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The Bad and The Good ... Monday May 23, 2022

These really are the easiest posts to compile because there are dumb people everywhere and it seems they are all trying to out-dumb one another with fear and loathing, but there are some bright spots … so here goes:

BAD

MICHIGAN

Republican Jacky Eubanks, Thing 45’s pick for a state Senate seat. is promising to ban all birth control if elected:

“I guess we have to ask ourselves, would that ever come to a vote in the Michigan state legislature? And if it should, I would have to side with it should not be legal. People believe that birth control—it’s better because then you won’t get pregnant and you won’t need to have an abortion, but I think it gives people the false sense of security that they can have consequence-free sex, and that’s not true and that’s not correct. Sex ought to be between one man and one woman in the confines of marriage.”

Welcome to the 1950s and, please, one reporter, just one, please ask Jacky if she’s ever had sex outside marriage.

WASHINGTON DC

Catherine Glenn Foster, president of the Americans United for Life campaign group, was summoned by the GOP  as an expert witness during a House judiciary committee meeting on access to abortion and said this:

“In places like Washington D.C. [fetuses] are burned to power the lights of the city’s homes and streets. The next time you turn on the light, think of the incinerators.”

She was not questioned about where she gets her facts by any one ion the GOP because … ignorance and fear are the talking points.

VIRGINIA 

GOP Delegate Tim Anderson is threatening to file a restraining order against Barnes and Noble and Virginia Beach Schools to enjoin them from selling or loaning the books Gender Queer and a Court of Mist and Fury because he says they are obscene though neither book fits that definition, and neither book is pornography.

Barnes & Noble has yet to respond to the legal action but, as a private business, they are allowed to sell what they wish to sell and are under no obligation by anyone to move materials out of their facilities.

Still, to the GOP, Gay is Bad.

OKLAHOMA

The state Legislature gave final approval to a bill that prohibits nearly all abortions starting at fertilization, which would make it the nation’s strictest abortion law.

The bill is modeled on one that took effect in Texas, which has relied on civilian instead of criminal enforcement to work around court challenges, but it goes further than the Texas law because it also subjects abortion providers and anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion to civil suits from private individuals.

The GOP will force women to have babies, but not give a damn about the child once its born.

KENTUCKY

The state’s GOP Representative Thomas Massie cast the only vote against a House resolution honoring Jewish Americans’ heritage and denouncing a rise in violence motivated by antisemitism. The resolution passed the House with 420 votes with Massie’s ‘No’ and either Republicans abstaining from voting.

He voted No to simply denounce a rise in Hate Crimes, and ‘No’ against honoring Jewish American’s heritage.

Let that sink in.

NEW JERSEY

GOP State Senator Edward Durr has introduced legislation that would prohibit teachers from bringing LGBTQ-related instruction into classrooms from kindergarten through sixth grade, while students in seventh through 12th grade can “only” be exposed to LGBTQ topics if a parent gives consent.

If the bill is passed, parents would be allowed to sue schools that employ educators who violate the law by incorporating topics such sexual orientation or gender identity into the curriculum without a parent’s consent.

They will freely teach Hate, though.

GOOD

MAINE

When no adults would revive the community Pride parade in Belfast, Maine, a group of motivated Belfast Area High School students stepped up to make sure that the event—which has been on a pandemic hiatus—happens this year.

The city’s first-ever Pride parade and festival took place in 2016, and became an annual tradition, but no adult organizers had come forward this year to keep the tradition going after being canceled for the last two years due to COVID.

So, twenty high school students secured a permit from the city of Belfast, found sponsors, raised money for banners, flags and other expenses and grappled with the procuring of liability insurance.

That’s the future, y’all.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

GOP Governor Chris Sununu announced he would veto a piece of legislation, the “Parental Bill of Rights,” that critics say could require New Hampshire schools to out LGBTQ+ children to their parents.

A Republican with common sense? Who knew?

AMERICA

About two-thirds of Americans say they do not support overturning Roe v. Wade, and also shows that two-thirds of Democrats say the contents of the SCOTUS leak make them more likely to vote in November, as compared to just 40% of Republicans who said so.

This survey showed that voters would cast their ballot in favor of a Democrat in their local congressional district if the election were held today.

Vote Blue!

WYOMING

GOP Senator Cynthia Lummis, a Republican representing Wyoming in the U.S. Senate, speaking at commencements of several schools, including the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Education, and said that “the existence of two sexes, male and female” was a “fundamental scientific truth.”

She was roundly booed by the students, the educated students.

That is also the future, y’all.

