My Multigrain Bread Recipe

I first began baking bread about 50 years ago, having been given a white bread recipe by the wife of a fellow Army bandsman. For years, I baked bread often, but I eventually got out of the habit. In the past couple of years, however, I got back into baking and began experimenting with different styles of bread.

Some time ago, I bought a bag of rye flour without having a specific idea of what I was going to do with it. (Finding rye flour in a supermarket was rare back then, so I grabbed it when I had the chance. My own experience suggests that rye flour is still a bit hard to find.) I began experimenting with breads containing rye, though not actually recognizable as rye bread.

The recipe below has been developed over many batches (and bags of rye flour). It produces tasty, slightly sweet bread. It has become my everyday bread recipe.

A couple of notes on the recipe: Active dry yeast can be substituted for instant dry yeast. The baking time was determined in an oven whose temperature regulation was quite accurate. The time may need to be adjusted for other ovens.

 

Lionel Deimel’s Multigrain Bread

Yield: 2 loaves

Ingredients:

4¼ c (655 g)	Unbleached white bread flour
1⅔ c (208 g)	Rye flour
⅔ c (83 g)	Whole wheat flour
1½ Tbs (16 g)	2 packets instant dry yeast
2 c	Water between 100⁰F and 115⁰F
¼ c	Granulated sugar
⅓ c	Dark brown sugar
⅓ c	Crisco
2 tsp	Salt

Additional Crisco and butter

Instructions:

1.		Mix all flours well in a large bowl.
2.		Dissolve yeast in water in a second bowl.
3.		When yeast is dissolved (or at least well distributed), add granulated sugar, brown sugar, Crisco, salt, and 3½ c of the flour mixture.
4.		Mix all ingredients until the Crisco is blended in.
5.		Add another 2½ c of the flour mixture and mix well.
6.		Flour work surface with some of the remaining flour mixture.
7.		Turn out dough on work surface and knead until it is smooth and elastic and form it into a ball. Add more flour mixture as necessary to prevent the dough from being sticky.
8.		Place dough in a large bowl coated with Crisco. Turn the dough to coat it all over with Crisco.
9.		Cover the bowl with waxed paper and a towel, and let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free location until it is doubled in size, about 80 min.
10.		Coat two loaf pans with Crisco and set aside.
11.		Flour work surface lightly with remaining flour, adding bread flour if necessary.
12.		Divide the dough into two equal-weight pieces.
13.		Knead each piece to make a smooth ball and roll the dough into a rectangle with the long side slightly longer than the loaf pan. Roll up dough tightly from the long side, folding the ends under. Smooth the edge with the seam as much as possible and place the dough in a prepared loaf pan, seam side down.
14.		Cover the loaf pans with waxed paper coated in butter and a towel. Let dough rise in a warm, draft-free location for approximately 70 minutes.
15.		Preheat oven to 400⁰F.
16.		Bake loaves in the oven for 37 min.
17.		Turn out loaves onto cooling racks. Let bread rest for at least 10 min. before slicing.

The finished product

The Catholic Court

The makeup of the Supreme Court that recently declared that the right to seek an abortion is not protected by the Constitution is atypical in that its members are predominately Roman Catholic. Historically, this situation is highly unusual. Justices more often than not have been Protestants. According to Wikipedia, “[f]or its first 180 years, justices were almost always white male Protestants of Anglo or Northwestern European descent.”

The first Roman Catholic justice was Roger B. Taney, who was appointed Chief Justice by Andrew Jackson following the death of the incumbent, John Marshall. He served as Chief Justice from 1836 until his death in 1864. Taney is best known for his notorious opinion in Dred Scott v. Sandford. It isn’t clear that his Catholicism can be blamed for that decision, which was decided with only two dissenting justices. Taney, after all, was born into a wealthy, slave-holding Maryland family. No other Catholic was appointed to the court for 30 years after Taney’s death when, in 1894, Edward Douglass White joined the court.

Home of the Supreme Court

Until recently, there have seldom been as many as two Roman Catholics on the court. Now, however, the court is dominated by Catholics. The court comprises one Jew, Elena Kagan; one Protestant, Ketanji Brown Jackson; one justice reared Catholic but attending an Episcopal Church, Neil Gorsuch; and six bonified Catholics (John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett). All the Catholic justices except Sotomayor were appointed by Republican presidents.

Nominations to the court have doubtless been made for a variety of reasons. In most cases, religion was likely not a primary consideration. One suspects, however, that Barrett’s nomination may have been an exception. She is something of an über-Catholic and was appointed by a president who promised to appoint justices who would reverse Roe v. Wade.

Senators are reluctant to make too much of a nominee’s religion, lest they open themselves to charges of prejudice. On the other hand, Americans have become increasingly sensitive to the need for diversity in both public and private institutions. The white/black and male/female mix of justices on the Supreme Court are not conspicuously objectionable. On the other hand, there are no Muslim, Native American, or LGBT justices. And why are there so many Roman Catholics? Should not senators show more concern for diversity in an institution as important as the Supreme Court?

