July 19, 2005
You be the Judge
I guess my mind was wandering a little this afternoon. We're going to find out who the President's Supreme Court nominee will be in a couple hours, and for some reason I started thinking about Chief Justice Rehnquist and the funny golden stripes on his robe. He first started wearing them during President Clinton's impeachment trial in the Senate (and later donated his original robe to the Smithsonian, presumably for a handsome tax deduction), and now wears them full-time.
Anyway, I did a little search for judges' robes and came up with this interesting site. I didn't read most of the text, so I can't vouch for the information, but there are some fascinating images of judges from around the world. Here is a pic of a Ugandan Judge:
Like the author of the site points out, "nothing screams 'legacy of colonialism' quite like a black guy in a white wig."
That is a hilarious photo. It's funny that people still wear such highly ceremonial dress. If we didn't have so many records, a later anthropologist would no doubt read a fair bit more significance into those costumes than we invest them with nowadays.