Justice Clarence Thomas: Asset or Just an Enigma?

Of all the Supreme Court justices, it is Clarence Thomas who is perhaps the most inscrutable. Often called the “Ebony Sphinx” of the panel, he is noted for not uttering a single word during over 350 cases argued before the Court in the last six years. While some have said that his rapt attention to the issues presented in hearings preclude interrupting the attorneys as they speak, others have wondered aloud if he has had images of eyeballs tattooed on his eyelids so that he can nap during the proceedings.

Chastised by detractors because his written opinions are as sparse as his spoken statements, many on the Left have scorned his frequent use of a pre-inked rubber stamp on Supreme Court opinions that simply says, “I agree with Justice Scalia”.

On the rare occasions when Justice Thomas takes on public speaking engagements, he is noted for staying away from thorny issues involving the law or politics, preferring instead to regale his audiences with folksy stories from his childhood, which invariably include anecdotes about floating down the Mississippi river on a raft with his friends Tom and Huck. In fact, Thomas credits his relationship with Tom as providing the spark that got him belatedly going off to school to learn “the Three R’s”.

When asked about their colleague on the nation’s highest court, some of the other justices are often vague in their responses. Chief Justice John Roberts, for instance, is quoted as having said, “what’s to say… Clarence was already on the Court when I took over. I do like the way he …. doesn’t rock the boat.”

Justice Antonin Scalia was a bit more caustic. “He’s always looking over my shoulder when I write my opinions. He waits until the last minute to add his two cents.”

When asked whether she thought Clarence Thomas was an asset to the Court in its current configuration, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg simply said, “who?”

Super Bowl XLV Ends in Victory

In the midst of the worst weather in recent memory, Super Bowl XLV went forward unimpeded as it was played at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, an indoor venue and home to the Texas Cowboys, who as it turned out, weren’t using it this weekend. The Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers squared off a few minutes early on Sunday, hoping to distract viewers from the mangling of the Star Spangled Banner by pop star Christina Aguilera, who sang something about “the glare of red sockets” before being hustled off the field by security agents.

From the moment of the initial kick off it was apparent that one of these closely matched teams was going to win. Ted Stereford, a fan who had waited overnight outside the stadium, hoping to snag a ticket from a scalper agreed. “One of these teams is sure to win,” he said, during a pregame interview of fans who were evenly divided as to which side would emerge the victor. There were a few lively brawls between opposing fans before the game, but only two fatalities were reported.

With one of the teams pulling ahead at half time, there was a welcome pause in the tension as the Black Eyed Peas took the stage to perform musical numbers purposely neutral to both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, to avoid turning the event into a good natured celebration of Second Amendment rights, as happened in Tucson last month. Texas Governor Rick Perry, speaking from his second tier box seat, noted that the Super Bowl was a welcome distraction from the state’s recently revealed $25 billion deficit that had been kept under wraps by deft accounting manuevers and an influx of federal stimulus funds. “Turns out we needed those devil dollars from the Feds after all,” said Perry, “I guess seceding from the Union will have to wait until next year.”

Perhaps the most unsettling occurrence of this Sunday’s game was the unseating of over 400 ticket holders at Cowboy Stadium through a mixup with one of the Super Bowl vendors. A seemingly minor misspelling on a fax sent to a sanitation firm had workmen scrambling just before the game to install over a thousand toilets on one side of the stadium. Organizers had taken the spelling of “Super Bowel Sunday” literally, and had removed fans’ seats and replaced them with toilets, which met with howls of protest as ticket holders, who had spent thousands of dollars to see the game were told they’d have to move to a hastily contrived theater to watch their teams on a big screen TV, since the toilets were not properly bolted down and therefore unsafe.

Once the game resumed the team that had fallen behind swiftly made some gains owing to superior passing and receiving in the final two minutes of play. But on the fourth down one of the quarterbacks threw a long pass to his standout receiver, who promptly dropped the ball, thereby losing any chance at being signed to a multi-million dollar product endorsement contract. With only seconds to go, a final touchdown was achieved giving the winning team a perfectly good reason to celebrate, and Super Bowl XLV was brought to a close.

Mideast Unrest Calls for U.S. Bombing

There has been much head scratching in Washington over the last couple of weeks about how to respond to the turmoil in the Middle East. The Obama administration is currently straddling that “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” diplomatic fence in offering lukewarm support for our old dictator pal, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, while at the same time hinting that he might want to thumb a ride out of the country before someone sets his hair on fire.

“Dorothy missed her chance to leave Oz in the Wizard’s balloon, said President Obama, “but she had her ruby slippers to fall back on. As far as I know, Mr. Mubarak has no diplomatic back channel with any witches, good or bad.”

Right wing pundits have been unequivocal in their calls for the U.S to fire up the B-2 fleet and go bomb somebody…anybody. Glenn Beck summed up the conservative consensus on his TV show. “Look what happened on 9/11: we were attacked by Saudi Arabia and immediately invaded Iraq, allowing us to not only get rid of surplus bombs but eliminate stability and peace in the region.” He went on to point out that bombing Afghanistan had failed to accomplish “the mission” back in 2001 because there wasn’t anything left to blow up once the Soviets pulled out. “But Egypt is different because it has all those giant pyramids built by the mummies.”

Predictably, most historians polled on the unrest in Egypt and surrounding countries have urged caution. Professor Sanskrit Demarcus of Sanderson University pointed out that sometimes it’s better to let soverign nations solve their own problems before stepping in to seize their natural resources. “It might be better, he said, to just wait for the dust to settle and then make a deal with whoever ends up owning the store.” He admitted later that this kind of response would severely impact the profits of companies making artificial limbs for U.S military personnel.