James M. Redwine

Congress

Sound And Fury

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Photo by Peg Redwine

William Shakespeare could have been describing Congress instead of life when he wrote:

“It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”

Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5)

The U.S. Congress has assumed for itself the role of ethics advisor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Congress is so upset about recent Court decisions it is demanding that the Court adopt a binding code of judicial conduct (the U.S. Supreme Court has none now). Congress as the arbiter of Court morality brings forth an analogy of Jezebel as the paragon of Babylon.

It is not that the Supreme Court justices have not often acted unethically, it is just not a rational solution to turn to Congress for our relief. Real and permanent reform will not come from Congressional hearings and legislation nor does human nature suggest it will come from within the Court regardless of any ethical rules.

On December 8, 2022 in a hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet a representative of the bipartisan Project on Government Oversight testified:

“Every justice who has served in the last decade has done something that has raised questions about propriety and impartiality.”

 Then documented cases of unethical conduct by individual Supreme Court justices were submitted. It did not matter whether it was a darling of the left such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan or Sonia Sotomayor or a hero of the right such as Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito or Clarence Thomas, all had been found wanting. Of course, had anyone investigated the members of Congress during the past decade the results would have been similar.

Both Congressional members and members of the Supreme Court seem to become surprisingly wealthy on their rather mundane salaries. Perhaps they are all just frugal. Or maybe it is just my envy of such “good luck” as Sonia Sotomayor had in earning three million dollars on her book when I, as a writer myself, am still selling out of my car’s trunk one book at a time instead of having my old court staff hawking them or me. Also, Peg and I would most likely have enjoyed a cruise on Clarence Thomas’ friend’s yacht.

However, the real issue is not are the justices being unethical, of course they sometimes are; most humans are at least sometimes. It is only sin if seen through the eyes of someone who disagrees with a justice’s judicial philosophy. Ginsburg was a saint and Ketanji Jackson is becoming one as far as liberals are concerned. Scalia was a contemporary John Marshall and Samuel Alito has an ermine robe in the eyes of conservatives, But Gentle Reader, they are just as you and I, human and opinionated; that is why they were nominated and confirmed by politicians.

 If you have read several of the more than 1,000 columns I have written and published since 1990, you may recall I have often called for Court reform. If Congress truly wishes to “do good”, they should amend our Constitution and devise a system of democratically electing federal judges who do not have life-tenure. Please, members of Congress, stop posturing from the right and left and legislate for the good of all of us. After all, we finally ended slavery and gave women the right to vote. Our 28th Amendment to the Constitution might help preserve our democracy instead of just shouting fire while we watch the Supreme Court burn.

Lip Service

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Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia and some other members of Congress took a fifteen-minute recess from regular duties to raise money for the National Republican Committee. One hundred thousand dollars was raised in a quarter of an hour when Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy pulled out his tube of used cherry flavored Chapstick and auctioned it off. McCarthy is from California so such economic disequilibrium is not surprising to Americans who follow reports of calls for five million dollar per person reparations in San Francisco and especially when Georgia’s Greene was the winning bidder.

This impromptu fundraiser took place in the halls of Congress on Tuesday, May 23rd. Such tangential matters as the then impending default on our 31 trillion dollars national debt and the 30 billion dollars worth of military armaments we have given to Ukraine pale in significance to the issue of chapped lips. Perhaps fifteen minutes spent on funding social security or avoiding a nuclear war with Russia could be squeezed into Congress’ agenda. It is certainly impressive how the essential matter of financing political campaigns could be so quickly addressed by our politicians.

Of course, America is not the only country that pays lip service to grave matters while politicians and the news media, including newspaper columnists, concentrate on bruised lips and egos. Meghan Markle sought to bring down the British monarchy before she had even joined it by demanding to use Kate Middleton’s Clarins Natural Lip Protector during a February 28, 2018 meeting of the Royal Foundation Forum. Kate and William were shocked and Meghan and Harry were offended that Kate and William were shocked. A toppling of the throne was averted by Meghan squeezing some balm out of the tube onto her finger instead of applying it directly to her lips.

