Thanksgiving - the real story and the real moral!

         Below is yet another meme which is so horribly incorrect. Did the Pilgrims share their Thanksgiving meal with the local Indians, the Wampanoag and Pequot? No. That never happened, at least as pictured here. That is, until its inclusion in the "Thanksgiving Story" in 1890. The concept (openness and welcome to those in need)  has merit, but memes like this are what the Far Right does, and we of the center and left need to do better.  There is so much wrong with this image that one scarcely knows where to start. First, it didn't happen. Look at the Anglo woman conversing with the indian woman. No indian woman would have been present, only an armed war party of men. Notice the unarmed Pilgrim men, one holding a serving bowl- not! This is a romanticized and historically inaccurate depiction of a fictitious event.

        The REAL first Thanksgiving Day did occur in the year 1637, but it was nothing like our Thanksgiving today. In 1637 near present day Groton, Connecticut, over 700 men, women and children of the Pequot Tribe had gathered for their annual Green Corn Festival which is our Thanksgiving celebration. In the predawn hours the sleeping Indians were surrounded by English and Dutch mercenaries who ordered them to come outside. Those who came out were shot or clubbed to death while the terrified women and children who remained huddled inside the longhouse were burned alive. The next day the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony declared "A Day Of Thanksgiving" because 700 unarmed men, women and children had been murdered.  Cheered by their "victory", the brave colonists and their Indian allies attacked village after village. Women and children over 14 were sold into slavery while the rest were murdered. Boats loaded with as many as 500 slaves regularly left the ports of New England. Bounties were paid for Indian scalps to encourage as many deaths as possible.

        Following an especially successful raid against the Pequot in what is now Stamford, Connecticut, the churches announced a second day of "thanksgiving" to celebrate victory over the heathen savages. During the feasting, the hacked off heads of Natives were kicked through the streets like soccer balls. Even the friendly Wampanoag did not escape the madness, as Metacom  (King Philip) of the Wampanoag resisted (King Philip's War), ultimately being captured.  Metacom,  son of Massasoit, whose non-aggression had been critical to the Pilgrims survival during their first 4 or 5 years at Plimoth Plantation,  was drawn, quartered, beheaded, and his head impaled on a pole in Plymouth, Massachusetts -- where it remained on display for 24 years.

       Of course this is the true story, but the Far Rightists in Kansas and Texas would scrub the textbooks clean of the truth in order to further propagandize their children that we (the USA) have always done everything right and with moral correctness!  Of course this implies that we could never learn from our mistakes, because we never made any.  The truth, as relates to our dealings with native populations in North America is vastly different! Outside the US , this story is almost unknown.  This story doesn't convey the same fuzzy feelings as the one where the Indians and Pilgrims are all sitting down together at the big feast.  But we need to learn our true history so it won't ever be repeated.

        Thanksgiving as we celebrate it today is a wonderful idea, with a generally unconditionally welcoming and inclusive  national spirit which reflects well on the nation as a whole,  Next  Thanksgiving, when you gather with your loved ones to be thankful  for all your blessings, think about those people, then and now, who only want(ed)  to live their lives and raise their families in peace.  They, also took time out to say "thank you" to Creator for all their blessings. We should not treat them as the  Pilgrims ultimately treated the Pequots.

        

Modern Levites

        Many modern people, especially Christians, hear the word parable, and believe that they were  invented by Jesus and  used specifically to illustrate religious concepts.  Although this hubris is frequently typical of the arrogance which sometimes accompanies the messianic zeal of the true believer, parables  were not original with Jesus, or his era.

        The word parable actually comes from the Greek,   meaning "comparison, illustration, analogy."  It was the name given by Greek rhetoricians to an illustration in the form of a brief fictional narrative. The object of both parable and allegory  is to enlighten the hearer by submitting to him a case in which he has apparently no direct concern, and upon which therefore a disinterested judgment may be elicited from him.  A  parable is more condensed than the allegory, generally  resting  upon a single principle and a single moral, and it is intended that the reader or listener would (or should)  conclude that the moral applies equally well to his own concerns. Aesop used somewhat extended allegorical parables probably 550 years before the supposed birth of Christ.  In fact, the parables of Jesus also, at times,  incorporate the Socratic method as an enhancement.

