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Snippets . . . PTD Edition

My experience last year made me think about death in a different way. I briefly blacked out and collapsed in a shopping center hallway where nice people helped me. When I looked back at the episode as a near-death experience, I thought it would be embarrassing to have my obit say, “He collapsed and died in the Atlantic Street mall outside a Marshall’s.” I did not know where I wanted to die, but it wasn’t there. Since then the spouse and I have looked at many continuing care retirement communities, or as I call each of them, a Place To Die. Both the spouse and I have posted about these travels on this blog, but our search has now ended. We have signed a contract and put a down payment to enter a CCRC in suburban New York. I have a PTD. Of course, we must now downsize and sell our Brooklyn house where we have lived for 45 years. But, I am confident that the move will come by the end of the year. I hope that it gives some interesting, perhaps amusing, blog fare.

“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die.” Mel Brooks.

“Only the young die good.” Ethel Watts Mumford.

“Dying’s not so bad. At least I won’t have to answer the telephone.” Rita Mae Brown.

“The type of man who will end up dying in his own arms.” Mamie van Doren on Warren Beatty.

“My grandmother was a very tough woman. She buried three husbands. Two of them were just napping.” Rita Rudner.

“God was very good to the world. He took her from us.” Bette Davis on Miriam Hopkins.

“If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.” Erma Bombeck.

“It is fine to speak well of the dead, but what shall we do with those who are dead and don’t know it?” Unknown.

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.” Anonymous.

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying that I approved of it.” Mark Twain.

I told the spouse that I wanted to be cremated. She said, “When?”

“In the words of a Fula proverb: ‘Until a man is dead, he is not yet done being created.’” David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black.

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When the President Does It. . . He’s Immune (Concluded)

 Is Presidential Immunity Necessary?

The Court said that a president must have immunity for official acts because prosecutions can intrude on the authority and functions of the executive branch.  Roberts writes:

“The hesitation to execute the duties of his office fearlessly and fairly that might happen when a President is making decisions under a pall of potential prosecution raises unique risks to the effective functioning of government. A President inclined to take one course of action based on the public interest may instead opt for another, apprehensive that criminal penalties may befall him upon his departure from office. And if a former President’s official acts are routinely subjected to scrutiny in criminal prosecutions, the independence of the Executive Branch may be significantly undermined.”

This rationale is remarkable. Up until this decision, it had been widely assumed that a president could be prosecuted after leaving office. Every president until now, if he thought about it at all, would have assumed that he did not have immunity when an ex-president. Meanwhile, the presidency has been extensively, even exhaustively, studied. Untold volumes of presidential papers have been compiled. Uncounted books and papers about the lives of presidents and their decision making have been published. (More than 16,000 publications about Lincoln alone.) If there have been any instances, much less numerous ones, where a president made a decision based on the possibility of a future prosecution, the Court does not tell us about it. On the other hand, if the threat of prosecution has had a powerful effect on presidents, there should be many historical examples of distorted decision making that resulted.

The Court also voiced its concerns about “routine” prosecutions of former presidents for official acts. Roberts said that the dissents raise fears about “extreme hypotheticals where the president feels empowered to violate federal criminal law. The dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself, with each successive president free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next. . . . Without immunity such types of prosecutions of ex-Presidents could quickly become routine.”

Of course, this is mere speculation without a historical basis. We have an n of one for such prosecutions. The Court seems to have swallowed the Kool Aid of Trump that his prosecution is fueled by partisanship, and if partisanship controls, we can expect more prosecutions. In any event, the supposed fear that political opponents will prosecute former presidents in the future for partisan reasons has neither history nor logic behind it. As noted above, these are the first prosecutions of a former president in our more than two century existence, even though during that time we have had many fierce, partisan alignments. The immunity advocates may say that the times are now different, but if so, they don’t want to recognize that the times may be different because Trump’s actions have been unprecedented.

There are natural, institutional restraints on the use of criminal charges for normal presidential decisions against former presidents. Most of what a president does—appoint a Secretary of State, prepare a budget, draft a new healthcare bill—is not even arguably criminal and will not lead to any criminal prosecution. Perhaps, however, ordering a drone strike that kills an American citizen claimed to be a terrorist leader in the Mideast or declaring an “emergency” to divert moneys to build a border wall that Congress has refused to fund might be at least arguably criminal. Even if so, successor administrations are highly unlikely to seek indictments for such actions no matter what the partisan climate. Criminal charges against a former president could mean that his successor has restricted his own freedom of action. Someday he may want to do something similar to what a predecessor did, but if he labeled it criminal through a prosecution, he wouldn’t be able to. Sitting presidents almost never want to limit their power. Indicting and trying predecessors for truly presidential acts has not happened and will not happen. The scare tactics about routine prosecutions, not supported by history or logic, are straw dogs.

