Hamsterdam

 When Baltimore police in "The Wire" try to explain the concept of a geographic area where drug sales and use are tolerated, one of them tells an uncomprehending corner boy, "It's like Amsterdam: Everything's allowed there."

Central Park, NYC

The locals, of course, hear this as "Hamster-dam," and that becomes the name for this experimental enclave where the police have herded all the drug dealers, users, freeing the rest of the city from the blight of the drug culture. 

Later, the author of this radical experiment, Major Howard Colvin, a Black police officer who is sick of the hypocrisy, ongoing impotence of the city's policy of "drug war" gives the future mayor a tour of Hamsterdam and he says, "It ain't pretty."  In fact, as the camera follows the future mayor along the streets of Hamsterdam, it looks like something out of Dante's inferno, with parentless children wandering lost among fighting adolescents and adults, druggies staggering, falling down stair stoops, crashing onto the pavement below and bodies lying, ignored on the streets.

Allowing anarchy to devolve into chaos ain't pretty. Civilization, for all its restraints and oppression, may have something to offer, after all.

Mad Dog is currently wandering, like Mayor Carcetti, through the dazzling streets of the actual Amsterdam, its rows of pristine townhouses and shops and it's impossibly tall people.  It looks like the polar opposite of Hamsterdam. 

So far, the major danger is the bicyclists.  "You need to put your head on a swivel," his brother in-law had warned him, and within seconds of setting foot on the street, Mad Dog understood the sagacity of this advice. On the brick sidewalks, along the defined bicycle paths which line the streets where cars and street cars stream by, bicyclists shoot by the pedestrian, like comets,  from every direction. Silent, swift and lethal, the Dutch bicyclist is an ever present death threat. 

And Mad Dog loves bicycles and owns five. 

These Dutch bikes are very civilized, even if their drivers are a menace. They all have fenders which prevent mud splatter and bikers can dress in office attire and arrive for work without a splash on their clothes.

Above, an August Macke painting, A German artist inspired by VanGogh.

At least in Amsterdam, the Dutch look like a fit lot, especially compared to the rotund New Englanders Mad Dog lives among, who drive their cars to go a single block to Dunkin Donuts for coffee. In Amsterdam, as in New Amsterdam, the Dutch walk everywhere they do not bike.

Dutch, heard along the street, has the same cadence as--and many cognates with-- English, so you find yourself trying to eaves drop on conversations only to realize they are not conversations in English. 

Parks weave in and out of the city streets, but mostly what makes Amsterdam different is the concentric circles of canals. You walk a few blocks and you find yourself crossing a canal on a bridge overpass and trying to figure out how many circles from the hotel you have traversed. 

If there are multiple circles of Hell, that idea did not likely derive from Amsterdam, as the place is not Hellish at all, unlike Hamsterdam. 

It may not be Heaven, but it is certainly one of the best cities in the world, at least on short acquaintance.

As in any free society, there are different opinions, and the Dutch version of Trumplings are evident--they even look like Trumplings, with slogan embroidered baseball hats and a bloated, beaten look. Geer Wilders is a sort of messianic Dutchman would be cult leader, a blonde Hitler wannabe, who rails against Muslims rather than Jews, but still sells the same load of the "other" who wold defile and destroy the real Dutch with an alien stain. The Dutch, like the Scandinavians have a part of the body politic which has reacted to the influx of dark skin immigrants with horror and revulsion. It's a changing world and they want to circle the wagons and defend their white, insular world against the dark other.

Today's plan is to visit the Van Gogh museum, which is placed among several other museums, but is the most difficult to gain admission to. Van Gogh was a revolutionary in his time, eccentric and misunderstood and underappreciated, having sold almost no paintings in his life time. 

But he speaks across the ages to us today and Mad Dog can hardly wait to commune with him.

Out Knocking on Doors

 

Mad Dog has long questioned the value of knocking on the doors of voters in his town. Most people fall into one of two categories: 1/ The already convinced, the church choir who need no reminding or encouragement and will vote Democratic no matter whether we knock on their doors or not.  2/ The "undeclared" voter who really does not like having to deal with people on his/her doorstep trying to "sell" him/her a pitch about who to vote for. These people feel violated, intruded upon and get more and more hostile the more you ring their doorbells.

