Germans seem to just love to cobble German words together to make bigger German words. In German, there is no such thing as the word is too big. Sometimes a word isn’t big enough so another word gets added to it. Thus, gammeliges, which means rotten meat, gets combined with fleisch, which means ‘flesh’ to become gammelfleisch, which is German for, uh, "rotten meat". Somehow this new bigger word for rotten meat got coined during a recent food scandal, when it was discovered that some meat packers were shipping food that was past it’s use-by date to restaruants. I’m sure a certain someone could tell me why the one word just wasn’t good enough.
Germans also tend to be brutally direct in their opinions. And thus gammelfleisch, becomes gammelfleischparty…
Gammelfleischparty is German youth word of year
German is famous for its long words — and today’s youth are just as adept at creating new ones as their predecessors, to judge by a poll released Wednesday by the publishers of Langenscheidt dictionaries.
Judges chose "gammelfleischparty", or "spoiled meat party," — an unflattering term for a gathering of people over 30 — as the "youth word of the year 2008." The word "gammelfleisch" was in the news frequently during the year when it was discovered that meat packers had been regularly supplying some kebab restaurants with past-due products.
"Bildschirmbraeune" or "screen tan" — referring to the complexion of someone who spends too much time at a computer — came second, while "unterhopft," meaning "underhopped," or in need of a beer, took third.
How To Wrest News From The TV In 21st Century America
Yes, yes…network news is to news, like processed cheese food product is to cheese. But as it turns out, there Is a way to find out from your TV what’s going on in Washington. You just have to adjust your perspective a tad.
For example…have you noticed all those "clean coal" ads on TV lately?
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday abandoned its push to revise two air-pollution rules in ways that environmentalists had long opposed, abruptly dropping measures that the Bush administration had spent years preparing.
One proposal would have made it easier to build a coal-fired power plant, refinery or factory near a national park. The other would have altered the rules that govern when power plants must install antipollution devices. Environmentalists said it would result in fewer such cleanups.
EPA officials had been trying to finalize both proposals before President-elect Barack Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. But yesterday, an agency spokesman said they were giving up, surprising critics and supporters of the measures.
Rule of thumb: When you suddenly start seeing a lot of feel good advertising from some big corporate interest groups, it’s a safe bet they’re trying to push something through congress.
What the coal and energy corporations want you to know, is that coal is clean. Swell. That’s really swell. Glad to hear it. But if coal is clean then why do they need congress to change the clean air act?
…In which our teenage hero discovers that the parts that make up a brain aren’t necessarily on speaking terms with each other.
Click on the image above to go directly to the new episode…or Here to go to the series main page. I did a little review of the panels I put up over the weekend and yesterday, made a few minor corrections, and started sending out the email notices. If you didn’t get one and want to be put on the mail list let me know.
If you checked in yesterday or Sunday you should know that I shuffled the upcoming episodes around a tad and there is a different one now listed as coming next. I’ll do the one on how I got my camera bug later…it doesn’t really fit at this stage of the story.
The series divides into three parts really. The first part is the one I’m still on right now, which is about how all these sexual feelings just suddenly seemed to start happening to me out of the blue and I started getting all twitterpated over one of my male classmates and all of a sudden I was just flailing around with all these really strong new feelings I was absolutely not prepared for, didn’t understand, and didn’t really want. The second is how I stumbled around trying to avoid having to deal with the realization that I was really sexually attracted to guys, and that I was actually falling in love with this one particular guy. And finally, how I finally came to terms with both of those things and how I moved from confusion and denial into self awareness and pride.
I have about 70 percent of all this scripted, but obviously I’m still working on it as I go along. For one thing, I added a bunch of material to this episode after I started working on the pencils and wasn’t really satisfied with it. But I really need to kick up the output here a tad…or I’ll still be working on this when I’m 90.
I just put the last of the pages up for episode 11 of A Coming Out Story…
Whew…
Now I’m off to bed. It’s late…I’m tired… But…satisfied. It’s a good sign when I can still stay up late working on this, and be chuckling to myself while I’m finishing it up…
More later… For now I’m just happy to finally have this one behind me. I really hope I don’t get this blocked ever again on this project…
I’m going to wait another day before I send out the email notices. I want to look it all over tomorrow morning with fresh eyes first, just to make sure there isn’t anything major I want to correct first. Then I’ll send out the email notices. But for all you folks who read the blog…it’s all there…finally…
I was hoping to have episode 11 of A Coming Out Story up by the end of the weekend, but I just couldn’t. I got to a point tonight where I knew that if I kept on going I wouldn’t be paying enough attention to what I was doing, so I broke off. I still have two pages to go, and half of one left to finish. But it’s looking good for tomorrow.
