Meaning and Meaninger

So, my summer break is half over. And no, I don’t mean half full. A summer isn’t like a glass of water that you can go refill at the sink. And by that same token, last night when I went to get some take out from Cracker Barrel, and they lost my ticket, and it took them 30 minutes to fill a very simple order, Well guess what folks! I don’t get those 30 minutes back! Ever! 30 minutes of prime, healthy, clear headed life in my early thirties: GONE! Poof. Congratulations, here’s your receipt, come again. Bastards. Oh, well, I probably would have just wasted those 30 minutes on something stupid like checking email, writing in my blog, or voting for a democrat. And none of those activities come with the charming smell of Yankee candles you get in the Crack Barrel gift shop. Oops. Was that a typo?
So, I guess that means I can now have my “Mid-Summer Crisis.” Here goes: Who am I? What has my summer been about? Do any summers have meaning, or is the search for meaning merely another part of the constructed reality we mentally superimpose on an otherwise chaotic existence in a futile effort to avoid having crises? Or is life really replete with meaning, simple and rich like a Christian bumbersticker, and my summer has failed miserably in grasping the simple beauty of spending seven weeks running down obscure cases on Lexis? Does everything happen for a reason, and even if there are reasons, do those reasons arise to the level of meaning? If a tree falls in the woods, does it ever fall tree-hugging-hippie-side-down?
Phew. Glad that’s over. I’m pretty sure that whole thing was non-billable.

The last post was better

Sometimes, I read my old posts, look for recurring themes I may have worn out, moods I must have been in. Turns out I was pissing and moaning about grades a few weeks ago. Everything I said then was true. I passed. I'm fine. I'm within a few hundredths of what my previous GPA was. I'm within less than a percentage point of where my class rank was first semester. I.e., I worried, statistically speaking, over nothing. Why am I even sharing this with you, considering many of you are specifically the people I won't discuss these grades with? There's a point here. I believe John Mayer said it well:
"I wanna run through the halls of my high school. I wanna scream at the top of my lungs. I just found out there's no such thing as the "real world"; Just a lie you've got to rise above."
(Ha. So there, Jim!)

Although, to be honest, I hated high school even when I was there. I tried telling several of them their world view was inadequate, unrealistic and approval driven. I have even less desire to return now and tell them my research has proven subsequently affirmative. Let the bastards continue to labor under the illusion that life has meaning. Let them run through the hall themselves if they are so inclined. Buncha schmucks.
Grace and peace, my homies!

Sybil Procedure

Toward the end of Civil Procedure this Spring, I had pretty much mentally checked out. Which is to say, there were days I would rather have listened to a live performance from a choir made exclusively and exhaustively of all my high school ex-girlfriends singing 50 minutes of Barry Manilo's Greatest Hits rather than drink the requisite amount of Caffe Verona necessary to maintain consciousness and skirt the coasts of apathy which shoal the sea of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Professor/Asst. Dean/Corky Strickland moved slowly and predictably, and my classmates seemed inexplicably determined to comment only on substantive rather than procedural matters. Normally in law school, that would be a good thing. Unless of course you are in a course called Civil PROCEDURE, rather than, say, Civil SUBSTANTIVE MATTERS!!!! But since when do we expect lawyers (or even lawyers-to-be) to act in a reasonable and prudent manner? I was watching the big meeting scene in “The Godfather” yesterday and heard one of the bosses say, “We are all reasonable men; we don’t need assurances as if we were lawyers.” Before I could even be offended, I smiled and agreed.

Anyway, while I was enduring Civ Pro one beautiful April morning, I wrote the following song. I think we were arguing over summary judgment on a wrongful death case where there was NO substantive evidence to support the claim of an accident on a rail yard. The bleeding-heart-liberal-punitive-damages-loving-ambulance-chasing-pocket-lining-in-the-name-of-“justice” types in the class were whining about how they thought the case should still go to the jury even though there was no way a jury could find fault for the railway, unless of course each juror stood to pillage a hefty percentage of the money judgment such as the plaintiff’s counsel was likely to take. Right, so anyway, I was cleaning up my notes tonight and thought I would share my song with you, in case you are asked to sing a number while sitting around the camp fire at your firm’s summer retreat on Fourth of July Weekend. You remember the Fourth of July, right? That’s the day we celebrate the birth of our country where you can be deprived of your private property if a jury finds that you are more than likely (51%) although not almost certainly responsible for the intangible, immeasurable, unsubstantiated soft tissue pain and suffering of people who are tired of playing the lottery and/or having working brake lights. I have GOT to switch to decaf.

Enjoy.

Ode to Plaintiff’s Counsel
(with apologies to Jimmy Buffett)

I really do appreciate the fact you’re sitting here
Your claim sounds recoverable, though the fault ain’t all that clear
So let’s sign the retainer; I’ll recover for you
Honey, why don’t we get drunk and SUE

Chorus 1
Why don’t we get drunk and sue
I feel “values-neutral” about the companies I screw
You say your neck is hurting, and I doubt that it’s true,
But, why don’t we get drunk and sue

Chorus 2
Why don’t we get drunk and sue
I work on contingency, the percentage is 42!
Contributory negligence won’t apply to you:
So, why don’t we get drunk and sue?!

