Which Of These Jokes Is More Offensive?

Dec 9, 2008

By Patrick.

Humor, Law

This joke and others like it were directed to the invited recipients of a private email list, a list from which the recipients could opt out, by an avuncular old man who is apparently just getting his feet wet on the internet:

YOU MAY BE A TALIBAN IF……….

1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer.

2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can’t afford shoes.

3. You have more wives than teeth.

4. You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon “unclean.”

5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide.

6. You can’t think of anyone you HAVEN’T declared Jihad against.

7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing.

8. You were amazed to discover that cell phones have uses other than setting off roadside bombs.

9. You’ve ever uttered the phrase, “I love what you’ve done with your cave.”

10. You have nothing against women and think every man should own at least one.

11. You bathe at least monthly whether necessary or not.

12. You’ve ever had a crush on your neighbor’s goat.

My father, regrettably, forwards this sort of thing to me several times a week. I tend to ignore the jokes, and instead send emails inquiring after his health, but he hasn’t taken the hint.

Now, this next joke was played by a reporter for a major metropolitan newspaper, on his employer, its shareholders, and on the residents of his city:

A reporter walks into a newsroom. He gets a call from a lawyer who’s been disciplined as a vexatious litigant by multiple courts. The lawyer has an axe to grind against one of the judges who disciplined him, one judge out of the many who have sanctioned this lawyer. The reporter goes on to repeat everything that the angry lawyer tells him, over and over, in story after story, for months, as the newspaper, which is already the butt of jokes, lays off other journalists who report actual news. Meanwhile, circulation at the newspaper declines, and the owner’s stock price plummets.

I find the second joke far more offensive, and not just because it lacks a punchline. I find it offensive that Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Judge Alex Kozinski, who was embroiled in controversy earlier this year over his maintenance of rather silly (but offensive to Mrs. Grundy) images on a web server he thought was private, is yet again the subject of an apparent jihad by his hometown paper, for having a sense of humor.

The story is that Judge Kozinski, who is one the most respected jurists on the bench but a bit of a character, sends joke emails to former clerks, attorneys with whom he’s built a relationship, and friends. Recipients, as some of the jokes are a bit off-color, are advised that they can opt out of the list, and that’s it. The whole story.

Meanwhile, one of the largest papers in the country, acting on a tip from the above-referenced vexatious litigant, reports on this as though it’s news, as though the jokes call the Judge’s character or impartiality into question (I can guess what most judges think of the Taliban), or as though the jokes constitute some form of harassment. Spam is not harassment. The best they can come up with is this:

Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School and former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, was skeptical that those who found jokes on the list offensive would necessarily complain, given Kozinski’s commanding stature in the legal community.

“If you’re ambitious, he’s the last person you want to offend,” she said.

If you’re an ambitious attorney and you can’t muster the courage to send an email containing this polite lie:

“Dear Judge Kozinski, while I’m flattered that you added me to your email list, I’m concerned that my wife / husband / significant other / boss might read these funny jokes. Regretfully, I must ask you to remove me from your list. Thanks!”

you have no business in a federal courtroom.

I don’t carry water for those who argue that we need to increase pay on the federal bench because we’re losing the best talent. The bench is its own reward. But it has been increasingly politicized through the years, and that’s of greater concern, because we will lose anyone who dares to think originally or unconventionally. Now, with the Los Angeles Times and others like it jumping in, we may be in danger of losing any judge who has a sense of humor.

Via Overlawyered.

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5 Comments

Alex Kozinski

4 Comments

Ken • Dec 9, 2008 @1:08 pm

So far, I am not personally offended by any of the jokes I have seen from this email list. Some seem tiresome. That’s hardly a crime.

A few thoughts:

I would be tempted to call this a Gary Hart situation, if Kozinski were an executive or legislative official rather than a judicial one. Hart, you will recall, carried out an affair and dared the media to catch him. The arguable point — that a politician’s private affair is nobody’s business — was swamped by the recognition that someone who nails Donna Rice on the side and then dares the media to catch him whilst running a presidential campaign simply lacks the judgment to be in the same room as The Button.

Kozinski’s conduct is not in the same ballpark, but it’s in the same sport. Whether or not you think that the modern attitude towards such jokes reflects Victorian prudery, it’s rash for a public figure to send them to a seemingly indifferently culled list that includes reporters. This result was somewhere between possible and probable. That reflects questionable judgment — though perhaps not the sort of questionable judgment that matters for a judge.

I agree that the LA Times is probably being led about by a vexatious litigant. They ought to view information from him with suspicion. They ought to disclose that the complainant driving this is a litigious nut. Here’s the more complicated question: is this newsworthy? I’m not as confident in answering no to that as some critics. I do, however recognize that the LA Times can effectively manufacture newsworthiness; they can more plausibly argue that this story is newsworthy because it followed the hoo-ha about the images on the judge’s servers, even if that story was questionably newsworthy to begin with.

As an aside, the thirty minutes Judge Kozinski once spent chewing on me during an oral argument in which I was only supposed to get ten minutes ranks as one of the highlights of my career to me, in terms of intellectual and professional challenge.
Eric • Dec 9, 2008 @5:14 pm

So just to be clear… you’re comparing lawyers to the Taliban?
Bobby • Dec 9, 2008 @9:47 pm

Almost any who file a law suit in federal court is one engaged in vexatious litigation by the Clerk clique of Ted Frank, the AEI, and the Federalist Society, as they want federal courts to be almost reserved for big corporations to sort out their commercial disputes. They–the outhouse corp cartel– get paid on meter runs at a big clip per hour.
Yes, they(Frank et al) reserve that status to lawyers for Americas–persons– of like the Taliban, or the Chamber(CC) head jokes about: the first thing we do is kill all the trial lawyers(for American citizens), his sick twisted joke, if not his mindset.
So, it is no surprise all the smut promoters rushing to the side of Sir Alex Kozionski, the wired- in wack job, who seems to find plenty of time for his sicko pursuits, or in the words of his political wife: Alex is into funny. Ha Ha.
Or, we are now in danger of losing any judge who has a sense of humor that is not a parrot job of Ted Frank’s twisted
mind.
Yes, isn’t censorship of his clique rather widespread, as evidenced by how they treat other’s views.
Patrick • Dec 10, 2008 @6:00 am

Bobby, I can’t address your comments on Ted Frank, as I don’t know the man. In any case, this is not his weblog nor is he the subject of this post. Perhaps if you wish to discuss your thoughts on Mr. Frank you should do so at a site where he can answer you, such as Overlawyered.

As to the Times’ use of Cyrus Sanai (and vice versa) to generate controversy concerning Judge Kozinski, I find it interesting that whenever the topic comes up here, we invariably receive a traffic spike from new visitors who post rambling ad hominem comments that don’t address the subject. The only similar events I can recall are an ongoing comment flamewar in one of our posts about a surgeon who has poor judgment, and a summer invasion of slavophile bigots who had an axe to grind against a New York congressman.

The web is a funny place.