#86 - Mad Man Across The River

“If you had a teacher who was adept at firearms," he said, "they could very well end the attack very quickly."

"Where a teacher would have a concealed gun on them," he said, while acknowledging the plan was controversial, "they would go for special training and they would be there, and you would no longer have a gun-free zone”

Those are the words of President Trump who attended yesterday’s “listening” session with gun control advocates

God help us all. Where will it end?

When the next mad man shoots up a Starbucks, what are we going to do ? Arm the baristas?

When the next mad man shoots up a city bus, what are we going to do? Arm the bus drivers?

When the next mad man shoots up a hospital, what are we going to do? Arm the nurses?

When the next mad man shoots up a church, what are we going to do, arm the clergy? No of course not, that’s absurd....we will arm the choir directors.

When the next mad man runs for President, what are we going do? Vote for him?

Not me. Never. Over my dead body. I have not lost my sanity …. yet.

And I hope to God you have not either.

#85 - Same Sex Marriage in the Bermuda Triangle

Rolling back the civil rights of its citizens is not something that most governments want to be known for.  It’s not the sort of thing that is showcased on the national resume,

It appears that the little island of Bermuda, a British territory, 650 miles off the coast of North Carolina, doesn’t subscribe to the same school of thought, as they recently become the first jurisdiction in the world to legalize and then repeal same-sex marriage, in what critics have called an unprecedented rollback of civil rights.

 Oh, I get how it happened.  It was another battle of the judiciary branch vs. the legislative branch. Some judge who as a child stumbled across the basic concept that all men and all women are created equal, and grew up believing that the concept was…wait, what’s the right word here? Let me think, OK, got it…, grew up believing, that the concept was….SELF-EVIDENT…, decided one day to do the right thing and declare same-sex marriage legal, on the little island territory. 

For that judge, there probably was not much to fuss about, she was just trying to do what judges do, interpret the laws of their jurisdiction fairly and impartially, and she concluded one day that some gay persons were being unfairly treated, so she corrected it.  Just another day at the office. 

And so on May 5, 2017, Acting Chief Justice Charles-Etta Simmons of the Supreme Court of Bermuda issued her ruling in favor of same-sex marriage stating "on the facts, the applicants were discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation when the Registrar refused to process their notice of intended marriage.”  And the judge declared that same-sex couples are entitled to be married under Bermuda’s Marriage Act 1944. 

And so it was written, and so it shall be.

Ah, not quite.  The legislative branch of this socially conservative territory with a population of 64,000 had other ideas.  It seems that Bermuda is not quite in step in comparison with the larger continents which surround it.

The legislative branch succumbed to local political pressure and did the politically correct thing (it’s what they do) with total disregard for doing the right thing (it’s not in their DNA).  And so same-sex marriage was once again declared illegal and replaced, the legislature will tell you, with an extremely generous Domestic Partnership Act, which provides almost all if the benefits of gay marriage, except for one thing you see, a little thing called… dignity.   Gay folks don’t deserve that you see, because, well, they are gay.  And it’s our job to take it away from them.  This was the message delivered by Bermuda’s House of Assembly and voted into law by the Governor on February 7, 2018.

In a world where the acceptance of same-sex marriage is becoming so routine, it’s downright boring, the little island of Bermuda was in danger of being lost at sea.  A Gallup poll conducted in May 2017, showed support for same-sex marriage in the United States was at 64%, up from 26% just 20 years earlier.  Hell, even 47% of Republicans now support gay marriage. Still, Bermuda was bucking the trend.  You have to wonder why they appear to be going in reverse, when everyone else has the pedal to the floor and is moving forward.

The distinguishing characteristic might be the possible isolation that comes with being an island, one that survives as an off shore financial center and tourist destination.  It is a popular tax avoidance location, where over 15,000 exempted or international companies are currently registered, most of which hold no office space or employees.  Tourism is the second largest industry on the island which sees over half a million visitors a year, mostly from the United States.