Now, it should be noted exactly how a voter's name gets on the list of nice names to be knocked upon: The computer has identified them as having voted in a Democratic primary, meaning they are either true Blue Democrats or they declared themselves Democratic for purposes of voting in one primary and then, most often, changed back to "undeclared."

It is among the members of this group we often hear, "I'm still doing my research" when we ask the question our Party insists we ask: "Are you planning on supporting Maggie Hassan."

The fact we have to ask this question at all is a problem, as far as Mad Dog is concerned. It transforms this friendly, "I'm just your neighbor urging you to vote on November 8" into a poll, which is asked for the tracking purposes of the Party.  The soft sell of, "Gee, I wouldn't tell you what to think or how to vote, but do vote," into a "So, can I count on you?" This is supposed to be followed by the question, "Will you sign this 'Commit to Vote' card which presents the homeowner with a card which might sign away the mortgage and now the canvasser on the door step looks like a salesman, con artist.

How the Democratic Party organization came up with these procedures is beyond Mad Dog, but it makes him question his faith in the Democratic Party higher ups.  If anyone can pull off these depradations and make it seem friendly and innocent, it is his partner in canvassing, Olivia Ostrich, but Mad Dog suspect 90% of those who try to get away with this only alienate voters.

What Mad Dog would like to say when a citizen says she is still doing her research on Karoline Leavitt who she might prefer to Chris Papas is to simply read her these Professor Google statements:

Here is the person you would be voting for rather than Papas:

KAROLINE LEAVITT

WHAT SHE STANDS FOR

1.   “PRIVATIZING” SOCIAL SECURITY

2.   STOPPING ALL FEDERAL SPENDING OUTSIDE OF DEFENSE AND HOMELAND SECURITY (CANCELING MEDICARE, SOCIAL SECURITY)

3.   REPEAL THE AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

4.   REPEAL OF GUN FREE ZONES AT SCHOOLS

5.   OPPOSES ANY RESTRICTIONS ON ANY FIREARMS

6.   AGAINST INFRASTRUCTURE FOR ROADS AND BRIDGES AND AIRPORTS

7.   INSISTS DONALD TRUMP WON THE 2020 ELECTION

8.   RESTRICTING RIGHT TO VOTE, DENYING VOTE TO COLLEGE STUDENTS

9.   “CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX MANUFACTURED BY THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY”

10.                     ABOLISH THE IRS

11.                     ABOLISHING EVERY FEDERAL AGENCY WITH 3 LETTERS (IRS, EPA, FAA,DOD,DHS, DOJ, DOE,FBI)

12.                     BLACK LIVES MATTER IS A “MAXIST TERRORIST GROUP”

13.                     WISHES NH HAD A DON’T SAY GAY LAW

14.                     DEFENDS JAN 6 AS A “PEACEFUL PROTEST”

And for those contemplating not voting for Maggie Hassan:

DON BOLDUC

1.    ABORTION:

         NO EXCEPTION FOR RAPE OR INCEST

 

2.    TROOPS TO URKAINE:

“WE NEED AMERICAN BOOTS ON THE GROUND OVER THERE.”

3.    2020 ELECTION WAS STOLEN

“SO, I SIGNED A LETTER …SAYING THAT TRUMP WON THE ELECTION AND, DAMMIT, I STAND BY MY HORSE. I’M NOT SWITCHING HORSES, BABY. THAT’S IT.”

4.    CALLED CHRIS SUNUNU “A CHINESE COMMUNIST SYMPATHIZER”

5.    ANTI VAXXER

“THIS IS BILL GATES SAYING WE SHOULD PUT CHIPS INSIDE PEOPLE NOW.” (5/22)

6.    MASKS CAUSE MORE PROBLEMS THAN THEY SOLVE

“I BELIEVE THEY COLLECT BACTERIA. WE’VE HAD A HUGE LITTERING PROBLEM WITH MASKS AND RUBBER GLOVES.”

