Month: May 2026

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Sometimes I read these posts where someone will make the point — all you have to do is read the Bible and you will have your answer. This would be great but if it is so clear why do so many people disagree with what is being said in the Bible.

A recent example of these different views regarding the Bible can be found with the recent dispute between Donald Trump and Pope Leo. These two Bible reading gentlemen, using the same Bible, are coming up with different understanding of what God really wants.

If two people can use the same text and come up with diametrically opposed positions, what does this say about the actual text. Now, if it happens once or twice, maybe I could still buy that the Bible is clear and any answers you want are found there but this isn’t the case with the Bible. The Bible has been around for a couple of thousand years, give or take a year or two, and for about as long people have been disagreeing about what the Bible actually says.

Thousands of years and thousands of disagreements would suggest that reading the Bible isn’t going to give me all the answers I need. This means that I have to evaluate the Bible based on my reading with some additional input from such Biblical scholars like Donald Trump and Pope Leo.

And Donald Trump and Pope Leo aren’t the only two people talking about the Bible. I googled it and the answer was somewhere in the millions. Millions of people talking about the same document and coming up with different answers from a document that supposedly needs no interpretation.

This leaves you in the unenviable position of having to decide who understands the Bible better — Donald Trump or Pope Leo?

I am thinking.

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Florida continues to rewrite the history of the Civil War. The governor and his cronies want a much more palatable history so that white children don’t have to learn that their ancestors behaved like assholes. As Chauncey DeVega, in the above linked Salon article, noted: “The discomfort of Black and brown children — who watch their communities’ histories, experiences and reality being systematically erased and distorted — was apparently of little concern.”

But never mind, the fragile minds of white children are the concern here. They need to know that their country is great. Period. Any information that might suggest otherwise has to be massaged so that these delicate darlings don’t get the wrong idea about the country.

So the Civil War becomes a little kerfuffle about State’s Rights. The North wanted to force its ways on the South and the South wasn’t having it. Making State’s Rights the issue, as opposed to slavery, drains the Civil War of any meaning.

Florida education wants white children to think that slavery wasn’t so bad. The plantation owners gave the slaves a good profession, and kept them well fed, and housed. The plantation owners and the slaves, in fact, got along fabulously. Besides, slavery was a dying institution and wouldn’t have lasted much longer any way. Got it.

Leaving white children with the mistaken idea that the founding fathers were perfect and the nation was perfect from the beginning with no need to change. But the nation did change — a bloody civil war was fought, the slaves were freed, and the South began a hundred year resistance campaign against blacks which included lynching and legal discrimination.

How does one explain American History without touching on the Civil War and race? More importantly, how does this silence about what happened help anyone – Black, Brown, Red, Yellow or White? The fact is race is an ongoing concern for the American people. The American people’s approach to race has changed over time and this change is important both to note, to discuss and to understand.

How does a student understand Reconstruction without first learning about the Civil War? How does a student understand the Civil Rights Movement without understanding legal discrimination? Yes, these are unpleasant topics because a lot of people behaved badly and their behavior is difficult to understand. But it did happen. It is a part of history.

Children, contrary to popular belief, live in the real world not an imaginary world of lollipops and gum drops. They see confusing and terrible things every day. This is part of their transition to becoming adults. Not all truths are pleasant. Children need to know that. The country started with some grand ideas but some pretty awful ones too. It is important to learn from the awful ones in order to change our present to an even better future.

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Michael Golden, in Real Clear Politics, wants the media to stop publicizing the names of serial shooters as a way of denying the shooter the infamy they desire. He believes it will discourage other shooters from seeking the same fate.

While I can support Golden’s proposal to quash any media attention these people are seeking, I doubt very much that anything significant will come from implementation of it. Mostly because, the shooter is already dead — either by suicide or by police action. What ever thrill the shooter was seeking was experienced in the shooter’s mind prior to the shooting. So I am unconvinced that such a media ban would have much effect at all on future shooters. It is worth a try but I would be surprised to see any change in the number of shootings

The problem with mass shootings, as Golden acknowledges, is the division in the country on what to do about them. One side wants to restrict access to guns; the other side thinks the problem is mental health. Since there is little areas of agreements, nothing much gets done despite the number of shootings. Golden, probably correctly, thinks that a media ban on naming the people who kill during a mass shooting would be something that both sides can agree on and get implemented.

But does it solve the problem? Not even close.

These people are well-armed and crazy. They are facing almost certain death. They know that they probably will be dead by the time the media begin discussing their actions. How does not mentioning their name going to stop them? The shooter is still crazy and still has a gun.

If people want to give it a try, fine, give it a try. But it changes nothing about crazy people still having access to guns. It is a way of looking like you are doing something while you are doing absolutely nothing to address the problem at hand. In other words, a waste of time.

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My friend Chris gave me this bag over 30 years ago. The picture doesn’t do it justice. The cloth handles are thread bare and every time I use it I fear that this will be the last time, but some big grocery shopping is done and we need to take the old girl out of retirement.

Numerous grocery store employees have complimented us on the bags depth and width. It can hold oversized and odd shape boxes so invaluable for transporting food for pot lucks and such.

