News Observations

Now we have an example of the old argument about where your religion and mine collide and who should win in any fight about who is infringing on whose religious freedoms. A Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk has decided she should have the ultimate decision about who should and shouldn’t be issued a marriage license, a decision based on her religious beliefs. Kim Davis is now spending time in jail for her decision and she is being supported by some of those Republicans now seeking the nomination for president, making noises about religious freedom in this country. She and they say she has the right to refuse to issue a same-sex marriage license because it goes against her beliefs. Let’s see, she was elected to this post and must have signed something about obeying the laws of the land even if those laws conflicted with her beliefs. What if I were elected to that same post and then decided that my faith didn’t allow for inter-racial marriage or inter-faith marriage or June/December marriage? What if I believed that divorce was against the word of God and that anyone who was divorced should not be allowed to give it another try? So, Kim Davis, thrice divorced, can’t be fired or impeached and she refuses to resign. What a silly conundrum she’s given us, what a silly picture she paints for the state of Kentucky and for all the silly Bible Belters who support her and her views. There, I guess I’ve insulted enough people—Kentuckians, BBers, and GOP politicians who should know better.

A curious thing happened to The Diary of a Teenage Girl last week. After being in the local theaters for only two weeks, it simply disappeared overnight. Hmmm, I wonder if Dan Harkins, owner of the string of Harkins theaters in Arizona, got enough calls complaining about this movie that he decided to ship it out. Just as curious is the fact that he then put it back into two of his theaters. I guess they must be located in a more open-minded section of Phoenix, where folks don’t mind quite a bit of explicit on-screen sex.

Donald Trump continues to dominate the news, and not in a good way. He’s almost running out of people he can insult publicly. What he seems to be doing is giving the rest of the world a twenty-first century version of Burdick and Lederer’s Ugly American. You know, the pretentious, bombastic, ostentatious, jingoistic, chauvinistic fellow who thinks that all those “furiners” should learn to speak ‘Merican ‘stead of that stuff he can’t understand. We have fourteen more months of this campaign-trail bs. I wonder how many of those months we’ll have to see The Donald’s scowling face on every news item and tv story. I hope no more than another one or two.

I read that the syfy channel is producing a six-hour miniseries based on Arthur C. Clark’s Childhood’s End, scheduled to be out in mid-December. Childhood’s End has to be my favorite science fiction novel of all time. But it sounds like the tv adaptation may portray the aliens and their intentions as being sinister. I’ve always read Clarke’s meaning as very positive, the end of mankind’s childhood before he/we can move on to some higher level of existence. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. I hope it’s at least a half-full glass.