In both cases, the island essentially prostitutes itself to keep itself going.  Give us your money and we will take care of it.  Give us your free time and we will take care of you.  Both industries are inward looking, and they only care about operating in a hassle free environment which allows them to continue to print cash.   It doesn’t mean that the people in the industries are against same-sex marriage. It’s more likely that they support it.  They are just against disruption, so if the isolated island inhabitants haven’t yet moved forward in to the new millennium, so what.  It’s of no concern to them.

So, with that attitude, there is only one way to express disapproval for Bermuda’s backward leaning, legal reversal, only one way to introduce a bit of disruption.  You can do that by voting with your pocketbook.  It can influence change.  The most recent case in point was in 2016, when then Indiana governor Mike Pence signed The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which allowed business owners to deny services to patrons based on their sexual orientation.  The backlash was swift and Indianapolis soon lost 12 conventions representing roughly $60 million in spending.  The law was eventually watered down and Pence’s career seemed to crater. (No one thought it could go any lower, but well, we were all flat our wrong on this one)

I have been to Bermuda three or four times in my lifetime and I always found it to be a beautiful welcoming retreat, and I always assumed I would be back.  But the truth is, there are many other places in the world, I would like to visit, so all things considered equal, unless things change in Bermuda, I won’t be going back. 

I hope you will consider joining me and causing just a little bit of disruption in the world. It feels good.      

[Written for my good friend, Karen]

#84 - The Russians Are After....ME!

The Russians are after ME, And I have proof!

When I started blogging about a year ago, I was pretty clueless.  I started posting to a free Google owned platform called Blogger,  but soon realized I was at a severe disadvantage here.

First, the platform itself got relatively little traffic.  Second I was fighting for space against Stephen Colbert monologues and anti-Trump cartoons, which frankly appealed more to me than my own stuff… so you can see the problem here.  And third, my little opinion pieces were averaging two pages in length (right, I’m working on that ) and in this day and age of instant everything, asking someone who has no clue who you are, to spend so much time reading your musings, well, that just was asking an awful lot. 

Over time I found some success in simultaneously posting to half a dozen left leaning groups on Face Book (the right leaning ones wouldn’t take me. I know, I tried)  These sites got  a lot more traffic,  that’s where I now can get some amount of name recognition in friendly confines   But I still post everything to Blogger, where everything remains aggregated, for my own record keeping purposes

The thing about Blogger, is the site captures all kinds of cool stats, including the location of the viewer. As you can see by the picture I posted the # 2 country is Russia, albeit it’s a distant #2.  

Still, why would Russia, have ANY interest in me, in my extremely small corner of the world?  Who the hell am I?  No one. 

The only logical explanation is my constant use of the “T” word ( I don’t want to call the moron by name, for they are probably watching me right now) . That must be very appealing to them.  You see the Russians have these automated bots out there scouring Face Book and any and all other Internet sites.   In speaking with some IT folks, it turns out, Russian probing and targeting is pretty routine, everywhere.

Laura Rosenberger, who studies Russian influence operations as director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, says given messages are geared for specific groups where they have more “currency” as they look to push different groups to extremes.  If they pickup on any pro-Trump musings, they then work to reinforce those ideas with whatever crap and fake news they come up with and push it out to those same pro Trump followers

So, I know the bots will keep checking me out.  It’s what they do.   They can’t help themselves. But if they were smart, they’d already know that any pro-Trump propaganda they might send my way, would just be falling on deaf ears.   Their time would be better spent searching out and abusing other poor unsuspecting folks who have real difficulty separating truth from fake news.  Sad to say, there are a lot of people in the country who fall into that category.

#83 - I Am Guilty Of Treason Too

I watched President Trump’s State of the Union speech last week.  I honestly didn’t want to, but I felt compelled to hear what he had to say.  I thought maybe I would learn something meaningful, but only half way through it, I realized I was wrong.  I would never learn anything from Donald Trump.  I was incapable of doing so.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some moments in his controlled speech, that if the words had come from anyone else’s lips, they would have sounded downright presidential.  But coming out of the mouth of Donald Trump, the words were empty and hollow, just meaningless sounds emanating out from a despicable human being.  And as I sat there listening, I realized I was too far gone.  I would never believe anything he would say. For me, too much water had already flowed under this bridge, and there was no way I would ever swim back up stream.

