Sat AM Musings

There's something cool about waking up in the middle of the night, to a quiet house (althought the wind is howling outside!), and getting some work done.  OK, I often pay for it later in the evening with a yawn or two. 

Cold?  I don't mind it as much as I used to.  Snow?  I like it, even the heavy/deep stuff.  It's fun to shovel.  Rain?  It's sometimes bothersome.  But wind?  Nope, that's one meteorological condidtion I don't like.  Strong winds make running tough, as I'll rediscover in a short while.  (It's still dark out there.)  Taking things from the car to the store or vice versa is a challenge.  Wind makes cold colder, although I disdain "wind chills."  Is it wind that makes airplane flights so bumpy?  I suppose it's good for flying kites, though.

An Amherst mate recently blogged about two things, Judge Bork and Senator Inouye.  He reminded me of Bork's role in Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre."  That was when Nixon ordered his Attorney General, Elliot Richardson, to fire Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox.  Richardson, to his everlasting credit, refused.  Nixon then fired him, ordering Deputy AG William Ruckelshaus to get rid of Cox.  Likewise, honorably, the new AG refused.  Nixon canned him, too.  Bork, then Solicitor General, was next in line.  He was set to refuse Nixon's firing order, but was talked out of it by folks who promised to set the historical record straight.  That record was that Bork opposed the firing, but would do it only because Nixon would keep firing people until he found one who would axe Cox.  And "the folks" assured Bork that Nixon didn't care if he found an honorable man or not; so Bork should do the firing and the position would be filled by a man with integrity.  Bork's mistake here was trusting "the folks," the politicians, the Nixon politicians.  This episode later came back to haunt Bork in the Supreme Court hearings.  It's a tough call--I see both sides.

Senator Inouye was grilled for having served in the US Senate for far too long, anathema to "conservative principles."  I guess I'm not averse to "a career politician," any more than I'm averse to a career teacher or doctor or lawyer or millwright or......  What matters, to me, is performance.  Term limits are a mere political ploy.  They already exist.  Voters already possess them every time they enter the polling places--they can vote out the incumbent and vote in his/her opponent.  Term limits might well also limit my choices.  Maybe who is in office is better than any replacement, although that sure seems dubious!  I, then, am stuck with voting for an inferior candidate.  Again, I see the other side, especially with the power and the money/contacts that are involved.  Still, because voters are lazy, stupid, duped, whatever, I don't think my choices should be limited by term limits.

I thought of another anomaly concerning the "party of choice."  Again, abortion is a woman's choice, but people shouldn't have the choices of gun ownership or where their kids attend school.  And, workers shouldn't have the choice to join a union or not.  Hmmmm....  It almost sounds like the "party of choice" should be called the "party of no choice."  (BTW, why is it so difficult for me to type the word "choice?"  I most often omit the letter "i."  Hmmmm......)