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“Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, except for Lola.” — Ray Davies

The line above came from Lola by the Kinks. You could say that Ray Davies was ahead of his time, but he really wasn’t. Others had blazed that ground before. In this tale, a young narrator (we can presume Davies) is in a bar when he meets up with a transvestite named “Lola”. It seems simple enough right? It wasn’t the Kinks best hit, but it might be the most recognizable song they did when you ask fans of music today.

Of course, the irony is that the fossils in Washington and in the state houses were probably coming of age when that song was popular. Some of them may have even enjoyed it as a kid. Oh how soon we forget. I suppose that happens to all of us on some level. We often conveniently forget the things when we did when we were younger and that is especially true when it comes to our own children.

All of the talk of Democrats being pedophiles, groomers, and what not is based on two very cynical calculations. It is something they want you and I to think about and argue about. If we are arguing about this then we won’t necessarily see real opportunities for lasting change slip out of our grasp. It’s a parlor trick. The trouble is that grooming and pedophilia are loaded terms with very specific definitions. Q would have us believe that the entire Democratic party and half of Hollywood are pedophiles. We can’t seem to define these things anymore. Suddenly, someone that shows tolerance is a groomer or a pedophile. Yet, the man that literally said he wanted to have sex with his daughter is the guy that will free us from this pedophilia ring.

However, there is a more serious implication from these charges and one that some people honestly believe. There is a belief that this notion of transgender, transvestites, homosexual, bisexual, and general experimentation is somehow more prevalent now than at any time in history. If you ask people at the Trump rallies what percentage of people are transgender you will get some ludicrous responses. One gentlemen said it was 20 percent. If being gay, lesbian, bisexual, a transvestite, or transgender were all 100 percent choices then the fact that there are more of them would be proof of grooming. It would have to be that way right?

Except it is all a lie. Anyone that knows anyone on the LGTBQ+ spectrum knows it is a natural phenomenon and not really a choice. So, simply demonstrating tolerance and acknowledgement of who someone is is not grooming behavior. Furthermore, pedophilia is a specific thing. Gay people are not pedophiles as a general rule anymore than priests are. Again, it is a specific thing and needs to be treated as such.

The sinister thing about it all is that these poor people become targets. Suddenly, you realize there are all kinds of people to hate and absolutely none of them have anything to do with why we may be struggling. It truly is a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world, but it sure as hell isn’t Lola’s fault. She’s just a girl trying to have a good time.

Okay, so it’s official now. The New York Times reports that there’s an official letter —

Okay, I’m watching the Paxton trial. I know it’s of small interest to people from foreign states, but cracks in the MAGA wall are riding on Paxton’s bloated back.

To be honest, I have seen some bad lawyering in my day but Paxton’s lawyer Tony Buzbee just about blew the bottom out of awful yesterday afternoon. First of all, he shows up with a Don Trump spray tan – so orange that he can just go nakkid for Halloween next month. He got himself a slicked-backed hair cut straight out of The Godfathers, when a Peaky Blinders cut would have looked slightly less ridiculous.

And then Rusty Hardin, who used to be a helluva lawyer 20 years ago, appeared confused, disorganized, and – God forbid! – boring. He got scrambled up over his own exhibit numbers, and monotoned his way through witness testimony with all the skill of a morning talk show host interviewing Dinah Shore, which might have been more interesting only because she’s dead. He’s 81 years old – and those were hard years.

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is in charge of the circus and the clowns.  He he has to call recesses to go talk to his lawyers because he’s dumber than bean dip. He’s 74 years old, spritely by Texas legislature standards, but Honey, you just can’t cover up the bean dip part.

I gotta say this – I believe we are watching the painful last gasps of the straight white patriarchy. It’s about damn time. Old white men — hang it the hell up. You’re just making fools of yourself.

They got started 45 minutes late this morning, but they found a middle aged white woman to lead them all in prayer “in Jesus’ name.”

