Hallmark Channel Steps In It, Then Chases The Money

You might have heard the kerfuffle earlier this month about the icky sweet Hallmark Channel getting into a not-so-sweet mess over its short-lived ban over an LGBTQ-friendly advertisement, and the howls of controversy that followed.  

The controversy has since settled down. Still, it was a textbook case about how corporations ought to be in tune with public opinion, and basic fairness when they make some decisions.

The Hallmark Channel is in its prime season right now, with movies with the same, frankly tired theme.

A woman or a man is cynical about Christmas. The couple meet, don't get along at first, fall in love, and everything becomes so romantic and sentimental with the intention of driving the audience into happy holiday cheers.

That's not my style, but then again, a lot of people love it. More power to them! I endorse anything that brings people joy.

But here's the joyless part.

An outfit called One Million Moms, basically a wholly owned subidiary of the American Family Association, was hugely upset when they saw an ad on the Hallmark Channel of a same-gender couple, two women, in a wedding ad by Zola.

"One Million Moms is asking once again or Hallmark to stay true to its family friendly roots that so many families have grown to love, and to keep sex and sexual conduct - incluing the promotion of homosexualithy - out of its programming."

Though, apparently, One Million Moms seemed perfectly fine with straight couples kissing, but whatever.

Even worse, One Million Moms cited the Bible, Romans1:18-32, which suggests we should just kill all the gays:

"Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die."

OK, we should note that One Million Moms probably does not consist of one million real moms. Whatever this organization is, they basically boycott everything that doesn't adhere to Christian fundamentalists' White Jesus perspective.

One wag on Twitter suggested that One Millon Moms is just 20 Karens.

At least according to GLAAD, an LGBTQ support organization,  One Million Moms is basically just one annoying woman. Jeremy Hooper writes:

"It is basically One Meddling Mom with an agenda, and no company should be giving her the credence she so desperately craves.

Her name is Monica Cole. I the decade that I have been aware of One Millio Moms, she is quite literally the only staff member I have ever heard anyone name. She is the one and only person who appears on their petitions, as well as the one and only person who speaks for them to the media. She is the mom. Her. Solo. One Person, supposedly representing one."

Hallmark officials, thinking that "one million moms" were pissed off about the lesbian wedding ad, pulled the plug on it.

Of course the problem with that was, more than a million people for sure, including me, were pissed off at Hallmark for being bigoted, or least appearing to be.   News of this broke on a December midmonth Saturday.

By that Sunday night, facing a furious backlash, Hallmark just as furiously backpeddled. As Buzzfeed News and many other media outlets reported, Mike Perry, president and CEO of Hallmark Cards said the company was "truly sorry" for the brief ad shutdown.

"The Crown Media team has been agonizing over this decision as we've seen the hurt it has unintentionally caused. Said simply, they believe this was the wrong decision. We are truly sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused."

Hallmark also said it would work with GLAAD to better represent ethe LGBTQ community.

The abrupt reversal, I'm sorry to say, was probably not some newfound sense of fairness, but one of money. Hallmark quickly realized that the people who objected to Zola lesbian wedding ads airing on the network was far smaller than the number of people pissed off by the decision.

Which has better revenue potential? A few religious zealots or a huge bunch of basically fair minded consumers?

I'm not saying this is really wrong. It is the free market. People can choose to patronize or not patronize any business for any reason (unless it goes to the extreme of violating hate laws).

Corporations must always sort of thread the needle to figure out how not to annoy its customers, because they want to keep them.  Hallmark did not thread the needle, and a public relations fiasco resulted.

In the end, Hallmark managed to mostly recover.  Zola said they would resume advertising with Hallmark, other advertisers stuck with them, and the outrage over the Hallmark Channel's initial has waned.

All the more reason to research outfits that are attacking you to see if there is any bite behind the bark.  In the case of One Million Moms, the bark had nothing behind it. Oh well. Let other conpanies beware!

Dogs Are Parasites Columnist Gets It Bad From Dog Lovers

Our two dogs, Tonks and Jackson last winter "conning" me into
believing they were suffering so much in the snow that
I had to let them indoors for cookies and extended belly rubs. 

A columnist for the San Diego Union Tribune earlier this month tried to talk us all out of loving our dogs by using cold hard science to explain himself.

For most of us, it didn't work.

I don't know if the columnist, Chris Reed, has a beef against dogs, but he did take pains to erase what he said are illusions us humans have about our canine friends.

Basically, he said Fido and all his canine friends are manipulative parasites. Reed said he grounded his argument in science.

The science Reed cited is probably sound. Maybe. The conclusions perhaps not so much. But even if he has a point, hoo-boy.

Here's Reed's premise, in  his own words: "That's because the more the human-canine relationship is examined, the more its parasitic nature becomes obvious - and the more clingy and forlorn humans come to appear."

Reed heavily cited the science journalist Stephen Budiansky and his book called "The Truth About Dogs."

Budiansky wrote:  "Instead of the notion that over the past 40,000 years, manking domesticated wolves into present-day dogs, Budiansky says evidence strongly suggests that 'proto-dogs' cultivated mankind, intuitively grasping that 'mooching off people' beat 'fighting it out in the wild.' Early humans 'with their campfires and garbage heaps and hunting practices, but above all their social interactions, represented an ecological niche ripe for exploitation."

Which led to this conclusion from Reed: "Dogs had a secret weapon in winning over humans: Human nature, specifically our near-compulsive anthropomorphism - our habit of attributing human behaviors, emotions or intentions to nonhuman entities."

"So is that love in your dog's eyes - or is that the look of a con man sizing up his mark? Science says it's the latter. Sorry, world," Reed concluded.

There's debate over whether Budiansky's research is great or bullshit. Of course, if us humans are being manipulated like this by dogs, we love it.  The backlash against Reed and the San Diego Union Tribune was swift and unrelenting.

