SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:31 P.M. ET: 

NO WHITE SMOKE YET – Although there were many predictions that a nuclear deal with Iran would be reached today, Sunday, it wasn't.  There is more negotiating planned.  At the same time, Republicans are warning that, based on their knowledge of what has been agreed to thus far, Obama and Kerry will have a hard time getting Congress to approve the anticipated pact.  Since we have not seen any drafts, it's hard to assess what has actually been achieved.  However, common sense tells us that if Iran were really negotiating in good faith, it would not have taken this long to come to any kind of agreement.

THE TRENDIES TRY TO KILL GENDER – From Newsbusters:  Friday’s Washington Post hyped a new trend in fashion on the front of the Style section. The headline was “His. Hers. Theirs. Whoever’s. In an increasingly genderless fashion industry, if the blouse fits, wear it.”  Fashion writer Robin Givhan championed designers who are asking “Why are clothes assigned a gender at all?” The story began:   Menswear designers are on a mission to eradicate it. Some are going full bore, wielding lace shirts and floppy, grandma blouses like cultural grenades. Others are taking a stealth approach, quietly chiseling away the boundaries between masculinity and femininity through non-traditional retail, models and silhouettes.
...And when New York hosts its first men’s fashion season in recent memory next week, one can only expect more of the same. The over-arching message: Gender is a mood, a metaphor, an anachronism.  And this story is ridiculous, immature, cartoonish.  I guess I must be out of it, but I haven't yet sensed a yearning on the part of men to dress like women, or vice versa.

NIKKI SPEAKS – Governor Nikki Haley's dignified handling of the lowering of the Confederate flag at the South Carolina state house has generated vice-presidential talk.  Haley is a conservative, and it's clear she's not about to trade her conservative values for temporary publicity.  From the Washington Times:   South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Sunday said the botched FBI background check that allowed the man accused of the massacre at a historic black church in Charleston to buy the handgun used in the attack is tragic but does not justify expanding such checks.  “We expect when the feds say they’re going to do something. We take them at their word that it is going to get done. The fact that it didn’t get done is terrible,” Mrs. Haley, a Republican, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”  “When we got the call from the FBI telling us what had happened, I was literally sick to my stomach,” she said, adding that she was told the problem was with the FBI and not state or local authorities.   I am not fanatically opposed to all proposals listed under the category of "gun control."  But I wish that the gun controllers would occasionally come up with ideas that work, don't interfere with legitimate Second Amendment rights, and are properly and professionally implemented.  Then we can talk. 

July 12, 2015