For me, the collective body of work of Donald J Trump from the past year and the rest of his sordid past had left a lasting imprint on me that will never go away.  Most of all, it left the heart-breaking sadness that at a critical time in our country’s history when we needed a leader to bring us together, his actions and his words, both of which were equal parts chaos, incompetence and selfishness, would only pull the country further apart. 

For me, there was simply no way he would ever be credible.  There would never be any trust. The constant repetition of lies and gross exaggerations had taken its toll.  I had become incapable of believing anything he said.

I acknowledge that I must take personal responsibility for this entrenched perspective.  I was not always this way.  I am not proud of it, not at all, and I know there have been times in my life that I have been critical of others for this very same behavior.  But I also know, that I didn’t get here on my own, and I know that there are many others out there like me, numbed by the behavior of this child-like, egotistical moron, who happens to be the most powerful man in the world. 

This child-like behavior was on display again last night in Cincinnati, Ohio when - his political surrogates will say - he jokingly referred to the behavior of Democrats in Congress who stoically refused to clap, stand or smile at any of the empty words emanating out of the President’s mouth, as ….treasonous….Ha, Ha, Ha.

This is the way of Donald Trump.  Take a divide, make it bigger, gin up your base and consider it a victory. 

I understood why the Democrats had refused  to show any sign of emotion that night. They knew that as soon as his pre-written speech had ended, Donald Trump would go back to being Donald Trump, without missing a beat, and we would all be worse off for it.

And I concluded that as I fully share their perspective, their sadness, their anger, and most importantly, guilty shared their behavior, that must mean, that I am guilty of treason too. 

Send out for the hangman.  He is going to be a busy man.  

#82 - The Good Republican

Just like our bodies have good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, our country has good Republican leaders and bad Republican leaders.  It’s easy to forget I know, with opportunistic, selfish dweebs such as Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan at the helm, but the truth is there are good Republicans out there, there really are.  You just have to be open minded and have a real desire to look for them.

I am proud to say, we actually have a record of growing, good, well-intentioned ones right here in the liberal bastion of democratic, true - blue Massachusetts. Surprised?

The fact is the last five out of the six Massachusetts governors have been Republican starting with Bill Weld (before he had his second or third mid-life crisis and became a Libertarian) Paul Cellucci, Jane Swift, Mitt Romney (yes, an early architect of Obamacare), followed by Democrat Deval Patrick, and now our current governor, Charlie Baker.

Some of you may flinch at the name of Romney, who we all know ran against Barack Obama in his second term, and while he somehow found it politically expedient to forget his Romneycare roots in Massachusetts to dis the federal counterpart, you cannot deny that he has been successful businessman who truly made it in his own ...with no help from Daddy, and more importantly,  no matter what you think of his politics, he has always, always been viewed as a kind a decent man. Perhaps these latter qualities stem from his strong Mormon upbringing, I don’t know, but if you have any doubts about the man, just ask yourself honestly, how he compares to the current bozo taking up space in the Oval Office.

How do you feel now? Right, I rest my case. 

But I really want to talk about our current governor, Charles Baker who just completed the third year of his first term.  For his first two years in office, I didn’t pay that much attention to Charlie. He had this reputation of being a dull and boring guy, and he didn’t get a lot of headlines,  but he was getting things done. Maybe it’s because I am far down the dull and boring spectrum myself or maybe it’s because dull and boring was the perfect antidote to Donald J. Trump and his surprising Presidential election victory, but whatever the cause,  I started paying more attention to Charlie.

And two days before Trump would be inaugurated; Charlie rewarded my hopeful curiosity when he delivered his State of the State address. Charlie was on fire that night and it was a love fest with the predominantly Democratic Legislature ( I think the Democrats hold somewhere between 105% - 110% of all the seats in the state) who were clapping and hollering, and hollering and clapping.  You would have thought Tom Brady himself was at the podium showing off all of his (there are too many to count) Super Bowl rings.

Charlie went on to deliver the good news of the day.   Massachusetts has the lowest unemployment rate of all time - 3.7%, Our schools were number one in country for the sixth year in row.  We stole General Electric right out from under the nose of the state of Connecticut.  Bloomberg Business rated us the most innovative state in country for the second year.   The MBTA ran on time a couple of times last week.  It when on and on, and each time Charlie would get met with a standing "O".....from the Democrats!   The Democrats!

