Hands, they betray me like dissident fiends
disrupting
the gradual flow and how
they sting with each frosted touch
cold tips, those mocking digit spears
all comfort
shooting pains in veins inflamed
knuckles reeling
protruding
in rhythmic vibraphone time
like a rippling wave through a crooked spine.
-Kevin Zing
ZING, K., Law Student.
I, Kevin Zing, a law student, am writing this statement at 12:30pm on the fourteenth of October 2004. Did I mention that I’m sitting on my behind? Well, to ease your mind, you ought to know that I am indeed sitting on said body part, hitherto referred to as “behind,” and hereinafter referred to as “ass.” This bit about said ass will prove relevant later.
It is the wish of said law student, hereinbefore identified as Kevin Zing and hereinafter referred to as KZ, to express his condemnation on all of the pretentious windbag appellate judges, supreme court judges, and state and federal legislatures who write their needlessly long opinions and hopelessly confusing statutes with ludicrously repetitive and self-referential signposting language, and with such a jumble of ponderous legal jargon therein that renders said opinions and statutes, so described as “needlessly long,” utterly indecipherable even to those well accustomed to reading the English language. That said law student KZ should object to this painful prose should come as no surprise to the said judges and lawmakers, hereinbefore described as “pretentious windbags” and hereinafter referred to as “time-wasting, English language butchering, hide-and-go-seeking-with-the-legal-issues assholes.” It does not matter to said law student KZ that you time-wasting, English language butchering, hide-and-go-seeking-with-the-legal-issues assholes wrote much of the offending reading material during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The said KZ has read plenty of good prose by individuals far less educated than yourselves who wrote clear, engaging, legible prose dating as early as the beginning of the so described 19th century. Their mastery of the English language is still enjoyed not by some, but by the insurmountable multitude of many today, in the hereinbefore unmentioned twenty-first century.
Those who might object to this address, dismissing it as a mere litany of ignorance, hereinafter referred to as “respondents,” entirely miss the point of statutes and precedential opinions. Said statutes and precedential opinions should not be treated as a mysterious coded language that only those in the legal profession have any business reading. No, said statutes and precedential opinions ought to be written in clear, efficient prose which conveys meaning so that they actually resemble the hereinbefore mentioned English language. That lay people ought to be given the opportunity to become better informed on said statutes and precedential opinions is an undeniable entitlement that said time-wasting, English language butchering, hide-and-go-seeking-with-the-legal-issues assholes ought to have respected in the past, and ought to respect in the present and the future. The respondee, hitherto described as KZ, does not appreciate having to spend twenty minutes reading a single page. Said respondee cannot believe that there has been a handful of judges and lawmakers in certain jurisdictions who have written clumsy opinions and statutes employing the hereinbefore described ponderous prose well into the 1950s. But respondee has over two years left of law school, so he may well eventually discover other opinions and statutes written in the manner so described that date even later than the previously mentioned date above.
Respondee compels said time-wasting, English language butchering, hide-and-go-seeking-with-the-legal-issues assholes and respondents alike to kiss the said ass of KZ. The above mentioned act should not be very difficult, as the hereinbefore mentioned judges, lawmakers, and their supporting respondents (and other parties contained therein) have either been expressly or impliedly proven to meet the requirement of being assholes. They know the manner of the said act, and they know which way to go.
It is so ordered.
Imbedded in the heart of every man is the quiet fear of being alone. How to cope with that fear is a question that we all answer differently. Some would choose flight and constant company, while others stand their ground and confront the solitude. Sometimes you have to generalize when you’re playing the part of pretentious writer.
Anyway, in my case, I believe I stand somewhere ambiguously in the middle, although I probably lean a little further to the “brave,” loner side of things. I’d like to think of myself as a gregarious hermit. Although I’m usually most content to be left alone with my own thoughts, if you come at me with reasonably un-irritating banter, then I’ll smile in recognition and continue the conversation–but only if I’m in the mood. “What a bitchy diva,” some would say. I prefer the title “moody loner,” thank you very much.
