Sat AM

Before starting my screed, Merry Christmas to all.  And to those celebrating Hanukah and Kwanzaa, happy holidays to you, too.  I am not offended by those who say "Happy Holidays."  But I do think it's really "Christmas."  I don't think that should offend anyone either.  What is offensive is the move to call "Christmas break" in the schools "Winter break."  (Why, in the past, wasn't there a "Kwanzaa Break?")  And why ban songs such as "Silent Night" or, my favorite, "Oh, Holy Night" from school Christmas concerts?  Can't people just enjoy beautiful music?  The words are not at all offensive; they just reflect different religious beliefs.

By the way, I was really distressed to read that reindeer really can't fly!  That was news and a real shock to me.  What's next?  There's no Santa Claus?

Today's newspaper has a couple of articles/stories worth considering.  One is a nice story about a man who is "Santa Claus."  Oh, it takes him a long time, more than an hour, to get ready with his hair, beard, and outfit.  But it's a fun and uplifting story to read.  I kept thinking, though (and fie on me for doing that), of the local man who ran for the US House (and, due to some strange irregularities, was elected for a term before the Establishment defeated him).  Invariably he was identified as "a reindeer farmer who played Santa Claus."  The characterization was such that I guess it was intended to be a pejorative, that the man wasn't fit to be a Congressman because, well, he was "a reindeer farmer who played Santa Claus."  He may or may not have been fit, but what did being "a reindeer farmer who played Santa Claus" have to do with it?  And, more to my point, how could he have been worse than Harry Reid, Debbie Stabenow, and others in the US Senate or Nancy Pelosi and a host of others in the US House/

Yesterday's newspaper had three stories of shootings/murders in Detroit.  There may have been more, but I just scanned the pages.  And all three stories were on/in the back pages.  Yet, apparently there are more pressing issues than killing our own people, more specifically, having engendered an attitude that it's fine to just go out and shoot people, consequences be damned.

In the "What's going on in our colleges?" category, one article included revelation that a Texas (?) university offered a course on Beyonce (Did I spell that correctly?) and the culture.  That's not the title, but what the article noted.  Maybe I'm behind the times and this is what now passes for education; but maybe I'm not.  I know very little about Beyonce (and don't care to) other than she wears little in the way of clothes when she performs.  I guess she was on the Super Bowl halftime show last year, but I don't at all remember that.  That she, rather than, say, murders in Detroit (or Chicago or DC or......) is more of a concern speaks a lot;  where's the college course on the plague of murders in our cities and that culture?  Of course, maybe there is some relevance to Beyonce and I just don't see it.  Then again, maybe there's a Nobel Prize in her future.

That the Obama Administration has turned its back, the American back, on Israel at the UN is very troubling.  When does one shun an ally, a friend (albeit a sometimes nefarious one)?  Israeli settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem was "condemned" as a violation of "international law."  I'm not current, I suppose, on how matters stand right at this instant.  (How can anyone in this day and age be current on much of anything?  Too much is going on and we are bombarded with this and that and......)  But this Obama agreement (by abstaining, forsaking the US veto) with the UN Security Council's rebuke seems very short-sighted on the one hand and ignorant of history on the other.  For one thing, go back about 70 years or so and see where "Palestinians" stood in the Arab world, the Middle East.  For another, recall the deal brokered by Bill Clinton (?) that, in effect, saw the Israelis agree to every one of Yassir (That's My Baby) Arafat's demands.  After some hesitation (I think he might have been caught off guard, that the Israels bowed to his wishes.), Arafat, again, having been given everything he wanted, nixed the deal, his own deal; he now wanted more.  Is the Obama Administration that blind, willfully so perhaps?  Does it not at all see that the destruction of Israel is the goal of the other Middle Eastern nations?  If the Palestinians can be used as pawns in that destruction, well, that's OK.  Again, "Palestinians?"  Go back about 70 or 80 years.

Of course Trump's appointments are going to draw the wrath of the Democrats and/or liberals, if those two groups aren't one and the same.  From my view, though, those appointees should be big disappointments to many of the little guys who voted for Trump.  Along with the proposed tax plan, they might they be betrayals of those little guys who were sick and tired, frustrated, and angry at the Establishment?  It seems, as I suspected, Trump is merely trading one aspect of the Establishment for another.  I often wonder if even Trump was caught off guard by the results of the election, that he was surprised he won.  I get the feeling he was.  I might be wrong, but it seems so.

I not only know very little about Beyonce, but I never heard of this NBA guy who apparently is making $22 million a year!!!!!!  I don't begrudge him his money/paycheck, but I think that is ridiculous.  Before taxpayers are asked to finance, partially or completely, sports arenas and stadiums, I think the teams' budgets should be make public, very public.  That doesn't mean someone can gain access to them as part of public domain or FOI.  It means the newspapers should blare that information to the public.  The information should include the salaries of players, many of whom make more money in a year than the rest of us make in our lifetimes.  Yet, like everything else it seems, give Americans their "bread and circuses" and they don't care, are oblivious......