        Interestingly enough, the parables most seen in art and most used as "good examples" have little to do with God, per se, and much to say about interpersonal relations and moral concepts related to them. Perhaps  the most well known and most frequently  depicted of  the parables of Jesus is the story of the  Good Samaritan, which has  little to do with religion and lots to do with  how we are to treat people. Interestingly enough, the "hook" of the story is essentially the golden rule, or the ethic of reciprocity.  Again, like the use of parables, this concept pre-dates even the Old Testament in writing, appearing  as far back as the Egyptian middle kingdom, even before Abraham had his alleged tȇte-a ̀- tȇte with God.  The concept of reciprocity is central  to essentially every major world religion for the past 4,000 years.  

        The essence of the story is that a man in need was ignored by first a priest, and then a Levite, but a Samarian, traditionally hostile to Jews, came to his assistance.  Now most of us know this story well, since it is frequently cited as a divine model for appropriate behavior  for the observant Christian.

        Leap ahead to the modern and consider the response of many, far too many,  self- proclaimed  Christians  to the plight of Syrian refugees. If you profess to be a true Christian and you buy into the pure unadulterated bullshit being hyped by most GOP  presidential wannabees, as well as numerous Republican governors, then you need to shift colors, because you my friend are the priest and the Levite. Of course many secular humanists  who have only their rational minds to apply to this crisis feel differently.  In actuality, they are the Samaritans to a great extent. Makes one wonder, doesn't it?  

More GOP Blame Game

Reading the comments re: the horror story unfolding in Paris, and fielding the stray thoughts as they arise in response to some of the utter drivel being written.

In no particular order: Those who are advocating all out "war on Isis", seem to have little or no concept of the difference between this lamentable situation and a "conventional" (for want of a better word) war. Of course they are appalled, as are we all, that the events in Paris happened, considering as we all do, that the dead and injured were/are "innocent civilians." What seems to pass unnoticed is the realization that any purely military effort to eliminate the threat of ISIS' terrorism will surely involve the death of not 150 civilians, but more like thousands of men women and children, whose only crime is living in a city occupied by ISIS forces.

In the minds of these persons, that's acceptable collateral damage because, well, because they're Muslims. I find the most amazing contradiction in the minds of those whose strenuous Christianity impels them to think and act in a most decidedly unchristian-like manner. These persons, many of whom insist on the continued existence of Israel as a state, as pre-requisite for establishing the conditions for the "second coming," should actually be hoping that if there was or is a Jesus who is a God and he comes back, and holds mankind accountable for moral behavior as he defined it, they are in trouble.

Finally: There is much delusional denial among those who supported the Bush desert adventure (The son's, not the father's) as to W's culpability and/or or share of the responsibility for the current situation. The argument goes along the lines of completely denying that the Iraq invasion was unjustified, and that when Bush left office Iraq had a stable central government and a viable military. Of course recent events put the lie to both statements, but these geopolitical naïf's continue, blaming President Obama for complying with Bush's withdrawal agreement. What is far less understood is really the "story behind the story" of the immense failure to rebuild civilian controlled military authority in Iraq. While it was a daunting task in any event, considering the millennium plus of sectarian strife in the region, the Bush administration by total failure to understand the culture and history of the parties involved, made it impossible.

Letting W, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowicz off the hook sounds good to GOP ers, but it simply isn't true.

Assuming we all agree that W's invasion of Iraq destabilized the region (really non-debatable) The issue then became "How do we reconstruct Iraq?" Remember, how many times Bush said categorically that we weren't going to get involved in "nation building?"

The initial choice to head that process, General Jay Garner, was bright enough to know that we had to incorporate and use former police and military personnel, especially those with education, in any reconstructed central authority. He proceeded upon that course, realizing that many of the former Iraqi military were no more in love with Saddam then we were. This, however was not "punitive" (for want of a better word) enough for Wolfowitz, Cheney, and especially Rumsfeld, at whose insistence, W replaced the administrator with another who alienated the former security forces and police, summarily making them unemployed and angry.


