The first thing we do…

Lawyers are not particularly popular people, I’ve heard. Maybe it all goes back to Shakespeare’s Henry VI, when Dick the Butcher said to Jack Cade, “First thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.” There’s a whole context around that, of course, and guess what? It had to do with an armed insurrection. It was the insurrectionists that wanted to off the attorneys. And maybe they were right; it sorta sounds like a few of the lawyers involved in our own recent armed insurrection helped it fail. Of course, there were plenty more lawyers who evidently pushed it forward, so I don’t know how much of a recommendation this can be.

But armed insurrections are not all that common, so I don’t think the widespread attitude about lawyers can be due to those. I think it’s much more likely to be something I’d call “lawyerly thinking.” Digging into the details, not of the way the world works (those would be scientists) or how to cure illnesses (those would be doctors), but into the details of how something was said and how you can — if you’re a lawyer — make their words work against them. The idea that changing the name of a thing can become part of changing peoples’ minds about it. Comcast, the most hated company in the US, didn’t change their ways; they just started calling themselves “Xfinity.” Arthur Andersen, the accounting company that aided and abetted the Enron scandal, is now “Accenture.” I don’t know how much this played a part, but “marijuana” is now generally called “cannabis” now that attitudes about it are quite different. And climate change used to be “global warming,” which seems a bit more direct and to the point.

I suspect lawyers were behind all of those, just as they’re behind the decades-long effort to interpret one set of words as meaning something different. The set of words I’m talking about is “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This was written in the 18th Century when they were not very strict about commas, and in fact the commas are sometimes left out completely, like in the version that New Jersey ratified. I would also argue the sentence is not written particularly well — but any normal person would notice that one of the main things in that sentence is “a well regulated militia.” That is, there’s a militia (a military force made up of regular citizens when needed) that’s subject to regulations. The sentence quite obviously does not mean “people are allowed to carry guns anywhere and everywhere for any reason.” But now a bunch of lawyers — and a crew that’s arrogant and self-important even among lawyers, which is saying something — claims that the correct “interpretation” of that sentence is, yes, “people are allowed to carry guns anywhere and everywhere for any reason.”

Lawyers are often claiming that “precedent” is important. I think what they mean by that is that when other lawyers in the past came up with some particular way of interpreting something, let’s just start from there and not argue about everything all over again. Except they clearly don’t really mean this, because lawyers have in the past come up with ways of interpreting words that are so absurd, addlepated, or flat-out evil that even another lawyer can’t get away with supporting it. Things like “only white males over the age of 21 who own land can vote on anything,” or “women shouldn’t be allowed to (take your pick; vote, attend school, work, get elected…you name it).” Or (and I’m paraphrasing here) “if your skin is darker than mine, that means you only count as a little more than half a person, because, um, just because.”

Lawyers only care about precedent when it serves their purposes. And that’s another reason why people hate them; what they’re good at is arguing, and not sincerely — just to get what they want, whatever that may be. And it’s getting more and more evident that what old caucasian men want (and I’m speaking as an old caucasian man here) cannot and should not be trusted at all. There are an awful lot of people like me who are a big embarrassment to people like me. And believe me, it is embarrassing.

Somewhere along the line, too many of these guys internalized a set of principles that just aren’t grounded in the real world. For some it’s an idea of what their religion is all about that bears very little resemblance to what the religion’s fundamental texts actually say. For others it’s the idea that nefarious forces are active in the world and working agains them, even though these “forces” are usually something invented in a work of fiction. And for even others the problem is their thought that it’s perfectly okay for them — and only them, because arrogance — to pick and choose the people and quotations and events from history that they think “prove them right,” especially when they’re interpreting, say, the US Constitution.

Because they’ve always been very good at arguing. And who knows, maybe they actually feel badly about being so despised. Any normal person would. But they’re not normal. Not even close.

So by the way, why can’t lawyers play hide and seek? Because nobody will look for them.

Tales from the Forest

Raccoon was very excited. She had been having whispered conversations with Dog, Magpie, and Beaver all week, and she had disappeared mysteriously for hours at a time recently. Hare could tell there was something she was just bursting to announce when she arrived at his house.

“Have a sandwich?” invited Hare.

“Thanks,” said Raccoon, taking two. “I’ll save these for later, if you don’t mind. Unless you have someplace to wash them?” Raccoon liked cleanliness and preferred to wash everything she ate. In fact, she preferred to wash everything whether she was going to eat it or not. Ma Mouse, who didn’t mind a bit of grime here and there, often said Raccoon was probably “germ-oh-no-bic” or something like that.

“Not at all, Raccoon,” said Hare. “Here’s a plastic bag for you to keep them in.” Nearly everyone in the forest used plastic bags thanks to Magpie and Dog having explained about them.

“Thanks again, Hare” said Raccoon, carefully wrapping her sandwiches. “I have something I’d like to show you. It’s at my house; do you have time to visit?”

“Why not,” said Hare. “Let’s go.”

While they walked, Raccoon couldn’t resist giving Hare some hints about what her news might be. “It all started when I was in the town one day,” she said. “I was in the back of the market where they leave out food for me.”

