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.

A Democratic Platform for 2022

In 2012, I wrote a post titled “A Preëmptive Political Post.” My intention in doing so was to head off feeling the need to write individual posts on a variety of issues likely to surface in the 2012 presidential campaign. The post did not set out a platform for the Democratic Party. Instead, it offered a series of assertions about the way things are and about how they should be. The post has attracted many visitors, but I cannot say how much those visitors read.

Anticipating the 2020 presidential election, I wrote a somewhat similar post, “A Litany for the Democratic Presidential Candidate.” The items on my list this time looked more like conventional planks on a political platform. The list was very long, however, and it was more wish list than platform.

Twenty twenty-two is not a presidential contest year, of course, but the fall elections could have monumental significance. Democrats fear that they could lose their majority in the House and their at-least-theoretical majority in the Senate. Such an outcome would further cripple the legislative process and provide a ready excuse for electing a Republican president in 2024. How can Democrats fashion a campaign strategy to engage their base and attract the votes of independents and sane Republicans?

My purpose here is to suggest such a strategy. In constructing the list below, as opposed to the long enumerations I offered in 2012 and 2020, I was guided by these principles:

1. Democrats should campaign on relatively few issues. They should be dismissive of other matters raised by their opponents and avoid being dragged into complex arguments they are unlikely to win.
2. Democrats must all run on the same platform, even if individual candidates are personally opposed to certain planks or believe voters in their district are.
3. Democrats should avoid issues seen by many as far-left.
4. Democrats should embrace issues for which there already is broad support.
5. Democrats should make promises that seem reasonable, practical, and achievable.
6. Democrats should emphasize that not only their program but democracy itself is contingent on electing Democrats and displacing Republicans from office.

Item (2) will be a hard sell for some candidates, perhaps even for most. Many voters seem uncertain about what Democrats stand for, and having all candidates singing from the same hymnal will send a strong and coherent message. Arguably, item (3) is entailed by item (5), but it seemed worthwhile to make it explicit. Item (6) represents more of an attitude than a policy. It is a message that candidates must send at every opportunity. Implicit in all the proposed policies is the notion that government can and should make life in the United States better for its citizens.

My list of campaign issues for Democrats follows. It is a list of what a candidate promises to support. Even this list may be too long and may need to be pared down. The list is intended to be in order of importance, with the more urgent issues at the top. My ordering is a best guess, and individual candidates (and even the party at large) may need to adjust the emphasis to better appeal to the electorate. Perhaps each candidate may be allowed to advocate one or two measures not on the list, as long as they are compatible with other positions. Such measures could include tax reform, support for children, and more aggressive antitrust measures.

 

My Proposed Democratic Platform

1. Enact reasonable gun regulations. This would include effective background checks for all sales and transfers, however made. Sale or possession of assault weapons, defined by function rather than by model number, will be prohibited to anyone under the age of 21. How candidates should treat this issue will depend on what, if anything, Congress does in this area before or during campaigning.
2. Protect the right to abortion. What this looks like depends upon the forthcoming decision from the Supreme Court. It is important to not get carried away here, even though one can make a rational case for a very expansive right. Following Roe and clarifying Casey seems like a good approach.
3. Enact legislation regarding climate change: work to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and provide funds to mitigate damage caused by climate change.
4. Continue to support Ukraine in its war with Russia. If the war concludes, support reconstruction for Ukraine. This and closely related issues are probably enough of foreign policy for Democratic candidates.
5. Improve availability and affordability of prescription drugs. It is important to not make this sound too complicated, but the general idea is bound to be popular. The government can negotiate the prices it pays for drugs, subsidize low-margin drugs that companies are reluctant to make, change patent policies that have resulted in patents being issued for trivial variations of drugs that are losing patent protection, and outlaw drug prices significantly higher than those for the same pharmaceuticals sold overseas.
6. Work for comprehensive immigration reform. What this looks like will have to be negotiated, and it is difficult to know how legislation should look. We can suggest useful principles. Dreamers should be given a path to citizenship. Long-time unlawful residents should be required to pay a penalty but should be allowed to stay. (We cannot deport them all.) Those wanting to enter the country (and particularly those with an asylum claim) deserve to have their cases adjudicated in a timely manner. Such changes will require more personnel and more money.
7. Expand voting rights. The franchise should be automatic with citizenship. Voting law changes in all states should be subject to Department of Justice review to assure fairness. Apparently, this would pass Supreme Court muster.
8. Senate candidates should promise to vote to eliminate the filibuster, a major impediment to democratic government.

