Category Archives: politics

November 2, 2016 · 3:04 pm

Doom is Imminent, It’s Time to Sing!

Yessir, the Cubs have a chance to win their first World Series since 1908 tonight.  They have not won the title since Tinker to Evers to Chance was the double-play combo of poetic proportions.  They have never won in my lifetime, and I am quite old.  So, there is proof positive the world is about to end.

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Yes, I can even describe the mechanics of the thing.  Donald Trump will be elected President of the United States thanks to Mr. Comey’s timely reveal of more scandalous emails that he has not read and chuckled about yet.  You know, the ones that he couldn’t have actually read yet because they come from potential pedophile Anthony Weiner’s computer, and he had to have a separate warrant from a judge to read anything that may have to do with Hillary, even though probably none of them contain nude pictures from Hillary, and she probably didn’t even write those emails.  The world had to know about that right before the election, especially members of the Republican House Committee for examining Hillary’s every boo-boo.  So, the Donald will win, because nobody is doing any press conferences on the FBI investigation on his ties to the Russian government through the biggest bank in Russia.  ‘Taint important, Pogo.

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And once the great orange pumpkin-head is our next president, our health care will no longer be under the misguided protection of Obamacare.  Instead, it will will be taken care of by “something terrific” that will make high profits for somebody, and make certain that I will never be able to pay another medical bill (since those who are deceased rarely do).

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And, of course, President Pompadoodle will be able to declare that we no longer have to believe in the climate change hoax.  The result being that we will soon be able to buy beachfront property in Iowa and Missouri, be able to purchase our breathable air in factory-made brick-form, and possibly grow a helpful third eye from the mutating effects of nuclear radiation.

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And, lastly, I would like to thank the late great Walt Kelly for illustrating today’s post.  One wonders how a cartoonist can look so far ahead from the 1960’s to do such a fine job of illustrating the problems of 2016?  Will miracles never cease?  I mean, really, we could probably do with a few less of these industrial grade miracles made out of recycled elephant poop.

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September 12, 2016 · 3:18 pm

Opinions Are Like Onions

The REAL Sarah

“Why does something always smell bad when I am talking?”

Opinions are like Onions.

All you have to do is subtract 3.141592 and they are exactly the same.

The people that like the way they taste like theirs a lot.

They want you to try them.

And if you don’t like the taste, then you just don’t know what’s good for you.

Onions are good for you.  They make you fart and they clear out the bad gasses made up of methane and other toxic waste from your colon and digestive tract.

Opinions are good for you too.  They make you fart out of the mouth, clearing bad gasses made up of stupidity and toxic ideas out of your little old brain.  You should not be holding that stuff in.  It is poisonous and it could potentially explode.  Not something you want to happen in either the colon or the brain.  Only stupid people hang on to them in the face of contradictory evidence.  (It makes me nervous that I don’t see people exploding more often, because I hold the opinion that there really are a lot of stupid people out there.  I, too, am probably in danger of exploding at some point.)

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And see, that’s the important point here.  Opinions are only as valuable as fart gas.  For the all-important progress of ideas to really happen, opinions have to be tested.  And I don’t mean opinions like whether or not you like the taste of onions.  I am talking about opinions that lead to policy.  Politics are crammed full of opinions.  (I got that right, didn’t I?  I didn’t say “onions” when I actually meant “opinions”, right?)

Hillary Clinton is apologizing now for the opinion-based fart-gas of saying that “half of Donald Trump’s supporters are deplorable people”.  The facts are that the KKK has voiced support for Trump, as have a number of immigrant-hating racists like Ann Coulter who will tell you in detail about all her onions concerning Mexicans and brown people.  People at Trump’s rallies have physically assaulted black people and protesters of any variety.  And to “deplore” someone is to speak out against their ideas or actions.  So the critical word that is not a fact, but rather an onion, must be “half”.  This is the word where Hillary went wrong.  I am sure that “half” is an under-estimation.

And Mr. Trump, as a connoisseur of truly stinky onions has said that Clinton and Obama are literally the founders of ISIS.  And in his onion, Vladimir Putin is a stronger leader than President (of this country) Obama.  One wonders why no one has really sliced and diced these particular onions.  One imagines that if Hillary were the chef serving these onions, no one would be willing to have them in the dining room, let alone eat them.  Onions need be tested for flavor and rightness long before they are served.

