So, the musings for the day:
LAWS:
I have finally mastered the Cleburne standard for Heightened Rational Basis Review, or so I think. Between the case opinion, 2 ConLaw textbooks, a commercial outline, a friend's outline, my class notes, the note-taker's class notes, my Prof's email messages and 2 hours of my time I have mastered the standard and it's application.
So the gist of it? If your government is racist or sexist, you're golden. If they just generally don't like you, you're going to have a little more work ahead of you.
The Cleburne opinion was written by Justice Byron White. If you don't know anything about him, he's really an interesting character. He was a running back for the Pittsburgh Pirates (now Steelers) and the Detroit Lions in the late 30s/early 40s until he joined the Navy in WWII. He went to law school after the war and worked his way through the legal ranks until he was appointed to the bench by JFK in the early 60s. White retired from the SCOTUS in 1993 and was replaced by Justice Ginsberg. Before retiring, the latter half of his time on the bench overlapped with the beginning half of Sandra Day O'Connor's time on the bench. Sandra Day O'Connor is the Chancellor of W&M and came to speak to the 1Ls earlier this semester (see, it all comes together). When asked about her interactions with the other Justices, Justice O'Connor told us all that the Justices were often so busy that they spent very little time together. However, Justice O'Connor said that one of the few people she did spend time with was Byron White. To illustrate this point she told us this story:"Byron White, well...he liked to putt. And so do I. So, Byron, he had a little putter set up in his office. You had to hit the ball under the couch and out the other side. He had little mason jar on his desk, and you had to put a quarter in his mason jar to play with him. We did that a lot."
So now, though I am suffering through Cleburne and the largely unintelligible opinion that Byron White wrote (mainly to cover his own ass, I might add), I cannot help but picture him putting in his office and that makes it at least marginally better.
SAUSAGES:
On the food front, though I am studying a lot, I took a break this morning to marinate some tofu for my lunch when I felt like eating it. This tofu recipe actually has a somewhat hilarious history that comes from my freshman year in college. My friends and I lived on the second and third floors of a dorm building where the only full kitchen was on the ground level and often inaccessible. We were also somewhat strange and adventurous eaters and we soon developed a favorite recipe: Marinated Tofu. We took special trips to the organic food store to buy ingredients, marinated it in a cake pan (usually resting on whatever flat surface wasn't covered in textbooks and papers) and ate it plain and usually uncooked. It was perfection. It still brings happy nostalgic memories every time I eat it, even the slightly more normal and grown-up version that I now make. The recipe I use nowadays is below.
Marinated Tofu
For marinade:
Thinly sliced garlic cloves
Thinly sliced ginger root
Lemon segments
Lemon juice
Enough Tamari to cover the tofu
Pretty much anything else tasty and asian-esque
Put the garlic, ginger, lemon segments and lemon juice into the dish (I use a pie pan). Slice firm or extra firm tofu into about ¼ inch thick squares. Put the tofu on top of the other ingredients and then pour the tamari over the tofu until covered. Marinade for at least 2 hours (but really as long as you want for more flavor), turning the tofu over at least once about half way through. Then pan fry, about 2 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Serve over brown rice, couscous, quinoa etc. I like to garnish mine with some fresh herbs and sometimes some bean sprouts.
1 comment:
...and of course Byron White's famous nickname was "Whizzer". Always good for a sophomoric giggle.
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