Laboring through work, and Trump and....

Well, here it is... the Labor Day weekend.  While I do have off today you can all rest assured, I am working tomorrow.  I get to close the store.  This is a bit of a bitch because I have an Ophthalmologist appointment at 0720 Tuesday morning so they can dilate my eyes, which means I'm going to get between 5 and 6 house of sleep.
I saw some of the pictures of Trump in that black church looking all smug and I thought "holy shit, he's so phony."  And what's so sad is that all of his Trumplodites saw the same pictures.  In their racist minds they saw him offer an olive branch, which goes to show just how out of touch these people are, and you can bet they'll hold a terrible grudge against anybody and everybody who doesn't vote for Trump, most especially black people.
And what about that pro-Trump Latino and his comment about "taco trucks on every corner?"  You know, I read about that and realized that he's one of those people who, when asked to classify his ethnicity, will always check the box marked 'Caucasian / white' because he wants nothing to do with either his culture, his heritage, or his people.  No doubt he lies to himself every time he looks in the mirror, saying "hey, I'm not Latino, I'm just dark complected."
Anyway, I do have today off and I've got a lot of chores lined up.

And hopefully I'm also going to get a chance to do some fun stuff.  The weather is cooperating.  The temperatures are cool and so I have the backdoor standing wide open; the dogs are chasing each other in and out of the house having a grand old time.  Earlier I caught them eating tomatoes right off the vine.  Bad dogs... so bad I had to laugh.

The Oscars, losing to political correctness

I saw that the Academy Awards are going to be more politically correct, no doubt because Spike Lee and Jada Pinkett Smith decided to boycott the ceremony because there weren't enough black nominees.  This is funny, I think, especially after seeing Janet Hubert smacking Jada back, saying among other things, that if Will Smith wants to whine about not getting a nomination, he should do it himself.  Of course, if Will did complain he'd need to totally avoid using that silly accent he failed at in "Concussion."
And, if they're going to be politically correct, they need to be so across the board, which means not only Black nominees, but Latino / Hispanic as well.  In fact, there need to be more Latino / Hispanic nominees then Black nominees because there are more Latino / Hispanic people living in this country then there are Black people.  They are not only our number 2 minority, they are the fastest growing minority, in fact, they outnumber the 3rd largest minority group by 1.34%.

Race / Ethnicity	Number	Percentage of U.S. population
Americans	308,745,538	100.0 %
Non-Hispanic White	196,817,552	63.7 %
Non-Hispanic Black	37,685,848	12.2 %
Non-Hispanic Asian	14,465,124	4.7 %
Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native	2,247,098	0.7 %
Non-Hispanic Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander	481,576	0.2 %
Non-Hispanic some other race	604,265	0.2 %
Non-Hispanic two or more races	5,966,481	1.9 %
Hispanic or Latino	50,477,594	16.4 %

So, if the Academy wants to embrace diversity, they need to embrace it fully, and not just with one particular ethnic group.  Or, maybe people just need to take a deep breath and a big step back and stop whining.  The Academy doesn't give nominations to good films, they give nominations to films that are outstanding.  There are hundreds of films that are good, and make money, and still don't get nominations.  And there are outstanding films that never get a nomination.  This is how life is, deal with it.

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.

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.

The Changing white population

The US Census bureau released some information that a number of Americans no doubt found staggering:  that by 2043 white people will be a minority group.  I'd read something several years ago which at that time suggested racial integration in America was picking up speed.  Back then it was suggested those people who call themselves white my reach minority status in the 2050's.  That  data must have been wrong, or else it has been continually re-evaluated. Actually, this is no surprise to me.  Genetically darker skin is the dominant gene.  This is life, which makes me laugh at the thought of all of those white supremacists who saw that press release and shit a brick.  I wonder if, with their numbers slowly dwindling, they might at some part consider a Black Nazi Party.  What a hoot that would be!

