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Bob and I recently adopted two young cats. They had been living outside for awhile but weren’t feral. They came as a pair because Chloe was attached to her brother Cisco and it would be difficult to separate them. So we brought home Chloe and Cisco.

Cisco is a hulk. Think a lineman on a football team. He has a really thick neck with a bushy lion’s mane. He is a bit of bully with Chloe, at least, at first he was. Chloe followed Cisco around everywhere he went and I think the constant attention annoyed him after awhile and he would lash out at her to leave him alone. She also thought they could play together so he would surprise attack him from time to time. We tolerated the ensuing chase through the house which usually ended with a wrestling match. Our idea was that they needed to work out their relationship between the two of them. If Chloe hissed for help, we would rescue here but otherwise they rolled around for a few minutes until the nimble Chloe wiggled her way out of trouble.

Chloe eventually was able to get her social needs met from us and the fights between them lessened. The only contentious time left is dinner time when Cisco, who gobbles his food quickly, nudges the more leisurely eating Chloe away from her food bowl. Bob, concerned that Chloe isn’t getting her fair share of the food, stands guard while Chloe eats. This allows for Chloe to get to the half way point with her food before Cisco pushes her out of the way.

The problem is that Cisco also bullies us. He harasses us for people food while we are eating. We have learned from previous cats to never give cats people food. If you ever do, the cats won’t leave you alone while you eat. They want to know what you are eating and whether they can have a bite. I could put up with it if they confined this unruly behavior to just us but it is embarrassing when there are guests over and the cats leap on to the table to make a food grab. In the past we would lie and say this is so strange as this never happens with the two of us when it actually happens on a daily basis.

We decided early on that Cisco and Chloe would not get people food, particularly from the table while we were eating. It worked for Chloe. She learned pretty quickly that begging wasn’t going to get her anywhere and, for the most part has given up on begging for food. She will occasionally slip if she smells something particularly good but once turned down, she will stop begging. Cisco, on the other hand, doesn’t even beg, he plops is paw down on your plate as a first move in his food grab. And will not take no for an answer. Fortunately for us, he isn’t very quick and we are able to block his grabs without him getting anything of value.

However, food left unattended on the counter is extremely vulnerable. Just today Bob put out some packaged tortillas on the counter for our dinner. Since they were packaged and a non-animal protein product, we thought they were safe. Cisco thought otherwise. He bit and clawed his way through the packaging until the tortillas were free for him to nibble on. As far as he is concerned, he has the right to inspect any food item that comes into the house and taste to see if it is something he likes. Our experience with over 50 years of living with cats led us to believe that threats and screams would scare the normal cat away from any nefarious activity. Cisco is unmovable even if we run towards him while yelling no loudly. He just dares you to make him move and remains seated until he is removed from the counter. He is either too dim to understand that we are angry with him and he should flee the counter or he just doesn’t give a damn what we think. I suspect it is the later

Bob and I try to reassert our alphaness but Cisco isn’t surrendering the alpha mantel without a fight. Lately, his singular claim to the alpha tile was strengthned when he took over Bob’s favorite chair. Now Bob looks wistfully at his chair and mutters, “I wish I could have my chair back.” I tell Bob to move Cisco but Bob knows there will be a struggle and he isn’t sure who will come out with the prize. Losing to a cat would be a terrible blow to Bob’s ego. How could we show our faces at the White Party if people knew a cat took down Bob? The loser would certainly have to leave in shame and, right now, Cisco is the odds on favorite to retain the chair.

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Well, the news out of Texas just keeps getting better and better. Not only must a woman give birth to a baby which is doomed to die, the state takes a deem view regarding historical information about slavery. Michelle Haas, amateur historian, believes that the Varner-Hogg plantation, a Texas state historical site, had too much information about the slaves and not enough about the slave owners. You heard me right. The slaves are getting more attention than the slave owners. The horror.

Whats more troubling is that it took only one person complaining for the Texas Historical Commission to throw in the towel. They voluntarily removed the books about the slaves because they were afraid that the Republican-controlled Legislature would be upset by her complaints. One complaint and the Commission gives in. So much for Don’t Mess with Texas.

It begs the question what books about plantation owners are acceptable to Haas? Gone With the Wind?What happens when someone complains about Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler? Are they going to remove it as well? At this point, you might as well close down the store completely because everything is offensive.

