Two Unarmed Gay Men

 The holidays have arrived, or, at least they will in relatively few days.  First up will be the crassly commercialized Thanksgiving with its football, followed by that ever popular Black Friday.  Is it me, or does it seem like corporate retailers no longer have dominion over the American Household?  Not that there still aren't enough wack jobs out there who fail to realized those great deals are nothing more than corporate manipulation.  

Anyway, I am scheduled to work today.  I'm supposed to be an appliance salesman.  They do this every year.  Usually, it doesn't happen.  I almost always hang around the flooring desk.  Today, will probably be the same.  You see, I'm scheduled to start at 0930, and the temps are cold.  Not quite bone chilling, but a very brisk 22 (F), outside.  Customers might venture out this afternoon.  And there are a lot of wack jobs out there who still think the best deals are only on Black Friday.  

I worked yesterday and it was oh, so slow.  

Tomorrow, the electrician comes to install my dryer hookup.  He will also be installing 2 outlets, one in the kitchen, and another upstairs for the washer.  These are dedicated lines.  Nice.

A lot of America is talking about what happened at Club Q.  Another tragedy.  One thing that I read yesterday stands out above all else: two unarmed gay men did what the heavily armed police force in Uvalde couldn't do.  Take a few minutes and let that thought sink.  They took the shooters handgun away from him and hit him with it.  I hope they hit him in the face, maybe broke his nose, and all in self-defense.  Two minutes after the police arrived, this 22 year-old loser named Aldrich was in custody.  Five poor souls died, but the actions of two unarmed gay men saved countless of others.  America saw a sense of strength in Colorado Springs they were not expecting.

I saw where Elon Musk quietly reinstated Kanye West on Twitter, and the exodus continues.  For those worried that Trump might actually return, I understand he has some sort of financial commitment to Truth Social.  Money is the golden calf he prays to.  West's anti-Semitic Tweets will appeal to a certain crowd, a group whose numbers do not nearly compensate for numbers of people who are leaving.  I'm actually wondering if Twitter does go under, if he can somehow claim his $44 billion investment a loss, and use it as a tax write-off.

And finally a funny.  I read that what corporate American wants most from the Republican controlled house is a $183 billion tax cut.  Corporations donate a lot of money to Republican Super Pacs, and that's what's important to Republicans, not the American people.

 

Honey... look

Well, it's Monday, my 5th day out of 6 scheduled work days.  Will I make it through tomorrow?  And complete all 6?  Hhhmmm.
I ordered some hostas for the shady area under the river birch, they arrive today.  I was going to buy some at work but they sold out... go figure.
My left knee is sore, must have twisted it the wrong way coming down off of a ladder.  I had to get 3 boxes of Lash flat tile spacers for a customer yesterday.  He returned them later, evidently he didn't know what he wanted.
A bit about my writing.  For those who don't know, I live in Central Pennsylvania, which is actually the tip of the so called Bible Belt.  Being Ultra Conservative, I found I needed to drive down to Giovanni's Room in  Philadelphia if I wanted to buy books with gay characters.  Then came Amazon.  It was great.  No more 2.5 hour drives to buy a couple of paperbacks.  And then something bizarre happened, a number of authors started using their initial rather than their given names.  You know, like I.T. Lucas, and S.J. Hines (as an example).  Being the inquisitive person I am, I Googled these authors and discovered they were actually women.  That's right, women were writing gay books with gay protagonists, not lesbian, mind you... gay.  They still are, though now they no longer strictly use initials in their 'nom de plumes,' you know?  Now they're Sloane... or Casey.  What these authors are really doing is writing female protagonists with a female point of view and just giving them men's names, like Gary, or Frank, or Tom.  I've always had a problem with this; I'm white so I can't write from a black perspective, or a Latino perspective, and I am definitely male and therefore cannot write from a female perspective.  I'm not saying that what they write is bad, these authors sell a lot of books.  However, this is one of the reasons I started writing again, to provide an alternative that is truer than a fictitious 'nom de plume.'
Anyway, my honeysuckle's in full bloom.

