The Death Of Our Democratic Republic

Yesterday while texting with a friend, we bewailed the sad state of America.  I told her in no uncertain terms the events that I believe have brought us to this place.  Her silence afterward could've been indicating it was nearing her bedtime and the subject was too complicated for that time.

More likely, her silence indicated disagreement.  Despite her occasional attempts to portray herself otherwise, my friend's opinions during the discussions we have had about politics reveal her to be quite Conservative.  Which is not a bad thing to be.  Also rather unaware of alot of the nuances and small details of American History from the past 75 years, which, while understandable, is a bad thing to be.  Ignorance begets more ignorance, which frequently begets more misunderstanding, fear and ultimately, sometimes violence.  At very least, ignorance has what I call the Earhart Effect, after Amelia Earheart and her final journey, which ended in her disappearance, and that of her navigator, Fred Noonan.  Though I and many others through the years have entertained ourselves with conspiracy theories surrounding Earhart and Noonan's disappearance, most likely the responsibility belongs to Earhart and Noonan.  One small navigating mistake of Noonan's was built upon by another, and when combined with Earhart's ignorance of radio communications, most likely resulted in their deaths.  Just so, in politics, as in life, small mistakes and ignorance frequently lead to other kinds of death -- spiritual death, death of rights, etc.  Compound that with the busyness of making a living, raising children, well, a person has to be very motivated to keep up with the facts and changes.  But this blogger submits that this is exactly our duty:

Submitted for your consideration, are, in my opinion, the factors that have led to the US being in the state it is in now, culminating with the final one, which just transpired today:

1.   The Southern Strategy - Republicans ginning up support by appealing to racist tendencies of some voters, which is really just a continuation of racist policies from the very birth of this nation.  America has an Original Sin against Native Americans and slaves.  They have compounded this Original Sin with Forty Acres And A Mule (a promise promptly broken), placing Native Americans on reservations, and Japanese internment camps being some of the most glaring.  Our sins against our black brothers and sisters represent some of our lowest moments as a country.  Besides slavery and the broken Forty Acres promise, there were burnt crosses, lynchings, being forced to the back of the bus, separate drinking fountains/lunch counters/hotels rooms, etc., redlining, and even now cops and white people torturing people for Living While Black.

2.   The election of Richard Nixon, which birthed Watergate and arguably, the beginning of toxic mistrust of the government.  (And as aggregious as Watergate was, the sins of Donald J Trump pale it in comparison, which is really saying something).

3.   The marriage of the Republican Party and Evangelical Christianity.  This point is beyond the scope of this blog post, but something I will be dealing with in a more detailed way in the future.  I urge you to click on the link to get a gander at the myriad of ways this contemptible tactic was used to sneakily gain power.  I can see the possibility of a divorce in this marriage, though, as I have been hearing frustration from true conservatives with the expansion of what used to be their quite reasonable, principled party into the Tea Party of the Aughts, and today's MAGAs and Qs.

4.   The election of Ronald Reagan - yes, Reagan, the "Great Communicator", but remember, he was an actor, and though forever a B-lister, his finest acting role was the firm, but kind and grandfatherly President Reagan.  It is hard to tell how much of the evil that accompanied his presidency was due to Reagan himself and how much was due to his cabinet, political associates and minions.   I did not know this, but "The presidency of Ronald Reagan in the United States was marked by numerous scandals, resulting in the investigation, indictment, or conviction of over 138 administration officials, the largest number for any president in American history."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_administration_scandals?wprov=sfla1

The article mentions Iran-Contra, the HUD Rigging Scandal, Lobbying Scandal, EPA Scandal, Savings And Loan Crisis, Operation Ill Wind, The Wed Tech Scandal, and Debategate. (Jeez, even I, who am no Reagan fan, only remember Iran-Contra and the Savings And Loan Crisis.  Who knew?).

These are the beefs I have with Uncle Ronnie:

A.   Trickle-Down Reaganomics - (Surprise!  Prosperity, unlike shit, does not roll downhill).  We are still afflicted by Trickle-Down and Supply-Side, and though they may work short-term, i.e., getting a country out of a recession, in regular times, not so effective.  And surprise!  FDR got us out of the Great Depression by creating opportunities to put us back to work that led to more than 25 years of prosperity.  Biden tried to combine this concept with a much-needed infrastructure rebuild in Build Back Better, which the Republicans blocked, and then had the nerve to call a failed plan!  But I digress.  Point is, Trickle-Down does not.

