SCOTUS and Obama Care

Obama Care is perhaps the most contentious issue in American Politics I have experienced as an adult.  Certainly everyone has strong opinions about it.  I know I do.

So it's at the Supreme Court, and the rhetoric is intense.  I noticed, for one thing, that the coverage of the issue from the BBC was more balanced than from the American networks.  They at least showed footage of people demonstrating against it.  The Network news I watched last night didn't, and mentioned the Anti-Obama Care crowd as being "small".   Really, it's pathetic when the American news industry has become so partisan that I have to go to the Brits to find more balanced coverage.

I am implacably opposed to Obama Care.  I do not one dollar of every insurance premium I will be forced to pay to go to abortion.  I do not want my insurance to be used to pay for hormonal and surgical birth control.  I do not like the Government of the United States using the Department of Health and Human Services to create regulations forcing my Faith community to fund immoral, abhorrent and murderous practices.

But I don't want the Court to take any notice of this.  There are larger issues than my desires, that as a patriotic American I feel must be addressed.

Chief among them is the  idea that the Government is as bound by law as the citizens.  I'm sick of "activist" judicial decisions.  I want the decision to be based in law, not my preference.  Judicial activism is wrong, even if I get my way because of it.  I hope and pray that the Justices will decide this issue on law, and law alone.  There are constitutional issues involved here, concerning the limits of Congressional power under the interstate commerce clause, and other embedded issues, which should be decided in separate cases concerning freedom of religion, and the exercise of religion in daily life.  The issues of freedom of religion would more appropriately be decided in a separate case--not this one.

We need to remember that they system of checks and balances, and separation of powers is menat not just to protect the people from the government, but the law from the people, so that we are not able to use law to oppress others, or favor groups over one another.  Now is the time for us to pray, and to pray that the system of law is upheld.  For if we dissolve our constitution by judicial action, we place ourselves, and our Republic, in the same position as the Weimar Republic after 1927, when they abandoned constitutional rule except as a fiction. 

Now is a time to pray for our Republic, and for our Supreme Court Justices, that this issue be decided not by polemic or partisan activism, but by law, and law alone.  If it isn't, then one more block in our edifice of liberty will be chipped away.

St. Thomas Moore,  Pray for us.

DO IT NOW!

Go to the movies and watch John Carter of Mars!  It's a great fun movie, and hasn't been performing well, so it won't be there long.  But you really do want to watch it on the big screen. 

Honest, you do!

"The Hunger Games"

OK--I've read the book, and seen the movie.

They were worth the price, and then some.  The story lends itself to projection, to interpretations depending on ones point of view, but with an overarching theme of a morally bankrupt regime, the exerts it's control through a philosophy of bread and circuses.  Not surprising, the author, Suzanne Collins, based the story on classical myth, and the capital does remind one of Rome, in her long decline.

What grabbed me was a government that kept it's people in line through spectacle--with hype not unlike that of professional sports. (I am not a fan of professional sports, less due to their innate nature as to the nature of fandom, and the way the sporting culture, via broadcast, displaces so much attention from the world that matters.)  The fact that the "sport" used involves sacrificing the youth of the poor to satisfy the appetites of the the urban rich puts me in mind in many ways of the distorted debate on abortion, and the way it weighs most heavily on the minorities in America.

Speaking of appetites, food becomes a metaphor in this tale, from the planned and mandatory overindulgence of the elite, to the deprivation of the downtrodden.  It becomes a way to express the shallowness of the drive to material acquisition, and how the concentration of wealth among a few leads inevitably to the to impoverishment of the masses.

The theme of a government that has almost nothing in common with the mass of the people, that maintains power by entertaining, placating and manipulation an urban elite reminds me very much of Obama's America.  The justifications spouted in the movie by government officials served, in many ways, to underscore the fascistic tendencies in big government systems we now know.

I don't know if you've read the book, or the sequels, or seen the movie.  But if you haven't, perhaps you should.  No, definitely you should.  They are not easy to read, or to watch, but worth it.  Just don't expect them to leave you with a feel good ending.

You want to know where I've been? OK--I'll tell you where I've been!

I've been camping!  Yes, I grabbed my gear and set off to Clark State Forest, for a SOLO CAMPING TRIP!

For some reason, I have a high solitude need.  I don't do anything spectacular, it's not a big spiritual thing, I get no profound insights.  I just need to be alone sometimes--I get grouchy when there is too long a stretch with other people.  I wish I could say I did great and spiritual things out there, but I don't.  It's not some kind of venture into the Eremetical Life, it's closer to pure selfishness.

I can't really even account for the time I spend like that.  It's mostly just a time to get my head centered and take a deep psychological breath.  I do read, but usually it's just simple cheap fiction.  No big deal.

This trip was nice (I got back Saturday afternoon) with some interesting natural phenomena to observe and experience.  I'll share with you.

