A nation of tenderness.

I’m late getting to this, but Dahlia Lithwick had a typically excellent column a few days back, about so-called “conscience clauses” — all the rage among some lawmakers, who want to exempt certain individuals from performing parts of their job they find morally objectionable:

The problem isn’t conscience clause legislation so much as what we might call conscience creep: a slow but systematic effort to use religious conscience claims to sidestep laws that should apply to everyone. Recalibrating who can express a right of conscience (i.e do corporations have a conscience?) and what the limits of that conscience might be, may well be the next front in the religious liberty wars being waged in courts around the country.

I think most reasonable people would not require, for example, a doctor who is opposed to abortion to perform them. But speaking just as a private individual, if some snot-nosed pharmacist told me I couldn’t have my birth-control pills because he wanted to stay in the Pope’s good graces? I’d be coming across the counter. Lithwick:

But it hasn’t stopped at health care providers, and the list of objectors now encompasses pharmacists and ambulance drivers, cashiers in supermarkets and business owners who object to same-sex marriage. Last year, for instance, a prison guard withheld an abortion pill from a prisoner who’d been raped on the grounds that it violated her personal religious beliefs. And it hasn’t stopped at abortion, birth control, or sterilization, but may include activities like counseling rape victims or teaching AIDS patients about clean needles.

Have we always been such prickly little shits, or is this something new? We’ve had conscientious objectors, of course, but that was about war, not contraception. And may I just say, I don’t think I’m being a prickly little shit when I ask, where does it end? Does an employer’s, or a pharmacist’s, or a prison guard’s conscience allow them to paw through the rest of my prescriptions, or records, or whatever for something else that might be offensive?

Because that would be offensive.

Jeez, I’m tired, and I have a big day today, so let’s go blogging:

I’m on record as hating the “open letter” trope, but this Sally Jenkins column about the Washington Redskins is pretty good. Bonus: Rick Reilly’s father-in-law says: Get your ears checked, sonny boy.

A friend of mine used to work in a bar. Every so often a guy would come in with a Labrador retriever on a leash. The guy wore sunglasses all the time, and would drink quietly while his “seeing-eye dog” laid quietly at his feet. Everyone liked the dog, so no one said anything, but everyone knew it was bullshit. It’s a trend! Fake service dogs are a growing problem, at least according to the AP. The story’s a little thin on evidence, but there you go.

Finally, the former Detroit mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, got a whopping 28-year prison sentence Thursday. You can read about it any number of places, and I encourage you to do so.

Me, I’m starting my weekend.

Posted at 12:30 am in Current events |
 

62 responses to “A nation of tenderness.”

  1. Jolene said on October 11, 2013 at 1:03 am

    Need to fix link to Jenkins piece, Nance. In the meantime, it’s here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/washington-redskins-team-name-another-letter-the-same-spirit/2013/10/10/15b731ca-31c6-11e3-89ae-16e186e117d8_story.html

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  2. Dexter said on October 11, 2013 at 1:08 am

    http://cmsimg.freep.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=C4&Date=20131010&Category=BLOG24&ArtNo=131010005&Ref=AR&MaxW=640&Border=0&Mike-Thompson-Kwame-Kilpatrick-prison

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  3. Sherri said on October 11, 2013 at 2:42 am

    I really don’t understand why Dahlia Lithwick doesn’t have a column in the NYTimes or the Washington Post. She’s so much better than Maureen Dowd, for one. She’s my first stop for Supreme Court coverage.

    On the conscience clause stuff, it’s really getting out of hand, or reverting back to a pre-Civil Rights era past, depending on how you look at it. The state of Washington is suing a florist under the terms of the Consumer Protection Act for refusing to provide flowers for a same-sex marriage. The newlyweds are also suing, claiming discrimination, with the help of the ACLU. (Go ACLU-WA!) I just doubled my donation to the ACLU this year!)

    But any pharmacist trying to tell me that I can’t have my prescription because he doesn’t approve of it will definitely find out chapter and verse on exactly what I don’t approve of in his stance.