Remember, We The People have to make the Good News happen by speaking up and standing up and shouting out and voting to remove those people from office who are out to harm women, People of Color, and the LGBTQ+ community in their quest to take this country backwards.

CAST A GODDAMNED VOTE!

The GOP Is Desperate For A Win So ... Cheat

Isn’t it funny how the GOP keeps talking about how they are not trying to make voting harder for people, and then they come right out and doe exactly that?

For months, the GOP, under the leadership of the traitorous racist rapist, Thing 45, has been putting new restrictions in place making it harder for people of color to vote, and now they are trying to make it harder for another color to cast a ballot: the Blues.

Thing 45 has endorsed a legislative effort to end crossover voting in Wyoming. The bill would end same-day party affiliation change in Wyoming to prevent Democrats from voting in Republican primaries because the GOP fears that Democrats will turn out en masse to vote for Liz Cheney.

Yes. If successful, the bill would become effective almost immediately, in time for the 2022 primary and general elections, when Liz Cheney is up for reelection against the Thing 45-endorsed candidate Harriet Hageman.

The GOP meddling in elections is how they try to win, not by running a fair campaign and letting the people of Wyoming choose. But I guess their anti-choice stance goes for the ballot box, too.

Casper Star Tribune

Architecture Wednesday: Moosebluff House

I’ll keep it simple …

I like the name.

I like, er, love, the views.

I love the modernity mixed with the rustic woods and the industrial steel.

I love that bathtub view.

I love all the fireplaces, inside and out.

I live for that kitchen.

That’s all.

OneKindDesign

Architecture Wednesday: Queens Lane

It’s cold here in Smallville and we’re nearing those wintry holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I need snow … and wine … and this place, with the perfect name, Queens Lane—fir for a queen—fills the bill.

Located along the Snake River just north of Jackson, Wyoming, this massive home, and outbuildings, is surrounded by mature cottonwoods, a pond, and several streams. The architects were inspired by the early twentieth century National Parks lodge architecture so large timbers, logs and stones make up the exterior.

In addition to the main house, there are two outbuildings—a shop/office and a wine silo … more on that later—that have a more traditional western log structure.

I love the rustic lodge feel of the home, and the I-don’t-know-how-many fireplaces throughout; and the views to the snowy meadows beyond … and the quiet of snowfall. My one quibble is with the guest room and the animal head on the wall; luckily I won’t be sleeping there.

In fact, I’ll probably be passed out in the wine cellar silo. That’s right, silo.

Since the compound lies in the Snake River flood plain, a standard wine cellar would not do, and so the idea of a silo, filled not with grain, but The Grape, was used. The interior of the silo is inspired by a wine cask, with reclaimed fir woodwork and a spiral staircase that accesses hundreds … hundreds … of bottles of wine bottles. You climb the stairs and make your selection and then keep climbing to the third floor where you sit and sip and admire the view.

And perhaps, as I said, fall asleep, because after that much wine I ain’t walking down a three-story spiral staircase!

One Kind Design

Architecture Wednesday: Riverbend

After last week’s more rustic, pieced together over time, home in a Brazilian paradise, perhaps we need a more modern, more urban, more purposefully constructed home in a more snowy park of the world.

Riverbend, a 6,250 square foot dwelling nestled on 20-acres on the banks of the Snake River in Jackson, Wyoming, looks like a home in any city setting; loft-like and modern, and gorgeous, inside and out.

But the property had its issues; a berm, created by the Army Corps of Engineers-built blocked views of the river, while a cottonwood grove obscured the vistas of the Grand Teton mountain range. To resolve these issues, the architects ultimately elevated the home five feet above the ground to take in the surroundings.

The house and guest house were set perpendicular to each other, the house running east/west, the guesthouse running north/south, connected by wood decking, which creates a shared outdoor space that capitalizes on warm southern light. From that outdoor living space, one looks through the living room of the main house toward the Tetons beyond. This transparency renders the structure less imposing and further connects the home to its site.

On both sides of the home ten-foot overhangs run the length of the building, carving out outdoor living spaces lined with cedar which contrasts against the metal skin of the building; the steel exterior is designed to weather, slowly rusting to a patina as the home further integrates with its site.

Inside are clean plaster walls and cedar ceilings, floors of concrete that contain bits of green glass for added texture. The double height kitchen—dining-living area has floor-to-ceiling windows, while the fireplace stack grounds the room.

It gives me urban living with gorgeous wild views of river and mountain; it gives me winter and spring, where I can live inside or out. It gives me nearly everything I love about a home; beauty inside and outside, man-made and natural.

Even that wacky mirrored powder room I love ... though maybe not on Margarita Tuesday.

One Kind Design