I was expressing skepticism about the cue in the NYT (from Adam Liptak) to interpret Justice Thomas's statement to mean that "he was content with the way things are." (This was in reference to the Justices' communication by paper memo, and not by email or in face-to-face discussions.)

I said:

I could think of some other ways to interpret those 3 words and don't like being told to think of Justice Thomas as complacent and stiff. A person might like formality without being content with the way things are. A preference for formality can arise out of discomfort and mistrust. What kind of person shies away from free-wheeling banter and wants things put in writing?

I dropped a rare footnote: "There is Critical Race Theory scholarship connecting a preference for formality to race. Citation to come." That was 3 days ago, and at least one commenter has signaled he's still waiting. Did I think he'd forget?

I'd known all along what I wanted to cite, the Patricia J. Williams book from 20 years ago called "Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor." Unfortunately, that's not on Kindle, so needing to find my hard copy slowed me down.

In Chapter 8, "The Pain of Word Bondage," Williams describes the willingness of her colleague Peter Gabel to rent an apartment with no written agreement, to hand over a $900 cash deposit to strangers without even getting the keys. She, a black, female law professor, could not share his warm feeling for informality:

… I was raised to be acutely conscious of the likelihood that no matter what degree of professional I am, people will greet and dismiss my black femaleness as unreliable, untrustworthy, hostile, angry, powerless, irrational, and probably destitute. Futility and despair are very real parts of my response. So it helps me to clarify boundary; to show that I can speak the language of lease is my way of enhancing trust in me in my business affairs. As black, I have been given by this society a strong sense of myself as already too familiar, personal, subordinate to white people. I am still evolving from being treated as three-fifths of a human, a subpart of the white estate. I grew up in a neighborhood where landlords would not sign leases with their poor black tenants, and demanded that the rent be paid in cash; although superficially resembling Peter's transactions, such informality in most white-on-black situations signals distrust, not trust. Unlike Peter, I am still engaged in the struggle to set up transactions at arm's length, as legitimately commercial, and to portray myself as a bargainer of separate worth, distinct power, sufficient rights to manipulate commerce.

Peter, I speculate, would say that a lease or any other formal mechanism would introduce distrust into his relationships and he would suffer alienation, leading to the commodification of his being and the degradation of his person to property. For me, in contrast, the lack of formal relation to the other would leave me estranged. It would risk figurative isolation from that creative commerce by which I may be recognized as whole, by which I may feed and clothe and shelter myself, by which I may be seen as equal — even if I am a stranger. For me, stranger-stranger relations are better than stranger-chattel.

Now, take that observation and test out whether it could be similar to what Clarence Thomas was thinking when he said "I like formality."

"Photographer Ken Brown says the space tourism craft was released from the plane that carries it to high altitude, ignited its rocket motor and then exploded."

I've always been against space tourism. I'm sorry to hear of the death and the injury, but this is not a good way for rich people to try to find fulfillment in life.

"The ones with brown eyes, Richard Nixon and L.B.J., came a cropper."

And:

George Washington, blue-gray eyes; John Adams, blue; Thomas Jefferson, hazel; James Madison, brown; James Monroe, blue-gray; John Quincy Adams, black; Andrew Jackson, blue (Old Stonewall-blue eyes?); Martin Van Buren, blue; William Henry Harrison, brown. John Tyler, blue; James Polk, gray; Zachary Taylor, hazel (it figures); Millard Fillmore, blue; Franklin Pierce, gray; James Buchanan, blue; Abraham Lincoln, gray (huh?); Andrew Johnson, black; Ulysses S. Grant, blue. Rutherford B. Hayes, blue; James Garfield, blue; Chester A. Arthur, black (of course); Grover Cleveland, blue (but only once); Benjamin Harrison, blue; William McKinley, blue-gray; Theodore Roosevelt, blue (come on); William Howard Taft, blue; Woodrow Wilson, blue-gray; Warren G. Harding, gray. Calvin Coolidge, blue; Herbert Hoover, hazel (stop laughing); Franklin D. Roosevelt, blue; Harry Truman, blue; Dwight D. Eisenhower, blue (I know, I didn`t believe it, either); John F. Kennedy, blue; Lyndon B. Johnson, brown; Richard Nixon, brown; Gerald Ford, blue; Jimmy Carter, hazel (don't say it); Ronald Reagan, blue.

ADDED: I didn't really mean for this to be a separate post, but I accidentally published what was the draft of a comment to go in the "Eye Implants" thread, where I said something hyperbolic about blue eyes and got called on it. I don't delete posts. Ever. Not in 10+ years.

... as we argue about what the standard for "snow" really was, and he hews to the theory that it was about whether the sidewalks needed at least a sweeping if not a shoveling, and I say it had to do with noticeable sticking on the ground, at least a dusting. Dusting, sweeping... all that is broomed away by the realization that perhaps we did not even have a snow bet this year.

But one thing is certain. We have a bet on the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, and that's a bet we put in writing the day we made it. Want to see the writing?

"Being gay has given me a deeper understanding of what it means to be in the minority and provided a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with every day. It's made me more empathetic, which has led to a richer life. It's been tough and uncomfortable at times, but it has given me the confidence to be myself, to follow my own path, and to rise above adversity and bigotry. It's also given me the skin of a rhinoceros, which comes in handy when you're the CEO of Apple."

