It’s Friday, May 18th, 2018…but before we begin, we were struck by the following story from the Windsor Star courtesy of Bill Meisen:
Transgender woman files human rights complaint against Windsor spa
The owner of a local waxing spa is mounting a public campaign to clear the name of his business after he was served a human rights complaint for denying service to a transgender woman. Jason Carruthers, the president of Mad Wax on Walker Road, said he was surprised at the legal move since he had explained to the complainant that the spa did not offer Brazilian wax services on male body parts. “I have no male wax staff,” Carruthers said Friday. “We are not able to provide that service.”
A local transgender woman claims she was denied services based on her gender identity and gender expression and is seeking $50,000 for “immense harm to my dignity.”
The complainant, who has asked to remain anonymous, said she called(Please note, he called the spa; didn’t show up in person.) the spa March 17, 2018, to inquire about services for a transgender woman.(i.e., services for a man!!!) Following a conversation with an employee, she asked to speak with the owner. Carruthers said he called her back and explained that the female employee working that day was a practising Muslim who refrains from physical contact with males outside of her family. He further explained the only staff member he had who did male waxing was off on a sick leave and there was no one else.
Carruthers said he decided to go public with the issue because of a derogatory video about his business that was posted online and threats from the complainant to create “a media circus.” He said his business has no policy against serving transgender clients. “I once again reiterate and state my position and the position of Mad Wax Windsor Inc. that all clients, regardless of sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, are welcome,” he said in a statement. “However, we also welcome and support all of our staff members and respect their religious beliefs and feelings of safety and dignity in regards to the right to perform waxing services on males or male genitals.”
He said it was clear from his conversation with the complainant that the services sought were for a Brazilian wax and not leg waxing as has been suggested since. Carruthers said 98 per cent of the spa’s clientele is female and all of his staff are female. The spa has done waxing on the arms and backs of male clients in the past. “When we’ve been asked about a male Brazilian wax in the past we tell them we’re not able to provide that service and they move on,” Carruthers said. ”It’s never been a issue.”
The complainant referred questions to her Toronto lawyer, Megan Evans Maxwell. “There’s not much I can say right now because the matter is before the tribunal,” Maxwell said.
Carruthers’ lawyer, Ray Colautti, said the next step is for the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario to arrange a meeting between both parties with a mediator. If the issue can’t be resolved it would move on to an official tribunal hearing.
Sorry, but what is there to resolve?!? This guy, possessed of a penis and testicles, was told over the phone he wanted a service Carruthers’ establishment didn’t provide; end of story!!!
Or at least it should have been. But in the whacky world where political correctness holds sway like the Red Death, the desires and feelings of one disgruntled individual trumps the rights, not to mention business models, of others. And with all due respect for this guy’s dignity (which is very little, if any), how much harm can one’s dignity suffer over the phone? After all, it’s not like they’ve seen your face or know your name.
As Mr. Meisen noted, “I love it when Liberals get caught up in their own snares. So who wins: the transgender who was denied deforestation or the practicing Muslim trying to avoid a family ritual honor killing? You need a scorecard to figure it out. Does a straight beat a flush or is it the other way around?”
Here’s hoping the mediator either suggests the complainant visit La Fleur Spa, another Windsor waxing salon which offers the specific service he seeks, or that he get a life.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, as this forward from Ken Ewing details, police bodycams may be the worst innovation ever to hit the professionally victimized:
“Hamas knew exactly what it was doing with its huge border demonstrations, and got exactly what it wanted — a barrage of negative publicity for Israel and international condemnation of the Jewish state. For Hamas, the 60 dead Palestinians and about 2,700 injured were just the cynical price of doing business.
Every indication is that the Israelis did everything they reasonably could to prevent the bloodshed. Per their practice, they issued warnings and fired tear gas, rubber bullets, and warning shots.When these don’t avail, they can’t simply allow hundreds or thousands of rioters, some armed, to storm into their country.
It is easy to condemn the Israeli handling of the situation from afar, but controlling a violent mob that doesn’t care about getting killed — indeed, in some cases, welcomes the prospect — is one of the hardest tasks for any security force.
Some of the dead(Correction: by Hamas’ own admission, MOST of the dead!)are members of Hamas or other terrorist groups. Others are theatrical victims. What is the purpose of inciting civilians to put themselves at mortal peril except that their deaths will be particularly wrenching?
