anniversaries

10th Anniversary of the Worst Supreme Court Decision Since Dred Scott.


George W. Bush official photo.

Image via Wikipedia

Ten years ago today, the United States Supreme Court gave the 2000 Presidential election to George W. Bush.

Hindsight, which is as useless a gift as it appears, tells us that had Florida been allowed to recount all votes cast, Gore would have won. No matter how they conducted the count. He would have been President and today would probably be a very different reality.

At the time, Justice Souter, who wrote the dissenting opinion, chose to couch his dissent in language that brings to mind the horrific 1852 Dred Scott decision. It’s the one that set the country on an irrevocable path to civil war and the capstone on the Founding Fathers pandering in the nation’s formative years.

Some people, even today, felt that Dred Scott was too important a case in the history of civil rights in the U.S. to be compared to the Gore v. Bush decision. But I don’t.

No, they are not equal in terms of moral gravitas, but they are equal in turns of historical tipping points. Dred Scott was the top of the hill the country rolled down into near self-destruction. Gore v. Bush set the stage for the end of the American Dream.

Not democracy. We have never been all that great an example of representative democracy. And not even the material and consumption dream, we were heading there anyway – though it might have taken longer than it’s going to now.

No, it’s the end of the illusion that we are all equal. That no matter where we humbly begin, the ladder is ours to climb.

It freed those who rig the game from having to hide that fact, and it has set in motion a slide that we are unlikely to rise above.

Happy Anniversary Gore v. Bush, the gift that is yet to finish giving the American people what they probably deserve anyway.

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Happy Birthday, John Lennon


The Beatles wave to fans after arriving at Ken...

Image via Wikipedia

I’m not sure which is more startling. The fact that John Lennon would be just eight years younger than my mother today, or that the world is uniting to celebrate the birth of someone who’s been dead – and so basically ageless – for the last thirty years.

I remember when he died. I cried. He was my favorite Beatle for reasons that had nothing to do with anything rationale. I was sixteen. I liked the badder boys though they had to be brainy because I just couldn’t suspend my own intelligence to pretend that “badness” was enough. He wasn’t pretty. McCartney was pretty and the better looking the boy, the less likely he was to even notice me, so I disregarded them as a matter of expediency.

I would go on to prefer the George Harrison‘s of the world but only after several emotionally brutal lessons with the John Lennon’s of the world.

John Lennon was an asshole despite the whole “love, peace and Strawberry Fields” image he has today. He suffered no fools. He was a prick to his friends, a douchebag to his women and a questionable father.

But happy birthday.

Happy Birthday?

You don’t have birthdays after you die. It’s metaphysically impossible. We do the cake for dead people thing, but only for the kids. Dee goes back and forth. Some years she is totally down with a cake for her father and others, she prefers not because “it’s too sad”, and I am in total agreement with the latter. What could be more sad than deliberately stalking sadness and inviting it in for cake and ice cream?

But in the spirit of a rather morbid practice, here is my favorite Lennon tune:

 

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In honor of the Day


The 3rd wedding anniversary is often when a couple is aware of the durability of their relationship. That is why leather is the traditional gift for this celebration. Here are some third wedding anniversary ideas and symbols to help you choose gifts associated with your 3rd marriage anniversary.
Leather is difficult to do over the internet … without violating some sort of law or deeply offending.
Pretend it’s leather.