A holiday weekend, celebrating Washington's Birthday which was February 22nd, and Abraham Lincoln's birthday on February 12th. I think of it of course as a bank holiday, but they call it a Federal Holiday meaning all Federal offices are closed, but apparently - and somewhat to my surprise - some banks are open. I don't think mine in Shawnee was though.
The last entry I did yesterday vanished into cyberspace before I could hit ‘publish’, to my chagrin. I was all over the place thinking I must be able to retrieve it somehow. Anyway, I went to the 10.30 service at Emmanuel and read the prayers. When I got home Mark and his lad Daniel had just finished laying the new water line, and were packing up.
Mark gave me $300 to pay the water bill, which was $200 - I asked if the extra $100 was for my 'trouble', but he thinks the next bill might also be a bit more than usual, so I thought that was generous of him.
The big news story here has been the sudden death of a much loved, very popular Supreme Court Justice, a conservative Republican, so there are obviously going to be considerable ramifications. There were 4 liberal and 5 conservative justices. Now Obama will have to nominate a replacement, who more than likely will be a liberal, and the Senate will have to confirm - or not - his nomination, and therein lies a great deal of potential unrest. Republicans are demanding that the next President should make the appointment, but from Obama's tone I don't think that is going to happen.
What I don't get. They are very proud here of their separation of Church and State. I think myself it would be more to the point to have separation of Judiciary and State. How do 9 unelected Supreme Court Justices get to wield so much influence, I ask myself. One could criticise our unelected House of Lords, but somehow because there are so many of them it doesn't seem quite as undemocratic as 9 Supreme Court Justices holding so much influence.
I have spent the day mostly reading. I started a Bill Bryson book, a favourite author. He is an American travel writer who spent 20 years in Britain but has now come back to the US so his children could experience American life.
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