The crux of the issue is that Israelis are generally perceived by Palestinians as Westerners and colonizers, the sort of people whom the indigenous inhabitants throw out of the country. In reality, one national liberation movement has come up against another and they are locked into separate identities, separate religions, and separate cultures. (A contention we strongly question.)
Hamas is a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a movement that aims for a pan-Islamic world and is willing to use force to achieve it. Hamas took power in Gaza through a coup that overthrew Fatah, a rival group of nationalists on the West Bank. Ever since, Hamas has been the sole source of law in Gaza, a condition in which corruption and terrorism inevitably fester. Massive subsidies from Iran are spent on arms and digging expensive tunnels under the fence for future attacks on Israel.In this embryo police state, critics of Hamas, for instance journalists who question the luxurious villas of the leadership, disappear and are not seen again.(Yet the MSM continues to defend those causing their colleagues to disappear!)
Hamas called for 100,000 to broach the fence at twelve points; 40,000 or so turned up and none at all on the West Bank. Obviously, the indoctrination of the younger generation to shun Fatah and hate Israel has had some success. So long as Gaza is beholden to this self-immolating politics that produces nothing except the instruments of mayhem and martyrs, it is stuck in a fetid dead end.
Committing barbarities on its own people in order to foist those barbarities on to Israel, Hamas is ensuring that, for now, there is nothing to negotiate over and Israel simply must defend itself as best it can.“
Sorry, but the sooner everyone of these blood-thirsty bastages are pushing up daisies the better!
In a related item also courtesy of NRO, as David French accurately assesses..
“One of the enduring mysteries of modern political discourse is the way in which smart people — who are not remotely anti-Semitic — impose curious, unworkable double standards on the nation of Israel. Let’s take, for example, the response of many on the left to the so-called Great Return March, an effort by thousands of Gazans to storm the Israeli border.
After all, the international legal standards are clear. A nation has the right to protect the integrity of its border, and that right is supplemented by an inherent right of self-defense in the face of a hostile foreign power. Hamas — which rules Gaza — rejects Israel’s right to exist and remains in a state of perpetual, declared war with Israel. Any reasonable person contemplating the consequences of a border-wall breach knows that chaos and bloodshed may result.
Moreover, every reasonably informed person knows that Hamas has a long history of using human shields, including women and children, to drum up international sympathy and deceive gullible foreign critics into believing that Israel is using lethal force against peaceful protestors who merely seek a peaceful resolution to an intractable conflict.Yet still yesterday we saw tweets and articles not just from the single-minded anti-Israel Left but also from far more thoughtful observers:
Neither of who can be considered “thoughtful observers”, thus must represent the “single-minded anti-Israel Left!
Let’s answer these tweets with a question. What would you have Israel do when thousands of people march on the border, some armed, some not? What would you have Israel do when you know that terrorists are certainly mixed in that crowd, people who’d gladly shoot or stab Israeli civilians if they were ever to gain access to Israeli towns?
You can’t let the wall come down. You can’t let thousands (or perhaps tens of thousands) of people flood into Israeli communities.
Oh, and you’re not allowed to presume that the Israeli military has superhuman ability to do what no military force has ever been able to do: effectively and reliably control hostile armed mobs with exclusively nonlethal means. In other words, tear gas won’t get the job done.
One of the enduring problems in international dialogue about Gaza is that the Palestinian resistance is, quite simply, more vicious and violent — with ultimate eliminationist goals — than well-meaning leftists want or believe it to be.(Unlike French, we grant no Leftists are well-meaning, particularly those who support the “Palestinian” fable.) Take, for example, objections to the American embassy in Jerusalem. The real root of much of the Palestinian rage isn’t that the location of the embassy disrupts a (largely illusory) “peace process,” but rather that American action is yet another step toward solidifying permanent Israeli control over most of Jerusalem.
Hamas, to its very core, believes that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state. None.To its very core, it believes that all of Palestine must be under Islamic control.It has absolutely no moral qualms about intentionally inflicting as many civilian casualties as possible in the pursuit of its absolutist goals. Israel could moderate its approach to Gaza tomorrow, and Hamas would seize as many assets as it could to construct terror tunnels and rebuild its military infrastructure. That’s the sad reality of life in Gaza.
And that sad reality presents Israel with few good options. That’s what evil does.It rarely presents the forces of reason with easy or simple solutions.