Holy Ravioli Batman, what planet is this?

And as he spoke, he actually paused to thank everyone for working together and he complimented Democrats by name, by name!   But the real beauty was in his closing where he pointedly addressed the divisiveness in our country. 

“I want to thank you, the (Democratic) legislature, for your goodwill.  This may seem like a small thing.  But it’s not. Too much of what passes for political dialogue these days isn’t dialogue at all.  It’s talking points. Character assassination. And deliberate misrepresentation. Wedge issues may be great for making headlines, but they do not move this Commonwealth forward.  Success is measured by what we accomplish together.  Our obligation to the people we serve is too important to place politics and partisanship before progress and results.”

In the Age of Trump, it was a magical night.

And I just wanted to run out into the street and hug someone.

Fast forward to this past week, where Charlie delivered his final State of the State address ….of his first term anyway,

You knew at the start that this would be as anti- Trump as you could get, without ever mentioning his name, when the invocation was conducted by a local iman who quoted the Koran and the pledge of allegiance was recited in English and Spanish by two Puerto Rican students.  The melting pot of America was on display and being quietly showcased by a sitting Republican governor!

Charlie began his speech reviewing the accomplishments in the Commonwealth over the last year alongside the Democratic legislature, and here is the kicker -  the majority of which dealt with helping those most in need. They included:

o fewer opioid overdose deaths and opioid prescriptions

o a huge reduction in the number of homeless families living in motels at state expense, from 1,500 in January 2015 to 56

o lower caseloads for the state social workers charged with protecting abused and neglected children.

o sweeping changes at the state prison for men with mental illness, replacing almost all the guards with a specially trained security force.

o his defense of the state’s universal health care (Romneycare!) law

o. his opposition to his party’s effort to repeal the federal Affordable Care Act.

o and he highlighted a law he signed in November that mandates free access to contraceptives for many Massachusetts women, an initiative sparked by Trump’s own efforts to roll back coverage.

You can’t believe this guy is a Republican, you say? I know, I know, but wait, it gets better!

His speech then went in to discuss his proposed new initiatives including:

o $83 million in new funding to bolster community-based services for adults with serious mental illness

 o an additional $2 million to help plan for climate change

 o an increase in the Earned Income Tax Credit, which helps the working poor and could benefit about 450,000 residents.

o a drive for the creation of 135,000 new affordable homes in Massachusetts by 2025.
 o a desire  to pass his wide-ranging opioid bill that follows the one passed by the Legislature and signed by Baker in 2016

There was little mention of how well businesses were doing in Massachusetts. Perhaps because they are doing fine on their own. Instead the humanity of Republican Charlie Baker, a dull and boring pragmatist was on display and they weren’t just empty words, they were identifiable actions.

Except for the small number of lesser known Democrats who plan to run against Charlie in November (and who will lose), the reviews were once again, all positive.

Acting Senate President Harriette L. Chandler, a Worcester Democrat, said, “There is no partisanship when we get things done.’’  Echoing that sentiment, House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, a Winthrop Democrat added. “He talked about what we were able to do together, unlike many other states where we see partisanship getting involved,’’

A recent survey by WBUR found 74 percent of voters approved of the job Republican Charlie Baker was doing as governor, as governor in liberal, left leaning, Massachusetts.  No doubt they all agreed with Charlie’s as he closed out his speech and said:

 “We live in a great state filled with creative, community-minded, hard-working, and decent people.  And what they want from us is opportunity, possibility, and hope. Not noise. Not name-calling. And not finger-pointing. They want progress on the things that help them help themselves.’’

All in all, It was a gentle reminder, at least to those in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts who took the time from their busy lives to stop and listen, that there still are really good people out there, who actually care about others and who actually know how to govern, know how to compromise, and know how to put people over politics.  And despite what you might think, some of them are actually Republican. 

I already knew what to expect from Charlie this year, so there was no particular surprise for me in his speech on this day.  Still at the end, I was blubbering like a baby, and the honest-to-gosh truth was … he had me at hello.