840 thursdays

Posted on May 27, 2022 by greg

On April 20, 2006–a Thursday–a friend issued a very minor challenge in the Utata group on the photography sharing site Flickr. She said, “I’m going to go for a walk and take a few photos; join me.” And what the hell, we did. Virtually, of course, since the membership of Utata is scattered all over the globe. We went for a walk, we took a few photos, and we shared some of them in the group.

That was 840 Thursdays ago. Utata has been walking–and shooting a few photos–every Thursday since. That’s just over sixteen years of Thursdays.

Sixteen years of people walking and shooting photos. Sixteen years. Not everybody in the group walks on Thursdays, of course. And of those that do walk, we don’t walk every Thursday. But every Thursday, somebody in the group is walking somewhere and taking photographs.

Of those 840 Thursday Walks, I’ve participated in nearly 300 walks. I’ve walked on other Thursdays, but I haven’t always submitted a photograph to the project.

My favorite thing about the Thursday Walk project is that it’s so flexible. There are no rules, no guidelines. You take a walk, you see something that interests you at that moment, and you photograph it. Subject–doesn’t matter. Aspect ratio–doesn’t matter. Color or b&w–doesn’t matter. DSLR or mirrorless camera or point-and-shoot of Polaroid or cell phone–doesn’t matter.

Walk. See something. Photograph it.

I often combine my Thursday Walk with an errand. A run to the market, say, or a trip to the Post Office. But the flexibility of the project extends way beyond that. A bike ride can also be safely included as a Thursday Walk. A visit to a fair or an amusement park, perfectly legit. A bus ride, close enough. It’s not the actual walking that matters; it’s getting out and looking at stuff.

As far as that goes, since the membership of Utata is global, we’re flexible in terms of time zones. For the purposes of the project, Thursday includes Wednesday morning to Friday night–because somewhere on the globe, it’s Thursday.

So my Thursday Walk images are a hodgepodge of color and b&w, of alleyways and farm fields, of interiors and exteriors, of cityscapes and landscapes, or people and trees, of bike paths and bridges, of mornings and nights, of floods and dry creekbeds, of rainstorms and sunny days, of strangers and friends and selfies, of small towns and deep woods and suburbs and ice cream shops and market shelves and lawn ornaments.

The only thing that unites them is they were taken on the extended Thursday of Utata. And to me, that’s much of the joy.

It’s such a simple thing, and yet it’s completely wonderful–and I mean wonderful in the old sense of the term. It leaves me full of wonder. There’s no logical reason for people all over the world to do this–and yet they’ve continued to do it for more than sixteen years. I should say we have continued to do it for more than sixteen years.

I have to stress the we because I stepped away from the group for a while. For a couple of years, in fact. I’d been the managing editor of Utata for most of its existence, and I ran some of the group projects–until I became burned out. Then I stepped back a bit and let others step up. Then I stepped away almost completely.

But now I’m beginning to miss the group again. I miss the people and I miss the interaction and I miss walking on Thursdays. I can’t say I’ll be actively engaged with the group again, because I probably won’t. Certainly not like I used to be. But spending time with smart, creative people–even virtually–is a treat.

However, here’s the thing: what I need to do, if I want to engage with that group again, is make photography part of my ordinary day again. I have to make it habitual behavior. I have to start thinking about it again. Which is why I’m writing this. If I say it in public, I’m more likely to follow through.

Probably.

the gop is okay with occasional mass murder

Posted on May 25, 2022 by greg

I just counted. Since I started writing this blog, I’ve written 31 posts about mass shootings and murders. This will be the 32nd. It won’t be the last. Hell, there were so many blog posts on mass shootings I had to create a tag for it; another mass shooting.

The first was in August of 2012, the Sikh temple mass murder in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Remember that one? Probably not. Seven dead; eight counting the shooter. The shooter generally isn’t included in the butcher’s bill, because he’s not an innocent victim.

You know who else isn’t innocent? Republicans. Republican governors, Republican state legislators, Republicans in Congress. They may not be actively guilty, but they sure as fuck aren’t innocent. Now, I’m not saying these people are okay with routine sporadic mass murders, I’m saying…

Wait. No, I AM saying Republican lawmakers are okay with routine sporadic mass murders. And hey, let’s also include Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema as being okay with routine sporadic mass murders. If these people weren’t okay with it, they’d have done something to prevent it. At the very least, if they weren’t okay will mass shootings, they’d have done something to reduce the body count.

