638 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 79 PART 4 JULY 2021
the three semi-circular canals. The membranous part is a continuous system
of ducts within the bony labyrinth that are filled with endolymph, a
fluid critical for normal hearing and for balance and movement.
When Dr. Samuel Johnson completed his Dictionary of the English Language
in 1755, he was visited at his home on Fleet Street in London by many people
congratulating him on his masterwork. One such delegation included a
group of London socialites whose fearless leader told him, “Doctor we congratulate
you on your decision to exclude all indecent words from your dictionary.”
Dr. Johnson is said to have replied: “Ladies, I congratulate you on
insisting on looking them up.”
“It would be a Herculean, if not impossible task, to review and harmonize
the myriad decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States on the subject
of interstate commerce and exactly what incidents thereof may be constitutionally
taxed by the States. The dissenting opinions in many of those
cases make clear that the task of reconciling all the decisions is more difficult
than was the task of Theseus as he threaded his way through the
famous Cretan Labyrinth in search of the Minotaur”: Roy Stone Transfer
Corp. v. Messner, 377 Pa. 234 (1954).
Let’s not forget, as well, “the labyrinthine depths of ratemaking regulation
in the electric utility industry” (Kentucky Utilities Company v. Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission, 760 F.2d 1321 (D.C. Cir. 1985)), or of Irish family law
legislation, a handbook to which was “likened to the ball of wool given by
Ariadne to Theseus to enable him to find his way back out of the labyrinth
after he had slain the Minotaur”: L v. Judge Haughton & Ors, 2007 IEHC 316.
Thought du mois:
“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (1908–2006),
Canadian-American economist, author and diplomat.