The most common question posed to the newspaper: "Was this written by a cat?"

Kayla Knapp tweeted:

"I actually read the article, just because. And the premise is ridiculous. It says our dogs are conning us into spoiling them. Like, okay? They still make me endlessly happy so who cares if they're 'using' us! OPEN INVITATION FOR EVERY DOG TO CON ME INTO LOVING IT."

The all caps are Kayla, not me. But I can't disagree with her argument. Neither can my dogs Jackson and Tonks. Who are conning me at this very moment.

I just don't feel like I'm a victim of any kind of con from my two pups.

..

Logan Paul YouTube Apology Prompts Classic, Biting Apology Parody

Logan Paul is the latest YouTube star to apologize after really
crossing a line. This inspired the very biting
parody video in this post. 

A guy named Logan Paul has been in the news this week.

He's this big star on YouTube who does a blog in which he does all kinds of crazy, stupid and weird things for entertaining. He has quite a big following. At least did. (He did have up to 15 million subscribers on YouTube. )

He took it a step way too far recently when he uploaded images to YouTube of what was apparently the body of a person who had committed suicide in a Japanese forest. 

Needless to say, there was quite an outcry and the video was taken down. Paul issued two apologies. The first, in which he said he was just trying to raise awareness of suicide, was deemed inadequate.

Amid the growing furor, Paul says he is suspending is YouTube vlog for awhile to give himself "time to reflect."

This series of fumbles and bad apologies has become a trope among YouTube stars, who often try to get more and more outrageous to attract clicks, views and advertising dollars.

Which leads us to this parody series of "apologies" from this fake version of a YouTube biggie.

Lots of truth in the style of this parody:

Trump's NFL Protest Statement Sticks In My Craw More Than Usual

NFL players in pretty much all of Sunday's game
took the knee in solidarity against Trump

Donald Trump doesn't like it when people disagree with him. And he always sounds off on it.

We should be used to it by now. And the latest dust up should be just another in a long series of stupid Trump sideshows. But for some reason, the NFL protest comments Trump made in Alabama just stick in my craw.

And everybody else. He stepped in it, and everybody is rebelling. It's amazing how many NFL games today are doing the whole kneeling and locking arms thing in defiance against Trump.

Friday night, it was NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest how police often treat African-Americans.

As related in the Daily Kos:

"'That's a total disrespect of our heritage. That's a total disrespect of everything that we stand for,' he said, encouraging owners to act. 

'Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flags, you'd say, Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He's fired,'" Trump said to loud applause.'

So a peaceful protest - protected by the First Amendment - is a bad thing that should be criticized, but marching menacingly as a neo-Nazi white supremacist in Charlottesville is OK?

Twitter the cable "news" outfits and other outlets have been a shoutfest ever since the comments made the light of day.

Once again, Trump - or one of his evil, dumb minions, are trying to get people fired from doing something completely benign: Peacefully protesting, without causing injury, harm or a lot of disruption, really.

That's really something. And so un-American.  A president trying to get private employers to fire people who have viewpoints that he doesn't like.

In the grand scheme of things, when things like Trump's warmongering with North Korea, the suffering of people in post-hurricane Puerto Rico, and Russia's meddling are going on, a jerk like Trump insulting NFL players is not the biggest crisis in the world.

But this has really touched a nerve.  People really cherish the right to speak out, even if they disagree with others speaking out. Sure, some of the right wing wackos on those cable shoutfests say the NFL players who 'take the knee" during the national anthem are somehow disrespecting the flag, which is nonsense.

They actually ARE respecting the flag by participating in their own way to improve the nation. Efforts to make this a better nation are by definition patriotic.

But Trump only cares about his ignorant base. So he caters to them, because the deplorables can only understand the red meat Trump throws at them.

The National Review admits this:

"(Trump) takes a commonly held sentiment - most people don't like the NFL protests - and states it in an inflammatory way guaranteed to get everyone's attention and generate outrage among his critics. When those critics lash back at him, Trump is put in the position of getting attacked for a fairly commonsensical view. 

Of course, NFL owners firing players on the spot for protesting isn't necessarily common sense, but this where 'seriously, not literally' comes in. Since everyone knows that owners aren't going to do this, Trump's statement registers for his supporters merely as forceful opposition to the protests, not as a specific plan of action."

The flaw with this argument is the critics seem to outnumber the base. A lot of people who once disliked the NFL protests suddenly see their value, or at least can muster some sympathy for them.

Which is why the number one hashtag on Twitter overnight and today has been #TakeTheKnee.

That even NFL owners who supported Trump and even donating to him are not happy with the so-called president's whines.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who previous called Trump a very good friend, said he was "deeply disappointed by Trump's comments."

"I think our political leaders could learn a lot from the lessons of teamwork and the importance of working together toward a common goal.... Our players are intelligent, thoughtful, and care deeply about our community and I support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is impactful."

At today's Detroil Lions game, not only did the team take the knee, so did singer Rico Lavelle when he finished singing the national anthem.

Donald Trump loves to cause division. It diverts attention from his misdeeds. So the more we argue among ourselves, the more he loves it. He started another big argument. And he did it classlessly, as usual, by using words like "bitch" and such.

It seems people are still more united than he would like. A few Trump partisans are appalled by the NFL protests, yes, but most of us are watching the First Amendment at work at NFL sidelines of all places.

That's a great thing to watch.

Teresa Kaepernick @B4IleaveU

Replying to @JamilSmith

Guess that makes me a proud bitch!

Eric Ebron 

✔@Ebron85

Does anyone tell trump to stick to politics, like they tell us to stick to sports? Smh.

Ben Gardner @BenGardner87

To be clear, Colin Kaepernick's "crime" is protesting systemic racism and police brutality. Trump called him a "son of a bitch" tonight.

