“Just Noticing”: Observations Of A Blogger
Posted by Michelle Moquin on July 1st, 2012
Good morning!
You know I am at a loss for words this morning. And I have no idea what I am going to blog about. It is already 11:00 AM and I still haven’t posted. Ahhh…it just came to me – I actually do have an idea of what to post…and an important one it is.
“Just noticing….”
- …with all of talk about Obamacare…this particular topic that I am posting today has somewhat been pushed to the backseat, but today I’m putting it in the front.
Justice Scalia must resign
By E.J. Dionne Jr., Published: June 27
Justice Antonin Scalia needs to resign from the Supreme Court.
He’d have a lot of things to do. He’s a fine public speaker and teacher. He’d be a heck of a columnist and blogger. But he really seems to aspire to being a politician — and that’s the problem.
So often, Scalia has chosen to ignore the obligation of a Supreme Court justice to be, and appear to be, impartial. He’s turned “judicial restraint” into an oxymoronic phrase. But what he did this week, when the court announced its decision on the Arizona immigration law, should be the end of the line.
Not content with issuing a fiery written dissent, Scalia offered a bench statement questioning President Obama’s decision to allow some immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children to stay. Obama’s move had nothing to do with the case in question. Scalia just wanted you to know where he stood.
“After this case was argued and while it was under consideration, the secretary of homeland security announced a program exempting from immigration enforcement some 1.4 million illegal immigrants,” Scalia said. “The president has said that the new program is ‘the right thing to do’ in light of Congress’s failure to pass the administration’s proposed revision of the immigration laws. Perhaps it is, though Arizona may not think so. But to say, as the court does, that Arizona contradicts federal law by enforcing applications of federal immigration law that the president declines to enforce boggles the mind.”
What boggles the mind is that Scalia thought it proper to jump into this political argument. And when he went on to a broader denunciation of federal policies, he sounded just like an Arizona Senate candidate.
“Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem,” the politician-justice proclaimed. “Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem, and indeed have recently shown that they are simply unwilling to do so.
“Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty — not in contradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it.” Cue the tea party rally applause.
As it happens, Obama has stepped up immigration enforcement. But if the 76-year-old justice wants to dispute this, he is perfectly free as a citizen to join the political fray and take on the president. But he cannot be a blatantly political actor and a justice at the same time.
Unaccountable power can lead to arrogance. That’s why justices typically feel bound by rules and conventions that Scalia seems to take joy in ignoring. Recall a 2004 incident. Three weeks after the Supreme Court announced it would hear a case over whether the White House needed to turn over documents from an energy task force that Dick Cheney had headed, Scalia went off on Air Force Two for a duck-hunting trip with the vice president.
Scalia scoffed at the idea that he should recuse himself. “My recusal is required if. . . my ‘impartiality might reasonably be questioned,’ ” he wrote in a 21-page memo. Well, yes. But there was no cause for worry, Scalia explained, since he never hunted with Cheney “in the same blind or had other opportunity for private conversation.”
Don’t you feel better? And can you just imagine what the right wing would have said if Vice President Biden had a case before the court and went duck hunting with Justice Elena Kagan?
Then there was the speech Scalia gave at Switzerland’s University of Fribourg a few weeks before the court was to hear a case involving the rights of Guantanamo detainees.
“I am astounded at the world reaction to Guantanamo,” he declared in response to a question. “We are in a war. We are capturing these people on the battlefield. We never gave a trial in civil courts to people captured in a war. War is war and it has never been the case that when you capture a combatant, you have to give them a jury trial in your civil courts. It’s a crazy idea to me.”
It was a fine speech for a campaign gathering, the appropriate venue for a man so eager to brand the things he disagrees with as crazy or mind-boggling. Scalia should free himself to pursue his true vocation. We can then use his resignation as an occasion for a searching debate over just how political this Supreme Court has become.
******
And in a similar vein…
“Just noticing…”
*O*B*A*M*A*
Readers: It is a slow Sunday for me and one that I am going to enjoy. I HOPE you’ll do the same. Blog me. Otherwise I’ll meet you on the flip.
Oh…Just noticing how much I love this photo of our president.
…& Love
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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July 1st, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Michelle, I couldn’t get in yesterday to tell you how much I liked that video of Obama celebrating his win. It was hilarious.
July 1st, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Howie, my boyfriend works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA). He says that they were working with the US Coast Guard to monitor what the Chinese were attempting to bring up from an area of the Mariana Trench that lies within the waters of the Federated States of Micronesia(FSA).
The Chinese are using a three man crew in their submersible the “Jiaolong” to explore about 23,000 feet. The curious thing is the attachment they brought with them to retrieve something at that depth.
What are they looking for Howie? I told my boyfriend that if anyone would know it would be you.
If you can’t answer this, I’ll understand. I hope this finds you in good health and spirits. Your comments are very much missed here.
Rita
July 1st, 2012 at 8:05 pm
How to Gracefully End a Bad Relationship—with a Friend, Loved One or Business Associate
Endings can be as important as beginnings in personal and professional relationships. But people often are reluctant to face the awkwardness and pain—on both sides—of ending a bad relationship.
Why it’s crucial:
Although it may sound harsh, the time and energy that we waste on bad relationships could be more enjoyably or profitably devoted to people and pursuits that we prefer.
Worse, when we spend time with people who have bad attitudes, bad habits or chronic bad moods, we dramatically increase the odds that we will suffer from these, too—a phenomenon called “social contagion.”
Example:
A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that our odds of becoming obese increase by 57% if one of our friends becomes obese.
The same research team also found that having a single unhappy friend increases the odds that we will be unhappy by about 7%.