I’m talking a deep breath and drinking another cup of coffee to brace myself for today.

Paxton lawyer Tony Buzbee on the left. I’m serious. Compare his hands and his face. Dude, he ought to sue somebody for that.

It’s screw around and find out time in Texas.

The Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton impeachment trial starts in Texas today.

Votes from two-thirds of the Senate, where Republicans hold a 19-12 majority, will be needed to permanently remove Paxton from office. If he’s convicted, senators can also vote to bar him from holding elected office in Texas again.

I am watching on You Tube from CBS Texas.   (Just a personal note, my son gave me a pair of Bose over the ear wireless headphones that he used during trial prep. I flat love them.)

I’m gonna be honest with you.  Paxton is not the biggest crook to ever hold office in Texas. Not even close. But he ranks near the top of sleaziest. He’s a petty little bastard and being so, he’s embarrassing his fellow Republicans, who are so much more big time bastards.

This trial has everything, bribery, extortion, fancy vacations, free home improvements, really risky sex, and an assortment of outrageous characters. You might enjoy dropping in from time to time. This morning, they are having motion hearings – which is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

Yesterday was Labor Day. It hasn’t always been a holiday in the United States. but it has been a holiday for as long as I can remember. I know it seems hard to believe, but there have been a number of detractors in recent years. Some have tied them to Labor Unions and others to socialism.  My parents began teaching in 1967. They were married at the end of college in 1966. Dad continued in graduate school, but we will treat them like they were both public school teachers in Texas. The beginning salary for teachers then would have been somewhere between 4000 and 5000 dollars. We know the average teacher nationwide was 7.423 dollars in 1967. That would be the midpoint after 15 to 20 years of teaching and we know that Texas has always lagged behind most states and beginning teachers for considerably less.

The national average in 2023 dollars would be 44,558 dollars. The current national average salary is 66,745. That is due mostly to labor unions. My parents salary would have likely been somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 in 2023 dollars. The average starting salary in the area is actually closer to 50,000 here and higher in most other states.

They would tell us stories of how they collected Coke bottles to pay for groceries and how different businesses in town would give teachers steep discounts. They just understood that teachers were dramatically underpaid. Starting teachers aren’t being underpaid anymore. That’s due to unions and teacher associations. Furthermore, every teacher gets s a 45 minute conference period every day and gets a duty free lunch. These are legally mandated benefits that teachers fought hard for.

I am probably leaving some things out because I started teaching in 1997. A lot of the things I got from day one were probably not available to teachers like my parents. These are all due to unions and teacher associations. These associations also give teachers legal advice and services that are invaluable. They continually lobby the state legislatures for additional benefits, salaries, and legal protections. This is something teachers can’t do on their own. This is true of dozens of major industries. Workers fought hard for the 40 hour work week, minimum wage, child labor laws, safety regulations, another other benefits. Labor unions were invaluable in these efforts. Workers couldn’t have done this without organizing and collectively bargaining.

They paint the picture of unions fighting for unnecessary regulations and benefits so their workers can sit on their ass and do nothing. They paint the picture of unions driving up costs for consumers unnecessarily. They are communicating one message to most of us out loud and communicating another one under their breath. Unions helped the U.S. build a thriving middle class. They did this without succumbing to socialism. That’s the irony of this whole deal. European nations don’t need unions. They have already legislated so many worker protections and benefits that unions are scarcely needed. Unions keep those “onerous” regulations at bay. They prevent worker uprisings. We’ve seen them around the world, but for the most part we don’t see them here.

We’ve seen the impact of union busting. The middle class is shrinking and billionaires have seen a windfall. The sad thing is that people notice the stagnating wages and erosion of benefits, but they haven’t made the connection. Instead they are fighting culture wars, blaming immigrants, women, and people of color. They are blaming everyone but the people actually doing it. Instead they allow them to disparage Labor Day and call it a socialist holiday.