Sunday, August 29, 2021

Pastoral Care Is Not The Province Of Governors

It's not exactly a separation of church-state argument, but pastoral care is neither the duty nor the province of state officials.

"I'm often asked by some of my friends on the other side of the aisle about COVID … and why does it seem like folks in Mississippi and maybe in the Mid-South are a little less scared, shall we say," Reeves said at a fundraiser, the Daily Memphian reported.

"When you believe in eternal life — when you believe that living on this earth is but a blip on the screen, then you don't have to be so scared of things," he said, adding: "Now, God also tells us to take necessary precautions."

The Governor offers that insight in the context of a fundraiser.  It's good he didn't offer it to a grieving mother asking why God had to take her infant child.  If he had answered that "living on this earth is but a blip on the screen" and so "you don't have to be so scared of things," she'd have slapped the shit out of him.

Believe me.

Which is to say:  Yes, he's full of it. What he said is not even good theology; it's certainly terrible pastoral care.  It underscores the observation of the question "My death; is it possible?"  Obviously he doesn't think it is.  Eventually he'll learn otherwise; but his "teachings" won't protect him from the knowledge, and the knowledge won't erase the harm of his "teachings."

Not even if he got the shit slapped out of him for them.

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I Have Family In The Path Of This Storm

...and all I can do is pray for them. 🙏 
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Let Them Eat Horse Dewormer

(That's just so we all have the right context for TEXAS Congressman Gohmert's remarks, IN TEXAS!) Yes, this is how Texas appears to the world. I am so proud. Hand to God, I have no idea what planet Gohmert is living on. Tyler, Texas, which Gohmert represents, has had 2720 cases between August 14 and August 27, alone. They are averaging 215 new cases a day. I'm kinda surprised Texas is not among the top five; and relieved.
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Since We're Still Talking About Facebook

Or around the subject, anyway.
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Saturday, August 28, 2021

Timing Is Everything

Noble sentiment, but by the time it was published I-10 east and west were parking lots. After Hurricane Rita caused a traffic jam from Houston to Dallas (at least as great a distance as from the east to west borders of Louisiana) Texas established "evacuation routes" where counter-flow measures can open all lanes to evacuating traffic.

I'm saddened to see Louisiana, which has much more exposure to hurricanes than Texas does, has not learned from our lesson.  Here's hoping they are all somewhere else by the time the hurricane strikes (they would not have been had Rita hit Houston as expected).
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When Your Heroes LIve Long Enough To Thoroughly Disappoint You

I read recently that Harvard has appointed an atheist "humanist chaplain" (I put it in quotes because the humanities, like all university education, came to be under the auspirces of the Church) as head chaplain over a whole staff of them (of various faiths and creeds) at Harvard. I mention it not because I think it all that newsworthy (his job sounds mostly administrative to me; that was the bane of my pastoral career, such as it was), but because his previous claim to fame was what sounded like a watered-down version of Sartre's "Existentialism Is A Humanism." His book, he explained in the article about his appointment, was an argument for being a good person, without a god to make you so. It's a lame argument based on a poorer form of Christianity which posits that without god we'd all be beasts and brutes, and we need God in our lives to civilize us.

And I mention it here because while the argument against the atheist's argument is a bit abstruse and requires more information about his argument in order to make mine, examples like this from Laurence Tribe point out to me that we need a bit more awareness of God in our understanding of morality, if only to raise us from our own self-centeredness.  Mr. Tribe may or may not consider himself a Christian; the point is irrelevant to me here.  But the idea that justice requires punishment, even unto death 53 years after the crime, is an argument from a morality that recognizes no higher authority or purpose than one's own satisfaction.

I'm not sure how you craft a morality that rises above this level of selfishness without appeal to a higher authority, even if, as Graham Greene wrote, “You cannot conceive, nor can I, of the appalling strangeness of the mercy of God.”

Justice without mercy is not justice.  Where that mercy comes from, has to be from somewhere other than human caused.

(And yes, based solely on Jesus pronouncing in Luke that he had come to bring freedom to the captives, which I don't think was a metaphor or a "spiritual insight" (that's always the easy way out of Jesus' hardest sayings, to say he didn't mean it "literally"), I am of the anti-carceral persuasion.  No, there are not nearly enough of us to constitute a party.  And if it had to be a libertarian one, I'd agree with Groucho Marx that it was a party I wouldn't join because it would have me.  I certainly wouldn't have it, anyway.)
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Under The Circumstances (which are ☠️)

I would/will do the same. Except I’m an adjunct; I effectively get re-hired every semester. And I’m ready to retire from my part-time job anyway.

