Peter, Paul & Mary to NOM: Stop playing “This Land Is Your Land”

Peter, Paul & Mary’s cease-and-desist to NOM: Stop playing “This Land Is Your Land” « Prop 8 Trial Tracker.

It amazes me that no matter how many times this happens, these right-wing fundamentalists keep choosing to play songs by openly liberal, tree hugging, gay-loving artists at their hate-fests. Peter Paul and Mary at an anti-gay marriage rally? Really?

Props to PP&M for a very diplomatic F-U to NOM.

Prop 8: Don’t be that guy.

So Prop 8 has been repealed, and now the repeal is being appealed. Everyone expected this of course, but I’ve been thinking about how the whole Prop 8/Perry v. Governator journey will be remembered by generations to come. The odds of equality not being granted to the tax-paying homosexual citizens of this country are extremely low. I’d honestly bet my life on it, because this is not the first civil rights battle we’ve had in this country, and historically, however long it took, forward thinking prevailed and a bunch of bigots ended up looking phenomenally stupid. Lets take a nauseating trip down American memory lane:

“Americans” killed the Native Americans. Somehow, a bunch of assholes convinced themselves that they were entitled to this land that they just “discovered”, despite the fact that other human beings already lived there. Eventually we realized how disgusting that was and cut it the f!^% out, but it took quite a while for that to happen. I don’t think giving the Native Americans a smidge of land and the ability to run casinos is any type of reparation, but the historical consensus is that we were being assholes.

Americans had slaves. Many, many slaves. Human beings treated like objects. Isn’t that amazing to you, my computer-owning friend who probably has never had your life and family threatened over your ability to pick crops? Yeah, we were being assholes. We had a big war about it, and it nearly broke up this country. Let me repeat that: people were so outraged that the government was telling them to stop “owning” other people that they picked up their guns and killed people over it. They thought the government was getting too big, and that it had no business telling them how to run their lives. Some considered owning slaves to be a God-given right. Some people on this dirty, dirty rock still do. History does not smile on these assholes.

American women couldn’t vote until 1920. Anglo white women haven’t had it as badly as a lot of other races of women, but for the purpose of this blarticle I’ll just use this example. Women–half the population–weren’t allowed to vote. Hell, until the last half of the 1900′s, women weren’t allowed to leave their husbands without the man’s permission. So the suffragettes fought, and a bunch of assholes–including the president–fought back. Now we can vote, we’re taking over the work force, we have 2 new female supreme court justices, and… Well… Sarah Palin. But hey, we never would have been gifted with “Who’s Nailin’ Paylin” if women weren’t in politics, and we have the suffragettes to thank for that! (Just for poops and giggles, I recommend researching women’s suffrage in the US vs. polygamy in Utah.)

Americans were segregated. While women were celebrating their suffrage, blacks were still getting utterly and truly f!#ed by their former massahs, and if you youngsters have been watching Mad Men, you know that it wasn’t all that long ago. In fact, it hasn’t even been 50 years since the Civil Rights Act was passed. A lot of people fought to uphold segregation and the ‘Merica of their youths–that perfect, utopian ‘Merica where the economy was good, government was smaller, women didn’t vote and where white men were proud of themselves for not owning slaves, but didn’t have to drink from the same water fountains as the darkies. They said blacks were dangerous, a menace to society and a threat to the white way of life. Despite that passionate argument, segregation ended.

I was born in the 80′s, so I really don’t understand how large groups of people in this giant narcissistic country of ours, so proud of its ability to lead the world and herald the future, could ever have thought that segregation was any type of sane. South African apartheid is a whole other brand of crazy, but South Africa has never gotten onto a podium and jerked itself off while talking about how much the entire world looks up to it. My point being that history regards the people who fought against ending segregation as a bunch of assholes.

Now we have Prop 8, and a bunch of assholes are once again fighting to continue oppressing a group of fellow human beings. The most ironic, and saddest thing people should know about Prop 8 is the degree to which the African American population in California was manipulated in order to get Prop 8 passed. I don’t know the exact figure, but exit polls showed something like a 75% “yes” vote for Prop 8 by the black community, and without that, Prop 8 would not have passed. (Is it any coincidence that Prop 8 was on Obama’s ballot?) The pasty white assholes who 50 years ago would have been fighting to uphold “Separate but Equal” spent a pretty penny manipulating African Americans, and it’s extremely sad to me that it didn’t occur to them that their voting “yes” on Prop 8 turned them into the assholes their families fought against.

Perry vs. Schwarzenneger is ultimately going to pave the way for equal rights for our gay brothers and sisters. Gay and transgendered marriages will no longer be put in a separate category, DADT will be repealed, and a lot of people are going to feel phenomenally stupid. I can’t tell you how long it will take, but I will say this to everyone fighting against it: Do you really want to be that guy on the losing end of a civil rights battle, fighting to keep human beings from being treated equally?

