Why is Bruce a "Hero"?

An excellent question raised by my wife. Bruce Jenner is clearly working through some substantial personal emotional and psychological issues and in that journey I wish him well. Unfortunately, the statistics out there are not in his favor. Because the issue is rooted in the mind, external physical changes do not really address the underlying dilemma. All too often such people go through life never really finding "home" and that is a sad thing.

What I fail to understand is how or why a person wrestling with their inner demons makes them a hero of any kind. Okay, Bruce has some major issues and has the money to buy the medical and psychological consultants to try and work through them. So is he a hero because he has a lot of money? Because he is confused? Because oddities make for great television shows to feed the masses? Do we then celebrate androgynous people or elevate hermaphrodites to the same status? 

It seems to me that while care, concern and sympathy are in order, making public spectacles of people who are struggling is cruel and unusual punishment, especially if they self-destruct in front of God and country. Perhaps we have become a society like ancient Rome where midgets and others with physical oddities - as well as Christians - were thrown to the lions for the crowd's entertainment. They weren't "heroes" but cannon fodder and I am afraid that is what Bruce Jenner has become. If he piles up on the rocks in public view there will be nothing more than a collective shrug of the shoulders and the exclamation that "Yeah, he was really screwed up." We will totally avoid the issue that as a society we made him perform in the public spotlight - to be a hero when it is clear that he cannot carry the burden that goes with it. 

The Sky is Falling! The Sky is Falling!

Ah Earth Day. I hope you all celebrated it by going out and rolling on the lawn or taking a dust bath. This ancient celebration circa 1970 or so normally consists of Great Scientists solemnly assuring us that unless we do _____ immediately we will all die from _______ by _______. Take Paul Ehrlich, the Greatest Scientist of all who in 1970 said with a straight face:

"... between 1980 and 1989, some 4 billion people, including 65 million Americans, would perish in the “Great Die-Off.”

Hmm, must have  missed that one. Oh and then there was the New Ice Age, Choking Smog, the Mega Ocean Die-off, and the Deadly Flatulence Cloud. Only kidding about the last one. Read the linked article for all the other Great Disasters almost upon us predicted by the Great Scientists over the years. It was junk science then and it's junk science now. The "Sky-is-falling!" number is really, really tiresome. 

We may yet do ourselves in but it is much more likely to be via nuclear or biological weapons than Mother Earth having a hissy fit. So don't litter, don't spill oil in the water and be a good steward of what God had given us - enjoy the creation around you but don't shrink under the covers from all the doom and gloom predicted by false environmental prophets. 

www.aei.org/publication/18-spectacularly-wrong-apocalyptic-predictions-made-around-the-time-of-the-first-earth-day-in-1970-expect-more-this-year-2/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=perry18earthday

Probably Ain't Gonna be a Next Time

Agoraphobia is the fear of public places. An English lady who suffered from this syndrome finally worked up her nerve and went outside for the first time in years. She promptly fell through an open manhole cover. Which shows to go you that being irrational can be perfectly rational in the appropriate situation. Better luck next time!

www.breitbart.com/london/2015/04/21/agoraphobic-confirms-own-fears-as-first-trip-outside-in-years-ends-up-in-hospital-visit/

Do as I Say, Not as I Do

I love it! Melissa Harris-Perry is a Talking Head on MSNBC - you know, the station whose ratings are about the same as your local college radio station. She is always yakking about how the "wealthy," loosely defined as pretty much everybody not receiving welfare, should be paying more taxes. And Ms. Harris-Perry just had a $70,000 IRS lien placed against all her assets for - drum roll please - NOT PAYING HER TAXES! Well, well, well. A Progressive hypocrite - I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! I hear crowd-funding is a good way out of this pickle, Melissa. BTW - what's your salary at MSNBC?

www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/04/16/irs-files-70k-tax-lien-against-msnbcs-melissa-harris-perry/

Reconciling "Rights"

As a lawyer (now recovering lawyer) I have marveled at the way an unwritten "right" can over time trump actual Constitutional rights contained in the Bill of Rights if people shout loud and long enough. The First Amendment clearly and unambiguously protects the freedom of religion but a number of interest groups have all argued that their pet "right" supersedes what the Constitution says. Abortion is an evergreen in this area but more recently it has been gay marriage. 

I have never been much impressed with the equal protection argument used to advance this agenda. A gay person has exactly the same legal rights under traditional state marriage laws that I do - they can marry someone of the opposite sex. This was clearly a problem so proponents changed the question to: Shouldn't I be free to marry anyone I want? The difficulty with this framing of the issue is, of course, that if you think about it the answer is "no." What if the person you want to marry is your sister, your mother, your father, well - you get the idea. But keeping shouting loud enough and long enough and voila - it's a "right" and only chumps think otherwise. Since the Supremes have already semi-ratified this new formulation we can look forward to a series of cases raising such issues and the Big Guys in Black Robes ("guys" being a generic and non-sexist usage of course) can either throw up their hands and open the gates to all sorts of esoteric combinations or become arbitrary with their guidance coming primarily from their subjective "Yuck!" factor. 

