Earlier this month I was approached by a member of the local Explorer Troop who was participating in a popcorn fundraiser and who enticed me to participate as well. Answering the door in the late afternoon sun I opted for caramel corn, which was touted as top-of-the-line and which lightened my wallet by $20.00.

Earlier today the delivery was made. There was no armed guard to protect my purchase and insure safe delivery; there was no brown paper bag to disguise the purchase and safeguard against marauding bands of caramel corn snatchers; there was no squad car accompanying the delivery vehicle guarding against likely hijackers. What arrived was an 18 oz. bag of caramel corn and mixed nuts. (I am going with the labeling on the bag as I have yet to examine its contents.)

The nutrition data suggests that this bag contains 17 servings--not 18 single ounce servings, not 12 ounce and a half servings, not 6 three ounce servings, or even 10 $2.00 servings. How does not arrive at 17 servings in an 18 ounce bag? It doesn't even round off to a number that one might expect for calories per serving.

I guess this means that I will need to gather together 16 of my closest friends to join me in enjoying some caramel popcorn with mixed nuts. I suppose I will need to provide drinks plus a cheese and cracker tray so these friends don't leave hungrier than when they arrived and far less friendly.

Bottom line: $20.00 for Girl Scout cookies is beginning to look a lot better than a Black Friday doubly discounted price. Bring on the Samoas.

Here is an example of how our public discourse ought to transpire.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made a comment on Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem. I was disappointed when I read her initial comments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ruth-bader-ginsburg-colin-kaepernick_us_57fbb68de4b068ecb5e0613f

I was pleased to read the thoughtful response that Colin Kaepernick made in defense of his actions.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/10/11/colin-kaepernick-on-supreme-court-justices-criticism-disappointing/

Finally, Justice Ginsburg did a noble thing. I can only speculate that the tone and tenor of Colin Kaepernick's comments help prompt this rethink.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/10/14/ruth_bader_ginsburg_walks_back_criticism_of_colin_kaepernick.html

It is humanizing to know that a supreme court justice can fall afoul of the rule: "Make sure the brain is engaged, before opening mouth." It is reassuring to find evidence in our current public sphere that folks, even supreme court justices, are able to acknowledge that they spoke out of ignorance, with limited knowledge, or without forethought. Furthermore, the individual who was unduly criticized did not respond in kind, but took to heart the advice of the First Lady, that is, to "Go High."

Thank you, Ruth and Colin, for providing us with an excellent example.

Wisconsin is back in the national news when a federal judge recently issued an order with respect to the voter id legislation or photo id law. In lieu of issuing a decision that the law is unconstitutional, the courts, to date, have accepted repeated assurances from state authorities that they will promptly implement any number of fixes to which they have agreed under the risk of violation of a court order. The national news outlets have picked up on the latest failure of the state to implement the required remedies. It would appear that those in charge of implementing the required remedies and the remedies to which all parties agreed have decided that a delaying tactic is in their interests. As repeated noncompliance is brought to the attention of the courts and hearings scheduled, election day draws nearer and nearer. We are already in the period of early voting in some locales. Despite court rulings to the contrary, these delaying tactics will result in the very results sought by the framers of the voter id law. It will simply become too late for corrective action. A significant percentage of the voting public will be disenfranchised. It is estimated that 9% of Wisconsin voters do not have the required identification. Nine percentage translates to 300,000 voters. When one couples this tool for disenfranchisement with others: reduced voting hours/days, limited polling places, and gerrymandered electoral districts, the cumulative impact of these seemingly incremental measures may have a significant impact on the upcoming elections within the state. This impact was designed and implemented by those with the power to do so and with the intent of solidifying their position by reducing the ability of the voter to hold them accountable and subject them to review via the ballot box. The federal courts appear to be the only source of corrective action to eliminate this threat to representative democracy within the state of Wisconsin.

Some days it feels good to walk in the rain. In this regards, this summer has not been wanting. This morning was no exception. I left the house for my morning walk under overcast skies and little threat of rain, in my judgment at least. This meant that the rain jacket had been left hanging by the laundry tub where it was left to dry off following a recent rainy walk. I imagine I could revert back to those several months spent in San Antonio, Texas. The requirement those days was to go about one's day--irrespective of the appearance of the sky--with a poncho rolled up and secured to the back of the belt with a couple of blousing rubbers. (I will have to come up with an alternative to a blousing rubber, because only one has survived several moves over the past 45 years and counting.)

Those rainy mornings when I do leave the house with the rain jacket, it can often mean that it is discarded as an article of clothing sometime during the walk. Without the requisite blousing rubbers or alternatives, I am left to carry it civilian style in one free hand. (I am not inclined to wear it as a backwards apron with the sleeves knotted in front.)

With 6:00AM temperatures approaching 70 degrees, I am inclined to just leave the rain jacket at the house. It just feels good to walk in the rain--not threatening, threatening, or underway. Sooner or later my walk always ends up  at the house, so I can change into dry clothes. It would be much different, if I had to spend the next few hours soaked through while trying to accomplish something meaningful other that the remainder of my morning walk. This morning I was offered a ride by a neighbor returning home from his morning coffee and the loan of an umbrella by another neighbor, who was returning home by car from his morning walk with his dog. The latter offered the companionship of a wet dog as well. I declined all three.

