Cyrsti's Condo

I imagine most of you have worked for a company or were in the military and had a chance to ask a superior a question.  I'm not talking about your immediate boss, but one way up the line. Way back in the day when I was in the Army I was a "Spec 4" so I really didn't register on the radar of anyone of the "full bird" colonel rank or above (general.)  So, I never was able to ask any rhetorical questions such as "Why are we fighting this stupid war in Vietnam-Sir?" So, I was surprised and pleased when I read this story from the Advocate :Last Sunday, a young Navy officer serving in Afghanistan made history with an act of bravery that’s made headlines around the world. It took place during a “commander’s call” in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where the new secretary of Defense, Ash Carter, was speaking to troops on his first visit to the country. When he finished his remarks and called for questions, Lt. Cmdr. Jesse Ehrenfeld of the U.S. Navy Medical Corp

Any card carrying American (draft card) back in the day, learned to dislike Cuba and Fidel Castro if for nothing else sending us to the brink of nuclear destruction or making it impossible to import a quality cigar. Times have changed in Cuba. Read more from the NewYork Times :  JOSÉ AGUSTÍN HERNÁNDEZ may not be precisely the kind of New Man whom Che Guevara pictured shaping Cuban socialism.  Ms. Hernández, (above left)  48, who identifies as a woman and goes by Adela, would sooner cut a lazy bureaucrat to size with her sharp tongue than chop sugar cane with a machete. And you would more likely catch her hauling water to her house in platform heels than trudging the streets in fatigues and work boots. So Ms. Hernández was more than a little tickled when she became the first transgender person to be elected to public office in Cuba, a country whose government once viewed homosexuality as a dangerous aberration and, in the 1960s, packed gay men off to labor camps. “It’s a huge ac

 From Legislative Queery : Growing up there were two breakfast cereals available at our house: Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Cheerios. The two options were so ubiquitous on the breakfast tables of my youth that to this day I can't stand to eat either. But I may have to find a way to stomach Cheerios again after the taurus-shaped staple's parent couple, General Mills, came out against a proposed ban on marriage equality in its home state of Minnesota this week. In contrast, the other purveyor of the processed grains of my youthful mornings, Kellogg's, has pulled its advertizing from the Teen Nick series " Degrassi " over story lines involving transgender youth. "Degrassi" is a long running Canadian television series that since 1979 has taken on a number of difficult teen issues including abortion, drug use, racism, gay teens and eating disorders. But apparently the existence of transgender teenagers is a step too far for Kellogg's. Th