A fan page for Dahlia Lithwick, the rockingest Supreme Court columnist ever ever ever.
A confession?
I have a crush. On a woman I would not be able to identify, even if she were selling aquarium filters door-to-door. Which she wouldn't be, by the way. Because she's wonderful.
You may know her. Her name is Dahlia Lithwick, and our acquaintance has spanned three cities, three apartments and two houses, three jobs, and countless emocore albums. In a perpetually changing universe, her sweet, unerring "Dahlia Lithwick is a Slate senior editor" has been one of only a handful of fixed stars. No matter what case I am working on, what legal argument I am putting together, in the background there is always Dahlia.
This is for her.
(based on "The Faces of NPR," by Dahlia Lithwick)
Thursday, August 21, 2003
religion, and the constitution
Does the Constitution Hate God? contains these choice lines:
- "Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, and Thomas have each made up new Establishment Clause tests in recent years, signaling that Lemon may be law, but it's stupid law."
- "In Marsh, the court found that history acts as a spiritual Bermuda Triangle, with time acting as 'a vehicle for altering the religiousness of certain practices and symbols.'"
- "In one case the court reduced a crèche to the religious equivalent of a Happy Meal: 'engendering a friendly community spirit of good will in keeping with the season.'"
And it contains one of the best summaries of the tensions between free speech and the Establishment Clause I've seen:There is an irony here. The free speech provision of the First Amendment accords the greatest respect to the loudest, rudest speaker. The Establishment Clause accords the least respect to the loudest, most zealous preacher.
p.s. I've been getting a bunch of irate emails from people who disagreed with Dahlia's recent column, more so than with respect to any other column she's written. Please get this straight: I am not Dahlia Lithwick. Nor am I her official contact. So please stop emailing me about her. Moreover, please don't try to get me into a debate regarding her views and legal interpretations. As I've said quite a few times on this page, what I like about her is that she's funny. I have my own sometimes-overlapping, sometimes-conflicting opinions on legal and policy matters (even with respect to this particular column), none of which I post on this page because of my own position as a lawyer. But I do think she's a fantastic writer, certainly more fantastic than you insult-spewing extremists out there.
Thursday, August 14, 2003
dahlia on smoking
My Big Fattening Greek Salad: Are french fries the new Marlboros?There is something creepily paternalistic in the arguments put forth by the food nannies. They tend to say that while they are smart enough to read labels or look up fat contents on the Wendy's Web site, the poor, disadvantaged single mommies are not that sophisticated. One would hope that even the poorest single mom knows that eating McNuggets every day is unhealthy. And—since obesity doesn't happen in a day—one would hope that even the most unsophisticated parent would cut back on the KFC if her child started to split her Wranglers.
But there is something equally creepy in the efforts to stave off the Big Food suits either with ridicule or with legislative action—including the "Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act" now in markup, which would limit liability for food producers from obesity lawsuits. Even frivolous lawsuits deserve their day in court. That's why we have judges: to throw them out.
Monday, August 11, 2003
dahlia on new york criminal policy
Saving DNA for a Rainy Day: New York City's plan to indict genetic profiles.
