Miscellaneous Rambling
If my Vegas posts inspire you to visit Sin City, check out this great piece about the hipsterdom of downtown. I guess I must be a hipster at some level, though you'd hardly know it by seeing me (or reading me, or hearing me, or smelling me). One of the things I really liked about downtown was seeing El Cortez, which was (as near as I can learn) the first casino bought by the mob (the Flamingo was the first casino built by the mob). Its outside still looks like the 1950s, which inspired me enough to go inside and donate $10 to its current owners. According to that article, hipsters enjoy the retro stuff just like I do.
I have long-time held that there is no substantive difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. And, as we've seen this political season, many long-time Republicans like me have reached the same conclusion, so they embraced an outsider like Trump. But the Obama administration's obsession with gay rights and, now, transgender use of bathrooms is making me re-think that conclusion. The administration is insane, absolutely freakin' insane. The above link, incidentally, has a great response from congressman Jim Jordan.
I'm going out on a limb with this speculation: The Obama administration is pushing the transgender stuff, specifically to tell voters that there is a huge difference between the parties, so people get engaged in politics in general and perpetuate the Beltway monster. It is, in other words, a farce orchestrated by the clandestine forces in Washington that really pull the strings, as long as an insider puppet is in power. And in a year when voters have overwhelmingly signalled that they want the insiders out, the nefarious elements who really run the show need to up the ante significantly. I feel like a conspiracy nut when I say things like that, but no other explanation lets me make sense of this insane transgender debate.