So long as the red death is running rampant, if I can only get lecture (v. online) classes, I just won’t take them.

I gotta quit sooner or later anyway.

Never thought there was an advantage to being an adjunct. Of course, now I’ll never be a legend.  OTOH, I accepted that a long time ago.
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Meeting The Enemy

 When I wore a younger man’s clothes, I practiced family law; and not long enough to get good at it. But I saw one thing quickly enough: in any divorce case with children, the children were always the battlefield.

They weren’t fought over, they were fought on. The parents fought each other and the children weren’t just caught in the fight, they were where the fight was conducted. Now we’re doing it in the schools.

There’s no doubt masks and social distancing are valuable tools against Covid. Resistance to both is the primary reason we are in worse shape now than last winter. So we clamor for mask mandates in the schools.  But here’s the thing: we can’t enforce them, because the parents won’t go along.

Do you suspend students who won’t wear masks? Is refusing a mask the same thing as starting a fight or bringing a gun to school? What if the child has been told by the parents not to wear a mask? Dallas ISD went to court to defend its mask mandate, but allows parents to opt out for “philosophical” reasons. They admit that’s a loophole you could drive a truck through; but they also admit an absolute mandate is unenforceable.

Eanes ISD has solved the problem by segregating masked students from unmasked. That requires two sets of teachers, lots of physical space, and even two different lunch schedules. Most school districts don’t have the staff or the facilities to do that.

So is the answer to punish the kids? Most of them don’t have agency in this situation; they’re doing what their parents tell them to do. Do we force those students to stay home, endangering their education for another year?

I suppose if we had a top-down push (from the Governor) for masks a mandate might be more effective. But I think that horse has already left the barn and besides, we burned that barn down a long time ago. Demanding a mask mandate is not solving the problem. Refusing to observe basic public health standards is not solving the problem. I’m not sure we’re capable of solving this problem. But we’ll sure find lots of other people to blame for that in the meantime.

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More Fun With Twitter

Been there, done that. Though mostly I’m appalled at the restaurant recommendations people make to strangers. I’m convinced everyone one on NextDoor is 75 and dines at the same restaurants they did in 1965. It’s a fair cop. People who have heard from themselves should always be taken seriously. Or handled gingerly. One or the other, and probably both.

Not to be outdone: bad legal takes.
Twitter tells me it’s a HIPPA [sic] violation to ask a President to resign. One does suspect some just want the attention of Bad Legal Takes. And some people really are just idiots.
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Compare And Contrast

And on “Washington Week” last night they were discussing Biden’s “steely resolve.”

I think the GOP has lost this fight. Some are demanding Biden be impeached; but honestly, that’s just farcical. They’re beclowning themselves.
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Reptile Brain Redux

My problem with this argument (apart from being full of vague and glittering generalities masquerading as "science") is two-fold.

One:  it assumes a normal baseline Trump somehow “re-wired.” That “baseline” was not present in the people who supported Trump and still clamor for him to be reinstated into the Presidency. The baseline that was there is not the same as in non-Trump supporters.  It is clear to any sentient being Donald Trump is no more equipped to be POTUS than a cat; and I hold cats in very high regard.  But the people who support Trump weren't "re-wired" by him; they were unleashed.  It's the same phenomenon every "apocalypse" movie is based on, where the thin veneer of civilization is ripped away and we all descend into bestial chaos and blind panic as we claw each others eyes out because... reasons.

It doesn't happen that way in real life, as any disaster (floods, hurricanes, forest fires) can attest.  The "veneer" of civilization isn't that thin and isn't even a veneer; it's bone deep, it's, dare I say, "human nature."  But it makes a good story so we keep telling it to ourselves because too many of us do fear "the other," convinced that given half a chance they will rape our women and take our stuff and laugh at our impotence.

Yeah, that doesn't happen, either, but too many live as if it's going to any moment now.

