Scalia: Be Careful What You Wish For
From the The Onion, which joins such comedy legends as The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and the U.S. Congress in getting funnier and funnier over time:
Genie Grants Scalia Strict Constructionist Interpretation Of Wish
WASHINGTON, DC--A genie freed from a battered oil lamp by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia granted the conservative jurist a strict constructionist interpretation of his wish for "a hundred billion bucks" Monday. "Sim sim salabim! Your wish is my command!" the genie proclaimed amid flashes of light and purple smoke, immediately filling the Supreme Court building with a massive herd of wild male antelopes. When Justice Scalia complained that the "bucks" had razed the U.S. Supreme Court building, trampling and killing several of his clerks and bringing traffic in the nation's capital to a standstill for hours, the genie said, "Your honor, your wish is a sacred and unalterable document whose interpretation is not subject to the whims of society and changing social context."
Whole thing here.
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post comments
Ah, so that's why traffic was so bad this morning.
Gotta love The Onion. One of last week's headlines was "Bush: Vacation Ruined By 'Stupid Dead Soldier.'"
By the way, The Onion has done away with its "premium" content and put everything up for free! Last night I wasted quite a bit of time going through Jean Teasdale's Website. It's easily the most hilariously depressing thing I've ever read.
The Simpsons got dumber over time.
I'm a Jeanketeer.
Thank goodnes they got rid of premium. Now, I can find links to all my favorite Onion articles of old: "IBM Frees 8,000 Wage Slaves" and "Generic Candy Corn Will Give You AIDS".
It'd be funnier if the joke weren't so old.
Gotta admit, whatever one thinks of the debate over "original construction," that's some pithy and funny satire!!
You're a Jeanketeer too, Mediageek? Ha! Admit it--it was you who wrote the erotic story on the Jean Teasdale Fan Fiction page!!
I'm pretty sure I went to high school with Jim Anchower.
The Onion was funnier when it wasn't plastering my browser with ads or surreptitiously recycling the same articles from years past. They couldn't even change the names right - one joke story that initially appeared in the Clinton era had 'Clinton' replaced with 'Bush', but they left in the "Secretary of State Albright" reference. That and like the Simpsons, their sense of humor went from skewering everyone equally to unfunny jokes of a very particular slant that seem to be trying to "send a message". Bo-ring.
I don't mind a legal system where laws are changed based on the "whims of society and changing social context." as long as I am the one who gets to decide what has changed.
I don't get it.
Rafuzo--
Some of their political satire occasionally misses the mark, but the non-political stuff is still great. Jean Teasdale and Jim Anchower are non-political pokes at some truly pathetic people, and chances are any story whose headline starts with the words "Area Man" will be hilarious.
Oh, and Herbert Kornfeld the Gangsta Accountant is fucking genius.
Some of those recycled stories appear when the writing staff is on vacation. In that case, somewhere on the main page there's fine print saying that this week's stories are from the archives. So something like "Bill Clinton upset with White House dinner menu" becomes "George Bush upset with White House dinner menu." (I don't know that they've ever run such a story, but they could.) But most of the year is new material.
Honestly, there's no publication out there better than the Onion. (Sorry, Reason.)
It'd be funnier if the joke weren't so old.
Hmm. The idea of one's wishes being taken too literally by a genie is plenty old, sure enough. But I'd never heard of that notion being applied to constitutional jurisprudence before! Oh well, must have missed it.
Dude, the Simpsons? Come join us in the 21st century.
Admit it--it was you who wrote the erotic story on the Jean Teasdale Fan Fiction page!!
Unfortunately, no.
I can only wish that I were capable writing prose as brilliant as this:
"I felt like I was making love to a souffle. A sexy souffle adrift on a life raft on the sea of love."
I support Jim Anchower for President.
"Take The Cruise In 2008!"
(Paid for by the Committee to Elect Jim Anchower)
Vice President Wes and White House Chief of Staff Ron were unavailable for comment, as they were engaging in interstate commerce. President Anchower was late to the UN summit after the Presidential limo broke down and needed new parts. "Man, how am I supposed to get these specialty parts on my salary?" asked the President.
The columnists tend to be pretty funny, that's true. And the AV Club is also rather underrated, in my book. But the ads and the story recycling is just bush league stuff. (And sorry, thoreau, the three instances I remember seeing said nothing about them being "from the archives".)
rafuzo-
They did indeed start recycling articles out of the archives, as well as remixing old content into new headings.
Interestingly enough, about four months ago, Forbes did an article on The Onion. Evidently before they made the changes, adding a bunch of advertisements and remixing/recycling old content, they were doing very poorly financially. It was either do that stuff, or go under.
If you can dig the article up, it's well worth reading.
THe Simpsons have most definitely not gotten better over time. What the Onion shares with those shows is that it's been funny enough over a long enough time that you can come up with a reference for just about any situation. It's hard to get through any news without thinking of an Onion article, and it's hard to get through a day without having a circumstance in which a Simpsons quote would sum things up.
Gotta love The Onion. One of last week's headlines was "Bush: Vacation Ruined By 'Stupid Dead Soldier.'"
One of my favorite recent headlines was something like "Bush Does 360 on Abortion Stance"
Even the worst Onion articles usually have a good headline. The thought of "Pudding-Factory Disaster Brings Slow, Creamy Death To Town Below" is kind of funny, you skim the article, and then you move on.
But the good articles? Every word is priceless.
My favorite onion story ever. I love the second pic of Clinton.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30187
my favorite onion quote still remains: "The Court made the right decision. Once we legalize the medical use of marijuana, it's only a matter of time until we start seeing the medical use of harder drugs, like morphine."
Supreme Court Justice Gets ?Evolving? Interpretation of Wish
Justice John Paul Stevens was walking along the beach when he found a bottle. Stevens rubbed the bottle and a genie appeared, offering to grant Stevens one wish.
?I want a hot, young, blonde coed,? said Stevens.
Immediately a forty-year old, dark-haired male accountant materialized in front of Stevens.
?Here she is!? said the genie.
?Wait a minute,? said Stevens, ?this guy is neither hot, nor young, nor blonde, nor a coed! You didn?t give me what I wished for!?
?Yes I did,? explained the genie. ?The terms ?hot,? ?young,? ?blonde? and ?coed? must be interpreted in light of changing social norms. To many people, for example, a guy like this would be considered ?hot.? And he?s certainly ?young? compared to you.?
?But he?s certainly not a blonde coed!? exclaimed an indignant Stevens.
?Sure he is,? replied the genie. ?The term ?blonde? must not be arbitrarily restricted to the meaning it had at some time in the past. The term could just as easily be interpreted to mean dark-haired people. As for ?coed,? this guy could probably get credit for life experience at many colleges, even though he isn?t at this time technically enrolled in an institution of higher learning, which is the narrow and restrictive meaning which you?ve assigned to the term ?coed.??
?He?s not even a woman!? exclaimed Stevens.
?A sexist and a homophobe,? sighed the genie.
Zach--
I liked the medical marijuana piece where they said something along the lines of "Instead of taking drugs, why can't cancer patients paint, listen to music or play sports, like they told us in health class?"
Scalia saying "bucks" is more implausible than a genie giving him a hundred million of them.
Seems like they got it backwards.
Wouldn't a "Living Document" Genie be the one who would change the intent of Scalia's wish, while A Strict Constructionalist would determine the framer's meaning of buck as being dollar.
Just my opinion
This has always been one of my favourite Onion articles, although I haven't read it in quite a while.
I was thinking of a classic Onion piece yesterday.
The headline was something like, "Roof on Fire Collapses, Kills 40 Party People."
It quotes a guy who ran into a burning nightclub to warn the patrons. He shouted, "The roof! The roof! The roof is on fire!" But they just kept dancing.
Because he was concerned the patrons would be overcome by smoke inhalation, he urged them to get close to the floor. "I shouted, 'Get down! Get down, party people!' But they just waved their hands in the air like they just didn't care."
The article also said it was the worst such disaster since 18 people perished in a disco inferno in 1978.
By the way, I agree with proGraMmer. (PS: Get a shift key that works, dammit!)
Classic Headline: "Burundi Beef Council: Please Send Beef"
Stevo,
That was priceless. Thank you for sharing that.
I visited Chicago on Labor Day weekend and had an opportunity to get an actual "The Onion" newspaper in print. My favorite headline: "Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Visit To Wife's Vagina".
>
scalia doesn't consider himself a primarily follower of the "original intent" school of constitutional interpretation -- he considers himself a "textualist," which means that he claims to go by what the actual words in the constitution are. i think this is the aspect of his jurisprudence that the article is mocking.
Sorry, but this remains The Onion's magnum opus.
A man walks into a bar with a box under his arm. He sets the box on the bar and pulls out a miniature piano. Then he removes a twelve-inch tall man wearing a tuxedo and gently sets him on the bar. The tiny man walks to the piano and begins playing beautiful classic music.
The bartender looks at this and says: "That's incredible! Where did you find him?" The man reaches into a box and pulls out a dirty brass lamp and tells the barkeep to rub it. A genie appears and grants the man one wish. "Oh boy! I want a million bucks!" The genie said "Your wish is my command," and disappeared.
Suddenly, there was a "POP" and a duck appeared on the bar. Soon, the entire bar was filled with ducks. The bartender screamed at the man "I said BUCKS, not DUCKS. Is that damn genie deaf?" The man sadly shook his head and said: "Do you really think wished for a 12-inch PIANIST?"