    Dan Snyder is the toadiest NFL owner around. Even if I were inclined to like the Washington football club out of some sentimental nostalgia for Joe Theismann, which I don’t have, Snyder would erase all of it. Just like Jerry Jones has completely erased all the sentimental nostalgia I did have for the Dallas Cowboys, leaving only the lingering distaste of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the SF 49’ers.

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  4. alex said on October 11, 2013 at 4:22 am

    I first saw Dahlia Lithwick in the New Republic maybe 20 years ago, which was no small potatoes. And considering the mediocrity of Dowd, Bruni, Brooks and Friedman — and the bared fangs out for real talent like Nate Silver and Paul Krugman in that fever swamp of egos — I’d say she’s too good for the NYT and that’s why they can’t have her.

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  5. Deborah said on October 11, 2013 at 4:44 am

    Maureen Dowd is just awful. I used to like her but either she’s gone downhill or I’ve learned something. Krugman is one of my favorites, love his blog.

    Also, love the phrase “prickly little shits”.

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  6. ROGirl said on October 11, 2013 at 7:06 am

    Kwame’s sentence became a topic of conversation in the office yesterday when the news came out. All agreed that it was deserved, except for one guy who gave the “they all do it” response.

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  7. David C. said on October 11, 2013 at 7:26 am

    The classic example of where conscience clauses end is the Amish bus driver. I really want that to happen. I work in the defense industry. I’m not a pacifist, but could I have said I morally object to stupid, pointless wars of choice like Iraq and still be paid for not doing my job? I don’t think so. I think a lot of it is moral exhibitionism. They don’t hold any exceptional moral conscience, they just like to kick people around and be the best petty tyrant they can be. I’m willing to bet that the pharmacists who object to dispensing birth control pills have 2.1 children like everyone else.

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  8. beb said on October 11, 2013 at 7:55 am

    The conscience clause was all about making it harder for woman to get abortions. Plan B is a pill that causes an abortion so a bill was passed saying that pharmacists did not have to dispense this drug. And mission creep has already happened since Hobby Lobby has borrowed the idea for its refusal to pay for birth control in its employee’s health plan.

    To the big surprise about Kwame Kilpatrick is that they actually, and finally nailed a Detroit mayor for corruption. While the prosecutor asked for and got 28 years Kilpatrick’s own lawyer was proposing a “mere” 15 years for a sentence. Fifteen years is a lot of time. I could have lived with that sentence. But, geez, when your paid defender wants major time you are in a world of hurt.

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  9. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 11, 2013 at 8:08 am

    I nominate Nancy’s formulation as PLS syndrome. And it would encompass fake service dogs, unofficially diagnosed food allergies, and physical disabilities that don’t carry a blue placard with them. Yes, there are actual service dogs and discrimination against them, and real food allergies that are a deadly hazard for some, and not every disabled person has the paperwork done or their card in this particular car: but if you work on as many community events as I do, you know that the last thirty years have seen an explosion on people driving up to the handicapped lot and insisting on their need and their right and their obligation to be verbally abusive to parking stewards over how “Aunt Tilly has a heart problem, bleep it!” even as there’s no placard, and five other obese family members in the van. The reality is that we keep expanding and expanding the “accessible parking” at events, but it fills up amazingly fast, and no one wants to park out in the general lot, they *must* park within a few feet of the gate. And don’t have a tag or a card, but they really, really are disabled, and if we don’t let them park here, there’s gonna be lawyers called!

    The fact that we can’t put Boy Scouts out to guide parking anymore is one symptom: with so many insisting on getting thru, and the abusiveness that goes along with it, adults have to be at all the key locations. At the county fair, at the powwow ground, at the school rec field day, at the pancake breakfast, at the earthworks open house, at scout camp family night, handicapped parking is three times what it was (and usually logistically can’t be any bigger), and fills first, and people throw scenes if they’re told “I’m sorry, there is no parking closer in, but you can drop them here and I’ll wait with them until you park and get back to here.” I’ve offered that dozens of times and never had anyone take me up on it. They park and walk by as a family group, glaring at me as they pass. PLS syndrome indeed.