In the meantime, since this one Has taken so long, I’ve gone ahead and put up what I’ve finished so far. I’m so embarrassed that this one has taken me so long to get done, that I feel like I owe everybody who has kept on pinging this site for a new episode. So I went ahead and put up what I managed to get done tonight. The rest won’t be up until late tomorrow (Monday) though. So you can decide if you want to see what’s done so far and be left hanging until tomorrow, or go ahead and peek now. I won’t officially announce the new episode until it is all done. At which point I’ll send out the notice to my mail list.
And…I have a complaint. Firefox for Linux isn’t displaying the PNG files I put up correctly. At least not the version I’m running here at Casa del Garrett on Mowgli. I was being so careful to get the web files just right…and they looked great on Bagheera (the art room Mac). Then I come upstairs to Mowgli and bring them up and they look horrible. I’ve no idea if it’s a graphics library issue on my particular machine or what. But the panels seem to display just fine on Firefox running on MacOS and Windows. They also display just fine in the KDE Konqueror web browser that’s running on Mowgli. So it isn’t the files I have out there. If the lines look a tad fuzzy in your browser let me know what browser you are using, on which OS, please. I may have to change the encoding on them if there is a big enough problem.
Back in the 1950s, William Clayton and Fred Ladd combined several films into one they serialized and syndicated to local TV stations for use on their daytime children’s shows. I was a pre-schooler and the stars in the night sky were fascinating. Mom bought me a little “Golden Nature Guide” book on stars…
…which, as you can see, I’ve kept all these years. That book I think, was my first step into the world of learning, and what it taught me about the heavens above was a revelation. The sky above was beautiful, mysterious, and yet understandable. My world, which until then compassed only the backyard of the apartment complex we lived in, and a small shopping plaza just down the street, suddenly became huge.
There were other kid’s space shows on TV back then, but The Space Explorers stuck in my imagination…largely for the beautiful imagery and background music Clayton and Ladd chose. One of the films they used was a Czech Russian educational film titled, Universe, which lent The Space Explorers some absolutely riveting (to my pre-school eyes) artwork of the stars, planets and moons. I have tried for years to get a copy of the whole, thing, but I suspect all the various copyrights to all the pieces Clayton and Ladd used to make The Space Explorers are just too hard to get all in a row and still make it worthwhile to put on DVD. But I am stumbling across more and more of the parts on YouTube now, and what’s impressive to me at age 55, is how detailed my memory of that cartoon serial was, compared with other things I watched from that period in my life.
In my scrap books are some of my earliest sketches and drawings and that little art deco spaceship is there among them. I tried for years to find a model of it somewhere. Finally, a small enthusiast shop, Fantastic Plastic, has come out with a model you can build. If this is the sort of thing that strikes your fancy, then you might want to explore their online catalog, as it is full of all sorts of spacecraft, well known and obscure, from science-fiction films past and present. I ordered two…one for practice since I haven’t built a model anything in years. For most of the 1980s I worked as a freelance architectural model maker and built custom models of new buildings and parks from scratch. So I’m not entirely without some skills in that regard. But by now they’re probably very rusty. The kits came in the mail last week and unpacking them, and examining the pieces, I could feel the seven year old boy inside of me get all wide-eyed and excited again.
I won’t paint them quite like I see in the shots on the Fantastic Plastic page, but it’ll be close. I want to try for an effect that’s more like smooth aluminum metal then silver paint. That’s what’s going to take some time investigating and practicing and why I bought two kits instead of just one. And the windows should look like they’re being illuminated from within, not dark. But as I can’t install lights in this thing that’ll be a trick to accomplish with paint. But with the right touch of the brush I think I can do it. Eventually one is going down in the art room, and the other in my office at Space Telescope. I’ll post some shots of the finished work here.
