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Sunday, November 27, 2005

The Parochial Parody... Michigan Family Courts.

As I was thumbing through a well-known text known as Burton's Legal Thesaurus; 3rd Edition I ran across two very common words that had a slew of appropriate replacements for describing many person's encounters with "Family Law" in Michigan. Even moreso with people describing their experiences with the Kent County Friend of the Court. The arbitrary decisions of these courts and the flawed processes that they implement to carry out their predetermined outcomes, can be described as both "parochial" in nature and a "parody."

Parochial, adjective. biased, dogmatic, fanatical, hidebound, illiberal, insular, intolerant, jaundiced, limited, literal, narrow, narrow-minded, one-sided, opinionated, opinionative, orthodox, parochialis, partial, partisan, predisposed, prejudiced, prepossessed, provincial, regional, restricted to small area, restricted to small scope, sectarian, small-minded, unbending, uncatholic, unimaginative, unliberal, untolerating.

Parody, noun. amphigory, apery, buffoonery, burlesque, caricature, cartoon, comical representation, distortion, exaggeration, farce, imitation, lampoon, ludicrous imitation, mime, mimicry, mockery, mummery, pasquinade, ridicula imitatio, ridicule, satire, squib, travesty.

One could certainly apply many of the words interchangeably with a recent hearing before a Kent County Circuit Court Referee, whereas the parochial and amphigory proceedings were a mere mockery of common sense and justice.

The appearance of process, for the sake of some already predetermined outcome, is not process at all. Let me know your thoughts on appropriate words concerning the various Judge's that use their foc staff to achieve arbitrary and unsupported rulings.

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