N.B. Candidates will no doubt have to respond to complaints about the Biden administration. To this, one can respond that (1) at long last, an infrastructure bill was passed, (2) COVID relief was passed, (3) the COVID vaccine rollout was successful, and (4) President Biden built up foreign alliances neglected or damaged by his predecessor. To complaints about inflation, one has to say that it was caused largely by events beyond the president’s control—supply disruptions caused by the pandemic and Russia’s war against Ukraine. Perhaps the Federal Reserve did too little too late, but the Federal Reserve, by design, is insulated from political influence. Simply because bad things happen while a person is president does not necessarily mean that they were caused by or could have been avoided by the president.

Stopping a Bad Guy With a Gun

Chastisement from Church Not Deserved

The title of this post was not of my choosing. It is the headline that The Indiana Gazette gave to a letter to the editor I submitted and which was published on June 2. It will suffice here, however.

My letter was in response to a column by Cal Thomas. His columns appear in the Gazette with alarming frequency, and letters to the editor arguing with his assertions are also common. The essay I responded to in this instance can be read here.

My letter follows. The published version got a bit mangled—“edited” is not the right word—so I have corrected the text below. I don’t think I need comment further.

Cal Thomas asserts in his column, “Theology, politics and abortion” (Indiana Gazette, May 24, 2022) that Roman Catholic politicians such as President Biden and Speaker Pelosi should knuckle under to church abortion dogma. He identifies opposition to abortion as a “central tenet” of the church. Despite his attempts to argue otherwise, however, the Bible is silent on the matter, and the church teaching is a modern one.

I was always led to believe that the central tenets of Christianity involved loving God and one’s neighbor, feeding the poor, comforting the afflicted, and so forth. If Mr. Biden and Ms. Pelosi support a woman’s right to control her own body, that is no reason to believe they are not sincere followers of Jesus Christ. In reality, they are in good company among Catholic laypeople and the majority of citizens of whatever faith.

Mr. Biden and Ms. Pelosi have sworn an oath to the Constitution, a document setting forth rules for a secular nation. As free citizens themselves, they may advocate for or against a policy supported by their church. The Catholic Church, however, has no privileged position in American politics; it is simply another lobbying organization advocating an unpopular policy. The president and speaker do not deserve the chastisement of archbishops and sanctimonious columnists.

A Diane Duntley Album

For her funeral, I prepared an album of pictures I had taken of Diane Duntley. I had no access to photos taken before I knew Diane, so the album only includes pictures from her later life. Nevertheless, I hope that friends of Diane will appreciate seeing the pictures I selected.

The photo below is one of those in the album. Click on it to see the whole album, which is in the form of a PDF file.

 

A Diane Duntley Tribute

The funeral for Diane Duntley was held in Christ Episcopal Church in Indiana, Pennsylvania. I paid a personal tribute to her, which I have reproduced below. (Her newspaper obituary can be read here.)

The Episcopal Church brought Diane Duntley and me together. Twenty years ago, the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh faced a split over issues of sexuality. I became involved with Progressive Episcopalians of Pittsburgh, eventually becoming its president. I have no idea how Diane came to be involved with PEP, but I began seeing her at PEP meetings and getting to know her. When she had diocesan meetings in Pittsburgh but needed to wait for her ride back to Indiana, I drove in from Mt. Lebanon to join her for dinner. She liked to try new restaurants.

We both enjoyed concerts, and Diane often invited me to Indiana to accompany her at events at IUP.

When I was faced with a large rent increase, Diane decided that I needed to move from Mt. Lebanon and into an apartment in her basement. I resisted her entreaties, but she showed up with a student helper, boxes, and, eventually, a moving van. As her health deteriorated, what began as a post-retirement project became a deeper friendship with a live-in caregiver.