 Which is the point after all. This isn’t just about protecting children either, this is about keeping information from adults too. One of the books removed was Alex Haley’s classic history of his family’s experience of slavery. It’s appearance on the bookshelves is there to remind people that there were also slaves at the Varner-Hogg plantation and that plantations needed a large work force of unpaid labor in order to function. What exactly is the problem with discussing slavery? It existed at the Varner-Hogg plantation. Knowing about slavery would help a modern audience understand plantation life. I think most adults can handle this information.

And why do I need to know more about the owners? Of all the plantation residents, their place in the hierarchy of the plantation can be understood by the dimmest kindergartner. They collected the paycheck while the slaves did all of the work. What else did they really do? Give parties, run for the state legislature? You can remove the owners from the story and still get a pretty good idea of what happened on a plantation. On the other hand, you can’t remove the slaves which might also explain why there is more information about the slaves. But, by all means, tell me more about the owners.

And, while you are at it, please spare me the heart warming stories about how well they treated their slaves. It is irrelevant and frankly unbelievable. Owning a person, by its very nature, is bad treatment. Knowing any more about them, can only give people a worse opinion. Now if I can hear about why they thought they had the right to own slaves? Or why Africans were the people they were willing to enslave, I am all ears.

Also don’t tell me that slavery was a worldwide problem and that lots of people had slaves at the time. This isn’t exactly true particularly in European countries. Most of Europe had already outlawed slavery by this time and there were a lot of Americans opposed to slavery at that time so it wasn’t a universal belief. These slave owners clung to an outdated concept of how to treat their fellow human being. This is precisely what the Civil War was about. The slave owners, in case Haas’ throwing sand in your eyes has blinded you to the fact, were on the wrong side of that war.

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Kate Cox lives in Texas which restricts abortion availability. She also is carrying a fetus that will die before it is born or soon after the baby is born. Because Texas has restrictive abortion laws, Cox had to petition the Texas courts in order to terminate her pregnancy. She received a judge’s approval to move forward with the abortion. Then, in jumps Ken Paxton, the Republican Attorney General for Texas. He decided that Cox must have her child and has threatened hospitals who might perform the procedure with legal action if they assist her.

Why Paxton would choose this particular abortion case to fight is baffling. The best that Paxton can get here is a Pyrrhic Victory. He may be able to force a woman to carry this dying fetus but only at the expense of losing the people who have conditional acceptance of abortions. Cox is making a decision based on the viability of the fetus. She wanted the baby but medical experts told her that her baby is doomed. Why is it better for her to continue her pregnancy, only to have the fetus die in her or die soon after the baby is born.

This is why overwhelming majorities of people, if forced to decide between liberal abortion laws and restrictive abortion laws, always choose liberal abortion laws. It is bad enough that Cox had to go to court to terminate her pregnancy but then to have the Attorney General of her state continue her struggle by taking it to the Texas Supreme Court is astounding.

Paxton is behaving in exactly the way that pro-Choice advocates are warning us about. They are blocking women from having abortions even when the circumstances would cause most people to abort. It is an unreasonable intrusion on Cox and for what? The death of the baby she wanted. It is personally cruel to Cox — extending her suffering for months longer than necessary and delaying her chance for another pregnancy. Why would anyone inflict this horror on anyone?

This puts to rest the idea that Paxton and the pro-Life fanatics will be reasonable about abortion. They won’t and they are proving it. And though I would never stop a Republican from committing political suicide, completely baffling given the political situation at the present moment. This was an easily avoidable battle. Cox did what Texas expected of her, a judge ruled in her favor but Paxton disagreed with the decision. Which is troubling particularly in a state the size of Texas? Is the Attorney General going to review every request for an abortion before the doctors can proceed? If so, I predict more liberal abortion laws in Texas’ future.

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Republicans are spreading the rumor that Barack Obama is actually running the country while old Joe Biden is sitting on the White House veranda drooling and soaking up the sun under a pile of warm blankets waiting to die. While there is no evidence that this is true, and I am convinced that Biden is presently up to the duties of his office and infinitely better president than that wastrel Donald Trump, I find Biden’s age worrisome. So when I hear these whispers about Obama being in charge, it comforts me.

Not because I believe it to be true but because it reminds me that the American system of government prevents the most powerful person in the world from having too much power. As we have witnessed in the past 20 years of partisan warfare, the President can do very little without the support of Congress and the approval of the Supreme Court. Biden doesn’t have either and thus little is being done right now. The only unchecked power he has, and it is mighty, is to send missiles flying in the event of a sneak attack. So who are the Republicans trying to scare here?

Not me. I like Obama and he also is popular with a large segment of the American Electorate. He is a young man particularly in comparison to both Biden and Trump. He is a recent president so he is up on the latest issues. Obama is a Democrat, Biden is a Democrat — is there much of a chance that Obama would be doing anything differently from Biden? Why should this concern me?

