What's it all mean? No one knows. People on my side of the political spectrum have never experienced this before. All we've known is failure and disappointment. I'm too young to remember Richard Nixon's resignation in 1974. That must have been euphoric: the fall of a White House criminal. It's been downhill ever since. Jimmy Carter generates no nostalgia, and Bill Clinton's election in 1992 was fine as far as it went, if only because he ousted the first President Bush, but Clinton was a moderate centrist who sold out his values each and every day.

The way we feel about the election of Barack Obama will stay with us for a long time. He is not a bullshitter like Bill Clinton. We know he sees the world the way that we do, but that through necessity he will have to make compromises to work within the system and to avoid over-reaching. But as I wrote a few weeks ago, we know this about Obama: he will not start any bullshit wars like Iraq, and even if he is merely adequate at appointing federal judges, any of his choices would be an improvement over George W. Bush, who remade the federal judiciary in his own image.

Much will be written about the meaning of Obama's victory. Let me talk about what it means to me. As a civil rights law and a student of American political history, there is nothing more important to me than the court system. It was the federal courts in the 1950s and 1960s which made this country free. It was the federal courts which breathed life into the Bill of Rights, expansively interpreting the First Amendment, the rules against unreasonable search and seizures, false arrest, racial justice and all the other values that truly separate this country from the despotic regime that Dick Cheney fantasizes about when he goes to sleep at night.

The president's most far-reaching legacy is the Supreme Court. His appointments will outlast his administration. These days, Supreme Court justices stay on the Court for at least 20 years, and advancements in physical health mean that some of them hang around will into their 80s. Richard Nixon may have fled the White House during the Watergate scandal in the mid-1970s, but he appointed four justices, including William Rehnquist, my all-time least favorite judge, who nearly always went the other way on civil and constitutional rights. Rehnquist's decisions will be with us long after we die, which means that the tentacles of Richard Nixon will always be strangling us and our grandchildren.

As it now stands, of the nine justices on the Supreme Court, only two were appointed by Democrats: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, both Clinton appointees. They are not leftists, but intellectually honest center-liberals. Ginsburg is in her 70s, and I don't see her serving for another eight years. The two other liberals on the Court, John Paul Stevens and David Souter, are both Republican appointees who have a mind of their own and turned into wonderful judges who would sooner lay down in front of a John Deere tractor than allow for the erosion of civil liberties. That's more than I can say for Clarence Thomas, a terrible judge who has gone out of his way to offend liberals and advocates of constitutional freedoms. But John Paul Stevens is 88 years old. That's right, 88 years old. Souter reportedly doesn't like Washington and could retire at any time. Steven and Souter will leave before Clarence Thomas does.

John Paul Stevens. 88 year old liberal Justice who obviously cannot live forever.

Need a scorecard yet? We have four liberals on the Court. The other five are conservatives, and they are young enough to outlast two Obama terms in the White House. They were appointed by more ideological presidents who wanted right wingers on the Court for decades. They have succeeded. The conventional wisdom -- which I agree with -- is that we now have four liberals, four conservatives, and one center-right justice on the Court who usually sides with the conservatives but sometimes steps in when the conservatives go too far. I'm talking about Anthony Kennedy, who has cast the critical vote to uphold abortion rights, the rights of detainees at Guantanamo and same-sex sodomy. The conservatives on the Court have moved so far to the right that Kennedy now looks like a moderate.

Justice Anthony Kennedy. A Republican who sometimes does the right thing.

Do you see how fragile the current state of the Supreme Court is? Another Republican administration would have been the death knell for the advancement of civil rights. Most people do not pay attention to what the Court does, but Court-junkies know that the Supreme Court is the last bastion of civil rights and constitutional values in this country. That hangs in the balance as we speak.

The good news is that Obama and his Vice President, Joe Biden, will not allow for any Supreme Court shenanigans. I don't say this as a fawning fan. I say this because both Obama and Biden were constitutional law professors. They know how important the Supreme Court is, and I am certain they are already thinking about who they would appoint to the Court once a vacancy opens up. We call this intelligent governance, something that has not existed in this country for many years. Never before have constititutional law professors held the Presidency and Vice Presidency. Out society does not value intellectual thinking, but this is a momentous occasion, though it shouldn't surprise us. It's like having a civil engineer serve as highway superintendent in your hometown. Over the last eight years we had an arsonist serve as the fire chief.