I learned that Diane had grown up on a dairy farm in the small Pennsylvania town of Corydon, a town eventually obliterated by the reservoir formed behind the Kinzua Dam. Her mother played a reed organ in the local Methodist church, and Diane took on various church duties. Her first few years of school were in a one- or perhaps it was a two-room schoolhouse. She graduated from Allegheny College, taught in two New York school districts, and eventually earned a doctorate in reading from the University of Buffalo.

She was recruited by IUP to help prepare disadvantaged students for the rigors of college. She didn’t expect to spend her professional career in Indiana, but that’s what happened. Her university work involved little teaching. Instead, she was tasked with a succession of special projects that no one else at the university seemed to want to handle, a role she continued to fill because she always seems to have completed them successfully. As I discovered when I was snatched off to Indiana, Diane was a planner and a force to be reckoned with.

Diane’s parents and her younger sibling, Kevin, died years ago. Diane never married, though she seems not to have had philosophical objections to the institution. Having no children of her own, she devoted her attention to her three nephews and, later, to their sons and daughters. She loved to entertain children and to find engaging things to do with them, whether it was visiting tourist attractions in Pittsburgh or sponsoring a seed-spitting contest off her deck after serving watermelon.

Diane supervised many students in her IUP career, and she hired students to do domestic chores. She didn’t like housework, but she liked working with young people. She was in contact with many of them years later. They sent her notes and pictures of their families

Diane was an active participant in the League of Woman Voters and various university-related groups. Most especially, she was an active Episcopalian. For years, she served on various committees of the Pittsburgh Diocese and was the diocesan representative of Episcopal Relief and Development. At Christ Church, she was noted for preparing food for various occasions, such as Christmas Eve and Maundy Thursday. When Christ Church considered buying and reconditioning a replacement organ, Diane was an enthusiastic supporter and funder. Unfortunately, she never got to hear the organ you are hearing today except on the Web. A dedicatory recital had been postponed by COVID. She complained that the organ sounded bad on Facebook. I assured her that it sounded much better in the church.

Diane’s generosity was prodigious but was pursued quietly. She gave money to her family for various purposes, donated to women political candidates, and supported both Christ Church and Episcopal Relief and Development. I sent $25 to Amnesty International to help Ukraine and suggested that she, too, might contribute to the Ukrainian cause. She immediately wrote a thousand-dollar check to Episcopal Relief and Development for the purpose.

Diane had a temper, and it could be quite frightening. Her anger quickly dissipated, however, and it was as though it never was. Perhaps the angriest I ever saw her was in the hospital after her kidneys had finally failed and her messed-up blood chemistry caused her to be delusional. Diane was convinced that Fr. Bill and I, dressed in tuxedos, had made her the butt of jokes at a party. She hated us with a vengeance for that.

Her sanity returned, but she needed dialysis three times a week for the rest of her life.

Diane’s heritage was English and Swedish, a background that made her a somewhat bland cook. Her culinary repertoire was further circumscribed by some passionate dislikes: pickles, olives, peppers of any kind, herbs and spices she had not grown up with. On the other hand, she liked Swedish cheese and sausage, herring, and, I am told, lutefisk. For legitimate health concerns, she avoided tomatoes (well, mostly), alcohol, and shrimp. Diane was an excellent and imaginative baker of cookies, however. Because I had grown up in New Orleans, when I began cooking for the two of us, meal planning became tricky. She thought of me as a gourmet cook, but this was only relative. I did get her to eat gumbo once.

In her retirement, Diane hoped to travel the world, but her mobility issues made that impossible. Although she transitioned from cane to walker to wheelchair, the two of us were able to take various car trips. We traveled for the Episcopal Church and for her interests and mine. She even won a Caribbean cruise and was determined to take advantage of it. She took no shore excursions, but she rented a scooter and scooted about the ship on her own. We both ate well.

Diane tolerated the years of dialysis well, but she seemed to wind down in her final months. One morning, a few weeks ago, she was not doing well, though it was not completely clear why. Her student helper, a personal care assistant, and I decided that it was time for Diane to go to the hospital. From IRMC, she was quickly transferred to West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh. Diane was treated there for weeks and was never to come home again.

I will miss her, and many others will also.

 

Diane Duntley (a recent photo made for
a church directory)