Manny Fidel 

✔@mannyfidel

Trump on Kaepernick: son of a bitch!

Trump on Nazis: they're bad but like lol idkhttps://twitter.com/dcexaminer/status/911407560938442757 …

Bureau Of Land Management Gives Us A Lump Of Coal, But Just Temporarily.

The federal Bureau of Land Management's web site had
this photo of a giant coal seam on its home page Thursday,
prompting outrcry and suspicions that the federal government
is all about coal, coal, coal

The United States Bureau of Land Management, as the name implies, manages public lands across the nation.

Most of the land they manage is in the western half of the United States, but it does make up about one eighth of the land mass in for the country.

Most of that land is wilderness and conservation areas, national monuments, and trails and rivers. A little bit of this land is also used for oil and gas drilling and coal mining.

Of course, all you hear from the Trump administration is coal, coal, coal!  Contrary to what he says, coal is not going to make a comeback it's not going to make America great again, and all those coal miners relying on Trump's promise that they'll work in the mines again an make good money are in for a disappointment.

But the Trump administration perseveres any chance it gets. That even affected the web site of the Bureau of Land Management.

Until Wednesday, the BLM's home page had a nice picture of two boys with backpacks gazing out at scenic, hilly terrain.

The BLM home page Thursday had an image of..... a coal seam.

Yep, just a dark, unphotogenic expanse of dark gray coal. A coal seam, by the way, is a nice big mass of coal that's accessible for mining.

I guess this illustrates perfectly the Trump administration philosophy on public lands. If it's pretty, but worth money, make it ugly and take the money.

The  Bureau of Land Management said the coal photo was
just going to be part of a rotating series of photos on its home
page, depicting various aspects of federal lands By Friday,
the coal has been replaced by this image of a fly fisherman.

However, the BLM says the coal picture was not a literally dark vision of how the U.S. government would look at federal lands going forward.

The BLM said they would rotate photos on their home page to reflect different aspects of the agency and the lands they own. Or, more accurately, we own.

They said that by Friday, the picture will have changed again, and that many of the photos would reflect the natural beauty of federal lands.

True to their word, the BLM website's home page late Friday had a nice photo of a young man fly fishing in a fresh, clean looking river.

Phew!

Seems Like Trump Administration Doesn't Want Anybody Who's Not White Into The Country

Manpreet Kooner with her fiance. She recently wanted to take
a one-day trip from Canada to a Vermont spa, but was turned
away at the border, possibly because of her race.

I keep hearing all these disturbing reports of border patrol agents not letting people in this country based just on the color of their skin.  

And that's no matter how safe or unsafe or legal they might be.

Some of this is happening close to home, as I live near the Canadian border in Vermont.

One of the more disturbing incidents occured at the Highgate Springs, Vermont border crossing, which is just a 10 minute drive up the road from my house.

Recently, a Canadian woman from the Montreal area with a Canadian passport tried to get across the border into the United States via Highgate Springs because she was taking a day trip to go to a Vermont spa.

Manpreet Kooner, 30, was born in Canada to Indian parents who had become Canadian citizens. Kooner has always lived in Canada. She has a good job in a science lab at a local college and has no criminal history.

So what's the harm in letting Kooner into Vermont to get her nails done or whatever.?

Kooner, with her Indian heritage, has darker skin than the two white friends she was with when she tried to cross the border into Vermont Sunday, says the Canadian broadcaster CBC.

U.S. Border Patrol was going to let her white friends through, but they held Kooner for six hours. She got no explanation why, and the border patrol isn't talking. Border agents said they don't about individual cases.

A statement from the Border Patrol adopted a policy in 2014 that "prohibits the consideration of race or ethnicity in law enforcement, investigation, and screening activities, in all but the most exceptional circumstances."

Looks like that policy is out the window. CBC said Kooner told them one of the border agents told her, 'I know you may feel like you've been Trumped,' in reference to the current occupant of the Oval Office.

Kooner said the problems started in December when she tried to enter to the United States, and was subject to a random check, which happens to all of us sometimes.

This time the border agents noted Kooner was stopped in December, though there were no red flags in her file, CBC said. 

On Sunday, in addition to being detained for six hours, Kooner was photographed, fingerprinted and told to sign a document withdrawing her application to go into the United States.

She was also given confusing advice to go to the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa to get a visa to enter the United States in the future, but she was told by them to go to U.S Customs and Border Patrol.'

In other words, Kooner has dark skin. Stay the hell out of the United States.

At least it seems that way.

So, if Kooner, a Canadian citizen, born in Canada, with no criminal record, with a good job, no red flags, wants to enter the United States briefly as a tourist and is barred, what about other people?

What if, unlike Kooner, somebody is a Muslim with no criminal record who wants to enter the United States from Canada? There area already plenty of reports of that kind of thing going on.

Draw it to its logical conclusion, do the Trumpsters want only white English speaking people to enter the United States, even as tourists? That seems pretty limiting doesn't it?

I guess there's a crowd of Trumpsters out there who really want to turn us into a whites-only Fortress America.

Angry Trump/Pence Supporters Attack Theater In Hamilton, Ontario Because "Hamilton"

The Hamilton Theatre in Onatrio is getting a lot of flack
from Trumpeters because their name has the word
"Hamilton" in it and the Trumpeters don't like the
way Mike Pence was treated during the real
production of "Hamilton" on Broadway.  

UPDATE: 

There's yet another theater companh in the sights of Trumpeters besides the one in Ontario.

According to NPR the small community theater group, Hamilton Players in Hamilton, Montana also got TONS of abuse over the Pence incident at the Broadway production of "Hamilton."