But they haven’t. They haven’t done a goddamned thing. And they won’t. We know they won’t. So yeah, Republican lawmakers (and a pair of asshole Democrats) are okay with routine sporadic mass murders. They won’t admit that, of course. Because that would make them sociopathic monsters.

Wait. They ARE sociopathic. They may not be actual monsters, but clearly they meet the diagnostic criteria for being sociopaths. They have a weak and limited capacity to feel empathy and remorse. Some of them may, it’s true, be sincere when they mouth the phrase ‘thoughts and prayers’. But they don’t feel enough empathy or remorse to actually do anything constructive about it. So fuck them and their thoughts and prayers.

I don’t know how many people have died in Uvalde, Texas. First they reported it was two kids. Then ten. Now I think the butcher’s bill is 21, mostly kids. Oh, and the shooter shot his grammy too, though she didn’t die. Well, not yet. The body count may go up; it so often does. Second grade, third grade, fourth grade kids. Eight, nine, ten-year-old kids. Shot dead.

Here’s another horrible thing: we’re not hearing about wounded kids. We’re not seeing pictures of ambulances pulling up to hospital trauma centers. We’re not hearing about kids in surgery. That suggests the victims weren’t just shot, but were shot to a degree that there was no point in transporting them to an emergency room.

There are…wait. There were just under 600 kids enrolled in that school. So about 3% of the student body were killed today.

=====

I wrote that last night. Couldn’t finish it. Didn’t want to finish it.

This morning we’re learning the names of the victims. Last night they were just generic victims. Today we’ll find out more about them. We’ll see photos of them, we’ll hear from their friends and family members and teachers. Politicians (including Republicans) will mourn them in public. They’ll offer the usual thoughts, the usual prayers, and they’ll say we must never forget them.

But we will. Oh, their families will remember them. So will their friends. And the kids who saw them gunned down, they’ll never be able to escape those memories. But for the rest of us, in a few days they’ll just be included in the roll call of generic mass murder victims.

It’s tragic. It really is gut-shattering massively fucking tragic. And the tragedy will be compounded by the fact that nothing will change. Nothing will chance because Republican lawmakers (and a couple of asshole Democrats) are okay with routine sporadic mass murder. They’re basically okay with a few hundred kids being shot to death every year.

So are the people who vote for them.

Yesterday was the 144th day of the year. There have been at least 212 mass shootings in 2022 so far. Republicans and Republican voters are okay with that.

EDITORIAL NOTE: By the way, SCOTUS will be handing down a ruling on gun rights in the next few weeks. It’s almost certain they’ll make it easier for more people to carry more guns in more places. We can thank Republicans for that too.

good morning and welcome to the waffle house

Posted on May 22, 2022 by greg

I woke up around 0530 this morning. I don’t sleep as much as I used to, though I generally sleep better. I have fewer nightmares, which is good. Fewer and less intense. And I seem to be better at remembering good dreams. This morning I remember dreaming about ordering breakfast at a Waffle House.

I’m sitting here in the kitchen in the heart of the American Midwest, drinking my cold brew coffee, craving hash browns, covered and chunked. Unless you’ve spent some time in a Waffle House–which is to say, unless you’ve lived in the American South–that won’t mean much to you. It’s probably been twenty years since I’ve set foot in a Waffle House, but I know in my bones I can walk into any Waffle House in any town and ask for hash browns covered and chunked, and they’ll know exactly what I want. It’s not code, exactly; it’s culture. I could make my own hash browns, of course. I could add some diced up ham and cover it all with melted cheese. But it wouldn’t be the same.

It’s 44F this morning. Unreasonably and unseasonably chilly, so I’ve been forced to put on socks and sweat pants–which I sorta kinda resent (I mean, c’mon, we’re three weeks into May, for fuck’s sake) and sorta kinda enjoy (it’s not so much the warm feet, although I like that; it’s that brief delicious pleasure of sliding my feet into warm socks). It feels like a late October morning in the South. The cat clearly thinks the chilly weather is bullshit, so is seeking extra attention this morning. I’m okay with that. Cats are warm.

The cool weather and the Waffle House dream have me feeling particularly nostalgic and Southern today. I enjoy the quiet too much to put on music, but in my head I’ve been hearing Mahalia Jackson, Mattie Moss Clark, and Tennessee Ernie Ford singing gospel music. I’m not even remotely Christian, but that was the Sunday morning music I grew up with. Snatches of Just a Closer Walk with Thee will drift through my head for a while this morning. As the sun comes up and the coffee disappears and the cat retreats to some quiet spot where she can curl up and sleep undisturbed, that music will gradually fade away again.

