Monthly Archives: October 2016
It still happens
Among my friends when I lived in Oklahoma City were Tom and Jeff. They had been in a committed relationship for a number of years when Tom was diagnosed with cancer.
Although Jeff’s family had accepted that he was Gay, Tom’s family had thrown him out when he was a senior in high school because he had brought the demon into their religious home, and this could not be tolerated. For years he had survived on his own without the help of a family who wanted nothing to do with him.
They did not visit when invited. They did not invite him to any family events like weddings and funerals. They never spoke to him as he lay dying, only calling the house to ask Jeff how close to death he was.
Being in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, and having seen it happen with other couples when one of them died, Tom, who refused to die lonely in a hospital that would have probably denied Jeff visitation rights, chose to die at home. A room on the second floor of their home was turned into a well appointed hospital room where Jeff, a registered nurse cared for Tom in his last days when he wasn’t on duty, and a visiting nurse cared for him when Jeff was.
They had bought many thing for and with each other over the years, things that would be treasured memories when Tom passed.
But Jeff, knowing what could happen, and with Tom confined to his bed, slowly emptied the first floor of meaningful things, storing them in a rented storage unit, and with the help of friends replacing them with home furnishings they wanted to get rid of anyway.
On the day of Tom’s funeral, the family, who had had nothing to do with Tom while he was alive, showed up at the house with their pickup trucks, and after informing Jeff that they had consulted a lawyer, explained that as his relationship with Tom was not recognized by the state or their church, whatever he could not prove with receipts was his or had been bought in tandem, they could assume to be Tom’s and, as they were family, was now theirs.
They took whatever they wanted from the first floor, which was mostly what they considered to be the good furniture, the television, the stereo, and most of the lamps and drove off leaving the post funeral casseroles to get cold, the sandwiches to become dry, and the coffee untouched.
Over the next two weeks, Jeff slowly brought the furniture and other items out of the storage unit and put them back into their appointed places, and then he grieved.
He had the stuff he and Tom had bought, his friends had gotten rid of things that they had wanted to get rid of, and the family that did not speak to Tom while he was alive, seeing no value in him, happily returned to Arkansas with what they thought were Tom’s possessions.
He had no value, but his things did.
Quite a few Gay people have to make a choice early on to either come out to family and face what could be negative consequences, or move away, establish their lives and, perhaps, come out to their families when they felt it safe to do so without having to deal with the negative aspects of being rejected.
During the beginning years of the AIDS epidemic, dying from it was how many families found out the truth about their sons, and ignoring the partners with whom they had shared a committed relationship did as Tom’s family had done, even going so far as rejecting the person first for being Gay and then for having AIDS.
Many died alone because the partner was denied visitations, and the family simply turned its back on the demon. And, although they might have been eager to take what of the possessions they considered theirs, as blood was thicker than water, an appalling number of the bodies of the deceased were never claimed by them, and had to be buried in paupers’ graves with the partner having no idea, having had no contact with the person he loved once the patient was admitted to hospital.
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At the beginning of the summer when the shooting at the Pulse Club in Orlando happened, some families knew their child was Gay, and had accepted it, while some had not; some families found out this way that their family member was Gay, and accepted it; or finding out this way, refused to accept it choosing, instead to believe they had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time enjoying Latino Night, and so could not bring themselves to accept the person’s reality, and could reject it for the sake of the feelings of those left behind.
In the last case, this posthumous rejection meant that they really lost someone they chose not to know.
In one notorious case the father of a gay man who died in the Orlando shooting did not claim his son’s body.
But, although, the bodies of the other victims were claimed by the families, the victims’ being Gay was necessarily accepted. To some it brought shame to the family, and caused discomfort among the immediate family, other members of the extended families, and their social and church groups.
In the aftermath of the shooting, because of charitable contributions, the OneOrlando Fund received $29.5 million which was to be divided amobg families and survivors.
But ugliness has set in.
Each of the families of the 49 victims will receive $350,000 from the fund, but, as it is up to the families how they will divide these funds among themselves, about half of the families are fighting with other family members and partners over the division.
A probate court might be necessary to settle some disputes.
Alex Martins, chair of the OneOrlando board has explained,
“It’s parents in dispute with a partner, who perhaps they didn’t know, or estranged parents, claiming one of them should receive the funds.”