Trump supporters are quite sincere in their anger and paranoia and fear.  I've been around such people all my life, one way and another.  The driving force of Trump is nothing other than racism.  He simply expresses the fear of a brown planet some white people in America have.  He didn't "re-wire" them; he gave public expression to their anxiety, and they flocked to him like moths to a light bulb.  He set free their anger and fear.  He allowed them to speak publicly.  They weren't "re-wired."  They were just released.

Two:  "Re-wiring" is a metaphor that assumes the people supporting Trump have no agency in their decisions, no control over their impulses (unlike we wise sages who contemplate the nature of time and space and history and study the wisdom of the ages from our ivory towers).  This is just another way of making "them" the "other" we don't really have any connection to, but whom we should help because, poor dears, they can't help themselves.  The've been "re-wired."  You know, that's how some people's brains work.  Not ours, of course!  But it does theirs.  Such a pity.

I'm just surprised they stopped at "amygdala" and didn't bring up that favorite of the last decades of the last century, the "reptile brain."  Ah, dem was de days!  Good times, good times....(as much bullshit as The Bell Curve, but at least not quite as much overt racism.  Still rooted in racism, but then, what method of distinction of large groups of people isn't, really?).
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Winter’s Tale 😷

Last winter we had lockdowns, mask mandates, and social distancing.

We didn’t have three vaccines.

Now all we have are three vaccines. Oh, and the same situation as last winter. Or worse:
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Judges Would Also Accept:

We would also accept:

via GIPHY

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Frontiers Of Self-Medication

Well, at least it’s not that untested vaccine: I mean, who’re ya gonna trust? The CDC? Or this guy?
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Friday, August 27, 2021

Well, There Is That [Addendum to a prior thread]

Never say "never," after all.
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When The Son Of Adam Comes In His Glory

...accompanied by all his messengers, then he will occupy his glorious throne.  Then all peoples will be assembled before him, and he will separate them into groups, much as a shepherd segregates sheep from goats.  He'll place the sheep to his right and the goats to his left.  Then the king will say to those at his right, 'Come, you have have the blessing of my Father, inherit the domain prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  You may remember, I was hungry and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink; I was a foreigner and you showed me hospitality; I was naked and you clothed me; I was ill and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to see me.'

Then the virtuous will say to him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you a drink?  When did we notice that you were a foreigner and extend hospitality to you? Or naked and clothe you? When did we find you ill or in prison and come to visit you?

And the king will respond to them: 'I swear to you, whatever you did for the most inconspicuous members of my family, you did for me as well.'

Next he will say to those at his left, 'You,, condemned to the evelasting fire prepared for the devil and his messengers, get away from me! You too may remember, I was hungry and you didni't give me anything to eat; I was thirsty and you refused me a drink; I was a foreigner and you failed to extend hospitality to me; naked and you didn't clothe me; ill and in prison and you didn't visit me.'

Then they will give him a similar reply: 'Lord, when did we notice that you were hungry or thirsty or a foreigner or naked or weak or in prison and did not attempt to help you?'

He will then respond: 'I swear to you, wheatever you didn't do for the most inconspicuous members of my family, you didn't do for me.'

The second group will then head for everlasting punishment, grumbling about their personal liberties and their right to be free of government oppression and mandates and responsibililty for anybody but themselves, and the King on his throne will be heard to say: "Aren't they gone yet?"

Matthew 25:31-46a, with emendations (SV)
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"Hope Is The Thing With Feathers"

I would not say this is even "on point" with Texas law, for reasons I'll explain (briefly) in a moment; but this is close to the argument I expect will eventually be made in a Texas court:

One of the central arguing points in the state's side of the case was the "Parents' Bill of Rights" that became law this year. Judge John Cooper said the new law does "not ban mask mandates at all." The governor had previously said the new law gave him the authority to issue his executive order.

"Parents' right are very important but they’re not without some reasonable limitations," usually in regard to health care or safety, the judge noted.

Cooper also added that the law doesn't mean the state can penalize school boards. Instead, those schools boards should have the due process to indicate their policy is reasonable, however, the state has not done so with Alachua and Broward school districts.

If Texas has a law like Florida's, I haven't heard of it.  But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist (these things tend to spread like, well, a virus, from state to state) nor that Paxton isn't using it in briefs I haven't read as one leg upon which the Governor's authority stands.  But that "reasonable limitation" language is what I've been arguing for all along.  I don't think the Governor can decide he knows best and just ban masks because he wants to, especially if there is evidence of their efficacy and aid in abating the spread of a deadly communicable disease.

