Opera News

 The February number of Opera News came today.  (What?  You thought I was limited to The American  Conservative, The Remnant  and talk radio?  I'm disappointed in you.  The Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinees have been on the radio since, I think, the '40s and on my radio since I was in high school. . . which was, indeed, a very, very long time ago but, ahem, later than the '40s.)

Where was I?   Oh, yes, the Opera News.  The February number came today and there on page 10 was this delightful bit about the late Chief Justice Rehnquist:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Antonin Scalia were famous opera fans, but William Rehnquist had his tastes, too.  In 1995, the chief justice added four gold stripes to his robes, which he infamously wore at Bill Clinton's impeachment trial.. "he [was] lampooned by Jay Leno, derided by cartoonists and ridiculed across continents" for them, the Washington Post reported.  He'd added them as "a whimsical emulation of the Lord Chancellor" in Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe.   USA Today explains.  "Asked years later to assess his role during the impeachment trial . . . Rehnquist quoted from that opera: 'I did nothing in particular, and I did it very well.'"