From 1991
The gay-bashers are at it again, freaking out at Judge Vaughn Walker’s pro-gay marriage Proposition 8 decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger. The attacks claim, among other things, that:
The ruling is a travesty of justice because Walker himself is reportedly gay - and because he’s gay, he should’ve removed himself from the case!
Boy, am I glad I never parlayed my law degree into a judgeship. Because, based on this “reasoning,” I would have been duty-bound to recuse myself from any case involving women, Jews, short people, straights, New Yorkers, satirists, versifiers, lawyers, oboe players, agnostics, and people older than … uh … never mind.
That brings me to my latest limerick:
Judge Walker’s Critics — Divorced From Reason
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Judge Walker’s well-reasoned decision
Has been met with gay-bashing derision:
He’s “reportedly gay,”
So was biased their way.
Oh, just straight guys have unbiased vision?
Strategic level spiritual warfare (SLSW) is the ideology behind the growth of "prayer warrior" networks across the nation. [...]
Stategic Level Spiritual Warfare"A term that pertains to intercessory confrontations with demonic power concentrated over given cities, cultures, and peoples." - Otis
According to C. Peter Wagner, there are levels of spiritual warfare. Ground level spiritual warfare is casting out demons from individuals. Occult level spiritual warfare is confrontations with demons operating through witchcraft and esoteric philosophies (examples are Freemasonry and Tibetan Buddhism). Strategic Level Spiritual Warfare is the highest level dealing with confrontation of territorial principalities that control entire communities, ethnic groups, religions, and nations.
Does anyone doubt that once a society ceases to be able to afford schools, public transit, paved roads, libraries and street lights -- or once it chooses not to be able to afford those things in pursuit of imperial priorities and the maintenance of a vast Surveillance and National Security State -- that a very serious problem has arisen, that things have gone seriously awry, that imperial collapse, by definition, is an imminent inevitability? Anyway, I just wanted to leave everyone with some light and cheerful thoughts as we head into the weekend.
Emmylou Harris and (most of) the Nash Ramblers (Sam Bush, Roy Huskey, Al Perkins and Jon Randall) along with Steve Earle perform 2 songs "Sweet Old World" and "You Know the Rest" at the Opry on January 27, 1996.
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Only in Washington would a resume that says “consumer advocate” be considered a negative for someone running a Consumer Protection Agency.
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Target and LL Bean Butcher Progressive Musical Legacy
We all remember Nike using The Beatles' Revolution in a commercial, or when Wrangler used Creedence Clearwater's Fortunate Son (to make it look like a patriotic song, not the antiwar ballad it is). Now Target and L.L. Bean have co-opted 2 more progressive classics.
Possibly worse is the new L.L. Bean TV Ad which plays a Smithsonian recording of Wobbly Haywire Mac McClintock singing his original version of The Big Rock Candy Mountain. A member of the radical Union The Industrial Workers of the World during it's height during the early 20th century. He was a contemporary of song writer and organizer Joe Hill, and among the first to publicly sing Hill's The Preacher and the Slave. The recording of McClintock Singing was taken from an interview with him at the end of his life. He talks of the Wobblies and that the original meaning of "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" (the more commercial version was rewritten by Burl Ives). It was a ballad of how older Hobos would trick younger ones to help them survive with stories of the Candy Mountain where there are cigarette trees and alcohol springs. These stories were based in part on springs with lemon flavored carbonated water in the Western United States. Haywire Mac is also known for Hallelujah I'm a Bum. These songs humanized the homeless, now The Big Rock Candy Mountain is being used to sell expensive, yuppie, camping equipment; in Haywire Mac's own voice. He must be rolling in his grave.
It's OK to tell police officers to 'f*ck off' *
The curse of John Mitchell: How a middle of the road guy like me became a raving leftist — without changing any of my political opinions
I still favor almost exactly the same things today. So how come I'm suddenly considered a raving leftist in my dotage?
I haven't found support for this during a quick dive into Google, but I distinctly remember John N. Mitchell, who was Nixon's attorney general, venomously telling a TV interviewer, "This country is going so far to the right you're not going to believe it." I'm pretty sure I'm not imagining that I saw the old sourpuss says this, some time before he did time for his participation in the Watergate scandal.
Well, the vindictive SOB was right. We moved so far to the right that we're even to the right of John N. Mitchell, who while a New York State official tried to borrow money in defiance of the voters with something called "moral obligation bonds."
Mitchell's dead. But his
evil curse lives on.
What's happened is, a huge chunk of Americans have gone so far to the right that they're now voting to destroy themselves.
What is now "centrist" — like Barack Obama — used to be considered conservative Republicans. What are now right wing Republicans used to be considered batshit crazy lunatics. And today's batshit crazy lunatics like the "Tea Party" party-goers, Michelle Bachmann, Sharron Angle, and Mitch McConnell, and John Boehner, and this week's version of John McCain would have been locked up in mental institutions because they're a danger to themselves and others.
What the hell is wrong with them? Didn't they get the newsletter? Don't they know how very wrong, sinful, sick and perverted they all so obviously are? Haven't they heard the hoarse wails of the terrified Mormon elders, the raspy screams of the obsolete Vatican, the tightened bowels of confused fundamentalists of nearly every major religion worldwide, all of them absolutely positive that allowing certain kinds of consenting adults who love each other to get married will spell the end of civilization, families, innocence, the military, God's bitter and judgmental love as we know it? Someone should send them a pamphlet.
Meanwhile, back here in the land of fear and rainbow flags and rivers of fundamentalist misinformation flowing like Coors Light at a NASCAR rally, we still can't seem to figure anything out. The stillborn bastard troll known as Prop 8 has finally been overturned by a fine federal judge, deemed unconstitutional by a mile, not to mention unconscionable, unrealistic, not a little bit hateful, and just plain dumb.
This is what we are learning: The U.S. matters less and less in the grand public debate, the global shift, the Great Understanding. In the past few decades we've seen nation after nation fly right by us in many a happy category, from humanitarianism to education, health care to drugs, sexuality to the arts, prison systems to pollution, transportation to spiritual awareness. What a sad, strange trip it's been.
Statler and Waldorf are a pair of Muppet characters. They are two ornery, disagreeable old men who first appeared in the television series The Muppet Show heckling the rest of the cast from their balcony seats ...
UPDATE: Right wing groups slam 'tyrannical, abusive' California gay marriage ruling
AFA: Judge should have recused himself because he's gay
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich called the decision "an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution"
"The important point here is that U.S. law cannot be legitimately based solely on moral disapproval. ” by Ornot
Angle: “What’s happening (in America)..is a violation of the 1st Commandment,” entitlements “make government our God.”
If you ever wondered exactly why the Founding Fathers of the United States of America felt the necessity of separating church and state, it most certainly was because they had to know that someday the radical right fundamentalist Sharon Angle would be running for office in order to shove her brand of extreme religious ideology down the throats of Americans nationwide! Keep in mind the convoluted thinking, of this women Angle, is what came up with this fanatical projection---"'...a violation of the 1st Commandment,' entitlements 'make government our God.'” Surely Ms. Angle has lost somewhere in the deep dark recesses of her mind and soul that biblical phrase, "whatever you do for the lest of them, you do for me" (Matthew 25:35-40 - G), surely she has forgotten God's call to administer to the sick, the hungry, and to all those in need!
We won! The federal court has handed the American Foundation for Equal Rights and all Americans a major civil rights victory by ruling to strike down Proposition 8. Though this is a tremendous moment in the battle for equality, the court’s ruling is already being challenged by Prop 8’s proponents.
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