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  10. James said on October 11, 2013 at 8:09 am

    I wanted to share this, hopefully not old hat around here. A quiz that I did crummy on (12 out of 20), Ikea or Death.

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  11. alex said on October 11, 2013 at 8:11 am

    Plan B doesn’t cause abortion. It causes right-wingers’ tiny heads to explode, just like the idea of having a black president or a gay couple living next door.

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  12. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 11, 2013 at 8:13 am

    Food allergies are trickier, but in school and scout activities, I smell PLS in way more than a majority of the parents who tell me about how we have to protect their child from deadly substances. We do it, but I don’t have to believe it. One kid has a doctor letter and an EpiPen and I know peanuts are problematic for him; in general, the gluten/dairy thing probably has validity, and I can’t diagnose and won’t try, but some of it comes out along the lines of “and cut the crusts of their bread, please” more than “my child has a health endangering allergy.” Like service dogs, who wants to try to do on the spot clarification? It ain’t worth it, but sheesh.

    Religious conscience . . . y’all just gave me an idea for next week’s religion column. Stay tuned.

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  13. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on October 11, 2013 at 8:16 am

    13, and thanks for the Hallowe’en costume ideas, James!

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  14. Judybusy said on October 11, 2013 at 9:20 am

    Oh dear, James, I apparently live a very sheltered life; I had no idea this stuff was out there. The metal bands, not Ikea.

    So Nancy, did the raped prisoner ever get an abortion after being denied plan B? It also reminded me of the flip side: the forced sterilization of female prisoners in California. It’s all about control over women’s bodies. As I’m sure many have noted, WIC funds are drying up as a result of the shutdown. But life! Life! Oh, at least till you’re out of the chute.

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  15. coozledad said on October 11, 2013 at 9:34 am

    Well see, them purty little embryos ain’t got the satan on ’em. All that feedin’ and talkin’. Smart talkin’ even, once they make contact with Lucifer’s tunnel of sin.

    Once that sweet little bebby makes contact with that thang, Jesus weeps.

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  16. Julie Robinson said on October 11, 2013 at 9:34 am

    Only 13; I thought I would do much better but I don’t know my metal bands.

    Re WIC funds, my sister, who is a WIC manager, has been told that Florida will run out of money at the end of the month. This is not very fun for her to contemplate while she’s in ICU with diabetic complications. So I’m nominating every politician in DC for the PLS award.

    Also nominated; the manager at the car dealership who spent half an hour hard-selling us an extended warranty without ever mentioning the price. It’s odd that before you buy a car they have nothing but praise for its reliability and workmanship, but once you’ve bought it, it becomes a steaming pile of crap. We are not that dumb.

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  17. Bob (not Greene) said on October 11, 2013 at 9:48 am

    I love this story: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-talk-ditka-obama-1011-20131011,0,6561423.story

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  18. Maggie Jochild said on October 11, 2013 at 9:58 am

    I scored 14 out of 20, which (embarrassingly) reflects my undue obsession with the Ikea catalogue.

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  19. Dorothy said on October 11, 2013 at 10:02 am

    I guessed at a majority of them but got 15/20 so I guess that’s not bad. Still … those pictures of the bands curled my hair pretty good.

    I just finished reading “A House in the Sky” by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett. Talk about hair-raising…oooph. Difficult to read about Amanda’s kidnapping in Somalia and what she endured. I think this will be the first and last one I read in that genre. Time for something fun and uplifting. Happy Friday, all.

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  20. coozledad said on October 11, 2013 at 10:23 am

    The only extracurricular job I can see a football coach being able to pull off is a greeter at a casino or an ESPN blowhard.
    Ditka must have a significant amount of unabsorbed blood products floating around in his skull if he thinks Obama wouldn’t have run over his ass, ran back upfield and run over his ass again.

    The hubris of these chunks of head cheese is breathtaking.

