I spent a lot of time on Wednesday working out in my backyard, and while doing so, I came to the realization that I've been doing my summer all wrong.
As I've said before, the day after the spring art show is like New Year's Day for me because I'm finally released to work on the projects I want to work on instead of projects I have to work on. During the first part of the year, I'm chained to the drafting table, but my mind is wandering, dreaming of the day when I can finally work on that painting, that piece of furniture, that little woodworking project, etc., etc.
What I did was to start on one project that I can't finish just yet, and another that is going to take months to get it just right. And both of these are projects that do not require either sunlight or warm dry weather.
Right after the show, I decided that it would be a good idea to replenish my inventory now instead of waiting till the fall. I figured out which prints I needed matted and framed, and started cutting mats. But I hadn't gotten into it very far when I realized that some of the information on my certificates was out of date, specifically an old phone number and a non-functioning website. Unfortunately, the woodburning computer that I have the Print Shop program on is barely functioning, and it has no printer anyway, which means I have to use my Dad's computer. He has a much later version of Print Shop, but I have trouble using it. The night I went over to his house to try to get the certificates done, the results were not good. He tells me he's fixed the problem, but I haven't been back over there to see what he's done.
The other project is my Titanic model. After I finished my Lusitania model last December, I couldn't wait to get started on the Titanic. When I did, I discovered some flaws in the way the model was manufactured. I want this model to be perfect, so I'm spending a lot of time working on the details, but mostly I'm spending a lot of time thinking and waiting for paint to dry. I could be doing this as I'm finishing my day instead of letting it take over my whole day.
What I realized while mowing the lawn the other day was that the first thing I need to do is clean out my garage. That would free up a lot of workspace, and help me to stop procrastinating on some of the other projects I want to get done this summer -- projects that individually won't take so much time. Then there's the problem of time management, which means more sleep and less computer. That's going to be hard, but one thing I know about myself is that if I get started on something early, I'll work on it all day.
So now I know what to do. I just need to remember what it is when my weekend rolls around in a few days.
disillusioned by Obama's failure to change Washington that they're now eager to support an old-school politico like Hillary.
It was the first time the court has allowed commercial business owners to deny employees a federal benefit to which they are entitled by law based on the owners’ religious beliefs, and it was a radical departure from the court’s history of resisting claims for religious exemptions from neutral laws of general applicability when the exemptions would hurt other people.
The full implications of the decision, which ruled in favor of employers who do not want to include contraceptive care in their company health plans, as required by the Affordable Care Act, will not be known for some time. But the immediate effect, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in a powerful dissent, was to deny many thousands of women contraceptive coverage vital to their well-being and reproductive freedom. It also invites, she said, other “for-profit entities to seek religion-based exemptions from regulations they deem offensive to their faiths.”
As a threshold matter, Justice Samuel Alito Jr., read the act’s religious protections to apply to “the humans who own and control” closely held companies, an interpretation contradicted by the statute’s history, context, and wording. He then found that the contraceptive coverage rules put a “substantial burden” on the religious owners, who objected to some of the items on the F.D.A.’s list based on the incorrect claim they induce abortions.
It’s hard to see that burden. Nothing in the contraceptive coverage rule prevented the companies’ owners from worshiping as they choose or advocating against coverage and use of the contraceptives they don’t like.
Nothing compels women to use their insurance on contraceptives. A woman’s choice to use or not to use them is a personal one that does not implicate her employer. Such decisions “will be the woman’s autonomous choice, informed by the physician she consults,” as Justice Ginsburg noted. There also is no requirement that employers offer employee health plans. They could instead pay a tax likely to be less than the cost of providing insurance to help cover government subsidies available to those using an insurance exchange. That did not convince Justice Alito and his colleagues on the court’s right flank, who bought the plaintiffs’ claim that providing health coverage to employees was part of their religious mission.
The majority’s finding that the government’s contraception coverage rules were not the “least restrictive” way to carry out the broad and complex health reform was also unpersuasive.
Mr. Alito’s ruling and a concurrence by Justice Anthony Kennedy portray the decision as a narrow one without broader application, like denying vaccine coverage or job discrimination. But that is not reassuring coming from justices who missed the point that denying women access to full health benefits is discrimination.