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