Can Immunized Official Acts Be Used As Evidence?

The Supreme Court went beyond the creation of immunity for Trump. Roberts stated that the Government (i.e., the DOJ) had inappropriately proposed the use of immunized official acts as evidence in an allowed trial. Here’s an example of what that might mean: Assume that it is determined that Trump’s role in seeking to assemble fake electors is a private action, and he can be prosecuted. He might argue that he was only seeking to ensure election integrity, and anything that might look criminal arose out of good intentions and was not a crime. That contention would be undermined by evidence that he sought to have the Justice Department launch sham investigations into the election. Similar kinds of evidence seeking to show a corrupt intention are used regularly in trials. But the Supreme Court said it can’t be used in the prosecution of an ex-president, stating that using official acts to help prove issues in a prosecution for a private act “threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized.”

They held further that the use of such evidence might distort presidential decision making. This assumption was unsupported. Moreover, it’s highly unlikely. The Court apparently believes that a president, while doing an official act for which he will get immunity, might consider that his action might be used in evidence in a criminal prosecution for a non-immunized act that he is not then doing and that he might never do. Follow that? Neither do I. Who thinks along such convoluted lines? Meanwhile, it is hard to see how presidential choices about corporate taxes, Chinese tariffs, the Affordable Care Act, and the like would ever have evidentiary value in a prosecution that may or may not happen for a private act. Come to think of it, would it be a bad thing if a president thought twice about seeking sham investigations into voter fraud?

The Court also said the evidentiary restriction is necessary because otherwise there will be “a unique risk that the jurors’ deliberations will be prejudiced by their views of the policies and the performance of the president.” Furthermore, “the ordinary trial tools may protect ordinary criminal defendants, but the immunity seeks to protect not the president himself but the institution of the presidency.” Not surprisingly, there are no citations in support of these propositions. Moreover, they ignore an obvious logical flaw. The Court can hide presidential behavior by not allowing evidence of it, but it can’t hide that a previous president is being tried. If the jurors are prejudiced by their views of his polices and performance, they will be prejudiced with or without the evidentiary restriction. Of course, normally this is handled during jury selection and by normal evidence rules as well as judicial admonitions about what evidence to consider and how it is to be used. Unless the Court is going to create more unknown trial procedures, the fact that an ex-president is on trial can’t be kept from the jury. If opinions about an ex-president are prejudicial, the prejudice will be there with or without the evidentiary restriction. However, that restriction will deny the jury important evidence making such a trial less fair.

Did It Matter that Justices Alito and Thomas Did Not Recuse Themselves?

Cries went out that Justices Thomas and Alito should recuse themselves because their wives’ activities produced conflicts of interest. The two, of course, still joined the majority. At first glance, this did not seem to matter since the Court split six to three along ideological and political lines. If Justices Thomas and Alito had not sat, the split would have been four to three with the same result. But that overlooks some important points.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a concurring opinion that largely agreed with Roberts’s opinion. However, she withheld complete agreement by writing that the attempt to organize alternative electors was a private act, and she saw no plausible argument for barring a prosecution for this conduct. If Thomas and Alito had not sat, there would have been only three votes for remanding for a trial court determination of whether this conduct received immunity. Instead, the Court would have held that that the prosecution could proceed on these grounds.

In addition, she also concluded that the evidentiary restriction created by the Court was wrong. The three dissenting judges also came to the conclusion. The four would have been the majority on this issue if Thomas and Alito had been recused. In short, their failure to recuse mattered. 

Who Benefits Most from the Decision?

Trump v. United States (seldom has there been a better name for a Supreme Court case—Trump against the United States) was a major victory for the former president. Because of these rulings and remands back to the lower court, no trial will be held for quite some time, if ever.  The normal rule is that appeals are held only after all the trial court proceedings have been completed. The Court held, however, that interlocutory appeals can be taken on the immunity issues. That means whenever the trial court decides about immunity — which will take time to allow for briefing, arguments, consideration, and decision making — an appeal on these issues can be taken immediately, and the trial held in abeyance. Then there will be more briefing, arguments, consideration, and decision making in the Court of Appeals. And then there will be an attempt to take the appeal to the Supreme Court. Don’t hold your breath waiting for a trial’s outcome. If Trump is tried, it may not be for years, and by then the case will be in a bastardized form and far from what the prosecution has alleged.