Writes Tim Cook.

"I looked in the mirror and I was, like, they're amazing."

ADDED: "The Bluest Eye is a 1970 novel by American author Toni Morrison.... The title The Bluest Eye refers to Pecola's fervent wishes for beautiful blue eyes. She is rarely developed during the story, which is purposely done to underscore the actions of the other characters. Her insanity at the end of the novel is her only way to escape the world where she cannot be beautiful and to get the blue eyes she desires from the beginning of the novel."

Christian Schneider offers 4 pointers:

1.  The debate seems to be largely one of semantics...

If your father and brother decided they wanted to remove you from your position in the family company, they wouldn't label you "fired." They'd probably do what they could to shield you.

2.  When asked for sales number from Burke's European days by the Associated Press, John Burke said that he "did not have detailed financial records from that far back, but there was one year where the company had a loss." The idea that a multimillion dollar corporation that operates around the world doesn't keep financial records from 20 years ago is preposterous.  If there are no records, then where does Mary Burke get the numbers that she raised sales from $3 million to $50 million? Further, how is it that Trek has enough institutional memory to trash its ex-employees who are named in the initial story, but can't seem to remember why Mary Burke left the company?...

These are Schneider's substantive points. Point 3 is just tweaking liberals for treating this one secretive big corporation differently from others. Point 4 refers to the assertion made (by whom?) that Burke "moved Trek's European offices from Frankfurt, Germany to Amsterdam because she 'didn't care for the German people' and because Amsterdam 'better reflected her lifestyle.'" I don't see what that has to do with whether Burke was fired, and Schneider seems to be repeating what he admits is "entirely hearsay" because it might offend the many people of German extraction who live in Milwaukee, "the most German city in America."

Anyway, that hearsay, even if true, is paraphrase. A preference for Amsterdam as a base for an American bike company might be quite sound, and who knows what casual things one might say explaining that decision to confidantes?

ADDED: Another former Trek employee comes forward, this time in defense of Mary Burke: "As Mary does everything, she put her heart and soul into the task," Denise DeMarb wrote. "Did she make mistakes, probably. Was she under pressure, certainly. Did she perform a huge feat — yes she did." DeMarb is president pro tem of the Madison city council.

Jaime Fuller at WaPo points out the "Daily Show" bit where Jon Stewart acknowledges that Koch Industries is one of the show's sponsors and runs a parody of their ad in which the voiceover listing good things the company does is replaced by a list of bad things, like "rearranging polar bears" and "lubricating birds."

Fuller articulates the "lesson": "Make sure that the content surrounding your ad buy doesn't disagree with you and have the ability to try and neutralize the effectiveness of your ad. Because they probably will."

That's a thuddingly simplistic interpretation. It could be a perfectly good choice for Koch Industries to put its ad on "The Daily Show" even knowing that it would trigger the parody.

"The Daily Show" continually slams the Koch brothers, whether they advertise on the show or not. At least the ad provides some counterweight, some nudge toward skepticism about the world view presented on the show. And the parody is so heavy-handed that some listeners might begin to think: Is it really that bad? Or even: What are liberals so afraid of here?

Some independent thoughts might arise. Like: Dark money? Don't Democrats have their own "dark money"? And: There's something creepy about fixing upon and demonizing 2 particular American citizens.

Said Spike Lee, who was asked what he tells his own children about race. It was: "People who get in trouble are the people who forget they're black."

"... which is using lawsuits in Texas and North Carolina as test cases to try to restore preclearance to those states that seem to be engaging in the most discrimination. The DOJ got lucky to draw as the trial judge in the Texas voter ID case Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos, an Obama appointee who drafted a well-reasoned and comprehensive opinion slamming the state of Texas for discriminatory and unconstitutional conduct."

Writes lawprof Richard Hasen at Talking Points Memo.

To me, it was the last day I could win my snow bet with Meade...



... and I won.

"... in the middle of the day and can't properly pronounce 'mami.' They might do things to women that are worse than catcalling, but this is not their sin." Says Hanna Rosin, analyzing the racial politics of that woman-walking-down-the-street viral video.

"[R]oast swan was a favored dish in the courts of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, particularly when skinned and redressed in its feathers and served with a yellow pepper sauce," writes Monica Kim in Modern Farmer.

Swans have been the property of the Crown since around the twelfth century, but Edward IV's Act Concerning Swans in 1482 clearly defined that ownership. To this day, Queen Elizabeth II participates in the yearly Swan Upping, in which the royal Swan Master counts and marks swans on the Thames, and the kidnapping and eating of swans can be considered a treasonous crime....

"Nobody has ever requested swan," says Mark Lahm, chef and owner of Henry's End in Brooklyn. Lahm's restaurant is one of the few in New York to focus on wild game and has claimed to serve every meat imaginable: bear, turtle, kangaroo—everything, except swan. "Swan is not an animal that is hunted and besides it has the 'cute' factor going for it," Lahm says. "I cannot imagine it on my menu."

But there are places in the United States where swans are considered pests, threatening other native species of birds. And the Queen is irrelevant here. Would you eat swan? If you want to know how it tastes, it's "delicious — deep red, lean, lightly gamey, moist, and succulent."