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  21. Deborah said on October 11, 2013 at 10:25 am

    I got 18, I know my Ikea.

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  22. Bitter Scribe said on October 11, 2013 at 10:36 am

    I was amazed by that Sally Jenkins column, considering what a racist (as well as sexist and homophobic) shit her father was.

    I was briefly acquainted with Sally in college. A remarkably pretty girl. I remember wondering how her father would like it if some guy behaved toward her the way men routinely treat women in his novels.

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  23. Charlotte said on October 11, 2013 at 11:04 am

    Folks folks folks. Plan B is NOT an abortion drug. It is essentially a very strong dose of birth control pill that you take after unprotected sex. It prevents implantation the same way that a woman’s regular birth control pills to. RU-486 is the chemical abortifacient, probably the one that was with held from the prisoner. They’re not the same, although the anti-choice crowd has been doing its best to claim they are, and clearly that’s working since there’s confusion even on this forum. (As part of my auntie duties to a gang of girls 13-23, I seem to have become the auntie who talks to them about sex, birth control, etc. Not really what I imagined when they were little ones in fairy wings, but then again, there are things a kid can’t really talk to her parents about.)

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  24. Basset said on October 11, 2013 at 11:30 am

    15 of 20 for me, didn’t recognize a one of the bands… no IKEA here in Nashville, although we do have a local business that’ll pick it up in Atlanta for you at a reasonable markup.

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  25. BigHank53 said on October 11, 2013 at 12:06 pm

    17 out of 20. Urg.

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  26. Jeff Borden said on October 11, 2013 at 12:28 pm

    Mike Ditka continues to see himself as he was in 1985, when his Bears team grabbed hold of Chicago and never let go. It’s almost embarrassing how much people around here worship that team, but the coach is an old-school lunkhead. . .kind of a pre-Tea Party bullshit artist. He’s pretty much the last thing this nation needs in the field of politics.

    He’s also a mega-whore when it comes to selling off his name. He’s pitching everything from a new brand of sausage to erectile dysfunction treatments in the Chicago area.

    In my classes at Loyola yesterday, my speech students were divided into two teams to debate the accuracy of the George Bernard Shaw line about youth being wasted on the young. Those arguing it was bullshit pointed to their ability to interact more easily with people of different races, faiths, socio-economic levels, etc., which gives me some hope that our country will get better. Then, I came home and read a story about how deeply entrenched some of the larger assholes in D.C. are because of gerrymandering, and another about how even when they lose, the Republicans win because the O-man may agree to some cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare just to keep peace, and my optimism for the future dimmed greatly.

    I find myself wondering if we are too far gone. . .that by the time the next generation intervenes it may be too late. I’m a pessimist by nature. I hope my fears are unfounded, but I honestly don’t know.

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  27. alex said on October 11, 2013 at 1:27 pm

    Youth is wasted on the young, Jeff. Your smart little whippersnappers just aren’t old enough to know it yet. It’s not all about not sharing your most ignorant elders’ prejudices. It’s about not yet having acquired your wisest elders’ wisdom.

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  28. Prospero said on October 11, 2013 at 1:49 pm

    How’d that 100 draft picks for Herschel and then you never used Herschel with any brains or plan at all work for ya, Coach Ditka. What a maroon, what a ignoranimous. Now I think Herschel Walker was pretty clearly the greatest player in the history of college football, and one of the greatest athletes mankind has ever produced. The fact that no NFL coach ever figured out how to get the most of Walker’s gifts is mysterious in light of how frequently members of that fraternity are called geniuses. Herschel ran a 9.2 100, at about 240 lbs. in high school. If he’s on your team, how do you decide anybody else should ever run back kicks? Mass stupidity. Ditka was also the chief perpetrator of the Dougie Flutie is too small to play in the NFL canard. Dumbass called Flutie a midget. Guy is a pompous gasbag mental midget. His NFL career is grossly overrated as well. No John Mackie, by any stretch of the imagination:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gL2gGdc6vQQ

    I saw this game in the company of my dad and my brother Chris (a huge Colts fan at the time), comped by some pharma salesman. After the game we met Johnny Unitas outside Tiger Stadium.

