Month: August 2023

By on

The good friends of Clarence Thomas paid for 38 of his vacations. Of course, these gifts in no way influence Thomas when he makes any decision that might affect his good friends. I mean it could be true. On the other hand, it could be false. Thomas is asking us to take his word on it.

Somehow I am unconvinced. I need a little more here. If it were 1 or 2 trips, I would be more willing to see his point. But 38 is an awful lot of good friends and free vacations. It looks fishy and that becomes the problem. So now, because Justice Thomas was oblivious to what this looked like, some Democrats rightfully are demanding an investigation.

You might be saying that shouldn’t friends be able to give lavish gifts to other friends? No. Absolutely not. Businesses today are constantly reminding their employees about ethical perceptions. The best way to avoid getting in trouble is to refuse any high price gifts from customers. This way the company and the employee stay out of trouble. The very trouble that Thomas finds himself.

This is a standard business behavior and is well known in both business and government. I am surprised that Thomas isn’t aware of it. If nothing else happens from this tawdry investigation, the Supreme Court’s HR department needs to give Thomas a quick refresher on the perception of ethical behavior. It sounds like he may have missed his training.

More importantly, his good friends seem to have a lot of extra cash laying around and that cash is up to no good. Particularly when I am fairly certain Justice Thomas can readily pay for his own damn vacations. When rich people have so much discretionary income that they can bribe Supreme Court judges with vacations, they simply have too much money. It’s not doing anyone any good any more. Better it went to taxes.

By on

A Florida school district is finding Shakespeare a little too racy so instead of reading the whole play of Romeo and Juliet they are reading sections of Romeo and Juliet. Don’t get me wrong if I was the average high schooler I would love reading only the selected bits of Shakespeare because he was a real pain in the ass to read.

On the other hand, it is about the stupidest things I have ever heard. It is a play about young heterosexual children in a passionate romance. It sounds like something that a average teenager might be thinking about. This is why, of course, Romeo and Juliet is one of the most commonly taught Shakespeare plays in high schools. So, of course, educators in Ron DeSantis’ Florida are cutting out the interesting bits so the youth of Florida are saved from becoming aware of teenage sex. I think we all know they are already aware and that they are spending a good amount of time talking about it.

Then there is assumption that teenagers are brainless twits and will be enticed into a passionate romance that ends in suicide. It could happen but I think the chances are pretty remote, so remote as to be unworthy of giving it a second thought. I remember in my school most of the kids felt Romeo and Juliet were pretty crazy and probably needed some good adult advice (so take that Nurse). It was certainly my big takeaway and I was 17. Kids are generally pretty rational. The runaways and the rebels get all the attention but most kids are smart enough to stay in school and with their parents. Even poor Romeo and Juliet bought into middle class mores because they got married before they had sex. So, what exactly is the point?

Protecting youth from reading Shakespeare? Is there any evidence to support this? I would like to see it. This isn’t about protecting children. It is about controlling what they read. Every time I hear a conservative who wants to protect children from certain books, I think of gun laws and their renewed interest in child labor and find it incredibly difficult to believe them.

By on

Two extremely flawed candidates are about to be renominated by their perspective parties. Neither candidate has the potential for a landslide election win which is what the country needs after almost 20 years of 50/50. Trump, for too many reasons to enumerate, is a candidate who inspires either hatred or unquestioning fealty. He has attacked anyone who even remotely questions what he says, even his fellow Republicans. For the time being, they are stuck with Trump as long as the party faithful are committed to him.

Since there is no way in Hell that I am going to vote for Donald Trump that leaves me with the other guy — Joe Biden. I voted for Joe Biden and will vote for him again. But, lets put it this way, if he asked me to go into battle I would certainly get a second opinion. I don’t think he is doing a bad job either or is a PR disaster. He is OK. Given that he is 80 years old and getting older, I don’t think there is much of a chance that he will change. He will remain OK.

Sorry but this is about as much excitement that I can muster for the man.

Biden is old as is, for that matter, Trump. He isn’t a doddering old man that the Republicans make him out to be, but, on the other hand, he is far from the energetic leader the country and the Democrats need. He is not nearly as corrupt as Trump but there is a whiff of it around him.

Speaking as a Democrat, I would prefer a different candidate. A lot of my fellow Democrats, however, think that Biden is are best chance to retain the presidency. Given that the outcome of Biden loss is a Trump presidency, I understand their concern.

Yet, if all we got is Biden, then we are in big trouble any way. Think about that, there are Democrat governors, senators and representatives and the best of these people is Joe Biden. What a depressing future. I would rather not throw in the towel now on somebody new taking on the role. I would rather take a chance on somebody new in hopes of changing the dynamics of the election.

By on

Until recently, I prided myself on being able to spell the most difficult word and if I couldn’t spell it, I could generally spot my error pretty quickly when I edited. As I age, though, I find that this super power is declining. Maybe aging isn’t to blame but I have only noticed the problem since I slipped over the 65 years marker. Whatever the reason, I have noticed my spelling has gone to Hell in a hand basket.

Here are two recent and, once you see them, embarrassing, mistakes. I tried to spell technically as tycnically. I was convinced that the tycn was correct and ically was wrong after I began to edit. I spent an ungodly amount of time trying to change the ically before realizing that perhaps the tycn was wrong. I still think that tycnically is a valid alternative.

Then there was exspell instead of expel. This misspelling I blame on my sounding it out. I say ex spell when it should be Ex pel.

I am not so worried about the actual misspelling because I think that when you are writing and you need to get the word on the page, putting down a close approximation of the word is enough until you go back and edit. But now I can’t see the problem where it once, on review, was easy for me to spot. I now make countless attempts to correct the wrong syllable.

Which means I am down to one super power – parallel parking.

By on 1 Comment

A Catholic School in Kansas expelled a student because the kid’s mother objected to the banning of gay books in the school. The Catholic Church thinks it can still boss people around and people will obey. That they don’t have the good sense to handle a dispute like this better is disappointing. They simply no longer have the same power to intimidate critics.

The Church, however, will still try. The Spanish Inquisition is in the Catholic Church’s DNA so when the opportunity to actually punish someone presented itself it was impossible to pass it up. The Church should have thrown the issue back to the mother. They could have said here is our teaching on homosexuality. If you feel strongly about it, you are free to take your spiritual business elsewhere. It would have put the decision back where it needed to be with the woman who disagreed with the church. Let her decide how much she can take.

Unfortunately leaders in the Gay Community might feel the need to react to the Church. The best thing they can do is a mild reprimand saying that the Catholic Church shouldn’t act that way and forget it. Because the Catholic Church’s position on homosexuality never changes, it is well known. So when the school banned Gay literature from the library, it shouldn’t have been that surprising to the mother. I am more surprised that the library already had these pro-Gay books in them in the first place. Once the Church banned the books, the mother was at choice. Sucking it up so her child could stay in a Catholic school or making an issue of it. She choose correctly but, in doing so, she now has to face the consequences. The Catholic Church has the every right to say the Church isn’t changing their teachings and we need to part ways.

The Gay Community should focus their efforts on protecting the rights we presently have won in civil life and not get sidetracked by an internal church dispute. If Gay Catholics and their supporters want to continue the good fight, by all means, let them. But given that the Church has dug in their heels over birth control and abortion, I doubt very much that things will change. I am having a difficult time getting upset about this. As far as I am concerned and as long as they aren’t calling for my execution or incarceration, it is none of my business.