So, to close up this onion-smelling essay before it makes me fart again, let me just say, we need to not get stuck in the onion patch and mistakenly convince ourselves we are smelling roses.  Roses shouldn’t make you cry.

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August 12, 2016 · 4:27 pm

Common Sense

Wally22

I have lived a lifetime with the words, “Well, you are smart, alright, but you don’t have common sense like me.”  When they meet me for the first time, other people always know that I am some sort of absent-minded-professor type who solves calculus  problems in his head but forgets to wear pants to school.  (Sorry, Darrin, for using you as an example of what they assume all geniuses are like.)  They always know that their two-plus-two-always-equals-four common sense makes them superior to me.  They don’t have to feel intimidated by my smartness because common sense is a universal equalizer.

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Bullies have loudly assured me of the truth of this right to my face.  Classroom wise-guys and know-it-alls (like the radioactive humanoid yam with a comb-over currently running for president) remind me that anybody can accurately remember sources for points brought up in an argument.  And since anybody can do it, if they just take the time to look stuff up, or actually learn it, then it isn’t such a big deal.  The guy who can pull the right answer out of the air, the answer that everybody else likes, is the one to listen to.  When that guy is a billionaire, then he can always hire someone like me to look stuff up for him.

The REAL Sarah

Notorious common sense advocate Sarah Palin has been campaigning in defense of common sense tea party candidates like Tim Heulskamp because she fears that absent-minded-professor types are going to undo his good work of blocking a path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who have been here for many years and stand to be deported because their paperwork has expired while Heulscamp automatically votes “NO” on any and all immigration reform.  And it is common sense to not raise taxes on the millionaires and billionaires who create jobs even though it seems like a majority of those jobs are created overseas because, after all, workers who don’t demand high pay, or any pay at all, are better for profits.  And poor Timmy lost his seat in the House, even after the miracle that is the State of Kansas trickle-down economics experiment.  He lost it to a rival in the GOP primary.  A rival that will work with “ugh!” Democratic absent-minded professors to actually pass legislation that even Republican voters seem to want… despite common sense.  How can you work with people who tolerate smart people with no pants on?

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So, what have I really learned from this rumination about common sense?  Nothing, of course, because I am merely smart.  I have no common sense.  At least, not in the sense that it is always used as a club against me.

But if I were pressed to come up with something, I might be persuaded to say, “Common sense is an oxymoron.  It is certainly not common any more.  And most of the people invoking it, don’t make very much sense.”  Let me just sit here for a while and think about that with no pants on.

 

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July 28, 2016 · 12:48 am

Love and Hate and Politics

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I cringed through a few of the speeches in the Republican National Convention.  Speech after speech talked about how bad Hillary Clinton is, how terrible ISIS is, how Obama has betrayed us and failed us, and other warm fuzzy stuff like that.  They make me sick to my stomach with fear.

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Was there anything to like about the RNC in Cleveland?  Well, their logo was nice.

I could complain about the plagiarism thing, the Ted Cruz booing thing (although that actually made me smile), or Donald’s deep, dark speech of the coming apocalypse.  But I would rather do like the Democrats seem to be doing this week.  I would rather talk about the good things they can and will do if only we are smart enough to give them the chance.

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They contrasted their policies in favor of ending discrimination based on race, gender, and orientation with the anti-crime and anti-terrorism howls of the Republicans. Instead of talking about how satisfying it would be to throw the other side’s candidate in jail for imagined crimes, they told us about Hillary’s record of standing up for women, children, and the handicapped.  They gave us specifics about what she has done and who she has helped and what she has learned from Bernie Sanders.  Sanders graciously made her the unanimous choice by throwing all of his delegates behind her.  There was peace and harmony (beyond a few former Bernie supporters who were so mad about the DNC email leak that they may vote Trump out of spite).  Cory Booker’s speech suggested that instead of talking about what we are afraid of, we should be talking about working together in a spirit of love and friendship in order to do great things.  Trump, of course, had an angry tweet in response to that, suggesting he knew things about Booker that could shame him.  Booker replied that he loved Donald Trump and felt honored that the orange one considered him worthy of an angry tweeting.