One more thing: As I was composing this post, I decided I wanted to include a scan of that old book on stars mom gave me back in my pre-school days, because it was one of those small but important things, a touchstone, for the direction my life would eventually take. I’ve said before that I was blessed in a way, to have entered school shortly after Sputnik scared the hell out of The U.S., because suddenly there was an emphasis on getting America’s youth a good science education. When I went to scan the book, I took another look at the back cover. Here it is…
Each guide has been written by an outstanding authority on science education… A lot of the information in that book, printed in 1956, is dated now. But the spirit is even more relevant now after decades of republican party and religious right assaults on science, reason and knowledge, then it was even at the height of the cold war. Science is not a dry collection of facts on display in a museum or a textbook. Science is a way of knowledge, where knowledge is understood to be something you actively discover, not something you passively receive. A science textbook is not a bible. It is not a political diatribe. It Wants to be challenged. You are Supposed to have questions when you finish it. And you are supposed to be unafraid to ask them.
My little golden book of stars. A relic of the cold war. It was a time in America of stifling, absolutely stifling conformity. But for a moment, for one brief and shining moment, the nation understood clearly, in the shadow of a nuclear, not biblical Armageddon, that the way you fight totalitarianism is by teaching your young to how to think for themselves, and that the pursuit of knowledge is a great adventure.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Louisiana has displaced Mississippi as the unhealthiest U.S. state and other Southern states were close rivals due to high obesity and smoking rates in new rankings that deemed Vermont the healthiest.
…
Many Southern states were clustered near the bottom of the rankings. The region has some of the highest rates of obesity, which contributes to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some types of cancer, as well as high rates of smoking, which causes cancer, lung disease, heart disease and other problems.
One in five Louisianians lacked health insurance, while 31 percent were obese. It also suffers from high child poverty, infant mortality, premature death rate and cancer deaths, according to the report.
And if you think all that counts as a black mark against Louisiana’s political leaders…well…the GOP has something to say to you about that…
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Last weekend, 18 days after Barack Obama decisively defeated their candidate for president, a mostly Republican crowd of self-described conservatives received their first introduction to someone many prominent members of the GOP think could be the party’s own version of Obama.
Like the president-elect, Gov. Bobby Jindalof Louisiana is young (37), accomplished (a Rhodes scholar) and, as the son of Indian immigrants, someone familiar with breaking racial and cultural barriers. He came to Iowa to deliver a pair of speeches, and his mere presence ignited talk that the 2012 presidential campaign has begun here, if coyly. Already, a fierce fight is looming between him and other Republicans — former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who arrived in Iowa a couple of days before him, and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who is said to be coming at some point — for the hearts of social conservatives.
"The Republicans really have no choice except to look at some people more youthful if they want to have a better chance of winning," said Betty E. Johnson, an independent and the wife of a Cedar Rapids pastor, who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004 but who went for Obama over 72-year-old John McCain. "I liked Obama’s energy and hope. I don’t know, but maybe a younger person would give Republicans a feeling of more energy, openness."
Jindalof is a religious right nutcase who is still trying to get creationism taught as science in the public schools, and who participated in an exorcism when he was in college. Yeah…he’s sure to get the vote of the faithful. And never mind all that stuff about the health and welfare of the citizens of his state. None of that is more important after all, then their spiritual well being. Which is why the bible belt states routinely, invariably, rank at or near the bottom of…well…nearly every measure of civilized, industrial nation progress. Literacy… education levels… teenage pregnancy… STDs… domestic abuse… infant mortality… the general health of both adults and children… But on the other hand they don’t allow the gays to get married…so that’s a plus…right…?
It’s an article of faith among the kook pews that gays live half as long as heterosexuals, spread filth and disease, and cause the general breakdown of family and society. I guess Vermont hasn’t figured that out yet. Or Massachusetts. Meanwhile the bible belt is killing itself with righteousness. But what the heck, the world is coming to an end soon anyway…right? Loose the bible belt, and the rest of the United States is right up there with the rest of the industrial world in all these measures. Include them in, and they drag us into into third world territory…
Dan Savage takes note of the case of the California teenager who escaped his captors with the chain still dangling from his ankle, and complains, thusly…
Paul linked this in Morning News, but more details are emerging…
A husband and wife have been charged with torture and other counts after a bruised, terrified 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, claiming he had just fled his captors, authorities said Tuesday.
Kelly Lau Schumacher, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, were arrested late Monday, said Matt Robinson, a spokesman for police in Tracy.