12 Angry Minutes

I started out writing a post that was a rant against the recently announced Michael Jackson verdict. After typing a while, I read my own work and decided that I had given too much attention to Jackson. He’s been hitting the snooze button on his 15 minutes of fame for way longer than any sentient being, medically altered or otherwise. Nevertheless, I couldn’t stand to waste a good rant. I enjoy getting pissed off once in a while. After having read the editorial page over the past couple of days and watching the jury verdict today in Jackson’s case, here are my current Top Ten (or Twelve) Favorite Incendiary Rants:

I believe OJ, Blake, and Jackson are all guilty; but I don’t expect all justice to be wrought in this life.
I believe the jury system has flaws. But I also believe it is harder to bribe 12 fallible jurors chosen at random than one fallible judge selected by popular vote (or appointed by someone who was).
I believe Terry Shiavo’s constitutional rights were violated: It’s cruel and unusual to keep a person alive like that.
I think we were right to invade Iraq: fighting mosquitoes and terrorists require similar tactics: lure them away from your home, kill them before they can reproduce, and destroy their breeding sites. You’ll never get them all, but that doesn’t mean you should just let them take your blood without a fight.
I think flushing a copy of the Koran down the toilet is a lot less heinous than kidnapping and beheading innocent civilians. For that matter, I think stewing, eating, and defecating a copy of the Koran is still a better idea than having countries that systematically oppress women and people of other religious beliefs.
I don’t think calling a Christian a liberal is a bad thing. Jesus “broke” the Sabbath, went out to eat with sinners, got a pedicure from a prostitute, questioned church authority, carried a weapon into the temple, and made 180 gallons of wine in ceremonial church vessels as his first miracle. OH, and unlike Pastor Rice of Calvary Baptist Church in Pinellas, Florida who asked federal court Justice Greer to leave the church because he disagreed with his rulings in the Shiavo case, Jesus forgave and actively reconciled with Peter after he’d denied Jesus three times.
I believe bad things sometimes happen to good people, good things sometimes happen to bad people, and that in more occasions than we feel comfortable admitting, there is no reason or meaning to such occurrences other than what we need there to be in order to avoid insanity and despair. Sometimes fecal-matter happens, and it is OK to mourn without feeling guilty for saying so, even to God. (Psalm 22:1)
I believe that you haven’t understood what grace is until it offends you.
I believe punitive damages are unconstitutional. How can we allow deprivation of property in cases involving a lower standard of proof than in criminal cases? If punitive damages are such a great idea, why do we not have them in breach of contract cases?
I believe socialized medicine is a crappy idea. Imagine the DMV hooking up your IV. Bleh. No thank you.
I believe humanity’s unbridled, often religiously endorsed, sprint to overpopulation is going to cause more war, poverty, and disease than the planet has yet encountered.
I believe LaHaye and Jenkins wish they hadn't crammed so much dispensational eschatology in their first book, not knowing they'd be wearing the whole theological theory thin by like, the twelfth? Is it twelve international-money-making-super books they’ve shamelessly pumped out? I mean heck, if Jesus hasn’t come back by the time you release the 13th sequel, maybe your skills as a apocalyptic prognosticator are somewhat suspect, eh?

Lost in translation

Most careers have their own lingo, usually out of convenience, perhaps necessity, probably to keep outsiders willing to pay for the services rendered. And it makes sense. A carpenter would much rather order pre-cut studs than “two-by-four framing boards cut to ninety-two and five-eighths inches long.” Nurses get to starve us with NPO orders while giving us medication BID. Lawyers? Oh, yeah, we got ‘em! Mandamus. Writs. TRO’s, privity, and worse. But I got trumped the other night. A friend of mine claims to have had a patient come into her ER for treatment, requesting, and I quote: “peanut butter balls for my smiling baby Jesus.” Sadly, this was not a mental patient. She was just calling back what she had heard, which was, “phenyl barbital for my spinal meningitis.” Sure, I may have been in a contracts class where the distinctions between cows, heifers, steers, and bulls were CLEARLY and vividly delineated by an enthusiastic Tennessean with a penchant for pink pullovers. But peanut butter balls? Nope, I fold. OH. OHHP! Now I am all verclempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic: “Two-by-fours are neither two inches thick nor four inches wide.”

No longer a 1L, not yet a JD

I’ll approach the on campus interviews a lot different this fall.
I’m enjoying my summer clerkships. Heck, I’m exactly halfway through the first one! And in just three short weeks, I’ve learned quite a bit. I’ve learned that people in the media get sued a lot for reporting the news. I’ve learned that lawyers love to eat lunch at greasy spoons that make your nice new suits smell like fry grease. I’ve learned to get over feeling like a jerk when I hand off nauseatingly mundane jobs to secretaries. After attending a few minor court sessions, I’ve learned that I have some classmates who are going to kick some serious adversarial ass in the real world (where do they get some of these guys?). I’ve learned that law is a TINY frickin’ community where everyone knows everyone such that you can’t burp in Birmingham without lawyers in Mobile knowing what you had for breakfast.
Yep, so many lessons. Heck, I’ve even learned that it’s good to go put in a token appearance on a Saturday at the office, not because you have to, but to earn cred points with the folks whose lives now are addicted to it. Finally, though I have now actually been on a golf course and even made contact with a couple of dimply balls, I still DO NOT know how to play golf. Damn, what a ridiculous sport that is.
Oh, and Kim bought me a Les Paul electric guitar on Memorial Day.
Yes, I love the summer time.