Posts Tagged ‘SCOTUS’
A Struggle
Reconciling the precious and serene beauty of our little sanctuary property with the unsettling reports of the US Supreme Court decisions and White House announcements of a threatening nature is simply crazy-making. Even as I attempt to limit my exposure to the awful news of the calculated steps to erode our Constitutional guarantees, the reports get mixed in with popular culture.
My email inbox receives a constant flow of sensational clickbait subject lines that do nothing to alter the slide towards destroying our democracy. It all feels like, “Republicans Hate This One Trick That Will Stop T@#mp!” Yeah, me pledging $5 a month to “the cause.” That’s the trick they are alluding to. That’ll stop him!
Yet, life at Wintervale is as embarrassingly pleasant as ever. Cyndie and I are both retired and can pick and choose whatever we want to do each day. As caretakers of the fabulous property and the animals residing with us, we put care for both as a top priority. When that is under control, we get to put our energy toward each of our creative art hobbies.
Cyndie is currently taking a class on watercolor painting. I am sanding wood into enticing, silky smooth shapes. Asher is settling into a sweet companion with a much-reduced urge to run off without us. The horses are a dream to feed now that we have switched their offering to processed “Senior” nutrition for the morning and afternoon servings.
Cyndie got the deck sealed yesterday. I filled a couple more cracks I found in the driveway.
My brain struggles to process the great goodness we are able to enjoy while the government of this country is behaving in both petty and important ways towards destroying our rights and anyone it deems unfavorable.
If there is any possibility of confusion about my opinion on the subject, let me emphatically state that I OBJECT to everything and anything being said or done by the current administration, its advisors, and its puppet majority in the Supreme Court.
I wish to be included on any lists of enemies the government is compiling. If you succeed in taking away our rights of free speech, please arrest me without delay. My hunger strike will commence soon after.
To citizens of the rest of the world, I offer an apology for whatever ways my country has done you wrong, past or present. I’m sorry that the country that fought to stop the fascist Nazi regime has inexplicably flipped and is now acting in the very same manner as what we previously rejected.
Reconciling this is nothing but a struggle for my little brain. I try to avoid beating on this zombie of a subject, but it builds up sometimes to a level that I need to release. Also, I never want my silence on the topic to get misconstrued as acceptance.
If I somehow avoid incarceration for my objections to this administration, be assured I will sign up for the underground resistance to support whatever alliance forms to free the world from a new version of autocratic fascism led by a grifting narcissistic racist xenophobic misogynistic homophobic convicted rapist pedophile.
Such a struggle.
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Self Soothing
There are days when Cyndie and I put our energy toward helping our dog, Asher, learn to calm down on his own. Yesterday felt like a day I needed to practice a good dose of my own self-soothing. Between the US Supreme Court rulings and news of current early-season hurricanes, I put myself through unnecessary trauma by watching the US Men’s National Soccer Team’s futility in their crucial elimination loss to Uruguay in the COPA America tournament.
These are not the kind of warm and fuzzy inspirations that one prefers to be basking in while on a vacation at the lake.
If I wasn’t trying to eat healthy as a general rule, I’d binge on a too-large serving of our favorite ice cream from West’s Dairy in town to assuage my angst.
Has there been any encouraging news related to the SCOTUS in the recent past? From ethics disasters to blatantly political rulings that defy legal logic, it’s as if they are in a contest to see how much faith in the institution from average citizens they can destroy.
I’m not sure how much more news from the nine Supreme Court Justices I can take and still maintain my happy lookout on life.
I’d like to meditate on the beauty of a golden sunset but then I start thinking about Hurricane Beryl being the earliest category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record and my happy place gets blown away.
Breathe, John. You don’t need any ice cream.
The wind screaming across our lake yesterday didn’t help much in providing a calm and soothing atmosphere. Still, Cyndie and I got out for a walk around the properties in our association which soothed my nerves some after having watched Portugal eke out a victory over Slovenia on penalties after finishing extra time tied 0-0 in Euro 2024.
My exercises in self-soothing will get a fresh workout this morning after I watch the 4th Stage of the Tour de France which is already climbing mountains in the Alps. Oh boy.
Oooooommmmm.
For the record, I much prefer the stress of spectator sports over that of politics or climate catastrophes.
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Slowly Advancing
I love slow-motion replays. When I was little, I wanted so badly to be able to perform an athletic maneuver in slow motion while playing football in the yard. The closest we ever came was playing in the winter in deep snow surrounded by the padded insulating layers of our snow pants and jackets. We didn’t fall any slower but the landings were softer. It was easier to pretend we were moving in slow motion.
Watching radar images of advancing thunderstorms is a different version of slow motion. We can see it coming, but can’t do anything about the ultimate timing of arrival. It’ll get here when it gets here… if it doesn’t use up all the energy before then. My favorite MPR weather blog pointed out a whopping 86°F dew point in Iowa yesterday afternoon that combined with a 90°F temperature to create a heat index temperature of 121°!
That seems like the kind of extreme heat that could cook up some impressively stormy weather.
Yesterday morning at our place felt rather otherworldy. We walked out into a landscape that looked like we no longer had any neighbors. Our high dew point temperature was making it feel remarkably tropical. There were so many droplets falling from the tree leaves it sounded like it was raining in the woods. A thick fog was obscuring the view of anything beyond our property lines.
Days like this strain my senses to reconcile how dramatically different it is here during the frozen desolation of winter. I don’t tend to think about the changes between those two extremes as happening in slow motion, but obviously, the transition takes months.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about another thing changing in slow motion. It came to my attention via some television programs that included scenes of life in Europe in the 1930s and the early episodes of fascist intimidation. It is hard for me to imagine what that was like in light of the knowledge of where it led and the ultimate atrocities that transpired. It makes me want to shout at those people in history to not let it happen.
It causes me similar discomfort to witness rhetoric and animosities happening in the present day that has an eery similarity to 1930s Europe. There are moments when I experience the uncomfortable sense that I am living during the beginnings of a slow-motion transition away from democracy and acceptance toward an intolerant and authoritarian political philosophy.
The politicization of the US Supreme Court feels so wrong and shows no signs of reversing course. The long game being played by those who sought to reverse the law allowing women to choose to have an abortion by electing a president who would appoint judges to achieve their goals is very much a version of slow motion.
It disturbs me to witness the slow-motion trends happening in the present given the outcomes of authoritarian intolerance that played out multiple times throughout the world in the past.
It’s a jarring contrast to the innocence of my dreams of slow-motion leaping and diving in real-time when I was a kid.
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Relative Something 