SCROTUS

It is well known that institutions, like software, grow quickly obsolete and have to be periodically renewed by massive infusions of your money. One recent such case is the Supreme Court of the United States, which is frequently referred to by its (also obsolete) acronym SCOTUS. Sounds stupid, doesn't it?

I am pleased to say that my company, Megabucks, Inc., aka MBI, has gotten the contract to redesign the Supreme Court. Lest you doubt our credentials, allow me to inform you that we are fresh from an epochal triumph. MBI just completed the redesign of the welfare software in, shall we just say, a major southern capital. We were cheered out of town by a grateful crowd, bearing festive feathers and some black, sticky substance. Critics may say that our system doesn't work, but on the other hand, it was very expensive.

As to the Supreme Court, the first thing we needed was a catchy acronym to replace the old, obsolete clunker. We settled on "SCROTUS," for "Supreme Court Redesign of the United States." I think "redesign" is a really zippy word to include in an institutional title.

But on to the actual redesign. What do you suppose we found? We found that the Supreme Court's greatest inefficiency was that it couldn't figure out who it was working for. Perhaps the old saying about putting the horse before the cart will be illustrative. The metaphor is decent, but incomplete. To complete the metaphor, we must consider the passengers in the cart. Think of the Supreme Court as the cart. Now, you could design the cart to be light, spare, and aerodynamic. As this would benefit the horse, we will call it the "horse-centric solution." On the other hand, you could design the cart with plush seats, air conditioning, a state-of-the-art entertainment system, and a wet bar. This might be murder on the horse, but it would be great for the passengers who could afford it. We will call this the "passenger-centric solution."

Now, which makes more - or indeed, any - sense to you? Horses are stupid, easy to replace, and can't keep you in a style to which you would like to become accustomed. And so, we give you SCROTUS, the new Supreme Court, the Supreme Court that knows who its working for. And we're off to an historical start, wouldn't you say?