Religion, politics - just guess the main topic

"It appears every legal option has just been exhausted," the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, spokesman for the Schindlers, said after Thursday's Supreme Court decision. "Gov. Bush is now the only practical hope here for Terri Schiavo. We plead with Gov. Bush." (from this CNN article)

You know, I must have missed the part of the Constitution where the balance of powers was President/Congress/Supreme Court/Whoever the fuck happens to be governor of your state at the time.

And what I love - love - is how blatently these jackasses (meaning the people making political hay out of Terri's case) throw out any rules that they feel don't apply to them, so long as it gets what they want done. Up to and including the sacred role of marriage, which is really a hoot if you ask me.

Though to a certain extent I'm almost glad about it. For the first time I'm seeing people blink their eyes, look at what the neo-cons are trying to do with this, and going "Wait, wait - what? The Hell? I thought we had a common goal here. You guys are just interested in everybody doing what you want. It's not about politics or marriage or God at all." Which - hey, welcome to what the rest of us picked up on years ago. Join the club. We made T-shirts.

When Dubya got elected again a part of me kept remembering I, Claudius and "Old King Log". Let it all hatch out. Stop fighting it and let it self-destruct on its own. Now I wouldn't be so bold as to suggest that we're getting a total meltdown here, but it's close. You've got people on TV holding up signs about how "There is a higher law" Yeah, except here we have to go with the actual law. Unless you're Hebrew National and boasting about the higher authority, keep your so-called higher law out of it. Because my higher law disagrees with your higher law, so why don't we both shut the hell up and leave this to the people who actually know the United States law, because that's the one playing field we've all agreed to share by living here.

(I'm amused to note that one of the "higher law" style protestors apparently wrote her sign on a giant white board. I guess there's a higher law, and also occasionally the need to write down a shopping list or plan out football strategy.)

I still don't claim to be any expert on the case, but as I read what I read I find the thing that gets me now is the feeling of anger at what would appear to be the doctors, lawyers, religious types, and other people in positions of so-called authority who apparently jerked Terri's parents around with the promise that she could come back one day. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for optimism. But there's keeping hope alive and then there's flat-out denial. And every doctor who wasn't really an expert on the case yet passed themselves off as one either enabled or deliberately manipulated the denial of her parents, and either way that's something they shouldn't be feeling too proud of.

Belly dance: new moves, lots of leading

Belly dance class kicked my ass tonight. Other than a brief bit at the beginning where we worked on arm movements and taxeems, it was all on the go stuff all the time. We learned three new moves that I am definitely going to be practicing a lot at home because boy do you need a lot of muscle memory to carry off all the details of them (choo choo double, choo choo single(?), and box step, for those playing the home game).

In addition to that we did a lot of trading off on who was the leader, which means that easily 50 min of the class was nothing but all fast moves all the time. I had my first moment of totally drawing a blank when doing that. It wasn't that I lacked for moves, it was that I was suddenly thinking too much and couldn't remember how to move my arms from one move to another. Ah well, when in doubt: shimmy.

Amusing exchange when I explained to the teacher I wouldn't be there next week:

Her: Oh, where are you going?
Me: Down to Baltimore to hang with my friends. It's basically going to be like a big slumber party.
Other student: That's cool. So do you give each other facials and do each other's hair and stuff like that?
Me: Actually we tend to hang out and watch gay porn.
Other student: Ha, you're funny.
Me: 8)

Now to continue attempting to find a good mp3 of Nine Inch Nails's new song putting together a playlist of music to make into a mix CD for the drive to Connexions.