People may not remember this, but in 1987 Joe Biden was the U.S. senator who spearheaded the rejection of Reagan nominee Robert Bork for the Supreme Court. Bork would have been a disaster: a right wing ideologue with neither the temperament nor the grace to serve on the Court. Biden deserves a medal for this victory. Now he's the Vice President. Some people wanted Hillary Clinton as Vice President. I wanted someone who scuttled the Bork nomination. Biden is a better choice than we think.

There are many things that give us hope as a result of this election. But hope is like potential: it hasn't reached fruition yet. I don't merely hope that Obama will save the Supreme Court. I know that he will do so. Allowing a constitutional law professor to pick Supreme Court justices is like allowing a baseball fanatic to select players for the Hall of Fame. They waited their whole life for that moment. Obama will not screw it up, I can assure you. It's the first thing that I thought about when the networks announced Obama's victory on Election night. It's the first thing I thought about when I woke up the morning after the election. It's an amazing feeling to know that everything is going to be all right. We have not felt this way for a very long time. And I, for one, will savor this moment.

In the early 1970's, the Supreme Court heard a case about an anti-war protester who walked through a courthouse wearing a jacket that said "Fuck the Draft." When the Supreme Court heard oral argument on whether the protester had the First Amendment right to do this, his lawyer was told not to use the word "fuck" in addressing the Supreme Court justices, who came from an older generation that did not throw around four-letter words in mixed company. But the lawyer thought he had no choice but to say "fuck" in the ornate courthouse that is the symbol of American justice. He figured that it would hurt the case if he was afraid to say it when it counted most. He made the stuffy Chief Justice angry, but the lawyer won the case, and today Cohen v. California is a landmark free-speech case, known for its logic that "one man's vulgarity is another's lyric."

The word Fuck is again before the Supreme Court, which heard argument a few weeks ago on whether the FCC can penalize TV stations when foul language makes it past the censors on live broadcasts. We are not talking about sitcom scripts or movie dialogue but programs like awards ceremonies when superstars who can't control themselves say Fuck or Shit on live TV. We call that the "fleeting expletive."

The Court heard the case on Election Day, an interesting coincidence. I have noted that this year's presidential election has enormous consequences for the Supreme Court because some of the justices are nearing retirement and President Obama may have a chance to appoint two or three replacements. Change is near, and not just in the potential changes on the Court. According to a website that tracks Supreme Court activity, in the fleeting expletives case, "The court stenographer’s report indicates that 'F-word' appears in the transcript 16 times; that 'F-bomb' appears once, and that 'S-word’ was spoken six times." What caused the Supreme Court to blush in 1971 barely raises an eyebrow today, except that you still can't say Fuck in court. Saying the "F-word" is enough.

I am not just being a smart-ass here. It's not 1971 anymore. Television was broadly regulated for decades because it was the only game in town, and there were few TV airwaves, so the government had some leeway to regulate content, particularly vulgarities. We have all heard of George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words You Can't Say on Television." We celebrate Carlin's wit and wisdom. But when the Supreme Court heard whether the FCC could punish the radio station for running Carlin's vulgarities, the radio station lost the case even though the Court said that his words were not legally obscene. That's because radio airwaves are not the street corner. There are zillions of street corners, but very few radio airwaves, so the government can more easily regulate them, particularly when children are listening.

The "fleeting expletives" case stems from the following facts, courtesy of Supreme Court Wiki: at the 2002 Billboard Music Awards, "singer-actress Cher used 'the F-Word,'' and in 2003, "actress Nicole Richie used variations of that word and used the four-letter excrement word." At the Golden Globe Awards in 2003 on NBC, "rock singer Bono used a variation of 'the F-Word.'” As a result of these outrageous disgraces, the FCC announced that it can punish TV stations even a single four letter word on TV. The Supreme Court has to decide whether the rule against "fleeting expletives" is legal under the First Amendment, or whether, at a minimum, the FCC has to come up with a good reason for prohibiting these fleeting vulgarities.

