Observations from the Coffee Shop 2.18

What a totally fascinating week it has been.

It started with Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, a Democrat, signing into law a gay marriage bill passed by that state's House and Senate both passed the previous week. The law will take effect 90 days after the legislature's session ends or June 1^st. It will in all probability be put on hold till after the November election as opponents have filed to have both it and a question defining marriage as between a woman and a man put on the ballot. They must have 120,000 signatures by June to challenge the law and 240,000 signatures by July to have the marriage question entered. I was surprised to learn that 30 states (map) have constitutional
amendments defining marriage as between a woman and a man, I didn't realize it was that many.

In New Jersey the state Senate passed a gay marriage bill on Monday by a vote of 24-16 and the state House passed the same bill Thursday. The House vote was 42-33 with not one Republican voting in favor of it. Late Friday, just before the start of a holiday weekend, Republican Gov. Chris Christie did as he had promised and vetoed the bill. Christie proved that, just as the playground bully he is, his demeanor is all a show to cover the fact that he is afraid of his own very ample shadow. The New Jersey legislatures have until the current session ends in January 2014 to override the veto and can vote as many times as is necessary. 

Also yesterday the Maryland House of Delegates, after a sometimes mind boggling debate, passed a gay marriage bill by a vote of 72-67 and the state Senate is expected to pass the bill next week. Gov. Martin O'Malley, also a Democrat, introduced the bill himself and will sign it. Here again opponents promise to have  the law on the November ballot. The surprising thing in Maryland is ho vehemently African American churches oppose it. All I can wonder is what their reaction would be if it were their rights that were being put to a vote. I think you know the answer to that one.

Going back for a second, both Gregoire and Christie are practicing Catholics and last month she offered to talk to Christie about the religious aspects of the gay marriage issue. I only mention their faith because of my final, and totally unreal, story of the week.

On Thursday Republican Rep. Darrell Issa held a circus he choose to call a hearing on President Obama's new birth control payment rule. I can honestly say that birth control is an issue, if it is an issue at all, that I pay very little attention to but this was total insanity. Five middle aged men testifying on an issue that predominately concerns women and not one woman witness was allowed to speak. Issa must know that a majority of Americans, including a majority of both Catholics and Republicans, think he is dead wrong. He also must know that a majority of registered voters are women. The GOP's argument against birth control is principally one of religious freedom or pretty much if god wanted a woman to have birth control he would have given her a bottle of aspirin (Google it) which brings this counter argument to mind. If god wanted a man to have a hard-on he would have given them a bottle of Viagra, something I'm sure insurance covers.

Like I said what a week. I just typed hard-on.

Observations on the 2012 Election

Ever since I was in college I have survived on very little sleep and if I get five hours in a night I'm perfectly happy. I'm only telling you that because I'm starting to write this at 5 AM and I have been awake since 2:30 after having a five hour 'nap' or a full night's sleep.

I was just reading a little about Rick Santorum and thinking again how much of a dream come true it would be for him to win the GOP nomination. I don't think President Obama could ask for more, I mean seriously Sarah Palin would stand a better chance of beating him in November. With no primaries this coming week the still surging Santorum is leading in almost every poll now. Next up is Michigan and a loss by Romney there could send Willard and his millions to the ass heap of political history.

Even some states where Romney won he has now lost. First in Iowa where the state GOP reversed itself and declared Santorum the winner and now it could possibly happen again in Maine. On February 12^th Romney was declared the winner of the Maine Caucus by a margin of 194 votes over Ron Paul. Some towns postponed their caucuses due to weather and some vote counts were just flat out missed yet Romney was declared the winner that night. In the end it doesn't matter much because a caucus is a non-binding party function, not bound by state election controls, and what counts is the delegate selection convention where Paul always thought he would win. Still for Willard a reverse in Maine would be another hole in a suddenly floundering campaign. 

Short of a new disaster the GOP now has little hope of beating Obama on his handling of the economy so it's now shifting to its backup plan, a return to the culture wars, and Santorum only emphasizes that. The latest chapter of the war has the GOP calling Obama's contraceptive mandate the opening of a 'war on religion' even though the mandate is the national equivalent of laws already on the books in 28 states. It is lost on them and their allies, the Conference of Catholic Bishops, that the largest Catholic university in the nation, DePaul, offers free contraceptives and has for years.

Finally I give you the 1990 Supreme Court case, Oregon v. Smith, in which the court ruled the states have the power to accommodate religious beliefs but they aren't constitutionally obligated to do so. The author of this decision? Arch conservative and catholic Justice Antonin Scalia. If anybody started a war on religion it was this man.

noon update - A poll that just came out now has Santorum leading in Ohio with 42^% to Romney's 24^%.

Observations on the 2012 Election

“It’s now time to clear the air, and when we saw the latest Republican frontrunner, Rick Santorum, speaking before a crowd yesterday, all we could think of was George Orwell’s novel, '1984,' about a society dominated by the most extreme form of totalitarianism. The similarities with George Orwell’s novel, and that movie, are not just superficial. No, Rick Santorum holds some pretty stern views on a number of important issues and he regularly sounds like a theocrat,” MSNBC anchor
Martin Bashir.


link

Observations on the 2012 Election

CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, was last week and it was highlighted by current wingnut tard in chief Andrew Breitbart being dragged away by aides as he screamed “animals” at Occupy protesters outside the DC Marriot. Speakers inside the hall described Democrats, liberals, and President Obama as racists, animals, radicals, freaks, and parasites, who were stupid and arrogant. We use racial division, class warfare, religious bigotry, and hate to divide the country creating a climate of fear. Fascinating coming from those who say the Democrats are the name callers.

Fox News talking head and wingnut columnist Cal Thomas was down right effing ugly. After the Heritage’s Genevieve Wood played a quote of Rachel Maddow debunking the conservative argument on contraception Thomas said, “I’m glad that you played the Rachel Maddow clip because I think she is the best argument in favor of her parents using contraception. I would be all for that.” Thomas later apologized.

CPAC also marked the return to the national stage of Sarah Palin, but enough said on that subject.

One of those arrogant liberals, Katrina vanden Heuvel of The Nation, had a good quote today when talking about Obama's proposed budget and the GOP plan to attack it on MSNBC's Now with Alex Wagner. She said Social Security is not an entitlement but a right Americans pay for all their lives. Very true but I have never heard put quite like that before.

At the final GOP debate in Florida Rick Santorum, always my personal fav, insisted that he should be the nominee of the party because he'd caught on earlier than Newt or Willard to the global warming hoax. This as North America is in the middle of the driest winter in history. NASA recently updated its “Blue Marble” photo which was originally taken in 1972. In this new version North America is almost completely snow and cloud free, in the middle of January. I know it's a lot to ask but I pray to the political gods every night hoping Santorum will be the GOP nominee. I can only imagine how entertaining a debate between that man and President Obama would be.

I'll end this with a simple question. Does the GOP have any plan at all other than defeating President Obama in November? All else seems to take a back seat to that goal. The economy, health care, you, me, the country, the human race. Other than that they only care about corporations and the gilded barons that run them. Those barons that fill their pockets with dollars that come from the tax cuts they are given in return.

Happy Valentine's Day

I was trying to think of something to write today but Valentine's Day isn't one of my best topics. Than I saw something a friend posted on Flickr and there is no way in hell I can top this so I'm going to borrow it. I hope she doesn't mind.

"In 1958, Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving, who lived in Virginia, were married in the District of Columbia to avoid Virginia’s ‘Racial Integrity’ law which outlawed marriage between different races. After returning home, Virginia police broke into their house and found them sleeping in bed together, for which they were arrested. In 1959 they were sentenced to one year in prison. The judge in the trial invoked religious arguments, stating that since God had created the races on different continents, He clearly did not mean for them to marry. The Lovings chose a 25 year suspended sentence on the condition they moved out of their home state of Virginia. In 1963 The ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Lovings, which wound its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which unanimously ruled the Virginia law unconstitutional (Loving v Virginia, 1967).

The Court wrote “Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes … is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law.”
In 1945, after the US had helped win the right of freedom from oppression for people around the world, people of different races could not marry in 30 of 48 states (www.lovingday.org/legal-map).
Luckily, progress happens

My point on this Valentine’s Day? Governor Christie of New Jersey (and others), positive change is happening - don’t be on the wrong side of history."

Happy Valentine's Day

500

So here we have my 500^th post to this blog. One would think I should have something totally earth shattering to say but sadly it's not meant to be. After a day when I decided my too stressed brain needed a total break from the 'empire' I really have nothing that memorable to share. What I have is something I used with a photo I took a bit back and I have posted before. It says more about me than I at times want to admit.

