perils of honest speech

As discussed previously, I have learned through sad experience to be strictly honest. This, coupled with the extensive time I spend doing nit-picky editing, has made me very particular about being accurate and precise in my speech. And this, in turn, has made me a boring conversationalist.

I know people don't generally care whether verbal speech is completely accurate and cited correctly. Indeed, I know that this is generally quite annoying. And yet, I feel a compulsion to make sure that I'm reporting things accurately and citing my sources, adding a disclaimer if I can't do so. "This reminds me of a humorous anecdote my boss was telling me the other day. Now, I don't remember all of this story completely, so I may not be getting all of the details right in places. I'll alert you to these areas as we go along. I should also point out that I cannot vouch for the complete accuracy of this story, as my boss does like to embellish things a bit. At any rate, proceeding with my story, . . . ."

This is all quite unfortunate, because there are many stories that are a lot better when you take certain liberties with the truth and fill in the blanks in memory or understanding. For instance, I could report that the Muslim taxi driver who picked me up at the Denver airport was disappointed when he learned that I was originally from California and not Utah because he would have asked me out if I was interested in bigamy.

But, I don't know if this is true. He definitely said something that he found very amusing about "Cali ladies" and "Utah ladies" and bigamy, but I couldn't actually hear everything he was saying. Unfortunately, this makes for a much less interesting story. And that's the problem with being honest. It makes you boring.*

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this blog post are not necessarily an accurate reflection of my thoughts and beliefs.

honestly speaking

Honesty is the best policy. I believe this in a moral sense, but I've also discovered it to be true in practice -- even when I think I have a good reason for some slight dishonesty, it seems like something happens to nudge me back onto the straight and narrow.

For example, on one occasion, I decide to ride the Metro without a valid ticket, rationalizing that this is better than being stranded in East St. Louis at night without a phone, money, credit cards, or pepper spray. And that happens to be the one time in a thousand when they actually come through the train to check for tickets.

Frequently (although much less frequently nowadays), I decide that it will be less effort to let people continue in some misconception (i.e., that my name is Christy, that I'm the person they meant to call and not a wrong number, that I don't mind eating peppers, etc.) rather than correcting them. I inevitably turn out to be wrong.

On a trip to Denver, I see that the only open window seat is in the exit row, so I change my reservation to that seat. When the flight attendant asks if I can handle opening a 40-pound exit door and assisting other passengers, I say "yes." I mean, I probably could. Maybe. But it's not like it matters anyway. How likely is it that something bad will actually happen on a short flight to Denver?

Ten minutes later, when the alarm starts blaring, smoke starts pouring out of the back of the cabin, and the flight attendant runs down the aisle, I begin seriously reconsidering that decision.

I've heard of people getting caught in their lies before, but I'm the only one I know of who almost got caught in a lie about being capable of opening an exit door. And that's why, for me, honesty is the best policy. Someone seems to be sending me a message, and I think I'd better listen.

Quote of the Day

"You can't have your spine and brain back."

I rather doubt that phrase has been spoken in a federal appellate court before. (It made sense in context, but still.)

tidbits of court history

Today I started reading the history of the Tenth Circuit (which is available here, although I'm reading it in book format). It's turned out to be quite interesting. At least, I find it so. Here are a few interesting tidbits from the first three chapters:

• Early pioneers in Western states set up mining courts to make up for the lack of statutory territorial courts. These mining courts, especially the ones in Colorado, were quite important and influenced both mining law and water rights law in Western states. (Water rights came into play because of placer mining, which requires substantial quantities of water.)
• One of the first three territorial judges appointed in Kansas, Rush Elmore of Alabama, brought his slaves with them. It was so cold that the slaves couldn't work, and the judge's wife, who had never cooked before, spent the winter feeding the slaves while the judge was kept busy cutting wood to keep them warm. (This judge was removed from office by the president for an Indian lands deal, but he was later reappointed. He was removable by the president because, as a territorial judge, he was a legislative judge rather than an Article III judge and thus didn't need to be impeached to be removed from office.)
• The first chief justice of the Kansas territory was often too busy with his potato farm to hold court. He also worked as a soldier at a nearby army camp and was an officer of a pro-slavery organization.
• Some territorial judges never actually did any judicial work, like Thomas Cuningham, who traveled out to Kansas after his appointment, didn't like it, and promptly resigned.
• Governor Reed of Kansas, upon the appointment of Judge Richard Hopkins to the bench in 1929, described the federal judiciary as a "growing stench in the nostrils of decent people."
• Judge Symes of the District of Colorado has been described as someone who "was not a scholar of the law, but his decisions were generally regarded as fair. In the words of one who practiced extensively before Judge Symes, 'the cases usually came out right but it was tough to figure out how.'" T. Fetter, A History of the Federal Courts of the Tenth Circuit 34 (1978) (unpublished manuscript on file in the Library of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit) (quoting interview with Judge Jean Breitenstein (May 17, 1977))). Also, this judge went bear-hunting.
  
