For most of us, using a public restroom is something to which we give little thought, except perhaps for a fleeting concern about cleanliness. But Nico Lang of Rolling Stone says that a survey found that “nearly 70 percent of trans people had experienced negative interactions in public facilities — from dirty looks to snide comments to physical violence.”
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Although the petition to allow guns into the RNC convention center has been denied by the US Secret Service, that has not ended the matter because the question arises as to what happens outside the Quicken Loans Arena that are after all public spaces where Ohio’s laws allow people to carry weapons openly or concealed. The city government and security services are grappling with this question and expect to issue guidelines by June.
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It is by now pretty much a given that the mania to cut taxes to enrich the wealthy has resulted in government being deprived of the necessary revenue to maintain its existing infrastructure and public spaces, let alone make any improvements to bring them into line with other developed nations. Anyone who has traveled to other developed and even many developing countries will immediately notice the difference in roads, airports, and other transportation systems and how the once-enviable public spaces of the US, such as its roads, parks, and libraries, are slowly decaying.
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Watching the film Trumbo that I reviewed yesterday brought to mind a very old post of mine that quoted Trumbo extensively from a moving letter he wrote to a friend in 1967 that was published in the March 2004 issue of Harper’s magazine (subscription required). It asks us to reflect on what is really important in life, what is worth making a stand for, and how people use the flag and country to shift blame away from themselves for their unprincipled behavior.
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2015 turns out to be a good year for films. I have been on a roll recently, seeing one excellent film after another, such as The Big Short and Spotlight. The latest one is Trumbo and like the others is based on a mostly true story and is about the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s and 1960s, focusing on the Oscar-winning screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.
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In a comment to my post on the petition to allow people to openly carry guns into the Republican National Convention in July, reader Heidi Nemeth said that friends of hers had suggested that the petition was the “laughable product of gun regulation advocates tormenting NRA supporters and Republicans.”
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The issue of who gets to use what public bathrooms is an increasingly contentious one with the state of North Carolina, for example, passing a law that would force transgender persons to use the facility according to the gender they were assigned at birth and forbidding local entities from doing otherwise. The new law also “prevents all cities and counties from extending protections covering sexual orientation and gender identity at restaurants, hotels and stores.”
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Stephen Colbert chats with a bird about the other bird that rested on Bernie Sanders’ podium when he was giving a speech in Portland, Oregon. There was something extraordinarily touching about the moment and Sanders’s’ response and the crowd went wild.
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On February 16, I wrote about a case Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association that had been heard before the US Supreme Court that threatened the existence of trade unions because it challenged a long-standing 1977 precedent. That earlier case named Abood v. Detroit Board of Education allowed unions to collect fees from non-union members to cover the costs incurred in contract negotiations and enforcement that also benefited non-union members.
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The comedian, who used to be supporter of Hillary Clinton, has put out a video explaining why she shifted to Sanders, and argues against much of the defeatist or fear-mongering rhetoric being used against him. (Language advisory)
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