Now, I am not saying that Democrats are perfect and Republicans are evil… am I?  I don’t believe that when I am rational and not dreaming up nightmares… do I?  But loving one another is what I think the default position should always be for Christians.  So why are the nominally Christian conservatives so much more keen on the righteous wrath of God stuff and punishing those they hate?  Shouldn’t it be the opposite of that?  And my severely Republican friends are always suspicious of just how Christian the godless communist heathens in the Democratic party really are.  If the Democrats are so totally wrong, shouldn’t the facts line up against them?

But it all boils down to facts versus feelings, doesn’t it.  Republicans have reason to be angry, especially the poor ones, because of the raw economic deal they have been given.  Their righteous indignation deserves redress.  But is that best served by punishing Democrats in the more liberal party that more generally favors less income inequality?  What about the capitalist billionaires who drive the Republican agenda?  Are they really saints and deserving of everything they have taken for themselves?

I am smart, but not smart enough to have ultimate answers to the biggest questions.  I have Republican friends who agree whole-heartedly  with that last sentence, especially words five, six, and seven.  But I know the DNC made me feel good while watching, and the RNC made me ill.  I definitely choose love over hatred and politics.

 

 

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July 27, 2016 · 1:35 pm

Driving Lessons

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My middle child, Henry, is sixteen and anxious to learn how to drive.  And like all young drivers, he has yet to get into his first accident, is awkward behind the wheel, and is determined to be the best driver the world has ever seen.  So, we gave him a driver’s instruction course, which he completed by July 15th, though he hasn’t taken the wheel yet in a driver’s ed car.  And I had to come to terms with the idea that, even though I shelled out more than 300 dollars to have someone else teach him to drive, I was still going to be the one riding in the passenger’s seat and cringing every time the car lurches towards oncoming traffic and hideous, painful death.

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I decided that since we were visiting Iowa where populations are shrinking and little towns like ours are dying, we might as well take advantage of nearly empty streets and lack of other drivers competing for road space.  We went to Rowan to practice driving.

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Of course I had forgotten how narrow the streets are in my little home town.  Some of the avenues can’t sustain two cars passing in opposite directions at once.  And there are more than a few junk cars, old tractors, and other wheeled things parked in the way, just begging to be hit and make a dent in our affordable insurance.

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Leave it to me to be multi-tasking while teaching the boy to drive the family battleship down the narrow streets of Rowan.  I wanted to take pictures to do this post.  I also wanted to take my mind off the depressing realization that Donald Trump will likely be the next president, and our lives will continue to go down hill as we are treated more and more like cash-generating farm animals for billionaires, corporations, and the owners of all the debt we have accrued by selfishly spending money on life’s necessities in order to keep on living.  We stopped to take a picture at the house I grew up in.  It was depressing to see that the house has not been painted since I put that blue paint on it when I was a teenager.  Dang!  I’m sixty now.  And the poor people who live there now couldn’t afford to paint it even once in the last forty-two years.

But even with all the potential distractions, we managed to practice driving and parking and driving again without any catastrophes or sudden fiery death.  We did pass the same lady walking her little white dog four different times on four different streets.  We only made a wide turn and nearly squished her dog one time.  And we only had one incident where he accidentally pressed the gas instead of the brake while the car was in reverse instead of drive.  Unfortunately, that happened on Main Street.  Fortunately, the one and only car parked on Main Street was in front of us and not behind us.  So we were successful.  An hour and a half of driving practice with no costly accidents and no blood or death.

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July 3, 2016 · 6:41 pm

Butts and Nolts

“Don’t you actually mean nuts and bolts?” someone is surely going to say.  Oh, yes, I misspelled that little item on purpose.  This is another inane post about the writing process and trying to improve my “brand” with my blog.  It is something I have no earthly idea how it works or how to go about it.  So I often have to go back and think about the nuts and bolts of how you put this stuff together and try like heck to figure out what I am doing wrong.

Dumb Luck

Doofy Fuddbugg here is an example of what a “Nolt” is.

So, the problem is, while the blog as a whole has been gaining momentum, my blog traffic is down for this month.  People are not viewing and reading my actual stuff and nonsense as much as they were in the other months besides February.  So I have to look again at what works and why it works.

