If I had a son instead of a daughter with my ex-wife, who is African-American, he would have been only two years older than Trayvon was when he was gunned down for being black. Hence, I can’t help but identify with our biracial president who said so wisely and to give people pause, “If I had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin.”
No reasonable person can dispute the impetus to shoot this unarmed minor with no criminal record any longer, especially now that the 911 tapes clearly have George Zimmerman calling him a “coon”! I can’t help but cry today thinking about losing my child this way, but for her gender. Even as a daughter of color, I have warned my child of the perception of her being “suspicious” just as my ex-wife had been when she walked into a store and even as my perceptibly Latino ex-lover had been. We’ve got a long way to go.
As for Geraldo Rivera (half Latino himself) talking about his “dark” son and discouraging him from wearing a hoodie, the comment that children of color should dress DIFFERENTLY than their white counterparts to avoid getting shot is tantamount to telling a woman not to dress provocatively or she’d be responsible for getting raped! Talk about blaming the victim! What’s even more egregious about Rivera playing to his FOX “News” audience of minimal brain cell patterns, is that he said the hoodie was “equally” responsible for the murder as George Zimmerman himself! What the hell?
I just found out today that after years of struggling, at 39, Curtis died of cancer. We had literally been online friends since at least 2003, and we had run into each other at various events around the country over the years. In fact, it was (and will be) odd to be any major event that bears attend and not see Curtis with his joyous life force. Embedded in this post is a picture of us in 2010 in Phoenix for Phurfest on Luau night. Despite having gone to Hawaii twice myself, this was the most authentic and magical Hawaiian traditional event I had ever attended.
Curtis was a genuinely fun guy and outrageously funny Sister of Perpetual Indulgence. I was very honored that he spent so much time with me when we saw each other.
I’d like to send a personal “FUCK YOU” to the tobacco industry ( RJR and Phillip Morris aka “Altria”, et al.) for taking away another young life way before his time. FUCK YOU for addicting the children of the world to your poison. FUCK YOU for lobbying governments to get your insidious product mass distributed and into venues where young victims start becoming your new (short) lifelong customers.
As Facebook is not my life, content that I post there is only ancillary to what I post here at my own domain. I recently changed my theological and political views from Agnostic and Liberal thusly:
Devout Agnostic – Not interested in pursuing and not interested in debating useless unscientific contradictory ideas, whether they were reduced to writing at some point or not. Philosophy and scientific mental health are far more interesting to me.
Progressive Lefty – Not as liberal as some people consider me to be, but certainly not politically paternalistic. I am a loyal Democrat (as in non-backstabbing swing Democrat). Some of my best friends are Republican-identified.
As an Italian-American who has lived in Italy and knows how corrupt and political everything there is, I am embarrassed by how long it took to free Amanda Knox, who was convicted so Draconiously on almost no evidence and completely concocted xenophobia. I hope she is forever rewarded for her endurance of being used as a ploy by the Machiavellian prosecutor who sought to use her as a scapegoat for a horrific murder she had no reason nor no ability to commit.
Lest we forget that her boyfriend at the time of the killing, an Italian national, was also targeted, for being with what the media there considered a party girl harlot. He too was freed today.
This is not like the OJ Simpson trial where someone was acquitted finally after there was no explanation on how the victim died. There has already been a drifter drug dealer who had both the motive and the gender to rape and mutilate the poor roommate of Amanda. In this case he was tried and convicted with sound evidence long ago. Why the Italian tribunals had to create a conspiracy out of thin air for two other college students to have been involved is the fodder of garbage tabloids. Finally in the appeal some science was used and it was because of the diligence of those who had some common sense that Amanda and her boyfriend were exonerated. It remains to be seen if the propaganda in the Italian press will admit their mistake and correct the embarrassing excuse they have for a legal system.
Relatives and friends of my recently passed uncle have discovered that he had no insurance. My Uncle was in the military and lived overseas for this country. He contributed and worked his whole life, but died without much of anything, and his lack of health insurance probably did not help, as his CPAP machine for apnea, not to mention his gastro-intestinal problems, could not have helped the fact that he died at the age of sixty (so not even old enough to receive social security or Medicare) last week. I’m pretty furious to find out that he was another American citizen who fell through the cracks and was not able to receive optimal medical care because he could not afford it!
His VA Benefits will only cover $600 of the $2,400 funeral in Sedona, so we are taking up a collection, as his estate will definitely not be able to afford it. I can’t stand to think that this man would not be able to be buried with dignity and would rather forego taking a trip to his memorial next weekend to be able to contribute more to his funeral expenses.
I definitely respect Wiener for exposing (sorry) the ugly side of politics over the many years he was in Washington.
Democrats take the position of resigning when they are caught with their pants off (even if there is no insinuation of physical contact with women on the other side of the country), but there is something that precious few talk show pundits have been discussing in recent weeks. The difference between the Wiener scandal and all of the other, ignoble, far more egregious and often criminal cases of salacious sexual impropriety among Repubs, is solely that the Repubs have not been caught engaging in their exploits on camera. The pictures went viral because they could go viral. It was far too easy for Wiener to have accidentally mixed his public photo cache with his very private cache. He doesn’t sound like the most tech-savvy guy in the world to begin with.
In principle, I’m not surprised how many people have x-rated photos of themselves online, even headless ones and even among heterosexuals, although I would wager that far fewer women are asking to see body parts before taking someone in the ether very seriously. I’m not surprised that the exchange of pictures is not dominated by teenagers, as some reports have recently shown, but let’s remember that Anthony Wiener was not in Congress lecturing others about sexual morality and he was certainly not preaching his views to the public about what people should do in their private lives.
I wish Wiener luck on his new marriage and prospective fatherhood. I don’t think they should try to make him to go rehab. No no no.
I usually agree with 99% of what Religulous filmmaker Bill Maher says and 95% of what Michael Moore says, and I still don’t consider myself to be that liberal. The U.S. population is just artificially puritanical.
Bill Maher let mainstream Republicans and conspiracy theorists have it in a major response rant to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden (reposted via Politicus USA):
“Now that it’s become clear that the Republicans, the fiscally conservative strong on defense party are neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense, they have to tell us what exactly it is they’re good at. It’s not defense. 9/11 happened on your watch, and you retaliated by invading the wrong country, and you lost a 10 year game of hide and seek with Osama Bin Laden, and you’re responsible for running up most of the debt, which more than anything makes us weak.”
“You’re supposed to be the party with the killer instinct, but it was a Democrat who put a bomb in Gadhafi’s bedroom, and bullet in Bin Laden’s eye like Moe Green. Raising the question how many Muslims does a black guy have to kill in one weekend before crackers climb down off his ass? Let’s look at some facts. Now for you Fox News viewers feel free to turn down the sound until the flashing facts light at the bottom of your screen disappears.”
This story gets crazier by the day. This “up and coming” Nazi (there’s nothing “neo” about them) in southern California gave his child his own gun. Within 24 hours that son had killed his father with it. I cannot imagine someone filled with so much hate or vitriol being a good father to anyone, but this is where the story gets really outrageous. While I don’t know the condition of the mother of this boy, or how many of the five children in the house were from Nazi Jeff Hall’s first wife, at one point in time some judge, presumably in the family court system, awarded custody to this openly racist, race-baiting trash of a father!! I’m all for father’s getting fair treatment when it comes to determining the best interest of the child, as I was fortunate enough to have primary custody of my daughter throughout her rearing, but I can’t help but be reminded of the case in Florida where the woman lost custody of her daughter for being lesbian to her ex-husband, who was convicted of murder and child molestation!
Now that the military’s sad DADT policy has been stricken, they decided just now that they will not allow gay weddings on military bases. This is a ruse. The Repubs are looking for anything incendiary that they can talk about on CSPAN and Fox “News” sound bites. Shouldn’t the more important question be: “Why are ANY marriages allowed on base?” As a purportedly liberal taxpayer, why should the facilities of the military be used to celebrate “holy” unions between opposite sex couples OR same sex couples?!
