Cali Crazy: A Texan’s take on the Golden State—part 6—Automatic trash can dumpers, sage ceremonies and one inconvenient corpse

sage

California garbage men—I mean, sanitation technicians—never had it so easy. They grab a roll-around plastic can, wheel it from curb to truck, place it in hydraulic hands and push a button. Voila! The truck lifts it, dumps it and sets it back down. They then wheel it back.

As long as it’s not too far from the curb. Or too heavy. Or too hard to get to because of a snow berm.

No more sore biceps or achy backs and plenty of juice left over for twelve-ounce curls come quittin’ time.

In Texas, the sanitation technicians are known as garbage men who, rain or snow, hot or cold, can be counted on to step around or over kid’s bicycles to empty your light—or heavy trash can.

California law require us to use (and buy) specially designed cans that make their modern can-dumping marvel and energy saver possible. More importantly, it keeps worker’s compensation claims down, which saves 2017 budget money to spend on important stuff like:

—$30M to protect illegal aliens from deportation

—$118M Startup cash for new marijuana tax department

—$6B additional funds for state employee pensions

Now that’s thinking. Safety first. Less wasted dollars on injured waste management workers in our California counties. More for wasteful programs created and managed by wastes of good legislative seats in Sacramento.

sage

Sage is all the rage

This Texan recently learned a little somethin’ about sage. It’s an herb used by California hippies to ceremoniously cleanse homes, businesses, and ventures of any and all sorts from evil spirits, negative vibes and other spiritual drags.

In Cali-speak, sage has come to mean not only the plant but also the cleansing ceremony. When a local mentions “a sage,” other locals know it as a cleansing, purging, spiritual event.

After a little digging, I uncovered its origins in Native American rituals whereby medicine men used the plant to cleanse and as incense. Around here in our little town, a sage is performed by a resident spiritualist who is typically also a massage therapist, homeopathic practitioner and/or enthusiast, and green everything proponent.

This is how I learned about a California-style sage. Rumor has it that a sage practitioner was performing the ceremony for a buyer’s new property prior to his and his family moving in. Apparently the seller was also present. During or after the ceremony, the seller noticed something in some brush he initially thought was a deer corpse. Turns out the dead deer was a dead dude.

Oops. Once the remains were removed and an investigation completed, this may have called for a re-sage. Or maybe a super sage. I guess positive thoughts and good vibes are no match for partially decomposed bodies.

Silly me

I always thought sage was something you put in your stew. Or your wise old grandfather who saved you from doin’ dumb things cuz he’d done ’em when he was a young man and learned the lessons for you.

Sage. Live long enough and in some different places, you may just learn something new. Gotta laugh at life and silly herbal ceremonies. Especially here in California.

Now there’s some sage advice for ya.

Charlottesville hate and hypocrisy: How bigotry and intolerance afflicts all sides.

Charlottesville

The disingenuousness of politicians, journalists and protesters over the tragedy in Charlottesville is symptomatic of a virulent American malady: historical and cultural myopia. It’s the culmination of identity politics, blinding bigotry and intentionally one-sided media coverage.

Here’s what happened: Two militant groups collided, violence ensued and many non-violent protesters were hurt. One was killed by a lunatic who used a vehicle as a weapon—like a terrorist.

Our president’s initial reaction: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides. On many sides.”

On many sides? Mr. President, don’t you mean on both sides? And don’t you mean hatred and bigotry on both sides with one side initiating violence toward the side that was chanting, “Jews will not replace us?”

Trust me, Hitler fanboys

No one wants to replace you. We just want you to go back to your caves. And by the way, Hitler was a world-class loser who, if he were your Fuhrer, would sacrifice your lives for his ideological fantasy just as readily as he sacrificed his own people’s lives.

Back to our leader. Here’s what Trump should’ve said (and meant): “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred and bigotry. We denounce the white supremacists of the KKK, neo-Nazis and any other group or people who embrace racist ideology.

We also warn counter protesters, specifically ANTIFA, that if they come to protests and incite violence, as video suggests they did in Charlottesville, we will enforce law and order and hold all who do so accountable.”

ANTIFA is the anti-fascist, pro-communist, anarchist group that opposes fascists and their racism and bigotry with a weapon used by fascists—violence. It’s the group you may have never heard about because most media outlets say nary a word about it. They pretend there are only two sides: peaceful demonstrators and alt right brutes. ANTIFA is the enemy of their enemy—and ours, you see.

ANTIFA is the group that co-opts demonstrations against right-wing speakers like the anti-Milo Yiannopoulos spectacle at Berkeley.

