"Dearest Friend" on July 4th

Holidays That Go Boom, Once in a Supermoon, Raincheck on Justice

Greetings, this annual birthday weekend in America.

News-wise this third newShrink Independence Day looks a lot like its first two years, especially ‘22.

Again the U.S. Supreme Court dominates the news cycle with precedent- and generation-shattering end-of-term decisions, on the eve of the nation’s biggest display of shiny-noisy patriotism.

These land a bit like hit-and-run bombshells, dropped as justices make their way out of town for three-months’ rest and respite. That is, if not private-jetting to celebrate the term’s accomplishments at their favorite billionaire-funded high-end salmon-fishing lodges or rent- and mortgage-free family homes.

The effect is one many psychotherapists might recognize: The doorknob comment, earth-shaking new information delivered in passing by patient or client while heading out at the end of a session.

As these rulings hit late this week, impressive legions of well-prepared, diligent journalists, lawyers and others were applying their expertise to reading hundreds of pages quickly. Their task is to parse these complex decisions to get at truths far beyond the superficial (where not outright falsehood) sound bites.

Kudos and thanks to them. Links to some of their work are listed among the first-take headlines cited below.

By tradition it’s the high Court’s annual first Monday in October, the ceremonial term-opener, that carries the institutional heft, gravitas and veneration. However, to borrow the President’s greatly understated Thursday descriptor, in response to a journalist’s question, this Court is “not normal.” That warrants, perhaps begs for, far more of our urgent, undistracted and continued attention to this other end of each Court term.

The Court’s Last Thursday/Friday in June now heralds our gigantic national annual birthday party… with a decision-dump becoming as American as fireworks and parades.

And I do mean dump. Amid this holiday’s literal sounds and figurative fury, to this Court I am reminded of a quote attributed to Emerson:

“What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.”

And so…

Raincheck

From newShrink’s psychological perspectives, after today’s headline highlights this becomes a slowing-down shift to tracking themes and inter-woven patterns over time. It’s a focus on process — the dynamics of what is going on, beyond and sometimes before the content or factual details. (From psychologists you might hear terms for this like witnessing or process-observing thoughts and comments.)

Ironic in light of today’s cultural divisions around wokeness, and given the content of several of the week’s Court rulings, tracking is important in another venue. It’s a critical skillset and term developed and applied, over the past two or three decades, in the most effective diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives of successful corporations and other high-functioning organizations of many kinds. Corporations like Disney in Florida, for example.

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From the above state of mind here is some (very) corny topical shrink-humor. I can’t decide if this illustrates the attention dilemma of the American public this holiday weekend… just of me and other would-be “trackers” spitting-in-the-wind as usual… Or maybe all of us:

“Squirrel!”

But for real comic relief, once again the best spot-on belly laugh of the newShrink week came from peerless wit, writer, reader and friend Lew Powell. In case you missed it, his posted comment was on last week’s look at quirky NC “heart-balm” domestic laws and politics in light of the alienation-of-affection homewrecker lawsuit filed against state House Speaker Tim Moore. Lew concluded with one of his breezy pitch-perfect asides:

…”If I had a bakery in Raleigh I'd offer Heartbalm Tortes.... “

Based on the good thoughts and insights a lot of you shared via email and conversations this week, the Moore story’s many dimensions have clearly struck a chord with a lot of us. For me a personal big-smile moment was having two of my very favorite former Charlotte Observer colleagues, from more than a couple decades ago, both happen to post in the week’s newShrink Comments rather than email. Connecting that way, that day, along with Lew was my short-list-best former editor Fannie Flono, veteran journalist, author, reader and friend. (I’m hoping soon to tap and learn more from her recent-years’ expertise, knowledge and passion regarding our region’s full history.)

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Now to the news…

Court Decision Headlines

Here are primary news stories on key decisions, in roughly the order they were made public.

# 1. State legislatures’ authority in federal elections

Supreme Court Rejects Theory That Would Have Transformed American Elections (The New York Times, Tuesday, June 27)

The 6-to-3 majority dismissed the “independent state legislature” theory, which would have given state lawmakers nearly unchecked power over federal elections.

