April 2005 Archives

(From The Big Ol' Box of New Orleans - Doctors, Professors, Kings & Queens)

1. In New Orleans, the graves are above the ground. And there is a bus line called Cemeteries.

2. Sometimes you can see this: a man, standing on the street called Elysian Fields, between Pleasure and Humanity, selling candied apples.

3. In this town they will batter and deep-fry anything that isn't nailed down. And then they might pour a cream sauce on it.

4. On Ash Wednesday, many of the residents of this very Catholic city go about their daily business with ashes on their foreheads, a reminder that Mardi Gras madness and mayhem has turned overnight into the contemplative season of Lent.

5. When their favorite watier at Galatoire's was fired, a hundred customers wrote in letters of support, explaining why having the same waiter for 25 years was a necessary part of the dining experience, and while Galatoire's was at it, could they get rid of the ice machine and go back to hand-chipping ice for the water glasses? (New Orleans doesn't take change well.)

6. Even after she became one of the most famous authors in the world, Anne Rice had a listed home phone number and offered once-a-week free tours of her house. And engaged in a public battle of satirical newspaper ads with local food legend Al Copeland.

7. Ernie K-Doe once came to a friend's book signing and started signing the books himself.

8. We can stand outside many of the best clubs in town and hear the music, as well as if we were inside, and dance in the street.

9. People will dance with us.

Andrew Sullivan gets it, too:

... [O]ne element of our politics - one that happens to have a veto on Republican social policy - does hold that religion should dictate politics, and that opposition to a certain politics is tantamount to anti-religious bigotry.

They're very candid about that, as we saw last Sunday. As Bill Donahue put it: "The people on the secularist left say we think you're a threat. You know what? They are right."

Very senior Republicans echo the line that there is a filibuster against "people of faith."

This isn't just about gays, although we've felt the sting of the movement more acutely than most.

It's about science, stem cell research, the teaching of evolution, free access to medical prescriptions, the legality of living wills, abortion rights, censorship of cable and network television, and so on.

The Schiavo case woke a lot of people up. I was already an insomniac on these issues. Maybe I'd be more effective a blogger if I pretended that none of this was troubling, or avoided the gay issue and focused on others.

But I'm genuinely troubled by all of it, and by what is happening to the conservative tradition. I'd like to think that a qualified doctor like Bill Frist could say on television that tears cannot transmit HIV. But he could not - because the sectarian base he needs to run for president would not allow it.

I'm sorry but that's nuts.

Note to Andrew: you're late, but that's better than never.

(HT to Armando)

Tuesday, April 19: While out power-walking at lunch, my eyes begin to water.

Wednesday, April 20: Eyes (actually only the right eye) still watery and itchy. Now carrying wads of Kleenex in my pocket. Still walking at lunch.

Thursday, April 21: Skip the walk. Eye still watery. Pass the Kleenex. Call the doctor and set up appointment for Friday morning. Take Benedryl. Sleep like a baby.

Friday, Aprill 22: Doctor gives me a cortisone shot and a prescription for Amoxcel. I also take a Sudafed that night (a mistake). Later, realizing my mistake, I find myself watching Headliners and Legends at 3 am. Bummer.

Saturday, April 23: I wake up with some sinus pain and eyes still watery. Attend Pesach Seder at in-laws, while dabbing eyes with omnipresent Kleenex. Stay late, help clean up. Dry over 40 wine and water glasses, move tables around. Get home, take Benedryl, sleep like baby.

Sunday, April 24: Wake up with sinus pain. Pass on breakfast at in-laws. Later, reach on-call doc who revokes the Amoxcel and prescribes Tequin and Mucinex. Look up Tequin and discover it's what they prescribe these days for gonorrhea. Heh.

Monday, April 25: Wake up feeling OK. Two hours later, at work, my head is on my desk and I am whimpering like a baby. "Please stop the pain. Just cut off my head and be done with it." Go home and put hot towels over my right eye. I feel like I've been hit in the face with a fast ball. No, that's an exaggeration. I feel like I've been stabbed in the face with a knitting needle, where my right eye meets the bridge of my nose.