There. I’ve rinsed out my coffee mug. I’ve done today’s Wordle. I’ve read all the news I want to read (it’s still to early to read the news and pay attention; I’ll come back to it later, when I’m more willing to deal with reality). The sun has come up enough that I can turn off the kitchen lights. I’d say it’s time to start getting on with the day, but that sounds like I have some sort of plan or agenda to be accomplished. I don’t. I’ll read a bit, maybe go for a bike ride, give some thought to what to prepare for supper, do a few household chores. Since I woke up early, at some point I may take a nap.

There’s a verse of the gospel song Just a Closer Walk with Thee that rarely gets included in the more popular covers. It goes:

Through this world of toil and snares,
If I falter, Lord, who cares?

I know the lyric is meant to suggest the Lord cares, but since I don’t believe in any lord, I like to interpret the lyric as more tolerant and forgiving. It’s not a license to fuck up, but it acknowledges the universality of fucking up. Everybody fucks up. And everybody is welcome at the Waffle House. Doesn’t matter what you’ve done, if you ask for your hash browns chunked and covered, that’s what you’ll get.

folks buying groceries refreshing the tree of liberty

Posted on May 15, 2022 by greg

As Thomas Jefferson famously wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Oh, and kids in school. And folks shopping for groceries, if they’re not white.” Yesterday, while I was enjoying a pleasant…what?

Okay, some of you are saying, “Greg, old sock, I don’t think you’ve accurately quoted our boy TJ.” Maybe you’re right; this may not be an exact quote, but it’s close enough to the way it’s interpreted by a lot of people who identify as right-wing lunatic gun nuts. Okay, okay, maybe they don’t actually identify themselves that way, but stop calling me old sock.

I mean, sure, TJ was talking about Daniel Shays, a farmhand in western Massachusetts who was having trouble paying his taxes, partly because he was also having trouble collecting the pay he was supposed to have received as a grunt in the Continental Army during the American Revolution. There’s still a lot of debate about what TJ meant by that tree of liberty bullshit, but the right-wing lunatic gun nuts take it as an article of faith that TJ was suggesting folks need to periodically have a good old fashioned bloody war of rebellion against the legitimate government. This is exactly WHY the term lunatic is included in the name of ‘right-wing lunatic gun nuts’.

But even right-wing lunatic gun nuts have trouble explaining how mass murder events at schools, mall, movie theaters, and grocery stores fit into that ‘blood of patriots and tyrants’ business. Especially when…oh yeah, and churches, I forgot to include churches. And temples and mosques. Anyway, right-wing lunatic gun nuts have trouble explaining how that blood of patriots stuff fits with those mass murders committed by white men specifically against victims who aren’t white. Or men. Or people who don’t quite fit into the right-wing lunatic gun nut definition of ‘men’.

So the right-wing lunatic gun nuts have developed a pair of sure-fire (get it? Sure-fire? See what I did there? I’m a hoot) responses to those events. First, they…well, wait. I say ‘first’ as if this is the preferred response, which would be inaccurate on account of these two responses are pretty much equally relied on. So when I say ‘first’ I’m just admitting that I can’t share two responses at the same time. These responses are numerical, not sequential. Or the other way around, maybe? Doesn’t matter.

First, they blame the mass murder on emotional health. As in “This kid who shot up the supermarket in Buffalo must be CRAZY because, yeah sure, he says he was motivated by hate and he says white folks are being replaced by non-white folks who breed faster and yeah sure, that’s exactly what Tucker Carlson says on FoxNEWS every night, but c’mon, you’d have to be CRAZY to believe that, so there, it’s a mental health issue.”

Second, they claim the mass murder is a false flag event perpetrated by Democrats or Jews or some other Satanist-pedophile group in order to TAKE OUR GUNS, or at least distract us from Hunter Biden’s laptop. They seem to think this is a perfectly reasonable thing to believe.

Sometimes they combine the two responses, suggesting Democrats and Jews and other Satanist-pedophile groups convince mentally ill white folks to commit mass murders to distract the population from some vague but really awful thing that Democrats, Jews, and other Satanist-pedophile groups really enjoy.

But as I was saying (you may have to refer back to the beginning of this blog), yesterday, while I was enjoying a pleasant 30-mile bike ride from one bike pub to another bike pub, some white kid went to a supermarket in a predominantly black community and killed a whole bunch of folks who were just buying groceries.

