Maxine Waters and The Red Hen

The Red Hen is a restaurant in Lexington, Virginia.  Like most of you, I had never heard of them before, until recently.  I have visited Virginia a few times, and once lived there while I was in high school.  There weren't any Red Hens where I lived and I'm not sure if it's a local chain.  Google search results are focussing on what happened there this past weekend and are not geared towards facilitating research to find out what they are really all about.

Anyway, they are in the news......and bigly, I might add.  President Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was told to get the hell out and to not come back by one of the owners....or the owner (I'm not clear on that fine detail).  So Sarah got up and left.  When someone doesn't want your business, then don't give it to them.

As can be expected, this is all over talk radio today.  In addition to this, we have discussion on Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi being bullied at a movie theater over the weekend, and we some very vocal activists calling for more of this behavior.  As I am sometimes wont to do, I will ask you to hold that thought, because I am not done with The Red Hen yet, and I haven't even gotten to that most lovable Maxine Waters.

Now what I'm about to say may surprise you.  As far as I know I'm going in a different direction than you might expect of me from someone who resides where I do in the political spectrum.  I might even be diverging from what talk radio is saying about this.

I think The Red Hen had every right to demand Sarah Sanders to leave.  I'm also glad that they did just that.......not because I think it was the right thing to do, which I don't.  I have my own reasons for this and I ask that they be given more consideration than The Red Hen gave to Sarah Sanders.

I think a business owner has the right to refuse service for any reason they so choose.  A business is a private enterprise.  If a business chooses to discriminate, it's their right to discriminate.  If they make a business decision that a certain part of their clientele is not welcome, then they should execute that decision.

If they do that, they had better not damn well complain about any repercussions encountered if they make that decision.  An upscale eating establishment isn't going to want a bunch of tattooed bikers in there (not that tattooed bikers would want to go there in the first place).  Some establishments don't want noisy children on their premises.  Many of them didn't want smokers in there (before the state involved itself into the matter of smoking in restaurants).

The Red Hen is already experiencing repercussions.  There's an online civil war going on about this on their Yelp page.  They have made their decision to discriminate against Trump administration officials.  And I want them to go further.

I want them to establish a policy of not serving Republicans.  I will even help pay for a sign reading "REPUBLICANS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE".  So if any of you Red Hen people end up reading this, please contact me, and advise me of how much this sign would cost.  I'll pay for half of it; you pay for the other half.  I don't think Republicans will want to eat there anyway, but I will help you let them know that you don't like them.

Now we will move on to Maxine Waters, the honorable member of Congress from southern California.  Maxine Waters has called upon her supporters to continue to harass Trump staffers.  That really is of no surprise.  A member of Congress, who on MLK day praises his nonviolence approach, is agitating her supporters into bullying.  That may, or may not, lead to violence.  I think the potential for violence is very much there.

There is one thing for her supporters, and for the modern day Brownshirts, to consider.  Their targets are those who support the Second Amendment.  They may have concealed weapon permits.  They may be carrying.  Will she call on her supporters to martyr themselves, so that more federal gun control can be enacted?  Or will it be one of her supporters to fire the first shot?  Is it a matter of if some violence of the gun type happening, or a matter of when?

That said, I have one more thought on Maxine Waters to pass along.

I want the Democrats to appoint Maxine Waters as their spokesperson.  I want the major networks to give Maxine Waters thirty minutes of airtime on the eve of the midterm election.  I do not want the major networks to allow equal time for a Republican response.  Let Maxine Waters address the nation on the eve of the election.  She can ask us if we're better off than we were two years ago, or she can lecture us about how the Trump tax cuts are hurting us.  Hell, she can even say that Trump should have left things with North Korea well alone, and criticize the efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.  I don't care.  Just get her on the air, and let her speak for thirty minutes.

Did I say thirty minutes?

Maybe I meant sixty.

Either way, I don't care.  As long as she spends most of the time calling Trump and his supporters a bunch of Nazi thugs, especially while his supporters are bullied at restaurants and movie theaters.

The Guy Who Danced in Church

Sheila and I were up in Portland, returning late two evenings ago.  The trip, aside from the air travel, went well.  Our early morning flight out of Tucson was delayed, but there was enough buffer in the layover that meant we weren't going to miss our connection in San Jose.  However, the flight from San Jose to PDX was also late, and Alaska Airlines for some reason had us exit at some slipshod gate where we had to walk a quarter mile or more to get into the terminal, and then another quarter mile to get our checked bag.  Budget Rental Car didn't get on our good side either but that was likely not of their own doing as that Portland was having their Rose Parade later on in the week, and demand was high.

There is more that I would like to write about, as far as Portland and Oregon goes.  Before getting into the topic at hand, I want to mention that this was Sheila's first time getting to meet Ken and Gillian, who hosted us after we were done spending time in the Columbia River Gorge.

While I was in Portland, I was reminded of something I saw on TV several years ago.  It was some years back; long before I had to suffer exile in Trashcan (excuse me, Las Vegas).  I'd guess that this was something that I saw one Sunday afternoon in 2012.  I was channel surfing, dwelling into territory that I rarely visit.  I was looking at what the religious channels were running, wondering what kind of crooks would be asking for money so that the Lord would in turn make me into a millionaire.

I stopped when I landed on the start of a church service from one of the charismatic churches.  I can't recall the name of the church or the name of the small town in Georgia that the church was based in.  The congregation was all black, and a rather fiery lady preacher who was the surviving spouse of the previous senior pastor was leading the worship.

It was, shall we say, Pentecostal in nature.  Now I don't personally believe in the present-day speaking in tongues, I don't believe in getting carried away and overcome with outward emotion in a service, I like order and a reserved audience.  That is just me and the personality type that I suffer from, and my statement of preference here should be taken as just that and not as a statement that my way is the better way.  To each their own.

As I'm watching this, and as the camera panned over the audience, they really got going.  This one black gentleman who had to be around 75 years of age or so got up and started dancing!  I found that fascinating.....I mean, he was really moved, and he got up and danced!  No, he wasn't trying to pull one over on Michael Jackson.  He was overcome with joy and felt no self-constraint in letting those around him know about it.  And I'm thinking, more power to you!   It was his way of thanking the Good Lord for his blessing, and I think that in the eyes of the Lord that his form of worship is just as much accepted as mine is.

I had occasion to think about this while I was on my trip.  I won't pass along any detail of what reminded me.  Maybe I saw someone dance on a street corner.  Maybe it was in that movie that we watched with Ken and Gillian.  Maybe I woke up from a dream.

As I was reminded of that black gentleman, I also thought of what some other people might have thought of that guy getting up to dance.  There might a lot of people out there that would make fun of him.  There might be some others who would criticize that form of worship; thinking that dancing is "improper" for one reason or other.  There might even be a lot of people out there who think that the dancing septuagenarian is a fool.

There's one thing in common that these detractors would all likely possess:  not one of them will be explain why they are a better person than the guy who danced in church.