 

On the right hand, side you can see my neighbor's stairway leading to the top of the hill behind our houses.

Ups and Downs

Friday, and I'm starting a 5 day stint at work.  My sales are not going to be that good this week.  No measures last week.  This is how it goes.  In spite of what some people say, the economy is not that good.  What they're really saying is that the deeper people go into debt, the better things look.  It's about how much corporations make, not about how much people owe.
And Megyn Kelly got fired.  Like that's supposed to be surprising?  I'm sure her comments about 'blackface' were intended to show how controversial she could be, demonstrating the cutting edge of her style.  Instead they proved her to be a racist better suited for Faux News, except Faux News doesn't want her because when the Idiot Jerk showed her his ass, she didn't pucker up.
I sent my brother (and his wife) a text asking if the pipe bombs being sent to Democrats were the Republican's version of 'Rock the Vote.'  No response.
And, of course, the Republicans are angry Americans are blaming the Idiot Jerk and his rhetoric.  They don't deny their love for running around arenas chanting "lock her up! lock her up!"  But, they say, that doesn't make them mad bombers.  No!  Blame the Democrats!  Yet their own hatred spirals out of control when the Idiot Jerk angrily shouts how Democrats will "tear down all of the progress Evangelicals have made!"  He incites their mob mentality, salting their anger with threats of the 'evil Democrats.'  The ending will not be to their liking.
I checked on both the WSJ and Bloomberg this AM.  Looks like this may be another bad day for Wall Street.  We'll have to wait and see.  For the past couple of months the Stock Market has been see-sawing in the wrong direction.
Oh, and they're sending troops to keep the migrants out of America.  Ain't that the Christian thing to do?
On a lighter note, I've been playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey.  Since this is a Role Playing Game, I was interested in how they would work the romance options.  Yes, there are always romance options in an RPG.  In the Witcher III they were all heterosexual.  That changed with the Mass Effect games and Fallout 4.  Well, last night I chanced upon the first 'mano e mano' relationship.  There are quests involved, as always, before the action starts.  This little video cuts out the quests and just gives you the cut scenes.  You could call it 'Alexios and the Gay Doctor.'

I did have to chuckle a little bit.

Disney's not so shocking shocker...

In case you've been living under a rock, word screamed across social media about the shocking truth in Beauty and the Beast.  (Take a deep breath... now).  Le Fou is gay.  (Have you started breathing yet?)  (Do you need me to call the EMT's?)
Now, I don't know about you, but I heard that and I... well, I had to scratch my head.  Didn't anybody see the original animated film?  Or, God forbid, even listen to the lyrics?  Evidently not.  Twenty-Five years ago, when I sat in the audience watching his scenes, I thought his sexuality was inherently apparent.  I must have been wrong... no, of course I wasn't.  You can't tell there isn't one Evangelical parent out there who wouldn't have shit a brick if they'd heard their little boy saying "gee, I want to grow up to be like Le Fou."  So, be prepared, because a lot of them are going to start stamping their tiny feet in anger.  A Million Crazy Christian Moms, will probably mount some sort of Crazy Christian boycott, which, like most of their boycotts will fail.

In the end, this movie is going to make a killing at the box office.  Josh Gad will probably be nominated of an Oscar for Supporting Actor.  And as for all of those faux complainers and whiners out there?  Their narrow world will get a little narrower, their base shrink just a little more, and they will fail.  This is how life is.

Will Kim Davis' gay friends bite her in the ass?