7.    CONFEDERATE STATUES ARE A “SYMBOL OF HOPE”

 That's what Mad Dog would like to do, but the Democratic Party insists on not getting "confrontational."

Which is why Democrats lose.

Out Among the Lilliputians

 

The Lilliputians symbolize humankind's wildly excessive pride in its own puny existence.--from the internet 

Yesterday, a Friday, Mad Dog went a-canvassing with his indefatigable partner, who will be referred to here by her stage name,  Olivia Ostrich, a woman who is so Hampton she has chosen a plot in the Hampton cemetery for herself and her family. 

Obadiah Youngblood North Hampton House

She is prototypic Hamptonite, in that she wasn't actually born here, her family having Massachusetts origins and she grew up in Manchester but moved here, sending her kids to the Hampton schools, her daughter having started at Centre School , then moving on to Marston Elementary, then the Academy for middle school, and Winnecunnet High school.  Like everyone else in town, she was appalled when the town cut down the majestic pine trees along High Street across from the academy, and bordering the main cemetery, exposing an unsightly gray concrete 18 inch wall separating the cemetery from the street. But she wants to be buried there anyway.

Obadiah Youngblood Water Street Bridge

Mad Dog and Olivia took the clipboard from the DEMS office which bore the map of the homes they were assigned that day, in the streets just south of the honky tonk center of Hampton Beach, a place where they, like most Hampton residents, never venture between Memorial and Labor Day. They had signed out that territory before some years earlier and remembered it for the colorful people and the odd little homes planted along the salt marshes on one side, the ocean and the Hampton River on the other. 

The addresses assigned them were very modest homes within walking distance of the beach, which is separated by sand dunes through which paths to the ocean have been cut. 

Olivia Googled the cost of one home for sale, a  clapboard, which would have not even caught the eye had it been 4 miles inland, but listed for $1 million dollars. Location, location, location.

The first victim was an 80 something woman, sitting on her front porch and they stood on the lawn craning their necks to speak to her. Like many of the residents they met that day, she told them her family had purchased a beach house there around 1965 and she had watched the area change, as a clear sight line to the beach had become obscured by the build up of twenty foot sand dunes, which she seemed to resent for blocking her view. When Mad Dog pointed out the dunes protected her from inundation by the waves she groused that the water, when it did launch an incursion, simply flooded the next street over and then washed along the alley between that street and hers, so she had no kind feelings for the dunes, which she considered an eyesore and an intrusion. 

She was too old to go vote in person. She already had her absentee ballot which amazed Olivia and Mad Dog because the primary elections was just 4 days ago and already the final ballots for the November election are printed and in her hands.

Because they  were out on a Friday, most of the 40  people on the  list were at work. 

Obadiah View from Hampton Beach Great Boars Head

The computer generated list from the DEMS organization contained the names of people who had registered either as Democrats or "Undeclared" and who had voted in previous elections in the town. Specifically excluded were Republican voters. The idea of the "canvassing" is to not confront or try to change opinion, but to solidify and sample people who are thought to be potential supporters and to introduce them to candidates for state office, the House of Reps or the Senate especially. These offices which  are paid $100 a year, are eagerly, often hotly contested.

Before going on, Olivia and Mad Dog walked up the offending sand dune, using a cut path and they encountered a group of a dozen 60 something women, sitting in a clearing between dunes, in aluminum/strap beach chairs, drinking beer and eating snacks. 

"Come join us!" one called out. 

Obadiah Youngblood Beach Plum

"No, we're just passing through," Mad Dog told them. And waving at the white sand beach and green sea, looking up past the town beach, north to  toward Greater Boar's Head, he  added, "Who knew? This is gorgeous!"

"Oh, we know!"

Olivia remarked she'd never been this far south along the beach, beyond the commercialized part of Hampton Beach, but she thought she'd come back now. Townies tend to use North Beach and Plaice Cove, farther north, which are smaller and require town windshield stickers to park. 

