Minor Wisdom

Certworthy - Summer 2004

If you are a member of the DRI Appellate Advocacy Committee, and you want to download a copy of the Summer 2004 issue of our newsletter, Certworthy, then just click here.

If you are not a member of the DRI Appellate Advocacy Committee, but would like to join, please download and read the newsletter, and consider joining us.

August Stringberg & helium

Click this to see 19th-century playwrite August Stringberg and his pet helium balloon confront four existential crises.

Earth and moon viewer

This site lets you view the Earth from the Sun, the Moon, the night side of the Earth, above any location on the planet specified by latitude, longitude and altitude, from a satellite in Earth orbit, or above various cities around the globe. To go there, click here.

Meditations on blogging

Rufus has an introspective thread going on why bloggers blog, with 11 comments and counting. It's worth reading.

Was Jesus a lousy carpenter?

Jesus, raised as the son of Joseph, a carpenter, probably learned carpentry. What if he wasn’t particularly good at carpentry? What if he tried to learn, and Joseph tried to teach him, but he just didn’t have the knack for it? What if his doors weren’t straight, and his tables and chairs wobbled? What if he often hit his thumb with the hammer?

Most Christians probably imagine the human Jesus as a Mr. Perfect. Certainly he was a master storyteller; he knew his scripture; and he was smart enough to avoid some verbal traps. But otherwise, scripture suggests he was just an average guy. The people who watched him grow up in Nazareth didn’t think he was anything special. See Mark 6:1-6. Isaiah, prophesying about the suffering servant, says he was not a prince among men. “There was no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.” Isaiah 53:2. Paul says that Jesus “emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself ....” Phillipians 2:7-8. Maybe he humbled himself to the point of being just average at most things.

Maybe Jesus was not first in his class at Hebrew school. Maybe he was not the most popular, not the best athlete, not the best looking. Maybe in adolescence, he suffered from acne and awkwardness. Maybe the scriptures are silent about his teens and twenties because he didn’t do anything noteworthy during those years. Maybe he was allergic to ragweed.

Maybe Paul was right: Aside from sin, maybe Jesus was just like us. Heb. 4:15.

On-purpose bad writing: the 2004 Bulwer-Lytton "winners"

Judging from reader feedback, one of my greatest hits on Rain Man 1 was 28 reasons why English teachers die young. If you enjoyed that one, then you'll enjoy this: the 2004 results of the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. Contestants submit the worst opening sentence to the worst novel they can imagine. The page lists dozens of winners, runners up, and dishonorable mentions in various categories. The 2004 overall winner is Dan Zobel of Manhattan Beach, California, who submitted this gem:

She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight . . . summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail . . . though the term "love affair" now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism . . . not unlike "sand vein," which is after all an intestine, not a vein . . . and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand . . . and that brought her back to Ramon.

Here's another sample -- a dishonorable mention from the science-fiction category:

Criminy, thought Francine as she left the birthing center, if the baby's an unknown life-form, it probably means Ricky wasn't really from West Hartford, either.

--David Wyman, Goffstown, NH

Go there and read dozens more of the same ilk.

To read some not-on-purpose bad writing, there's a page called Sticks & Stones, featuring the likes of this item by Danielle Steel: "She wore a dress the same color as her eyes her father brought her from San Francisco."

All this is brought to you by www.bulwer-lytton.com, "where 'www' means 'wretched writers welcome.'"

Third Circuit to district court: Write your own opinion

The Legal Reader reports this item: On August 24, the Third Circuit chastised a district judge who, in dismissing plaintiff's complaint, adopted almost verbatim a proposed opinion submitted by the defendant. While the Third Circuit frowns on a trial judge's adoption of a party's proposed findings and conclusions, the court does not consider that in itself to be grounds for reversal. But when this trial judge adopted a party's submission as his opinion, he abdicated his duty. Said the court:

Judicial opinions are the core work product of judges. They are much more than findings of fact and conclusions of law; they constitute the logical and analytical explanations of why a judge arrived at a specific decision. They are tangible proof to the litigants that the judge actively wrestled with their claims and arguments and made a scholarly decision based on his or her own reason and logic. When a court adopts a party’s proposed opinion as its own, the court vitiates the vital purposes served by judicial opinions. We, therefore, cannot condone the practice used by the District Court in this case.

Bright v. Westmoreland County, No. 03-4320, slip op. (3d Cir. Aug. 24, 2004).

How's the whether? Issue statements in briefs

Anyone who has attended one of Bryan Garner's briefwriting workshops has heard him advocate the "deep issue." Garner defines the deep issue as:

the ultimate, concrete question that a court needs to answer to decide a point your way. Deep refers to the deep structure of the case--not to deep thinking. The deep issue is the final question you pose when you can no longer usefully ask the follow-up question, "And what does that turn on?" The best form it can take is that of the syllogism.

Bryan A. Garner, The Winning Brief 49 (1999).

Garner suggests using separate sentences to set up your syllogism, making the issue statement fair but persuasive, and not starting it with "Whether." In the materials for his Advanced Legal Writing & Editing seminar, he gives the following examples of a "surface issue" (# 1) versus a deep issue (# 2):

1. Can Jones maintain an action for fraud?

2. To maintain a cause of action for fraud under California law, a plaintiff must show that the defendant made a false representation. In his deposition, Jones concedes that neither Continental nor its agents or employees made a false representation. Is Continental entitled to summary judgmetn on Jones's fraud claim?

Bryan A. Garner, Advanced Legal Writing & Editing 3-4 (1998).

Not everyone agrees with Garner's approach. One of the dissenters is Martin Stern, a partner at my firm, who recently circulated the following in an email to our appellate-practice group:

The old weapons

I like this quote, which accompanied Garner's daily Usage Tip:

Prose is a museum where all the old weapons of poetry are kept.

-- T.E. Hulme, Notes on Language and Style 15 (1929).

Was Jimi Hendrix a mondegreener?

Probably everyone who has ever listened to popular music has misunderstood the lyrics at one time or another. For instance:

Jimi Hendrix, in Purple Haze: "S'cuse me, while I kiss this guy."

The Star-Spangled Banner: "Jose, can you see?"

The Dixie Chicks, in Wide Open Spaces: "She knows Ohio stinks."

Today I learned the name for that phenomenon: mondegreen. Gavin Edwards has a web site on the subject, which includes a link to his Mondegreen Hall of Fame. You'll also find there a link to Jon Carroll's collection of mondegreens.