Friday, January 31, 2003

 

barbie

Dahlia writes (a parody!) about the Barbie trademark battle, from Barbie's point of view.

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Wednesday, January 29, 2003

 

google

Dahlia writes about the lawsuit over Google's ranking technology.

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Thursday, January 23, 2003

 

meeting dahlia in person

So last week, on Thursday, January 16, Dahlia spoke in an event sponsored by Georgetown University Law Center chapter of the American Constitution Society. (I was lucky, btw, that my friend M.R. had heard about the event and forwarded the announcement to me---I am not the most vigilant fan in the world. Plus I was lucky that the talk was early enough such that I could attend it and leave on my trip to Brussels that afternoon.) But ooh! Dahlia in person!

The title of her talk was "Covering the Court," and she presented her musings on why the Court is covered in the way it's covered, and why that, according to her, is a Bad Thing.

She began by talking about how most Supreme Court coverage is reverent and overrespectful. (Actually, she began by announcing her pregnancy, which would've been hard to keep secret anyway. Congratulations!!!) Indeed, one of the main reasons it is covered the way it is is that everyone else does it that way currently. As she herself admitted, "If I'd known no one made fun of the court, I probably wouldn't have done it when I started either." But she didn't, so she did. Because, as she rightfully says, the Supreme Court is often hilarious.

But she also pointed out that reverent coverage has not always been the case, that at different points in our history, reporters have been more critical of the Court, and more biting (take for example the Warren Court, she says). The current trend, though, is quite deferential. She attributes this approach in part to the age of the reporters ("I dragged the average age down by 30 to 35 years"), and to the reporters' desire to gain more access to the Court (thus causing them to enter the vicious cycle of writing fawning profiles in order to get better seats and invitations to cocktail parties in order to see more nice stuff in order to get even more access). The mean reporters---the ones who write sarcastic pieces or distribute stories about the Justices' children---she thinks, don't get invited to the swanky Justice parties, and get refused interviews, a la Justice Thomas.

Dahlia also thinks there's a self-selection problem going on---that reporters who want to cover the Supreme Court aren't by nature, the prying snoopy trashing reporters. They're the geek reporters (and she admits to identifying as such), and they like to read.

What's the problem with this reverant approach towards covering the Court? To Dahlia, it is not based on democratic principles, but on mythology. Indeed, she argues that there's almost a conspiracy between the Court, the reporters, and the public to sustain the myth of the oracular court. She hypothesized that perhaps the public needs to have an institution like that, something in which to vest deference, and that the Supreme Court fulfills this role.

Nevertheless, she believes that the principles of democracy trumps the need to have this institutional role filled. As she put it, when the Court isn't covered as if it's human, the public doesn't feel the need to worry about judicial appointments. The public doesn't realize that legal pronouncements don't come out of the air, but rather involve real personalities, real human effects. Moreover, without human coverage of the Court, the Justices can more easily allow themselves to become more detached from the real-world effects of their decisionmaking.

Dahlia finished her talk with her summary of what she thinks the different Justices are like, personalitywise. But I won't type those out there. Suffice it to say that words like "sphinxlike" and absentminded" and "snippy" and "frail" were used, and that the whole thing was pretty damned amusing.

What's it like, by the way, to meet someone I think is so super super super cool in person? Fun, I have to say. She is witty and sweet in person, in a self-depracating kind of way ("I worked for awhile on my Great American Novel, which so sucks."). Though, as you might expect, I ended up kind of shy, especially after she said, "My friends all tease me about having a fan page." T ended up joking with me about this afterwards. Plus I drove E. and M.R. crazy on the whole Brussels trip by repeatedly saying "Ohmygod! I met Dahlia Lithwick!"

Oh yeah, and I have a picture.

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Monday, January 20, 2003

 

book exchange

Emily Bazelon (from Legal Affairs) and Dahlia are discussing Motherhood Lost, a book about miscarriage and stillbirth by studying the support groups for women who have gone through such experiences. As Emily puts it: "The awkward hush that surrounds the subject—and often adds to women's grief—is one of Layne's themes." I can see that. I've been part of the awkward hush twice now, and I still don't know what to say, how to comfort and/or express condolences without adding to the hurt. Dahlia's right---there are no "cultural scripts" for dealing with it. Should there be, though? And if so, what should they be?

