Put Supreme Court Justices on Vacation

The Supreme Court has become the “No-Surprise Supreme Court.” The justices take cases seemingly adjudicated rationally and definitely in lower courts and deliver the most unlikely, far-right decisions that ignore the clear meaning and intention of the Constitution and statutory law but satisfy Donald Trump and his Republican sycophantic minions. Once a case is accepted by the court, a goofy, law-free decision is assured. The latest decision is a perfect example of a ruling that has a certain facial logic, but is guaranteed to have a devastating effect on the rule of law in this country.

Given that the court operates this way nearly always, why do we need the justices at all? Let them all go on their oligarch-funded 12-month vacations and save themselves the trouble of figuring out how to contort the law out of all recognition to reach the decision they want, in their heart of hearts, to reach. Journalists can, with 90% certainty, generate the democracy-killing decisions the court would hand down were the justices actually sitting. And they can do it without the long, anxiety-producing delays we typically endure. If the court is going to wreck our democracy, why not do it and get it over with?

Current Supreme Court Justices

A Mechanism for Better Poetry Reading

I often read poetry in public, usually my own, but sometimes the poetry of others. In particular, I have been reading poetry at Sulfur Books at its monthly Open Mic Night. Usually, reading a poem is straightforward, but not always. Sometimes a line, at least considered in isolation, can be read in more than one way.

Last night, I read my latest poem, “Lament for America,” at Open Mic Night. (Although it made no difference to me one way or another, for the first time, performers actually used a microphone, a helpful change in light of the larger audiences Open Mic Night has been attracting.) The poem does not rhyme, and its line lengths vary between 11 and 18 syllables. Every line, however, contains five metrical feet of varying meter. In other words, five syllables in each line are stressed. I thought it essential that this unifying characteristic of the poem be made as clear as possible in my recitation. A thoughtless reading of the poem could obscure its essential unity.

To assure a proper reading of the poem, I thought of annotating the text with accent marks to indicate stressed syllables. This seemed clumsy, however, and might even have obscured the words themselves. I then hit upon an idea that actually worked quite well. I rendered the stressed syllables in red. Well, technically, I used a red font to indicate each word or part of a word whose first syllable only is stressed. Coloring only individual syllables, I reasoned, threatened to encourage a choppy delivery.

Here is the beginning of “Lament for America” as it appeared on the page from which I read my poem:

Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean, has lost her luster,

And Lady Liberty weeps for want of freedom,

Her torch of enlightenment no longer a beacon to the world.

The Mother of Exiles no longer welcomes the masses,

And those who accepted her welcome find it withdrawn.

I was surprised that this mechanism not only assured that lines were read with proper emphasis, but also that it made reading the poem more fluid. My working theory is that concentrating on the red text maintained my concentration generally, leading to a better reading.

Lament for America

Many of us are concerned about the future of our country and worry that the grand experiment that is the United States of America may be coming to an end. It is important not to give up, not to give in to the administration that seeks to replace our democratic institutions with autocratic ones. Certainly, the myriad No Kings rallies across the country this past weekend offer some hope that the citizenry is getting fed up with Donald Trump and his minions and, ultimately, will insist on a return to sane democratic governance.

In my systematic reading of the Bible, I recently read the Book of Lamentations. It seemed fitting to lament the attacks visited upon the Republic by the Trump administration, just as Jeremiah (or whoever wrote the book) lamented the destruction of Jerusalem. The result of my musings is my new poem “Lament for America.” The poem may seem bleak, as do our current circumstances. But it may inspire us to elude the tragic destination to which the nation seems to be heading.

Another Burma-Shave–Inspired Poem

I’ve been looking through the stack of papers on my desk. On a church bulletin insert, I found the beginning of a poem I scribbled down during a service. I hadn’t remembered writing it at all, but I thought I might make something of it. It addressed the firing of scientists in the medical field who are being dismissed by the Trump (or is it the Musk) administration. Reflecting on what I had written, I realized that I could recast my proto-poem as a series of Burma-Shave–inspired demonstration signs. (See Protest Sign Lessons and Plans.) The product of my ruminations was the following:

Medical researchers
Sent away
No longer keep
Disease at bay.