Things Lawyers Say

Part of the job of the principal is to attend legal proceedings and testify on behalf of the school. It was at one of these hearings when I realized that lawyers have an informal language all their own. I don't mean legalese or anything like that. Everyone knows the verboseness of the legal profession can be mind-numbing, what with all the heretofore's and whatsoforths, etc.

What I'm talking about is more in how rival lawyers interact with each other, how they ask questions and make statements, as well as the words they choose. In many ways, it's like an elaborate mating ritual only instead of feathers and catcalls lawyers use specific words, dramatic theatrics and a lot of hot air.

Here are a few terms and their underlying meanings that I've picked up along the way.

When a lawyer starts his question with "Do you meant to tell me that..." what he actually means is "I'm not going to believe whatever it is you say next and I hope no one else does either. And they accent certain words for greater effect. " Do you really mean to tell me, Mr. Wheeler, that this memo with your signature is actually your memo?"

Conversely, when a lawyer starts with, "Isn't it true that..." , what he or she means is "I believe this and so should whoever else is listening." All I could think of when this phrase was delivered was just about every episode of Law and Order that I've ever watched.

There is also a certain way lawyers interrupt each other. When one lawyer is talking and another lawyer interrupts him, he starts his interrupting sentence by holding up his hand and saying, "If I may". While this sounds polite it really means "shut the hell up and let me say something." In a legal sense, you could almost think of the phrase as like a weak objection of sorts. Whatever the other guy is saying isn't offensive enough for the other lawyer to yell "objection!" so he says this instead.

At one hearing I attended, opposing lawyers kept calling each other "brother" as in "What my brother fails to address here is the issue of relevancy." I have to admit to finding the use of this term odd. To call someone "brother" definitely has an old-world feel to it. All I kept thinking of was English judges with wigs and robes. That, or college-aged potheads at a Dave Mathews show. "Hey Brother, pass that one-hitter here."

I'm not sure how a female lawyer would be addressed as I have not yet been in that social situation. Somehow, when I imagine it, I can't seem to see a male lawyer calling a female lawyer "sister" without getting punched in the nose. Trust me though, I'll keep an eye out for this encounter and report back.

Some lawyers, especially those who get to argue in front of a crowd, like to use one-liners to make a point. The most famous quip is Brendan Sullivan, who was Oliver North's attorney during the Iran-Contra hearings. When questioned as to why he kept conferring with Mr. North before every answer, he replied with the now-famous line, "I'm his lawyer. I'm not a potted plant." This one line got Ollie off, if you ask me.

Sometimes, if you're really lucky, you get to see some great theatrics too. When emotions run high there's sure to be a lot of fist-pounding and eye-rolling. Eventually, angry looks get exchanged, papers get tossed in front witnesses with a vengeance, and the whole thing becomes a sideshow, better than anything on television at the moment if you ask me.

But the final thing lawyers say is just about universal, meaning I don't think I've heard one lawyer ever not say it. Once I tried counting how many times this phrase was said but I lost count before lunch. And since so many of them say this line, I imagine it must get taught in law schools everywhere.

So what's the one thing they all say?

"Let's take a break."

Labels of Mistrust

When it comes to food labels, I don't trust store brands.

Last week I paid $8.99 for Starbucks brand coffee instead of $5.99 for Stop and Shop's "Dark Blend", which, I should add, was placed suspiciously next to its brand name counterpart. This marketing tactic is, of course, part of the reason why I avoid purchasing generic brands in the first place. I don't like them "suggesting" that it's Starbucks. Either come out and say it or don't.

The whole thing seems dishonest to me. I don't like fuzziness and vague ideas where my food is concerned. Sure I could save a few bucks here and there, but as Sarah likes to say, cheap and inexpensive are two different things. Cheap refers to quality, inexpensive refers to price.

And that's really the issue for me. Are store brand products cheap or inexpensive?

Are those really Planter's Peanuts? Or are they some other, less desirable peanuts?

Can't you just imagine executives from Nabisco making sure all the broken Cheerios go into the private label Wheat-O's box? Just like I bet executives at General Mills tell all their workers to make sure the ugly carrots go in the Sam's Club wrappers.

