Red Cross Tornado Relief Page
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Aw, Dammit. I Feel a Rant Comin' On.
At first I was happy to read this comment about gay marriage by Focus On the Family CEO Jim Daly:
"We’re losing on that one, especially among the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex marriage. I don’t know if that’s going to change with a little more age---demographers would say probably not. We’ve probably lost that."
I was like, "Booyeah! They admit they've lost! Yeahhh!"
Didn’t last long. Because, really, what have you conservative evangelicals lost?
Have you lost your ability to get married and divorced whenever you feel like it? No.
Have you lost your ability to not get fired because of religious discrimination? No.
Have you lost the support of your family? No.
Have you lost out on state or federal benefits? No.
Have you lost your lives at the hands of gay people? No.
Have you lost custody of your children on religious grounds? No.
Have you lost adoption rights? No.
Has a governor signed away your civil rights? No.
Have you been kicked out of the military because of your religion? No.
Have you lost membership in your church? No.
Have you had marriage rights granted...and then revoked by voters in your state? No.
Have you had discrimination against you enshrined in your state Constitution? No.
Have you been denied hospital visitation rights? No.
No. You haven't. In everyday, Constitutional/legal terms, you haven't lost a damn thing. You still have everything you had before you declared that your war on gay rights was "lost." It's the GLBT community that has lost for years, decades, centuries. Lost jobs, lost family ties, lost money, lost homes, lost church support, lost benefits, lost friends, lost kids, lost dignity, lost lives. All orchestrated and perpetuated by people and organizations like you and yours.
Tell me, Focus on the Family, cuz I'm curious: what did you Christians lose when you stopped advocating stoning people to death? I know that goes back a ways, but you're experts at ancient history, so tell me: what did you lose when you made that conscious decision to start FLAGRANTLY IGNORING THE WRITTEN AND INVIOLABLE WORD OF GOD by not advocating stoning people anymore?
You lost nothing. Except, perhaps, the label, "cruel punishers." And perhaps, by correctly interpreting the writing on the wall regarding the growing acceptance of GLBT Americans, you might one day lose the label "shrill, cruel, opportunistic bigots" by simply calling a halt to your war on gay people.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but this isn't a game of King of the Hill. We're not fighting for superiority. We're fighting for equality.
I know you have some serious brain re-wiring to do as you come to the inescapable conclusion that your hatred of gay people is tragically misplaced and ill-informed by a reliance on simplistic stories in an ancient rulebook, portions of which you freely ignore every single day without so much as a second thought. I imagine this re-wiring is painful for you. Try Advil. It works pretty good.
But please don’t say you've "lost." Because you haven't. You and your followers still get to go skippety skip through life with all the rights and benefits and protections that our laws have to offer. What's different now is that slowly, much too slowly, GLBT Americans are winning the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that you've always taken for granted.
Perhaps when you finally accept reality, you can shut down your activities that divide us by villainizing us, and get down to the important stuff: loving thy neighbor as thyself, providing aid and comfort to the poor and downtrodden, and celebrating every single day the fact that we---all of us---share this little speck of the universe in each other's company for an all-too-brief period of time.
When that day comes, my dear Mr. Daly, the hate will evaporate. And everybody will win.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Note: I have a message from Sarah Palin to John McCain: "Thanks for making this Wasilla hillbilly a multi-millionaire! Muah! Muah! Mmmmmmmmuah!!!"
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til summer: 28
Days `til the 36th annual Victoria Bach Festival in Texas: 13
Number of episodes of Oprah between Sept. 8, 1986 and today's final show: 4,561
Number of presidents who have appeared on Oprah: 5 (Bush I & II, Clinton, Carter, Obama)
Approximate number of guests who appeared on the show: 30,000
(Source: USA Today)
Percent of Americans who say they're generally happy with their life right now: 81%
Percent who say that Social Security and Medicare, respectively, are "extremely" or "very" important to their financial security in retirement: 70%, 72%
(Source: AP-Gfk poll)
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 182 (including 5 Wild Weathers and 1 Demon Frisbee). Soul Protection Factor 24 lotion is recommended if you’ll be walking amongst the heathen today.
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Puppy Pic of the Day: I don’t get to say this very often: "Wahooo, Texas Legislature!!!"
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CHEERS to your song of the day. With apologies to Crystal Gayle, an oldie but a goodie, dedicated this morning to New York's 26th Congressional District:
Jane loved Ryan, oh really bad
Killing Medicare made her feel glad
But now she's got a sad
And don’t it make her district…
Don’t it make her district…
Don’t it make her district…bluuuuuue
Democrat Kathy Hochul shot out of the starting gate and never looked back. Jane Corwin still doen't know what hit her. The takeaway message: Everyone loves their Medicare…and Republicans have a BIG problem.
