Lots of important events this past week:
1. Two billion people worldwide watched the wedding of England's future king Prince William and Kate Middleton, hopefully ushering in a new era for a royal family rocked by bad-news scandals involving princes behaving badly. Amid inevitable comparisons to the ill-fated marriage of Charles and Diana 30 years ago, we might hope that the royals decide to skip over tarnished Charles and Camilla and put the fresh and appealing William and Kate in place as soon as 85 year old grand-mum Elizabeth is ready to retire.
2. The late Pope John Paul II will be beatified in Rome today, hopefully ushering in a new era for a Roman Catholic Church rocked by bad-news scandals involving priests behaving badly. John Paul's fast-track to sainthood cleared a major hurdle with the certification of his intercession in the miraculous cure of a nun from Parkinson's disease. Two miracles are required for sainthood. Too bad he couldn't miraculously cure all the little boys of the lasting sexual trauma inflicted on them by abusing priests during his years as pope.
3. President Obama pulled out his birth certificate and pulled the rug out from under the strident birthers and Republican wannabes, hopefully ushering in a new era of campaigning on the vital issues of the day. Not likely: Donald Trump simply took credit for forcing the president to do show and tell; and then he pivoted and claimed that Obama wasn't qualified to attend Ivy League Schools and must have gotten in Columbia and Harvard through affirmative action -- which pretty well proves the racism behind it all. At last night's White House Correspondents Dinner, SNL comedian Seth Meyers shot back that he was surprised to learn that Trump was running for president as a Republican, because he had just assumed he was running as a joke.
4. Georgia's Governor Nathan Deal signed into law the bill that allows local municipalities to hold referendums on retail sale of alcohol on Sunday in their jurisdiction, hopefully ushering in a new era of declining dominance of religious conservatives over our political process. This was no rash decision: I remember in my high school years when our "dry" county held a referendum about sale of alcohol, period, not just on Sundays. The ladies of the Women's Christian Temperance Union thought it was their Christian influence that kept us dry, but it was really the bootleggers who worked behind the scenes for the same cause but from different movites. You know, politics and its strange bedfellows.
5. Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding pulled out of its contract to defend the Defense of Marriage Act for House Republicans, hopefully ushering in a new era that will lead eventually to nationwide legalizing marriage for same-sex couples. K&S found itself between a rock and a hard place when its high profile appeals attorney Paul Clement took the case but signed a contract that included a gag order prohibiting anyone at K&S from speaking positively about gay marriage for the duration of the case. K&S prides itself on promoting diversity, it actively recruits to hire gay and lesbian attorneys, and boasts about it's 95% equality rating from gay-rights watchers. Well-known and out gay lawyers in the firm, who had nothing to do with the case, would have had to keep quiet about gay marriage for, probably, the next several years while the case meanders.
Once the contract was signed, there was no win-win solution, but they made the right one. Clement left the firm for a more conservative one in Washington and will take the case with him, so the Repubs still have their attorney of choice; K&S retains its reputation for fairness and equality and respect for the rights of its staff.
And that was the week that was.
Ralph
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Was it the same day that Deal signed the Sunday booze law that devastating tornadoes ripped through northwest Georgia that night?
ReplyDeleteWell, actually, no. The tornadoes were Wednesday night; Deal signed the law on Thursday morning. If that had been reversed, you can bet we would have heard preaching about God's angry revenge for our sinful ways.
Remember when rampaging forest fires in central Florida were headed for Orlando, and Pat Robertson said God was going to punish Orlando for displaying street banners proclaiming Gay Day at DisneyWorld?
Only thing was, the fires swerved and went around Orlando and DisneyWorld. Then later that year, hurricanes hit Virginia Beach where Robertson's headquarters are located.
Not many folks still believe such stuff and nonsense; but some do and think we all should.
That must have excruciating for The Donald last night having to sit there at the White House Correspondence Dinnner while both Obama and Seth Meyers ridiculed him -- and without any opportunity to come back. He couldn't say, "You're fired !!" or anything else for that matter.
ReplyDeleteAnd then this morning on tv, George Will delivered the final blow, calling Trump an "overweight, under-educated, silly man."