The Republicans spread this lie as if this should be upsetting. All I can say is good then. There is someone stable at the helm. And, if given the choice between a senile old man that is being manipulated by a younger known politician and a mad man who doesn’t take anyone’s advice but his own and who’s understanding of the bigger world stopped somewhere in middle school. I am going with the senior citizen.

The Republicans can continue to spread this vicious piece of gossip for however long they want to but I don’t think many people are gasping from the shock. They are undermining their strongest argument against Biden for no good reason. The only thing I can come up with is that they think the general public hates Obama as much as they do. They must have forgotten that Obama handily defeated the Republicans twice. I am happy to see them fumble around with this issue as I think a stronger and potentially more damaging case can be made regarding Biden’s age. Fortunately the Republicans aren’t able to grasp what that is.

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I been struggling with this blog. One day, two weeks ago I had this brilliant idea about gender identity which I immediately wrote down. I read it as soon as I finished because I thought I was being brilliant, and you always want to see that brilliant light shining. But, soon after I reread what I wrote, I realized that wasn’t what I meant to say it all. It’s really quite amazing how quickly your brilliant idea turns into dust.

Not to be defeated by a temporary memory problem. I kept coming back to this blog thinking the brilliant idea would return to me. What I wrote was close, just not quite right. If I spent enough time coming back to what I wrote I would, at some point, remember the idea and put these thoughts down. It hasn’t happened. I still am kind of murky on the great idea but I am getting closer.

I finally decided I can’t wait any longer and I am just going to do the best I can. Brace yourself because it isn’t going to be pretty but I think I can give you an idea of what I was thinking about.

I will get the rough stuff out of the way first. I don’t have much patience anymore for the right pronouns crowd. I will use your correct pronouns if you tell me. But I also am telling you that for now and the foreseeable future, I going to risk eyeballing it and make my own determination on pronouns. This means if I meet someone with a beard, I am going to assume that he identifies as a male because there is a pretty darn good chance that I am right which means I avoid a potentially awkward conversation with someone who I may have just met.

Social interactions are all about comfort and moving things along with a minimum of tension and awkwardness. You want to get their names right and not much else. Getting into a discussion about the appropriate pronouns could lead to messy conversations that I don’t want to have. Transgenderism is a relatively new and isolated phenomena. Yes, there have been people in the past, and there are past cultures open to different ways of looking at gender. Got it. But I happen to live in a culture heavily dominated by Western European thought. This thinking is, to say the least, entrenched into the society I live. If you expect to turn around 6,000 years of Western Civilization on a dime, you are in for some disappointment and, like I said before, I don’t want to have unnecessary messy conversations.

Western Culture strongly leans on the male/female gender identities. I have grown up in it as have almost everyone I know. It works for the vast majority of the population which includes Gay and Bisexual individuals. A very small percentage of the population suffer because of it. Society should do everything we can to lessen their suffering within reason. But to reorganize a society from top to bottom to protect the feelings of a small number of people is ludicrous and, more importantly, impossible to change without the acceptance of the society at large.

This hasn’t happened yet and how do we do it is important. Forcing shit down people’s throats is a horrible way to move forward and should be avoided if at all possible. Look at Western notions of beauty which I would argue are much more damaging to large swaths of the population and are still very much adhered to. If you ask 50 people from across the world to pick the most beautiful people in the world, I am betting that there will be an awful lot of overlap with who they select and it would look similar to what people thought over a 100 years ago. Which is my way of saying, don’t yell at Grandpa when he doesn’t know what you are talking about when you ask his pronoun preferences. Culture is difficult to change.

On the other hand, I am pretty excited about what I am seeing and hearing. I don’t know what it means and how far reaching it is but I think we could be entering a potentially culture changing epoch. I came face to face with this change this summer when I was at a restaurant in upstate New York where the host at a restaurant I was in was a young man wearing a dress. This is the first time I had seen a man in a dress outsides of a drag show.

It startled me. I am gay and live in California, if anyone should have encountered this before, I should have. But I hadn’t. It was completely new to me. I had to sit with it for a moment but soon enough I had forgotten about it and was enjoying an evening out with friends. It became none of my business awfully quick.

