The latest pronouncement from the Trump court does not surprise me.What I want to know about the praying football coach was not covered in the lawsuit as far as I know. One of my sons played football in high school in Sacramento. He was at one time a starting defensive player and a starting offensive player on the team. The coach was LDS and literally only rewarded good Mormon boys although his story would probably be that when he called the team for a huddle either before or after a game he was trying to create a team spirit. The problem with his team spirit was that it always involved prayers to Heavenly Father and when my son objected he got benched. Of course the coach couldn't keep a good player benched but what that coach did was entirely inappropriate even if he claimed that my son was insubordinate. Insubordinate to whom, the coach or the mythical sky being that the coach wanted everyone to bow down to? 

 Better not blink or you might miss something important.  Maya Angelou once said, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.”

"Clarence Thomas, explicitly called for the court to reconsider its rulings striking down state restrictions on contraceptives, state sodomy bans and state prohibitions on same-sex marriage.

'Because any substantive due process decision is 'demonstrably erroneous,' Thomas wrote, "we have a duty to 'correct the error' established in those precedents."

 

Just because you think contraception is not only legal but a wise choice for family planning, career goals, education, etc., doesn't mean that Griswold v Connecticut has any stronger place in US jurisprudence than the precedent establishing a right to an abortion. If you think that's fear-mongering you haven't been paying attention. There are many reasons why that "right" will be the next one directly attacked, but the most compelling reason for someone like Thomas is that some forms of contraception are viewed as abortifacient.  Add to that the disdain that so many conservatives hold for women, (Alito complained that Princeton should never have admitted women because he felt they sullied the nature of Princeton. Don't tell him that Woodrow Wilson would not have allowed his admission as an Italian Catholic) and you too might want to warn all your younger friends, male and female, to lay in a long-term supply. For heaven's sake, the man who wrote the Mississippi abortion law under question at the court said publicly that he hoped it would make all women in Mississippi think twice before ever having sex. Just the women, mind you. He didn't make any comment about the male side of the pregnancy. If that isn't a disturbing disruption of the 14th Amendment I cannot think of a more clear example of unequal rights under the law. Apparently this man thinks women spread their legs and men have needs.

I never had an abortion though one of my sisters did and other women I know did as well including a physician friend who aborted a pregnancy because of serious and irreversible physical abnormalities in the fetus. I, like many women including my own mother, had an unplanned pregnancy but I chose to bear that child. But it WAS my choice.  If you cannot conceive without in vitro fertilization or some other modern medical intervention you might want to give up if you live in any of the states that abolished abortion as soon as SCOTUS made its announcement. Most of the modern methods produce unwanted embryos that are discarded, thus in essence aborting those that are not implanted or that do not thrive. Tough luck on that front too. 

 

 

  

 Last year about this time I was astonished to see an amaryllis blooming in my front garden. I wasn't astonished this year when this one bloomed:

There are two more blooms on this yet to open and there are at least four more plants in the same bed so I might be surprised again next year.

 This blog entry will irritate many people for a variety of reasons. So what?

FINA wrote and adopted a new rule regarding the inclusion of transgender swimmers in elite competitions. Not only is the new rule ridiculous, the end result will hurt women's elite swimming because there are so many ramifications. 

Yesterday I saw one of my neighbors running behind his son's stroller going down the street. My neighbor, a very smart guy, is clearly not an athlete, more suited to chess than running. I turned to my husband and said, "It used to be a pejorative and frowned on to say that someone "ran" (or threw, or swam, or caught, or fill in your own sport) like a girl, but that is what FINA wants." So if everyone swims like a girl, does swimming improve? At the London Olympics, the average height of the US women's swimmers was 6'1". Any notion that the size of the competitor can be indicative of the power of the swimmer is clearly true if only because of the leverage gained but height alone is not a given for talent, and it isn't only men who are tall.

Lia Thomas, whose inclusion on the Penn women's team began most of the brouhaha around transgendered swimmers, did not even win all of her races at the Ivy championships nor at the NCAA meet.  Was she beaten by men? Nope, Lia Thomas lost to other women. Oddly enough, as a long time competitive swimmer and coach, I can say that none of the teams I swam with or coached ever broke down workout lanes by gender. One woman on my last masters team refused to swim in what she termed the "chick" lane because she believed that swimming behind and beside men made her faster and better. Her comment was more sexist and derogatory than anything else that happened at the pool.   

When I lived briefly in Colorado, I worked out at the Air Force Academy and one day the coach pitted me against one of the men's coaches, a guy who had been an Olympic swimmer but who was not competing any more. She made us swim in one lane and do an 800 meter for time and she encouraged me to eat his lunch. For me the only worry was the turns because I have very bad eyesight and cannot always tell where someone's arms and legs are in the pool with my goggles on. But we touched the wall simultaneously and he asked me why I didn't try to pass him at the turns. I have had a few injuries in the pool and I told him I knew I could catch him on the last 50 meters without endangering myself. He was about half my age and bigger than I (I am not even close to 6'1"). Did he swim like a girl? Hardly.

Competition can be positive or destructive. Psychology plays an enormous role in how one approaches life and if you think you are a loser, then you will be. It isn't the opponent who defeats you in most races. If you want to be a better swimmer you need to improve your technique (no gender difference involved there); you need to work out wisely (no gender difference there); and you need to believe in yourself not in the other person (no gender difference there). 

As a funny end to what is clearly my own opinion and experience I have another story. One of the last masters meets I competed in was an IGLA competition. Though I am not a lesbian I coached an IGLA team and so I usually entered the meets as well. It was the last day of what had been a five day meet and everyone was very tired. There were one too many women for the final heat and I asked permission from the meet referee to swim in the final heat of the men, thus turning three heats into two to end the meet sooner. This was allowed but when I got on the block one of the timers said, "This is supposed to be a men's heat." The start judge turned to me and said, "Just tell him you're in transition, honey."

 I have no claim at all to knowing more than the rudiments of botany but there is a dogwood tree in my neighborhood that fascinates me. This tree stands in a public park, subject to any number of dogs and other hazards but it perseveres. How can I say that a tree perseveres? Isn't that sort of the silliest kind of pathetic fallacy?

You can judge for yourself. The photo on the right is a little dark. The left hand photo is from one side where the tree looks more or less like any other dogwood in the park. It's fairly tall, in full leaf in this photo after having a full complement of blooms a couple of weeks ago. The other two photos show the other side, or what there is of the other side.

 

 

It's hard to tell but most of the trunk of the tree is gone. Essentially this has roots, and then an open tube of mostly outside bark. Once the branches start, the tree is solid but there is not much to the trunk at all. It is startling and inspiring.