Strange Facts About the Life of Former Associate Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter

Fact #1: Born Felix Aristotle Lipschitz in Vienna, Austria the Justice did not come to be known as Felix Frankfurter until the mid 1940's after a wager with FDR saw him eat 19 frankfurters directly from a pail alongside a tub of sauerkraut without the use of his hands.

Fact #2: When he helped to found the ACLU in the late 1920's he suggested it be called HOMU or "Hands Off My Uterus"

Fact #3: In a tribute to the only other Supreme Court Justice with fast food for a last name Warren E. Burger sang an impromptu "I Loves You, Porgy" at Frankfurter's funeral.

Fact #4: Frankfurter suffered a stroke in 1962 which went undiagnosed for three long months during which time all of his opinions read simply: Over the tongue/ Under the nose/ Look out Stomach/ There it goes. Order in the court! Shrimp Looey here.

Fact #5: After undertaking an extensive study of crime reporting in Cleveland, Frankfurter concluded enthusiastically that for every inch of crime reporting there is on the average 1.01 inches of horoscope.

Fact #7: A skilled equestrian Frankfurter insisted that real gentlemen only ride side saddle.

He didn’t like himself as much as he liked liking himself. Truth be told he was not a likable sort even qualifying by some measures as a fraud and a crook having once attempted to pawn his mother’s prized spatula rumored to have been used by Ladybird Johnson before she was the first lady (only returning it after experts agreed that it was not a spatula at all but rather a broken ladle). But liking, as he did, liking himself there is little reason to dwell on all that nitpicking and handwringing when a simple act - sort of the cognitive analogue to a squat thrust - could suffice. While it may seem that liking feeling like a virtuous person should come in under the title of liking liking one’s self, that’s liking yourself as the feeling is predicated on yourself. On the contrary, liking liking yourself requires no such introspection and its onset need not track nor examine your days in any normative, comparative or qualitative way. Instead, all that’s required is a simple affirmation entirely removed from any analysis or scrutiny. Liking liking is like loving loving it needs a vehicle but any will do. So go ahead and treat yourself to some validation, you’ll be proud of yourself for having done it.

Why I Don't Wash My Hands When I Pee (But You Should)

The idea is not revolutionary. On the contrary, its opposite – which I write now to oppose – is more rightly considered a novel concept with little more history to commend it than the electric mixer or the hula hoop. Why wash my hands when all that I’ve touched is profoundly my own? Touching the faucet would invite the intrusion of more unpleasantries than it would ward off. But beloved Deputy Postmaster General (nominal, ceremonial honor bestowed by the local post office), what about the door knob that requires your touch for exit, you may inquire? Well, hopefully others who have touched it have washed their hands as propriety would humbly request, leaving me no worse for their lasciviousness. Some may feel inclined to subject their practices to the scrutiny of a question like what if everyone did what you now do? To this sort of ill-conceived self-righteousness I’d respond that if everyone did as I do, the world would be suffuse with the sort of modern solutions for everyday kennel cough that I have made a modest name for myself developing in my home offices in Dubuque, IA. If the question were put to me if I’d rather live in a world without a common if crippling infirmity of house pets and a world where every toilet was flushed, my answer would be clear.

Lord Balthingmount was said to be fair to his faithful devotees; and in return for his mercy, infectious songwriting and social discretion he only asked that no one ever touch his fence.

"I'm afraid the law is quite clear on this point, Sir."

The things they disapproved of were limited but definite, including:

-fat Asians (for surely no principles prizing individuality could operate to question the fact that Asians were not, by their common genetic ancestry, predisposed to obesity; therefore, fat Asians have no one to blame but themselves.)

-shoe trees

-the expression, in its common usage, it is what it is (under certain circumstances it seemed like it could be the stuff of paltry revelation but as it is often used it seems to say something at times when silence would suffice).

-the way twins are so proud of their status like - as Flannery O'Connor has said - they thought up the damn idea.

-Bulgar wheat

-improv troupes (because if they were either as concerned with the present and contemporaneous as they'd have us believe or really a troupe at all, they'd be fighting in the new war.)

-the way people say sex symbol when they really just mean sexy person (there are very few sex symbols but they are all emblematic of genitalia with small heads or gaping mouths)

-decorative landscaping (though she loved corsage)

-ginger snaps

-artichokes