In a New York (and US, and UK) State of Health Mind....

[captainsblog]

Morning:

The U.S. Supreme Court once again affirmed the underlying conservative Republican principles of the Affordable Care Act, this time by a 6-3 margin. Having lost on the constitutionality of the whole business in 2012, Repugnicans took another swing at it this Term, trying to upend the entire budgetary balance of the ACA by asking the Supremes to hold that the United States is not a "state."

The Supremes weren't buying- at least not a controlling majority of them. And the down-to-three dissenters were pissed. Their Dear Leader Scalia, now snarking that the statute should be called SCOTUSCare, topped his analysis of the 2013 Defense of Marriage Act repeal (as being "legalistic argle-bargle") by declaring today's decision to be, wait for it,....

jiggery-pokery.

(There's no official link to the dissent. Just ctrl-f "jiggery" and you'll get there.)

Of such things, double-dactyls are made, so I made one (or at least came close;):

"Jiggery-pokery!"
Nino Scalia
Condemns the Court's thinking in King v. Burrell

So when they allow
Nationwide same-sex marriage
His head will explode (but his dick will still swell)

I'm hoping for that decision to come tomorrow, so Fundies can bitch about it on Sunday. Me, I'm planning to be in a Reconciling Ministries sanctuary that day, for a beloved pastor's final sermon that morning.

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Afternoon:

My indirectly subsidized and quite reasonable ACA premiums having been saved for 2016 no matter what right-wing asshats have to say (Blue Cross has applied for a 0.9 percent increase for my current policy, a bit lower than the 50 percent plus death panels that Hannity predicted after the decision today), I headed out this afternoon to sample the wares of the marvelous mixture of government direction and private insurance that Heritage and Romney dreamed up for us.

In short: my foot ain't great, but it ain't bad.

The good news is, the fracture has healed nicely. It's filled in quite a bit since mid-May. But it's still there, a bit.  I am still not cleared for high-impact activities- not the attempted treadmilling that got me into this mess in the first place, nor burpees nor pavement-type running. The PA was more than happy to sign me up for PT so my tendons don't get too weak from the inactivity; I passed. Instead, we'll just have another round of $50 copaying and $???? actual radiology and medical advice in early August. I'll start applying school paste in late July if I think it will help.

----

Evening:

To end the day, we headed across the pond for a quite nice old film, but one not without current relevance.

It's called Champions, but it should be singular in one literal sense: it's the true story of British jockey Bob Champion, who overcame testicular cancer to return to the nation's racing circuit and triumph in one of its biggest annual horse contests.  His companion on that ride was one Aldaniti (played by himself), a horse who also overcame non-carcinogenic adversity to return to the track in the same triumphant moment that his rider did.

Making it more poignant was the casting: the jockey is played by John Hurt, who just this week revealed his own cancer diagnosis to the world. His acting resume has expanded a bit since this 1984 film (Midnight Express and Elephant Man were the main items on it at the time); he later played Winston Smith in 1984's 1984, himself (more or less) in Spaceballs, the Storyteller in Jim Henson's series of that name, a couple of Potter turns, and most recently the Not Quite Numbered Doctor on that thar BBC show.

I pray the research for this role inspires him in his own current struggle.  And whatever the result, he's got the National Health, which not even the Argle-Bargle Man can try to take away from him.