Perverting Justice?

I spent most of the morning cleaning up the back yard, mostly a matter of chopping brush, throwing stuff away, raking up debris, putting tools away, and things of that nature. Then I came inside to have some apple juice and sat down to read the headlines, such as they are, on AOL. I routinely accuse AOL of being the worst news service in the world, but they aren't. They're just playing to their market, which prefers to read stories about Capri pants, Dancing With The Stars, the latest grave pronouncement from the court of Queen Angelina, and the police-blotter hijinks of NBA and NFL stars.

But they also have a morbid fascination with Amy Winehouse, which in a way I kind of share. I find her remarkable, and here I caution readers that "remarkable" doesn't mean good, it just means "worthy of being remarked upon". (This is akin to "awesome", which doesn't mean great, it simply means "capable of inducing awe" one way or the other.) Anyway, the news story this morning had something to do with her husband, Fielder-Civil, being held in jail awaiting trial on charges of "perverting the course of justice."

Wow! Perverting the course of justice! That's why the English are better than we are: they recognize perversion of the course of justice as a crime, while to us it's just business as usual and the best legal perverts get the biggest retainers.

I'm just in a cynical mood today. Yet another blue-ribbon panel of industry experts convenes to get to the bottom of the increase in gasoline prices, and they find no evidence of gouging. Yet I'll bet you a doughnut that Exxon-Mobil posts record profits this year and once again their executives are going to have to pretend to be remorseful about it while privately high-fiving one another. But there's no gouging.

There's a perversion of some kind, I'm just not sure what.