A lot of my work generates interest from the real world outside of my stupid little head because of the artwork.  I am really probably better at drawing colored pencil Paffooneys than I am at the constant yadda-yadda-yadda of trying to write humor.  Pictures like Mr. Fuddbugg here draw people in better than anything else I can post.  Of course, the artwork I post from my favorite cartoonists and comic artists of the past, like Wally Wood and Rumiko Takahashi draw far more views than my own artwork does.  This is due to the undeniable fact that they are better known and better at it than I am.

And both of those artists are well known for the “butts” that are in their works.  Yes, nudes and naked pictures increase your blog traffic.  Two of my top ten posts of the past two years are Be Naked More (https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2015/12/20/be-naked-more/) and Naked and Nude (https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2015/03/04/naked-and-nude/).  (Sorry for the poor link quality, but my computer is still having brain farts and keeps shrinking stuff and blowing stuff up at random, so I cannot, for the moment, make proper links.)  So, I can probably boost my blog traffic by posting another nude I have never posted before, even though it may make it impossible to share this on Facebook.

Gryphon

This picture is actually a very complicated thing to post.  I have issues with things like sexuality and nudity because I was assaulted as a child.  And some of my nude drawings involve real-life models whose privacy I don’t want to invade.  (Yes, I had a real Gryphon pose nude for this picture.)  But this picture is old, having been created during my wild days as a grad-school college nerd.  Adding the “nude” tag to this post will undoubtedly draw in viewers.  (There really do seem to be a lot of people out there who want to look at naked Gryphons.)  And I am not ashamed at having drawn this pencil-piece.  It brings back lots of grand and glorious memories, though probably not the ones you think I mean.

Finally, I may need to get more aggressively insulting.  It seems to be the thing to do to create political humor with the impending Presidential Election coming up between the Wicked Witch of Wall Street and the Racist Orange King.

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The Orange King is very, very HYUGE! but his hands are small.

But there are difficulties in pulling that one off.  I mean, I spent a lifetime learning how to love the unlovable in the classroom because all students are able to learn and we owe them all, as teachers, the best education we can give them.  (Believe me, you will have a better life because I spent my teaching career trying to iron out the stupid from the laundry basket of Texas education.)  So I will have to settle for a more serene and gentle sort of political wit (if I may be allowed one last oxymoron).  Because I agree with Neal Gaiman on the subject of Political Correctness.

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There’s my two cents, such as it is.  Four cents after inflation.  I have had my say about the Butts and Nolts of this essay.  And if that’s not enough to explain it, then feel free to call me names in the comments and look at some of my other recent posts that nobody is reading so you can see how terrible those are too.  And thank you for actually reading the whole post.

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July 1, 2016 · 3:03 pm

Polyticks

political insanity

People are people, no matter how wrong…

And it isn’t a good thing to argue too long.

My friend is a “Can” from the Republic of Cans,

Who says all the poor people are just bad hu-mans.

And he really believes it, even though he’s not dumb,

‘Cuz he thinks climbing ladders using one of his thumbs,

Is how all people manage to be worthy and good,

And lazy bad people choose to fail like soft wood.

And though he’s not seen that old ladder of mine,

Or the ladders of people with one rung in nine,

He’s thoroughly convinced that all ladders are fair,

And it’s all their own fault if they fall through the air.

Yes, people are people, no matter how wrong…

And it isn’t a good thing to argue so long.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee member Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., asserts an objection to Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., a Democratic sponsor of the long-stalled Keystone XL pipeline bill, as the committee met to advance the controversial project, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2015, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Sanders, who sits with the Democrats, wanted an amendment to put Congress on the record about their beliefs on climates change and whether they agree with the international scientific community that climate change is real or not. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

I have a good friend who’ll do Demos of Crats,

And screech about equity like an army of cats.

He thinks we should pay for all college and school,

And use our tax money as a leveling tool.

He thinks we can make the rich pay for our dreams

And make life all breakfast of sugars and creams.

And maybe he can and maybe he can’t…

Make sense of the subject of his long, drawn-out rant,

But they’ll never pay it and he will get Berned,

Because they never part with what they think they have earned.

But, people are people, no matter how wrong…

And it isn’t a good thing to argue so long.

