On Horseshit and Transitory Relevance

I’ve been “in irons” lately – my bow so close upon the wind that all headway ceases. As even the novice sailor knows, “irons” await when sailing into the wind without tacking. The illusion of motion remains, of course. One can feel the wind. There may be waves roundabout and the motion of the living sea surges beneath your hull. But, in truth, you are not moving at all. You are dead in the water – your boom loose, your sail listless and unfilled.

Until very recently, my irons went unnoticed, I imagine because the mere illusion of motion was inexplicably enough for me. However, recent postings about Trial Lawyers College (TLC) in a variety of venues have caused me to consult my internal GPS. Confirming a troubling lack of headway, I’ve reached for my boom and tiller – pushed them away from me – a counter-intuitive sailing move designed to reverse and turn your bow. Once the bow moves along the compass slightly, the sailor can pull in the mainsheet sharply, confidently draw in the tiller and off he will go.

I think I just heard my sail pop as it filled with wind.

The search for a word perfect for the situation at hand prompted my personal GPS consult. I needed a word to properly assess and describe a variety of recent postings about Trial Lawyers College – postings which mimic what used to be called “investigative journalism” but which are really just shallow imitations of Westbrook Pegler – a gentleman of the press once properly characterized as “the shrill, stuck whistle of American Journalism.”

Anyway, I found the word.

The word is: “Horseshit.”

There is a shrill, stuck whistle reverberating through the TLC firmament. The whistle poses as an investigative alarm and directs its focus toward people and personalities and TLC Boards and tax returns and leases and other such matters. These points are "investigated" with such erudition that one could be forgiven for assuming there was some palpable substance to the sound. That is the very nature of sound and fury, of course. This faux alarm whips up the ambient wind and leads people to conclude that SOMETHING must be up in light of all the hubbub. Amid such sound and fury, people bemoan the status quo, resign from Boards, decry materialism or the corrosive nature of “ TLC politics” – all while wringing their hands about thongs and such.

As a civil plaintiff trial lawyer, I have no trouble with alarms as a concept. How many products liability cases have I won wearing the fragrant garland of DESIGN – GUARD – WARN? Alarms are critical when a manufacturer can neither “design out” an identifiable danger nor adequately guard a consumer against that danger. In those situations, an “alarm” of some type is imperative. So, I get that.

Moreover, I have nothing but admiration in my heart for a free and unfettered press. America needs persistent watchdogs in the press asking the hard questions and irritating the power structure. Such overview, scrutiny and revelation keeps folks responsible for the Public Fisc honest…..or, in Louisiana, close enough to what might reasonably pass for honest. I secured a Journalism degree at LSU long before I somehow crowbarred my way into law school. Thus, the press has no greater champion than me – even when they sometimes get it wrong. If motives are pure, I’ll opt for revelation every time. Honest mistakes keep those in power with their hands on the Pepto-Bismol.

What’s true for alarms and journalism in general is probably also true for TLC, specifically. I get that too.

Of course, as Glenn Beck has so sagely taught us, there’s a difference between purely motivated revelation and old-fashioned horseshit.

So, how does one counter persistent, shrill horseshit anyway – particularly when presented eloquently? You cannot simply squelch it, for that tramples the right of every citizen to insert his two cents of horseshit into the American marketplace of ideas, even when it’s worth considerably less than that sum. You cannot intellectually counter it without descending into an abyss pre-defined by horseshit-spreader. This is why celebrities rarely sue The Globe or The Examiner or The National Enquirer. I mean….is there really any point to Brad Pitt suing over a story about how he is in cahoots with alien Scientologists seeking to impregnate teenage orphans?

Instead, I guess we simply have to think for ourselves and tune in to our own intuitive feelings on the points raised – feelings based upon our own experience. That might be a start.

Insofar as TLC is concerned, I am blessed to have had personal interaction with all of the folks named recently in blog-postings finding wide dissemination these days -- including Gerry. Some are dear friends. Some were TLC ’02 classmates. Some are on the TLC Board. I have been close to these TLC people over a considerable period of time. Thus, I have seen them at their best and I have seen them coast occasionally and I have seen them make the occasional misstep – just as I sometimes coast and just as I make my own daily missteps.

