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For a long time now, Florida has been the undisputed champion in the ‘Worst U.S. State’ competition, and the exploits of Florida Man are legendary. However, Texas was never going to take that lying down.
Their new abortion law is both a step back in time, and a step toward a dystopian future, all in one. It’s bad enough banning all abortions (Rape? Incest? No matter) after 6 weeks. A lot of women don’t even know they are pregnant at 6 weeks. But that’s not the worst part of the law.
It seeks to punish anybody who aids in an abortion. If you give your girlfriend a ride up to Oklahoma, you could be arrested for it. If you give somebody money for an abortion, you could be arrested for it. If you are a doctor performing an abortion, or a nurse assisting that doctor, you could be arrested for it. But that’s not the worst part of this law.
There is a clause in the law which allows, even encourages people to inform on anyone they know who has performed, or received an abortion. These kind of narc on your neighbor laws are despicable. They absolutely bring out the worst in people and make it so nobody can trust anyone else. But that’s not the worst part of this law.
If somebody informs on you, and you are charged and found guilty, that informant will receive an award of $10,000. Now, I know inflation keeps eating into it and $10,000 is not what is used to be, but that’s still a whole lot of money to a whole lot of people. There may well be cases where somebody isn’t particularly opposed to abortion, and they don’t even hate you, but they need the money and will report you to get it. That’s the worst aspect of this law, IMO. Solving poverty by making everybody a police informant.
I don’t know what can be done about it. The Supreme Court is not going to help, a clear majority of them are extreme right wingers and at least one is a rapist.
I did see a couple of people this morning recommending boycotts of Texas, one specifically suggesting that all musicians refuse to perform in Texas, which sounds kind of weak but nobody playing Sun City was a big part of what brought apartheid down in South Africa. I agree with the suggestion. Everybody should mess with Texas in any way they can.

If ‘woke’ means ‘aware of the true nature of our civilization’ then it is a good thing, but I suspect it’s generally used as the currently popular term for being ‘with it,’ ‘in the groove,’ ‘hip,’ ‘au courant,’ or ‘in the loop.’ Words change. Ideas change more slowly.
I saw an exchange yesterday in which someone was railing against the term ‘handicapped’ and saying that ‘handicapped parking spaces’ should be relabeled ‘accessible,’ which is truly nonsense, because all parking spaces are accessible to anyone with a car.
Of course we live in a racist society but, within the course of my lifetime, we have gone from colored to negro to black (that’s where I decided to stop – if we are white, then they are black, and it’s simple and fair) to African-American, (which is horribly misleading, I was actually surprised and amused when I went to France and heard black people speaking French) to ‘people of color,’ which is full circle. People of color is just two words longer and more pretentious than ‘colored.’
Saying we should use the true and correct words for things is not wrong, in a conversation among linguists and writers. But, it really is silly to try and enforce changes in our speech patterns and think you are actually bringing about change. Far more important is just to remember, whatever words you are using, to not be mean. I would far rather deal with somebody who occasionally says the wrong thing, but sweetly, than with laser-focused assholes who are eager to brand everybody else, including me, as the villain.

As if we needed another reminder that things are changing in ways we have no idea how to deal with, scientists have discovered an island off the coast of Greenland that nobody ever knew was there because it was always covered with ice.
Now, as islands go, Qeqertaq Annavarleq (which means ‘northernmost island’ in Icelandic, according to the BBC) has a claim to fame, which is that it is the worlds northernmost island, in fact the northernmost land on the face of the Earth. And we never knew it was there. It’s as if the planet, on its way to uninhabitability, is revealing it’s true face to us.
As islands go, it’s not much. 60 meters by 30 meters, rock with a bit of mud. No resort with palm trees, no bar serving rum cocktails, no trees at all, no plants, no animals, no nothing. To make matters worse for poor Qeqertaq Annavarleq, it just barely juts up above the surface of the ocean so, as ocean levels rise, it will soon disappear again. A brief flicker of light, before the darkness.

There’s a lot of beauty in the world, but a lot of ugly shit, too, and for some perverse reason my eye was drawn this morning to a slide show of “World’s Most Evil Architecture.”
Well, some of the choices I agreed with. I was not surprised that Prague made the list with Žižkov Tower, and the babies climbing up it. That is one of the ugliest structures anywhere and it dominates the skyline of this mainly beautiful metropolis. Jarring. Out of place. Evil looking is not an entirely accurate appellation.
But there were a lot that I thought looked pretty good: The apartment complex in Singapore, the skyscraper that looked a bit like a stack of Jenga blocks, a house (or, more likely a small hotel) in Zakopane, Poland, with a wavy tile roof, and the Seattle Space Needle. How can the Seattle Space Needle be on a list of evil looking architecture?
Of course, there were a lot of angled shots of huge apartment complexes, hundred of rows of identical doors going up forever. It’s a bit of a cliche, and a bit of a cheap shot. It is, I suppose, an accurate commentary on our current, over-populated, over regulated civilization, but… As long as the water runs hot and cold, as long as the electricity stays on, whether an individual or a family living behind those doors is in heaven or hell, has a good life or a bad life, is pretty much entirely up to them. Could be aesthetically improved, I’m sure. But, it’s not necessarily dystopian.
Anyway, fair’s fair, and a double whatever. The lists, and the slide shows we see on Facebook are almost all random, arbitrary, and just something somebody made up. I wouldn’t take them too seriously.

I am not happy with the idea that Sirhan Sirhan might get parole. The man who shot Robert Kennedy, in the summer of ’68, has been approved by the parole board, but the final decision will rest with the governor, who’s get quite a few other things on his mind right now, what with maybe getting sacked and all.
There’s no reason for it. It’s not as if the killing was an accident, or self-defense. He gunned him down, in a hotel lobby. There were hundreds of witnesses. He was originally sentenced to death but then California dropped the death penalty (which is a decision I applaud), and now he might get parole.
Why? He is 77 years old, and whether he dies at home or dies in prison is of no consequence to society or, in fact, to him. Either way, he is going to die, and his legacy is pretty much written in stone. No one is going to remember him as a loving husband and father. He’s too old to work. Freedom, at this point, is not going to resurrect his life.

I’m not a big fan of RFK, or the whole Kennedy dynasty. I feel that John was a mediocre president at best, the Democrats should have dropped Ted like a hot potato after that whole dead girl at the bottom of the river thing, and RFK, while an inspiring speaker, did not really come out as anti-war, or get into the presidential race, until Gene McCarthy had paved the way.
Still, you have to wonder about the alternate time-line in which Robert Kennedy was not assassinated. He had just won the California primary and it looked like he had a clear shot at the nomination. Would the riots at the convention have happened? If Kennedy had got the nomination, there’s a good chance he would have beaten Nixon. Nobody would have ever heard about Watergate, but would we have gotten out of Viet Nam any earlier? About the same, I’d guess. Some things might have gone better, some things might have gone worse.
But, that wasn’t Sirhan Sirhan’s choice to make. Let him stay in prison until he dies.