    I have never set foot in an Ikea store. But, I have been to Scandinavian Design and Crate & Barrel.

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  29. brian stouder said on October 11, 2013 at 1:53 pm

    “conscience clauses” — all the rage among some lawmakers, who want to exempt certain individuals from performing parts of their job they find morally objectionable

    Presumably this could include a counter worker at McDonalds who doesn’t approve of couples whose age is too far apart, or who are of different ethnic or racial origins, or who are same-gender, or who are wearing tee-shirts that say or indicate something objectionable, or who might be Catholic (or some other objectionable religion), or people who are having a conversation that is deemed inappropriate, or who apparently support the wrong politician, or who are acting too “uppity”.

    What an interesting legal concept – this idea of ‘moral objectionability’.

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  30. brian stouder said on October 11, 2013 at 1:55 pm

    (Bull Conner would approve)

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  31. Prospero said on October 11, 2013 at 2:02 pm

    And that last futile lunging attempt at tackling Mackey, yep that was the punter, but the Lion’s punter was Yale Larry, one of the best Dbacks ever.

    Serious GOPer thinkers say “We’ve already got our McMansions with sweetheart mortgages, lets shut down the gubmint to fuck up the recovering housing market. Because, Obama. And we can blame it on the anti-colonial Kenyan while we act like the MauMau.

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  32. Prospero said on October 11, 2013 at 2:03 pm

    brian @29 and 30: Sounds like Rand Paul commenting on the Civil Rights Act to me.

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  33. Bitter Scribe said on October 11, 2013 at 2:08 pm

    Prospero, I believe you’re confusing Herschel Walker with Ricky Williams.

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  34. Prospero said on October 11, 2013 at 2:25 pm

    Actually scribe, I was confusing Ditka with another Pork Faced Satan, Jimmy Johnson.

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  35. MarkH said on October 11, 2013 at 2:50 pm

    Presumably, maybe, Brian. But realistically, only of that counter worker wanted to get fired.

    The problem with you, Prospero, is we never, ever know how you really feel. About anything.

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  36. Bob (not Greene) said on October 11, 2013 at 2:55 pm

    Prospero, I don’t like Ditka or Jimmy Johnson, but the Herschel Walker trade was about opposite of what you described. The Cowboys traded Herschel Walker to the Vikings for five players and six draft picks during the 1989 season. They were so bad in Herschel Walker’s last full year with the Cowboys, a season in which Walker had 1,500 yards rushing, they had the first pick of the draft in 1989 and took Troy Aikman. They shipped one of those picks to Pittsburgh in the 1990 draft to move up and get Emmitt Smith. It actually worked out great for the Cowboys, who won the Super Bowl in 1992 and 1993.

    Now the Ditka-Ricky Williams draft pick was a hilarious bungle. Ditka traded ALL of that year’s picks to Washington and a first round pick the following year to get Williams. Three years later the Saints traded him to Miami. And Ditka never got another coaching job because he’s such a dumbass.

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  37. Peter said on October 11, 2013 at 3:22 pm

    “Pork Faced Satan” Thanks, Prospero, that made my day.

    Seriously, the heck with Dahlia Lithwick replacing Maureen Dowd; If Prospero and Coozledad posted columns on alternate days I think the over/under on Rush’s head exploding would be 30 days.

    Mike Ditka once said that the 1985 Bears were so good a trained chimp could have coached them to the Super Bowl, and I thought, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

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  38. Sherri said on October 11, 2013 at 3:24 pm

    As Bob(not Greene) said, Jimmy Johnson was the fleecer, not the fleecee, on the Hershcel Walker trade. Jimmy Johnson was a much better coach than Ditka, and he’s a much better TV blowhard than Ditka, too. Hell, he’d probably be a much better politician than Ditka. I don’t much like him, either, but if Jerry Jones hadn’t been so jealous of how much attention his former Arkansas teammate got, Johnson probably would have won some more Super Bowls with Dallas.

