Prairie Ramblings

By Tracy Sayler
Prairie Grains Editor
tsayler@prairieagcomm.com

Open Season on Attorneys

Children of America: As you ponder your career path in life, I speak for the good of society to implore you that if worse comes to worse, join a traveling carnival, mine coal, take the evening shift at the rendering plant, become a street mime, run for Congress, go into farming if you have to, but please, just don’t become another damned lawyer.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but statistics show that there are 50,000 lawyers for every person in America, with the per capita lawyer rate eclipsing the mosquito breeding population shortly after O.J. beat the rap (“if the glove don’t fit, you must acquit!”). And the alibis have been getting crazier ever since.

Recently in Ohio, a city prosecutor was charged with indecency after a security camera caught him walking around naked in a government building after business hours.  The guy’s lawyer claimed that since his client was seriously injured in a 2005 car accident, the pantless prosecutor suffers from mental illness, is on medication for seizures, and “is an American with a disability.” No counselor, he’s a bare butt freak who no longer has any business being in a courtroom other than to plead “guilty as charged.”

Closer to home, before Alfonzo Rodriguez was sentenced to death for murder, Fonzy’s lawyers attempted to document a life of “sexual abuse, poverty, desperation, and exposure to farm chemicals that left Rodriguez brain damaged.”  While Fonzy and his scumbag lawyers were at it, maybe they should have thrown in a full moon, violent Roadrunner cartoons, bigotry (legal defense 101: play the race card however and whenever you can) and vitamin C deficiency for good measure.

Says one sugar beet farmer about Fonzy’s farm chemical defense: “You know, if he hoed sugar beets, I don’t think he would have been exposed to any chemicals.   I don’t think beets had anything for weed control until Betamix in about the mid 70s.  Think about it. Why did people hoe beets?  Because there was no chemical control.”

See, there’s no personal responsibility these days, and it’s perpetuated by overlawyering. Bad behavior’s gotta be the fault of society, somebody, or something. Even our nation’s lawmakers play victim. Just ask former Congressman Mark Foley, who blamed alcohol and a wayward priest for his eagerness to turn pages, so to speak.

Loony lawyers aren’t limited to our borders. A German lawyer made news recently by announcing plans to pursue compensation claims for victims abducted by space aliens.  “These people could appeal for therapies or cures,” the attorney said, and probably with a straight face.

Lawsuits seem to be everywhere, inflating the cost of goods and services from healthcare to education (by the way, no playing tag on the playground at Willett Elementary south of Boston. Someone might get hurt and thus sued.)

There are groups out there like the American Tort Reform Association (www.atra.org) and Common Good (http://cgood.org) working to restore common sense to American law.  More power to ya.

Meanwhile, we the people will continue to express our disdain for overlawyering the way we know best, and that is to joke about them (ie: lawyer calls the farmer and says “I regret to inform you that my esteemed partner has died, and I want to take his place.” Farmer: “Well, it’s OK with me if it’s OK with the undertaker.”).  I love the following humor bit that I found on the Internet and peppered up a bit:

Attorney Season Hunting Rules

• Any resident or nonresident with a valid hunting license may harvest attorneys.
• It is unlawful to corral, chase, herd, or harvest attorneys from a snow machine, helicopter, or aircraft.
• Taking of attorneys with traps or deadfalls is permitted. The use of cash or other forms of currency as bait is prohibited.
• It shall be permitted to engage in shining at nightfall for the purpose of locating attorneys.  The use of disco strobe lights and GPS tracking devices are prohibited.
• Killing of attorneys with a vehicle is prohibited. If accidentally struck, remove dead attorney to roadside and proceed to nearest car wash.
• It shall be unlawful to shout “whiplash,” “ambulance,” or “complimentary merlot” for the purpose of trapping attorneys.
• It shall be unlawful to hunt attorneys within 200 yards of courtrooms and within 100 yards of BMW dealerships.
• If an attorney is elected to government office and enters onto federally protected lands, it shall be a felony to hunt, trap, or possess it, unless shot before entering protected areas – then go ahead and finish’em off.
• Stuffed or mounted attorneys must be tagged to certify state health department inspection for rabies, vermin, or other communicable and infectious diseases.
• It shall be illegal for a hunter to use camouflage as a reporter, ambulance driver, drug dealer, pimp, attractive female legal clerk, attractive gay legal clerk, accident victim, bookie, or tax accountant for the purpose of hunting attorneys.

BAG LIMITS
(by common name and species):

$100 Bounty: Silver-tongued repeat criminal defender
(Jackassus rotinhellus) Scaly headed sentence appealer (taxntimewastus dragonforeverus)

No Limit: Yellow bellied sidewinder (Stinkumis oldspiceus) Two-faced tort twittler (I objectus yerhonorus) Cut-throat divorce litigator (Noprenupus noproblemis) Cross-eyed ACLU loon (Godless anarchyis) White-tailed ambulance chaser (Heresmycardus callmeis) Pinstriped corporate tax dodger (Outsourceous offshorus) Brown-nosed judge kisser (I billus bydahourus) Big-mouthed pub gut (Slipfall thensueum)

One per day*: Red-necked country lawyer (EIEIOis gottahavemorecowbellus) *One per day, to maintain a population for handling estates, land transactions, and interpret the farm program.