Plan 9 From Arizona

 Greetings, friends. We are all interested in the future for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives. Criswell predicted this way back in 1957. Back then we had only recently discovered the power of the atom, and dreamed of one day traveling to outer space. We hadn't even unraveled the mystery of acid washed jeans. There was so much out there to be imagined. 

Flying cars.

Personal jet packs. 

Dating apps. 

I remember watching Frankenstein 1970 right around the time I turned eight. And the movie turned twelve. In 1970. The major advance that the filmmakers were able to put forth at that time for the "future" was that the guy who once played the Frankenstein monster was now playing Doctor Frankenstein. Pretty fantastic, right?

That disappointment was nothing compared to the news that came out of the Arizona Supreme Court this past week. The justices upheld a law from 1864 that banned virtually all abortions. For you history buffs out there, this was a law that was put in place fifty-eight years before The Grand Canyon State became a state. Once the US Supreme Court blocked the 1973 Roe v Wade decision, states went right to work creating their very own frameworks. 

Arizona did this by taking a peek in the Way Back Machine. You might remember the Way Back Machine from the early sixties when it was featured in a series of cartoons starring Mister Peabody and his boy Sherman. Who would have guessed that this mechanism would become a tool for legislation in the twenty-first century? 

And how do you suppose this happened? Well in 2016 the Arizona Supreme Court was expanded from five justices to seven, all appointed by Republican governors. You might remember 2016. That was the year that a former game show host was elected president and proceeded to do everything he could to tear up the United States Constitution and install himself as the self-appointed savior of the land. Just before the global pandemic that killed millions of people while he worked on his golf game. And installed his own set of Supreme Court Justices. 

Then the flying saucers landed.