Story originally printed in the Winona Daily News or online at www.winonadailynews.com
Published - Friday, August 03, 2007
Supreme through the summer haze
A few weeks ago, Robin and I were in Newport, R.I., for presentations at the International Society of Humor Studies annual conference.
Robin’s paper reported on an empirical study conducted with the Carleton College Class of ’66 that gathered at a reunion. Specifically, it reported on high-confidence relationships between humor preferences and nostalgic remembrance of Peter, Paul and Mary songs.
No joke. Check with Robin about what it says for the centrality of humor to seemingly unhumorous attitudes.
What I spoke on is hazy now in light of everything since, but come to think of it, my paper delineated 12 sub-forms of irony in Forrest Gump. Irony is all the rage with the younger crowd these days, but I suspect that undergraduates in English typically think of only two forms of irony, the second of which is dramatic (us knowing what the character on stage doesn’t, like us knowing what Forrest doesn’t, that Jenny is dying of AIDS).
The streets of Newport, including one called America’s Cup, were teeming with tourists and a parade of tall ships in the harbor had Christmas lights strung in their rigging for fascinating night displays.
Next door was the Vanderbilt longtime summer home, The Breakers. The Vanderbilts were having a family reunion at the time, and the thought of crashing the party to check out the mansion was discouraged by security guards at all the gates.
Particularly the Atlantic cliff walk and the parade of tall ships reminded me that in Winona, the Maritime Museum was preparing for its first birthday.
Steamboat Days had already come and gone along with the Home and Community Options musical, “Bye Bye Birdie.” The Great River Shakespeare Festival was just gearing up along with the Gilmore Creek Players and the first annual Beethoven Festival.
We eventually wandered (that is, we were lost) into the naval base and turned the car around in a parking lot, stared at by the prows of two aircraft carriers which to me looked mothballed.
That night, we stood in the motel parking lot to watch fireworks which I guess originated on the two carrier decks.
Now this is all a long Americana preamble, celebrating that glorious season in the United States that leads up to the 4th of July. It is glorious precisely because everyone is going about his or her own business (which seems pretty intense) at the summer solstice with a fireworks background of national consciousness.
There’s something else about that time. As we stood in the parking lot, the USA Today headlines in the vending machine were all about the end-of-session decisions of the Supreme Court.
Such headlines are more predictable at the solstice than Vanderbilt reunions, Grawe humor esoterica, Newport parades of ships, Steamboat Days, HCO musicals or Winona cultural Renaissance summer festivals.
As the nation shifts into summer gear, the Supreme Court issues a slew of decisions, many of them controversial (but with some no-brainers that all of us should be glad have finally become fully-articulated law) and “leaves town” for a few months’ vacation.
The court’s timing is invariable, whether there is a “liberal” or “conservative” majority or a plain old muddle in the middle.
It is tempting to accuse the court of cowardice, but I think it is truer to see this annual schedule as one of the most hallowed parts of the democratic government celebrated on July 4.
The Supreme Court does its work 10 months out of the year hidden on Capitol Hill behind the Congress and some ways down the street from the White House.
The toughest cases get sweated longest, down-to-minute wordings in the final opinions. And then, in a flurry, the opinions are published, and the Court leaves.
That gives the rest of us months to consider what the justices have wrought. If they claim to be on vacation, there is every evidence that they are taking the time to hear our response to what they have wrought and to lay the groundwork for the next round of opinions almost a year hence.
And this process is at the vital center of one of the wonders of history, a democratic people mainly going about their own, often frenetic business, fighting lusty election campaigns almost nonstop, but with important modifications of law coming down each June under the guidance of a Constitution now 220 years old and a Declaration of guiding spirit which is always the reason for the fireworks.
Paul Grawe has taught American literature, Shakespeare, and technical writing longer than he cares to remember. He has done various types of government relations, and as an ex-economics major, armchair quarterbacks everyone who makes economic policy. He also made a run for the 1st District congressional seat against Tim Penny in 1986. He can be reached at pgrawe@hbci.com.
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