According to some the decision is also a major victory for the institution of the president, but it is also a limitation on the presidency. The Court has taken away part of what it says is a quintessential executive power—the authority to investigate and prosecute crimes. In giving immunity to a former president, the Court has limited the power of the sitting president to investigate and prosecute. The Court, without any apparent consideration of it, has removed from all presidents the quintessential power of determining whether the prosecution of a former president is in the national interest.

The Court, by leaving many issues open with little or clouded guidance, has arrogated power to the judiciary. What is a “core” official act? Is the immunity for a non-core act absolute or presumptive? If it is presumptive, how, if at all, can the presumption be overcome? What is the line between a private act by a president and an official one? We have no evidence that past presidents ever made decisions concerned about a future prosecution, but after this decision a president may be emboldened to push the boundary on criminal actions because of the newly created immunity. However, because of the many open questions, a president may not be sure about his freedom from prosecution. By Roberts’s analysis they still can’t in all circumstances “boldly and fearlessly” carry out their duties. They must wait until the courts decide these open issues. The decision gave the president extraordinary authority; it also gave the courts potent powers.

Of course, the immunity created for Trump should apply to other presidents. Would you advise Biden to use this new opportunity? For example, Biden could order the FBI or intelligence agencies to surveil Trump and all his advisers or to disrupt communications among them. Or perhaps surveil Justice Thomas to see if, despite disclaimers, he and his wife do talk politics. Biden would be giving such orders to members of the executive branch, and his actions would now have absolute immunity.

Conclusion

Almost fifty years ago, David Frost asked then ex-President Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides “it’s in the best interests of the country or something.” Nixon famously replied, “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” Nixon was mocked for his answer. The present Supreme Court did not say that all official presidential acts were automatically legal; they said only(?) that the president had immunity for them. But is something criminal if the perpetrator can never by prosecuted for it? The mockery of Nixon should end. And of course, there is now the question of whether Nixon should have had immunity for Watergate. Nixon’s role was to talk with his advisers in the executive branch that set off the chain of events that led to Watergate. Would those conversations now have to be considered core presidential actions for which he had absolute immunity?

Welcome to the new world where, according to the Supreme Court, presidents for the first time, can make decisions boldly and fearlessly because they have immunity from criminal prosecution. Meanwhile, many of us see a new world where presidents are above the law and can commit crimes without accountability.

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When the President Does It . . . He’s Immune

The Basic Finding of the Court

The Supreme Court in Trump v. United States held that presidents — present, past, and future — have immunity from criminal prosecution for their official actions.

There are many unsettling aspects to this decision.

 The starting point should be the Constitution. Read the Constitution. Read it again. No such immunity is in the Constitution’s text. Moreover, in our 230-year history, the Supreme Court has never held that such immunity existed. That is, until July 2024, when the Court discovered such immunity. Apparently, the Founders’ mistake has been corrected centuries later.

The Court held further that there is absolute immunity for “core” presidential actions, those where the Constitution gives “conclusive and preclusive” authority to the president. This immediately raises the question of what constitutes a “core” action. While indicating their list was not exhaustive, the Court asserted that the power to pardon, remove executive branch officials, and recognize foreign countries fell within the definition of core presidential actions.

This list is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the powers to remove officials and recognize foreign countries are not “core” enough to have been enumerated in the Constitution. They are not mentioned in the text. Instead, the president has conclusive and preclusive authority in these areas only because the Supreme Court, well after the Constitution was adopted, said so.

Presidential authority to pardon is in the Constitution but think about what absolute immunity means here. No matter how corrupt the motive for the act, an ex-president cannot be prosecuted for granting a pardon. Even if it could be proved that the president solicited $1 million for it, he is immune. [I am using “he” or “his” throughout for ease of reading.] The bribery laws now apply to everyone in the U.S. except one person.

The Court did say that immunity could extend only to “official” actions. The opinion did not give an authoritative test for separating the official from the unofficial, but it indicated that the scope of official acts is broad. Official acts, they write, are all actions within the “outer perimeter” of a president’s powers and duties. Only acts “manifestly or palpably” beyond his authority are unofficial or private. As you will see below, it is left to others to determine what the definition of “’manifestly or palpably’ beyond his authority” actually means.