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  39. brian stouder said on October 11, 2013 at 3:26 pm

    only of that counter worker wanted to get fired.

    Precisely.

    It should be thus for pharmacists who won’t sell what their employer offers for sale.

    The case of employers who don’t want to offer insurance plans that include things the employer doesn’t specifically like is more complex – but you and I agree about McDonald’s counter sales people, if we agree also about pharmacists

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  40. Cathie from Canada said on October 11, 2013 at 3:31 pm

    Permitting “conscience clauses” also gives the fetus fetishists another front — they can start raising money for letter-writing campaigns to neighbourhood pharmacies and corporate boards demanding that they stop distributing Plan B, and so forth.

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  41. Deborah said on October 11, 2013 at 3:51 pm

    We had a Christian Scientist architect at the first design firm I worked for who refused to work on hospital projects. The last place I worked won a project doing interior design and branding for the AMA and we had to swear that we weren’t at the time working on any projects for any tobacco companies or we wouldn’t be considered for the job. We weren’t but during the course of the AMA project we were approached by RJ Reynolds to do some work for them and my company took that job too, disregarding their pledge. I was supposed to work on both of them and I thought that was unethical so I opted out of the tobacco one. The AMA turned out to be a really lousy client and they never implented any of our designs we did for them even though they paid us for them,

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  42. Sherri said on October 11, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    If businesses get consciences clauses, why can’t I get one? Just like a corporation, I’m a person; let me pick and choose which laws I want to follow. As a card-carrying member of the ACLU, my conscience requires that I be exempt from the Patriot Act.

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  43. MGolden said on October 11, 2013 at 4:15 pm

    I was watching a Bears game on the tube years ago. McMahon was Qback and the time was inside two minutes before the half. The Bears called time out and McMahon trotted over to the sideline to consult with his coach. Ditka stood there, looked McMahon up and down , then turned and walked away leaving a little lost McMahon standing there by himself. It was funny as hell.

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  44. Sherri said on October 11, 2013 at 4:50 pm

    The man who made his fortune selling your privacy uses some of it to increase his: http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24285169/zuckerberg-buys-four-houses-near-his-palo-alto

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  45. Prospero said on October 11, 2013 at 5:44 pm

    With regard to Rick Reilly. My gorge at having been pretty good in a variety of sports rises. Ricky hit the big time with hi supposedly expository interview with Sosa. They spent at least half an hour extablishing that there were things Sosa could not discuss because f the Players’ Association agreement, and Reilley asked that shit right off. What a supreme dickhead. A bigger douche than the unholy spawn of Dick Schaap that mimics his dad badly and acts as if he rules the sports universe.

    Laatest RS that is all about the sorry skank Miley has indications the Bros. Davies may get out together. That might put an end to terminal poptartism. I think what Nancy says about Miley is attributable to a mothering instinct. If your own kid was acting like that in public, you’d intervene. Listen to any, and I mean any, Kinks albun and tell me it isn’t light years better than this shit from JT. My next brother Chris once acted like that in a fountain in Greektown, with a fifth of Seagrams 7 rotgut, and his dates’ daddy’s T-Bird. It was disgusting. And where the helll is Miley’s Mom? On the subject of Rolling Stone, I have had it with this weenie bullshit. I’m supposed to think the new Justin Timberlake album is worth anything but smashing into smithereens? This is all bullshit, not music nor culture. Anybody that buys this shit is a moron. And yeah Mark H. That is my opinion. Why I typed it on my keyboard.

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  46. Prospero said on October 11, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    MGolden@43: It probably wasn’t too late to bring in Dougie to win the game.

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  47. alex said on October 11, 2013 at 5:46 pm

    Hey, Brian, how about we get jobs at McDonald’s and then refuse to serve anyone because the food’s shit and our conscience won’t let us serve people anything that causes diabetes and heart disease? I imagine that McDonald’s couldn’t legally fire us for obeying our conscience. You think?

