Sometimes I think that the world around me has pretty much given up on the idea of civilization. Maybe we go thru the motions so as to avoid getting sued, but in our hearts, we\u2019re all just animals right now; hunting and hurting (and sometimes even killing) as needed to meet our immediate needs. That\u2019s sure what it seems like on my worse days. (And I’m not sure if I’m any better). <\/p>\n
My place of employment deals with criminals, people who steal and rape and kill as needed to meet their immediate needs. Unfortunately, when you deal a lot with criminals, you pick up something of their nature. I can see that happening in the investigators and the assistant prosecutors, the \u201cfront line\u201d people. I can understand when a police investigator goes into the tough guy routine, but it upsets me when I see the lawyers picking up those nasty habits. Lawyers, in theory, are supposed to devote their lives to the ideals of law, which are key components of civilization. You\u2019d think they would go out of their way to be civilized \u2013 you know, the bow-tie kind of lawyer, the old-fashioned guy or lady who believed in the ultimate redemptive quality of practicing law and practicing it well. But no, many of our assistant prosecutors go around swearing and cursing and taking on threatening postures, just like their police investigator friends. It\u2019s especially nauseating to me when the women do it \u2013 partly because of my old fashioned notion of women being the kinder and gentler side of the human race, but also because when women put on the tough-guy facade, they tend to overdo it (at least in my office).<\/p>\n
I had to help a couple of assistant prosecutors with a press release after a big drug bust the other day. One of them was Terri, who is a head honcho over the \u201ctough crime\u201d units (homicide, narcotics, etc.). Terri is actually a rather nice and decent woman at heart. But when she starts dealing with a case, she starts using the F-word over and over. While talking with some cops as we were trying to get the facts straight for the press release, I heard her talking about a \u201ccluster f—\u201c. I didn\u2019t even want to know what that was about.<\/p>\n
Well, it took a bit of back and forth until we got the facts straight about how much cocaine and heroin were seized. Everyone seemed to have a different number, and the numbers didn\u2019t always refer to the same measurements; sometimes we were told that there were so many grams of something, sometimes it was in \u201cdecks\u201d, sometimes in \u201cbricks\u201d. And then there was confusion about what was taken in the immediate seizure, and how much came during the \u201crip\u201d (removed from the person of those who were taken into custody). <\/p>\n
Right at the point when the confusion was reaching its peak, Terri stopped her cursing and said, to everyone and no one in particular, \u201coh yea, figuring out how many decks are in a brick, this is why I went to law school nights\u201d. Actually, that comment made me feel better. I found her frustration to be a hopeful thing. Deep down inside, Terri still held within her the ideal of civilization. THAT is why she went to law school nights. She still had some soul left. <\/p>\n
We got the press release out OK. And I went home thinking about the refrain verse from Train\u2019s Calling All Angels<\/span>: \u201cI won\u2019t give up if you don\u2019t give up\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes I think that the world around me has pretty much given up on the idea of civilization. Maybe we go thru the motions so as to avoid getting sued, but in our hearts, we\u2019re all just animals right now; hunting and hurting (and sometimes even killing) as needed to meet our immediate needs. That\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2124,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions\/2124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}