For many disputes brought before the justice system, the Catholicism of a judge is of little consequence. In fact, there is a strong social justice concern among many Catholics that many would not label “conservative,” a label often applied to the current court supermajority. Unfortunately, that concern does not seem to apply to pregnant women. Just as belief in the perverse myth that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by Democrats has become a rock-bottom foundation of contemporary Republicanism, opposition to abortion, at least in the United States, has become a rock-bottom foundation of Catholic Christianity. It is not a topic on which the Church or its most rabid adherents are inclined to compromise. The Catholic majority on the Supreme Court made the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization inevitable. Ironically, the Dobbs opinion is bad law argued more poorly than Judge Alito believes Roe had been.

The religious makeup of the Supreme Court is clearly a problem, one likely to affect other decisions related in some way to sex, a topic with which Catholicism seems obsessed. This court also seems to value religious freedom, construed in a way it has never before been understood, above all other freedoms. The court makeup is not easily or quickly changed. This is by design. The court is expected to provide long-term stability and to not be subject to the temporary whims of the populace. What we have discovered, however, is that on a wildly unbalanced court—one with too many Roman Catholic justices, for example—stability can be sacrificed for narrow philosophical or religious ends.

Court watchers are expecting that the coming court term is likely to see even more regressive decisions likely to disrupt the nation we thought we knew. It is time to consider changes to the court that will make it less subject to the whims of an unanticipated philosophical majority. Adding more justices to the court is the most obvious and simple check, though perhaps not the most likely or effective change. Barring that, the best we can hope for is the death of justices while the presidency and Congress are controlled by Democrats. In any case, presidents and senators should pay more attention to religious diversity in selecting Supreme Court justices.

Alas, our future with the current Supreme Court is not bright.

Schroeder Goes to His New Home Today

I have been asking everyone I know and everyone I run into if (1) they would like to adopt a cat, and (2) if not, would they ask other people they know if they would like to adopt a cat. The day before yesterday, a friend was over to pick up some things, have some wine and snacks, and enjoy conversation. Expecting the usual negative reply, I made my standard pitch to find a home for Schroeder. To my surprise, Jacque said she would adopt my rescue! She is a single mom—probably the most impressive supermom I have ever known—with two pre-teen sons.

I spent hours yesterday collecting cat stuff to give Jacque along with Schroeder and writing out information and advice for a new cat owner. Today, Jacque and I had lunch together, after which we returned to my home to collect Schroeder and all his cat paraphernalia for the car ride to his new home. The boys, I am told, are excited about meeting their new pet.

Schroeder, upholding cat tradition, did not want to be caught and put into his carrier. When I tried to pick him up, he ran under a bed. We were able to lure him out with Temptations treats. Eventually, we confined him to the office, a relatively small area. Jacque blocked his access to one of his usual hiding places, and, after chasing the cat around the room a bit, I grabbed him while he was on the back of a couch. Wearing my leather gloves, I pried him off the furniture with some difficulty. Jacque put the carrier on the couch, and Schroeder entered without further drama.

After loading the cat paraphernalia into the car and before trying to put
Schroeder into his carrier, Jacque had some time to bond with her new cat.
 

I will miss Schroeder, of course, but I never intended to adopt him myself. I am just happy to have finally found him a forever home where I’m sure he will be loved.

NOTE: The story of Schroeder from when I first saw him until today can be read here.

Our Democracy Is About to be Tested

It is likely that our democracy is about to undergo a serious stress test.

If, as seems likely, former president Donald Trump stole—there is no other word for what he apparently did—secret documents that could compromise national security, how will he be dealt with?

There is no question that a low-level government employee who did the same thing would be treated harshly and would soon be in prison unless he or she managed to flee the country.

Will Mr. Trump receive the same treatment as that hypothetical low-level functionary? Is it true that no one is above the law, that justice is meted out uniformly to all citizens regardless of station? Does anyone believe that?

If Mr. Trump is guilty, as it seems he may be, of theft of government property (or even treason), will he be punished as any other equally guilty citizen would expect to be punished?

Unless Mr. Trump is dealt with as the law demands, our democracy will have failed an existential test and may not be long for this world.

Schroeder: A Cat Who Needs a New Home

Schroeder

It’s time to find a forever home for my rescued cat Schroeder. I already have two cats, and I brought Schroeder in from the cold for his protection. I expected to return him to the wild eventually, but he took well to domesticity. I will be moving soon, and doing so with three cats is not an option. (You can see the story of how Schroeder came to be with me here. Some additional recent photos can be seen here.)

Schroeder looks onto deck in the late afternoon

I named this cat Schroeder for consistency. My other two cats are named for Peanuts characters: Charlie and Linus.

Schroeder is a neutered brown mackerel tabby, sort of what comes to mind when you think “cat.” He is a domestic shorthair of unknown parentage and age. My vet’s best guess is that he is between 2 and 3 years old. He is a medium-size cat, weighing 9 pounds or so. He is a very quiet cat; his seldom-heard meow is more of a soft squeak. He is not much of a climber. He manicures his claws on a scratching post and not on the furniture. His coat is fairly smooth, and he sheds very little. He shows no interest in being a lap cat, but this might change if he is given more attention than I have been able to provide. He plays with cat toys, both with and without catnip. He is in excellent health, fully vaccinated, and chipped.

