Grace, #Metoo, Ashleigh Banfield, and Aziz Ansari

The #metoo movement has emboldened many women to share stories of actual or attempted rapes, sexual assaults, threats, or harassment. Women have also spread stories of uncomfortable interactions that were not illegal.

An anonymous woman referred to as Grace went on a date with Aziz Ansari, an actor, writer and comedian of note, and male feminist. The couple returned to Ansari's apartment. Unfortunately Grace did not enjoy herself. Sadly, it was probably difficult for Ansari to be sure that Grace wasn't enjoying herself as she engaged in a number of sex acts multiple times with Mr. Ansari. You can read her entire LONG account here if you are so inclined. 

The summary is that by Grace's retelling Ansari was an inattentive and pushy partner. Ansari ordered the wrong wine at the restaurant; Grace's joy lessened from there. Per Grace, Ansari was overeager for what many heterosexual men and women would consider the main event. She declined that. Ansari didn't recognize Grace's non-verbal cues that she wanted to move more slowly. Ansari made requests. Grace claimed she felt compelled to comply with them. Grace harshly describes many of Ansari's sexual idiosyncrasies or boudoir moves which offended her. Grace was irritated at Ansari's repeated and insistent requests to do that last thing. Finally she left the premises. Ansari offered a qualified defense/apology for anything he may have done wrong:

“In September of last year, I met a woman at a party. We exchanged numbers. We texted back and forth and eventually went on a date. We went out to dinner, and afterwards we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual. “The next day, I got a text from her saying that although ‘it may have seemed okay,’ upon further reflection, she felt uncomfortable. It was true that everything did seem okay to me, so when I heard that it was not the case for her, I was surprised and concerned. I took her words to heart and responded privately after taking the time to process what she had said.

Michigan Service Pigs ?

There are certain rules that society has set up by which everyone has agreed to live, more or less. We are all interconnected with each other to a greater or lesser extent. So if you happen to live in a city there are different rules by which you must abide than if you happened to live in the country.  For example, you probably won't be allowed to put your old car up on blocks in the front yard. You may not be able to park your boat in the driveway. You won't be able to run your snow blower or lawnmower before 6 AM or after 10 PM. And you probably won't be allowed to keep livestock in your home. All of these are restrictions on your right to dispose of your property. However I think they are all reasonable laws. A local couple disagrees with the last constraint and is fighting it in court.

YPSILANTI, Mich. (WXYZ) - You are welcome to stay- but your livestock has to go. That is the message the city of Ypsilanti is giving a couple living in a house with four potbelly pigs.
Now the couple is arguing their case in court, saying their pigs are much more than just livestock.

“This is Vinny. He is our second oldest,” said Jeffery Rowland as he introduces WXYZ to his pigs. He and his wife Stephanie Rowland say their four pigs are part of their family. They both are on disability and say the pigs ease their symptoms of anxiety or bipolar disorder.

“What you have to have are doctors notes. I have between me and Jeff, eleven doctors who say: they need this,” said Stephanie. 

Video below

Government Shutdown 2018

Well here we go again.
WASHINGTON — Much of the federal government officially shut down early Saturday morning after Senate Democrats, showing remarkable solidarity in the face of a clear political danger, blocked consideration of a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating. The shutdown, coming one year to the day after President Trump took office, set off a new round of partisan recriminations and posed risks for both parties. It came after a fruitless last-minute negotiating session at the White House between Mr. Trump and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader. With just 50 senators voting in favor, Senate Republican leaders fell well short of the 60 votes necessary to proceed on the spending measure, which had passed the House on Thursday. 

Five conservative state Democrats voted for the spending measure. Five Republicans voted against it, although one of those, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, did so for procedural reasons. As the clock ticked toward midnight, when funding for the government was set to expire, senators huddled on the floor of the crowded Senate chamber, searching for some way forward. Then, in the early morning hours, Mr. McConnell proposed a measure that would keep the government open for another three weeks, not four as the House measure would have done, and said the Senate would come back to into session at noon Saturday.