So just a shout out to it’s years of service.

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After about 3 years of struggle to maintain waist size 36, I am sad to announce I surrender and am moving on to waist size 38. I put up a valiant effort with frequent exercise but a diet of beer, wine, eating out and sweets finally took its toll.

The final blow in my struggle occurred at Macy’s when I tried on a pair of 38 inch waist jeans and found them to be much more comfortable than my size 36 waist jeans. It an extraordinary quick turnaround — all 36 inch waist jeans were returned to the shelves while I purchased the 38 inch waist jeans. I now am looking at more slacks in 38 inch size, extra large shirts and mumus so any hope for my return to a 36 inch waist should be abandoned.

Services for the 36 inch size slacks/jeans/pants will be held at the local Goodwill shop. No flowers are necessary but if you feel it is necessary to make some contribution, please send chocolate eclairs, fried chicken or bottles of wine to the family home.

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One of the things I would change about my apartment is the metal sink in the kitchen (seen above). Every time I look at it, I think it is out of place, particularly when you go into the bathrooms with the nicer porcelain ones. I realize that it is probably not real porcelain but it is close enough in look and in touch for me to give it a pass. It looks like how I imagine a bathroom sink should look.

When I look at the metal sinks in the kitchen, my first thought is this is out of place. It looks wrong. I am sorry for being such a snob but when something looks so out of place from everything else in the apartment, there can only be one good reason for it being there — it is cheap. The contractor threw out all design considerations to save a buck. To Hell with how it looks.

Now I am all for keeping costs down but there is a difference between looking cheap and finding inexpensive materials that still give a quality sense and also fit into the general design of the apartment. This isn’t how this kitchen sink makes me feel. It looks cheap and out of place.

Finally, and most importantly, it is more difficult to use. In order to wash and rinse in one step, the sink needs to be divided into two separate parts. One side for washing and the other side for rinsing. This metal sink is one big long deep trench. I guess I am supposed to wash everything and then go back and rinse them afterwards but this seems like a lot of extra work for me when I can do both tasks in one step with the divide sink.

The other problem with it being too deep and too long is I use an inordinate amount of water to fill it for comfortable washing. This becomes an ecological drawback sense we are being told that the Colorado River is running out of water and do everything we can to conserve on water.

The absolute worst aspect is cleaning the fucker out. In an oval sink, I just sprayed water to the sides and the debris fell effortlessly into the drain. With a square sink, the debris is constantly getting caught in the corners so I have to dig out the debris in order to get the sink clean.

In conclusion, I really miss my porcelain, oval and divided sink.

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Another assassination attempt was made on Donald Trump. The Secret Service shot the man down. Early reports about the shooter are depressing. He thought he was God so I am not sure whether he had a coherent world view which prompted him to take this action but I doubt it. People who think they are God are uniquely incapable of coherence so this leaves us with crazy.

Early in the week two teenagers stormed a San Diego mosque — killing three people and then themselves. They hated about everybody, given the way it turned out, even themselves.

I don’t know what to do about the crazy people in this country. As a nation, we have pretty much decided to lump them in with the regular citizens which means they are left to their own devices. They can own guns, sleep on the streets, do whatever the Hell they want until they cross a line and then, in the worst case scenario, they are gunned down.

This is how we want to live and, lets be clear, no decision is a decision. We would rather have the occasional blood letting to addressing why unstable people with guns keep creating such havoc. Limiting gun availability is off the table. Let’s face it the 2nd Amendment makes this impossible. Furthermore there are too many guns out there now and there would be way too much resistance to confiscating guns to make it worthwhile. It is, for now, off the table.

But what about the other part of the equation dealing with all the crazy people. Well, this would require political will and money. Why this is controversial is beyond me? Mental health requires some level of preventative measure. Identify the people who are sick and get them the help they need before they break.

Think physical health. For example, we can control high blood pressure through medication. The first step, though, is identifying people suffering from it before we can help them. The same practice apples for mental health. We need to know who needs help.

But freedom, people shouldn’t be forced into a psychological check. We could require a yearly psychological check as a part of having health insurance. This would, at least, help us address the vast majority of the population.

Who is going to pay for all these checks? The government or the insurance companies? Forget I said anything.

So you see nothing is going to happen. We just have to accept that mad men with guns will be walking the street until they break and then after they are done killing, we will kill them or they will kill themselves. A little messy but the problem is solved without raising taxes.

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Bob and I were discussing Leonard Cohen’s singing the other day and I really couldn’t argue with Bob’s point that Cohen’s singing is a bit strained. I couldn’t say why I liked Cohen’s versions of his songs but I do. To be clear, I also like other singers’ versions as well but Cohen’s problematic singing doesn’t bother me.

I will admit it isn’t great. There is a limited range and rarely goes to far from actual speaking the lyrics. Cohen, like another problematic singer/song writer Bob Dylan, has intriguing lyrics that sometimes can only the singer/song writer can capture. Cohen delivers the tone and emotional depth of what he is trying to say and how he wants to say it. For me, this makes up for any voice limitations. Cohen is very much the every man when he sings. For lack of a better way of saying it he sings like I think I would sing if I could sing.