Although Schroeder isn’t keen on being picked up, do not think him standoffish. When I show up in a room where he is, he immediately comes to me and likes to be scratched, especially on his head. In general, he likes to be petted. He follows me around, sometimes getting underfoot when he gets too close. I’ve not stepped on him yet, however. He has never bitten or scratched me or anyone else.

If you live in or near Indiana, Pennsylvania, you can come see Schroeder in his current home. I am willing to deliver cat and cat paraphernalia to an adopter in the Pittsburgh area or elsewhere not too far from Indiana. Schroeder comes with a carrier, litterbox, food and water bowls, dry food, a few toys, and documentation. (You needn’t take all the cat stuff if you don’t need it.)

If you would like to adopt Schroeder (or at least consider doing so), please e-mail me as soon as you can at cat@deimel.org. (Schroeder comes free, of course.)

As a parting shot, here’s a short video of Schroeder playing with one of his favorite toys:

Note: Schroeder’s story to date can be followed here.

Feeding the Hummingbirds

I went through a number of hummingbird feeders before I finally found one that worked well for me. Most of my earlier purchases employed a large reservoir above a circular base that included a number of fake-flower feeding stations. I suspect my placement of these feeders may have had something to do with my failure to attract hummingbirds. But such feeders have two intrinsic disadvantages. First, the reservoirs are outrageously large, encouraging nectar profligacy. The other problem is that the big reservoirs block one’s view of some of the feeding stations.

My current hummingbird feeder is working well, and I am seeing hummingbirds at it every day. Photographing the birds, however, is frustrating, as I can never anticipate when they will show up. I have managed to take a few photos.

The latest feeder holds the nectar below a gently curved top. Unlike some feeders, this one also has a circular perch around the feeder. Interestingly, some birds perch on this rim and drink nectar. Less commonly, other birds hover while feeding. I’ve been unsuccessful taking photos of the hovering birds.

All the birds I’ve seen are ruby-throated hummingbirds, of course, the only species found in the Eastern U.S.

One of the perching hummingbirds

A bird feeding on nectar

Democrats and Messaging

I am a liberal Democrat. I believe that governing by Democrats will make America freer, fairer, safer, and more prosperous than will governing by Republicans. In an ideal America, the two major parties would share power and act together for the good of the country. The parties once did that, but it cannot happen again as long as the GOP is dominated by Donald Trump and Donald Trump wannabees.

The Democratic Party cannot advance a liberal agenda—or pretty much any agenda—given the current makeup of Congress and the party’s weakness in the legislatures of many states. This situation demands that we elect more Democrats at every level of government.

Building Democratic majorities requires strong candidates and well-stocked campaign chests. Gerrymandering and voter suppression laws enacted by Republican legislators make this project especially difficult. But Democrats can improve their prospects by crafting their messaging to appeal to more voters rather than scaring them away. (I have written elsewhere about policy positions in 2022. Here, I am more concerned with how the Democratic message is delivered.)

A classic past messaging mistake is the failure to disavow, in the strongest terms, the ill-conceived slogan “DEFUND THE POLICE.” One cannot blame people for having concluded that the slogan implied disbanding the police without concern for the consequences. Even many (most?) people using the slogan did not take it literally, but any slogan that requires paragraphs of explanation is a bad slogan. Many people—notably Joe Biden—disavowed the slogan. Too few Democrats did, and some actually embraced it. Party leaders should have insisted that the slogan was mindless and counterproductive and, although they acknowledged that policing needed some rethinking in this country, defunding the police was not an idea that the party neither embraced nor condoned. The lesson here is that, although a simplified message has its attractions, one can simplify to the point of incoherence. Messages must be carefully crafted.

Liberals—mostly Democrats, I assume—are being equally stupid with regard to transgender people. They label any suggestion that transgender people should be treated any differently than cisgender people of the same “gender” as transphobia. And they insist that transgender people be acknowledged whenever people are spoken of. Democrats need to recognize that there is a difference between sensitivity to personal differences and pandering or virtue-signaling to what is seen as a disfavored minority. Yes, liberals should support sexual minorities, but they should avoid seeming unreasonable.

The increased visibility of trans people is a fairly recent phenomenon, and, for most people, it takes some getting used to. Anyone who doesn’t harbor at least some ambivalence or consternation regarding such folks probably hasn’t thought much about them. This is not to say that Democrats should throw their trans friends under the bus, but it does mean respecting honest concerns and being willing to engage in discussion about the trans phenomenon.

No discussion of transgender rights can be productive if the audience does not accept the legitimacy of transgender people. Unfortunately, to avoid pointless discussion, it may sometimes be necessary to assert that trans people are real and honest. Everyone has known pansy boys and tomboy girls, and such people may wish to be—or believe that, in some sense, they are—properly members of the opposite sex. That may be hard to understand, but it isn’t inconceivable. This is a reasonable and caring message. Medical care for trans children is a tricky subject and is probably best framed in terms of parental rights. (Republicans seem to like the concept of parental rights regarding their children.)

