Friday, April 29, 2016

WOMEN'S MOVEMENT LOST IN LADIES' ROOM!


I don't know if women want men in their public bathrooms or not. I don't think most men would care if women walked in on us, though. Heck, we might give you a show! Actually, that's not true, and this whole mess about toilet access is turning into a form of hysteria that we need to flush out of our systems. The problem is, Democrats hate Republicans and Republicans hate Democrats and never the stain shall meet. What's happened is that the country has suddenly grown up; it caught up with the rest of the world, and an entire segment of society wasn't ready for it, wasn't prepared and still isn't. Damn Obama. I mean, could you imagine John Wayne donning a dress and lassoing a stall in the ladies' room? "That's mine, Pilgrim!"
Well, Caitlyn Jenner - a Republican - just used the mens' room at Trump International Hotel in New York City (with his blessings, sort of) and dangled a video in front of Ted Cruz's nose, "Thank you, Donald, really appreciate it. And by the way, Ted, nobody got molested..."
(Oh, and, since this stinky mess infested the newswaves, I've been asking store owners, managers, and employees a simple question. One by one, they answered me, although, I did get a NO COMMENT or two.)
"Is it okay for me to use the ladies' room if the mens' room is occupied?" These weren't single stall rooms that could be mistaken for unisex ones.
"Ummm.. Yeah, I guess so." Could you imagine this response a few months ago? And that's part of the problem. It's all happening so fast, no one knows the law. They think men can surrepticiously use ladies' rooms now.
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Like a rocket ship soaring off the launchpad into space, the booster stage ignited when same-sex marriage became legal in the United States on June 26, 2015. Leading up to it and even today, the country is split over the Supreme Court decision. But all of a sudden, the booster separated and a massive force thrust the transgender toilet issue into the forefront. BAM! Like a phallic symbol, the rocket ship pierced through the stratosphere of society and it seems to be leaving conservatives and fundamentalists behind. Huh? Just like that, it's a brave new world.
Sadly, all that the liberal progressives do is mock and laugh and denounce conservatives, calling them stupid, uneducated, dimwits, both racist and sexist in nature, plus a few more unsavory adjectives that, in my opinion, only show how stellar they aren't, either. They want conservatives to roll over, play dead, and let them mold the country in their image. Of course, the conservatives fire back and here we are now, in a very uncivil war. Progressives v. Conservatives. Closed-minded v. Closed-minded. Who gets to use what public bathroom and why it should or shouldn't matter any more.
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In the 1980s, I worked with a nasty womens' libber. She despised men. What I saw on the news was no prize, either. Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan were overtly militant and it turned many men off. How were we [men] supposed to answer their call when they made it clear they hated us? Eventually, they softened their tone and we did, too. Of course, women were always equal as far as I was concerned, I just didn't appreciate the messengers early on. That's what's happening now. Oh, not me, but to many others, and I think it's stupid, uneducated, and a few more adjectives, when the progressive side doesn't see it for what it is: rubbing crap into the faces of people who don't want to change so quickly. So the conservatives retaliate the only ways they can, like what happened in North Carolina.
Look, I have no problem with transgenders. Heck, I've probably whipped it out at a urinal while unsuspectingly standing next to a gay or trans man. So what? No one ever thinks about that when they're taking a leak. For that matter, there may have been a transdude sitting in the stall nearby. I don't care. I go into a men's room to do my business, finish my business, wash my hands, and get out. And so do they. That's exactly the way it is in ladies' rooms, too, and people like Caitlyn Jenner aren't looking to molest anyone!
Here's what I say. If you don't like the new North Carolina law, boycott the state. If you don't agree with Target's policy on sharing bathrooms and fitting rooms with transgenders, just don't shop there. Problem solved. Go to Walmart instead, well-known as a bastion of normalcy. As for states that have passed sex at birth anti-transgender laws, I'd like to know who is going to check birth certificates at the door. Who is going to look at the plumbing before entering, the Poo-Pee Police? Inspecker Clouseau? Spread your legs, I'm a cop! It's a fabricated fear. Why? Because I'm more afraid of a Dennis Hastert-type guy than I am of anyone else.
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Now that we're drifting in orbit, are all systems really go? Is everything A-OK? No, not really. Remember, some guys don't know any better now. While I don't believe much of this type of scenario will take place – not yet – another problem arises, and it's something that hardly anyone is taking into consideration. 
Just the other day, a very dear female friend of mine stopped at a fast food restaurant. While there, she used the ladies' room. It had two stalls. She finished and walked up to the sink to wash her hands and gaze into her bright, beautiful, sultry and seductive eyes... No, I'm going off-topic. Sorry. She was standing there when, all of a sudden, a man entered with his very elderly mother. The woman had a walker. My friend decided right away it was time to leave, and she did! No words were spoken.
This type of situation creates several problems. First off, I would have taken my 90-something-year-old mother into the men's room. I'm a man. No guy would care if I took my elderly mother there and into a stall. Neither would she. Secondly, I wouldn't just barge into the opposite sex restroom unannounced. I'd declare myself. If people were in there, I'd allow them their personal space and wait for them to leave. To not do so is rude. What gave him the right to enter? It could be how the new rules are interpreted because no one is making them clear. To say this woman is beautiful is an understatement and there's no way, as a heterosexual male, that I wouldn't look at her ANYWHERE and not say to myself, “WHOA! What a looker!” Especially in such an exclusive setting. I'm certain he did the same thing. In any event, he was the real idiot. Or he was way smarter than we think?
When it comes to personal intimacy, on a scale of 1-10, what room comes directly after the boudoir for privacy? While, fortunately, he posed no danger or threat to her, is it okay if any masculine, heterosexual guy uses the ladies' room because he thinks he can? What if my friend had pushed open the door and there he stood inside? She would have immediately turned around and left! A woman (or 12-year-old) shouldn't be fearful when she needs to use a bathroom facility. That's her right, not a man's. Now, she says, she eyeballs women when she uses one. They all look each other over, and they're not looking for transgenders. It's the freaks and perverts. Welcome to the wonderful world of weirdos and the strangers who are going to pee on your seat.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Today is Earth Day

