A Millennium of Tradition and Symbolism

King Charles III of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was crowned today in Westminster Abbey.

Much of the imagery will be of the finery and the trappings of royalty; the crown, the orb and sceptre, the gilded carriage. Much will be made of the pageantry, the four thousand man and women from the armed services, the splendid (if somewhat bizarre to an outsider) uniforms of the Grenadier Guards or the Household Cavalry. 

But two things stuck me particularly today. One was an old man in his undershirt, the other a old wooden chair.  

That old man was the new King, being ceremonially undressed and then anointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Charles is the constitutional head of the Anglican Church, established by Henry VIII in 1543.  I was struck by the symbolism of this public display of vulnerability, of the public acknowledgement of his role as the servant of god as well as the people. 

In the second image, we see Charles standing without any finery in front of the 727-year-old Coronation Chair on which 26 monarchs, including Charles' mother, have been crowned since the coronation of Edward II in 1308. And below the seat, the Stone of Scone, on which kings and queens of Scotland have been inaugurated since the middle ages.    
       
While Britain has in large measure come to terms with its diminished role in the world, from the super-power of the 19th century to a middle size country in the north of Europe, it is still steeped in tradition and history.  That history is everywhere from the real Tudor houses with thatched rooves to the Norman churches found in so many English villages. 

It is that history, that sense of heritage, that anchors Brits and allows them to cope with the tumult of the country's changing role, its increasing diversity, its more inclusive and tolerant culture. Tradition may appear to be an obstacle to progress but it can also facilitate change by balancing the uncertainty change brings with the stability of that long heritage.  

A year ago today

Exactly a year ago Judith and I drove to Sacramento. It was dark when we left the house. We had to be there before eight I think. I don't remember exactly, except that we drove half way there before sunrise and stopped for coffee and egg white bites at the Starbucks in Angel's Camp. 

We had some time to wait. Most of what happened is now a bit of a blur, save three memories. The first was saying goodbye as she was taken into the operating room. She was frightened; I held her hand and told her it would be fine. l really believed that. 

I waited in the car park. The operation was scheduled for ten and was supposed to be over by noon; but by 1:30 I'd heard nothing. Then I got the call from Max Horowitz, the surgeon. The operation had run longer than expected but he thought it had been a success, at least as far excising the cancer was concerned. It had progressed to Stage 3, I think he'd said, but the margins were clean.  I was relieved that the operation was over but concerned; Stage 3 was not what I'd wanted to hear.  Now we had the chemo ahead of us, but that was a month away and I was looking forward to Judith coming home.  

The next memory was going into recovery as Judith was waking up. She was under a heating blanket, still very groggy, her hands making little grasping motions. She wanted her special hydrogen-infused water water which we'd brought from home. The nurses let me stay till 6pm when I set off home to feed the cats.

I would retrace that journey for a week. Judith was supposed to come home after three or four days but because someone had cut into a large vein during surgery (that was why the operation had run so long) and she'd not been re-positioned, she sustained serious motor nerve damage from the sustained compression. That deprived her of any motor function in her left ankle. Foot-drop was the very non-technical-sounding term for the condition. That was why she stayed in hospital several days longer than planned, and had a significant impact on her life for the next six months, confining her to her chair for most of the time. It was the first indication that things weren't going to go smoothly.

The last memory from that early hospital episode was picking her up to go home. I think she was to be discharged around noon. I went to her room, talked with one of the surgeons about her foot drop (although that may have been a different day) and then went to bring the car round. But there was some confusion and crossed wires about which entrance she'd be coming out from and it took a few phone calls to sort that out. She was pissed and I was annoyed that the episode had soured what should have been a happy occasion. As things turned out, there would be very few happy occasions after that. 

The appearance of impropriety

Clarence Thomas was treated to gifts and favors from a variety of wealthy conservatives which he didn't disclose.  His house, in which his mother lived, was bought and his mother allowed to continue to live there rent free. He enjoyed vacations and flights on private planes.  Although it all looks very fishy it's not corruption, at least as the law understands it. There is no evidence of a direct "quid-pro-quo".

However the strict legal definition of corruption is really not that important here. What does matter is impropriety and the appearance of impropriety as the Founding Fathers noted. 

It's hard to say if Thomas' rulings were directly influenced by his wealthy friends lavishing him with gifts or whether their friendship arose and was sustained by a shared world view. 

Nevertheless, that fact they became friends only after he was appointed to the Supreme Court, while not in and of itself improper, it could be construed as a conscious attempt by his benefactors to exert some subtle influence in his general thinking even if not directly on his legal opinions.

The second question which Journalists haven't looked at (and which I think they should) is whether his donors sought out and then lavished similar gifts on other like-minded thinkers or whether their "outreach" was only to those who wielded significant power.  If that were to be the case it would look suspiciously like an attempt to influence Thomas' (and other powerful peoples') decision-making and hence his opinions.

Since the Court like many important institutions of democracy relies on public trust (just as banks do, as First Republic has just shown us), the appearance of impropriety undermines that trust and so creates instability in society. 

SCOTUS needs to get its ethical act together for the good of the country and do so without Congress getting involved. Showing it can police itself will be important to restoring trust; having ethical rules imposed on it from outside will only reinforce that idea as an institution it cannot be trusted to do the right thing.