Put hot towels over entire face. I think of Albert Anastasia, who was shot to death while sitting in a barber chair with hot towels on HIS face. Given how I feel, it would be a blessing.

Call the doctor. He sets up an appointment for the next morning. "We might want you to have a CAT scan." I hang up and call my health insurance provider. "How much will a CAT scan cost me?" The answer is not encouraging.

Tuesday, April 26: I check in at the front desk. "Name and Birthdate?" I tell them. They respond with a smile: "Happy Birthday!" It will be the first of many times I hear that at the clinic today. It's actually the second-best part of the day.

I see the doctor. He's concerned. He sets up an appointment with an ENT specialist for early afternoon. I go home and put hot towels over my eye. Finally, after eating lunch and watching the noon-time episode of The West Wing, I begin to feel a bit better.

Later that afternoon another desk nurse wishes me a happy birthday. The ENT specialist arrives and he looks like he's about 23 years old. I have neckties older than this guy. He shines a flashlight up my nostrils and in my ears.

Just when I think, "Hmmm, not so bad," the bottom drops out.

The nurse arrives, wheeling in a cart holding -- [shudder] -- an endoscope.

My hopes are dashed.

The doctor sprays a liquid up each nostril. "This will kill the pain." But will it kill me, I'm thinking, because right this instant I would rather die than have him slide that thing up my nose. No. No. No. No.

He does it anyway. "You have some accumulated fluid build-up, but not the worst I've seen."

He orders a CAT scan for, like, now. Instantly.

I'm ready for this possibility. "Can I get it tomorrow," I suggest, "because, you know, right this instant, the pain is gone and I'm feeling like I turned a corner." It's the truth. Or maybe it's just the adrenaline talking. I smile encouragingly.

The doctor has thing thing where, while he's talking to me, his eyes are fluttering nearly closed and then when he stops talking he looks at me with his eyes open.

"You know," flutter, flutter, "you might feel good right now," flutter flutter, "but this infection could suddenly get really bad." He pauses and looks at me. "I had a patient who waited too long," flutter flutter, "and when he came in for the CAT scan his eye was bulging out of it's socket." He pauses, looks at me and his eyes are, well, bulging out of their sockets.

I go downstairs to the CAT scan unit. Another chorus of "Happy Birthday!" When I'm done, I wait outside the lab until they tell me they've sent the results upstairs.

In the exam room, the doc and I look at the pictures.

"Not the worst I've seen but still pretty significant." He then writes down all the new medications he is prescribing. Nasal saline spray. Eyedrops. More nasal spray. Skip the Benedryl. "It dries you out. We want the fluid to come out." He prescribes a substitute for the Sudafed. There's more, but I can't remember it all. See the picture (left) -- and THAT isn't even all of it.

The nurse comes in to give me more shots.

"Step away from the window, sugar. We don't anyone to see you when you pull down your shorts." She injects me in the right hip with another cortisone shot; she gets me in the left hip with another anti-biotic. She puts a Tazz band-aid over each spot. "You'll feel those tomorrow." But, you know, I never did. A miracle!

"I want you to please go sit in the waiting room for 20 minutes," says the doctor, "just in case you have an adverse reaction to the shots."

"What symptom am I looking for," I ask.

"You might pass out, feel nauseous, get hives, rapid heartbeat, and so forth."

I don't. Pass out, I mean. Or the other stuff either. I go home, 4 hours after I arrived. Miss Julie is very happy to see me.

The boys are with their grandparents for the evening, so we enjoy my birthday dinner together. We watch a double episode of The West Wing, followed by a double episode of Sex and the City followed by a double episode of The Daily Show. It is finally the best part of the day.

"Well," I say, "I guess this is a birthday I won't soon forget." Miss Julie smiles at me in that way she does. It makes me glad I lived long enough to enjoy this moment. Life is good, given that I've been pumped full of more medications that I've taken in the previous ten years of my life up to this point.

Unfortunately, one of the medications keeps me awake and I find myself, alone at 3 am, watching a double episode of Headliners and Legends. Bummer.

Wednesday, April 27: I go back for a follow-up. The ENT specialist says I look a lot better and the truth is, I feel a lot better. Nonetheless, he vetoes my weekend trip to Detroit to see my daughter in her high school production of Pippin. Wah! I knew it was going to be a problem, but I was hoping I could get there anyway.

I go into work but I leave, mid-afternoon, still feeling a bit tired. No sense in pushing it.

Earlier, the doc told me he wanted to see me again next Monday and strongly urged me to call him if I take a turn for the worse between now and then.

"You know, doc, the earth is going to turn one time on its axis and next year I'm going to get this again. What do I do?"

He smiles. "You'll call me before then and we'll work out a plan."

Fair enough.

Ann Lamott:

...[W]e who believe that a benevolent intelligence animates our lives need to live by Jesus' command: to try to stop killing other human beings, just for today, and to act upon a total commitment to the poor, to the old and to the Earth.

Watch, God said, and I don't think he meant cable news. I could be wrong. But what I think he meant was, "Watch for the warning signs of God's presence so you can remember what he said to do -- bring food to those who hunger, bring water to those who thirst, and help through love and showing up to turn despair into hope, swords into plowshares."

Anne Lamott:

The truth is that many of us left-wing Christians with fragile nerves and bad attitudes are becoming ever so slightly tense about the distinct possibility that this country we love is becoming, under the Bush administration, a theocracy.

Those of us with public lives are constantly asked, "Don't you think the radical right has appropriated God, and if so, what is your response to that?"

My answer to the first question is no. No one can appropriate God, goodness, the Bible or Jesus. It just seems that way.

The people currently in charge of this country have so spiritualized their hysteria that their antics make for much better news coverage than the rest of us.

Terri Schiavo ("Has America begun murdering its handicapped?" they thunder, and we say meekly, "Well, um, no").

"Lord of the Flies" rallies against gay marriage.

Pro-life violence.

And -- my personal favorite -- the frenzied opposition to stem cell research, based on the right's conviction that it is an atrocity to save actual human lives by creating new stem cell lines using frozen embryos slated to be thrown out after couples undergoing IVF conceive or give up.

If you think only Red-state, right-wing fundamentalists can rightfully claim to be people of faith, or if you think Christianity is for people with a weak and shallow mind, read Travelling Mercies...

...and remember: God isn't on our side. We should only be so lucky as to be on God's side instead.

From the Washington Post:

The number of serious international terrorist incidents more than tripled last year, according to U.S. government figures, a sharp upswing in deadly attacks that the State Department has decided not to make public in its annual report on terrorism due to Congress this week.

Thank God none of those terrorist attacks occurred here. Yet.

But the nagging questions remain: when will it finally hit us? And what is the Administration doing about it, other than telling us "so far so good?"

We've lost upwards of 10 thousand casualties in blood and $200-$300 billion in treasure fighting the "war on terror." And in all that time, terrorism has gotten worse world-wide. Much, much, much worse.

Clearly, the State Department is willing to hide the truth from the majority of the American people, who still give the President high marks for performance on this issue.

How long before the majority of people catch on?

Frank Rich writes about the "Justice Sunday" mob. Go ahead and read what he wrote -- it's pretty good.

That said, I don't want to get distracted by a discussion about religion. Personally, I think that is off-point. I refuse to accept the frame.

This battle is most certainly NOT about religion. This is about the Constitution and whether we, as a people, will continue to pledge our allegiance to it.

In short, you are either for the Constitution or you are against it.

Here's the thing: the President of the United States, when he takes the oath of office, is sworn to uphold the Constitution, not the Bible, not God's teaching, not the Ten Commandments, not Mosaic law. If he breaks that oath he can be impeached.

On the other hand, if commits enough sins, I suppose he'll go to hell. But that's between him and his God. Here on earth, in our system of self-governance, we agreed a long time ago that we would govern ourselves using the Constitution as the ultimate arbiter of what is right or wrong. We are the first government to do so explicity -- we, the people, grant the government certain powers as set forth in the Constitution. Everything else is ours, as people here on Earth.

The radical conservative Republicans want this to be about religion because they know that, by doing so, they can get a lot of votes.

