Nature's Call in North Carolina Just Got Complicated

A friend of mine, and resident of North Carolina, recently asked my opinion about that State's new law requiring people to use the public bathrooms which correspond to the sex listed on their birth certificates. I told her that I hadn't yet formed an opinion since this is exactly the type of story that I have a hard time making it through to the end. Usually about half way through, my mind begins to melt.  So, this morning I've been reading as many articles as I can find about this raging controversy. In one of them, I ran across this quote from a transgendered man:

"Some of us transition physically, some of us don’t. Some of us are more feminine or more masculine with no correlation to what gender we are. Some of us identify as nonbinary/gender nonconforming, and I realize these might be new terms for folks. Look it up. Educate. I am a transgender male and nonbinary, and yes, that is possible!"

"New terms??" Try new universe!

Clearly, I have a lot to learn. 

So, I will launch myself on a voyage of discovery into this strange new world. At some point when I feel sufficiently educated, I will issue an opinion. My uneducated opinion is...what the heck?

                                                           To be continued

In Praise of Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders.

I have spent quite a bit of time in this space lamenting the woeful state of our current crop of Presidential candidates. So, perhaps it's about time I said something praiseworthy about a couple of them.

Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders are about as different as two men running for office could possibly be. Put them in a room together and ask them to agree on something...anything, and it might be a very long night. But each of these men have done something extraordinary during this campaign season. They have each won a primary in a State despite coming out against that state's most sacred cow. This bold example of anti-pandering is not only rare, but they were both right on the merits, a happy bonus. Here's what happened...

Ted Cruz was the only Republican candidate in Iowa to come out against the Ethanol lobby, a feather bedding government boondoggle of epic proportions which has been a gigantic waste of money, but a very popular and lucrative form of corporate welfare for Iowa farmers. Cruz was advised that his position would cost him any chance of winning the state. He stuck to his guns and his limited government principles. He won.

Bernie Sanders just annihilated Hillary Clinton in Washington State. That state's biggest employer and most powerful force happens to be Boeing, the nation's biggest beneficiary of the corporate welfare, crony capitalism monstrosity which is the Export-Import Bank. Sanders is perhaps the only Democrat in the US Senate who has consistently voted against the Bank, and he campaigned loudly against it in a state which benefits from it more than most. (Probably the biggest champion of the EI bank is Hillary Clinton). He won.

Congratulations to them both. Taking a stand on principle, despite the risks to their careers is what we say we want in our politicians. We say we hate poll-driven, politically expedient decision making. Well, in these two cases, we actually put our votes where our mouths were. Good for us!

An American Apology

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3511343/Marauding-parents-Easter-Egg-hunt-rampage-control-adults-push-children-ground-steal-buckets-leave-one-four-year-old-bloody-chaotic-free-event.html.....

I would like to apologize in advance for ruining your day. The link above will take you to a dark place, a place where your fellow man never fails to disappoint. Reading this story makes you doubt Mr. Jefferson's wisdom, for while man may be created equal, he doesn't stay that way for long.

Whenever I am confronted with a story like this, I simply cannot believe that it is true, largely because I don't know a single person who would behave this way...not one! Listen, in my universe of friends, family and acquaintances, there resides a few rather bizarre folks, more than a handful of mold busters, and quite a few who live on the fringes of normal. But, I don't know anyone who would show up at an Easter egg hunt determined to trample toddlers underfoot in their quest for...candy eggs. Of course, to make this horrifying spectacle much, much worse, the story appears in a British newspaper, insuring that America's dirtiest laundry enjoys a worldwide airing. 

There's a lot of that going around these days. The world is being treated to a daily dose of ugly American stories, courtesy of our Presidential election campaign...Your wife is ugly. Well, your wife is a slut. The world would be excused for thinking that all of America has jumped the shark. 

Well, to those of you reading this in foreign countries( and if my tracking statistics are to be believed, there are lots of you ), please believe me when I tell you that the America I know is filled with decent, kind and loving people. We are not all like the outliers you read about in the Daily Mail. Many of us look around us and think that some of our fellow citizens have lost their minds, sure. But for the most part, we are good people. We work hard, care about each other and love our kids...just like you. Some of those who want to lead us are embarrassing, and dumber than a bag of hammers, but be honest...aren't your politicians knuckleheads too? If you really want to know what our families are like, watch some old Walton's reruns, or check out a few episodes of Blue Bloods. 

Just promise me that you'll look the other way on Black Friday.

Thinking About Easter

Easter Sunday will be strange tomorrow. This year, Pam and I are alone in this big old house. Last year we were in Nashville celebrating with our son and meeting his new girlfriend. Easter morning saw us at a packed Episcopal church. Before that, it had been the same for over twenty years...plastic eggs filled with money hidden downstairs, then empty tomb rolls for breakfast. Times change, along with our celebrations.

We will still have empty tomb rolls, which will seem weird without the kids. Then we will dress up for church, the one Sunday these days when we dress for church like we used to dress every Sunday. Yet another change. Because it's Grove, the music will be sweeping and grand, although all I really want to hear on this day is a thunderous pipe organ belting out Christ the Lord is Risen Today, the bass notes pounding in my chest! But that old classic has gone the way of the responsive reading in the modern Baptist liturgy. 