When us ordinary folk think about core presidential powers, we probably think about the president as commander in chief, his role in foreign affairs, and his setting legislative priorities in taxation, healthcare, immigration, civil rights, and myriad other areas. Trump, like every president before him, was not prosecuted for any of these “core” areas. Moreover, he was not prosecuted for the core areas enumerated by the Court. He was not prosecuted for pardoning someone. He was not prosecuted for removing someone from the executive branch nor for recognizing a foreign country. Instead, he was prosecuted for trying to prevent the results of a valid election by seeking sham Justice Department investigations, pressuring a vice president to ignore his duties, urging state officials to “find” votes, assembling “electors” who have not been elected, and urging a throng to go to the Capitol where electoral votes were to be accepted. Would our founders have seen these as official presidential acts? The Court shoehorns them into official acts, but they were primarily, if not entirely, the acts of a candidate trying to retain his office. These unprecedented political acts, not the normal duties of a president, brought the unprecedented prosecution.

Can a President Commit a Criminal “Official” Action?

The president is never authorized by the Constitution or Congress to take a criminal action. You might think, then, that he cannot be acting officially if he commits a criminal act. Not according to this decision. So, for example, the Court stated that the investigation and prosecution of crimes is a quintessentially executive function. In 2020 Trump allegedly urged the Justice Department to act on bogus claims of election fraud. The Supreme Court concluded that even if Trump had sought sham investigations, even if his behavior was criminal –he is absolutely immune for this conduct because it falls within his executive function. At least when it comes to the president, even criminal acts can be official ones. This means that if Trump had ordered the arrest of duly elected electors so that they could not cast their votes, he would have had had immunity from criminal prosecution.

Is Urging Someone within the Executive Branch to Break the Law an Official Act?

The Court’s expansive notion of official actions is illuminated by its discussion of Trump’s alleged pressuring of Vice President Pence not to certify the valid electoral college results. Chief Justice Roberts writes, presumably with a straight face, that “our constitutional system anticipates that the President and the Vice President will remain in close contact regarding their official duties….” This is asserted without any citation. This is not surprising since there is nothing to cite. The Constitution nowhere suggests that this is a required or even a desirable facet of the relationship between the two. It is also historically inaccurate; there has often been little-to-almost-no contact  between a president and a vice president. Sometimes there has been outright hostility between them. Roberts continues that it is important for the president to talk about official matters with the Veep to ensure continuity in the executive branch and to advance the presidential agenda. It may be nice, or even desirable, for this to happen, but it is not a requirement in the Constitution.

The Court then concludes that whenever the president and the vice president discuss their official responsibilities, they engage in official conduct. Au contraire. Trump was not discussing any presidential duties when pressuring Pence. The Court admits that the president had no official role in the January 6 certification; it was the sole duty of the vice president. Even so, the Court held that Trump’s pressure on the vice president involved official presidential conduct. To repeat, the Court held that it was official conduct even though the president had no official role in the certification. An official act can, apparently, occur even when there is no official role or duty.

Okay. Now Things Get Complicated

Even if it had been an official act, Trump does not necessarily mean that he can’t be prosecuted for his attempt to get Pence to do something illegal. The Supreme Court stated that if a president commits a criminal act that is not within his core duties but is an official act, he may have absolute immunity or presumptive immunity. With presumptive immunity one assumes he has immunity until someone (a court) decides he doesn’t. This Court, however, chose not to determine the issue of immunity in this instance because it had no guidance from previous cases. No surprise there; there has only been one case raising the issue—this one. (N.B. There has been only one such case since the country began — this one.)

Nevertheless, the Court gave this muddy guidance: In its opinion the Court said that if an action has presumptive immunity, the prosecution must overcome the presumption by showing that its prosecution has no danger of intruding on the authority and functioning of the executive branch. As for Trump’s pressure on Pence, the Court averred that because the VP acts as President of Senate when certifying the electoral vote, this is not an executive branch function. The president plays no role in it, and thus, the Court said, prosecution based on this particular conduct may not pose a danger of intruding into the authority of executive branch. Then, without explaining how, maybe it will. With this mysterious pronouncement, the Court sent the issue back to the lower court to figure it out.

What is the Lower Court Supposed to Do?

