My mother's best friend died yesterday.

Unexpected heart attack in a vigorous woman of 65. Actually, a very sweet woman, active, helpful. How do we do without these people?

I wonder if I'm just being too emotional [ again ], but this seems to reflect on the more objective question of the day yesterday -- how evil is the Department of Justice, really?

Wrong-headed enthusiasm for prosecution is by no means a DOJ specialty. Sometimes it's just a risk that comes with prosecutorial territory.

Just because it's systemic, and encouraged by the Social Misperception of the Month -- do I really get to call it evil?

Yeah, I do. It's powered by a social theory that ungoverned competition makes us better -- us being those that survive the competition, of course; and most of the competitors usually do survive. Anyway, we're so shocked when they don't! No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!

Looking at my profession from the eye of this hurricane, I think I see the intention to destroy my profession, to employ market forces and the litigation powers of the Sovereign to create another perfect storm (think: 9/11; think Iraq; think Katrina; think consumer bankruptcy lawyers trying, like sheep, to learn the new law while their government prepares to prosecute them for failures, intentional or not).

Intentions, aside -- retooling is expensive. How many times have I done it in the last few years, every time someone better paid than me decided that reform was necessary.

This is what I do for a living. Can I afford to be reformed again?

Good, sweet people die every day. Sometimes you don't realize what pain you caused them before you hear the news. And then it all looks small in comparison.

My profession is looking thin, very thin, anorexic in comparison with the mortality we all share.