Charlottesville

Anti-freedom of speech

ANTIFA is the alt left group that incites college students to silence those whose views they cannot tolerate through violence and mob mayhem. And somehow, progressive politicians, educators and media members excuse this violence in the name of righteous resistance toward those who hold “intolerable” views.

N.D. B. Connolly, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University, advocates violence against white supremacists when he writes, “Charlottesville showed that liberalism can’t defeat white supremacy. Only direct action can.”

In other words, we tried liberalism. It failed. Now it’s time to use violence to show white supremacists that we will not tolerate their racist views and ideologies. Nor do we recognize their right to free speech and assembly.

Charlottesville

Is not this the essence of bigotry? Because the meaning of the word, like so many others, has become elusive through multitudinous misapplication, let’s refresh:

Bigotry defined

|ˈbiɡətrē| noun: intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself.

Helpful tip: When you label someone a bigot because you cannot tolerate him because of an opinion he holds, by definition, you become one.

Contrary to media and the left’s silence and even hero-making of ANTIFA members, they are not heroes. Nor are they on the side of the peaceful protesters of Charlottesville, Berkeley or anywhere else. They’re on their own side.

For those of you who are interested in learning history rather than tearing it down, here’s an apt historical comparison:

ANTIFA members, like the ones who came armed and ready to attack the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, operate similarly to the militant communists who clashed with the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) Brownshirts during Germany’s Weimar Republic.

Charlottesville

These communists and especially those of the Alliance of Red Front-Fighters (RFB) routinely engaged in violent street fights with the police, the Brownshirts and those with whom they disagreed politically.

The SA and RFB simply could not tolerate the other’s viewpoints and rather than disagree and engage, they used violence. Just as ANTIFA used violence against the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

Zero tolerance for “intolerance”

The left’s argument is that the worldview of neo-Nazis and their ilk are fundamentally intolerable and should be resisted at every turn. I agree. I find them repugnant, brutish and nonsensical. However, I grant them and any other vile group in America their rights of free speech and peaceful assembly.

The left and alt left groups like ANTIFA grant them neither. Instead, they use violence and lawlessness to stamp out worldviews and political viewpoints they find intolerable.

Again, this is the essence of bigotry.

Charlottesville

This self-righteous battle is why leftists in the media, politics and education are silent about ANTIFA, or worse, actually engage in hero-making and glorification of their cause. They justify violence in the name of anti-bigotry and anti-hate. How ironic.

Enough about the hypocrisy of ANTIFA and any group—left or right. Back to Trump’s incomplete condemnation speech.

Perhaps the president pandered to a fringe element of his base when he failed to name names. He should’ve condemned—by name—white supremacists, the KKK and any other vile group of fools who may or may not represent the criminal who plowed the car into the crowd and killed the young woman.

She should be the focus of this tragedy. Not political types like Mitt Romney and former Hillary spokesmen Brian Fallon.

Failing false equivalency 101

Consider this tangential Romney tweet in response to Trump’s initial “all sides” statement:

No, not the same. One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry [with violence and bigotry, my words, not Mitt’s]. Morally different universes.

Uh, Mitt, did you just draw a false equivalency from a false equivalency? When Trump condemned hatred, violence and bigotry on many sides, did he say that each side is equally racist and bigoted? That each side operates in the same moral universe?

Speaking of false moral equivalencies, former Hillary campaign spokesmen Brian Fallon offered this tweet comparing ANTIFA to allied forces on D-Day:

Hey, Brian, do you seriously mean to equate ANTIFA’s clash with white supremacists in Charlottesville to  allied forces braving machine gun fire and artillery shells on the bloody shores of Normandy?

Brian Fallon not only gives ANTIFA a pass, he hails them as heroes for triggering the violence that precipitated the death of Heather Heyer.

Now there’s your false moral equivalency, Mitt Romney.

Toppling history. One statue at a time.

You may have heard people say things like, “As Americans, we are not Robert E. Lee.” Okay. But Robert E. Lee is America. So are slave owners George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Does anyone truly believe we can erase America’s past by defacing or toppling statues of historical figures?

Removing statues—and history—is what fascists do. It’s what the Nazi’s did when they burned books and banned ideas they found intolerant. They recreated a new national identity by sanitizing German history.

Toppling statues robs us of our history and makes villains of the complex, imperfect leaders that are inextricably part of our national heritage. How can we teach our children about Robert E. Lee—about his foibles and faults and good and bad character traits—if we banish him from history?

How can we explain to students now and in generations to come how Lee, by all contemporary accounts, was a good man who was on the wrong side of our bloody, heartbreaking civil war?

Charlottesville

Statues are temporary. History is forever.