The reaction from many in the religious community to the the neo-Nazi Thought Police pushing the wedding cases attacking bakers, florists, wedding planners, etc. has been fierce. Matt Barber's article in Townhall says it pretty succinctly in the title of his recent article, "Bake Your Own Damn Cake!" 

townhall.com/columnists/mattbarber/2015/04/13/bake-your-own-damn-cake-n1983879

While I can sympathize with his angst, I don't think it is probably an effective response, and am much more intrigued with the suggestion of a Catholic priest from Wisconsin, Father John Zuhlsdorf. 

The good Father suggests that Christians should give a hearty "yes" to gay marriage requests made to Christian providers and then they should cheerily lay out their approach which includes:

Informing "... them that all of the money that they pay for the services will be donated to a traditional pro-family lobby. If it is something like catering, where your employees have to be there to provide services, tell them that all your people will smile, be professional, and every one of them will be wearing crucifixes and have the Holy Family embroidered on their uniforms. Then show them pictures of your uniforms. When the truck pulls up, speakers will be playing 'Immaculate Mary.' Show them the truck and play the music."

As they say on TV, but wait - that's not all! The piece de resistance includes at no additional cost:

Taking " ... out an ad in the paper to let everyone know what you did with their money, thanking them by name for their business so that you could make the contribution."

townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/2015/04/17/a-way-out-for-christian-wedding-businesses-n1986452

I like it. It's speaking the truth in love. It's good-natured. It's gutsy. The provider's First Amendment right to freedom of religion is preserved and nobody is "discriminated" against. Not bad, Father Z. Keep up the good work!

The Russian Bear Awakes

And the Danes and other Nordic countries are alarmed, not to mention England. This is a good thing. 

While Danish granolaheads were having a "peace festival" on the strategic Danish island of Bornholm, little did they know that Mr. Putin faked a bomber attack with live missiles on this strategic rock. Bornholm is a thorn in the Russian bear's side because it allows electronic monitoring of Russian signal traffic from its huge naval base at Kaliningrad and many Soviet - I mean Russian - military operations in northern Russia. The Danes are alarmed and are starting to talk with their neighbors about beefing up regional defenses in case The Bear has more on its mind than just grumbling.

England too got another taste of Putin's special recipe when he sent a destroyer and a few other ships escorted by bombers sweeping through the English Channel. UK interceptors in Scotland have been getting regular workouts over the last 1-2 years from Russian bombers probing British air defenses for their reaction times. 

On another note, the German defense minister this week assured Estonia that if the Russians move on Estonia or the other Baltic states, Germany will come to their aid. It begs the question "With what?" since the Germans have pretty much stripped their military forces of any credible capabilities, but at least it's lip service and maybe they will even start to beef up their forces.

Meanwhile, President Rainbow continues with his rose-colored glasses looking at a world that is rapidly changing and pretending it's Woodstock. Peace out, babe. Somebody's going to get hurt. 

townhall.com/columnists/austinbay/2015/04/15/the-bluff-attack-on-bornholm-kremlin-tests-nato-solidarity-n1985282

What the Economy is Really Doing

I am writing this piece on Good Friday and won't run it until later as it won't make any difference - the media story is always the same. The lead story on Yahoo News this morning was that the Feds had released new jobs data and March job growth was disappointing with 126K jobs added. Yet just 2 headlines below was a banner that said that the "strong" growth we have seen in jobs was expected to continue. Does anyone edit over there? This one was pretty blatant. Cue the special effects guys - time to blow some more sunshine out our patoots to make Obama look good.

Here is a link from Townhall that shows what the economy is really doing and it is anything but "strong." Bottom line: if the Fed ever tires of spewing funny money into the economy, our "good" economy is going to end like two cars in an intersection collision. Rainbows and lollipops, and ... C'mon don't look at that stuff, sing with me!

townhall.com/columnists/donaldlambro/2015/04/03/just-when-you-thought-the-obama-economy-cant-get-any-worse-its-getting-a-lot-worse-n1980165

Private Mass Transit

Matt Lee works for a high tech outfit in San Francisco and dutiful public citizen that he is, commuted to work on a public transit bus every work day. The only problem was that he was often bypassed by already full buses and even when he was able to get on one, he was jammed in like a sardine and couldn't do anything but exhale. The thought of actually sitting down was a long lost dream. Well, the heck with being one of the proletariat! 

San Francisco now has 2 startups that offer luxury private commuter bus service to techies like Matt. Both services offer mobile WiFi and one has a concierge who makes sure they have a good commuting "experience" and has a number of boutique juices and coffee on board. It's not cheap at $93/month, but in the Bay Area that's the price of a business lunch. 

The predictable outcries of "elitism" yada, yada, are being raised but I say go for it. I say go for it - jobs are being created, productivity is being increased - this is how the market addresses problems even in one of the parts of the country where the Progressivist mantra is most loudly chanted. Ride on, Matt!

www.cnet.com/news/do-private-high-tech-commuter-buses-jibe-with-public-transportation/

Good Friday