Tag: supreme court

Fine Dining

jono55

Rainy morning, gray September skies, cat comes in all indignant with wet fur along her back. She takes the weather even more personally than I do, uttering little kitty curses (silently, but I can see them in her eyes) when the rain or wind come up and find her in her outdoor hideouts.

She has her schedules, and god forbid external circumstances force her to alter them. She’s a bit like me in that. It’s one of the reasons that when we travel I try to avoid staying in other people’s homes. I appreciate the offers, and I am certainly aware of the economies involved, but I’d rather stay with strangers than friends. That way I can be the oddball slob that is my destiny without exciting comment, at least comment that reaches me.

If I want to hang out in a bathrobe until noon I have no one that I need to answer to but Robin, and she has given up on changing that aspect of my behavior (we all choose which battles to fight, and which to let slide, don’t we?)

Anyway, today we are traveling to Grand Junction for a doctor’s appointment, and tonight I will sleep in my own bed, having followed my idiosyncratic list of things to do. Life is good.

******

Acony Bell, by Gillian Welch

******

These days we have a three-member Supreme Court and a six-member panel of Disgraced Sycophants. One can hope for change. Congress gave them lifetime appointments, Congress can take them away.


Screenshot

******

One of my favorite hot beverages these days is the Mexican mocha. That bit of cayenne in the mix is just the right thing on chilly mornings. Most of our local coffee shops offer it … some have a heavier hand with the pepper than others, but none I’ve sampled so far have exceeded the bounds of propriety. It is almost tasty enough to be sinful, and falls just short of too good for ordinary mortals.

But if one did overdo this good thing, I can perfectly understand why the gods might step in with some colorful punishment as they used to do in the good old Greek mythology days. Perhaps something like being strapped to a huge thistle along a busy road for eternity, where passersby were encouraged to pat your face with a small cayenne-saturated pillow.

Maybe this is too much … dunno … not being Greek and all.

******

We went to an Indivisible potluck social gathering on Friday. It was pretty well attended, and the participants went to varying amounts of effort in bringing something to eat and to share. Some showed up with a few muffins from the grocery store, one lady brought a handful of black grapes.

The piéce de resistance was a Tater Tot Casserole, from a recipe published by Senator Amy Klobuchar, presently a candidate for governor of the state of Minnesota.

It was superb. For a native of the Midwest, especially a youthful frequenter of Lutheran Church basement suppers, it was a plateful of blissfully crunchy comfort food.

.

A bite transports the chewer to another time and place, much as a psychedelic agent might, often one that is populated by friends and relatives who have since traveled to other dimensions. Definitely mood-altering. Dangerously habit-forming.

In Minnesota, consuming too much of this casserole is felt to impair driving abilities, and should one be stopped on the way home from the church supper, they should be prepared to be asked where those stains on the front of their shirt came from and then asked to walk a straight line.

******

After typing the entry above, I realized that much of the civilized world might not know what a tater tot is. They are small barrel-shaped chunks of potato scraps that are mixed with flour or cornstarch, then seasoned with salt, onion powder, and other spices. They are then baked or french-fried to make them crispy.

They were invented in 1953 by F. Nephi Grigg and Golden Grigg, the founders of the Ore-Ida potato company, as a clever way to use up leftover potato scraps from french-fry production, instead of throwing them away.

Stuff to be thrown away + ingenuity = greasy delightfulness

******

All My Relations, by Ulali

******

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

H. L. Mencken

******

Comrades In Arms

jono55

You know, the real danger for me in watching a Beth Hart video is that it stirs something primal, and reminds me that deep in that cerebral pudding I call my mind there is still a certifiable crazy person who could make his appearance at any moment. Some of her live performances leap straight over the boundaries of gentility and taste, but even then I appreciate her talent, her voice, her daring. She seems a woman of great appetites, a freight train of id coming one’s way.

What’s not to like?

Not too many artists truly give it all on stage, thinking that prudence requires that they hold something back, keep something in reserve, so as to be able to fight another day. Beth Hart is … how to say it … highly imprudent at times. If you go seeking other videos you will see that the one I offer is rather tame.

******

The Supreme Court finally said that Cluck cannot screw around with the mail-in ballots for this mid-term election. In ordinary times seeing that august body actually do their job in a nonpartisan manner would not even be worth mentioning.

I don’t know what to say about this Supreme Court. Most of the time the fascist-sympathizing six members are little more than a waste of space and are almost impossible to differentiate from the rest of the toadies that compete for an open patch to kiss on the buttocks of this disreputable man.

