Sunday Morning Coming Down

Driving around on Thursday listening to the coverage of Supreme Court rulings on the radio I was struck by something I never thought would have been possible. A wedding cake baker was being sued for refusing to bake a cake for a same sex couple based on religious beliefs.  I'm not sure if it was the two men(or women) on the top of the cake, or the image of the couple giving each other a little bit of cake at the reception that sent the baker around the bend or something much bigger. I'm so jaded these days that I figured that capitalist nature of society these days would view this as a new market and a new opportunity to make a buck.  Listening to one cake baker being so upset about being asked to bake a cake to celebrate a wedding he does not have to attend and getting in a legal situation because of his beliefs is dumbfounding to me. There are other options and other vendors willing to provide this service.  Or at least you would think so....

How to Preserve Friendship Go you must. No guest shall stay in one place for ever Love will be lost if you sit too long at a friend's fire. A Home is a Castle Better a humble house than none. A man is a master at home. A pair of goats and a patched roof are better than begging. Caution Never walk away from home ahead of your axe or sword. You can't feel a battle in your bones or foresee a fight. Sayings of the Vikings.  Scholars are not sure where they were written, possibly Norway, Iceland, or England, but it is generally agreed that they were compiled 700-900AD.

Forty two years in Florida and the Blackhawks have won two Stanley Cups, The Chicago Bulls almost too many championships to count, the White Sox have hit the board in spite of Ozzie and da Bears have a Super Bowl.  In Miami, the Dolphins, Hurricanes, Marlins, and the Heat have all won championships.  Yesterday, Miami had a parade for the Miami Heat to celebrate a win in the NBA Playoffs.  Locally it was a big deal.  Personally, it was the end of great season and I was as much relieved as I was happy that they won. Last night, the Blackhawks in seventeen seconds won a championship and capped off a remarkable season that started with a streak of 24 games without a loss and a team record 11 game winning streak. The Miami Heat won 27 games in a row from February 1until the end of March when they were beaten by the Bulls.  In spite of this streak, the Heat were within five seconds and a desperate three pointer by Ray Allen and a couple of missed fre...

Maybe I'm just becoming a fuddy duddy, but what has happened to traditional summer jobs?

Unitarian Universalists are always trying to figure out the correct way of saying something so that is less offensive or divisive most of the time. Hymns and theological views have had their words changed to meet with concerns about being too Christian, sexist, or discriminatory in the way they are presented.  Most of the time this is for the better and lots of times even realizing that there may be a more politically correct way of expressing yourself keeps you from saying something really stupid or offensive or both. Road rage brings out the worst in my vocabulary and I am fortunate that most of the time I am alone in my car.  Driving in Miami can send almost anyone around the bend into a blue streak and gestures that is understandable and righteous, as long as you realize you might be a crappy driver sometime down the road.  I guess this is a rationalization but it is mine and I will own it as long as I drive. A lawyer acquaintance of my mine is very op...

You would think that a bill that had something for everyone would be able pass through the congress easily. There were subsidies for both agribusiness and small farmers in the bill, but the largest part of the bill was to support the food stamp and nutrition programs.  Generally I like the idea of cheaper food and making sure that farmers continue to farm.  I'm at least two generations away from living off the land The Senate has passed its version of the bill, but the House who thought it had a deal on its bill, watched that deal go up in smoke.  Both sides were supposed to hold their noses while they voted for the bill and then it would go to conference. I did receive food stamps for three months while at ISU in 1970, $28.00 per month.  A room mate applied for them and he qualified not only himself but his room mates as head of the household.  A home visit subsequently corrected the error and in retrospect we probably should repaid the government for ...

For some, I think, basketball is as close to religion as they are going to get.  The game could be something polytheistic with shooting, rebounding, passing, and defending gods and somewhat human like the Greek Gods of old with their own quirks and foibles The Miami Herald headline, Heat Fans, Hoping, Praying. Rosa Guizens will be praying the rosary for the Heat. Other fans will be ginning up their rituals, special foods, gear and jerseys, lucky shrines, faux Birdman tattoo sleeves. I can only imagine the secret private Masonic type rituals the players have.  I haven't seen the powder toss during the playoffs from Lebron James.  He may be saving it for game seven, but it's clear the Heat need to win game six first. I do like pizza out of the oven, consumed at half time with cold Bud Lite Lime.  If the NSA is reading this, they are barking up the wrong tree.  I wish the Heat could find something at the local Botanica to counter Danny Green and his 3 ...

I was providing transportation to a kid birthday party at Dolphin Mall.  Lisvey goes to these things regularly and so on her birthday it seemed like the right thing to do.  Send about 15 kids to an arcade, eat some cake, and I thought I could keep up with more than a few sporting events on the TVs that were in easy view and large. I would like to apologize publicly to all the parents that had to shlep their kids to the party.  The parking was impossible to find unless you were an aggressive stalker and followed someone out to their car or you really trusted your kid to find the party at Dave and Buster's after you dropped him off on the corner nearest the food court.  This is Miami and after buzzing the parking lot once and realizing that all the free parking was occupied you were given the option of valet parking at $8.00 plus tip or figuring out an acceptable excuse to just turn around and go home. Once I made the decision to valet park.  I had no choice....