Denise Rose, executive Director of Hamilton Players Inc. said, "My phone would go crazy in clumps of 10 to 15, then an hour later all teh re-tweets started again.....We were getting tweets calling us racist, untalented, disrespecful or more."

Some people later apologized to the Hamilton, Montana players for the mistake, but others kept at it.

Dummies.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

In yet more evidence that internet trolls can be incredibly stupid, a theater company in Hamilton, Ontario is getting trash on line from some of these internet trolls.

You see where this is going.

As you've surely heard, Vice-President elect Mike Pence went to see the Broadway hit "Hamilton" the other day, and the cast gave him a pointed message about tolerance and respect. Some audience members booed Pence.

Our childish president-elect, Donald Trump, took to Twitter like he always does and complained about how the annoyed he was that this happened at the Hamilton show.

Trump called "Hamilton" "overrated" during his rant, which is interesting, given the Tonys it won and the fact that it's nearly impossible to get tickets to this show.

His followers, who I call Trumpeters, took to social media, too, to whine and howl about how disrespect this was, or something.

The Hamilton Theatre Co. in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada took a lot of this grief, says CBC in Canada.

No, their current production is not "Hamilton" but "The Toxic Avenger."

Never mind, though. The name of the theater company is Hamilton, and anything named Hamilton now is considered anti-Trump.

Apparently, says the CBC, the internet trolls were too apoplectic to pay attention to Twitter handles, and which way to direct their ignorant ire.

The Twitter account of the theater company in Hamilton, Ontario is @HamiltonTheatre. The Broadway show's Twitter handle is @HamiltonMusical 

I do love the irony in that the angry, unhinged Trump supporters are mistakenly and stupidly attacking a theatre whose current production is called "The Toxic Avenger."

By the way, the only adult in the room in this whole bruhaha over the Mike Pence incident at Hamilton is Mike Pence himself.

Pence told Fox News he wasn't offended by the incident and does not want an apology.

Pence said he, his daughter and her cousins "enjoyed the show" and he reminded his daughter and the cousins that the boos, cheers and words "is what freedom sounds like."

Angry Trump/Pence Supporters Attack Theater In Hamilton, Ontario Because "Hamilton"

The Hamilton Theatre in Onatrio is getting a lot of flack
from Trumpeters because their name has the word
"Hamilton" in it and the Trumpeters don't like the
way Mike Pence was treated during the real
production of "Hamilton" on Broadway.  

UPDATE: 

There's yet another theater companh in the sights of Trumpeters besides the one in Ontario.

According to NPR the small community theater group, Hamilton Players in Hamilton, Montana also got TONS of abuse over the Pence incident at the Broadway production of "Hamilton."

Denise Rose, executive Director of Hamilton Players Inc. said, "My phone would go crazy in clumps of 10 to 15, then an hour later all teh re-tweets started again.....We were getting tweets calling us racist, untalented, disrespecful or more."

Some people later apologized to the Hamilton, Montana players for the mistake, but others kept at it.

Dummies.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

In yet more evidence that internet trolls can be incredibly stupid, a theater company in Hamilton, Ontario is getting trash on line from some of these internet trolls.

You see where this is going.

As you've surely heard, Vice-President elect Mike Pence went to see the Broadway hit "Hamilton" the other day, and the cast gave him a pointed message about tolerance and respect. Some audience members booed Pence.

Our childish president-elect, Donald Trump, took to Twitter like he always does and complained about how the annoyed he was that this happened at the Hamilton show.

Trump called "Hamilton" "overrated" during his rant, which is interesting, given the Tonys it won and the fact that it's nearly impossible to get tickets to this show.

His followers, who I call Trumpeters, took to social media, too, to whine and howl about how disrespect this was, or something.

The Hamilton Theatre Co. in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada took a lot of this grief, says CBC in Canada.

No, their current production is not "Hamilton" but "The Toxic Avenger."

Never mind, though. The name of the theater company is Hamilton, and anything named Hamilton now is considered anti-Trump.

Apparently, says the CBC, the internet trolls were too apoplectic to pay attention to Twitter handles, and which way to direct their ignorant ire.

The Twitter account of the theater company in Hamilton, Ontario is @HamiltonTheatre. The Broadway show's Twitter handle is @HamiltonMusical 

I do love the irony in that the angry, unhinged Trump supporters are mistakenly and stupidly attacking a theatre whose current production is called "The Toxic Avenger."

By the way, the only adult in the room in this whole bruhaha over the Mike Pence incident at Hamilton is Mike Pence himself.

Pence told Fox News he wasn't offended by the incident and does not want an apology.

Pence said he, his daughter and her cousins "enjoyed the show" and he reminded his daughter and the cousins that the boos, cheers and words "is what freedom sounds like."

U.S. Deporting Man To South Korea; He Hasn't Been There Since He Was Three Years Old

Adam Crapser, 41, is about to be deported to South Korea
even though he hasn't been there since he was three years old.  

In a case that's both strange and mean-spirited, the United States is deporting a 41-year-old man with a wife and kids to South Korea.

He hasn't set foot in South Korea since he left that country to live with foster parents in the United States.

Adam Crapser was brought to the United States when he was three, but his abusive foster parents never filed his citizenship paperwork, reports Slate and numerous other news outlets.

He ended up being abused by various foster parents until he was kicked out of the house at 16. He was kind of messed up from the abuse and ended up committing a burglary, and getting an assault conviction for a fight with a roommate. He also violated a protective order from an ex-girlfriend when he tried to phone his son.

This all happened when he was young. Crapser by all accounts has cleaned up his life and is a law-abiding stay-at-home father to four children.

Well, he was until he was detained.

Slate says Crapser has been in detention for nine months and couldn't stand being there any longer. So he waived an appeal to fight the forced removal from the United States, says his attorney, Lori Walls.