I often wonder what other people think about my antisocial moods. Back when I was lifting boxes all day at Mervyn’s, my coworkers would comment on how quiet I could sometimes be. “What’s wrong?” they’d ask me. But it had nothing to do with good feelings, bad moods, or anything “wrong.” Sometimes you just want the entire day to yourself, but you can’t afford to spend all of that time at home. Then there are times at school when I’m feeling less-than-social, and I coast along while deftly avoiding all opportunities for conversation. When you’re stressed out over your course load, the last thing you want to hear is how on top of it your classmates are. And then there are moments when I’m chilling at Carlos’ place with the whole group, and I feel the need to step outside and think. What magical revelation I’m hoping to dream up while I’m outside is beyond my imagination. As self-aware as I’d like to claim to be, even I have a hard time figuring out my motivations at times. I can only imagine what others might think.
Maybe what I fear most is that I’m more of a bitchy diva than a sensitive artist. Perhaps that’s why I’m so curious about what others think about me. Then again, I’m probably not giving myself enough credit. I’ll need some time to think this one through. If you need me, I’ll be sulking in the corner and pretending not to hear you.
It’s funny the way mass-media has grown to perceive the blogging community. In light of Dan Rather’s Bush-bashing blunder, commentators on various news broadcasts have begun to paint a noble image of what bloggers represent. We are the new wave of grass roots political activism. We are all highly literate, immaculately well-informed scholars who can sway the masses with our incisive commentary. We are vigilant patriots, forever standing at the ready with pens poised, waiting for the next political controversy to arise so that we can issue to the world our immediate opinions.
When the Bush memo scandal was at its peak two weeks ago, right-wing talk show host Sean Hannity praised bloggers for debunking the memo’s authenticity long before Dan Rather and CBS admitted their mistake. On the left side of the spectrum, Jon Stewart, host of the The Daily Show, recently spoke some of his own words of admiration for bloggers on The Charlie Rose Show:
Here are people that are unbelievably knowledgeable in very specific fields, and unbelievably well-tentacled into all sorts of areas of information–and they’re doing it immediately.
There are others in the media that have had similar praises.
You know, I used to think bloggers were the only ones who took blogging too seriously. I agree, there does exist a faction of ridiculously smart people that maintains informative and potentially influential blogs. But even in this text-based virtual world of ours, the laws of economics still apply. What we have here is market saturation. With the growing popularity of weblogs, coupled with the increasing credibility that the mass media deems on the so-called “blogosphere,” the blogging community has seen a huge influx of new entrants. Let’s be honest. For every politically-charged weblog, there are twelve others that are simply devoted to pictures of the webmasters’ cats. There are more people talking about the mundane minutia of their daily experiences than there are people discussing France’s ban on religious apparel in its schools. More people are bitching about their failing love lives as opposed to George W. Bush’s fiscal policies. On the whole, we’re not quite the noble savages that the media plays us up to be.
It’s not my place to belittle the blogging community, nor is it my intention to do so. I don’t talk about politics very much at all, but I do often blog about mundane things. I do bitch a lot about my love life (but not recently, thanks to Diana). And I don’t have a cat, but I do take pictures of my stuffed bear and post them online. I’m not trying to discredit the world of blogging, but I also don’t think we should be deifying it with hype. The blog can impart wisdom, yes. But given the staggering amount of blogs out there, who has time to read them all? The market is saturated, and just as it is with cable television and its prolific channel selection, nobody has time to read and care about every blog. In short, do bloggers really have as much power as figures in the mass media would claim?
The internet is a huge bathroom wall, and everybody has a chance to scrawl on it. In leaving their mark, some would choose profundity with a quotation from Gandhi, while others are perfectly content to scribble things like, “I heart boobs.” When you indiscriminately open up a writing medium to a mass selection of people, you have to expect anything. I don’t deny the power of single voices. But how often do you take heed to the things that people write on bathroom walls?
The other day, my classmate Jennifer saw somebody walk by wearing a Blogspot t-shirt, and she asked me, “What the hell is a blog?” Damn straight, Jennifer.
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