Thanks to NPR and "It's Only A Game". I went to Blackhawk Junior High School.  The Blackhawks are in the Stanley Cup Finals.  My second favorite college football team is called the Seminoles and I don't get completely jacked up about the calling the Cleveland MLB team the Indians, but Chief Wahoo as the team's logo has probably seen better days.  Atlanta's Braves have had problems with their screaming Indian and Chief Noc A Homa But I do understand lots of folks asking the owner of the Washington D.C. football team to change the name of the franchise.  The request is reasonable.  The name is offensive to an ethnic group and hardly defensible to anybody but the team's fan base. Atlanta's mascots became Homer and Rally.  The Tomahawk Chop continues and FSU still has Osceola and Renegade at its home football games and it is being done with the approval of the Seminole Tribe. This is hardly the biggest issue in the world today, but it is one that c...

If an internship is handled like an educational experience, is for the benefit of the student/intern and the work done does not replace that of regular workers it can be unpaid.  If the intern is doing real meaningful work and there is benefit to the company there should be compensation. The judge said so and I agree. College football players and basketball players at the football and basketball factories should take note of this ruling big time. For many years, I always had summer work experience youth in my office.  I was expected to rotate them around the office doing various tasks.  They worked the information desk with a more experienced worker, helped doing filing, did data entry work, and helped generally and they were paid the minimum wage the first year and maybe more the next year depending on how much money was in the grant we received.  I wrote recommendation letters for college for good workers and was glad to have them around.  Someti...

I'm not surprised that the government may have their finger in everything I do.  Abby and McGee seem to be able to look at location, financial transactions, and lots of other stuff almost immediately on NCIS.  Amazon can tell me what kind of books I might like to read and Facebook can pretty much cover the waterfront related to lots of other stuff.  I've pretty much given up on the idea of privacy once I start using the Internet or my telephone to look stuff up or to buy something.  They almost always say the call is being recorded for quality control purposes. I did not need a 29 year to confirm what I pretty much knew already, the times they are a changing and we have all pretty bought the ticket and are taking the ride. All this information we can gather may be of only limited value in stopping terrorist attacks, but it can be helpful in identifying and apprehending those responsible after the fact. Nobody likes profiling but in its totality, this seems to b...

After connecting with the voluntary deportation folks, it was clear that the case was indeed screwed up.  Back to Kendall ICE Office.  Again the staff at that office were courteous and the possibility of filing an 1-360 related to domestic violence issues during a previous marriage would allow her to stay in the country with her daughter.  Forms were obtained, documents organized, copied, collated and sent.  February 2012, the information was sent to the people at immigration.  Two weeks later a notice with a receipt number and information that a prima facie case had been established and that she could apply for "benefits" while the case was being investigated. About all that was applied for was reinstatement of driving privileges and the understanding that there would be no early morning visits from officials and a trip to a detention center.  One interesting sidelight to the process was the trip to the social security office.  We almost got ...

Yesterday, I learned that the government agency in charge of these things has approved an application to stay in this country for a person that has been in and out of status more than a few times over the more than twenty five years since she left the Dominican Republic. The latest application process has taken over two years and before that about eight years with a different process, and about ten years for an earlier application process.  It has been a long and winding road for this person and people that have been associated with her.  It has also been expensive.  Immigration lawyers have been expensive, lazy, not very helpful, and quite possibly crooks in this particular case. "En la boca del lobo" I surprised my self in doing what I have done over the last few years. To get the ball rolling we visited an immigration office.  Visiting the office with a person that has a deportation order is at best dicey.  The system gave us an appointment and we ...

The Heat play the Pacers tonight and it's win or go home.  I'm pulling for the Heat because I live in Miami and as long as the Heat are in the mix the soap opera will continue.  I'm positive the sports talk shows and the NBA agree with me. The (El) Heat are such a part of the water cooler conversation, that a twelve year old has been working on homework right after school so she can watch the game and message her friends about the Birdman, D. Wade, and Lebron.  She even has an opinion about UD, Rio, and Bosh. After the third game, she was convinced the series would go seven games.  She was right on that and hopes the Heat win tonight.

The Norwegian cruise ship Fram arrived in Reykjavik yesterday.  It was the first arrival for the summer cruise season.   There will be an auction by the police department of 100 bicycles. Finally on Road 76 in northern Iceland a warning has been issued by the government that there are sheep and reindeer on the road. At first I thought this was quaint, but then in Miami similar items would have made the nightly news sometime during the year on one of the local news programs.