Easter is what I cling to nowadays. At a time when church has lost its urgency for me, and at a time when I spend most of my time there feeling embarrassed, the resurrection still moves me. It remains the essential doctrine that for me validates my faith. I have studied the story a thousand times, a thousand times I have tried and failed to fashion an explanation for it that doesn't include the physical resurrection of Jesus. Still, nothing explains the impact wrought on civilization by Christianity, other than that band of poor, itinerant fishermen seeing and touching the risen Christ. Nothing. Because he rose from the grave, he must have been the Son of God. For me, it all boils down to that central fact of history. Everything else is fluff.

So, tomorrow, alone among a year's worth of Sundays, I know that I'll be exactly where I'm supposed to be...at church

Two Political Jokes For Your Friday

John Kerry walks into a bar.

Bartender says, "Why the long face?"

Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are having lunch, going over the latest Congressional approval numbers when Chuck says, "These numbers are terrible. The American people think we have lost touch with them, that we are all a bunch of pampered elitists. Nancy comes up with an idea. "Hey, how about you and I rent a dog and show up at a bar somewhere in Wyoming or someplace and buy everyone drinks. That will prove to everyone that we are just ordinary people, just like them! And who doesn't love dogs?"

So, they find a yellow lab at the local dog shelter

Then they hop a private jet and pretty soon they walk into the Cowboy Bar and Grill in Gillette, Wyoming just in time for happy hour, walk up to the bar and exclaim, "Free drinks on the house!" About ten minutes later a grizzled old rancher walks into the bar, walks up to Nancy and Harry, then reaches down and pulls up the dog's tail and carefully inspects his rear end, shakes his head and walks out. Fifteen minutes later, another rancher walks in and does the same thing...looks at the Congressmen, then inspects the poor dog's behind, then walks out. After three more such strange encounters, Harry Reid finally turns to the bartender and asks, "What's the deal with all of these guys lifting up our dog's tail?"

 The bartender answers, "Well, there's a rumor spreading around town that there's a dog in here with two assholes."

We Are Better Than This.

I had a coach years ago who whenever we would do something wrong would say, "You're better than that!" That's how I feel about the United States right now. Surely, we are better than this. The trouble is that it's hard to find the evidence, since good news doesn't sell. Until this morning.

I posted the story on my Facebook page about a chance encounter between a mother who was about to go into labor and two strangers an hour away. To read about it is like taking a long hot shower after a day of yard work. Here's what happened:

A lady was about to go into labor at a hospital somewhere in Florida or Georgia. So she sent out a group text to family and friends appraising everyone of the situation. One of the people on her group text no longer used the cell number she had...so it was sent to someone else. The young man who received the text replied something like, "Ha, I think this text was meant for someone else, but congratulations!" When the expectant parents apologized for the mistake, the stranger replied, "no problem, my brother and I will come by later to get pictures with your baby!" What followed was about the sweetest, most decent thing I've run across in a very long time. Even though the hospital in question was over an hour's drive from the young man, Dennis Williams along with his brother Deorick not only made the drive, but incredibly, thought to stop at a store and buy some diapers, pacifiers and bottles as gifts.

Listen, we live in a screwed up world. Each morning's news paper is like a roll call of human failure. But, there are still good people all around us. Decent human beings who can take a half a day to drive an hour to bring gifts to a total stranger to help them celebrate the birth of their child. This story is made even more wonderful because these two stalwart human beings are African-Americans, and the new parents are white. 

God bless the Williams brothers for their generous spirits and for proving to all of us that we can be...better than this.

Brussels

This time, it was Brussels, another suicide bomb attack in an airport and a subway station. 30 killed, hundreds wounded. The bombs contained nails, we were told. There's a video showing terrified travelers cowering behind their luggage. There are grisly photographs of the carnage and one grainy one of the bombers walking through the airport minutes before the detonation. I stared at it for several minutes, wondering what must have been going through their minds at such a moment. Were they afraid? Ecstatic at the prospect of their virgins? Or simply ablaze with religious zeal, delirious at the thought of administering judgement on the infidels?

The President of France made a statement. Something about how an attack on Brussels was an attack on all of Europe. Our President inserted a 51 second diversion from his prepared remarks in Cuba to express solidarity with the Belgian people. Later, during remarks to an ESPN reporter at a baseball game, he mentioned how this latest attack was another reminder of how the world needed to stand together against terrorism and violence. Some commentator mentioned NATO and the words of it's charter which require us, the U.S. to respond militarily. Another pundit mentioned that these types of attacks seem to target European cities rather than American one's of late. Yet another spoke of the symbolism and propaganda victory it was for ISIS to pull off an attack in the literal capital of the European Union and headquarters of NATO.

Our Presidential candidates held to form. Donald Trump immediately called for tighter control of our border and tightened immigration. Hillary Clinton immediately dispatched a Tweet declaring that "Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism." I would have thought that this Tweet might have sounded less rediculously clueless had she used the modifier..."most,". 

The European commentariat took to drawing touching cartoons of weeping Belgians being comforted by their empathetic EU brothers. The Eiffle Tower was lit up in Belgian colors last night. Soon, hashtag campaigns will sprout up like daffodils in April. My Facebook feed will become festooned with the Belgian flag. We will all become Belgian for a week. Then we will go back to our lives and wait for the next great city of western civilization to be besieged. Who will it be? Prague? Berlin, Budapest, Barcelona? Munich, Madrid, Valencia? Whoever it turns out to be, we can be relied upon to express solidarity with the victims, and to pledge to do whatever it takes to wipe out the scourge of international terrorism from the face of the earth.

That, and a couple of lira might buy you a cappuccino in Valencia.