"We are the ones who know how to entertain ourselves. How to learn without taking a class. How to contemplate and how to create.

Loners, by virtue of being loners, in celebrating the state of standing alone, have an innate advantage when it comes to being brave; like pioneers, like mountain men, iconoclasts, rebels, and sole survivors.

Loners have an advantage when faced with the unknown, the never-done-before, and the unprecedented. An advantage when it comes to being mindful like the Buddhists, spontaneous like the Taoists, crucibles of concentrated prayer like the desert saints, esoteric like the cabalists.

Loners, by virtue of being loners, have at their fingertips the undiscovered, the unique, the rarified. Innate advantages when it comes to imagination, concentration, inner discipline.

A knack for invention, originality, for finding resources in what others would call vacuums. A knack for visions."

Anneli Rufus, "Party of One, The Loners Manifesto"

Thanks for reading.

Observations 2.9 Updates

I'm trying something a little different here. Usually if I want to update a post I do just that and than change the post date if I want it to go out in the email. The problem with that is it messes with the original flow if there are more than one posts on a subject. I'm just going to try it this way for now.

In my 2.6 post about Miley Cyrus I mentioned how I was pleasantly surprised to find out Disney was such a gay friendly company. A friend reminded me of Gay Days which is a loosely organized event in which LGBT people and their families spend a day at Disney World. It began with a few thousand people on a single day in 1991 but now has grown to a week long event and over a 100,000 people. Disney in no way endorses the event but at the same time it does nothing to stop it.

In my 2.7 post I wrote about states that are currently considering gay marriage legislation. Yesterday (2.8) the Washington State House passed a bill legalizing gay marriage which had previously been passed by the state senate. The bill now goes to Govenor Chris Gregoire who is expected to sign it next week making Washington the 8^th state to legalize gay marriage.

I also have this video I have been wanting to share but events got in the way and I never got around to using it. During the debate before the Washington Senate vote on its marriage equality bill State Senator Ed Murray takes the floor and announces he will soon marry his partner Michael Shiosaki. He also told his colleagues before the vote "regardless of how you vote on this bill, an invitation will be in the mail" to their future wedding.

link

Observations from the Gallery 2.7

After the euphoria of last years legalization of gay marriage in New York wore off the subject slipped to the back of my mind a bit. The fight was never buried too deeply just pushed aside by the swirl of other events. That suddenly changed in the past week as the Washington State Senate passed a bill legalizing gay marriage last Wednesday and today the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals ruled California's Prop 8 was unconstitutional. The court ruled that as gay couples had all the rights of marriage, via civil unions, the state had no good right or reason to take away the word marriage. That narrow ruling, effecting only California and other civil union states, makes it possible for the Supreme Court to wash its hands of equal rights and leave it to the states. You can read the Court's complete 128 page ruling here, good luck with that.

So where does the battle move next? First up is Washington where the Senate passed a bill legalizing gay marriage and the House is expected to do the same this week. Govenor Chris Gregoire, a Democrat, is the force behind the bill and has said she would sign it immediately. Opponents are working to schedule a referendum on the November ballot which would determine whether gay marriages could actually take place.

In Maryland a bill permitting gay marriage was introduced by Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley and a committee vote is expected in a few of weeks. In New Jersey supporters are working to get the votes necessary to override Republican Gov. Chris Christie's expected veto of a bill also permitting gay marriage. In a massive cop out Christie wants to leave the decision up to voters but Democrats don't appear ready to humor him.

In May North Carolina voters will vote on whether the state constitution will be amended to define marriage. If passed the ammendment would virtualy outlaw gay marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships. In Minnesota a November ballot question would also ammend the state constitution to ban gay marriage in a state where there is already a law making it illegal. Asshats north and south.

Finally there is Maine where a law was passed three years ago legalizing gay marriage. It was signed by the Govenor only to be repealed by the voters in a 53% to 47% vote. With changing attitudes in the state Equality Maine submitted signatures last month to again place the referendum on the ballot this November.

Still, all things considered, as Lambda Legal Director Jon Davidson said after today's decision, "The tide is not turning, it has turned." 