I wrote the following on April 22, 2008. (Hopefully, my writing style is a bit more refined and focused today.) I've become a whole lot more conscientious about our planet since the first one, and public perceptions about marijuana have changed dramatically.
MY FIRST EARTH DAY 
". . . on April 22, 1970, Earth Day was held, one of the most remarkable happenings in the history of democracy. . . "
 -American Heritage Magazine, October 1993
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I remember the very first Earth Day. It was called Moratorium Day in 1970. I was attending Hunterdon Central High School (now known as Hunterdon Central Regional High School) and a lot of commotion was stirred by our teachers and fellow students preceding that day. The first thing to catch my attention, and those of plenty of my peers, was that all classes were to be suspended on Earth Day. Instead, we would have seminars in what seemed like a giant trade show, with local and state business and community leaders converging on our school to speak to us about our planet, how to improve our lives and what we could do to be positive forces in the world. We were in the middle of a terrible conflict in Vietnam and drugs were becoming an ever present occurrence in all of our lives, whether we did them or not. Everyone was very much aware of those two things. At the time, I wasn't much of an environmentalist, although I never had anything against ecology and conservationism. My concerns lay more in the sphere of my social environment, so who we knew that went to Viet Nam and whether drugs were cool to do or not were more important issues than saving the planet from pollution. Remember, these were the days before the '73 oil embargo, Watergate and words like vegan and tree hugger had not yet parsed our lips.
I recall that about a week before Earth Day, we were given a form to fill out with explanations on each symposium. We had some that were mandatory to attend and many more that were electives. At no time during the day were we to have free time, except for lunch. That way, we were always accounted for, being carefree high school students and all. Just like regular classes, we weren't supposed to skip these meetings, either. Mandatory roll calls were to be taken, but they never were. After a while, we knew how to play the attendance game.
One I signed up for dealt with drug education. Of course, being high school kids and "hip" on the drug scene, a lot of my friends attended that one, too. I'm sure we knew more than the cops. Once there, we learned about the evils of marijuana, hashish, LSD, STP, heroin and whatever was big back then and the tools used to ingest them, like rolling papers, pipes and needles. We also learned how to detect users, how to turn them in and how to avoid frying our own brains from drugs. It was held in the main auditorium and there was a long table filled with all sorts of paraphernalia to view. Lou Rocco was the county drug czar back then and he was our lecturer. Several cops stood near him. I knew him well enough, too, because his daughter, Angie, had been the first to train me when I started working at the Weiner King restaurant in the fall of '68. He was a regular customer and Angie took a shining to me. She went on to be a nurse or something because she got a job at the Hunterdon Medical Center.
After his speech, good old Lou invited us to join him at that long table so we could get up close and personal with the stuff on display. We were allowed to pick up some things, but the real goods were kept at a distance. First, he explained what each item was, and then he prompted us to ask questions. I have always been known as a practical joker. During that question and answer period, I secretly swiped a piece of incense while Mr. Rocco was answering someone's question and his back was to me. I don't know what the other cops were doing but they weren't watching me. What I picked up was no ordinary piece of incense. It smelled just like marijuana when burning and it was used to train police and narcotics agents. Oh boy, what do I do with my newfound stash, I wondered.
When the seminar ended, I casually walked into the men's room by the main entrance, just beyond the auditorium. I waited for everyone else to leave and entered one of the stalls. The stalls back then didn't have doors on them in our school. Not the men's room, anyway. That way, teachers could make sure no one was smoking cigarettes. I carefully placed that valuable piece of pot incense behind the toilet and lit it. I hightailed it out of there before the stuff began to smell. It didn't take long before that became the biggest news at the high school that day. POT SMOKING STUDENTS USE HIGH SCHOOL MEN'S ROOM ON EARTH DAY! Imagine that, some stupid kids had the audacity to smoke pot with all those cops swarming about. They never did get caught, though, and Lou Rocco and the rest of his force never figured out a piece of their educational material went missing.
There you have it. My first Earth Day was spent smoking up the men's room with chemically manufactured marijuana. I'm sure it was manufactured overseas from artificial ingredients. Since 1970, I've learned a lot about war, drugs and what we can do to keep ourselves and our planet healthy. I hope you have, too.
That would be far out, man. Peace.