So there's that.  There's also the due process business.  Abbott has threatened to fine school boards and county commissioners (persons, no entities, IOW) who defied his order; but I haven't heard of any enforcement actions on that front.  Still, the due process argument would apply, as the Florida court said it does for penalizing school boards by withholding state funds.

And there's this:

During his ruling, Judge Cooper systematically debunked evidentiary reports and studies used by the governor to prove masks are ineffective or are not recommended by experts, pointing out that several of them actually said the opposite. He also said that some of the studies took place before the delta variant became the dominant strain in Florida.

"We had a different, less infectious virus than we had last year," Cooper said during Friday's virtual hearing. He later said, "What is appropriate for one county, may not be appropriate for another county." 

Lawsuits depend on facts.  "Change the facts, change the outcome" means, in law, you change the result the facts produce.  One set of facts is exoneration, or support for a governor's executive order; but another set, and that order falls.  The court in Florida rejected the evidence presented in favor of the executive order; so the order falls.

It could happen in Texas; we just haven't gotten a case past interlocutory appeals for extraordinary relief yet.  And one other way in could be this reasoning:

DeSantis has dismissed the masking recommendation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as not applicable to Florida, but Cooper cited numerous Florida laws and statutes covering health care in nursing homes, prisons and elsewhere that say state decision-makers should give great weight to CDC guidelines.

Especially since Abbott's orders on vaccines and masks all exclude nursing homes.  Gee, what's the basis for that, Governor?  Old people vote, but kids under 18 don't?

And I think few trial judges in Texas would put the opposite of this sentiment in print:

The judge pointed out that most experts agree masks protect other children, not just those wearing them, and he rejected the claim made by a psychologist at a closed-door DeSantis-led roundtable that "masking is child abuse."

"I’ve seen no scientific evidence of that," Cooper said.

Really, I like this opinion; what I've read of it, anyway:

"We all zealously protect our personal rights," he said. "We can drink until we're intoxicated...but we cannot get in our car and start driving around while we've had alcoholic beverages that impair our ability to drive. We all have the right to drink alcohol, but the driver’s right to drive intoxicated is limited by the government."

"When we talk about absolute and fundamental rights, there’s always a footnote," Cooper added. "Well let's see if exercising this right harms other people." 

By the way, this ruling came after four days of testimony.  No case in Texas has gotten that far yet.  All the rulings of the Texas Supreme Court are preliminary and limited to the case before them; they've made no ruling for the state as a whole.  That's because no case has developed a record which the Court can review.  Not yet, anyway.

Hope is the thing with feathers, and I'm feeling rather feathery myself. 

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Now Do You Miss Him?

Trump thinks we’re working our way through the alphabet. No idea what he thinks happened to ISIS A-J. It probably doesn’t cross his mind.

ISIS-K is an acronym for Islamic State Khorasan. 

The group has been in existence since 2014. It has been present in several countries since that time. It’s threats to attack Americans in Afghanistan is one reason Biden wanted to leave. Trump would have been briefed on all of this.

His ignorance is truly astounding. And truly impenetrable.
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A Quick, Long, Interesting Thread 🧵

Since I was getting blocked (by Twitter) I had to sign up to read stuff like this. So I’m posting the thread 🧵 to make sure you can see it all. Welcome to modern times.

If global warming doesn’t kill us, I’m sure Facebook will.
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Legal Explainer

"Gone to the attorney general” on a public information request is not the nefarious tactic of crooks and fiends and those with something to hide it sounds like. It’s actually a common action that’s more CYA than cover-up.

The request of the AG is allowed under the statute, and all it means is that any information released is authorized for release. Now you see where the CYA comes in. If the constable’s office releases information contrary to law (quite a few laws apply), the office could face liability. The AG’s opinion means whatever information that is released has been authorized.

It’s not a delaying tactic. It’s not an obstruction tactic. It’s SOP. If I were advising the constable, I’d probably request an AG opinion just as a matter of good legal practice.

Ignorance of the law really is a dangerous thing.  And it makes you look stupid.  Like, Trump-stupid.

Don't be Trump-stupid.
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