Mentally ill (probably) white kid led astray (probably) by Democrats, Jews, of some other Satanist-pedophile group (probably), but clearly guns aren’t the problem.

Right now on television (I don’t actually know this, but I know this) some conservative is on a national news Sunday program explaining that the mass murder in Buffalo would never have happened if we had better mental health programs, which we can’t afford to make free because that would raise taxes, but maybe for-profit insurance companies could include mental health anti-mass murder options for people who can afford it, but guns don’t kill people, mentally ill people kill people and if they didn’t have guns, they’d do it with axes, do you really want to ban axes, and besides guns are good because an armed patriot inside the store could have returned fire and prevented more needless death, and sure there was a security guard who did return fire and hit the killer, but the shooter was wearing tactical body armor which is protected by the Second Amendment, however a highly trained patriot could have shot him in the head–or at least the part of his head that wasn’t covered by his tactical helmet–and that would have ended the tragic situation, but there’s nothing in the Second Amendment that says private citizens should have to undergo training to carry a weapon, and did I mention the kid was mentally ill, because that’s the problem. Unless if was a false flag event.

So it turns out TJ, whatever he actually meant, was right about the blood and the tree of liberty. We are refreshing the fuck out of that tree.

failed russian flatworm strategy

Posted on May 12, 2022 by greg

Even flatworms have demonstrated the ability to learn from experience. Flatworms, like mammals, have a centralized brain; they can be trained to remember a behavior and perform it on cue. They can also be trained to avoid behaviors.

The same apparently isn’t true of Russian Army field commanders.

Your basic flatworm–not clever, but capable of learning from experience.

Perhaps the most astonishing thing about the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the staggering incompetence of their field commanders, who repeatedly fail to take even the most basic precautions to protect their troops. I mean, anybody who has spent any amount of time in military harness just assumes their commanders are fucking idiots who are casually trying to get them killed. The difference is that in the Russian Army, that appears to be true.

Behavioral psychologists back in the 1950s trained flatworms to avoid electric shocks. The Russian Army has failed to learn that lesson. In the weeks since they invaded Ukraine, the Russians have repeatedly left troops and vehicles in vulnerable, stationary positions. And the Ukrainian military has repeatedly shelled the shit out of them.

Last week, the Russians decided to take the town of Lysychansk, which meant they had to cross the Siverskyi Donets River. Crossing a river in a combat zone is a big deal. It’s a complex tactical situation for a couple of reasons. First and most obvious, the troops and vehicles crossing the river are terribly exposed. There’s no cover or concealment on a bridge. Second, you have a LOT of vehicles and troops concentrated in the same place, waiting to take their turn crossing the bridge. So they’re exposed, vulnerable and stationary. An army has to prepare to cross a river.

The Ukrainians knew the Russian Army needed to cross the Siverskyi Donets River. They sent a guy named Max–an engineer and an EOD (explosive ordinance disposal) officer–to scope out the situation. He took a recon unit along the river, found the best place to ford it, and left some recon troops in place to keep watch. They prepared to defend the river.

And hey, the Russians showed up as expected. The Ukrainians let them build a pontoon bridge. They let a few troops and combat vehicles to cross over. Then they shelled the shit out of the bridge and the troops and vehicles waiting to cross over. When the artillery subsided, the Ukrainian Air Force showed up and did some close quarters bombing. The Ukrainian recon units hunted down and killed the troops that had already crossed the river and had no way back.

A flatworm wouldn’t have made this mistake.

We don’t have any solid numbers, but it appears the Russians lost over 50 armored combat vehicles and anywhere from 1500 to 2000 troops–and that includes specialized combat engineering troops, which are really hard to replace. That’s effectively a couple of battalion tactical groups eliminated. It’s a staggering loss for the Russian Army at a time when they’re already getting their ass kicked.

This was clever work by the Ukrainians, but it was made possible by the incompetence of the Russians. They failed to do any reliable reconnaissance before the operation. They failed to have reliable real-time drone recon information. They failed to establish and provide any artillery protection for their troops. They failed to provide close air support. They failed in every possible way.

A flatworm can learn from experience.

As a supporter of Ukrainian independence, I’m glad to see Russia get bloodied. But as a military veteran, I hate seeing any troops get killed because of the rigid stupidity of their leaders. The Russian Army has demonstrated it can’t win a traditional, linear ground war, not even against a smaller nation.

The Russian Army is dumber than a flatworm.