Anyway, if one can get past the idea that being trans is simply a way for children to spy on members of the opposite sex, issues such as which bathroom they should use become easier to discuss without alienating too many voters. If one thinks of oneself and dresses and acts as someone of the opposite sex, using the bathroom “of the sex you were assigned at birth” is simply embarrassing for all concerned. Avoiding such embarrassment can be justified as a matter of simple human dignity.

Discussing the participation in girl sports by transgender girls should be approached carefully. There are legitimate concerns here. If a transgender girl has experienced male puberty, it should be admitted that she may have an unfair advantage when competing against cisgender females. Insisting otherwise makes one look dogmatic, not sensitive. FINA, which administers international competitions in water sports, has ruled that trans females who have undergone male puberty cannot compete. One can argue that, for younger competitors, a similar rule should be applied or that, at lower competition levels, it just isn’t that important. Arguing that trans girls are being denied their rights if, for example, they cannot swim as females, will simply make one seem unreasonable and more concerned for “unusual“ than for “normal” people. (One wonders whether there is some sport in which a transgender boy would be expected to have an advantage over a cisgender male. I’m not sure what sport that would be. It doesn’t seem to be something state legislators are concerned about.) 

Then there is the use by liberals (and, sad to say, mainstream journalists) of such phrases as “pregnant people,” “birthing people,” “menstruating people,” and the like. This drives me, a dyed-in-the-wool liberal, up the wall. Think how the average voter must react. The motivation behind these locutions is, of course, “inclusion.” Yes, a transgender man can be pregnant, but only because he has the biological mechanisms—ovaries, uterus, vagina, etc.—characteristic of a female. However he presents to the world, he must be treated as a woman by any doctor monitoring his pregnancy, irrespective of his “pronouns.” To mangle one’s language to somehow accommodate very rare exceptions is not only self-serving virtue signally, but it is demeaning to cisgender women, who, ironically, feel dismissed, rather than included by the use of such phrases as “pregnant people.” After all, when addressing an audience, one does not normally say “ladies and gentlemen and transgender ladies and transgender men and intersex folks and non-sexual people.” Being “inclusive” just isn’t worth it, and it irritates most of the audience. Democrats, take note.

A bit of an aside: Apparently, it is at least theoretically possible for an intersex person to become pregnant, although this is unlikely for most such persons. In any case, the intersex folks don’t seem to have much of a lobby and probably don’t want to advertise their condition anyway.

Finally, there is the matter of the word “Latinx,” which has been adopted by liberal Democrats (and, again, journalists) and that polling establishes is disliked by most of the people to whom it is intended to refer. Besides the fact that it alienates the very people it seeks to attract, it is a linguistic abomination and should therefore be avoided. We used to get by calling people from Latin America Latinos (Latinas, if only females were being spoken about). No one seemed to get out of sorts at that usage, but the inclusive crowd decided that this was somewhat sexist. (One can see the point.) Thus, they invented Latinx, where, I suppose, the x can represent either o or a (or perhaps both at once). This follows no orthographic rule I have ever encountered and only sort of works for adjectives. Does anyone use the word Latinxes? (Does that word refer to Latin American divorced people?) If Democrats insist on being more inclusive, why not use Latin American—a plural works just fine here—or, to be more creative, just Latin?

Admittedly, in 2022, public speaking is a minefield. Politicians who want to be elected (or re-elected) would do well to seem humane and reasonable and to avoid pitfalls that, sadly, too often seem obvious only after the fact.

Volunteer

Each spring, I plant new flowers and herbs in various planters on the deck. Last winter, I bought new flowerpots and retired one large plastic pot in which I had planted mint. Mint is in a different, more attractive pot now.

Although I worked hard to plant everything and make the deck attractive, I put the retired pot aside and did nothing with it. It still contained soil and the remnants of dead mint plants. I recently noticed a tall stalk growing out of the pot with a bud of some sort at the top. What, I wondered, was this thing.

Today, I found that bud in full bloom. I have no idea what it is, and it resembles nothing I have deliberately planted. This volunteer is a pretty little yellow thing, and it is a joy to see it on the deck. Perhaps it is a daisy of some sort. Can someone tell me what it is?
 

Diane L. Duntley Laid to Rest

A small group of relatives and friends traveled to the Riverview-Corydon Cemetery today to bury the ashes of my friend Diane L. Duntly beside the graves of her parents. The cemetery is in Pennsylvania, just south of the New York line. From this place, one can look down toward the lake created from the Allegheny River when the Kinzua Dam, completed in 1965, was built, The waters behind the dam inundated a number of towns along the river, including Corydon, where the Duntleys maintained the dairy farm on which Diane grew up. The farm was in Pennsylvania and bordered the New York state line.

The Rev. Bill Geiger conducted a brief service early in the afternoon, and I read Eric Whitacre’s poem “Child of Wonder” from The Sacred Veil. The group picture below was taken after the ceremony.
 

Course of American Rights, 2022

I began working on a poem a few days ago and was not making much progress. In reaction to the usual enthusiasm attendant the Fourth of  July, I was thinking about events in our history that have not exactly covered our nation with glory. I was thinking about slavery, the Salem witch trials, Wounded Knee, the internment of ethnic Japanese, UpStairs Lounge, and, most recently, Highland Park. My list was much longer.

