Routine Revelations

As I reflect upon what I wrote earlier today about Memorial Day, it occurs to me that my thoughts about the meaning and purpose of this day are consistent with how I was always taught. Memorial Day is a day of remembering those who died in service for our country, yes, and because of those sacrifices I enjoy freedom. What an individualistic point of view to think of how I benefited from the sacrifice others! What is lost in narrowing the view down to myself is seeing the good in the sacrifice.

We live in an extremely cynical world that teaches humanity only seeks personal advantage, that we are primarily driven by self-interest. The concept of sacrifice pushes against this cynicism. People who run into a burning building and sign up to serve in the military do not want to die but they understand the possibility and and do anyway because they are not driven by self-interest.

It is good to remember those who died in service to our country, and it is even better to remember why they died, which was less for our individual freedom and more for something beyond themselves, something good that they themselves would not enjoy. Cynicism and contempt of others is not the lesson of Memorial Day. Cynicism teaches us why there is evil, but in a such a worldview the far more interesting and important questions is, why is there any good?

On Memorial Day, when we remember the sacrifices of those who died serving our country during war, we ought to reflect on what it is that these people thought they died for. Did they die for my freedom or our freedom? Is it not the case that the concept of sacrifice is the antithesis of individualism?

Unofficial start of summer based on the blooming rhododendron.

The tariffs on imports from China first imposed by Trump and continued by Biden did not increase jobs in the U.S. but increased prices. While imports from China decreased they were simply replaced by imports from other countries. Assuming the purpose for the tariffs was to increase jobs in the U.S., it should be obvious this would happen because the tariffs don’t address the root cause problem which is that corporations are not really interested in hiring more workers in the United States. On the whole the United States is the last place a corporation wants to add labor because it has the highest cost. Imposing tariffs is simply pandering for votes.

Dave shared an easy way to transcribe voice mails to Google Docs, and I read it I thought, “that’s cool” but then asked myself, when is the last time you received a voice mail that you would want transcribed? For me voice mail is like fax machines, technologies of the past that are still around me but no longer really used. At my age I struggle to let these go, like our home phone land line.

Feeds All Around provides a way to discover RSS feeds related to a mastodon account. The app appears to be able to dig out the RSS feed from a site. Because it uses Mastodon it provides a way to drill down to followers of followers, and therefore is a bit of a rabbit hole. I plugged in my Mastodon handle and did some exploring. Found via Darren Hester.

Cicada Brood emergence time cycles with prime numbers like 13 and 17 years may be an evolutionary protection against predators.

Eleven elements of the Periodic Table are in the human body. The human body is an incredible, but there is a surprising amount about it, particularly the brain, that we don’t know.

It was a beautiful July day here in southeast Michigan.

The spread of major sports streaming outlets is getting ridiculous. Netflix will be streaming two NFL games on Christmas day. At least that is a service I already subscribe to rather than Apple TV.

Finished reading: The Jesus Driven Life by 📚Michael Hardin. The author’s use of the work of Rene Girard to understand humanity, and from that understand Jesus and by extension God is compelling.

It’s ironic that people who mock the idea of college students equating speech to violence whenever they react to somebody saying things they don’t like then have college students arrested for saying things they don’t like. It’s really all about control.

I am beginning to think that while much focus is on the upcoming Presidential election what may be more important is Democrat majorities in the Senate and House. Only a single party majority of both houses makes impeachment a real power over the President. Trump could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and a Republican Senate would not find him guilty. It will also take a Democrat majority to make any reform of the Supreme Court possible.

In my opinion the Presidential Immunity case before the Supreme Court could be the most consequential to the future of the United States of any case in my life time. The case raises the question of whether Richard Nixon was right in his claims that a President of the United States can never go before the court, that they are not really bound by the rule of law. Had Gerald Ford not given Nixon a pardon it is likely that the Supreme Court in that day would have heard a case similar to the one before them now for Trump.

I can see a Supreme Court of justices who claim to be originalists proclaim that the President is above the law because the U.S. Constitution has holes as it is made of words. When fundamentalists only look for words and ignore meaning or intent that enables them to promote an ideology. The originalist ideology seems intent on returning us to past centuries in which white men held all the power and for which liberty only applied.

If the United States is a nation based on the rule of law, and the Supreme Court says that rule of law does not apply to the President, how can the republic remain based on the rule of law?

It is draft day in Detroit!

The 2024 NFL Draft is tomorrow and Detroit is buzzing. This is a time when I wish I were still working at the RenCen, I am sure the energy of the event is palpable.

I wish that I could use the glossary function in Drummer for my micro.blog posts so that links to pages I frequently refer to, like my now page, are automatically generated.