Bits'n'Pieces

Mark Sanford just won't shut up, which is typical of politicians, they just talk and talk and don't realize what they're saying. And then they step in it.

After all his apologies and talk of excursions to exotic locales and soul mates and so on, people began to dig and they uncovered more, shall we say, dirt.

In 2008 Mark Sanford left the Governor’s Mansion without a security escort thirty-eight times; in the first six months of 2009, he left the mansion without security, 39 times. In eighteen months, of the roughly 200 trips Sanford took, nearly a third were without security; meaning he disappeared for unknown lengths of time.

____________________

A co-worker and I were discussing the Real Housewives of New Jersey; she was an instant fan, while I became, sad to say, intrigued after Teresa Of The Low Forehead tossed a table and several F-bombs at a family dinner.

One of the things we discussed was the idea that Teresa's husband is fond of saying, about things or people he doesn't like, "That's so gay." And how Teresa defended her no-neck hubby by saying it was just an expression.

Well, my co-worker said the same thing, and then had the nerve to ask me why it bothered me. i said, Well, they substitute gay for stupid, so they're equating being gay with being stupid and it's offensive.

She said, something to the effect that the gay community was too sensitive.

So, I shot her.

Okay, I didn't shoot her, but I did notice that at this particular time she was trying to do some simple arithmetic, jotting down numbers, scratching them out, trying again; not enough fingers to count on was my guess, but I digress.

She huffed and puffed and tossed the paper with the numbers down and said, This is ridiculous.

I said, I know, it's so thirty-two-year-old woman who can't subtract.

______________________________

Astronomer and gay man, Franklin Kameny received a letter of apology from John Berry, the highest-ranking gay official in the Obama administration, on behalf of the federal government who fired him from his post in 1957.

Yes, fifty-two years ago.

Kameny, who accepted the apology, was told in 1957 that he was "automatically a security risk” and a "disruptive personnel factor" because of his sexual orientation.

After being fired, Kameny went on to become one of the most significant figures in the gay rights movement. He founded the Mattachine Society of Washington, one of the earliest gay and lesbian campaigning societies and became the first openly gay candidate for Congress in 1971.

So, the firing didn't hold him down, it spurred him into action, but I'm wondering about this:

If you get an apology from someone who never wronged you, is it really an apology worth getting?

It's a little like my father apologizing to me today because my grandmother spanked me when I was five.

Does it really have meaning or is it just symbolic?