Schedule Conflict

     Found out yesterday that I am scheduled to work Saturday morning, a shift starting about a half-hour after the online meeting of the critique group I chair ends.

     This wouldn't be much of a problem on a regular day -- but where I'll be working is inside the perimeter for the Indianapolis 500 Festival Parade!*  My employer's building is right there on Meridian St. and you have to sweet-talk your way past the police to traverse a closed side street in order to reach the parking lot.  Traffic is busy and I'd never get there in time.

     The answer, of course, is to go in early, having begged permission from the boss to borrow one of the "quiet rooms" set up for the open-office folks on the second floor.  This should get me past the officer on roadblock duty before he or she has quite reached the boiling point of frustration and might even provide a head start on a busy workday.

     Of course, I'll probably have to wake up at 5:00 a.m. to get ready for work, make coffee, gather everything for the meeting, pack my lunch, etc. but I knew it would be extra effort when I volunteered.  Ah, the glamor of showbiz!  The glamor of the literary life!
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* It is one of the largest holiday parades in the U.S., after the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City and the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, CA.  Those two are huge and the numbers fall off rapidly for the remainder, but it's not small.

Split Response

     One one hand, it's so good to be home, in a house where I built most of the furniture, where things are where I expect them and I can reach the nightstand from my bed without feeling as if I'm about to plunge to the floor.

     On the other hand, I have so much to do!  I'm struck again by the realization that I am a terrible housekeeper; to call my home "bohemian" is a grave insult to the good people of Bohemia, even the slovenly ones.

     No time like the present, I suppose, and when it's all a mess, I can start anywhere.

Not A Navigator

     While I have a little bit of a sense of direction -- I usually know which direction is north -- my memory of maps and routes has a tendency to become mirror-imaged, flipping east and west or, less often, north and south.  And once I'm off my mental map, I tend to fret.

     So the ability to get directions from Google Maps, and then smartphones that do the same thing only out loud and on the fly, has been a real help.  Software, however, is only as good as the questions we ask of it, and when I left for my in-factory class on Monday, I slipped up: I told my phone to take me to the destination city, and not the specific hotel where I had reservations.

     I left late, and drove mostly in a clear patch with storm clouds all around, perhaps one of the best ways to travel wide-open agricultural spaces: the sky was spectacular, anvil-shaped thunderheads lit from below, cream-colored against deep blue, ragged purple scarves flowing across turquoise; distant lighting flashing from slate-colored clouds or illuminating them from within, and as sunset approached, a thin spot in the storm allowed a pinkish-orange streak across the western sky.  It was stunning.

     It was also distracting.  The sun set while I was still on the road and my poor night vision combined with intermittent oncoming traffic meant 65 mph was about as fast as I could go without feeling like I was overrunning my headlights.  I still had fifteen miles or more to go.  A mile away from an exit to a state highway, my phone told me to take it, and reminded me again as I got closer.  "EXIT NOW!"  So I did.  Clever phone, it knows all the shortcuts, right?

     The highway angled off and downhill, in what felt like the right direction.  The city I was headed for is along a large river, with hills and bluffs to the east.  With plenty of curves and a 45 mph limit, the two-lane highway led me though the dark, past a few small businesses, though intersections with a house or store, and up the river valley.  I sensed more than felt an increasing bulk off to my right, and as I rounded a long curve, bright streetlights illuminated what looked like a castle wall with a pair of gates on that side of the highway: the huge entrance and exit of an underground quarry!

     Various industrial areas got thicker on either side and I started to worry.  I was well behind schedule, and this didn't look like hotel territory!  Factories and refineries gave way to warehouses, gas stations and corner stores; my phone directed me to turn among larger and newer buildings.  A couple of blocks more put me in downtown, about the time restaurants were closing.  "YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION," my phone announced.

     The hell I had.  I found a parking spot, fished my phone out of the cup holder and had a look, realizing for the first time that I had told it to take me to the city, not my hotel.  I corrected that and, a mere six and a half miles, ten stoplights and an increasingly protesting bladder later, reached my hotel.

