Scalia in Dissenting Opinion: “GAAAAYYYYYYY”

Those glasses are pretty…yeah, you know.

While reading his dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court’s ruling that denial of federal benefits to married same-sex couples is unconstitutional, Scalia loudly shouted that the whole ordeal was “GAAAAAY.”

“Hah!” reported Scalia. “GAAAAAYYYYY!”

Going on to break traditional decorum in an especially unconventional way, Scalia interrupted Justice Anthony Kennedy’s reading of his majority opinion by interjecting, “GAY!  GAY GAY GAYYYYYY!  SO GAY!”

Added Scalia, “So ghey.”

Breaking weeks of silence, Justice Clarence Thomas even chimed in as well.

“Haha,” said Thomas. “Yeah, pretty gay.”

In other news, Texas legislators have all agreed to reset their clocks, which, having not been calibrated for some time, tell the lawmakers it’s still 1953.

If the Supreme Court was like the BCS…

One is a shadowy coalition of aging individuals who wield tremendous power and influence over an American institution, untethered by the popular will of the people or sheer common sense. The other is the BCS. What if the Supreme Court modeled itself after the Bowl Championship Series?

PLAYOFFS!?!? You’re talking about PLAYOFFS???

Skyrocketing CNN Ratings
People will immediately start paying attention to the bedraggled news network after the Court’s BCSification for the first time since, what, O.J. Simpson took a joyride? CNN will probably kick things off with two hours of live broadcasts from the National Mall for SCOTUS GameDay brought to you by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a legal entertainment show featuring highlights and predictions about the day’s constitutional adjudication from a renowned cast that includes Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Lee Corso, Richard Posner, Paul D. Clement, and token babe with a microphone renowned journalist Erin Andrews. After SCOTUS GameDay comes to a close with Lee Corso wearing a mask of whichever justice he thinks will write the majority opinion, expect CNN to bring its viewers inside the courtroom to see the Supreme Court nine, too tempted by the promise of television revenue to maintain their no-camera policy, decide this nation’s fate in prime time. Tweens’ hearts will throb as the Chief Justice John “The Sledgehammer” Roberts disassembles decades of precedent, and old men will look at Justice Stephen Breyer and reminisce about the good old days, when being a liberal meant something and the best judges in the land served the highest court. Expect downsides to the television exposure as well, including seeing what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg looks like in high definition, a page-shaving controversy regarding the length of judicial opinions, and Justice Clarence Thomas’ endorsement deal with Ambien.

Unnecessary Roughness
Now that America’s refs have entered the big time, they better clean up their game. Look for the Court to ixnay any lingering American laws or policies that constitute cruel or unusual punishment, like the death penalty, immigration law, or the past decade of Adam Sandler movies. Not that anything will keep Scalia from taking as many smug smarmy-ass cheap shots as he can. Or Thomas from getting flagged with illegal contact…

Future Chief Justice Tiffani

Decline of the Ivies
Just as Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the Ivy League slowly lost their competitive monopoly on college football, the Ivy League’s iron-fisted control over the Supreme Court will dissipate as the field broadens to include legal powerhouses like University of Southern California, Louisiana State University, Alabama University, and Texas Christian University — currently unranked in pre-season law school power rankings after having produced a combined 0 Supreme Court justices (can you say sleeper!?). Just as college football benefited from a diverse array of competition that infused the sport with new traditions and rivalry, it probably wouldn’t hurt this country if the nine people sitting in a room making some of our nation’s most important decisions did not all come from academic backgrounds like this.

Arbitrary Rulings
To be fair, the BCS and the Supreme Court really aren’t too far away from one another on this one. When you think about it, rulings on pass interference and maritime law are pretty damn subjective. I still wonder what would have happened in Bush v. Gore if a national champion had been crowned by using an algorithm that weighed two different polls and six computer ranking systems, but I know for a fact that Ralph Nader would definitely be the Boise State in that hypothetical situation.

Free Speech
This Court loves expanding first amendment protections almost as much as Justice Alito loves whipping the other justices with a wet towel in the Supreme Locker Room after a long hard day of hearings (I presume). Excessive Celebration penalties will be the first to go, giving way to the tantalizing possibility of Justice Kagan and Justice Sotomayor performing the chicken dance every time they pull off a victory. Kennedy, meanwhile, will probably be selling off all the naming rights he can to the highest bidders, until TD Ameritrade’s logo is emblazoned on all of the Justice’s robes as they walk into the U.S. Cellular Courthouse.

If the Court is a rockin, don’t come a knockin.

Give the people what they want
After a decade and a half of bitching, the BCS finally figured things out. Their solution isn’t perfect, but it’s a step in the right direction. A college playoff is the product of consensus building in order to satisfy the clearly expressed will of the people — fans and authorities coming together with the realization that the current system is broken and needs to be overhauled. Tomorrow, I certainly wouldn’t mind if the Supreme Court acted a bit more like the BCS and came together to uphold a less-than-perfect solution to the more-than-troubling health care dilemma facing this nation, a law that is the democratic product of the express will of the people. Much like a college football playoff system.

Things That Rock: Republicans

Good to see you again. Sorry that it’s been so long since I last made you laugh, but I’ve had a tumultuous couple of weeks. You see, ever since I stole away from my monastery in the middle of the night (no, that ‘Brother’ in my name isn’t random) armed only with a box of tagalongs Peanut Butter Patties and a pair of hook swords, I have been mercilessly pursued by a cadre of cyborg zombie ninjas hell-bent on forcing me back to the monastery where I would be forced to eat beets and contemplate Godel Escher Bach alongside the other monks for the rest of eternity. Hell no. But now that I’m safely holed up in a top-secret bunker located miles beneath Ayers Rock, I’m free to write another article!