As with Tom, who meant nothing until his death meant possessions for the family that rejected him, the partner of on victim has said that the victim was kicked out of his home as a teenager, and his only meaning to the family is that they can now make money from their son’s death.
Martins has also said 44 claims were rejected because they were duplicate claims from family members obviously wanting their hands on the money and willing to compete over the bodies of the dead to get it.
Rejected in life, but a cash cow in death has brought some victims closer to their families who had rejected them.
It will be interesting to learn if the father who did not claim his son’s body will be anxious to accept the money now.
Trump addresses veterans’ mental health needs
Face it, you are stupid
Yesterday my plans were changed, so I got to sit on my couch, sipping coffee, and watching the morning news talk shows on all the stations except the one that had a football game on.
Rudolph Giuliani was on all of them.
On the first show he had obviously sat on his glasses, or walked into a wall because the part on the bridge of his nose was slightly twisted so one lens was the way it should have been and the other was tipping a bit forward. He looked like his eyes were two different sizes, and I had the irresistible urge to tell him to take them off and straighten the lenses, or just take them off.
I yelled at the TV.
He had about 30 minutes between appearances, and as he appeared on the second show with straight lenses, I figured either he had heard me, or someone in his camp had seen what I had, and straighten them out.
Although the glasses had become straighter, his defense of Trump not paying taxes didn’t.
He wants to make America great again, and to do that Trump has to let us know that there are those like us who pay taxes, lots of taxes, and those others who pay little if any. What he means by those are poor people.
Too much has been given to those who do not contribute.
That is why he has condemned President Obama for paying “only” 20.5% of his income in taxes, low income people for not paying income taxes, billionaires for avoiding paying federal taxes and Amazon for not paying “fair taxes.”
He also said in 2012,
“The hedge fund guys are getting away with murder. They make a fortune, they pay no tax. It’s ridiculous, OK? I know people that are making a tremendous amount of money and paying virtually tax and I think it’s unfair”.
And in 2011 in response to a question about President Obama’s having said that well-to-do Americans should make a sacrifice for the country by paying more in taxes. He said,
“Well, I don’t mind sacrificing for the country to be honest with you. But you know, you do have a problem because half of the people don’t pay any tax. And when he’s talking about that he’s talking about people that aren’t also working, that are not contributing to this society. And it’s a problem. But we have 50 percent. It just hit the 50 percent mark. Fifty percent of the people are paying no tax.”
Although he won’t let the American people see his tax returns, he first used the excuse he was being audited, and then having his son say we are too stupid to understand their nuances, Trump has bragged about how much he pays in taxes without giving an actual figure, and bemoans that successful people are punished by heavy taxes.
During the first presidential debate, when Hillary said he probably has paid no taxes for years, Trump jumped in and declared that that was because he was smart.
After it came out that Trump, the business genius, had declared a loss of over $900 million in the 1990s, Rudy 9/11 Giuliani did the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to defend his overlord and explain why Trump’s not paying taxes was a sign of his business genius.
Look at the positives and negative generic soft viagra aspects of their business and ask them questions. Kidneys are cheap super cialis not only to produce hormones in our body they also regulate blood pressure level in a constant rate. Eating for erections? Like, seriously? Yes, the title may have surprised you, but it is absolutely cialis tadalafil generico true. The presence of xenoestrogens, which means estrogen that is not produced within the body, is disrupting the natural hormonal balance and leads to the early onset of andropause. cheapest viagra uk First, he was smart enough to declare a huge business loss to get out of paying future taxes for a while, but then turned around and became a huge business success.
While he was not paying taxes, he was, however, getting public money to build his, that should actually be “our”, empire.
In denying that Trump’s almost billion dollar loss in one year shows he was not a good businessman, Giuliani said,
“Every great man has had failures. In “The Art of the Deal” he explains that. Churchill was thrown out of office twice. Steve Jobs was fired from Apple and had nothing. The reality is this man, 26 years ago, had some failures, and then he built an empire. I like that working for me, for the United States”.
He also threw in a sexist dig by saying,
“He’s a genius at how to take advantage of legal remedies that can help your company survive and grow. I want a man who’s a genius at figuring out how to take this country, that’s — moving in the wrong direction, where we’ve had a basically jobless recovery, where we’ve had growth of less than 2 percent for two years. That’s pathetic! Don’t you think a man who has this kind of economic genius is a lot better for the United States than a woman, and the only thing she’s ever produced is a lot of work for the FBI checking out her e-mails”.