The Court sent other matters back to the trial court that had been hearing the original case. In doing so, they are asking the lower court to determine immunity (or not) on several issues. Again, the Court offered only murky guidance. So, for example, Roberts stated that Trump had no official role in the selection of electors. On the other hand, the president has a role in enforcing federal election laws. Was the attempt to round up fake electors an official act, and if so, was presumptive immunity overcome? Take a whack at that one, trial court.

And this one. The Court said that a president has extraordinary power to speak to the public, but at times he may be speaking in an unofficial capacity as a party leader or a candidate. Were Trump’s actions on January 6 official acts, and if so, was presumptive immunity overcome? Chew on that, trial court.

Let me suggest a test that the trial courts might use: If someone outside the government could have done the same thing that an ex-president seeking immunity did, then those actions were not presidential acts. So, for example, a candidate who is not an incumbent might pressure a state Secretary of State to “find” votes or seek to assemble false electors with the implicit or explicit message that when he becomes president, he will remember who his friends and supporters were. A candidate who is not an incumbent could rile up a throng of his supporters in a public park urging them to prevent the certification of electors. If the candidate could be prosecuted for these actions, an ex-president should not be immune for them.

(Concluded July13)

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Honor the Founders, But . . .

On the Fourth of July we honor the founding of our country. The country has always been imperfect, but it is worth honoring.

On the Fourth we honor our Founders, who, being human, were imperfect, but they are worth honoring.

On the Fourth we should also honor all the many people who brought about the Spirt if ’76. When the imperfections of revered people are pointed out, we often say that they were a product of their times. However, the good also comes from the age in which they lived. Jefferson could not have drafted the Declaration of Independence in 1736 because the times were not ready for it. And he would not have drafted it in 1816 because it would have already been written by someone else. As Pauline Maier in American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence reports, many localities had drafted Declarations of Independence in the months before July 4, 1776. If Jefferson had not lived, a national Declaration of Independence, perhaps with not the same eloquence, would still have been adopted. On the Fourth, we should honor more than just the few Founders, but all the Americans who produced the spirit of the times that demanded independence.

On the Fourth of July we honor our warriors, and we should honor those who have performed military service, especially now when an increasingly smaller portion of our population serves to protect the rest of us. Warriors have fought to make us freer and safer.

Those who defend our country are patriots, but so are those who seek to make America better, who strive for an even stronger and freer country today, tomorrow, and for future generations. Improvement, however, requires understanding America’s strengths and America’s weaknesses. Critics of this country are also patriots and should be honored. This includes those who have questioned our wars. Not every one of our armed conflicts has made us freer and safer. The prevention of the needless death or maiming of a soldier is at least as patriotic as honoring the fallen and disabled.

Have hot dogs and hamburgers, ice cream and watermelon. Read the Declaration. Honor Hancock, Jefferson, Franklin and other Founders. But honor many others also.

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First Sentences

“At the turn of the twentieth century, before Zionist colonization had much appreciable effect on Palestine, new ideas were spreading, modern education and literacy had begun to expand, and the integration of the country’s economy into the global capitalist order was proceeding apace.” Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917-2017.

“Had Ernst Simmel known he was to be the Axman’s second victim, he would no doubt have downed a few more drinks at The Blue Ship.” Hǻkan Nesser, Borkmann’s Point: An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery.

“In the early morning hours of Wednesday, November 28, 1917, someone knocked on Khalil al-Sakakini’s front door and brought him great misfortune, indeed almost got him hanged.” Tom Segev, One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (translated by Haim Watzman).

“We are the earth, the land.” Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.

“It was July 29, 2019—the worst day of my life., though I didn’t know that quite yet.” Tim Alberta, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism.

“Whenever I woke up, night or day, I’d shuffle through the bright marble foyer of my building and go up the block and around the corner where there was a bodega that never closed.” Ottessa Moshfegh, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

“In 1848 Will and Ellen Craft, an enslaved couple in Georgia, embarked upon a five-thousand-mile journey of self-emancipation across the world.” Ilyon Woo, Master Slave Husband Wife.

“My journal is a private affair, but as I cannot know the time of my coming death, and since I am not disposed, however unfortunately, to the serious consideration of self-termination, I am afraid that others will see these pages.” Percival Everett, Erasure.

“Mark Twain counted pockets among the most useful of inventions.” Hannah Carlson, Pockets: An Intimate History of How We Keep Things Close.

“They were still traveling, into the dark.” Denise Mina, Field of Blood.

