Friday, July 01, 2005
So Sandra Day O'Connor is retiring. Just goes to show you nothing lasts anymore.
Don't ask me why, but when I was a kid, I was under the impression that if you were a member of the Supreme Court, you weren't allowed to talk to anybody.
I guess it's because I never saw justices interviewed; and who better to discuss law than one of the SUPREME RULE MAKERS? But no. They were above that.
I envisioned that these nine esteemed judges would convene in a room with all the cases before them and communicate telepathically over which cases they would hear and which would be tossed derisively into the street.
And then the Chief Justice would survey all that was chosen, raise his hands and laugh maniacally as a thunderbolt cracked in the judges chamber, and the other judges joined in the laughter, totally in awe of their awesome power.
Hey, I was nine.
However, I was living in Wisconsin when Wisconsinite William Rehnquist was named to the court around 1970. And he TALKED! I remember wondering if the change from walking talking everyday judge to one of the esteemed, non-talking lords of all men would be tough for him.
Of course, I grew up and got over that (kind of) but it really wasn't until NPR started covering Supreme Court hearings by reading from the transcripts of the day did I realize how the supreme court WORKED: that the judges can ARGUE with the lawyers. I just kinda always figured that they knew how they were gonna vote before the session got started, even. I could see Ruth Bader Ginsberg up there, knitting while the lawyers argued their case; Rehnquist reading the paper, another guy playing with a Gameboy, each of them occasionally grunting out a bored "mm-hmmm." But no! They ARGUE!
I wrote a video for Bank of America once that required Ms. O'Connor to say something in it. She was very gracious but it was obvious she really hated having dirty video equipment all over her house. And I couldn't help it. All the time we were taping I was sitting there thinking, "this is a Supreme Court Justice and she's TALKING! She's worried we're going to break something! Wow! Human Being straight ahead!"
Well, whoever they get to replace her, I hope he or she likes quiet time.
------
It's the fourth of July weekend. If you want to brush up on your history of the colonial era, you really can't go wrong with any book by David McCullough. He's a great writer. He makes you feel like you're there because A) He really does his reasearch; B) He treats real people with the kind of attention that fiction writers MUST pay to characters they're making up; and 3) McCullough is 300 years old. He was there.
Okay, maybe not the last one. But still.
Other stuff about presidents that you might want to look at:
Was James Buchanan a homosexual?
ttp://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/2458
And, what other dead presidents think of Ronald Reagan:
http://www.ludickid.com/060704.htm
Have a nice weekend.
TT
Don't ask me why, but when I was a kid, I was under the impression that if you were a member of the Supreme Court, you weren't allowed to talk to anybody.
I guess it's because I never saw justices interviewed; and who better to discuss law than one of the SUPREME RULE MAKERS? But no. They were above that.
I envisioned that these nine esteemed judges would convene in a room with all the cases before them and communicate telepathically over which cases they would hear and which would be tossed derisively into the street.
And then the Chief Justice would survey all that was chosen, raise his hands and laugh maniacally as a thunderbolt cracked in the judges chamber, and the other judges joined in the laughter, totally in awe of their awesome power.
Hey, I was nine.
However, I was living in Wisconsin when Wisconsinite William Rehnquist was named to the court around 1970. And he TALKED! I remember wondering if the change from walking talking everyday judge to one of the esteemed, non-talking lords of all men would be tough for him.
Of course, I grew up and got over that (kind of) but it really wasn't until NPR started covering Supreme Court hearings by reading from the transcripts of the day did I realize how the supreme court WORKED: that the judges can ARGUE with the lawyers. I just kinda always figured that they knew how they were gonna vote before the session got started, even. I could see Ruth Bader Ginsberg up there, knitting while the lawyers argued their case; Rehnquist reading the paper, another guy playing with a Gameboy, each of them occasionally grunting out a bored "mm-hmmm." But no! They ARGUE!
I wrote a video for Bank of America once that required Ms. O'Connor to say something in it. She was very gracious but it was obvious she really hated having dirty video equipment all over her house. And I couldn't help it. All the time we were taping I was sitting there thinking, "this is a Supreme Court Justice and she's TALKING! She's worried we're going to break something! Wow! Human Being straight ahead!"
Well, whoever they get to replace her, I hope he or she likes quiet time.
------
It's the fourth of July weekend. If you want to brush up on your history of the colonial era, you really can't go wrong with any book by David McCullough. He's a great writer. He makes you feel like you're there because A) He really does his reasearch; B) He treats real people with the kind of attention that fiction writers MUST pay to characters they're making up; and 3) McCullough is 300 years old. He was there.
Okay, maybe not the last one. But still.
Other stuff about presidents that you might want to look at:
Was James Buchanan a homosexual?
ttp://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/2458
And, what other dead presidents think of Ronald Reagan:
http://www.ludickid.com/060704.htm
Have a nice weekend.
TT
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