By Fred Owens
Will
the Meek Inherit the Earth? No, the Scalias will. Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia may have left this earth, but his progeny remain and
they are abundant. He had nine children and 33 grandchildren. In
contrast, although it would be wrong to describe these three women as
being meek, the three female Supreme Court Justices have, in total, two
children and two grand children, all belonging to RBG, Justices Kagan
and Sotomayor having none.
This is a
question I have posed to progressive people -- If Save the Earth People
have small families and Rule the Earth People have large families, which
side will prevail in the long run? The Scalias, of course.
So
I always encourage my friends of child-bearing age to have children,
because I want our side to be abundant. Let me say first that it is very
wrong to shame people who choose not to have children, and equally
wrong to shame people who have a lot of children. I am only talking
about situations where someone says they might have children when the
time is right, and my response is Go for It. I believe we should have
strong and fully supportive prenatal care for would-be parents of any
income level. We should have full and complete reproductive choices. We
should have generous and lengthy parental leave. Under those good
circumstances, people will have as many children as they want, and when
you get right down to it, the number doesn't count, but the quality of
care does. So strictly speaking I don't believe in population control.
This sounds idealistic, and it is, but the number of human beings on
this planet doesn't matter, what only matters is the quality of human
love, love for each other and love for the things of this earth.
We can divide ourselves into two camps -- Save the Earth and Rule the
Earth. I grew up in a Rule the Earth culture -- that the earth was ours
to master and control and build on and modify and explore. But I found
that to be insufficient so I changed to Save the Earth, and feared for
the future of the planet, and drastically reduced my carbon footprint
and supported all things renewable and sustainable.
But
that didn't work either. I worked very hard on various organic farms
but I was disappointed in the results -- we just did not produce very
much food and my sustainable organic vision had such a small population.
Like the Skagit Valley where I used to live could be a paradise with
only 10,000 people living there. We would need to kill the extra 100,000
who do actually live there, or else convince them to move back to
California.
Nope,
that effort at Saving the Earth didn't work, and brought me some
renewed respect for Rule the Earth because when it comes to such
critical things as the food supply, conventional agri-business sure
kicks out a lot of groceries. I know people say that can't last, but it
has lasted all my life and I got tired of waiting for it to collapse.
So, as of today, I would say that I love nature, but I'm willing to give it a shove now and then.
Current Affairs. Speaker
of the House Nancy Pelosi is losing her nerve, or else being wisely
cautious. Maybe Trump has got her spooked, or maybe she is just not
showing her hand. She does not favor impeachment, not yet. She may or
may not want to cite AG Barr for contempt of Congress. She might want
Mueller to come to the House and testify over Trump's objections. Or
not.
Sure,
it's easy for Sanders and AOC to criticize her decisions, but how would
you like to have her job? She has to deal with Trump every day and for
the next two years. Could someone else do a better job? I think not. I
support Speaker Pelosi.
Family Reunion on the Occasion of My Sister Carolyn's 75th Birthday. We
had a fine family reunion and weekend party at my sister's bungalow and
backyard in Venice by the Beach, which is part of Los Angeles. We had a
banquet dinner for 24 relatives and friends at a festive Italian
restaurant. The wait staff sang Happy Birthday in Italian. My daughter
Eva and her wife Lara brought my grandson Walter down from Seattle for
the occasion. I don't write about grandchildren because I would just
start to gush and boast, and then I would have to listen to other people
gush and boast about their grandchildren and then hear the suffering
silence of people my age who do not have grands, so I just say I enjoyed
playing with the little tyke.
I
do have a bevy of beautiful nieces -- Aisha and Jordana, Prima and
Zana, Liza and Rosie, all present except for Laura who lives in Monaco
in France. The nieces were lively and funny and serious and strong and
helpful and steady -- all good. My son Eugene was there as was my
brother Tom and my sister Katy. My niece Jordana, about to turn 21, was
brave enough to bring her boyfriend Ron. We tried to scare him, but it
was a bluff and he knew it. Ron is a fine young man and I like him quite
a bit.
Twenty-four people, all Democrats. Funny how that worked out.
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