In conclusion I think the thinks that I think

Are carefully measured and really don’t stink,

But don’t take good thinking to toss in dump,

Or sooner or later… it’s President Trump!

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May 19, 2016 · 6:27 pm

Point by Point

Wally22

I was enumerating yesterday all the bad things that make my life exactly the way I expect it to be as a total pessimist.  Of course, I left out that I am fully expecting Donald Trump to be the next president of this country.  Yes, I expect the worst to happen.  Hillary Clinton will not beat Trump either because of her toxic unfavorability or because the email thing will bring down an indictment to nullify her eligibility to be president.  And all my conservative friends who love Trump will continue to dance happy dances and sing about me being a hopeless “lib-tard” who doesn’t really know anything about anything as Trump continues to rob them and make their lives more miserable with the help of the government he will control from the inside.

Yes, one of the biggest downers about being too smart for your own good is, you see past the lies everyone tells themselves, and perceive the darkest of the truths that lurk behind them.

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I got this meme from a high school friend who served in the Navy and became a firefighter… an honorable public servant no matter how you look at it.

In the meme to the right, I am characterized as a self-centered numb-noggin who thinks his opinion is more important than the realities of this person’s life.  It makes me sad that my childhood friend believes this is true about my political beliefs.  But I am not claiming to be oppressed.  Well, maybe by Trump once he does away with the healthcare law that guarantees insurance companies will cover me despite six pre-existing conditions.  This is a straw man argument that sets up liberals as unreasonable norks that want the law to dictate that everything should be the way liberals want them to be.  That is not the way I see being a liberal.

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I choose rather to look at what people are saying on all sides and make decisions based on my hopefully broad and enlightened mind.  I would never advise someone to have an abortion.  But I do care what happens to children once they are born.  Are we limiting their suffering when they are not wanted by anyone?  When they are born into poverty?  When they drink lead-contaminated water and are subjected to brain damage and death because the conservative government decided saving money was worth the risk?  I believe all people are deserving of respect and all people have value.  I have gay friends and former students.  Their existence in this world enriches it, and I am not ashamed to know them.  I would never ask one of my conservative friends to marry another man… or marry anybody.  I have a wife who is from a foreign country and her road to citizenship is still not traversed.  Could we be making that road harder than it needs to be?

I am a liberal.  But I would not call myself a tax-and-spend liberal.  I would rather see the money we already pay in taxes go for better public schools, better roads and bridges and public works, less expensive, or even FREE college education for my struggling children, rather than tax breaks and corporate wellfare for GE, Pfizer, and Exxon.  Is it too much to ask that our taxes be spent on us rather than enhancing corporate profit margins?  And couldn’t millionaires and billionaires afford to pay the same percentage of taxes that I do?  Maybe even more because they have more?  Why does believing these things make me evil?  Or stupid?  Or any of the other things that my conservative friends tell me that I am because I am a liberal?  I would rather reason things out than simply insult others, something the other side of this argument doesn’t make a habit of doing.

I have no problem saying, “Black lives matter.”  They do matter.  And they have not been treated fairly.  Not Trayvon Martin.  Not Michael Brown.  Especially not Tamir Rice, the twelve year old shot to death for having a toy gun.  These are children who are not to blame for their own deaths.  So I am not burdened to add “…All lives matter” because it goes without saying.  White and Asian lives have not been snuffed out in Walmart’s toy section for handling an air rifle.  I guess I must be a reverse-racist for saying this like I have been told on Facebook.

I am a liberal.  So shoot me.  Er… rather, don’t shoot me.  But be patient with my fact-heavy and logic-heavy arguments.  If you are a Christian, then weigh my arguments against what you know in your heart Jesus actually would do.  I know scripture.  I have read the entire Bible more than once.  I am confident my wanting government to do what helps the greatest number and harms no one will stand the test.  And I am preparing to deal with a President Donald Trump who probably won’t see it that way.

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May 15, 2016 · 8:40 pm

A Question of Gender

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As an almost sixty-year-old heterosexual man with a wife and three kids,  I am really not in a very good position to pontificate on the North Carolina transgender bathroom controversy.  I play with dolls and stuffed animals (though in my defense, it is more of a collector and wannabe toy-maker style of thing).  A couple of my children may actually decide to consider themselves bisexuals (though in their defense, almost all teenagers go through this sexual-identity angst and it is fluid, not carved in stone).  The religion I professed for most of last twenty years says that we should hate gender problems and treat them as a wicked lifestyle choice, not a genetically determined spot on the flexible continuum between male and female.

