Once again, Decoder Ring Theater presents another page from the casebook of that Master of Mystery,

that's Sultan of Sleuthing, Martin Bracknell's immortal detective, Black Jack Justice,

starring Christopher Mott as Jack and Andrea Lyons as Trixie Dixon Girl Detective.

The name's Justice. Jack Justice.

It has been observed more than once that life isn't fair,

an observation that is by no means limited to surly teenagers who aren't getting their way.

In many ways, it's the ultimate argument for free will in the cosmos.

We've all seen genuinely horrible people swim with the sharks, while others flail about in the shallow waters where no amount of effort,

gumption or good old-fashioned All-American, what have you, is going to result in anything other than middling towards failure.

There are better ways to say it, of course.

Stuff about the spurns that patient merit of the unworthy takes and so on. Or more concrete

examples, like Mildred Cunningham, who was only acquitted for the crime of poisoning six

members of her immediate family at Thanksgiving dinner due to this suppression of evidence

gathered under a bungled search warrant, and who went on to become an internationally beloved author of children's books.

That happened. And these are the moments when we throw up our hands in despair that the universe

is being run by a team of demented child gods who are half in love with the bitterly ironic.

That whole systemic lack of fairness thing to which we alluded earlier.

But you have to dig a little deeper.

When you look a little harder, you realize that we have met the child gods, and they is us.

Mankind makes the rules, and he makes them what they are because he secretly believes that

he too may benefit from them, like poor people voting for upper-class tax cuts because they

secretly believe that one day they're going to be rich.

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