B.   Reagan let gays and bisexuals die of AIDS because in the beginning of the AIDS epidemic the vast majority of American people who acquired HIV were gay/bisexual men.  Reagan did not want to risk losing the support of the Evangelical branch of conservatives, (for so many of whom the LGBTQIA community is a whipping boy), so he did a Nero and fiddled for four years while Rome burned instead of being presidential and protecting his gay and bisexual citizens.  If he had taken a good look around, he would have seen that only in the US and Canada had AIDS primarily struck gay and bisexual men at that stage.  In other countries AIDS was a human problem, striking down people of all stripes equally.  I lost a good friend and several acquaintances to HIV.  I hold Reagan and his advisors partly responsible.

C.   Reagan switched from LBJ's and Carter's focus on social programs that benefitted the most vulnerable citizens, including the mentally ill, to a focus on the fiscal that benefitted Big Business and the wealthy.  And proper treatment of the mentally ill was set back, de-prioritized and shrouded in shame and misunderstanding, and continues to be to this day.

D.   Reagan's environmental record was abysmal, and he spent alot of energy undoing Carter's admirable legacy.

E.   Reagan worked to repeal the Fairness Doctrine, which in turn led to the rise of Fox "News", which led to Newsmax, OANN, et al.  And the rise of Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones and that goofy effing My Pillow Guy.  Not to mention the out-of-control campaign ads we must suffer through periodically, currently continuously for 11 months since before Christmas.  Give me a break!

To me, there is very little more responsible for the dumbing-down and misinformation of America than Fox ("Not a news channel!"/"No reasonable viewer" would believe Tucker Carlson), except for

5.   Toxic social media, by way of the internet

And today's evil:

6.   The takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk.  Why is Musk acquiring Twitter evil?

A.   Musk will fire a substantial amount of Twitter employees.  As in 75%.  Oh, yeah, Musk tried to walk that number back, but he's already fired the CEO and other prominents and hello!  The paperwork he filed with the SEC cites approximately that figure.

B.   Musk will probably reinstate the accounts of his ol' buddies Donald J Trump and Kanye West.  Trump is delighted at the deal, saying Twitter is "finally in sane hands".  Well, that's the highest ringing endorsement this acquisition could bring, isn't it?/s.  And boy, isn't Kanye West just full of love, joy and mirth these days?/s.  Hurt people hurt people, I get that.  I feel for both Trump and West.  But they don't have the right to spread their poison for many others to consume.

C.   Musk is pretty cushy with Putin, and thinks we ought to just let him have Crimea and Ukraine.  Awww, well ain't that sweet?  Anyone remember the last time...wasn't it Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of England, recommending appeasing Hitler?  Well, we all know how that turned out, don't we?  Yes, I know, Musk isn't in charge of a government, but a man that rich in charge of that big of an "information" exchange bank should give us all pause.

D.   I have my doubts that Musk the "free speech absolutist" understands the concept that for every right or freedom we enjoy, we must pony up at least one responsibility.   Seems like a few other prominent folks share my concern.   Truly, this dude reminds me of another "stable genius", his buddy Trump, (yep, birds of a feather).  Only we can't vote Musk out.   Think about it.

 

Out Of The Woodwork

If you weren't watching your calendar, how would you know it's Pride Month?

Well, I guess you could tell by the images of the LGBTQIA+ community celebrating:

Or you could tell by the attacks on them, verbal and otherwise.  These are sad and scary.  And particularly deplorable when made by members of the clergy:

And let the record show that I, a victim of a (very heterosexual) pedophile, find the third speaker, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, particularly contemptible.   

Homosexuality ≠ Pedophilia.  And I'm damned sick and tired of hearing that it does.  Let us pull our heads from our asses, shall we?                                  

Got a minute?  Here's a pastor, Reverend Ed Trevors, who explains in a true Christian and scholarly way, some of the Scripture quoted and (mis)taught by these aforementioned heretical and hypocritical pastors:

Now mind you, I'm not sure I'm down with calling the heretics "asshats" anymore -- I am aware that when we dehumanize a fellow human being, it makes some comfortable with everything from marginalizing to battery and murder.  I believe in furthering progressive values always, and we do ourselves no favors when we cross those kind of lines, like the recent assassination attempt on Justice Kavanaugh.  But otherwise I am down with the Reverend Ed, and what he represents.  

