"Hurt"

It is a powerful, terrifying, heartbreaking song, and right now I am afraid to listen to it again.

It is Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt", written by Trent Reznor and originally recorded by Nine Inch Nails.

I've heard about the song, I've heard about its acclaim, its reception, but I never heard the song until today. 

It came up in one of my Spotify playlists, one of those Spotify makes for you based on stuff you've played in the past.  Probably, "Hurt" came up because I've played a couple of country/pop songs on Spotify before.  I saw on the playlist and thought about playing it, but decided not to.  

But after playing a few songs while doing some prep work for a proofing job, "Hurt" came on as the next song in the queue.  

And I froze.  

I think it may have been the first line:  "I hurt myself today to see if I still hurt" that got me.  

And during the chorus, when Cash laments about what he'd become and how everyone he knew went away in the end . . . and the guitar chords in the background of the chorus crescendo slowly, louder, louder, more emphatic.  

The song has ended, and I cannot bring myself to put on another one.  I thought about putting on another happy song, something to get this one out of my head . . . and how can I?  Because doing it, looking for something light, peppy, happy . . . it seems somehow disrespectful to the pain and the anguish of both Johnny Cash and Trent Reznor.  Putting on a happy tune says, "Go away, go away, I don't want to feel you right now; I don't want to face the sadness, the uncomfortableness; I don't want to face the fact that heartbreak and fear and sadness and depression exist."  

Pushing the feelings away, masking them with something upbeat and happy, it somehow seems wrong, disrespectful, almost sacreligious, as if I am blaspheming something sacred.  

The music has ended and right now I cannot put on music.  

Because all I can hear is Johnny Cash, in his gravelly voice.  

"I hurt myself today to see if I still hurt."

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.

"Start panicking!"

 At 10 a.m. on Monday, October 5, 2020, Chief Justice John Roberts will mount the bench of the Supreme Court of the United States.  

Dressed in a black robe, followed by seven others dressed in black robes, he will bang his gavel, call the court to order, and issue the following proclamations:

• Abortion is now illegal.
• Roe v. Wade has been overturned.
• Gays can no longer marry.
• Transgenders no longer have job protection.
• Blacks can no longer vote.
• The South can revert back to Jim Crow.

From the way people are reacting to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, that is exactly what it going to happen.

Monday, October 5, 2020, 10 a.m. is when the new session of the Supreme Court will convene.  It will do so without Ginsburg, who died on Friday after a battle with pancreatic cancer.  Pancreatic cancer is an awful disease, and I am glad she is no longer suffering with it.  

Her death has sparked discussions about her legacy (there was a time in this country where a married woman couldn't open a bank account without her husband co-signing, for example.)  

Her death has also sparked near-panic among many in social media.

Because now, there is a new spot on the SCOTUS, and there's a rush to fill it with a conservative justice before the November elections.  

Never mind that the party rushing to fill the vacancy is the same party that insisted that a SCOTUS vacancy under Obama shouldn't be filled until after that particular upcoming election.  

The last I checked, the SCOTUS does not have the power to unilaterally grant or take away the rights that I just listed above.  Chief Justice Roberts does not have the power to bang a gavel and say that gays can't marry, for example.  

What the SCOTUS does have the power to do is to listen to a case and decide what the law is.  Granted, the SCOTUS has made some dreadful decisions in the past.  No pun intended, but the Dred Scott decision comes to mind; also, Plessy v. Ferguson.  

The SCOTUS has also responded to changing times and bad decisions with decisions that reversed previous rulings; probably Brown v. Board of Education is the most famous.  

But Brown, and Roe, and others had to follow a long process to get to the SCOTUS.

This isn't the time to panic.  If you are genuinely worried about the direction the country is going in, educate yourself, make plans to vote in November, follow the docket of the SCOTUS, and write your representatives. And if you're genuinely afraid of the direction the country is heading -- and a majority of people are afraid -- then start looking for another country to call your own.  Maybe that is the best case for some who are able to do it. 

Panic feeds on panic, and it's panic that leads to bad decisions and ultimately to mob rule.  I don't want to live under mob rule, but I fear that in these days of social media cancel culture and fake news, it may happen.

Then it may be time to start panicking.

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.