P.S. Karl Rove and his rich Republican robber baron rabble poured more than a million bucks into the race on behalf of Republican Corwin in her deep-red GOP-mandered district…and they still lost. Golly, I hope that didn’t blow too big of a hole in their petty cash drawer.
JEERS to Groundhog Day: debris cloud edition. Another day, another series of terrifying, awe-inspiring, beautiful, ugly, spindly, fat and did I mention terrifying killer tornadoes. Yesterday they banged up parts of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas pretty bad. And guess what, everybody? The twister sisters are taking their act on the road:
- The latest powerful spring storm to roll out of the Rockies and across the Plains moves from Kansas toward the lower Ohio Valley today
- Strong tornadoes are possible today in eastern Missouri, eastern Arkansas, northwest Mississippi, western Tennessee, western Kentucky, southern Illinois and southwest Indiana.
- Thunderstorms are likely in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois this morning, but they are not the dangerous ones. Severe thunderstorms redevelop in central Missouri and north-central Arkansas during the middle of the afternoon
The Red Cross site is here for info and donations. And one more thing: big props to KFOR-TV (Oklahoma City) meteorologist Mike Morgan and his crazy storm chasers (one of 'em in a helicopter!), who provided hair-raising, not to mention life-saving, coverage yesterday afternoon as the tornadoes raced across the map. Jerry Bruckheimer, eat yer heart out.
CHEERS to the visionaries. On May 25, 1787, the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia with George Washington presiding. They came to blows over their first order of business, but after much chair-throwing and cane-beating, they finally agreed: We hereby resolve that Cheesesteak shall not be considered Cheesesteak without Cheez Whiz. It was mostly smooth sailing from there.
CHEERS to Chrysler: Back in Black! The car company, saved by the crazy socialist visionary job-saver Barack Obama and his army of taxpayer clones, paid back its loans a wee bit early. And by wee bit I of course mean holy shit, six years early! And speaking as one of their bailer-outers, I'd just like to say to Chrysler's American employees: "Congratulations---job well done." And to Chrysler's Italian partners I'd like to say: "Con'a'gratulations'a---job well'a done'a! Lets'a have'a some spaghetti and'a some'a meat'a balls!" (Thanks for the lessons, Rosetta Stone!)
CHEERS to Maine's Big Sports Moment. The Ali (Clay back then)/Liston heavyweight title fight---during which Sonny Liston was "knocked out" one minute into the first round---happened 46 years ago today in Lewiston. The match produced the second greatest sports photo of all time by Neil Leifer. Number one, of course, being the famous 2002 Sausage Festival Lobster Race. A moment dripping with butter. Er, history. [Urp!]
P.S. On this date in 1935, Babe Ruth hit his 714th home run. No asterisk next to his name, last time I checked.
CHEERS to pomp and pompumstance. President Obama and the First Lady were wined and dined and hosted and toasted by the royal family last night, and Blackwaterdog has the pics here. Contrary to what you've read all over the lamestream media, I do not support turning America's government into a monarchy. What I said was, I believe it would improve our gravitas in the world if the president and his cabinet wore sashes to work, and I plan to make it a campaign issue. Meanwhile, Obama will speak to Parliament today, which should be fun since I believe they're allowed to speak back. Memo to my household staff: Put the kettle on!
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Five years ago in C&J: May 25, 2006
CHEERS to Mike Farrell. In today's must-read, MASH's BJ reviews HBO's incredible movie Baghdad E.R.. Tell us what you think, Mike...
Glorious, generous, talented, dedicated human beings forced to be part of this circus of carnage made me so furious I couldn't speak at the end.
I loathe the people who have created this monstrosity. I want the criminals who lied and cheated and pretended and twisted and perverted reality---and those who rationalized their crimes so they could send over 2400 servicemen and woman to their death, nearly 18,000 to come home torn---some never to be whole again---thousands more to suffer mental damage, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians to be swept into the garbage can of "collateral damage," to pay. These bastards and their apologists should be stripped naked and forced to walk the main streets of America, allowing every city and town that has lost a loved one to injury or death in this shameful catastrophe to heap on them the scorn they deserve.
I could support that idea. All except the naked part. Most communities have standards.
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And just one more…
JEERS to mangling the calendar. By now you know that the Rapture did not…repeat: did not happen on Saturday. The phony pastor who predicted it now says you have another five months to stock up on possessions and savings so you can sell them all over again for when the Rapture re-doesn't-happen on October 21. I say if the damn thing (or should I say, "damning thing?" Ha Ha Ha…) happens at all, it's going to happen minutes from now when a cataclysmic event leaves millions upon millions of people catatonic: Oprah's last show. May Flying Spaghetti Monster have mercy on us all!
Have a nice Wednesday. Stay classy. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"The truth is, Bill in Portland Maine's in big trouble."
---GOP Presidential Candidate Tim Pawlenty
5/22/11
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