Dahlia Lithwick, senior legal correspondent for Slate and contributor to MSNBC, woke up in Albany, New York at 2 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 8, eventually boarded a 6 a.m. flight in Newark, which flew her to Atlanta, where she then connected to another flight, which got her to Tulsa, Oklahoma, at around 11 a.m. She was picked up be her hosts, whom she barely knew, who whisked her away to a Chinese restaurant — because what else do you want to do when you’re tired, want a shower, need a nap, and have a column to write but kibitz with people you don’t really know while eating Grilled Yellowfin Tuna you don’t really want? During the two days she was in Tulsa, in addition to the column, she taught a law seminar on Zoom, and interviewed for her Amicus Brief podcast Justice Jill J. Karofsky of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
She also replaced the roof on her Air B&B.
I kid of course. She just power-washed it.
All joking aside, she was in Tulsa to talk about her book “Lady Justice: Women, The Law and The Battle To Save America.” And the reason she was in Tulsa — and how flattering is this? — is because I asked her to come. We had two signings: the first at the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa — thanks to David Blatt, Professor of Public Policy, and Jeff Martin, Magic City Books; the second at Zarrow Pointe at the Charles Schusterman Jewish Community Center, also known around these parts as “The Hebrew Home” — thanks to CEO Jim “The Big Guy” Jakubovitz.
“Lady Justice” is all things political, polemical, legal and personal — everything a book about the Trump Administration and its rippling insidiousness should be. Dahlia’s sections on the events in Charlottesville are frightening and sad and tear at the very things that hold us (and a country) together. Her chapter on the sexual bullying by Judge Alex Kozinski and those judges who defended him will break your heart. Through it all, the book celebrates, while also revealing, the names of the women — some known, some not, some lawyers, some not — who helped, in no short measure, save the Republic from Trump’s Justice Department, which was anything but. She writes of the long shadow of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, interviews the likes of Stacey Abrams, Anita Hill, Sally Yates, and reminds us that without them (and without the heretofore unknown Pauli Murray, who wrote “States’ Laws on Race and Color” —which Thurgood Marshall called the “bible” of the civil rights movement), we’d be living in darker times than we’re already in.
From these women, Dahlia got sustenance and insight and hope.
She is funny, engaging, disarming, sensitive, wickedly smart and reverential about unsung heroes, the promise of law, Democracy, the legal stranglehold women experience in the country, and because she writes as well as she does, the book embodies those passions seamlessly. During the two sessions, we also discussed Hannah Arendt, rabbis and camping in Charlottesville,Virginia, the fear behind rightwing cruelty, the best way to take on Nazis (spoiler alert: there is no good way), and continued our years-long argument over the best topping to plop down on your latkes. How such a brilliant women can maintain that sour cream belongs on the same dining room Lazy Susan with the apple sauce is not only a mystery, it’s disturbing.
We also, inexplicably, kept losing the car.
We “met” on Facebook years ago, she and I, and have been friends ever since, which is reason enough to pardon Mark Zuckerberg from Old Testament locusts. We had dinner years back, sharing a large cheese pizza at Bleecker Street Pizza in Greenwich Village. After the meal, while walking on 7th Avenue, she tripped and fell, but managed to save the leftover slices she was bringing home to her family.
Dahlia’s work-life balance is clearly better than her actual balance.
That was the first time we saw each other.
This was the second.
We had just a little time left before her flight home, so we went to “Owl Head” Bagels. It’s where I used to go with my father — he who was responsible for “The Hebrew Home” and “Big Guy” designations and for inexplicably changing the name “Old School” to “Owl Head”— who died in November. Days after, Dahlia and her brother, both in Canada at the time, called my favorite Italian restaurant in town and ordered a Shiva dinner for my family and me.
That’s the kind of woman she is.
At “Owl Head,” she ordered a pizza bagel on a salt bagel, we laughed and took pictures, and talked of the odd successes of the Kardashians and Jared Kushner. I then drove her, and the 43,325 milligrams of salt coursing through her arteries, to the airport.
The woman with the pink hardcover book has yellow hardside luggage.
The visit was quick; the visit was perfect.
In the introduction to “Lady Justice,” Dahlia quotes Pete Seeger:
“I’m not sure if my involvement in causes, benefits, marches, and demonstrations has made a huge difference, but I know one thing: that involvement has connected me with the good people: people with the live hearts, the live eyes, the live heads.”
It’s how you feel when you’re around her.
Thanks for coming, my friend. Hope you got a nap on the flight home.
Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter — quit laughing — and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. His latest book, “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman” has just been released. In addition, he is the author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See and friedmanoftheplains.com.
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2023
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