I will never patronize Morton's Steakhouse or any of the Landry Steakhouse family of restaurants again! Not only is what the restaurant did inexcusable, but the chain should have immediately responded that something like this will never happen again.

 Brief summary: A group of 16 people, one of whom is a cancer patient, spent $2000 on a Christmas dinner. Near the end of the dinner, the cancer patient, who has become sensitive to cold, put on his wool cap to get warm. The restaurant's server said he can't do that unless he has a doctor's note! They said that the party should have informed the restaurant ahead of time so that they could put them out of sight, out of mind in a private room! WTF!!! The restaurant called the cops! The people were asked none to politely to leave. Just who in the hell does Morton's think they are? What happened to gracious service? And with a $2000 bill being this arrogant and inconsiderate! Below is a link to the article.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/16/police-escort-cancer-patient-from-nashville-steakhouse-after-hes-forced-to-remove-hat/

Hash Tags on Facebook

It is amazing how quickly hash tags popped into existence and how even quicker they have disappeared. Those of us who were responsible for filing hard copy documents 30, 40 and 50 years ago tried to tell you that it was a bad idea, but nobody listened.

You see, it's really very simple but hard as hell to do! Just as with stuffing a piece of paper into a file cabinet or placing a computer file into a folder, the important thing is being able to retrieve it later. It does absolutely no good to carefully label something and carefully file it away unless you are extremely organized at how you go about this. It is essential to be consistent and use the same label for things that are similar or you wind up with a complete and total mess that is almost as difficult to sort out as if there were no attempt to organize things at all. The problem is that an extremely small percentage of the population is good at doing this. In my experience, less than 0.01%. I know the pitfalls and I have problems doing it.

The First Amendment

I am a strong believer in the First Amendment. I will strongly disagree with things people have to say, on Facebook, for example, but I will often include a statement that even though I strongly disagree with you, I will defend to the death your right to say it.

What really chaps my hide, however, is when someone posts a meme or an oratorio stating their positions that is absolutely outrageously bigoted, hateful or discriminatory and then they get all upset when they get negative comments. The First Amendment gives you the right to speak your mind, but it does NOT make you immune to the ramifications of your actions.

A family member of mine posted an anti-abortion meme that stated that anybody pro-choice hates God. I found that offensive and said so. Because this persons beliefs are different from my beliefs is absolutely no basis for saying that I, or anyone else who is pro-choice hates God. It simply is not true.

End of rant.

Liberty and Justice for All - The Myth

On Monday, November 4, 2013, Luke "Sasha" Fleishman, an 18 year old student at Maybeck High School in Berkeley, California, was traveling through Oakland on an A/C Transit bus.  Sasha was sleeping on the ride home from school.  Richard Thomas, a sixteen year old student of Oakland High School, was also on the bus.  Richard thought it would be a good idea to set Sasha on fire.  "WHAT?" you say.  Why on earth would someone do such a thing, especially in the most liberal part of the country, the San Francisco Bay Area?

Well, as it turns out, Richard is homophobic and Sasha, who is biologically male, was wearing a skirt.  Sasha received painful 2nd and 3rd degree burns to the legs that will require considerable skin grafting.  Richard was identified via security camera footage.  He has been arrested and charged with a hate crime, along with aggravated mayhem and felony assault.  Sasha's mother describes Sasha as agender, one who does not identify with being either male or female.  Sasha prefers to be referred to as they instead of he or she.  Richard's mom, as to be expected, describes Richard as a good kid.

Today, Friday, several male students at Maybeck High chose to wear skirts to school in support of their classmate.

I don't understand this country we live in anymore.  It seems we are taking many steps backwards in our cultural evolution and as a society as a whole.  Back in the 1960s we started making progress towards treating blacks as equals but we are still not there.  In the 1960s we also started to progress in our attitudes about women and in 1969 LGBT rights came into the picture as well.  It used to be that one would rarely see a woman in public wearing anything other than skirts or dresses.  Now it is commonplace to see women in pants at least as often as in skirts.  

In the last few years something strange has happened.  Now there are people who, once again, want women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.  They want to force women to carry all pregnancies to term, even if conception was due to rape or incest; to prohibit women from using contraception; and to force women who were raped to share custodial rights with the rapist, not to mention, to leave the workplace to adopt the role of a stay at home mom.  In Texas and some other states, they have now made it very difficult for any married woman to vote.  What used to be referred to as the "radical right" has now become mainstream conservative.  

I salute Sasha and the students at Maybeck High for taking a stand, but our country is, unfortunately, not yet civilized enough for people with male genitalia to appear in public wearing skirts.  There are many cultures past and present where it has been socially acceptable, but not in Europe or North America in this day and age, unless you are wearing a kilt, and even then you can expect strange looks.  So, I guess I will continue to wear skirts only in the privacy of my home.  I find them far more comfortable than pants.  I'm not gay, I'm not transgender, and I don't know if I am a Scot, but I do know this.  The last thing I want is to be assaulted by some asshole who doesn't like the way I dress.  It is time for emancipation of everyone - men, women, blacks, Muslims, LGBTs, and anyone else with a difference.  Some of us are starting to get our freedom.  However, the fact that this incident with Sasha happened in the San Francisco Bay Area underscores that those freedoms are just not for all of us, not today.

Sources:  http://www.berkeleyside.com/2013/11/07...
http://www.ktvu.com/videos/news/...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gay_pride
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_skirts

Eating crow - kind of...

Thursday I blasted the Republicans for not providing recovery aid for Hurricane Sandy victims.  Well, Friday they did with promise of more to come.  However, they failed to provide continued support for rape victims.

Conservative Republican Asshats in the House are at it again.

So, after a glimmer of hope that they were coming around to what Americans want to happen with the fiscal cliff legislation, today they re-elected Boehner as their leader, immediately went after Obamacare and failed to do anything about helping Hurricane Sandi victims relief.

Florida Gators humiliated in 2013 Sugar Bowl by Louisville

Muschamp couldn't get the team "up" for the game.  Either the team didn't care or they were too big for their britches.  The performance was none the less embarrassing.  The Gators are a better team than showed up tonight...  Or are they?