The first part of the trip was very warm, hot really, for March, with highs in the mid 80s.  Lots of sunshine.  The woods were greening up nicely, about a month early, with the redbuds in full bloom, the understory leafing out and wildflowers sprouting everywhere.  Bird life was abundant, as they return from their wintering grounds.  I saw everything from non-descript little tweeting birds to a heron.  I saw hawks and heard owls.  The whippoorwills aren't out yet.  The pilated Woodpeckers have started their territorial drumming, and I even heard a scarlet eyed viriol--about two months early!

Yes the bird life was something I experienced.  Actually, I experienced it in a very personal way, as I made coffee Thursday Morning, and a high flying perching bird--species not determined--crapped on my head. The bird was high enough that at first I thought I had been hit by a late dropping acorn, until I put my fingers to the point of impact.  Not an Acorn.

But the weather was the kind that makes for good memorable camping trips.  In the 80s for a couple of days, with bright sunshine, and cool nights, so that the sleeping bag was a welcome comfort, and the breeze through the mesh of my tent was somehow luxurious as I slept.  This area was hit hard by the storms and tornadoes of 2 March, so fire wood was abundant in the form of dead fall and storm downed trees.

That made for great "Campers TV"--where you sit reflectively by the fire, watching it burn down, timing bed time with the moment when the last of the flames flicker out and the fire becomes a softly glowing bed of coals in the night.  Being out of town also made the stars so beautiful!  With the loom of Louisville extending over our house, we see only a few stars, the very brightest, but in the woods one can see all of them, so lovely, like jewels across the sky.

Except for Thursday.  Every camping trip needs an element of adventure, and I got one on Thursday night.  I was watching Camper TV, having noticed the stars recede then disappear from view by the agency of growing cloud cover.  I felt a few drops.  Rain doesn't really bother me, and I will simply sit by my fire, build it up some and enjoy it if it's not a heavy rain.  I ended up fleeing to my tent.  It ended up with about 18 hours of heavy rain with five thunderstorms that I counted in a twenty-four hour period.

My tent has never leaked before, but the seams failed to keep the rain out this time.  Time to re-treat them, I guess.  I pitched my camp on high ground, that was in fact higher than anything around it, so it was merely sodden, not flooded.  The rain didn't let up though, so instead of having nice meals in the woods--one of the joys of camping--I ended up eating cold corned beef hash from a can.  Never again!  Friday I'm going to spend my allowance for a screened in kitchen shelter so I can cook in the rain.  Even heavy rain.

Friday there was a sucker hole.  The sky cleared, the sun came out, the temps were lovely, high 60s, the humidity was low and it was beautiful.  By this time the ice in the cooler had melted, so after I gathered firewood for the evening program, I fried up the last of my bacon, and boiled the eggs so i could eat them in the morning.  I got the fire laid, relaxed and enjoyed the wild life.  I lit my fire, then fled to my tent as another round of thunder storms came in.  I make good fires, and was able to watch it through the screen window of my tent, through the first two thunder storms, until the third put it out.  Friday, after I fell into the sucker hole, I dumped about two inches of rain water out of a container I left out.  That's not important, what is important is that I dumped it into the skillet I used to cook my bacon, along with some detergent, to soak and get easy to clean.  Well, Saturday morning when I woke up, it had rained hard enough that the detergent/water/bacon grease mixture had splattered.  It has splattered all over my water jugs, hygiene basin, and such, until everything had the most interesting and artistic patterns of bacon grease lumps all over it.  But at least I was outdoors and got to see some wildlife.

The Wildlife!  I got to view the actions and behaviors of spring wildlife up close on this trip.  Why, watching the smallest animals come out in the spring was a treat!  Like noticing that scores of ticks were cambering over my tent, in their earliest quest for nutrition to continue there complex, perilous and rarely successful life cycle.  Nutrition, of course, meaning me.  But there were other types of wildlife to view as well.  The wasps are out early this year, looking for new places to build their nests, sheltered from sun and rain.  Like the underside of my tent fly.  And I must say there was  a spectacular outbreak of winged ants!  Very impressive.  I'm not an entomologist, but this particular species had an affinity for the color blue--like my coffee cup (1/2 in layer in the morning), my cooler (another layer), my camp chair (I was getting tired of brushing ants away) and my shirt (let's not discuss that).

Well, I've almost got everything cleaned up and dried out--the tent has been sponge cleaned and is hanging from a tree in the back yard to dry, etc.

You know what?  I'm ready to go out again!  The worst camping trip--that doesn't kill you--is better than the best day in town.  I hope to go again in the second week of April.  This time I'm taking the big tent, so that if I get stuck inside during a prolonged rain I can at least stand up.  And I hope to do more fishing next time as well.  I LOVE CAMPING!!!