But the fact is, our nation's foundation rests on the bedrock of Constitutional doctrine -- not Biblical doctrine, not the Ten Commandments, not the New Testament. We are a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Not for Jesus, not for the Pope, not for Krishna, nor Allah, nor even God. In fact, God is mentioned not once in the Constitution. If we accept an ultimate authority for self-governance that goes beyond the Constitution, then we, as a nation are lost. My God will be invoked as being more powerful than your God. It will be the Crusades all over again.

But what about Jefferson's words in the Declaration? "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Jefferson uses the broadest possible term to refer to Deity for a reason -- he understood that by mentioning Jesus or Mary or Krishna or Zeus or God would be exclusionary. But more importantly, he puts Man at the center of the Declaration and acknowledges (as "self-evident") the bedrock principle that no one on Earth has the right to deny us what we are born with: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

As soon as we surrender the Constitution to a higher authority, as soon as we accept some higher authority in our self-governance, the moment we pledge ultimate allegiance to the church or the synagogue or the mosque or the temple, and not the Constitution of the United States of America, in that moment we will lose the essential liberties and freedoms that this country was born to protect.

Great excerpt from the upcoming book.

Barry Ritholtz has a great blog: The Big Picture. He describes it as "Macro perspectives on the capital markets, economy, geopolitics (with a dash of tech, film & music)."

How can you not like that?

One of his better posts is called Understanding The “Kitchen Sink Economy”:

The post-crash era [after the tech bubble burst] saw massive government stimulus: Personal income taxes were cut, deficit spending soared, interest rates were dropped to half century lows, money supply increased dramatically, two wars were prosecuted, corporate dividend taxes were slashed, capital gains taxes were cut, capital expenditures were granted a special accelerated depreciation. Massive stimulus from the government included “everything but the kitchen sink.”

Now, that stimulus is fading. The most vibrant sector of the economy – the real estate complex – is slowing. Increased energy costs are a drag on the global economy. Interest Rates and taxes have been going higher. Earnings momentum, as measured on a year-over-year basis, has been slowing for 5 quarters. Hiring remains anemic, CapEx is unimpressive, LEI are softening, GDP is fading.

The market has begun recognizing that the first post-bubble expansion was premature. It has failed to develop organic momentum of its own. Without further stimulus, this cycle will more likely than not end over the next 2 or 3 quarters.

He also has a great post on The Greatest American Rock and Roll Bands.

I blogrolled him. Check him out.

P.S. Even if you don't read him, tell me: who are the greatest American R & R bands? These have to be bands, not backups to a solo act and they have to be American and they have to play Rock and Roll.

Who? Tell me.

(HT to The Cunning Realist, another great read)

Long post here, musing about my impending 52nd birthday (Tuesday, April 26, and yes, you can find my wish list here. I'm just saying.)

Via Ezra I happened to read a great article from John Powers wherein he suggests that the recent deaths of so many greats from the 20th century (Susan Sontag, Johnny Carson, Arthur Miller, Hunter Thompson, George Kennan, Saul Bellow, Phillip Johnson, Pope John Paul II, etc.) might lead one to subscribe to what he calls Declinism, i.e., the belief that our best days are past.

He chides David Brooks:

Where Bellow’s work was a pas de deux between Europe and America, Brooks argued, we’re now “living in a unipolar culture, and it’s lonely at the top.” (Spoken like a true neoconservative.)

This claim might be more persuasive if Brooks hadn’t identified himself as one of those “who don’t pay attention to what is being written and said in Europe because it doesn’t seem that exciting. (Quick, what book is the talk of Berlin? Who is the Francois Truffaut of our moment?)”

What Brooks seems not to realize is that world culture hasn’t stood still over the two decades since he graduated from the University of Chicago. Only his thinking about it has.

Contemporary American culture seems unipolar only if you aren’t paying attention. These days Berliners are talking about Orham Pamuk’s novel Snow — a labyrinthine look at the pressures of Islamic fundamentalism — while our moment’s Truffaut (since you ask) comes with names like Wong Kar-Wai, Alfonso Cuarón, Satoshi Kon and Jafar Panahi. You won’t hear them bemoaning decline.

