For the most part they tend to be relatively juicy as they have been picked out by my professors as seminal cases in Canadian jurisprudence and therefore at the very least are worth reading for the precedent that they set. Other cases are read for critical reasons in order to hone our analytic skills. One thing that most of these cases have in common is that although they are generally written well from a legal point of view, they tend to be quite lengthy thank heavens for headnotes and generally dry.
Although judges are hired not necessarily for their writing but for their decision making and reasoning skills, would it really hurt judges to spice up their sometimes extremely lengthy judgments with some wit or creativity? I know I know, the law is meant to be predictable, and any word that a judge writes could possibly be argued as precedent for future cases and therefore judges must be careful and precise in their language. In reciting the law, sure, go ahead with ensuring that the correct precedent is set with clear, precise, language, but perhaps if judges had a bit more fun writing their judgments, they could at least gain a bit more favour with their clerks and the public.
And thence to these reasons, with a slight detour through territory that might have confused Lewis Carroll. It has been said that, given enough time, ten thousand monkeys with typewriters [2] would probably eventually replicate the collected works of William Shakespeare. Sadly, when human beings are let loose with computers and internet access, their work product does not necessarily compare favourably to the aforementioned monkeys with typewriters.
So here goes attempt number two with all the same photos and probably slightly less witty commentary. After a long semester of work it was really great that the family decided to endeavour more on that later down to California. We went to San Fransisco and Los Angeles with a stop off in Anaheim in between not really between though. San Fransisco is incredibly beautiful and really a city that is rich in culture. Spending the afternoon on Alcatraz island was particularly interesting.
As I said above, the Muir Forest was fantastic. As we were hiking around, a Redwood tree fell only a few hundred meters ahead of us and when we got there the path was completely impassable as a result - those trees are huge. However, we were able to see into the tree and see that indeed the wood is red! It was quite the sight and the park rangers were very glad no one was injured - apparently this is quite a rare event to have a tree fall in a forest and people actually there to hear it.