Obadiah Youngblood North Hampton View

Mad Dog told her about a friend who rides her horses on Hampton Beach in the fall, and who claims horse poop is just about sterile and no problem for the beach. 

"It's disgusting though," said Olivia, "And I love horses and ride them. But horse poop on the beach? Yuck."

The  next stop was an address where nobody answered but there were two women down the street standing outside talking, and one of them noticed Mad Dog leaving campaign literature and she walked down to see who he was. She was on the DEMS list and this was her house.

"I'm not a single issue voter," she told them. "But I won't vote for anyone who doesn't believe in term limits. That's my big issue. So, no, I won't vote for Maggie Hassan."

"But she's only had one term," Mad Dog objected.

"Well but she's against term limits" she replied firmly. Mad Dog didn't know that. She knew something Mad Dog  hadn't. "Besides she was governor, so she's been in government too long and that corrupts everyone if you're there long enough. But both she and Chris Papas said they're against term limits. So they are out, far as I'm concerned." 

Mad Dog told her about a new candidate, the "fresh blood, fresh ideas" sort of candidate she said she wanted: Erica DeVries, who had been inspired to run to defeat a Republican who had sponsored a bill for New Hampshire to secede from the Union.

"Well," she smiled mischievously, "I sort of have some sympathy for that sometimes."

Renny Cushing Winnecunnet HS

Her husband showed up, a gaunt man in a baseball cap. He said he had worked in the federal government.  He said he was not voting for Tom Sherman for governor because Sherman had tried to mislead him, lied to him really.  Sherman had told him the new bridge across the Hampton River, down the road, would be completed this year and it hadn't been. 

The wife had taught in both private and public schools she said, and she loved Sununu's support for charter schools and didn't think the taxpayer should have to support public schools and not get help with private schools. She told a story about how in their former town, the town tried to stop paying for school buses to the private schools one year, and all the private school parents showed up the day before schools opened to enroll their 80 kids in public schools, "And the town backed down real quick," she said, with evident satisfaction.

"Besides its much cheaper for the town and the taxpayers to pay for private schools," said the husband. "It costs $75,000 a year to educate a kid in public schools and it's much cheaper to send the kid to a private school."

"That would only be true if there were no empty seats in the public schools," Mad Dog responded. "But if there are empty seats and if no new teachers had to be hired, given all the empty seats in Hampton schools, then education for those kids has already been paid for."

"Well, but public schools can only get better if they have competition," he replied, abandoning, momentarily the financial argument, "And I judge the schools by the outcomes. And they are better in private schools." 

"Really?" Mad Dog said. "Have there been studies comparing the two? I didn't know that."

"Well," he said, "Not in Hampton, but in our old town."

"How do you feel about town taxpayers giving the Sacred Heart school $65,000 a year?"

"Well, it's a good thing," the couple agreed. "More competition. Cheaper to send the kids there, too." He was back, Mad Dog noticed, to the financial argument, even after it had been refuted. It was something stuck in his brain.

So spending taxpayer money on a Catholic school did not trouble them. Spending money from public funds for private schools was a good thing, for them, because, well, it saves money, somehow, and it's all about competition. Or something.

That's where they left it.

The next lady to answer her door came out to chat with us on her deck. Her husband, a white haired guy with a white goatee stood behind the screen door and chimed in occasionally.

"I'm a former OR nurse," she told Mad Dog. "And I'm okay with abortion up to 15 weeks, but if you can't get your stuff together by then, well...I've seen late term abortions and that's just murder. That's why I can't vote for Hassan or Papas. They both voted for abortion up to birth. I'm not a single issue voter, but that's just disqualifying."

Olivia and Mad Dog exchanged looks. Neither one of them knew what this woman was talking about. When did Maggie and Chris vote for late term abortion?

"Well," Mad Dog told her, honestly, "I'm okay with abortion, but I'm not for infanticide."

"So, how do you feel about governor of Florida sending those people to Martha's Vineyard?" Mad Dog asked her. 

