Random Musings #8

It's been a year since I've put up this type of post, so away I go.  As usual, I'll try to link some relevant information.
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After learning that Joseph Kennedy III gave the Democratic response to President Trump's State of the Union address, I found myself thinking about something I've long believed about the Kennedys.  This family is noted, besides their longtime involvement in politics, for the womanizing by their men and for enduring a series of tragic deaths.  In a more superstitious age, people would put two and two together, and have the idea that some kind of karma or divine retribution might be at work.

I've found a four-word phrase that is somehow beyond the comprehension of telemarketers, which is "please leave a message".

There has been quite a bit of commentary from the right about the official portraits of President Barrack and First Lady Michelle Obama.  What strikes me as strange about his portrait is that he is shown sitting in an indoors chair in what is otherwise an outdoor setting.

I've always thought that it's very unlikely that there has ever been an Eskimo named Quinn, as in the Bob Dylan song Mighty Quinn.  According to what I've learned more recently, Dylan was probably inspired by Anthony Quinn's portrayal of an Eskimo in the movie Savage Innocents, but he used the name of the actor instead of the character.

If there's one thing about which I find myself disagreeing with Trump, it's his idea for a military parade.  I don't see the need for one.  And I'm pretty skeptical about his boast that he would have run into a school where a mass shooting was going on, even without a gun.

The movie Black Panther is set in a fictional country named Wakanda, where the most important natural resource is a substance called vibranium, which is also fictional.  Is this material anything like the feminum from which Wonder Woman's bracelets are made?

Let me see if I understand this.  The FBI had been informed about the man who would eventually fatally shoot 17 people at his former high school in Florida, but never acted on that information.  He had threatened others with gun violence.  The four sheriff's deputies who went to the school didn't go inside where students and staff were being shot.  But this horrible tragedy is really the fault of the NRA and America's legal gun owners.

I know it's just a coincidence, but "Parkland" is the name of the town in Florida where the recent high school shooting occurred, and also is the name of the hospital in Dallas, Texas where President Kennedy was taken to after being shot.

One more piece of evidence that the mainstream media has a leftwing bias is their favorable treatment of David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez, while seeming to be less interested in hearing from Kyle Kashuv and Hunter Pollack.  But then, some rightwing outlets have paid a bit of attention to those two.

One thing I've recently noticed is people sitting in their cars while they're parked outside some store or shopping center.  I suppose that they might each have a reason for sitting in their cars, but other than possibly waiting for someone to return from a store, which I haven't yet observed, I can't figure out what those reasons might be.

Another thing I've noticed is that some trains no longer include box cars.  Instead, they have flatcars which support large metal shipping crates.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that box cars have disappeared, only that they seem less common these days.

Back in 2007, when I was in Croatia, I got to see a statue of the medieval bishop Grgur Ninski, just outside of the old city walls of Split.  I also got to visit Nin, the seat of his diocese.  I know this idea is a bit irreverent, but I can't help but think that in the statue's upraised right hand, there should be a baseball.

Some people on the left like to say that "hate speech" isn't free speech.  If these are indeed two separate things, I would like to offer my own way of distinguishing them.  As I see it, honestly criticizing religion (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.) and religious figures (Jesus, Mohammed, Siddhartha, etc.) is free speech, while telling people that they are not allowed to criticize religion or religious figures is hate speech.

How many people who said that Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was a private matter now believe that Trump's alleged affair with Stormy Daniels is fair game?

How many people who objected to Trump's travel moratorium on certain Muslim-majority countries have no problem with the United Kingdom banning Brittany Pettibone, Martin Sellner and Lauren Southern?

Those who disrupt speakers or censor their opinions, and those who ban opinions from social media are basically admitting that they can't logically refute those opinions.

If someone had told me at some point in the late 1970's that Olympic athlete Bruce Jenner would change his name and call himself a woman, and that Buffalo Bills running back O.J. Simpson would be credibly accused of murder, I would have told him to put down the bong.