Actually, Dean explained, Oklahoma is a lot like New York. "But New Yorkers are quicker on their feet about cognitive dissonance."

Everyone picks a candidate according to his or her instincts but coastal types rationalize it better than others. "We're all values voters,” he said. Also, though, "I don't know when we're going to win Oklahoma."

The former Vermont governor, who recently announced he would stepping down as chair of the Democratic National Committee after a second successful election cycle, gave a brief speech and then fielded audience questions read by a moderator.

Most of his remarks addressed strategy, for example advising Democrats to declare their anti-poverty, pro-fairness values proudly. On matters of policy, he did what chairmen do, relentlessly plugging President-elect Barack Obama's plans.

Dean repeatedly praised "the great genius of this younger generation," meaning voters under 35. He said that his generation--baby boomers-- was "necessarily confrontational" in pushing for civil rights. But kids today, he said, "are more pragmatic" and able to find common ground. "We still have wisdom, we still have a role, but our children are onto something," he said.

Dean said that as the younger group ages it will stay Democratic because Republicans "totally don't get the unity message at all."

Dean then suggested that Obama might deal with the Bush administration's misbehavior ("particularly in disregarding constitutional provisions") by setting up "something like what's going on in South Africa, the truth and reconciliation."

(South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission was a body formed to hear grievances and testimony from victims—and, in some cases, former practitioners—of apartheid.)

What about Dean's own future in the post-Bush world?

"I have no idea what's in my future and that won't be determined by me," he said, to cheers.

Dean is known for his hyperactive streak, and last night's talk was sure to please his fans. "The last day of the campaign I spent in Arizona," he said, to show how serious he was about Democrats campaigning in every state – even the home of John McCain.

"A long shot!" he said, laughing.

“Because we follow trends,” said Maya Beaumier, 18, a college freshman who was hanging out on University Place last Friday night, clad in flat black ankle boots with black leggings and scrubby denim shorts.

“Yeah, we’re followers!” said her friend Maureen Flanagan, also an 18-year-old freshman and also wearing little zip-up ankle boots (“my mom bought them for me”), with black leggings from American Apparel. Over that she wore a short dress, and in her hair were evenly spaced technicolor bows, like glow-in-the-dark wallpaper.

“We want to be L.A. hipsters,” Ms. Beaumier said, “because that’s where [Internet celebrity turned model-nightcrawler] Cory Kennedy is.” Ms. Flanagan added that they also were trying to get on a party photo Web site called thecobrasnake.com.

The coeds have done their homework. Ankle boots are, in fact, the shoe of the year. (They’re also known as “booties,” but because that word sounds like two different slang terms plus one type of children’s footwear, we’re not going to use it.)

The abbreviated boots can snuggle into the bottom of a pair of skinny jeans like a screw, or cap off a long bare leg like a shiny black cherry. And many are wearing them with shorts and tights, for a kind of cute elf look (it makes sense, since these days, only Santa Claus is hiring). Works if you’re under 30.

Ankle boots can be flat or stiletto (like Jennifer Lopez’s 5.5-inch YSLs); sleek or baroque; buckled (like the witchy red ones strapped on by Kate Bosworth recently), zipped or both. Earthy mauve and camel ankle boots exist, but the up-to-date option is clearly the kind that make you look like a sexy Martian.

Take Christian Louboutin’s Jetsonesque model, which come in teal and black for the exceedingly modern price of $1,030—signature red soles included—and has been spotted on Sarah Jessica Parker. The speed-bumped metallic leather looks like it was ripped off of a space cow. Or this reporter’s favorite: Chanel’s black ankle boot that has a heel like a tornado and a box on the ankle ($1,495), which could hold either a tiny jetpack or all of your leftover money. Not convinced that you’re supposed to be dressing like an alien?

At Jeffrey in the meatpacking district on a recent breezy Sunday, we stealthily staked out the tornado/pouch shoe. A wool-jacketed, calf-booted woman picked it up and showed it to a similarly attired friend. “Too avant-garde,” Calf Boot #2 said, and they moved on to some pumps. Riches are wasted on the rich!

Buyer Fred Marsh of the somewhat more modest Manhattan mini-chain Sacco said that while ankle boots haven’t overtaken knee-high boots yet, they’re “obviously a trend.”

“The more elegant-looking ones are more popular with older gals,” he added. “The ones with funky heels, those are selling to the younger women.”