All well and good. I'm old enough to fall into that trap: there is more of my life behind me than there is in front of me.

But I refuse to be one of those old farts.

I always believed that I would grow up to live in the future. I believed it the same way others believed they would grow up and own a fancy house, or a flashy car or have lots of money. I'm always looking for new ideas, new people, new landscapes. Who I am is shaped (but not limited) by where I came from. I value the past but I want to live in the future.

One side-effect of having come this far is that everything I experience does remind me of something else, but so what? That just means I have more perspective (if not more wisdom).

I still look forward to every new day. Like Frankie Valli says, "I thank God I'm alive."

Tom DeLay on Justice Kennedy:

"We've got Justice Kennedy writing decisions based upon international law, not the Constitution of the United States? That's just outrageous," DeLay told Fox News Radio. "And not only that, but he said in session that he does his own research on the Internet? That is just incredibly outrageous."

Look, no sense in debating this kind of talk. Instead, do something about it:

Come 2006, if you want DeLay to continue in power, vote for the Republican Congressional candidate in your district.

If you think DeLay should be removed from power, vote for the Democratic Congressional candidate in your district.

Bottom line: a vote for ANY Republican Congressional candidate is a vote for DeLay. Period.

Josh Marshall on where Democrats need to go from here:

We hear a lot today about [Democrats using] framing or being tougher or being united or dumping the failed consultants.

But while each of these prescriptions has some element of merit, each also recapitulates the existing problem ... because each mistakes the disease for the cure.

When it comes to strategy and tactics, the current Democratic party is like a drunk in the early stages of recovery or a man or woman who keeps ending up in the same bad relationship again and again with different people.

For folks like that, strong medicine is required. Indeed, they usually require steps, correctives, lists of dos-and-don'ts more drastic than anybody would ever need who didn't have a problem.

Today we hear Democrats asking whether they should take a hard line on Social Security or a soft line, stand in opposition or come up with a contending plan. Here's what I propose whenever Democrats have a question about just what stance to take on the Social Security debate.

One question ...

What is the actual policy outcome that would be most preferable on Social Security (to protect, preserve or augment it -- whatever) and how important is it that it take place in this Congress?

That's the first, second and third question.

That answer should drive everything else.

I'm reminded of what Gov. Schweitzer said in a Salon interview:

Does personal authenticity trump everything else in the minds of voters?

Look, I started this out by saying that Democrats can win if they lead with their hearts. Let people feel you! Don't try to verbalize. Let them feel you first. [...]

If I'm for something, you're gonna know it pretty quick. And if I'm agin it, you're gonna know it too. I'm straight about those things.

Some people can't do that. Maybe they've had a lot of time in politics, or they're lawyers, or it's just their makeup. And they have all these highfalutin pollsters and media people, and they say, "Well, there's this demographic that kind of bleeds into this demographic, and you don't want to lose these over here because you were on this." I don't believe any of it.

I think most people will support you if they know that you'll stand your ground.

Even if they don't stand on the same ground?

That's right.

Here's the thing: people want to believe that YOU believe in something. You believe in it strongly enough to fight for it.

But can't any wacko do that?

Just tell 'em what you are. [...]

[D]o you believe in something? Did you have something when you started? If you do, tell 'em what it is. You'll be all right. If you're a kook, you're not going to get elected.

But if you're real, you're normal, you're halfway bright, and you're willing to stand up -- that's the most important thing.

Josh calls it "avoiding too-smart-by-half-ism."

When in doubt, lead with your heart. It's what we humans do best.

P.S. I couldn't resist this last excerpt from the Democratic Governor of Red Montana:

"You know who the most successful Democrats have been through history?" he asks. "Democrats who've led with their hearts, not their heads. Harry Truman, he led with his heart. Jack Kennedy led with his heart. Bill Clinton, well, he led with his heart, but it dropped about 2 feet lower in his anatomy later on.

"We are the folks who represent the families. Talk like you care. Act like you care. When you're talking about issues that touch families, it's OK to make it look like you care. It's OK to have policies that demonstrate that you'll make their lives better -- and talk about it in a way that they understand. Too many Democrats -- the policy's just fine, but they can't talk about it in a way that anybody else understands."

