Here it comes...

(Easter) Eggplant Hunt ...

Broccoli Gleanings...

Saturday, Saturday ... Saturday

Saturday, Saturday, Saturday ... DAY! *

Hope your're out enjoying the dog days,
with our "bonus" July weekend on the calendar this year.


--------------------------
* Apologies to Elton John, but I like the day hours better...

Added: ... not for fighting either.

From the In Box...

The Amazing Human Body

It takes your food seven seconds to get from your mouth to your stomach.
One human hair can support 6.6 pounds.
The average man's penis is two times the length of his thumb.
Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.
A woman's heart beats faster than a man's.
There are about one trillion bacteria on each of your feet.
Women blink twice as often as men.
The average person's skin weighs twice as much as the brain.
Your body uses 300 muscles to balance itself when you are standing still.
If saliva cannot dissolve something, you cannot taste it.
Women finish reading this on an average of 24sec.
Men are still busy checking their thumbs.

Saturday.

The promise of a midsummer Saturday day...
So much getting done here. Clean carpets, fresh green indoor/outdoor carpeting on the front steps, keeping up with the broccoli harvest/blanching + freezing/distribution -- yes, there's that much...

The tomatoes look promising too, Romas aplenty.

Still looking for permanent work, but I have jobs that keep me afloat now. Speaking of, haven't been swimming or paddling since the gradual move began (same neighborhood, essentially, so making many short trips with my old car and kayak trailer.)

Plus, the county fair is wrapping up this weekend. Times are tight, so I don't plan to go, but it does add a element of out-and-about activity to the town.

Mostly though, I'm thankful for the weather. Rain for a few days now; the plants are drinking it in, preferring this to the well water carried to them by hand. The windows are open, cross breezes abound, and the a/c window unit is even set up in the back bedroom now, to take some humidity out of the air.

OK, that's it for the update.
Make it a great Saturday yourself, as you move and breathe before the heat sets in...

More...

from the 85 degree midday photo shoot:

Make it a great Saturday, whatever's on your agenda today...

ADDED:

Today July 14, 2012 Daily Extended
Celebrate the recent kindness a stranger has shown you by performing an act of kindness of your own -- and making it twice as generous. If you can donate some money to a charity, give more than your usual amount. Money may not be able to buy happiness, but it can help people in need (and make you feel really good). Let a driver cut in front of you in traffic, pay someone else's toll or parking meter, or just give somebody a smile. The world is full of people who are just like you.

From the In Box ...

Good one to start off your day - enjoy!
(Hat-tip: MOM)

Four brothers left home for college, and they became successful doctors and lawyers.

One evening, they chatted after having dinner together. They discussed the 95th birthday gifts they were able to give their elderly mother who moved to Florida .

The first said, You know I had a big house built for Mama.

The second said, And I had a large theater built in the house.

The third said, And I had my Mercedes dealer deliver an SL600 to her.

The fourth said, You know how Mama loved reading the Bible and you know she can't read anymore because she can't see very well. I met this preacher who told me about a parrot who could recite the entire Bible. It took ten preachers almost eight years to teach him. I had to pledge to contribute $50,000 a year for five years to the church, but it was worth it Mama only has to name the chapter and verse, and the parrot will recite it.

The other brothers were impressed. After the celebration Mama sent out her Thank You notes.

She wrote: Milton , the house you built is so huge that I live in only one room, but I have to clean the whole house. Thanks anyway.

Marvin, I am too old to travel. I stay home; I have my groceries delivered, so I never use the Mercedes. The thought was good. Thanks.

Michael, you gave me an expensive theater with Dolby sound and it can hold 50 people, but all of my friends are dead, I've lost my hearing, and I'm nearly blind. I'll never use it. Thank you for the gesture just the same.

Dearest Melvin, you were the only son to have the good sense to give a little thought to your gift. The chicken was delicious Thank you so much.

Love, Mama

Hey...

Make it a great Thursday out there...

Be it ever so humble ...

My new rental.

 First time I've been able to hang my flag...

Buddy and Mal visited today...