Over at DelMonte foods, the production supervisor says, "Hey Sam, put the clumped-up raisins in the Wal-Mart boxes. Keep the good ones for us."

Now all of this may or may not be true. But that's really the issue here - reasonable doubt.

It stands to reason of course that there are quality controls and it's all the same ingredients, just a different box. In that case, saps like me who purchase brand names are really just grocery store rubes who waste our money and respond to marketing gimmicks.

Who knows? It could be that I just like the bright colors that accompany corporate logos and their advertising materials? Let's be honest, the Market Basket label for creamed corn looks pretty dull next to the rolling hills where the Green Giant and his kid Sprout live.

I wonder what all this says about me? Am I cynical and distrustful? Or am I prudent and cautious?

Maybe I'm just a marketing statistic, the category of "suspicious white males with disposable incomes, short attention spans and misguided (brand) loyalty."

In other words, a consumer.

Science Fiction and Science Fact

I think we need a new term to describe science-based writing, something a bit more truthful sounding than "science fiction" but not as confident as "science fact".

In science, plenty of things start out fictitious only to end up becoming reality. Flying, space travel, 3-D printing (aka replicators in Star Trek). Robots.

Even worse, many science "facts" turn out to be fiction. Milk, eggs, even fish have each gone from good to bad and back again.

This is why we need a new phrase, a word or two that captures both the uncertainty and the inevitability of discovery. For example, it is inevitable that we discover a cure for cancer but it is uncertain what this will look like.

In the strictest of scientific terms, we could say that all of science itself is Schroedinger's cat. Throw a cat in a box and leave it there for a while. Before you re-open the box, the cat is both dead and alive, a middle-ground of existence, purgatory as perception. This, to me, is the inevitability of discovery.

So what do we call science fiction? Science writing? Pop science? Futurism?

What do we call science fact? True-for-now? Proven until proven otherwise?

Stay tuned.

Pepper Spray

Remember the Pepper Spray Incident?

I was so angry, I promptly wrote a letter and saved it to my hard drive. Here it is, for no reason other than the nice weather is coming and I find myself wondering if any of the Occupy Wall St. protesters are planning a reunion.

Dear Protesters,

What are you so mad about? (Besides the pepper spray incident, of course.)

Is this whole thing about jobs? If so, is it the prospect of either not working at all, or being forced to work a low-wage food service job to get by that has you so angry?

Maybe it’s the pressure to sell yourself to a corporation once you get out of college so you can pay off your student loans and contribute to the economy? And speaking of student loans, could it be that you're paying $30k a year to go to school when it's free in other countries? I wonder if that’s why you seem so upset. Maybe it's the healthcare debacle? Or the incarceration rate? Especially if you have friends who are immigrants, minorities, or low-level drug offenders.

Could it be the fact that buying a house in America is even more of a losing deal than it was for your parents? By the time your 30-year note is paid, you've signed away more than 10 times what you will originally pay for the property. Or is it the mortgage crisis and the fact that more than 4 million American homes were foreclosed on while big banking showed huge profits? I'm sure the CEO of Bank of America and his $9 million dollar bonus hasn't helped. And now they want to eliminate the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners?

But not everything is about money. So maybe it’s something more philosophical with you protester types, like you were raised to believe you can do anything in this country, but over time, you’ve learned the hard way that it just isn’t true? Maybe you're wondering why today's America suddenly feels like a more intolerant place than it was even a few years ago?

Or maybe you're just sick of hearing the phrase "freedom isn't free" in every new country song? 

Then again, maybe it is just the pepper spray. It certainly was a mean thing to do, and I can see why you’re upset. As one commenter on YouTube put it, “when you use your body to make a point, it radicalizes a person.”

I'm sensing it was the pepper spray incident.

But don't worry. It shouldn't happen again, especially based on the swift report-writing action taken by the UC Davis leadership team. In April they issued a report that said "The decision to use pepper spray was not supported by objective evidence and was not authorized by policy."

That should fix things.