UPDATE: It appears the Russian Army attempted to cross the Siverskyi Donets River three times. They failed in their first attempt as reported, so they made a second attempt AT THE SAME LOCATION. I’m not making that up. And hey bingo, they got the same result. Lots of destroyed vehicles, lots of dead troops. So, being the Russian Army, they decided to try cross the river a third time AT THE SAME LOCATION AGAIN. With the same result.

EDITORIAL FLATWORM NOTE: Okay, this has nothing to do with Russia or Ukraine, but there’s an exceedingly cool thing about flatworms and memory. Like a lot of other types of worms, flatworms can regenerate themselves. If you whack off a flatworm’s tail (and really, you shouldn’t, because what’s a flatworm ever done to you?), in a couple of weeks it’ll grow into an entirely new flatworm, complete with a shiny new centralized brain.

But that’s not the cool thing. The cool thing is that if the original flatworm had been taught to run (well, not run–it’s a flatworm, after all) a maze, the newly regenerated flatworm would remember how to run the maze too. Which suggests memory isn’t limited to the centralized brain. Memory MAY be somehow stored in other cells. How cool is that?

global positioning pregnancy

Posted on May 7, 2022 by greg

A lot of anti-abortion advocates are suggesting the furor over Justice Alito’s draft decision on Roe v. Wade isn’t merited because it doesn’t actually ban abortion. They say it just turns the abortion issue from a federal matter into a state matter. They quote Alito’s line that the abortion issue should be “resolved like most important decisions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.”

They say this is fair. Voters get to decide abortion law for their own state. Some states will ban abortions, some will restrict the conditions under which abortions can take place, and some states will continue to allow abortions. This is federalism in action, they say.

That’s bullshit. Even if we ignore the reality that many states are restricting and limiting voter rights (and we shouldn’t ignore that), the notion that abortion should be a matter for individual states to decide is just fucking stupid. It boils down to this: a woman’s right to have autonomy over her reproduction will depend on her geographical location at the time she discovers she’s pregnant. Name me another legal right that is subject to GPS coordinates.

Consider this: some states have laws expressly forbidding pregnant people from leaving their state to obtain an abortion. What happens if somebody from a state where abortion is legal discovers they are pregnant while visiting in a state where abortion is illegal–a state in which it is illegal even to travel to another state to obtain an abortion? Can that person be detained until they give birth?

Let’s say dark blue represents states where men can drive freely, light blue is where men can drive if accompanied by an adult female driver, and in white states men aren’t allowed to drive at all.

There are issues and matters that transcend state borders, issues that require or demand national responses. We cannot have patchwork civil rights and liberties. We fought a bloody civil war to develop a national stance on chattel slavery. We decided marriage can’t be illegal in one state and legal in another–every state must accept the legality of marriage from other states. The right to free speech and assembly can’t be abridged by state borders. If you have a valid driver’s license in Utah, you can drive legally in Georgia. You get the point; some rights should be national. Some rights MUST be national. Hell, some rights MUST be international.

The right of reproductive choice is one of those national matters. Roe v. Wade needs to remain the law of the land. People should have the right to decide if they want to be pregnant.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Burn the patriarchy. Douse it with oil, set it on fire, dance around the flames. Piss on the smoking embers.

they’re right to be afraid

Posted on May 4, 2022 by greg

This is an actual Washington Post headline for an article by Jeff Stein (WaPo’s White House economics reporter):

With Roe at risk, GOP faces pressure to support families after birth

Republican supporters of policies to help children say new restrictions on abortion should change political calculus

Dude, c’mon, you ought to know better. The GOP opposition to abortion isn’t about babies. It’s not about children or families.

If it was about babies or children or families, the GOP wouldn’t need to start cobbling together policies “to help children.” If it was about babies, those policies would already be in place.

If it was about babies and families, the US would make pre-natal care, childbirth, and post-natal care free (or at least affordable). If it was about babies and families, the US mandate paid parental leave with employment safeguards. If it was about babies and families, we’d support new parents by guaranteeing they’ll be able to return to their jobs and insuring they didn’t lose income during the important first few months of a baby’s life. But the GOP opposes all of this.

If it was about babies and families, we’d have free (or heavily subsidized) day care for working families. If it was really about babies and families, we’d provide a basic income for a parent who opts to be a full-time parent. If it was about children and families, we’d fund public education better; we’d pay teachers more; we’d give much more financial support to after-school programs. But the GOP opposes that.

If it was truly about babies and children and families, we’d enact sensible firearm legislation. In 2020, firearms became the leading cause of death among kids aged one to nineteen. More kids died from gunshot wounds than from car crashes, cancer, or drugs. But there’s no way the GOP would support gun restrictions.