However, I will tell you what I have never seen. I have never seen ANY of them engage in wantonly selfish conduct with the goal of “using” TLC to secure personal enrichment. To anyone who says otherwise, I say: SHOW ME. The stuff I have seen written recently doesn’t demonstrate a damn thing, except that some people yearn to become transitorily relevant by shitting in their hands and throwing it, like chimps at the zoo.

Anyone who thinks that Gerry Spence is “using” TLC as a personal profit center is an imbecile. Any inference of this type is simply foolish. This is my considered opinion based upon personal observations cataloged over an extended period of time and in situations not open to all. Gerry Spence is human and has made mistakes -- just like you and me. His words and his record over the long haul, though, reveal an honest devotion to TLC's mission --- a life path in which much more has been GIVEN to The College and its Alumni over 15 years than has ever been TAKEN. So, please......save the "Spence-self-interest" conspiracy theories for the nuts with tin foil on their heads (to prevent the satellites from invading their thoughts) who love to "explain" how the CIA blew up the Twin Towers in New York on 9-11-01.

Anyone who concludes that the owners of the Thunderhead should just give The Ranch to TLC “and be done with it” are as selfish as toddlers and about as deep. When was the last time THEY gave anything possessing such immense value to anyone or anything? Here’s the answer: Never. But, it’s so easy to suggest that others do what they have never accomplished or considered. Too bad Huey Long isn’t still around as he could have recruited them to join his Share Our Wealth Party. Then, they could sit around and divide up the patrimony of others -- a delightful pastime if you have the stomach for such as that. (Do they like reeling in fish that others have hooked too?)

Anyone who thinks that TLC could secure another facility like Thunderhead for anything remotely approaching the lease terms currently in place is so ignorant of the market in this area that further discourse on the point would be wasted on such a rube. Look around and see what 250 acre (+ or -) Wyoming ranches with abundant water surrounded by non-developable Wildlife Preserve acreage are leasing for – IF you can find one. Then, take a gander at what they SELL for – remembering that, after you purchase the place, you STILL have to maintain the whole shebang. Assuming you did not have the do-re-mi to BUY such a joint – which the College does not – what would you have to borrow to make the purchase (assuming you could find a lender) and what would the attendant debt service costs be? Does any thinking person truly believe -- but for the provisions made for TLC by The Spence Foundation – our College would have access to anything like the facilities currently enjoyed? Please. We'd be in a Strip Mall in Lander.

Anyone who thinks ---just because Gerry’s attaches his name to TLC—that Spence should therefore be obligated to reach for his wallet and un-ass the full sum required to run the College is as stupid as he is short-sighted. Gerry’s contributions to TLC are immense. Nonetheless, some are apparently able to keep a straight face and state that---in addition to all that’s been done thus far—Spence should now part with millions he sweated to earn to either support or endow TLC. Such a vapid assessment ignores the manifest truth, which is this: Trial Lawyers College must learn to support itself. And, we will either embrace our responsibilities in that regard or we will perish. I am betting we will “cowboy up” and do what needs to be done, although we will do it carrying the horseshit-spreaders on our muscled backs.

Anyone who thinks that a foundation owning a Wyoming Ranch worth many millions of dollars should lease that facility to some entity (ANY entity) without a mechanism of prompt lease revocation is a piteous simpleton. It would be completely irresponsible to effect a lease on a property such as Thunderhead without a codicil of that type. Including language of that character is good lawyering, which fairly protects the owner of an immensely valuable property. The shrill skeptics say that such a clause allows the owning coalition to give TLC the boot once Gerry dies and is no longer the moving force behind that Foundation. Uhhhh....OK. So? Quit whining. When you've been given a lease-venue like Thunderhead in which to operate for the artificially depressed price assessed to TLC, this is a chance you take. Is it a realistic, looming possibility -- one that will pull the rug from beneath the College at any moment? The record of those involved in the ownership of Thunderhead shows it is NOT. But, it does give those who wish to become transitorily TLC-relevant a platform to sew cynicism and discord for their own purposes.

Anyone who bemoans the raising of funds from our own ranks to support TLC—even though it calls upon Warrior-volunteers to perennially pinch their own pocketbooks—does not understand what it takes for TLC to remain independent. Instead, they want “Daddy” to simply buy them the shiny new convertible. Similarly, anyone who spends time gazing upon lists of TLC donors so as to pronounce judgment on their true level of commitment to the College is engaging in a form of ignorant stone-throwing usually reserved to the sole province of 9th grade girls.

