Calling It What It Is

From Andrew:

Even the word "torture" can be too vague and abstract a term. So let us state in plain English how Bush, Cheney, Tenet, et al. actually got information. They did it by subjecting prisoners to repeated drowning, or freezing, or heating, or sadistically long sleeplessness, or shackling or crucifying them until the pain could be borne no longer, or beating them until they pleaded for mercy, or threatening to kill or torture their children or wife or parents. Or all of the above in combination, in isolation, and with no surety of ever seeing the light of day again, with no right to meaningful due process of any kind, sometimes sealed off from light and sound for months at a time, or bombarded with indescribable noise day and night in cells from which there was no escape ever. This is what "under coercive conditions" actually means. It drove many of the victims into become mumbling, shaking, insane shells of human beings; it killed dozens; it drove others still to hunger strikes to try to kill themselves; and it terrified and scarred and "broke" the souls of many, many others. For what? Intelligence that cannot be trusted, and the loss of the sacred integrity of two centuries of American history. Did it save lives? We do not know. We do know that the people who are claiming it did have been unable to bring any serious case to justice based on their original claims, and are the people who are criminally responsible for the torture they have committed. Why would they not say it saved lives? And yet we have no other way to know. And we have the terrifying possibility that false information procured by torture provided a pretext to torture others in a self-perpetuating loop in which any ability to find out the actual truth is lost for ever. That, after all, is how some of the flawed intelligence that took us into Iraq was procured.

This paragraph tore my heart open.  Andrew includes a picture that I cannot bring myself to post here.  It is too profane.  Is this us?  Is this how we defend ourselves?  Is this what we condone?  I've written before about torture.  Pragmatically.  But to see it so graphically depicted...

What have we done?

Shot Callers?

Jodi Cantor at The New York Times profiles friend-in-chief Valerie Jarrett:

To the outside world, Ms. Jarrett became an all-purpose ambassador. Before the Iowa caucuses, Ms. Jarrett tried to persuade black leaders that Mr. Obama could prevail; afterwards, she had to deal with their jitters. At one nerve-racking meeting last summer, Ms. Jarrett met in New York with black leaders, including the hip-hop moguls Sean Combs and Russell Simmons; Mr. Simmons grew so anxious that he had to leave the room, Ms. Jarrett said. They were worried that Mr. Obama was failing to fight back against attempts to stereotype him in racial terms.

“She could have told the room, You’re right, I will talk to Senator Obama,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton. Instead, Ms. Jarrett was blunt. “There are those who are going to fight the race gap, but that’s not our role,” she said, telling the leaders to channel their energy into concrete tasks like voter registration.

Well, that's a bracing revelation.  Sean Combs and Russell Simmons are considered Black Leaders; enough to merit inclusion in a meeting with other Black Leaders including Rev. Al and Ms. Jarrett.

Not that I'm not impressed by Messrs. Combs and Simmons and their successful business models.  It's more than I've done.  But would I honestly want either of them to have an opinion with sway in what Obama should do?  Ms. Jarrett answered correctly.

Brother Old School Regales The Day

Here's a missive from Brotha Old School.  I've included links, most of which are from Wikipedia.

**************************

Not since the late 60s, with the rise and fall of the Panther Party, the demise of the process, (the use of chemicals, lye being the main ingredient, to conk or straighten the Black man's hair) and the birth of the natural (aka the Afro), have I seen such a great display of Black pride and unity.  Marvin Gaye sang "What's Going On," Tricky Dick was in the White House and Cheech and Chong were making light of things.

Back in the day, Blacks referred to each other as my brotha or my susta and tried greeting each
other with Muslim and Swahili exchanges.  Although, more often than not, they were mispronounced and their interpretations rarely understood; like "assalamu alaikum" or "bunny-gunny brotha."  Both phrases were greetings expressed along with a raised clinched fist symbolizing the Black Power sign.  It didn't matter whether you said it right or not.  It was more of a fun and friendly gesture not to be taken too seriously.  It was a rare era, when no matter what was your status quo, being Black, was the thing to be.

Now, all this Blackness, unity, and pride didn't set so well with J. Edgar and crew.   So they craftily circumscribed, infiltrated, then meticulously set about dismantling, from within, most of the major Black movements that promoted such pride and unity.  Reasoning?  They just didn't favor our militant flavor.

But this new found sense of pride and unity generated today is of a cleaner, non-toxic, environmentally friendlier fuel that makes no indication for revolution.  It's just the pure sweet simple joy found in witnessing this day of evolution.  The enormity of the transition for recognition of the Black man's role evolving from the past couple of centuries is not just to be looked upon by America but by the entire world.

A new day?  To say the least.   A new millennium!  A new world!  Undeniably, a new era.  Let me put a lil-some-um out there to ya about myself to shed light on my view about things.  Understand that I, in no way, have ever been one to be politically inclined.  Now, two years shy of 60, I find myself convalescing some shame for allowing my youthful inner city baggage to carry so far into my adulthood.  I was one of them brothas more concerned with trying to hook--up with an Angela Davis look-alike in mini skirt and go-go boots, while on the constant hunt for some Acupulco Gold (the bomb weed of the day).  My world was only as big as the Hollywood night life and the avenues off the Crenshaw strip.  What went on beyond those boundaries, I mistakenly felt had nothing to do with my mama's baby boy.

Today, in following this election, I gotta tell ya, I've learned more about politics and the differences between the major parties than I care to admit.  The excitement in watching history unfold, even for a piss-po-ass-excuse for a student like I've always been, has re-energized the few remaining brain cells that survived the frying of the 60s.  Along with this rejuvenation came the flash backs to those times before the Bloods and the Cuz when brothas got along.  When there was genuine comaraderie.  Sadly, something this new generation has never seen.

Understandably, it took the collective effort of all races in America to elect the nation's first Black President.  But what was such a a reassuring sense of pride and unity, was to see Black people come together as a body nearly as a whole, to stand behind the brotha.  That was a double whammy inducement of pride.  Pride for the brotha and pride for the people standing with him.

Throughout history, when ever a Black man has petitioned the White world's arena, it has never been enough to merely be equally qualified with his game.  He's always had to be better. It is without question that the whole world knows that for a Black man to ever even be considered as a serious contender for the office of the President of the United States of America, he has to be bringing one hellava extraordinary game!  So the fact alone the he was able to win, is enough of a resume in itself to state his qualifications.  You just can't be Black and get that far and not be qualified.  White people never have, nor ever would, allow such a thang.  Beleeve dat!

So, again, I point out it was the collective effort of all the races in America to bring about this day.  Understanding that point, I offer this insight to the Black experience, America tried to oppress Black pride and that's why some on the other side got it twisted with what the soon to be first lady meant when she said this was the first time in her adult life she was really proud of her county.  I've revived the chant to James Brown's, "Say It Loud" to how it now can be expressed today:

Say it loud! 

I'm Black and I'm proud!

Say it loud! 

I'm Black and I'm proud!

Say it loud!

Caint-cha unda-stand!

I'm Black and I'm proud!

To be Ameri-can!

Let's Hear It For The Girl!!!!

Via Ta-Nehisi Coates:

Government Runs How?

Since I know little more about the various governmental departments and offices, I thought that whenever I encounter info about it, I'd post it here.  It'll help me and help you.

Per Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic:

Barack Obama has tapped CBO director Peter Orszag to be director of the Office of Management and Budget, my collegues at National Journal report today.

He's a youngish overachiever, just 40, and subscribes to the theory of what he once called "cool-headed, warm-hearted" economic policy. Judging by his blog, Orszag has smart and interesting things to say about the intersection of psychology and economics, the long-term vs. short-term effects of climate change legislation, honest budgeting and accounting, and lots more.

