RECOLLECTIONS OF EASIER DAYS. Chief Justice Rehnquist has died. As of this evening, the commentary on the legal weblogs known to the Superintendent has been of the "just the facts variety," if in fact there has been commentary. Apparently some of the interest groups couldn't wait for the end of Saturday's college football games to begin alerting their bases. That's just part of the gathering political storm. Elephants in Academia has been thinking about some of the other parts.

And how things have probably changed. The Chief Justice gave a speech at Northern Illinois University, sometime in the fall of 1988 or 1989. The speech itself was delayed a few minutes to allow the John Lennon Society, a bridge between the Students for a Democratic Society and Move On, to protest the speech. Never mind that. The next morning, the Chief Justice and the dean of the College of Law were having breakfast in the university snack bar. I was able to slip into the table across the room divider from the two to have breakfast, after bidding both a good morning. The Chief Justice did have security (a rather alert-looking man a few years older than I was who I did not recognize as faculty and who did not resemble a student) a few tables over, but apparently a professor grabbing a coffee and a sweet roll after his morning swim was not a risk.