From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Little Gay Billy's BIG Gay Newsapalooza!
You know my motto: "I'm here, I'm queer, let's tap some beer…"
- Mainers will vote in November to legalize the radical notion of allowing same-sex couples to pay a friendly visit to a town clerk's office and apply for a marriage license. The primary spokesman for the opposition has already fired his first salvo against us. I wish to stress that, yes, this is real and was published in The Portland Press Herald. I can hear William Shatner delivering this as a beat poet---cue the bongos:
The watchful eyes of the fox are ever on the vineyard. Biding his time, he waits until the farmer leaves, then with a bounding leap he is over the wall, devouring a meal of golden grapes. If the fox is especially clever, and the crop is a fine one, a higher and better wall is needed. Marriage is more valuable than any vineyard or field, because marriage is needed for the propagation of human life.
It's true. Just ask Bristol and Levi.
- In Anchorage, Alaska yesterday, voters told their GLBT neighbors that equality is for we, not for thee. (But when it comes to paying taxes? Still totally equal.)
- Big day in Boston: Appellate arguments in Gill et al. v. Office of Personnel Management et al, a federal lawsuit challenging Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). 10am.
- Kossack Adam Bink, who hangs his hat at the Courage Campaign, pens an opinion piece in The Advocate highlighting 8 reasons why he's optimistic that North Carolina's ballot measure ("Amendment One") enshrining discrimination into the state constitution could go down in defeat May 8th. Meanwhile Pam Spaulding posts a four-minute video produced by Carter Smith, age 15, of Durham who interviewed members of his church. Watch yer back, Spielberg.
- Count me among those who used to be biased against transgendered people back in the day. Also count me among those who, once they got to know some personally, had a complete attitude adjustment. So it's nice to see transgender-related stories getting more coverage these days, even from some surprising places:
Jin Xing is one of the brightest personalities in China today. She’s a film star, talk show host and celebrated dancer, but it’s her life off stage that’s propelled her into the spotlight. She was the first person to have a sex change operation in China, and go public with it. Seventeen years later, she’s become a cultural icon in China and the government even uses her as an unofficial ambassador of the arts.
Jin Xing's story airs tonight on NBC's Rock Center. And even Bill O'Reilly is talking about transgender issues like a grownup lately. Progress.
- For those of you keeping score, the National Organization for Marriage has gathered over twenty-five thousand petition signatures protesting Starbucks for supporting the GLBT community. The pro-Starbucks crowd has gathered a mere…wait for it…wait for it…four hundred and sixty thousand signatures. Oh, massive Squee!
- Since "Don't Ask, Don’t Tell" was repealed, officially-approved gay pride groups have been springing up throughout the Armed Services. File this under 'things I never thought I'd read in my lifetime":
Representatives from The Citadel, the U.S. Naval Academy and The Virginia Military institute told CNN they have not been approached with formal requests to start LGBT clubs at their school, but if the momentum started by cadets at other institutions is any indication, it is only a matter of time before they do."
As for the mass exodus of straight servicemembers that, according to all the Very Serious Armchair Military Analysts, was supposed to happen after DADT got lifted: Nah gah happen. It was all a great big conservative lie. And water is wet.
- And because our Big Gay Newsapalooza wouldn’t be complete without checking in with Kirk Cameron, we're here to report that he's dipped his brain into the ink well of intellectualism and---[Ding!]---concluded that America = Nazi Germany. Now I know what I'm getting him for Easter: a new carbon monoxide detector.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Note: If your Wednesday is not 100% satisfactory, we'll happily replace it with a Thursday at no charge. ---Mgt.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Cinco de Mayo: 31
Days `til Baisakhi (start of the Punjabi New Year): 9
Amount still owed for student loans by Americans 60 and older: $36 billion
(Source: Federal Reserve Bank of New York)
Percent of Americans who heated with coal or wood in 1940: 78%
Percent of Americans who heated with coal or wood in 2010: 2%
(Source: Census Bureau)
Percent of mobile subscribers who now own smartphones as opposed to regular phones, a 36% increase from a year ago: 50%
(Source: USA Today)
Percent chance that Admiral Ozzle is as clumsy as he is stupid: 100%
(Source: Darth Vader, Battle of Hoth)
NCAA Women's Final:
Baylor 80 Notre Dame 61
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Mid-week Rapture Index: 184 (including 3 False Prophets and 1 Pope who don’t need no stinkin' badge). 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: [Ding Dong!] "Who is it?" "Reaster Runny!"
