Green Eggs and Ham

Will sent me the following article from Yahoo News:

A federal judge was driven to rhyme after receiving a hard-boiled egg in the mail from a prison inmate protesting his diet. U.S. District Court Judge James Muirhead reached for Dr. Seuss' "Green Eggs and Ham" for inspiration after getting the egg from inmate Charles Jay Wolff.

I do not like eggs in the file,
I do not like them in any style.
I will not take them fried or boiled.
I will not take them poached or broiled.
I will not take them soft or scramble,
Despite an argument well-rambled.

He then ordered the egg destroyed:

No fan I am
Of the egg at hand.
Destroy that egg! Today! Today!
Today I say! Without delay!

At the end of the email, Will concluded that the judge "could be you someday." I guess I'll take that as a compliment?

Comments

[Nicole]

I like it!
Though I would send you a pink egg!

[jen]

i work for an administrative agency and i once had a case in which one of the parties quoted "Horton Hears a Who" as part of their argument in their brief. maybe the lawyer who wrote that brief and this judge went to law school together.

let me just say that it might be funny when a judge quotes Dr. Seuss, but when attorneys do it, it just makes their argument look weak. as someone with almost 6 years working as a sort of quasi-judicial law clerk, my advice to you as a future lawyer is to stick to arguing the facts and the law and don't try to get cute. the people (most likely law clerks like me) reading your brief will not be persuaded by Dr. Seuss.

in fact, i find it personally insulting to my intelligence when lawyers try to be cutesy like that. if you don't have a good legal argument, i'm not going to be so blown away by your clever turn of a phrase that i'm fooled into thinking you do. my biggest pet peeve (and the biggest red flag that their case is weak) is when lawyers put exclamation points in their briefs.

[class factotum]

But imitating Dr Seuss will get the attention of the editor of the local newspaper when your repeated attempts to ensure that your newspaper is thrown into your driveway instead of your flowerbeds have been fruitless. (You have already given up on buying just a Fri-Sun subscription.)

"I do not want it in the yard
I do not want it on the car
I do not want it anywhere" or something like that. (It's been years and I don't have a copy.)

[Malia]

Weird!! I bet that egg was rank!

Malia