And, now that I mention it…..what are the horseshit-spreaders doing to suggest pragmatic mechanisms through which money might be raised to support the College?

Not a thing.

They actuate nothing.

They innovate nothing.

They plan nothing.

They brainstorm nothing.

They solve nothing.

Instead, they do the only thing people can do when they are bereft of true ideas: They embrace their transitory relevance through the ancient art of unremitting criticism. So, hooray for the criticizing horseshit-spreaders! They are as valuable as parasitic deer ticks.

But, I digress.

Anyone who succumbs to the vapors because TLC merchandise includes a thong carrying the College logo needs to have a sense-of-humor transplant, for cryin’ out loud. Anyone who thinks that such an item of merchandise somehow denigrates women is just spoiling for an argument over nothing.

Anyone who would pound their soap box because the TLC Board of Directors is not “elected” by the Alumni so misunderstands the basic methodology through which Non-Profits staff their Boards that illuminating the reality for them would begin much as Vince Lombardi commenced each one of his Packer Training Camps: “Gentlemen,” Lombardi would say, holding up a pigskin before his rookies. “THIS is a football.” TLC is not a traditional for-profit corporation, with a Board selected by shareholders, who are thus pledged to act in a manner designed to increase corporate stock prices and spur dividends. Non-Profit Board Members are routinely recruited and INVITED to join – usually by other members of the Board or the Executive Director or by other corporate officers. Anyone having rudimentary experience with non-profits knows this. That being so, any person who would intimate there is something dark and malignant in what is—in truth—wholly routine is….well…he’s Glenn Beck is who he is.

One could go on, of course. But, what is the point of arguing with The National Enquirer and the claim that a photo of Elvis cured the cancer in Jack Kennedy’s brain, which is alive in a jar somewhere?

My ongoing experience at Trial Lawyers College has evolved into one of the most important phases of my life. I know that any experience so thoroughly touching my heart cannot be run by pretenders and charlatans. My personal observations and friendships with the folks who run the joint bear that out. Where horseshit-spreaders see hypocrisy, I see human beings---with all their faults and failings---doing their level best to make an astonishing place better and more accessible to other trial lawyers. Where the horseshit-spreader sews cynicism and opts for criticism or the spinning of base conspiracy theories, I choose to roll up my sleeves and work to help a special place survive and prosper.

Of course, this will mean to the horseshit spreaders that I am brainwashed -- that I am adrift in cultish TLC Kool-Aid and thus incapable of objective assessments. Such an assertion just makes me chuckle. It cannot be countered and I will instead rely on those who know me to judge who and what I am......although the potential charge DOES remind me of one of the greatest exchanges in American politics. The exchange took place in 1968, when candidates were coming out of the woodwork to oppose Lyndon Johnson's anticipated re-election bid. Eugene McCarthy was mounting a stinging challenge within the Democratic Party to his sitting President and George Romney, previously the governor of Michigan, was one of the Republican hopefuls. Romney had been a POW in Korea and the issue of whether or not he had been "brainwashed" while in the hands of his Korean captors came to the forefront of political debate. Romney denied being "brainwashed", of course -- engendering predictable skepticism. McCarthy, on the other hand, skewered Romney's campaign forever when asked if he believed Governor Romney had been "brainwashed" in Korea. In response, McCarthy paused briefly and then replied with great solemnity: "Well....a light rinse would have been sufficient."

Instead of trying to defend against a lack of objectivity --an unwinnable battle because I am obviously NOT objective -- maybe what’s best to say to the horseshit-spreaders is what Nicholson’s character, Melvin Udall, says in the 1997 movie As Good As It Gets: “Where do they teach you to talk like this? In some Panama City "Sailor wanna hump-hump" bar, or is it getaway day and your last shot at his whiskey? Sell crazy someplace else, we're all stocked up here.”

Now….enough is enough. Let’s move our bow along the compass, draw in our mainsail, pull the tiller firmly toward our chest and get this damn boat out of irons and movin’.


----J.R.

Behold a Pale Horse....