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CHEERS to Barack Obama: Jiu-Jitsu master! I'm still scratching my head over this one. Yesterday the president gave a marvelous speech that tore the Republican Ryan budget to shreds. He called it "social Darwinism," "a Trojan horse" and a huge re-distribution of wealth upward. Awesome imagery and framing. But, boy, what does it say about our country when the Democratic president has to defend Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush from other Republicans??? It pretty much says Fox News and Rush Limbaugh have achieved their goal of creating a parallel universe for those who feed on anger and paranoia:
"As much as we might associate the G.I. Bill with Franklin Roosevelt, or Medicare with Lyndon Johnson, it was a Republican, Lincoln, who launched the Transcontinental Railroad, the National Academy of Sciences, land grant colleges. It was Eisenhower who launched the Interstate Highway System and new investment in scientific research. It was Richard Nixon who created the Environmental Protection Agency, Ronald Reagan who worked with Democrats to save Social Security. It was George W. Bush who added prescription drug coverage to Medicare.
What leaders in both parties have traditionally understood is that these investments aren't part of some scheme to redistribute wealth from one group to another. They are expressions of the fact that we are one nation. These investments benefit us all. They contribute to genuine, durable economic growth."
We can fit that on a bumper sticker, right?
CHEERS to thems that bothered to show up. Hat tip to all the Republicans and Democrats who cared enough to vote in their state primaries yesterday. As expected, Mitt Romney swept Wisconsin, Maryland and the District of Columbia. (I'll pause a moment so you can contain your excitement. Breathe in…breathe out…shake your Etcha A Sketch...repeat…) His superior rival, President Obama, won the Democratic contests in a 99.9%-to-.10% squeaker. Meanwhile, as if to steal Mitt's thunder, Sarah Palin guest-hosted the Today show. I guess NBC was tired of having…whaddya call 'em?…viewers.
JEERS to the good dying young. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis 44 years ago today at the age of 39. He was so eloquent that people shouted "Amen!" when he excused himself to go to the bathroom. Our favorite Kingjuniorism resonates even louder now, given the radicalization of the Republican party: "Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." Chances are your favorite quote is here too. And how nice to finally have a memorial---MLK Jr.'s---on the National Mall that isn’t in honor of either a war or a president known for fighting one. That was a dream worth having, too.
CHEERS to justice (or something like it). In Pakistan, a court has levied punishment against three of Osama bin Laden's wives. The sentence was 45 days in prison. One day for being in Pakistan illegally and 44 days for having terrible taste in men.
CHEERS to freeing up a hospital bed. Dick Cheney, his health fully insured by the federal government, went home from the hospital yesterday. His new heart was blindfolded, shackled and renditioned separately in a black helicopter.
JEERS to the long and short of it. After he was sworn in, 68 year-old William Henry Harrison gave the longest inaugural speech of any president: 105 minutes. The day was unusually cold and windy, and he delivered his address in nothing more than a pair of boxers and a swath of leopard skin draped over his shoulder. Bad move. 31 days later, on April 4, 1841, Harrison became the first president to die in office of either pneumonia or his doctors' treatment of his pneumonia. Pay your respects here. But don't get too close...he's still pretty pissed about it.
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Five years ago in C&J: April 4, 2007
CHEERS to light at the end of the tunnel. Word from NBC's Andrea Mitchell that we're roughly five months from the collapse of GOP support for Bush's war: "If there isn’t real progress by the end of the summer, that's when they're going to really break with the president." Then, when they shut off the camera, she laughed so hard that she peed.
JEERS to "imperturbable cogs." Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen reminds us that, as then-governor Bush's general counsel in Texas, Alberto Gonzales made sure the state's death-penalty machine stayed well-oiled and open for business:
The first 57 of the 152 death penalty cases Bush presided over occurred when Gonzales was general counsel. It was his job to prepare a document summarizing the facts of the case. Those memos were examined by Alan Berlow of the Atlantic magazine, who reported on them back in 2003. What he found was that of the 57, there was hardly a case that gave Gonzales pause---not the mental retardation of the condemned, not the stunning negligence of some lawyers and not the occasional use of questionable police methods. Gonzales was always the imperturbable cog in Texas's killing machine.
And isn’t that the legacy every parent wants to leave to their children?
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the innate seriousness of Newt Gingrich. He may be a dead candidate walkin', but he's still America's doughy Yoda. And thanks to the folks at Bad Lip Reading, we'll never have to wonder what Newt's signature achievement as president would've been: doing the lunch limbo with four porpoises and a wet Nigerian. Frankly, it's our loss. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some lunar colony toilets to clean.
Have a nice Tuesday. And now, Cisco…we ride! Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Petting Bill in Portland Maine for just 15 minutes releases the feel-good hormones serotonin, prolactin, and oxytocin, and lowers the stress hormone cortisol, a University of Missouri–Columbia study says.
---Health.com
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