Then I remember hearing parents, almost always mothers but still parents, talking about their children, and I hear something I never heard when I was growing up. Parents who talk about their gay, lesbian and bisexual children and their experiences openly. Not as a secret to reveal but as little Sally has a girlfriend isn’t that sweet kind of conversation. The woman was talking about her high school aged daughter as a regular teenager and not as some kind of freak. I remember hearing a woman talking about her son dressing up as a girl character from Frozen without angst about his future. Something that was unlikely to have occurred in my childhood where one of my most traumatic memories is my father explaining to me why I shouldn’t be playing with dolls and the horrors my life would encounter if I continued on this path.

These are subtle changes that hint at a larger change going on which makes me a little hopeful about the future. The last 100 years or so we have seen a revolutionary image change of gender. The biggest changes has come in how society views women. In such a simple thing as what a woman can wear. There are no strict rules as far as I can tell for a women’s wardrobe. Slacks, men’s jeans, no bra, stiletto heals, a gun holster. Anything goes. A woman can run for president or be a housewife. There is still a long way to go but it is moving and in the right direction.

Our idea of what a man can wear might be next. Or even better how a man should act or what a real man is. The old rigid ideas about manhood might as last be falling.. If society finally opens up to a less rigid ideal, you might start seeing some pretty exciting developments regarding how straight men behave. You might see men comfortable enough to wear a dress when they feel like it. If there is no stigma any longer to sex with another men, you might see men opening themselves to experiences that society frowned upon and the ever present male fear of not being man enough broken down to something more human and manageable. I would never believed this was possible until I saw a man in a dress.

Once men can imagine themselves in different ways, it then might be important to inquire about someone’s preferences of persona pronouns and this is might very well be happening now.

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By the time I finish writing this blog, I might have changed my mind but right now I have to say Peter Falk as Columbo is my favorite television character. The show dates from the 1970’s and has aged surprisingly well. Unlike most detective shows where the trick is to figure out who the murderer is, the audience knows who the murderer is but how Columbo figures out who the murderer is.

The murderer is almost always some rich and powerful person who thinks they are smarter than the bumbling appearing Columbo who stumbles into their lives . Because they think they are smarter than Columbo, they fall into his trap of giving too much information that they inadvertently give away important details, seemingly innocuous information, that seals their fate later in the show.

Falk and the writers gives Columbo an array of distinctive quirks. His rumbled rain coat that he is always wearing and he can’t bring himself to rid himself of even after his wife buys him a snazzy new one, his ever present cigar, his scratching head when confused, his car — a barely functional vintage Peugeot convertible, his sad sack and barely functional pet dog, his never on screen wife who he calls Mrs. Columbo and who is full of good advice, and his saying “just one more thing” as he his leaving the suspect which tricks a usually exasperated person into giving some seemingly unimportant detail that really is at the heart of what Columbo is looking for.

You can’t help but root for Columbo as he manages to manipulate these arrogant assholes into prison. He plays into their egos, letting them think he is a bumbler while finding out everything he needs to know. Part of Falk’s charm is he manages to ingratiate his suspects into helping him and working with him to help him catch the killer while actually setting a trap for the unsuspecting guilty party. It is particularly fun when the suspect catches on to Columbo’s game but have gone too far to save themselves from falling into one of his traps. Their disdain for him throughout the show and their disbelief that this idiot outwitted them is the best revenge.

So if you are looking for a good detective show and you have exhausted everything you know, you might revisit Columbo as I think you will find it a rewarding experience.

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Texas A and M is buying out their head football coach for 75 million. Talk about your golden parachute. The amount is staggering because Texas A and M is a public institution. How does this amount of money go to one individual working at a public university. And this isn’t even a successful coach, the university wants to fire because him for his poor performance and because the coach has such a favorable contract, this unwanted employee has to be paid off to the tune of $75 million. The school helpfully reported that no public funds were used to pay him off.

Well, that certainly makes me feel better nonetheless it is still an irritating waste of money through the auspices of a public institution. Why is there private financing for a football team at a public university? Because it matters so much to the alumni to have a good football team?

This is a bad investment of money. But it is private money. Well, yes it is. These people, who have too much money and not enough sense, are willing to spend outrageous sums of money to get a winning football coach and when he fails to win, they are also willing to pay him off to get rid of him. Keep in mind, they still have to hire a new winning football coach so probably another $75 million will be spent on him because why would a coach come in for anything less that what the previous coach got. This is after all how capitalism works.

It wouldn’t sting so much if the rich weren’t so damn hypocritical about wanting people to work for their money. This coach, that they don’t want to coach, is getting paid to walk away from work and do nothing. He could, at the very least, be a towel boy or a concession stand hawker to earn back some of the money he is taking with him. Every time you hear complaints about how we can’t afford higher wages for average people, remember that they can pay $75 million to pay a football coach to do nothing.

