a lovely day, once again the haters have to ruin it for everyone, and sex is a many splendored thing

Sunday was a beautiful day. Cool in the shade, warm in the sun, blue sky day, no humidity. I finished the chore of 'mowing' the big backyard with the trimmer, walked the dog, and then spent the rest of the day on the deck reading. My sister brought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers from her garden.

And my daughter brought me three magnificent donuts from the Voodoo Donuts in the city. Sorry no pictures unless you want to see the inside of my stomach or go here to view.

Saturday night we went out to dinner to the family owned Italian restaurant here and it was very good. I ordered shrimp and lobster ravioli. I don't know what the filling in the ravioli was but it was served in an excellent shrimp and lobster cream sauce. We went Saturday night because they aren't open on Sunday. The other part of my birthday celebration is going to see a movie next Friday. We have to wait til then because that's when Guardians of the Galaxy 3 opens.

Monday I emptied the overflowing truck of dead and fallen limbs and branches onto the already really big burn pile and torched it discovering today that I inadvertently celebrated Beltane. Now if I was considerably younger I'd celebrate fertility with some outdoor fucking (referencing Ms Moon's post).

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Well, once again, a few people have ruined something perfectly delightful for everyone. A school in Houston had a field trip planned to go see James and the Giant Peach, a beloved children's classic, at Main Street Theater but the trip was canceled when a parent spoke before the school board equating the cross gender casting (men playing the parts of women and women playing the parts of men as has happened in theater since the inception of theater) with drag queens as inappropriate for elementary school aged children. Not content to just keep their children home they forced the school to cancel the trip. Here's a link to scarrymommy.com that wrote about it. 

Of course there are no drag queens in the production and what the actors are doing with their outsized costuming and make up is not drag which is a completely different art form but that doesn't stop these people who have their heads so far up their butts chasing their hatred/fear of the most victimized group of people in the country from ruining it for everybody, preventing other children, whose parents have no objection to the performance, from having a fun day out.

And now, of course, Texas is following suit of other ignorant republican states banning gender affirming care for people under 18 which will be applied across the board probably depriving cisgendered kids of puberty blockers and hormonal therapy for conditions that have nothing to do with trans and will no doubt have an impact on treatment of intersex children as well. The measure has already passed the state Senate.

And while I'm on the topic of human sexuality, there's a very interesting article in Scientific American (which was first published in 2015), Sex Redefined: The Idea of 2 Sexes Is Overly Simplified. It's long but goes into how a developing embryo develops into one sex or the other and all the intersex variations that occur naturally, DNA, even the cellular level; how women can have a Y chromosome and men can have two Xes, and the gonadal effects on the body and ends surmising that since there is not one single parameter that trumps all the others to define your sex, the best way to determine someone's sex/sexual identity is just to ask them.

Unfortunately our society and culture is bogged down in a science rejecting religious structure that god made men men and women women and there is no in-between combined with their fear of what they don't understand so we have legislatures outlawing the existence of and care for all those who are 'in-between'.

 

death in America

Three shootings in a week. Thirty three people dead. Thoughts and prayers from Republicans. Demands for gun control and gun safety from Democrats. All guns all the time folks claim more guns in the populace would have prevented it. Except. Except there were 'good guys with guns' at the Walmart who not only did not stop the shooter, they fled, and the police weren't sure who the shooter was because of open carry. Except the shooter in Dayton killed and wounded those people in less than a minute. The police responded in 20 seconds, shot him dead in less than a minute but 9 people were still dead and 26 wounded. No good guy with a gun on the scene could have stopped that. Republicans: it's not guns, it's mental illness. It's not guns, it's video games. It's not guns, it's no prayer in school. It's not white supremacy rhetoric, it's absentee parents. Democrats: It's the GUNS stupid, other nations have mentally ill citizens, play video games, don't pray in school and they do not suffer gun violence. Meanwhile Trump golfs, McConnell issues a statement about how horrified he is but not horrified enough to bring the gun safety bills passed by the House to the floor of the Senate. Wash, rinse, repeat.

