I’d like to announce my eligibility

At the end of my junior year a couple of friends, who passed many an hour playing pick-up ball on the court behind their dorm, hatched a plan. The were going to follow in the footsteps of some of the most well-known alumni of the University of North Carolina and announce their eligibility for the NBA draft.

They figured “What the hell, it can’t hurt" and it could be funny to see an pro scout come around campus asking about the previously unheralded 5’10” shooting guard from North Carolina.

To follow in their footsteps, I too would like to announce my eligibility. My eligibility for the highest court in the land.

I want to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Ha! You laugh, but as far as I can tell, there really are only a few actual requirements for the position. Actually, according to Article 3 of the Constitution, there are none. Unlike being elected to Congress (25 years old to be a rep; 30 to be a senator) or president (natural-born citizen and 35 years of age), the Constitution sets no requirements.

Why would I, the Foggy Dew, make a good addition to the court? I thought you’d never ask. Here’s why:

Not a lawyer

I see this as one of my greatest qualifications. I do, however, know how to read and I have a fairly high level of intelligence, so I’m pretty sure I could understand the concepts presented by the parties involved.

If I don’t, I’ll just ask questions of them until their time ran out and they have to shut up when the red light goes on. So I win.

Also, as a reporter, I’ve spent a good deal of time in courtrooms. So let’s just call that OJT and call it even for the lack of a JD.

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Fair-mindedness

Often you'll hear about judges being discussed in terms of being a "liberal activist" or a "strict constructionist." I'd bring what I call "Liberal Constructionism" to the Roberts Court. The Constitution is the law of the land, but yet it is not a suicide pact as Justice Robert H. Jackson wrote in his dissent in Terminiello v. Chicago.

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I believe in the First Amendment, but I also know the founders did not hold freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly or petition in as high regard as we do. I'll let you in on a little secret: The First Amendment was not the first amendment. It just happened to be the first amendment to pass.

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Amendment the First dealt with congressional apportionment (and could still be approved today if enough states approve it), and Amendment the Second prohibited lawmakers from giving themselves a raise. You may recognize this one, it became the 27th Amendment in 1992 after waiting more than 200 years for approval by three-quarters of the states.

I also believe in the Second Amendment. As Moses said, “From my cold, dead hands.”

All of the arguments people have about whether or not the Second Amendment allows gun ownership to individuals to protect themselves, or to members of state militias to protect the public is bullshit.

The reason the Second Amendment exists is the one lawyers, politicians and judges don’t talk about. It exists for one reason: to protect us, We the People, from the government. Remember, the men who wrote the Constitution had just fought and won a revolution. A revolution that often required its soldiers to bring their own guns to the fight.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” (If you look to the right, you’ll notice I’m reading a Jefferson bio, I highly recommend picking it up.) The Second Amendment is kinda like the watering can.

As for the other hot-button issues, I’ll just lay it out there for the Senate: Gay marriage, for it; abortion, never had one, never plan to, but I believe in the right to choose; prayer in school, shouldn’t be there, religion can be taught at home (is this still an issue?); privacy, the Constitution may not specify it, but the less the government has to do with my life, the better.

Skeletons

Skeletons

I don’t have anything in my past involving hookers and blow in Vegas that would prevent me from being confirmed. At least not that I know of. There are a couple of years there that are a little misty, but I’m pretty sure no one who was there will make the connection to my appointment. They were a lot more fucked up than I was.

Self-appointed term limit

If appointed and confirmed, I promise to step down in 10 years. It’s been said that sometimes it takes the court a while to catch up with America. That may have been fine in the past, but no longer. We need justices who can understand changing times require a change in perspective.

Laws don’t need to be popular, but they do need to be just. You can’t expect that when the people making the decisions are in their dotage. No disrespect intended. But, seriously, David Souter is retiring at 69, and John Paul Stevens is 89. Something isn’t quite right about this picture.

Wardrobe

As the picture below demonstrates, I already look good in a black robe.

That's me, second from the right, during graduation

from Sleepy Hollow High.

