From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
It's Ex-Gay Awareness Month!
Break out the sensibly-straight party hats and business-casual attire! October is Ex-Gay Awareness Month, and the converters are staging their annual hootenanny in DC this weekend to "pray away the homosexualitay." Joe Jervis at the Joe My God blog reminds us what happened last year:
Yup. Alan Keyes is their headliner.
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Last year's big "ex-gay" event was a hilarious disaster in which fewer than ten people showed up after American Family Association radio shrieker Sandy Rios had predicted it would draw "thousands of ex-gays." That failure came after they had canceled "Ex-Gay Pride Month" due to "anti-ex-gay extremism." Several weeks later a massive crowd of tens attended an "Ex-Gay Awareness Dinner" held at a secret bunker deep under Washington DC.
I'm sure that was just a case of first-year growing pains, and that the kinks have all been worked out. This year's crowd will no doubt sprawl across the National Mall. And although I can't make it to this year's or any other year's rallies, I promise to do my part to cast off my sinful ways by following the
sage advice of Dr. James Dobson:
Meanwhile, the boy's father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son's maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.
Sad to say, my father has gone to heterosexual Heaven, so I'll substitute the above with my partner Michael playing the part of "Daddy." And if the pegs and balls and showers and getting all rough 'n tumbly don't do the trick, we're prepared to take extreme measures by chasing each other around the house with
Richard Cohen's tennis racquet.
But come hell or overpriced jello shots, I fully expect to emerge from this intensive therapy as straight as an arrow by October 31st, just in time to switch back again in November which is, of course, Ex-Ex-Gay Awareness Month. Wish me heteroluck!
Meanwhile Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, October 2, 2014
Note: Just a heads-up that there will be no C&J the next two Mondays, as we'll be engaged in our annual ritual of being kidnapped and forced to close up friends' cottages for the winter up north. Back Tuesday. And Tuesday.
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9 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til
The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies:
76
Days 'til the
Foothills Fall Festival in Marysville, Tennessee:
9
Drop in existing home sales from the same time last year:
5.3%
(Source:
The Portland Press Herald)
Percent chance the 2016 election will be cancelled:
0%
(Source:
Everyone but Dr. Ben Carson)
Percent of the country's labor force made up of temp agency workers:
2%
(Source:
The New York Times)
Amount two companies are being forced to refund to customers who were duped by weight loss claims made about underwear infused with Vitamin E and caffeine:
$1.5 million
Percent chance that the weight-loss undies were endorsed by Dr. Oz:
100%
(Source:
The Washington Post)
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Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I have said for years about people in public life, "I don't write about sex, drugs or rock 'n' roll." If I had my druthers, I wouldn't write about the religion of those in public life, either, as I consider it a most private matter. Separation of church and state is in the Constitution because this country was founded by people who had experienced both religious persecution and state-supported religions. I think John F. Kennedy's 1960 statement to the Baptist ministers should stand as a model of how public servants should handle the relation between religious belief and public service.
Nevertheless, we are now beset by people who insist on dragging religion into governance — and who themselves believe they are beset by people determined to "drive God from the public square." This division has been in part created by and certainly aggravated by those seeking political advantage. It is a recipe for an incredibly damaging and serious split in this country, and I believe we all need to think long and carefully before doing anything to make it worse.
---October, 2005
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Dogs. Peanut butter. Discuss:
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CHEERS to justice served. Mark it down in the history books, kids. Yesterday a white guy got what he deserved for killing a black guy in cold blood:
GUILTY
Jurors found Michael Dunn guilty of first-degree murder Wednesday in the 2012 shooting death 17-year-old Jordan Davis. … Davis' parents, Ron Davis and Lucia MacBath, both let out a quiet gasp upon hearing the jury forewoman's words and then hung their heads and cried. … Dunn, 47, was charged with murder after shooting into an SUV full of teenagers at a Jacksonville, Florida, gas station following a squabble over the music emanating from the teens' vehicle.
After Dunn murdered Davis (and, yeah, we can definitively use that verb now), he calmly got back in his car and drove to a hotel, where he enjoyed a fine meal of pizza and beer, then slept soundly without ever calling the police for help. I'm guessing there's no pizza, beer or sound sleep in his future. But probably a fair amount of calling for help.
CHEERS to kicking ass and taking names I can't spell or pronounce, let alone remember. If we're doing the war thing again, the least I can do is enjoy a little rah-rah moment when the good guys win, and that's what happened when the Kurdish forces---the Papshmearga I believe they're called---
seized a border post on the Iraq-Syria line and sent the intellectually-stunted ISholes fleeing for their Imamas. See that, world? They turn tail and flee like everybody else. (Although "Five Deferments Dick" Cheney remains planted firmly at the top of Coward Hill.)
JEERS to a big fat waste of time. But cheers that Kansas' "Worst Secretary of State in the Country," Kris Kobach, finally met his Waterloo:
A Kansas district court ruled Wednesday that the state Democratic Party does not have to name a new Senate nominee, bringing an end to the long saga that began with the withdrawal of the Democratic nominee last month and setting up a showdown between independent candidate Greg Orman and incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts (R). … "I believe this is the end of the road for this case," election law expert Rick Hasen of the University of California-Irvine wrote on his blog, though he acknowledged that [Kris] Kobach could try to appeal to the state's supreme court. "[T]o bring it now would be a fool’s errand."
Sometimes the punch lines write themselves.
More like him, Please.
CHEERS to portraits in contrast. Forty-seven years ago today, on Oct. 2nd, 1967,
Thurgood Marshall was sworn in as the newest member of the Supreme Court---the first African-American elevated to the nation's highest bench. He once said:
"Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish."
Forty-seven years later there's another African-American on the bench named Clarence Thomas. He once said, "How did this pubic hair get on my Coke can?" Potato Puhtato.
JEERS to scaredy cats. As Hong Kong erupted in protest during yesterday's National Day (basically modern China's birthday if I'm not mistaken), this is the kind of news coverage mainland Chinese citizens were allowed to see:
Shameful, cracking down on the media like that. I mean, who do they think they are, the Ferguson Police Department?
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Five years ago in C&J: October 2, 2009
CHEERS to A Cidade Maravilhosa (The Marvelous City). Like every fine, upstanding American---i.e. everyone but the Republican leadership---I was pullin' for Chicago to host the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. That woulda been cool and I'm sure Barack and Michelle pitched their hearts out to the IOC, but it was not to be this time. Having said that, let me say this: last year Beijing was impressive but oppressive. In 2012 London will be impressive but...Londony. (Is it me or does their logo spell "ZOK"?) But 2016? Oh...mah...gah! Rio is gonna be the block party of the century---a crazy unbridled flamboyant joyous singing dancing humping hugging drinking parading feather-boa-twirling put-yer-hands-together yes-we-CAN-all-get-along blast! And I bet the spectators will have fun, too! Congratulations, South America---you're finally on the Olympic map.
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the skinny brown guy with the funny name. No, not Barack Obama. India's favorite son, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi would've been 145 today. He pretty much wrote the book on non-violent dissent which, closer to home, was adapted to great effect by Martin Luther King, Jr., among others. In honor of his day, some timeless Gandhi wisdom:
1928: "If I had no sense of
humor, I would long ago have
committed suicide."
"Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment."
"Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man"
"The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
And this one, which seems especially relevant in light of the current Republican war on American democracy and China's war on Hong Kong's:
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it---always."
Good advice. Hell, it’s what got me through the Bush years. Happy Birthday, Bapu.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Diddy says Bill in Portland Maine's 'Cheers and Jeers' is a ‘work of art’ Kim Kardashian can’t match
---NY Daily News
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