Milt

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Humor is a dangerous thing. It should not be attempted by amateurs. A judge in Canada has learned this the hard way — he’s been suspended without pay for 30 days for making what he now claims was a little joke.

Go ahead – call me a cynic. Really, do it. You know I deserve it. Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, allow me to demonstrate once again why your assessment is accurate.

Canada the other day joined a group of about eight other countries that allow other sex choices on passports beside male and female. Canada now allows you to choose option X, which apparently means unspecified.
Why? I have no problem with people being other than male or female. I can think of lots of people that make we wonder whether they’re human at all. But why do we need to specify a sex on a passport?

Who the heck is Norman French? OK, that’s not a real person – although there probably are real Norman Frenches out there – but it’s not a person in the context I was considering last week. Still, I bet there are at least some people wondering who he is in light of an astonishing ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

There are hidden messages everywhere. Either that or there’s a lot of meaningless gibberish. Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Case in point: a kind of mysterious piece of lawyer marketing advice on FindLaw’s lawyer marketing website that appeared last week under the headline: “The Best Review a Lawyer Could Ask For.”

It’s not often that I’m frightened by a press release headline, but I must admit I was severely taken aback when I spotted this one last week: “SAF Issues Travel Advisory to Gun Owners: ‘Avoid California!’” Yikes! I live in California! What’s going on here?

Those of you who have been reading my columns for many years (which probably means none of you) know that I’ve been a tad skeptical about studies. A committee somehow gets appointed, is told to figure out a problem, spends years “studying” the issue and then comes back with more questions than answers. My guess is that it’s self-preservation. After all, if people who study found solutions then there’d be no more jobs for people who study the issues that have been solved.

Now I’m really depressed. The news business has gotten so bad that journalists are having to do other weird jobs on the side just to get by. I learned this the other day when I got a mysterious email from the L A. Times, with a subject line: “A Special Message from Davan Maharaj, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher.” For me?

Expect to see judge trading cards in the near future. It’s inevitable because the Moneyball era of justice is upon us. You’re not going to want to stop collecting until you have every federal judge in the country. How else are you going to follow the game?

Have we learned nothing from Battlestar Galactica? I’m pretty sure I’ve asked this question before and answered it in the negative. The answer seems to be becoming increasingly negative.

One of the great things about going to law school and becoming a lawyer is the dream that one day, if the circumstances are right, you’re going to be able to do a great deed.

Have you ever come across something that sounds like a great idea, but somehow, when you try to picture it, it’s puzzling. Is it me or the concept that’s not quite right? It’s a queasy, disoriented sort of feeling. Or maybe indigestion.

If you get off on a technicality, shouldn’t you leave well enough alone? That may seem sensible but we now live in a world in which your neighbors will report you to the authorities for housing a deer.

Is money really an adequate substitute for a chicken? Obviously not. I don’t think any of us have ever felt better after a bowl of money soup. This, however, hasn’t stopped a group called The Alliance To End Chickens as Kaporos – which is a project of United Poultry Concerns – from insisting on the substitution.

Should April 20 be a national holiday? I don’t know, but I have a feeling it may become one by default. I realized this because the Ninth Circuit last week ruled against a lawyer who claimed his First Amendment rights were violated because the City of Arcata wouldn’t allow a 4/20 day celebration in a park.

It may be time for anonymous judging. I’m not talking about secret trials or legal decisions by computers or chance, but I do think we’d be better off if judges kept their identities secret. They could wear bags or pillowcases over their heads (though preferably not white ones).

If you’re already terrified about the way things are going these days, please don’t continue reading. There are enemies out to get us that are just now revealing themselves.

I’m not going to take credit for this. Really, I’m not. But a concept I’ve advocated for years is finally catching on. Lawyers and law firms are increasingly utilizing the power of the hyphen.

I guess I’m just as annoyed as the next person (that guy over there) by some of the stuff going on in Washington these days, but I’ve noticed I’m not as flat-out outraged as a lot of people. I assumed this was because I’m old and I’ve seen lots of bad governmental stuff before.