"Well," she smiled, "Now you're not going to like this, but I think maybe more of that ought to happen. We're protected from those illegals up here, but you go down to Texas and Florida and those illegals are just over running everything! I mean, we're supposed to be a nation of laws and these people jumped the line, broke the law and now we're supposed to pay to take care of them. And the crime!"

"Oh?" Mad Dog asked. "Have you been to Texas?"

"Yeah, San Antonio, but that was some years ago, but I just went to a convention in San Diego, though, and it's a huge problem."

"Funny thing," Mad Dog  said.  "I just got back from a convention in San Diego in May. Never saw a single illegal, not that I could tell anyway. And I've been to Texas in the past two years and never saw any immigrants running around."

"Well, I think America is like a big  family," the woman rejoined. "But that means taking care of your family first and we are just being over run now. They're just taking over!" 

"Seen any around here?"

"No, but it's coming."

The  next visit was across the bridge that Dr. Sherman had promised our man would have been rebuilt this year. The bridge actually looked to be in good shape, but a promise is a promise.

This was Seabrook, not Hampton,Mad Dog thought, but the woman at the door told us, no, Seabrook did not begin for another two blocks. 

The driveway was filled with Audi's with decals from Holy Cross College and Boston College. The woman invited us to her backyard so we could look out over the Hampton River and the jetty.  Sea birds walked on the sandbar fifty yards away.

"This is just breath taking," Olivia told the home owner. "Really just stunning."

"Well, it belonged to my parents  who bought it in 1960, and I rebuilt it. I made it intentionally small. Didn't want a McMansion. But I like it. It doesn't suck."

"No, indeed," said Olivia. 

"Oh, yes, I'm voting for Maggie and Chris and every Democrat on the list," the woman told us. 

"Finally, " Mad Dog  said. "An actual Democrat! We've been interviewing 'Undeclared voters' all day and I haven't run into anything but Fox News Republicans."

"Oh, yes," she said. "That's common in these parts."

Renny The Incumbent 

"I'm married to a Republican," Olivia told her, "But he can't stand Trump or any of them. He's not sure what he is now."

"I used to have Republican friends," the lady told us. "They're not my friends any more."

We had been out for nearly 5 discouraging hours.  We had met one actual Democrat on our list of potential Democratic voters.

"You know," Mad Dog told Olivia. "This country is really conservative. If democracy reflects the people's will, then maybe Trump does that."

Proud To Be An American

"This wasn't a scientific study," Olivia said. "Five hours on a Friday in a really weird part of town where nobody ever goes, except for people whose parents bought houses her 60 years ago."

"Maybe we should go horseback riding on the beach next weekend. Poop all over it," Mad Dog said. 

Olivia just shook her head.

Erica DeVries Fights Back

There is a seat in the New Hampshire state House of Representatives which is shared by the towns of Seabrook and Hampton New Hampshire. 

 

It is currently held by a Republican named Max Abramson who has introduced/supported legislation for New Hampshire to secede from the Union, to outlaw the teaching in public schools any mention of information which might cause white students to be ashamed of America's past (e.g. slavery) among other gems. 

Two other Republicans are challenging him in a Republican primary, a crowded field for these parts.

Mark Preston, a former Seabrook policeman whose most notable recent accomplishment has been an arrest for a driving while intoxicated incident, during which he reportedly upbraided the arresting officer for not honoring the blue code of conduct which would require he allow Preston to drive away unmolested, because Preston is a former police officer.

SEABROOK — Retired. Resigned. Some may call it semantics but the union representative of Sgt. Mark Preston wants it to be clear that the veteran Seabrook police officer of 30 years did not resign from his post.

"Sgt. Preston did not resign," said Steve Arnold, of the N.H. Police Benevolent Association. "He's retiring after 31 tears of service to the Seabrook Police Department."

His comments came after Town Manager Barry Brenner and Police Chief Patrick Manthorn issued a joint press release last week stating that Preston resigned following his July 31 drunken driving arrest in Salisbury Beach, Mass.