In whatever stripe, the shoes just might be the perfect footwear for global warming, the kind of ambiguous 50-degree is-it-November-or-April days that are increasingly commonplace nowadays.

But the truly wonderful thing about the ankle-boot craze is that many fashionably broke New Yorkers already have a pair in the back of their closet. Destiny Cullen, 22, bought her super-low-cut black ankle boots a year or so ago because “they are sleek,” “pretty comfortable” and, oh yeah—just $19.99 at Ross Dress for Less, a discount store in Tennessee. Ms. Cullen, who works in real estate and lives in Park Slope, was thrilled when her why-not purchase all of a sudden showed up at all the non-discount stores. “I’ve gotten a lot of compliments, definitely.”

She’s not the only Brooklynite who bought low. Makeup artist Shani Nemetsky, 21, picked up her “not typical” silver-gray wedge ankle boots last year, and Vicki Simon, 25, a graduate student in communications at NYU, wore her vintage buckled ankle boots to dance on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg after the election. They’d belonged to her grandmother in the 1960s.

And speaking of the ’60s, are these leg-promoting, retro-futuristic boots very go-go, very, dare we say … optimistic? Unironic? Yes.

“I love New York!” said Ms. Flanagan of the multiples bows festooning her coif, as she ran toward the next bar of the night at 1 a.m. Oh, so do we! And we love ankle boots, hopeful shoes for hopeful times.

ggoldis@observer.com

O'Connor favors "merit selection" of judges, meaning she believes governors and presidents should appoint them. Some states use that system, but others let voters decide who sits on their bench. (New York State is a hybrid: many local judges are elected, but judges on the Court of Appeals, for example, are appointed by the governor. )

Citing social science data, O'Connor argued that the presence of money and special interests in elections undermine public confidence in judges--and judges need the public's confidence in order to be effective. "Our gavels aren't that big and we can't swing them that hard," she said.

Judicial independence has been one of O'Connor's signature causes since retiring from the bench in 2006. Last night's remarks were part of a panel discussion sponsored by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. All the panelists agreed with O'Connor's position, and it the panel did not take questions from the audience.

Bert Brandenburg, the Justice Department's spokesman under Bill Clinton, argued that the judicial election process simplified legal issues, and not in a good way. "It's check-the-box justice--are you with us or against us?" Brandenburg expressed anxiety about the future of justice. "America does like to elect its judges."

Like O'Connor, Dinh (who clerked for O'Connor) stressed the importance of preserving "public confidence in the judicial role."

O'Connor's crusade is ironic, in a way. Brandenburg encapsulated the argument against elected judges when he complained that they were "vulnerable to whatever the political wind is." As a justice, O'Connor herself was often accused of blowing in the political wind. Where her colleagues might fill more space elaborating grand legal principles, she would engage the details of the case in front of her. As a result, critics had an easier time attacking her more controversial votes--like upholding affirmative action, upholding barriers to abortion, and ending Florida's recount after the 2000 election--as mere politics.

Speaking of elections, the one that happened last Tuesday has the potential to shake up a few legal doctrines once Barack Obama starts appointing judges. But when I tried to ask O'Connor about it, she cut me off.

"I'm not talking politics," she said with a chuckle.

In the midst of the Roaring Twenties, hundreds of New York City’s poorest pulled up seats at free seminars every week to discuss Descartes and Shakespeare. At these gatherings, one of their teachers, Clifton Fadiman, reported, “the truck driver grew less arrogant, the immigrant less humble.” One time the discussion was, according to the philosopher Mortimer Adler, “as good as my Columbia groups.”

This was the dawn of the Great Books movement, a 20th-century phenomenon based on the earnest discussion of Western classics. Today the Great Books program survives as a hobby (mostly for old people); a camaraderie-inducing required curriculum at Columbia; and a hot-button issue for the culture war’s geekier foot soldiers.

Alex Beam, a decorated Boston Globe columnist, investigates the Great Books movement in A Great Idea at the Time. At its commercial peak it was “intellectual hucksterism,” he finds—but the offbeat (geriatric), highly structured Great Books reading groups of today are still amusing, and of course occasionally exasperating. This good-natured, meandering cultural history has the characters and plot twists of a novel, but occasionally all the talk about Great Ideas makes the reader crave more penetrating analysis.

Mr. Beam introduces us to Robert Hutchins, who spent his life trying to transcend a religious upbringing—“These were not serious gatherings,” was his childhood observation of church services. Mortimer Adler was trying to get famous: He was “impossible,” Mr. Beam writes, “but he was not boring, and Robert Hutchins liked that.”