Big help, and they liked it too...

See the smile?

Memories in Passing.

Kathleen Parker writes about the death life of a friend, Kudzu cartoonist Doug Marlette, 57, who died in a Mississippi car accident five years ago.

We weep that Marlette missed Sarah Palin and Barack Obama, two characters he would have relished revealing. He missed Palin entirely, but he did catch a glimpse of Obama and was deeply skeptical of his presidential candidacy.

Because I had been in Boston for Obama’s convention speech in 2004, I was convinced that he was a future president and said so. Marlette just chuckled and said, “Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

For someone addicted to deadlines at an early age, Marlette was proudly at ease with ambiguity and patient in the way of old souls. He knew that the gods exact justice from those who try to steal their fire. He was usually prescient.

Though a committed Democrat, Marlette was no ideologue and wasn’t fond of those who were. He would have rolled in clover at the sight of his colleagues clamoring to hold up the hem of Obama’s raiment. His cackle would have rattled the rafters upon watching Palin (whom he would have admired as a force of nature) work crowds into a froth while his own tribe writhed in revulsion at her flirty ignorance. He would have understood as few others that, though Palin may have lacked fluency in the language of elites, she knew instinctively how to create and then harness emotional contagion.

Other Perspectives. or, Shower Room Ethics.

Consider this.  You're at a public beach, getting changed in the shower area with the door to the outside shut.  It's a hot day, the building is humid (it's an especially ugly building, but nevermind that: irrelevant detail.) It takes a while to peel off a one-piece swimsuit, dry yourself enough to get into fresh clothes.  You're changing with a friend, but that doesn't mean you welcome a stranger's company in the small (door closed, private) room...  (assume there is no lock, but the door is closed.)

Not once, but twice apparently, with no knocking to ask if anyone is inside, an impatient woman, eager to shower -- perhaps convinced that she will be eaten alive by the bacteria that causes swimmer's itch if she does not shower right ... now -- opens the door to check and see if you are done changing.

You're not.  You don't welcome this woman -- nevermind you are a woman yourself -- intruding, twice, on your changing space and expectations of privacy that come with a closed door in a shared public place.  Is shouting, "Shut the door now! We want privacy! "  way-waay out of line?

No, no dear readers.
This is not a personal situation that occured in the course of my Tuesday.  Instead, I read of the encounter from the ... barger-in's perspective.  It read something like this:

We read posted warnings about swimmer’s itch (in case you don’t know, it’s a gross parasite that enters through your skin and causes rashes, swelling, etc etc, sometimes for weeks on end). Tips on how to minimize the possibility of this include rinsing yourself in a shower right after the dip. Ed swam, I waded – so a rinse was in order.

A rather large and ugly building to the side housed a toilet and two shower stalls for each gender. A line was forming at the female end of things and I poked my head inside to see what the hold up was. Close the door! I was told emphatically. It’s crowded enough in here. I closed the door and waited. Minutes passed, nothing. I looked in the door next to the showers – a general toilet area. I poked inside the shower area again and got the same  -- close the door! Two women, not showering at all, were changing. Well okay, but I suggested that, since this was taking a while, they may want to use the space next door, as the line was getting long for a shower. I got the loudest public scream in my face I ever remember getting. Shut the door now! We want privacy! There was spit and fire in her eyes.

I thought about this for a minute. Privacy. Our big entitlement. Mine, mine, not anyone else’s. It struck me that if someone screamed at me in this way in, say, France, I’d have to think that there’s pent up anger seething there, among the people. But then, France doesn’t have closed off (in ugly buildings) shower stalls, so I’m not likely to ever face this problem there.

So I wondered if maybe we are a nation of very angry people. As the media broadcasts our general dissatisfaction (with Congress, with each other), as opportunities for expressing anger flourish (blast away at the person you don’t agree with – it’s your right!), maybe we let it all out at the expense of looking for something less... well, loud?

I am reminded sometimes of a children's book I had for my girls a long time ago -- "Screamy Mimi." We live in times of very many screamy mimis.