Maybe they figured that this was just too much. That if they didn’t finally do the right thing that bags of garbage and dog feces would soon be showing up on their manicured lawns. Or maybe somebody sprinkled fairy dust into their chambers which has convinced them to finally re-read that little book called the Constitution and see where their duties lie.

Who knows. I am grateful for every drop of reasonable that flows from this Court. Such drops are rare indeed.

******

I am going to try to discipline myself by republishing no more than three political cartoons at a time in this blog. It’s not easy. Those cartoonists minds are soooo fertile.

Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot

******

George Booth died four years ago, and I miss him. I’m not sure that I’ve seen every cartoon that he every composed, but it’s not because I haven’t tried. His sense of the bizarre and comic in everyday life is nearly perfectly matched to my own. The major difference between us is that only one of us has actual talent. Any way, it’s been years since I posted one of his drawings here, and this morning I picked this classic.

******

For me, this cartoon provided one of those nearly falling off my chair while laughing moments. The reason … I have met those guys more than once, in person, aeons ago. Old souls who were members of a genre known in Minnesota as the bachelor farmer. And I can hear them having the conversation above while oscillating in a creaky wooden rocker on a creaky wooden porch.

When I was in high school our family lived down the road from the Boettcher Brothers, who lived in a ramshackle house that had long ago lost the last flecks of paint from its siding, making it the uniform gray-brown color of the classic haunted house.

They were getting on in years and when they were out and about they would be wearing what seemed like the same pair of worn bib overalls and straw hats. No slaves to fashion they.

******

“The rule of law to democracy is like oxygen to a human body. It is something that you absolutely need to survive.”

Patrick Schiltz, Minnesota federal district court judge.

******

There was a poignancy in the phone call, as one woman phoned to let another know that she was not going to make the AA meeting later that day. There were at least two reasons to make the call, one is that both women were seniors with health problems, and the other is that both are alcoholics. Even after decades of sobriety the enlightened former addict knows how thin the protective curtain is between them and relapse. They have seen old friends walk back through that curtain and disappear. Silent battlefields.

It’s a simple act, almost a reflex. To avoid causing worry they pick up the phone and make the call. It’s what comrades do.

******

Brothers in Arms, by Dire Straits

******

Trail Legs

jono55

Sooo … there is this genre of videos on YouTube that go like this: “If you are a senior and you do these ten exercises pretty much everything will be just great. You will look better, run faster, be unbelievably attractive to the opposite sex, and Army recruiters may mistake you for an 18 year-old.”

Or it may be five exercises, or something that requires a kettlebell or learning how to do Pilates on the wall. But all of them agree – if you don’t do something starting right now you might as well pick out your casket tomorrow and save your relatives the trouble of doing so later on.

There was one Asian gentleman who absolutely swore that if I do 50 of these and 50 of those and 50 … at this point I switched away from the guy because if there is one thing that is certain in this otherwise uncertain world it is that I will never follow any regimen that requires that I do 50 of anything.

One video did catch my eye, and I might actually follow up on it. It is called the medicine ball slam.

While there may be many excellent physiological results, like core strengthening and improved flexibility, what I can see immediately is how good it will be for the days when the world seems composed of two parts cowflop and one part thistles. Slamming that thing into the earth or the driveway … oh baby … I can already feel my spirit rising just thinking about it, tension and aggression slipping off my shoulders like raindrops on a tin roof.

******

Tracy Chapman is a charter member of the good part of the human race, one of those rare people out there whose lives illuminate and support our own. Since her first album in 1988 that won all the prizes, she has created a body of work that is remarkable for its insistence on the value of each and every one of us, telling stories and raising consciousness all along her way.

This first clip is from 2015, with Chapman performing Stand By Me on late night television with a respectful David Letterman strewing compliments in her path.

The next video is from 1988, with the 24 year-old Chapman showing what all the fuss was about. Timeless and heartfelt and beautiful.

******

We have now had a chance to see what happens when the Supreme Court of the land becomes completely corrupt and subservient to external power. Honor, rectitude, and a little thing called justice fly out the window and are nowhere to be found in their decisions. Except for the opinions of the minority, who came to the court believing in its role and obligations and have not lost their way.

Since most of the members of this august body have decided not to police themselves, to have even the teensiest idea of what good behavior might be, reforming the Court should be one of the first tasks of the post-Cluck era. As a first step, let’s get rid of those lifetime appointments. They are invitations to the Court becoming the festering mess we have today. Ten years … twenty years … some number that accepts the possibility that we might have made serious errors in the original selections.