Once he became president of the University of Chicago, Hutchins imported the curriculum and Adler from New York. As a fund-raising venture, Chicago began teaching the course to area businessmen in 1943. The idea trickled down: By 1946, there were 3,000 Great Books reading groups across the country, most of them in the Midwest.

A few years later, the university published the Great Books in a uniform edition. The “balls-out marketing push” was based on “snob appeal”—and the sales practices brought down Federal Trade Commission charges, twice.

REPORTING IS MR. BEAM'S strong suit, along with his effortlessly unpretentious writing style. But his account is bursting with questions he doesn’t touch. At one point he explodes that there is “plenty to learn from outside the book” (Great Books programs withhold history, biography, etc. from the student), but he lets slide the theoretical issue of context.

The Great Books are taught by the Socratic method, meaning that teachers ask students pointed questions, which usually makes for a lively, aggressive classroom. One early student complained that the method “taught you most about bullying back.” Is melodrama useful to learning about texts? Does learning the texts even matter, or is clever analysis really the point? If not, why the fetishistic care in selecting the books? Mr. Beam isn’t saying.

His historical analysis also flags, and he resorts to block-quoting inapt scholars. For example, to explain why Great Books lost popularity, he imports the argument that today’s Americans are less patient than their grandparents due to the pernicious influence of television. But earlier he insinuates that no one actually ever read their 54-volume Great Books sets—they were furniture.

On the whole, though, A Great Idea at the Time is a good read because it’s exactly what Alex Beam wanted it to be: “A book as different from the ponderous and forbidding Great Books as it could possibly be.”

Glenna Goldis is an editorial intern at The Observer. She can be reached at books@observer.com.

The Democratic bundler was in a good mood, surrounded by most of the city's major Clintonites.

Asked about the future of the Republican ticket, he joked, "Sarah Palin will an important member of the Alaskan community."

Then he grew thoughtful and, speaking of the Democratic primary, "A lot of people died for this."

The host of the evening did not want to be interviewed, but when pressed, he was willing to say, "This party is a celebration of the Democratic process."

A longtime friend of the Clintons, Schwartz said of New York's junior senator, "she will make her own way."

"Hillary Clinton is an important person, always has been, always will be," Schwartz said.

There was at least one non-Democrat at the party (Schwartz mentioned the event was "nonpartisan." Outside the restaurant a young Republican woman, who said she knew Schwartz because she had decorated his office told me, "Obama's going to win because people are blaming the country's problems on Republicans."

When I observed that most of the people at the party were of an older generation she said, "Maybe that's why they invited us."

Rope (pictured above)-- 415 Myrtle (between Vanderbilt and Clinton). I called, and they said the hot dogs will be cooked out in the garden and free. There's going to be a DJ and TVs updating the crowd. Also, I like their bartenders.

Chez Lola-- 387 Myrtle (between Clermont and Vanderbilt). Kitchen will be open until the "wee hours." 

Maggie Brown-- 455 Myrtle (at Washington). Bet on swing states for free shots.

"Once you're inside the building, they can't turn you away," said office manager Swoan Parker, 41, in line a few yards outside the door. She and others urgently advised a man wearing an Obama shirt to zip up his leather jacket-- wouldn't want to get turned away for "campaigning."

"Sen-- Pres-- he will be President Obama," said Parker when asked how she'd vote.

The man next to her rolled his eyes when asked. "I'm for change." Andrea Bonner, 41, who works in marketing, agreed.

Would anyone around here be voting for McCain? The Fort Greeners looked at each other.

"They probably live in Brooklyn Heights," said Parker.

People also assumed they'd be stuck in line all day. "But I purposely voted in person" as opposed to absentee ballot, said Bonner, a recent transplant from California. "I wanted to be here." She added that she found the line outside PS 46 "festive."

Alas, only minutes later she was waved into the school's gymnasium.

But then there was that other line into the building, on Clermont Avenue. It went all the way down the block, and people said they had waited for over an hour already. Note to Fort Greene voters: enter on Adelphi Street!

Reports after the Council voted made note of two lawsuits, one filed by members of the Council who opposed the majority and the other, filed on October 22, on behalf of, as the Times concisely put it, “ten public school teachers…contending that changing the law without a referendum breached voters’ civil rights and due-process rights.”

Who are they? Why do they care? And what do they have against the crop of term-limited office holders currently running their city?

These tenured educators sit all day in what they call a "rubber room," and they blame their captivity on Michael Bloomberg.

