February may be a shorter than usual month, but as we all know, memorable things may come in small packages.
February 2024 is, of course, a leap-year month, which means that February has 29 days instead of the usual 28.
And a leap-year-month means, of course, an election year.
Talkin’ about the weather
As is usually the case in the Pacific Northwest, our weather was firmly in the “All of the above -but not for long” category.
We had sunny and relatively warm days, (a few over 60F) a few cold days (for us) and plenty of those drizzly, dank and-dark days that seemed to last forever.
National politics
February (and March), as is the norm for election years, is packed with election events from caucuses and primaries and debates and seemingly endless debates, issues and speeches.
And, as we all know, for better or worse, it will certainly get more intense.
Our “Do-nothing-ist” Congress spent a full day (nearly 7 hours) questioning Hunter Biden even though their key witness against him was in custody for lying to the FBI (and Congress) about, yes, Hunter Biden.
Thanks to this, and other Congressional dawdling, no funding was allotted to Ukraine and our stable federal budget was not approved.
Ratings of presidents
Apparently in a move to commemorate President’s Day, over 150 presidential scholars revealed their research (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/20/presidents-ranking-trump-biden-list?).
The primary criteria was “commitment to the norms of presidential leadership”.
Respondents were asked to rate each president on a scale of 0-100 for their overall greatness, with 0=failure, 50=average, and 100=great.
The scores were then averaged for each president and ranked from highest to lowest.
As you might guess, the ratings don’t change much over time.
Abraham Lincoln was ranked first, ahead of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Next came George Washington, our first president, who won independence from Britain, then Teddy Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and Harry Truman.
President Trump, as he has often proudly proclaimed, was number 45.
The Super Bowl
We had the central, culture-unifying event we call the Super Bowl, with bets, chatter and camera shots pre-occupied with Taylor Swift more than most players or game strategies
Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday
For the first time in anyone’s memory, Valentine’s Day and Ash Wednesday fell on the same day. If there were ever a buzz-kill for romance, it would be the reminder of our mortality and our inevitable return to dust.
Russia
Former FOX host Tucker Carlson visited Russia early in the month, to conduct a blatantly propagandistic “interview” of Putin, and then embarked on a tour to praise Russia as being superior in many ways to America.
Around that time, former President, and current presidential candidate Donald Trump declared that he would “encourage” Putin to “to do whatever the hell he wants” against any NATO member.
And just a few weeks later, Alexei Navalny, the leader of the only meaningful opposition to Vladimir Putin’s regime, was murdered/ found dead.
Where did you get those shoes?
And just when you might have thought that this year’s presidential campaign could not get stranger, former President, and current presidential candidate Donald Trump announced a collectible presidential shoe at Philadelphia’s Sneaker Con (The word “con” in this case, refers to “conference” not “con” as in “con-job” though in this case, both meanings may apply.
“Bold, gold and tough, just like President Trump”
The metallic gold, US flag-draped high tops — priced at $400 and limited to 1,000 pairs — sold out within the day.
Which of course does not mean that any actual shoes changed hands that day.
They were only available for pre-sale with an estimated ship date of July – which means that the online re-sales of the shoes are technically re-sales of pre-orders.
These shoes, and multiple knock-offs are available online – at least in theory.
The sneakers were available via a new website called gettrumpsneakers.com which Trump announced at Sneaker Con.
The website identifies itself as CIC Ventures LLC and states that their products are “registered trademarks and/or trademarks of CIC Ventures LLC.”
The website also clarifies that “Trump Sneakers are not designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals.”
And just to clarify things even more, Donald Trump reported owning CIC Ventures LLC in his 2023 financial disclosure.
It was not confirmed that these presidential shoes were made in China.
As their own marketing put it, from the shoes to the sales pitch, to the production of the shoes, I could not have put it better; “just like President Trump”.
Stabbing at Point Defiance
Few places in the south Puget Sound area are as bucolic and serene as Point Defiance. But that serenity was shattered on February 10 when a woman was repeatedly stabbed by a total stranger.
She gave a stirring portrayal of her unprovoked attack.
As of this writing, the perpetrator has not been apprehended.
First US moon landing in 50 years
The first US sponsored moon landing occurred toward the end of February. Unlike previous NASA owned and operated projects, this was a public/private operation.
In other words, NASA contracted out virtually all of the construction of the lunar landing vehicle. NASA paid Texas-based Intuitive $118 million to build and fly Odysseus.
This launch was the first under NASA’s newly developed Artemis program, which has as its primary intent to return human astronauts to Earth’s natural satellite this decade.
Apparently because of human error, two of the spacecraft’s communication antennae were knocked out of commission, pointed the wrong way, and the essential solar panels were facing the wrong direction which limited the vehicle’s ability to recharge its batteries. The spacecraft was expected to last for a total of six days before the sun (the source of energy for Odysseus) sets over the landing site.
Is an egg a chicken?
I never attended law school, but I had always taken it as an assumption that any legal ruling was to clarify authority and responsibility.
A February ruling in Alabama has, at minimum, challenged that core assumption.
Their ruling is that a frozen embryo in laboratory freezer is (legally) a person. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that embryos are “extrauterine children”.
To put it mildly, this ruling raises vastly more complications and questions than it resolves.
If an embryo is equal to a child, does that mean that a child is equal to an embryo?
We all know that equality is not a one-way formula. In other words, if you are familiar with mathematical principles, you know this is true. As you may remember from high school algebra, the symmetric property of congruence means that any formula can be reversed, for example, if A=B, then B=A.
But if you know humanity, history or basic decency, you know that the entire concept is preposterous.
An embryo can be frozen without harm – does that mean we can freeze children?
Just to clarify for those not paying attention – Do Not Put Living Children In The Freezer.
Will an embryo (or several) meet the requirement for an IRS tax deduction? And if not, why not?
Will an embryo allow me to use a carpool lane?
These questions are, of course, absurd – but only because the legal ruling itself lends itself to preposterous arguments and legal uncertainty; which, to the minds of most of us, is the precise opposite of what any law was intended to do.
The whole premise of law, especially a supreme court ruling, is to settle arguments and legal disputes, not create them.
And if embryos have all the legal rights and protections of children, do children have the legal rights and protections of embryos?
As I used to urge my college level students to keep in mind for any law or policy, those lawmakers should keep in mind two primary questions; what is accomplished? And who is most directly impacted?
In most ratings Alabama sits at the bottom of student spending on education children’s services. And when it comes to care of new mothers, Alabama, alongside Mississippi, has some of the worst maternal health/survival rates in the country with a maternal mortality rate of 41.4 deaths per 100,000 births from 2018 to 2021. (In contrast, California has the lowest maternal mortality rate of 4.0 deaths per 100,000 births).
You can get some perspective on global maternal health rates and see how various states compare to some of the poorest nations of the entire world here – https://data.unicef.org/topic/maternal-health/maternal-mortality/.
And in the future, we can thank these politicians for making issues not only more muddled but also, on a practical level, less appetizing.
Think of them the next time you attempt to enjoy a scrambled chicken embryo or a chicken embryo McMuffin or watch kids Easter Sunday on their once joyful chicken embryo hunt.