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Thursday, January 16, 2003

 

ohmygodohmygodohmygod

I just met Dahlia Lithwick!!!!! A picture and some bloggery will be up on my Dahlia page next week. (Which she says is the cause of much teasing.) But for now, I leave to Brussels!

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dahlia updates

(1) She has an article on Slate called "Scalia Hogs the Ball", all about the case argued yesterday, addressing the issue of whether Congress abrogated state sovereign with the FMLA. I'd contemplated going to the argument, but am glad I didn't. As Dahlia's commentary put it: "I can only say that if you went to court expecting cutting-edge civil rights analysis, you had a disappointing morning. Even the attorneys look depressed." She also compares the 11th Amendment to the Loch Ness Monster and the 14th Amendment to the Abominable Snowman, but caveats: "There is a better-than-even chance that this metaphor will not make it into the court's opinion in Hibbs."

(2) On the other hand, maybe I should've gone to the argument! Prof. Pillard from Georgetown was arguing for Hibbs! And Prof. Dinh, also from Georgetown, but now currently at Justice, argues for us feds.[*] So it would've been fun just to see them.

(3) BUT I'M GOING TO SEE DAHLIA TODAY! She's speaking at Georgetown, at a talk called "Covering the Court". I am fantastically excited. Ohboyohboyohboy am I fantastically excited. And her talk is timed so perfectly, because I've taken a half day off already today to leave to Brussels for the long weekend, and there's just enough time to hear her and then go to the airport. Ohboyohboyohboyohboy!!!!

[*] There is interesting punditry about this, but it has been conveyed to me in confidence, so.

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Monday, January 13, 2003

 

books

Dahlia writes about Clarence Thomas's memoirs, saying "This isn't a book tour. It's a Federalist Society pep rally."

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Thursday, January 09, 2003

 

high school t-shirts and you

Dahlia writes about school bans on Confederate t-shirts. Oh, that brings me back to my junior high years, when I'd see those flags on the back of denim jackets. And I'd think, "You people actually mean this as a tribute? General Lee is probably rolling over in his grave."

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Friday, January 03, 2003

 

dahlia writes about "second-parent" adoption laws

On Slate, here, and it's inspired by the first kid born in Virginia this year. A quote:"Since there are no laws barring parents who just happen to be gay from bearing and raising children alone, the argument against allowing their gay partner to adopt their child becomes that being loved by two gay parents is somehow worse than being loved by just one. Which makes no sense at all."

A funnier quote:

In the Fort Worth Star-Telegram last month, Michael Craven, executive director of the Dallas-based Center for Decency, put forth his best argument for barring gay adoptions. "If you allow gay couples to adopt, what moral basis do you have to stop same-sex pedophiles from adopting if you lose all moral boundaries?" he asked.

Well, you'd have those laws that prohibit pedophiles from adopting, for one thing …

A side-note: the only holiday party I went to this year that happened to have many kids there also happened to be a party with a lot of same-sex couples with their children. It was the party held by our realtor and his partner (with whom my housemate and I have gotten to be friends), and it had lots of friends, like us, that they made through realtoring. Meeting other homeowners, by the way, seems to lend itself towards meeting families, gay and straight, though there are a few uninvolved swinging kooks like me and my housemate who bought "just because" we get along great. Needless to say, the phenomenon described by Dahlia ("What makes [the Virginia] case so interesting is that the mommies were forced to move last week from Virginia to Maryland because in Virginia, Bare would likely have been prohibited from adopting the baby and assuming shared legal responsibility for her.") was reflected in the geography of the couples at the party: almost no one lived in Virginia, almost everyone lived in DC or Maryland. Which may very well highlight the real purpose of those who oppose laws that allow second-parent adoption: they want to drive same-sex couples out of their state.

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