Can we please, literally for the love of God, get it together, people?  

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/9/2103264/--Shoot-them-in-the-back-of-the-head-Evangelical-preachers-ratchet-up-anti-LGBTQ-hate-rhetoric

May the LGBTQIA+ community be safe from hate groups, as well.

https://www.aol.com/members-white-nationalist-group-charged-005407685-021729364.html

Again, We Remember

 

By The Sword?

So, a few days ago, Politico broke the news that the Supreme Court appears likely to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer.  We can't say this is surprising.  It was the entire goal of the Republican Party, starting in the 70's, and culminating in 2020, with the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.  The 6-3 majority is the wet dream conceived and cherished by the Republicans in 2016 when they cynically blocked the 2016 election year nomination of Merrick Garland after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

The fear among many who may not be directly affected by abortion rights is if SCOTUS can overturn Roe v. Wade because the Constitution did not specifically confer the right to abortion, what other rights assumed, via Supreme Court decisions, to be conferred by the Constitution may be re-visited and overturned?  This Daily Kos story gives a hint -- and I will quote from it directly: "As such, the draft ruling intrinsically calls into question other unenumerated rights the Supreme Court has conferred on Americans, such as the right to privacy, raise children, use contraception, or marry the person of their choosing regardless of the color of their skin or their gender."  Yep, definitely a "live by the sword, die by the sword" kinda sitch.

Is anybody besides me amused by the irony that many, not the least among them Chief Justice John Roberts, are pissed off right now because someone betrayed the Court's right to privacy, and leaked a document about their preliminary ruling on Roe v. Wade, which case itself was predicated on the concept that a woman's right to privacy was grounded in personal liberty and/or due process (thinkwy.org/post/the-right-to-privacy-and-the-road-to-roe-v-wade)?

And polls conducted in recent years indicate most Americans want to keep Roe v. Wade firmly in place as is, as this recent CBS News poll indicates. The poll, conducted in November 2021, shows a whopping 62% of Americans want Roe v. Wade.  How do we feel about one party hijacking the court to impose its will, which is contrary to the will of the majority of Americans, not to mention the mission statement of our country?  And how do those 38% who may approve of the repeal of Roe v. Wade feel about the way the repeal is being carried out?  Are they cool with a future Supreme Court ruling that affects how they raise their kids or under what circumstances they can use birth control?  The sword cuts both ways.

And ladies, do we really want to trust primarily menfolk to make these decisions?  Before you answer, bear in mind men have proven they don't really know their way around a woman's body.

Even those of us that may not seem to, have skin in the game.  My mother, for example.  What the hell does an 83-year old care about abortion being legal?  My mother began her nursing career as a student in 1956.  In those days the nursing schools used their students as cheap labor, so they cleaned and did some patient care.  Abortions weren't legal until 1973, so my mother as a young nurse saw the consequences of back-alley abortions more than once. 

"Women who have unsafe abortions are at risk of serious medical problems, including incomplete abortion, hemorrhage (heavy bleeding), infection, uterine perforation (caused when the uterus is pierced by a sharp object), and damage to the genital tract and internal organs (by inserting dangerous objects such as sticks, knitting needles, or broken glass into the vagina or anus). Each year around 7 million women are admitted to hospitals for complications of unsafe abortion and between 4.7% – 13.2% of maternal deaths can be attributed to unsafe abortion."

https://www.ourbodiesourselves.org/book-excerpts/health-article/impact-of-illegal-abortion/  

Imagine being an 18-year-old and seeing someone bleed out, or worse yet, die from septicemia.  Since I was a teenager my mother has drummed into my head how calamitous it would be if Roe v. Wade were overturned.

Now I will tell you my experience.  No, I've never had an abortion.  My experience is a little more complicated.  

