Thursday, March 28, 2024

Take a Walk in Her Heels

Posted
Sour grapes? Yes, I spew them all the time. Try fixing a problem or complaining about justice.
“Just Us” is the way of the wealthy seeking legally related actions.
Bureaucracy wants nothing more than to ask for more forms and more affidavits and more red tape and then will drag the issue ad infinitum until the PR problem goes away, asphyxiated by its own weight, as it hangs on the cross of justice, awaiting its resurrection on the new day …. “Everybody’s waiting for a new day in the morning, new day in the morning never comes (Roger Whittaker).”
Congressman Dan Newhouse’s web site listed the “U.S. Merchant Marines Academy” in a recent e-newsletter to constituents.
I tried to respond that there is no “s” in Marine as “marine” refers to the ocean and not to the sea-borne soldiers as in U.S. Marines. I still wonder why so many newspapers, broadcasts scroll, tests and other written material spells Marines with a small “m” when it is a word coming from the proper noun Marine and so is capitalized. Soldier, sailor and airmen needn’t be capitalized because they don’t come from proper nouns. Army, Navy and Air Force members aren’t capitalized when referring to them, not because they aren’t equally loved, but because of grammar. Blame Webster or whomever.
Short story, my reply was bounced back by Newhouse and I was told to go to his website which informs me that they are too busy to respond to my email.
The mistake was corrected by some other ethereal means.
I met Newhouse about four years ago in Brewster at the Gebbers Hq. 
His newly hired PR guy tried to tell me his recent column that appeared in the Yakima Herald newspaper was “copyrighted” and I laughed.
Public comments by public officials are not copyrighted. Even if he wrote it “exclusively” for the Yakima folks, it is still allowed to be reprinted without anyone’s permission as it became public property once it was printed.
Public officials are actually getting taxpayer money, so no one company has exclusivity to their work product. It belongs “to the people.”
A few years back, a photographer demanded payment for a photograph used in one of our weekly community newspapers. He was adamant and raised holy heck with the staff. He was directed to call me and I told him he wasn’t getting a penny, zip, nada.
The reason was simple, he had given his photo to a public agency which reprinted it on their website. All of it became public record, public taxpayer paid for and thus, no longer sacrosanct vis-à-vis copyright laws.
In other words, too bad, so sad. Once you give your “exclusive” or copyrighted photo or writing to a public agency or place it in a public venue which uses taxpayer dollars, than thanks for the info bud, but don’t expect any money for it.
Hope I didn’t shatter any future careers, but writing and photography are two professions that don’t lend themselves to great wealth, but for the top 5% of writers and photographers who are already famous (or infamous) enough to be recognized as having such a unique style as to be unmistakable and thus not easily forged, plagiarized or copied. 
Now what about sexism? Can I say that someone was caught with her pantsuit down or is that too suggestive, even though men have been caught with their pants down for thousands of years? Does equal rights also apply to equal mockery?
What about the millions of women out there who dye their hair blonde? Is it because they feel blondes “have more fun” and isn’t that what Cyndi Lauper always said, “girls just wanna have fun.”
Talk about sexism, but it did make her rich. I suppose boys can’t have fun because then they are thought to be frivolous? “Give that boy a Barbie doll and he’ll grow up Gay” used to be a mantra for demanding sexually appropriate behavior from youngsters, even at 3-years-old.
Many women sport men’s names as nicknames. I just met a neighbor whose name is Eddy. She’s about 80-years-old and in a wheelchair. The name is short for Edwina, an old fashioned name indeed.
How many men would run around as a natural black-haired guy, but wearing blonde hair dye? How many men would call themselves Judy as a nickname if their given name was Jude? What about calling themselves Fran if their name was Frank? I met a Fran-man once … and yes, he was a hair stylist.
Back in the early days of the women’s lib movement I was told that every person would be paid exactly the same amount because they were all doing the same work. Sounds like a plan to me, and a fair one at that.
Then I realized it was just more PC garbage meant to appease female heck-raisers. I found out the hard way when it came time for guard duty.  No women were assigned to walk around the armory with a loaded shotgun at 3 a.m., but the Pentagon was right, on pay day we all received the exact same pittance based on our rank and regardless of sex.
Sounds fair enough to me, the wife got all the money anyway.
Want some cheese with that whine, big boy?

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