continuing Court System Part 1

The case was going pretty much as everybody expected. It was a high profile trial. Everybody was tuned in via netlink. Lots of premium advertising had been sold. The projected demographic for the case was somewhere in between World Federation Wrestling, and the voting public of the state of Minnesota.

Mr. Carter, a Muslim Jamacian who was the 1/16th Innuet Eskimo (on his father's side) required for a plaintiff to launch a, "second strike of lightning" suit against Texon, whose first strike came fourteen years ago when a drunken captain crashed a supertanker full of crude into Alaska, was charging that Texon's "pattern of drunkenly spilling oil on Eskimos and nearby wildlife which the Eskimos could conceivably hunt to live on, was discriminatory and harmful to the protected group and its individual members."

A few reporters at American Lawyer Media Network dismissed the case out of hand. That turned out to have been a mistake akin to panning the first Star Wars when it came out in the Seventies; you then had to live with two or three years of the thing in your face as a media monster. The case had good numbers from the start. But then it had gone platinum.

Forget about the publicity of the repeat of the drunken supertanker crash. Forget about the drunks down at the tanks filling the truck with crude. Forget about all the high quality products made by today's Pontiac and Oldsmobile divisions that got scraped by the bus. All of these things brought in the initial audience.

It was the sudden surge of ostrich eating that had gotten this case all over the web. It's as good as filet mignon, but it's got almost no fat in it whatsoever, and the enzymes in the meat are beneficial to circulation. It was just as like what a case involving olive oil would have been like back in 1994 when it was getting all this publicity for it's unsaturated cholesterol. Right place at the right time.

Texon was trying to keep a low profile. They didn't want to look like the Multinational Loch Ness Monster, so they only allowed 4 lawyers at a time in the courtroom. This was an even match with the Plaintiff's team's number.

And the Texon lawyers were a Native American, a Rabbi, a woman in a Christopher Reeves wheelchair, and Johnny Cockring, winner of the Tomato Juice Jones case. The main difference between President Carter's team and the Village People on the Texon side is that Texon had many, many lawyers, sitting at their desks in many, many offices, reading the transcript of the case as it was broadcast in real time on the court's intranet. The vast, invisible Texon legal corps was analyzing the testimony the split second it was entered into the court record. Several object-oriented programs were "lawchecking" the testimony and underlining the words or phrases that were most significant to the case. A point that worked in your favor was underlined in green, a point for the other side was underlined in red.

If a testimony had a slip in it on the level that made it a sure case winner for you and a sure case loser for the other side, the little "we are the champions," midi sequenced music would start, and the word "Bonanza," would flash on the screen while an animated turkey stopped its victory dance in the middle of the screen to lay an egg.

Have you noticed that ever since Ronald Reagan was elected, we have had an anything goes policy? I mean, having Reagan as president for 12 years pretty much cost us the concept of irony. Yes an idiot actor is president. Yes, he is still president. Yes, that's just what a president is. By the end of 12 years having a brain dead actor with a little evil astrologist wife who looked like a poodle when she ate, wasn't even shrugged at anymore. The latest generation of Kennedys do tag team wrestling together in the WWF. A Sumo wrestler is mayor of Los Angeles, showing the power of the Japanese and Hawaiian voting block in California. Sure, there were the "which kind of wrestler do you want for your Mayor," editorials. But in the end it was Mayor Hachikawasuzuki's "Like a Rock," campaign song, and his public displays of strength rolling a Cadillac coupe upside down by butting it with his belly that got the media attention.

How many lawyers did Texon have on the case? They had so many lawyers that they won the case an average of 8 times per minute, had any of the supervising legal team sent the word to drop the a-bomb and wind things up.

Unfortunately, Texon's projected loss of customers who sympathized with President Carter would cost more than the company would save with a win, and so the 2000 lawyer army sat and did nothing to stop the undergunned Plaintiff team.

BEST OPTION AT THIS POINT (BOAT P), was the box on the screen that told the chief lawyer what to do to produce an outcome that would work out best for the client. In this case, Texon needed some sympathy if it were going to be able to reduce the award to President Carter, and still keep its customer base of people who were just as stupid as Pres, and should be out buying cigarettes and filling up their tanks with Texon gas instead of staying home watching the trial on their web TV's.

Right now, BOAT P was saying: Your best option is to have the female lawyer in the Christopher Reeves wheelchair have a seizure. Click OK to start this plan.

Lawyer: Isn't it true, Mr. Carter, that you were deeply traumatized as a child when you saw on your television what Texon did to your sacred native shoreline and the wildlife your people had lived from hunting for years?

Pres: My heart cried out again, as it did when I was four years old, for my beloved country and people, and the animal spirit who was hunted with oil instead of a bow.

Lawyer: When you got over the initial shock of the blow and looked at yourself to see that you were covered with oil and ostridges, the other steak, how did that make you feel.

Pres: [witness in tears] It made me feel like there is no hope. That the Texon is just going to take from our people. That we spend our money at the pumps, and they don't even have the courtesy to say, "hey, eskimos and black people, we're not going to have that drink today. Today we are not going to cover you in oil and in the dampened spirits of your dishonored animals. Today we will go to our 12 step meeting and show some respect for the little guy who is out there making America great."

Above the clicking of spacebars on the laptops of the Plaintiff's legal team could be heard a faint coughing and groaning. It was Ms. Kent, of the Texon legal team. She had worked her way through law school despite a paralyzing injury. A role model for today's children. Er, if they happened to somehow get paralyzed.

"Your Honor," Jonny Cockring said, I'd like to motion for an adjournment, and to request some paramedics. It appears Ms. Kent may be having a seizure."

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