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WHITBY FREE PRESS, WEDNESDAY. JIUNE 12. 199. PAGE 5 "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson THE CROW'S NEST by Michael Knell Deverell's book shows lawyers are human, too Most people I know dislike, distrust or simply don't understand lawyers. They seem to think of them as something more than human. Or they think of them as ambulance chasers, ready to exploit anyone in the name of the almighty dollar. In many ways, I have the same feelings. But my job brings me in contact with a number of lawyers. While I like many of them as people, I now am sure that lawyers have set themselves apart from the rest of us because of their per- ceived place in our judicial system. I am in the midst of reading a truly excellent book which just happens to have been written by a lawyer. William Deverell's "The Dance of Shiva" is in many ways a critique of some of the most interesting aspects of North American society. But mostly it's about lawyers. Canadian lawyers. Deverell doesn't give us the picture of a knight in shining armour. It doesn't show them as heady idealists out to right all the wrongs there are to be found in Canadian law. Instead it treats them as human beings. With faults. With weaknesses. Who, at times, plays fast and loose with the truth. Who have needs. But he also shows us the professionalism, the dedication, the love of the law and the other good qualities most lawyers possess. Deverell also shows how many lawyers loose their idealism not because of age, necessarily, but because lawyers have to play the game. Our system of justice, is nothing more than a game. Lawyers who play the game, win their cases. This game has evolved from the adversarial system we used in our courts. Opposite sides are not supposed to like each other. The prosecution doesp't want to co-operate with the defense who doesn't want to co-operate with the Crown. One's job is to convict at aIl costs - the other's to get an acquittal, also at all costs. This comes to light early in the book when the main character's partner earns an acquittai for a man obviously quilty of rape. The lawyers for the defense delight in the fact that the Crown won't attempt re-trial for the sake of the victim. Deverell's professional status gives this book a certain degree of credibility. So what disturbed me after reading this section of the book was the role he of- fered to be that of the defense lawyer. Get 'em off. It doesn't matter if they're guilty. Get 'em off anyway. You know something, that stinks. A friend of mine, himself a lawyer, once told me that was why he doesn't practise criminal law. "They're all guilty," he told me. "I'm not going to defend them." Deverell doesn't have much good to say about judges either. Judges, it seems, want lawyers to kow-tow to them outside of the courtroom. Sort of a "I'm going to be hearing your whatever application next week, so be good to me" attitude. Perhaps the most interesting aspects of the "The Dance of Shiva" is Deverell's treatment of a very grey area in the law: the religious fanatics and cults. The story centres around a guru accused of the murder of 22 of his followers and the Christian fundamentalist and deprogrammer his junior defense attorney suspects of committing thehorrid deed. Maximillian Macarthur, our hero, has dealt with the Christian fundamen- talist before. He has attacked our hero's clients and snatched away young people in an effort to deprogram the influence of the cults. But to no avail. Our hero has been unsuccessful at showing the world that the deprogrammer is as bad as the cult leader. The courts won't listen because the deprogrammer says he bas a Christian and the cult leaders don't even pretend to be. While Deverell clearly shows throughout his book that he has no sympathy for the cults. In fact, he despises them as cheap rip-off agencies. But the fundamental principle of law is still there. Maximillian said it quite well in an angry exchange with the fundalmentalist deprogrammer. "Listen...if I have a choice between worshipping Reverend Moon or worshipping a parking meter, Ilil choose the parking meter. But I want to live in a society where I have the right to make that choice." All right. That is the point. I don't think Deverell is simply speaking about religion and lawyers. I think he's speaking in general terms. He's also remin- ding lawyers of what they're supposed to be doing. Namely, protecting the law for the benefit of everyone. To misquote, slightly, a famous U.S. Supreme Court ruling: "Freedom is the general rule, restraint the exception". Civil rights are not to be simply accor- ded to those who practise the Judeo-Christian creed. They must be accorded to everyone. Or they mean nothing. "The Dance of Shiva" - in addition to giving me a lot of things to ponder on -is also a terrific yarn. It