Old Trucks

Davis was not the only news this week

In March of 2014, a short order cook opened a parody Twitter account and called it @peoriamayor.
His home was raided and he was arrested at work. City just paid him $125,000 in damages.
Full account here.

Unions, remember them? did you know that Wisconsin, the original one, not the Scott Walker version  is considered the home of the Labor movement?
So as we celebrate Labor Day on Monday, Think Progress wants us to "Thank a Union this Labor Day"

From the ridiculous to the sublime.  A judge is not granting divorces since the Supreme Court ruling on same sex marriages. Says the Court has to clarify "when a marriage is no longer a marriage." 
You can read all about it here.

There is a humanitarian crisis in Europe, but it has been overshadowed here at home by The Donald and the Clown Car passengers and a woman named Kim Davis. 
Think Progress tells us what is going on across the pond. 

Kim Davis Update

Davis is in jail

The first same sex license has been issued.

GoFundMe new rules will bar the supporters of Davis from making her a wealthy woman.

Yes, justice has been served.

Kim Davis Has Been Sent to JAIL

There was a long list in this country of what a person could not do based on other citizen's prejudices.

Interracial couples could not marry in many states.

Blacks could not attend schools or colleges that were "all white"

Entire neighborhoods were (are?) off limits to non whites

Women and Blacks could not vote.

All of those can'ts' were corrected by the Federal government over the years.
Voting rights have been eroded by current Republican controlled State and Federal governing bodies. 

And so we have reached the last Thou shalt not, according to the Christian Right.
Same sex relationships and marriages.  No matter what your personal feelings maybe, it is not the place of other groups and our government to say who can and cannot be married.

We are not a Theocracy.  If we were, there is a very good chance the Kim Davis would have had either one husband or would have been stoned to death.

Some of us who believe in God are misusing the Bible. There is a lot of using passages and ignoring of other passages in the the Good Book. 

We cannot and should not decide that 2 men should not lay together, but multiple spouses is okay.

This scene from a West Wing Season 2 portrays perfectly the misuse of the Bible.

And so tonight, when Davis's supporters and her lawyers, who are rabid anti same sex opponents are in their beds, she will be in a cell sleeping on a cot.

And for what? She also apparently missed reading John 8:7 "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.."

“The idea of natural law superseding this court’s authority would be a dangerous precedent indeed,” U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning told her today.

So, Mrs Davis has been found in contempt of court, and will remain in jail until she agrees to issue licenses to all who are legally entitled to marry. Her choices are to agree (which makes her an even bigger hypocrite) resign her job (and give up $80,000 per year) or wait in jail until the Governor calls a special session or in regular session which starts January 2016, and relieves her of her elected position. 

Only time will tell what happens to her, but today, the term that we love to bandy about, was indeed true. We are a nation of laws.

Kim Davis vs the Law

I was not planning on commenting on the Kim Davis controversy, since so much has been said already.

But I changed my mind this morning upon hearing that Senator Graham said, 'do your job or quit".

She (Kim Davis) has decided like so many members of society today to cherry pick the Bible. We will follow the passages that we like and ignore the ones that we do not.

Help the poor, care for the disabled? are you kidding me, why doing that would either interfere with your being able to get that pair of shoes that you want to buy.

Have only one spouse?
Are you kidding me? that would stop you from bedding your neighbor's spouse.

You want to marry John, you know he is a man and so are you, but you love each other.
The Bible says, same sex relationships are wrong, how dare you want to marry him,  "I will do my job, as prescribed in the good book, I will not issue a marriage license".

You choose to buy those shoes rather than give to a charity which is helping the homeless and the poor (a demographic which is growing daily.)

You choose to marry a man or woman who is divorced.

But you choose to say to another human being,  you cannot love that man or woman, it is wrong.

You cannot have it both ways, because at the end of your life, if you do indeed believe in God,  you will have to answer to Him. Until then you have to answer to the laws of these United States of America.

A Followers response to 1963 and 1968

One of those moments that all remember. June 5 is my birthday. I woke up that morning to the alarm clock radio news. I had gone to bed a little late and disappointed in the results from the California primary. I was a supporter of Eugene McCarthy for President.(McCarthy was the early "peace candidate".At a time when nobody else - including Kennedy - seemed inclined to declare a candidacy in defiance of the incumbent vice-president and undeniable party standard bearer and presumed nominee, Hubert Humphrey, McCarthy stepped forward in an act of what was considered political suicide. His early campaign success drew Kennedy into the race. I resented Kennedy - who I knew would be a much more politically appealing and effective candidate (and capable president) - for "using" McCarthy as a stalking horse. (Forgive me. I was 25 and politically naive.) I also considered Kennedy to be somewhat of a "carpetbagger" - establishing citizenship in New York so that he could run for the senate and serve as senator from a state far more influential than Massachusetts - a move that seemed to me as calculating "political". (There's that naivete, again.) After having lost California and it's critical "winner take all" block of delegates in a fairly close race McCarthy then made the highly disingenuous statement that he had not paid as much attention to the California primary as he should have as he had focused on the primary in Oregon which was on the same day (which McCarthy won). That statement caused me to lose some respect for Gene - who I had thought had conducted himself with high candor during a very unorthodox campaign. ("Come on, Gene, you probably just lost the nomination - which had to be an enormous disappointment. Don't pretend that you are the happy winner of the Oregon trophy!") In reality, of course, Kennedy was the candidate with any real hope of unhorsing Humphrey. His strategy to wait and see if there was enough anti-war support to build a national campaign around was the smart strategy. 

When Kennedy survived the initial attack I thought that he might survive. After all: 22 caliber ammunition looks puny when held in the hand. (Not so puny when fired into a human brain from a range of three inches.) 

It's all nearly 50 years in the rear view mirror, now. Hard to comprehend the upheaval of that decade. A senseless unwinnable war (with an uncertain prize) with 1,500,000 dead (60,000 of them US servicemen), the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy the raw and ugly Democratic convention of 1968 and the Kent State shootings. 

Can any of us imagine how a moment such as Romero experienced would change our lives? Just an "ordinary guy" performing an entry-level service job in a hotel and trying to "get by". Suddenly at the center of a world event that would shadow him forever.

Written by the Pennsylvania Pundit

1963 and 1968

1963 and 1968, years that will live on forever in memories and history.

So many of us remember where we were, what we were doing when the news that JFK, MLK and RFK were dead.

Some of us to this day mourn those deaths and always will.
Some of us wonder, what if?
Most of us wonder from a distance, our memories were not personal, we were not family, friends or employees of these men. We had not been touched by personal contact with them, but we all were touched by their time on earth.

What have the years meant to those who knew them or were touched by them, with a handshake, a hug, a smile?

As I read this article, I was back there, being awakened and told late at night that RFK was dead, and saying, 'don't say that, it is not funny'.

This is the story of such a man, a man who remembers it all, who has relived it for 47 years.