Observations from the Window 2.6

I once wrote the chances of me posting anything about Miley Cyrus would be about as good as the temperature hitting 70° in the Village during the last days of November but it happened. Maybe I should just blame global warming because here I am about to do it a second time. Cyrus has had an equal sign tattooed on her ring finger, done a NOH8 photo shoot for Adam Bouska, and now written an essay for Glamour magazine  on why she got the tattoo. So maybe she had a good ghost writer, who knows, I still give her credit for attaching her name to it.

"I believe every American should be allowed the same rights and civil liberties. Without legalized same-sex marriage, most of the time you cannot share the same health benefits, you are not considered next of kin and you are not granted the same securities as a heterosexual couple. How is this different than having someone sit in the back of the bus because of their skin color? We all should be tolerant of one another and embrace our differences. My dad, who is a real man's man, lives on the farm and is as Southern and straight as they come. He loves my gay friends and even supports same-sex marriage. If my father can do it, anyone can. This is America, the nation of dreams. We're so proud of that. And yet certain people are excluded. It's just not right."

I love to follow links and doing just that after reading her essay I learned something rather surprising. Though she is no longer fully employed by the Disney company one would think they keep tabs on their one former star who is relatively well behaved. They must have known about this but had no comment at all. It seems Disney is actually a very queer friendly company and one of the first to allow full domestic benefits to all of its employees.

Even though most Disney characters seem gay I was still pleasantly surprised to learn that.

Super Bowl

I had just gotten to the bar to catch the remainder of the Super Bowl and aggravate some Giants fans when this commercial greeted me on 6 big screens. Now I don't know what commercials I missed and which are yet to come but this is my winner. For my own reasons I really can't see anything topping this one.


link

"Teleflora's 2012 Super Bowl commercial starring Adriana Lima is both romantic and alluring; with the gorgeous Lima taking center stage as she prepares for a special Valentine's Day date."

Some comments posted to the video would have you think there was never a  more sexist commercial made. Why some people can't just lighten up and enjoy sometimes is beyond me. I know I'm way to serious sometimes but damn, just chill.

Observations from the Coffee Shop 2.2

The SOPA blackout of January 18^th may have been a sweet victory for internet freedom but I am beginning to think it was a minor one. Between Google's new privacy policy and Twitter's censorship rules it is beginning to seem as if the web giants fought SOPA for their own private reasons.

Than Google stuck yet again. It seems Google very quietly announced earlier this month that they would allow country by country censorship of their Blogger service which you happen to be reading right now. On January 9^th they revealed they will comply with censorship requests on a per country basis which they will accomplish by using country specific web addresses. If you were reading this in India, the only country effected so far, the address would now have a .in added to it. The announcement was so quiet that it went unnoticed until reported by Wired yesterday. So much for all the vaunted cries for freedom of the internet that were heard only weeks ago.

In some totally unrelated news the Susan G. Komen For the Cure Foundation, the world's leading breast cancer research group, cut all funding to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood used the Komen funds, about $600,000 annually, to pay for breast cancer screening for poor women. Komen, which is the creator of the pink ribbon campaign, said Planned Parenthood was cutoff because of a new rule in which Komen states it will not fund any organization under investigation by any government body. Parenthood is being investigated by anti-abortion Republican Rep. Cliff Stearns of Florida for the gods only knows what trumped up reason. Rumor has it the rule was specifically written to find an excuse to defund Parenthood after pressure from anti-abortion groups and Komen's top public health official immediately resigned in protest.

Evidently, while our minds were elsewhere, cancer became a partisan issue, a terribly sad turn of events for anyone who knows anyone who has had cancer. That pretty much includes all of us. It seems I'm not the only one who thinks that as in the 24 hours since the Kormen announcement Planned Parenthood has raised $400,000 not including another $250,000 from an unknown Texas couple and a $250,000 pledge by New York Mayor Bloomberg.

What ties these two stories together is something that happened last night. In a classic bit of defacing a so far anonymous hacker, not to be confused with the hacker group Anonymous, visited the Komen website. The hack redirected visitors to an almost identical website with the only difference being an ad for a Komen supported marathon. The original said "help us get 26.2 or 13.1 miles closer to a world without breast cancer," which the hacker changed to "help us run over poor people on the way to the bank:"

Like I said, classic.

