4/29/23

Saturday, April 29, 2023

In bed at 9:30, up at 2:30 with unpleasant dream of life at MULS, appointment as DCE, MKM & PKR & P&T committee, Steve Barkan, let Lilly out, she wanted her reward treat at 2:30.  39℉, high of 51℉, cloudy day ahead with rain, Wind W at 3 mph, 2 to 13 mph during the day, gusts up to 24 mph, sunrise at 5:48, sunset at 7:50, 14+2.

Hands.  I have been very conscious of my hands recently.  About a week ago I was in my recliner watching some program on the television with my hands folded.  I noticed how thin they are, skin and bone, and how prominent the blood vessels are.  The skin is so thin it drapes over the metacarpal bones between my wrists and my fingers, so thin that the blue of the veins is visible to the eye.  There appears to be no fat in my hands and little collagen in the skin, which gives me chicken or turkey skin.  I can feel all the bones, easily on the top of the hands, but even somewhat through the palms.  This awareness of my old man hands reminds me (though I need no reminding) that every organ, every part of my body has passed through 8 decades of living, of functioning, of working.  It is no surprise that, as my father used to say, 'my parts are wearing out' and that they often complain via aches and pains.  One of these days, one of these hours, one or more of my parts will go on strike, perhaps my brain, perhaps my heart, perhaps some other vital part.  Or a new part, a neoplasm, will take over and scuttle the ship

NC supreme court: From the NYT:  "Last year, Democratic justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that maps of the state’s legislative and congressional districts drawn to give Republicans lopsided majorities were illegal gerrymanders. On Friday, the same court led by a newly elected Republican majority looked at the same facts, reversed itself and said it had no authority to act.  The practical effect is to enable the Republican-controlled General Assembly to scrap the court-ordered State House, Senate and congressional district boundaries that were used in elections last November, and draw new maps skewed in Republicans’ favor for elections in 2024. The 5-to-2 ruling fell along party lines, reflecting the takeover of the court by Republican justices in partisan elections last November.   The decision has major implications not just for the state legislature, where the G.O.P. is barely clinging to the supermajority status that makes its decisions veto-proof, but for the U.S. House, where a new North Carolina map could add at least three Republican seats in 2024 to what is now a razor-thin Republican majority. Overturning such a recent ruling by the court was a highly unusual move, particularly on a pivotal constitutional issue in which none of the facts had changed.

The North Carolina case mirrors a national trend in which states that elect their judges — Ohio, Kentucky, Kansas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and others — have seen races for their high court seats turned into multimillion-dollar political battles, and their justices’ rulings viewed through a deeply partisan lens."

Should we expect something different from states where the justices are appointed by partisan governors?  Under the Missouri plan?  As of 2016, 38 states have a form of merit-based selection and retention method for some or all judges.  Twenty-five states have a nominating commission to screen all candidates of the state courts of last resort. Eight states have commissions which fill interim vacancies on the highest courts.  Twenty states utilize retention elections for judges who wish to serve on highest state courts beyond their initial term.

You shall appoint for yourselves judges and officers, tribe by tribe, in every settlement which the Lord your God is giving you, and they shall dispense true justice to the people. You shall not pervert the course of justice nor shall you lift up faces nor shall you take a gift for a gift blinds the eyes of the wise and makes the just answer crookedly. Justice and justice alone shall you pursue ....Deuteronomy16: 18-20

If only . . .

Law was supervb as a code, and the more perfect and logical a code was, the more magnificent it was.  But this was at the cost of more artificiality, rendering it less capable of existing in reality.  Hence the opportunity to study and reflect on law offered the greatest satisfaction while the requirement to implement it was the saddest or most painful fate that could befall one.  The practice of law led either to cynicism or to madness.  We could see examples of the former all around us and, as for the latter, suffice it to recall Kafka, who, though few realized it, was a Prague lawyer.

Ivan Klima, Jude on Trial

 

I suppose I should be thankful that the practice of law led me only a a profound cynicism, and not to madness.  On the other hand, Kafka did pretty well.  Many of his works are still in print.