The backdrop for Meghan’s royal faux pas was the first public event to initiate the Royal Foundation Forum which was established to help fund charitable causes such as mental health needs. Naturally, the failure of British etiquette by the plebeian American received more coverage than the fund raising. Harry even saw fit to highlight it in his family confessional book, Spare.

I suppose it is too much to expect the British public to be less concerned with the battle among the royals over lip gloss than the Battle of Hastings. Nor should we be surprised if our Congress can find time to quickly fund political campaigns but not the national debt. But, Gentle Reader, wouldn’t it be refreshing and bring smiles to our faces if such topics were the fodder of columnists instead of chapped and colored lips?

The Scarlet Bills

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Congress is demanding a code of ethics for the U.S. Supreme Court. So is the national news media. Congress and the media may not see eye to eye on much but they do agree that the Judicial Branch should be controlled by the Legislative Branch. It appears the ideology of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has infiltrated the American Garden of Eden with a poisoned pome and Congress is champing to chomp.

Congress teaching ethics to the Supreme Court is like Helen of Troy teaching matrimonial loyalty to Hamlet’s mother. If Congress were medical advice providers we might say, “First heal yourselves.” Be that as it may, there is little doubt the Supreme Court could use some ethical lessons. However, as a separate and equal branch of our three-branch democratic republic, I prefer the courts remain independent even if they sometimes teeter on a fulcrum between questionable personal behavior and unquestioned legerdemain. Such cases as Dred Scott in which the one-time slave holder, Chief Justice Roger Taney who did not recuse himself, decided the Negro Dred Scott had no rights that America’s white society was bound by law to recognize come to mind.

No, Congress should not be looking for the log in the eyes of the Supreme Court but should be initiating a Constitutional amendment that would ensure America’s citizens, not a few highly partisan politicians, would have the choice as to who and for what term judges would serve. I do not know, Gentle Reader, if you have read my numerous columns on electing judges to one fairly short term. I only know for sure that Peg read them because I refused to comply with her many varied domestic demands until she did. However, if by some chance you did read them you know my preference is a truly democratic judicial selection process.

Non-partisan elections of competing, qualified judicial candidates for one 10-year term and life-time pensions are my suggestion. Advice on ethics for anyone from our Congress rings hollow.

Artificial Intelligence

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Congressman Ted Lieu of California has a college degree in Computer Science from Stanford University. Stanford is famous for having students whose parents went to jail for trying to buy their way into the school. There is no allegation that is why Lieu was accepted. It is assumed that unlike many college students Lieu actually went to class and learned something about computers, including Artificial Intelligence.

Lieu recently used his knowledge to have an Artificial Intelligence computer program draft a Congressional Resolution to regulate Artificial Intelligence. Surprise, the Resolution, “… [G]enerally expressed support for Congress to focus on AI.”

As wars rage in Ukraine and the Middle East and millions of people are in need of food, water and shelter across the globe, including California, Congress has seen fit to concentrate on the projected evils of TikTok and now AI. One has to wonder about the psyches of government officials who find danger and disaster behind such artificial issues while real humans are suffering from so many real man-made and natural disasters.

Putting government in control of AI is much more frightening to me than allowing private entrepreneurs to apply their imagination and genius to enhance technology. Such government regulation reminds me of those Luddites who during the Industrial Revolution sabotaged new textile machines out of fear the machines would replace the workers. What they found out was there were more good jobs created by the new technology than were replaced by it.

I imagine there were many such retrogressive thinkers a few thousand years ago when some cave man tinkerer showed his neighbors how he had fashioned a round thing to help him roll his possessions to a new cave. Probably to many of his fellow cavemen and cave women he was seen as a destroyer of local culture. But when the armies using wheeled chariots began to conquer those who still dragged things along, the round thing caught on.