I’m allowed to express my opinion! Yes, but must you? Isn’t it like second hand smoke – it so often harms those in the vicinity and it seems more and more that we cannot get away from it, because everyone is smoking angry words of rage?

Hmmm ...
I would suggest, in tightened public spaces, the need to observe generally recognized social norms -- like respecting closed doors with a knock -- makes the response she encountered avoidable.  Wait your turn.  Yep, even if the person ahead of you is a  sloooooow poke.

It's like driving.  You don't honk, get overly close, and suggest through an opened window, say, that the driver might want to consider moving over a lane because -- hello -- other people would like to access the shared public space, with places to go and people to see...

You're likely to provoke something, especially on a hot summer day, when most people understand the need to relax, be patient and just chill...  Budget ahead, in your timeline, for minor delays, instead?  You just might pick the day when Mom needs to shower three children and herself, or maybe just get them changed out of wet suits into dry clothes, and get everything packed up...

It's like breastfeeding.
You might want to insist she do that in the toilet area, but if she chooses to use the common area designed (assume benches) presumably for getting changed after a shower or a swim, well ... you'll get as much time as you need too, when your turn comes.  Bless you if your needs are not so great, and you're in and you're out yourself in a jiffy...

-----------------------------

*I'm not linking (I'm washing a ton...) because I doubt the author writes for attention. 
But there's a missing perspective there, which I wonder if other readers see too, or would be kind enough to simply point out, to do with what what you will.

Perhaps grow a bit, slow a bit, and show respect for others with ... "right of way", regardless of your opinion whether they should be in that position or place, or not.

RIP Dr. Richard Isay.

Timely passing:

Dr. Isay wrote several books including “Being Homosexual” (1989), “Becoming Gay” (1997) and “Commitment and Healing: Gay Men and the Need for Romantic Love” (2006).

Dr. Richard A. Friedman, director of the psychopharmacology clinic at Weill Cornell Medical College, said that Dr. Isay had “made the field see that their view was based on ideology, not evidence.”

He said Dr. Isay could sometimes seem doctrinaire and a bit shrill, irritating to some, but he added: “You have to have passion to do what he did. He pushed the field to do what it should have done, and he did not stop. We’re all richer for it.”

I wonder how many men, and women, out there, owe this man a simple "thank you" for having the courage to work the way he did.

Instead, we pay homage to "Will and Grace", Ellen DeGeneres and Anderson Cooper.  Nutty world...

Although (his son David) Isay knew that his father had treated gay people and had written about homosexuality, he did not know until he was 21 that Dr. Isay himself was gay.

But, Mr. Isay added:

“Before I knew he was gay, and after, he was basically the exact same person. He had a fierce sense of justice, hated phonies and always rooted for the underdog.”

Dare to dream, eh?

Still, a man sees only what he wants to see...

and disregards the rest...

Frank Bruni, of the NYTimes, is in Plover, Wisconsin, analyzing the natives.  Something tells me, Frank never heard about the Wisconsin version of ... Minnesota nice. 

(Hint:  it's about being tight-lipped, not sharing everything you're thinking, and putting on a very nice front.  Still, when you dig a bit deeper, you might not like what you traditionally find.)

Tammy Baldwin, who has a very real chance of becoming the first openly gay or lesbian person elected to the United States Senate, stood with a 73-year-old potato farmer in his fields here the other day and asked him: “How hot am I?”

For the previous half-hour, the farmer had been boastfully showing Baldwin, 50, his equipment: the sorting machine, the stacking machine. And now, in response to her question, he nudged his thermometer close to her. I do mean thermometer, an infrared one, with which he’d just determined that the temperature of the dirt on this scorching July afternoon was 136 degrees.

He took a reading of Baldwin’s skin, which was a crackling 101.

“Wow,” she said, repeating a syllable that was getting a thorough workout as she deftly played a social role as traditional as any: the attractive younger woman stroking the older man’s pride. Her sexual orientation was irrelevant.

Because he didn’t care about it? Or didn’t even know? I had just a few minutes to chat with him before she and a few aides, doing a campaign swing through rural Wisconsin, arrived, and I got the sense that he was familiar only with her politics, the populist tone of which he said he liked.