But I have known transgender people as a school teacher who was always approachable and who students often trusted with their deepest, darkest secrets.  And teachers, by the very definition of the profession, care about students.  The insensitivity of this stupid controversy breaks my old teacher-heart.

The truth is, transgender people in this country inhabit a bear pit full of angry bears that wish to rend them with claw-like condemnations and bullying treatment all because their preachers and opinion leaders tell them that they should be angry about this.  But whose business is it really?  And all the transgender people I have ever known, all two of them, were incredibly damaged people.  Suicide is the most likely result of the depression and self-loathing that most transgender teens experience.  I pray that such a thing doesn’t happen to children whom I have taught and tried to love for who they are.  But it happens.

(I need to warn you… the next part is not funny at all… nor is it intended to be.)

My example story does not have any names attached.  I will not tell you what happened in the end because transgender people are entitled to privacy.    But I am using a concrete example because I want to share with you things I know to be true.  The boy I am telling you about was really born a girl.  He was a boy on his birth certificate because an accident caused by hormonal imbalances during gestation gave him a penis on the outside even though he had internal girl parts, including ovaries.  He was not a hermaphrodite, though he was closer to being that than he was to being normal.  His culture forced him to be raised as a boy, even though his thoughts and actions revealed him to be a girl.  The people around him had decided he was gay by the time he was old enough to be in my classes.  He was bullied, insulted, and abused in very Catholic and homophobic community.  Things got even worse as he began to develop breasts.  It was no wonder he acted out in school.  The image burned into my memory was the day he threw a fit in the school hallway and had to be restrained so he would not continue to smash his forehead against the doorpost.  He was screaming and crying and ended up having to be hospitalized on a protracted suicide watch.  I never found out what set off the meltdown, but I can imagine based on the things I saw people do and say to him.  I believe he eventually had a sex-change operation in his twenties.  I pray that was a true rumor and not just wishful thinking on the part of some of his former friends.  That would’ve solved much of his problem, if only it had been an option before so much damage was done.  It might’ve been better if he had been allowed to dress and act like a girl from early childhood on… like the other one I know about but can’t say any more about.  They deserve to keep whatever dignity and respect they still have.  We don’t have the right to take it from them.

This has been a very difficult thing to write about.  I hope, if you read this far, that I haven’t made you cry as much I as I did myself.  But crying is good, because it means there is caring in a place where more caring and understanding are desperately needed.  There are places to gain more knowledge about this issue, and I hope that you can see that more knowledge is what is most critical to resolving it.  Let me offer a link from a right-hearted clergyman to help you know a little bit more.

A Baptist Pastor Tells You What He’s Learned About Transgender People.

Cool School Blue

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May 4, 2016 · 2:53 pm

Rare Are the Good Times

Senator Tedhkruzh, the lizard-man from the doomed planet Galtorr Prime.
The orange-haired bloviator known as Donald Trump.
John Kasich flipping the byrd at teachers.

Last night brought second-hand victories to Mickeyworld.  I am definitely NOT a Republican, but the Indiana Primary results put a smile on my face.  Not, of course, because the Orangutan Man with a pocket-full of wall plans won and will probably be the GOP nominee.  Rather, because the evil space lizard who wants to put an end to everything good that comes from government finally dropped out of the race for President.  Yes, Ted Cruz has put his world domination ambitions on hold until some future election or military or political coup.  And Trump against any candidate the Democrats put forward will probably lose… unless Americans all have lobotomies before November.

round2preview642

The NHL playoff game last night also yielded good news.  The St. Louis Blues, after having beaten last year’s Stanley Cup champion, beat the Dallas Stars 6 goals to 1 in the third game of round two.  They totally dominated the division champions and took the lead in the series in a way that makes it seem that going to roll over them.

I am certainly not fool enough to imagine the good times will last.  Good things happen one day, only to evaporate into nothingness the next.  But I tend to believe that I have every right to enjoy the good things while they happen.  Boo-hoos for tomorrow.  Yippee-kai-yays for today.

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