ALABAMA AND GEORGIA ARE DIFFERENT

Don't tell me that Atlanta and Birmingham are open minded cities that make up for the rural narrow mindedness of the rest of those states.  A while back, a reader asked me to be mindful about referring to those 3 old guys down in bumfuck Louisiana.  I was asked, gently, to be careful about using southern stereotypes.  I agreed though I did have some basis for my thoughts/comments being a child of the segregated south.  Now we get to see the great legislative bodies of those states pass laws which are so bad that even Pat Roberson (!!) thinks they have gone too far.  Women who have been raped and impregnated can no longer have abortions.  Doctors can be sent to jail for murder.  They are different and not in a good way.  They want us to go back to the good ole days of horses and carriages.  Lets get those confederate flags out of the attic and fly them proudly.

The context of all this is that, wink, wink, we are going to make America great again.  The war against the poor, the immigrants, the Muslims, and others has been given tacit approval.  POTUS goes to the panhandle of Florida (quaintly known to all of us as the redneck riviera) and someone yells out that we should shoot the immigrants as they attempt to enter our southern border.  A chance for POTUS to stand up and maybe say nah.  But, nope, he laughs and does not confront the hate.  My birth state also just passed a law allowing teachers to be armed because that will make schools safer.  Think those kids in a Colorado middle school would have been saved if their teachers were armed?  We won't ban assault weapons (like New Zealand just did) but we will arm teachers.  Moving on.

--Right after getting scared by a New Yorker article about John Bolton, I read that he and some of his cronies think Iran is up to no good and decide to send all sorts of ships to the area.  The guy and his yellow pad are in cahoots with Stephen Miller and taking us to dangerous places.
--To say nothing about their contempt of Congress--which actually is contempt for us since at least Congress was elected while Bolton and his crew were not.
--POTUS did have some bright insights into the Kentucky Derby and shared them with us.  Also hosted the Red Sox except he forgot how to spell Sox.  He also forgot that only the white half of the team showed up.  The Puerto Rican manager and the players of color stayed away.
--Very quietly and away from the spotlight, the war against the poor continues.  Rules governing food stamps are tightened while rules governing disasters ike the Deepwater Horizon are eased.  Betsy DeVos is taking an ax to school programs which primarily serve low income kids.
--Josh Rosen is a football player who just got traded.  The big complaint about him has nothing to do with skills.  Apparently, he has opinions.  In the follow up to his trade, he put the trade into perspective by saying (more or less):  at least I am not a child soldier in Darfur.  I guess that would be worse than being traded.
--Culture:
    1.."The Fifth Risk" by Michael Lewis looks at three Federal Agencies and how they transitioned after the election.  My takeaway:  Thank god for the civil servants still working.  Otherwise the political appointees might really be wrecking things.  They are inexperienced idiots.
    2.  The documentary about Larry Nasser, USA Gymnastics, and Michigan State is sad and the number of young women who he abused is impossible to comprehend.
    3.  A filmmaker followed 4 never before congressional candidates as they ran in the 2018 election. Most luckily, one of them was AOC.  It turns out she was the only victorious one.
--Within the week here in my "perfect little bubble", an attempt was made to burn down a rabbi's house and two school systems in affluent communities were dealing with swastikas.

Cannot write another depressing word tho I can say I don't give a shit about Kyrie Irving.

shalom

DON'T TELL ME NOT TO WORRY

As the saying goes:  Just because you are paranoid does not mean they are NOT out to get you.  Another Shabbat and another assault at a synagogue.  Six months to the day of the Pittsburgh murders.  I am sure my synagogue has all sorts of precautions and security measures in place.  But when I am there, all I can think about is what would I do if a vigilante attacked.  My children and grandchildren are there regularly. "They" are out there and they don't like me.  They have access to automatic/assault weapons.  The NRA believes that rather than banning those weapons, we all should arm ourselves. Yup., lets make the synagogue an armed camp with all the clergy carrying weapons.  Makes sense, right?  Only if you want to pray in an armed camp.

POTUS SECTION
--In response to the shooting, POTUS did manage to call it a hate crime and did manage to express sympathy.  These comments came at the tail end of POTUS telling us about a round of golf he just played with the Japanese Prime Minister.  He's got his priorities straight, huh?
--He is still after Obamacare.  He promises a better plan in its place but has no plan or any details.  He truly has no clue how complicated this is.  Kind of like when he got surprised that Puerto Rico was an island which made recovery more complicated.  Let's see what happens to the base when he attempts to take their coverage away.
--He is not even sure what he thinks about the measles vaccine.  I do--tell all those anti science folks (including some who are my co-religionists) to back off. Or keep your kids away from my kids.
--One country that POTUS is enamored with is Saudi Arabia.  Perfect, they continue to execute their own citizens without trials.  The man is in love with any leader with a whiff of being a despot.  Loves that man child Kim.
--As he boarded a plane to take him to Mar A Lago, we learned that he was cutting federal funds which support food subsidies for low income people.  He hates the poor and now they could have no health insurance and not enough to eat.  But he charges us for all those fights. Seriously.
--The same day the Chabad shul was attacked, he went to Green Bay and began his attack on abortion, on Biden, and on Mueller.  Did not cancel the gig; just fanned the flames of the virtually all
white audience.  He is a direct descendent of George Wallace. Let those fine citizens use axes on the harbor ice and not rely on the Coast Guard to keep it open in the winter.  Can live without the feds, huh?
--Finally, he wants to "charge" fees for anyone seeking asylum.  My mother would have been refused "admission" because I know she did not have any money--just send her back.

Moving on:
--MGH (AKA, the world's greatest hospital) is always bitching and moaning about their rates.  Yet they are in the midst of a capital campaign which will raise billions and just received a gift of 200 million dollars as part of the campaign.  Maybe they should just shut up and quit whining or not load their rates with all their Harvard academic affiliation.
--Mueller caught Sara Sanders lying multiple times and documented it in his report.  I will now call her called lyin' Sara.
--My Commonwealth has issued a one pager called "turkey tips".  Seems my fellow citizens need help in dealing with the birds.  Unless they mean the kind of tips we eat.
--Great hockey name:  Pierre Luc Dubois.  Plays for Columbus.
--Even I admit that I had too much faith in Mueller.  But, I trust and believe him more than I do Barr.
--Good luck, CN.  BTW, Bob Cerv was the left fielder.

No sports talk for a while.

Shalom