Criminals High and Low

I had a dentist's appointment yesterday that I'd scheduled six months ago, for a routine cleaning and exam. Unfortunately, I also have a cold. The idea of having someone working in my mouth while I'm infectious sounded pretty gross, so I called the dentist's office to give them an out. To my surprise, they didn't bite (ha ha). "If you can get here, we're happy to see you when you have a cold," they said.

I guess the idea is that infection control protects them whether their patients are symptomatic of illness or not. Seems pretty brave to me, but I went. As the dentist said to me, "Everyone has something."

Fortunately, I don't have any cavities, though there is a suspicious spot on one tooth that could become a cavity. The dentist told me not to rinse my mouth after I brush my teeth, to let the fluoride from the toothpaste work overnight. This also seems pretty gross, but I tried it last night and it's not as bad as I expected.

My dentist has also wanted to replace one of my fillings, which is "ditched," or worn down. I'm sure it's 30 years old, at least, so I agreed. We'll do that in June after school lets out.

As for my cold, it's pretty minor -- just sniffles. Annoying, but I feel normal other than that.

Olga and I found evidence of criminal activity on West End Lane early Tuesday morning. Yikes! I see this more often than I care to admit. Yet another thing that makes me glad I don't have a car -- and if I did have one, I wouldn't leave a tuppence inside it. (We don't really say tuppence anymore, but you know what I mean.)

I worked like a dog yesterday, re-shelving five cartloads of books that I'd pulled earlier for various student projects. Thank goodness my co-worker shelved the regular returns so I didn't have to deal with those too.

Then, on my walk home, I listened to my QAA podcast, where one of the hosts was talking about visiting CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, last month. Reading all the horrible political news from the United States has been in equal measure astonishing and infuriating, and it was interesting to hear his take on this very pro-Trump gathering of prominent conservatives and lunatics, as they gave each other Nazi salutes and talked about chainsawing the government. It struck me once again how ironic it is that these people call themselves "conservative," while not trying to conserve anything at all. They're radicals, in fact.

The judiciary is sensibly standing in Trump's way and obstructing his ability to wreak wholesale destruction. Did you see the suggestion of Congressman Chip Roy of Texas for how to manage this problem? He says government should "defund" the "radical courts." Now, there's nothing conservative about suggesting that Congress starve an entire branch of the government, created under the Constitution specifically to act as a counterbalance to executive and congressional power. Not only is that, in fact, a radical proposal, it's blatantly unconstitutional and shows a lack of understanding of basic civics.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is taking a page from Trump by applying so much makeup and/or spray tan that he looks like he's suffering from hepatic illness, jumped on the bandwagon to suggest that Congress strip the federal courts of jurisdiction. How that would be possible I am not sure.

So, yeah. Nothing conservative about this government. I can't wait to see what happens when they try all this stuff and it gets to the Supreme Court. Will Alito and Thomas support stripping the courts of authority, eviscerating their own power? Inquiring minds want to know.

Just for fun, I thought you might like to see a close-up of the kitchen timer I showed in yesterday's post, hanging on the wall in my old T-Gard apartment. It's a bit grimy and discolored -- it used to be white with a yellow dial -- but it still works. Not only did I use it in the kitchen, but I timed my meditation periods with it when I was practicing Zen. (Maybe I should start doing that again? It might help lower my blood pressure after reading news about ignorant Texas congressmen and the toadying governor of my home state.)

I got the kitchen timer at the same place I got this egg slicer, which I've shown you before -- Scotty's Hardware, where I used to work part-time in the mid-'80s. They had a big warehouse sale to clear inventory and I got both the timer and the slicer there, for next to nothing. I bet I didn't even pay a dollar. A pretty good investment, I'd say, from this vantage point 40 years later!