Roberts Wrap-up
I was going to title this "Russ Feingold, Will You Marry Me?" but then he voted to send Roberts to the full Senate. Sigh. And his performance in the hearings made me so happy, too. Why yes, I did sit and listen to the questioning for two days straight. Just ask my labmates, they'll tell you AND roll their eyes! Lex thought it was funny though, since he hadn't seen me that excited (he refers to it as "enthusiastic Cara") since we got a free lunch at La Terrasse. So Enthusiastic Cara only comes out for free swanky food and Supreme Court hearings. Now you know.
I don't really have that much to say. Roberts totally answered fewer questions than Ginsburg and he looks sort of psychotic (though that could be because most of the pictures I saw of him were on NYT). I love Ted, especially since he hasn't lost his accent and I think Boston accents are really hot. The hearings also reinforced my loathing of Southern accents, particularly the one of Alabama's Jeff Sessions. It didn't help that he's a really evil heartless cruel Republican. Enunciate, dammit! English has consonants! The way his syllables ran together made it seem as if he were drunk. Which I would've been okay with. Seriously, to my ears Southern accents just make people sound dumb even if they aren't.
I really like the term "super-duper precedent" and am glad I didn't play the hearing drinking game (drink every time the phrase "stare decisis" is used) because I would have been falling out of my chair by about 10:30. We need some more terms for that. One pet peeve about something Roberts actually answered: he expressed contempt for ever referring to international law in actual decisions. However, many other extraconstitutional sources are cited all the time - the Bible, historical documents, the Federalist Papers, even Robert Frost - and that hasn't been quarreled with (at least not by the Right). Why should we, an ostensibly secular nation, give any credence to the Bible in Court decisions, then? You could apply Roberts's argument that you can basically justify anything you want by citing the codes of some country to the Bible: you can justify anything you want with some obscure passage or other. Or some faith's interpretation of a passage. I really really wish I could've asked about that. Burger's concurrence in Bowers actually cited "Judeao-Christian moral and ethical standards" as a reason for upholding antisodomy laws. But what does that have to do with the Constitutionality of said laws? Is the Bible somehow more relevant to current US Constitutional interpretation than the standards and practices of other contemporary Western democracies? If so, why? And if not, well, I bet that would have changed how some of the Republicans voted.
Bleah.
I'll post an update on my life soon, really. I've just been having an actual life and doing stuff outside of both the lab and my apartment.
I don't really have that much to say. Roberts totally answered fewer questions than Ginsburg and he looks sort of psychotic (though that could be because most of the pictures I saw of him were on NYT). I love Ted, especially since he hasn't lost his accent and I think Boston accents are really hot. The hearings also reinforced my loathing of Southern accents, particularly the one of Alabama's Jeff Sessions. It didn't help that he's a really evil heartless cruel Republican. Enunciate, dammit! English has consonants! The way his syllables ran together made it seem as if he were drunk. Which I would've been okay with. Seriously, to my ears Southern accents just make people sound dumb even if they aren't.
I really like the term "super-duper precedent" and am glad I didn't play the hearing drinking game (drink every time the phrase "stare decisis" is used) because I would have been falling out of my chair by about 10:30. We need some more terms for that. One pet peeve about something Roberts actually answered: he expressed contempt for ever referring to international law in actual decisions. However, many other extraconstitutional sources are cited all the time - the Bible, historical documents, the Federalist Papers, even Robert Frost - and that hasn't been quarreled with (at least not by the Right). Why should we, an ostensibly secular nation, give any credence to the Bible in Court decisions, then? You could apply Roberts's argument that you can basically justify anything you want by citing the codes of some country to the Bible: you can justify anything you want with some obscure passage or other. Or some faith's interpretation of a passage. I really really wish I could've asked about that. Burger's concurrence in Bowers actually cited "Judeao-Christian moral and ethical standards" as a reason for upholding antisodomy laws. But what does that have to do with the Constitutionality of said laws? Is the Bible somehow more relevant to current US Constitutional interpretation than the standards and practices of other contemporary Western democracies? If so, why? And if not, well, I bet that would have changed how some of the Republicans voted.
Bleah.
I'll post an update on my life soon, really. I've just been having an actual life and doing stuff outside of both the lab and my apartment.
3 Comments:
Hey, Cara -- were you friends with Mike M.? I think you were, but my memory of anything past whiskey is a little fuzzy.
Yeah, we kept in touch on and off until he moved to Switzerland (or wherever) with that exchange student. I've always wanted to find him again, but I'm lazy. We were really close senior year and that summer, and he was friends with my Certain Filmmaking Ex before CFE graduated and moved to Pittsburgh.
Um, why?
Oh, he randomly emailed me last week. He's back from Europe for a few weeks, and he'll be in New York for the last leg, so we made tentative plans to have a drink together (despite the fact that we hung out, like, never). He found my blog from Angela (Lembke, perhaps).
We should all meet up.
Post a Comment
<< Home