The Ghosts of Recurring Dreams

My career reinvention is still moving slowly.  I have reached out to several people in the non-profit world and have essentially offered my services pro-bono.  Of course, they all use volunteers, and I am willing to do that too, but am hoping that I can use some of my analytical skills as well.  My latest idea is to try to get on a few more boards.  My work on my current board has really given me a chance to use some chops.  To put it another way, when I volunteered for a session at the food bank, while it was a very worthwhile afternoon (and I need to go back), my contribution was no different than the teenage girl next to me on the assembly line.  Absolutely nothing wrong with that either, but I am hoping to do something for these orgs that she might not be able to.  Yet.

So, we will see.  I continue to talk to people in that world and the cool thing is that I am learning much about homelessness and hunger.  All of that is worthwhile, whatever comes of this tactic.

But back to the title.  I don't feel that stressed or depressed about my career right now, but I still cannot shake my recurring dream where I am, once again in the classroom.  The dreams always include the fact that my teaching is coming to an end.  I wake up depressed and it often takes me most of the day to shake the dream.

I am a little unsure why I keep having these dreams.  I have always understood dreams as part of unresolved business.  I used to have a dream every summer where I went to class unprepared.  That was my cue to get going on prep for the coming year.

Perhaps I am still unresolved about my career.  I find myself pretty angry at the state of higher education, and occasionally find myself annoyed with former colleagues when they complain about students or some university nonsense.  When I think of that world, I have to say that there is much I don't miss.  I don't miss the bored students.  I don't miss the texting and sleeping during class.  I don't miss the insipid questions about grades and exams.  I don't miss the consumer approach to learning.

But I do miss those moments with students when we connected on something cool.  I miss those connections with students outside class when they related how something from our class informed their life.  I know I made a connection with some of those students that may last for a lifetime.  I miss that.  Perhaps that is the source of these dreams.

Another botched execution

Though have no fear, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer assures us that he didn't suffer.  This, of course, following the Oklahoma botched execution and the Ohio botched execution.



But this much is also true.  Americans don't really care.  Certainly not enough to vote differently.  When it comes down to it, these are bad people dying, and if they suffer along the way, no conservative I know will stand up and say it is wrong.  And, of course, for the very same reason that they sat on their hands during the torture debate.  Bad people coming to bad ends is ok, even if the process makes us more like them than we would like to admit.

Gun Rights people must be so proud.

Texas Open Carry activists meet on Grassy Knoll, denounce president

What would Jesus do, exactly? Surely not yell "go home" at immigrant child refugees, right?

The stories are amazingly gripping.  We read about the life expectancy in Central American countries and realize that parents there reasonably believe that sending unaccompanied minors on a long dangerous journey to the US is actually safer than just staying home.

Right.  As dangerous as it is to journey on their own to the Promised Land, it is less dangerous than just staying with their family.  It boggles the mind.

But as boggled as my mind is with that, I look at the conservative response to these children and find even less humanity and less reason.  We have border militia (thankfully, well protected by the NRA and 2nd Amendment groups) saying that we should shoot immigrant kids.  We have Republicans across the map suggesting every possibly conspiracy you could imagine--from Obama is doing this on purpose to bring in more Democratic voters (because poor illegals vote in such high numbers, right?), to Sarah Palin's brilliant suggestion that Obama is letting in all these kids to fundamentally transform America (because he isn't really American, of course, and hates it the way it is), or those who believe this is a plot to bankrupt the country (because illegals just go on welfare and commit crimes).  Now that I think about it, most of the conspiracies are that Obama is doing this on purpose for some reason or another.  And yes, the spelling skills that the Tea Party was so famous for (who can forget the famous "Get a brain, Morans" sign at one of their rallies?) has not disappeared.  We have seen all sorts of misspellings about illegals or immigrants, or whatever--though this one takes the cake--'No Illeagles' Graffiti Discovered On Proposed Shelter For Unaccompanied Children | ThinkProgress.

Then, of course, we had a prominent faith leader from Dallas (Southern Baptist, no less) who said that we should, of course, show compassion to the children, but first and foremost we should secure the borders.  He said this after noting that Christians were looking to people like him and Fox and Friends for the "right answer."

