Some things just rub me the wrong way

I must be getting more cynical as I age, because it takes me less time to find something in society that rubs me the wrong way.

Here are a few things I scanned this week:

• I had zero plans to see “Beauty and the Beast” before I heard a character would have “a gay moment.” I had zero plans to see the movie after hearing about it.

If a theater wants to not show the movie, I’m fine with that. If you want to see a movie bad enough, you’ll find a way to see it. More than 12,000 movies are set for release in 2017, and I guarantee I’ll travel more than an hour to see at least one of them.

What I don’t get is the selective moral outrage. “Beauty and the Beast” is a movie about a woman accepting bestiality to get her dream life. But a side character being gay is a bridge too far?

• The New Mexico Legislature’s failure to override Gov. Susana Martinez’ veto of House Bill 241 leaves me with two thoughts.

The first is an unshakable feeling that Martinez, who doesn’t live here, has more local representation than I do. The legislation, which would allow teachers to take their 10 contractually granted sick days without negative evaluation marks, passed the Senate 39-0 and the House 64-3. All five of my local legislators supported it. The veto override votes were 34-7 and 36-32, and two of my legislators supported it. The bill never changed. The only difference was their No. 1 constituent said no.

The second is that we’re penny-wise and pound-foolish. In her veto message, Martinez stressed that teacher absences had dropped. Isn’t it something what you can accomplish when you threaten people with pay cuts and termination for not following along? You haven’t improved their immune systems. You’ve strong-armed them into working while sick, and that’s got long-term consequences.

The state may one day face a lost wages and/or wrongful termination suit because the plaintiff was punished for exercising a contractually granted benefit. Rubber-stamping legislators won’t help us then.

• Elsewhere in this newspaper, Karl Terry discusses driverless cars and how they’re closer than you think. A great read, but I’ve got terrible news for Karl.

Once at a long red light, I saw a young lady in the other lane talking on her cell phone, smoking a cigarette and drinking a Mountain Dew. One of these things makes a distracted driver, and the combination made my jaw drop.

A block ahead of the light was a police car. She put the phone down, and I felt conflicted that only civil penalties would make her a responsible driver.

I was wrong. The phone went down because she needed a free hand to fasten her seatbelt. Once it clicked into place, the phone came back up and she resumed all other activities as the light turned green.

Driverless cars are coming, Karl? Wrong. They’re already here.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor for the Clovis office of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]