Here is a link to Cohen singing Suzanne.

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I was watching Mad Men. Near the end of one episode, I thought I heard the lyrics, “He Hit Me (and it Felt Like a Kiss).” At first, I thought I must be wrong. What a terrible thing to say?

So I googled it, and much to my horror, I learned that there was indeed a song with that title. Even more disturbing, this paean to masochism was written by the husband and wife song writing duo Gerry Goffin and Carole King. You heard that right two of the most successful song writers of the 1960’s wrote the damn thing and, to boot, a woman was involved in the process. Not surprisingly, Phil Spector, a known wife beater, produced the original Crystals version.

What struck me most was how much has changed since 1961 when the song was written. Here is a woman realizing that her man loves her because he cares enough to hit her when she is untrue so much so that when he strikes her she feels a kiss. So 65 or so short years ago, a group of people in the music business though enough of a song about physical abuse to produce it and try to sell it to the public.

So whenever some idiot wants to talk about the good old days, you might sing a few line from the song below.

He Hit Me (and it Felt Like a Kiss)

He hit me
And it felt like a kiss
He hit me
But it didn’t hurt me

He couldn’t stand to hear me say
That I’d been with someone new
And when I told him I had been untrue

He hit me
And it felt like a kiss
He hit me
And I knew he loved me

If he didn’t care for me
I could have never made him mad
But he hit me
And I was glad

Yes, he hit me
And it felt like a kiss
He hit me
And I knew I loved him
And then he took me in his arms
With all the tenderness there is
And when he kissed me
He made me his

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I enjoy Slate’s advice columns (think Dear Abby for a variety of different topics) because they are generally entertaining to read and eye opening in what people get upset about. There was a recent letter that alarmed me because I think it was over reaction on the part of the columnists (JENÉE DESMOND-HARRIS AND LIZZIE O’LEARY).

It is behind a pay wall so you might have trouble retrieving so I will summarize the issue. A husband and a wife (30 plus years of marriage) were traveling with friends who had a college aged daughter. The husband took surreptitious pictures of the other couple’s daughter in her bikini. The girl was in public places in all these pictures — walking in front of him and at the pool. The husband clearly was sneaking photos of the young woman.

The wife later was looking through their shared vacation pictures and found the pictures of the young woman. The woman confronted her husband because she thought it was creepy and the husband gave a bull shit story about it. He told her he thought the woman could be a model and he was checking this out. He thought she was making a big deal out of nothing. This freaked out the wife who wrote the Slate columnists to get their take on it.

Desmond-Harris and O’Leary’s response, to me, seems to be an over reaction. The husband is a creep. He needs to be taken to task. The wife needs to go through his computer and see what he is up to as they doubt if this is the only time he has taken pictures of girls in bikinis. She could find something so much worse so she should. Then they started talking about whether the girl and her parents should be warned about the husband’s behavior which they seemed to be conflicted about. Finally, they advised the woman to never let her husband be alone with that young woman ever again.

Huh? How about a simple — your story is bullshit and you better cut it out or one day somebody is going to catch you and everyone is going to think you are a creep.

The woman is an adult and was in a public place in her bikini. Anyone could have taken a picture of her. How many people take pictures of other people who haven’t a clue that they are the model. Yes there is a protocol to ask people if it is all right to take your picture but realistically how often is that done? If you are in a public place, and someone likes your looks, they are free to take your picture.

The wife had access to the pictures. He clearly didn’t think it was a big deal or else he would have deleted the pictures which he knew she had access to. He wasn’t exactly hiding his behavior. When the wife confronted him, he was embarrassed. He put two and two together and realized how other people might view these pictures. Yes, he made up a unbelievable excuse which he should be called out on but, again in my eyes, that is about it.

Then the columnist determined that the man should never be left alone with the girl ever again. What? We are talking about a grown woman — a young woman yes but a college aged woman who surely at this stage of her life has learned to handle herself with men. More irritating for me is the woman had been married to the man for over 30 years. The wife never saw any evidence that her husband went beyond taking pictures of one beautiful girl in a bikini. This is quite a jump from taking a picture of one adult woman to much more egregious behavior that the man somehow now poses a threat to young women everywhere.

He made a mistake, given his wife’s reaction — one that he isn’t likely to make again. I think, given the lack of any other evidence, the husband should be given the benefit of the doubt. He knows how to behave in front of women and should be allowed to be alone with the young woman.

Then Desmond-Harris and O’Leary discuss whether to involve the woman’s parents. Again, what? The woman is an adult not a naive 15 year old. She has gone beyond the age where her parents have any responsibility over her actions or her life. I personally don’t believe anyone should be told but if you must tell someone — it is the college aged woman and not her parents. This is infantilizing a grown woman.

Men like to see women in bikinis. They sometimes do stupid things because they like to see women in bikinis. The woman doesn’t even know it happened. Why create a problem where there is none? It seems to me that the wife’s big problem is not the pictures but her husband’s lame excuse about why he took the pictures. This is a matter between the man and his wife alone. No one else needs to be involved and the only action required is telling him to knock it off until he can come up with a better reason for taking surreptitious pictures of women in bikinis.