"Beauty confronts us with the requirement that we place ourselves among...the redeemers, the leaders in the protection of life. Once you have seen the bush on fire, you are not going to get out of the assignment unless you close your eyes to the beauty.... [You] either have to close your eyes or go back to Egypt and set the people free." - Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, "Rising to the Challenge of Our Times"

Friday, November 21, 2008

What part of Marbury v. Madison don't you understand?


That's supposed to be funny. Lawyer humor. But this quote engraved on the wall in the United States Supreme Court building is serious.
Marbury v. Madison was the case in which it was determined that the buck stops with the Supreme Court in terms of reviewing the actions of other governmental bodies to decide if an action is illegal, or reviewing laws and statutes for constitutionality. Nice that the first Chief Justice, John Marshall, figured all that out in 1803 so we wouldn't have to worry about it again.

I ate lunch in the US Supreme Court Cafeteria today. I was going to try to make some kind of joke about that too but I was actually quite excited to be there, and the food was reasonably priced and pretty good. My coworker and I thought about trying to pick a fight with each other outside the building so we could say we argued before the Supreme Court, but we couldn't think of anything to fight about.

1 comment:

Bellabell said...

Ah--1803. When lawyers still wrote so the common reader could understand what they said!

And now, once again, we have a president who moves us with the power of his speech, instead of causing us to wince. Hail the day!