Access

I promise, if confirmed, to keep this blog going. You, America, will have unprecedented access to the inner-most workings of our most mysterious branch of government. I understand the need to keep a bit of a low profile, but the people need to know what the hell’s going on in there.

To sum up (since I’ve already ‘splained) I’m just as qualified as the next guy to be the president’s first nominee to the Court. The only strike I have against me is the one I just stated, I am a guy (I’m also white as well, so two strikes), but I think America can see past that and get behind my nomination.

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So click this link to drop a note to the president and tell him you too support The Foggy Dew for the Supreme Court. Together we can make this happen.

Schools, drugs and the Supremes

I don’t know if anyone’s seen this story, but the Supremes will be hearing the case this week.

If you don’t feel like clicking the link and reading the whole story, the short and very, very dirty version is this: six years ago a 13-year-old Arizona student was strip-searched by zealous school administrators in their search for illegal drugs.

Excessive? Some may say yes, some may say no. Until, that is, you find out the school’s vigilant principal, vice principal and nurse strip searched the girl while searching for ibuprofen. Personally, I’d say they not only pegged the excessive meter, the excess needle started spinning like a pressure gauge in a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

C13H18O2: It can be administered orally,

topically or (hehe) rectally

According to CNN’s lovely story (they must be hiring better writers in Atlanta these days since this one’s actually readable) the school has a zero-tolerance policy for all prescription and over-the-counter medication, including ibuprofen, without prior written permission.

“In this case, the United States Supreme Court will decide how easy it is for school officials to strip search your child,” Adam Wolf, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union who is representing the student, told CNN Radio on Sunday. “School officials undoubtedly have difficult jobs, but sometimes they overreact -- and this was just a clear overreaction.”

Ya think? Maybe just a little?

When nothing incriminating was found in the student’s backpack, the vice principal and the nurse (both women) had the girl strip to her skivvies. She then had to turn out the cups of her bra and pull out the waistband of her underwear so they could make sure she didn’t have any anti-inflammatories stuffed down her drawers.

You know what? Even if they’d found her muling a key of pure, uncut Mexican brown their reaction would have been too much. In case these folks out in Arizona haven’t heard, there are actually people called “police” who are specially trained to deal with a situation like this.

Although, I’m pretty sure, the cops would have laughed at the school if they’d called and asked them to strip-search a student to find out if she was hiding OTC medications. That should have been their first clue they were making a mistake.

Their second clue should have been THEY WERE LOOKING FOR FUCKING IBUPROFEN!!

If I’m wrong, and I’m never wrong, I recall from reading many of your blogs (often on TMI Thursdays) 13-year-old girls may perhaps suffer from “discomfort” as they become women. Also, from what I’ve read, there may be a fair amount of embarrassment associated with this event and they may not want to go to the school nurse to ask for something to help with the cramps.

I find it totally reasonable a young girl might have a little stash of Advil or Tylenol (the brand name for another dangerous gateway drug: acetaminophen [C8H9NO2]) in her school kit.

The school district, inconceivably, won the first and second go-rounds of the case, but lost in front of the full 9th Circuit. The school has said it feels a ruling against them could “jeopardize campus safety.” Any restrictions on them strip searching students could be a (have to use the quote here because its logic when applied to anti-inflammatories is amazing) "roadblock to the kind of swift and effective response that is too often needed to protect the very safety of students, particularly from the threats posed by drugs and weapons."

Perhaps a moment or two of contemplative thought instead of swift action is exactly what this situation called for, eh? Maybe? At the very least it would have saved a forest of trees from becoming briefs (Ha! Get it? Briefs?).

School officials added the judges of the 9th Circuit were “wholly uninformed about a disturbing new trend” – the abuse of over-the-counter medication by teenagers.

How the hell do you abuse ibuprofen? (I checked with a doctor friend of mine, you really can’t.)

What happened here is these school officials made a HUGE mistake and they know it, and now they’re trying to litigate their way out of the mess they’ve made.

One of the most important jobs a school has is to teach its students to respect the rules of society. But by stripping students of their rights, to say nothing of their clothes, this school has utterly failed in its mission of turning young adults into productive citizens.