I dunno. Maybe it’s a thing, maybe it’s not. After I saw TLG hiding documents in a bathroom, I thought he’s just nuts.

Or, it’s a thing. And Matt Gaetz is thinging it.

This document was found in a bathroom on the baby changing table at the Capitol.

And here is where it was found. Note that it was found with a remains of a beverage.

Okay, so somebody got confused and thought it was a bar, or does someone dine on the baby changing table? I wouldn’t normally think that but after seeing Lauren Boebert get to third base watching a concert with children, my brain is having difficulty completing synapses.

See? Politics has just gotten so confusing for me.

Y’all, I am not ready to talk about the Ken Paxton “verdict” yet.  I am just too outraged, even for me. But, I will say this.

It was a damn goat rodeo.  And, Democrats have to accept some blame in this situation.

First, you do not, repeat not, hire two lawyers well into their eighties to fight in a battle of mental agility. That’s what a courtroom is. Texas Democrats chose two guys who are all hat and … well hell, their damn cattle wandered off 15 years ago. They both embarrassed themselves and that’s a shame. Their whole trial plan and use of technology was a disaster.

Most importantly, Republicans in the senate sat there for two weeks listening to Paxton’s rampage of lawlessness and thought to themselves, “Well hell, I’ve done worse than that myself, or at least I’m planning to.”  To people who think I’m being flippant about that, I’m most certainly not.  Plus, I can think of at least two Democrats sitting in the Texas senate, and more in the House, who ought to be in jail themselves.  So this isn’t a partisan thing.

I need more time to process this.  Thanks for putting up with me.

Do you remember the hissyfit that Temecula’s Ultra Right-Wing school board trustees pitched over the adoption of a widely-used California social studies curriculum? Yeah, THAT one. The one that nearly cost California taxpayers $1.5 million in fines.

Backed into a corner, the trustees suddenly saw the light, reversed themselves, and adopted the text that they claimed glorified pedophilia as long as they could launch an investigation into the “questionable” paragraphs.

So now they, along with another Left Coast school district, have drawn a line in the sand over a new cause celebre: Pride Flags.

They don’t want ’em.

The Hill has their stories well-documented.

Out from obscurity, a SF bay area school district, the Sunol Glen School District has weighed in on the issue, per The Mercury News.

The district is comprised of one school, an elementary school. Their governing board voted 2-1 to ban the Pride Flag from flying over their school. Just the Pride Flag.

1st Amentment lawsuit, anyone?

Temecula Valley’s school board was considerably slyer. In their vote this week, the board voted 3-2 to ban ALL flags in their schools except for the state and national flags. How brilliant is that?

How can you fault a school board for forbidding the Pride Flag when instead they effectively discriminate against all flags?

Too bad. It reminds me of my previous workplace, a high school, that took pride in the fact that many in their student population came from a wide array of countries. So much so that they displayed the national flags of every one of their students.

Like this:

OK, the US flag is a little bigger. That’s fine.

This news also comes on the heels of the story of a Southern California shop owner who was shot to death for the crime of flying a Pride Flag in front of her store.

What class, huh?

Unlike Sunol Glen SD, three of Temecula Valley SD trustees are already under recall for their past indiscretions. You can do that in California. But not to be outdone, Sunol Glen parents are making sure that two of Sunol Glen’s trustees are about to meet the same fate.

I just want you to know that if Lauren Boebert had done what she did at a public library instead of a concert, the rightwing Christians would have burned her in a bonfire.

Luckily, she was nowhere near a library, as usual. But, nonetheless, she was giving it double-fisted effort!

She blamed her behavior on the stress of her pending divorce.

Far be it from me to slut shame, but ya know, Shame on you, slut.

It looks like months of peddling a bunch of cow patties in the Hunter Biden case has produced the kind of deal we thought it would. Thanks to Charlie Kirk for delivering what we knew was always coming. Jack traded his largesse for a sack of magic beans. Jack, meet Charlie Kirk.

Normally, I would write a ton of words analyzing this to death. Maybe I just love the sound of my own voice. This deal just writes itself. Why should I keep that Mercedes when I can trade it in for a 1974 Ford Pinto? Everyone have a great weekend and feel free to insert your own answer to this proposal. I know what mine would be.

When thinking of this topic I’ve thought of the different accounts I have heard and read from women that have been victimized by men. We’ve heard it in the news lately. Danny Masterson of “That 70s Show” fame was sentenced to 30 years to life for rape. Local sports figure Kevin Porter Jr. has been arrested for domestic violence and the accounts are awful. I’ve read other accounts as well that made my blood boil.

I could retell their story, but it is not my story to tell. The difficulty here is that we are cast into three different lots. We could be the aggressors themselves. We could be innocent bystanders, but unlike the Seinfeld finale, bystanding is not necessarily innocent. Finally, you can be an ally or advocate. I think most of us know what we want to be, but we struggle to do it. We don’t know how to be an ally. If we act without knowing then we can make things worse. So, many of us become the innocent bystander not because we don’t care but because we don’t know how to help.

A large part of this thought experiment was done when thinking of sexism as a tool of fascism and there certainly are economic drivers here we could get into. Suffice it to say, this is an extension of a conversation about the “other”. If I am able to look down on someone then that means I’m not at the bottom of the totem poll. I work in a field dominated by women. Education has always been that way. Like most people in their forties and fifties, I have gotten to the point in my life when I am beginning to take stock in what I’ve accomplished. Erik Erickson had his stages of psychosocial development. It’s at this point where I realize my career path has mostly played itself out. I wanted to be a school counselor. Heck, maybe I could have been principal. Those are becoming less likely by the year.

I could choose to blame someone else for that gap between where I wanted to be and where I am. I could choose to blame myself. I could also choose to accept and be happy with my lot in life. A number of men choose the first one. More than a few of us point the finger at women. After all, back in the “good ole days” women knew their place. Now, they are competing with us and sometimes they are better than us. My wife is the smartest person in any room she enters. That always includes any room we are both in. I was lucky to learn that lesson a long time ago. Some men never have.

Even good men have difficulty fully leaning into that goodness. We struggle to call out the jackasses and sons of bitches in our herd. When the whole Danny Masterson thing was going down, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis were caught backing the wrong horse. Many of us have had similar experiences even though they didn’t play out on page six of the New York Post. Someone we knew acted like an ass and instead of calling it out we were silent or even defended them. Most of us want to be allies but are unwilling or unable to put in the work to do it. Sometimes we don’t know what to say and do. Sometimes we know and choose the path of least resistance. People like Masterson and Porter Jr. belong in jail. That’s true no matter how talented they are. That’s certainly not everything, but hopefully it is a good beginning.