The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters
I’m getting tired of hearing about and talking about public restrooms. I don’t particularly like having to use them, but I’m sure thankful they’re there sometimes. I suspect most folks feel the same. But alas, the public restroom is under attack. Where once one could go for some semi-private release, it’s now a place where evil-doers and gender-obsessed perverts lurk.
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I was recently involved in an exchange with someone in a discussion thread about elections, candidates, and what a sad state we’ve reached in this country. We seem no longer interested in extending the right to free and fair elections, but have allowed Republican controlled legislatures and Congress to withdraw that freedom. And that doesn’t even take into account the Republican Clown Car of candidates they’ve posited for President.
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I respect and would defend everyone’s right to pick the candidate they believe best represents their interests. With that said, I have to tell I’ve moved past being worried to being disgusted at the way some people are deciding on who to vote for, and I am especially looking at Trump’s supporters.
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Today is my birthday. I’ll admit it, I’m feeling my age more lately. It takes a little more duck tape and glue to keep me going. But today I’m thinking about a friend who died last week, and too short life he lived. It would be a good model for us all.
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This is how it starts, we know how it ends. History has taught us, but as too often the case, we have decided to forego the lessons of history. Trump’s campaign has given permission to the racists and xenophobes in this country to take off the masks of civility, and revel in their hate.
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I’ve talked before about a conservative United Methodist page I follow. I recently posted a Facebook meme merely because I found the sentiment somewhat heartwarming and thoughtful, but boy did I get taken to the woodshed. A few of them just flew into a rage that I should dare call on conservative United Methodists to express kindness…well, at least of the variety they seem to believe the Dalai Lama expresses.
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During a manned mission to Mars, Astronaut Mark Watney is presumed dead after a fierce storm and left behind by his crew. But Watney has survived and finds himself stranded and alone on the hostile planet. With only meager supplies, he must draw upon his ingenuity, wit and spirit to subsist and find a way to signal to Earth that he is alive.
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Just in case you’ve forgotten, U.S. Senators were not always elected by the people. The Constitution allowed the state legislatures to determine how their states’ Senators would be chosen. In the early days after the Constitution was ratified, legislatures often chose the Senators themselves. This was changed in 1913, by the 17th Amendment, which provided that Senators would be chosen by the people in the same way the Representatives were.
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An eccentric (and decidedly grubby) aged lady parks her decrepit old van (which appears to contain her entire world goods) outside writer Alan Bennett’s house in Camden. When the Council threatens to have it towed away, Bennett’s diffidence leads to it being parked in his drive, to the consternation of his neighbors, where it – and she – stay for 15 years. As time passes, an odd relationship develops between them, and he begins to discover elements of her past.
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There, I said it. Back in late August I traded in my 2005 Nissan Pathfinder for a supposedly new 2015 Rogue. I based it on test drives and comparisons with a variety of similar crossovers, and reading reviews on several auto websites, combined with the price I got it for. I was fairly pleased, but in the past two months a number of critical components have failed, and Nissan and the dealership are unconcerned and actually fairly rude about it.
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It’s no surprise that Ted Cruz wants an ultra-conservative justice to replaced Antonin Scalia. What is surprising is how much he’s willing to lie about the consequences if that doesn’t happen. (But then again, he’s been lying for Jesus for quite a while now.) On Meet the Press Sunday, Cruz told host Chuck Todd that a liberal justice would mean the end of religious liberty — adding that religious symbols would be “sandblasted off of the tombstones of our fallen veterans”:
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