Aug. 24, 2006:
Poor Judge Floro, who enjoyed the company of little friends of the mind. He got sacked by the Philippine Supreme Court, on grounds of mental illness, inability to function rationally, and psychosis, according to the Court's news release. The dwarves were the least of the problems.
I'm sorry for Judge Floro who was kind enough to respond to queries. His posture aboard an equine shows considerable ability. Apart from the imaginary helpers, the next sign of mental difficulty seems to be the typographical style of writing employed by the good judge, below. There's just something about all sorts of different styles emphasis that seems to denote a troubled mind, not that we don't underline, embolden and italicize around here once in a while. Perhaps it's a matter of degree. Then there's the reasoning and reliance on unusual sources of authority.
There's no quarreling with the opinion of the Philippine Supreme Court on this decision, and one can only hope that Judge Floro cooperates and will make a successful effort to recover.
Mabuhay!
***
The Filipino judge, Florentino Floro, Jr., who obtains spiritual and perhaps legal comfort from consulting with dwarves has been kind enough to post a comment, below. I've replied asking to know more about the dwarves, and am awaiting a reply. Apparently the dwarf story has captured the attention of the world, the legal world, at any rate, as we all wonder what, exactly, is wrong with consulting with dwarfs, or dwarves, which might be the more traditional spelling.
Judge Floro has posted some of the commentary his story has generated onto a web site, here, as the story proceeds.
Pres. McKinley described to a group of Christian church ladies how he decided to make war on Spain and seize the Philippines in 1898. He fell to his knees in prayer, he said, and decided that the Filipinos needed to be Christianized.
Oh, what a good idea. Let's have a war to Christianize the Filipinos. That's almost as good as making war on Iraq in order to Muslimize the Iraqis.
The Filipinos, under the foot of Spain since 1542, were more Christian than McKinley and his church lady friends, and the United States, come to think of it.
If the president of the United States can talk to his spiritual influence, God, who is to say that a Filipino judge can't talk to his, which in this case happens to be a trinity of dwarves, or dwarfs, if you prefer.
I've asked Judge Floro to describe whether one is in charge of Justice, another to help sort out conflicting facts, and another, say, Morality. I've also asked whether he has any lady dwarves. If it were me, I'd have a few lady dwarves, wouldn't you? For inspiration? A cute one? But I'm not a judge, alas, and no dwarves have been issued to me.
Judge Floro's kind reply, since received, is posted on the continuation below. The Tagalog word for the spirit creatures is duende, which some have translated as 'dwarf.' The judge states that he has a retarded brother who apparently sees these duende, and it appears that Judge Floro has sympathetically adopted them for his own benefit and comfort.
So far, I don't see this as being much different than saying one believes in God, angels, the devil, or all the usual things we profess all the time, those of us who profess, that is.
Have you ever heard of a dwarf, or a duende, urging you on to war? I don't think so.
Is a person who believes in God sane? Of course. We exclude from the definition of insanity a normal belief in God, because, I surmise, there are so many supposedly sane bankers and business leaders who say they believe in God. Do you believe that they really do? Not for me to say.
What, exactly, is wrong with believing in benign duende? Or dwarves? Or dwarfs.
Why don't we issue dwarves to our judges? Aren't we as good as the Filipinos? Didn't we raise an educational system on our model, apart from the university system they've had in place since before we heard of the Philippines?
Don't they have religious freedom in the Philippines? Freedom of conscience? I think they must have. We owned them. We left them our tax code. Didn't we leave them our First Amendment? I bet we did. I don't know whether they use it very much, but they did get rid of Ferdinand Marcos in a democratic exercise of the first order.
Cor-ee!... Cor-ee!... Cor-ee!... I remember the battle cry for democracy in the Philippines, for Cory Aquino, widow of the assassinated Benigno Aquino, as he exited the jet-liner bringing him home from exile to campaign for the presidency. Shot on the tarmac, surrounded by Marcos's soldiers.
I think issuing dwarves to our judges might represent an improvement, don't you?
Haven't you ever appeared before a judge and wondered where, exactly, s/he was getting some of those ideas?
We could have federal and state dwarves.
Maybe attorneys could get dwarves, too, to avoid the secretarial hassle.
Who referred you that case, people sometimes ask.
My dwarves, thank you, I would like to say.
Wouldn't that be nice.
***
It can be tough being a judge, having to wade through all those inconvenient facts, "He said, She said," this one contradicts that one, and when you decide you anger not only the losing party but his whole family, and the winner doesn't say thank you because he thought he had it coming and why didn't you do more for him?