“And the lesbian part?” wasn’t a phrase I instantly blurted out. The lesbian part shouldn’t be the deciding factor. And to judge from what I observed while shadowing her one day last week, it won’t be.

Baldwin, a Democrat currently serving her seventh term in the House, won’t know until mid-August which of four Republican aspirants she’ll face and precisely what kind of fight she’s in for.

But I don’t think its outcome will be governed by whom and how she loves. Not in 2012.

Not with all the change afoot.

Uh oh, here comes the confusing of celebrity culture with  ... actual impact on the ground.

I keep telling these fellas:  imagine you didn't see it on tv.  Do you see it on the streets or schoolyards of your community?  Trust me Frank (I've spent more than... one day in Wisconsin, observing how people act and think), superficialities matter little.

Look at the last few weeks, even the last few days. The high-profile wedding in the news over the weekend was of the retiring Congressman Barney Frank and his male partner.

The high-profile wedding the weekend before that was of the Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and his male partner.

A male hip-hop star just came out; a prominent pray-away-the-gay advocate just conceded that sexual orientation is Psalms-resistant; Google just announced that it would promote gay rights worldwide, even in countries where homosexual acts are now criminal.

That’s not to mention Anderson Cooper’s recent acknowledgment that he’s gay, which elicited more yawns than gasps. The reaction befit a world in which Ellen DeGeneres is a pitchwoman not only for CoverGirl but also for J.C. Penney, whose catalogs this year included same-sex couples.

The specific issue of same-sex marriage still provokes fierce disagreement. But even factoring that in, the gay rights movement inexorably closes in on its real goal, which is not — as some opponents believe — for everyone to be talking incessantly about homosexuality. Among ourselves we don’t talk incessantly about it, trust me. We talk about dinner, diets and, during a summer like this, air-conditioning. We’re hot all right, but in the same weary, sweaty sense as everyone else.

Let's be real for a minute?

Mr. Bruni didn't spend one minute telling us why Rep. Baldwin would be the best person to serve Wisconsin in the Senate.  Didn't talk about what she's done -- very little -- in her 7-term Congressional job performance.  Instead ... he told us, once again, that yep, she's gay.

That plays well in the Madison area. 

Lots of  ... "rebelling" in the college youth, and in the aging who still seem to want to give the finger to the man.  If electing a lesbian --  because she's a lesbian -- is radical, we're on board.

But... eventually ... it comes down to getting the job done.  Who's got the most experience, the most drive, the most skills to best represent the people throughout the state?  (not just in Madison and surrounding environs.)

Tommy Thompson isn't gay, hence no mention of him in Bruni's piece today.  Still, although aging, he's got an impressive resume.  He might not be up to sweet-talking the elderly voters (Bruni's description of an eye-batting little lady, stroking her ways to the vote, saddened me.  It really doesn't have to be like that, Frank:  substance matters, even if you're stuck on the style stage...)

In short,

that's the stumbling block that gay writers, gay politicians and gay actors still have to struggle to overcome.  Honesty matters.

I'm not trying to be rude, but... does anyone honestly think Mr. Bruni would have been plucked from the food pages -- even with a working-man's journalism career -- not hopping to the top of the heap, but working his way up surely -- had he not been openly gay?

Bruni surely believes that. 

He has to.  He doesn't want to be the "gay columnist" character stock, so he tries to expand his repertoire, and spend a day here or there in the field, covering other beats.  Still, he brings himself, what he wants to see and believe, to his work...

He advocates rather than reports -- in this column, writing about Baldwin's sexuality in order presumably to downplay how much of this political rise really is about her primary personal characteristic -- what he wishes the world to be, rather than simply covering the way things are.

Too bad he couldn't or didn't spend any time talking with and listening to gay people in rural Wisconsin -- rather than folksy potato farmers performing regional schtick with politicians -- on their opinions of Tammy Baldwin's shot at being a Senator.  He might have been surprised, or learned a thing or two about being gay in this area, himself.