“It was a November afternoon in Queens and Jie Zou was looking for a parking spot.” Henry Grabar, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.

“From then on whenever he heard the song he thought of the death of Munson.” Colson Whitehead, Crook Manifesto.

“A little more than two hundred years ago, Europeans contemplated the Islamic countries of the Middle East from afar and imagined rare silks and spices, harems, and gold—yellow gold, not the underground sea of black gold that modern Westerners associate with the region.” Nina Burleigh, Mirage: Napoleon’s Scientists and the Unveiling of Egypt.

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Snippets

I placed The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers on the bar. A young man came up next to me to order a beer. He noticed the heft of the book and asked why I was reading it. I said that people I knew and others had recommended it. He asked if he could take a picture of the spine. I consented to the strange request. He looked closer at the novel and said that he did not know the book but had heard of the author. After the briefest debate with myself, I told him that W.E.B. Du Bois had not written it. “Oh,” he said.

She placed a book on the bar as she settled on the stool next to me. She started to read, and I asked what she was reading. She showed me the cover. It was Volume II of a title I did not recognize. She said that it was a Chinese classic. She told me from what dynasty, but I confessed I never knew one Chinese era from another. I let her try to read over the din of the bar’s Trivia Night. Ten minutes later she indicated that she wanted to show me something and held out her right arm. On the inside upper part was a beautiful tattoo of a beautiful woman. She then turned back to the book’s cover and pointed out a figure. “It’s her,” she said. I did not know how to respond. She then leaned closer and almost whispered, “It cost me $500.” I found this unsettlingly intimate. I left a bit later and politely, but not sincerely, said to her, “I hope I see you again.”

Our lunch companions had both been married before. When asked how they had met, the charming Cliff said that they had been neighbors in Scarsdale. He continued that after they married they moved to Greenwich. I said, “Ah, you were run out of Scarsdale.” With his winning smile, Cliff said, “Something like that.” And I thought a twofer. Two commandments broken in one relationship. But this could not have been because they both regularly attended an Episcopal church.

Joan at lunch said that she refused to eat with a Trump supporter. The spouse mentioned that the bubbly Pat at breakfast had told us for no particular reason that she loved Trump. Joan was shocked when she learned that, but we left shortly afterwards so we don’t know how that story continues.

We had lunch with Sam in a Connecticut suburb. He loved going to plays in New York City, taking the train in and catching matinees. He also was a museum goer, and we discussed recent plays and exhibits. He used the subways to get around the city although most of his suburban compatriots were afraid of those trains. He said that after lunch he was driving to a summer house that had been in his wife’s family for 96 years. The house was not hooked up for electricity but had solar power and a generator. Outhouses had been used for most of its history. He said that with his four kids he had been required to dig a new hole every month. Without traffic, he said that it took about an hour to get there. He got in the left lane, he continued, and drove 85 mph all the way. He said that a state trooper had told them that they no longer gave speeding tickets, so he was not concerned. His children, however, want him to take the train and give up driving. He is 97. He said he enjoyed life and wanted to live to 110.

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Lawn Bowling, and Then You Die

I gave up golf in high school. My father was a golfer, and he taught my mother to play. The two of them played two or three time a week. When I was small, I would walk with them and search the roughs for lost balls. It was always a thrill to find one. Even better than an Easter egg hunt. My father also taught me some golf fundamentals in our backyard with wiffle-like golf balls. I started to play with my parents. I suppose for a twelve-year-old I was okay, but I knew that if I were going to play the game, I was going to have to practice chips and pitches and putts and bunker play. I hated that stuff. I wanted to run and slide and get dirty and sweaty. Someone could hit me grounders for hours, and I enjoyed it, but not golf practice. I stopped playing.

I began to play golf again when I was 55 or 60, and that is my excuse as to why I am so bad at it. My summer community has 27 holes, but it also has ten tennis courts. When I first moved there, I played as much tennis as I could. This started when I was about 45, which is my excuse why I am bad at that game, too. But I also did academic work at the house in the summer place. I started to walk and play nine holes of golf at the end of a day that I had spent at a computer keyboard. I found it a good transition to the evening. After I hit the ball, I only thought about the next shot as I walked to my ball that was never all that far away. That cleared my head from my mental struggles during the day. I tried to remember what my father had taught me about golf, but I was not good. I only played by myself because I was embarrassed to let anyone see how bad I was.