Observations from the Edge 1.30

Interesting concept actually,

"Be it resolved that we, THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT of the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in order to form a more perfect Union, by, for and of the People, shall elect and convene a National General Assembly the week of July 4, 2012 in the City Of Philadelphia to prepare and ratify a Petition For Redress Of Grievances on behalf of the Ninety-Nine Percent of the People of the United States to be served upon the United States Congress, United States Supreme Court and President of the United States prior to November 6, 2012."

link
The 99% Declaration

Observations from the Window 1.29

Last Tuesday night I watched President Obama's State of the Union address. I'm not going to get into the content of the speech other than to say it was heavily into the wealth inequality that seems to be the signature issue of out time. It was a good speech that showed the President back in campaign form and maybe ready to finally take on the GOP head on. One can hope.

As watched the speech I chatted with a friend and tried to keep up with a wildly out of control twitter. It seemed as if everybody was watching and had an opinion on it which was good to see because it shows that as the election year begins people are far from turned off by it. They know what the stakes are this year and just want to get past the joke that is the GOP primary season and get to the main event. One way or another I think this is going to be a very interesting year.

I truly love politics and take some pride in usually have a good guess about what is going to happen but these primaries are driving me insane. Newt Gingrich, the very antithesis of the conservative GOP, just wont go away and at times is the front runner. Willard Romney, who I once thought was the GOP's best hope, cries of wealth envy and has most of his own wealth in the Cayman Islands. Than there is Ron Paul who continues to amass delegates but to what end? He has nowhere near the money to spend as the other candidates but seems to only need a bus ticket to the next state to add to his delegate count. What Paul plans to do with them is the first big question of the campaign.

Some election year randomness.

The always popular Rick Santorum on President Obama's policy in Libya, “We should never go to war simply to topple a dictator.” Somebody needs to hand him a history of the war in Iraq. After the GOP debates in Florida it seems Santorum is running more to be Willard Romney's running mate than anything else.

In Georgia a judge ruled President Obama must appear in court in a case which challenges his being on the Georgia ballot for the November election, once again the question is his citizenship. The President's lawyer boycotted the hearing saying it was “baseless, costly and unproductive” while lawyers for the challengers said the president should be held in contempt for not complying. Recently I talked with somebody who said he thinks Obama was born in Kenya at which point I just wanted to shake the crap out of him. In all seriousness, what must the man do for these people?

And finally as the US and Iran drift back and forth from the brink some Republicans still have the gall to accuse President Obama of appeasement. One has to wonder what Osama bin Ladin, Muammar Gaddafi, and some recently deceased Somali pirates would have to say about that.

Observations on JoePa

I wasn't planning on writing more about the passing of Joe Paterno even though I know I could. I could write to try and help you understand why we Penn State alumni feel the way we do but at times it seems a totally hopeless proposition. Than I came across this column by Bill Lyon of the Philadelphia Inquirer and it just made me think, from the first paragraph to the haunting question at its end, it made me think about Paterno's death in a way I hadn't done before. It really is worth reading the entire column but I'm just posting the beginning and end here because they are the two parts that I just can't get out of my head. The two parts that seem to sum it all up. (full column here)

"Once upon a time in the Valley called Happy, there lived a man with monarch powers. And with these powers he bestowed upon the Valley great wealth and fame and philanthropy and enviable reputation, and buildings for football warriors and diligent scholars....

....And here, finally, is the chilling question, the one that you dread giving voice to, the one that sits on your shoulder making you squirm, the one that will haunt you for a long, long time: Did Penn State kill Joe Paterno?"

Joe Paterno was laid to rest late Wednesday after two days of public viewings at the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center which his donations had funded. An estimated 30,000 people stood in freezing temperatures to file through, lines so long the doors had been opened a half hour early. A private service followed than the funeral procession wound through State College, past the Paterno Library, and finally past Beaver Stadium, its parking lots once again full, and a lone blue and white tent representing Paternoville. A sign held outside the stadium read “We Are Because You Were.” Joe Paterno won 409 games as head coach of the Nittany Lions, 409 wins at one school, something that never will be repeated.

Over the past couple months I have tried to explain to numerous friends why I, why we, feel the way we do. I'm not sure I ever succeeded completely. Late today fellow Penn State graduate Becky Murdy put better than I ever have when she posted this on twitter, "From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. From the inside looking out, you can't explain it."

Goodbye JoePa, You will be, are, missed.