Yet most people rarely, if ever, end bad relationships, aside from failed romantic relationships.
They continue putting up with unpleasant, unproductive or even toxic associations because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings…they don’t want to endure the difficult conversation required to end a relationship…
they don’t realize the price they’re paying for having this person in their life…they view ending relationships as a form of failure…and/or they think only mean people intentionally cut other people out of their lives.
Ending bad relationships is not selfish. If we don’t end them, we have less time and energy for the friends, loved ones and business associates who need and deserve our attention.
And we risk dragging those people down with the bad habits and moods that we pick up from our troubled relationships. It is perfectly natural for relationships to end.
What’s not natural is maintaining relationships that bring more bad than good to our lives.
PICKING PEOPLE TO DROP
Consider what you want your life and career to be like. Now consider each of your personal and professional relationships. Which are not helping you move toward this vision? Which are pulling you away from it? These are the relationships that may have to end.
Exception:
It might be worth continuing a difficult relationship if there are overriding reasons, such as a marriage worth salvaging, and especially if there is a reason to believe that this person and relationship could improve in the near future.
Perhaps the relationship used to be better and turned sour only because this person is going through a difficult phase…or perhaps this person recently has begun taking action to address his/her problems.
SECOND CHANCES
If someone you’re considering eliminating from your life is wise enough to respond positively to feedback, that is reason to have hope that the relationship could improve.
Before ending any relationship…
Discuss with the other person the trouble that you are having with the relationship.
Example:
“Lately, when we are together, you complain about something the entire time. I need friends who will help me grow in life, solve problems and feel good about life.
I would like you to be one of those friends. If you can do that, I would love to continue to spend time with you. If not, I’m not going to be able to socialize with you anymore.”
Be open about your own faults, too, during this discussion. Try to frame your concerns as issues that you bring to the relationship as well, not just complaints about the other person’s behavior.
Use a soft and caring tone of voice, and say how much the positive aspects of the relationship have meant to you.
If this person listens to your concerns and strives to correct the problems you raise, the relationship could be worth continuing. If he/she becomes defensive, angry or combative when faced with these problems, there’s much less hope for the relationship.
What to do…
Lay out the specific, painful consequences this person will incur because of his misbehavior.
Example:
“Because you keep getting drunk and belligerent when the family gets together, you’re no longer invited when there might be alcohol present.”
This might sound tough, but being direct could be the only way to get this person’s attention and help him understand the urgency of the situation.
If this person still fails to see the light, place the fate of the relationship in his hands. Explain what you expect from a friend…employee…professional contact…or romantic partner.
Then say, “I’d like that to be you, but if it isn’t, we can’t spend time together anymore.”
Leave it to this person to decide whether he can do what is necessary to continue the relationship.
Presented with an ultimatum, this person might try to improve or he might quietly disappear from your life. If neither of these things occurs, proceed to the section below, and do so without guilt—you are not the one ending this relationship.
Your former acquaintance is ending it by declining to do what is necessary to save it.
HOW TO PREPARE
To make a break in a way that lets you feel it is a positive step, you have to prepare yourself in various ways…
Keep your vision for your life in front of you. Position photos of the people you love spending time with where you’ll see them frequently.
This should continually remind you what you’re sacrificing when you waste time on toxic relationships. Budget time for the relationships you value and make them a priority.
Increase your interactions with the problem person. We normally attempt to limit our interactions with those we don’t like so that we can avoid facing the problem.
But by distancing ourselves from bad relationships, we make it possible to pretend that they’re not really so bad. Stop screening calls from people you don’t want to talk to, and stop coming up with excuses to cut conversations with them short.
The more you face the pain that the relationship causes you, the greater the odds that you’ll reach the point where you’re willing to end it.
Helpful:
When you speak with these people, picture yourself dealing with them not just today but next month, next year and for the rest of your life.
Seek out new, fulfilling relationships. Your desire to end bad relationships is likely to climb dramatically if you have numerous enjoyable, productive relationships and activities vying for your time.
Helpful:
Volunteer with a variety of nonprofit causes that you care about. This should increase your awareness that your time is valuable and help you meet new people who have a positive outlook on life.
HOW TO END IT
To minimize hurt feelings and raised tempers, place the blame for the failed relationship on the way you and this person interact with each other, not solely on the other person’s shoulders.
If the other person becomes angry, express empathy, then return the conversation to the issue.
Example:
“I know this is hard to hear. It’s hard for me to say. But this really is an issue, and it isn’t getting any better.”
This is not fun, but it’s the only way you can spend your time with people you have decided to invest in—and the only way that those people will get as much of you as they deserve.
Source: Henry Cloud, PhD, a leadership coach and clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles.
He is author of Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward (HarperBusiness) http://www.DrCloud.com
July 1st, 2012 at 10:47 pm
I return to see all this wonderful talk of love and devotion. Fantastic. It reminds me of what I would tell my daughter if I had one. I would tell her to:
Find a guy who calls you beautiful instead of hot, who calls you back when you hang up on him, who will lie under the stars and listen to your heartbeat, or will stay awake just to watch you sleep.
Wait for the man who kisses your forehead, who wants to show you off to the world when you are in sweats, who holds your hand in front of his friends, relatives and business associates, who thinks you’re just as pretty without makeup on.
Wait for the man who is constantly reminding you of how much he cares and how lucky he is to have you, the one who turns to his friends, relatives, or business associates and says, “that’s her.”
I have been luck enough to find a woman who I feel that way about, when my tasks are complete and I can offer her a real relationship, I will tell her that every day of my life.