They had been taken into custody for questioning earlier in the day at their home in Tracy, where the emaciated boy was allegedly held against his will. A search of the home turned up evidence implicating the couple, Robinson said…. Robinson said the boy was confused when approached by detectives Monday, unsure where he had come from and how long had been held against his will. He was taken to a hospital.
"The wounds he had and his physical condition as well as having a chain around his leg corroborated his basic statement that he was being held against his will," Robinson said.
Kelly and Michael Schumacher are legally married—and they can stay legally married, even if they’re found to be guilty of this horrendous crime. They can stay legally married even if the decomposing remains of twenty other teenagers are found buried in their backyard. Their marriage license cannot be revoked. If Michael dies in prison, Kelly can remarry—even if she’s serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. If Kelly decides to divorce Michael, he can remarry—even if he’s sitting on death row. He can remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce until he runs out of prison pen pals. Because the courts have declared that marriage is so fundamental a right that it cannot be denied to convicted rapists or to serial killers.
But it’s a right that’s denied to me and my boyfriend. Because we’re both men and that ain’t right.
What you have to understand, and I’m sure Dan Savage understands this perfectly well, is that killing twenty teenagers isn’t nearly as big a sin as loving someone of your own sex. You can sit on death row for torturing, killing, and eating an entire classroom full of children and still get sympathy from the kook pews. They forgave Susan Smith the moment, the instant, it was discovered that she, and not the black man she’d claimed, killed her own two boys by locking them in the family car and pushing it into a lake and letting them drown. Her stepfather, Beverly Russell, who had abused her since she was 15, was a figure in the South Carolina republican party, and the Christian Coalition, and after all Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven. But if someone splits your head open because they saw you walking down the street with your boyfriend’s hand in yours, you had it coming.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Amendments that restrict civil marriage rights of same-sex couples – such as Proposition 8 that recently passed in California – have led to higher levels of stress and anxiety among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults, as well as among their families of origin, according to several new studies to be published by the American Psychological Association.
…
Participants reported feeling not just alienated from their communities, but fearful that they would lose their children, that they would become victims of anti-gay violence or that they would need to move to a more accepting community. Some of these anxieties were mitigated by social support.
For instance, one interviewee said he became "petrified …of being raped or roughed up or killed, you know, for doing nothing, basically. I worry about being picked out as a gay guy because my mannerisms are not entirely masculine." Another said the marriage amendment supporters were using the Bible "like a brick on us. They are beating us with it."
Social support from religious institutions, families, GLBT friends and heterosexual allies led most of the participants "to greater feelings of safety, happiness and strength," the researchers wrote.
And in the third study, 10 family members of GLBT people living in Memphis were interviewed regarding how anti-GLBT initiatives and movements had affected their family. Their responses were also grouped into clusters of similar themes.
"Some participants identified so deeply with their family member’s experience that they felt equally attacked by these movements and policies," the researchers wrote. "They considered themselves members of the GLBT community and experienced rejection by others for being a GLBT family member."
"Typically, we tend to think of anti-GLBT policies such as marriage bans and Proposition 8 as affecting only GLBT people. However, our research suggests that others in addition to GLBT people are also impacted by this legislation and sometimes quite negatively. For example, we learned that some family members experienced a form of secondary minority stress. Although many participants displayed resiliency and effective coping with this stress, some experienced strong negative consequences to their mental and physical health," said Jennifer Arm, M.S.
Emphasis mine. Hold that thought for a moment…
But of course…this is what was supposed to happen. When louts like Lee Benson call us "sore losers" don’t be fooled. They know exactly how we feel about having the knife in our hearts. We’re supposed to feel that way. And they take a good deal of self righteous satisfaction in seeing the impact hit. We are supposed to be sore losers. What we’re not supposed to do is fight back.
What anti same sex marriage amendments are supposed to accomplish, particularly in states where same-sex marriages, and same sex couples, have no legal status to begin with, is further alienating gay people from their communities and their families. That is the point. Not that we aren’t supposed to marry, but that we are not supposed to exist. God doesn’t want us here on this good earth. The faithful are only doing their part to insure that we understand this.
