10 January—When I heard last night on the BBC that a five-to-four majority of the Supreme Court decided to allow Donald Trump’s purely symbolic criminal sentencing to go forward today in New York, I made a bet with myself that Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas were the dissenters and they wouldn’t defend their politically motivated dissent. Of course I won the bet. But it was a sure thing.

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Region 20’s acting superintendent yesterday notified the “Region 20 Community” of a “potential cybersecurity incident on or before December 28, 2024, that may have affected some of the staff and student data stored on the SIS [student information system] database.” This morning’s Republican-American ran a story about the selfsame breach in “multiple school districts,” involving PowerSchool.com, a provider of cloud-based software.

Evidently the problem has been “contained” and shouldn’t worry parents or anybody else too much. Whew! Anyway, I wasn’t at all impressed by all the hype on PowerSchool.com’s slick website. My fault, I reckon, for not being an “educator.” In all events, I’ve been assured by a reliable former user of the PowerSchool software that it or something like it is indispensable these days, given all the bureaucracy involved in lower education. Grin and bear it.

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Yesterday was or would have been Richard Nixon’s 112^th birthday. Of course, it also was the National Day of Mourning for Jimmy Carter. Intending no criticism of the late President Carter, I can’t recall so big a deal having been made of the deaths of the seven ex-presidents who died within my lifetime. So far.

It may just be a function of my senescent memory or perhaps the result of less metastasized, healthier media that in days of old had other things to cover, but all I remember about past ex-presidential deaths is the de rigueur National Days of Mourning for all and state funerals for those who didn’t reject them.

I was only two (and five months) when Franklin Roosevelt died while in office in April 1945 but was told (a few months later, when I was three and able to appreciate such things) that his death was mourned in a big way but that because the war was still being fought he didn’t have a state funeral. But I well remember the mourning, state funeral, tears, and pomp that followed John Kennedy’s assassination two days after Joe Biden turned 21 in 1963 (and six days before I did).

Jimmy Carter’s body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. John Kennedy’s body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda. And the bodies of many deceased presidents, ex-presidents, and other VIPs (very important politicians) and other decedents deserving of the recognition—like the two Capitol police officers murdered by Donald Trump’s peaceful, unarmed patriot goons on his beautiful day of love—have lain in state in the Capitol Rotunda.

On the other hand, Franklin Roosevelt’s body lay in repose in the East Room of the White House. So what’s the difference? No puns about politicians lying in state. Or anywhere else. It’s a given.

When a body of a worthy personage lies in state, it’s placed in a major government—i.e., state—building like (and most often) a capitol, either inside or outside a casket or coffin, to allow adoring mourners to pay their respects. An honor guard often is present.

Lying in repose is less formal and ceremonial and generally in less exalted public buildings, but also involves public viewing of worthy personages or (usually) their flag-draped containers. And an honor guard may be present there, too. Thus, only rarely will you encounter a great unwashed decedent lying in state or repose. We’re just not important enough.

JFK’s body is said to have lain in repose in the Capitol Rotunda after lying in state in the White House East Room (the customary venue for presidential repose, as it happens) and then been taken back to the Capitol, this time to lie in state. But in that case “repose” meant “private” as opposed to “public” lying in state.

So where do you draw the line? Does it matter? What’s in a word? Why worry anyway? The honorees in repose and state certainly don’t . . .