To Kill A Hunting Dog

You have probably heard or read about South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem shooting her 14-month-old dog Cricket.  Such a crazy thing to do but I have to say, I'm not as upset as most people are. 

I am no fan of Ms. Noem. I find her sycophant tendencies towards Donald Trump repulsive.  Any woman who goes against her own moral compass just to appease him, has no place in our federal government.  I am assuming she has some kind of moral compass. Maybe not. 

Anyway, her retelling of the story of Cricket's demise is sad but I do think people are jumping the gun (no pun intended) here. Unless they were a witness to this act, there is no way anyone can understand what she had gone through with this dog.  She says she had tried to train it, that others had tried too but the dog was just nuts. He attacked chickens; he bit at her. She feared for her family.  I don’t condone killing animals unless they are attacking people. We don’t know…perhaps Cricket was displaying signs of some kind of psychosis. Who knows? I don’t think putting it in the book was the best idea; surely, she knew it would draw attention…but then again…maybe that’s the point. 

It's too bad she chose to do this.  I would hope she had  thought through the decision, really tried other avenues before settling on the decision she made.  She will forever be "That Governor who shot her dog." When pressed about it, she could have come clean...said she was at her wits end and felt there truly was no other way; that in retrospect the time that has passed since this incident 20 years ago, she may have thought better of it now; that it was a decision she would never want to put on another and she would probably had handled it better now and try as she might, there is No Going Back Now.

Homosexuals and the Religious

I know people, religious people, who believe being gay is a mental disorder.  My cousin, Matt, believes this because it used to be categorized in the DSM as such. It was removed in 2013. He will only refer to the DSM prior to 2013. Matt will use that oh so creative saying, "in the Bible it's Adam and Eve," not "Adam and Steve." Matt believes that if you feel an attraction to the same sex, what you're feeling isn't real. Your brain is confused and it needs to be reprogrammed and all will be well.

 Matt is very religious.  He believes in God...you know, the main one. The God in the Bible along with Jesus who was conceived in some magical way where a teenager got impregnated by his God in some fairy-tale way. Matt cannot see this God, or smell him, or hear him.  He just knows God is there watching over him.

As fate would have it, Matt’s son, Ian, is gay.  Pristine, no-hair-out-of-place, walk-with-his-hands-bent-at-the-wrist-in-right-angles gay. Matt says he loves the sinner but hates the sin. Yeah, and when Matt is gone, Ian won’t be in therapy the rest of his life with daddy issues. But that’s another story.  Ian knows in his entire being that he is gay.  He feels it in his core but Matt doesn’t see the irony that his religion brings. Matt can believe in some magically being but Ian can't know who he could love. Yeah, right.