According to the Associated Press:

"In an email Walls said Adam was eligible for a deportation reprieve called 'cancellation of removal' but the 'judge decided he did not deserve this relief.'

'He will be deported as soon as Immigration and Customs Enforcement makes the necessary arrangements,' Walls said. 'Adam, his family and advocates are heartbroken at the outcome.'"

I guess immigration officials figure rules and rules and they have to be adhered to no matter how nonsensical the results are of following those rules.

Crapser has little idea about the language, culture and job situation in South Korea, and unlike in the United States, he has no known family there.

But nope. His abusive foster parents didn't do the citizenship papers, and his criminal history means he's got to go. Even if he's been a good American for the past decade or more, even though he isn't officially American, in terms of citizenship papers.

Like I said let's just follow the "rules" even if they don't actually help anything.

Last year the Oregonian quoted him thusly:

"I care....I want to be here. I want to stay here. So I just ask everybody to just please,  you know, have some leniency on me... All I want to do is be the best American I can be. I don't want to be this broken, screwed up guy. Just don't take me out of the United States."

I'm sure South Korea is just itching to get this guy, too. I mean, couldn't he contribute more to American society than South Korean?

City Council Wants To Evict A Library Cat, And The Fur Is Flying Over This

Browser the cat at the White Settlement, Texas public
library. That community's city council wants him
out of the library, and the town's residents
are rebelling at that idea.  

UPDATE:

Browser the cat can stay in the White Settlement, Texas library after all.

As the Dallas Morning News put it in their headline:

"White Settlement Council turns tail, lets Browser the Library cat stay after backlash."

After the council initially voted to oust the cat last month, a social media firestorm erupted.

The White Settlement Council caved in the face of the onslaught, and Browser will keep sleeping in the library, catching the occasional mouse and entertaining the children who come in

I guess sense and peace finally came back to White Settlement

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

The city council in White Settlement, Texas voted recently to evict Browser, the cat that's been living at the municipal library for almost six years.

There hadn't really been any complaints about the cat, and this vote to evict Browser came out of the blue, according to local media reports.

Browser was originally brought in to combat rodents that had been damaging books in the library.

Everybody ended up loving the affectionate cat, who helps children settle down and read their books.

But the city council suddenly had other ideas. Suddenly, Browser is a crisis and has to leave the library, apparently.

White Settlement City Council member sniffed, "City Hall and city businesses are no place for animals," as she voted to evict Browser, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram. 

Of course, the entire community of White Settlement is up in arms as a petition circulates for a new vote on the matter coming up. Or a community vote to keep the cat.

But the White Settlement City Council is determined to get rid of Browser, the Star Telegram notes.

Council member Steve Ott said people might be allergic to cat dander, which is a point but you can keep Browser away from people with allergies.

Others point out that if Browser goes, the mice come in and pest control outfits will have to use chemicals to banish the rodents.

Still, Ott is unmoved. "That cat is just that - a cat. Not a person. So go ahead and sign all the petitions you want. The cat needs to go."

The community's mayor thinks this all got started because an employee at City Hall wanted to bring his puppy to work and they wouldn't let him, so he got revenge by getting the City Council to go after Browser.

By the way, Browser isn't costing White Settlement taxpayers anything. Library personal pay for Browser's feeding and care out of pocket.

Personally, I'm not a cat person. They're OK. But I can see how a cat could have a welcoming, calming influence at a library.

Maybe the White Settlement city councilors who don't like Browser should just chill. Or read a damn book or something.

Boston Globe Headlines From 2017 Are Truly Scary

The would be April 9 2017
edition of the Boston Globe.  

UPDATE: 

Donald Trump reacted to the Boston Globe fake front page, predictably calling it "stupid"

"How about that stupid Boston Globe? It's worthless. It sold for a dollar."

I guess if a newspaper sells for $1 it's automatically stupid. Sell it for much more, and I guess it's OK.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

In case you missed it, the front page of the April 9,  2017 editions of the Boston Globe are really a nightmare.

I know, I know, it's not 2017 yet and the first paragraph of this post is not one of my famous typos.

But that imagined front page, which is on the actual front page of today's opinion/editorial section of the Sunday Boston Globe, imagines a world in which Donald Trump is indeed president.

It takes Trump's campaign promises at face value, and brings us to what the world would be like.

"It is an exercise in taking a man at his word," writes the Boston Globe editorial staff.

"Deportations To Begin " screams the headline at the top of the April 9, 2017 Boston Globe. There's a subhead that reads: "President Trump Calls For Tripling of ICE Force" and as almost an afterthought continues. "Riots Continue"

Other headlines on the front page are just as grim: "Markets Sink As Trade War Looms" and maybe one of the scariest: "U.S. Soldiers Refuse Orders To Kill ISIS Families."

That's a riff on Trump's off-stated idea that not only should we kill ISIS terrorists, but their families, too.

I guess to teach them a lesson? I dunno. What lesson?

The soldier story goes on, "The military faces a 'crisis of good order and discipline,' Pentagon officials said yesterday, after days of widespread unrest in the ranks over White House orders to kill relatives of ISIS militants. More protests were planned in support of two Army Special Forces soldiers who disobeyed direct orders to kill everyone in an ISIS compound."

It's worth going on the Boston Globe web site, read the editorial explaining their mock paper, and then clicking on each April 9, 2017 article to read them in detail.

Here's a good PDF of this front page if that makes it easier to read (probably does)

The Boston Globe does insert a bit of humor in the front page that mocks Trump. In a column that advertises articles on the inside pages of the April 9, 2017, Boston Globe, we learn that NASA engineers halted an unmanned probe on fears that the new gold leaf trim would interfere with radio communications.

We also learn that heavy spring snow has closed "Trump National Park for the first time since it dropped its loser name, 'Yellowstone' in January."