Then about the 1930’s when plastics were becoming ubiquitous, people still stubbornly clung to lead pipes and bowls until the danger of lead and mercury were recognized. Now I am appalled by plastic trash littering our highways and our waterways. However, I do not hesitate to use plastic utensils and water pipes and reap the benefits from countless products fashioned from plastics. The fact that many people are too lazy to properly dispose of plastic refuse is not the fault of plastic. If we did not have the usefulness of plastic, trashy people would just toss out other products. Yes, plastic needs to be properly recycled and deposited but that is a behavioral problem, not a plastic one.

Humanity never advances by failing to go forward. We need to use AI, not fear it. I would rather Congress concentrate on real issues such as college athletes making millions from deals for Name, Image and Likeness while ticket prices are rising faster than stock market returns, or perhaps, such lingering issues as why we spend trillions on warfare as we attack poverty with heart-felt speeches.

Maybe AI will out smart us; it will not be that hard to do. But if AI is put in charge of problems we humans have not solved in 200,000 years, what is the worst that can happen? I say we might want to revisit that old observation from when computers first began to integrate our society. You remember, Gentle Reader, a team of scientists had just completed the world’s most advanced computer and they could not wait to ask it the age-old burning question, “Is there a god?” The computer with AI answered, “There is now.” I suggest we should not grovel before technology as if it were our god that might save us from ourselves, nor should we cower from it as though it might doom us to Hades. Humans can harness technology to help us do what we cannot do with just the talents nature gives. A nice place to start would be inventing nuclear batteries that need neither recharging nor replacing. Or how about a way to give used plastic an economic benefit such that people would not just dump it out their vehicle windows?

In other words, we should not look to AI to save us from ourselves nor fear it will punish us for trying. AI should be neither worshiped nor feared and it certainly should not be the victim of Congressional postering.

TikTok

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Photo by Peg Redwine

Congress and President Biden have decided to save America from the disclosure of state secrets by the Kardashian wannabees of our society. Peg and I do not do TikTok but occasionally some marginally functioning teenager will create a TikTok post that is so lacking in taste and talent that the main stream media airs it as a parody. Those are the only TikToks I have seen; that’s plenty.

Physically unattractive people gyrating to two-beat music while wearing too small bikinis is not my choice of leisure listening and viewing. Fortunately, the shameless exhibitionists who are totally lacking in true self-images almost never say anything. So, at least, we only are assaulted by their physical repugnance.

Why we are paying our leaders to spend countless hours on the foibles of misguided or unguided youths while Congress is profligately spending 100 billion dollars per year arming every country from Ukraine to Israel is a mystery to me. Perhaps they should concentrate on such issues as war and the environment or even why our banks are failing and why inflation is wreaking havoc on our 401(k)s. Regardless, the CEO of TikTok, Shou Zi Chew, is going before Congress’ House Energy and Commerce Committee this month to explain the First Amendment to people who should already know it.

When our Constitution was adopted the very First Amendment provided:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The great English legal philosopher, John Locke (1632-1704), helped lead the Enlightenment. The American legal philosopher, James Madison (1751-1836), owed so much to Locke in Madison’s drafting of our Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights. Both Locke and Madison strongly believed Freedom of Speech was essential to preserving all other freedoms.

It is ironic that our leaders of today cite fear of Russia and China as they call for restrictions on free speech. We have long rightfully complained that China and Russia severely restrict their citizens’ right to freely express themselves. Now we want to make federal law based on that same fear of American citizens that the Chinese and Russians enforce as to such patriots as Alexei Navalny. At least, Navalny actually has something to say that Putin should fear, that is the truth. TikTokers pretty much simply wish to share their irrelevant and boorish behaviors.

My guess is our leaders are as clueless about the workings of TikTok as I am and that they are simply knee-jerking to baseless fears of the very people who put them in office. What about such public policy as the 1966 Freedom of Information Act that was enacted to guarantee the people could monitor their government? Then there is the 2014 Digital Accountability and Transparency Act that allows taxpayers to track government spending. Have our current leaders decided too much information in the hands of Americans is dangerous, at least if that information can be accessed by foreign governments, as they can easily do with a simple request for data?

