• A recent “contestant” on Judge Judy made the following post-trial statements about her adversary in court:

“As far as telling her ‘I hate gays,’ that’s not true.  I have some friends that are homosexual.  I do not approve of their lifestyle but I will love them.”

No, this woman does not hate gays, she just finds them distasteful.  Anyone who uses a five-syllable clinical term (ho-mo-sex-u-al) to describe a fellow human being, when the one-syllable word gay would do nicely enough, reveals through her words the emotional distance she intends to maintain.  I wonder if her “homosexual friends” know that she calls them her friends.  And I wonder what they feel more, her love for them or her disapproval.

• I just watched Congressman Tom Cole of Oklahoma (a Republican, naturally) make the argument that ObamaCare is a colossal failure because, unlike business, government just does not know how to get things done.  As he put it, “The government is not Amazon.”  This is both a tired and flawed line of reasoning.  Private enterprise is not comprised of businesses with a 100% success rate.  Over 40,000 businesses filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. in 2012.  The failure rate of business startups is 50 to 70% within the first 18 months, according to this source.  The point is, if one wants a program to work, if it has to work, then one cannot afford to turn it over to private enterprise, because private enterprise by its very nature embraces risks and failed endeavors.  Dogmatic folks like Rep. Cole tend to forget that for every one Amazon, there are three WorldComs.

• Little-known grammar fact: the past tense of havoc is haddock.

• The up-to-now-automatic Republican Senate filibuster of Presidential judicial nominees ends, finally.  Objectors (in the minority party) cite the corrosive effect of this action on Senate deliberation.  I counter that it serves to show that elections matter.  We don’t elect Senators with 60-percent super-majorities.  If they win their seats by one vote, they win, and they sit in their seats for six years, which is time enough to deliberate.

• Another little-known grammar fact: the past tense of bible is bought bull.

• We have decided to take President Obama’s offer and we will be keeping our current health insurance plan for one more year.  When I figure in the cost of the premiums and our maximum out-of-pocket amounts, I expect that we will save about $6,500 next year, compared to the ObamaCare plan we would have had.  We could save as much as $7,700, with a possible downside of no more than $1,200 if we both max out on medical expenses.  Do I feel guilty about dropping out of the local risk pool?  Not really.  We should expect people to make rational financial decisions for themselves given the options available.

• In other news, a local brewery has run into a head of foam for having named one of its beers after the popular Hindu god Shiva.  Rajan Zed of the Universal Society of Hinduism in Nevada (no connection to the brewery Sierra Nevada) is protesting the use of Shiva’s image on bottles of Asheville Brewing’s Shiva India Pale Ale.  “Shiva is highly revered in Hinduism,” he said. “Once you use the can or the bottle, then you throw it in the garbage – that is highly unacceptable,” Zed said.  (This leads me to wonder: if you recycle a bottle of Shiva India Pale Ale, does it come back as a vase in its next life?)

Mike Rangel, head of Asheville Brewing, told the Fox Carolina reporter that “he met with … representatives from a [local] Hindu temple about the name of the beer” and “they came to a respectful agreement” about the use of the image.  “We definitely felt like we’ve done our diligence with our local community — we’ve had two complaints in 16 years,” Rangel said.

I have an idea for another beer that Mike Rangel might consider brewing.  It is made from whole grain, I mean holy grain, from the Middle East.  I call it Jesus: Israel Pale Ale (click on the label at right.)  Who in this community could possibly be offended?  This is Beer City.  After drinking a few cold ones, we just loosen our Bible Belt.

• This blog does not run on vapors.  I write it with the idea that some people will read it.  As a reader of this blog, your now-and-again comment will demonstrate your interest and will help keep my Tinker-Bellian flame burning bright.