The Judge Who Couldn't Stop Lying, etc.

My friend in Queens, Nicholas Stix, discusses a certain kind of judge here.

He calls him a "high hat," using the Harry Truman phrase. Yes, as in "Miller's Crossing," the Coen brothers movie that opens with the dago [sic] pleading with the Irish mob leader. People were "high-hatting" him. And it was set in a Kas. City-like burg, thus the Harry S (no period) Truman usage.

And Stix' sister finishing liars' (law) school where she learned how to use a convincing item, the bat!

However, for "since long-defunct," my friend Usual Usage says put "long-since defunct."

In the relevant literature arena, for turning "minor infraction [into] major felony," see Peter Peebles in Walter Scott's Redgauntlet, which beat Bleak House to the punch by half a century in telling of law's delays with Peebles as marvelously comic complainant-victim being also to blame. Set in Edinburgh, 1770s or so.

As for the ineffable Rev.-Sen. Meeks, who wants better teachers in ghetto schools, does he have combat pay in mind? Trouble is, many teachers won't go there for love or money. Put another way, there's not enough money to pay them to go. Let us call Meeks, ah, unsophisticated in his approach, which presumes and counts on a very unsophisticated constituency. It won't fly: this may be the Second City, but its voters are not dumb. (Are you sure about that? a small voice asks.)