Of course, Congress and the President say they fear China and Russia and other countries will mine the internet data and use it against us. But every credit card transaction, every online post such as filing a tax return, every cell phone use is already “mineable.”  Any hostile foreign country can already legally obtain more information than they would ever need via our own legal system. I ask you, Gentle Reader, is there anything on TikTok that could be used to start a lawnmower much less build a nuclear weapon?

I would like for our leaders to revisit Joseph Goebbels who was evil but prescient when he said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.” In other words, our government is making its own reality and using that as the basis to restrict our rights under the First Amendment.

Another author that should be considered is Franz Kafka whose hero, Joseph K in The Trial, pointed out that the enacted laws made it impossible for anyone to rely on what the law truly is. This is much like George Orwell’s “Newspeak” in 1984 where the only true purpose of governmental language was to control the populace.

In other words, instead of taking Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping as our free speech guides, perhaps we should look to our Constitution and our history and rationally analyze TikTok and its mainly pathetic users. I point out that just last year (2022) the European Union, which we look upon favorably, passed the Data Act (Digital Accountability and Transparency Act) that was designed to standardize international contracting and commerce by standardizing digital and internet language. Should we not also want to clarify by expanding instead of restricting internet usage even if the usage may be frivolous?

I call upon Congress and the President to not put the means as Kafka might say, “to exercise discretionary moral judgment” by the lone U.S. Secretary of Commerce to determine “freedom of speech” when it comes to foreign technologies and companies. That is how the proposed anti-TikTok law is structured. Instead, let’s have faith in ourselves and also recognize the banality and futility of trying to draft laws that defy human nature and common sense and by the way, are most likely unconstitutional and unenforceable.

Palo Duro Canyon

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Rim of Palo Duro Canyon. Photo by Peg Redwine

Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) called Palo Duro Canyon a seething cauldron filled with dramatic light and color. Her series of paintings of the canyon while she was teaching art in nearby Canyon, Texas helped make O’Keeffe the founder of American Modernism. When you visit Palo Duro Canyon you will experience the same awe-inspiring explosion of colliding shades of red and grey Georgia did. Thousands of prickly pear cacti appear throughout the 120 mile long, 6 mile wide and 800 feet deep masterpiece of Mother Nature’s artwork. The tiny stream of the Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River that with the wind’s help has spent millions of years carving out the gigantic natural wonder seems woefully inadequate for such an accomplishment.

Palo Duro Canyon is in the panhandle of Texas near the cities of Canyon and Amarillo. It is easy to find, easy to access and costs $8.00 to enter. It has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years and evidences another of those marvelous Civilian Conservation Corps infrastructure improvements from the pre-World War II years. My experience with the quality of CCC projects throughout America convinces me the generation that saved the world got much of its resilience from their survival of the Great Depression and their training gained through the Corps.

From the Floor of Palo Duro Canyon. Photo by Peg Redwine

While one can certainly absorb a large measure of reverie just slowly driving through and around the canyon, the most symbiotic experience is gained by hiking some of the 16 “marked” trails that range in length from .5 to 4.4 miles. That is what Peg and I did on November 23, 2021. We started out with the mildest one we could find then matriculated to the Sunflower Trail upon which not a sunflower was to be found. We did find the coursing little “river” at the heart of the floor of the canyon and we found red sand-stoned embankments glittering with striations of white shale. We also got in touch with our Daniel Boone muse for about two confusing hours.

Daniel Boone may have opened up the Wilderness Trail and served in Congress but even he, while denying he was ever lost, admitted he was once “bewildered” for 3 days. And while my admiration and appreciation for the CCC boys is boundless, they may not have been the best at signage. As Peg and I wandered around the rocky, sandy trails I kept hearing the Five Man Electrical Band singing “Signs, signs, everywhere signs”. My respectful suggestion to the Palo Duro Park rangers is, please remember some of your guests may be directionally challenged and some husbands just refuse to ask for directions. Hey, did Daniel Boone ask?

Anyway, we eventually located our car and got to see even more of the marvelous flora and fauna in the process. If you are looking for a spiritual reawakening or just a short trip of inexpensive inspiration, I recommend you consider what is called the Little Grand Canyon. It is certainly grand and it is certainly not little.

Photo by Jim Redwine