The U.S. Education Secretary is also trying to force PBS to remake "Celebrity Apprentice" using hand puppets, and the president's new romance novel has been pulled from store shelves because some of it plagarizes from a May, 1986 edition of Penthouse magazine.

Nevertheless, the April 9, 2017 Boston Globe is a clever bit of clairvoyance we should all pay attention to.

The scary thing to me is that the scenarios that play out in these articles seem totally plausible if Trump is serious about what hes saying now.  (Except maybe the humorous bits.)

Here's the basic problem: Demagogues like Trump love to spill what seem like easy, common sense solutions to deep, complex problems. But he either won't or can't predict the chain reaction of stuff that will go on.

Trump and his followers are mostly a subset of the type of people who can't think: "If I do A, then B, C and D will happen." They don't have the brain firepower to to get past "I Will Do A"

Today's Boston Globe full throttle blast won't make any of his supporters think twice, I'm sure. But it is quite an exercise in predicting the future.

And it's not a future I or most people I know want.

Teacher Loses Job Because Creepy Kid Stole Her Phone, Photos

This teacher was forced to resign because a student
swiped her phone, and distributed photos of her
he found in one of the phone's apps.  

Picture this scenario: A female high school teacher momentarily leaves her cell phone on a classroom desk to  deal with a brief issue.

A male high school student steals the phone and discovers the teacher had taken a couple of racy photos of herself, partly undressed, which were intended to turn her husband on around Valentine's Day.

Until the student swiped the phone, the only people who saw the photos were the teacher and her husband.

The teacher, named Leigh Anne Arthur had no intention of showing them to anyone else. She had simply forgotten to delete the photos.

The creepy high school boy decides it would be fun to spread the photos far and wide to his friends.

"He told the whole class that he would send them to whoever wanted them," Arhur said, according to television station WSPA in Spartanburg, South Carolina. "Your day of reckoning is coming," he also said to the teacher.

So: In this scenario, who gets punished: The student, for stealing the phone and invading the teacher's privacy, or the teacher, for setting her phone down on a desk.

By the way, the 16 year old had to go through the trouble of opening the phone's apps to get at the pics, so it took a little effort It's not like Arhur left printouts of the photos on the desk for anyone who wandered by to see.

This is America, so of course the teacher gets punished. She was told by her school district to resign or get fired, so she resigned.

The school superintendent, David Eubanks, also said he figured Arhur was contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I guess to school official's minds, there's nothing wrong with stealing the phone and invading privacy. Especially since it appears the student has gone unpunished.

The school district claims that the student will be punished, probably, and that Arthur was not where she should have been when she left her phone. (She says she had to attend to a problem in the hallway) and that she let students use her phone, which Arthur denies. And even if she did let them use her phone, does that give students the right to distribute her private photos far and wide?

We'll see if the teen actually gets punished.

This happened in small town South Carolina, and I kinda get how things sometimes work in small towns.  The kid is probably the offspring of some big fish in that small pond town, so the adults tread lightly.

The kid knows he can get away with anything because of this, so he does anything. I suspect that's why the stupid teen gave his little "day of reckoning" speech to the teacher.

Arthur was a rather popular teacher and at least 11,000 high school students, mostly in South Carolina, signed a petition asking that she be reinstated, says television station WLFF in Greenville, South Carolina.

But Arthur, understandably, isn't sure she wants to go back to her job teaching electrical engineering and computer programming in the school district.

Mostly because she doesn't want to work at a school where the students are running the show, and not the educators.

As for the 16 year old, Arthur is considering pressing charges, so maybe he'll get his "day of reckoning,"  too.

We can only hope.

Retired Officer Gets To Keep Police Dog He Worked With After All

It now appears Marietta, Ohio police officer Matt
Hickey and his partner Ajax will enjoy their
retirement together after all. 

It almost took an act of Congress to get this done but a retired cop in Ohio will be able to keep his K-9 partner with him.

The case became national attention when it appeared that Ohio law might have separated retiring officer Matt Hickey from Ajax. 

The two were inseparable as they worked, but the town of Marietta, Ohio said that when Hickey retired, he could not keep the police dog named Ajax.

This, even after Hickey offered to pay the city $3,500 for Ajax, a value set by the city.

City officials had said a state law had tied their hands. Under an Ohio law, Ajax was considered municipal property. The only legal way to let Ajax go was to sell Ajax at an auction to the highest bidder, said television station WBNS

"The dog is property of the city of Marietta," said Paul Bertram II the city's law director.  "Because it is personal property, it is treated like a shovel. That's just the way it is."

Hickey worried somebody might outbid his $3,500 and keep the dog, even though he and Alex really belong together.

Marietta resident Corey Orr tried to help. He set up a GoFundMe account that raised $70,000 for Hickey. That money would be used to outbid everyone else at the auction and let Hickey keep Ajax

The latest news is good, though. The town decided that they were misreading the law and found a way to let Hickey keep Ajax, reports television station WCMH in Columbus, Ohio. 

Since Hickey was the only K-9 officer on the force and was retiring, Marietta's K-9 police unit was "disbanding."

In that case, since the unit was disbanding, state law allows Hickey to buy Ajax for $1.00.

I'll note here that social media was jumping all over city of Marietta officials, but I give them some credit because they realized they had to follow the letter of the law. It was never anything personal against Hickey or Ajax.

Plus, the city did eventually find a solution that pleased everyone.  I think they realized how awful it is to separarte a man and his dog for no good reason.

Hickey said he would work to clarify Ohio law so nobody has to go through the stress and uncertainty he and Ajax did. An Ohio state representative is already beginning work on legislation to accomplish this. 

As for the $70,000 raised through GoFundMe, that money will go to Vested Interest in K-9s, which buys bulletproof vests for police dogs throughout the nation.

I wish Hickey and Ajax many good times together in their retirement.

