Friday Links

“Don’t Judge This Man Until You Hear Why I Defended The Monkey Man!,” proclaims the fabled hero, Mr. District Attorney, on the cover of Mr. District Attorney #12, published way, way back in 1949. Here’s the thing: Why is the district attorney -defending- anyone? He’s a prosecutor! If there were concerns about the guilt of the Monkey Man, shouldn’t he have simply refrained to prosecute him? And if the Monkey Man is not to be prosecuted, why on earth is he in court being put on display? Or is the district attorney suggesting that – due to unexplained reasons – he temporarily left the prosecutor’s office to defend the Monkey Man? If that’s the case, surely he knows that his own personal reasons for electing to defend the Monkey Man are not admissible? And if he has decided to represent this poor soul, why is he calling him The Monkey Man, rather than by his real name? That doesn’t seem right. Oh, well. (For our prior discussion of Mr. District Attorney comic book covers, please see here, here, here, and here.).

We typically don’t write about applications to change one’s legal name, but a guy in Missouri has legally changed his name to Led Zeppelin II.  Can you believe that? Is there anything cooler than that? We doubt it. However, it probably would have been too much to change his name to Led Zeppelin IV. That would be gilding the lily. Whatever the case, good for the new Mr. Zeppelin, and we hope this inspires someone to change his or her name to Van Halen II. (Hat Tip: Boing Boing).

If you haven’t already, check out this piece by Dionne Searcey at the Wall Street Journal Law Blog entitled “Congress Examines Alleged Fraud by Asbestos Claimants.” It’s worth a read, to be certain.

By the way, thanks to the Greenville chapter of the Public Relations Society of America for its invitation to our editor, Jim Dedman, to speak on “The Perils of Blogging.” They seemed to dig his speech, although they must not have read Steve Buckingham’s piece on Monday about his editorial management style. Alas.