Friday, June 23, 2023
In bed around 10, up at 6:30, and let Lilly out. 62℉, high of 77, sunny with another Air Quality Alert: Unhealthy, ozone, weather conditions again + Canadian wildfire smoke. The wind is N at 4 mph, 2 to 7 mph during the day with gusts up to 13 mph. No rain is expected till Sunday. Sunrise 5:12, sunset 8:35, 15+23.
Habits, Good and Bad. For as long as I can remember, I have started my days reading one or more newspapers, the exception being my year in the Far East, mostly Vietnam. I normally start with the local paper(s), now only one but formerly two, and the NYTimes. Several years ago I added the Washington Post, in part because of its news coverage but mostly for its op-ed and feature pieces. I also subscribe to and regularly check out the Wall Street Journal for its good financial news coverage and its 'Books and Art' pieces, awful for its editorial page stuff. And then there are The Atlantic and The New Yorker, which in addition to their monthly and weekly print editions post daily pieces online. In the coffee room at my law firm we had these newspapers plus The Waukesha Freeman, the Cap Times and the Wisconsin State Journal, the Daily Reporter, and the Business Journal. I usually start out with the Milwaukee paper to see what depravities have occurred while I slept, then I move on to the WaPo and then the NYT, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker, checking out the WSJ irregularly. It's not so much the news items that I am interested in though I always read at least the headlines and often the lead-ins, but more the op-ed and feature pieces. They are a big part of the liberal silo I live in. I have become more selective in my reading than I used to be, trying to eschew the "more of the same" predictable stuff, of which there is a lot, but nonetheless I spend a lot of time on my laptop reading, almost always enlarging the print size for my failing eyesight. The good news is that I stay fairly well-informed of what's going on in the world, or at least within my silo. Or is that bad news, considering all the wretched nastiness afoot on our planet? The (other) bad news is that I spend a lot of time sitting on my recliner with my laptop on my lap desk. I am the soul of sedentariness. My Apple Watch jiggles every now and then to tell me to get off my butt and stand up. I didn't ask for this feature but I appreciate it and usually do as my watch commands me. It also reminds me to breathe, a part of its 'mindfulness' feature. I also usually obey this command since deep breathing is the most significant part of the pelvic floor muscle therapy I received at the VA. This morning I decided to be daring by reversing my order of reading and starting out with the NYT!!! Ah, the courage of 'an aged man is but a paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick.'😄 I wonder whether to feel good or not-so-good that there are so many op-ed pieces I want to read? Jamelle Bouie (a favorite) on Trump. Linda Greenhouse (a favorite) on Dobbs. Jesse Wegman on Alito. Wajahat Ali (a new favorite, a leftie Muslim) on our culture wars. Ezra Klein (a favorite) on addressing wealth inequality. And I haven't opened the WaPo, The Atlantic, or The New Yorker yet. Will the morning be half-over before I finish reading the papers (and magazines)? Am I in for hours of being reminded by my watch to STAND and BREATHE?😲Maybe I need to head to the patio to be with the birds, squirrels, chipmunks, and if I'm lucky, a white-tail.
Patio time, 9 to 9:30, 4 hours post-dawn, watching the leaves on the ornamental pear tree waft in the very gentle breeze, ditto the ferns. listening to the birds, mainly a cardinal, blue jay, and robin, but also the loud drum of a red-bellied woodpecker (?), wondering whether the chipmunks that scurry within inches of me in my chair will climb on my Haflinger slipper to inspect it, hearing the dull sounds of the heavy construction equipment down the road working on the County Line bridge and close-by projects, a blue jay flies into and then out of the pear tree, a male cardinal lands on the nearly empty platform feeder and I resolve to fill it this morning. Two smallish squirrels scurry across the yard in tandem, with me wondering whether it's a male chasing a female or perhaps two sibling young ones. How beautiful the annuals Geri planted and potted on the little table next to my favorite chair.
Playing God: The Unholy Trinity. I have read the chapter on Clarence and Ginni Thomas and Leonard Leo. long-time leader of the Federalist Society. I need to give it some thought. My thoughts about left-wing vs. right-wing are too muddled. Ditto my thoughts about "socialism" vs. "fascism." I wish I were smarter than I am. And younger. And healthier. And wiser. And stronger. And a better human being. And . . . But "I yam what I yam and tha's all what I yam," said Popeye the Sailor Man. Toot toot!😐
Members of the [US Conference of Catholic Bishops] already control a significant part of the U.S. health system, with one in six hospitals nationwide (and 40% of hospitals in some states) run by Catholics and subject to directives codified by the bishops: no to contraception, to abortion (to a point that may put the health of miscarrying mothers at risk), to voluntary sterilization, certain hysterectomies and end of life directives, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, and gender-affirming care (for transgender people), The bishops' views align with those of the six members of the conservative majority of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Given their way, the bishops and right-wing Catholics in power positions would impose their values and their wishes on the entire society; the U.S. would become a Christian nation regardless of the values and wishes of the majority of its citizens. In other words, as has always been the case, and certainly since the French Revolution, the Church is authoritarian, autocratic, and anti-democratic. To what degree this desired form of White Christian Nationalism amounts to a form of fascism one can debate (especially since it's not an easy task to define what fascism is), but there should be no doubt that it is yet another form of Minority Rule, which is what we are already living with under the anti-democratic Constitution the Founding Fathers bequeathed to the rest of us. In this connection, I especially noted this comment in the "Unholy Trinity" chapter: "In [Leonard] Leo's view, however, public opinion is immaterial to determining what is lawful. . . . 'He figured out twenty years ago that conservatives had lost the culture war. Abortion, gay rights, contraception -- conservatives didn't have a chance if public opinion prevailed. So they needed to stack the courts.' And he could have added: 'And to rig elections and suppress votes.'
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