Ezra Klein, on the Bankruptcy bill:

Most of us already knew that about half of bankruptcies are precipitated by crushing medical emergency, though I'd no idea such innocuous and understandable trials as job loss and divorce made up for the rest. But isn't it weird that the answer to bankruptcy from medical bills and job loss was to make it, well, harder to declare bankruptcy?

If the Bush administration had wanted to end bankruptcies, they could have offered federal reinsurance for catastrophic medical costs. You would've ended half the bankruptcies right there. If they'd wanted to do more, they could have instituted better unemployment insurance and transitional services and shrunk the crowd of spurned creditors to negligible numbers. But they didn't. When given the choice of achieving X (where X is reducing the costs of bankruptcies) through helping Americans or helping industry at the expense of Americans, they chose the latter.

I am so tired of ranting about the Bush administration's outrages. We lost the election -- what did we expect was going to happen? They're wankers and worse.

I'd rather help focus on what the Democrats stand for. Klein focuses on that in the second paragraph above.

More importantly, he contrasts the difference between what regular Americans value and what this government represents.

The difference is shocking and should be talked about every day.

Rabbi David Saperstein, Director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, issued the following statement:

The news that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist plans to join a telecast whose organizing theme is that those who oppose some of President Bush’s judicial nominees are engaged in an assault on “people of faith” is more than troubling; it is disingenuous, dangerous, and demagogic. We call on him to reconsider his decision to appear on the telecast and to forcefully disassociate himself from this outrageous claim.

Senator Frist must not give legitimacy to those who claim they hold a monopoly on faith. They do not. They assert, in the words of Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, that there is a vast conspiracy by the courts “to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms.” There is no such conspiracy. They have been unable to ram through the most extreme of the President’s nominees, and now they are spinning new claims out of thin air.

Alas, this is not an isolated incident. This past week, the Christian Coalition convened a conference in Washington entitled, "Confronting the Judicial War on Faith." Their special guest speaker was the House Majority Leader, Rep. Tom Delay. When leaders of the Republican Party lend their imprimatur to such outrageous claims, including, at the conference, calls for mass impeachment of Federal Judges, it should be of deep concern to all who care about religion. It should also be of concern to President Bush whose silence, in the wake of the claims made both at the conference in Washington and in the upcoming telecast, is alarming.

The telecast is scheduled to take place on the second night of the Passover holiday, when Jews around the world gather together to celebrate our religious freedom. It was in part for exactly such freedom that we fled Egypt. It was in part for exactly such freedom that so many of us came to this great land. And it is in very large part because of exactly such freedom that we and our neighbors here have built a nation uniquely welcoming to people of faith – of all faiths.

We believe Senator Frist knows these things as well. His association with the scheduled telecast is, in a word, shameful.

We call upon to him to disassociate himself from the claim that the Senate is participating in a filibuster against faith, and to withdraw his participation from the April 24th event.

This is a country founded on a Christian heritage. For the Republican majority to claim that Christians are being persecuted is indeed "disingenuous, dangerous, and demagogic."

Why doesn't POTUS speak out against this? Is it because he is weak and scared of the evangelicals in his base? Or is it because he agrees with them?

The Anti-Defamation League has also spoken out against Frist too.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has issued a statement against Frist as well.

On the second night of Passover? Not good.

I thought evangelical Christians were the Jews' best friend. I'm reassessing that now.

From Bill Maher:

More and more American pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control because of their personal moral objections. Hey, you know what would really teach us a lesson? If you took off your pretend doctor jacket and got another job.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe cutting off the pill doesn't even go far enough. Yeah, it's high time activist drugstores stopped coddling sluts on every aisle. Let's not sell any more makeup either---a good woman doesn't paint herself. And no more deodorant---you should smell bad, keep the boys from getting ideas. And no suntan lotion---I've seen what happens at the MTV Beach House, you whore. You want to avoid melanoma, buy a veil.

[snip]

In conclusion, let me say to all the activist pharmacists out there---the ones who think sex is bad probably because sex with them always is---fellas, a pharmacist is not a law-giver, not even a doctor. In the medical pecking order, you rank somewhere in between a chiropractor and a tree surgeon. You don't answer to a law above the laws of men. You work for Sav-On.

