Gates and his scouting kerfuffle
In 2006, Robert Gates was appointed secretary of defense by President George W. Bush to replace Donald Rumsfeld, who resigned after heavy Republican losses in midterm elections were interpreted as a national referendum on the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War. Considered the opposite of ideologue Rumsfeld, Gates had a reputation as a pragmatist who could assess a situation and respond as needed, according to biography.com. The Senate confirmed him with a 95-2 vote.
In late 2008, new President Obama said Gates would continue to be part of the presidential cabinet, and during Obama's first term, Gates supported overturning the policy of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He officially retired as secretary of defense in July 2, 2011, and during his farewell ceremony, Obama presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and called him "one of the nation's finest public servants" who "challenged conventional wisdom" and ultimately reduced unnecessary spending in the U.S. military by hundreds of billions of dollars.
When Gates retired, he wrote a book, "Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War" that caused a kerfuffle when he criticized both Bush and Obama. In the tell-all book, he noted that Obama had reservations about the military's role in Afghanistan. "I never doubted Obama's support for the troops, only his support for their mission," he wrote.
Now his pragmatism is causing another kerfuffle after he, now as president of Boy Scouts of America, said the Scouting organization's longstanding ban on participation by openly gay adults is no longer sustainable. He called for change to prevent "the end of us as a national movement."
"The status quo in our movement's membership standards cannot be sustained," he said Thursday in a speech in Atlanta at the Scouts' national annual meeting. "I remind you of the recent debates we have seen in places like Indiana and Arkansas over discrimination based on sexual orientation, not to mention the impending U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer on gay marriage," he said. "We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be."
It's too bad that Gates chose to use liability as an out, instead of simply saying, in his usual blunt way, that discrimination is just not right.
Scrabble gets harder (or easier)
Grandma may soon be relinquishing her Scrabble champ crown.
The now-classic, 82-year-old game that lifted the heavy hearts of the Great Depression has once again added a new slate of words -- 6,500 words, in fact, including a number of slang terms used on social media and in text messages.
Twerking, emoji, bezzy, ridic, onesie. Also devo (short for devolution), vape and shootie (a fashionable shoe that covers the ankle). Fittingly, also added were facetime, hashtag, and sexting, as well as augh, blech, eew, grr, waah and yeesh, lotsa, newb, thanx and hacktivist, according to a Thursday online news story from bbc.com.
Out-of-work architect Alfred Mosher Butts invented the word game in 1933, and with the help of game-loving entrepreneur James Brunot, refined the rules, design and name -- SCRABBLE, a word defined as "to grasp, collect, or hold on to something," according to www.Hasbro.com/scrabble. The name was trademarked in 1948. In the 1950s, Macy's put the game in their store, and the rest is history.
Sorry, Grandma. Obvs. And lolz.
So much for 'handsome' advantage
Robert "Bob" Doggart, a 2014 congressional candidate for Scott DesJarlais' 4th District seat, almost certainly wasn't thinking clearly when he pleaded guilty last month to federal charges that he planned to assault a Muslim enclave in New York he suspected of plotting a terrorist strike.
The one-time Sequatchie County school board candidate was described by federal prosecutors as associated with various "private militia groups." Federal agents found online posts indicating he planned to use Molotov cocktail bombs to torch the New York mosque, school and cafeteria in a community that named itself Islamberg near Hancock, N.Y.
But the mustachioed and self-described "handsome" 63-year-old man must be banking on not going to jail.
During the Independent's 2014 campaign, he boasted to Times Free Press reporter Andy Sher that his looks would give him an advantage.
"Mr. DesJarlais is not a handsome man. I am," Doggart said. "That's going to get me 5,000 votes from women."
It didn't work. He faces a $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison on his plea to a charge of interstate communication of threats.