Tag: opinion

San Bernardino, by the numbers

NY Times coverage on San Bernardino included the following two facts:

Since 9/11…
Number of Americans killed by Muslim Extremists: 45
Number of Americans killed by non-Muslim Extremists: 48

Let’s play a little game — let’s see if we can identify the common denominator in these two statements, shall we?

Is it “Muslim”? bzzzt! No. Try again.
Is it “Extremists”? ding, ding, ding. YES! It’s Extremists!

It is EXTREMISTS who are killing people. Extremists are the threat. Extremists are the danger. Muslim or otherwise.

We’ve done this math before, but just for review…

How many Muslims in the world? 1.6 Billion
How many of those are extremists that want to come here and kill us? Maybe 300,000 total, worst case, ISIS and Al-Qaeda combined.

That’s less than 2/100ths of 1 percent of all Muslims.

Yes, 300 thousand is a big number. But 1.6 billion is a much bigger number. That means there are 1 billion, 599 million, 700 thousand Muslims who really just aren’t that interested in killing us.

To be fair, you can’t expect Donald Trump to know this — the man bankrupted four casinos — clearly he’s not very good with numbers.

It’s ONE day… (Thanksgiving)

It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow. Stay home. Be with the ones you love. Let the retailers do the same…

(A few words from a retailer and dear friend of mine…)

It’s ONE day. I’m a retailer. I’m a capitalist. I NEED people to shop. But I’ve already given up my Sundays with my family for working for a public that is also working so much that often they only have Sundays to shop together, but I’m also willing to say in a public forum that I’m not happy about the Sunday work, not one little bit. But Thanksgiving has been set aside for thankfulness, contemplation, and reflection. It is SUPPOSED to be a pause-and-think moment. In even small-town American, I now work New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Memorial Day, etc. You’ll literally have to shoot me before I work on Christmas Day and Easter, but this nation has lost the meaning of this holiday. Shame on everyone shopping. No, I am not condemning the stores opening. In many cases, if they closed and lost those sales to competitors in this economy, it could mean business death. SHAME ON THE SHOPPERS. Knock it off! STOP! It is ONE DAY! I’ll be working every day, literally EVERY day, from Friday morning until Christmas Day. You’ll have ample opportunity to shop, and our economy and us business owners depend upon it. But just this ONE day, stop and be thankful, and let many of us have just one day off work, something for which some of us are more thankful than some shoppers must realize.

— Jeff Haddan

Today’s Lesson from the Bible

Then He will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

“For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

They will answer “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?”

He will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these [brothers and sisters of mine], you did not do for me.”

They will answer again, “But Lord, they were… refugees.”

And He will say, “Oh… well…. then that’s okay then.”

Ben Carson’s “Testimony”

First, let me say I do not think all Christians are liars. I have met many who are not. Many are good, honest, hard-working, people.

I will even go as far as to say it’s possible there are some Evangelicals out there who are not liars. Somewhere. Maybe. So I’ve heard. There have to be, right?

But… I’ve seen this game first hand, and all too often. This “testimony” performance that’s required of Evangelicals. Might as well call it “Lying for Jesus”. The thing is, these people actually believe it’s okay to “exaggerate” or “embellish” their story, if it means “saving” someone. So yeah, they are perfectly comfortable with people having their conversion, and by extension their entire faith, based upon a lie. Just so long as it gets them to heaven.

And what’s more, they then have the audacity to expect you to believe everything else they say as cold hard fact, even while they continue to “exaggerate” and “embellish”. And they become genuinely offended when you refuse to believe them. This is why I have such a hard time taking them seriously about anything. Especially when they run for president.

As to the argument that Jesus told stories too… Yes, Jesus told parables, but… It was always clear to the listener that he was telling a parable. And he never, ever, told one of his stories as if they were his own actual personal experiences. So no, fluffing up your award-winning “testimony” story is not the same as Jesus telling a parable. Not even close.

Thoughts on Kim Davis…

Kim Davis is NOT in jail because she is a Christian.

Kim Davis took an oath of office when she was elected Clerk of the County Court. She has failed to uphold that oath, and has prevented those working for her from fulfilling that oath on her behalf. THAT is why Kim Davis is in jail, because she failed to perform the sworn duties of her office.

Now granted, those duties have changed in ways she probably could not imagine when she first took office. (I say that only because she strikes me as a person of limited imagination.) And she now finds she cannot in good conscience continue to perform those duties. Fine, that can happen. There’s a simple solution: Resign.

If you find yourself in a position where you can no longer keep your oath of office, for whatever reason, you have a legal and moral obligation to resign, and in doing so release yourself from that oath.

So, stop being a crybaby, stop playing the martyr. Either do you damn job or step down. Either way you can go home to your three ex-husbands, and we can all get on with our lives.

Cecil the Lion

Okay, I swore to myself I wasn’t going to comment on the whole Cecil the Lion thing, but… I think we all knew that wasn’t going to happen, so, here goes…

First, let me say I have no problem with hunting in general. Life feeds on life. That is literally a fact of life. To live, something must die, even it it’s a plant. And since I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian, that means animals.

That said, I do believe we have a sacred responsibility to treat animals humanely while they are alive, and kill them humanely when we are ready to eat them. This means, if we are going to kill an animal, either as the butcher or the hunter, we do it quickly and cleanly, with as little pain and fear as possible.

