Thursday, October 15, 2009

Teacher, Teacher.

My "Friendly Adversary", Jay, is the Agent-in-Charge of Probation in the Boro. In addition to our generally opposing roles in probation violation cases, his office is right downstairs from the Public Defender's Office, so we see each other a lot. We have our various jobs to do, but we respect each other, and I count him among my friends. In addition to his "day job", he teaches a criminal justice class at the local branch of the University of South Carolina (that would be USC-Salkahatchee). I'll admit it: I'm jealous. Mom told me that our family tree was ripe with "preachers, teachers, and lawyers". I'm a lawyer. Brother Andy is a teacher. I've occasionally felt drawn to both teaching and preaching. Wednesday night, Jay gave me a chance to do a little of both by letting me give a criminal defense perspective to his class.


I quoted liberally from The Torah, the Gospel according to Matthew, The Book of Susanna from the Apocrypha, and Jay Z. I pointed out that the Bible contains at least a couple of wrongful convictions: In addition to Jesus' Kangaroo court conviction, Joseph had been wrongly convicted of doing his master's wife. I also spoke of how good lawyering got Susanna off of a frame-up job, and how Jay Z could complain about profiling in the second verse of 99 Problems(even though his "trunk was raw"- i.e.: he was, in fact, transporting narcotics). Looky there! Preacher, teacher AND lawyer.

8 comments:

Star said...

I like Jay Z's song "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)" on his latest album, Blueprint 3. Did ya hear it yet?

superdave524 said...

Though I have been a Jay-Z fan since "Big Pimpin'", I've yet to hear the new one c.d.

Chase Squires said...

I'm going to look into teaching some basic journalism/pr classes at a community college when I finish my master's, sounds fun

kate said...

A powerful trifecta. Good for you!

Anonymous said...

I loved our debates of yesteryear!-----they tended to be circular! :) fdb

superdave524 said...

In small doses, teaching can be a lot of fun, Chase, though I don't think I'd have the patience for it full-time. I'll ask Andy (if I can find him).

Thanks, Kate.

True, Frandy. Too true.

COL said...

dave, you'd be a great teacher. fo shizza!

superdave524 said...

Thanks, Col.