So Barney Frank got married this weekend?

Trust me, it wasn't in the Top 10 news in northern Wisconsin. 

And Ellen DeGeneres is capturing the stay-at-home-with-the-tv-on daytime mom crowd left behind when Oprah prematurely retired after her big political plug the last election go-around? 

That doesn't surprise me either, anymore than JC Penney's ad people saw fit to broaden their demographic appeal by including models of color.  I mean ... gay people. 

Really, is anyone surprised these days that middle Americans aren't fuming and boycotting a commercial department store, all because the consumer pitches aren't tailored to a lily-white straight crowd, but are deliberately inclusive in the hopes of attracting more consumers? 

No, that doesn't surprise me much either....

What would be very, very surprising to me -- and I'll wait to analyze it when it happens -- is if the Wisconsin electorate overlooks job performance, job experience, job platform and personal political promise all in the name of making history by electing a young (enough), attractive (enough), woman because she's got some immutable personal characteristic not common in the majority of the population that still makes her something of ... a thing of interest, based solely on that personal quirk.

No, I just don't see that happening.  Thankfully.

Better still -- for gay rights and individuals who happen to be gay, in general -- if that issue is truly off the table, and not being played as something ... special, to garner the media spotlight of the day, even if it's shadily done in the name of the personal characteristic not mattering a whit, beyond the consuming mention* that is.

We've still got a way to go, baby, out here in the real world, compared to how they play things on t.v.

But it might take more than a few days observation, a bit more dedication to the truth of the work, to pick up on that...  Not surprising.

--------------------------------------

*I'm going to predict here:  if you asked the average Wisconsinite to mention the first thing that comes to mind in describing Baldwin -- those who are familar with her name -- it's the gay thing. 

Every campaign, it comes up. 

The feature stories ... all feature it.

Every campaign, every election...

The details of her work?  Her "signature" issues?  How she's defined her political career, and what types of legislation she's specialized in?

It all comes in a distant second to campaign press reports, like Bruni's today, of her sexuality.  

I think in an economy like this, in a split Senate where every vote counts, Wisconsinites want more than an asterisk noting that we "made history" and helped advance the career of one gay person, at least.  In the long run, that fact alone is pretty meaningless to the group as a whole...

Best to stay focused on the work.  Even someone not inclined to vote for a minority isn't going to cut off their nose to spite their face if that person proves, over time, to be the best person for the job.

Wisconsin gets that.

I suspect, America as a whole, does too.

"Doctor, doctor... Give Me the News..."

Whoo ... it's been hot here.  (Check it and see...)
Still, we're caught somewhere between the past floods of Duluth, and the droughts of Madison south... I was going to shoot a photo of myself in my red shorts and blue-collared shirt on the fourth, standing alongside the corn field that borders the church garden... Shoulder high, at least.

Haven't had to water -- not worth it in the heats of the past week, and there is plenty of water in the soil, owing to the periodic outbursts that cool us down.  The onions are blooming.  Lettuce is going, those leaves that never curled themselves into a protective head (some headed, some didn't.  Same variety -- was I supposed to nurture it along, into a curl?)  Regardless, it's the grazing days.  I'm eating my salads as I tend to the garden, and the Pacman broccoli, a later variety I think, is finally producing too...

How many ways can you cook collard, other than munching the tender leaves raw?  Mal did something with bacon, and his mother's wilted lettuce recipe, except he used collard... the greens are good.

Otherwise, busy busy busy.  Plenty of things getting done on the home front. 
It's summer, and the living's ... if not easy exactly, warm enough.  I've been blessed in recent days, all signs are go now, and the universe is sending me positive signals.

"Send up a signal, I'll throw you a line..."

I hope things are good where you're at, and you're working with an eye towards the future as well.  Blessed are the positive, for they always seem to multiply the life force.  (and I'm not talking in terms of numbers, either.)

The Day after Independence Day.

The song remains the same...

"From the Lakes of Minnesota..."

