Unclean! Unclean!

Here's something I never thought I'd say: I find myself agreeing with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas about something.

>>>cough<<< >>>choke<<< >>>gasp<<< >>>wheeze<<<

He wrote the dissent in the Court's recently published decision allowing people convicted of a crime overseas to own a gun in the good ol' US of A.

The vote was 5 to 3 . . . Chief Justice Rehnquist was receiving chemo back in November, when arguments in this case were heard, and did not participate in the decision. Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the majority decision. Joined by Justices Stevens, O'Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg, he said that a US law prohibiting felons convicted in "ANY court" (emphasis added) from owning guns applies to domestic crimes only. The majority thought that since protections for defendants are fewer and less effective overseas than they are in our own court system, it would be unfair to hold that against them here.

If Congress wanted the law to apply to foreign convictions, too, it should rewrite the law to say so, Justice Breyer concluded.

Justice Thomas, rightly in my opinion (and majorly shocking to me to admit that), said "any" means "any," which includes foreign courts. If Congress had meant for foreign courts to be exlcuded, it would have said "any domestic courts" (emphasis added). His exegesis of the statute's language certainly is less tortured--and less tortuous--than the majority's, and therefore preferrable to it. [It's rulings such as the majority's in this case that fuel the fires of complaint about "activist" judges. Why do we have to give the neocons ammunition? They shoot anyway. Making it easier for them to make their case is just plain stupid!--Ed.]

God help me, but he's right on this one!

The humor/irony/weirdness of the ruling in this case comes from this: the majority, with the exception of Justice O'Connor (who hails from Arizona, where bars have signs outside saying "Check your weapons at the door"), normally would be expected to limit gun possession wherever possible. The dissenters, on the other hand, usually prefer to felicitate access to guns, given their interpretation of the Second Amendment. The respective opinions in this case ensure the opposite real world outcome of the various justices' previously-acknowledged stances on gun control.

To further the humor/irony/weirdness, the felon in question answered "no" to the question whether he'd ever been convicted of a felony on the federal form he had to fill out to get his guns in the US. At the time he filled out the form, he'd just been released on parole from prison in Japan, where he'd--get this!--done time for violating Japanese gun laws.

Should anyone with so little respect for law anywhere have any access to guns? I would hope not! The alternative makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

While the Supremes' majority decision in this case overturns our felon's conviction for possession of the guns, I do not know whether it had any effect on his conviction for lying on the form. The news reports once again were woefully inadequate. >>>sigh<<<

Sp the real world fallout from this case, while alarming, has yet to be fully felt. Nevertheless, it already makes me think of Cornwallis's army band playing "The World Turned Upside Down" at Yorktown. Or REM's "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." Except I don't feel fine. I feel as though I've fallen through Alice's looking glass into a wonderland where the Mad Hatter is named Breyer.

Existential Blues

Thus beginneth the great experiment. I prefer to have my thoughts in some semblance of order before posting, but at the moment, I have a lot of apparently unrelated things eating at me, so . . . here goes a probably lame attempt at stream of consciousness.

The deaths of Pope John Paul II and Terri Schiavo, and my own saga of debilitating health problems, have got me thinking about "The Nature of Life." I frequently wonder why our drive to survive is as strong as it is, given the general crap up with which we must put on a daily basis. In my own case, I think it's because I was a cat in a former life. Thus I cannot abide by not knowing how everything turns out. (Or one of my professors was right: I am a born historian.)

In my own case, when I am feeling the weight of the world, I surprise myself by the depth of my desire to survive. After all, I have been betrayed by my (now former) spouse, my (now former) employer, members of my family, some "friends," indeed, by my own body. It would be easier to just let go, it seems to me . . . but I am fiercely, viscerally, determined to go on.

Maybe I am just a glutton for punishment. Maybe I am just cussedly stubborn. Maybe I just have a good dose of that ultimate mystery of life: the will to survive. I just wish I knew whence it came.

***

I must confess to having had the peckish thought that the new pope should have adopted the name George Richard (i.e., Ringo).