Paul Bremer, a civilian whose only former overseas assignment of stature was in Norway (that hotbed of unrest) was that guy. As the top civilian administrator of the former Coalition Provisional Authority, Bremer was permitted to rule by decree. Among his first and most notable decrees were Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 1, which banned the Ba'ath party in all forms and Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 2 dismantled the Iraqi Army. In 2014 he called for "a reconstituted Iraqi army". The issue, of course was that all the real army guys with experience were forbidden from having any role in the process. The result haunts us today.

       As much as GOPers would love to absolve Bush 43 and his cohort, it is historically unjustified. Alternately, these people immediately somehow blame the current administration for this. The theme seems to go that instead of holding individuals accountable for their actions, we should have, all along, been blaming an entire religion and its adherents. The closest analogy I can come up with would be to hold the Pope accountable for the hatred spewed by the Westboro Baptist Church, or holding all Christians accountable for Hitler's atrocities.

     The real tragedy is that ISIS, as much as anything arose from Western efforts to overthrow, or enable the overthrow of the brutal Assad regime in Syria. It was the Syrian uprising (a nation where we had zero troops, (zip, nada, none ) which triggered the following chain of events: As the last Americans left Iraq, the uprising in Syria pitted the country’s vast Sunni majority against the ruthless regime of Bashar al-Assad. There was little or no reliable intel to have predicted this upheaval, but Syria rapidly dissolved into anarchy. At this point, had President Obama actually tried to re-insert troops in Iraq, he'd have probably been impeached!

     Desperate and seeing an opportunity, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, dispatched a handful of soldiers to Syria, where, in a matter of months, they had gathered an army of followers and had begun attacking the Assad regime. Suddenly, Baghdadi’s group—which had been staggering toward the grave only months before—was regaining strength. In 2013, the I.S.I. became the Islamic State of Iraq in Syria. ISIS was born. hey were/are a self created group, born of a singularity, but a weak Iraq created the nursery. Imagine if the (at least) 800,000 out of work Iraqi police and military who now hated the USA had been reincorporated into the Army of a strong Iraq. Sad, really, isn't it?

More dog goodies.

More safe dog treats they'll mug you for.

Belle The Bassett is an equal opportunity jerky consumer. Beef or chicken, she loves them both, but both, even domestically produced,  frequently have preservatives such as glycerin. Obviously, part of the reason for this is that these items must have a shelf life of months, vice weeks.

        Making your own, however has several advantages, not the least of which is - it's easy! It's also economical and, best of all, safe for your pet. I make both beef and chicken jerky for my diva, and the procedures are exactly the same, so here goes:

        Shop around for the raw ingredients. I buy boneless skinless breasts because the shape is easiest to slice, which for the chicken is the hardest part. As for the beef, we have a local Winn Dixie which marks down their meat within two days of the "sell by" date.  When they have London Broil marked down, I buy two or three and freeze them; either way, you need to start out with frozen meat.

        Take the meat out of the freezer and let it begin to thaw at room temperature. Optimum texture for slicing is when the top is a little soft to the touch. The rest will still have ice crystals in it,  but can be sliced with a good  SHARP chef's knife. Once you do this, you'll know exactly what I'm describing. It's essentially impossible to get a good 3/16-1/4 inch slice from thawed chicken, and believe me you don't want to try it on an electric slicer with raw chicken!

I use a good nylon cutting board and lay one of the breasts on it, sticking a fork at the extreme edge closest to me  to steady it while slicing from the other side longitudinally. If the thaw is right, it'll slice easily in jerky thickness strips. The edge with the fork might be a little dicey, but if it's thicker, eat it yourself, it's good!

       It's much simpler with the London Broil. Trim off the fat and slice it. It's work , but yields a nice jerky thickness slice. Tip from experience: wear a glove to avoid a blister on the knife hand. The photo showing the oven rack is the "before." The plate shows the finished chicken jerky. 

Both of these have but one ingredient - meat. If your dog is a Vegan, I can't help you!

