This is just a reminder, a marker laid for myself. An idea flickers, dances, swirls. It is still a blur, but as with any such idea one feels more than comprehends it.
Says me: It’s too soon to pick this fight.
Says the other: Bullshit. It was past due long before this chapter opened.
And as I watch and hear the people in my society who tell us it is of a certain nature betray that condition, the reasons to wait melt away.
So I remind myself. Do not forget.
#ParisLives.
Just an update to a tale out of Utah:
A Utah judge who had ordered a baby girl taken away from her lesbian foster mothers and placed in a heterosexual home removed himself from the case Monday as criticism turned into calls for his impeachment.
Though Judge Scott Johansen had reversed his decision and allowed the 9-month-old baby to stay with the married women recommended by state welfare authorities, there were concerns he could still have the baby removed from their home in Price later on.
April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce asked for the judge to be disqualified, saying that the decision revealed a potential bias that broke the rules of judicial conduct, their lawyer Jim Hunnicutt said.
While Johansen disputed their legal standing to call for his removal, he nevertheless stepped aside nearly a week after the Nov. 10 order criticized by national gay rights groups, the state’s Republican governor and others.
This is a relevant question, I think: For all we might hear our politically conservative neighbors bawl about liberal judicial activism, what would they call a judge who has to make stuff up in order to desperately cling to traditional family values?
Just like we didn’t hear them complaining when the Sixth Circuit decided to arbitrarily recriminalize homosexuality for the purpose of sending a case to the Supreme Court.
Then again, I still recall the cries of liberal judicial activism in Roper v. Simmons, in which the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the decision of one of the most conservative state supreme courts in the country.
A judge getting caught faking it as he goes in order to exercise his right of conscience to deny equal protection in his own courtroom? If that isn’t an example of the sort of judicial activism our conservative neighbors constantly complain about, then … er … well, it would be one thing to say, then it is no longer clear what, exactly, they are complaining about, except, you konw, something about the day ending in -y.
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Whitehurst, Lindsay. “Utah judge removes himself from gay foster parent case”. Associated Press. 16 November 2015.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has suspended his campaign to become the 2016 Republican presidential nominee, marking the smartest political decision he’s made over the last thirty-four months.
I’ve come to the realization that this is not my time,” Jindal said on Fox News Channel in an interview with Bret Baier. “We spent a lot of time developing detailed policy papers. Given this crazy, unpredictable election season, clearly there wasn’t an interest in those policy papers.”
Jindal, 44, who is leaving office at the end of this year after completing his second term as governor, said he has not given much thought about whom he might endorse in the Republican presidential race. The remaining candidates rushed to praise Jindal in tweets and statements Tuesday night.
“Even though I’m not going to be a candidate for president, we had better elect the right president so that we can restore the American dream before it’s too late,” said Jindal, a former chairman of the Republican Governors Association.
Jindal had difficulty raising money; his campaign reported on Oct. 15 that it had just $261,000 cash on hand. His advisers acknowledged Tuesday that finances influenced his decision, although they said the campaign had no debt.
Oh, for ....
In the first three books of “A Song of Ice and Fire” (and four seasons of the show),
Tyrion has a trajectory that might sound awfully familiar to Obama: He’s a bright and charming man who is nonetheless looked down upon by people who are a lot stupider than he is because they are prejudiced against people who look like him. Despite these obstacles, Tyrion rises high in government, taking on the highest executive office in Westeros, with the title of the Hand of the King. His job as the executive is to rein in an economic crisis as well as deal with an unnecessary war, all while trying to manage a bratty king named Joffrey.
Tyrion does an excellent, if imperfect job, despite these overwhelming circumstances, helping stave off an invasion and deal with other political crises. Despite his hard work and many successes, many in the kingdom continue to hate Tyrion irrationally, calling him a “demon monkey” and blaming him for catastrophes brought on by the king, catastrophes that Tyrion has actually gone out of his way to fix. In the end, this public’s desire to scapegoat him leads to Tyrion’s downfall, as he is blamed for the king’s murder, which he didn’t commit, and has to escape unjust execution under the cover of darkness.
If you substitute “the president” for “Hand of the King,” “the Republicans” for “King Joffrey,” and “secretly born in Kenya” for “demon monkey,” the parallels between Tyrion and Obama are downright startling. Like Tyrion, Obama walked into office with a military crisis and an economic disaster on his hands. Like Tyrion, his efforts to fix things get stymied at every turn by forces that oppose him for political reasons. Like Tyrion, he had a major military victory (killing Osama bin Laden) and domestic victories that prevented suffering, but many refuse to give him credit. Like Tyrion, Obama gets blamed by huge numbers of people who have preexisting prejudices about him, who would rather blame someone they irrationally hate than the truly guilty parties.
It is not so much a question of whether Amanda Marcotte is right or wrong; rather, it is simply a matter of, “Oh, come on!”
And it is true that societies witness and take part in transformations of myth, occasionally retiring one here or there while scrabbling perpetually to create new ones. As Barkerα reminds, nothing ever begins. History, meanwhile, will eventually show this particular mythopoeic play more a question of waterskiing in a leather jacket.
Well, you know, if history bothers noticing this one at all.
This is an important question: If life imitates art so much that we shape our decisions in order to create and align mythopoeia that, circularly, it reflects and reinforces itself, at what point have leapt the carcharodon?
‡
Emad Mostaque offers reflection on Daa’ish and Islam, for Reuters:
Yet, just as it is clear that Daesh is not Shi’ite because it rejects key elements of Shi’ite Islam — and actually hates Shi’ites with a passion — its views are not within Sunni orthodoxy. This is not to say that Daesh is not Muslim according to Sunni orthodoxy. For most Muslims, their religion is a matter of belief and not actions. Even murderers or pedophiles, for example, are still regarded as Muslims — though they commit terrible crimes and are awful human beings.
Yet Daesh goes one step beyond: It declares those who disagree with its views as non-Muslim. It labels them heretics based on their actions, not their beliefs. Muslims who do not follow the views Daesh professes are its main targets — and most frequently its key victims.
Daesh particularly targets refugees. They are most despised because they are fleeing from its professed utopia. So, Daesh welcomes calls in Europe to close borders because it feeds into its agenda. It also sees overflowing refugee camps as ideal sources of future recruits because it seeks to serve as their primary source of employment, much as Hamas does in Gaza.
This is essential reading.
No, really. Consider a question: How can Daa’ish expect to have Jesus Christ on their side?
Like I said, essential reading.
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Image note: The Eiffel Tower is lit with the colors of the French flag in Paris on Nov. 16, 2015, to pay tribute to the victims of a series of deadly attacks on Friday in the French capital. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)
Mostaque, Emad. “Islamic State and the ‘management of savagery'”. Reuters. 17 November 2015.
This Is 