I became more interested in taking golf slightly more seriously when I invited my high school friend, who is a good golfer, to play in the member-guest golf event at the summer place. I didn’t want to embarrass myself too much. We enjoyed the competition and the people we met. It became an annual tradition as long as neither of us had health problems that prevented us from competing. We never won the whole thing, but we won our flight several times. I was always pleased with the few holes where I helped us. On occasion I put a few good shots together to win a hole. So each year, I struggled with golf until the middle of the summer when the member-guest was held. After that I stopped caring about the game.

Now I play nine holes two or three times a week with Tony, who has become a close friend. We don’t compete. He is a terrific golfer, but our times together are only partly about golf. By our separate standards, we would like to play well, but we also have wide-ranging conversations—about books, streaming shows, concerts, good-looking females, history, sports, politics, spouses, children. I care about my time with Tony, but not really about golf. I would not seek out golf if I lived elsewhere.

I had assumed I would play tennis forever. I had seen old guys like I am now enjoying themselves on the courts, but increasingly I found myself not enjoying myself when I hit tennis balls. Various injuries had gotten me into bad tennis habits, and I could not get out of them. I could accept that I could not cover the court like I once did or hit as hard, but it was unpleasant that I felt I could not hit a forehand at all. I have not played in a while, and I am not sure I will again.

Having given up tennis, I thought of a saying someone told me when I moved to my summer community. First you play tennis. Then you play golf. Then you go on to lawn bowling. (The community has bowling greens, which I have seldom utilized.) Then you die. These days pickleball has to be fit into this timeline since the community now has a couple of courts. I vow that someday I will try silly-looking pickleball, although I have not yet done so. So, as I see it, I have some years left to try lawn bowling and pickleball. That should keep me around for a while. Yes, pickleball before I die.

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Snippets

White evangelicals have gained extraordinary political power, but, even though Tim Alberta is an experienced political writer, that is not the focus of his recent book, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism. Alberta is an evangelical himself. In acknowledgements he writes about the Trinity and continues, “I have endeavored to honor God with this book. If anything in these pages fail to do so, I pray that brings it to nothing, and that He carries to completion the good He has begun. Thank you, Jesus. I love you.” Alberta’s focus is on how the evangelical search for political and secular power, of which he has too many examples to summarize, has distorted the church and Christianity he loves. He sees that Trump has coopted evangelicals, but he also maintains that the problems with the church have existed before and apart from the former president. Trump exposed “the selective morality and ethical inconsistency and rank hypocrisy that has for so long lurked in the subconscious of the movement. To be fair, this slow-motion reputational collapse predated Trump; he did not author the cultural insecurities of the Church.” Alberta’s goals are not political; they are religious: “Christians are called to help God’s family grow both quantitatively and qualitatively. This is the enduring purpose of the Church: to mold fallen mortals into citizens of a kingdom they have inherited, through the saving power of Jesus Christ, to the everlasting glory of God, so that they might go and make disciples of their own.” I don’t pretend to identify with or even understand Alberta’s goals. However, if you have an interest in modern religion or in our modern politics, The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism is worth a read.

Would you be happier if the Supreme Court treated its work as if it were a fulltime job and decided more cases? I ask because it is surprising to learn that even though its tasks can be done more efficiently than in most of our history, the Court now decides surprisingly few cases. For example, word processing makes writing and editing less cumbersome than in the days of pens or typewriters. Legal and other research has been computerized so Justices (or one of their clerks) can now easily find all the times “bump stock” has appeared in a legal opinion. Forty or fifty years ago finding that information would have been an onerous task. The Justices have more human assistance in their chambers now. Law clerks have assisted Justices since the first one was hired by Justice Horace Gray in 1882. However, for most of the twentieth century the Justices had only one clerk at a time. In the 1970s and 1980s that changed. Now the Justices have three or four clerks each. This, however, has not led to more Supreme Court decisions. The opposite has occurred. For brevity’s sake let me give you the number of cases decided by Text Box: 1880 229 1900 233 1920 195 1940 151 1960 238 1980 178 2000 84 2020 68 the Supreme Court every twenty years starting in 1880 (see table). And it seems to be going downhill from there. The Court decided 77 cases in 2021, but only 47 in 2022, and 58 last year. The Supreme Court is expected to decide 61 cases this year. Too many books to write? Too many trips to take? What do the Justices do with their time?