You'll end up with  strips perhaps 6-7 inches long by 1 1/2" to 2" wide. Place them on a rack on a cookie sheet lined with foil. SPRAY THE RACKS with a non stick!

        Place them in a 200 degree oven for 3 hours. They might need more, but three is a good starting point. They may not be firm at first but, as they cool, will firm up. This a bit softer than regular jerky because it still has a tiny bit of moisture in it, so let it cool in air. I store mine in a plastic bag and refrigerate,  like the biscuits. At two pieces a day for Belle, it's gone in 2 1/2 weeks or so. It won't spoil in the fridge in anywhere near that time as long as they're dry when you bag 'em.        

Live from God's waiting room

        Sitting in the dermatologist' s waiting room this morning,  I was contemplating the "no sun screen"  related  sins of my youth and watching the TV.  I actually felt pretty good, looking at the "80- somethings"  with skin tanned the color of a catcher's mitt, except for the white scars where chunks had been surgically removed previously by said dermatologist or one of his peers. Usually they have the TV tuned to something banal like the Weather Channel, which, considering  I live in The Villages, where almost every retail or service outlet's TV is welded to the Fox News Channel, isn't really all that bad. Ocala Eye's TVs are always on HGTV, so we know where their liberal sympathies lie (with mine).

        Today, however, the TV was tuned to whatever channel the Rachael Ray show is on. Don't get me wrong, I like Ms. Ray, and used to love her cooking show, when cooking with no live audience is what the show was all about.  Now, however, Rachael has  descended  into the pit of  "live daytime shows."  It's been a long time since I've even given a passing glance to this sort of programming, but as I sat there in God's waiting room (or so it seemed this morning) I came to some conclusions.

        First, there is obviously  a qualification test to be a studio audience member for this type of show. Apparently one must be willing to scream and applaud wildly at literally anything that happens. Additionally, one must, I think, put all disbelief on hold and treat anything said by host or guest(s) as gospel, and, again, scream and clap worthy. Finally, any product shown or endorsed must (yet again) call for screams and applause.

        One guest today was a woman who works for Oprah (screams/applause) and brought to the show, some super deals (screams/applause  - from here on abbreviated s&a) which were available at a discount (s&a) thanks to the show, Rachael and Oprah  (s&a).   All these items, also available through Amazon.com (s&a)  were on a large counter, under gift wrapped Christmas boxes with no bottoms, so they (the boxes) could be lifted, revealing the product to even more raucus approval.

        Item one was a box of one dozen muffins, of a brand Oprah (s&a) loves. They appeared to be  bran muffins with a swirl of something through them. Apparently the "something"  was silver or gold, since these muffins were available for "only" $85 per dozen. (s&a) Not to worry, through the show you could get them at a 20% discount, bringing the price down to $68 per dozen (s&a)! At five dollars each, with the discount these had better be some spectacular muffins!

        The next  box was lifted to the usual  pandemonium, even though no one in the audience could possibly have had a clue what the product was. As it turns out it was Christmas tree ornaments in the shape of whatever breed of dog one happens to own, available with your pet's  name engraved on it.  I assume this is so your dog can look up at it with a feeling of superiority, and tell the cat "See, they love me more!" I don't remember the price, but it was beyond ludicrous in cost.

        Through box after box, scream after scream, the proceedings continued until, fortunately, I was called back to get sprayed with liquid nitrogen in uncomfortable places before my brain exploded. 

And people watch this shit every day?

Coach Speak for Dummies

Let me tell 'em Coach!

It's Saturday and halftime of the second wave of NCAA football games. It occurs to me that in all the many such contests I have watched, by far the most mind numbing statements are made, not by the "color men" who are frequently really bad, but by coaches. These guys are paid in the millions of dollars to coax sometimes semi- literate men-children, most of whom will never play after college, if they graduate, into placing their bodies at risk - time after time after time. You might think they'd be some pretty fancy talkers who really have a knack for a clever turn of phrase. After watching and hearing the brief interviews done at the half  by the (usually pretty female field reporter) I'm not so sure!

        Most of the comments fall into two primary areas. If the coach's team is ahead, we hear the following or its derivative.