If I have any regrets, it would be not accepting the companionship of Maggie, the Yellow Lab. I was faced with a conundrum. Rosie, the Black Lab, had met me at the corner of 9th and Manypenny as I headed out on my walk. I rejected her offer to join me. She was still in the immediate area when I returned and was met with the offer of Maggie's companionship. Rosie would have known, if I hooked up with a relatively new canine neighbor, and had once more rejected her offer.

I hadn't planned to transition into a discussion of wet dogs when I started this post. Maybe it isn't a transition at all. Dogs do appear to be downright comfortable in the rain. Maybe there is one more thing that I and dogs have in common and with Labs in particular. 

There has been an interesting development on the subject of gender theory or gender identity since my post of August 4th. An article appeared in Crux reporting on Pope Francis' recent meeting with Polish bishops during World Youth Day.  The article claims scientific support for Pope Francis' position on gender theory or gender identity and cites recent published statements by the American College of Pediatricians in evidence.

Here is a link to the article: https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2016/08/09/pediatricians-back-pope-francis-gender-theory/

At first flush this appears to be good science and good reporting. Upon a closer look, a very different assessment can be made. The American College of Pediatricians (ACP) is estimated to have between 60 and 200 members and according to one of its founding members adheres to "traditional Judeo-Christian values" (Wikipedia). The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) with a membership of 64,000 members (Wikipedia) has published several position papers on human sexuality and sexual development with significant differences with the ACP. Several of the AAP positions are nuanced with an eye towards the developmental nature of human knowledge and therefore do not include definitive, closed-to-further-discussion claims of authority. The AAP makes such statements as: gender identity is "likely both biological and social," "All children need the opportunity to explore different gender roles..." For the science to guide me in my work, I will go with the more inclusive body, whose findings are consistent with in the much larger medical and science communities.

It is estimated that 1 in 2,000 children are born with genitals that are not clearly male or female, i.e. identifiable as male or female (AAP's website). Let's extrapolate the numbers. With approximately 4,000,000 live births each year in the U.S., that means there are approximately 2,000 children born each year who may be described as intersex. With a life expectancy of almost 80 years, there are some 160,000 intersex persons within the U.S. population at any one time. Despite claims to the contrary, the binary chromosomal classification of XX and XY does not encompass the full universe of human persons. The continua of hormonal levels and other identifiable sexual characteristics within the male population and the female population and the overlap of these continua need to be addressed in theory and practice as well. Sexual orientation provides additional material to be accounted for in theory and practice. What is the final accounting of the percentage of the U.S. population which does not fit into the strict binary definition proposed by the ACP? I don't know. But it certainly is significant, in my judgment, both in terms of the sheer numbers of folks, as well as in the individual right to a fullness of life.

It seem as if there are those among us who wish to return to a previous time and place, where those individuals, who did not fit into a binary heterosexual view of human persons, were considered freaks of nature whether or not a more euphemistic term was employed. The effort to resist such a retreat or even to refuse to settle for the status quo is a fight worth waging.

In closing, I have a word of advice for Thomas D. Williams, the author of the Crux article: do your homework. The American College of Pediatricians has been identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Mr. Williams may not agree with this designation; it is of such significance, it merits comment when he presents the ACP as a source and resource. The failure to take five minutes to check one's sources might mean that someday an excommunicated Holocaust denying bishop could be welcomed back into the Church. Wait a minute! We have already been there.

For sometime now I have been trying to compose a posting on the subject of gender theory. It is time to try and to keep it brief.

There are those who hold to a strict binary view of human sexuality, that is, heterosexual males and heterosexual females. My personal and professional experience is that the binary view fails to take into account much of genuine human experience both on the individual level and within the context of a social cultural community. One may not agree with the behavioral choices made by another person, society or culture, but one cannot always dispute the sincerity of the other and the functionality of those choices often over millennia.

The charge of ideological colonization is made against those who offer a gender theory different from the strict binary view. Is it not also ideological colonization when one insists that his/her conceptualization of human nature and sexuality is contextually free, cultural universal, and permanently valid and that a single set of such concepts is the pinnacle of human perfection and intelligence? That insistence is then followed by employing or attempting to employ any number of authorities and mechanisms to insure that one interpretation of what it is to be human delegitimizes all others.

In my most recent post I spoke of anticipating Michael Perry's tribute to Gene Logsdon within the week. That estimate of the wait morphed into some two months, but the tribute has now appeared. 

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/columnists/michael-perry/michael-perry-remembering-the-contrary-farmer/article_50824b0a-195f-56a7-890c-e528d2c0a8c0.html

I may have grown tired of the wait and may have even lost faith in my judgment that such a tribute would appear. Patience, my man. I have not been disappointed. Michael's account of his relationship with Gene over the years has me asking if I missed opportunity along the way. Gene did respond to the one and only comment I posted to one of his blog entries a few years back--my fleeting touch with greatness.