And then there is the guy who thinks every public place should have an armed 'discreet' professional security force I thought that's what the police were for like his church has, proud of the fact that he thinks his church is well protected. I can remember an America when we didn't need private security forces, discreet or otherwise, to feel safe in America from Americans.

Just another week in America, the country that loves it's guns more than it's children with a government controlled by Republicans, the party that loves it's NRA money more than protecting Americans, the party that allows the very people they accuse, the mentally ill, to buy whatever guns they want, led by a president that demonizes certain Americans and laughs when his supporters yell 'shoot them'.

We have a chance in November 2020 to put an end to this. If we don't, we may never get another one.

fear and loathing in America

GOP men are angry and afraid. Why should that be if they have conducted themselves in a moral and lawful manner? They are furious at the 'character assassination' of Kavanaugh. But the truth is if Kavanaugh, or any of them, were innocent they wouldn't have multiple accusers. Because men who commit sexual assault don't just do it once. If it was one woman and her story were sketchy, they might have a point. But as I told my cousin, women will not put themselves in the position Ford put herself in, opening herself to hate and ridicule and actual threats against her physical being, threats of being raped for sure, unless what they were saying was the absolute truth and even then most women won't.

These men aren't really angry about the sexual assault accusation. They are angry and afraid that their rich white male privilege of power is being questioned. They are angry and afraid that women are no longer suffering in silence. They are angry and afraid that they may actually be called to account for not only their crimes against women but for all their underhanded corrupt manipulations. And this is why they are rabidly defending Kavanaugh because if their carefully groomed-over-decades candidate for the Supreme Court gets taken down they have no one to protect them. They know that the other shoe is going to drop since many of them are under investigation and they fear they will lose the majority in Congress at the midterms. And this is why, Roe vs Wade aside, they are pushing for Kavanaugh's confirmation before the midterms.

On October 5^th the Supreme Court will take up the case Gamble vs the US No. 17-646. At stake is the 'separate sovereigns' exception to double jeopardy. If this gets overturned then people who get presidential pardons for federal crimes can't be tried for that crime at the state level. Trump can pardon them all and they will have nothing to fear from states' attorneys.

So, sexual assault charges against Kavanaugh aside, and yes that should disqualify him for that alone, his behavior, his demeanor, his complete lack of composure during the hearing should disqualify him. He cried and lied, he raged and threatened retaliation, he was rude to his questioners and refused to answer questions, he showed himself to be completely partisan. His rich white boy privilege was on full display with McConnell and Graham raging right alongside him. If you want to see what venomous rage looks like you need only look at the faces of those three men (and had I been able to find the picture of the three of them with their rage faces on during and after the hearing it would be right here). This is not the kind of person who should sit on the Supreme Court, and there is some question as to his actual jurisprudence experience, these are not the kind of men who should be seated in Congress. They have no concern for the good of this country. Their only concern is staying in power and enriching themselves at the expense of every citizen.

And Trump? He called on a female reporter at a press conference and said to her “You're not thinking. You never do.” and then he refused to answer her question. Later he said "It's a very scary time for young men in America...” referring to the sexual assault accusation against Kavanaugh.

Well, welcome to the club. It's always a scary time in America for girls, young women, grown women, and old women who must keep on guard at all times, who refrain from certain activities at certain times of the day or doing things alone, who every time they go anywhere must be vigilant against the possibility and probability of sexual assault. 

