Written Rebellion

Shakespeare's Sister had a very good post on the Tom Foley email debacle yesterday that contained a link to an ABC site on the story.

As I was reading some of the reader comments, a few caught my attention:

Well, guess it's not just a smear tactic afterall... Hmm, politician is a closet homosexual. Color me surprised.
Comming soon to the Onion: Gay man tearfully admits to being US Congressman.
Posted by: IMU Sep 29, 2006 3:18:09 PM

One less upstanding pro-family Republican Senator "Value Voters" can cast their vote for.Bet he was also against same-sex marriage. The closet can be a terrible place.
Posted by: John McLaren Sep 29, 2006 3:27:33 PM

Another closeted gay Republican revealed. One who by the way opposed gay rights. Another portrait in hypocracy.
Posted by: Left of Center Sep 29, 2006 4:00:45 PM

Frankly, I am baffled by the amount of well-intentioned folks who still equate homosexuality with pedophilia. Sexual orientation has absolutely nothing to do with having a sexual proclivity toward children.

Pedophilia is legally defined as "an obsession with children as sex objects."

In fact, the overwhelming majority of child sex offenders are heterosexual men who have abused female victims.

Linking homosexuality with pedophilia only seeks to foster the irrational hysteria associated with same-sex love that still exists in this country.

"Ancient Greeks defined idiots as citizens who are so concerned with their private lives and preferences that they fail to attend to or even comprehend, the common good. Idiots are persons who refuse to simultaneously be both private and public citizens, as democracy requires. They put personal freedom to do as they please way out in front of the common good, thus undermining the community that secures those freedoms. They fail to see that freedom and community are not opposing forces, but deeply interdependent."

~ Walter Parker

This weekend, Love Won Out, a Focus on the Family-sponsored group, held a conference in Indian Wells to encourage parents of gay children, or those who believe their children might be gay, to send their children to “gay conversion therapy" camps and programs. The group claims that theirs is a "dynamic one-day conference on homosexuality that balances truth-in-love with grace and compassion."

What they really mean is that they preach that being gay/lesbian/bi/trans is a sinful disease that thoughtful prayer and guidance can cure. To prove their point, in addition to the "experts" (including Anne Heche's mother) they have reformed homosexuals give their holy testimony of their conversion from the gay lifestyle to God's path. You know, I'm ex-gay and you can be too. One of the speakers, get this, wrote a book entitled A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality.

The straight and gay residents of the Coachella Valley, of which I am one, are collectively offended and outraged by this message. This community thrives because of the richness of diversity of its residents. It is the obligation of those of us in faith-based fellowships to do more to combat the hate, blame, and intolerance of the antiquated, neoconservative rhetoric of groups like Focus on the Family. We need to do more, especially to provide unconditional support for our gay youth, who have to face this kind of crap every day, on top of body image and peer pressure and everything else that makes it hard enough to be a teenager.

We need our neighbors to know, our coworkers to know, our local city leaders to know, and everyone else that comes here to enjoy all that the valley has to offer to know that here, this shit won't fly.

Being gay and being spiritual are not mutually exclusive concepts.

UPDATE: For excellent coverage on this very important issue, please visit Ex-Gay Watch.

Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, who linked art and labor causes, opened Hull House to help immigrants in Chicago. Hull House was located in the heart of a poor immigrant Chicago neighborhood. At that time, immigrants represented three-quarters of the city's one million inhabitants. Addams and Starr sublet the second floor and set out to find other women with interests similar to their own who would offer instruction and work with the Chicago urban poor.
Very soon, Hull-House had become a complex of thirteen buildings including an art gallery, gymnasium, theater, dining hall, dispensary, playground, and apartments for staff. It provided art, music, sewing and cooking classes, job training, kindergarten and day-care facilities for children of working mothers, an employment bureau, a cooperative boardinghouse for working girls, summer camps, and meeting places for local groups and trade unions. Each week, approximately two thousand people entered the doors of Hull-House.

Hull-House, through its residents and volunteers, followed two main lines of activities. First, it delivered a variety of programs to help individuals improve their quality of life, with a focus on educational programs for the immigrant population. Second, anticipating what later would be known as 'participatory action research', it worked with neighbors to collectively investigate common problems and find common solutions. Led by Jane Addams, the residents of Hull-House were at the forefront of the struggle for parks, playgrounds, housing, health care, safe streets, women's rights, compulsory education, labor standards and fair wages. Hull-House also had a labor museum, in which immigrants from different parts of the world could share different methods of production and preserve their heritage. The celebration of the diversity of immigrant cultures was complemented with dancing, music and drama courses, recitals, and presentations.

A large part of the success of Hull-House was due to Addams' ability to obtain the help of outstanding personalities of that time, like John Dewey and William James. Dewey occasionally lived and worked at Hull-House, and remarked that Addams was a personification of his educational idea that people learn by doing. Later, upon Jane's death in 1935, Dewey would dedicate to her one of his most important books, "Liberalism and Social Action." William James admired her work and told her that "you utter the truth we others vainly seek". Like Dewey and James, she was concerned about education and democracy, and devoted great energy to public speaking and writing. Like them and many others, she was an advocate of child-centered education and of social reforms leading to the construction of a more egalitarian and humanitarian society. In the words of Alexander Rippa,

"Basic to the philosophy of education that Addams developed during the forty-four years she lived at Hull-House was a vision of society in which all people, regardless of race, gender or socioeconomic status, would have a chance to develop individual talents and interests. She believed that personally enriching experiences for the immigrants were vital in a society based on democracy as a way of life. At the settlement house, she tried to solve the daily problems of new citizens. The result was a humane institution in which the immigrants were able to grow and eventually contribute to community affairs." (1997: 141-2)

In 1931, Jane Addams became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

(Biographical information obtained from here.)

"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth?

And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president [Bush Sr.] made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq."

~ Dick Cheney, Former Secretary of Defense of the United States, 1992

American casualties in Iraq to date: 2683

Americans wounded in Iraq to date: 19945

When you're the Decider-in-chief and what you're doing is in clear violation of the law and becomes increasingly unpopular, all you have to do is change the law.

The Bush Administration is apparently intent on redefining Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions so as to downgrade the Conventions' standards for humane treatment. Oh, and he also wants to make sure that any sort of "torture-like" behavior committed in the PAST is excempt from prosecution. Among many others, 29 retired Admirals, Generals, Military Leaders and former DOD officials have already urged Congress to preserve the Geneva Conventions as they are written. (Skip on over to A Poetic Justice to read the Conventions yourself. They aren't vague like His Majesty says they are.) Those who oppose this action by Bu$hCo believe strongly that it would undermine the moral basis which has generally guided our conduct in war throughout our history and that it could give opponents a legal argument for the mistreatment of Americans being held prisoner in times of war. Read the full-text document here.

The time has come for there to exist a collective outrage over the use of all forms of torture by this government. Amnesty International, Human Rights First, and the ACLU all have action links so that your name can be added to those who are fed up with this government's "war on terror." They are doing this in our name, and we ought feel much shame.

Vanessa German, National Slam Bush Champion, wrote this absolutely amazing, angry, filled-with-promise protest poem. Hear it in her own voice.

H/T to A Poetic Justice.

Thank you George Muthaf@%#king Bush
By Vanessa German

thank u
for makin it easier for me
to get a tech9 or AR14
than a pap smear & a good education

thank u
from the first boy i kissed
who u sent off to fight your war in iraq
he returned home only by telegram
& in a box

thank u
from me
from my body
from the woman i love
that i want to marry & call my wife
without u bible thumpin daggers
& demanding constitutional amendments
to prevent us from loving this revolutionary love
(az tho we cud soil the sanctitiy of marriage)
u cud nevah touch my love or fuck with my love
its just the right u seek to deny us
so we must fight for it in the end it's all a matter of
voiceof excercising choice & flexing the muscle of democracy
which shudn't be pigeon holed marginalized
or constitutionaly compromised
under the pretense that who i love
kiss fuck hold hands & make family with
iz destructive to the fiber
that quilts the fabric of america
which ironically happens to be
cotton
that notoriously bloody lily white thread
that my grandfather & hiz fathers fathers before picked by hand in mer rouge louisiana

i hav not forgotton that i am america
that my blood iz in these rivers
& at the roots of these redwood trees
i know that this country was built on the backs of blacks
that were shackled strapped & stacked
slashed gashed taxed & then cashed in on
like cattle
i hav not forgotton that i am america
& even tho u want me to be quiet & invisible
i will not
i hav decided that if u r not with US
then u r against US
US
the 99% of the population that makes less
than 1.2 million dollars a year
the 43 million people that hav no health care
the 14 million children that got left behind
that go to bed hungry every night

if u r not with US then
u r against US
& we understandthat terror iz not always guns & knives
& otherwise explosive devices of evil
sometimes terror iz just making no living wage
going day to day pay check to pay check
praying that no one gets sick

terror iz not knowing which of ur sons
will fit the description & die while reaching back pocket
for identification to prove he iz american
but not american enuf to live free

terror iz being 13
having no access
no choice & taking matters
into ur own hands

terror iz being a woman
begging for emergency contraception
when u've been raped taken by force & foresaken
just like the constitution
after the presidential election of 2000
which u did not win
u stole like a purse
off the shoulder of an old lady
making america ur bitch

didn't anyone ever tell u
when u take shit that's not urs u give it back
& apologize
but no.

we realize that u mr bush
r just the figure head the smoke screen
the sony nike gmc tommyhilfigerbluejeansbrand name
of a regime of evil so vicious & arrogant
u hav the audacity to murder in my name
& call it justice call it liberation long time come
when all it really iz
iz economic imperialism
or occupation
which iz the same thing hitler did
in poland austria & hungry ...if u really wanted to liberate
u cud hav liberated
delbert orr africa
janine holloway africa
micheal sims africa
or
mumia abul jamal

it wasn't 6 weeks
it waz 17
thousand lives
not just american lives
but human lives
how sacred are they
tell me answer me
tell me how sacred are they
stop trying to convince us that justice
iz always this bloody
that liberation costs babies
& mothers & homes & sons
& lovers & fathers & dignity& truth & purity & hope & democracy

thank u mr bush
for showing us
that we must fight everyday for our freedomas tho we r fighting for our lives
obviously u r not going to beat a path
of justice to our frontdoors
this is my requiem
for the last four years
my premptive strike
on the next four years
this iz my love poem
to america even tho
he took u by force violated u
forsook u before they eye of god
made u barely recognizable to the rest of us

i still love u baby
he can not shame u before my eyes
u r beautiful
i will fight & die for u r the people
& i am u

this iz my love poem to america

Oops.

Actually, there are numerous parallels between the Iraqi war and the US Civil War, which we all know, in hindsight, was a battle waged for good reason. Thus, one day we will see, in hindsight, that our military campaign in Iraq has been a battle waged for good reason.

How do I know?

Condi says so. And she should know. She's Black.

The Economic Policy Institute released its report on the State of Working America last week. Among the findings:

• The correlation between the income of parents and their children is so high that it would take a poor family of four with two children nine to 10 generations - over 200 years - to reach middle-income status.

Thus, as the report states, "for most people in America today, where you end up is increasingly a function of where you started out."

Ah, shucks. If Phil Knight can do it, so can you.

OIL COMPANIES

The Kansas City Star did a story on this while I was visiting my grandma, and I was amazed.

Apparently, when gasoline gets hot, it expands. But U.S. fuel pumps don’t adjust for the bigger volume, and it’s costing American consumers about $2.3 billion a year.

"It works this way.

As a liquid, gasoline expands and contracts depending on temperature. At the 60-degree standard, the 231-cubic-inch American gallon puts out a certain amount of energy. But that same amount of gas expands to more than 235 cubic inches at 90 degrees, even though consumers still only get 231 cubic inches at the pump.

Put simply, every degree over the 60-degree standard diminishes the energy a 231-cubic-inch gallon delivers to the nation’s fleet of cars, trucks, boats, buses and heavy equipment — and forces drivers to consume more and pay more for fuel.

It is basic physics that, depending on the temperature, can amount to just a few cents per gallon. But it adds up to big money — coming straight out of consumers’ pockets and going right to the bottom line of major oil companies and other fuel retailers in the energy pipeline.

Moreover, it’s perfectly legal, because even though your local filling station measures out your gas as if it were stored at 60 degrees, no law requires retailers to adjust the pump to reflect the expansion of hot fuel.

In other words, no law ensures you get what you pay for."

Of course, someone has invented a temperature-sensitive smart pump, one that can probe the temperature of the gasoline and then calculate the volume of the gallon when adjusted for temperature, but you won't see Exxon installing them any time soon.

Wanna know how your state fares? Go here.

Go here to read more.

Even though I've never met him and know nothing about him except that he creates the most amazing, animated political cartoons I've ever seen. See his stuff here, and have your name added to an email list that goes out every time a new cartoon is created.

His latest, "Remember Again," is a scalding, must-see commentary on the Iraq-9/11 connection.

P.S. There isn't one. Even Congress has admitted it...There is no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any relationship with the late terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or with al-Qaida, the Senate Intelligence Committee says in a new report. Read the rest. Of course, Tony Snow is calling this "old news" while Republicans are refusing to declassify the second part of the probe for truth from our government.

"Mother" Mary Harris Jones (1843-1930) was a socialist labor agitator devoted to class struggle. She is best known for organizing mine workers from the eastern coalfields to the rockies. Supporting not only the struggle of the miners, Mother Jones also organized their wives. Because mining towns were often secluded and their businesses owned by the mining companies, the strikes involved and affected the women as much as the men. Action taken by these women was often influential in the outcomes of the strikes. Mother Jones also worked in factories, organizing against the atrocities of child labor. She was a fierce agitator and charasmatic speaker, and was jailed many times. Still, her words and actions continued to inspire some of the most militant revolts in labor history. She is a symbol of working class protest and a true proletarian heroine.

At 87, she is credited to have raised a broomstick into the air and yelled, "Let's go get those sons of bitches" before charging into a coal mine where scabs were being used by management to break a long union strike.

Read more about this labor hero here, here, and here.

Things I’ve learned about Texas in my sixty minutes at the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport:

• No vegetarians live here. I just purchased a foot-long veggie Subway sandwich, complete with real cheddar cheese, for $3.29. In an airport.
• There is a contingent of middle-aged businessmen who will still pay someone else to shine their shoes. I sincerely believed that this was an antiquated service, but it is alive and thriving in Terminal A. I even passed one station where there was a line. People were actually waiting to get their shoes shined by someone else. If I hadn’t observed this phenomena with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it to be true.
• The locals are very proud of their football team. It’s not even football season yet (is it?), but the Cowboy fans are already donning the appropriate, official NFL jerseys. I don’t want to exaggerate, so I won’t. Just let me say that of the last 88 people who walked by, 29 were wearing some sort of Cowboy apparel: shirts, hats, shorts, or footwear (!!).