Five years from now this picture will be different

I did some research and discover defining 'white' is not as easy as it sounds, unless you're from one of the southern tier states.  Some people view Spaniards as white and others don't.  There are a number of Latino families out there who consider themselves white and yet they are darker then Marco Rubio.  Speaking of him, one can only wonder what he calls himself in his heart of hearts.  I suspect he thinks of himself as white.  In some of the Central Balkan countries religious ethnicity seems to take a big part in considering if one is labeled dark or light white, irrelevant of the actual skin shade.  Believe me, this gets really complicated.  Take a trip to Italy and you'll find a lot of dark skinned people who, if they lived in this country, would call themselves white even though many of the residents of Tulsa would call them Latino.  Of course being 'white' doesn't really mean anything. Boy, is time proving that to be true.  If you look at all the children under 5 in this country, 49.9 % are considered minorities.  This year or next that number is going to change.   This is how it goes.  

Marco Rubio - The GOP's bait and switch plan

Of course there is a lot of chatter out here about Marco Rubio's lunge for a glass of water while giving the GOP rebuttal to the State of the Union.  I suspect the GOP has a bigger problem then a thirsty spokesperson.  It seems like almost every time I turn around his face is being flashed on the TV screen or there is some sort of really not so very newsworthy item on the Internet.  I suspect this is because there were a lot of lessons for the GOP to learn after the 2012 election, one of them being they did not appeal to Latino voters.  Duh.  So, their game plan changes and they pick a nice looking Latino man to become part of their changing public image.  You have to admit he does look rather clean cut and is evidently not from the barrio.

Unfortunately he has already had some sort of GOP fallacy issues, one them being his claim his parents fled Cuba to get away from Fidel Castro.  This seems not to be the case, in that they had actually emigrated to Florida three years earlier.  The hook is to get Latino voters interested, and then run two other candidates president and vice president.  I mean, how bad can a political party be if Mr. Rubio is a member? 

I've seen recently Mr. Rubio has already stated he would not be running for president in 2016, of course this is one of those statements politicians have been making since the dawn of time.  However, I believe this statement might actually be true.  Another thing the GOP learned was just how racist their base was, which is rather telling in regards to the possibility of Mr. Rubio making a run for the White House.  I sure both he, and the GOP hierarchy, realize they have quite a problem on their hands.  If these Tweeters weren't going to vote for a black man, they're not going to vote a Latino either.  The only thing the GOP can do is the old 'bait and switch,' bait them Rubio and pray Latino voters will vote for some white bread guy instead.

Fox News is killing the Republican Party

Democrats are ecstatic and Republicans are devastated.  What else can you say about the recent election?  I'll also go so far as to say most Republicans now find themselves in a quandary; how to regroup and proceed when statistically they alienate women and minorities.  I actually work with an associate who was claiming in the break room that Obama won "because the Democrats were loading people into vans, registering them, and taking them to vote."  When I started listing voter polling results he claimed "that's all from the liberal media, who lie," though I'd actually seen the information on number of websites from the Washington Post, and Bloomberg, to MSNBC.  Oh, wait, I'm wrong, there is a bastion of Conservative Honesty on the airwaves and it's called Fox News.  As soon as this associate said that I knew Fox News would kill the Republican Party.  Why?  Ratings!

I'd first read, a number of years ago, the Republican Party playbook was based on the ancient television show Leave it to Beaver and that the family values represented by that fictional family were those they wanted all Americans to aspire to; it doesn't work.  There was a time when the Republican Party was, like the Democratic Party, more centrist.  This is where the majority of Americans sit, leaning a little right here, veering a little left there, but never really straying too far to either side.  The Democrats get this, the Republicans don't.  Fox News doesn't either.  They mistakenly believe, based on high television ratings, that the American People accept Fox as an authority.  While some, like the associate I work with, might, most Americans vote their gut instincts, not the way some news organization wants them to vote.  We are not sheep, well, most of us aren't.

As for the Republican Party?  They've sutured themselves to Fox and as a result are in a terrible dilemma.      They have shut out most Women, Black, and Latino voters because they did not fit in with their Leave it to Beaver playbook.  And, things are only going to get worse for them.  During this past election Puerto Rico voted to apply for statehood.  When this gets ratified there will be even more Hispanics the Republicans will need worry about.