Filling your blog brain shopping cart with News Items aplenty

I'm often torn as to whether to post certain things to Facebook or here. Maybe a handful of people will see them here, but a hundred or more will see them on FB. But is that the goal - to have people see these? As I say over and over - it's all about validation, babee - the secret to life and motivation.

(Or is that one of the dozens of posts that I always plan to write about here? I even have a written list of many of them, that I plan to write about, and then don't because I've thought of it so often, I end up assuming I must have finally written about it?)

So...some random thoughts:

I'm starting to wonder if Bernie can actually beat Hillary. I doubt it for a lot of reasons. One of the biggest, but least reported on, is the hundreds of Super Delegates that have already committed to Hillary. She messed that up 8 years ago, but gets it...and got them...this time.

But if it turns out that Bernie somehow was able to win, this will be the moment that I look back to as the beginning of the end:

News Item: “Girls” star Lena Dunham, stumping in Iowa City, said Clinton faces unfair attacks because she is a woman.

Please. Lena - you're insulting women with this.
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News Item: The Supreme Court today will hear arguments from a group of California teachers who say it violates their First Amendment rights to be forced to pay dues to the state’s teachers union.

Hear me now, believe me later. No chance the unions win this (or should, in my opinion). I'm anything but a huge fan of unions, but this will be terrible news for the country as a whole. Just another shot at lower income folks.
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Finally some good news for American Indians!

News Item: The tagline of a new ad from a Ted Cruz super PAC, going up today in Iowa, is: “You can take your country back.”
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And one more:

News Item: "The Clinton campaign released an ad touting her electability, to air in both Iowa and New Hampshire. It includes clips of Trump and Cruz talking. “Think about it: one of these Republicans could actually be president,” a narrator says. “So ask yourself, who is the one candidate who can stop them? Hillary Clinton.”

And from my perspective, the same answer can be given to a similar question:

So ask yourself, who is the one candidate who can stop Hillary Clinton?

It is the Show Me state after all

News Item from the Kansas City Star : "Lobbyists who have sex with a Missouri lawmaker or their staff would have to disclose it to the Missouri Ethics Commission under a proposed state measure. The bill, sponsored by a Republican, defines sex between lobbyists and legislators as a gift. 'As such, sexual relations would have to be included on monthly lobbyist gift disclosure forms'."

 

Sooo many thoughts:

 - This guy must be so sex-deprived, that he considers it a gift when it happens.

 - Or maybe he has fantasies about sex with lobbyists (he is a politician after all).

 - Or maybe his wife is a lobbyist.

 - Maybe they should offer the Disclosure Forms for sale...and then, with Amuricans' fascination with all things sex-related, those things would probably jump to the top of the NYTimes best-seller list.

 - I suggest that any time the State Legislature f*cks over the good people of Missouri, they should have to report that on there too.

 - I can't help but wonder if the words "a Missouri lawmaker or" were taken out of that first sentence, that if this law included this guy too, he would need to report so many times, he'd run out of forms. Better be careful how the bill is written to get all the commas in the right places. 

 

 

 

 

In keeping with my resolution to be less sensitive in my posts, here are two:

It finally struck me why there have been so many problems in the Middle East for centuries. They don't eat pork at their New Years dinner, duh!

And discovering further evidence of God's love of irony with perhaps a slight sense of humor, I realized yesterday that some things that are so soft make me so hard.

OK!

One more thing - for those of you who receive emailed updates of new posts, but won't see edits to previous posts - after a conversation with Cheryl yesterday, I updated my post about my "strategic interests" from Monday, so if you care, you'd have to go to the actual site to see what I felt compelled to update.

Thus the title above, apparently (Editor's Note - or apparentl not)

Happy 2016, everyone! We had a really wonderful 2015, so I hope for more of the same this year. I need to go back to look to see if I posted any new year's resolutions last year to see how I made out. But in the meantime, here's one for 2016: To post in this blog more often! And to not care about how I might offend anyone reading it, not that that is ever my intent - offending, that is, not caring whether I do.

Last night, I laid/lay/lied in bed (countdown til Sherry corrects me...3..2...1), trying to fall asleep, thinking about 3 different posts I wanted to make in here, and used the acronym of SOT to try to help remember them, and at this point, I only remember the S and the T, so that's frustrating because I'm sure the O one was incredibly profound!

So here's my first post of 2016:

I was enmeshed in a Facebook dialogue with someone whose opinions on such things never fail to impress me, mostly in terms of the care and intellectual depth of his thoughts in this topic, which is one that interests me very little - and that is religion.

And it got me to wondering why so many topics that fascinate others don't interest me at all. Once a conversation wanders away from politics or sports, I have very little of interest to share. And it got me to thinking that there are so many topics in that category besides religion, including gardening, movies, books, the weather, astronomy, dreams, birds, body modifications (Hey - sorry - I googled "things that fascinate people" and that was on someone's list) in which I have little or no interest and it struck me that the dividing definition of my very short list is that my two things involve a great deal of strategy and that list contains none.

So maybe that's what I need involved in a topic for me to have interest.

Except sex. I can talk about that at length too. Probably. Maybe. Depends, I guess, on who's involved. Which at one time would also have defined the other way I would decide how to partner with someone on the same topic. Also as to how much I'd had to drink.

