Random Musings

Up in Vermont, Bo Muller-Moore picked a fight with anti-gay fast-food chain Chick-fil-A over the use of the phrase "eat more kale" … similar to their trademarked "eat mor chikin" … and this week he won his legal battle after the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted his application to trademark his phrase.

"I've called Chick-fil-A's bluff on their cease-and-desist demands. I am not ceasing and desisting. I am thriving, thanks to people like you and thanks to Vermont and people from beyond." — Bo Muller-Moore

Muller-Moore started using the phrase in 2001 after a farmer who grows kale — known for its nutritional value — asked him to make three T-shirts for his family; the phrase caught on and, with the approval of the farmer, Muller-Moore began marketing it.

In 2011, Muller-Moore sought to trademark the phrase and shortly thereafter Chick-fil-A sent him a cease-and-desist letter telling him to stop using the phrase because the company felt it could be confused with "eat mor chikin."

But Muller-Moore refused, and used social media — and even this blog HERE — to win the support of state officials, including the Governor and pro-bono lawyers who handled his case. Governor Shumlin called Muller-Moore a shining example of Vermont's independence and entrepreneurial spirit.

Now, Chick-fil-A is kinda eating Crow, while Muller-Moore is having a special drink …

"Chick-fil-A did me a bit of a favor: They handed me lemons, and I made lemonade.” — Bo Muller-Moore

Snap.

When Carlos comes home from work, he often stirs our little Pocket Dog, Ozzo, into a frenzy, with the dog tearing through the house like Lindsay Lohan looking to score.

But the other day, as Carlos was revving him up and up and up, I suddenly heard a thump and Carlos say, “Ozzo! Are you okay? Ozzo?”

The.Dog.Had.Run.Into.The.Wall.

Proud Papa I am.

I know there’s an ALLEGED threat of terrorism, but, well, this still makes me smile.

In light of the decision by the majority of movie houses to pull the new James Franco/Seth Rogan film, The Interview, from their theaters before it even opened, Sony Pictures have scrapped the release of the film … for now, and released a statement which says, in part:

“Sony Pictures has been the victim of an unprecedented criminal assault against our employees, our customers, and our business. Those who attacked us stole our intellectual property, private emails, and sensitive and proprietary material, and sought to destroy our spirit and our morale – all apparently to thwart the release of a movie they did not like.”

Yeah, it’s ridiculous, but let me pose this question: how would we feel if some film company in North Korea — or anywhere for that matter — released a film about two North Koreans coming to the US to assassinate our president? Sure, maybe we wouldn’t hack anyone’s emails, but the movie is offensive and ridiculous and stupid.

Plus, Franco’s in it and the less I see or hear of him, the better.

Other things making me smile this week?

Glad you asked. Out there to Alexandria, Indiana, the First United Methodist Church will close its doors at the end of this year. So, why am I smiling?

Glad you asked. This is the same church that earlier this year fired their musical director, Adam Fray, because he’s a homosexual. Then Dr. David Steele was fired from his leadership position in the church for asking that Fray be rehired. Those two things caused a mass walkout by many in the congregation, which caused the church to lose members and money and have to shut it down.

That’s why I’m smiling. Another example of the so-called Good Christians lashing out against someone for being gay and The Gays get the last laugh.

Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, Two Hounds of Hell from the W Regime, have come out and said that, even in light of the recent CIA torture report, they still support the use of, ahem, “enhanced interrogation methods.”

Good, let’s arrest them both for War crimes and use those same methods on them.

I’ve still been perusing Bravo’s new “scripted” show, The Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce, though it isn’t for the girlfriend’s or the divorce. I do like Janeane Garofalo as a bitter divorcee, but it’s the man candy that peaks my, er, interest.

Like Charles Mesure, who plays on of the ex-husbands and has a body and Australian accent to die for.

Then there’ Paul Adelstein, not classically handsome but there’s something about him that also, well, you know.

Just sayin’.

Barbara Walters aired her "Barbara Walters Presents: The 10 Most Fascinating People of 2014” last week and the most fascinating person of the year? Amal Alamuddin Clooney. Oh, she isn’t fascinating because she’s a high-powered attorney, not at all. Babs — who apparently thinks this was the Most Fascinating List for 1944, said it like this:

"This is Amal Alamuddin, George Clooney's beautiful bride. You could say hers was the wedding of the year. It was really one of the greatest achievements in human history."