I began thinking about liberty and the tenuousness it seems to have acquired in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs. The resulting poem—some may not find it very poetic—captures the pessimism that motivated my writing project, though the final output is not at all what I set out to produce. I was thinking about abortion rights, but there are many reasons to fear for other freedoms as well. Justice Thomas’s concurring opinion in Dobbs intensifies that fear.

I don’t know that this poem is in its final form, but I need to let it go for now. My friend Lisa Keppeler helped me edit this poem, and I am grateful for her assistance.
 

Course of American Rights, 2022
by Lionel Deimel

Rights unconceived Rights named Rights sought Rights won Rights protected Rights threatened Rights defended Rights restricted Rights revoked Rights uncertain

“Electoral”

I have always pronounce “electoral“ with the emphasis on the second syllable. This is the first pronunciation given by Merriam-Webster. The word is related to “election,” of course, and no one seems to place the emphasis in that word other than on the second syllable. Merriam-Webster gives a secondary pronunciation of “electoral” with emphasis on the third syllable, however. Frankly, this is a pronunciation I never heard until recently. This is how Liz Cheney pronounces the word, and everyone I hear on the radio or television seems to be following suit. Is this pronunciation going to become the standard one? If so, why? It really doesn’t seem logical.

Preventing Gun Violence

It has been difficult not to think about the numerous mass shootings that seem to have become a daily feature of news in America. What can we possibly do to lessen the frequency of these events?

After each horrific event, there is an attempt to discern why a shooter acted as he—inevitably he—did and whether there were warning signs that might have been used to predict future violence and perhaps prevent it. Warning signs are usually discovered but only after the fact.

So-called red flag laws, which allow removing weapons from people who are thought to be a danger to themselves or others, are popular. The recently enacted federal gun legislature provides financial incentives to states to enact red flag laws. Studies have suggested that such laws have effectively prevented suicides, though their effect on mass shootings is less clear.

There are several problems with red flag laws. First, although a person may have shown a propensity toward engaging in violent behavior, the signs may be missed or ignored. Shooters are often found to have been active on obscure social media sites where they expressed an affinity toward violent behavior, for example. Participants in discussions on such sites may be sympathetic and disinclined to report distressing behavior.

Red flag laws to not remove guns permanently from potential shooters. Temporary removal may be effective in preventing suicides, which often are inspired by some powerful, yet transitory events. For someone with antisocial tendencies and an inclination to methodically plan a mass shooting, temporarily removing a gun or guns may only delay an attack.

 Red flag laws raise serious civil rights questions. This may be less true for minors, but adults are another matter. If someone writes favorably about violence and this is used to take away a weapon, are we not violating free speech rights? It is difficult not to see red flag laws as punishing someone for crimes not yet committed. One immediately thinks of Minority Report. This is distressing.

So red flag laws are problematic and perhaps not even effective at preventing mass shootings. It is very difficult to identify and stop someone contemplating mass murder. Some have advocated “hardening” potential targets. I suggest, however, that we neither want to nor can afford to make every school, church, and courthouse an impregnable fortress. Nor do we want to treat every Fourth of July parade the same way we treat outdoor speeches by the president of the United States.

In the end, we have a choice. We can accept mass shootings as the cost of “freedom,” or we can restrict the ownership of guns. I sincerely hope that, as a society, we make the latter choice.

More on Dobbs

Having already read Justice Alito’s draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, when the Supreme Court announced its final decision, I decided that my time would be better spent reading the dissenting opinion from Justices Breyer, Sotomayer, and Kagan. Doing so proved very enlightening, and it’s a project I recommend to anyone with the interest and time to take it on. Or you can read below my observations on what the three justices wrote. (My initial essay on Dobbs is here.)

As you might suspect, the three dissenting justices are unimpressed with the reasoning of the majority. Supreme Court justices are not in the habit of calling their colleagues nasty names, but, within the bounds of judicial decorum, I think it fair to say that their dissent is scathing. Their view of what the reactionary justices in the majority were about is best captured in this analysis: 

The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law.

Much of the dissent is about the flimsy rationale offered for overturning Roe and Casey and the disdain shown by the majority toward both judicial convention and American women.

The Roe decision is nearly 50 years old. The Casey decision came fifteen years later, affirming the basic finding of Roe while rejecting its trimester scheme of Roe and introducing the undue burden standard limiting state-imposed restrictions on abortions.

Breyer, et al., argue that Americans have come to rely on the right to abortion. Extinguishing that right will have profound consequences, particularly for poor women. The court’s majority dismisses the reliance interest of women, however, and argues that any reliance interest that militates against rejecting a prior decision must be “very concrete,” involving, for example, contracts. The dissenters observe

The majority’s refusal even to consider the life-altering consequences of reversing Roe and Casey is a stunning indictment of its decision.

The propriety of overturning Roe and Casey turns on the validity of the decisions themselves—the dissent actually focuses on Casey, as it was the ruling opinion prior to Dobbs—and on the doctrine of stare decisis, the legal principle that, absent compelling reasons to do otherwise, previous opinions should be respected.