It gets more irritating. Anyone who contributes to this Texas A&M fund gets a tax deduction. You see Texas A&M is a public institution. So it looks like a charitable donations to cover improvements in the sports program. Unfortunately, they are also paying for the exorbitant wages to a man who is, in their eyes, failing at his job.

The tax deduction needs to end. The Texas A&M football team is a business separated from the state university. This is another shameful example of the rich wasting money. They are all for the best football teams while balking at paying workers better wages. Perhaps, if they had less money and needed to watch where their money went, they would make better choices. Taxing them more is a way to encourage the discipline that they so badly need.

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Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the House, in case you can’t keep track with the rapid turnaround in that position, revealed that he and his 16 year old son have a porn accountability device on their electronic devices. So what? Is this really anybody’s business? He made a deal with his son about keeping themselves honest about viewing pornography. I don’t think this is in any way controversial or, for that matter, news worthy.

Yet some how this made the headlines. It is an incredible waste of space. It adds nothing to what we know about Mike Johnson as we already knew he was a fundamentalist Christian. It isn’t particularly surprising for him to have such a device and that he monitors his son’s viewing. It is his business.

So why the headlines. Now I would hate to say anything bad about the media but I think the only reason this is here is that it involves pornography and a public figure. It makes for a catchy headline. Speaker of the House, Pornography. The boys and girls in the Fourth Estate must have already had this typed and published before realizing what a snooze fest this was.

But given that there isn’t much going on now, what with the war in the Middle East, the war in the Ukraine, the Trump trials, questions about the economy and Taylor Swift’s dating Travis Kelce they had so much space that they had to fill it with something and this is what they decided to fill it. Empty space filling more empty space.

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When describing a good salesman people often refer to the adage that this guy is so good that he could sell refrigerators/air conditioning to the Eskimos. Which is generally considered a complement to the salesman’s ability. But why? Is it really a talent to brag about — convincing people to buy something that they didn’t want, don’t need and can’t use. Why would you brag about being a conman? But people do. They in fact admire it.

What is forgotten is that there is another person involved in this story — the Eskimo. He, however, is a chump. The mark, the person who it is all right to take advantage of because they should be smarter and more careful when talking to a fast talking salesman. Someone who deserves to get taken. The salesman, on the other hand, is the hero of the story. He is clever, a smooth talker, someone who gets what he wants, someone who doesn’t let a little thing as selling something unnecessary to a gullible customer get in his way. The salesman has the abilities people want. Who wants to be the chump.

It is sad that the whole salesman relationship is based on the notion that all he wants from you is your money and doesn’t care about whether you need or want what he is selling. The salesman is perfectly within his rights to sell whatever useless item he has to any gullible buyer willing to buy. It’s not the con man’s fault if the Eskimo is so gullible and bought the refrigerator. Buyer beware and all that crap but it isn’t an honest transaction.

Aren’t we suppose to value honesty above good salesman ship. Would it be so wrong for the salesman to tell the Eskimo that he doesn’t really need refrigeration? I am afraid there are an awful lot of people who would say yes. Why pass up an opportunity to separate a fool from his money. Someone is going to do it, right. And it is all perfectly legal which this tells you everything you need to know — we prefer the conman to the chump.

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Apparently it is a problem if someone, particularly some you know, or even worse, a close family member names their child the name you were going to give your future baby. Some people believe that their unique names for babies (see here and here here) are their’s and their’s alone. And, if you told someone the name you like and then that person uses that name before you can have your child, it is an act of personal betrayal that requires, at least, a shouting match and, at worst, permanently exiling the offending friend from your presence.

I find it difficult to have much sympathy for these parents. Perhaps it is because I grew up during a time when everyone basically rotated the same names generation to generation. Having a couple of Tom’s in my class was never a big worry because there was always another Tom in my class. My parents didn’t think that they were going to be the only ones to use Tom, so when they heard that other parent’s named their child Tom, their reaction was more good name, we liked it too and not how dare you use a name that I was destined to give my child and you have ruined my life and the life of my child by using my name for your child.

Now names are carefully guarded secrets because there are uncreative people out there who will steal your baby name if you give them a chance. Never give them that chance, people will tell you they can’t give you the name of their impeding child even though they know the name because You might reveal it to their cousin Amelia who is due a month earlier than you and would think nothing of poaching your name if she liked it. This, even though, you don’t know anybody in her circle of friends and would probably never talk about baby names again for a very long time to come. The worst case scenario here is that there might be two kids with the name Aloysius. Is that really so bad?