“The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a legal theory that would have radically reshaped how federal elections are conducted by giving state legislatures largely unchecked power to set rules for federal elections and to draw congressional maps warped by partisan gerrymandering.

The vote was 6 to 3, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. writing the majority opinion. The Constitution, he said, ‘does not exempt state legislatures from the ordinary constraints imposed by state law…

…The decision followed other important rulings this term in which the court’s three liberal members were in the majority, including ones on the Voting Rights Act, immigration and tribal rights.”

Important for North Carolinians to consider, the ruling is moot, as the districts in question are now overseen by the now-Republican-dominated state Supreme Court. As the case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the now-Republican legislature elected in 2022 has stacked the state Court to favor Republicans, which is widely predicted to create a much more substantial Republican majority in the legislature. These kinds of results illustrate the very partisan gerrymandering at issue in lawsuits like this. Here is one of many cases this month for the can’t-make-this-stuff-up files.

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# 2. Racial affirmative action in public and private college admissions

Supreme Court Strikes Down Race-Based Admissions at Harvard and U.N.C. (The New York Times, Thursday, June 29)

In disavowing race as a factor in achieving educational diversity, the court all but ensured that the student population at the campuses of elite institutions will become whiter and more Asian and less Black and Latino.

Supreme Court restricts race-based affirmative action in college admissions (The Washington Post, Thursday, June 29)

Landmark cases involving Harvard and the University of North Carolina asked the Supreme Court to ban affirmative action, or using race in college admissions.

The End of Affirmative Action (Jelani Cobb in The New Yorker)

The scale of what has been lost is difficult to assess in the moment. But not entirely impossible.

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# 3. Expansion of employer accommodation for employees’ religious practice

Worth pondering: How that unanimity on the high Court would hold in today’s America with plaintiffs who are Muslim, Native American or even Jewish.

Unanimous Supreme Court rules against USPS in Sunday work case (from veteran Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg on NPR, Thursday, June 29. Photo in lede illustration above by Patrick Semansky of Associated Press.)

“The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously handed a major victory to religious groups by greatly expanding how far employers must go to accommodate the religious views of their employees.

The court ruled in favor of Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian postal worker, who refused to work on Sundays for religious reasons and said the U.S. Postal Service should accommodate his religious belief. He sued USPS for religious discrimination when he got in trouble for refusing to work Sunday shifts.”

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# 4. LGBTQ rights

Gay Rights vs. Free Speech: Supreme Court Backs Web Designer Opposed to Same-Sex Marriage (NYT, Friday, June 30)

The decision appeared to suggest that the rights of L.G.B.T.Q. people, including to same-sex marriage, are on more vulnerable legal footing, particularly when they are at odds with claims of religious freedom.

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# 5. Student loan forgiveness

Student Loan ForgivenessSupreme Court Rules 6-3 Against Biden Plan (NYT, Friday, June 30)

The proposed cancellation of more than $400 billion in student debt would have been one of the most expensive executive actions in U.S. history. President Biden vowed to try again.

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# 6. Some Key Contexts

In processing and thinking about all of these crucial decisions and how they fit together, if you only have time and inclination to read from perspectives of two areas of expertise — U.S. history since the Civil War and the law — I highly recommend posts below from political-historian Dr. Heather Cox Richardson and career attorney-political activist Robert Hubbell.

Connecting the dots of this week’s major decisions in historical and financial-motivation and funding contexts (from Boston College professor HeatherCoxRichardson.substack.com, Letters from an American, June 30, 2023 quoted here, also the June 29 post.)

“Today the Supreme Court followed up on yesterday’s decision gutting affirmative action with three decisions that will continue to push the United States back to the era before the New Deal…

And compelling pieces from Hubbell: “Justice Roberts declares racism dead (again).” ( RobertHubbell.substack.com, Today’s Edition June 30, 2023, and “Brute force in the service of religious nationalism,” July 1.)

The New York Times, Washington Post and other outlets browsable online have the full texts of these decisions.