So excuse me if I don't have any tears to shed for men who fear their past may come back to bite them in the ass.

this is how it starts, the question is how will it end

I've been working at the antique store the last few days as the owner decided not to reopen since she had the new location in Rosenberg that was doing well and she has put the buildings up for sale and needs to clear out what she hasn't already moved to the other location so she was having an 'estate' sale there at the old Miss Hattie's. She expected a big crowd, which had my sister and I shaking our heads because...Wharton, so she hired my sister and Jim who also had worked there and me to help with the enormous crowds and sales. Long story short, we did have a slow steady stream of people for the 2 1/2 days but no crowds, big or otherwise, and just one extra person besides the owner and the other vendor would have been sufficient for the amount of sales, so while it didn't keep me particularly busy Friday and Saturday, it did keep me away from the news.

Saturday, during a quiet period, I started a post...

What is the matter with that man? Not satisfied with threatening N. Korea with fire and brimstone he has now turned his eye to Venezuela, threatening a military take-over there because 'the place is a mess', not that he even knew where Venezuela is. John Kelly has started bringing an atlas with him to meetings says one of the rogue WH twitter accounts. He is even verbally attacking and threatening the few Republican senators that are finally showing some sort of spine as well as some of his own appointees.

Never mind, I know what's the matter with him. He's an empty shell who is incapable of creating anything and so he destroys instead. Well, that's just one of the many things wrong with him. There is so much wrong with him that he is a joke, albeit a dangerous joke, not just here but abroad as well. There's an interesting article on Alternet about how Trump is perceived by leading European officials and it ain't pretty.

Number one is his obsession with Obama and his primary motivation seems to be undoing everything Obama did...“It’s his only real position,” a European diplomat told the site. “He will ask: ‘Did Obama approve this?’ And if the answer is affirmative, he will say: ‘We don’t.’ He won’t even want to listen to the arguments or have a debate. He is obsessed with Obama.” Which of course we know since nearly every executive action and directive has been aimed at undoing something Obama did regardless of how good for the people it is, the most recent two being rescinding the ability of residents of nursing homes to sue for mistreatment and ending the highly successful program aimed at ending teen pregnancy which has been reduced by 40% under the program...

That's as far as I got but I recommend reading the article.

Now here it is Sunday and I've spent yesterday evening and most of the day today reading about Saturday in total disgust of what happened. Nazis marching down the street with torches in their khakis and white polo shirts spewing racist and white supremacist garbage, every single one of them a privileged asshole who has never in their lives experienced any form oppression. Armed Nazis wearing helmets and holding shields gathering for a 'peaceful' rally around the statue of a fucking traitor to this country to which he pledged his fealty, gathering in defense of white supremacy, gathering in support of Trump, of getting their history back as if the history of this country wasn't created by and written by people just like them, armed groups gathering in camo and body armor who were there to protect the Nazis during their demonstration and violence while the police stood back and watched it all without trying to stop them, not until one of the Nazi terrorists ran his car into a crowd of anti-Nazi protestors killing one and injuring 19 others.

This happened here in America yesterday.

And what was Trump's response? Did he condemn Nazi ideology, did he refute their support of him? Hardly. He namby pambyed around saying we should be united and condemn all that hate stands for, blaming 'many sides' for the violence. It was so vague and non-specific that the nazi crowd is seeing it as a positive.

Well, the nazi terrorists, and make no mistake, there is no difference between alt-right, white supremacists, and nazis, no matter what they call themselves, were eventually run out of town and denounced in the most concrete terms by Virginia's governor and some republican politicians are doing the same, most surprising among them to me was Ted Cruz who called them what they are, nazi terrorists, and condemned them roundly. They'll be back though. There is another such rally planned for September 11 at A&M University in Texas. I think they're testing the waters, trying out their tactics for the civil war they want to start if Trump is removed from office and Trump will embrace them as his own personal loyal army. It's going to get ugly folks.

This nation harbors a heart of hate and oppression. We have been at war for nearly every year of our existence. We whites have enslaved and committed genocide. We have repressed and subjected. With our completely unfettered access to guns, more Americans have died at the hands of our own citizens than have died in all the wars we have fought combined...see sentence 2. I'm afraid we are becoming what we have always been. Still, I never thought we would inherit the soul of Nazi Germany.