Always interesting, Dahlia Lithwick discusses Monday’s Supreme Court hearing on Norton v. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.
Of all our bizarre advertising conventions, perhaps the oddest is this: Whether one has just purchased a new Ford Explorer, Volkswagen Touraeg, or a Jeep, the good folks in Advertising Land would have it that the first thing one does is high-tail it to the desert, careen up the side of a red rock canyon, and park that now-filthy new vehicle on a precipice overlooking the Utah sunset. True, most of us just choose to celebrate the purchase of a new car with imprudent sex in the back seat. But as far as American advertisers are concerned, we are sexier, thinner, and happier when off-roading it in the vast western wilderness.
I mention all this because today’s Supreme Court case ostensibly concerns the effects of off-road vehicles on potential wilderness areas. Which sounds like it might make for some glorious, wind-blows-through-your-hair oral argument. But this case is ultimately just about statutory construction, and the only thing blowing through your hair at the high court today is the sound of Justice Antonin Scalia’s infinite follow-up questions. I also mention all this because—try as I may—I can’t understand the appeal of buzzing around the wilderness in an ATV, digging up the fragile cryptobiotic crust, eroding the delicate soil, and polluting the rivers. But someone will enlighten me, I am sure.