Police said Preston allegedly slammed into a parked car and swore at Salisbury officers for going against the "brotherhood" by not letting him go free.

Arnold said he was "bewildered" when he first heard about the press release because it's not true.

Mr. Preston has not shown up to answer questions about his candidacy at the local Hampton Democrats meetings.

If elected, Mr. Preston would have to vote in the New Hampshire House of Reps on bills to make abortion a crime, defining life as beginning at conception, allowing legislators to carry guns in the State House. How would he vote on these bills? He has not seen fit to comment for the Dems.

Looking for answers to these and other questions, Mad Dog has obtained access to Mr. Preston's Facebook page and there a picture of the man emerges in technicolor. 

In case you missed it the 1st time

Mr. Preston reportedly believes he will win the  joint seat (called the "Floterial") because the name "Preston" is famous in Hampton.  But as it looks to Mad Dog, he simply didn't want to be one of 4 candidates in the Republican primary when he could be one of two in the Democratic primary.

Alcohol Abuse as a Campaign Promise

The first thing to strike Mad Dog, one of the most recent postings was a little ditty which runs: "I hate when people ask me what I do for fun because there's no classy way to say, 'Binge Drinking.'" This is followed by a slew of responses from Mr. Preston's Facebook buddies who clearly think this is the height of humor, but, given that DWI incident, it made Mad Dog wonder.

Women As Temptresses

Then there is a photo of a woman's rear end and her face can be seen leering back at you with a provocative smile, and there is an arrow to hit to see what more might be in store, and an image of Jesus pops up saying, "I'm so disappointed in you!" As if Jesus did not much like Mary Magdalene. Apparently, Mr. Preston sees women as temptresses. He may not be alone in that, but it hardly augers well for a man who will have to vote on abortion rights in the state House of Representatives. 

Apparently, Mr. Preston was not happily married. Mad Dog infers this from a posting which announces: "Marriage: Because your shitty day doesn't have to end at work. Fuck Sensitivity."

No Proud Boy could have said it better.

Another post:  A notice on a US Postal Service card: "Please trim your bush so I can better service your box."

Presumably, this is from a male letter carrier to a female citizen, and why Mr. Preston would get this Mad Dog is still trying to figure out.

A photo of the hood of a car with the imprint of a woman's body, apparently left after having had sex on it. 

Good Ol' Boy from the Good Ol' Days

Mad Dog knew a fair number of Mark Preston's in high school and he always wondered what had become of them. Apparently, some may have had careers, perhaps shortened by alcohol fueled misadventures and they may have wound up running for public office. 

Mr. Preston certainly would compete for votes with Max Abramson: they both share felony convictions, and presumably the disaffected crowd would have a hard choice facing them. Preston thinks he knows his base in Seabrook well, if his Facebook posts are any indication, and as for Hampton, well, his name is Preston after all. As long as Hampton women don't know anything more about him than his name, he should be a shoo in.

The Seacoast View of Women

We do have a better choice in Hampton. 

Erica DeVries

Erica's Soulmate

Ectopic Pregnancy and Abortion Bans

Bills in state legislatures in Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio and Missouri are not yet laws, but now that the question of abortion law is in the state legislatures, it is anyone's guess which legislatures and which governors will finally take that leap into the ultimate save-the-fetus oblivion.

It took some Googling to finally discern that despite impassioned arguments from Right to Life advocates in these states, no law has yet actually been signed into law, although it may only be a matter of time.

Of course, part of the problem is state legislators are often no better educated than Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene, and when you attach the word "pregnancy" to anything, they want to save it.

An ectopic pregnancy is, of course, not really a pregnancy, if you define pregnancy as the product of conception which would, if left alone, grow into a baby and be delivered as a live child.

An actual pregnancy, which has any  chance of surviving long enough to be developed enough to be delivered and possibly survive, is different from a conceptus which will grow inside the fallopian tube for a few weeks to months until it grows big enough to pop that balloon and rupture, resulting in the end of its growth and the exsanguination of the mother--exsanguinate, as in, "bleed to death." And of course, no living mother, no living "baby."