At some point, it all boils over. The wave of anger and revulsion after H8 passed was just a taste of what is to come if the religious right keeps hammering away at same sex couples. Rex Wockner was getting a tad jittery a few weeks ago at all the rage being vented by gay people against their tormentors. But it wasn’t just gay people who were out on the streets. I suppose he was worried that the haters would start killing us in retaliation or something. It’s easy to forget, because the deaths happen one lonely life at a time, that gay people are being killed all the time. The struggle turned violent a long time ago. Before Stonewall even. And that’s not counting the suicides. Humans kill themselves for a variety of reasons, most of which are personal and private. But when a people are constantly and relentlessly driven to it, you have to ask yourself if that isn’t a kind of murder too. There is already a lot of gay blood on the pavement. What happens next, is that straight blood starts splashing down on it too.
Take another look at this article. The stress is noticeably affecting the families and friends of gay people now too. What happened after election night this year, was that hundreds of thousands of our heterosexual family members and friends stood with us on the streets, angry and outraged at what they can see now, finally, at long last, is happening to their gay family and friends. What you have to understand is that isn’t going to make the haters back off. It’s going to scare them. And like the guy in Easy Rider said, it won’t make them running scared, it’ll make them dangerous.
Over at Pam’s House Blend, Pam is reporting that some of the righteous folks behind Proposition H8 are planning to take out a full page New York Times ad, to accuse gay people of a campaign of violence…
According to our source, the ad will cite an incident where a white powder was sent to a church, and "document" disruptions of services at houses of worship. The Becket Fund is also allegedly contacting like-minded anti-gay organizations to request that they sign on to the ad.
Matthew Shepard. Nicholas West. Scotty Joe Weaver. Barry Winchell. Thanh Nguyen. Michael Burzinski, Gary Matson and Winfel Mowder and Billy Jack Gaither and Brandon Teena and William Metz and Carl Warren Jr. and Aaron Webster and all the others listed Here …and all the tens of thousands of tens of thousands more whose names we know and whose names we don’t. A campaign of violence has been going on and on and on for generations against gay people. It is considered so unremarkable by the bigots, and by most of the country still, that when gay people start fighting back they can accuse Us of creating a climate of violence without even smirking. They’ve been looking the other way at violence toward gay people for so long, they really think we’re the ones starting it.
What’s coming next, is that the families and friends of gay people will start dying too, because the bottomless hatred that moves the bigot is unable to distinguish between queers and queer lovers, anymore then it was able to distinguish between niggers and nigger lovers back in the 1950s. The crime that finally shocked the nation during the struggle against race segregation in America, was the killing of three young civil rights workers in Missisisippi, two of whom were white. I prophesy now, that somewhere, right this moment, their hearts beating, young and full of life, are one or more heterosexuals who have an appointment with a bloody and grusome death in the jaws of the same mindless sub-human beast that has been killing gay people for generations. They will die for the crime of loving their neighbor as themselves. And when love is put to death for loving, what is left within the human heart to take its place? It isn’t the rage of gay people Wockner needs to be afraid of.
People who have been enormously lucky in love, and think the only reason anybody is ever single most of their lives is because they haven’t tried hard enough to get out and mix, are like billionaires who think the only reason anyone is ever poor is because they don’t want to work.
What California And Florida Could Not Bring Themselves To Do For Love, And Hope, And Dreams Come True…By God, The Mouse Could…And Did…
When I was in Disney World recently, I made a point to ride the monorails. I’d been absolutely fascinated by those things ever since I saw the pictures of the first ones in Disneyland back in the early 70s. I’ve wondered ever since why more cities didn’t have something like them.
On the trip from Magic Kingdom back to the Transportation center, which is a transfer point from the Magic Kingdom and Resort lines to the Epcot line, you go past several Disney resort areas, and the voice in the cars narrating the journey takes note of a little wedding pavilion along the way, just between the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian resorts…
With all the grandeur of a classic Victorian summer home, Disney’s Wedding Pavilion offers many enchanting possibilities for the wedding ceremony of your dreams. With its palm-fringed solarium and views of Cinderella Castle across the Seven Seas Lagoon, this magnificent non-denominational chapel can accommodate your Escape Wedding ceremony with style and grace.
I was coming by then to really like Disney World, and the It’s A Small World After All mentality that pervades it. But I had to wonder if that wedding pavilion was open to all couples, or whether Disney would, to avoid controversy, stipulate that the marriages had to be legally binding in the state of Florida, which had just then passed an anti same-sex marriage amendment.
Well…know I know…
Gay couples given keys to the Magic Kingdom as Disney relents
The Guardian, Saturday April 7 2007
Disney’s theme parks are synonymous with the great American family day out, with the company’s traditional hospitality and characters having enthralled generations for more than half a century.
Now Mickey Mouse has taken a step away from protocol by throwing open the gates of Cinderella’s castle for same-sex partnership ceremonies. Gay and lesbian couples can, for the first time, stage their own commitment ceremonies anywhere on Disney property, a privilege heterosexual couples have enjoyed for decades.
"We are not in the business of making judgments about the lifestyle of our guests," said Donn Walker, spokesman for Disney Parks and Resorts. "We are in the hospitality business, and our parks and resorts are open to everyone."
The shift in position came after complaints that gay couples were specifically excluded from the Fairy Tale Weddings programme at Disney’s theme parks in California and Florida, and on its cruise liners. While others had a wide choice of marriage options, such as taking their vows on a white-knuckle ride or beneath a fireworks show with Minnie Mouse as a bridesmaid, gay couples had to organise their own private ceremonies in rented meeting rooms at resort hotels.
The Walt Disney Company has long been a tacit supporter of gay tourism. It has come under fire from the religious right for policies that include partner benefits for homosexual employees. In the 90s, rightwing groups held protests against the annual "Gay Days", when more than 100,000 gay and lesbian visitors go to Disney resorts.
The company blamed its weddings policy on laws in Florida and California prohibiting same-sex unions. But after pressure from the gay website afterelton.com, it dropped its requirement that Fairy Tale Weddings packages, which start at $8,000 (£4,100), have to include a valid marriage licence. "This is consistent with our policy of creating a welcoming, respectful and inclusive environment for all of our guests," Mr Walker said.
Michael Jensen, the editor of the website, had complained that Disney appeared to be hiding behind the law. Although same-sex wedding ceremonies were not legally recognized, he said, there was nothing to prevent gay couples holding their own ceremonies.
"Elton John, who had a civil union with his partner David Furnish last year in England, would have been turned away from Disney’s wedding gates," Mr Jensen said, pointing out that the singer had earned the company millions of dollars with his music for The Lion King.
Note that happened back in 2007. Nice. And I’ll say this…you can’t stay in the Disney theme parks for long without realizing there is a ton of gay talent there, working hard to make sure everyone enjoys their stay. From the "cast members" in character costume (including several really cute Peter Pan’s I saw during my stay) to the ones who were simply working support roles and keeping the whole complex running smoothly, my Gaydar, which has trouble going off around DuPont Circle, was going off like mad. And even though Gay Days for this year were long over, I still saw the occasional same sex couple strolling through the crowds, hand in hand, or arm in arm. Nobody bothered them.
The pleasant, Let’s All Get Along And Enjoy The Day attitude was infectious and disarming. You felt it everywhere. In Magic Kingdom I took a bad spill one night near main street, while hurrying to the monorail. I’d mis-stepped over a curb and tumbled hard onto a cobblestone pavement with my cameras dangling around me. Luckily neither they nor I were badly hurt, but instantly a crowd of about a dozen or so folks were all around me asking me if I was okay, and helping me back up. In another park I am certain they’d have just walked right on by.
We are in the hospitality business… That, really, sums it up. And it’s the right answer to give to bigoted louts who just can’t enjoy themselves unless other people are suffering. But there is more to it. It’s that It’s A Small World After All mentality. That really does seem to be the bedrock there. I wrote previously how refreshing, how exhilarating it was to see the story of life on earth, and the history of human progress told, not only matter of factly, but that the study of science and history and archeology was a grand adventure. There was something else in Disney World that genuinely lifted my spirits more, much more, then I would have imagined going into it. That, It’s A Small World After All mentality that pervaded everything there.
Sniff at the Disney-esq sentimentality if you like…but it gave my soul a much needed boost to face the real world outside the gates (where I later learned hundreds had been killed in by terrorists in India…). I’d thought of it as escapism. It isn’t. It’s taking a break. You just can’t let the world bear down on you constantly without going nuts. It’s good to have somewhere you can go to remember your dreams, and why they were good, and let the power of those dreams lift you once more.
So it should not surprise the Kultur Krieger that Disney of all mainstream American icons, is being gay friendly. For one thing, they’re in the hospitality business, not the beat your neighbor over the head with ballot initiatives business. For another, Disney has always believed in the better tomorrow, and in the power of dreams. If all that is a fairy tale, I’ll take it over the one George Bush, James Dobson, and the Mormon church are selling to America these days.
It isn’t cheap by any means, but same-sex couples can have that magic moment now too. They can exchange vows by the shores of a beautiful lagoon, with Cinderella’s Castle in the background. Everything will be just right, perfect even, like a dream come true.
Then they can go forward together, back into the world, breath their life into it, and make the dream real…
A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes Come True
by Harrison Ellenshaw
The Jonah Goldberg complains that things are getting ugly. No…not that cutting the ring fingers off of devoted couples is an ugly thing to do…but that those couples are fighting back is ugly…
Did you catch the political ad in which two Jews ring the doorbell of a nice, working-class family? They barge in and rifle through the wife’s purse and then the man’s wallet for any cash. Cackling, they smash the daughter’s piggy bank and pinch every penny. "We need it for the Wall Street bailout!" they exclaim.
No? Maybe you saw the one with the two swarthy Muslims who knock on the door of a nice Jewish family and then blow themselves up?
No? Well, then surely you saw the TV ad in which two smarmy Mormon missionaries knock on the door of an attractive lesbian couple. "Hi, we’re from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!" says the blond one with a toothy smile. "We’re here to take away your rights." The Mormon zealots yank the couple’s wedding rings from their fingers and then tear up their marriage license.
As the thugs leave, one says to the other, "That was too easy." His smirking comrade replies, "Yeah, what should we ban next?" The voice-over implores viewers: "Say no to a church taking over your government."
Obviously, the first two ads are fictional because no one would dare run such anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim attacks.
The third ad, however, was real. It was broadcast throughout California on election day as part of the effort to rally opposition to Proposition 8, the initiative that successfully repealed the right to same-sex marriage in the state.
What was the reaction to the ad? Widespread condemnation? Scorn? Rebuke? Tepid criticism?
Nope.
This newspaper, a principled opponent of Proposition 8, ran an editorial saying that the "hard-hitting ad" was too little, too late.
Look at this. Just look at it. Goldberg is saying that to call the Mormon church’s campaign against same-sex couples for what it is, is comparable to spreading the antisemitic lies that greedy Jews are controlling the world’s financial markets. And as for calling Muslems terrorists, just what the hell did Goldberg think was going on among his pals at in the kook pews after 9-11?
But Mormon’s really did spend millions, and made the critical difference in organizing the vote on Proposition H8. This isn’t a lie, it’s a matter of record. Although exactly how much money and manpower the Mormons put into it is still being dragged out of them by California authorities. That ad Goldberg calls ugly, was simply calling the Mormon’s attack on loving, devoted couples for what it was in meaning and in fact: an invasion of their homes, their lives, that destroyed their Marriages. That is literally what it was.
But Goldberg doesn’t see it that way. In his twisted moral sewer, it isn’t the Mormons who were the aggressors here, but the same sex couples who’s only crime was to be in love…
It’s often lost on gay-rights groups that they and their allies are the aggressors in the culture war. Indeed, they admit to being the "forces of change" and the "agents of progress." They proudly want to rewrite tradition and overturn laws. But whenever they’re challenged democratically and peaceably, they instantly complain of being victims of entrenched bigots, even as they adopt the very tactics they abhor.
Here’s what I tried to post in the comments to his column at the LA Times…
Tell Bill Robert Flanigan Jr., who had to wait outside the hospital doors while his beloved partner Robert Lee Daniel, died at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center that he is the aggressor in the culture war. Tell Janice Langbehn, who had the hospital door shut in her face while her partner Lisa Marie Pond died of a stroke in Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida that she’s the aggressor in the culture wars. Tell Sam Beaumont, who was evicted from the ranch he shared with Earl Meadows, his partner of decades, by Meadow’s cousins, and then sued for backrent on top of that for back rent, that he’s the aggressor in the culture wars. Tell all the loving, devoted cross-national couples who cannot marry their loved ones, and have to wave goodbye to them as their visas expire, that they’re the aggressors in the culture wars. Tell Sharon Bottoms, whose son was taken from her because she is a lesbian, that she’s the aggressor in the culture wars.
Then look at yourself in a mirror, and ask the knuckle dragging lout you’re staring at what kind of person cuts the ring fingers off of devoted, loving couples, and then has the nerve to call Them aggressors?
…but the Times limits comments to 650 characters, so I had to whittle that down a tad. It’s pending "approval".