***

I will lament the lament of Cubs fans everywhere: why the heck is it that the more things seem to change, the more they stay the same? I watched the debacle against the Cardinals yesterday, wherein Dusty Baker put in the pitcher Mike Remlinger against a Cardinals hitter with a lifetime .444 average against him, and of course he hit a home run that broke open what had been a 1-0 tight pitching duel in the bottom of the 8th inning, sparking the Cardinals to win 4-0.

Ugly.

And mystifying. What the heck was Dusty thinking? WAS Dusty thinking?

I apologize for not stating the Cardinals' hitter's name. At the moment, I cannot remember if it was Todd or Larry Walker, or someone else entirely.

Anyway, the Cubs are only 8-8, they are losing to the teams they have to beat if they want to make the playoffs, and the major causes are what they always are: bad managerial decisions, a weak bullpen, and spotty hitting in the clutch.

BTW, I have to crow a bit about calling Nomar Garciaparra's injury correctly in the precedding game about 5 minutes before any of the TV crew broadcasting the game did. They kept saying it was a hamstring, but I could see what parts of his anatomy he was clutching, and I knew it was a groin muscle tear.

I shouda been a sportscaster. Alas for me, I was born about 4 years too early for that to have been a viable career option for me to have pursued. Just my luck. I was born too early to get a posting to the Air Force Academy out of high school; I was born too early to have taken advantage of many of the modern improvements in dental hygene and care; I was born just late enough to take advantage of advances in medical technology--not late enough to be cured, mind you, but late enough to be kept alive with a debilitating and ultimately fatal pulmonary condition.

My dad always used to say if it weren't for bad luck, he wouldn't have had any luck at all. I seem to be in the same boat.

***

But I don't want this to sound like a pity party. I believe firmly in making lemonade when presented with lemons. I should open a stand. I could make a lot of money! (I have a lot of lemons!)

***

One of the great sadnesses of my life is that almost no one seems to get the strong irony in most of my humor. For even being aware of that, I cannot stop myself. The irony flows from me in rivers, in torrents.

Must be the Irish in my genes. I just saw a lovely epitaph: there were a lot of dry eyes at the moneylender's funeral.

***

One of my other most favorite Irishisms is this: every Irishman (and woman) is born with an abiding sense of tragedy which sustains him (and her) through temporary periods of joy.

***

Isn't it odd how doing something one enjoys, even when one is not looking forward to that particular instance of doing that thing, elevates one's mood? Ferinstance: I have been mulling for weeks over a lot of what I am saying right now, knowing I needed to post it for my own peace of mind, and yet dreading the process for some reason. But now that I am in the midst of it, my mood has brightened considerably.

***
I haven't posted anything about the cats in a while. It's past time I should. There is a tom cat in the neighborhood, about 3/4 grown, who is a lovely slim thing: he's primarily white, but in all the places where Siamese would have points, he is orange tabby--a pale, Creamsicle color. He seems to be well-cared for, though I question the wisdom of anyone who will let a housecat roam around outside. My kids are 100% indoor beings. Not that they always agree with that, but I do enforce it.

Anyway, I have some ground level windows, and I have seen this neighborhood tom sitting outside them, communing with my cats, which are sitting inside them.

Well, Lucy is communing. Linus seems ready to pound the little beggar.

Getting to watch this from outside the other morning was vastly entertaining. Linus' general posture was one of hunkered down hostility. I have now taken to calling him "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Doofus."

Lucy is more inscrutible. I cannot discern whether she is flirting with the tom or is luring him into a false sense of security so that she can pound him, too. My kids understand that the yard is their territory, even if I do not let them out into it.

***

I am suddenly drained of all punditry. I have not spoken recently of Washington politics because I am at the point of overload/crash and burn. I am thrilled, for example, that I got to watch the official dedication and opening of the new Lincoln Museum and Library in Springfield, Illinois this past week (C-Span, what would we do without you?)--but I found myself so distressed at some of Dubya's remarks trying to spin Lincoln into a fan of his that I had to turn off the sound.

I maintain that as a matter of principle, if Lincoln were alive today, he would NOT be a member of the GOP.

George Orwell must be laughing his head off somewhere (if he's not crying). He got the year wrong, but the heart of what he predicted in "1984" has most definitely come to pass.

