News & Articles

What would happen if men could not serve on the Supreme Court?
University of California researchers analyzed Medicare data from 750,000 men and women over 65 who had been hospitalized for what was described as “urgent medical conditions.” They discovered that men and women who had been patients of female physicians had a lower chance of dying in the hospital or of being readmitted for additional treatment. 

True for both men and women, but the difference was much more pronounced for women. The study did not attempt to determine why gender mattered, but many analysts suggested maybe female doctors communicated better with both their female and male patients making it possible to have better diagnoses and treatment. 

At the same time of this research, another group determined that girls are now going through puberty six months earlier than they did in the 1960s. A growing number are now getting their periods at age 9, which may increase the risk of breast cancer and heart disease in later life.
I served as an elementary principal for 10 years in the 1970s. We always noticed the difference in the attitude toward boys of sixth grade girls from the early fall to late spring. In fall the feeling was “Yuck!” By the middle of spring the girls had fallen in love with boys they had harassed in the fall.

Before I get into next week’s truths and tantrums, I want to put religion on the front burner because it’s going to play a major role in 2024-2028 legislation and Supreme Court decisions. It’s the 900-year-old Noah sailing his SuperArk in the Religious Ocean. 

A cartoon in The New Yorker has a football team kneeling in prayer on a field, and a player leading the prayer is looking downfield with the caption “Oh, no – the other team is praying, too!” The question is: Will God answer the prayers of one or both teams? What if one team is Christian and the other Muslim? Please e-mail me your answer!

2024 might be most memorable year in the short history of DSA empire
First – in both cases – for the first time in history we will elect a woman or a psychopath to the presidency. 

Second: what will our scandal-plagued autocratic Supreme Court decide that just created a king for the DSA? 

What about our income inequality, abortion, homosexuality and climate change? The CDC just reported that 3.1 % of high schoolers are transgender. 

Third: what will Congress do with the major issues, or will they work overtime for billionaires so that all will become millionaires instead of just half? The inquiring minds of the poor and middle-class want to know.

Ian Millhiser, senior correspondent at Vox, where he focuses on the Supreme Court and his written two books about it, summarizes what has happened to the Court since King Donald: “The justices are barely able to manage their own docket, even though it’s been shrinking foe decades. They publish incompetently drafted decisions that sow confusion throughout the judiciary, then refuse to accept responsibility when those decisions lead to ridiculous and immoral outcomes. They take liberties with the facts of their cases, and they can’t even be trusted to read the plain text of an unambiguous statute correctly. In just the last few years, they’ve overruled so many seminal precedents that law professors no longer know how to teach their classes. And yet, despite their incompetence, the justices continue to claim more and more power – even though they simply do not have the personnel or expertise to address every policy question they’ve added to their own plates.”  

Look at the current federal and state horrors and messes caused by the Roe v. Wade decision. Millions of words have been written about abortion since that horrendous decision against women. 

I think this decision by Georgia’s Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert C.I McBurney ranks as the best refutation: “A review of our higher courts’ interpretation of liberty demonstrates that liberty in Georgia includes in its meaning, in its protections, and in its bundle of rights the powers of a woman to control her own body, to decide what happens to it and in it, and to reject state interference with her healthcare choices. This right (as Roe once provided on the basis of the Constitution) is limited, however. When a fetus growing inside a woman reaches viability (24 months), when society can assume care and responsibility for that separate life, then – and only then – may society intervene.” 

Georgian Amber Nicole Thurman died of severe sepsis in 2022 when doctors refused to operate on her and remove the fetus via a D&C because of their fear of going to jail for conducting an illegal operation. They waited 20 hours to operate, and her heart stopped during surgery. 

I was pleasantly surprised by North Dakota South Central Judge Bruce Romanick’s carefully worded  argument about the right to have an abortion: “Pregnant women have a fundamental right to choose abortion before viability exists under the enumerated and unenumerated interests protected by the North Dakota Constitution for all North Dakota citizens including women – specifically, but not necessarily limited to, the interests in life, liberty, safety and happiness enumerated in article 1, section 1 of the North Dakota Constitution.” 

In other words, both judges are telling politicians: “Before viability it’s none of your damn business.”  
In order to bring order to the complicated business of birthing Homo sapiens so evolutionary forces may continue, we must have laws that cover breaths of life between 24 weeks and a natural birth. 

Fact: abortions cost an average $600, vaginal births $13,000, C-sections close to $20,000, and costs to raise a child to age 18 now exceed $300,000. Sixty percent of abortions are performed on women who have children. Religion is a minor factor while family economics dominate the decision.