OMB is the executive branch's budgetary arm and management oversight evaluator. The director serves as a key presidential adviser on the economy and is responsible for projecting the fiscal consequences of any presidential decision. OMB would figure out how much Barack Obama's health care plan will cost, for example, as it gets introduced in Congress. It'll score every bill that Congress sends to Obama. It's the repository of policy, responsible for official statements. More to the point, though, is that OMB will administer Obama's transparency agenda. Regulatory reform will originate at OMB. 

Good man to keep track of.

Shelby Steele

Gawd, this man bugs me.  The man is Shelby Steele and he crawls under my skin like a rash.

I can't embed it, so take a moment and watch this video interview between Steele and Peter Robinson, writer for the conservative website National Review Online.  (Note what a denizen of NRO I've become -- they fascinate me.)

Done?

Okay, several things to notice.  First, at no point during the interview does Mr. Steele refer to black people in the possessive.  It's all about "they" and "them."  From an argument's standpoint, as to him arguing the premise of his book -- entitled by the way "A Bound Man:  Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win" (heh heh heh) -- cold reasoning takes a certain amount of disconnect from the inhabitants of the argument.  I get that.  But it makes me wonder, and not for the first time, if Mr. Steele is aware that he is black.

Second, he offers the idea that black people wear masks and as example, he names two black men -- horn players.  Louis Armstrong, he says, wears a "bargainer" mask but what I distinctly perceived in his explanation, though he didn't say it outright, is that Armstrong is basically an Uncle Tom.  Miles Davis, he says, wears a "challenger" mask.  The angry black man.  Both, he posits, got where they got to be by wearing a mask to make white people feel good about themselves and thereby acquiring a measure of success for themselves; Armstrong by tomming and Davis by scowling and making the white people LIKE it.

I don't disagree with his concept of masks.  Anyone black who has watched an older friend or relative completely change in the presence of white people knows the ritual of the wearing of the mask.  Hell, to some extent, most people of color don a mask at some point.  Where I diverge from Mr. Steele's logic is that how white people feel about themselves enters into the equation.  I don't think white people's self-worth is a chip in the game.  White's feelings of self-worth is a secure given regardless of how much Satchmo grins or Miles grimaces.  In the end, it's merely about being able to do what one does.

Third, and this is a tent pole of much of Steele's philosophy, that black agency promotes and fosters white guilt thereby rendering it a driving force in the success of any black person in America, specifically Obama as agent and recipient.  That Obama may have offered an alternative path to the American electorate weary of lies and subterfuge, doesn't seem to enter his argument.  I may be wrong in that since I have not yet read his book about how Obama can't win.

Last, Steele says in this interview, "White America has made tremendous moral progress since the '60s... And they've never given themselves credit for that."  I'm firmly in the Chris Rock school of philosophy on this matter; you don't get credit for what you're supposed to do.  And really, white folks don't need to give themselves credit when Shelby Steele is there to do it for them.  Who is it then, honestly, stroking white folks' guilt?

This man just bugs.

Imagine Them Being Them At The Corner

I read The Corner, National Review Online's conservative group blog, but it is no easy task.  They can be the "base" the Republican Party genuflects to and they can be the intelligentsia the Republican Party needs.  I've learned from reading The Corner that The Right is not monolithic.

One thing most noticeable about The Corner is that they just hate Barack Obama.  No.  Hate may be too strong a word for most of them.  They are not impressed.

My immediate reaction to their not being impressed is admittedly racially paranoid.  I really do believe that if you take the same Barack Obama and the only changes to him was he was white and his name was Bob Miller, these guys and many others would be kvelling at what an impressive guy he was.  They may not agree with his politics, but there would be nothing but respect.

That can never be proved.

So I read The Corner...so you don't have to!  I also stick my nose in at Free Republic where the Freepers run wild.  Believe me.  You don't want to go there unless you have to.

Here, at The Corner, is Byron York completely missing the point.

Everything Is Relative

I have a great little space here.  I get to glurg up what ever I want to glurg about, I e-mail a velvet steamroller message to family and friends, every so often I get to guest blog at Spencer's and writing and thinking life is great.

But I have no illusions.  The post immediately before this one spoke of simple vs. complicated thinking.  I am at the "simple" end of a score of blog sites where people post and comment about things so intricately intelligent that often I feel like a neanderthal contemplating infinity.  I comment on occasion at these sites, but my comments are usually ignored.  I've e-mailed these professional thinkers demurely pimping my blog and have been roundly ignored.

Of course my mind fills in the empty space where a response would be with "since I don't know this chick, better to not say anything."

But for some reason, I keep writing here.

Which brings me to my thanks to you who do read what I glurg up here.  Thank you.

President-Elect Obama's 60 Minutes Interview

The whole thing.  In three parts.  With commercials I believe.

UPDATE:  The CBS News 60 Minutes site is down, so these can't be seen right now as of 9:18 p.m. on 11/17/08.

Part 1 - Obama and the Presidency

Watch CBS Videos Online

Part 2 - The Personal Transition

Watch CBS Videos Online

Part 3 - A Father's Promise


Watch CBS Videos Online

Good God, it's good to have a coherent thinking person in the Presidency.  I never watched GeeDub because I thought him too simple for the position.

A little personal aside here, because the word "simple" makes me think of something.  BOS accused me of being so high minded that it was beyond me to understand simpler concepts.  I resisted responding "F U!  Is that simple enough for you?"  Our exchanges got, um, heated shall we say, though primarily from me.  BOS really was amusing himself by getting my goat.  That said, he was getting my goat by relating how "simply" he thinks about things and that's good enough for him and, according to him, a whole nother slew of folks that I apparently cannot relate to.

Perhaps.  But that belief, that simple thinking is good enough, is a sure-fire way to stay mired in mediocrity.  It doesn't challenge one to consider the possibilities.  To consider the possibilities and how they can broaden and better and enrich one's existence.

President Bush was perfectly content being a simple-thinking man.  He was proud of it.  It is no secret that many who voted for him in 2000 and 2004 voted for him because they could relate to him...his simple way of thinking.  He was just like them.  They could have a beer with him, the old saw goes.

But the world is a complicated place with complicated problems.  Foreign intra-hostilities cannot be solved by a simple "Hulk Smash!!"  Allies cannot be assuaged by a back rub.  You cannot look into a leader's eyes, see his soul and base foreign policy upon it.

It takes considered logical practical thinking to be a president.  When our president walks into a room (or sit across the table from those designing to cause harm), people should feel secure that he's the smartest one present.

A simply thinking president should not be the bellwether.

This Post Has No Title

I read somewhere and I wish I had bookmarked or saved it, a comment on a blog or a blog entry about torture.  The point was that torture should not be a condoned legalized method of interrogation in U.S. policy.  That is not to be so naive as to think that torture by U.S. entities would disappear.  It won't.  But, and the comment said as much, by making it an illegal tactic in U.S. intelligence gathering, it would thereby assure that torture would be the last tactic employed with full knowledge and acceptance of the responsibility of its illegality, and not a regular course of action.

It has shamed me that my country at the hands of the neocons has legalized things I was taught to believe were wrong.  Torture is wrong.  It's wrong and information obtained is, more often than not, unreliable.  This amazing read in the New Yorker written by Jane Mayer is case in point.  (Via Glenn Greenwald.)

Without more transparency, the value of the C.I.A.’s interrogation and detention program is impossible to evaluate. Setting aside the moral, ethical, and legal issues, even supporters, such as John Brennan, acknowledge that much of the information that coercion produces is unreliable. As he put it, “All these methods produced useful information, but there was also a lot that was bogus.