Lets step back for a minute and take a look at what's going on. If network television is more carefully regulated than cable TV or satellite radio, the question is why? It's not the 1970's, anymore, when no one had cable and, if you did, you got about 15 cable channels. Now everyone has cable, hundreds of channels, and network TV and cable TV stations sit side-by-side. If the F-Word is thrown around on cable every three minutes, then what is the point in prohibiting it on network TV?

You don't need a foul mouth to appreciate my argument. The Constitution does not demand good taste. It demands common sense. The distinction between network TV and cable TV is non-existent. That normally is enough for the Supreme Court to say that regulating one entity is unfair if a comparable entity is not similarly regulated. I may be a dummy, but a quick Google search shows that a serious constitutional law professor agrees with me. Michael Dorf, Esq. writes: "The rationale for content-regulation of broadcast television and radio has long been the scarcity of electromagnetic spectrum: Government must divvy up the airwaves among broadcasters and so, the scarcity rationale goes, it can insist on their use in the public interest, which includes restrictions on profanity. The rationale was dubious when announced and has become laughable with the proliferation of cable, satellite, and internet alternatives to broadcast tv, all of which fall outside of the FCC's regulatory reach."

The Supreme Court will issue its ruling by June 2009.

It has happened. American society has collapsed. We know that the American econony demands a healthy Christmas shopping season in order for the economy to stay afloat. That's whey they call it Black Friday. Stores go into the financial black on the day after Thanksgiving, when the month-long shopping season begins in earnest. At lot of crap is sold during the month of December, and bargains galore bring out the shoppers at 5:00 a.m. when the doors open the day after Thanksgiving.

American society collapsed on Long Island a few days ago, when a Wal-Mart worker was killed after customers crashed through the front doors to get their hands on the very expensive television sets and other electronic goodies that the store sold at a great discount for Black Friday.

Let's go the source: Newsday, the daily paper on Long Island, which usually tries to stand above the fray as one of the more literate newspapers in the country:

A stampede of shoppers in a Valley Stream Wal-Mart on Friday morning left one worker dead and at least three patrons injured after an impatient crowd broke down the store doors and trampled the seasonal employee, Nassau police said.

Jdimytai Damour of Jamaica, Queens, was pushed to the ground by the 2,000-plus crowd just before 5 a.m. as management was preparing to open the store, which is located across from the main Green Acres Mall building. Hundreds stepped over, around and on the 34-year-old worker as they rushed into the store.

"This crowd was out of control," said Nassau Police Det. Lt. Michael Fleming, whose squad is investigating.

"Nobody was trying to help him," said shopper Nakea Augustine, who was in the line. "They were rushing in the store, rushing, rushing, rushing."

. . .

As part of its Black Friday promotion, Wal-Mart had advertised sales like a Polaroid 42-inch LCD HDTV for $598 and a DVD of "Rush Hour 2" for $2 - prices valid only from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Friday morning

. . .

Amid the chaos in Valley Stream, shoppers were asked to leave by other store workers, some of them crying, said Cribbs. Others ignored the pleas that they stop shopping, move to the front of the store and exit, she said. "They kept shopping. It's not right," Cribbs said.

The incident began when people who had gathered well before 5 a.m. in the rear of the line began pushing, cascading the people in the front into the sliding supermarket-type doors, which were literally knocked off their hinges, Fleming said

. . .

Frightened employees initially used the doors as makeshift shields to defend against the onslaught of shoppers, she said.

What a way to die. This story really says it all. Shoppers rammed the doors down and trampled a worker, probably a guy working for minimum wage. Shoppers protested when the store tried to restore order, and with the body still warm they ran all over the store at 5:00 a.m. looking for bargains the way that rats invade the resturant kitchen at night.

There is not much in the way research into the Christmas shopping culture. It really defines us a nation. First, you have to buy Christmas presents for everyone around you, particularly family and close friends. If you don't, you are a pariah and a degenerate. There are many people to shop for, and the looks on the faces of people at the mall reflect terror and fear that there is not enough time or money to shop for everyone.

Second, the economy absolutely requires a healthy Christmas shopping season. Every single television commerical from Thanksgiving until December 24 is a Christmas commercial. This is American capitalism. If people are not buying these items during the year, then they probably don't need them. They are buying them during Chrismas shopping season because they are told to do so. If Christmas did not exist, we would have to invent a holiday like it.