No rainbows in Fort Worth

Thank goodness Mayor Mike Moncrief has asked for an independent review of the investigations being done by the Fort Worth Police Department and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission after the shenanigans at the Rainbow Lounge, a gay nightclub.

Busting into the door, the officers, by the accounts of several eye witnesses, were all jacked up with testosterone and bolstered by their raging machismo. And why? Were they anticipating a gay floor show, complete with lurid, leering hom-O-sexuals? Did they think everybody in the bar was over the legal limit and they should have brought a van to haul them away to the drunk tank? It is impossible to know what they were thinking, but they were on the offensive, no doubt about it. Smashing a young man to the floor, and giving him a critical head injury in the process, was not necessary. An officer said he'd been groped, and that justified their violent over-reaction. Come on! Who are we kidding here? Even gay people know better than to grope a policeman, unless, you know, they're part of the floor show during their off hours. Wink, wink. Because everybody knows that policemen could never be gay, too.

There are many conflicting reports about this, but several eye witnesses make for compelling testimony. Thank goodness this is not going to be swept under the proverbial carpet. Whomever is responsible for this very official show of force should be called to task. The raid was conducted in a manner not befitting agencies charged with enforcing our laws.

To make our beloved Fort Worth a flash point for gay rights is uncalled for and hopefully unnecessary.

Thanks Mayor Moncrief!

Change we can believe in?

Oh, President Obama. I know, I know. It's been one crisis after another ever since your very first day in office. Other than attending your daughters' soccer games, an occasional outing with the wife, and cleaning up Bo's poo on the White House lawn, you've hardly had any downtime at all. And don't get me wrong. I'm a big fan of yours. Huge. That's why it's painful for me to call you out on a promise you made during the campaign. It's time for you to step up, Dude, and do the right thing.

The leftover lame policy of "don't ask, don't tell" concerning gays in the military has got to be suspended until the idiots in Congress can change national policy on this issue. Valiant men and women are being expelled from the military in large numbers because they're gay?! How can this possibly be justified in this day and age?

Yes, I know the Republican Rightwing has their boxers/briefs in a twist, thinking that gay soldiers are recruiting naive young privates into the gay community, corrupting their morals and their fondness for the missionary position. Like that's going to work. And the fundamentalist Christians think homosexuals are a slap in the face to God. But let's get real. If they're not telling, and nobody can tell anyway, what difference does it make? Because they're gay do they fly airplanes with less ability? Drop bombs that don't fall? Shoot crooked? Tuck tail and run when there's a battle? Dress up in lacy underwear under their uniforms? Make out in the back of the mess tent? Grope visiting generals? Salute awkwardly? I mean, what is the problem here?

Men and women who have honorably served our country deserve our respect and admiration. What they do in a sexual situation should have absolutely nothing to do with anything. You, President Obama, promised during your presidential campaign to suspend this policy and you haven't. Why? You're the Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States of America. You could sign an executive order today, Independence Day. Are you too afraid of the political boogey man to take action on this problem? Every single day that you wait to make good on this campaign promise, more people are losing their careers in service to our country. This is shameful. Pitiful. And you could stop it with a stroke of your pen.

Already we prevent gays from being married - except in a few enlightened states, from adopting children as a couple, from the legal protections that are afforded any wild and crazy heterosexual couple without any suspicion whatsoever. This is wrong and you know it.

Fix it!

Sarah Palin cuts and runs

Trying mightily to struggle through a hastily called news conference, frequently interrupted by cavorting waterfowl, soon-to-be Ex-Governor Palin of Alaska finally puts that state out of its misery. We should all be so lucky.

How befitting that ducks were frolicking in her very own lake while she made the claim that she was quitting because she didn't want to be a lame duck governor since she'd decided not to run again. Nice props, Sarah! Almost as good as your stalwart family.

By quitting on a slow news day before a major national holiday, she was trying to avoid the inevitable digging by the TV talking heads. Maybe they'd be too consumed by the upcoming Michael Jackson spectacle to give her much air time? Oh, I think she underestimates how dedicated the news pundits are. Speculation on what our Sarah has up her sleeve will be plentiful, you betcha. If she thinks otherwise, she's dumber than even I think she is.

This is a woman who is a classic narcissist. She puts herself above and beyond everyone, including her own family. Her career, her goals, her beliefs. She is so completely unprepared for any national office, let alone making a run for the presidency in 2012, that her ambition is laughable. Hillary Clinton, who has a remarkable grasp of issues couldn't win the nomination. What on earth makes Sarah Palin think she has any chance at all against one of the most verbally gifted presidents we've ever had?

I feel sorry for her family. I feel sorry for the country because we all know that she has some big revelation coming up, informing a public grown weary of her uninformed garbled ideas of her next biggest thing. For sure she's writing a book. But books come and go, and often end up in the $5.00 bin. Honestly, I wouldn't buy it if someone offered me a free car to go with it. Well, maybe I would. What kind of car?

Talk show? Supreme Ruler of the Planet? Pregnant again? Training for a footrace with President Obama, a race she's sure she'd win due to her superior physical condition? Whatever it is, I can almost guarantee that it's going to make me run for the Pepto.