The fallopian tube is not a uterus and cannot contain, support or tolerate a fetus growing in it for long, and it explodes, like an internal hand grenade, with just as devastating results for the woman in whom it is growing.  A "ruptured ectopic" is a medical emergency and virtually 100% of the time results in the death of the mother and, if you believe the fetus is even alive at that time, the death of the fetus. 

Every medical student learns this. 

Not every legislator, apparently, learns this.

When presented with this information legislators in Ohio, Oklahoma, Missouri and Texas have replied, "Oh, then, it's God's will." 

It is a revelation of the mind of the Right to Life extremist that he or she is willing to see a woman die rather than deviate from the belief that the "life" of the "child" must be preserved at all costs. 

The absolutist has to be consistent. And if you value "life," well then, you must value ALL life, including that thing, that conceptus, that thing you might call a fetus or a child, which is growing in a spot which is like a baby crawling across an eight lane freeway at rush hour--it's just not going to make it. 

But you have staked out the position that you will protect that baby no matter what, even if it means diverting all the traffic in both directions into Lake Pontchartrain. That baby cannot be sacrificed. The mother's life can be sacrificed, and with it, of course, any chance that growing mass of cells you are calling a baby will be lost, but you will not have taken any action to end the development of that conceptus. 

You have remained consistent. You will not intervene in that doomed slow motion train wreck.

Well, Justice Alito wanted the voters in state legislatures to decide questions of abortion, and now we've got that.

Down the Rabbit Hole with Wokeness

Mad Dog just got an urgent email from the head of the local Democratic Party club exhorting him to show up at Winnacunnet High School to support a group called "Seacoast Upright" which has, apparently, evinced an outraged protest from local parents concerning the "training" this group provides Winnacunnet  faculty regarding LGBT students in an effort to make them feel they have a "safe space" at school, where all faculty and students are sensitive to their needs as gender conflicted students.

Some parents of straight students have organized to object to this organization from imposing its "political" views on the public schools.

From the email, it is difficult to fathom what is really going on, but Mad Dog is going to take a wild guess that some organization of concerned citizens, eager to make gay or transgender students feel welcomed and not hated at school has, over the years,  been "teaching" teachers how to accomplish this task. Now, Mad Dog is betting, some parents have decided this organization is "advocating" for the "gay lifestyle" or something to that effect and the local Dems are rallying to the side of Seacoast Upright to show this is not at all political but simply an affirmation of treating all students, no matter what their sexual orientation or preferences, with respect and kidnness.

Of course, the very fact that it is the Democratic party rallying to this cause undermines the argument that this effort by Upright is apolitical.

Now, Mad Dog is all for treating everyone with respect and of not demeaning or harassing people on account of their sexual preferences, but really, what is this sensitivity training, actually?  Would you not like to know exactly what teachers are being "trained" to do and say?

Does this include a demand, for example for teachers to use the "proper pronouns" for transgender or gender fluid students?

When it comes to pronouns, Mad Dog is not on board. Mad Dog firmly believes we should speak the Queen's English or American English or standard English and a singular individual should never be referred to as "they" and that in doing this the left opens itself to devastating and deserved punches from the Right as being disabled by  "wokeness."

As Democrats we run a risk of splintering as a party over "cultural" issues.  The Republicans have been adroit at finding issues to divide the nation, but now they have found an issue to divide their opposition: namely the extreme requirement that all of us change the way we speak English, the way we use pronouns to accommodate a tiny minority of folks who feel "unsafe" because we refuse to refer to a single person as a "they."  Of course, it goes beyond that to how we feel about gender fluidity and beyond.

None of this is entirely new: During the Weimar Republic the avant garde in the Berlin cafes played with gender fluidity, transvestites, homosexuals in ways which scandalized the volk, the rural folks and Hitler and his boys jumped all over this to insist on a hypermasculine  party which it tied to militarism, law and order and  nationalism. 

American Democrats are at risk for following the German proponents of democracy down that rabbit hole, in pursuit of tolerance in a headlong rush toward oblivion.