Aside from matters related to baseball (e.g., that the DH sucks), I don’t often agree with my conservative friend, Paul Ogden. I disagree, in part, with his recent blog (Ogden on Politics) on the Justice Department’s Legal Challenge to Georgia’s Election Law.

He wrote: “The worst thing about the lawsuit is that it contributes to the Democratic delusion of focusing on the casting of votes when the Democrats should be focused on the counting of those votes.” Mr Ogden is correct when he…

Critical Race Theory (“CRT”), as described in new rules governing public schools in Florida,

asserts “that racism is not merely the product of prejudice, but ... is embedded in American society and its legal systems in order to uphold the supremacy of white persons.”

One argument I have not heard from sycophants of trump is that slavery never existed in this country. The evidence, for such narrow minds as theirs, is persuasive. After all, no living person can state she or he saw…

Indiana AG Todd Rokita is concerned that “National discourse around political and social issues has created negative and polarizing effects on teachers, school administrators, students, and families.” His solution would be recourse to St Francis University - STFU.

Rokita is following other Republican politicians who are offended by kids being taught Critical Race Theory (“CRT”). Florida’s new rules, a template for the ignorant, bans CRT. However, the rule fairly describes what should…

HELP: I ask a special favor of my friends here. I met a very special woman. She’s funny and smart and inquisitive. Our talk traversed gerunds, Latin, English and French. We reached cinema and “The Year of living Dangerously.” (She looked it up on her phone.)

We only exchanged first names in an office waiting area in Greenwood, Indiana. I came out of my meeting and she had left. If anyone knows a woman who met a guy on Tuesday, 6/15, with whom she had such a conversation and she shows…

Florida has acted to stop the teaching of Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT is premised on the idea that racism is built into the structure of this country’s government. It would appear that Florida now requires that instruction be “factual and objective.” That should be a given. There’s more.

Instruction “may not suppress or distort significant historical events, such as the Holocaust, and may not define American history as something other than the creation of a new nation based…

I want to thank everyone who expressed condolences over the passing of my little fur girl Delilah. I have started to read up on how best to go about adopting three or four very young shelter/abandoned feline-Americans.

(I know: there are older kitties out there that need homes, but young ones need homes, too & . I’ve grieved enough over the past few years.) I’ll try to give updates on what I have learned. Also I welcome any advice.

This is the day upon which I entered this…

I was 11. On my dresser was a photo from the first day of school that year. My dog Princess, whom my parents acquired about the same time as I was born, and I stood next to each other on my parents’ front porch. Shortly after, as I looked at that photo, I realized my mortality.

We were about the same age, but she was over 70, in dog years. When I thought of that I was sad, because creatures die when they get so old. But then I thought, one day I would be so old as to die. I said…

Kroger Pharmacy/Nora came through for me several times over the last few years. Staff saved me money, expedited orders and shone through as professionals concerned more about people in of prescriptions and questions about health.

On Monday I called in a prescription refill. The recording said I could pick it up the next day, but I was told it is on back-order. I returned the next & received the same response: back-order.I called the pharmacy the next day, was told the same…

A person’s right to vote is a basic right. President Lyndon Johnson said, “In our system the first and most vital of all our rights is the right to vote.” An individual’s vote might seem lost in a sea of others’ votes. The smaller the election, the greater the impact of one vote.

In no place is the effect of one vote so great as when the individual is a member of a jury. When Edith Bunker held out as a lone juror for an acquittal, comedy served up a serious act of courage. “All in the…

Pentagon budget people are not known for saving money. To say someone spends money “like a drunken sailor” has an inherently martial ring. Members of Congress even throw more money at our national defense than the Department of Defense (“DoD”) has requested.

We should not be surprised that DoD can tighten its belt, albeit in perverse ways. Basic things about warfare (even when “war” is not declared) are toxins. Things blown up and people killed means harmful chemicals. Agent Orange…

Indiana’s AG Todd Rokita wants kids taught a version of history that is not critical. He opposes critical race theory in American history and civics curricula. Let’s imagine what he wants kids to be taught. Imagine, if you will...

Washington didn’t lie about chopping down a cherry tree or owning slaves. Jefferson wrote The Declaration of Independence and didn’t own slaves. Jackson beat the British at New Orleans, and didn’t own slaves. Maybe there is a theme.

If you go to a…

As Indiana’s AG Todd Rokita doesn’t determine policy. His latest action is to join 20 other state AGs “calling on the Biden administration to reconsider proposals aimed at imposing critical race theory into American history and civics curriculum.”

“Critical race theory is an academic concept that is more than 40 years old. The core idea is that racism is a social construct, and that it is not merely the product of individual bias or prejudice, but also something embedded in legal…

Fifty-four percent (54%) of Republicans polled believe leftists were behind the January attack on the Capitol. Apparently watch dogs of the far right, such as Alex Jones, missed this particular conspiracy. Jones should have an inside track on this info. He was in DC on January 6.

Here are possibilities. 1) Alex Jones is part of the Deep State/Antifa (DSA). That’s fine except Jones was in DC on 01/06 and spoke to the mob. Maybe he sought to foment violence to cast trump, et al, in a…

In junior high I read “Regarding Civil Disobedience,” by Henry David Thoreau: “I heartily accept the motto, - ‘That government is best which governs least;’ and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically.” Sounds like the GOP.

More Thoreau: “Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe - ‘that government is best which governs not at all;’ and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they shall have.” (In…

We have a right to vote. We also have a right not to be persecuted or attacked for how we cast our votes. In Indiana a person cannot be compelled to disclose how she or he voted. In Georgia a court has ordered that absentee ballots in Fulton County be turned over for an “audit.”

To be clear: GOP election officials in Georgia have said there were no improprieties in the 2020 election in Georgia. What should concern anyone with brains or a conscience is the prospect of advocates for a…

5/18 (tomorrow), 9 pm: “Mouthwash,” John Schmitz’s FB podcast, features a debate between me and Indiana State Rep John Jacob on women’s reproductive rights. Among inflammatory bits on Rep Jacob’s campaign website is something meant to lay all doubt to rest.

Rep Jacob says: “It is an irrefutable scientific fact that human life begins at conception.” We need to define key words. 1) “conception”: “The union of the sperm and the ovum. Synonymous with fertilization.” Medinet; 2)…

On Tuesday, May 18, at 9 pm I’ll “discuss” (debate) women’s reproductive rights (or, as right-wing people are programmed to say, the murder of millions of beautiful little lives that an all-loving deity can’t save from surgical procedures) on “Mouthwash”, John Schmitz’s FB podcast.

My opponent will be State Rep. John Jacob, whose views are entrenched. My view is that I am not a woman, cannot get pregnant, and so should not tell women what to do with their lives. (So why are two males…

Justice requires open Courts and public trials. (U.S. Const. Amend. VI; Ind. Const. Art. I, § 12.) In the name of efficiency Courts substitute computers for people. Courts invoke privacy and a person’s security as they shut out public scrutiny.

Whether brought by the Government, the State, the People or Commonwealth, the prosecution has great advantages. First, it chooses the charges and when to file. Second, it has assets such as police and labs. At the very least the Accused has a…

If you want to see how corporations would run elections so as to be free of human interference, look at the Commonwealth of Virginia and how the two “major” political parties have opted for two different ways to nominate candidates for Governor, Lieutenant and Attorney General.

Democratic Party candidates are on primary ballots. Voting started April 23 and on June 8 is in-person voting. A voter is not required to show proof of, or declare loyalty to, a political party to vote in that…