The.Greatest.Achievement.In.Human.History? Way to set back the women’s movement a hundred years or more Babs, because no one but you thinks marrying a confirmed bachelor actor is the greatest human achievement in history.

Shouldn’t you be relaxing in a  crypt somewhere?

Camille Cosby has finally broken her silence over the twenty or so — of which we know — women who allege that they were sexually abused and drugged by her husband Bill Cosby, and she went all Tammy “Stand By Your Man” Wynette on the media. She says that the situation is similar to the Rolling Stone report of rapes at UVA that has since been called into question because the woman, the lone woman, at the center of that story may have lied.

Um, Camille, because one woman in Virginia may have lied to Rolling Stone about being raped, that doesn’t compare at all to the dozens and dozens of women who’ve come forward telling the same story about your husband.

You need to sit down and have a good think, and then … stay seated.

When Carlos cooks I inevitably walk into the kitchen and will say, “What stinks?”

And he’ll say,. “The crap I’m serving for dinner.”

Well, being the Christmas season, and being that Carlos loves cranberries and marmalade, he was in the kitchen the other day making some, you guessed it, Cranberry Marmalade. Only, we didn’t have any oranges to give it that citrus boost so he was going to add apples.

“Cranberries and Apples,” I said.”Sounds like Crapple.”

See what I did there? Cranberries? Apples? He cooks crap?

Yeah, he already made me stop.

Jeb Bush has kina come out to say he’s going to run for president so he can also ruin, and that isn’t a typo like I meant to say run, I meant, ruin this country like his dim-bulb, lying war criminal brother, and his one-term, read my lips  no new taxes daddy.

He said, on Facebook, because he’s a teenage girl:

"I am excited to announce I will actively explore the possibility of running for President of the United States."

He’s announcing that he’s really really really gonna think about it.

Siddown Jeb. Just Siddown.

More Carlos?

Okay … earlier this week my father sent us a little gift from a garden center: Bird Seed Pears. They looks like pears, but are made of birdseed and you hang them about your yard to feed your visiting feathered friends.

Well, Carlos was leaving for work one day and he asked if I minded if he gave one to Nina, the receptionist at work. I didn’t, but then I wondered something … Carlos and Nina chat all the time; they take lunches together; they share recipes and give one another gifts — she recently gave him us a bird feeder.

Now I realize what’s happening ... Nina is Carlos “Work Wife.”

And as soon as I told him that I knew, well let’s just say he looked like he wanted to run into a wall like Ozzo.

The Song-In-My-Head this week is, at last, a long time favorite: Shawn Colvin, "Killing The Blues."

The Funny Papers

Random Musings

So, Karl Rove, puppet-master to George W. Bush eight year reign of terror and lies has now stepped forward with this bizarre thought on Hillary Clinton, where he seems to suggest that she’s suffered brain damage:

“Thirty days in the hospital? And when she reappears, she's wearing glasses that are only for people who have traumatic brain injury? We need to know what's up with that.”

Then, naturally, after the lie is out there for other wingnuts to run with, Rove backtracks, saying:

“No, no. I didn't say she had brain damage, she had a serious health episode and my point was that I think it was from the 7th of December in 2012 through the 7th of January of 2013, she underwent, first she had apparently a serious virus.”

Well, true, he didn’t say the words brain damage he simply asked why she was wearing glasses that are for victims of brain trauma.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, shut the eff up.

Seriously, you spent eight years working for  man who had no brain at all and you’re gonna question Hillary? That GOP is sounding more and more desperate at the thought of President Hillary Clinton.

Good news — again — on the marriage equality front.

Out in Oregon US District Court Judge Michael McShane denied the National Organization for Marriage motion to serve as intervenor to defend Oregon’s ban on same-sex marriage.

It’s time NOM just took a seat and realized that they are over.

In Idaho, though, on the heels of a judge’s ruling that the state’s ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, because it is, Governor Butch Otter is seeking to appeal the decision by Chief US Magistrate Judge Candy Dale to deny his request that she stay her decision striking the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.

And then …

The Arkansas Supreme Court has denied a petition from that state’s attorney general for an emergency stay of a county circuit judge’s ruling that two state laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.

C’mon, folks, just give up, it’s gonna happen and why not be on the front of the battle than bringing up the rear?

I like this story.