No, it’s perfectly clear the GOP opposition to reproductive freedom isn’t–and never has been–about protecting babies, children, or families. It’s certainly not about protecting women. It’s about controlling women. It’s about reinforcing patriarchy. And deep down, it’s about being afraid of women.

The GOP is right to be afraid.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Burn the patriarchy. Set it ablaze and let it burn until its reduced to ash. Stomp the ashes into dust. Let the wind blow it away.

in the neck (again)

Posted on May 3, 2022 by greg

I just want to say this right at the start: fuck you, Sam Alito. Fuck you in the neck.

I was going to write a few paragraphs describing the role of SCOTUS draft opinions, because that’s important. I was also going to natter on about how Comrade Trump and the GOP have gutted the integrity of the Supreme Court. And I thought about saying something about unenumerated rights in the Constitution. All that stuff is important and deserves to be discussed. But mostly I just want to say why Justice Sam Alito should go fuck himself.

First off, he writes this: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start.” Obviously, I disagree. But that’s not why Alito should go fuck himself. I mean, I disagree with lots of folks about lots of things. Believing Roe was wrongly decided is a valid opinion even though I happen to think it’s stupid.

No, Alito should go fuck himself, in part, because in his draft opinion he goes on (oh, it occurs to me that I should include a link to the actual draft opinion in case you want to read it, so here it is) to make this argument:

It’s time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives. “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important decisions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.” That is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand.

This is a bullshit argument for a metric fuck-ton of reasons. First and foremost, it’s galling for SCOTUS to claim the answer is voting AFTER they’ve helped states gut voting rights. Fuck you, Sam Alito, in the neck. If SCOTUS says 1) states can gerrymander voting districts (which are also Congressional districts), and 2) states can impose arbitrary partisan restrictions on voting places and voting times, and 3) states can impose partisan methods of voting identification (like accepting a concealed weapon permit, but rejecting a student ID), and 4) states can impose arbitrary restrictions on absentee voting or voting by mail, then SCOTUS is an irresponsible asshole for claiming the answer to any important civil question is voting.

You CANNOT eviscerate voting rights and then claim voting is how important decisions should be made. Fuck SCOTUS and Sam Alito in the goddamn neck.

But wait, there’s more. Alito also argues that any ‘unenumerated right’ “must be strongly rooted in U.S. history and tradition.” Unenumerated rights are those NOT specifically mentioned in the Constitution. The right to privacy is an unenumerated right. There’s nothing in the Constitution that explicitly says we have a right to privacy. But a LOT of SCOTUS cases have depended on that right. For example:

Skinner v Oklahoma, which said a law allowing convicted criminals to be sterilized was unconstitutional.
Griswold v. Connecticut, which said a law banning contraceptives was unconstitutional. The case made it legal to use birth control.
Loving v. Virginia, which said a law banning inter-racial marriage was unconstitutional. The case made it legal to marry somebody of a different race.
Lawrence v. Texas, which said a law against two persons of the same sex engaging in certain intimate sexual conduct was unconstitutional. The case essentially made it legal for gay folks to have sex.
Obergefell v. Hodges, which said a law banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. The case made marriage equality legal.

That’s five cases I can think of without any real research. None of the issues in these cases are mentioned in the Constitution; they all depend on the unenumerated concept of a constitutionally protected right to privacy. If, as Alito argues, these rights “must be strongly rooted in U.S. history and tradition” in order to be constitutional, then all of these cases can be overturned. I mean, there WAS NO history or tradition of allowing inter-racial marriage when Loving was decided. Hell, for that matter, there WAS a history and tradition of banning inter-racial marriage.

If/when Roe is overturned, then look for marriage equality to be threatened. Look for the right to contraception to be threatened.

That’s why Sam Alito should go fuck himself. So should Clarence Thomas, and Brett ‘I Like Beer’ Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett. And so should every motherfucker in the Senate who voted to approve them for the Court. And so should everybody who voted for every motherfucker in the Senate who voted to approve them.

There are a whole lot of people who should go fuck themselves in the neck.

EDITORIAL NOTE: Burn the patriarchy. Burn it to the ground, Burn it to the ground, collect the ashes, and grind them into powder. Bury the powder deep in the earth, and salt the ground above it so nothing will ever grow there. Pour cement over the salt. Then nuke the entire site from orbit (it’s the only way to be sure).

gregfallis.com

it's this or get a real job

Monthly Archives: May 2022