Well, the Kim Davis story keeps getting more and more absurd.  I saw this in Towleroad, which is really rather funny.  Let's be honest, her whole shtick has gone from preposterous to ludicrous.  There are times when the things which pop out of her mouth make me think she might be pre-menopausal and dealing millions and millions of misfiring neurotransmitters... but then I come to my senses and realize that she's just nuts.  She says she doesn't want to quit her $80,000 a year job because she's good at it... except she's failing to do her job.  In fact, she wants the Kentucky legislature to alter her job description so she has even less to do.  One suspects the $80,000 is the real reason she doesn't want to quit it.
Then there's the crying jag she gets into if someone suggests God doesn't love her....  My brother is a Methodist minister.  He, his wife, and their five kids are very devout.  Were I to tell them that for some odd reason God didn't love them, they'd look at me oddly, so sure are they in their faith.  The same with Bill, one of my associates, who's borderline Krazy Kristian.  Not one would shed a tear because they are 'believers.'  Kim Davis, however, seems to get all blubbery and opts for the crocodile tears.  Raging hormones have that effect, or so I'm told.

   And then there are the gay friends, the ones who wanted a wedding license.  Where have they been all of this time?  Why didn't they stand beside her?  Why aren't they cheering her on?  If they don't come forward soon, people are going to start believing she's a lying sack of shit.  This woman wants to be a martyr, still no one's beaned her on the head with a rock yet, not that I think it would do any good.  What she is doing it trying to hide her bigotry behind religion, which makes her nothing more then a dirty hypocrite.  My friend Betsy, also very religious, says Kim Davis gives Christianity a bad name.  Unless her legal team can shake some gay friends out of her friendship tree soon, I suspect she'll lose her job when the Kentucky Legislature reconvenes.

Love and Hate in Arkansas

I know there are a lot of gay people out there who are all kinds of happy, happy because a judge in Arkansas has ruled in favor of gay marriage.  Well, I just want to interject a little temperance into the jubilation.  While 53% of Americans either approve of gay marriage, or are neither for nor against it, 47% oppose it.  The vast majority of that 47% live in the deep south, the heart of the Bible Belt, and also the stronghold of the Republican Party.  Since many of these people still have not reconciled themselves to the reality of the Civil Rights Movement the concept of Gay Rights is a true horror.  Their religion has legitimized this hate for as long as they can remember.  Let me give you an example.
Thirty some odd years ago I joined the Navy and went to both Boot Camp and 'A' School up at Great Lakes Training Center.  There was always a notice on the school bulletin board about 'free box lunches' - you could get a free box lunch by getting on a van and going to a Baptist Church in downtown Chicago.  One Sunday some friends and I decided to take advantage of the offer.  It was an eye opener.  The focus of the Sermon was not on God's love, but on men who play piano.  I was stunned as the Pastor told the congregation that 'men who play piano sit on the bench in a funny way.'  He went on to say how none of his sons would ever learn to play the piano because he would not want them sitting like that.  He claimed that 'those men' are a blemish in God's eye and because of this they are to be despised.  Of course he had no idea that I both played the piano and was gay, and because of that could feel the hatred he was feeding his flock.  We all know this was not an isolated sermon.  Unfortunately, I suspect this Pastor was on the mild side since his church was in Chicago.

I always like to lean towards the side of caution.  Changing a law does not change the hearts and minds of the people.  Just because you can now marry legally in Arkansas doesn't mean some pudding head isn't going to burn down your house in the middle of the night.  One of the sad facts of life is that the vast majority of hate crimes in the deep south are never reported out of fear of repercussion.  So, if you're sitting comfortably in your Democratic suburb, you need to remember these people have a hate which has been legitimized by their faith since birth.  I think the best thing we can do at this point in time is to be cautious in our optimism.  Only time will tell what effects this change of law will truly have in regards to love and hate in Arkansas. 

  

Jan Brewer - wreckage

If I were Jan Brewer, I would not be happy.  According many media sources she is poised to veto the hate bill in Arizona.  What kind of message is that sending to her loyal, socially conservative base?  She vetoed a similar measure last year which, I'm sure, did not please them.  These are people who spent their time and money to make sure she was re-elected.  They are expecting results from her, compensation of some sort, for their hard work.  Is she going to give it to them with this bill?  Well, you could say she is going to give it to them, but not they way they want.  The would love her to sign it just so the bill would end up in the court system.  Do you think they care how much such a thing would cost the state of Arizona?  Hell no.  They want to raise their tiny fists in the air and shriek " active courts are ruining this country!  They overturning the laws we love!"  You see, that gives them some justification for their bigotry.  And of course, Jan Brewer is in the middle of this shit storm.

