Justice John Paul Sevens Dies

Former Justice John Paul Stevens died yesterday at age 99.  He had been appointed to the bench by President Ford in 1975 as a moderate.  He evolved into a strident liberal.  He left the court in 2010 and so had nine good years of retirement.  He wanted to abolish the second amendment as a relic from the eighteenth century.  I didn’t know that about him but it takes guts.

Los Angeles has a major rat infestation problem and California is the worst state for rats behind Illinois.  The legislature voted to ban the most effective rodenticide against the rats on environmental grounds.  You heard the expression about “giving a rat’s ass”.  Well they have “swamp rats” that are as large as fifteen pounds and they have frickisee of rat that involves eating the hind quarters only and fixing it up with a little hot sauce and red wine and other ingrediants in Louisiana.  For some reason they don’t want to use bug spray on these ten plus pound rats so they have trained dogs just to point to the rats when they see them.  Apparently the dogs are afraid of them and will not attack.  The trouble of course is that everyone is afraid of the homeless lobby because we can trace all the rats to the homeless who leave trash and food all around.   I don’t know.  Don’t they have general hygene regulations an y more? 

Two thirds of the people who get alzheimers are women and it’s not just because women live longer than men.  It’s a sex related genetic component involving the production of plaque in the brain.  Naturally scientists want to cling to every bit of research they can muster.

Today a vote was taken in the house to begin impeachment procedings against Trump.  Most likely it failed.  I don’t know that yet.  A previous vote of a similar nature only got sixty votes.  They want to hear Muller’s testimony first.  Muller was supposed to testify before congress today but it was postponed till next Wednesday the 24^th to give congressmen a better chance at formulating questions.  Of course if past behavior predicts future results, in 2015 nobody gave Trump a chance of being elected President.  They said he wouldn’t even take the job if elected.  Now Trump is clinging tenatiously to power.  Of course we had the Russian mess and the Julian Assange mess.  You know all of the factors and the president is banking on all those factors repeating themselves again this time.  Of course the economy just passed the tenth year of recovery.  That’s ten years as opposed to just nine years for the famous boom of the ‘sixties.  If the economy is still good a year from now there’s no telling what will happen despite now trailing by ten points in the polls.  Trump has beaten the polls before.  Meanwhile all of us will grow old in vain anticipation of some big “turning of the political tide”, which never occurs. 

At about two I went down to see Dr Saran.  I missed refreshments, apparently.  There was a short line and Silva was behind me.  She gave Kevin a cookie.  When I got in my temperature was 97.7 and my blood pressure was 124 over 70.  This is despite just having had a cigarette and being on the nicotine patch.  I told the doctor I was smoking a lot less.  He asked me if I ever had the colonoscopy and I said I hadn’t and I didn’t want one.  He said “Well if you feel uncomfortable about having one you don’t have to have it.  I said that was fine with me.  I owe God one for removing that albitros over my head all these months.  Just in case any of you are wondering Christianity is not racist.  Jesus was Jewish and not Nordic European or whatever.  Christianity and Nazi Norse myths are not compatible.  We sing in church “In Christ there is no east or west in him no south or north, but one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.  The apostle Paul writes “We are of one blood” and I believe he means- - race.  There is no “black” blood and “white” blood or anything like that.  Blood is one color, red.  

ICE was supposed to have conductive raids yesterday of illegal aliens yesterday but it didn’t happen and everybody in the media was surprised it didn’t.  There was talk that they might do it today because people let their guard down and were going back to work and taking their kids to school and getting out of the house.  I’d like to think Trump’s gone yellow on the issue but I’m not sure.

Sometimes I wish I could write a major treaties on the benefits of Christianity in my life.  You know, “What God has done for me”.  I guess he’s kept bad things from happening to me that otherwise would have.  This is what Pastor Don said to me back in the late ‘eighties.  At the time I wasn’t ready to receive it but now I see things differently.  He has kept me from horrible diseases such as cancer, and he’s given me the blessings of living in the United States.  That’s always something to be grateful for.  I guess you could say that God has been “patient” with me and putting up with my many faults. 

Saturday July the 13^th was Stonehenge day in New York City.  It’s the day the sun shines right down the street, the deep valleys, at sunset.  The shadows are just starting to shift around here so you get a little shade after dinner before the tree shadow arrives.  To celebrate the 42^nd anniversary of New York’s power failure in 1977 they had another power failure Saturday night right when they were doing all of their concerts like at Madison Square Garden and Broadway.  A transformer caught fire.

Around here it was the ABC network news and Eye Witness.  I had a speck of GH on.  We had a turkey sandwich for dinner with mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert.  I lent Mario another cigarette before dinner when nobody was around.   Tux no longer has his flea collar.  

Let’s hear it for Attorney General Barr.  He screwed up royal again.  Do you remember the case of Eric Garner?  He was arrested for selling bootleg cigarettes on the street in New York.  But the cop put a knee to his chest or something or maybe his neck.  At any rate Eric Garner said “I can’t breathe” - - - eleven times he said “I can’t breathe" and he finally died.  That was five years ago and tomorrow the statute of limitations expires and the justice department was “divided” and Barr made the final decision.  This is obviously another reason for Black people never to consider voting for Trump.