In His Own Words: Justice Scalia's Poetry Slam

In discussing the exchange in Glossip v. Gross between Justices Breyer and Scalia on the deterrent effect of capital punishment, I alluded to Andrew Lang (1844-1912), Scottish poet, novelist, and literary critic. Although any further connection to science or statistics is nonexistent, I can't resist a poetic tangent. Fred Moss pointed me to an animated "poetry slam" of Justice Scalia's "snarky ... poetic gems" at the cartoonist, Mark Fiore's website. Rearranging bits of the concurrence in Glossip yields this additional free verse:

they have discovered the lost folios of Shakespeare
they ask us for clemency, as though clemency were ours to give
If only Aristotle, Aquinas, and Hume knew
that moral philosophy could be so neatly distilled
into a pocket-sized, vade mecum
full of internal contradictions and (it must be said)
gobbledy-gook Welcome to Groundhog Day.

Related posting:
Two Scientific Issues in Glossip v. Gross, July 14, 2015, Forensic Science, Statistics, and the Law

Posted by siska ika

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