A wise person said: “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”

Posted on by rjonakait

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Whenever I watched the right wing “news” channel during Hunter Biden’s trial, I heard hosts and commentators state that this was a Delaware jury that, in essence, had been captured by the Bidens. The jury would “nullify” and acquit Hunter. This was said again and again, not as a possibility but as a certitude. When I watched Fox News after the verdict, I only heard that the evidence against the defendant was overwhelming and the verdict a slam dunk. I heard no one confess error for any previous statements.

“Think before you speak is criticism’s motto; speak before you think creation’s.” E.M. Forster.

Kristin Hannah’s bestselling The Women is a powerful novel. In 1965, Frankie serves as a nurse in the Vietnam War. She makes strong friendships but also experiences the horrors of battlefield wounds, napalm, and Agent Orange. She returns to a divided America where no one wants to hear about her military service. With no outlet to process what she has experienced, she suffers flashbacks and spirals out of control. And that made me think about one of my friendships. My closest high school friend served in Vietnam. In 1968 I took a road trip with him from Chicago to Georgia where he was going to report for duty to be sent to Vietnam. We did not talk about the correctness of the war. We knew that he was going; we knew that I opposed the war. That reticence continued after he returned when antiwar activities had increased. Although we have spent much time together over the years, we have never talked about his experiences in country. The Women made me realize that I have not been the friend I might have been.

“It isn’t the man who controls events but events that control the man.” David Diop, At Night All Blood is Black.

I don’t understand airport security. For example, why do I have to take a computer or iPad out of my carryon at one airport and not at another? And what’s the deal with shoes? TSA is a national agency, so why do the rules vary?

In one of those surveys, which I am sure is highly scientific, Finland ranked first with the highest percentage of happy people. It has been at the top for the last six or seven years. When I hear these results, I think of my friend who worked for Nokia. She liked the work except for her frequent trips to the headquarters in Finland.  It amused her, though, that Helsinki was the only place where she saw women with blonde roots.

I grew up in a small Wisconsin town, but I grew up hearing the roar of a lion. There was a zoo. It had Japanese macaques, which I liked watching, and other animals I don’t remember — except for Sadie the lion. She was kept in a small cage. Not regularly, but often enough, she roared, which was sufficiently loud to be heard at our house. It never sounded fierce, only lonely and sad.

 “Silence is a virtue in those who are deficient in understanding.” Dominique Bouhours.

Posted on by rjonakait

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I don’t understand all the outrage about the flag at Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house. If the flag had not flown, would you have thought that Alito’s rulings are any less partisan?

Oscar Levant to George Gershwin: “Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over, would you fall in love with yourself again?”

When we have visited a continuing care retirement community or a life plan estate or what I refer to as a place to die, a person showing us around always points out at least one library to us. However, on our last two visits, our marketing person referred to them as “libaries.” Should that affect our decision about whether we want to move there?

“Her brain is a cage of canaries.” Virginia Woolf referring to a Russian ballerina.

We had dinner with a couple who lived in a place to die. They were charming. One had been a hairdresser who was an expert in sign language for the deaf. She signed for Red Skelton shows at Atlantic City. She told us that the comedian had a following among the deaf because he did much pantomime and included a sign language “translator” for his stage shows. I found this interesting, but I also found it unsettling that our dinner companion referred to the performer as Red Skeleton.

Conservatives say that if Trump is elected, Democrats should be criminally prosecuted. I agree. If a Democrat falsifies records about hush money payments to an adult film actress to affect an election, those Democrats should be prosecuted.

“The nail that sticks up will be hammered down. Japanese Proverb.” Nami Hirahara, Snakeskin Shamisen: A Mas Arai Mystery.

A friend whom I am sure thought he knew the answer asked if anyone besides Trump had been prosecuted for falsifying business records as a felony. I did a little internet search. I quickly found one site that reported, “New York state has arraigned almost 9,800 cases involving the same charge since 2015.” Another site stated that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had filed 120 cases of falsified business records in the several years before Trump was indicted, all of them felonies based on the concealment or commission of other crimes. A third site concluded, “Prosecution of falsifying business records in the first degree is commonplace and has been used by New York district attorneys’ offices to hold to account a breadth of criminal behavior from the more petty to simple to the more serious and highly organized. We reach this conclusion after surveying the past decade and a half of criminal cases across all the New York district attorneys’ offices.”

Stephen Colbert in his role as a right-wing blowhard said, “I don’t believe in the facts. The facts are liberal.”

I did an internet search for how to pronounce Swiatek. I still don’t know how.