Happy 4th:

...and I'll gladly stand up, next to you,
and defend her, still today...
'cause there ain't no doubt I love this land:
God Bless the USA.

Other Views.

Edward Klein:

In ancient Rome, whenever a general was given a victory parade, he would be accompanied in his chariot by a slave who whispered into his ear, “Heed not the call of the crowds, for all glory is fleeting.”

Someone ought to be whispering that advice into Barack Obama’s ear right now, for if ever there was a fleeting victory, it was the Supreme Court’s ruling that ObamaCare is constitutional—a decision that will lead to the largest tax increase in American history and leave Obama and the entire Democratic ticket vulnerable at the ballot box in November.
...

It is the hallmark of a political amateur to ignore the advice of wise men and women who tell him what he doesn’t want to hear and, instead, embrace those who cater to his inexperience, vanity, and worst instincts.

This has been the pattern of the Obama presidency. And that was exactly what happened in the case of ObamaCare.

Early in his presidency, Barack Obama received ample warning that he was headed for disaster if he went for broke on health care. His then chief of staff Rahm Emanuel urged the president to push for a smaller bill with popular items, such as expanding health coverage for children and young adults. Both his vice president, Joe Biden, and his top political adviser, David Axelrod, sided with Emanuel and raised a red flag.

But Obama wouldn’t listen to his wisest and most experienced advisers. Instead, he chose to listen to his wife Michelle and to Valerie Jarrett, his powerful behind-the-scenes confidante. It was Michelle Obama and Valerie Jarrett who persuaded the president to side with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her gaggle of far-leftwing Democrats and push for an enormously complex Rube Goldberg health-care bill.

Obama’s arrogance, his sense of superiority, and his air of haughtiness—but above all, his amateurism—led him astray and encouraged him to focus initially on a “public option” in his health care bill. Rick Scott, the health care executive who launched and ran the successful campaign to kill the public option in 2009, parlayed that victory into winning the governorship of Florida in 2010.

When Scott and his group, Conservatives for Patients Rights, defeated the public option, Obama was then stuck with going along with an “individual mandate,” which he had vigorously campaign against during the Democratic primaries. He denied time after time that the mandate was a tax, only to allow his Solicitor General to argue before the Supreme Court that it is, in fact, a tax.

Only a rank amateur could have turned months and months of debate over a widely unpopular health care bill into something even worse—an onerous tax on the middle class.

To Everything: ... Spin, Spin, Spin...

Jeffrey Toobin tries to get out ahead of the legal criticism, here branding Justice Roberts not a coward, but courageous;  characterizing the twisted legal decision not as muddled, but as "(another of even) the best judicial opinions".

By affirming the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act—the legislative cornerstone of Barack Obama’s Presidency—Roberts was disappointing those closest to him. Roberts was a professional Republican: a staffer in the Reagan and Bush I Administrations, a judge and a Justice thanks to Bush II. And here, alone and exposed, Roberts joined with the Court’s four liberals to dash the Republican Party’s most fervent wishes. It was a singular act of courage.

Toobin thinks, going down in history, Roberts has worked himself into a good position with this one:

His doctrinal investments may take a while to pay off, but he has the luxury of guaranteed professional longevity. Roberts could still be Chief Justice when Obama is teaching the jump shot to Malia’s and Sasha’s children. By then, if Roberts has succeeded in limiting the scope of federal power, the health-care decision may look very different from how it looks today.

Suffice it to say, I disagree with glowing analysis of the job.  (and .. " teaching the jump shot to Malia’s and Sasha’s children?"  Overreach, in trying to personally "sell" your point.  How about chess moves?  What are the chances the future presidential grands will be more interested in mind games, than hitting their... "jump shot(s)"? 

They call that pandering to the populists, where I come from  (or, "Jewish guys don't jump.") ...  failing to look beyond one's background to see his individuality.  His individual rights and needs.  It's not just sad, it's also the trouble behind such "one size fits all legislation" on such grave issues as one's personal choice in making healthcare decisions... 

It subverts the individual's freedom of choice, in service of the greater collective good -- a "good" that has yet been properly proven as a net societal benefit, when you work in real numbers. (You know how these early-spin promises rarely shake out...)

