In a recent published order, Judge Alex Kozinski rejected a complaint that a judge had engaged in misconduct by making jokes about a candidate for public office. “The mere fact that a statement takes the form of a joke,” Judge Kozinski wrote, “does not render it misconduct; humor is the pepper spray in the arsenal of persuasive literary ordnance: It is often surprising, disarming and, when delivered with precision, highly effective.” In Re Complaint of Judicial Misconduct, Order No. 10-90016, Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit, Feb. 2. 2011. Highly effective? Yes, sometimes. Timing and delivery certainly help. It also […]
Monthly Archives: May 2011
2 posts
I call this section The Try-Works because I’ll try here to capture some fleeting notions from time to time, and try to hang on long enough to render them into words. I might have called it Musings or Notions — or Ephemera for that matter, for only the ephemeral may be found here. But I borrowed my title instead from Melville (see www.princeton.edu/~batke/moby/moby_096.html), thinking that the old customs officer, if he could roam the docks today, might take some amusement from the notion that a reader could press a button, launch on cyberseas, and instantly take up conversation with Ishmael […]