Stories I Noticed This Week

All via Current

Taxpayers forced to pay for neo-Nazi's daily makeover
Paying $150 / day to cover up his tattoos. My first reaction was this is absurd. He got the tattoos, he should live with his tattoos. Or he --- not the taxpayers --- should pay the $150/day to clean himself up. Then I read some of the comments about potential for a biased trial. I suppose there is some sense in that, but again, if he made those changes to his appearance on his own, isn't he responsible for the 'better or worse' that comes with those decisions? In my opinion, the most sensible comment on this was from liveBK who noted, "by this logic the jury and judge should never see the defendant". Interesting, and why not? If the Lady Justice's blindfold is meant to represent true impartiality, maybe juries and judges shouldn't see defendants.

Pepsi Sponsors Anti-Gay Concert In Uganda
Not good news for Pepsi. Saw one comment suggesting Pepsi's record of supporting LGBT issues is otherwise fairly strong. That may be so, but it is kind of ugly to be trying to do business in a country where the prevailing values are apparently so extreme (a new proposal before the Ugandan Parliament assigns a death sentence for certain homosexual "crimes" and outlaws all advocacy or defense of LGBT people with a punishment of seven years imprisonment). Where do you draw the line?

Finally, the Huffington Post story about the bigoted mayor of Arlington, Tennessee.
Upset that President Obama's speech was preempting Charlie Brown's Christmas, he unleashed a foolish rant that exposed him as a small minded clown.

In his words:

Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim [sic] president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation [sic] about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'....you obama [sic] people need to move to a muslim [sic] country," ... "you know, our forefathers had it written in the original Constitution that ONLY property owners could vote, if that has stayed in there, things would be different........

Hearing that an ironically named Russell Wiseman, mayor of some small time town in Tennessee, was expressing ignorant and intolerant views did not come as a huge surprise to me. But it was somewhat surprising to see that said mayor is apparently NOT a crusty good ol' boy. (Good ol' boy, maybe, but not yet too crusty. At least not outwardly crusty.) From his Mayor's Welcome page he looks to be, what, early 30s? I guess old racists were once young racists. But I thought / hoped that some generational evolution in attitudes was taking place, even in Arlington, TN.

So, to recap just the few things I have noticed over the past couple of months, there was the Louisiana justice of the peace, the Mississippi school district and the fact that the Secret Service won't take Michele Obama to South Carolina. And, for fun, I'll throw in a favorite from last year's Red States, Blue States, Fat States, Dumb States ... post: