//Diversity
Dirty-Looking Hipsters Overrun By Actually Dirty Hipsters!
“‘Crusty Punk’ sounds fittingly like a euphemism for syphilis.”
a) I can barely tell the difference between emaciated cokeheads who spent hours making themselves look dirty and emaciated junkies who look dirty because they sleep in dirt. I suppose the nose will know(s).
b) “Gutter Punk” is so ’90s. “Crusty Punk” sounds fittingly like a euphemism for syphilis.
c) Williamsburg is not a “family neighborhood”.
d) Hilarious that the half-built luxury condos are now infested.
e) This is why I shun (and loathe) panhandlers. I have ever since living between the Upper and Lower Haight in SF. Fie on middle-class kids who don’t want to work but call me yuppie whatevs while simultaneously trying to wheedle money.
How about about a history lesson?
I’m not going to tell people that their vote on Prop 8 was wrong or right. I’m just going to point out a couple of parallels in history that today are universally understood to be very dark times for civil rights in the US, but at the time were seen as justified just as Prop 8 may seem to some people now.
My hope is that people will look beyond their personal agendas, justified as they may seem, and see the bigger picture.
First up, denying marriage for one segment of the population:
In 1913, 30 states enforced laws banning marriage between whites and non-whites. In 1924, Virginia joined them when its legislature made marriage between white persons and non-white persons a felony. These laws remained in effect until 1967, when the US Supreme Court found them to be contrary to the guarantees of the US Constitution.
In 2007, 26 states had constitutional amendments explicitly barring the recognition of same-sex marriage, 18 of them prohibited the legal recognition of ANY same-sex union, and 19 more had legislation narrowly defining marriage to exclude same-sex partners. On Nov. 4th 2008, California, Florida, and Arizona joined the list, bring the total to 48.
Further back in history, another uncanny parallel:
Prior to 1835, the Supreme Court of North Carolina upheld the constitutional right of free men of color to vote; in response, the people voted in an amendment to the North Carolina Constitution removing this right by a majority of 55%.
On May 15, 2008, the Supreme Court of California overturned an unconstitutional ban of same-sex marriage; in response, the people voted in an amendment to the California Constitution removing this right by a majority vote of 52%.
It took until 1870 (a generation later) for government endorsed discrimination to be overturned by the 15th amendment, and another century before equal rights for all were guaranteed by law. Those ideals are once again under attack, the Constitution that once protected all Californians from discrimination and granted all people the same rights has been rewritten to single out one group of people for discrimination.
In both historical instances mentioned above, the justifications seemed reasonable to the majority at the time but are now universally seen as wrong.
Will America find a way to embrace equality once and for all, or must we leave it to future generations to prove us wrong once again? Will our children look at what this generation of voters has done in the name of tradition and hang their heads in shame?
Regardless of your religious beliefs or your personal feelings about your fellow Americans, equality is equality, is equality. Protect equal rights under the law in ALL THINGS for ALL PEOPLE.
You can help make a difference, do a little research and make your own choices:
Lambda Legal Defense Fund: http://www.lambdalegal.org/
Equality California: http://www.eqca.org/
Human Rights Campaign: http://www.hrc.org/
Totally Might as Well Be a Racist
As Bad as Nana
Vote NO on Prop 8
Two things have NOT happened since gay people started getting married in California back in June of this year:
1) The apocalypse has NOT occurred, despite what your friends working on Wall Street might have told you.
2) People have gotten exactly 0% smarter. Or to put it another way, while all people are probably getting stupider each day, there are other people actively working to hurry the process along.
The result of the above pair of incontrovertible facts is Proposition 8. This is the latest endeavor by mostly out-of-state interests to codify discrimination under the California Constitution. They offer no apologies, no arguments of any believable substance, nor do they really try to disguise their Proposition as anything more than what it really is: An effort to deny constitutional rights and freedoms to a specific sub-section of our populace simply because supporters of Prop 8 woke up one day feeling like fucking assholes.
Oh shit. Excuse me. Pardon the expletive. It just slipped out. I totally did not mean to brand my fellow Californians (and also the Floridian and Utah Mormon financial backers) as total assholes. And yet…um…yeah…I sorta did. Don’t Mormon’s have enough damned discrimination to worry about? And after 8 years of Bush, frankly I think it’s time we took a long, hard look at why we’re listening to people from Florida at all anymore.
Proposition 8 is indefensible. If you’re not against it, please try to drag yourself aboard the train headed towards modernity where we all try to treat eachother with some basic human respect and don’t waste our time trying to Constitutionally discriminate against people just because they’re different. I have this feeling that it won’t even take you a trip to Wikipedia to refresh your memory as to why this is a shitty idea.
On November 4th, Vote NO on Prop 8. Don’t be a douche.
3rd Grade Gay
Gay Speakeasies
The Measure of a Man or O’Reilly Awesomeness
“If the O’Reilly Flip-Out video is not longer available it’s because CBS took it down.”
This video has been making the rounds, but it really sums up Bill O’Reilly in his entirety for me: inflexible, unpoised, afraid of change and insecure to the core. In the clip, he’s supposed to say that a Sting video will play them out, but has no idea what that means.
This may be the first time I have had even the tiniest inkling of respect for Geraldo. I believe this more than atones for the Al Capone’s vault debacle:
More O’Reilly goodness:
Vs. Richard Dawkins
Vs. Stephen Colbert
Vs. Jon Stewart
Now listening to:
Now reading:
//RECENT
Vincent Moon and Arcade Fire Walk Into An Elevator….“[T]he crowd seemed really emotionally engaged with the music.”
Water Water Everywhere…. “Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.”
- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
An extended version of Bon Iver’s La Blogotheque Take Away Show of “For Emma, Forever Ago” with three versions of the song and some very startled tourists. I think this is one of my favorite things in the whole world. Not just that the song is so beautiful, and is so beautifully sung, but that [...]
So, This Stephen Malkmus-looking Guy Who Went to High School with My Boss Wrote a Children’s BookA man once said, “Childrens do learn.” and I believe childrens should learn to dream big dreams. Even better is to dream arty dreams like a hipster might draw. This hipster author’s name is Dallas Clayton. Although I do not know for sure that Dallas Clayton is a hipster, he looks like this: And, I [...]
Matilde UrrutiaIt isn’t simply that you are loved gloriously, or loved beautifully. But rather that a pitch perfect expression of love for you sounds and sounds, Rises into the very air. Though the love itself may fade, I do not know, The poetry you inspire ascends, ascending Becomes stars and you, who are so loved, Look [...]
//FROM THE ARCHIVES
Regulating the Internet“The problem with the Internet today is that it’s too accessible. When some mom and pop gas station can put a home page on the Internet and advertise that their twinkies are a good twenty-five cents cheaper than anyone else around, there’s a problem.”
Endorsement TimeBecause we know you’ve been waiting…we know you’ve been dying to know, it’s time we announced the official painkiller.org presidential endorsement: That’s right, throw your hands in the air and wave them vigorously as if you pretty much don’t care and join us in helping to elect Barack Obama to the presidency. Certainly anyone who [...]
The Story of EasterIt was AD 33 and a Sunday, as it would happen, when a true miracle occurred. Jesus, the son of God and the King of Kings, etc., came back to life and emerged from the crypt where he had been buried only three days before. Outside the crypt, he came upon a human sized bunny [...]
A Calendar Wherein I Allude Vaguely to Things Unnamed“It’s like Spock writing Bridget Jones’ Diary.”
fun with athiestsI’m so much more inclined to follow Richard Dawkins when he says having a word like “athiest” for folks who don’t believe in god, is like having a word for “not a heart surgeon”. That said, anything that helps all of us better understand the opposite point of view is really a great thing. So [...]
