It made me laugh. So I’m just passing it along in case you could use a laugh, too.

These are said to be from a book called Disorder in the American Courts. The title is a little off. It looks to me that the title is Disorder in the Court: Great Fractured Moments in Courtroom History.

Imagine hearing these things actually said in court and taken down – word for word – for the court record.

ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.

ATTORNEY: What gear were you in at the moment of the impact?
WITNESS: Gucci sweats and Reeboks.

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?

ATTORNEY: What was the first thing your husband said to you that morning?
WITNESS: He said, ‘Where am I, Cathy?’
ATTORNEY: And why did that upset you?
WITNESS: My name is Susan!

ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, isn’t it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn’t know about it until the next morning?
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: Uh, he’s twenty.

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?
WITNESS: Are you shittin’ me?

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Uh… I was gettin’ laid.

ATTORNEY: What is your date of birth?
WITNESS: July 18th.
ATTORNEY: What year?
WITNESS: Every year.

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITN SS: Are you for real? Your Honour, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about medium height and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Guess.

ATTORNEY: Is your appearance here this morning pursuant to a deposition notice which I sent to your attorney?
WITNESS: No, this is how I dress when I go to work.

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All my autopsies are performed on dea d people. Would you like to rephrase that?

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK? What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: No, he was sitting on the table wondering why I was doing an autopsy on him!

ATTORNEY: Are you qualified to give a urine sample?
WITNESS: Huh…are you qualified to ask that question?

And the best for last:

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

Awwwwww…….

Don’t worry, Darrell, you’re still my favorite bear – and thanks for the recommendation to visit RockOm. Love it!

For my real name:

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Entirely Miss Reverend Lady Heidi the Abrupt of Withering Glance Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

For my internet name:

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Empress Virushead the Gnomic of Lardle St Earache Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

For a couple of my aliases:

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Grace Lady Melody the Decent of Divine Intervention Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Reverend Countess Faelily the Blossoming of Mousehole by Sea Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Our son’s “Google doodle” made the cut and he is one of only six finalists at his elementary school to have the opportunity to enter the big Google contest.

The contest theme is “What if…”. The kids had a template of the Google logo, and then designed their own drawings around it.

At Google we believe in thinking big, and dreaming big, and we can’t think of anything more important than encouraging students to do the same. So we hope you’ll gather those art supplies and some 8.5×11 paper and encourage your kids to enrich us all with their creative visions of our world, as it is and as it might be.

The thing that has Ben most excited is the possibility that his drawing would be showing on the Google home page for a whole day. He didn’t make any big deal about being one of the six winners from his whole school. I love that kid so much.

His drawing has an underwater theme, with fishes in two of the letters.

There are other prizes for the winners, to wit:

The National Winner will win a $10,000 college scholarship to be used at the school of their choice; a trip to the Googleplex on May 21, 2008; a $25,000 grant towards the establishment/improvement of a computer lab for their current school; a laptop computer; and a t-shirt with their Google Doodle printed on it. Their doodle also will be displayed on the www.google.com home page for one day. The National Finalists who did not become the National Winner will win a laptop computer, a trip to the Googleplex on May 21, 2008 and a t-shirt with their Google Doodle printed on it. The 36 Regional Winners who did not become National Finalists will win a trip to the Googleplex on May 21, 2008 and a t-shirt with their Google Doodle printed on it. The 460 State Finalists who did not become Regional Winners will each receive a Doodle 4 Google certificate.

A trip to the Googleplex?!? Me! Me! I wanna go!

“A moment I’ve been dreading. George brought his n’er-do-well son around this morning and asked me to find the kid a job. Not the political one who lives in Florida; the one who hangs around here all the time looking shiftless. This so-called kid is already almost 40 and has never had a real job. Maybe I’ll call Kinsley over at The New Republic and see if they’ll hire him as a contributing editor or something. That looks like easy work.”

— Ronald Reagan, The Reagan Diaries, entry dated May 17, 1986

Thanks to Corinne!

Update six hours later:

But wait! This was just too accurate to be true. I’m holding my head down in chagrin for not Googling a likely phrase, but it seemed so… so… right.

It’s all right here on Snopes.

Thanks James.

Well, I got the one book, but then I also received two more books directly from the author. They were all signed, with the date, and inscribed to Ben with message “Follow Your Dreams.” Ben was very happy with that, and so was I. Thank you, Stephen!

I opened up Creatures of the Night, and scanned the inside flaps as I normally do. There was a sweet photograph of Stephen J. Brooks holding a cute little girl – I’m guessing his daughter – but this is what send an arrow to my heart:

He has served as a Federal Agent for over a decade and writes to comfort children. He has always escaped into the magical world of word: comforted through poetry and prose alike.

In The Fairy Ball (which was I think intended for ME {smile}), there was more:

Now, more than ever, he sees the need to reassure children. He works to provide them a magical setting where they can escape the tribulations of their environment. Mr. Brooks writes books that provide enchanting worlds where children are safe to wander and explore.

Because this is a set of concerns very close to my own heart, I have to admit that I am predisposed to like the books. And I did like them. He has worked with different illustrators, some better than others. They are written in the kind of basic poetry found in many children’s books. The recurring theme is a child who wanders out to explore and experience a magical place, is able to navigate the environment and find new aspects of reality, and then returns to the mundane protected with a touch of spirit to help and guide them.

Part of the value of such books is to feed the imagination of children so that they can activate ways of seeing differently using their imaginations.

This sort of imaginative “inner space making” has survival value. I have experienced it for myself and I am convinced of the aching need most children have for it. Children who have experienced difficult realities have even more need for this than the more protected children do. This is how we learn to make sense of our experiential worlds and to multiply the possibilities for making our way along through them.

Ben’s favorite was Alexander Asenby’s Great Adventure. The young boy knight rides a dragon through the starry sky, helps a fairy king protect a town from trolls and other frightening creatures, shares in the celebratory feast and rides the dragon home – all the way back through the closet door. As a girl who would hide out in the closet at times, that rang well with me, too.

I also liked the metaphorical scent of lilac that permeated The Fairy Ball. It’s my favorite flower, and it has always made me feel that all was well. Oh, to dance with the fairies in a glen full of lilacs!

My favorite, however, was the one that I had opened first. Creatures of the Night is a bedtime story that opens up a meditative awareness of all the night-time lives that can surround us. The books constructs a privileged viewpoint that sees what no child can see. That in itself is very fun, but the story goes further in that it evokes an almost mystical sense of place in which the child can feel that he or she really is part of it all, belonging to the surrounding world of all the nighttime creatures. Nicely done.

Alas, I am also a teacher, and one who loves poetry, and so I cannot resist making a couple of suggestions for bringing future books to the next level.

If Mr. Brooks would pull more visual texture into the vocabulary, they could become extraordinary books.

It’s a matter of personal preference, of course, but I also think he could rethink the poetry’s meter. If he keeps the basic four-line stanza, the poetry would be better without the extra syllable in the last line. When you read it out loud, it is difficult to decide where the stress should be. I suspect many parents and children stumble there.

The majestic coyote makes his way
Through the woods each night.
He calls his friends to come and play
As he howls in the moon’s bright light.

I would prefer the last line to have the same beat, something like “Howling through the moon’s bright light.”

I enjoyed the books very much and so did Ben. My suggestions here are intended in a spirit of support.

I look forward to reading new books by Stephen Brooks. Writing gets better and better with the right kind of heart, and he has that in abundance.