Dubya has been tooting his own horn for his Clear Skies Initiative, especially today (Earth Day), but the substance of that Initiative is to let industry pollute more than it does now.

Black IS white.

***

And don't even get me started about the new bankruptcy laws. Let's see, we're going to take people who are already in crisis--mostly due to outrageous medical bills, according to several recent studies I've seen--and we are going to make their burdens more onerous by working them to death to make them pay, even under Chapter 7 bankruptcy, which was designed to give them relief. At the same time, we are not going to demand of the super rich in our society that they pay even a marginal share of what they ought to keep our country running. What the heck does it matter that our society made it possible for them to accumulate their riches in the first place? Everyone seems to be pushing for rights without responsibilities, which is just plain wrong.

The Founding Fathers knew some things, including: (1) there is much to be said for self-restraint--just because you CAN do something does NOT mean that you SHOULD do that something; (2) we are all in this together--to be a society means that everyone has obligations to everyone else. Call it the social compact, the social contract, whatever you want, but it is there. Or else we are no longer a society and no longer deserve to survive.

***

But isn't that what the neocons want? Since they have the money, they are perfectly happy with instituting an "every man for himself" system, because they know it's to their advantage. That's why they are so eager to dismantle everything FDR did, and why they hate FDR and the Kennedys so much: they regard them as traitors to their (monetary) class. But FDR and the Kennedys are much more in line with the Founding Fathers than the neocons every could be.

The student of history in me tells me the pendulum will in fact swing back to at least the center, and that the destruction Dubya and his ilk are attempting will not in fact happen. But the pessimist in my wonders whether the pendulum will swing back in time, or if it is already too late.

As a lawyer friend of mine has said, "Even Rome fell." My answer remains, "Yes, but does it have to happen while I am around?"

A Postscript

Terri Schiavo has died. No real surprise there. The doctors said she'd last about two weeks without any nutrition or hydration, and she died 13 days after her feeding tube was removed at her husband's insistance.

I remain entirely skeptical of his claims to have been acting in accordance with her wishes, for reasons I've already posted, reinforced by seeing his behavior at and after her death. He would not let her parents be in the room with her when she died. He insists that her post-autopsy cremains be buried in Pennsylvania, not in Florida (her parents wanted to be able to visit her gravesite easily . . . his decision puts an end to that). His words, through his spokesman/attorney, maintain that his sole concerns were to follow her wishes and give her peace and dignity. His actions, however, contradict that claim at every turn.

The whole thing leaves me very, very sad. No one should have to die by being starved and dehydrated to death. It is a matter of simple human dignity. We wouldn't let someone do that to a house pet; we certainly would prosecute anyone who did that to an enemy combatant, even a proven terrorist; how can we just look the other way when someone wants to do that to a spouse?

Everyone must eat and drink to live. If withholding food and water is the only thing that will kill someone, that someone has a life beyond machines, and that life should be allowed to continue till its natural end--not hastened by cruel starvation.

It would have been much different if Terri had been on a ventilator. In that case, she would not have been able to breathe without mechanical assistance . . . and in that case, I'd have no quarrel with removing the artificial stimulus keeping her alive. She would then either die or breathe on her own--a natural death or survival. Nobody needs a ventilator to live in the "regular" world. A decision to "pull the plug" in that case is understandable and defensible.

But to starve someone to death? That cannot be OK, even when done to someone supposedly in a persistent vegitative state. Look: her brain function was not entirely gone, else she would have needed a ventilator. Maybe she didn't have much if anything of higher brain function left. She had enough to be awake and to live without abnormal, intrusive, extraordinary mechanical assistance. Struggling through thirteen days of slow death by starvation and dehydration is neither peaceful nor dignified.

All our lives have been cheapened by what has befallen Terri. Beware! If you suffer a catastrophic injury, you might be next! After all, the first people the Nazis systematically destroyed were the physically and mentally ill.

Seriously: make and keep an up-to-date living will. Ensure that everyone knows about it. Don't just keep it in a safety deposit box--append it to your medical records at every place you have them. If you travel, take a copy with you. Remember: the reason they're called "accidents" is that they are not expected.