My mother was unwed when she had me.  Being an unwed mother was a lot less accepted in 1965 than it is now.  Before my mother became pregnant with me, she was an ER nurse.  She loved it there -- the ER was where the action was.  But in 1965, being visibly pregnant while wearing a nametag that said Miss So-and-So was not done.  My mother was forced out of the ER, and she never had a job that she really enjoyed for the rest of her nursing career, which spanned nearly 30 more years.  My father had bailed, and he was the only man my mother ever loved.  Too bad he evidently didn't love her back.  My mum didn't really want children.  She didn't like children, and didn't think she'd be good with them.  Remember there were no safe, legal abortions then.  My mother had me because she didn't want to put me up for adoption and worry and wonder if I was OK and being well taken care of.  And because she hoped that if she kept me, I would love her, unlike my father.  Are these good reasons to keep a child you really don't want?

Early on, my grandmother was available to help raise me.  But my mother decided I needed a father, so she married my stepfather.  Grandma didn't like John, she and my mum argued, and next thing you know, grandma was on her way out of my life.  She died of metastasized breast cancer when I was not quite six.  

Regular readers of this blog know what happened next: more than twelve years spent with a controlling, physically, verbally, and sexually abusive alcoholic, twelve years I am still recovering from.  After my mother's divorce in 1982, I spent the next five years extremely depressed.  I got a job at age 18 and didn't get another one for four years because my stepfather had profoundly eroded (and my first employer all but finished destroying) my confidence that I had anything to offer a workplace.  Fortunately I rebounded after subsequent jobs.

Rebounding from the rest has not happened yet; I suffer from low-level depression and anxiety to this day.  Unfortunately most of the 90's were spent keeping my mother from losing her house, and by the time her finances were on an even keel again, my mum had had three back surgeries and other ailments that forced an early retirement. That late in the game, college was not realistic for me -- how would I pay back student loans before retirement?

Looking at the whole thing logically and dispassionately, it simply would have been better for my mother to have aborted me.  Better for her, so that she would have been able to forge the career path she had been headed on and deserved.  She wouldn't have dissipated her energies raising a child (though I was a very good and easy child to raise -- an "old soul" and a "little adult" from the get-go, by my mother's own words).  And not being an unwed mother would have given my mum a much better pool of men to marry, or the choice to not get married at all.  She may have decided to devote herself to going into college, in order to work herself more easily into a supervisory position.  Which would have helped insure that she didn't retire poor, and with her body broken down, which is exactly what happened to her.  And my mother wouldn't have had a daily visual reminder that a man that said that he loved her and wanted to have children then had bailed when the chips were down.  

And as for me, I never would have been molested, verbally or physically abused.  Never would have been taken inside a bar at age nine, and then another time conversely left inside a hot truck for an hour or two, under strict orders not to open the door or roll down the window, while my stepfather drank in a bar, then taken home sick from the heat.  I would have never had to watch my mother rise up righteous in rage for once, and then watch her slam around all day and evening till I believed she was mad at me, too, due to that incident.  And after another incident, (one of many times he drove drunk with me in the car), I never would have spent part of a night hearing my stepfather throwing up from drinking till he burst a blood vessel in his throat, and the rest of the night and some of the morning in the ER waiting room while he was being treated and admitted.

I never would have experienced my mother at first defending me from my stepfather's attacks and abuse, then the betrayal in later years of her going silent about it, and finally at times participating in it.  I never would have had my self-confidence snuffed out, nor the aformentioned anxiety and depression that I still struggle with, nor the resultant health problems.  I would never have spent most of my life feeling out of place and out of step with other people -- awkward, incompatible, and unassimilable.

And I never would have spent so many years of my life trying to make up to my mother that my father didn't love her, and knocking myself out trying to prove to her that she made the right decision keeping me.

Which is less harrowing and more expedient?  And which is the greater sin, the abortion that didn't happen, or the years of abuse, of deprivations, of mental and physical issues that did happen and still are happening?

Yes, I know, it is possible to save a child from an unfortunate birth situation without having an abortion -- one can give the child up for adoption.  When a child is placed with an adoptive family, we hope that family is investigated for fitness to adopt, but fitness according to whom, and to what criteria?