So what has been the purpose of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" employed by our government since 9/11?  Has it been to root out Al Qaeda?  How can that be when we purposefully ignored Al Qaeda's Hole-In-The-Wall, Afghanistan, in favor of attempting to create a shining the beacon of democracy in Iraq.

I'm trying to come to a purpose here.  It's bothering me.  Why has it been imperative that torture be employed?  Why have laws and ideals been decimated for so few bits of knowledge?  What was the reason?  It's going to continue to bother me because there is no law separating me from others who know nothing of Al Qaeda.

I'd love to end this haphazard screed by tying up all my haphazard points, but I can't.  It was just something I have been thinking about.  Good news, though.  President-Elect Obama says that he is closing Gitmo and ending the U.S. sanctioned practice of torture.  I sincerely hope that he can and does.

Via ThinkProgress and Huffington Post.

Governator Logorrhea

Since I've had this political awakening this election, I am now also going to try and concern myself with my home state of California politics.  In 2003, there was in California a recall vote of Gov. Gray Davis.  I voted against that recall because I believed, as limited and shallow my reasoning may have been, that Gov. Davis was being scapegoated for a California energy crisis.  I felt that he was the elected official and if the good citizens of California, who voted him governor in the first place, felt that he should not be in the office, then they could bloody well vote him out at the end of his term.  

I also felt that Arnold Schwarzenegger was the benefactor of a cult of personality that unfairly eclipsed the aptly named Gray.

Anything deeper, I sheeplishly admit here I knew nothing of.

I was in the minority on that opinion because Californians threw the bum out and elected Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Arnold is definitely a majority portion personality and what's left over, I am not sure is good thinking or opportunism.  I haven't paid enough attention to judge.  I will henceforth, however.

What I do know about him is something that the good governor from Alaska should take pointed notice of.  This is how it's done.

Arnold knows how to talk excessively and mostly on point.  He's informed enough to finesse anything that is not directly on point, somehow rolling it into making more than a bit of sense.  Anything left over is muscled (heh) by with charm.  It's like magic.

Stop Me Before I Cute Again

I keep finding stuff Obama stuff online that I cannot resist posting.  Yes, it is gratifying beyond measure to realize that our 44th president is a black man.  I still can't believe it.

So...this picture is beyond cute, with her little afropuffs.

H/t Girls4Obama via Jack & Jill Politics

I'm Standing Right Here

Not that I am particularly anxious for the GOP to get its bearings any time soon, but this clip is telling about what is wrong with the party.

The country is different than it was during the heyday of the GOP.  Yet, they are still clinging (yeah, I said "clinging") to these ideals they speak of.  Pat Buchanan, who I think is one of those racists who are perfectly fine with being so, sets forth the old party line.  Mike Paul, republican strategist, offers up new thinking, and Buchanan can barely speak of it.

On election night, as me and my two friends looked at the electoral map of blue and red, red dominating the South, including Louisiana and Mississippi, two states the GOP watched drown, we all said the same thing..."Slave states."  Their Southern Strategy of appealing to older male white conservatives disdainful of the colored people, is a losing proposition.  I will go out on a limb and say that in 2012, if Obama has his game as tight as this election, more of those states (in addition to Virginia, North Carolina and Florida) will go blue as well, particularly if the GOP has old southern white male conservatives stuck in the glory days calling the plays.

...And Beyond

My mother made me and my sister late for school to watch men fly into space.  I took it for granted and was irritated that I would be late.  Why didn't I see it as wondrously as it should be seen?

Any Excuse To Watch Barack And Fam

It's a little early but...

From Another Reader...

From my friend who just had a baby and three days after her Caesarian, stood in line for an hour to vote.

It's refreshing to see a Christian who is able to stand back and clearly see the inherent hypocrisy in some Christian teachings. Denying anyone the right to happiness certainly can't have been the intent of Christ. How is that even possible? And as for whether or not Proposition 8 is a Constitutional issue, the fact that anyone is trying to make legislation about it makes it inherently a question of Constitutional rights. If you try to argue that it must be because God says so, haven't you proven the point right there. This country, although founded on Christian values, was also founded on the basic principle of separation of Church and State. Is this not to prevent persecution like Proposition 8 from becoming law? The concept of "majority tyranny" certainly applies to this issue. Homosexuals in America are a minority who deserve to have their rights protected. This is unquestionably true. This sort of legislation is the very reason that the Founding Fathers of our great nation felt the need to include a Bill of Rights that ensured the protection of basic human rights to all. The concept of a true democracy demands that we never allow minority rights to be trampled on. Laws like Proposition 8 are a danger to the very sanctity of the nation and must not be allowed to sully the American ideal.

Cool Stuff My Boss Hips Me To

From The Department of Saying What You Mean.

Yikes!

And before I close, let me finish with this. I left the right because they were such assholes I could not stand it anymore. You left good graces with the left because you were too much of an asshole, and they troll-rated you into oblivion. I may have been wrong about a lot of things in the past, and will be in the future, but I left the GOP because it was a cult. I was the one who was suspicious about Obama in the beginning. I think I have a solid eye for bullshit. And for the record, if you want to see what a “cult” looks like, you might want to check your own comment policy. We allow dissent here, and appreciate it. You are so dimwitted and thin-skinned you delete anything that deviates from your own bizarre dogma.

Another Weigh-In From A Reader

Damn.  The politicians suckered us again.  Another opinion from a reader.

So, here's my weigh in...

1) To say that policy is divorced from religion in the US is barely credible. In fact, God's name is on everything from courts to bldgs to dolla dolla bills baby. Should it be? IMHO, every policy that wishes to succeed better start with God, but I recognize that this is MHO.

2) Politicians' Mamas had babies not fools. Both the way the language was written in the original bill and its re-write by Jerry and his pals were meant to win friends and influence people. I'll go even further: Christians. In fact, all was designed to force us to evaluate policy through a Christian lens.

After the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, state attorney general Jerry Brown changed the description of Prop. 8 that will appear on ballots in November to reflect the fact that the measure will “eliminate [the] right of same-sex couples to marry." Formerly the wording simply affirmed that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized." (Attesting to the importance of the language, Prop. 8 supporters sued to keep the original description but were denied.)

True to form, we liberal Christians found ourselves in a quite a quandry. Truth, the Bible does not equivocate about marriage or homosexuality. And if we have been on the path tryin' to follow Jesus, we already knew it ain't easy to reconcile this condemnation with the love of Christ. Fortunately, the Bible makes it clear that we lowly Christians don't have to -- God's got that covered. We need only to "judge not" so we be not judged.

Enter a politically charged election. While God sees our hearts, Christians like I are not that good. We are left to surmise WJWD (What Jesus Would Do) ONLY because the politicians called the question. Not God. He still had it covered. Nonetheless, standing at the polls we had three options:

a) Vote our conscience

b) Vote our Bible

c) Don't vote the issue (intolerable, for reasons too obvious to waste space here)

I'll admit this single issue was the most difficult for me, a prototypical liberal Christian. I believe "marriage" to be a religious construct, one that exists exclusively between a man and a woman. And while I fully support same sex civil unions, I'm not naive enough to believe separate is ever equal.

Thank GOD I have two sane, simple influences in my life. First my pastor. Though he was prohibited by law from influencing anyone on any issue from the pulpit, he said simply this: "think about who has what to gain, and vote in a way that does the most people the most good." Second, my tweener daughter even simplified it more. "It's just not fair."  Don't need to look any further to find WJWD. No on 8. No to defining prohibitions instead of rights.