It’s also worth noting that there is a dispositional difference between left and right.(Also known as the dispositional difference between feelings and facts!) American liberals are more likely to look at mass protests — even violent mass protests — and lionize the dissenters. That’s when you see phrases in news stories such as “mostly peaceful,” or you’ll read descriptions of the disparity in power between the rioters and the Israeli military — Palestinians’ kites and Molotov Cocktails versus Israelis’ Apaches and tanks. All too many liberals are blinded by the Palestinians’ underdog status and refuse to squarely consider that actual ideas and attitudes of the Palestinian rioters.
American conservatives hear phrases like “mostly peaceful” and scoff. That’s not Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. marching on the wall…”
If French is right, and Liberals do in fact refuse to squarely consider these terrorists for what they are, it’s not because they’re blinded by any underdog status, but because the Palestinians’ actual ideas and attitudes coincide so completely with their own!
Moving on, the editors at the WSJ comment on Kim Jong-un’s inevitable…
Korean Summit Maneuvers
Kim Jong Un thinks he can resist immediate denuclearization.
North Korea is threatening to cancel the June 12 summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump if it means giving up its nuclear weapons unilaterally, and credit the North for candor. The North is restating its long-time position, and better for the world to know the truth going into the summit than bank on false hopes.
The Trump Administration is treating the statement as a fit of pique, and in one sense that’s right. Kim isn’t likely to walk away from the summit, a diplomatic prize Pyongyang has sought for decades. But the North’s threat should bust some pre-summit illusions, not least in the Oval Office.
The Trump Administration has talked up the chances of a breakthrough based on Kim’s suspension of his nuclear and missile tests and his willingness to discuss denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But the two sides have very different ideas about what that means, as well as how and when it would happen.
Mr. Trump credits his “maximum pressure” of sanctions and diplomatic isolation for bringing Kim to the table. Certainly his Administration has done more than its predecessors to pressure the North.But the sanctions weren’t in place long enough to bring the regime to its knees.
Kim is talking because he wants the U.S. to pay him for promises of denuclearization and a few concessions such as the closure of his nuclear testing facility. In other words, he is repeating the strategy of his grandfather and father in negotiating with the U.S.
And why not? Kim believes he is in the driver’s seat. In the last year he has tested a more powerful warhead and launched missiles able to hit Chicago. Now a U.S. President has agreed to parley directly with him, and China is backing him. Kim met with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week and the two agreed that the North and U.S. should undertake “phased and synchronous measures” toward denuclearization. That is far from the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization that White House national security adviser John Bolton says the U.S. wants.Note that the Korean statement attacked Mr. Bolton personally.
Mr. Trump says he will walk away from talks if Kim isn’t serious about denuclearization. But his bluster and the silly chatter about a Nobel Prize are making it more difficult to leave the table. Kim’s maneuvering ahead of the summit suggests he is confident he can resist immediate denuclearization. Mr. Trump needs to make clear that won’t happen.
Regardless of the outcome, the next few weeks should prove…
Next up, courtesy of Balls Cotton and War on the Rocks, David Barno and Nora Bensahel flawlessly find…
“As we approach Memorial Day, we’ve been thinking about what it means for Americans to serve their nation. We recently showed our graduate students a military recruiting video which repeatedly mentions “the call to serve” and includes several clips from World War II. Many of the people in those grainy, black-and-white videos were literally called to serve — drafted in a time of war and sent into harm’s way. The cemeteries of American war dead around the world are full of tombstones marking the final resting places of thousands of military volunteers, but many more thousands of those who fell after being conscripted to serve, fight, and ultimately die in the service of their country.
…In most ways, the all-volunteer force has been a tremendous success. The U.S. military today is the most capable, effective, and professional military force in the world. Despite serious concerns that the demands of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would “break” the all-volunteer force, it has proven more durable and resilient than even its senior leaders expected. Many troops served two, three, four, or even more tours in various combat zones, at great personal cost to themand their families. Yet despite these strains, volunteers continued to fill the ranks, year after year (though some enlistment standards were temporarily lowered). The all-volunteer force’s resilience in the recent wars has made the very idea of a military draft sound even more archaic — seemingly a relic from an earlier era that, like a rotary phone or transistor radio, has outlived its utility and faded into obsolescence.
Yet the remarkable success of the all-volunteer force masks its one profound disadvantage: It has become too easy for most Americans to believe that they are no longer responsible for fighting the nation’s wars.It has unintentionally sent the message that “someone else” will take those risks and fight those fights.(More on our personal experience with this specific attitude follows.)Since fewer than 1 percent of the population serves in the military, and most of those who now serve are related to someone who has served, the civil-military gap has expanded into a massive chasm. The vast majority of Americans now expect that their lives will remain unaffected during times of war, because a corps of patriotic volunteers will do all the fighting — a belief that has been further cemented by the low profile of the long and unending wars since 2001.Everyday Americans have been able to distance themselves from any involvement in those conflicts in part because there has been no prospect that they will ever have to fight in them. The idea thatany war, no matter how serious or sizable, could somehow draw the sons and daughters of all Americans into uniform and exposure to death and suffering now seems nearly incomprehensible.