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  48. Prospero said on October 11, 2013 at 5:50 pm

    Not that anybody would ask, but I won’t work on Dickless cheney’s transplant team. He’s a fucking vampire.

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  49. Prospero said on October 11, 2013 at 5:57 pm

    Popping out of herem as abysensible person might here

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  50. Bob (not Greene) said on October 11, 2013 at 5:59 pm

    Uh oh.

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  51. Deborah said on October 11, 2013 at 6:09 pm

    Bob (NG): I second that.

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  52. Kirk said on October 11, 2013 at 8:07 pm

    If I missed any discussion of this here in the past few days, pardon me. But Brian, you should see “Rush.” Excellent racing scenes, good story, close to historically accurate.

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  53. MarkH said on October 11, 2013 at 8:40 pm

    Oh, I’m sure all the motorheads here will see it, Kirk. The motor blogosphere has been all over the map on it, but the takeaway is mostly positive.

    Kirk, is Dan Gearino still a reporter at the Dispatch?

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  54. basset said on October 11, 2013 at 8:45 pm

    Damn, Pros, incoherent by dinnertime… thought you were mad at us and outa here once again?

    I want to see Rush but Mrs. B. doesn’t… we may compromise on a documentary about the Muscle Shoals studio.

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  55. Kirk said on October 11, 2013 at 8:59 pm

    MarkH@53: Yes, he is

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  56. brian stouder said on October 11, 2013 at 11:24 pm

    Alex – y’know, that WOULD be fun. Maybe if I ever get to retire, I’ll get a job at McD’s and do just that! First guy that orders a quarter-pounder with bacon, I’ll say to him “Good God, buddy – if you don’t have a heart-attack at the table, you’ll stroke-out in the parking lot as you leave.

    So, they fire me on my first day, and I have a story to tell forever after.

    Kirk, this evening Grant and I had to leave the house altogether, as Pam was having all the women over for book club/movie/food. (They choose a book with an associated recent movie…couldn’t tell you what tonight’s was).

    The plan was to see “Rush”, but instead we went to North Side High School to see South Side play North Side in the annual totem pole game (it was a good game which came out wrong); but “Rush” is on top of my must-see list.

    We saw an article a few weeks back in which it was said that Hunt claimed to have been intimate with 2,000 women (or was it 5,000?). I’m thinking that’s a stretch (so to speak), just based on practical math – but then again, who knows?

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  57. brian stouder said on October 11, 2013 at 11:28 pm

    I am told that Pam and her friends watched (after having read) “The Accidental Tourist” this evening.

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  58. Crazycatlady said on October 11, 2013 at 11:31 pm

    As a nurse, could I use the Conscience Clause to refuse to treat people who are religious? Being an atheist, the churchies can be annoying, praying for this and that. It’s a waste of time! Do I do that? Never. I let everyone believe what they want and do my job, as a true professional should.

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  59. Kirk said on October 11, 2013 at 11:31 pm

    He was with several fewer than that in the film.

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  60. Prospero said on October 12, 2013 at 4:37 am

    Redskins? How does that differ from Niggers?

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  61. brian stouder said on October 12, 2013 at 8:48 am

    Pros, I genuinely agree; at the game, 5 people were actually picketing…..but their signs went on about “No Hazing”…??

    Puzzled the other parents and kids and I, as we entered; someone asked them about it – and the indication seemed to be that they didn’t like the coaching tactics of the North Side coach.

    Anyway, I really and truly think that the “Redskins” team name for North Side – which they’ve had for almost a century, is racist and should be changed.

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  62. Rana said on October 12, 2013 at 6:27 pm

    Regarding the conscience clausers, I wonder if they realize that the end game of their little ploy is that decent employers are going to be figuring out ways to screen out employees who refuse to do their jobs. When that happens, I will not feel at all sorry for them. I know they’ll try to spin it as “religious discrimination” or something, but there’s no law that says you have to hire people who won’t do the job, whatever their justification may be.

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