5/23/23

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

In bed by 10, awake at 3:40 and up at 4:05 with random half-thoughts.  Let Lilly out under clear skies, 49℉, high of 71℉, S wind at 3 mph, 1 to 8 mph during the day, gusts up to 13 mph.  Sunrise at 5:20, sunset at 8:16, 14+56.

Garage Door broke yesterday, or more precisely, the steel cable that controls the rise and descent of the door snapped. There may also be some damage to the rollers on the door itself. I'm unable to open the door manually.  The Volvo is stuck in the garage; the Honda parked on the driveway.  We're in for another unexpected expense associated with owning our cherished home.  Replacements/additions over 11 and 1/2 years: well pump, roof, sump pump, water aeration, filtration, softening system, water heater, drain tiles and steel beam supports on the east foundation wall, driveway lighting, what am I forgetting?  In any event, I called Overhead Door Southeast Wisconsin and will have a technician here sometime today, probably this morning.  $70 service call fee, waived if work is ordered. , ,  work done, $1570.  Yecch.

What $1570 looks like.

Catholic East Elementary School students walked out on classes yesterday to protest the firing of the school's principal, Tim Trzcinko.  He was removed by Seton Schools, the entity/group established by the archdiocese to manage archdiocesan schools.  Seton confirmed that Trzcinko had not harmed any children.  He said he was fired for questioning hiring and compensation practices.  "We have assured our families that all decisions being made follow our values as a Catholic school and are made with the best interest of the students, staff and school community in mind," a Seton statement for the media read.  Without knowing all the facts, it's not possible to form an opinion about this firing, but knowing what I do of the authoritarian 'ways and means' of Church authorities, I'm skeptical. 

Not entirely unrelated, Roman Catholic Ron DeSantis made a pitch yesterday to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention that electing him could lead to a 7-2 right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court.  “I think if you look over the next two presidential terms, there is a good chance that you could be called upon to seek replacements for Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito and the issue with that is, you can’t really do better than those two,” DeSantis said in his address to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention. He went on to say that, “if you replace a Clarence Thomas with somebody like a Roberts or somebody like that, then you’re gonna actually see the court move to the left, and you can’t do that.”

AND  Texas lawmakers are scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to require the Ten Commandments be posted in every classroom in the state, part of a newly energized national effort to insert religion into public life. . . Groups that watch church-state issues say efforts nationwide to fund and empower religion — and, more specifically, a particular type of Christianity — are more plentiful and aggressive than they have been in years. One group says it is watching 1,600 bills around the country in states such as Louisiana and Missouri. Earlier this year, Idaho and Kentucky signed into law measures that could allow teachers and public school employees to pray in front of and with students while on duty.

“What Mencken most strongly objected to in religion was not the expression of nonsensical views—these could easily be combated by rebuttal from the other side—but the inveterate tendency of religion to seek the enforcement of its views by the power of the government.”  H.L. Mencken, H.L. Mencken on Religion

Lord, protect me from your champions.

DeSantis to announce tomorrow.  Is this nation doomed to  terrible candidates for future presidencies?  The last go-round we had a choice between the Democrat candidate by default old Joe Biden who is now too old to be entrusted with the office or Fascist, rapist, traitorous, Russian mole Donald Trump. In 2012 we had Obama/Biden and Romney/Ryan and in 2008 Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin.  In 2004, it was Bush/Cheney and Kerry/Edwards and in 2000 Bush/Cheney vs. Gore/Lieberman vs. Nader/LaDuke.  In 1996 we Clinton/Gore vs. Dole/Kemp and in 1992 Clinton/Gore vs G.H.W. Bush/Quayle vs. Perot/Stockdale,.  Fit for service as president among those candidates were George Bush, Sr., Bill Clinton, Al Gore,  Bob Dole, Jack Kemp, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and probably Lieberman, Edwards, and Ryan, Unfit were Donald Trump, Mike Pence, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle, Ross Perot and Stockdale, Nader and LaDuke.

Milwaukee dystopia.  From this morning's JSOnline: "More than 60 members of a loose connection of feuding groups of people in Milwaukee, which is responsible for an outsized portion of the city’s gun violence the last several years, have been arrested and criminally charged. . . Of the 61 individuals who were identified by law enforcement Monday, about half are juveniles. Eleven of them face charges of homicide or have been convicted and sentenced already, while others have been accused of anything from illegal gun possession, to car theft and recklessly endangering safety.  Chisholm said the feud stems from the 2020 homicide of a 17-year-old. Since then, more than 100 shootings and at least 25 homicides have been attributed to the conflict."