I think the layoff slacking has commenced. Either that or several people got lost on their way to work this morning.

Sigh.

Someone not me has a big old mouth because two more people have come to me, stunned, for confirmation. It's really awkward. Don't ask ME. Ask him!

I'm surprised by how optimistic I am about the Supreme Court and Roe v. Wade, but what I keep coming back to is: people have *always* been convinced society was teetering on the edge of a precipice, and we never are.

The other thing that comforts me is this: Ten or 15 years ago, legalizing gay marriage would have been a far-left position, if not a joke. 20 years ago, Reagan had just been reelected in a landslide (seriously, look at the 1984 electoral map sometime, and tell me it doesn't make you feel better about 2004). A tad over 30 years ago, abortion wasn't legal. 40 years ago, segregation was common. 50 years ago, there was very limited access to birth control, and many people believed married women shouldn't work except in cases of financial need. 100 years ago, women couldn't vote. 150 years ago, we still believed people could own other people.

And 150 years is an eyeblink, when you look at the massive scale of time on this planet. It's nothing. In 2500, 1855 and 2005 will blur together almost as much as 1400 and 1550 do now.

I'm not saying right now doesn't matter, or Roberts doesn't matter. It does and he does. But progressives have made a tremendous amount of progress even in the last 25 years, and I have faith that, roadbumps aside, that progress will continue. We've come too far to turn around now.

(Thus endeth my dose of optimism for the year.)

I have a friend who does web work at EPA who has worked with a ton of SILS interns over the years; I'd be glad to milk him for contacts if you have specific questions in that direction.

Thanks for the offer! But I think it's kind of early for that, for me. At the moment I'm in the musing, surfing, and asking librarian/Buffista/Buffista-librarian friends, "So, whatcha think?" phase of things. I just started thinking about it yesterday. Actually taking concrete steps will happen later, if at all. But again, thank you!

Mostly I'm a little dejected about the state of my job hunt, and looking for things I can do above and beyond tossing cover letters and resumes into the ether. So I thought I'd look into whether getting an MLS would be a useful career move. And it's looking kinda positive, so apparently I'm not totally dead-ended at 37. Which is reassuring.

I think you're right, Lyra, and thanks for the reminder. The reason they're fighting so hard is that the writing is on the wall, frankly. Over the long term, they will lose. I do believe that. But in the short- and mid-term, the battle wounds may get ugly.

Uh huh. And the exact same arguments were made about reconstruction in the post Civil War south. I don't mean that you don't make a good point, just - I'm so tired of that argument, and I think it's very often (not here) made disingenously.

Oh certainly. I don't think that perception justifies a thing.

James Doohan died. [link]

aw, that's sad. He seemed like a really nice guy.

Damn, so Scotty has beamed up for the last time.

Roberts is good pick. All this hand-wringing over the Rust brief is wrongheaded and really irritating.

Fair enough. And reading about him this morning he sounds like he's definitely conservative and definitely qualified but not a Borkian or Scalian ideologue.

I don't think there's any chance for the Dems to block him anyway. He got unanimous approval to his current seat. He's well within the bounds of a Bush selection, and Bush could've gone further right.

Roberts seems like he's got some respect for precedent anyway. Bush is definitely making hand signals to his far right constinuency with the "not legislating from the bench" comments.

The reality is that abortion opponents have already sucessfully made it so difficult to get an abortion in many states that it's pretty much on a state-to-state basis already.

If Bush nominates a second Supreme soon, I think he'll have to pick another woman or somebody who's not an old white guy though.

As for Clarence Thomas - I don't think he's an idiot. But I think he's completely undistinguished. He's done very little in his writing or participation on the court to indicate he belongs there.

I'm just trying to fight off a feeling of impending doom. For all his protestations, Rehnquist can't last and that means another Bush nomination. Which is going to further skew the court to the right. I'm trying to not think about the next 25 years--when my son graduates from college and is ready to start his life but he's not going to enjoy the same level of freedom in this country that I had when I was his age.

Maybe I'm stuck in Worst Case Scenario Land but it's hard to leave that place when I see comments on the Columbus Dispatch's website by Bush supporters who, in the face of the Rove debacle, STILL think this country is being led by a morally upright man who is going to keep us safe from the terroists.

I'm stuck between wanting to crawl into a hole and disappear and wanting to go out and start bitch slapping conservatives left and right.