Dark, Emotional German Ad Puts New Twist On Christmas Heartstrings

Scene from the controversial Christmas ad
from the German gorcery chain Edeka. 

Christmas ads are all designed to pull at the heartstrings, and really manipulate your emotions, more so than advertisements other times of year.

Some of these Christmas ads are quite good, as I've noted in past posts. Most of the ads are terrible.

Now, pointed out to me by the web site Mashable, here's an ad from the German supermarket chain Edeka that, at least for the most part, is much darker than most rosy holiday ads.

The characters in the ad are also very manipulated, but seem surprisingly willing to forgive the manipulator for it

As Mashable notes, the manipulation depicted in the ad might not be the best way to do things, but oh well.

I also don't know how the ad advances the cause of buying groceries, but oh well.  The ad is interesting and provocative.  It was just posted on YouTube on November 28 and already has gotten 30 million views  and counting fast.

Many people love LOVE the ad. "Very powerful ad that highllights an important issue for many older people: loneliness," tweeted Jeff Tijssen, according to the New York Daily News.

Others hate it.  During a Today show segment about the ad, co-host Savannah Guthrie said. "That is the worst thing I've ever, ever seen.....Oh, it's morbid."

In this television advertisement, we see a lonely old man in December, who gets phone calls from all his children, all saying things have gotten too busy and they can't make it for a Christmas visit this year.

We then have clips of the old man eating alone in dim light in his house near a Christmas tree, interspersed with scenes from the frantic lives of his adult children.

Then the adult children get the news right before Christmas itself: Their lonely father has passed away. The busy kids, now grieving, interrupt their lives and head to their father's home town to make arrangements for the funeral.

And then......Watch the video, and see what you think of this one:

Ellen DeGeneres Helps Us Through The Starbucks Christmas Cup Crisis Of 2015

Ellen DeGeneres helps guide us through the Great Starbucks
Christmas Cup Crisis of 2015.  

I was going to weigh in on the "controversy" about the Starbucks holiday season cups, which are just red.

Some evangelical Christians are upset because the cups don't mention Christmas, or anything like that.

However, I saw a clip of Ellen DeGeneres explaining the situation and possible solutions much better than I could, so I'll just let her do it.

Indiana's Little Pizza Shop Of Horrors

Memories Pizza in Indiana played the culture
wars well, and were rewarded with nearly $500,000
in GoFundMe loot.  

I hope the owners of Memories Pizza in Indiana are pleased as punch that they signed on to the nation's long running culture wars.

The people who run the place decided to get on TV and talk about their bigotry (they say Christianity), making themselves a target for all the yahoos out there, and then playing the martyr card when the yahoos inevitably attacked.

They've got the playbook down pat, don't they?

Here's the backstory: As you probably heard, Indiana is in an uproar because the governor, Mike Pense, signed legislation called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Though the backers of the law denied it, the new legislation went beyond somewhat similar, existing laws in other  jurisdiction and pretty much opened the door for businesses to turn gay people away because some business owners' religious beliefs say that gay people are scummy.

Or something like that.

Amid cries of boycotts, and the business establishment canceling expansions, hiring and events over the uproar, the law was just "modified" a bit to make it a tiny bit less discriminatory.

The owners of the pizza place, Crystal O'Connor and her father Kevin O'Connor,  came forward the other day and said their restaurant is a "Christian establishment" and thusly favored the law as it was originally signed by Pense, because they wouldn't want to be forced to cater a gay wedding because they don't believe in the "homosexual lifestyle," whatever that is.

I'm not sure there's any gay couples out there who think their dream wedding is one catered with pizza from Memories Pizza, but what do I know?

They would, grudgingly, serve a gay couple if they came into the restaurant and just wanted a pizza. But for all I know they'd spit in their pizza.

By announcing to the world that they favored discrimination against gay people, the owners of Memories Pizza had to have known they would put themselves in the middle of a huge shitstorm.

And boy did they ever.

The backlash against Memories Pizza was, well, memorable, but also predictable. All kinds of off-color, crude, and very negative Yelp reviews went up, the restaurant's web site was hacked, and the restaurant owners got the inevitable death threats.

Because trolls of all stripes, be they liberal, conservative or neither, have their go-to button. Anytime they remotely dislike something or someone, they let the death threats fly.

As if that would accomplish anything.

Of course, the pizza place shut down in the face of the threats, and stupid pranks like ordering pizza they have no intention of actually buying.

The idiots that issued the threats enabled the pizza restaurant owners to play that martyr card, that all gay people were fascists who wanted to take over the world.

The pizza joint established a GoFundMe page to garner donations from like minded people (some say mouth breathing knuckle draggers, you decide) to stay afloat. At last check they'd collected something like $485,000, probably more than that by now.

I bet the owners of Memories Pizza are already packing their bags for a nice vacation to Cabu with that loot.

I have no idea how financially stable Memories Pizza was before all this started. It might have been making money like gangbusters, or it could have been about to fall off a monetary cliff. Who knows?

But you've got to hand it to the people who run this pizza joint. They certainly took full advantage of a Big Public Controversy.

They got their own bully pulpit, so they could attempt to bully people they don't like, as prescribed by their so-called "Christian" beliefs. And they get a ton of free money to boot.

I don't know if Memories Pizza people thought this through ahead of time as a money making scheme, but it sure worked out that way.

Yes, they were probably genuinely frightened by the idiots issuing their threats and probably didn't think their public comments would blow up to be a national story.

The anti-gay bigots win big, too. They can point to Memories Pizza and say anytime they come down on the side of what they call righteousness, "Big Gay" will threaten them into silence, and take away their free speech rights.

Of course, anytime you say something, the First Amendment doesn't give you any protection from people criticizing it.