If you’re wondering, no, I don’t hunt myself. Not for any moral reason. I don’t hunt mostly because I’m not much of a morning person. I’m also not a very woodsy person. And I’m definitely not much of a rip the gushy squishy insides out of a dead animal so I can eat it later person. And I don’t cook. Look, I could. I know how to do all of those things, I just don’t want to. I prefer to leave it to the professionals, and those enthusiastic amateurs who actually enjoy it. Have at it.

So like I said, I have no problem with hunting, especially deer or boar or turkey or the like, because they are both plentiful and tasty. But we need boundaries. There are some things we probably should not hunt…

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say, you should never, ever, hunt anything named “Cecil”. Why? Because anything named “Cecil” is probably adorable, like totally adorable, and if you kill it, people will hate you.

Next, let’s say don’t hunt endangered animals. Why? Because they’re fucking endangered. Seriously, how are we not grasping this concept? Endangered. As in, there’s not enough of them. Don’t kill the few we have left.

Lastly, let me say, if you enjoy the challenge and accomplishment of going out and hunting and killing your own food and preparing and providing it to your family and friends, good for you — that’s what a hunter does. We will seek you out when the apocalypse comes.

But, if you enjoy going out and killing things just for the sake of killing them, we have a word for people like that. We call those people “psychopaths”.

Attention, Christian Florists…

Okay, I’m just going to say this once…

Selling flowers to someone does NOT mean you are participating in their wedding. You are not. You know how I know? All the participants were invited to the rehearsal dinner. Did you get that invite? No? Then you are not a participant. You are a vendor.

Selling flowers to someone does NOT mean you accept, approve of, or condone their behavior. You know how I know? Messages conveyed by flowers are from the buyer, not the florist. You are the messenger, not the message. So unless you take it upon yourself to enclose a card, signed by you, that says “Hey! Congratulations on Being Gay!”, you’re not sending a message. You are a vendor. The only thing you need to worry about approving is their credit.

No, you know what selling flowers to someone does mean? It means you sold some fucking flowers. That’s it. That’s all it means. Nothing else. You sell flowers, they needed flowers, you sold flowers, they bought flowers, end of story.

And guess what? They don’t need your approval, they don’t need your blessing, they don’t need your participation. They just need some nice pretty flowers, which you happen to sell. They just need you to do your fucking job and sell them the pretty flowers. That’s it. Literally nothing more is required of you. Your participation in their life is over the minute you hand them their change.

And, if it turns out these happy customers of yours are horrible people, and they turn around and use those flowers to murder orphans and puppies, I’m pretty sure God will forgive you.

Outrageous Wages

Dunkin Donuts CEO Nigel Travis says a $15 wage for food workers is “absolutely outrageous”.

Last year Nigel Travis made $10,204,803.

That’s nearly $5,000 an hour. ($4906.15 to be exact)

If you made $15 and hour working full time, you would make $31,200 a year.

Nigel will earn $31,200 in about six and a half hours.

You know what I think is outrageous? Making more money in one day than your workers will make all year, and then complaining that THEY are paid too much.

Middle Ground

Today I find myself in the place called “Middle Ground”. It used to be a hugely popular place, so crowded you couldn’t hardly get in. But today, it is almost completely abandoned. It’s empty. Just me, and as I look around, I see few shredded scraps of common sense blowing around, along with the occasional scrap of dignity or mutual respect. But no people.

If I look as far as I can see to the right, I can see a huge group of people off in the distance, very loud and boisterous, some almost clown-like. I can’t make out all they’re saying, but they seem to be very upset about Mexicans and gay people, and some guy named Ben Gazi.

If I look as far as I can see to the left, I see another huge group of people off in the distance, equally boisterous and buffoon-like. They seem to very badly want high wages and free abortions for McDonald’s employees, and they’re oddly obsessed with flags and the color green. Maybe they’re Irish?

To those folks on the right, from where they stand, I’m so far away they think I’m with the folks on the left. And to the folks on the left, from where they stand, I’m so far away they think I’m with the folks on the right. But I’m not with either, I’m right here in “Middle Ground”. I think they’ve forgotten that this place even exists.

It’s lonely here. I thought about maybe wandering over to one side or the other, but I like Mexicans (love their food) and gays, but I also like McDonald’s (love their food too) and don’t really need a free abortion or look good in green, so I don’t know which way to go.

To make it worse, both sides are only willing to accept me if I completely agree with their viewpoints one hundred percent of the time, on every single thing. They allow no room for debate or dissension, not if I’m to be considered one of them. So I just stay put and remind myself why I came to Middle Ground in the first place.

I do like it here. It’s quiet. People can come and go as they please, and do as they like, and it’s okay to be different, or have opinions. Here those things don’t define you. It’s nice. It’s just, well… so boring with no one else around. Mostly I just sit around and wait for someone else just to show up.

In the meantime, I figure if I can gather up enough of these shredded scraps of common sense, maybe I can make a nice papier-mâché project out of them or something.

Anti-intellectualism Is Killing America

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/our-humanity-naturally/201506/anti-intellectualism-is-killing-america

This! This is the root cause of what is wrong with America today.

We are a nation founded by intellectuals, but we have abandoned that culture, and no one realizes why that’s a problem.

If you think willful ignorance and fundamentalism are harmless, they are not. The are dangerous and they are destroying us as a nation.

Please, if you read nothing else I ever post, read this. It is probably the single most important thing I have ever posted.