I am familiar with some folks who have four children.  The eldest two, both males, are their biological children.  The youngest two, both adopted, are female.  The girls were raised totally differently from the boys -- they had much fewer responsibilities, and alot more swag.  The girls were even raised very differently from each other -- one cast in the role as the pretty, bright achiever, and the other who was never quite as successful in the worldly sense.  The mother was very aggressive about setting the sisters against each other in competition, and I was upon occasion thrown into this mix, compared unfavorably to the achiever.  Although I was independent enough to openly (and at times, loudly) resist such manipulation, the two sisters were not.  Now both have weight and self-confidence issues.  The achiever is an insecure people-pleaser, a sad woman who fears intimacy.  Her sister spent several years being unhappily married to a child molester.  She is every bit as bright as her sister (as well as the family's second son, who are both doctors), and she could have been a damn fine doctor herself (or anything else she wanted to be) if only her mother hadn't told her a million times in a million ways that she wasn't good enough.

Is this little homily an indictment of adoption?  Not at all.  Am I saying an abortion would have been better?  Absolutely not.  Just that if you really want to stop abortions, you're not going to succeed in doing it in the courts, via laws.  You're going to have to change hearts.  And you're gonna have to get a helluva lot better at contingencies, and details.  And that brings me to my closing.

If the SCOTUS follows up and reverses Roe v. Wade, those of you who helped bring that change by voting, marching, stumping, opining, bankrolling and praying, might feel tempted to take a victory lap.  I wouldn't advise it.  You're going to need your strength.  For a couple of reasons.

Did you ever hear that old Chinese saying, "When you save a life, you're responsible for it?"  Yep.  Now the child needs to be fed, clothed, kept dry and warm, taught the three R's, how to navigate a car, a computer, social media, how to take care of himself, how to work, how to treat people, how to love.  Maybe sent to college. Who's gonna do all that?  The adoptive family?  Well, we hope so. Adoption agencies are overburdened, underfunded and understaffed.  And alot of people don't qualify to adopt -- LGBTQ, POC, singles, "too old", etc.  What then?  Where will y'all be?  Are you in for a penny, or a pound?  What good does it do the child if you save him from the abortion and then just go carve another notch wherever it is you carve 'em, and never think about the child again?  Not your responsibility?  But it was yours to stop the abortion?  Let us consider our labels carefully -- anti-abortion, pro-life.  Which label belongs to the one who saves the fetus, and which belongs to the one who commits to seeing that the child is properly raised and provided for?  

An Anglican minister's definition of pro-life:

And another reason to forgo your victory lap:  Those of us who are on the other side of this issue WERE asleep.  We took for granted that the Supreme Court, though it might now heavily favor one political persuasion, was provident enough not to amend the rights heretofore considered inherent in the 9th and 14th Amendments.  We assumed they would not be so disrespectful to the institution of The Supreme Court as to politicize it by diluting or annulling decades of rulings that were based on the right to privacy, and compromising the faith American citizens have in, and the security they rightfully derive from, the pillars of settled law.

Now that we see the lengths these folks are willing to go to, and how little their integrity means to them when they can trade it to manipulate The American System and turn it into a mockery -- holding up a Supreme Court nomination for eight months in one election year when it suits them, and speeding one through in another, (and in the middle of a pandemic) when that suits them; gerrymandering and restricting voting rights, especially those of people of color, the poor, and the elderly, even to the extent of forbidding voters standing in long lines on hot days to be given water.  Yeah, a real honorable bunch.

Well, courtesy of the latest of these tactics, now we're awake, and in record numbers.  AND WE'RE PISSED!  Those who a week ago may have predicted a red wave in the midterms are not bragging quite so loudly now.  And some of us think that was the motive of the leaker.  Stay tuned.

Of course, we could just grow a pair and end this BS one and for all, and in a decisive way.  How 'bout we put it on a national referendum in 2024, and Let The People Decide?  It'd be alot better than letting such a thing as the vagaries of the political makeup of the Supreme Court do it by taking away Americans' right to privacy.  Or worse yet, signaling that sometimes we have a right to privacy, sometimes we don't -- rights to be decided and rescindable at any time, on any whim, with any shift in SCOTUS makeup.  And my fellow Americans, do we really want abortion to become a States Rights issue?  Are you really cool with the way the US is being fragmented and trivialized by States Rights?  What is stronger, the United States, or Fifty Nifty Little Fiefdoms?  Think about it.

Abortion poll stats from the last ten years.

Some religions do support abortion rights.

And to end this post on a lighter note, more of the clueless menfolk.

And still more, with a sprinkling of clueless womenfolk just for the hell of it.