When we remove statues, we forever lose opportunities to provide generations of young people with visual likenesses of men and women who helped forge and develop our nation. Men and women who, like it or not, are woven into our historic national fabric.

Remove their likenesses, and what’s left is incoherent history. And a raggedy and torn national tapestry that though imperfect, was once whole and comprehensible.

We may as well tear out sections of history books and burn them on bonfires—like the Nazis did. They created a fantasy Germanic history devoid of imperfection and weakness. Their sanitized self-delusion stripped their culture of the frailty of their humanity.

How shortsighted we are to repeat history in a vain attempt to wipe clean our own. If we continue down this road, there will be more Charlottesvilles, more more tragedies and less freedom.

And if we lose our freedom, we lose the very thing that makes our nation one of a kind. We have a special history. Rather than purging it of its bad episodes—let’s learn from them.

State-sponsored anti-discriminatory discrimination? Way to fight “discriminatory” laws by discriminating against other states, California.

Image may be subject to copyright.When California deems other states’ laws as discriminatory, what do they do? They pass discriminatory laws to fight these discriminatory laws.

“Our country has made great strides in dismantling prejudicial laws that have deprived too many of our fellow Americans of their precious rights,” trumpets California Attorney General Xavier Becerra.

So in the spirit of prejudicial law dismantling, California has assembled a prejudicial law (AB 1887) that restricts state-funded travel to Tennessee, North Carolina, Mississippi, Kansas, Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota and Texas.

“While the California DOJ works to protect the rights of all our people, discriminatory laws in any part of our country send all of us several steps back,” says Becerra. “That’s why when California said we would not tolerate discrimination against LGBTQ members of our community, we meant it.”

Zero tolerance of intolerance

It seems that California lawmaker considers any community in any state as their community and will not tolerate discrimination against any LGBTQ member in any community…because they’re part of California’s (global) LGBTQ community, you see. Wait…what?

We are the world. Or at least the nation. Or maybe just the state.

Which discriminatory laws of other states prompted heroic measures like AB 1887? Here’s one:

Mississippi’s “Protecting Freedom of Conscience from Government Discrimination Act” (House Bill 1523) prohibits the state from discriminating against churches and businesses that believe marriage should be between one man and one woman and who decline to provide services to facilitate same sex marriages because doing so would violate “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.”

Here’s another:

South Dakota’s Senate Bill 149 shields faith-based and private child placement agencies from state-sponsored discriminatory measures. This means that if these agencies refuse to provide any service, including adoption or foster care services, on the basis of their religious convictions, the state will not retaliate against them.

So rather than “opening the door to discrimination” as opponents claim, the bills actually close the door on state-sponsored discrimination against the free exercise of religion—in theses cases—the violation of religious entities sincerely held beliefs.

Chucking the discriminatory First Amendment

State retaliation against religious entities, which violates the First Amendment separation of church and state, is an unconstitutional practice California champions and demands that other states employ…or…dun dun DUN! They’ll wield the incredibly intimidating travel ban.

It seems that Texas and the other pariah states are shaking in their boots. Here’s a response from the Texas Governor’s office: “California may be able to stop their state employees, but they can’t stop all the businesses that are fleeing over taxation and regulation and relocating to Texas.”

Snark attacks and giggles aside, the crux of this debate is this:

California considers faith-based entities sincerely held beliefs concerning gender, marriage and sexuality backward and discriminatory. They will not tolerate discrimination in any form, but don’t seem to realize that using state power to discriminate against entities they deem discriminatory is a form of discrimination. And so is their silly travel ban.

Or worse—they know very well that they’re doing the very thing they decry, but justify it based on their sincerely held beliefs. Beliefs that run counter to theirs “send all of us several steps back,” as California Attorney General Xavier Becerra so sanctimoniously pronounced.

According to Becerra, California will not tolerate people being “deprived” of their “precious” rights—except those people whom California seeks to deprive of their constitutional religious liberty rights.

Dear Governor Brown and California lawmakers,

If your voters allow you to abuse the power of your state to discriminate against citizens and private businesses, that’s their failure. Why would you expect other states to believe as you do and jettison the constitutional separation of church and state? Do you truly believe that your beliefs about gender, marriage and sexuality trump others’ beliefs?

A travel ban? Really? AB 1887 makes you look arrogant, small-minded and silly. Sorry, but your bill is as impotent as it is self-important.

Here’s a time-tested truth: Your sincerely held beliefs about marriage and gender are the product of a relatively recent zeitgeist and are shared by a minority. Notwithstanding, the Constitution protects your right to hold them.

Vast majorities in societies worldwide for centuries have embraced sincerely held beliefs regarding marriage and gender. Don’t they deserve the same protection?