Whatever Wednesday

Hype + Bad Law

HYPE & SPORTS

From column by Tom Shatel, Omaha World Herald (8/5):  "Hype, hype, hooray. What's wrong with hype? People act like it's a bad thing. Should go around in rations. Don't go feeling too good now, because if it doesn't work out, you can have your heart smashed.
          "Welcome to being a sports fan. You sign up knowing you're going to have good times & bad times There's some level of hype every season. Hype brings you back. Hype means you still care. How is that a bad thing?
          "For what Nebraska FB fans have been through the past 15 years, it's an amazing thing. I don't want to hear about over-hype. Check back in 4 or 5 years & say that. If NU hasn't played for or won a Big 10 title by then, put it on my tab. I'm not expecting to buy." Comment:  Does hype extend to other areas besides sports? I say it does. It's possible--but perhaps not too wise--to get hyped over politics. It's possible to get hyped about vacations & other road trips. If the choice is between hype & constantly feeling cynical, I think I'll go with hype.

POLITICAL POTPOURRI

From column by Rich Lowry in Norfolk Daily News (8/4):  "Roe ruling has been a true travesty. The prospect of overturning Roe v. Wade will be at the foreground of the battle over Justice Anthony Kennedy's replacement . . . Roe is judicially wrought social legislation presented to the status of constitutional law. It is more adventurous than Miranda & Griswold, other watchwords of judicial activism from its era. It is as much a high-handed attempt to impose a settlement on a hotly contested political question as the abhorrent Dred Scott decision denying the rights of blacks. It is, in short, a travesty that a constitutionalist Supreme Court should excise from its body of work with all due haste . . . 
          "Roe struck down 50 state laws & has made it all but impossible to regulate abortion, except in the narrowest circumstances. More to the point, the argument that its particular set of policy preferences is mandated by the Constitution is flatly preposterous . . . 
          "The best case that can be made for Roe is that it is a mistaken decision on the books for nearly 50 years now, so it has to be honored as a precedent. But the court is not, & shouldn't be, in the practice of standing by fundamentally flawed decisions. Brown v. Board of Education overturned Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld segregated education, almost 60 years later. Just last week, the Court overturned a labor decision from 1977.
          "Roe is bad law & bad democracy It has no sound constitutional basis, & deserves to go the way of the court's other embarrassments & misfires." Comment:  I've made this point before. Despite my unhappiness w/DT's moral character & dissatisfaction w/some of his actions, thank goodness it's DT who is nominating justices to the SCOTUS & not HC.