Jan Brewer is a 69 year-old, white conservative.  While she may claim to be pro-business, there is no denying she is your stereotypical aging Republican.  And she is being forced into taking a moderate position.  This must almost be ripping out her heart.  The pressure to veto is coming from the business community (they don't like to see dollars and cents fly out their doors).  They've already lost a Superbowl because the state voted against Martin Luther King Day, and the prospect of losing another because of bigotry is burning their butts.  I suspect there is also a lot of pressure coming down from the GOP hierarchy.  Every time some branch of the far right manages to pull a stunt like this the entire party looks bad, and the party wants to win a presidential election.  "Yo, Jan, do you want to be one of reasons the 2016 presidency goes to the Democrats... again?"

What a wreck

It is a sad statement about her governorship when she allows such a piece of legislation to make it to her desk.  She was not oblivious to what her fellow Republicans were doing in the Arizona state House and Senate.  This was not done in secret, or behind her back.  The backers were putting this together in broad daylight.  They didn't tack it on to some overblown piece of legislation and try to sneak it through,  Nope, they new they were going to make headlines and she evidently approved, or she would have stopped them.  What a piece of wreckage she is, either that or she's a stupid, peroxide blonde.

  

State of Hate - Arizona

I am always amazed by the things which happen in Arizona.  Back in 2010 the state passed legislation which permitted law enforcement to stop any individual on the street (read Latino) and see if they were a legal citizen of the the United States.  Two years later the Supreme Court said about 3/4's of that legislation was unconstitutional.  Now the legislation has put a bill on Governor Jan Brewer's desk which is supposed to be about protecting an individual, business, corporation, etc and their religious beliefs.  What it actually says is that these individuals and groups can refuse to do business with gay people because it's against their religion.  What's next?  Arabs?  I mean there are a lot of people out there who really don't want to come within five miles of an Arab, so at some future date is the state legislation going to at Arabs to the list?  What about the Chinese?  There's a growing anti-Chinese sentiment in this country and, if you listen to what the Chinese government says, they are all atheist.  How can those deeply religious Arizona citizens even consider doing business with atheists!  Or what about the Hindi's?  I'm sure, if you ask a devout Hindu, he will tell you Shiva, the destroyer of worlds, has posted a target on Jan Brewer's ass.

The truth is this bill is not about religious freedom, it's about discriminating against gays, a minority group which is making great strides in getting equal civil rights.  They have always been a problem for the GOP and Arizona is a Republican state.  Marriage Equality bills as passing, slowly but surely, in state after state, and law suits are being filed as though paper were going to disappear off the face of the earth.  The Republicans in Arizona are merely trying to give some sort of protection to their base.  In doing so, however, they are legitimizing hate.

Right now this piece of legislation is sitting on Jan Brewer's desk, waiting for her perusal.  If the GOP is smart they'll send a little birdy to whisper in her ear "don't sign it, don't sign it."  You see, the Republicans want to win a presidential election and in order to do that they need to come across as more moderate, more friendly to all races, creeds and orientations. Did the 2010 law in Arizona hurt them?  I'd say most assuredly with the Latino vote.  Why would you vote for a party that hates you?  Thanks to the science of genetics it's estimated that 10% of all humans are either gay or lesbian.  That's a big voting block.  If they had the other 90% the Republicans wouldn't have to worry about it, but they don't.  They barely have 40%.  Woah!  And every time a state sends a message of hate that percentage drops.  Someone should tell this to the Republicans of Arizona who are sitting so smugly in their state of hate.

