I’m pretty sure that Leo is a theist and Lucy an atheist. I arrive at this conclusion based on Leo’s literally trembling fear during a thunderstorm and Lucy’s ability to wholly ignore it. Leo, like so many of the quivering bipeds in the mists of pre-history, quakes and shivers because he fears the terrorizing gods who thunder at him, demanding submission and obeisance in exchange for his continued meager existence and the possibility of finding a few bones and roots to gnaw on. He is in the early stages of forming some primitive canine religion, acknowledging the vast potency of the beings who control and threaten his pitiable life, and propitiating them with sacrifices of one or two of the rodents whose calories he can barely afford to forgo. Their anger subsides; they let him live. For this generosity, he establishes holy days, erects crude wooden effigies and stone idols, and spreads the word among his species of the means by which his terrifying, thunderous masters may be appeased. His fellow canines, having heard the thunder and as fearful as he, need little persuasion. He becomes what his descendants will call a priest. He is rewarded by finding a deer, dead only a week. He rises to leadership in the community, promulgating a rudimentary creed, and accepting tribute from his flock. He sits by warm fires, built by others. He has first crack at the scorched rabbit. Except when the gods get angry again, and he again cowers all a-tremble, life is pretty good.
Lucy, on the other hand, is not among the persuaded; no proselyte she. No thunder gods for her. Atheist all the way. Her eyes roll at her brother’s quaking. If she grudgingly acknowledges any masters at all, they are her parents; and her mind is clear that in truth they are, unknown to them, her subjects. She sleeps on a grand bed surrounded by them for her protection, lording that status over her lowly, credulous brother. Still, she is not without dignity-robbing, bone-deep fear, however fully divested of religiosity: If there is packing and car-loading, her advanced intellect warns her of abandonment and the inevitable shifting for herself thereby necessary. What new subjects—indeed, vassals—among the unwashed masses will be found to provide, provide? And going to the groomer for nail-cutting? I blush. She moans, cries, excretes, as if she is on the rack. But once back home, she resumes her regal status and lordly manner, pretending her sniveling never happened.
John Rachal's Blog 
Hypocrisy on Parade
February 7, 2022 at 9:42 pm (Political Commentary)
Yet another Joe Biden crime in the long rap sheet compiled by Republican hypocrites: Pledging to appoint a black woman to the Supreme Court if he gets a pick. Now he has one, after Justice Breyer announced his retirement. We currently have a 6-3 conservative-to-liberal Court, and with Breyer being on the liberal wing, the political alignment of the Court will not change with Biden’s choice. If it were not for the Electoral College, which gave us Presidents Bush Jr. and Trump instead of actual vote winners Gore and H. Clinton, the Court would have a radically different composition, with six moderate-to-liberal justices and three conservatives, or even eight-to-one if President Gore had won a second term (Alito and Roberts were appointed in late 2005, in Bush’s second term). If the person with the most votes had won—in other words if democracy had prevailed in those elections—there would quite possibly be no Roberts or Alito, and definitely no Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, or Barrett on the Court. Three of those five, and possibly all five, would be Gore and Clinton appointees, coupled with Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer, also Democrat-appointed justices. Thus six-to-three or even eight-to-one moderate or liberal, not six-to-three conservative. Maybe one of them might even have received hizzerher law degree from somewhere other than Harvard or Yale.*
There has never been a black woman even nominated to the Supreme Court. So in the primaries, Biden pledged in the racially diverse state of South Carolina to appoint a black woman. There are 21.7 million black women in America. Yes, it was pandering, of course, but it was also principle: Isn’t it time to have just one black woman among the other 115 justices in the Court’s history? But Biden’s “crime” was making a pledge to do it. USA Today quotes four gravely offended Republicans (two of whom will be running for president in 2024 if Trump passes): Republican Nikki Haley said that Biden should choose someone “without a race/gender litmus test.” Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker lamented the pledge as “affirmative racial discrimination” and “sort of a quota.” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas called the pledge “offensive,” while Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey moralized that “the president should pick the person most qualified for the job, irrelevant of race or gender.” Hmmm. Did George H. W. Bush do that when he picked deeply conservative black judge Clarence Thomas to replace liberal and first black on the Court Thurgood Marshall? Don’t think so.
How noble that Republican chorus. How principled. How convenient. Now, when someone other than a white male is eligible, let us be color blind and gender blind. Of those 115 justices the Court has had, 108, or 94%, have been white men. Were we color blind and gender blind for any of those until Thurgood Marshall and Sandra Day O’Connor? For the great majority of those 115, was a stated pledge even necessary, even considered? Would McKinley or Taft or Wilson have needed to say “I pledge to you that if elected, I will appoint a white male to the Supreme Court”? Of course not. That pledge was assumed: “I, as president, will nominate a white male”—obviously. The racial discrimination Wicker bemoans now was a self-evident and necessary virtue when white males were the only choice. Our racial divide was so wide that, at least until Thurgood Marshall, no president would even consider someone other than a white male. Would Haley, Wicker, Cruz, Toomey and their Republican confederates have protested that? No, they would have been fine with the assumed, unstated pledge then since of course it would be a white male. That pledge was acceptable because it did not need to be stated; Biden’s was “offensive” because he made clear that his choice would be someone whose identity would not match the previous 108—or even the other seven.
Note: The black or female seven: Marshall, Thomas (black males); O’Connor, Ginsburg, Kagan, Barrett (white females); Sotomayor (Hispanic female).
*2024: The current Court is comprised of four members receiving their law degrees from Yale, four from Harvard, and one from lowly Notre Dame. Presumably no one from a southern, midwestern, southwestern, or west coast university is qualified. The Court is also comprised of one Jew (Kagan), two Protestants (Jackson and Gorsuch, who was raised Catholic), and six Catholics (22% of the American population).
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