I'll miss this woman.

Luckily for all you raging optimists, this one is about something that’s awesome, as opposed to something that’s terrible. Even better, it’s about a ‘diamond in the rough’ sort of awesomeness that can be hard to appreciate if you take it too seriously.* In other words: this year’s Republican presidential primaries.

The GOP candidates (or as I like to call them, Mitt & Friends) have been so ubiquitous in our culture these last few months that I’m sure your mind was assailed with a flood of images and quotes and feelings as soon as you saw those words. Maybe they’ve made you angry or sad or scared for the future of America. But hell, they were entertaining, weren’t they?

Yes they were. Especially once it became clear that turds like Michele Bachmann had no chance of making the cut, it was fun to kick back and watch Rick Perry metaphorically poop himself on live TV or listen to Herman Cain quote the Pokemon movie after his past as a serial rapist was revealed.

Here’s how I parlayed the possible terror of these primaries into something enjoyable: Imagine you went in for a routine dentist checkup. You expect it to be as routine and uneventful as it always is when you go in for these appointments every four years, but surprise! Your dentist finds deep rot in some of your teeth. A root canal’s the only thing for it. Shit, you’ve got a nonrefundable one-way ticket to of the most infamously painful procedures ever conceived by doctors. Begin the nervous freakout.

What else to say about the awesomeness of the GOP primaries?

That root canal diagnosis (and the crippling fear that accompanied it on your part) was Bachmann winning the Ames Straw Poll, or perhaps Perry’s entry into the campaign as a veritable behemoth of money and charisma and prayer, plus former pizza CEO Herman Cain making the cover of Newsweek as the candidate to beat. Former pizza CEO! It sure looked like America was headed for an extremely painful procedure, wasn’t it?

But then a few days later, after you’ve spent several sleepless nights tossing and turning over your fate, you get a call from your dentist. He forgot to tell you: they’re going to knock you out for all of it. You won’t feel a thing. And painkillers being what they are these days, you’ll be right as rain within 24 hours.

For me, that brow-wiping ‘wheeeeeeeeeeew’ moment was the poll, one of the first after Cain and Perry and Bachmann had risen and fallen in the ratings like the figures on a merry go round (only if those figures were stupid clowns instead of the usual beautiful horses), that showed Newt Gingrich in first place. NEWT GINGRICH! FIRST PLACE! Good God, this man once impeached a president for infidelity while cheating on his second wife with a woman who ended up becoming his third wife, and later explained his extramarital affairs by saying that they were “partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country.” Yes! And he was in first place to be the Republican candidate for president! I had been almost scared to laugh at the primaries up to this point, like meeting a guy at a party who keeps nonsensically rambling about Clarence Thomas, only you don’t laugh because you can’t tell if he’s joking or drunk. But now Newt Gingrich was in first place! Turns out that guy was drunk and joking! Commence laughter!**

In a gold-in-the-sand kind of way, or perhaps in a we’ll-knock-you-out-for-the-entire-procedure kind of way, that subtle change in viewing the GOP primaries completely transforms the experience from frightening to hilarious. Once you don’t have to worry about finding a house in Canada (my personal Bachmann contingency plan), you can enjoy these video compilations of classic Bachmann quotes (complete with music!) and laugh at the complete absurdity of the existence of ‘classic Bachmann quotes.’ Once you don’t have to watch professional people seriously debate the 9-9-9 tax plan, you can enjoy the ceaseless stream of ridiculousness that is Herman Cain. Once Rick Santorum wins second place in the Iowa caucuses and opens the door to all sorts of Twitter-ready remarks about how Santorum is being spread in Iowa, it’s nothing but joy.

The man loves to get some tail.

I loved these primaries. From a comedy standpoint, there really was nothing better. How can you not love a primary campaign that spawned a website devoted to showcasing animals with Newt Gingrich?

Unfortunately, it looks like we’re going to be stuck with Romney vs. Obama for the next few months, two rational, intelligent, and capable men locked in learned debate. Being the heinous renegade monk that I am, I don’t really know what ‘learned debate’ means, but I’m guessing there will be fewer Pokemon quotes involved. I don’t know what I’m going to do for reality TV entertainment. I mean, maybe you can sit through an episode of the Steven Tyler American Idol, but I certainly can’t. But then again, you’re probably a better person than I am, as evidenced by the fact that you’re not currently on the lam from a cadre of cyborg zombie ninjas.

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*Much like the cinematography of Wayne’s World 2.
**And the systematic destruction of any shred of decency that remained in Fran’s.

Sherman Ave Freshman Guide: Making Friends

I see 2,000 future friends

One of the best aspects of the college experience is how many fascinating people you meet and subsequently engage in raucous shenanigans with. A good collection of bffles can be an essential asset in all of the tasks that you will face during your freshman year, from drunkenly yelling at buoys in Lake Michigan to figuring out how to torrent The Lion King 1 1/2 without getting caught.

At first, making friends with complete strangers in a strange, strange land replete with fraternities, an all-night Burger King, and theater students can seem like a frightening challenge. But that’s no cause for alarm. Everybody is in the same boat as you, and upon completion of your freshman year you will be astounded by how many cool friends you have made and how many mysterious names still remain in your phone’s contacts — the forgotten identities of all your over-eager peers who decided to try and befriend you due to your proximity to one another at March through the Arch. Just remember that friendships grow organically and cannot be forced, unless, of course, you follow our sage wisdom on how to meet new friends.