Shock and denial

Denial is a funny thing and some people do really funny things when in a state of denial.  they twist their logic in such a manner as to make their words and actions make perfect sense.  Some men have a very difficult time with aging and as a result have a mid-life crisis, which is just another name for denial - they're going to do everything possible to prove they're not getting older, at the top of the hill and slipping into that downward slide into old age.  Some women wear Lululemon Yoga Pants even though they've got a fat butt and thunder thighs to try and prove otherwise.  Then there's Aaron Schock, the uber-conservative, anti-gay, GOP senator who just might possibly be gay

 I think this is really funny because he may end up being the poster child for gay denial.  From what I've been reading, his voting record on rights in general, but most importantly on gay rights, has been so extreme, almost like a smoke screen.  You know, the belief that if you throw enough chafe up into the air you will be invisible on everyone's radar screen.  Of course then you end up sitting in a cloud so thick it's visible to the naked eye, which is kind of what Mr. Schock has done.  TMZ reports he's been seen hitting the bars in DC, which is bad for the Illinois Senator - he evidently hasn't realized there is nothing more powerful then gaydar. Every time he gets within several hundred feet of a bar his presence will be known.  He will become more then just a blip on the screen.  And of course he will need to keep denying the truth, over and over again.

More then just a blip on the gaydar

What else can he do.  If his overzealous anti-gay voting record is the result of an uber-conservative's denial of his own sexual orientation, what does that say of him as a human being.  He will shit on anybody and everybody because all will be viewed as threats.  Of course, he can always come to his senses, quit politics, and become a personal trainer.

GOP - Lost in the forest of no return

After the 2012 National election there was all this inference from the Republican Part that, after losing badly to Obama, they were going to have to change. Studies were published saying young people were not attracted to the party.  The party platform was out of touch with the rest of the country.  They needed to become more inclusive in regards to Blacks, Latinos, Gays, Lesbians, women's reproductive rights; the list just goes on and on.  For a few months after the election they did make a few furtive steps in those directions, but now, eight months after their defeat, those steps have all but stopped.  This was to be expected.  To continue would have meant to voluntarily choose to change, and for that to happen the GOP would need to admit that they were wrong... on a lot of things.  They have spent too many years pointing their fingers at everybody else any and every time something has gone wrong while they held the presidency.  They are lost in the forest of no return.

Lost without no path out

Denial has led them down the path to their autumn years and it is far too late for them to turn over a new leaf.  As a result, the only thing they can do is attack.  While I've never read it there, I'm sure one of the unspoken planks in their platform is "if you can't offer an alternative solution, burn down the other guy's house and then blame him for it."  What a sad place to be in if the only way to get votes is by constantly deriding and disseminating falsehood and allegation.  This doesn't say much for their ethics, but I'm fairly sure they shit those away a long time ago.  They are the party of aging white men.

Trayvon Martin trial goes for boring

A few days ago the United States Supreme Court came down with two landmark rulings in regard to marriage equality.  I first saw this on one of my news feeds, so when I got home I turned on MSNBC to see what the national news media was saying.  To my surprise, they were televising the Trayvon Martin murder trial.  My first thought was that this was just an update since the Supreme Court rulings, while making a lot of people happy, were definitely going to piss off a lot of people.  I was wrong.  Someone high up at MSNBC had decided the trial was the more earth shattering, the more groundbreaking, of the two stories.  Someone decided listening to a supposedly star witness bumble her way through an incoherent testimony was the be all and end all of breaking news stories. How could anybody make such a stupid decision?

 

"Mumble, mumble" she said, "mumble mumble."

 

There is a reason Court TV exists:  courtroom drama is a medium best served by fiction.  In the real world courtroom testimony gets boring very, very fast because it is not regulated by either a plot line or the need for commercial breaks.  When a star witness has difficulty comprehending simple questions things slide into a slowly spinning whirlpool where words and phrases get repeated again, and again, and again.  I endured for about 7 minutes and then I went out into the kitchen and emptied the dishwasher.  News networks are meant to provide you with news, some nearly fatal barbiturate overdose served up in a soupy mess of irrelevance.  Is this trial important?  Yes.  Did that testimony need to be broadcast live?  Hell no!

 

 

This morning I saw a question on one of my news feeds regarding that day's testimony.  "Star Witness or Train Wreck?"  Holy shit, I thought, did that question even need to be asked.