A few silly things
What exactly does it mean to be a "Chief Justice" as opposed to a regular garden-variety Justice on the Supreme Court? Bill and I were wondering this when we were talking about John Roberts getting the Chief Justice job recently. We concluded that basically, it boils down to this:
The Chief Justice:
1) Gets the prime parking spot
2) Gets to sit in the center of any picture taken of the Supreme court
3) Gets a special extra stripes on his/her robe
4) Gets to choose the coffee flavor each week
5) Gets to start out any public service announcement the Supreme court makes (we were imagining this particular scenario - the Chief says "Keep your furry friends safe and healthy:" while the rest of the group says "spay and neuter your pets!")
In another conversation, we were thinking about a new Disney resort they should build: "Antarcta-Disney".
I'm picturing a Sleeping Beauty castle completely encased with ice. It's dark there for half the year and extremely cold. You get there by a hellicopter that drops you off and out front you see a frozen Mickey Mouse character with his hand in the air like a wave and with icicles dripping off. Goofy is lying beside him, almost covered with drifts of snow. You only hear the whir of the many generators and the flickering of a few neon lights. They barely stay lit because the cold affects the gas in them. There's no one around except a weathered-looking guy all bundled up. He says "If you're wanting to ride 'It's a small world', I can thaw it out for you. Just let me know. Not sure what else I can get going right now."
Wouldn't that be fun?
The Chief Justice:
1) Gets the prime parking spot
2) Gets to sit in the center of any picture taken of the Supreme court
3) Gets a special extra stripes on his/her robe
4) Gets to choose the coffee flavor each week
5) Gets to start out any public service announcement the Supreme court makes (we were imagining this particular scenario - the Chief says "Keep your furry friends safe and healthy:" while the rest of the group says "spay and neuter your pets!")
In another conversation, we were thinking about a new Disney resort they should build: "Antarcta-Disney".
I'm picturing a Sleeping Beauty castle completely encased with ice. It's dark there for half the year and extremely cold. You get there by a hellicopter that drops you off and out front you see a frozen Mickey Mouse character with his hand in the air like a wave and with icicles dripping off. Goofy is lying beside him, almost covered with drifts of snow. You only hear the whir of the many generators and the flickering of a few neon lights. They barely stay lit because the cold affects the gas in them. There's no one around except a weathered-looking guy all bundled up. He says "If you're wanting to ride 'It's a small world', I can thaw it out for you. Just let me know. Not sure what else I can get going right now."
Wouldn't that be fun?
posted by Barbara Preuninger at 10/08/2005 09:01:00 PM
5 Comments:
I see the comment spammers finally found you... good luck.
Comment spam is evil.
Anyway, one more priviledge of the Chief Justice: he/she gets extra canned peaches at lunch.
I know I'm being overly serious here, but in real life the chief justice gets all kinds of extra powers -- it's really quite significant. One power which can be quite significant is that if he is in the majority after the first straw vote then he decides who writes the opinions. Previous chief justices have done things like hogging all of the "good" decisions for themselves. But the most significant power is that the chief justice of the supreme court is the "chief executive" of the entire federal court system. He has sole authority to make decisions about everything from budgets to hiring policies to official court protocols and procedures. Plus, he gets to sit in the tallest chair.
And don't forget that he can wear that big chief feather headress!
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