To be born female in this world since its very beginning is to have experienced a certain kind of powerlessness, sourced, very simply, in a relative lack of muscle mass and the particular burdens of childbirth. These brute facts of biology have dictated women being less effective hunters of prey, and thus subject to domination by their more physically imposing male counterparts and sometimes companions. (Talk about an old story…) But underneath that competitive imbalance lies an often latent, sometimes wayward, increasingly confident and directed ferocity. An inner strength gathering itself over eons now, cracking the foundations of male hegemony…
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There comes a time when every living thing begins to creak and leak. I include among those “living things” this very blog, which I—with considerable help from a few esteemed cohorts—breathed into being a bit more than 12 years ago, with a post on the novelist, essayist, and public intellectual Marilynne Robinson. A couple of years ago, the WordPress platform this blog uses informed me that its “theme,” the graphic design interface it sits on to convey the words and images here, would no longer be technically “supported.” That meant I would have to transition to a new theme, since…
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So let’s play this out in one possible scenario, shall we? A federal judge issues an order for the president/executive branch to halt an activity he or she deems unconstitutional or at least problematic enough for additional hearings and review. The president does not comply with the order, and sends government attorneys into court to offer various rationales for that non-compliance. The rationales strike the judge and many legal observers from both right- and left-wing orientations as evasive and even frivolous. The judge, seemingly exasperated, orders compliance and sets a hearing date for the government to provide vital information that…
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History tells us over and over that freedom is never free, that it must be fought for, maintained and renewed ever and again, in all the circumstances that a particular epoch requires. Lulled half to sleep by two oceans, the abundance of our lands, the enduring vision of our Founders, and the sacrifices of our forebears, we came to think of our country as impervious to ruin, a citadel of freedom and prosperity that would always fend off invaders from without and nefarious forces from within. That no matter our external challenges or inner turmoil, we would, in the end,…