Stay In Your Lane

So last night I was watching an episode of All In The Family.   The episode was from back in December, 1978, when I was just a newly-minted teenager.

For those who are not familiar with this classic 70's sitcom, it featured Carroll O'Connor as bigoted Archie Bunker; Jean Stapleton as his loving wife Edith; Sally Struthers as their "Little Goil", Gloria; and Rob Reiner (later to be the prolific director) as her husband Mike Stivic, not-so-affectionately referred to as "Meathead" by Archie.  For the first seven seasons Mike and Gloria lived first with Archie and Edith, then next door to them.  Season Eight featured them moving out to California so that Mike could take a new job.  Their second season in Cali, the Bunkers, with much ceremony, went out to visit the Stivics in their California digs for Christmas in a special two-part episode entitled California, Here We Come.

The early part of the episode dealt comedically with the Bunkers' trip, and them seeing just how different life was in Cali.  Edith's delight in picking a lemon from the lemon tree on the Stivics' patio is not to be missed.  But (spoiler alert!) things get real serious, real fast.

It seems that, while her husband bas been thriving as a teacher since their arrival in California, Gloria has languished, finding nothing in common with Mike's friends, and increasingly less with her husband, too.  In a private moment with Edith, Gloria confesses that her loneliness and failure to launch in the Golden State has led her to find a "friend".  The two women have a good cry together, such a good cry that they use up all the Kleenex, and start unrolling toilet paper to cry into.  When Edith continues her weepfest into the room she and Archie are sharing for the holidays, he wakes up and wants to know why she is crying.  And heaven help us all, she tells him.  Archie is horrified and livid, and wastes no time in finding his "little goil" and lighting into her.  In a tirade that wakes Mike (but fortunately neither grandson Joey nor Stephanie, the Bunkers' adopted daughter), Archie condemns Gloria, and winds up by telling Mike, for whom he has had very few kind words over nine years, that he is too good for Gloria.  He is ready to share a few more home truths, but fortunately Edith saves the day by asking Mike and Gloria if they still love each other.  Of course they do, they decide to try to save their marriage, all is well, Christmas is saved, and Mike and Gloria leave the room to wake Stephanie and Joey up to see what Santa has brought them.

Of course Archie is not happy.  Everyone has made up, and no one has paid a penalty for the horrible sin.  And here is where Edith, (always the "dingbat" according to her husband) shines the brightest.  She asks Archie why he is so concerned, Mike and Gloria are going to try to work it out, isn't that what matters?  And Archie insists he is simply representing God's concerns.  "It's God's business!" Archie wails.

Whereupon Edith replies quietly, but firmly,  "Then let Him tend to it."

Hmmmm.  Gives us food for thought.  

In the Bible, in Matthew 7:1-5, we are instructed about judging, namely, pretty much, DONT!  And 1 Samuel 16:7 makes the reason clear why we should leave the judging to God: "The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them.  People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

So, clearly judging is God's job.  What is our job?  "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and loves God." (1 John 4:7).  "Jesus declared, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'  All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."  (Matthew 22:37-40).

Yes, I know we are not all Judeo-Christian.  Your Crusading Blogger herself is not.  But all religions I have ever investigated (and as a soon-to-be Celebrant, I am heavily invested in investigating them all) have in common at least the requirement that we love one another.

If I have leaned heavily on the Judeo-Christian Bible, it's because I am more familiar with its eloquence on the subject.  I'll finish with 1 Corinthians: 1-3: "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."

1 Corinthians is a chapter that is familiar to those of us who have been married, or attended lots of weddings -- "Love is patient, love is kind..."  It is very obvious what our job is, and it is not to judge.  The Bible makes it plain, and on this point, all the major religions agree.  Our job is to love, plain and simple.  But not easy.  We will spend our lifetimes perfecting the process.  We don't have a moment to lose -- let's get started.  Until we all get really practiced at loving, perhaps we should leave off judging -- let's stay in our own lane. 

Slap Shot

By now, everyone has heard that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at last night's Academy Awards show.  And I think we all heard the reason for that slap -- Rock made a faux pas "joke" about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will's wife, doing a GI Jane 2 turn -- was dude really unaware Jada has alopecia???  