"Well, Buffy, they're a good football team and we just need to: ("Play our game"  or  "Do it like we practiced" or "Keep on doing what we're doing" or "Stay focused"). All these are things I could have told them before the game and  are absolutely valid for any endeavor from pitching horseshoes to cleaning an aquarium or making a grilled cheese sandwich.  "Thank you coach, for that insight into the game"     

        It's a bit more fun if they're losing, depending upon how badly.  Still, we get, "Well, Buffy, ("we're not playing well right now", or "We need to take better care of the footballball" or "They're a pretty good football team and we need to...(insert any of  the winning coach's statements from above."

Once , just once, I'd like to hear, "Well, Buffy, our boys are just kicking the living shit out of theirs, and we just need to keep on doing it until they're dead, or time runs out!" (from the winner , of course) From the losing coach how about, "Shit, Buffy, how the hell do I know, they've  stuffed  every f*****g thing we've tried to do. We just really suck!"  

Re: Spoiling my dog

For those who don't know, we share our house with a Bassett Hound named Belle. As many dog owners have found out to their dismay and in some instances too late, as in Chinese made dog treats with propylene glycol [anti-freeze] in  them, it is difficult to find healthy safe and nutritious treats which don't cost a fortune and have zero preservatives. The preservatives in commercial products are necessary because of shelf life requirements. The photo below is of today's batch of homemade biscuits. I would estimate that this batch of 32 cost about $3.00. This is roughly 1.75 pounds, so the cost is a very reasonable  12 1/2 cents per ounce - cheaper than most "store bought" biscuits and of higher quality. I have posted the recipe elsewhere, but have made some recent changes to the technique, so here it is again.

Modification to the Dog biscuit recipe - easier, better, far less mess!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Using a food processor ( I use a normal size Kitchen Aid):

Install the Nylon pastry blade.  I think the standard metal blade would do this as well, but one could cut oneself.

Into the processor bowl add:

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats (oatmeal)
1 cup peanut butter
 one 15 or 16 oz can of yams (sweet potatoes) in syrup, pouring off and reserving  the juice before adding.

(My local supermarket frequently has both the peanut butter and yams on "buy one get one free" specials and we stock up.
You can pulse or whatever you desire, but I just turn it on. While running,  pour in the reserved yam syrup. Don't worry if it looks like it isn't incorporating the peanut butter at first, because it takes a while. It will eventually form a nice somewhat soft and sticky dough with all the ingredients incorporated far better than the hand mixed method I used to use. 

This last batch, I stopped the processor once and pushed the mix down and then gave it a final 15 seconds or so.

Put down some bench flour and  flour your rolling pin and "dump" the dough onto whatever surface you will use. I would NOT do this on a porous (like, say, granite) countertop. We have Corian which works great and cleans up easily, Conversely, a plastic rolling sheet is cool, too.

Spray a large cookie sheet with Pam or a similar non-stick cooking spray.

Roll the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness and use a cutter (mine as you can see, is shaped like a dog bone) to cut out the biscuits, placing them on the  cookie sheet.  Bake for 30 minutes. They may be a bit soft to the touch , but will firm up as they cool. I turn the oven off and let them cool in the oven. 

As they are minus preservatives, I let them cool down to ambient and place them in a Ziploc bag which I keep refrigerated. This recipe makes about 30 biscuits which at about two per day lasts about two weeks, and they will remain fresh in the fridge for that long.

These are essentially peanut butter cookies for dogs minus all the sugar. They smell so good while baking that you may be tempted to try one.  They're actually good, but need sugar to meet human's taste . Belle the Bassett will almost speak in tongues for one of these. 

Bat shit crazy Ben Carson

        November 4 2015,  marked 93 years to the day that the tomb of King Tutankhamen was opened in Egypt, revealing spectacular artifacts and a magnificent mummy of the boy king.  The celebration was somewhat marred, at least here in the U.S., by a leading Republican candidate for president, former neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who confirmed a statement he first made in 1998 — that he believes the Egyptian pyramids were grain silos, not tombs, and were built by alleged Hebrew patriarch and dream analyst,  Joseph.

