Roe v Fish Eggs

I’m out of the habit of writing. I must get back into it. This should have been written this morning. I have so many things on my mind. The problem is that I’m mentally sharp and it’s hard to keep things balanced on anything that comes to a point.

One project that took some time was creating a Chanukah show while it still Chanukah. I did it in one sitting. There was no time to get it on Folk Music Notebook so I just posted it on Mixcloud. Listen to it while you read the rest of this. It doesn’t matter if you are Jewish.

I ended up not writing in the afternoon. I had a torrent of emails I couldn’t keep up with. Then I wanted to go shopping before it got too late. I succeeded in making a mental shift. Since I started my daily perambulations, I most often left the house between four and five in the afternoon. Now that means walking in the dark and I let that stop me a few times. Then I remembered, I’m not afraid of the dark. So now I start my walks at dusk and return at night. Are any of you fearful of me walking in the Bronx at night? The crime rate here is likely lower than where you live. My childhood fear of the dark, and even more dusk, was about witches not criminals. I still get a few willies at dusk. It goes away. I don’t enjoy walking at night here as I did in Queens as I can never see the stars. I love the night sky.

Some parts of my life are good. Schools are hiring and I’ve been applying for positions every day. I just got back from visiting my twice-a-year family in Massachusetts. I’ve been busy preparing Gord’s Gold, I’m working at three shows at once, next week’s, the top albums of the year, and the holiday show. Rose Baldino from House of Hamill posted a great Celtic Christmas playlist on Spotify. I was going to embed it here but then I remembered that you are already listening to my Chanukah show. When you are finished with that listen to Rose’s list. It’s what I’m listening to as I write this. I have to take breaks to write the musicians I want to get music from. I could crib the entire show from this list but then there’d be no Roches, and it’s not Christmas without the Roches. Continuing good things, my health is good. I talked to my gastroenterologist earlier in the week and told him that my Crohn’s health is the best it’s been as an adult. He said I am healed. That’s not cured, it means the previous damage has been repaired as much as possible. I’m still going to get my infusions every eight weeks; they are what brought this good health.

What’s not good as that my patience with other people is wearing thin. It was never that thick. A friend is acting like the Omicron variation is the end of the world. The truth is that it’s too early to know much about Omicron. There are reasons for concern for now it’s wait and see. People hate wait and see. People hate probabilistic predictions. People want certainty and people want someone to blame. Those are things I’m losing patience with. I didn’t want to argue, that wouldn’t do any good, so I told her that I don’t have the bandwidth to deal with this. That’s the truth.

I’m concerned about the Supreme Court ruling on Roe v Wade but that’s not true. That’s been since Trump and McConnell tipped its balance. I heard a great podcast on it today; What The Supreme Court — And Americans — Think About Overturning Roe v. Wade. The answer is that the American people don’t know what they think about overturning Roe v. Wade because they don’t know what the decision said, and they don’t understand the how abortion is practiced. It was an illuminating podcast. On the other hand, Roxane Gay tweeted total agreement with the court conservatives while trying to voice her opposition. This is her tweet. I’m making it a link so you can see I’m exactly quoting her.

In regard to the Supreme Court, what is there to say? As long as women’s rights can be decided by a set of nine political appointees, we are not free. It is poor women, and/or women of color and/or rural women who will suffer the most if Roe is overturned.

Is she really unaware that the right to an abortion came from nine political appointees? Does she not know that what the anti-choice block is saying is that it should not be up to a set of nine political appointees? She doesn’t think this true at all and that bothers me too much for my own good. The appointed court will not be making abortions illegal or difficult to obtain, it’s the elected legislatures. I know that’s not what she wants. She seems to think that there’s a consensus which agrees with her, and I should point out, me, that abortion should be legal and there would be no issue if it wasn’t for the Supreme Court. That makes no sense, and I can’t believe that she believes it, but I can’t think of any rational worldview that would make what she said right. If there is so much irrationality on the left, which has the liberal bias of the facts on its side, how are we supposed to deal with the irrational right?

Then I get mad at myself for getting mad at other people. Notice that I’m not making any arguments about abortion. It’s way too complex for me to deal with here. Listen to that podcast. At least you’ll learn about the abortion laws we have, what we will have if Roe v Wades is overturned, and what the timing of abortions is like. People greatly overestimate how late into pregnancy most abortions occur.

Now I will try to move past feeling guilty by watching Get Back the brilliant Beatles documentary.