Why saddle our republic with a Roberts or a Thomas or an Alito for generations? If we can’t completely stop their grift, let them take their motor homes and the stink of their decisions and ride off into an ignominious sunset. At the very least it would give us a chance to recover between bad apples.

******

Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot
Screenshot

******

Fawn walks past our home
No comprehension of the
pleasure it provides

******

On May first Robin and I joined in a small demonstration of “Workers over oligarchs.” Perfect day for signs and placards except for a sometimes vigorous breeze. At one one a driver pulled over and drove slowly past us shouting angrily: “Fuck You … Fuck You … Fuck You.”

Little he knew the satisfaction that it gave us knowing that our little signs were ruining his afternoon?

******

Took our first hike on the burned-over area at the Black Canyon on Saturday. Perfect day for it. Interesting to be able to see so far ahead, because before the fire the Gambel oaks would have blocked our view. in most places. They were not tall plants, mostly under ten feet high, but quite bushy and leafy.

We brought our lunch with us and enjoyed a picnic at the Pulpit Rock overlook. Most people are familiar with the phrase “getting one’s sea legs,” where a person slowly becomes accustomed to the pitching and rolling of a marine vessel. There is something analogous in hiking, called “trail legs.” In this case it is the irregularity of the trail surfaces, the changing angles and composition of the earth beneath your feet. During the cold weather months most of our walking is on the smoother surfaces of the treadmills at the rec center or the trail systems of the city parks.

******

The Sound of Two Hands Slapping

jono55

Robin was in Durango on Wednesday night, while I hung around Paradise to attend an Indivisible meeting on the Disappeared Ones. The meeting went well and at present I am out on the backyard deck where the overwarm day is cooling off right on schedule. The ongoing violation of constitutional protections is one of the more repellent programs Cluck has put into play. It’s straight KGB stuff, Gestapo stuff. The clay that authoritarians use to mold their citizens into subjects.

I took some time to read more tonight about the courage of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, who kept coming back and asking the question of the brutish government “Where are our children?” They came back even when they were being beaten, tortured, imprisoned, and in some cases becoming los desaparecidos themselves.

Cluck is now breaking the law and disappearing people every day, using the masked thugs of ICE as his henchmen in our own version of the brutish Argentine government of 1977. There is no safety under such a president for any of us. To think otherwise is foolhardy.

******

Mothers of the Disappeared, by U2

******

******

Since Robin was away, that evening I went out to supper alone. At the next table was a family consisting of mom, dad, grandma, and three young children. The adults, as far as I could tell, spent way more time corralling their imps than they did enjoying their food.

It wasn’t that the kids were unusually naughty, it was that their energies couldn’t be contained on a chair. My takeaway from watching this drama was twofold. First, that kids in a restaurant can be amusing to watch if they are not yours. Second, I am grateful that I don’t have any small kids of my own any longer, and thus am able to eat serenely while others lose their cool and their appetites.

I still shudder thinking back to the time when my own kids were in their feral stage and the carpeting under our restaurant table looked like a picnic that had exploded. I’m quite sure that the waiters of that time looked on our arrivals with resignation and our departures with relief.

******

This is the time of year when visiting the Grand Mesa must be done cautiously. Right after the snows have melted up there, the gods turn loose one of the great plagues of mankind. Instead of saying “Release the Kraken,” however, they smile and whisper “Release the mosquitoes.”

The top of the Grand Mesa, billed as the largest flat-topped mountain in the US (or world), is very different from the valley floor. The types of trees and the abundance of lakes make it much like northern Minnesota. And the month of June in that fine state is another place to find all manner of tiny bloodsucking demons whose names start with the words Culex, Anopheles, or Aedes (there are actually 112 genera of mosquitoes).

Twelve years ago when Robin and I were looking for a place in Colorado to settle and were visiting Montrose we used one afternoon to explore the Mesa just a bit. Taking a short hike proved challenging in that we could not stop to breathe once the beasties zeroed in on the carbon dioxide in our outbreaths. Slapping frantically we ran to the safety of our car, slammed the doors shut, and vowed never to go back in early Summer again.

My father used to awe us children when he would allow a mosquito to light on his arm and completely fill itself with blood, turning its abdomen quite red. We could not imagine ourselves doing such a thing, but watching his recurring performances was both horrifying and fascinating.

.

******

One of Us, by Joan Osborne

******

******

Here’s something anyone of my tender years can use to strike awe into kids. They already know that we were born before digital cameras, before computers, even before television moved from the lab into our homes. So reciting those items won’t stun them one bit. But here’s the phrase that will be absolutely incomprehensible to them and will bring them to their knees, slack-jawed and unbelieving:

“I was born before ball-point pens.“

******