Toobin breathlessly concludes:

[I]t is always possible to quibble about one facet or another of even the best judicial opinions. For today, it is enough to say that the Chief Justice and the Court did the right thing in one of the most important cases that they will ever decide. That was by no means inevitable or even foreseeable. It is, rather, something to savor.

One man's opinion, then.*
--------------------------------


* Thankfully, he's a very small man  -- a very very small man -- (CNN "success" stock too), and does not represent the majority of those ... one-percenters, who will be most affected in the future by the Court curtailing their healthcare choices, and  choosing to rewrite politically unpopular legislation to eke it through on a tax loophole.

Other voices are speaking from other rooms...


ADDED:  From his wiki bio:

Toobin is a longtime friend of Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan, having met her while the two were students at Harvard Law School.

Hmmm.

He has described Chief Justice John Roberts as "very, very conservative."  Regarding Justice Clarence Thomas, Toobin has said that Thomas' legal views were "highly unusual and extreme", called him "a nut," and said that he was "furious all the time."

In March 2009, Politico revealed that Toobin was a member of the private discussion group JournoList, where "several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics" "talked stories and compared notes."

Sounds like he's about as neutral a legal analyst as Chief Justice Roberts would be a baseball umpire...

Cooper: "The fact is, I'm gay."

Inquiring minds, and CNN top brass trying to explain the recent rating tumble, ask:

"The question is, are you a real journalist?"


To this mind, no.
He's Gloria Vanderbilt's very pretty son.  (Coming up in the days of the designer jean "wars" -- to this mind, he's the very epitome of style over substance, the route journalism has taken since the 80s, at least...)

I wonder why ... now. 
I mentioned before, the ratings are in the toilet, and they got creamed for getting the Obamacare SCOTUS news wrong originally ... is this a play for more viewers, sympathetic to gay journalists?  Or is it heading off an excuse:  much like the wagons circle around Obama, calling his critics bigots, will CNN try to use gay hatred as an excuse for why nobody watches that network anymore?

(and how does Englishman Piers Morgan fit into all of this?)

Inquiring minds want to know less about Cooper's personal preferences, and more about why our professional journalists are failing to deliver the real news in these divided times. 

Now more than ever, it needs to be about the news, not who's temporarily delivering the story... pretty faces and all.

-----------------
PLUS:  I hate to explain my references here:  either you get them or you don't.  Still...

the reference to King Solomon?  Either the Supreme Court ought to have declined to hear the case this term, letting things shake out at the ballot box and waiting to see if the next Congress might take action to repeal the law as passed, or ...

the Court should have decided solely on the issue before it:  is the Individual Mandate as written constitutional?  No -- under Commerce Clause precedent, you can't mandate purchase of such a product.

If it's a tax, it's legal, but c'mon... Let the political process do it's job.  They didn't pass this as a tax, they didn't present it as a tax, in fact, they adamantly denied it was a tax.

In that way, CJ Robers "split the baby".  He didn't simply remand it back, to tell the legislators the
mandate with the penalty is unconstitutional, try again... Instead, HE REWROTE the legislation, to FIND it was a tax, when that's not the political journey it took...

It matters.
It matters, it matters, it matters.

By trying to please all peoples, he gave both sides half a baby.  Those who imply that he simply gave an intact child back to the parents to decide what to do are wrong.  He green-lighted the legality of this thing, despite the horribly wind-y route the legislation took in getting passed in the first place.

Once again,
we're in the "too big too fail" days.  Chief Justice Roberts thought historically, instead of simply being an honest craftsman working on the little piece of the job that fell to his expertise.  He gambled that ... it was up to him to save the union. 

In doing so, he might have made tomorrow's fight even worse.  Voters can never begin to sew that baby back together, and there probably is very little will right now to work together honestly, when everyone is seeking every tricky little advantage to benefit their own financial preferences.

Too big to fail lives.
Who will finally step up to take this mentality down?
Where is the Jacksonian Democrat of tomorrow?