My spring break Get Done list has swollen to 32 items, of which 9 (i.e., clean cat pee off baseboard in family room) have been accomplished. Of the remaining 23, most require leaving the house (e.g., When I tried to sweep out the garage yesterday the broom head fell off the broom pole and I realized that there was nothing physically binding the two parts together. Try as I might, psychic energy did not work and I will need to make a trip to Home Depot to get a replacement.). This morning when I woke at an obscenely late hour (it *was* still morning, but only marginally so), it was raining with monsoon-like intensity, so instead of venturing out into the almost-sleeting conditions, I made a nest of blankets, drank as much tea as was dropped in the Boston Harbor, and read on and off all day.

The Terry Schiavo situation is very sad and has been made even more so by the politicized nature it has taken on. Although I don't necessarily agree with the decision that was rendered by the initial courts who reviewed the case (from what I've read there did seem to be a reasonable doubt as to whether she would have wanted to die (and don't even know if that is the standard that is applied to such cases)), the self-insertion of the legislature into the affair is an egregious misuse of their powers. It appears that the majority did not like the decision of the courts and determined that they had the right to step in and essentially demand a "do over". What difference is there between this action and the accusations against an "activist judiciary" when the courts make rulings that bleed into the fuzzy area of policy? The current administration has criticized judges who have made such decisions in the past, but apparently when the legislature takes on a similar mantle in a case in which the President has taken a personal interest, that is a completely different matter.

In the spirit of balance, much as it grieves me to do so, I found a topic on which I am aligned with the President (if I am correctly interpreting his words - always a risky undertaking). In a happy-face, feel-good, very special episode of the President Around The World, co-starring the president of Mexico (hasn't he been involved in some gigantic scandals?) and the prime minister of Canada (whom I would not have recognized if I'd fallen on him), the President seemed to suggest that developing a "guest worker" program for the 11,000,000 illegal aliens already in the country who perform jobs that most American disdain would be a Very Good Thing. My agreement with this was solidified when I saw a Republican congressman part ways with the President and suggest that:

1. First, we should shoot all the employers who employ illegal aliens. Well, maybe not shoot, but send them to jail long enough that their businesses fail and their employees have to trudge back across the border.

2. Once all 11,000,000 are gone (he didn't use the word "cleaned", but I could tell he was thinking it), then we can, maybe, someday, set up a program to let them back in. But only if they're tattooed with a bar code first.

3. And, by the way, let's patrol every inch of the border with Mexico at whatever cost that takes. No mention was made about the Canadian border.

One of the first German words I learned in German I back in 9th grade was "gastarbeiter", which I will always associate with workers from Turkey who were taking jobs away from the hard-working Germans. This was back when textbooks could be obliquely racist with no fear of anyone pointing it out. It's an issue that still rages in Europe, fueled now by anti-Muslim sentiment. I'm still choking on the thought that W may actually have articulated a worthwhile idea.