And as far as Trump’s having an advantage that the regular guy didn’t get, Giuliani added,
“I also know most that most Americans take advantage of every deduction and every legal opportunity there is to save some taxes so that they don’t have to pay as much as they are paying to the government. I know most Americans — I know most Americans would rather be paying lower taxes under Donald Trump than ten percent or twenty percent more under Hillary Clinton”.
He went on to say,
“A lot of the people who are poor take advantage of loopholes, and pay no taxes”.
He also claimed that poor people could have a $30 business loss and carry it over to the next year. It is a loophole they take advantage of.
Excuse me, but I do not see poor people being in that position. If they are poor, they don’t have businesses. So Rudy seemed to attempt to show that Trump did exactly what poor people would do in similar circumstances.
Not sure if Giuliani really believes that, but having sold his soul to Trump, he does have to defend him no matter how difficult that is.
A principled man would just walk away with his dignity in tact. Perhaps after this tap dance Rudy will do just that.
In the meantime, perhaps the Trump supporters will begin to see that he does not really represent them, but is using them.
Certainly they cannot, as taxpayers, especially those in the Tea Party wing, accept that while they pay their taxes, he not only uses every possible loophole to avoid paying his-and did he really have a $900 million loss, or just used that figure to game the system-, but has been able to use their tax dollars to build his empire having also used tax funded infrastructures to aid in that.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me, Fool me on an ongoing basis, and you have my vote
The pot and kettle thing once removed
McConnell tells the president he should have done what he had actually done.
Back when talk began about the Justice Against Support of Terrorism Act (JASTA) that would allow victims of 9/11 to sue Saudi Arabia for its alleged support of those who flew the planes into the World Trade Center, people who opposed it, like President Obama, pointed out that there could be unintended consequences like having our troops sued because of the collateral damage deaths due to bombings, ground raids, and drone attacks.
So when the Act passed, President Obama vetoed it because he thought, as he had stated before, that it could set a dangerous precedent, and other countries might start suing us for the things we have done, and might do.
For the first time in his tenure in office, he had a veto overridden by both houses of congress.
They would show him.
And show him they did.
Except, now that they overrode the veto, many lawmakers are seeing and admitting that the Act needs a little work.
After ignoring his reasons to oppose the bill and for his veto, however, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell claimed,
“That was a good example, it seems to me, of a failure to communicate early about the potential consequences of a piece of legislation. By the time everybody seemed to focus on some potential consequences of it, members had already basically taken a position.”
“I think it was just a ball dropped. I wish the president — I hate to blame everything on him, and I don’t — but it would have been helpful had he, uh, we had a discussion about this much earlier than last week.”
However, a while back, Republicans accused Obama of doing too much to kill the bill, and Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn had complained,
“Unfortunately, the administration has worked to undercut progress of this legislation at every turn. It appears that the Obama administration is pulling out all the stops to keep this bill from moving forward. I wish the President and his aides would spend as much time and energy working with us in a bipartisan manner as they have working against us trying to prevent victims of terrorism from receiving the justice they deserve.”
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They reached for a faux patriotic ploy, an image of concern, and now realize the president was most likely correct to oppose the bill the House and Senate had rushed to pass.
So, their mistake is his fault.
At least that is how they want people to see i.
And some, of course, will.
They seem to forget that back in April when being interviewed by Charlie Rose on CBS This Morning, a transcript of which was published on Breitbart, so the GOP, at least, had two opportunities to learn the president’s stance, President Obama had stated,
“This is a matter of how generally the United States approaches our interactions with other countries. If we open up the possibility that individuals in the United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries”.
But Mitch McConnell believes President Obama had said nothing until just before the veto.
Acknowledging President Obama’s concerns that the bill could subject U.S. service members to lawsuits in foreign courts, House Speaker Paul Ryan has even suggested that the House might take up a bill to fix problems with the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. But, that won’t be until after the election recess.
So, perhaps, if they had listened as far back as April before the Act was voted on in May, they would have addressed this concern before the Act was passed, and they would not now have to go back and rework it.
But they ignored President Obama then so they would look more empathetic toward the victims’ families while that mean ol’ Obama turned his back, but now have to redo things because in reality he was right, and they had actually done nothing for the good of the families, but played politics with them as their pawns, and, oops, they goofed.