Pink Floyd, "Lost For Words"

I've spent a big part of the week angry for no particular or discernible reason. In fact, it's been a kind of weird thing: you ever been in an angry good mood? Up until today, the weather's been alright (today and through the weekend, we're expecting triple-digit temps); I've listened to some good music; spent some quality time with the ScatterKat and had some good dinners at home. Work's been a bear, so maybe that has something to do with it.

And then the whole thing with the SCOTUS decision about the Affordable Care Act this week. I think I had myself so resigned to a five-four, completely partisan, political-hackereyed overturning of the ACA, I didn't even totally know what to do with myself when it was upheld. No, I haven't read it yet, and it sounds like things took a faintly awful path to get where it got; from the syllabus for the opinion (PDF link):

ROBERTS, C. J., announced the judgment of the Court and delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Parts I, II, and III–C, in which GINSBURG, BREYER, SOTOMAYOR, and KAGAN, JJ., joined; an opinion withrespect to Part IV, in which BREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined; and an opinion with respect to Parts III–A, III–B, and III–D. GINSBURG, J., filed an opinion concurring in part, concurring in the judgment in part,and dissenting in part, in which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined, and in whichBREYER and KAGAN, JJ., joined as to Parts I, II, III, and IV. SCALIA, KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., filed a dissenting opinion. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion.

I.e. a bare majority of the Court has upheld the Constitutionality of the ACA, but doesn't agree as to why it's constitutional, and most of the various opinions are technically minority opinions. Roberts is apparently ready to get rid of the past near-century of Commerce Clause jurisprudence (but, hey, Justice Scalia already jumped over that fence as soon as the topic switched from "drugs are bad, m'kay" to "goddamn socialized medicine why don't you live in Sweden you dirty hippie". Some folks--I'm too tired to link right now, but it's easy enough to find--are saying Justice Roberts jumped sides at the eleventh hour to save the Supreme Court's legitimacy (something they kind of botched by granting cert in the first place, but oh well); others have suggested Roberts may have pulled a Marbury v. Madison style bait-and-switch, planting a poison pill in the form of giving the President what he ostensibly wants in exchange for carving out a whole new turn in expanding or altering the Court's jurisprudence and/or authority. FSM only knows how he does that if the only thing anyone agrees with him about is the result he arrives at, but I haven't read the damn opinion yet, so, y'know, I guess I'll see when I get there.

But the teabagger crowd is already ranting and drooling, and their supposedly smarter and wiser enablers are beating the drum--

So I open my door to my enemies
And I ask could we wipe the slate clean
But they tell me to please go fuck myself
You know you just can't win

--yeah, that, pretty much. "Persecuted and paralyzed" sounds familiar, too.

SiriusXM is doing their Pink Floyd channel again, and "Lost For Words" came on this morning; it was about the perfect music for the week, actually. The point, I think, is you need to shake yourself loose from all this, that there's a kind of Zen in being able to let all that crap roll off your back. You can't do anything about the ravers and droolers, but you can open the door and know you took the kinder, gentler path and maybe chill to a sweet and shimmery acoustic guitar solo. Or something like that. It's wisdom, anyway, or wise. And it's the state I should try to end the week on.

Happy Friday, everybody?