Looking now at the Abigail Adams “Dearest Friend” title theme at center in the lede illustration above…

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Especially in reflecting on politicians, founders and court officials of today’s and recent history-focused editions, this founding First Lady and her “Dearest Friend” husband-President provide some needed hope and general optimism. Here’s an excerpt from a 2021 Independence Day newShrink popular with readers:

Dearest Friends Abigail & John Adams

“Among the amazing cast of characters involved in our nation’s founding, I have long savored the early patriots, second U.S. President John and First Lady Abigail Adams. From a soul-of-the-nation standpoint it’s hard to match their biographical life-stories, relationship, prolific correspondence and interface with history (and with other historic figures such as Adams’ fellow patriot, then political foe, third President Thomas Jefferson. Eerily, particularly from a depth psychological standpoint, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826 — on the 50th Jubilee anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

Today I’m revisiting this widely familiar quote in a March 31, 1776, letter to John from Abigail, writing from their home managing family and farm in Braintree, MA, a few months before the Declaration of Independence. John was in Paris for one of their five-years-plus transatlantic separations, as John and others negotiated funding and support for the unfolding Revolution. (In this unusual close-partnership of the 54-year Adams marriage, the achingly slow back-and-forth of their letters during these years was their sole day-to-day life together; even their arguments and misunderstandings were with months-long mail delays and ocean in between! The utterly mundane details in this one make the link to the full letter, as well as to collected volumes of them, worth a read.)

As with Abigail’s familiar, delicately quaint-sounding quote about “remembering the ladies” in crafting the Declaration and new government, I had long appreciated that by all accounts, in person as in letters, the couple’s favorite affectionate address for one another was “dearest friend.” One lovely biography of Abigail has that title.

But until I read the whole letter for the first time in decades, I had not recalled how fiercely Abigail makes the case for equality between men and women as a fundamental part of the equality at the heart of the Revolution. As a model for this dramatic shift in approach, she even holds up her and John’s own term of endearment and connection, Friend. (Somehow this strikes me with a lot more heft than that simpery-sounding “remember the ladies.”)

And in any case, I guess we must assume those transatlantic mails were extra-slow that time, for none of it got into the Declaration (or a whole lot else later, either.)

Here’s the excerpt from Abigail’s letter, (and click for the full link):

I long to hear that you have declared an independancy [sic]—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors… Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could…but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend.

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Looking now to the right column in the lede illustration above, marking at Monday dawn this weekend of birthdays:

July Full Buck Supermoon

“July’s full Buck Moon rises after sunrise [not sunset, as first reference in this excerpt has wrong] on Monday, July 3—the eve of Independence Day! The first supermoon of the year, it will appear bigger and brighter than average. July’s full Buck Moon rises on Monday, July 3, reaching peak illumination at 7:39 A.M. [not P.M.] Eastern Daylight Time. See more information about July’s Full Moon from why we call it the “Buck” Moon to best days by the Moon.” The July Buck moon is so named for the month when male deer antlers are in full-growth mode. (from July Full Buck Supermoon 2023, almanac.com.

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Which points us to a cherished annual birthday tribute today to Claire Miley, with an update on her parents. (In the lede illustration above, the full-moon touching ocean and quality of light there reminded me of Claire’s fascinations with the night-time bioluminescent sand, sea turtle rescue and love of all things sun and water at her beloved Bald Head Island.)

“Going to Carolina…”

Again this month and holiday weekend, I mark birthday #19 (today) and honor the memory, love, fierce life-force and ageless wisdom of Claire Elise Miley (July 2, 2004 —July 21, 2019). Daughter of my dear forever-friend, Allison Rash Miley and her husband Rob, Claire was in a fatal freak jet-ski accident on Lake Norman four years ago later this month.

You may recall last year’s arrival and updates about Aussie-doodle Lily Clarinet (Lily C) pictured below. With both Mileys’ retirement from corporate banking, they still spend time at Bald Head Island. And most recently (the big move completed just Friday) from their home in Davidson they have quite literally gone to Carolina. It’s truly home for them; UNC is where Rob and Allison met as students, and Claire was the only Tar Heel, ever, more passionate than they are.

Their home, pictured below, is in one of Chapel Hill’s vintage neighborhoods treasured for its long history near the heart of town and campus. The renovated 1920’s house has been home to revered UNC professors. As illustrated here, Lily C has clearly claimed her home, and Allison says Claire is ever-present as well.

And, that is all I have! Talk to you next week.

🦋💙 tish

… it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
— William Stafford, “A Ritual to Read to Each Other”