Yeah.

And no cigarettes or condoms either.

(HT to Bill in Portland Maine)

Reading the drift of the comments here, I feel compelled to link to a brief summary of the case Marbury vs. Madison. So go read it if you must. It's short and sweet.

Now...Wince:

Earlier in the other comment-thread you said, "Supreme Court Justices have a tendancy to think that the Constitution means whatever they say it means. That's overstepping their bounds and it is tyranny."

I think you are looking at this in a shallow way. The entire fabric of our judicial system is rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethic of making difficult judgements based on ambiguous fine points of law. A judge, being only human, listens to both sides, considering the pro's and con's of the opposing arguments and then decides what wins and what loses. It's a "judgement call" in the truest, most profound sense.

And long ago, we the people agreed to invest a selected group of our peers with that authority and with that responsibility.

You can always appeal. But the appeals have to stop somewhere here on Earth. And that is why the Supreme Court is called the highest court. Gosh! even the name is a tipoff.

Some would say God's Law is most high. Perhaps it is, as defined (for example) in the Bible. But we are not a nation that is governed by the church or the temple. Even if we were, all you have to do is look at the Talmud to understand that there is always more than one opinion about everything.

No, we are not a government ruled by the church. We are a government of the people, for the people and by the people. We follow a document that WE wrote.

Some would hope that God guided us in that ongoing endeavor. But if that is the case, it is also certainly true that God helps those who helps themselves.

It's hard to make your way through the difficult questions Wince, I know. But we all agreed, long ago, that this was a job for the people to do. We don't wait for God to judge these difficult cases for us.

Unfortunately we all think we know best. I know better than you, and vice versa. And don't get me started about the lawyers. But in order for there to be progress, we have to have a system of laws and someone needs to judge who is right and who is wrong. Preferably someone here on Earth.

Unfortunately, we're only human. We're all fallible, especially Supreme Court Justices. Maybe that's why they begin each session with a prayer for guidance. They need all the help they can get. Goodness -- it isn't just enough to read the text of the Constitution; you have to be ready to listen to people debate what it means. That alone is a huge job, given that everybody has an opinion and by the time it reaches the Supremes, you've got some high-powered legal minds leaning on you. But if that weren't enough, when the debate is over, you still have to decide who the winners are and who the losers are.

Once you've spoken, it's over.

Sorry. Would that it was more simple, but that's how it goes.

So it takes a special person to do this. It isn't something that you or I can do, unless you or I were to be vested in robes of ultimate, infinite authority and infallibility. But that isn't what this nation is all about.

We're a nation of people who have our own ideas and opinions about what's best for all of us. And we have an earthly mission to work it out in a reasoned way. That's why our government has three branches and that's why each one is checked and balanced against the others.

It's a big job being a Supreme Court judge (there's that word again). And before someone is qualified to judge the law as measured against the Constitution, they must attain a lifetime full of experience. They must show evidence of excellence. Yeah, there have been some real losers on the bench. But that's the occasional price we pay to live in the best nation God ever put on the Earth.

I'd say it was worth it, Wince. Wouldn't you?

Sorry this was so long. I didn't have time to make it shorter.

Frank Rich:

It takes planning to produce a classic chapter in television history.

"We've rehearsed," Thom Bird, a Fox News producer, bragged to Variety before Pope John Paul II died. "We will pull out all the stops on this story. [...]

The network was pulling out all the stops to give the audience what it craved: a fresh, heaping serving of death. [Shepard] Smith had a point when he later noted that "the exact time of [the Pope's] death, I think, is not something that matters so much at this moment." Certainly not to a public clamoring for him to bring it on. [...]

Mortality - the more graphic, the merrier - is the biggest thing going in America. Between Terri Schiavo and the pope, we've feasted on decomposing bodies for almost a solid month now. [...]

"When those leaders, led by the Bush brothers, wallow in this culture, they do a bait-and-switch and claim to be upholding John Paul's vision of a "culture of life." This has to be one of the biggest shams of all time.