I know many people of faith who are dedicated to making the world a better place.  They volunteer and feed and house the homeless.  They work tirelessly for the disabled or the elderly or the immigrant.

But it is time to recognize that many American Christians are causing more harm than good.  The Reverend Jeffries comes to mind, but there is a long list of people who are so tribally conservative that they can't see the problem with yelling at immigrant children.  But then again, they don't seem to have a problem with their party actively discouraging people from getting health insurance.

So glad these people have guns

– Texas Right-Wing Militia To Child Immigrants: ‘Get Back … Or You Will Be Shot’

Federal Judge Blasts Hobby Lobby Decision

I know he isn't Volokh, but he does seem to have some legal experience.



Federal Judge Blasts Hobby Lobby Decision: Supreme Court Should 'STFU' | ThinkProgress

The Hobby Lobby Decision: A Summary & Explanation

Nice to read that I am not the only one who questions aspects of this decision.  Good point in here is that the court decided that facts are irrelevant even when the belief in question is a factual issue.  Had they said that their religious conviction was that abortion is immoral, that would have been an understandable response.

Again, this analysis by the majority empowers people to claim anything violates their religious beliefs, and the Court will not even put them to the proof. At this point, it seems that the “substantial burden” analysis is an empty shell. You can simply assert that anything is a burden on your religious belief, and the Court is just going to let you jump immediately to the next step, the strict scrutiny analysis.

The Hobby Lobby Decision: A Summary & Explanation

I think this gets to part of my issue with the idea that Hobby Lobby (the corporation) has "religious convictions"

MoJo has a good take on the difference between the corporation as a legal entity and the individuals who own that corporation.

That separation is what legal and business scholars call the "corporate veil," and it's fundamental to the entire operation. Now, thanks to the Hobby Lobby case, it's in question. By letting Hobby Lobby's owners assert their personal religious rights over an entire corporation, the Supreme Court has poked a major hole in the veil. In other words, if a company is not truly separate from its owners, the owners could be made responsible for its debts and other burdens.
"If religious shareholders can do it, why can’t creditors and government regulators pierce the corporate veil in the other direction?" Burt Neuborne, a law professor at New York University, asked in an email.

Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants?  If in seeking some kind of religious freedom angle, Hobby Lobby actually exposed corporate owners to the very liability they form corporations to avoid?  

Religious freedom

I started to write a post on religious freedom yesterday morning.  In that instance, I was referring to this example from Huntsville, Alabama, where locals suddenly realized that the right to have openly religious prayers start their city council meetings might also include people praying who weren't Christian.  Religious liberty for me, but not for you.

As I have noted before, I think this is one of the least understood freedoms in American history.  Skewed because Christians mistakenly held priority status (and not all Christians, just certain versions depending on the region) in the public square.  That has led many to cry "persecution" when that priority status changed to being just "one of the religious influences."  Hence the hue and cry about the Ten Commandments.

But yesterday, we learned that religious liberty applies also to corporations.  Evidently (and I missed this in Sunday School), corporations can be Christian.  I am not sure how that happens, of course.  Most traditions have an idea of how someone declares their faith, and many want that to be public and even followed by baptism.  I have no idea how a corporation becomes a Christian.  Perhaps through a press release.

The dust has not settled on the SCOTUS ruling on the Hobby Lobby case.  For one thing, there is a possibility that this ruling does not mean that HL employees don't get contraceptives--but that the contraceptive coverage might come directly from the government.  Kennedy suggested that there was, in fact, a state interest in providing contraceptives, but that the corporation should not be required to do so.  So what does that mean?  One of my friends noted that the government is unlikely to want to provide Plan B to women--we can only imagine the outcry from conservatives on this one.

But regardless of that outcome--we have a really weird ruling.  The court was explicit that this didn't apply to other religious objections (blood transfusions, vaccines, doctors), but as many have noted, there doesn't seem to be a clear reason as to why those other religiously held objections are not valid.  Why did the court decide that this particular corporation's particular religious objection to this particular healthcare issue was worthy of court sanction?

I think we are seeing the violent gasps of conservative Christians seeing their power and privilege fade away.  I am unsure how this will unfold, of course, but I do think that the law of unintended consequences might play a big role here.