is fast paced, moves logically, gives us interesting characters and a hero most of us can identify with. Young people will see him as themselves. The mature among us will see him as their younger self. This book is proof positive that Canadian literature doesn't have to be either dull or confused to be classed as literature. It's a mystery novel that ranks up there with Rex Stout's "Nero Wolf" novels and, in many ways, is as good as Agatha Christie. It's a joy to read. It's good entertainment. But "The Dance of Shiva" also gives its readers a little something to think about. Deverell has shown us that lawyers are human beings too. And sometimes there's a little sin in the temple of the law. WITH OUR FEET UP By Bill Swan This is the story of Mrs. T. and the flying saucers and a very young reporter who had not yet learned to accept that some people are born bent and get more so as they age. Mrs. T. had spent several years pestering newspapers about her contacts on other worlds. I wanted to believe there might be some intelligence in the universe. So when Mrs. T. called the newspaper on which I was then working to report that she had seen flying saucers, I was interested. (The flying saucer oc- cupants had left imprints on the ground in a pasture at the rear of her farm property. Would we do a story on this?) Editors are an obtuse lot, and through the years have handled people with green beer, Siamese carrots, domed cities and turnips shaped like Brian Mulroney's chin. They are not easily impressed with intergalactic visits. In short, if I were to in- vestigate this it would have to be on my own time. So the next Saturday my brother-in-law and I visited Mrs. T. She greeted us with great warmth. Her house, an ancient unpainted clapboard farm house, had seen better days. The porch sagged, with one tottering pillar holding a rotted through roof. Mrs. T. wore a faded print dress to match. "Isn't it a caution?" she said, beginning a monologue. "They're right back here every night." She began to lead us to the rear pasture, where, she said, the visitors from space gamboled. "I watch from the house," she said. "The light's dance and flick and soar. I even watch through sunglasses." (At night?) Some silence, and we continue to walk. The rear pasture, it turns out, is more than half a mile away. "Of course, one night I was back here and they took me for a ride. Way up there, around the moon." (This is, mind, four years before the first moon lan- ding by NASA.) Gord and I exchanged glances. "Now here they are," she said, as we unhooked the gate and entered the pasture. I could see plenty of cow mines, but no flying saucer prints. I men- tioned this. "Over here," she said, leading to the north-west corner of the field. "Right there." She pointed to a deep depression in the ground, about a metre (3 feet) across. The sod was un- broken; the grass still grew over the area. But the spot dipped about 18 inches lower than the rest of the ground. "There's more like that," said Mrs. T. She walked a few paces and pointed to another similar depression in the ground. "That one's new. It wasn't here last night. "They're in the sky every night," she said. "They're up there just flying around all the time. The reason not everybody sees them is because sometimes they turn on their white lights, and you can see them flying here and there. "But most of the time they turn on their black lights, and then you can't see them." We had identified more than a dozen depressions in the ground, which indicated very busy flying saucers. We were mystified until Gord stood in one corner of the pasture and line them all up. "They run in a straight line," he said. I stood beside him, closed one eye, and peeked. He was right. All the depressions ran diagonally across the pasture. A couple of sharp probes with a stick caved in one of the holes and we found the cause: field drainage. Collapsed tiles in the drain had led to the series of cave-ins. As the tile gave way, the ground above sagged. The circular depressions that Mrs. T."m- troduced us to were the result. It's a story worth remembering when tales of mysterious lights float through the June air. PUZZLE TIME Last week: A runner runs 'n' times around a cir- cular track whose radious is 't' miles. He drinks 's' quarts of beer for every mile he runs. Prove that he will only need one quart. This requires some mathematics and a dumb sen- se of humor. First, the circumference of the track is two miles the radius times 3.14 or pie, or C equal 2 (Pie)t. He runs 'n' laps, so we multiply again, get- ting 2 (pi)nts, which as everyone know is equal to a quart. (There is no metric version of this turkey.) THIS WEEK: Two cyclists race on a closed cour- se. Brown can do a lap in six minutes; Smith in four minutes. In how many minutes from the time they start together will Smith overtake Brown? ' V 2 '~-" ~