Pop the cork, Babe

"A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,

A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou

Beside me singing in the Wilderness--

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!"

-- Quatrain XI of  the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam ," translation by Edward Fitzgerald, 5th edition

I love the kitchen, so I'll bake the bread. You bring the poems and find us a tree to sit under. But we have Circuit Judge John D. Tinder to thank for the better wine selection:

A federal judge has ruled unconstitutional an Indiana law that essentially bars most online and phone transactions by out-of-state businesses that ship wine to Hoosiers.

The law is unconstitutional because it bars wineries that possess wholesale privileges in other states from seeking a Direct Wine Seller's Permit in Indiana, according to a 71-page ruling issued late Wednesday by Judge John D. Tinder of the U.S. District Court in Indianapolis.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that out-of-state wineries could not be discriminated against, this seems like a reasonable interpetation of the Interstate Commerce Clause. My e-mail box was filled yesterday with missives from people decrying this decision, wanting me to be outraged because wine would be so more readily available, including "to the children." A lot of them came from people who distribute alcohol in the state, who might just have another concern in mind. If anything other than alcohol were involved, the attempt to impede and control trade this way would be universally savaged.

By the way, if you think my opening shows I've gone mushy and romantic, better go back and read Khayyam again or read something about him. I wouldn't call him a nihilist, exactly, but he was pretty much an existentialist obsessed with mortality and the transient nature of life. He celebrated the sensual because he thought that's all there was.