If I Were Chief Justice Roberts...

Don't get me wrong, today was a wonderful day for marriage equality. DOMA was rightly struck down as unconstitutional, and we got perhaps the best ruling on Prop 8 we could expect from a conservative court such as this (the 5-4 majority on Prop 8 was the oddest combination of justices, too).

Now people are celebrating, and for good cause, but there's something unsettling about the people out there who are celebrating Anthony Kennedy's role in the DOMA decision. Yes, he was key vote in overturning DOMA. He was also the key vote in yesterday's ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act, a disappointing ruling to say the least.

If I were Chief Justice Roberts and wanted to help out the Republican Party as much as I could this court session, a session taking place not long after an election landslide victory for my opponents, I would prioritize my major issues. The major docket issues this June, or at least the ones that proved to attract the most public attention, were: affirmative action, voting rights, and marriage equality. If Chief Justice Roberts could chose just one of these issues to claim as a victory, on behalf of the Republican Party, which would it be?

Voting rights, without a doubt. It would grant the Republican Party a great deal of lasting political power. The other two issues could be sacrificed without the loss of Republican power. And let's not forget that Prop 8 and affirmative action were decided on very narrow grounds that don't change much at all. Only DOMA and the Voting Rights Act were irrevocably changed.

And, with a stroke of political genius, if I were the Chief Justice I would release the decision on marriage equality last, knowing it would eclipse the Voting Rights Act decision's public importance (save the best for last) and wipe it from many memories.

After the Voting Rights Act was hobbled yesterday, many people pointed out that the decision left room for Congress to enact similar legislation using modern-day statistics. Indeed, the Supreme Court gave Congress clear instructions on how to refashion the law in a manner in harmony with the Constitution. Yesterday there was a sizable amount of support for this sort of solution and it looked as if an effort might be made in Congress to follow these instructions and create a new Voting Rights Act. However, even if the Voting Rights Act was a top priority for Congress it would be hard to imagine that it would make it through to Obama's desk without a herculean effort. After today's DOMA ruling, I doubt even the traces of that effort exist anymore.

Yosemite Photos (Part II)

Many of the photos from the second full day at Yosemite are from the Mist Trail, one of the most popular hiking trails in Yosemite National Park if not the entire country, which takes you up the roaring Vernal Falls as it sprays you all over. If you so desire, which I did, you can continue on to Nevada Falls upriver. It is a trail that everyone who visits Yosemite should look into, even if the elevation gain is significant. The views are worth it. There's nothing like it in the world.

Now, I only mention this because this popular trail is the site of many deaths each year, usually due to people taking a dip in the Emerald Pool after the climb up Vernal Falls. It looks like a calm swimming hole just a hundred feet from the top of 360-foot Vernal Falls, and it sure looks enticing to cool off after that tough climb. But people die every year swimming in it and being pulled over the nearby waterfall.

I was disappointed in the lack of prominent signs near the area, especially since last year was such a particularly bad year for Vernal Falls deaths. In fact, we already have a death this year of a 19-year-old who was swept over Nevada Falls while swimming in what looked like a calm area.

Now I wonder: are people getting most of their hiking information from the internet? Sites like mine? And are those internet resources giving hikers fair warning about the dangers of swimming in the river above huge waterfalls, even if the river looks calm? Perhaps this is the reason last year was particularly tragic. So here goes, my duty as an oft-ignored blogger writing about the Mist Trail: Never ever swim above a waterfall! If you plan to go on this amazing hike - and you really should - plan on not swimming. Seriously, no matter how calm it is, no swimming in the Emerald Pool or anywhere close to the waterfall's edge.

Thank you, and now on to photos!

Half Dome sunrise

Vernal Falls: one of the world's most stunning falls, plus rainbow.

Vernal Falls detail

On the trail above Vernal Falls, just past the deadly Emerald Pool

From left to right: Half Dome from the back, Liberty Cap, and 597-foot tall Nevada Falls

Classic Vernal Falls view

View from the top of 360-foot tall Vernal Falls, plus double rainbow.

Half Dome lit up with sunset

Only the tip touched the sun

Merced River

Merced River reflection

Where the sidewalk ends: Mirror Lake is slowly becoming a meadow.

Our group that made it to the top of Nevada Falls: Enrique, Mona, Alison and Joel, Rebecca, Dad, Courtney, and Me

Courtney watches Vernal Falls

Us at Vernal Falls

Yosemite Photos (Part 1)

All right, if I don't put up these photos of Yosemite soon I'll be desperately far behind the times. I have finally sorted through all of them time and again, and even after all this effort the photos are too numerous to condense into a single blog post. In short, Yosemite is amazing.

So here are some of the best shots I got in the first half-day aEnd the first full day. Enjoy!