So what's my point: Y'all fell into EXACTLY the trap the politicians engineered to get out the vote for other purposes, often self serving. If you feel the vote went the wrong way use your energy to work to fix it, rather than banter with each other. I predict you'll never agree. 

By devisive design.

An Opinion

From a reader (and friend I just saw in all his splendiferous glory on Saturday):

What seems to be clear about Prop. 8 is that it's not about gay marriage, it's about religious persecution. Domestic Partnership was determined by the California Supreme Court to be unequal to Marriage and ruled that same sex couples could legally marry. This is a legal decision, not a religious one. That is how the safeguards of our democracy sometimes work to protect minorities from the tyranny of the majority.

At the heart of this attack is a populous so blinded by their own religious bigotry, (an underlying belief that gay people are an "abomination" to their God), I honestly think that they aren't even aware of it. Why else would anyone vilify a group of people, especially who are of no harm to anyone? How fragile is your marriage that it would be undone by two people committing themselves lovingly to each other? This is a human rights issue and a civil rights issue. This is about a minority people, composed of all races and all colors and all nationalities, and born into all the major religions, that have to go out and find their tribe because they are not accepted by their own families or communities. Overwhelmingly, they are prejudiced against, imprisoned and put to death for being who they are. Hated for simply being. Whether you realize it or not, denying basic human rights to this minority, making them different, fuels a deep and perhaps subtle (religious) hatred that validates their persecution. Rise up and wake up. America promises us freedom from religion. Democracy relies on it.

I Know Such Smart And Accomplished People; Will It Rub Off?

My brilliant and wildly foine friend Ron Mathoda quoted in the New York Times.

My fellow guest-blogger at Attackerman, Colin Asher's article in the Boston Globe.

Constant Craving

Brotha Old School and I continued our back and forth yesterday off the pages of Anonymous Sec's.  It got pretty heated, at least from my end.  He was pulling my chain because he likes to.  I continued debating the issue as same sex marriage is a constitutional issue and he, well, as Spencer pointed out, BOS' position wasn't quite clear.  He seemed to somewhat acknowledge the constitutional justness of my position, but not much substance past "I don't care what you say.  God.  Says.  So."  He is fine with that.  I am not.

Now, to be fair, I'm a blog computer nerd geek who has witnessed the blogosphere back and forth of point/counterpoint for years now.  BOS clearly has a life, is new to the computer as well as blogosphere and is not so sophisticated in the rules of engagement.  So other than being just really really really really mad at what I consider to be his hard-headed stance, I cannot fault him for engaging as he saw fit, at my invitation.  (Also, it should be noted that getting mad isn't really the productive interwebs way and I am at fault for that.  Mea culpa...but I'm still mad.)

The engagement, though, was thrilling if only for giving me the opportunity to clarify my position in my head.  I do see it as a constitutional issue, albeit a state one.  After the drubbing the US Constitution has gotten during the past 8 years, and frankly, my not really doing or saying anything about it (not that I had the power but it only takes one voice, y'know), I'm personally touchy about the promise of the Constitution being realized in daily life.

That said, there has been some rather harsh talk from the LGBT community about the effect of black voter turnout vis-a-vis passage of Prop 8, some from my beloved Andrew Sullivan.  African Americans are 6.2% of the California electorate.  Of that 6.2%, 70% voted yes on Prop 8.  Those numbers are not enough to assign blame to a whole community.

I admit that, from a civil and legal standpoint, I have a hard time understanding how black folks can actively participate in what I consider to be discrimination.   As evidenced by the back and forth yesterday between me and BOS, there are parts to this issue that I just don't get.

I believe in God.  I believe that there is honesty and guidance in the Bible.  For example, my sister who is more intimately acquainted with the Bible than I, pointed me toward The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians 6:10-20 when I was at a particularly challenging point of my life.  I type it in its entirety here just because it just rocks and I want to:

"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.  Put on the whole armor of God, that you may stand against the devil.  For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.  Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one.  And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.  Pray at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.  To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that utterance may be given me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak."

I read that and I feel like freaking Xena.  So some of the traditionalism of religion touches me.  Where I diverge, I think, is when the idea is put forth that the honesty and guidance that I find in the Bible compels me to be unfair to my fellow man.  Some people, I guess, do.  Since the church is a big part of African American cultural life, and religion is for the most part against homosexuality as a "practice," a good many African Americans are as well.  This has given rise to this harsh and unfair backlash against blacks in relationship to Prop 8.

The election of Barack Obama has made me all bold in what I believe is possible, so let me say this.  I fully believe that legal same sex marriage will be de rigueur in the U.S. in my lifetime.  As I've said before, a good part of the electorate cannot be discriminated against indefinitely because the human spirit will not stand for it.

That said, considering the mind space of the electorate, it won't be achieved simply because it is the right thing to do.  It will take work.  Hard work.  (I note my debate with BOS as Exhibit A.)  If the Obama campaign taught nothing else, it teaches that it takes focus and dedication of monumental proportions to fight an uphill battle.  It takes changing ways of thinking and doing and being.  It takes reaching out to people who would never consider your stance in a million years and convincing them that your position is the right place to be.

The LGBT community, if it believes that blacks were the lynchpin of the passing of Prop 8, need to change their way of thinking and doing and being with the community to get it done, instead of blaming people for being who they are, which is really not a whole lot different from what they are asking for themselves.

I found this essay by Jasmyne Cannick via Jack & Jill Politics (note that you open her site and music starts playing which bugs the crap out of me):

Case in point the Jordan Rustin Coalition that was started by the gays out of West Hollywood because they felt that Black gays weren’t doing enough to fight for gay marriage. Hmmm–maybe we were doing other things that we just as important. Just a thought.

The group bills itself has a Black civil rights group for lesbians and gays but does nothing more than push the gay agenda for marriage onto the Black community by holding the occasional town hall meeting in Leimert Park. The one part of the Black community they know and feel safe in thanks to gentrification. At these meetings, they use their surrogates to tell Black people why gay marriage is a priority.

This group doesn’t do anything non-gay marriage related in the Black community—and what I mean by that is that you won’t catch the Jordan Rustin Coalition at the community meetings dealing with Black issues or out on the streets in the hood registering Black people to vote. In fact, GOTV (get out the vote) weekend, instead of helping to register Black voters, they wanted Black gays to go to Pasadena for a Sing Out for Coming Out Day. While I agree that encouraging Black gays to “come out” is generally a good thing—if and when we decide to hold a coming out event, why the hell would we do it in Pasadena?

I use this example to prove to you the continued misunderstanding of priorities of Blacks by gays and the ego and superiority complex that dictates the lengths to which gays will go to micromanage and push their agenda on Blacks.

It takes involvement and care to convince.  Honest care, not agenda-based care.  The right thing to do will not just win.  If the example of 400 years of disenfranchisement of the black community teaches nothing else, it teaches that.  Me trying to out-logic fundamentalists clearly won't do the trick.  Lord, I keep coming back to the Obama campaign because it just is such an amazing example of how to get it done.  I think the LGBT community needs to think about that to achieve their goal.

I'm here to help.

Best Day

Oh, shit!

I'm Tryin' To Drive You To The Sto'

Something about this article written by Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post about the historic momentousness of Obama's election bugs me.  For those of you who are not aware, Kathleen Parker, southern white conservative, wrote an article in WaPo about how Gov. Palin was monumentally unprepared to be vice-president and was vilified by readers (who sent responses suggesting that her mother should have had an abortion).  Watching the right lose their minds that yet another conservative had "betrayed" the party by disagreeing and calling it how she saw it could not be more illuminating on how the Republican Party has devolved into lunatics.  (Note that the "lose their minds" link is from an article Parker wrote for Town Hall and I direct you to the comments.)

Yet and still, she is a southern white conservative.

But like many other Americans, especially Southerners, my life is inextricably intertwined with the African American experience. It isn't just a bit of thread or texture in life's tapestry, but is central to my emotional and psychological constitution.

Although a child during the civil rights era, I remember the protests, the sit-ins, the march from Selma. I remember the day Martin Luther King was shot -- and the following morning at school when all the black students stormed out of class, prompting my nervous English teacher to send for smelling salts.

Most important to me personally, I remember Dorothy, the woman who cared for me after my mother's death, and her two much-older children, Ronnie and Sylvia, who were an intimate part of my very young life.

I eventually learned that Dorothy was black, but to me, she was simply "Dot," the first person I was consciously aware of loving and the only mother I knew. My own was gone before I was able to discern that a mother is an entity separate from oneself.

She goes on to tell the story of how she spent her days in the "colored part of town" (she quotes this in her article) at Dot's mother's grocery store and how she couldn't go to the movies with Dot because the theater was segregated and the balcony was where blacks sat and how she saw the unfairness of this at four years old.

The article, I suppose, is touching.  She's plainly writing from her heart in remembrance of the only mother she knew.

Yet...

My grandmother was a domestic, cook mostly -- she could throw down in the kitchen.  But she also had been a maid and did other domestic chores for well-to-do white families on the Upper West Side.  One job she had was ironing the family's clothes.  This she did in the basement of the building in a cage.  Let me say that again.  In a cage.  I seem to remember witnessing an 8 year old dress down my grandmother ironing his family's clothes in her cage, about something I do not remember.

This picture came to mind as I read Parker's article, fairly or unfairly.  That is, as I see it, my issue.  Parker admits her privilege and though I have problems with the whole "magic negro" aspect of her recounting, I choose to believe she is probably sincere in her feelings.

Yet and still...

A commenter to Parker's article in the WaPo points out her article "The Bubba Vote" in the Chicago Tribune, May 14, 2008.  Referring to a voter's proclamation that he would not vote for Obama because he would be more comfortable with "someone who was full-blooded American who was president":

Full-bloodedness is an old coin that's gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.

[snip]

Who "gets" America? And who doesn't?

[snip]

It's about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.

[snip]

What they know is that their forefathers fought and died for an America that has worked pretty well for more than 200 years. What they sense is that their heritage is being swept under the carpet while multiculturalism becomes the new national narrative. And they fear what else might get lost in the remodeling of America.

Republicans more than Democrats seem to get this...

During the campaign she trumpeted the Republic strategy of making Obama foreign and un-American, when in fact (and I believe she knew this), he was no more foreign and un-American than her beloved Dot.

I wonder how four year old Kathleen Parker would judge her own future actions.

A Break For Obama Appreciation

Hat tip Ben Smith.  Barack Obama roasting his now Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in 2005:

Something about his delivery reminds me of Johnny Carson.

Anonymous Sec's Argues Semi-Topless

Sure, B.O.S.  Pull the thread attempting to render me bare-breasted.  But by using dogma that yokes unilaterally, you're pulling at the collar.  You'll find no joy there.  You're not addressing my arguments.  Instead you're echoing those politicians who planted firmly on the courthouse step and said that interracial marriage was not God's will because it says so in the Bible.

In all of your missives, you stand steadfast in what you believe to be God's side in the issue.  I defend your right to do so.  Yet you have glossed over the civil aspect of the issue and your responsibility in that as well.  Do you recognize that you don't live exclusively in the religious realm?  You are garnering rights and freedoms from the civil aspect of life and proclaiming your religious belief to deny your neighbor those rights which you enjoy.  As dearly as you hold your religious responsibility, you should hold your civic one, particularly when it comes to your neighbors, whom you love so.

If you agree that church and state are separate, as you seem to, then how can your religious beliefs hold dominion over your civil ones?  Or your civil ones hold dominion over your religious ones, for that matter.  Civilly, same-sex marriage has nothing to do with you other than your responsibility to guarantee to another citizen a right which you can enjoy.

The Bible may guide your spiritual life, but it does not in all things, otherwise you would be just as steadfastly trying to legislate against divorce, capital punishment, the Bush Administration, and zippers.  You, as the founding fathers did, see the need for modern realities to compel fundamental thinking to change.  Why is it that marriage between two adults who love each other is the line in the sand that cannot be crossed?

Okay, so I could go off on a huge argument about the Bible being the word of God interpreted through the congenitally limited understanding of man interpreted from a foreign language by men who had vested interests in what is said, but I won't.  And I also won't go into what slight insult I take from the two separate Gods argument.  And I won't point out that you say you're not holier than thou but proclaim that God is on your side.

I won't do that (much) because you have a right to believe as such.

Let's just hope some enterprising height bigot doesn't manage to get on the California Ballot next time a proposition to amend the constitution to say that men cannot consort with women taller than they.

B.O.S. Holds His Spiritual Ground While Unraveling My Sweater!!

I'm going to put this up while I gather my thoughts for a response mostly because I want anyone out there to appreciate Brotha Old School's point of view which he shares with the many who passed Prop 8.  It's what has to be countered, appreciated and not wholly villified as best as countering belief systems held in the soul can be if propositions like Prop 8 are to be defeated.

BOS writes:

Ms. Anne,

I can add the "n-e" now that you understand it's short for your pen.

I hadn't anticipated this becoming such a loose-thread issue.  So I just wanna say, by keeping me pulling at it, don't blame me if your whole sweater becomes unraveled, rendering you topless.  (More wishful thinking than a metaphor.)

A couple of things I gotta make clear here.   First, understand, I have gay family and friends who are very dear to me.  Secondly, in no way do I proclaim to be more holier than thou.  In fact, at times, I stand to be accused of being a down right hypocrite.  Which, ironically, qualifies me in God's eyes to represent.

I need you to bear with me here, if you will, if my response comes a little slow.  I came up in the 60s and experimented with some things that perhaps I should'na.  Sometimes collecting my thoughts can be an infinite repetitive effort.

What makes this situation a wee-bit awkward for me is, I've spent most of my life avoiding the law and politics.  You might say, I gravitated more towards the aspect of the" affect" than to the "cause."  But when, collectively all my social mistakes and misguidings begin taking their toll, it forced my hand to believe or not to believe.  About God, that is.  I chose to believe.

Coming up on the opposite side of the law, I learned a lot about rights and legal loopholes and that both could be manipulative.  It usually all comes down to representation.  Which as a legal sec, I'm sho you know.  Far too often legal and constitutional terminology is ambiguous and is left solely to the mercy of belief for it's interpretation.

Time has unfolded new eras and ways of life, with some things anticipated, while others, never imagined.  The founding fathers were sharp.  But not so sharp where as they could clearly foresee in detailed account the evolving life-style of the 21st Century.  They left a basic blueprint that one would hope would be carefully amended with the balance of good morals, judgement, and fairness.

Now, I may be cutting my own throat here with the next following statements, but nonetheless I'm compelled to make.  The founding fathers could be regarded as hypocritical to the very constitution they wrote.  Because in their day they did nothing to correct things such as freeing the slaves or giving women the right to vote.  Which makes one wonder and ask the question as to why?  Is what's good for the goose good for the gander?  Were they just thinking, well eventually in time these rights will come into play?  Or did they even mean it that way?

In their time, homosexuality, was not just a taboo, it wasn't even allowed in the closet.  It had to be kept in the out-house.  Do you believe they ever meant equal rights for all was ever to be interpreted as a comprise to the Sanctity and integrity of Holy Matrimony by same sex marriage?  You think?

If you think that God approves of same sex marriage, then we're obviously referring to two different Gods, or you just simply haven't been reading your bible.  Or should I ask, are you referring to the God of the bible?  That's the one I choose to go with.

I have the utmost respect for you academic intellect, my dear, and have no qualms admitting that I'd quickly cower with most challenges in that field with you.  But this is a spiritual issue that continues intensifying with your every utterance.

I'm no preacher and have no intentions of ever becoming one.  In fact, sin kicks my ass on a daily basis. But in spite of that, I believe God is on my side with this issue and I can't lose with what I use.

Peace out,
B.O.S

Ms. An Picks Up The Thread

I see I can't be totally frivolous with my friend Brotha Old School.  I address this directly to you then, BOS.

Let's jump off all "blasphemous."  "It's a God Thing" cannot be known.  You may have faith that it's a God thing.  You may believe that it's a God thing.  You may have been taught it's a God thing.  Your bones may ring with human certainty that it's a God thing.  But you don't know that it's a God thing.  For all you truly know, God may be sadly shaking her head wondering why her favorite experiment keeps eating its own.

Your oil and water analogy as to church and state is correct, and should stand as example in American jurisprudence.  This was the point I first made that compelled you to write.  Religion has no place (dog) in the question (fight) of civil rights granted the citizenry.  The California Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional to exclude same-sex couples from the legal institution of "marriage," even if such couples are granted the right to enter into "domestic partnerships" or "civil unions" based on the California State Constitution's guarantee of the "right to marry" and its guarantee of "equal protection" under the law.

This is not to say that you are compelled to believe in same-sex marriage.  It does not say that you are bound to believe that it is not a sin.  You are free to believe that same-sex marriage does not constitute "marriage."  What it does say is that all citizens are guaranteed civil rights one in accordance with the next, without discrimination based on sex, race, age, sexual-orientation, height, weight, hair color, eye color, or any other superficial difference between human beings.  How brightly your view of the institution of marriage shines in comparison to other institutions is immaterial.  Civil institutions do not exist for only your benefit, but for the benefit of each as to the next.

These base rights you mention are what the California Supreme Court addressed in its ruling.  They are naming marriage as a base right that is constitutionally available to all, without regard to political or religious beliefs, and that right is equally protected under the law.  

I appreciate and respect your arguing from the perspective of religious belief.  However, nothing in the California Supreme Court's ruling disavows your belief.  As Wanda Sykes said, if you do not believe in same sex marriage, don't marry somebody of the same sex.  Nonetheless, you cannot constitutionally abridge another, who may not believe as you, access to the base right that is called in civil discourse, "marriage."

You use a basketball analogy that doesn't quite ring true.  No, you cannot and should not lower the hoop, but neither can you or should you exclude short people who can ball.  If basketball equals marriage, then short people are homosexuals who have every right to play, provided they play by the rules, correct?  By your analogy, you are naming basketball (marriage) a tall people (heterosexual) only game, when in fact short people (homosexuals) can indeed play despite your tall people (heterosexual) rule.  You're prejudicially discounting short people from a game they are able to play, based on a rule that does not consider ability.  You feel me?

As to the recipe analogy, both pancakes and waffles have flour to give them substance, eggs to bind, and milk to enrich.  Consider if you will that if flour (human beings) is bound by eggs (love and commitment) to which if you can add varying amounts of milk (kids, mortgage, 401Ks), you still end up with the same cholesterol loaded ass-fattener (marriage) be it pancakes or waffles.

You are free to believe that marriage is sanctified by God.  Hell, I believe that marriage is a sanctity of God.  I just don't believe that God would disapprove of or deny any of her flock the blessing of true love and commitment and family based on who they love and smiles on such unions because she wants us to be happy.  And frankly, my beliefs are just as valuable as yours.  B'leedat.

Brotha Old School Responds Further To Ms. An On Prop 8

Brother Old School is still calling me Ms. An but I think I'm getting to be okay with it.  Short for Anonymous.  I get it.  Damn history.  BOS responds:

Ms. Anonymous Sec., a.k.a. Ms. An.,

My point, "It's A God Thing!"

I say that, yet understanding, religion and politics have a mixing capability liking to that, of oil and water.  Which often forces one to take a stand on one side or the other. For me, this proposition in which we debate, is closely characterized to the scenario of, doing right for the wrong reason, or doing wrong for the right reason.

Admitting, from the Civil Rights perspective, you post strong arguments. However, Ms. Sweet, lovely individual, the public institutions you reference the rights to, in my view , pale in comparison in their entities to that of the institution of marriage.  You feel me?

But for the sake of argument, for rights in general, may I expound to the point that some rights come with conditions.   These particular rights I refer to as "base-rights."  Base rights you must qualify for in order to execute.  Such as being of age to vote or buy alcohol.  Gays have always had a base right to marry.  To qualify you simply must be of age and marrying an individual of the opposite sex, to constitute husband and wife.  Simply enough to qualify.  However, totally un-acceptable to the case.

So, here, one proposes the question, does the case have the right to change the purpose?  If you're short, do you have the right to demand the basket to be lowered in order to play basket ball.  Or are you required in order to play to play by the standards?  If you change the recipe to a dish, the dish then takes on a new characteristic and thereby should be called by a different name.  Pancakes and waffles have very similar ingredients, but their slight differences are what make them what they are.

There is an aspect of society, myself included, who believes marriage is sanctioned by God, or at the very least, endorsed.  Without God's approval, such a union, at best, can only be a secular civil union.  Beleeve-dat.  Which is why I say, it is, what it is...

Anonymous Sec's aka Ms. An, Responds To Brotha Old School

I respond by email to Brotha Old School:

Miss Anne? Who you callin’ Miss Anne?

I’ve said it before, I’m saying it again, you write very well. That said, I’m not sure I understand your point. Are you asserting the separation of church and state? Or are you saying that each is at least partially intersects the other?

Prop 8 does not require religion to recognize same sex marriage, unless it is taking public funds. Here is a good No on Prop 8 article in the LA Times.

I think that people who voted Yes on Prop 8 can’t get their mind around the concept that religion should not dictate public policy. This public policy deals with affording all tax paying citizens equity under the law and access to all institutions. It would be like saying that you cannot use public roads if you are gay.

You wouldn’t want public policy to incorporate the tenets of Judaism (for example no pork, no Jesus, no embalming) into law; or Catholicism (no fish on Friday, no divorce, no birth control); or Santaria (slaughtering goats OH MY GOD!!!), would you? Nor does public policy have the right to dictate to Santaria that they can’t slaughter goats (OH MY GOD!!!).

It’s Sodom and Gomorrah.

Oh…and…

I find it interesting that California saw fit to pass a proposition that made chickens’ lives more comfortable and humane, but did not, in my opinion, do the same for homosexuals.

Just my opinion.

I mean no offense to Santaria.

Brotha Old School Calls Out Ms. An On Prop 8

I got an e-mail from my friend, Brotha Old School, in response to my post More More No on Prop 8.  I love Brotha Old School's writing, love challenging his thinking, love his challenging mine, and we have spent many hours in my backyard arguing some point or other.  Brotha Old School, BOS for short, is but a few years older than I so we appreciate the same old school music and old school culture.  We both agreed last summer that there was no way America was going to elect a black man, and wasn't it cute he was trying.  He has a deep, abiding and fundamental faith in God.  He's much more intelligent than he gives himself credit for, and much more hard-headed than he believes himself to be.    I've cleaned his email up for punctuation only.  He's taken to calling me Ms. An, which I'm not fond of.  It's a clever take-off on my nom de plume fraught with all measure of historical connotations.

BOS says:

Ms. An,

I sit here in the early pre-dawn morning reading your most recent writing on your commentary about Proposition 8.  You state, religion has no dog in the fight.  That prompted me to think, gul, why-what-chew mean?!?  That's the whole dul-gone kit and caboodle!  The issue is between secular and religion!  To take it a step further, it comes down to Holy Matrimony and Unholy Matrimony.

Correct me if I'm wrong, (which I know you will) but doesn't the over all definition of marriage derive, by-in-large. from the religious perspective?  The real issue here is not the right of same sex unions, but the right to entitlement of those unions.

From the religious perspective, same sex marriage is an oxymoron and does not allow for the extension or amendment to the terms of Holy Matrimony.  This is explicitly expressed in the example of Sodom and Gamour. (Spell Check?)

Now, tru-dat society, as a whole, is un-beholding to have to buy in to biblical concept. But with the same token, it has no right to amend or change that concept.  The only way society can ever address both components to this issue fairly is to keep their distinctions separate and allow for their oppositions to define them.

It's really very simple to define.  One is to be called Holly Matrimony, while the other, Unholy Matrimony.

I'm Brotha Old School, and I'd like to believe, this message is approve by God.

Those Who Don't Learn From History...

This is why I don't watch talking heads on television.  Clips like this are about all I can take.

I hope Chris Matthews, who is and has been, clearly enamored of Obama, is just not explain himself well.  I don't see it as a journalist's job to make an Obama presidency work.  That's President Obama's job.

I think what Matthews is trying to say, badly, is that parsing Rahm Emanuel's reasons for equivocation in front of cameras about Obama's offer to be Chief of Staff of the White House is not the job of journalists.  Chris just likes Obama...a lot.

Joe Scarborough now tells us that journalism made a huge mistake in its selling of the war in Iraq in 2002.  A little late, but he's right; blind PR for an Obama presidency, any presidency for that matter, does not serve the country.  I would add that it should no longer be journalism's job to put forth frivolous insubstantial "criticisms" based on how someone is saying something rather than what is being said.

Change.Gov

So, there is a website devoted to the office of the President-Elect.  It's much like the Obama Campaign website.

Check it out.

Envy...Party Of One

Karen Tumulty, correspondent for Time Magazine (dead tree and online) and contributor to the magazine's political blog Swampland, traveled with the Obama campaign.  At the end, she stuck a tape recorder in people's faces and asked them what they'd remember.  My favorite, from Robert Gibbs, senior great communications strategist and now (almost) Press Secretary for the Obama White House:

There's a rhythm to all this that you have to get used to. Most people in the country had heard him speak once, and it was at the 2004 Democratic Convention. So when he went to a meet and greet with voters, people expected to hear the convention speech. That took a little getting used to. During the primary season, at one of the labor cattle calls in D.C., he was the last [of nine candidates] to speak. There are about eight things that you're going to say to this group, and they've all now been said. I remember he was down after that because he just couldn't understand why it had gone so poorly. So we're flying to Iowa, and Reggie [Love, his personal assistant] and he are sitting next to each other, and I'm saying, "Senator, you just have to figure out how to enjoy this, you have to figure out how to have a little fun. Are you having any fun right now?" And he said, "I'm not having any fun at all." And Reggie, without blinking an eye, pipes up and says, "Man, I'm having the time of my life!"

Bonus:  NYT story on President Obama's "body man," Reggie Love...with pix.  Be sure to check out this young man's fine self in the pix.

Green eyed.  Green eyed envy here for Reggie Love.  What an adventure.  What a job.

O'er The Land Of The Free

When was the last time groups of Americans broke out in spontaneous harmonizing of the national anthem in the streets?  Around about 5:00 p.m. on 9/11/01, I would venture to guess.  It gets me.  It gets me.  Every.  Single.  Time.



H/t Andrew Sullivan.

Election day!

Yay! Got stories?

----------
Well-behaved women seldom make history.

Kristol's in poor company.  Joe the Plumber's an idiot too.

Why won't Fox have ME, Anonymous Sec's the Secretary, on?

More More No on Prop 8

Go with me here for a second.  I was just thinking about marriage as an American institution.  Other institutions would be education, the legal system, financial, transportation (highway, rail, air), the military, health care.  That's a start.  Am I correct?

Could access to any of these institutions be denied a citizen based on sexual orientation?  The one that comes closest is the military, which in fact does not deny homosexuals the right to serve, but rather denies the right to proclaim.  Still, these institutions are available to all citizens, I believe guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

Therefore, the denial of the institution of marriage to a citizen, any citizen, is unconstitutional, which is what, I believe, the California Supreme Court ruled.

I say again that it is my opinion that the church, any church, has no dog in this fight.  It is a civil issue, not religious.

Prop 8 may pass in California on Tuesday, (aided in no small part by big money from the Church of Latter Day Saints, I might add) but it will come up again, and will eventually be defeated.  A society cannot discriminate against a large faction of its members indefinitely.  The human spirit will not allow it.

Out Of The Mire

Comparisons of Obama and JFK have abounded, based on his relatively young age, his ability to inspire, his relative lack of experience, and his message of change.  I've worried that the task at hand for any president given the abysmal state of the country, may be a task guaranteed to defeat the man and his popularity.  Joe Klein writing at Swampland at Time.com, taking from the example of JFK, alleviates much of my worry regarding my choice Obama's first (possible) year in office:

It's a good and sobering reminder about what happens when a young and relatively inexperienced man becomes President, but the remarkable thing about Kennedy's first year is that despite the Bay of Pigs disaster, despite the Vienna summit with Khruschev that probably was the first step toward the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy's popularity didn't dip--indeed, he had the highest sustained popularity ratings of any President (until Bill Clinton, believe it or not).

Why? Because Kennedy changed the American zeitgeist. He was a rebirth of American youth and vigor--or, as he pronounced, vigah--after a very hard midcentury slog. His arrival announced the coming of age of a new America: where most people owned their own homes, where a much larger number of people went to college, where the prejudices of the past regarding race and sex--and eventually sexual orientation--had no future. He embodied the return of prosperity, optimism and idealism (a bit too idealistic and optimistic, in fact--in Vietnam). He changed the way the world looked at America, and changed the way we looked at ourselves. He inspired my generation to join the Peace Corps, march for civil rights, get involved in politics. The nation became more adventurous, bolder, sexier, more prosperous and more powerful.

Emphasis mine.

My particular talent, if you can call it that, is to remember unique points in time and place, and forget the rest.  I don't remember a lot about my childhood, but I remember walking home from school on the last day before summer vacation and the dandelions coming up.  I remember Miss Quigley, my second grade teacher, who I ADORED (she was so pretty and kind).  I remember the tulips in the planters and the patient singing "Maaaaary" (ask me about that sometime and I'll explain it to you).  I remember drills to get under our desks in case of a nuclear attack, thereby guaranteeing my flesh welded to steel and wood.

And I remember how popular President Kennedy was.  He was the second president I was aware of, the first being Eisenhower because my little mouth loved saying the brilliance in the annals of advertising history, "I Like Ike."  But mostly I remember Kennedy.  I remember that even though the country was on the cusp of so many (unknown at the time) changes, how good and safe I felt with the presidency in the stewardship of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  I'm sure I got it from my parents.

That's how I feel about Obama.  I'm not so deluded as to think that he won't on occasion disappoint.  He disappointed me greatly on his vote on FISA.  I can't complain about public financing because if he had taken it, he wouldn't be all flush looking for ways to spend the money.  No.  He's got a hard row to hoe, and I'm going to be mad at him at some point and will probably write about it here.

But...and I really do believe this...Sen. Obama did not seek the presidency for self-aggrandizement.  If that was what he was after, he would have waited 4 years (or 8 if Hillary had won both the primary and the presidency), gotten all this experience that is touted as being necessary, and run then.  I believe Sen. Obama ran because he really does want to make the country better and now is the time, as proven by his surmounting seemingly insurmountable odds to get here.  He surmounted them bringing to bear the skill set that will allow him to accomplish something. 

Yes, I know.  Running a campaign isn't running a country.  GeeDub proved that.  But GeeDub didn't bring skill sets to the campaign.  He just stood there and mispronounced enough so that Joe Sixpack could feel that he had a say in his own defense as maniacs were flying planes into buildings.  Meanwhile, all these behind the scenes Dr. Frankensteins and Igors built the beast as figurehead as they carried out their nefarious plans, which had less to do with the good of the country and more to do with defense contracts, oil contracts, security contracts, and neo-con ideology.  Okay, a little far with the horror imagery, but just.  Wait...  To begrudgingly be fair, that PNAC cabal may have possibly perhaps felt that their evil plans to rule the world were for the good of the country...maybe.

I trust that Sen. Obama takes this stewardship seriously.  I trust that he's not in it for power or glory.  I trust that he's not in it for the library.  I trust that he's in it so that, vaguely echoing the taken out of context words of Michelle Obama, I can for the first time in my voting life (okay second time -- I loved Clinton -- damn him) say that I am exceedingly proud of what my country hath wrought.

Electoral College

From the New York Times, an explanation of the Electoral College and the fallacy of "one man, one vote."

But there is a second, less obvious distortion to the “one person, one vote” principle. Seats in the House of Representatives are apportioned according to the number of residents in a given state, not the number of eligible voters. And many residents — children, noncitizens and, in many states, prisoners and felons — do not have the right to vote.

In House races, 10 eligible voters in California, a state with many residents who cannot vote, represent 16 people in the voting booth. In New York and New Jersey, 10 enfranchised residents stand for themselves and five others. (And given that only 60 percent of eligible voters turn out at the polls, the actual figures are even starker.) Of all the states, Vermont comes the closest to the one person, one vote standard. Ten Vermont residents represent 12 people.

In the Electoral College, the combined effect of these two distortions is a mockery of the principle of “one person, one vote.” While each of Florida’s 27 electoral delegates represents almost 480,000 eligible voters, each of the three delegates from Wyoming represents only 135,000 eligible voters. That makes a voter casting a presidential ballot in Wyoming three and a half times more influential than a voter in Florida.

Whither Thou Art, John McCain?

It's a shame, really.  Based on the highly superficial and shallow observance of John McCain in casual, informal or out of the campaign wheelhouse settings, he seems like a great guy.  What if this was the man who ran as Republican nominee.  Seems to me the country would have only benefitted from the choice.

I forgot to post this video.  Just for personal historical reference, my mother who raised me was dyed in the wool union.  Because of her union and the contract negotiated for her benefit, she was completely covered for her illness last year and is completely covered for all of her rehabilitation.  This is AFL-CIO's secretary-treasurer Richard Trumka's address to the United Steelworker's Las Vegas convention in support of Barack Obama.

By the way, he brings up an interesting point.

Where IS Ann Coulter?

More No on Prop 8

From the Los Angeles Times:

Another "Yes on 8" canard is that the continuation of same-sex marriage will force churches and other religious groups to perform such marriages or face losing their tax-exempt status. Proponents point to a case in New Jersey, where a Methodist-based nonprofit owned seaside land that included a boardwalk pavilion. It obtained an exemption from state property tax for the land on the grounds that it was open for public use and access. Events such as weddings -- of any religion -- could be held in the pavilion by reservation. But when a lesbian couple sought to book the pavilion for a commitment ceremony, the nonprofit balked, saying this went against its religious beliefs.

The court ruled against the nonprofit, not because gay rights trump religious rights but because public land has to be open to everyone or it's not public. The ruling does not affect churches' religious tax exemptions or their freedom to marry whom they please on their private property, just as Catholic priests do not have to perform marriages for divorced people and Orthodox synagogues can refuse to provide space for the weddings of interfaith couples. And Proposition 8 has no bearing on the issue; note that the New Jersey case wasn't about a wedding ceremony.

Much has been made about same-sex marriage changing the traditional definition of marriage. But marriage has evolved for thousands of years, from polygamous structures in which brides were so much chattel to today's idealized love matches. In seeking to add a sentence to California's Constitution that says, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized," Proposition 8 supporters seek to enforce adherence to their own religious or personal definition. The traditional makeup of families has changed too, in ways that many religious people find immoral. Single parents raise their children; couples divorce and blend families. Yet same-sex marriage is the only departure from tradition that has been targeted for constitutional eradication.

Religions and their believers are free to define marriage as they please; they are free to consider homosexuality a sin. But they are not free to impose their definitions of morality on the state. Proposition 8 proponents know this, which is why they have misdirected the debate with highly colored illusions about homosexuals trying to take away the rights of religious Californians. Since May, when the state Supreme Court overturned a proposed ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional, more than 16,000 devoted gay and lesbian couples have celebrated the creation of stable, loving households, of equal legal stature with other households. Their happiness in no way diminishes the rights or happiness of others.

Californians must cast a clear eye on Proposition 8's real intentions. It seeks to change the state Constitution in a rare and terrible way, to impose a single moral belief on everyone and to deprive a targeted group of people of civil rights that are now guaranteed. This is something that no Californian, of any religious belief, should accept. Vote no to the bigotry of Proposition 8.

What if, say, the Mormon Church for example, decided to go back to their practice of not allowing blacks in their church, claiming that being black was the stain of God?  What if, somehow there was a proposition put on the ballot saying that no black people could belong to a church?  What if they poured money into this proposition?  Would you vote yes?

Okay, I know you're probably thinking that most people don't believe like that.  But what if they did?  Would you vote yes?

My argument to those who plan to vote yes has been that homosexuality is not a craven choice.  It is people being who they are and they shouldn't be denied rights accorded every other tax paying citizen.  A lawyer at work that I was speaking to about it asked so what if it was a choice.  That shouldn't matter to equality for adults under the constitution.

I cannot urge in strong enough terms the throngs of people not here reading me.  Vote no on Prop 8.

UPDATE:  A commenter (a commenter!!!) points out that I am misinformed about blacks in the Mormon Church and indeed, blacks were not barred from being members.  From Wikipedia:

Following the death of Joseph Smith, Jr. and the succession crisis, leaders of the major Latter Day Saint movement denomination, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, continued to welcome all people regardless of color to be members; however, they began to exclude most people of black African descent (regardless of actual skin color) from Priesthood ordination and from participation in temple ceremonies. These practices continued until September 30, 1978, when church President Spencer W. Kimball, acting in his office as Living Prophet declared that in early June 1978 he had received a revelation from God to extend the priesthood and temple ordinances to all worthy male members.

It's still discriminatory, as the Priesthood is in denying women participation, but I stand corrected and will endeavor to dispel this whenever I encounter it.  Commenter Prop8Discussion also has a link if you're so inclined.

Hmmm.  I think the Yes on Prop 8 forces are well organized.  How the heck did P8D find me?  I'm not on the well-worn track.