Friday Fun and Not So Fun

Karla Kardashian?  No, that's Ellen DeGeneres as the secret, sixth Kardashian sister.  If I had a talk show and one of my producers suggested I dress up as a Kardashian for Halloween...I wouldn't fire them.  But I wouldn't be pleased.

On Live with Kelly and Michael, the two dressed up as Princess Leia and Lando Calrissian, as well as Michael doing Cookie from Empire and Kelly doing a fierce Donald Trump.

Meanwhile on other talk shows today, Wendy Williams is dressed as Lucy Van Pelt from Peanuts and it's "Nightmare on Springer Street" on the Jerry Springer Show.

Might be time to tune in to the Dragnet re-runs that are on now.

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Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson is under fire from Christian conservatives for his support of gay rights during his tenure on the Boards of Directors for Costco and Kellogg's.  The candidate claims his positions supporting gay rights in a number of areas is not in opposition with his adamant opposition to same sex marriage.

Being opposed to same-sex marriage may be popular among the Radical right, but the shift is in the other direction among the majority of Americans.  For the first time, recent polling data shows that more American surveyed support government officials being required to do their jobs and issue such marriage licenses; as opposed to July of this year when a poll showed that Americans were evenly split on the issue.

Kim Davis, take note.

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These men aren't related.  Until they met on this airplane flight, they knew nothing about each other.  It must be amazing to board a flight and find your nearly perfect doppelganger.

Stranger still is the fact that they wound up staying at the same hotel in Galway, Ireland (the flight's destination) and ended up hoisting a pint together at the same pub later on that night.

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Most accounts of the U. S. involvement in the Vietnam war show that the first ground troops were sent there by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, some 3,500 of them.  But the first U. S. casualties in that war came six years early.  In 1959, U. S. Army MAJ Dale Buis and MSGT Chester Ovnand were watching a movie on a South Vietnamese Army base near Bien Hoa.  They were killed by small arms fire from six North Vietnamese irregulars.

It's worth noting because of the recent death of U. S. Army MSGT Joshua Wheeler, the first military casualty in our "war" against ISIS.  Now that President Obama has authorized sending "less than 50" combat soldiers to Syria to fight against ISIS, this is all worth taking note of.

Our nation spent 16 years involved in the war in Vietnam, a period that ended in April of 1975 with the fall of Saigon.  One total of U. S. killed in this was is 58,307.  How many U. S. military personnel will lose their lives in the struggle to stop ISIS?  No matter how many, it will be too many.

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With tomorrow being Halloween, this Dear Prudence letter from last year and her outstanding response are worth a second look.

Dear Prudence,
I live in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the country, but on one of the more “modest” streets—mostly doctors and lawyers and family business owners. (A few blocks away are billionaires, families with famous last names, media moguls, etc.) I have noticed that on Halloween, what seems like 75 percent of the trick-or-treaters are clearly not from this neighborhood. Kids arrive in overflowing cars from less fortunate areas. I feel this is inappropriate. Halloween isn’t a social service or a charity in which I have to buy candy for less fortunate children. Obviously this makes me feel like a terrible person, because what’s the big deal about making less fortunate kids happy on a holiday? But it just bugs me, because we already pay more than enough taxes toward actual social services. Should Halloween be a neighborhood activity, or is it legitimately a free-for-all in which people hunt down the best candy grounds for their kids?

—Halloween for the 99 Percent

Dear 99,
In the urban neighborhood where I used to live, families who were not from the immediate area would come in fairly large groups to trick-or-treat on our streets, which were safe, well-lit, and full of people overstocked with candy. It was delightful to see the little mermaids, spider-men, ghosts, and the occasional axe murderer excitedly run up and down our front steps, having the time of their lives. So we’d spend an extra $20 to make sure we had enough candy for kids who weren’t as fortunate as ours. There you are, 99, on the impoverished side of Greenwich or Beverly Hills, with the other struggling lawyers, doctors, and business owners. Your whine makes me kind of wish that people from the actual poor side of town come this year not with scary costumes but with real pitchforks. Stop being callous and miserly and go to Costco, you cheapskate, and get enough candy to fill the bags of the kids who come one day a year to marvel at how the 1 percent live.

—Prudie

To the author of the letter I say, no one is forcing you to buy even one piece of candy.  If you don't feel generous, turn out your lights and keep quiet all evening.  Don't answer the knock at the door.  Be as selfish and grinch-like as you please.

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Glamour Magazine has named Caitlyn Jenner as their Woman of the Year  Actually their Women of the Year are  Victoria Beckham, Misty Copeland, Elizabeth Holmes, Caitlyn Jenner, Cecile Richards, Reese Witherspoon, the Women of Charleston, and the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

Noted feminist Germaine Greer was critical of Ms Jenner's inclusion among the Women of the Year, telling reporters "Woman of the Year.” Jenner isn’t a woman. He’s just attention-starved and seeking to steal the limelight from the women in the Kardashian family."

Charlamagne Tha God and Andrew Schulz of the Brilliant Idiots Podcast suggest that Ms Jenner should instead be considered for "Rookie of the Year."

A lot of people are claiming she shouldn't get the award because she hasn't been a woman for a full year yet.

I was one who felt that the ESPY Award Ms Jenner received could have gone to someone more deserving and I haven't changed that opinion.  But all this criticism is off-base.  She's a woman in the eyes of the law, and in how much of our society perceives her.  We are finally coming around to recognize that gender identity is determined by what's in the mind, and not by chromosomes and body parts.

And for all of the people who are self-congratulatory about the final defeat of DOMA and the growing recognition of the transgendered, we need to recognize that the work is nowhere near complete.  Not when we live in a nation where 28 of the 50 states do not provide any employment protections based on sexual orientation.  Just ask James Pittman of Missouri.  There was clearly documented evidence that he was the victim of an extremely hostile work environment at Cook Paper.  He was ultimately fired.  The courts ruled the firing was not a violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act provide protection for discrimination based on gender, but not for that based on sexual orientation.

We have a lot of work ahead, people.

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Cops in several cities and their supporters are planning to boycott the films of Quentin Tarantino because he called cops murderers at a rally in New York City.  They're certainly free to take that position.  Just as he is free to use that label for those police officers who have illegally killed people in the performance of their duties.

Like it or not, there are cops who have committed murder, and worse yet, murder under the color of authority.  These police officers deserve to be prosecuted and punished for their crimes.

But it is wrong to label all cops as murderers.  Not all of them are.  Just as not all members of any one group, racial, ethnic, whatever, are guilty of any one specific crime.

As I've said before, #AllLivesMatter.  But the focus on #BlackLivesMatter is more important at the moment because of the disproportionate number of young Black men and women dying at the hands of law enforcement.  When that stops, we can focus more on #AllLivesMatter.