One forecast was that today the temp would rise to 8º or even 10º. Instead, the temp "high" is now supposed to be double digit sub-zero. I don't know what's going on but I'm imagining two guys fighting over the controls at the weather center. What it means in practical terms is a big fat bill next month and worry about the plumbing right now. I'm afraid to take a shower for fear of causing some kind of glitch because of hot water in the system. After the $800 bill for making the kitchen sink drain (replaced all the piping from sink to sewer), I'm very jumpy.
The other variable is Blue Bunny finally beginning to have kittens. She's had two so far: white and gray. They seem licked and fed but Bunny won't stay in the box with them. Should I bring the box out? Should I bring the newborns and put them in my shirt pockets to keep them warm? Why should I worry when the last thing we need is more kittens?
After watching Maddox interview Parnas last night, it's clear what we all suspected: Trump is deeply involved, cynically and viciously, in destruction and continues to be even as his mind deteriorates. Parnas, who always appeared a clown with a grin and an engorged thumb, was rational, clear, and while not exactly charming, at least reasonable. His lawyer never intervened. There are a great many people involved, collaborating.
So we're all trying to understand the various strategies interacting in hope of some intelligibility by summer. The people who have known the facts but were holding off until the "dam is broken" are beginning to act. But I'm dismayed to realize how thin is the understanding of basic concepts, even among the people most involved. The Rule of Law seems to be very hard to understand. The closest many people come is the handbook in high school of things for which a person could be penalized. As one grown man informed me, if it's not in the handbook it's not an offense. His son was in trouble for something no one ever imagined a student would do.
This is a clue. "High School" is fairly standardized -- within broad limits -- but the whole idea is not the Rule of Law for the Good of All, but rather it is the prevailing sentiments of winning at sports, getting into college, and being popular. Also, having the right "things." In a small town this set of standards spreads through the community. But it not written down. It is a norm set by looking at each other.
When I was in high school (mid-Fifties), one had to wear a white blouse with a round collar and a circle pin. A tiny bit of variation was allowed, but when I wore a colored blouse with a pointed collar and a pin that was square -- quelle horreor! So I got defiant and started wearing my father's tartan neckties in the belief they made me seem like a Scottish school girl. Instead, people asked if I were pledging for some sorority. I ignored them.
Bandy X Lee speaks of "shared psychosis" or what will google as "Folie à deux." Much of this stuff is spoken of in French, as opposed to being approved by Latin, which hints at scholarly education rather than dubious deviation. Yesterday I talked about "norming", not in the statistical sense but as a way of getting a group on the same page. (Okay. I admit it. I'm mixing the metaphors and languages but the concepts are also mixed.)
Some norming is very helpful and even civilized. I was once at a conference with mixed US and Canadians. We were milling around while waiting for doors to open. A Canadian woman remarked in a very loud voice, "In MY country we queue up!" We Yanks were abashed and formed a line. Canadians are considered slightly more civilized. (Except in Quebec, which is French.)
Let's go to boundaries. People seem to crave to know where the line is, what is "in" and what is "out." Listening to Parnas last night, it became clear that he thinks he and his co-conspirators were perfectly reasonable and legitimate by corporation rules or -- wait! Maybe by mafia rules. (Make that World Mafia.) Whichever, no one in the group questioned the boss or what he wanted. That's who they "belonged" to. To their minds, this is natural law.
In contrast, the Russian legislature just turned out not to belong to Putin. Quelle horreor! Mitch McConnell seems to think all Republican senators belong to him, but he may be grievously mistaken. I hope. Of course, it's smart not to signal disagreement --- ask the Russians -- and if you do, avoid all windows. But Parnas, maybe thinking about certain people who self-strangled to keep themselves quiet, has evidently decided that telling everything will make him safer. Esp. if he can keep everyone interested in something besides the real secrets, like Epstein supposedly keeping sexual secrets when his real secrets were probably international spying.
Somewhere is someone who knows things about McConnell. But so many of these people who have grown into a group shared psychosis have not considered the possibility that their circle could fall open and that a larger world sees them in quite a different way than they see themselves. What they thought was privilege and entitlement is only arrogance -- and criminal at that.
Shifting boundaries that question the rule of law are everywhere. My twitter feed is full of northern indigenous people who refuse to recognize the nation of Canada or the authority of the Queen. They aren't Christian necessarily, so where does "Right" go for authority? Before the Rule of Law, invented to deflect war, there was Might. Might makes Right. The indigenous people of Canada are facing the Might right now. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police could do them great harm. What do moral principles matter? They had the Right to clean water, so we say, but they didn't get it. Onlookers have no power to boss Mounties around.
What is best and taken for granted by one small group will be challenged by the larger groups, but how can we escape the trap except by trying to figure out a morality that includes the whole planet and not just the human beings. Many moralities cannot be reconciled with each other, much less one designed for some kind of enforced uniformity. In the end, like the pro-life movement, many moralities are case-by-case and specific to one time and place. Can we get by with a principle? Like that one? It's hard work.
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