The reactions have run the gamut from Sunny Hostin's admonition to Smith to "Use your words!" to Joy Behar's, "Comedians are in danger everywhere.  They (audience members) want us to be edgy, they want us to go out there and say things that other people are just thinking. They want us to take a risk and then they get mad."  (Eye roll).  Tiffany Haddish loved the slap.

There were alot of charges of toxic masculinity, and I would not disagree.  Chris Rock did not press charges, and the Oscars committee will conduct an investigation.  Yep.

My reaction?  I would like to offer a suggestion.  A suggestion on how to handle just such a situation in the future that does not involve violence, but has the admirable effect of making an asshole look like an asshole, and feel like an asshole.  And Mr. Smith, I am shocked you didn't think of this yourself, being that you were involved, albeit peripherally, with the Miyagiverse, being a producer of the 2010 remake of Karate Kid:

Today Will Smith offered an apology to Chris Rock, which was a better apology than the one he offered to the Oscars Academy last night.  Myself, I'm more than half-suspicious that Smith's outburst, and the firestorm of reaction surrounding it, were just a cheap way to gin up some buzz around the Academy Awards, and perhaps awards shows in general, which are suffering an understandable (zzzzz) plunge in ratings of late.  Good luck with that.  Sigh.

In passing, I wonder if the slap will, consciously or subconsciously, trigger a certain segment of the Caucasian persuasion, the ones who are always a little afraid of the "angry black man" (angry white men are neither scary nor prevalent, right? /s), or if their take-away will more center on Rock's pacific reaction (Whoopi about Rock, “I do think it’s wonderful that Chris did not take it to that other place that he could have done," i.e., hit back).  IOW, he turned the other cheek -- yeah, he should have -- that joke was not only in poor taste, as many have said, but in poor judgement, rising for me to the level of one of those Things You Just Do Not Say.  Was it punishable by a slap or punch?  Nah, let The Universe do what it will -- if Mr. Rock were to develop a disfiguring autoimmune condition in the future, for example, perhaps we should not be too surprised.

I think that Smith's intemperate feelings could have been more wisely satisfied by his verbal outburst, "Keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth," followed by maybe a mention in his Oscar acceptance speech minutes later of his wife's courageous battle with automimmune alopecia.  Then the court of public opinion would have gotten involved judging Chris Rock's comment, and condemning him, as it is now condemning Will Smith, and the narrative would be where it belongs, namely that appearance-shaming is a form of bullying, not to be done in a decent society.  That is where the focus truly needs to be here.

https://www.salon.com/2022/03/28/the-view-chris-rock-will-smith-oscars-slap/

Two Types Of Political Discourse...

Four days ago, Ronna McDaniel and the RNC made probably the most ballsy, albeit ridiculous statement I have ever seen in 56 years upon this planet.

Ronna.  RNC.  Dearhearts.  Allow Claudia to school you.  Allow Claudia to bring you back from the brink of the abyss of madness and unreality you have apparently fallen into.  Here are a few examples of legitimate political discourse:

And here are a few examples of illegitimate political discourse:

Obviously, there are some on the right-hand side of the aisle who are confused, as they have spent the last several years condemning the former, and praising the latter, which is why I thought it necessary to illustrate the difference.

What is interesting to me is how rapidly the Republican Party is choosing sides over this issue, after the last year of mostly falling into line behind TFG, at least for public consumption.  What's up with that?  Is it the House Select Committee's investigation into the January 6, 2021 riot on the Capitol?  All the investigations into Tangerine Man?  Are some members of the Elephant Herd staking out some more moderate ground with the 2022 midterm elections in sight, hoping perhaps to attract some Independents or moderate/centrist Democrats into the Pachyderm Fold?

Well, here are a few who may just be turning from elephants into RINOs, at least according to some:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trumps-claims-that-pence-could-overturn-election-are-wrong-former-vp-says

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/politics/chris-christie-trump-republicans-january-6/index.html

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2022/2/7/22922430/utah-republican-congres-say-about-rnc-legitimate-political-discourse-censure-liz-cheney-mitt-romney

And this from Moscow Mitch (Holy Brain Seizures, Batman!): 

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republican-infighting-rattles-mcconnells-us-midterm-elections-strategy-2022-02-08/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/01/25/fake-electors-investigation-justice/

Well ain't this news cycle just interesting as hell?