Archive for the ‘Current Events’ Category
Corruption : A Culture of Dependency?
This article ("The Supreme Court Just Gutted Another Campaign Finance Law. Here’s What Happened.", by Andy Kroll) provides some useful background and short, clear analysis on today's McCutcheon v. FEC ruling from the Supremes. I'm surprised, frankly, that Republicans could look so favorably on allowing large contributions from single donors; don't they realize that it […]
In: All, Current Events, Splenetics
How White Supremacists Help Advance the Cause of Marriage Equality
So, District Court Judge Friedman recently struck down Michigan's ban on marriage equality as unconstitutional. Michigan AG Bill Schuette vowed to appeal, wasting taxpayer money (oops! my editorial comment). Now, a white supremacist group has filed a brief in support of his case, basically using the same arguments that he and similar marriage-equality foes have […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity, Laughing Matters
The Boy Scouts : Possibly a Return to Relevance?
Until just a few hours ago, I was pessimistic about the future of the Boy Scouts of America. Now it seems that they may manage to have a future. The news has just come in that a vote at the organization's annual meeting has approved a policy to allow gay scouts to remain scouts even […]
DOMA is Unconstitutional
With the Supreme Court set to hear oral arguments soon on whether the "Defense of Marriage Act" is unconstitutional, former President Bill Clinton has written a timely statement calling for the overturn of DOMA, a bill he signed into law: Americans have been at this sort of a crossroads often enough to recognize the right […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Mainline Homophobes Move to the Fringe
What if they gave a Supreme Court case and no one showed up? So, the Supremes are to consider California's Prop 8 and part of DOMA next month. Will there be anything substantial and sensible to consider? "Standing" is a big legal issue, because no one wants to defend these dinosaurs anymore. The arguments that […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Watching the Sea Change: Post-Election Day One
We spent election evening with friends, watching returns. I don't usually pay much attention to election returns "as they are happening"–to me it's just analyzing the results for something that's already happened–but I enjoyed everyone's enthusiasm for our democratic process. This is not to say, however, that I was not keenly interested in what the […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Signs of the End Times
Today the signs of the end time — for me, that would be the end to popular support for institutionalized homophobia in the US — are rife and reports are falling in front of me almost faster than I can keep track of them. Just to set the stage, this happens for me against a […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Today in Homophobic Voting
Today bigots in North Carolina managed to scare their neighbors into voting for the odious Amendment 1, a constitutional amendment that denies equality to same-sex couples in the state. Yet, I am calm, verging on the insouciant. Not long ago I had occasion to write this: When I started writing fiction, in 1998, it was […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Zinnia Jones on Dan Savage on the Bible
So, a few weeks ago the country's loudest, most outspoken ultrachristians got upset because GLAAD started publishing the things they said, verbatim. Using their own words apparently made it a "smear campaign" and an "attack". Last week Dan Savage gave a talk in which he pointed out, among other "bullshit", that the Bible gives instructions […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity
What the Principled Republican is Believing this Week
For how many decades have we been seeing conservatives crusading under the banner that says "State's Rights"? Now, I'm sure that somewhere there are a few who actually are anti-federalist, but for the most part it's a cynical scheme employed in an attempt to derail any federal attempt at doing something distasteful to the politicians […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Pride in New York
It's the Empire State Building with its gay-pride colors on, but this celebration is special. New York City's gay-pride events were already scheduled for this weekend but they are a bigger-than-ever party celebrating the arrival, late Friday night, 24 June 2011, of marriage equality in the state of New York. The New York assembly has […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity, Personal Notebook
Maddow on Birthers
The idea that the birth certificate is the real story, and Osama bin Laden is the distraction from it, tells you everything you really need to know about the people who are invested in the birth certificate. —Rachel Maddow on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 3 May 2011
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
The Gingrich Theology of Sex and Sinning
It was, for a change, a quiet evening at home. Dogs curled at their feet, Frank was reading the newspaper while Kenneth furrowed his brow over a challenging Sudoku. Frank rattled the pages of his paper, drawing Kenneth's attention. "I was just thinking earlier about serial adulterer Newt Gingerich and his seemingly serious–to him–bid to […]
In: All, Current Events, Frank & Kenneth
Do As He Says, Not As He Does
Newt Gingrich, lately infected with delusional notions that people want him to be president (yes, of the United States!), enjoys his sinning but apparently gets his sin-tickets fixed through his very special relationship with Jesus. Don't forget, however, that he finds the idea of marriage equality, well, unforgivable. So, I repeat the following just because […]
In: All, Current Events, Splenetics
Mullen on Integrity
"Our people sacrifice a lot for their country, including their lives. None of them should have to sacrifice their integrity as well." — Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, quoted by President Obama in remarks at the signing of "The Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010" on 22 December 2010.
In: Common-Place Book, Current Events, Faaabulosity
Palin : America's First "Reality" Candidate?
As I write this the big controversy of the week–in addition to whether the senate might vote to repeal DADT and whether our not-really-progressive president has "caved" to Republicans on extending the anti-progressive Bush tax-cuts–is the escalating spat between Margaret Cho and Bristol Palin. Ms. Cho contended that Ms. Palin as induced by her celebrity […]
In: All, Current Events, Eureka!
Is Wall Street Worth It?
Most people on Wall Street, not surprisingly, believe that they earn their keep, but at least one influential financier vehemently disagrees: Paul Woolley, a seventy-one-year-old Englishman who has set up an institute at the London School of Economics called the Woolley Centre for the Study of Capital Market Dysfunctionality. “Why on earth should finance be […]
In: All, Common-Place Book, Current Events
Breaking: Republicans Promise Conservatism
Wow. Republicans took off their ties and visited a hardware store in Virginia to make their "Pledge with America". I guess this is different from Newt Gingrich's infamous "Contract with America" from 1994 in that it's merely a "pledge", and not a "contract" with contracted deliverables. I haven't read it yet so I won't mock […]
In: All, Current Events, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Who's To Judge "Pastor" Long?
Our story thus far : notedly homophobic mega-christian "pastor" Eddie Long has been accused by three young men of being a sexual predator. Nothing new there, of course. Photographs of "pastor" Eddie, appearing in very tight muscle t-shirts and taken with the iPhone he holds in his hands, have surfaced. (For instance, see here.) These […]
In: All, Current Events, Raised Eyebrows Dept.
Mehlman in Purgatory
That noisy hum we're hearing on the gay blogs I read is all about "Repulsive Anti-Gay Quisling Homophobic Scumbag Asshat Closeted Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman" 's [to quote Joe.My.God, a useful place to find summarizing evidence for the epithets] coming out as gay. You may recall that Mehlman, in his role as chair of […]
In: All, Current Events, Faaabulosity