Armen at De Novo ruminates about Justice O'Connor's dissent in South Dakota v. Dole (arguing that Congress couldn't use the spending clause to set a national drinking age). On the one hand, it is interesting to read this opinion alongside her modern anti-federal-power opinions, like her Raich dissent.

On the other hand, Dole is different, since it's about alcohol, whose regulation might uniquely be an area of state concern after the Twenty-First Amendment: "The transportation or importation into any state, territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited." [Of course, under standard federal pre-emption analysis, it is far from clear why this clause limits federal power at all.]

But what I really wanted to write about was this line from Justice O'Connor's dissent:

. I also subscribe to the established proposition that the reach of the spending power "is not limited by the direct grants of legislative power found in the Constitution." United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 66 (1936).

Garlic and Sapphires - Ruth Reichl
The Epicure's Lament - Kate Christensen

Garlic and Sapphires managed to convince me that my dream job is not, in fact, food critic for the New York Times. It wasn't the accounts of the pretentious restaurants that failed to live up to their promise or the backbiting politics of the Times that convinced me, rather it was the bit where Reichl talks about guiltily hiding from her job by spending hours cooking in her kitchen. Not as good as the second entry in her memoir series (Comfort me with Apples, which I wrote about here), mostly because it doesn't convey the same sense of joie de vivre, but still very good.

The Epicure's Lament in subject matter sits at the same intersection of food, relationships, and class as Reischl's memoirs, Christensen's view of the gastronomic sensibility, and of life in general, is much darker than Reichl's essential take on the pure pleasure of good food. The story concerns Hugo Whittier, the failed scion of a decayed family fortune, and his efforts to smoke himself to death, while consuming good food and having sex with attractive (or at least available) women. Definitely worth reading.

In an attempt to pick up something vaguely relevant by Charles Black, I stumbled across his book on impeachment. The law library didn't have a copy when I looked, but near it on the shelf was Richard Posner's take on the Clinton impeachment, An Affair of State.

I have no real complaints about the book, although I had no real interest in learning more about the details of the impeachment and Posner's take on the whole thing, while iconoclastic, was relatively easy for me to predict. (The Supreme Court is too formalist and too ignorant of practical politics, the liberalization of sexual morality is not a bad thing, Clinton's opponents and defenders both went hyperbolically overboard, &c.) I was most surprised by his opposition to the possibility of censuring the president, both on pragmatic and constitutional grounds.

Still, it is a strength of Posner that even a book on a topic I had no particular interest in could consume my spare reading time for a week or two, to the exclusion of enticing tomes of fiction or my newly-recalled volume of Dorothy Parker's poems. What I would really like to read is a Posner review of Justice Breyer's Active Liberty. . . .

[50 Book Challenge]

I like lemons as much as the next guy-- in fact a great deal more. So I am embarrassed to admit that there are currently no lemons in my kitchen, meaning that I have been reading Amanda Hesser's ode to the lemon without being able to do much about it until I go grocery shopping later today.

I eat lemons raw, to the scandal of many, although I have cooled it a little bit after learning about the devastation this allegedly does to my tooth enamel. I like my guacamole decidedly sour. I would make more lemonade, but the ratio of lemons to glasses is usually too steep for me. At that point, why not just eat them straight? Indeed, one of my first interactions with co-blogger Amy was a day early in my first year of college when she was roaming the halls of the dorm with a box of home-grown lemons (lucky Californians and their household lemon trees) looking for somebody to help her use them up.

At any rate, despite several months of investigation (though not enough of experimentation) I still have not succeeded in recreating Palena's fried lemon. My attempts have all stumbled on the rind, which ends up being too tough and too bitter no matter what I try. Is the solution different lemons? Curing them? Cooking them another way? Something else? I am half-tempted to call them and just ask.

There's been a marked increase in street crime of late around New Haven, in particular muggings of law students and the like within walking distance of Yale. The result is that people are less willing to walk around at night, and instead drive cars to reach their destinations. (There is only a range of distances over which this substitution is true-- too short, and the amount of time and distance spent walking to and from the car is as long as the walk; too long, and you wouldn't have walked it anyway.)

But if one believes-- as I do-- Jane Jacobs's basic theory that "eyes on the street" are a critical ingredient in reducing urban crime, this can be an exacerbating phenomenon. Jacobs believed that part of what kept neighborhoods safe was having enough people out and about, or at least keeping an eye out. People in their cars pass through quicker and are much less effective as crime-stopping eyes.

So. More people drive and fewer people walk around at night, making those who do keep walking around still less safe. This causes more people at the margins to substitute, and so on. Of course, this effect is not just true of the driving-substition. Those who simply to decide to stay home because the streets are unsafe or who take the Yale shuttle rather than walking also make the streets less safe.

The solution? I am usually a skeptic of government attempts to internalize externalities, but maybe New Haven's solution should not be to encourage people to stay off the streets at night. Maybe the optimum is the reverse-- a subsidy program for those who walk near Yale at night, under the theory that the more people who walk, the safer the whole place will be?

UPDATE: I have more here.