“I’m not sure they mean it’s just for you, Raccoon,” said Hare, who knew how to read a few words including “t-r-a-s-h”.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s for others too,” said Raccoon breezily; “there’s always too much for me anyway. But this one time, late last week, they gave me something else as well.”

“What was it?” asked Hare.

“That’s the surprise I have to show you,” said Raccoon excitedly. “I didn’t even know what it was at first, but Magpie and Dog helped me figure it out, and Beaver helped me carry it home, and Squirrel helped me set it up. And I’m so excited to try it to see if it works!”

Hare was mystified; he couldn’t think what Raccoon’s surprise could be. Something that might work — or might not work — that was big enough to need help bringing home — and that Magpie and Dog had helped figure out. Magpie and Dog knew the most about the humans who lived in the town — Dog lived with some of them, and Magpie was always perching in town to watch and listen. But that didn’t narrow it down very far.

Finally they arrived at Raccoon’s house. When they went in, Raccoon let out a loud “Ta-Daaa!” and pointed to a large machine of some sort that took up most of her living room. Hare had no idea what it might be.

“That’s great, Raccoon!” said Hare. Even if he didn’t know what the machine was, he could tell Raccoon was expecting him to be excited about it. “You say you haven’t tried it yet?”

“Not yet,” said Raccoon, putting down her wrapped sandwiches. “I wanted to be able to show it to someone. Everybody is going to want one!”

Hare thought about Squirrel’s house, which was near the top of a tall tree, and about Ma and Pa Mouse’s little house, which he was quite sure would fit inside Raccoon’s machine instead of the other way around. He thought about his own house, too, and how with a big machine like this he wouldn’t have any room to make sandwiches. Unless…Hare had a new idea. Maybe this was was a sandwich-making machine!

“How do you turn it on?” he asked, finally interested.

“I think,” said Raccoon, “I hold this tube like this, and point it at the floor — pointing it at the floor is very important, Dog said — and then I push this button-thing here.” Raccoon pushed the button on the top of the machine.

Hare was wondering where the sandwiches might come out when the machine started up with an enormous roar, and the hose Raccoon was holding started to whip around the room, taking Raccoon with it.

“Whoa!” cried Raccoon as the hose sucked up her package of sandwiches.

“Yikes!” yelled Hare, ducking for cover as the hose sucked up the flowers from Raccoon’s nicest vase.

“Help!” shouted Raccoon as the hose bucked her off and tried to suck in her tail.

Hare reached out with his big back foot and managed to reach the button Raccoon had pressed to turn the machine on. With a click, the machine’s loud roar died away. Hare helped Raccoon pull the hose off her tail, which seemed no worse for having been sucked in.

“Raccoon,” said Hare, “that wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?”

“No,” said Raccoon, brushing herself off. “That machine is supposed to clean things up. Dog says it’s called a ‘backvroom cleaner’, and it picks up dirt with that hose. I didn’t think it would eat my sandwiches and try to eat my tail. Help me get it out of here.”

Hare helped Raccoon push the machine out of her house and down the path.

“Where are we going with this thing?” asked Hare.

“Back where I found it,” said Raccoon. “I don’t ever want to see it again. I’ll keep my house clean the same way I always have. Those humans in the town are crazy.”

“Maybe,” said Hare slowly, “your backvroom cleaner was in back of the market because it’s broken, Raccoon.”

“Broken?” said Raccoon, surprised.

“Could be,” said Hare. “Sometimes humans do that with broken things. There’s a pile of broken flower pots near one of the gardens I check sometimes.”

“Hmmm,” said Raccoon, thinking about this. “Beaver has a pile of old sticks and branches left over after he gnaws the bark. I’ve mentioned it to him before; they clog up the water and make a terrible mess.”

“I think that’s on purpose,” said Hare. “That’s not a mess; it’s his dam. It makes a pond so he can build his house in the middle.”

“And make us all get soaking wet going through his front hall,” said Raccoon, who thought houses ought to be kept nice and dry, not to mention neat and clean.”

“It’s nice and dry inside though,” said Hare.

“I suppose so,” said Raccoon. “Look, we’re here.”

They had arrived behind the little market near the edge of town. They put down the machine right next to a sign on the back of the building that Hare read slowly: ’t-r-a-s-h’.

“They can have this thing back,” said Raccoon, giving the machine a kick.

“Don’t worry, Raccoon,” said Hare, “my house is on the way, and I have some more sandwiches I can give you.”

“Do you have another plastic bag?” asked Raccoon hopefully.

“Of course I do,” said Hare. “Come on, let’s go.” And Hare and Raccoon went home without a single look behind them.

Quote of the day

“I am a compost heap, and everything I interact with, every experience I’ve had gets shoveled onto the heap where it eventually mulches down, is digested and excreted by worms and rots. It’s from that rich, dark humus, the combination of what you’ve encountered, what you know, and what you’ve forgotten, that ideas start to grow.”

-Ann Patchett

Photography

It’s the middle of summer but this is how I’m feeling.