       The unanimous collective reaction from archaeologists and historians, who have command of literally centuries’ worth of research into the artifacts and literature of the ancient Egyptians, is… "Huh? No frickin' way!" (or its measured, urbane, scientific equivalent)

        Carson said in his 1998 talk at Andrews University, a Seventh-Day Adventist-affiliated university, “And when you look at the way that the pyramids were made, with many chambers that are hermetically sealed, they’d have to be that way for various reasons.  And "various of scientists"  (Carson wasn't an English Major)  have said, ‘Well, you know there were alien beings that came down and they have special knowledge and that’s how, you know, it doesn’t require an alien being when God is with you." As a Seventh-Day Adventist, Carson appears to subscribe to the idea that the book of Genesis is literal history. He also apparently doesn't subscribe to the general rules for parsing a coherent sentence. 

        Just to be clear, no actual scientists think that aliens built the pyramids. There is a small but vocal contingent of people who believe in pseudo-archaeological explanations, but archaeologists have thoroughly dismantled those harebrained theories with actual factual research.   So while it may look informed and realistic,  for Carson to deny alien involvement in pyramid building, he then  attributes them to a  single guy, not an Egyptian , by the way,  rather than, well, the ancient Egyptians.

        We actually do know what the pyramids were built for because the ancient Egyptians told us what they were built for.  They were a literate people. They specifically describe these architectural wonders as tombs and, just to make sure we would know that millennia later, they buried people in them.  Denying ancient people the capability of building monumental structures is not new, though, and not confined to Egypt — plenty of people over the years have denied that Native Americans could have built the massive earthwork mounds across the U.S. and that the Mayas could have built their pyramids without help from aliens, Europeans, or a "higher  power." Perhaps Joseph helped while on vacation?  Carson affirmed this ludicrous belief in Joseph and his "amazing  Technicolor  grain silo"  to CBS News,  doubling down, indeed almost gleefully wallowing,  in his  profound, willful ignorance of science.

        I thought to myself, hey, could this be an honest mistake and could Carson be right and these other historians, archeologists and scriptologists wrong ?  Naah, he's as screwed up as a soup sandwich, and not even other non Adventist and otherwise  sane  Christians should believe him and here's why.

        Essentially every credible (and many not so credible) Christian and Hebrew scholars have placed the whole  "God tells Abraham he's special" dialogue firmly in the 1850 BCE timeframe. Assuming the whole  Abe to Joseph family tree is accurate, that would place Joseph in Egypt, if indeed he was real and was really there,  ca 1800 BCE. And what might he have seen there when he was freed from servitude?  Well, he could have gone to Giza and seen the 700 year old pyramids! A bit more travel, and he could also inspect the 800 plus year old pyramid of  Zoser.  See the Egyptians, a people with language and writing, recorded all these building projects, including the name of one of the  relevant architects, Hemiunu, to whom they also built a statue, currently on display in Germany.  Unless Joseph was also a time traveler, he couldn't have been involved in any way with pyramid construction, for the simple reason that he wouldn't have been born for another 800 years or so by the time they were completed! End of story.    

        But , finally, does it really matter what Carson thinks about the Egyptian pyramids?  There will always be science deniers, there will always be people swayed by pseudo-archaeology, and there will always be people who believe regardless of the facts. .  It does matter, though, because  Ben Carson apparently also  believes himself competent to run the Executive Branch of  the  United States government, and of being  its face to the world. So it matters that Carson casually rejects hundreds of years’ worth of research because in denying science, he throws the U.S. back into the past.  It matters that he brazenly denies the Egyptian people their rightful history because this marginalizes an entire culture and makes the U.S. look like an ignorant bully, and we've already done too much of that.

Superstition

Voters reject Houston lgbt non-discriminatioon ordinance

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/voters-reject-houston-lgbt-nondiscrimination-ordinance

        This may be the most misleading, small minded and wrongly fear-based item I've seen in a long time. Apparently, Houston, TX.  is obsessed with the idea that a transgender male, (for clarity, in this instance, a male who identifies and lives as a female with or without surgery)  might dare to use a public restroom designated for women. The horror, the horror.