Book Reviews: The Troop

The Troop
by Nick Cutter

Stephen King wrote that this book was old school horror that scared the hell out of him. Based on that blurb and other people's ravings about the book I decided to give it a read. Although this is not a new book it is still the best book I've read this year. It's the best book I've read in a while actually. After I finished it I looked up some more information about the writer. I was pleased to confirm my suspicion that Cutter (the name is a pseudonym) is a David Cronenberg fan.While reading this book I couldn't help but think back to Cronenberg films such as They Came From Within or The Fly. The Troop is body horror at its finest. I'm interested in reading other works by the author now. 

It stinks to be sick. For most ailments your body's immune system can marshal some pretty effective defenses to isolate and/or kill anything in your body that is not you. Your body is even smart enough to recognize what it kills and develop immunity to new versions of what it killed and ejected. Occasionally however you run across some creatures, bacteria or viruses that aren't so easily dismissed. Some of these things might even become permanent residents of your particular universe. No power on earth can get rid of them. You have no choice but to deal with them.

Canadian Scoutmaster Tim Riggs and his five teen Boy Scouts are on a wilderness camping trip to a small deserted island, one that will allow Riggs' charges a chance to put their outdoors skills to the test and of course gain more scouting patches. Some of the boys are more enthusiastic about this trip than others. All of them are right around the age where girls will become more interesting than running around the woods tying knots or identifying edible types of fungus. They are also around the age where they're starting to test how far they can challenge adult authority. 

Movie Reviews: American Made, The Change-Up

American Made
directed by Doug Liman

When investigative journalists talk about the American government turning a blind eye to or even assisting in criminal activity for reasons of "national security" or pure greed, the public often ignores those people in real time. Mainstream media mouthpieces or military-industrial complex muppets mock such people as loons and conspiracy buffs. It's only after the evidence has become impossible to ignore or many of the major players have passed on that the entertainment industry feels comfortable depicting some of the events.  American Made is a fictionalized retelling of the life and times of Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), who morphed from a shady and bored airlines pilot to a CIA intelligence asset and supplier of the Nicaraguan contras (Iran-Contra affair) to a drug and gun smuggler for the Medellin Cartel to a DEA informant and military asset. There wasn't always a clear delineation among these roles. Seal made a lot of money; he had multiple bosses in different organizations. Unfortunately for Seal he wound up in a position where he had betrayed the cartel , but wasn't considered important enough for the U.S. government to protect. 

So as the saying goes, live fast, die young and leave a good looking corpse. That last is important for this film as the slender and seemingly ageless Cruise (his only concession to advancing years appears to be some deepening lines around eyes and mouth) looks absolutely nothing like Barry Seal, who was a porcine good old boy from Louisiana. 

Patient Dumping in Baltimore

"This place is cruel; no where could be much colder /If we don't change the world will soon be over"
Stevie Wonder "Living For The City"

There are things you are allowed to do and things you are not allowed to do. When no one is looking, for many people it's tempting to do the things they aren't allowed to do, particularly if it saves them money. For an auto company engineer this could mean ignoring a defective transmission part and letting a poor design go to market. Why should she jeopardize her bonus and next promotion for something that may not even be discovered for another decade? She can reason that those drivers could have had fatal accidents anyway. Maybe a banker sells a young couple a horrible mortgage with sub-prime interest rates and balloon payments, reasoning that as long as they sign on the dotted line it's not his responsibility to save them from themselves. A restaurant owner might choose to use the moldy jalapenos in the rear of the freezer or fry up the wormy meat that fell on the floor. Margins are tight and state investigators will never know. 

Or maybe a hospital, already dealing with lower reimbursements and higher costs than it can handle, decides to eject the patients who either lack insurance or lack more remunerative private insurance. This is called patient dumping. A psychotherapist good Samaritan named Imamu Baraka, apparently by happenstance, witnessed a woman being dumped outside near the bus stop on a cold winter night. The woman was incoherent. She only had a gown on. 

BALTIMORE (AP) — The man who said he came to the aid of a woman discharged from a Baltimore hospital wearing only a gown and socks on a cold winter's night, says he was left outraged and stunned at how she was treated.

Imamu Baraka, identified in local reports as the person who sought to help the woman, told The Associated Press he was so angry he decided to record Tuesday night's events on cellphone video, fearing no one would believe him if he reported a woman being left at a bus stop like that.

Frozen Alligators

https://www.yahoo.com/news/m/24a81d0c-1417-3586-abfd-be332f1864f6/ss_alligators-use-bizarre-%E2%80%93-and.html