about the RIAA litigation.