So, What was that?

It's an elephant.

When I was a kid, the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus came to town. Somehow my mom got wind of when they would be unloading the circus so she took us kids to watch.

A whole army of trailer trucks were waiting at the fairgrounds with strange looking people speaking strange languages milling around them. I was eight years old and had my Kodak Instamatic ready to capture the spectacle.

I was thrilled beyond measure when they started unloading some fifteen or twenty Asian Elephants from the trucks. Circus ladies in circus outfits rode the elephants the two-hundred yards from the trucks to the livestock buildings at the fairgrounds where the elephants were held for the circus.

The elephants were too big for the regular livestock stalls so they kept them in the judging area which was about a quarter acre of covered open space. The circus people set up ropes so we couldn't get too close to the elephants and they couldn't get too close to us.

Excitedly, I began snapping Instamatic photos of the giants. One big female took and interest in the process and started reaching out to me with her trunk.

Whoever set up the ropes must not have calculated correctly because this big baby was able to snap the camera out of my hands with the tip of her trunk. Immediately a long-haired, German-speaking fellow retrieved my camera for me.

My Instamatic was covered in elephant snot, but I got the picture! What you see above was taken the moment before a circus elephant stole my camera!

Where have you gone, Atticus Finch

Mississippi turns it's lonely eyes to you.

This business with Dickie Scruggs breaks my heart and who knows where all the tentacles of this debacle will end.

The story emerging from this case is one of a pin-striped gang of street thugs, running Mississippi like their own private turf, extorting millions, both legally and illegally from anyone stupid enough to do business in Mississippi.

It would make a great plot for a John Grisham novel. Don't expect one though, John's pretty friendly with the principals.

One thing that particularly bothers me is that I really admired Ed Peters and Bobby DeLaughter before learning that Scruggs and his cohorts lured them into their web.

The thing these guys don't seem to get is that we mere mortals depend, desperately depend on the law to be true and honest and most of all, just. For us, for "we the people", the law is much more than just an opportunity to make millions like a football star. It is the whisper thin barrier between our simple lives and abject chaos.

What they did, what we have to suspect they have been doing for thirty years, is very close to treason. Robin Hood and Atticus Finch never made a billion dollars.