Oh, this is a delight! Last week, Elena Kagan delivered the Annual Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg Distinguished Lecture on Women and the Law in New York City. It was a bit of a mutual admiration society, and why not, because when you are two of the most accomplished women in the land that is something you can (rightly) get away with.

Lots of serious legal talk went down, but here’s a fun takeaway from the evening, highlighted by The New York Times‘ Adam Liptak: the two justices have shared the same personal trainer since 1999. Ginsburg, introducing Kagan, stated that she “has the best jab-cross-hook-punch combination on the federal bench.”

Kagan then paid homage to her predecessor, expounding on her influence as a litigator and supreme court justice in several high profile cases, including Reed vs. Reed and Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. Kagan is a terrific storyteller, and it’s fascinating stuff, even (especially?) for the legal layperson.

The address ended on an uplifting, personal note:

“I know that I’m her colleague, and not one of her army of twenty-something groupies, but… when I see Justice Ginsburg walk down the halls, I think ‘I am seeing a hero.’ She has done as much as anyone in the last forty years to make America a more equal and just society. It is a tremendous honor to sit on the same bench as her, knowing how much she has contributed to my life, and much more importantly, to the lives of millions of women around the world.”

Watch the full lecture here:

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Last week, over eight million people watched a video of three cute girls singing about science and playing with a Rube Goldberg style contraption. The ad was for a start-up toy company called GoldieBlox, whose goal is “to show the world that girls deserve more choices than dolls and princesses. We believe that femininity is strong and girls will build the future — literally.” Everyone loved the video besides the Beastie Boys, who sued GoldieBlox for copyright infringement. GoldieBlox maintains that the ad is protected satire and will fight the case. Today the Beastie Boys released the following letter:

Like many of the millions of people who have seen your toy commercial “GoldieBlox, Rube Goldberg & the Beastie Boys,” we were very impressed by the creativity and the message behind your ad.
We strongly support empowering young girls, breaking down gender stereotypes and igniting a passion for technology and engineering.

As creative as it is, make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads.
When we tried to simply ask how and why our song “Girls” had been used in your ad without our permission, YOU sued US.

The lyrics to their original song “Girls” has been criticized for its sexist lyrics (“Girls, to do the dishes. Girls, to clean up my room. Girls, to do the laundry”), so it’s no surprise that some of the public prefers the new version. Even if it is selling something.

Watch the ad here:

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Sarah Silverman is back with a new video about reproductive rights directed at the policy-making bros and even just regular bros out there. “Listen up, bro,” she tells the camera. “If you love your mother, and your sister, and if you ever want to see a vagina ever again, I got a couple rules for you, okay?”

Rule #1? “The way to a woman’s heart is never through a mandatory vaginal ultrasound.”

Silverman’s video, less overtly political than her election season creations, takes aim at anti-choice legislation and urges men to get educated about reproductive rights and wise up to the double standards pervading the debate.

As she points out, “Billons of potential Americans die every day in your gym sock, but no one’s gonna legislate that.”

Be Bro-Choice: A Public Service Announcement from Sarah Silverman [Funny or Die] Previously: Can Sarah Silverman and Samuel L. Jackson Get Obama Reelected?
It’s a Free Country, Baby: In Defense of Sarah Silverman’s Choices
Watch Sarah Silverman’s New Election Video Calling Out Voter ID Laws
Sarah Silverman Wants to Scissor Sheldon Adelson for Obama

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Leibovitz writes:

This is where reading the rabbis is a real pleasure. It takes just a few lines of the Rambam on the subject of contraception to realize that the man wasn’t only a terrific doctor but also a lover who’d given the mechanics of intercourse a great deal of thought. And he’s hardly alone: Throughout the ages, talk abides of vaginal canals and cervixes, of pregnancy and lactation, of women’s health and women’s rights. It’s a far more formidable, nuanced, and humane approach than the blunt insistence of many on the contemporary American right that the only Godly answer when it comes to contraception is “no.”

Amen.

Tablets [Tablet Magazine]

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