Why is this such a serious problem? First, it makes it too easy for the nation to go to war.It is much easier to decide to send someone else’s children, parents, and friends to war than to send your own. Take, for example, American public opinion in October 2002, a few months before the invasion of Iraq. In one poll, 53 percent of those surveyed supported the looming attack. But when another poll asked about what the United States should do if it needed more military personnel during a war, only 26 percent said they preferred a draft while 69 percent preferred to continue relying on volunteers. More recently, a poll of young Americans taken soon after the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris found that 60 percent of those surveyed supported sending ground troops to participate in a military campaign against the Islamic State, which perpetrated the attacks. Yet when asked, in the very next question, how likely they would be to serve if the United States needed additional troops to combat the Islamic State, 62 percent said that they definitely would not. And as we wrote earlier this year, we believe that this perception is an important reason why Americans aren’t really worried about war with North Korea.MostAmericans simply don’t see going to war as something that affects them.
Second, and even more importantly, in this era of renewed great power competition, the United States may well find itself having to fight wars of greater size, scope, and casualties that require more troops than the nation can recruit voluntarily…
…This Memorial Day, many Americans will pause from their weekend barbecues and family get-togethers to remember those who have fallen defending the nation. Among those headstones dotting the well-manicured cemeteries at Arlington and in Normandy near Omaha Beach, in Manila and at the Punchbowl in Hawaii, lie thousands of Americans who were called from the rest of their lives to serve the nation at war. These promising, mostly young citizens never came back to those lives, or their families. Their headstones should remind us all that this ultimate sacrifice has always been the price of the nation’s wars. And it has almost always been borne by the entire population of families across the nation, not just a patriotic few. Defending the nation in time of war remains the responsibility of all of us who call ourselves citizens of the United States — not just the job of a small warrior caste.“
We’d identify a third and perhaps most important concern: the unwillingness of the country to accept the casualties resulting from a real war, not to mention the MSM’s knee-jerk refusal to accurately report same, or the utter lack of political will on the part of The Left to support it.
Consider the fact total U.S. combat deaths in the War on Terror, since our initial foray into Afghanistan and second invasion of Iraq, total 5,684. Then contemplate the KIAs on just the first day of the Normandy Invasion reached some 4,414 confirmed dead.
Here’s the juice: our nearly bloodless victory in the First Gulf War has inured America to the harsh realities of armed conflict on a WWII scale. We dread the impact of the body politic’s reaction to the casualties we’ll likely suffer in the real thing.
As for “our personal experience with this specific attitude” referenced above, during our oldest son Jonathon’s first deployment overseas, we were forced to attend the high school graduation party of the daughter of a good friend and former Northern Virginia neighbor. While dining, another guest asked after our eldest, whereupon we informed him Jon was actively involved in defending his country in the Middle East. At which point he stated, “We never wanted that for our kids”. To which we responded, while walking away from the table, “We’re glad our son was willing to sacrifice so your’s did not“.
Frankly, every conversation since has been forced. And our friend wonders why we don’t wish to get together with this insensitive a*s, even though he lives less than 30 minutes from our home.
Which brings us, inappropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these four cartoons forwarded by G. Trevor, which are not only humorous, but significant for another reason:
Trevor received them from a friend who’s a Liberal Dimocrat (like they come any other way!), giving him hope his buddy may finally be seeing the light.
Finally, turning from a ray of hope to utter darkness, we’ll call it a week with yet another sordid story straight from the pages of The Crime Blotter, and this just in from the Great White North:
“A Canadian woman was arrested Monday night after deliberately defecating on the floor of a Tim Hortons restaurant and throwing her feces at a store clerk, according to local reports. In explicit surveillance video posted to social media websites, the woman can be seen arguing with a Tim Hortons employee before pulling down her pants as other restaurant patrons look on.
Officers from the RCMP, Canada’s national police force, took the woman into custody in the parking lot a short time later, The Abbotsford News reported. The woman, who used nearby napkins to clean herself during the incident, was reportedly refused access to the store restroom…”
Now that’s something you don’t see everyday; check please!
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