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May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting

May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review April 3, 2008 / 27 Adar II 5768

Imperial, exclusive Supreme Court of the United States

By Nat Hentoff


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I dearly wish our Founding Fathers James Madison and Alexander Hamilton had been able to see Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas explain on C-SPAN's "America and the Courts" (March 28) why they and nearly all their colleagues are so hostilely against allowing millions of Americans to see the High Court on television during the revealing oral arguments.


On that C-SPAN program, in excerpts from the Kennedy-Thomas testimony before a House committee, Kennedy, sternly lecturing that Congress should not legislate this intrusion into a key process in how and why they make their decisions, which affect so many of us, explained: "We teach that we're judged by what we write and by what we decide. ... I do not want an insidious dynamic introduced into my court that would affect the relations that I have with my colleagues.


"It would be unhelpful for the collegial relations. ... I don't want to think that one of my colleagues asked a question because he or she was on TV. And I don't want that temptation to exist. ... We (Justices) think that we should be entitled to at least a presumption of correctness and to some deference in determining how best to preserve the dynamic of the wonderful proceeding that we know as oral argument." Agreeing, Thomas said, "The concern is that you begin to have a sort of a tabloid effect because of the personalities involved as opposed to the substance of the case."


From their high seats above us all, both these Justices ignore that they serve on a public court, paid by taxpayer funds; and because of increasingly limited coverage of the Supreme Court in newspapers and on both broadcast and cable television, many Americans know little of these nine distant arbiters of our rights and liberties in so many spheres of our existence.


As a member of the press, having been at some oral arguments, I can testify that in the exchanges between the justices and the lawyers before them — as well as during the often testy, barely disguised criticisms by the justices of one another — the temperaments and characters of these loomingly powerful deciders of what we can and can't do with our lives illuminate why they sometimes come to the conclusions they reach. Not disembodied sages, Supreme Court justices are human, sometimes very human.


In similar testimony before a previous congressional committee, Kennedy has more than implied that if Congress were to insist that the oral arguments be open to us all, that disrespect for the Justices' "presumption of correctness" would violate the Constitution's separation of powers!


Where did he find that in the Constitution?


Having read Madison's notes of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, and copious analyses of that document by constitutional scholars, I haven't seen any basis that the opening of our very highest tribunal to the people it judges is a violation of Madison's assurance of our: "Right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communications among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right." He did not exclude the Supreme Court.


Kennedy himself, when he speaks at schools, warns: "We are in danger of having a generation that is simply ignorant of the principles that this country stands for and its history. You cannot preserve what you don't understand. You cannot defend what you do not know." And when I talk at middle and high schools, as well as colleges, I have often repeated Kennedy's essential warning — especially now, as we fight to protect and preserve who we are — that, "the Constitution needs renewal and understanding each generation, or else it's not going to last."


For all of us, including those who read the tabloids, seeing these nine Americans — who continually argue among themselves about what this Constitution means in multiple dimensions of our lives — in action would be a stimulus to find out more not only about that document but also the intriguing, exciting history of the Constitution.


In a lead editorial (Oct. 2, 2007), USA Today noted: "Where cameras have entered (the lower) courtrooms and legislatures, the experience has generally gone better than opponents feared, and been a boon to openness in government." The Washington Times added that "at her confirmation hearings in 1993, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that televised proceedings (of the Supreme Court) 'would be good for the public.'" Justice William Brennan told me the same thing.


At future confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees by any president, the Senate Judiciary Committee should ask each of them whether they agree with Ginsburg and Brennan — and, if not, why not? I am sure C-SPAN would run oral arguments, in full, of significant cases, and might even open an auxiliary channel for all oral arguments because some of the cases with the least obvious impact on the public end up changing many lives. Why shut us out?

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


Nat Hentoff is a nationally renowned authority on the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights and author of several books, including his current work, "The War on the Bill of Rights and the Gathering Resistance". Comment by clicking here.

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