 Life begins at conception but becomes baby only at first breath
A male letter writer in my local newspaper wrote a very curious sentence about the birthing process: “True freedom believes God made us either male or female and that he did not make any mistakes.” That’s a howler! No mistakes?!! 

Fact: 20% of live fetuses never take a first breath because of thousands of medical problems caused by design errors. Out of 25 pregnancies, four fetuses miscarry for medical reasons and one fetus dies of abnormalities. One out of 25 may have a serious medical problem that requires surgery before or shortly after birth. “Blue” babies often die shortly after birth. 

The United Nations estimates that there are 385,000 pregnancies a day in the world’s 196 countries. That transposes to 77,000 fetuses that do not have a first breath. They are miscarried and thousands need serious medical treatment to survive.

I have no idea what he means when he writes about “true freedom.” Does that mean one can yell “Fire! Fire!” in a theater without penalty? 

Has he become “Vaticanized?” The Vatican still proclaims that homosexuality is “intrinsically disordered” although St. Peter’s Cathedral and the Sistine Chapel have been “violated” by gay priests, bishops, and cardinals for centuries. (Remember: gay DaVinci built the dome and gay Michaelangelo painted the ceiling!) 

Each day in the world for thousands of years about 36,000 members of the LBGTQUIA+ community are born and become part of society, with many becoming members of the Roman Catholic Church. 

Experts in genetics estimate that 10% of the babies born are gay. Chances are one of the 12 apostles was gay and that St. Joan of Arc was transgender. She had a hankering for men’s clothes and enjoyed their company. German bishops have recently threatened to break away from the Vatican if it does not accept gays.

According to the letter writer: “True freedom is giving the parents right to guide and oversee their children’s health and well-being.” 

Does that mean the state cannot do anything to parents who refuse to have doctors treat their child? They believe God will care for the child. 

Does that mean that parents have control over puberty drugs and transgender hormone treatments? 
Why does the Bible suggest slaves can be made of defeated people? 

He continues with the idea that our Founding Fathers created “the freest country in the world.” How about Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and New Zealand, the countries with the happiest people? How many have recently tried to migrate to the DSA?

I see the Catholic Church has finally decided to teach that God can save unbaptized babies, It has been studying this problem for centuries. 

The traditional view was that unbaptized babies go to Limbo first, an afterlife for people eventually going to Hell. 

The Vatican’s official position is that it can only entrust unbaptized babies to God’s mercy. That’s certainly better than the long-held traditional position that unbaptized babies cannot be saved from Hell because they have never received the sacrament of baptism. 

The Vatican, expert at how to say nothing in 500 words, claims this is not an official position but a “possible theological hypothesis.” Wow! Isn’t that clear?

People: “Will God save us and the U.S. from this dishonorable court?”
Each time the Supreme Court of the United States opens a session, the marshal asks: “Will God Save the United States and this Honorable Court?”  Notice: I have changed the pledge a little to recognize today’s reality. A large percentage of the American people are saying it should shut down or enlarge the Court before it totally destroys our freedoms and our democracy. Only 15% of Democrats approve of the Supreme Court. We have at least six justices who use “originalism” and “textualism” as a foundation of their philosophy of governing. 

Our constitution is  difficult to amend and it cannot meet entirely different times, places, inventions, innovations, and climate. Muskets don’t equal AR-15s. Oxcarts don’t equal Delta Airlines. Leeches don’t equal IVs. Skull shapes do not equal DNA. The Pony Express does not equal satellite cell phones. Tennessee Snake Handlers don’t equal members of the American Psychiatric Association. It’s cool that languages often change meanings over 240 years.

  Dozens of cases containing religious practices of many churches, but mostly Christian (Roman Catholic, Christian Dominionism, Christian Identity, Baptist, evangelicalism, fundamentalism, etc), are headed for the Supreme Court in 2024-25. Cases involving abortion laws, transgender treatment, book banning, sex education, and immigration clog up many a Court docket. Many cases involve children. At this time, more Americans are asking themselves whether they even want children. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, only 26% of eligible Americans say having children is extremely or very important for a fulfilling life. But 71% say having a job or career they enjoy is extremely important. The Divided States of American fertility rate has bombed out at 1.6 lifetime births per woman, well below a replacement rate of 2.i. Marriage is becoming less frequent--25% of 40-year-olds have never married. In 1980 that figure was 6%. Other researchers say that a growing number of women say they don’t want children because of the extreme costs of raising a child. $300,000 is still a lot of money! It takes 20 years to raise that money at the federal minimum wage. As a philosopher said: “It takes a big jump from “ME” to “WE” to make a fulfilling life.