 Breyer, et al., explain that the right to seek an abortion was predicated on the concept of personal liberty derived from the Fourteenth Amendment. In Casey, the court struck a balance between state interests and those of the individual woman. In Dobbs, however, the interest of the woman disappears. The court, they say, does not believe in balance.

Why did the court not recognize a right to abortion in the Fourteenth Amendment? The answer involves the perverse notion of originalism, a legal concept not actually called out by name in the dissent. According to the dissenters, the majority was interested in only one question: Was the right to an abortion understood as a consequence of the Fourteenth Amendment when it was adopted in 1868? Of course, no one suggests that it was. If you buy into the notion that the meaning of a constitutional provision is forever fixed at the time of its adoption—this is the essence of originalism—then you must conclude that there was not a right to abortion in 1868, and, therefore, there is not one in 2022.

We should not be shocked that the court was willing to toss out half a century of legalized abortion based on what men thought in 1868. (Women had no voice in governing back then.) For example, in her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Amy Coney Barrett declared that originalism is the system of legal interpretation to which she is committed. As she explained,

I interpret the Constitution as a law, that I interpret its text as text, and I understand it to have the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it. That meaning doesn’t change over time, and it’s not up to me to update it or infuse my own policy views into it.

 Breyer, et al., reject this strange view and point out that the court has recognized other rights not enumerated in the Constitution and not recognized in 1868. Frighteningly, Justice Thomas is well aware of this and plans to do something about it in the future.

The dissent offers a long discussion regarding the circumstances in which a prior court ruling may properly be overturned despite the default inaction demanded by stare decisis. It is not enough—non-lawyers may be surprised by this—that a case was wrongly decided. There must be special circumstances that demand a correction. What has changed since Roe and Casey were decided? Nothing of substance. Only the philosophy of a majority of the justices has changed. Ironically, whereas the current court is returning the question of abortion to a time decades ago, many other countries have, in recent decades, expanded abortion rights.

The majority opinion cites a number of cases that were subsequently overruled to justify their action in Dobbs. The dissenters analyze each of these and find significant changes in society to justify the original decisions being overturned. They do not provide appropriate models for the decision in Dobbs.

The dissenters note that the legitimacy of the court is built over time, but that “it can be destroyed much more quickly.” They conclude their remarks with this observation:

In overruling Roe and Casey, this Court betrays its guiding principles.

Schroeder Update 13

I continue to work with my rescue cat, Schroeder. Schroeder was not particularly animated at first. He now seems much more like a normal cat. He plays with toys. He responds to catnip. He uses a scratching post. (A post my other two cats never used has been happily adopted by Schroeder.)

Schroeder shows no inclination to become a lap cat. But whenever I walk into the room, though, he walks up to me to get head scratches and other pets. He is an amazingly quiet cat and seems to have more of a quiet squeak than an actual meow.

This cat is amazingly adept at avoiding being photographed. I’ve tried to get video of him playing with a little ball, which he does with great enthusiasm. The moment I point a camera in his direction, he stops doing whatever I was trying to capture in a picture. Here is one picture I did manage to capture; Schroeder is enjoying a catnip cigar:
 

Schroeder with catnip toy

 
When I first brought Schroeder indoors, I confined him to a single room, a home office. He adopted two cozy corners where he tended to hang out. He gradually spent less and less time there, spending more time out in the open or on the back of the couch, where he can look out the windows.
 

Schroeder by office couch

Schroeder at office window

 
Lately, I have been leaving the office door open, giving Schroeder the run of the first floor. (My cats Linus and Charlie are downstairs.) He was at first reluctant to venture out into the hallway, and when I followed him to see where he would go, he immediately ran back to the safety of the office.

Happily, Schroeder has not only become more comfortable outside the office, but he has even adopted a new favorite place. I now often find him on a chair facing the glass doors to the back deck. I once tried to sit next to him on the chair, but he jumped down from the chair as soon as I sat down. 

Schroeder on his new favorite chair

Schroeder in the living room

 
Apparently, I’m not going to make Schroeder into a lap cat anytime soon. He is charming in his own way, however, and I think it’s about time to find him a forever home. Once I realize I could not simply return him to the outdoors, that has been the plan.

Note: Schroeder’s story to date can be followed here.

Urging the President to Action

I wrote to President Biden today. My message may be read below.

 
Dear Mr. President:

Our democracy is rapidly being dismantled, engineered by a rogue Supreme Court, a feckless Senate, and aided by undemocratic structural features of our Republic. The court has undermined the wall separating church and state, gutted Miranda rights, favored gun “rights” over concerns for public safety, and, most disturbingly, consigned women to second-class citizenship. The court has not completed its reactionary program, and Congress seems unable to come to the aid of our democracy.

The upcoming midterm elections have the potential to make democracy’s plight considerably worse. History presages significant Democratic Party losses in the fall, and your personal approval rating hardly suggests otherwise.