Why try to sort through such a mess when all you have to do is to consult your own pet dwarfs? Let them decide. Everything becomes so much clearer. Decisions are made quicker. And they are as correct as if you weighed this, weighed that, and claimed to have made a rational decision. Who would know the difference? As long as you don't mention their names.
A judge in the Philippines, to the great credit of his sense of honesty, seems to have admitted he consulted dwarfs, Armand, Luis, and Angel, and good for him, I say.
Our judges never admit it.
Nancy Reagan consulted her astrologer.
Lord knows who they talk to in the White House these days, certainly not me.
Here's the report from the Washington Post:
Psychotic Filipino Judge Fired
On Friday, the Philippine Supreme Court upheld its termination of Judge Florentino Floro, finding him mentally unfit for the job. Floro, who had presided over a suburban Manila court until March 31st, claimed to conduct healing sessions in chambers with his imaginary dwarf friends, Armand, Luis, and Angel. He also told investigators evaluating his mental state that he could read the future, be in two different places at the same time, and "recharge his psychic powers" by switching his blue judicial robe to black on Fridays. Despite his contention that his personal beliefs had no bearing on his office, the Supreme Court felt they might "erode the public's acceptance of the judiciary as the rational guardian of the law, if not make it an object of ridicule."
It's hard to believe you can be fired for this, but the Philippines is even stranger than San Francisco sometimes.
Let's see, blue robes during the week, black robes on Friday? Is that like not stepping on a crack that'll break your back? Always stepping on the first base bag when headed for the outfield? Always wearing your lucky mitt? Same bat?
I have a friend who sees the world in Manichean terms of good-evil, black-white, no shades of gray. Everyone who agrees with him is okay. Everyone who doesn't is a Commie-Pinko-Liberal. He takes pride in not having changed his opinion since the sixth-grade. "At least I'm consistent," he alleges.
"Ah, foolish consistency, the hobgoblin of little minds," a wise man said, don't ask me who, but my realprop professor, Black Ralph of Mystery Hour fame, used to say this from time to time.
In a world of gray, it is foolish, not to say insane, to hold on to the black and white opinions someone gave you in the sixth-grade.
My own Manichean duality view of the world is that there are sane people and insane people, and a lot of gray in-between.
Did you know that entire nations, or significant parts of nations can be insane?
In the South leading up to the Civil War, slave-holders became very sensitive over their holding people in bondage, making them work for no pay, and whipping them to prevent slacking off. Would you work for nothing? Originally the slave-holders agreed it was a poor system but after being criticized by Northerners regarded as hypocrites, because they financed the system and hauled the slaves on their ships, the Southerners had a change of heart. Slavery was good. The slaves just loved being slaves and not having to worry about running a plantation, paying debts, losing out when the crops didn't come in, etc. Yes, the slaves lived in the best possible world, sort of like our state prisoners today, who have nothing to worry about, allegedly.
The resulting war, from this craziness, cost around six-hundred thousand lives. That's a lot of lives.
Was it sane or insane of the South to fight for such a system?
In 1898 we went to war with Spain on the false pretext that Spanish authorities in its colony of Cuba blew up the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor. What was a U.S. gunboat doing in Havana Harbor, a colony of Spain? They weren't there picnicking.
So we went to war with Spain, a shell of its former self, and made off with the Philippines, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. That embarked us on the world stage, big-time.
Did we need to do that?
The Teddy Roosevelt types in the McKinley administration in Washington thought we did. Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) thought we didn't. We didn't break away from England, as the Thirteen Colonies, to go into the colonization business. Twain lost that battle and we've been a big shot ever since.
Did we need to go into Vietnam?
The country turned thumbs down on that option around 1967, 1968. War didn't end until 1975, when we split.
Did we need to go to war in Iraq?
George W on the radio today says we sure did, Saddam was a bad guy, contributing to a climate of terror in global war on terror, even though he wasn't behind 9-11, the president finally admits, for the first time to my memory at least.
See, we have a world in which there are two kinds of people, terrorists, and Americans. And our allies. The people who support us in whatever we want to do. If you're not with us, see, you must be against us, like those weasels, the Germans and the French. Good guys, bad guys. See, that's why it's called the global war on terror. Good guys and bad guys who, if we don't get them first, are going to show up on the streets of Kansas City, just like they showed up at the Trade Center in New York and took three thousand of our lives.
Perhaps it's time for a reality check with our dwarfs.
See Judge Floros reply, below: