Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Back to Reality

The thing about getting away is that you get away.   Away from newspapers, away from TV, away from routines, away from Internet news stories.

Oh there was a newspaper, but I rarely read the Santa Barbara paper because it usually makes me angry.  And there was that humongous television set that Joe and Alice just bought...

BigTV.JPG (81876 bytes)

...but we tended to visit more than sit and watch TV...especially news on TV.

And Walt would scoff to read that I was away from Internet news stories, especially since I was glued to BarnCam (still waiting for Abbie to birth that baby!), but I didn't follow up on a lot of news stories so I really had a vacation from whatever was going on in the world.

How depressing to come home and start catching up on what I missed.   How depressing, for example, to come home to find out that every. single. Republican. in the House voted against equal pay for women.  What do they tell their mothers, their wives, their girlfriends, their sisters.  What what woman would vote for Republicans after the despicable lack of respect they have shown to women.   But you know that women will vote for them again.

How depressing to read my friend Gabi Clayton's blog about Andrew Waiswa, in Uganda, who is being hunted and at best, if discovered will receive a lengthy sentence for being gay, but is more likely to be beaten to death
I know I will be jailed for seven years, but I can't risk to be lynched by the local mobs and gangs I can easily die if I make any mistake of showing out my face, so am considering to handle over my self to the police, be taken to court and sentenced, if am lucky I will only get 7yrs! If I don't get financial help to get out of Uganda ASAP am taking chances with the police and the Ugandan courts
How depressing to pick up email from Compassion, whom I had contacted after Uganda passed its new Anti-Homosexuality act of 2014.  I really wanted to write to my sponsored child, Shallon, in Uganda, who is 19 years old and could understand such things, but Compassion said I could not discuss it with her and to write and encourage her to study instead.

How depressing to find the country of Brunei is set to roll out a new penal code including death by stoning as punishment for same-sex relations.

How depressing to read Jeb Bush is kind of quietly preparing a run for the White house.

That house in Santa Barbara is starting to look better and better today, as reality starts creeping back into my brain cells again.

1 comment:

joeh said...

They might as well pass a law against being left handed as make being Gay illegal.

I am Republican (on lots of issues anyway) and am in favor of equal pay for equal work. This is already the law. There are several laws that make discrimination in pay by gender or any other reason illegal, and the onus is on the employer to prove compliance. Unfortunately laws can not always force compliance and there are many social reasons why employers may get away with unequal pay that just putting a law on the books may not overcome. I'm not sure what this last law meant to accomplish since the laws are already on the books, I suspect it was an effort to say "Look, the Republicans are against equal pay for women."