On one hand, your anemic approval rating is unfair. Your administration can claim real accomplishments and cannot logically be blamed for high inflation. But people are justifiably dissatisfied with the status quo. They cannot banish COVID, fix supply chair problems, or roll back price increases posted primarily to increase profits. The party in power invariably takes the hit for the sort of dissatisfaction people are now feeling.

You have acted decisively in the foreign policy arena, but it is a rare voter who is much influenced by that. Alas, you have been less than resolute regarding your domestic agenda. Now, however, is the time for forceful action. Not only will that strengthen the Republic, but it will also, I suspect, increase Democratic prospects in November.

The most obvious issues to address are gun laws, abortion, and the Supreme Court itself. Having just enacted mild gun legislation, Congress is unlikely to want to revisit the matter. I urge you to lean on Congress—essentially, that means on certain Democratic senators—to pass a bill creating federal abortion rights and overriding the many restrictive laws being enacted by Republican state legislatures. This is urgent! If doing this means the filibuster must go—it does—then so be it. If serious arm-twisting is required, by all means, employ it. A majority of Americans will applaud you and may even rethink their voting for Republicans—any Republicans.

An out-of-control Supreme Court drunk with newly acquired power is a more difficult problem and a more concerning one. The most obvious corrective is to pack the court. A nine-justice court is not sacrosanct. Impeachment of some of the justices should also be considered. The charges: misleading senators about their willingness to overturn Roe and having voted to extinguish a human right acknowledged for half a century, and not enjoining laws that were clearly unconstitutional as long as Roe was still the law of the land. Given his own actions and those of his wife, there are independent reasons to want to impeach Justice Thomas.

Even if the impeachment of certain justices fails, the shot across the bow of the Good Ship Supreme Court could have a corrective effect, at least in the short term.

Please, Mr. President, show yourself to be a strong chief executive willing to take strong action to preserve our democratic Republic.

Very truly yours,

Lionel E. Deimel, Ph.D.
Indiana, Pennsylvania

Dashboard

I ran across a draft poem the other day that I never did anything with. I’ll clean it up a bit and post it below. It probably is not one of my better efforts. I have no idea when I wrote this.

Dashboard I’m a fine chap, really— Friendly, a good conversationalist, Articulate, but not garrulous. When I start the engine, Why does my car confront me And call me “Airbag”?

A First Reaction to Dobbs

I am extremely upset by the Supreme Court’s having overturned Roe v. Wade yesterday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. I need time to read the opinion—opinions, actually—carefully and spend time developing a response that goes beyond fear and outrage. For now, I can only offer a few off-the-cuff observations with the promise of a future more thoughtful response.

What was published by the court lacks a table of contents, and the fact that the file is 213 pages long makes it difficult to find individual items within it. For the benefit of any reader who wants to navigate to particular sections, I offer a high-level table of contents below. Note that the page numbers refer to the pages in the PDF file, as sections are individually numbered beginning at 1.

Section	Page No.
Syllabus	1
Opinion of the Court (Alito)	9
Appendix A	87
Appendix B	109
Concurring (Thomas)	117
Concurring (Kavanaugh)	124
Concurring in Judgment (Roberts)	136
Dissenting (Breyer, Sotomayor & Kagan)	148
Appendix	208

The Dobbs decision was not unexpected, given the leaked draft opinion from Justice Alito. The appearance of the actual decision was nevertheless more shocking than I was prepared for. Most upsetting was the explicit suggestion by Justice Thomas that the court may not be done with extinguishing established rights. The court has sent decisions about abortion law back to the states. Will the same be done by this court for sodomy law, contraception law, miscegenation law, and sex-neutral marriage law? (Will Thomas ultimately have to divorce his white wife?) Buckle your seatbelt!

The trajectory of this court is frightening. We must do something to interrupt its retrogressive program. I’m not sure what that something might be, but Democrats need to figure it out. I hope that enough American voters will pass up voting for Republicans and instead elect more Democrats.

Many have observed that Roe was not a strongly argued opinion. Even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was uncomfortable with it. The current court apparently took that opinion at face value and had no interest in finding a firmer constitutional basis for a right to abortion. My suspicion is that the justices had an agenda of killing Roe, and no reasoning, logical or legal, really mattered. After all, Donald Trump promised to put justices on the court who would overturn Roe. He fulfilled that promise three times.

I believe that the Supreme Court has made women permanent second-class citizens. Rather than writing more about this, I refer readers to a post I wrote back in May, A Comprehensive Examination of the Abortion Question. Perhaps in better times, my arguments will be availing.

For now, I have just one more observation. In the future—I hope not the exceedingly far future—Dobbs will be forever linked to Dred Scott v. Sandford and other disastrous Supreme Court decisions.
 

Two Rediscovered Limericks

I’ve been going through old papers and came upon some poems I have never made public. The poems—limericks, actually—were written in April 2006.

The two poems below were written by me with the help of a friend. A decade and a half later, I cannot remember just who contributed what to them.

Robert W. Duncan

Some context: The poems refer to Robert W. Duncan, who was the Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh in 2006. Duncan had been plotting the removal of the diocese from the Episcopal Church. Two years later, he partially succeeded, separating a majority of its parishes from the diocese but failing to abscound with the diocese itself and a smaller number of its parishes. The schism was effected only after the Episcopal Church had already deposed Duncan a few weeks earlier.