ONE DAY LATER:

It has been pointed out to me by one of my favorite readers of this blog, namely, my amazing wife, that there are a great many things wrong with the post above. To enumerate:

1 - The tone is judgmental, as if there is something inferior about an interest that doesn't involve strategy. I sure didn't mean to imply that, so I apologize.  I think a voracious reader, or even an occasional one, uses a far higher % of the brain that sitting watching a Padres - Phillies game and trying to figure out whether the pitcher should tempt the batter with a low and away slider or bust him up and in with some heat.

2 - You do too like movies! OK, yeah, she has a point there. I do.

3 - There is a great deal of strategy involved in gardening, and believe me/you, I got quite the extensive run down of such crucial decisions, some involving soil amendment indentation implementation, or something involving multiple syllables that my first thing in the morning brain didn't quite comprehend.

 4 - Cheryl didn't mention this part, but I can even disagree with me on another point - racism is also a topic in which I have great interest, and reading newspapers (3-4 a day) and magazines (3-4 a month), so ya know...just forget the whole dang thing.

And now I owe you 5 minutes you might otherwise never get back.

There was a young woman...ah, fuggit!

 

So, many years ago, I was dating this girl and before long, it was clear to me that she was way more into me than I was into her. She was writing me weird love letters full of references and concepts I just really couldn’t make heads nor tails of and calling too often.

And I was way too nice (read cowardly) to tell her that I just wasn’t that into her. So I tried the usual guy approach which was to just not call or write back.

So one night, I was walking into a party with a buddy who was fully aware of my situation, and who should be in the doorway as we walked in, putting on her coat to leave but my young lady friend. So she saw me and ran up to me and gave me a big hug and asked if I’d gotten her letters, to which I said I had. And then she asked me what I thought of them and I paused, my mind racing, trying to decide to tell her the truth or to avoid it. Finally I made my decision. I said, "Your writing...your letters are like poetry to me!"

So after another even bigger, longer hug, she left and immediately, my buddy grabbed my arm and said “What the hell?! Why did you lie to her like that?! ‘Your letters are like poetry to me’?! You liar!”

I looked at him and smiled. “I wasn’t lying. I don’t like or understand poetry either.”

 

I know – it really wasn’t worth it, was it?

I am no longer burning, and hopefully neither is Paris.

Sooooooo much I keep wanting to write on here, and I always run out of time to give it the time it deserves, but I just have to get this off my chest.

And to go all Hank Kimball here, as I am so often wont to do, it's probably a good thing I didn't find the time to write this a few days ago, because it would have been a completely different post as I'll explain as long as I can kick my buddy Hank out of here, well, actually out of me, for now. I'm sure he'll be back, well, I'll be back, or maybe...(just watch the clip on the link above.)

Anyway, the big topic in the news since the Paris attacks last week has been the issue of whether we should allow or restrict Syrian refugees in coming to America. I was upset to see the Republicans quickly pass a bill seemingly restricting it (though arguably, the bill was pretty pointless from a policy or regulation standpoint).

And for a few days since it passed, I was pretty upset about it and feeling like more than ever, it was yet more proof that we have two Americas - dark red and bright blue. And if I had posted about this earlier than this morning, that would have been the gist of my post.

But as I thought about it more, I decided that this was such a missed opportunity for our legislators. When one looks past the sound bites, I really believe that we are actually all on the same side of this issue. Well, except for the racist fringe that was against the idea even before the Paris attacks.

We all want to feel compassion for those people fleeing the atrocities of an out-of-control civil war. People on the Right have only slightly less compassion on this issue than those of us on the Left. And we are concerned about the security issues as well, though not to the point of paranoia.

And this was a golden opportunity for the Republicans to pass that bill, emphasizing not the fist-pounding xenophobic fear mongering to keep people out, but how much they believe in the strength that immigration has brought to our country, not to mention how poorly we have handled it in the past, with Jews and the Irish as 20th century examples. And that this time, once certain security standards are met, we are going to do it right. We are going to throw open our doors to once again show the world that we take great pride in our Melting Pot society and show that we have no ill will toward Muslims or any peace-loving people.

And similarly, President Obama should have said the same thing, but emphasizing first that as President, it is his job to keep America safe, and that he will not allow one single (or married - yuk yuk!) person to come in to this country without 2 years of vetting by the greatest security system in the world.

And this afternoon, I had a perfect opportunity to tell my Congressman, Ryan Costello, exactly that point, particularly since he co-sponsored the House Bill I referred to above.

And he listened to everything I had to say and said "I agree completely. What should have happened was...well, exactly what you just said. The Republicans should have emphasized compassion and the Democrats should have emphasized security. Yeah...exactly what you just said."

OK, Hank and I are done...for now.

And if their prayers are answered, would that person take the (newly) evangelical vote away from Ben Carson?

Considering I attend religious services almost every Sunday, maybe 3 of every 4 weeks anyway, it might seem hypocritical for me to say that I think this is really good news:

Pew Research Center study finds “U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious”: “An extensive new survey of more than 35,000 U.S. adults finds that the percentages who say they believe in God, pray daily and regularly go to church or other religious services all have declined modestly in recent years. The recent decrease in religious beliefs and behaviors is largely attributable to the ‘nones’ – the growing minority of Americans, particularly in the Millennial generation, who say they do not belong to any organized faith.”

That said, they should give this poll again come next summer, when we’ve narrowed down the Presidential race to Hillary Clinton vs Ben Carson. I’ll bet the number of people praying regularly goes up significantly, and all probably with the same prayer:

Give us a Third-party candidate!