     Check-in was refreshingly brisk, my luggage had somehow become unreasonably heavy along the way, and my room was comfortable, cool and inviting.  Especially the modern plumbing.  While I don't sleep well in hotel rooms -- the beds are too big, too soft and too high -- that night, I claimed every hour of the eight I had earned, entirely zonked out.

Got Back Home Yesterday Evening

     Of course, I managed to get lost on the way home: got off the interstate and turned south to pick up the county road that eventually becomes Kessler Avenue.  Too bad it was north of me.  Drove into Indianapolis on 38th Street instead, only a couple of miles farther south than intended.

      I had occasion to drive near a few large windpower farms twice over the past week, and I have to tell you, Don Quixote could be onto something: the windmills might indeed be giants.  They just might.  The darned things almost look alive.  The blowing wind is a free gift, and we'd be fools if we didn't put it to a little work along the way.

I Took A Break

     I am finishing up a week of intensive training on some fancy hardware for work, and it hasn't left a lot of energy for anything else.  It's been a long time since I last had this kind of "brain upload," both easier (no tests!) and more demanding (a lot of highly specific information in a very short time) than a college-level class.

     A fair amount of my education has come this way.  There's a lot to be learned -- if you pay attention.

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     On politics, I don't have any insights.  I'm just watching it like everyone else.  For me it's like being a block away, watching two trains headed towards one another, unable to prevent the crash, hardly able to look away and wondering if I'm far enough back to avoid personal harm.  Probably not.  Probably none of us are.  Maybe it's an illusion, maybe the crash won't happen, but "maybe" is nowhere good enough.

Is This America In 2025?

     Committee To Protect Journalists: "Trump’s first 100 days portend long-lasting damage to press freedom."  More than mere portents.

     New York Post, and a zillion other news outlets: "President Trump is set to receive a “flying palace” Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar’s royal family, which he will use as Air Force One." But don't worry, folks, DOJ says it's totally not a violation of the Emoluments Clause and couldn't possibly be mistaken for a bribe -- even though it's entailed to be donated to Mr. Trump's Presidential Library after it's done serving as Air Force One.  Just a fill-in until Boeing finishes the real replacement Air Force One, some time in...well, it's way overdue and they aren't sure.

     ICE agents making raids with their faces and badges covered -- or no badges at all; the Executive Branch wanting to suspend habeas corpus; gold and more gold in the Oval Office; FEMA trimmed down to almost nothing; cranks and quacks running HHS and subsidiary agencies.  What are we doing?  What are we allowing to be done?

Kinda Slacked Today

     I spent the day on housework, laundry -- and slow-roasting four lightly marinated thick pork chops in a covered pan on the grill, with apple, turnip, carrots, onion, celery, a few cherry tomatoes, canned mild chilis, a couple of pickled Piparra peppers, fresh red, yellow, orange and green bell peppers and a half-dozen Shishito peppers.  Once it was pretty well cooked down, I added a half-dozen each sliced Castlevetrano and Kalamata olives, a tablespoon of capers and small jar of vegetable-heavy spaghetti sauce.

     The pork chops had a little time in a mixture of soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, ginger, garlic and a little Cajun seasoning ahead of cooking.  The turnip got a dusting of smoked paprika.

     Cooking took three hours.  The meat fell off the bone, tender and moist.

An Organization Not Known For Surprise; Numbers That Will Remain Officially Unknown

     So the new Pope is an American by birth, though he most recently spent many years serving in Peru.  Like his predecessor, the first Pope from the New World, he is likely to bring a different perspective to his Church.  Nevertheless, and despite wild talk of the political leanings of the man, bear in mind that his Church has lasted longer than even the most generous read of the lifespan of the Roman Empire, and that as a result, it is institutionally conservative in a way few (if any) other organizations even come close to.

     Don't get pulled into the speculation.  This was a routine (if major) event, one that has happened many times before.
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     Elsewhere, the Trump Administration has announced they will no longer be determining, sharing or tracking the price tag of damage done by large-scale natural disasters.  Combined with an ongoing push to diminish the the role and functions of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), this might have the effect of minimizing the impact of news about such disasters, and possibly reducing voluntary contributions -- except, of course, that insurance companies (and many state governments) gather such data, share it with one another and often release it publicly; also "if it bleeds, it leads" in news coverage, and nothing bleeds headline ink and newscast opening video like a big disaster.

