By Phillip Morris, The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND, Ohio — I tried to ignore Shena Hardin. I really did. This region and nation are confronted with far more pressing issues than her brand of recklessness.

But as I watched her coolly light up a cigarette on camera Tuesday, before casually hoisting a handwritten sign that properly declared her an "idiot" for failing to stop for a Cleveland school bus, I could only marvel at Hardin's remarkable disinterest and aloofness before the condemning eyes of the public.

It was like she was flipping us all her proverbial finger. Her demeanor clearly suggested that criminal selfishness is no reason for shame. She was acting like too many faces I now see in the crowd. I couldn't ignore her.

It wasn't just the fact that she cut quite an image in her fashionable sunglasses, knee-high boots and choice in hats. She was dressed for an afternoon at the mall.

It wasn't that she played on her phone and smoked while carrying out the public humiliation part of her sentence. Apparently the sentence crafted by Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Pinkey S. Carr didn't prevent Hardin from multitasking.

Shena Hardin was ordered by Cleveland Municipal Judge Pinkey Carr to stand at East 38th Street and Superior Avenue in Cleveland with a sign that reads "Only an idiot would drive on the sidewalk to avoid a school bus."

What was most disturbing, and enlightening, was her obvious I-don't-care attitude. I don't know if Shena Hardin has children. But her posture made it clear that despite her declaration of idiocy she still doesn't care about the lives of other people's children.  Read more at The Plain Dealer