• Judge William Knous of the District of Colorado shot off the first joint of his left forefinger while in grade school and earned his tuition money for law school by boxing. In 1928, he ran for state representative and won by a wide margin. He was a Democrat, but he carried one precinct by every vote cast, even those of the Republican committeeman and woman. "Each figured the other would vote for the Republican candidate and they could claim the vote."
• Judge Jean Breitenstein of the District of Colorado was an expert on water rights law. When he joined the bench, he was temporarily assigned to the federal district court in Philadelphia to try an admiralty case. Apparently the folks in Washington didn't know the difference between water law and admiralty.
• In a speech to the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1956, Judge Breitenstein defended the use of atomic power and said, "So long as we have to anticipate difficulty with powerful nations guided by amoral concepts . . we must be ready to oppose them with the force their philosophy will permit them to use." Denver Post, June 13, 1956 (quoting Judge Breitenstein).

Also, I find this quote on page 71 of the book really thought-provoking: "As society requires some regulation of conduct, the first condition of freedom is its limitation."

As another bit of trivia for you, only one Tenth Circuit judge has died since 1992. That's including active, senior, and retired judges. Impressive, no?

"I'm, uh, faster than a bear."

This news story from Cleveland made me laugh a lot. Well, not the story so much as the visuals. Someone seems to have had too much time on his hands.

story time

Yesterday I was sitting at the bus stop near my house when a guy came and sat on the bench by me. He launched into a story about how much he loves wearing lilac tights, but he said it in such a way that I couldn't tell whether he was crazy or just pretending to be so. Either way, he was pretty amusing.


To understand this next part of the story, you have to keep in mind that I can't lie, and I'm very bad at evading direct questions. Thus, when he asked where I worked, I went ahead and told him the building. It's pretty big and has lots of different kinds of offices in it, so I thought it wouldn't be too identifying. But then he said, "Oh yeah, you work on the sixth floor, right?" That's right, but I don't know how he knew it. I've never seen him there, and he later told me that he has a restraining order preventing him from entering this building. So I don't know if he just guessed correctly or if there's something creepier afoot. At any rate, I was a bit freaked out by this.

Fortunately, the bus came soon after that, and he didn't get on it. Before that, though, he commented on my whiteness, pointed out how much darker his skin was than mine, and asked if I found "dark-complected men" attractive. (Incidentally, this is the not the first time someone has tried to pick me up at the bus stop by asking me this question. Who knew it would be such a popular approach?) I got on the bus without answering because I didn't want to tell him the truth, which is that---well, just take a look at my recent blog entry over here.

Crazy guys, on the other hand, are not attractive to me. Sorry, crazies of the world, but I'm going to shoot you down every time, regardless of whether you've got awesome lilac tights or not.

I am . . . confused

Dumm Dumm Dumm is a very cute romantic comedy. It's about a boy and a girl who try to get out of an arranged marriage through a series of increasingly desperate schemes, and it's got a lot of really funny moments. But, the funniest part of the movie might just be the subtitles for the songs. They're apparently very literal translations of very poetic lyrics, and the result is just bizarre. Like this, for instance:


Or this:
Fabulous.

a vampire song

In case you were wondering what a singing and dancing vampire might look like, here's a fun song from a 1989 Telugu film to give you an idea. Okay, so the guy isn't a real vampire, but he's pretending to be one. (The heroine enjoys scaring men by saying she'll elope with them if they meet her behind the church at night and then staging frightening effects like coffins opening and ghosts appearing behind headstones. But, the hero knows about this, so he brings along his vampire costume and troupe of back-up skeletons to turn the tables on her. ) The vampire part starts about halfway through.