     Hurricane season, tornado season and wildfire season will be interesting this year.  Pretending a thing isn't there doesn't make it go away.  Never has, never will.

Why Not Let 'Em Be?

     If you're not Catholic, what do you care about who will be elected Pope?  If you are Catholic, the Cardinals will let you know when they settle on someone.

     It's not a horse race.  It's not even like electing a Speaker of the House of Representatives.  They'll get it done, in much the same way they have been since 1492.  It's not the World Series, and if you have bet on the outcome, I don't want to hear about it.

Civics Review

     A comment yesterday -- unpublished so I can address it here on the "front page" -- argued that the President is being frustrated by the courts in the faithful execution of his job:

     "...[T]he Executive can no longer fulfill Constitutional duties because Judicial Branch, particularly district courts, keep blocking his attempts.

     "The President is to faithfully execute the law as defined by the Legislative Branch, but it seems that the Judiciary and Democrats disagree."

     It's an interesting take, and I'll bet if you tuned the radio/TV dial and trawled the Web down the right-hand side of the Ad Fontes Media Bias Chart, you'd find it repeated -- but it's got some problems.

     First and foremost, the three branches of the Federal government are supposed to get in each other's way.  It's that "checks and balances" thing you might remember from high school Civics or American Government class.  I hope you remember it -- an awful lot of talking heads in the media ignore it when they don't get the outcome they prefer.  If a law (or other Federal action) gets jammed up with any one branch, it can be stymied.  It might not be; but the Framers, well aware of how badly a powerful government can mess people up, were not at all shy about designing a system that offered many opportunities to reconsider.

     Second, "law as defined by the Legislative Branch" is one thing -- and Executive Orders are quite another.  And that other thing is not being laws.  Point to any specific Federal laws the current President is enforcing: nearly all of his high-profile moves have been based on his own Executive Orders instead.  The 119th Congress has been historically passive, enacting four (4) laws so far -- and that includes the one they had to pass to keep Federal paychecks from bouncing.

     Third, while Congress writes the laws -- and, ideally, writes them so clearly their meaning is unmistakable,* when issues of interpretation arise, it's up to the Judicial Branch to try to dope out what Congress meant: the courts define the law, not Congress.†

     Fourth, "it seems that the Judiciary and Democrats disagree," pretty much defines both why we have three branches of our Federal government and the role of opposition parties: they're there to disagree.  If the point intends to take aim at Federal judges appointed by Democratic Presidents, I have bad news for you: a significant number of the judges standing up to potentially unlawful or unconstitutional actions by the Trump administration were appointed by Republican Presidents -- including Mr. Trump himself.  The law is the law, the facts are the facts, and judges are reasonably expected to take a logical, dispassionate look at them.  Will they nevertheless tend to worry more about people caught up in the gears, or about the orderly workings of enforcement, or any number of other angles?  Probably; they're human beings.  But we expect them to make a solid try at getting it right.  And if their decision is the Executive didn't play by the rules, well, there you go.

     Look, there's a name for a system of government in which the guy in charge makes his own laws, sends armed minions to enforce them and expects the courts to condone his and their actions while nobody dares say boo, but it's not a democracy or a republic.  It's an old, old system, one the Ancient Greeks kept falling into and Rome threw over until it crept back nearly five centuries later.  It's a system Europe suffered under for centuries, and one that oppressed the American colonies until we stood up and kicked the King's men out.  Why are you so hot to bring it back?
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* Ha!  If there's one thing every Senator and Member of the House is good at, it's obfuscation.  When they send vacation postcards, you can't even figure out where they went.  Then there's the little matter of lobbyists handing out suggested draft legislation, like high school students with bootleg Cliff Notes....
 
† This is an oversimplification.  In practice, Congress often sets goals for the various Departments, Commissions, Bureaus and Agencies, and they in turn proceed to write regulations.  In the past, the courts have generally given considerable deference to what those entities have written and promulgated, but this arrangement is under increasing challenge.  Broadly, the courts decide -- and they may find themselves doing a lot more deciding in the future.