Yes, these politicians oppose abortion, but the number of abortions has in fact been going down steadily in America under both Republican and Democratic presidents since 1990 - some 40 percent in all.

The same cannot be said of American infant fatalities, AIDS cases and war casualties - all up in the George W. Bush years. Meanwhile, potentially lifesaving phenomena like condom-conscious sex education and federally run stem-cell research are in shackles.

This agenda is synergistic with the entertainment culture of Mr. Bush's base: No one does the culture of death with more of a vengeance - literally so - than the doomsday right. The "Left Behind" novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins all but pant for the bloody demise of nonbelievers at Armageddon.

And now, as Eric J. Greenberg has reported in The Forward, there's even a children's auxiliary: a 40-title series, "Left Behind: The Kids," that warns Jewish children of the hell that awaits them if they don't convert before it's too late. Eleven million copies have been sold on top of the original series' 60 million.

Rich goes on to observe that Mel Gibson released (this past Easter) a more modest version of his movie called (I kid you not) The Passion Recut. It flopped.

Apparently, people wanted the gory details.

If there's one lesson to take away from the saturation coverage of the pope, it is how relatively enlightened he was compared with the men in business suits ruling Washington. Our leaders are not only to the right of most Americans (at least three-quarters of whom opposed Congressional intervention in the Schiavo case) but even to the right of most American evangelical Christians (most of whom favored the removal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube, according to Time magazine). They are also, like Mel Gibson and the fiery nun of "Revelations," to the right of the largely conservative pontiff they say they revere. This is true not only on such issues as the war in Iraq and the death penalty but also on the core belief of how life began. Though the president of the United States believes that the jury is still out on evolution, John Paul in 1996 officially declared that "fresh knowledge leads to recognition of the theory of evolution as more than just a hypothesis."

We don't know the identity of the corpse that will follow the pope in riveting the nation's attention. What we do know is that the reality show we've made of death has jumped the shark, turning from a soporific television diversion into the cultural embodiment of the apocalyptic right's growing theocratic crusade.

You know, if this country is going to be competitive in the world marketplace at all in this century, we're going to have to do a lot better job in educating our kids. And by that I mean get back to fundamentals -- math, science (real science, not that crap about creationism), engineering, etc.

Problem is, the craze for tax-cutting and shrinking government at the Federal level has created some massive pressures at the state level. Education budgets are being slashed, for one, and people are pissed.

Look at the case of Mitch Daniels, Bush's former Budget Director and newly elected governor of Indiana. Once upon a time, he was the point man for "all tax-cuts, all the time."

Now the shoe is on the other foot -- he is constitutionally bound to balance the state's budget and he has called for an increase in state taxes while drastically reducing the education budget:

Parents, teachers, and students packed the Indiana Statehouse Wednesday to sound off. They filled the rotunda, stairwells and balconies to protest proposed cuts to education.

Melanie Wright is an educator. "I am furious. We are a small school corporation. We have already lost our Title One money this year. Now we are losing dollars next year and for the following year."

Megan Cahill is a volunteer in the Indianapolis Public School System."We have already a 73 percent dropout rate and I can't even imagine what is going to happen if this money is cut from our budget." [...]

State budget proposals include little increases for education. School administrators believe it will cost almost 6,000 teachers their jobs over the next two years.

Daniels reward? Grover Norquist hates his guts for raising taxes.

And Indiana isn't isolated case: Utah, Ohio, Alabama, and Arkansas are going through the same upheaval.

Grow up, Republicans -- I know no one ever lost an election running on tax-cuts, but you're betraying our children and leaving us no way to compete against the rest of the world for generations to come.

(HT to kos)

If you did not see last night's episode, not to worry: no spoilers here.

I did want to share a couple of quotes I found about how the viewing audience has (perhaps) changed in the years since the show debuted in 1999. Let Gloria Goodale of the Seattle Times tell it:

So I send this pic to Miss Julie....(I'm like, "AWWWWwwwwww!")

...and she emails me back and says, "Dude, do you serve them over rice, or what?"

So I'm like, "No, dude! You can eat them plain...."

This one's for you, Big Dan.