It takes a lot to get my goat (even single fellas need someone to cuddle with occasionally).  But consider my goat gotten with news from Orlando – a city where they do a helluva lot more with the goat than just cuddle!  Under the dark of night, the rainbow crosswalks commemorating the shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse mysteriously disappeared.  There’s a whole lotta passing the buck.  The Florida Department of Transportation issued a memo in June ordering all cities in the state to remove rainbow-colored crosswalks, or they could face withholding of transportation funds.  But they say the order came from the top.  US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (who I would never term as a “top”) sent an edict to all states saying intersections should be “kept free from distractions”.  He added, “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”  That may be so, but the Orlando mayor Buddy Dyer points out that this particular crosswalk is part of a larger memorial, which was set to be completed in 2027.  “This callous action of hastily removing part of a memorial to what was at the time our nation’s largest mass shooting, without any supporting safety or discussion, is a cruel political act.”  Not to be deterred, area children corrected the situation by filling in the crosswalk colors in chalk.  Temporary but touching.

I’d like to weigh in on an item you may have heard elsewhere, Colton Underwood has let it be known that he’d like to be partnered with Mark Ballas on Dancing with the Stars.  It bears noting that Ballas retired from competition when he won the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy in 2022.  And, with all due respect to the fence-hopping former Bachelor, you are neither a dancer nor a star.  Keep it in your pants, cowboy.

Months ago we told you about the HBO documentary Enigma which compared the lives and careers of Amanda Lear and Lady April Ashley.  In it, the director attempted repeatedly to get Lear to admit she was transgender and previously worked at Le Carrousel under the moniker Peki d’Oslo.  Lear stubbornly said, “People say that, and I never deny.  I say think what you want.  You’re free to think.  But I know who I am, you know?  Like the Queen – never complain, never explain.”  But she’s got some explaining to do – like why she sat down for the interview in the first place.  She claims that she was lied to by the filmmaker.  “They said they wanted to celebrate my career.  Instead it was a pretext to spread the usual fake news about my alleged transgender identity.”  Lear is considering taking legal action against the filmmakers and HBO.