Maybe There Should Be Some Penalty Lines

     I'm starting to believe there are some lines that, if crossed, should cause a politician to be summarily stripped of office and tossed out into the street.

     It would be a high bar, foundational stuff, like refusing to admit the basic, Constitutionally-protected rights of citizens and residents of the United States.

     The U. S. Constitution is not an obscure or tricky document; while the language is a little archaic, it was written before lawyers had really polished the art of building in wiggle room and clever traps.  And it was written by a group of men who were not entirely all lawyers, and who were uniformly concerned with having the thing make sense and hold up* over time.

     When a President -- any President -- is asked if he is supposed to uphold the Constitution and his reply is that he doesn't know, he's got to check with his lawyers, that ought to result in immediate disqualification from office.  It should be a red card.  The requirement is right there in the oath of office publicly sworn by all Presidents:
     "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
     There isn't anything in it that needs to be parsed by a member of the bar.  Pretending otherwise is just bad-boss BS, the same as when you are promoted, negotiate your new salary with your boss, and when that first paycheck arrives, it's ten percent short.  You go to the boss, and his immediate response is, "Oh, Corporate trimmed it.  Tough luck.  It's not like we had anything in writing."  The Presidential oath of office is in writing -- and the swearing or affirmation of it by incoming Presidents is preserved on film, tape or electronically, as far back as we have had such media.

     Alas, there is no such automatic penalty clause, and Presidents inclined to dissemble and evade their clear duty do so with impunity -- and to our and the nation's peril.
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* Many of them became pessimistic about the results of their efforts in later years -- and not a one worried they had given the President too little power, or made too great an effort to protect the rights of The People.

Turbo-Dopey Authoritarianism

     The thing about rule by edict is, it'll make your head spin.  Take news about the news -- four days ago, the White House put Federal funding for PBS and NPR in the crosshairs, by telling the independent Corporation for Public Broadcasting (of which the President is, literally, by statute, not their boss) to stop sending them money, and by telling the affiliate stations they cannot use their CPB funding to pay "membership fees" or individual programming fees to the networks.

     The first is no big deal; NPR, long in the culture-wars spotlight, has spent decades weaning themselves from Federal largesse, receiving just 1% of their budget from that source.  PBS counts on the Feds for somewhere north of 10%  of their funding.  But the second strikes deep: the smallest NPR and PBS affiliates rely on CPB money to stay on the air -- and their network membership fees are among their largest single expenses.  New York City and Indianapolis will have plenty of NPR and PBS on their air; Bushwhack, Alaska and Back-of-Beyond, Montana may end up with 24/7 polka music or nothing but static.  Many of the small-town and rural stations have only one or two people on staff, and spend a lot of time "riding the network" with nobody at the controls.  Don't like what you hear?  Spin the dial; you'll tune back during local bad weather or natural disaster.

     And here's the kicker, in two parts:
     1. The EO is titled, "ENDING TAXPAYER SUBSIDIZATION OF BIASED MEDIA" and complains "...that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens."  I don't know if any news media manage a hundred percent unbiased objectivity, but those two give it an honest try, and differentiate between news and opinion.  The Ad Fontes chart puts both of them not too far from the middle politically and rates them high on accuracy; NPR's News Now podcast, which consists of nothing but the same five-minute hourly newscasts you hear on the radio, comes in nearly at top dead center.
     2. Five days ago, the Trump Administration launched "White House Wire," a Federally-funded, White House run website devoted to positive coverage of Mr. Trump and his Executive Branch, modeled on news and opinion sites: it is wall-to-wall taxpayer-subsidized biased media.  How does the PBS/NPR EO put it?  Oh, yes, "At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage." Y'don't say?  But websites are different?  I doubt that.

     Do one or do the other, and it's pretty much politics as usual.  In a free society, the correct comeback to speech you don't like is to speak up yourself; through most of my life, Republicans have chafed at having to foot some of the bill for Sesame Street and All Things Considered and tried to skip out without paying.   But doing both at the same time?  Mr. Trump and his gang have not just murdered irony and left it bleeding out in a gutter, they are enthusiastically violating the corpse and sharing selfies of the process.