Goldberg and his smarmy kind need to understand one thing if they understand nothing else…the days when we passively accept having our home lives torn to bits by gutter crawling bigots like him and then being spit on for good measure, are over. No more Mr. Nice Gay. Welcome to the morning after. I’ll be your server today. My name is Fuck You.
Here’s what I don’t get about California and the recent Proposition 8 vote: Why all the commotion over yet another passage of yet another marriage amendment?
This was the 30th time a state has placed either a constitutional amendment proposal or its equivalent on its ballot, and the 30th time the amendment has passed.
Thirty straight wins is formidable. It’s downright Globetrotter-esque. The New England Patriots didn’t even go 30-0.
Nice. Tens of thousands of loving, devoted couples have just been forcibly divorced, care of the tens of millions of dollars the Mormon church shoveled into California’s ballot initiative process, and this prize Mormon lout is comparing that trauma to a sports game. I guess part of the process of becoming a god involves laughing at the humanity of those mere mortals who just happen to be your neighbors in this life too…
To: Lee Benson (benson@desnews.com), The Mormon Times.
Subject: Sore Losers
Sore losers Mr. Benson? The thousands of loving, devoted same sex couples who’ve just had their ring fingers cut off by your church are sore losers are they? Well…I reckon. But count on more sore losers to come. Sore losers like Richard Raddon, who just lost his job at the Los Angles Film Festival after his donation of 1500 dollars came to light. And Scott Eckern, who lost his job at the California Musical Theater when his donation of a thousand dollars came to light. Sore losers like Marjorie Christoffersen, owner of the El Coyote in Los Angles, who has lost customers and the respect of her neighborhood when her donation came to light. Sore losers. Election day has come and gone, and the votes have all been counted, and still the ranks of sore losers grow. And grow. And grow. We were supposed to just go away now weren’t we? Because it couldn’t possibly matter to us that our ring fingers had just been cut off. Because homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.
Eckern and Raddon, and all the sore losers still to come got exactly what they asked for, exactly what they worked so righteously to achieve. A world without love, without sympathy, without kindness and trust. A world where love grovels before the mob, and the human heart is something anyone can spit on if they have enough votes. Your church spent millions to tell our neighbors, our co-workers, our parents and children, our brothers and sisters, our families and our friends, that their gay and lesbian companions in this life were invading their schools to molest their children, imprison their clergymen, and destroy western civilization. And now we’re sore losers too. Well…I guess if we can be destroyers of western civilization, we can be that too without too much additional burden.
Sore losers? Okay. Fine. Whatever. And you…may you spend every second of the rest of your life watching victory laugh in your face. You reached for the poison. Now drink it.
So…We Removed The Brakes…And Damn If The Train Didn’t Jump The Tracks And Crash Anyway…
Via Atrios… The propaganda in the kook pews these days is the economic collapse was caused by liberals forcing banks to make mortgage loans to poor people. As Eric Hoffer once said, propaganda doesn’t fool people, so much as allow people to fool themselves…
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.
"Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories," California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.
Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.
"These mortgages have been considered more safe and sound for portfolio lenders than many fixed rate mortgages," David Schneider, home loan president of Washington Mutual, told federal regulators in early 2006. Two years later, WaMu became the largest bank failure in U.S. history.
The administration’s blind eye to the impending crisis is emblematic of a philosophy that trusted market forces and discounted the need for government intervention in the economy. Its belief ironically has ushered in the most massive government intervention since the 1930s.
Emphasis mine. And…what was the trigger for that previous spurt of massive government intervention in the economy? Oh…right… The Great Depression. Much of the regulation that republicans have been fighting tooth and nail to eliminate was put in place in the 1930s, to prevent another one of those.
"We’re going to be feeling the effects of the regulators’ failure to address these mortgages for the next several years," said Kevin Stein of the California Reinvestment Coalition, who warned regulators to tighten lending rules before it was too late.
Many of the banks that fought to undermine the proposals by some regulators are now either out of business or accepting billions in federal aid to recover from a mortgage crisis they insisted would never come. Many executives remain in high-paying jobs, even after their assurances were proved false.
That needs to be fixed. I know a lot of folks are absolutely against the bail-outs. But if massive portions of the economy suddenly go dark we’ll be a decade or more digging our way out of this. But in exchange for…oh…not going to jail…the people who are responsible for this mess should at least loose their jobs. If train-wreaking the world economy isn’t incompetence then what the hell is?
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