Law, Power, and Justice

LIFE AND NEWS NOTES FROM A CHILDLESS ELDERLY LADY WORKING AWAY IN THE MINISTRY OF SNARK

23 March 2025

Well, another morning.  Got up, dragged myself out of bed, dragged a comb across my head (showing my age with that lyric).  Fed the cats and broke up the whopping matches that break out at mealtime.  Made coffee.  The electrical plugs on the counter no longer work for some reason.  The coffee pot has to be moved to the butcher’s block.  The grow light that keeps dozens of herb plants alive surrounding the sink, no longer works.  I hope they survive long enough for Mike to get home.  Why don’t women learn how things work?  I know this is something simple, but I’ll be damned if I can figure it out.

The cats are out on their newly tiled screened in porch.  They love it.  They are never going to come inside after we get all the climbers up. 

I am lying on the day bed in the library, watching Michael Steele have a tantrum about Howard Lutnick (may he rot in hell) arrogantly maintaining that his mother-in-law would be just fine if she missed a social security payment.  Fuck him.  I like Michael Steele, although (like the cats I have a long memory) I will never truly forgive him for being a Republican, for taking their money, for lying on television for them.  But I’m glad he’s there now on MSNBC, getting mad, getting really angry at the attitudes of the people in the White House. Until people like him start getting mad, really mad, people will not recognize just how mad they need to be.

Hiram Bernard (youngest of the nine formerly feral cats we serve) keeps coming in the library and getting up in the window in front of me.  He stands there, swishing his amazing gray tail, looking out on his back yard.  Then, he leaves.  A few minutes later, he comes back, jumps up on the table under the window, stands at the window, swishing his amazing tail.  (Cats pick up your dislikes, and your likes, almost immediately).  Repetition is one of the things that drives me crazy.  Cats are devilish about sussing out what makes you crazy and doing it when they want something, especially when that something involves you getting up.

So, I get up and say to Hiram and Jake who has joined the demonstration: “Want to go?”  They immediately understand and perk up, tails up, excitement they head for the screened in porch, stretching along the way.  I open the door for them and out they go, leaping into the excitement of the day and the backyard.

We let them out for about an hour every morning.  They poke around, run, dig holes and roll in the dirt, stalk the new enormous pigeons in the back yard, look for lizards in the yard plants, chase each other, bow up at each other or just sit and contemplate the universe.

Turkey

The government in Turkey is calling public protests “street terror.”  What people are protesting about is the government’s taking into custody one of Erdogan’s most prominent rivals, Ekrem Imamoglu, the former mayor of Istanbul.  Imamoglu was taken into custody and accused of corruption and supporting the PKK, a Kurdish groups hated by Erdogan.  Erdogan has been in charge for 23 years.  The Constitution has to be changed for him to run for office again so he is laying the groundwork for another sham election (BBC Newshour Podcast, 3/23/25). 

Israel

Netanyahu is firing high level government officials.  Some citizens are furious about the government breaking the ceasefire with Gaza before getting the hostages out.

Protests have broken out after Netanyahu announced that he is firing the head of Shin Bet, Ronen Bar.   He accused the head of the Shin Bet of opening an investigation about his (Netanyahu’s) ties to Quatar for political reasons.  According to the protesters, the government is removing all “buffers” to Netanyahu’s power.  The government is already skirting procedures that should be followed to fire these two.  If they refuse to abide by the law, they will end the rule of law.

The protesters are arguing that the Prime Minister cannot go through the remaining parts of the ceasefire because it would cause the fall of his government.