For readers unfamiliar with recent Episcopal Church history, I should explain that “a canon named Vicky” in the second poem refers to Vicky Gene Robinson, a canon and gay man who was elected Bishop of New Hampshire. (Why Bishop Robinson has an odd Christian name is another story.) Bob Duncan opposed homosexuality and the ordination of homosexuals. The church’s stance regarding homosexuals was a major rationale Duncan cited justifying his schismatic actions.

Finally, the word “nawab,” also in the second poem, is likely unfamiliar to most readers. It is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable. It is a synonym of “nabob,” a more common word but one that would have created an inferior rhyme.

The poems—

Bishop Bob #1

There once was a bishop named Bob
Who was unfulfilled by his job;
To be a big fish
Was his passionate wish,
So he’d lie, cheat, deceive, plot, and rob.

Bishop Bob #2

There once was a bishop named Bob
Who yearned to become a nawab;
Soon a canon named Vicky,
Whose sex life was icky,
Spurred the bishop to seek a new job.

Texas Republicans on Dismantling America

Nearly two weeks ago, I posted “A Democratic Platform for 2022.” This was a minimalist list of policy positions intended to appeal to voters who, in large numbers, are in sympathy with them. I remarked that Democrats “should be dismissive of other matters raised by their opponents and avoid being dragged into complex arguments they are unlikely to win.”

I stand by what I wrote in my Platform, but I was perhaps naïve regarding the range of “other matters” GOP candidates might raise or be tempted to raise. I was astonished and horrified when I read a description offered by Heather Cox Richardson of platform planks recently adopted by the Republican Party of Texas. In her June 18 essay, she wrote

[D]elegates to a convention of the Texas Republican Party today approved platform planks rejecting “the certified results of the 2020 Presidential election, and [holding] that acting President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. was not legitimately elected by the people of the United States”; requiring students “to learn about the dignity of the preborn human,” including that life begins at fertilization; treating homosexuality as “an abnormal lifestyle choice”; locking the number of Supreme Court justices at 9; getting rid of the constitutional power to levy income taxes; abolishing the Federal Reserve; rejecting the Equal Rights Amendment; returning Christianity to schools and government; ending all gun safety measures; abolishing the Department of Education; arming teachers; requiring colleges to teach “free-market liberty principles”; defending capital punishment; dictating the ways in which the events at the Alamo are remembered; protecting Confederate monuments; ending gay marriage; withdrawing from the United Nations and the World Health Organization; and calling for a vote “for the people of Texas to determine whether or not the State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation.”

The Republicans responsible for these policy positions seemingly take no arrangements in society as given. They have no right to suggest that raising the minimum wage or forgiving student loans is in any way “radical.” These Texans seem to have cornered the market of radical. Their platform, I suggest, would find favor among few American voters.

It is unlikely that Republicans nationally will espouse the sort of platform articulated by their Texas colleagues, but it would be unwise to assume that the views of Texas Republicans are confined to the Lone Star State. I have suggested that a vote for any Republican is a vote to dismantle our democracy. It may actually be a vote to dismantle our entire civilization.

Of late, I have heard many questions regarding what Democrats actually stand for. They stand for, among other things, the negative of every plank adopted by GOP Texans. Well, perhaps Democrats would support the last plank Heather Cox Richardson mentioned. 

Hard-Boiled Eggs

I have read many instructions for making hard-boiled eggs. Any method that works for you is fine, of course. Most importantly, your technique should produce eggs cooked perfectly. The eggs should be thoroughly cooked but not overcooked, which is usually indicated by a green ring around the yolk. An ideal procedure should be

1. Easy
2. Fast
3. Effective
4. Reproducible
5. Scalable (works for one egg or many)
6. Yields easily peeled eggs
7. Offers easy cleanup

I’m not sure my technique checks off all these desiderata—it involves two pans and a cover—but it does the job well and predictably.

My procedure is as follows:

1. Begin with eggs at room temperature. This is perhaps the least attractive step, as it requires some forethought.
2. Boil water in a saucepan.
3. Place the eggs in a steamer insert. Place the insert over the saucepan and cover.
4. Maintain the water at a boil.
5. Remove the steamer after exactly 13 minutes, and plunge it into cold water to stop cooking.

If you don’t have time to bring the eggs to room temperature, omit the first step and cook the eggs for about 14½ minutes. (This is a bit of a guess, as I haven’t determined the number experimentally.)

In general, my timings may depend somewhat on the equipment used and your elevation. At higher elevations, your cooking may need to be longer. The equipment I use is shown below.

Saucepan, steamer insert, and cover

I have always peeled hard-boiled eggs by first tapping the top and bottom of the egg on the counter to crack the shell. I then peel away the shell under running water. This works, though not especially well.

The other day, I accidentally discovered a better technique. I take a cold hard-boiled egg and place it on the counter. I then roll it back and forth under the palm of my hand. This results in the shell being cracked all over, after which it is easily removed from the egg. Be sure that no small fragments of shell remain on the egg.

This technique works really well. Give it a try.