        Recent statistics show non-surgical trans males are marginally less  likely to sexually assault women than straight men, while surgical trans males are incapable of  it. The recent Houston referendum is not based on a real world concern of any substance, but rather on ignorant  fear and in many cases, religious superstition related to such things as sexual identity, and for that matter sex in general.

        This is, in many ways , analogous  to the unfounded bias against gay teachers.  As a member of the  contract committee for the ninth largest school district in the nation, I was party to essentially every major disciplinary action taken by the school district in response to allegations of sexual impropriety involving teachers and students.  During that time we heard more than a few (too many) justified allegations made against heterosexual teachers of both genders but, over  the same span of years, never heard one valid accusation made against gay or lesbian teacher.

        The social Neanderthals and misguided Christians in Texas who supported this "anti-trans"  action are pitiful examples of the lack of human concern and worse, the incredible level of ignorance , exhibited by people who consider themselves the moral guardians of society. It's sad, really, but for trans males forced to use a male designated public restroom it might well be much worse than sad.  It could be dangerous or fatal, especially in Texas.

Some more Monday brain droppings

                            Just some brain droppings (a nod to George Carlin) for a Monday.

        I've met Buddy Dyer (Orlando mayor, for my "foreign" readers) once. He seemed like a decent man who wanted to dedicate himself to public service. As mayor of Orlando, he appears to me to have done a reasonably good job as mayor, especially compared to the huge errors of the past, Baldwin Park $6 million sweetheart deal giveaway by Glenda Hood coming to mind.   The recent commercials run by one of his opponents accuse him of personally "mismanaging" several major civic big ticket items, all of which enhance the Orlando quality of life, whether it be for theater goers , football, basketball or soccer fans, and all of which, regardless of the (to be expected) glitches during completion, are functioning well and bringing revenue to the city. 

       I wondered where this slash,  burn and lie strategy came from until I noted that the opponent's campaign is managed by federal tax fraud convict Doug Guetzloe. You wanna talk  about mismanagement?  The man mismanaged his own personal finances to the tune of $187,000 in "unclaimed" personal income, all the while shilling for "Axe the Tax". Any fans of irony here? Guetzloe may well be the most morally challenged  political figure since  William Magear "Boss"  Tweed. (yeah, it's an American history reference, look him up!)  So as a candidate, why would I hire this convicted felon to represent my campaign?  Think about it when you vote in November!

        In the "new drug with a catchy title picked by our ad agency" derby, welcome  Xifaxan!  Turns out it's another irritable bowel syndrome drug with a spate of possibly nasty side effects. That aside, Don't you love the imagination  intrinsic to the brand name? Not one, but two "X"s and one pronounced as a "Z". Can it possibly get any better than this? This just blows the competitors like Viberzi, Amitiza and Linzess right out of the water. (besides, all those names sound a bit like Verdi operas, anyway.

        If , like me, you have for years,  admired and respected  ABC News' Robin Roberts, read Amy Robach's  new  book "Better" about her struggle with breast cancer.  There couldn't have been a better friend than Ms. Roberts was/is to Ms. Robach  during her struggle, from diagnosis through chemo.

        I see that "singer" Jesse Graham is suing Taylor Swift, a real singer, whose name we have actually heard before, for using the lyrics "Haters are gonna hate"  in her mega hit "Shake it Off." First, who the hell is Jesse Graham, and second, why would the prolific Ms. Swift ever need to steal a lyric from anyone?  Never mind that this illiterate's lyric is actually "haters gone hate." (Yeah I know, street creds, right?)  In a lyric written by Ms. Swift, of some 36 lines, she uses the line "haters are gonna hate" twice. If we're keeping it real here, I have heard that line for years, long before Jesse Graham ever put pen to paper. Looking at the Swiftian body of work, it seems highly improbable that she would ever have run across drivel on the level of Mr, Graham's ouvre d'artiste.  The term is  public domain, yet this asshole purveyor of pilgarlic thinks he should be compensated to the tune of $42 million? What OJ said!