El Capitan, the sentinel of Yosemite Valley. Sadly, already two people have died trying to climb to the top this year.

The granite walls make us look small.

Yosemite Falls

My friends think this shot of friends playing Frisbee under North Dome and the Royal Arches is great. I think it's nothing special. What do you think?

How many of my favorite photos featured Half Dome at either sunset (as this one is) or sunrise? It was very hard to narrow them down to just the ones you see here, and there are plenty more coming in Part II!

Another sunset

Sunrise, co-starring North Dome and a log

We trekked to Mariposa Grove of the Giant Sequoias on the first day. Here my little brother looks little indeed!

My favorite tree in the grove is called the Clothespin Tree because it was hollowed out during a forest fire. And yet it lives on.

Courtney hugs a tree.

Courtney and I at the Tunnel Tree

Another one of Yosemite Falls. This is probably my favorite shot I got on the whole trip. Click on the image to see it larger!

Courtney and I at the famous Tunnel View. It was too bright when Dad snapped this shot.

What's Happening in Turkey Right Now

There's a chance you haven't heard about it yet, which is astounding considering that a city with a population of 18 million is more or less in chaos. My friends have been keeping me updated on what's happening, so let me give a run-down for those who are new to this situation:

This is how I understand it. The Turkish government plans to take down a park (Gezi Park) near Taksim Square, more or less the center of Istanbul, and transform it into a mall with an Ottoman-style architecture. To offer some form of comparison, imagine if New York City were going to tear down Union Square to build high rises. But this particular park in Istanbul has some historical significance, especially regarding the act of protesting. So now imagine a park as centrally located as New York's Union Square with the historical meaning of People's Park in Berkeley, California. Naturally, there were protests.

The protests were nonviolent. There is no indication that the protestors provoked the police officers, even in the information given by the government. But the police reaction to this first small demonstration was over the top. They raided the park, beat people, and sprayed tear gas.

So the protests grew the next day, taking on a new feeling of speaking out against the police brutality, which continued as the police flew in helicopters (yes, helicopters) into Taksim to spray tear gas, which could be felt across the Golden Horn (that would be like gassing Union Square from helicopters and people in Brooklyn feeling their eyes sting).

Thing is, the police didn't legally have this power a 5 years ago. In the past few years the ruling Turkish party has expanded the powers of the police significantly while edging away power from the other branches of government. For example, when I was teaching in Istanbul there was a special vote that amended the country's constitution to drastically cut back the power of the military - the main secularizing force in modern Turkish history - and the courts (later that year the immensely popular Prime Minister Erdoğan became just the third Turkish prime minister ever to receive an absolute majority of the vote). So all these police actions are completely legal, no matter how despicable.

So now the protests have spread throughout the country and beyond (I've seen photos of people protesting in Canada) taking on the form of a broad outrage against the practices of Erdoğan's government over the past decade, ranging from his power grabs to his arresting of journalists who speak against him to his pushing the Turkish legal code closer to an Islamic code with moral laws, such as the regulations against alcohol and the prohibition of street seating at cafés.

Here are some articles about it in the American press, which is a little reserved about the whole thing: NPR, NYTimes, CNN. Erdoğan is an important ally, after all: a secular Muslim! (although barely) And this is only the first time he has been publicly humiliated on the word front like this. And here's a Turkish blog about the protests that's quite a bit more sensationalist. 

Here's a quote from the NYTimes article that reveals the attitudes of Prime Minister Erdoğan and his aims for control over culture as well as government:

In his remarks, Mr. Erdogan criticized Twitter, which became an important conduit of news — and unfounded rumors — about the demonstrations, which were not covered aggressively in the Turkish news media.

“Now we have a menace that is called Twitter,” he said. “The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society.” 

 And here's a poem I threw together ion solidarity for the cause:

"Fear Not! (Korkma)"

Fear not!

O!

Drag me from Gezi Park

I dare you!

Pull me by my feet

While my fingernails scratch rows into the soil

And watch as sunflowers spring forth

So tall and thick that your machetes dull felling them

See my friends and I sitting cross-legged in the field that results

Laughing together and eating sunflower seeds.

Spray chemicals into my watery eyes

Burn the sight from them

And watch as anguished tears spill from my face

Onto your deserted concrete streets

Boring into the ground like acid

And watch the magnificent junipers

Jump eagerly from the holes

Their roots tearing up your barricades

Their branches smashing through your malls.

Pummel me with your rods

And watch your weapons sprout a thousand hands

That reach down to help me to my feet once more.

Declare me a liar, a spreader of false rumors

And watch all the skeptical heads turn your way instead.

Afix a blindfold to my eyes

A gag to my mouth

And watch as the world hears me speak

In a language you cannot comprehend

With the volume of a cannon.

Fear not!

O!

Drag me from Gezi Park

I dare you!