What Everything Else Isn't

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste.  It's what everything else isn't.

-- Theodore Huebner Roethke (1908 - 1963), American poet, awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954, Poetry and Craft (1965)

Narrow Escapes

It is happening here.  Democracy in America has been a series of narrow escapes.  We may be running out of luck, and no one is coming to save us.  For that, we have only ourselves.

-- Bill Moyers (5 June 1934 - 26 June 2025), American journalist and political commentator, We Hold This Truth to Be Self-Evident: It’s Happening Before Our Very Eyes (5 June 2020)

Air Quotes

We used to be called the world's greatest deliberative body.  I think we're still called it, but now I wonder if it's in air quotes.  We will survive as a democracy if we continue to respect the integrity of our institutions, and so that means respecting our own rules and how they operate.

-- Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in an interview with the Washington Post (24 June 2025)

Rewarding Lawlessness

In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution.  In this case, the Government took the opposite approach.  It wrongfully deported one plaintiff to Guatemala, even though an Immigration Judge found he was likely to face torture there.  Then, in clear violation of a court order, it deported six more to South Sudan, a nation the State Department considers too unsafe for all but its most critical personnel.  An attentive District Court’s timely intervention only narrowly prevented a third set of unlawful removals to Libya.

Rather than allowing our lower court colleagues to manage this high-stakes litigation with the care and attention it plainly requires, this Court now intervenes to grant the Government emergency relief from an order it has repeatedly defied.  I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion. ...

The Due Process Clause represents “the principle that ours is a government of laws, not of men, and that we submit ourselves to rulers only if under rules.”  By rewarding lawlessness, the Court once again undermines that foundational principle.  Apparently, the Court finds the idea that thousands will suffer violence in farflung locales more palatable than the remote possibility that a District Court exceeded its remedial powers when it ordered the Government to provide notice and process to which the plaintiffs are constitutionally and statutorily entitled.  That use of discretion is as incomprehensible as it is inexcusable. Respectfully, but regretfully, I dissent.

-- Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson join, dissenting, in Department of Homeland Security, et al. v D.V.D., et al., on application for stay (23 June 2025)

Now More Than Ever

Who will stand up for our democracy?  This question, fraught in even the most peaceful times, has only grown more pressing as our country approaches its 250th anniversary.  Each passing day brings growing assaults on essential liberties like freedom of speech and due process.  Meanwhile, our delicately assembled legal system faces a constant barrage of threats.  Even as this issue reaches publication, the U.S. military has been deployed against peaceful protestors.  We teeter on the brink of collapse into an authoritarian state.  That is why, today, The Onion calls upon our lawmakers to sit back and do absolutely nothing.

Members of Congress -- now, more than ever, our nation desperately needs your cowardice.

Our republic is a birthright, an exceedingly rare treasure passed down from generation to generation of Americans.  It was gained through hard years of bloody resistance and can too easily be lost.  Our Founding Fathers, in their abundant wisdom, understood that all it would take was men and women of little courage sitting in the corridors of power and taking zero action as this precious inheritance was stripped away -- and that is where we have finally arrived. ...

But we have not descended entirely from a nation of fearful men, have we?  Let this be the moment to make amends for any missteps of American bravery and valor.  Congress, we are asking, nay, demanding: This coming Independence Day, don't wave the Stars and Stripes, that enduring symbol of liberty and rebellion.

Instead, wave the white flag of surrender.

Tu Stultus Es,
The Onion Editorial Board

-- Editorial from a hard copy edition of The Onion newspaper that was delivered to all members of Congress, along with a letter "Why I'm Sending Issues of 'The Onion' To Every Member Of Congress" (20 June 2025)

Our Willingness To Discipline

One of the widest gaps in human experience is the gap between what we say we want to be and our willingness to discipline ourselves to get there.

-- Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878 - 1969), American Baptist and Presbyterian minister, Living Under Tension : Sermons on Christianity Today (1941)

Someone Has To Pay

Increases in tariffs, this year, are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.  The effects on inflation could be short-lived, reflecting a one-time shift in the price level.  It’s also possible that the inflationary effects could instead be more persistent. ...