Plus, there's always a few idiots among the mostly peaceful, normal people who don't like anti-gay bigotry.  The idiots who issue threats are the ones that get all the attention, because they're not about anti-gay bigotry, they're all about getting attention. Morons.

Death threats are always, always wrong. I've always wondered why they're not prosecuted more vigorously.

The anti-gay activists can also claim, falsely, that the bundles of money Memories got via GoFundMe proves that everybody in America hates the gays, just like them.

Though the corporations that rebelled against the "religious rights" law know a majority of people don't like this type of discrimination. It's bad for business.

But, Memories Pizza sure captured a niche here. There are a fair number of people out there who Hate The Gays.

In terms of making bundles of money and becomin a poster child "martyr" for the radical Christian right, well played, Memories Pizza!

That St. Louis Cops Are SO Sensitive Makes Me Really Suspicious Of Them

St. Louis Rams doing the "Hand Up Don't Shoot"
gesture at their game Sunday.  

The St. Louis Police Officers Association is really, really, really mad at members of NFL's St. Louis Rams for displaying the "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" gesture in solidarity with those who think Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson should have been indicted for shooting Michael Brown.

Even if you think the grand jury's decision, and the prosecutor's action were proper, isn't the St. Louis Police Officers Association getting just a teensy little bit too sensitive about this?

It's not like the Rams totally stopped a game. They made their statement with their "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" gestures, then went on to play their football game.

Boy, the Officers' Association statement on the Rams' protest is certainly flowery enough. And totally wrong in the facts. It reads in part:

"The gesture has become synonymous with assertions that Michael Brown was innocent of any wrongdoing and attempting to surrender peacefully when Wilson, according to some now-discredited witnesses, gunned him down in cold blood."

Well, no. The Grand Jury was faced with lots of conflicting evidence, and laws that give police wide latitude in shooting cases, and possibly a prosecutor who could have been more aggressive.  With that mess before them,  they couldn't bring themselves to indict Wilson. It was all too muddled.

The Police Association statement gets even worse, in the melodrama department, and full of self pity as it discusses the thoughts of the Police Association Business Manager, Jeff Roorda:

"Our officers have been working 12 hour shifts for over a week, they had days off including Thanksgiving canceled so that they could defend this community from those on the streets that perpetuate this myth that Michael Brown was executed by a brother police officer and then, as the players and their fans sit safely in their dome under the watchful protection of hundreds of St. Louis's finest, they take to the turf to call a now-exonerated officer a murderer, that is way out of bounds, to put it in football parlance, Roorda said."

OK, I'll be first in line to thank and appreciate police officers for the hard work and sacrifices they make to keep us safe.

But jeez! Who said Brown was "executed?" He was shot and killed by a police officer under murky circumstances. One of many black people shot by police across the nation under murky circumstances. No wonder people are upset.

I'm not so sure Wilson is exonerated, either. He's not indicted. But did he act as responsibly as he could have? Umm......

Look, Michael Brown wasn't a perfect little angel, but it still seems as if any crime he might have committed didn't exactly deserved death. Darren Wilson isn't a serial killer, but in hindsight, there had to be a way for him to deal with Brown without killing him.

Given the number of police shootings in this country, I can't get behind the assertion that the Ram football players' brief demonstration was "tasteless, offensive and inflammatory" as Roorda suggests.

Roorda's statement also refers to violent "thugs" While he didn't specify race, I have to ask why it seems black criminals so often seem to be referred to as "thugs" by so many people out there,  but white criminals seem to be rarely described as "thugs"

A criminal is a criminal, right?

Anyway, police were asserting last night they received the apology from the Rams they demanded, but the Rams organization is only saying they respect police and want to continue to work with them through difficult times.

And at last report, the NFL won't fine or punish the players who made the gestures, as police have demanded.

From a practical standpoint, it seems the faux outrage by the St. Louis Police Officers Association, justified or not, (and probably not) seems like it would fan the flames of community anger, not tamp it down.

And I thought they said they were protecting the public. Contributing to public outrage doesn't seem to be protecting anybody.

Most cops I know are dedicated, serve the public well and aren't particularly whiny. Roorda, the guy from the St. Louis Police Officers Association, ought to take that to heart. Or take your brand of "protecting and serving" elsewhere.

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree Has No Place In Reading, Pa.

This "Charlie Brown" Christmas tree in Reading, PA.
is going to be removed in favor of a better one,
says the city. Photo from WFMZ-TV.  

If you have a soft spot for Charlie Brown Christmas trees, you know, the rather sad, pathetic one Charlie Brown befriends in the holiday special, don't go to Reading, Pennsylvania.

The city put up a Christmas tree, as many municipalities do, but it got complaints immediately.

It was not big and bushy like a traditional tree, but kind of lacking in branches and greenery and vigor.

It's going to go, Reading officials said, according to television station WFMZ in Allentown.

There's been a big fundraiser going on to raise $5,000 for a new tree to be put up for another tree lighting ceremony next weekend.

The tree was the target of LOTS of insults, says WFMZ:

"'I know Reading is not doing too great,' one man who works near the tree told the news station. 'But facing this tree up here is making it even worse.'

'If I were a squirrel looking for a home for the winter, I wouldn't even go in that tree,' said another."

Consumerist says the city was to have gotten a nice tree from a farmer, but then there was a bunch of rain and the farmer wouldn't let any heavy equipment through to get the tree. So the city basically cut down the first tree they saw in a city park and went with it.

But, as I said, a nicer tree is on the way. I kind of hope some kind soul adopts the city's 50-foot Charlie Brown tree, though.

Charlie Brown trees might not be popular in Reading, Pennsylvania, but they certainly are elsewhere.

I'm stunned by the number of outfits that sell Charlie Brown trees. Apparently, outfits like Kohls and Home Depot sell tons of them. Go figure.