Kindergarten teacher Brandi Scheiner said she is facing charges of "excessive use of glue" and "poor rug management." Her rubber roommate and co-plaintiff Thomasina Robinson, a high school gym teacher and former teacher of the year, said she is charged with pulling a student's ponytail. Two students will testify that she didn't, she said, if the Department of Education ever sets a hearing date. So far, it's been 22 months.

The complaint names Bloomberg and every member of the City Council as defendants (they are all named in order to "insure that they are all formally on notice"). It charges that in passing the term-limits legislation, Bloomberg and Speaker Christine Quinn used "improper and potentially illegal pressures to intimidate others." The resulting deals with Council members, according to the complaint, were "designed and/or intended to deprive Plaintiffs and other NYC voters of their rights to determine" the issue in a referendum. The plaintiffs are harmed not only as New Yorkers, the complaint charges, but also as people whose due process rights are already being violated by Bloomberg and will continue to be as long as he remains in office. Documents filed so far leave the harm issue at that, but the plaintiffs themselves tell a more colorful story.

"We call it the rubber room because it makes you lose your mind," explained Scheiner. (The Department of Education calls them temporary reassignment centers.) According to Scheiner and Robinson, the rubber room at 333 7th Avenue has no windows; picnic chairs for seats; dirty floors; three toilets for a hundred women; and two security guards at the exit. The teachers sit in their picnic chairs, read, and "get on each others' nerves," in Robinson's words. For a little while she was teaching her colleagues Chi Kung, a Chinese exercise form, but the guards don't let her anymore. "They didn't want us to have any movement," she said.

In an interview last week, Scheiner explained that she had been delighted to learn that she had been asked to report for jury duty. "It's clean here," she said on a call from the courthouse. "Nobody's flipping out!"

"We were very jealous," said Robinson afterward. The rubber room isn't all crossword puzzles and Sudoku, these aggrieved teachers say.

"People are having asthma, all types of pulmonary problems," said Robinson. She said one woman died of pulmonary complications shortly after returning to her rubber room this September. Stress and shame haunt the teachers too. Robinson added that "a lot of people have not told their partners and their family."

Asked whether it was possible to land in the rubber room for excessive use of glue, Department of Education spokesperson Andrew Jacob said he could not comment on individual cases. But he said rubber room residents fall into three categories: teachers accused of corporal punishment, teachers who have been arrested and teachers whose "schools have documented that they are incompetent or ineffective."

The teachers believe that Bloomberg—who runs the Department of Education—encourages trumped-up charges against experienced teachers as part of a larger strategy to replace public education with charter schools.

"It's not about money," said Scheiner.

Teachers earn their full salary while sitting in rubber rooms, though Robinson says she has lost the opportunity to earn "per session" wages for running after school activities. It has been reported that the rubber rooms cost the city $65 million per year.

Jacob, from the education department, said that the purpose of keeping suspect teachers in rubber rooms is "protecting the welfare of the children." If the process is inefficient, he said, it is because of strictures placed on the department by union contracts and state law.

In the teachers' view, a new mayor is their only shot at freedom.

"What do I have to look forward to if I've already sat there for two years and they haven't respected due process?" asked Robinson. If Bloomberg serves a third term, "is he going to respect it then?"

She worries that her career is over. Even if she applies for positions outside of the city, she will have to explain a two-year gap in her resume.

"I can't say I've been in the rubber room," she said, laughing. She mimicked a job interviewer: "What kind of person are you?"

Tales from the rubber room aren't the only drama set to unfold. The teachers' lawyer, Edward Fagan, says he will argue that Bloomberg's pressure tactics in getting council members' votes were illegal. "Arms were twisted, pledges were made, people changed their votes in exchange for some as of yet undetermined reason," said Fagan. "That's out-and-out fraud."

He will ask the Southern District of New York federal court early this week for an order to preserve evidence, which he says includes council staffers' text messages, emails, and faxes. "There were hundreds of people out there shuttling agreements between people. Those documents are evidence," he said.

The teachers' strategy is vastly different from the plaintiff council members', whose arguments against extending term limits in documents filed so far have turned on finer points of administrative law. Fagan said he disagrees with their emphasis on criticizing the council's vote itself rather than the action around the vote.

"The vote is the car," he explained. "When the car drives over you, you sue because you got driven over, not because the car exists."

A spokesperson for the New York City Law Department said the office was "in receipt of the lawsuits and we're in the process of reviewing them."