God help us all.

Enough with the heartfelt tributes to Michael Jackson

Has anybody forgotten that Michael Jackson, AKA Jacko the Wacko, was accused not once but twice of child molestation? The first time he was able to buy off the family, the second time, well, it went to trial but he wasn't convicted. Sort of like OJ Simpson, only creepier.

Now his memorial service (hold my lottery tickets, please) is going to be broadcast world wide on television AND the internet. Streaming video. Mass hysteria. Tears flowing into a mighty river of grief.

Wait a minute while I roll my eyes a few more times.

Okay, okay. He's a gifted musician. I remember seeing him as a little kid on the Ed Sullivan Show and he ran rings around his older brothers even then. He was obviously the star of the show, as well he should be. But how he chose to live his life over the next forty years is, at best, a cautionary tale of how not to live a life.

How much money has he blown through? Did any of it make him happy? Make him a better person? Make people love him more? Yes, he had adulation but it's real hard to take a hoard of fans home with you every night to make you feel like your life isn't an empty shell of existence. Money cannot buy happiness. Michael Jackson is proof of that.

I pity his children, although they aren't really HIS children at all. He has kept them literally under wraps. Masks, scarves over their faces. What the hell was he thinking? They didn't go out except under the strangest of circumstances, they never went to school, probably didn't have too many friends. By reported accounts their father slept every day until 4:00 in the afternoon and then was up all night. Quality parenting? Don't think so.

And now he's dead, most likely a victim of his own excesses. Quite frankly, I was sick to death of hearing about him during his trial and just wished he's disappear. Now I can't even turn on the TV without being subjected to another breathless update by an earnest newsperson who manages to keep a straight face while interviewing fans mangling his hit songs on the sidewalk just because somebody shoved a microphone into their face. And this crap is going to go on for weeks, I just know it. Custody fights over his kids! His debts! His estate! What I'm waiting for is his toxicology report. You know that sucker isn't going to be just one page.

Rest in peace, Michael Jackson. and leave us alone.

Right before all hell breaks loose

A sky filled with storm clouds always makes a wonderful photograph. This one is no exception. The other night, when a storm was pounding first Parker County and then Johnson County, the associated cloudiness here was quite breathtaking. Less than five minutes later, all hell broke loose. The storm began to collapse south of here and sent "outflow" away from the center of the storm. In case you were wondering, "outflow" means God-awful wind. I thought the house was going to come apart. The trees were bent over, the house was shaking, the porch furniture was airborne. Yeah, just another lovely evening in Texas.

The best Kitty ever!

I've had a few cats in my time. Ramona lived to be 15. I got her when I was 20, she died when I was 35. Her sister, Other Cat, lived to be 20. I was 40 when she died. Kitty was a year old when I got her and now I've had her for 13 years so she's 14, but she's still holding her own. Cat-like behavior is the name of the game with Kitty. Racing around, running, jumping, high-tailing it up and down the stairs. She's a very busy girl. If she lives 6 more years, I'll be 60. (Yeah, I'm 54. Deal with it. I have.) At that rate, I'll only have one cat left in me before it's check out time in the Hotel 'O Diane. One more cat. This makes me face mortality in a way that only Crazy Cat Ladies could understand.

A lovely addition to any suburban neighborhood

Well. Five earthquakes in Cleburne in a week. This in an area that has shown no seismic activity in its 130 years of existence. Meanwhile the gas drilling companies are breaking up the substructure of the bedrock beneath the good citizens of Johnson County's feet, using high pressure water to fracture it to extract natural gas. And everyone assumes this will have absolutely no impact whatsoever to their lives above ground, except for those nice royalty checks? Yeah, this baby doesn't look dangerous to me at all. I'd love to have one plopped down in my neighborhood. NOT!

Fathers and other trifles

In today's Dallas Morning News, there was an op-ed piece concerning the decline of two parent households in America. Nearly 40% of today's babies are born to single women. Forty percent! And 77% of them are born to women over 20 years of age, so this is not an issue of teenage pregnancy. The author laments the trivialization of fatherhood and blames the feminist movement for the decimation of the American family. While the feminist movement has contributed to the independence of woman as wage earners, that simplistic argument deserves further exploration.

The author, Cathy Young, is a columnist for The Boston Globe. In her column she states today's single mothers are a throw-back to the old-fashioned, decidedly non-feminist idea that family life and child-rearing are a female domain. In fact, until the Industrial Revolution tore fathers away from the traditional, mostly agrarian households, fathers were the primary overseers of the well-being of their children. They were highly engaged in providing for their children's education and upbringing. The Cult of True Womanhood, which came into being during the Industrial Revolution, was a concentrated effort to shift control of households and children over to women, to free up the men needed for a growing industrial workforce. When children became the primary focus of mothers, to the exclusion of fathers, men began the long descent into obsolescence in their own families.

Active and engaged fathers are still necessary to the well-being of children. A functional two parent household will always be more beneficial to a child than one in which a harried single parent, regardless of gender, is trying to do everything.