And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. ---Matthew 24:6

TLC terrain is mountainous. Level landscapes along valley floors are transitory and lead nowhere, sheltered as they are by scarred and foreboding peaks.

Upon the serrated TLC horizon, visible to us from the valley, there now appears a rider well situated on a pale horse, silhouetted against advancing thunderheads. There is an electric apprehension in the wind as the rider places himself between the Warrior and new worlds, cantering to and fro on his glistening mount. From somewhere deep within our ancient genetic code, there comes a warning to flee from the sight of this rider, as if he brings to us the end of days.

He is not a member of our tribe. He is not anyone we know. If we yet live, we have never met him.

Strangely, though, tremors of elemental danger and rumors of war come to us from him on the wind.

Leaving the comfort of a valley floor requires courage, effort and sweat coupled with no small amount of determination. Determined, any member of the TLC tribe can scale the adjacent heights and discern new worlds. Absent such determination, one shall be condemned to live always in the valley.

In this terrain, even a slight relocation of your position from within the valley changes your view entirely. No matter how many times that happens---and it always does---such an altered scene quickens the pulse. Having just seen a vista in one light, a few determined steps will reveal it shimmering from a new perspective, as if the world is new.

Neither the rider nor his pale horse bears down upon us. It is not our time for that encounter. Instead, they are simply in our view, seen on the far horizon, in advance of streaming thunderheads which miss as often as they hit. They are but a vision, there for us to make of them what we will from our initial vantage point. Determined, we can stride from the valley, into the craggy heights, where our view of the panorama will inevitably change.

And then, from that evolved, heightened place, the world before us is new.

--J.R.

Wyoming ... and The World

I’ve just returned from TLC Staff Training at Thunderhead Ranch– a period of time devoted to “working on the horse.” Wyoming’s gorgeous terrain fosters an initial wide-eyed wonderment. Shortly, however, the wide and jagged spaces prod me toward an ever more inward trek, where I wander among shadowed soul canyons. Although it takes 2 or 3 days sometimes, the nation’s news cycles fade from consciousness and the political cacophony is stilled.

For days this inward reverie shepherds me to the most intimate inner spaces and I find myself becoming oddly tender in the most surprising ways. I am changing and—resistant at first—I inevitably succumb, reveling in the change.

And, then, just as others experienced long ago in The Nam, I start to get “short.” My tour is over and the time grows nigh for my return to The World.

They ought to pipe in some Buffalo Springfield as the keys to the rental are surrendered. I can hear it as background for the shuffle through airport security in Jackson Hole and the march out onto the tarmac leading to the jetway:

“…What a field-day for the heat

A thousand people in the street

Singin' songs and carryin' signs

Mostly say, hooray for our side

It's time we stop, hey, what's that sound

Everybody look what's going down…”

Plucked out of Thunderhead’s cocoon, carted down the mountain and zippered up in an aluminum tube – I submit unto my delivery system back into The World. Squeezing into my seat on an MD Super80 or some such, I often wonder if I ought not stand, ask for quiet and then say a few words to my fellow travelers who are leaving God’s Country to be deposited back into “civilization.”

However, I always demur so as not to get the police involved.

Anyway, like I was sayin’, I’ve returned from Trial Lawyers College just in time to have my brain saturated by the hubbub surrounding Obama’s nomination of Ms. Sotomayor as the next Associate Justice of our Supreme Court. The opinions crack along the airwaves like the report from my Ruger 30.06 – painfully sharp at first, followed by a reverberating echo. Then, your ears ring for awhile as you acclimate to your new level of permanent hearing loss.

In order to lend a hand, I usually find myself wading into the Talk Soup to venture my own opinion, which is usually ill informed, partisan and loudly heartfelt.

On this occasion, I have refrained.

Instead, quietly wishing Ms. Sotomayor well, I tug at drifting memories of Wyoming landscapes and the recollected sound of my own breath as I climb alone up rocky ridges, soaking up an evolving understanding of my place in the world. Like dreams, though, these misty, tugging memories swirl and dissipate even as I long to neatly fold them into my pocket like ready cash.

Again amid the worldly clamor and nearly a week removed from Thunderhead, I reach for my pockets and that ready Wyoming cash. However, as in dreams, my reach never finds its mark. The pocket into which I have tucked this precious treasure eludes me.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

--- J.R.