Open Letter to Science

Dear Science:

Could someone please tell me where all this "new technology" is? Short of smart phones and a few voice-activated commands here and there, where’s the virtual world we were supposed to be inhabiting by now?

Where's the voice-driven house that responds to commands like, "Turn off that light!” or “Lower the air conditioning”? Surely we can do better than The Clapper.

It looks to me as if the technology is there, but the follow through is lacking. I expected more from whoever it is that drives the decision-making these days.

Remember the promises of nanotechnology? Weren’t we supposed to have super-clothes by now, like shirtsleeves that monitor your heart rate, or hoodies with built in satellite radio?

I keep reading about an alleged refrigerator that orders groceries using a built-in UPC scanning system. All you have to do is hit email before heading off to go the grocer and - Bingo! - your shopping list is sent to your phone. PeaPod is great and all, but we still have to click all over the place on a web site, a colossal waste of time. Once again, we have some of it, but not the whole shebang.

How about the bulb that lasts forever? Where's that one? Every time I buy light bulbs I can't help feeling like the environment is the one getting screwed instead of  the light bulb. Is some corporation keeping the formula for long-lasting bulbs a secret?

Why am I only reading about these things and not using them?

And another thing, stop making cool stuff only for young people. Plenty of people like me have paid our dues, and we deserve cool stuff, too. Where were all these “gamers” when our generation was struggling with real issues, like the Microsoft Windows Blue Screen of Death, and dial-up modems?  

It looks to me like you smartypants  types have your priorities all wrong. You concentrate on tools to help us work, rather than actually doing the work for us. This is a big difference.

True, you invented a robot lawnmower that cuts grass on its own, but you need to install all kinds of crazy infrared sensors to make it work properly. Plus you need to be there to supervise it. Where's the smart technology that trims hedges on its own or cleans my gutters and power-washes the shed while I snooze on my hammock?

Why, Science, are you wasting time creating things that take away people’s jobs? Self-service supermarket checkouts? Pizza delivery apps? For some of us, retail shopping  is the only socialization we get outside of work. And where the heck did bag boys and gas station attendants go? I have to carry my own bags, fill my own gas tank and wash my own windows. Sometimes all in the same day!

Why not invent something much, much cooler? Something that doesn’t take anyone’s job, but makes life more fun? How about a car alarm that plays Rock You Like a Hurricane?  Or a cheeseburger that’s good for you?

Take a cue from Star Trek. Plenty of ideas there. Transporting people? Food replicators? It even looks to me like they don’t need toilets in the future. Who knows? Maybe they invented some type of chemical and embedded it in their Starfleet suits that neutralized urine and fecal matter instantly so that, in essence, your clothing is your toilet. It sounds gross, but it's better than the current practice of using our planet, our only planet, like a toilet.

Speaking of bathrooms, here are two more failures:  automatic flushing urinals and high-powered hand dryers. It wasn't so bad, grabbing that chrome handle in public rest rooms. It was a part of the experience of urinating. Now that's gone too, another useless piece of smart technology in its place. As for the paperless dryer, what was wrong with having a guy in there handing out towels? Now his job is gone, too. Since we’re on the subject, where is the “smart toilet” that analyzes body waste and creates a custom diet for you each day, or alerts you to potential health problems? I’m not getting any younger.

The last one though, the one that really frosts me, is how cool you think you’ve become, Science. The Big Bang Theory? Stephen Hawking? Higgs-Boson parties? All of a sudden you’re better than those Gary Larson cartoon professors with their matching white coats and humble spectacles. What about the nerds who paved the way, thus making it cool for you scientists to be nerds in the first place?  

Some of us spent our entire teenaged years watching sappy eighties sitcoms like "Bosom Buddies" and "The Facts of Life", while you get the Science Channel, SyFy Network, Nat Geo, NOVA, and just about anything else you want. All I had to look up to was Beaker from the Muppets. 

Want to know what my generation got in the way of a science-fiction  television series? "Alf".

So there you have it, Science. It’s time to think about more than video games, stealth weapons, and hair replacement products. If you really want to win my support back, try inventing  something of use for those of us over 40, like a way of turning our iPhones into reading glasses, or a home liposuction kit.