Because someone has to pay for the tariffs, and it will be someone in that chain that I mentioned, between the manufacturer, the exporter, the importer, the retailer, ultimately somebody putting it into a good of some kind or just the consumer buying it.

All through that chain, people will be trying not to be the ones who can take up the cost, but ultimately, the cost of the tariff has to be paid.  And some of it will fall on the end consumer.

-- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell at a press conference after the Federal Reserve declined to lower interest rates, nj.com (18 June 2025)

Retreating

To give meaning to our Constitution's bedrock equal protection guarantee, this Court has long subjected to heightened judicial scrutiny any law that treats people differently based on sex.  If a State seeks to differentiate on that basis, it must show that the sex classification "serves important governmental objectives and that the discriminatory means employed are substantially related to the achievement of those objectives."  Such review (known as intermediate scrutiny) allows courts to ascertain whether the State has a sound, evidence-based reason to distinguish on the basis of sex or whether it does so in reliance on impermissible stereotypes about the sexes.

Today, the Court considers a Tennessee law that categorically prohibits doctors from prescribing certain medications to adolescents if (and only if) they will help a patient "identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex."  In addition to discriminating against transgender adolescents, who by definition "identify with" an identity "inconsistent" with their sex, that law conditions the availability of medications on a patient's sex.  Male (but not female) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like boys, and female (but not male) adolescents can receive medicines that help them look like girls.

Tennessee's law expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status, so the Constitution and settled precedent require the Court to subject it to intermediate scrutiny.  The majority contorts logic and precedent to say otherwise, inexplicably declaring it must uphold Tennessee's categorical ban on lifesaving medical treatment so long as " ‘any reasonably conceivable state of facts' " might justify it.  Thus, the majority subjects a law that plainly discriminates on the basis of sex to mere rational-basis review.  By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims.  In sadness, I dissent.

-- Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson join, dissenting in US v Skrmetti, Attorney General for Tennessee, in which the majority upheld a Tennessee law denying gender-affirming care to minors (18 June 2025)

The Task

The task counts more than the one who does it.

-- Lloyd Alexander (1924 - 2007), widely-influential American author, mostly of fantasy novels for children and adolescents, as well as several adult books, The Chronicles of Prydain (1964-1968) Book I: The Book of Three (1964) Chapter 2

Not A Caucus

Democracy is not a caucus, obtaining a fixed term of office by promises, and then doing what it likes with the people.  We hold that there ought to be a constant relationship between the rulers and the people.  "Government of the people, by the people, for the people," still remains the sovereign definition of democracy.

-- Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965), British politician and statesman, speech in the House of Commons (11 November 1947), published in 205 The Official Report, House of Commons (5th Series), 11 November 1947, vol. 444, cc.

To Know How Much

The most ignorant are the most conceited.  To know how much there is that we do not know, is one of the most valuable parts of our attainments; for such knowledge becomes both a lesson of humility and a stimulus to exertion.

-- Horace Mann (1796 - 1859), American education reformer and abolitionist, Lectures on Education (1855) Lecture 6

Be Ashamed

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.

-- Horace Mann (1796 - 1859), American education reformer and abolitionist, Address at Antioch College (1859)

RIP Brian Wilson

All of us have the privilege of making music that helps and heals -- to make music that makes people happier, stronger and kinder.  Don't forget: music is God's voice.

-- Brian Douglas Wilson (20 June 1942 - 11 June 2025), American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys, At the induction ceremony of The Beach Boys into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (January 1988)

Inconvenience

So in all human affairs one notices, if one examines them closely, that it is impossible to remove one inconvenience without another emerging.

-- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 - 1527), Italian political philosopher, historian, musician, poet, and playwright, Discourses on Livy (1517) Book 1, Ch. 6 

Extraordinary Intervention

Today the Court grants "emergency" relief that allows the Social Security Administration (SSA) to hand DOGE staffers the highly sensitive data of millions of Americans.  The Government wants to give DOGE unfettered access to this personal, non-anonymized information right now -- before the courts have time to assess whether DOGE's access is lawful.  So it asks this Court to stay a lower court's decision to place temporary and qualified limits on DOGE's data access while litigation challenging DOGE's authority to access the data is pending.  But the Government fails to substantiate its stay request by showing that it or the public will suffer irreparable harm absent this Court's intervention.  In essence, the “urgency” underlying the Government's stay application is the mere fact that it cannot be bothered to wait for the litigation process to play out before proceeding as it wishes.

That sentiment has traditionally been insufficient to justify the kind of extraordinary intervention the Government seeks.  But, once again, this Court dons its emergency-responder gear, rushes to the scene, and uses its equitable power to fan the flames rather than extinguish them.

-- Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, dissenting in Social Security Administration v AFSCME, on application for stay, in which the majority, on the emergency docket, granted a stay of a lower court ruling that limited DOGE access to Social Security data as this case makes it way through litigation (6 June 2025)

Foolish People

Foolish people -- when I say "foolish people" in this contemptuous way I mean people who entertain different opinions to mine.  If there is one person I do despise more than another, it is the man who does not think exactly the same on all topics as I do.

-- Jerome K. Jerome (1859 - 1927), English author, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Background Circumstances

Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.  Under our Title VII precedents, a plaintiff may make out a prima facie case of disparate treatment by showing "that she applied for an available position for which she was qualified, but was rejected under circumstances which give rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination." Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U. S. 248, 253 (1981).

The question in this case is whether, to satisfy that prima facie burden, a plaintiff who is a member of a majority group must also show " 'background circumstances to support the suspicion that the defendant is that unusual employer who discriminates against the majority.' " 87 F. 4th 822, 825 (CA6 2023) (per curiam).  We hold that this additional "background circumstances" requirement is not consistent with Title VII's text or our case law construing the statute.  Accordingly, we vacate the judgment below and remand for application of the proper prima facie standard.

-- Justice Jackson, for the unanimous Supreme Court of the United States in Marlean A. Ames, Petitioner v Ohio Department of Youth Services, in which the court ruled that cases of reverse discrimination require no higher standard of proof than other discrimination cases (5 June 2025)

Getting There

It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.  When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again.  The never-satisfied man is so strange; if he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully, but in order to begin another.  I imagine the world conqueror must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretches out his arms for others.

-- Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777 - 1855), German mathematician, astronomer and physicist, Letter to Farkas Bolyai (2 September 1808)

Equally Convenient

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

-- Henri Poincaré (1854 - 1912), French mathematician, theoretical physicist, and philosopher of science, Science and Hypothesis (1901), Preface, Dover abridged edition (1952), p. xxii

What Do We Get For That?

The total actual 2024 budget to run the country was about 7 trillion dollars.  That means the NASA budget was only 0.004 of the national budget -- less than half a percent.  For every hundred dollars the US government spent, it put 40 cents in the bucket for NASA.

And what do we get for that?  The Universe. 

Missions to Mercury, Venus, Jupiter.  Landers on Mars, telescopes that peer through the depths of the cosmos, a fleet of spacecraft monitoring the Sun, the star to which we owe our existence.  The abject awe and wonder of images of a glorious cosmos.  The first A in NASA is for Aeronautics, too; research that makes air travel better, faster, and safer.  NASA science includes observing and monitoring our own planet as well, making satellites that track our water, atmosphere, and land. NASA scientists study climate change, one of the single biggest existential threats to humanity.

NASA employs about 18,000 people across all 50 states (and that doesn't include contractors, of which I was one for many years, and people such as  academics who have NASA grants).  NASA partners with space agencies around the world, a diversified portfolio that guarantees the best scientific research always pushing past the cutting edge and accelerating our understanding of, well, everything. 

-- Philip Plait, Bad Astronomy Newsletter, "Trump threatens to eviscerate NASA" (2 June 2025)