shoes in court

A number of completely different stories about shoes in the courtroom have landed in front of me lately, which is terribly odd. Simply had to share!

This is an article about a motion to force counsel to wear shoes without holes in them, which is kind of funny:
http://abovethelaw.com/2009/07/motion_to_compel_proper_footwear.php
The holier-than-thou shoes were apparently 'lucky'.

Next we have an article about women's attire in the courtroom, which includes railing against impractical but fashionable shoes:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2009/05/22/sexy_lawyers/index.html

The last one is my favorite for a number of reasons. This is an article about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, capturing her reactions to criticism of Sonia Sotomayer:
http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/feature/2009/07/10/gender_and_the_courts/index.html
In it, Ginsburg responds to the notion that the men of the court will be unable to 'kick off their shoes' with women around, which she notes is unlikely, given that she is also apt to kicking off her shoes behind the bench. In fact, if she is slow to rise from her seat on the bench, people seem to worry that she's frail while she's actually searching under her desk for a lost shoe so that she can stand.

I'm not immune to the siren call of gorgeous but unlivable shoes, but I like to think that I keep it fairly reasonable. Wedges are a girl's best friend. In the end, it really seems that we like to think shoes *mean* something about the person or what they're trying to present, at the very least we try and construct that meaning for ourselves in our own wardrobe.

Do our shoes define us, or do we merely want them to? Do we judge shoes as harshly as we judge the cars that people drive? Really, just what's up with all the shoes in the blogosphere these days?