Federal courts are OPEN (UPDATED)

But state courts and schools are closed.  I don't get it...

UPDATE -- the Supreme Court is sort of open today:

When the U.S. Supreme Court opens its fall term on October 3, the public won't see a typical First Monday in October. The court won’t hear any arguments on its opening day, instead convening briefly for announcements and the swearing in of new bar members. The cancellation of arguments is meant to recognize the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah while also adhering to the 1916 law that requires the court to begin its term on the first Monday in October. That's not all: the court won't sit at all on October 12, when Yom Kippur starts. And it won’t take the bench on October 10 either. That is the federal Columbus Day holiday....It appears to have taken a 'critical mass' of two Jewish justices on the court to push the court to accommodate the need of observant Jews not to be working on major holidays. That occurred in 1994, when Stephen Breyer joined the court—a year after Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Some news if you are in the office:

1.  Notorious RGB penned this op-ed in the Times.  From the conclusion:

Earlier, I spoke of great changes I have seen in women’s occupations. Yet one must acknowledge the still bleak part of the picture. Most people in poverty in the United States and the world over are women and children, women’s earnings here and abroad trail the earnings of men with comparable education and experience, our workplaces do not adequately accommodate the demands of childbearing and child rearing, and we have yet to devise effective ways to ward off sexual harassment at work and domestic violence in our homes. I am optimistic, however, that movement toward enlistment of the talent of all who compose “We, the people,” will continue.

2.  Paula McMahon covers the insanity of how much we pay informants in the criminal justice system:

Snitching for the feds can be dangerous work, but it also can be pretty lucrative.
One South Florida man who has been working undercover as a confidential informant for 31 years has been paid about $1.5 million for his efforts, according to court records and testimony that shed some light on the usually shadowy world of informants.
The payments, which appear to have started during President Ronald Reagan's second term in office, average out to more than $48,000 per year.
The Drug Enforcement Administration won't say who he is or why he does what he does, but some information about him slipped out in court this week after the DEA used him in a heroin sting.

3.  P.S. We pay the informants more than death penalty lawyers (that David Markus mentioned in the article is NOT me... sigh.).

And now, your moment of zen: