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I am irritated about all the falderal surrounding Macklemore’s Free Palestine comments.

Macklemore has every right to say what he said.

Ed Sheeran, or whoever it is that made the decision, has every right to remove him from the tour for saying what he said. Free speech has consequences. You have every right to say it but then I have every right not to listen. I do not have to provide you with a platform for your free speech.

Macklemore can continue to say Free Palestine in the numerous places willing to give him a platform. Given the controversy stirred up as a result of his actions, he seems to be doing fine with these new options for free speech. So how has Macklemore’s free speech been hindered by his removal from the tour?

He can’t say it in front of Ed Sheeran fans. Well, and I am just guessing here, a good many of them don’t want to hear controversial political statements at a concert. They just want to enjoy some music.

But they really need to hear what Macklemore is saying. Maybe. Maybe not. If, as an audience member I wanted to hear about Palestine, I would have gone to a Free Palestine protest instead of an Ed Sheeran concert so Macklemore is forcing his opinions on an audience who didn’t want to hear a Free Palestine speech. If the concert was advertised as a an Ed Sheeran and Macklemore concert with a little pro-Palestinian speech then I would feel a bit more uncomfortable about the removal of Macklemore from the tour. It wasn’t.

The free speech being practiced here is a one way street. Macklemore is speaking and his captive audience are listening. In this way, concerts are a terrible place to engage in political speech. It is all monologue and no dialogue.

Macklemore rolled the dice and he lost but spare me the tears and the beating of the breast.

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Not much shocks me. I personally think shock is an overused word because given the last fifty years of movies and television can anyone say that they are shocked by naked genitalia or blood soaked massacres. That is so 1960’s. On the other hand, running photographs of an athlete who shits herself during a competition did indeed shock me.

By the way, I am consciously not linking to any stories about this incident because I think the woman has suffered enough and while I want to comment on her experience I will leave it your Google finesse to find the pictures if you must .

Now, first, I will admit there is a news story here. The woman continued competing despite the mess she found herself in. It was unwise and unhealthy for her to continue. For this she is responsible and for this she paid — she had to surrender the title she won.

I think most people can figure out what happened without the photographic assistance. The picture helps no one and it further embarrasses the athlete who already has enough trouble with people lambasting her questionable decision making process.

For the press to show pictures of her laying on the ground with her shit stained shorts is unnecessary and cruel.

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I was reviewing the top 10 list for the Daily Beast today and I was surprised to see the following headline:

First, how is Bill Belichick and his girlfriend still getting these headlines. This is really old news in more ways than one. Bill Belichick, I would think, should disappear as top pick in grabbing headlines anymore. He is a college football coach — not even a professional football coach — a university’s football coach. Shouldn’t this drop him to the bottom of the list of people honored to receive headlines.

Second, it is about a rumor that seems very unlikely to be true. Hudson is trying to become the general manager of the University of North Carolina’s football team. Belichick may be a love struck senior but I hardly think he is a complete idiot. And, even if he was, I am sure that the people who run the University might run interference on this decision

Every time I think I am too hard on modern journalism, the fourth estate prove me wrong. I am not hard enough. What a ridiculous waste of precious journalism space. But hey ho, it is nice to know that a well healed senior citizen can still grab a voluptuous young lass’ attention. What a surprise.

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The reoccurring SNL skits called the Californians amuses because every conversation, even murder plots and infidelity, devolves into a conversation about the best way to navigate traffic. I have lived here for over 30 years and it is one of the most dependable topics of conversations I know. Other than the related conversation topic which is parking.

We talk about traffic constantly. It is as if we think someone will have the answer to cure our traffic ills. They don’t.

There is 1,000 miles of freeway and 17.5 million people in southern California. It is highly unlikely that one of these miles doesn’t have, at least, a fender bender. This seemingly small accident can throw the whole system out of wack.

GPS has made the situation a bit better — occasionally you can catch the traffic slowdown before you leave your house and take alternate routes. The problem with alternate routes is that everyone is using GPS. So while GPS might redirect you to a faster route, by the time you find out about the alternate route, every other driver has also have received exactly the same information. Now the alternate is jammed.

Which brings me back to the Californians. It is satire that is so close to reality that it hurts.

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Simon and Garfunkel’s “For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her” isn’t for everyone. The lyrics borders on the saccharine but I still managed to find myself on the side of the border where I can recommend it. Garfunkel is a strong singer and this song gives him an opportunity to show how good a singer he actually is. He nails it and beyond. He is almost too perfect with his tenor voice bordering on the angelic which is where Simon’s guitar playing comes in. Simon blunts some of the sentimentality of this song with some aggressive guitar playing towards the end that redirects the song to a less lofty, more human plain.

I have to admit I need to be in a mood to listen to it but when the mood hits, it is the perfect song for a rainy day when you want to wallow in the sadness of life. You do need those days some day.

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I found this new interesting outrage in Instapundit. There is anger about the instructions that teachers are giving in a Virginia school distract. The instructions encourage caution and care when teaching 9-11 as there might be different feelings about it from different children. See below:

What I find revealing is that these are the same type of instructions they want given to protect white children from learning about the deeds of their antebellum ancestors. They want to protect white children from feeling badly about people who are long dead and who they never met while telling Muslim children there religion is responsible for the 9-11 attack.

I am not sure why, in one case, children need protecting from learning the truth and, in another, they need to hear the terrible truth?

Wait, I shouldn’t say I am not sure why. I am pretty sure why.

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I struggle with Muslim Fundamentalism. In my very limited contact with Muslims here in California, they seem like fine people. They don’t bother me and I don’t bother them. I am assuming they are just regular Muslims and not fundamentalists. I am fine with them coming to the USA.

But the fundamentalist Muslims are a different story altogether. They share the same problem I have with Christian Fundamentalism. Neither group care much for me since I am gay. The recent attack of an Islamic Fundamentalist on Berlin’s Gay and Lesbian Pride Festival reminds me of the danger of fundamentalist religion. It can kill Gays.

I don’t like being a target.

The behavior I see from Muslim fundamentalists is alarming. They do terrible things to their fellow citizens in the West — Salman Rushdie, Charlie Hebbo, Bataclan, Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, and Theo Van Gogh. They are no better when they control governments – ISIS kills gays, Iran executes gays, and Iran executes rape victims who fight back. My worry here is that it is dangerous to disagree with Islamic Fundamentalists. Why would I want to import people who hate me?

This is where things get difficult. I also understand that most Muslims who immigrate to the West want a better life and are not coming to kill me. So what to do?

There seems to be only two schools of thought on how to handle the Muslim immigrant — we shouldn’t discriminate and so let everyone, fundamentalist Muslim or regular Muslim, in or keep all Muslims out.

Neither school seems to be in congruence with Western values. People should agree to maintain Western values in order to gain entry to the West so letting everyone isn’t going to work well at least with the native populations who still hold sway in elections. Nor does keeping every Muslim out — particularly if the person wants to take advantage of Western Values we hold.

A better vetting system should be the answer but then that would require more money. So, like so many of our problems, we are stuck between two extremes — neither of them very attractive.

Another difficult problem. Deep sigh.

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It is telling that in all this kerfuffle over AI potentially killing the human race because we are so destructive and irredeemable that the answer is to kill AI. This seems a little like killing the messenger over a unwanted message.

Think about — all these people saying humans are so bad that a totally rational entity, developed by human beings, using only the information that human beings feed it, is going to look at this information and decide — our creators have got to go.

Furthermore, instead of this being a wake up call about our behavior, the experts are saying it is a whole lot safer if we get rid of AI instead of, oh, I don’t know, changing our behavior. We are talking about destroying a life changing tool which could make our lives immeasurably better because we don’t want to stop polluting the earth and killing one another.

Something is terribly wrong here and it isn’t AI.

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Judy Sandler, in Huffington Post, made an interesting observation about her reticence to discuss her son’s mental health with others. He is struggling with it but how do you talk about it without causing more, possibly well-meaning but, nonetheless, unwanted follow up questions or invading your child’s privacy.

This leads to a bigger question for me — why is mental health such a forbidden topic of discussion? How is silence helping anyone dealing with mental health? It is a problem that a lot of people experience — either personally or through loved ones. Instead of talking about it, we him and haw, give vague answers that say nothing and undermines any understanding that other people might have about mental health struggles.

There is this hidden shame. My kid is a mess and it is a really difficult time for us. My kid is a failure.

People, by and large, are interested in your life and aren’t nosing around for gossip. It is genuine concern. But it is mental health. We don’t talk about mental health problems. There is this weird connection with good mental health and the goodness of the person. If I tell someone my son is having mental health issues, I have somehow failed as a parent. Alcoholics, schizophrenics, drug addicts, depressed people are all somehow bad people who should be hidden away until they come to their senses.

This silence about people who are suffering with their mental health is damaging. It discourages people from seeking help. It also puts the onus of diagnosing mental health with the person breaking down or their families.

If we, as a country, were serious about mental health — everyone would get a yearly mental health check in to see how people are doing.

But no we would rather wait until a mother kills her children. Or a young man shoots up his schools. Or a depressed person kills themselves. Or drug addicts camp out on our streets. So many of our problems have a mental health connection. An annual mental health check ups would be far cheaper than cleaning up the mess broken people make.

It also might take some of the shame out of seeing mental health professionals. If everyone is doing it we might diminish the silence regarding mental health issues and, more importantly, we might be able to pro-actively address the problems people are dealing with before they breakdown.

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Here is my story in the most neutral way I can think to present it. There is a chance I am wrong about my thinking but the facts are correct.

Bob and I go to trivia night at a local winery. We have been doing this for a couple of years. It has become like a Cheers bar for us. We know a lot of the other players in the contest and it is all good fun. At least that is what I thought.

There are some rules. One of which is your team should be no larger than six. We rarely have a problem with that but we have encouraged friends if they are available to come to join us as the more the merrier. This means sometimes it is just Bob and I and, on very rare occasions we slip past the 6 threshold. Most of the time this is no big deal because it is all good fun and the grand prize is two bottles of wine so the stakes are very low — mostly just bragging rights. There is a bit of trash talking between the winners and the losers but, as I said, all in good fun.

Last Thursday, we had 7 players. The sixth and seventh persons came it late at that — the quiz had been going on a good 15 minutes before they even arrived. But yes there were 7 players at our table.

We continued to play but we warned twice that we had 7 players. I explained that one of the people who joined us was basically drinking wine and chatting while the others played. He wasn’t supplying any answers. What were we supposed to do — tell him to go into a corner and drink his wine alone? Isn’t this supposed to be just fun and games?

I am trying to see the other person’s point on this but I am having a difficult time. It isn’t as if we were bringing in scholars from all over the state of California in order to win two fucking bottles of wine. It seemed so petty. First counting the number of people at each table and then reporting the numbers to the Quiz Master so she would have to act on their observation.

Anyway, it bothered me so much that I brought up throwing the quiz in order to avoid any dispute later. Thankfully, we lost.

Now as I type this I am thinking about whether this was a form of gamesmanship. They brought up our breaking the rules in order to distract us from focusing on the quiz. Mother Fuckers, just you wait until next Thursday. I will show you gamesmanship.

Do you see the problem here?