While appearing on Good Morning America this week to promote the season finale wedding between Cam and Mitch on Modern Family, stars Eric Stonestreet and Jesse Tyler Ferguson announced that last Monday the Modern Family would cover the cost of all marriage licenses and wedding ceremonies taking place that day at the New York City Clerk's office.

Publicity stunt, yes, but a cool one.

So, Michael Sam was picked to play for the St Louis Rams and, upon hearing the news, he kissed his boyfriend.

And all hell broke loose.

I get it, I guess. I mean, we’ve seen gay characters kiss on TV but rarely do we see real gay folks, and not ever a gay athlete, kiss his, or her, partner on live TV.

But, still, get over it. It was a kiss in celebration of good news, not the sign of the End Times.

And speaking of Michael Sam, apparently his new Rams jersey is fast becoming one of the top sellers of all time. I guess when you make history, everyone wants to be a part of it.

In South Dakota there lives one of the most offensive homophobes — and possibly closeted gay men — on the planet, in the form of GOP House Representative Steve Hickey.

He seems intent on speaking about, ahem, The Gay Butt Sex, comparing it to garbage trucks, or something, and then he went into more detail when he gave an interview to a local paper and once again talked about The Gays Butt Sex:

“I hesitate to get crude again, but Dr. Weiland, is it OK for, you know, eight of your friends that you're in love with to take a dump in your bed and then you can sleep in it all year long?”

Um, Steve, honey, I know you might be new to The Gay Butt Sex, but if, to you, it means sleeping in human excrement, you’re doing it wrong.

Just sayin.

Last weekend we watched Saving Mr. Banks via On Demand on the DVR.

Tom Hanks was passable as Walt Disney, while Emma Thompson was her usual brilliant self as Mary Poppins author Mrs. P.L.  Travers.

But, in flashbacks, we got to see Colin Farrell as P.L’s father and all I can say, and could say, so often to Carlos that he finally stopped the movie to ask me to be quiet was:

Isn’t he dreamy?

Cuz he is.

We also watched the premiere episode of Showtime’s new Penny Dreadful Victorian-era set fright-fest.

I could do without Josh Hartnett who always looks like he needs a bath but then you have Harry Treadaway as Victor Frankenstein, Reeve Carney as Dorian Gray and the delicious Eva Green as the is-she-evil-or-is-she-not Vanessa Ives.

The first episode started off slowly, but built nicely toward the end, when the monster awoke, but I’m willing to invest because it’s populated by fabulous women, hot looking men, and a fairly cool story.

In good news, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel now says he’s open to reviewing the military’s ban on transgender service members, though he cautioned that trans issues are logistically “a bit more complicated” than issues surrounding openly gay and lesbian service members:

“[Trans] issues require medical attention. Austere locations where we put our men and women, in many cases, don’t always provide that kind of opportunity…again, I go back to the bottom line – every qualified American who wants to serve our country should have an opportunity if they fit the qualifications and can do it. This is an area that we’ve not defined enough.”

And every trans person who wants to serve should be allowed to do so openly and honestly.

Down here in South Carolina, where, for once it’s not the stupidity, the state Senate approved a state budget that restores the $70,000 cut from the funding for two public universities over their use of LGBT-themed books.

On the stupidity side, though, the senate stipulated that the restored funds be used to teach the constitution and other founding documents.

Oy. I guess it’s still stupidity down here.

And, speaking of stupid, Alec Baldwin was arrested in New York City this week for riding his bike the wrong way down 5th Avenue.

He was stopped by officers for riding the wrong way and when they asked for ID, Baldwin got all belligerent — go figure — because he had no ID and don’t they know who he is?

Then he Tweeted about being arrested for breaking the law while complaining that the police didn’t arrest a photographer who ALLEGEDLY almost hit his daughter with a camera.

Note to Baldwin: riding a bike the wrong way down a street is a crime, while almost, ALMOST, hitting someone with a camera is not.

Grow up. Shut up. Go away.

Also, Donald Sterling. Stop.Talking. You only make yourself sound worse — and I never thought that possible — every time you open your yap.

And tell your wife to stop talking, too. She’s only speaking out about any of this because she wants her 50% of all your racist cash.

And tell V. that once you left the money on the nightstand, as payment for services rendered, she should stop speaking and go back to her street-corner until the next rich asshatted racist comes by.