4 responses to “Sunday’s Forum”

1. 

   Scott

   August 16, 2026 at 8:35 am

   I posted this a couple of days ago. I was in a hurry and posted it as an example of the anti-Islamic fervor sweeping Texas. But something bothered me later.

   Greg Abbott threatens Dallas, Houston airports’ grant funds over Islamic washing facilities

   This quote.

   “These ablution facilities appear designed to single out one subset of the population for special treatment based on religion. That is illegal,” Abbott said in a news release announcing the grant reviews. “Both airports are government-owned facilities. The federal and state constitutions prohibit government from facilitating this sort of discrimination. Just as the government cannot favor the secular over the sacred, it also cannot favor one religious view over all others.”

   It seems to me that our Gov Abbott is now saying that religious accommodations are now considered discriminations.

   If so, this is a complete reversal of the last 20 years of judicial declarations.

   Am I wrong here?
   1. 

      Kurtz

      August 16, 2026 at 2:54 pm

      It appears that you are correct.

      But I’m sure there are controlling issues in different areas of law that result in departures from a general rule.

      From your link:

      Houston’s airport has had an ablution room since 2024, described as for use by people of all faiths. DFW told KERA that it has had a station since 2019.

      My guess is that few people other than Muslims use the room.

      I sometimes wonder if anti-Muslim hatred among conspicuous Christians is driven, in part, by jealousy of genuine piety. For some, there may be a political envy of Islamic nations.

      The telling quote for me is:

      Just as the government cannot favor the secular over the sacred

      It seems to me that any religious accommodation favors the sacred over the secular — otherwise, it would not be an accommodation. So, I find Abbott’s claim silly.

      Playing Calvinball for decades adds thorns to knotty questions.
2. 

   CSK

   August 16, 2026 at 12:35 pm

   Words fail me:

   http://www.rawstory.com/trump-ballroom-2677712751/

   Sweet Jesus.

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3. 

   Richard Gardner

   August 17, 2026 at 1:46 am

   At Joint Base Charleston’s Weapons Station in South Carolina, an alligator named Charlie wasn’t just a wild animal passing through. He was practically part of the property.
   Base records show Charlie’s family had lived in the same half-acre stormwater pond since the early 1960s, back when the land was still the U.S. Army Ordnance Depot. As the site changed hands over the decades, becoming a Naval Weapons Station and later Joint Base Charleston, Charlie never left.
   By 2011, his pond was in trouble. Silt had built up for over 50 years, and willow trees and thick marsh plants had taken over. Only half the original water remained open, which meant the pond couldn’t handle drainage properly anymore, and it was becoming a poor habitat for Charlie and his mate.
   Instead of simply draining the pond and clearing it out, base planners built the entire renovation around the alligators living there. Crews temporarily moved Charlie and his mate to a nearby pond while construction crews got to work.
   The biggest challenge was Charlie’s den. Alligators dig burrows into banks to escape extreme heat and cold, and losing that shelter would have left him exposed. So engineers built him a new one, out of concrete. Two eight-foot by eight-foot stormwater junction boxes were installed underground near the water’s edge, creating custom dens for Charlie and his mate.
   On April 30, 2011, Charlie moved back in and was seen checking out his new digs almost immediately.
   The base never treated Charlie as a pet. He was, and remained, a massive apex predator living inside a working military facility. But rather than removing him, officials chose to work around him, a rare example of wildlife and heavy infrastructure sharing the same ground.
   What do you think it would take for more public and industrial spaces to make room for wildlife like Charlie, instead of removing it?
   Source: Joint Base Charleston

   This is now the home of the Nuclear Navy’s moored training ships (MTS), and adjacent to Navy Nuclear Power School. Not a backwater. (I went to Orlando, we had alligators too).

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