I'm not a hater, and sure, I have empathy for our Chief Justice, John Roberts, who is apparently doing fine in a hospital in Maine. He's young and strong and will recover. And, "no", I have no problem with him describing himself as being in "excellent" health when he appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee exploring his nomination a few years ago, despite his having had an earlier seizure and being advised another one was likely.
It's just that, sometimes, the news, the terminology, the course of human events, line up in a kind of harmonic convergence of ironic perfection. His episode is being characterized as a "benign idiopathic seizure."
If there is a more ironic term for what has gripped America over the last half dozen years I have not heard it yet.
And the Supremes are on that path toward fundamentally recasting the rules of governance. Striking down attempts to desegregate schools, making the world safe for exploitative corporations, ensuring that the Bushies can waltz on home with no fear of repurcussions.
But, in truth, and this is leaving Roberts behind now in his secure hospital bed and fully indulging the linguistic irony of events, the last years have been anything but "benign" for the vast majority of human beings in the world. We have been riding an "idiopathic" episode to be sure. If there weren't so much death, destruction and suffering in its path, something like this could be misconstrued as somehow being humorous. But, it's not.
As it is, it's just more dark dissatisfaction tucked in to what someday will seem like a very dark episode in the history of the world.
And so, we return to our own idiopathic indignities, hoping for better, but unsure how this whole mess will work itself out. This idiopathic episode, not so benign, could last a generration or longer, alas.