No matter how disgusted I get with the BS happening on this planet, I know that on a long enough timeline, our understanding of humanity evolves towards compassion. I don’t think we’re in a very good place at the moment with our civil rights blind spots, environmental murder and this whole “selfish is the new generous” movement, but critical people, both conservative and liberal, have always been saying that the world is going to hell, and that now is the “worst” period in history (see my EFH2T post “The Superlative Now for more on this).

You don’t have to get a banner and wave it around to show what you believe in, but you should decide which side of history you want to be on. And hey, if you disagree with me, we’ll just let history decide who is the asshole.

Stop Drinking Bottled Water Now! (Infographic)

I have a tap water filter myself (of the PUR variety), and it tastes just as good if not better than most bottled water. The real problem with water safety (in Los Angeles, anyway) is poorly maintained plumbing in residential buildings–just for fun, try a glass of tap water in a modern office building and compare.

Brian Clark Howard: Stop Drinking Bottled Water Now! (Infographic).

Heroic mailman saves 3 lives

It’s always nice to read some good news amidst the doom and gloom of this effed up world. This is the story of a mailman who has saved, by coincidence on separate occasions, three lives.

It can be a challenge sometimes to remember to be a good person, so I hope Keith McVey (whose name I love, naturally) inspires you.

The Associated Press: Heroic mailman saves 3 lives while on the job.

Gulf oil dispersants cause internal hemorrhaging. Not kidding.

More disgusting news on the BP front: word is getting out about the toxicity of the dispersants being used to “clean” up the oil spill. These highly, fatally toxic chemicals don’t actually clean anything, but make the spill look a bit prettier while adding a whole other brand of hell to the Gulf region. Please read and share this article. People need to know. This is pure evil, and BP’s desire to make money is going to cost many more lives, marine and human.

Excerpted:

“While noting that BP couldn’t hide the spill any longer due to having to make its live underwater camera available to the public, Kaufman said the use of dispersants had not slowed.

“‘… Consequently, we have people, wildlife—we have dolphins that are hemorrhaging. People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do. EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is. And, for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now. The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous, and it’s an economic—it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.‘

“And that’s not all. Kaufman alludes to possible collusion between one owner of BP, BlackRock, and the United States government to cover up the extent of the Deepwater Horizon spill. “Follow the money,” Kaufman said, referring to an article in Vanity Fair about Larry Fink, a man who owns shares in a great deal of corporate America. Fink owns BlackRock, and BlackRock owns a significant interest in BP.”

via Watchdog says EPA covering up toxicity of Gulf oil dispersants.

Please, please spread the word. Facebook it. Twitter it. Blog it. Blab it to everyone you care about. I’m exhausted from a very long day of work too, but this is vitally important, so please just take a minute. If you don’t have friends or family near the Gulf, I’ll bet you know someone who does, so please don’t think that this doesn’t affect you.

And if you haven’t already, STOP BUYING BP PRODUCTS!@#% BP brands to boycott include Castrol, ARCO, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, Wild Bean Cafe Boykottiert ARAL. (From Boycott BP on Facebook)

BP, Boycotts and the Free Market

I am one of many people who support the growing “Boycott BP” movement. Obviously the oil spill is a huge tragedy, but moreover, I believe the company’s response has been pathetic at best, evil at worst. Using boycotts as a form of protest is nothing new, and no one really can be sure that it will have an effect on a giant oil-sucking corporation. However, since we consumers cast a vote every time we make a purchase, it makes sense not to vote for such a company.

In response to the Boycott BP movement, however, Newsweek chided activists for punishing all the mom-and-pop gas stations who only supply the BP product but are not directly owned by BP. They reason that a boycott is not an effective way to punish BP or make any kind of statement, because it doesn’t do enough to their bottom line, and suggest bugging the politicians instead. Fine, yes, do contact your representatives as well. I’m not suggesting that government regulations are not also to blame here, because obviously that’s a big part of the problem. But I disagree with Newsweek on the issue of boycotting the end-point gas stations, and here’s why:

The whole point of free market capitalism is that consumers determine what is successful in the marketplace. Lets say Company X makes mattresses and sells to mom-and-pop mattress stores all across the country. If the mattresses are good quality, comfortable, and reasonably priced, you can bet that consumers will buy them, and both Company X and mom-and-pop will profit. However, if the mattresses are cheap quality, with springs poking your back, and are made of potentially toxic materials, consumers won’t be so eager to buy them. Duh.

So mom-and-pop now have a bunch of crappy mattresses from Company X that they can’t sell. They will stop placing orders with Company X and find a new supplier with a better product. Yes, they may lose money in the short term, but that’s capitalism. Every business gambles when they buy product to resell. In the big picture, after enough stores stop ordering from Company X, they will be forced to either a) improve their products and practices, or b) go out of business. Yes, people will lose jobs. Yes, that’s sad. But is the consumer responsible for paying the salary of everyone involved in the making of a crappy product, or on the payroll of a corrupt company simply because if they don’t buy the product, the company may go out of business?

If we boycott BP supplying gas stations, whether owned by BP or not, it will affect them. It will also affect all of the people who buy gas from them to resell, and that’s capitalism. It forces business owners to ask harder questions before getting into bed with a supplier, and that’s how the free market improves. These mom-and-pop gas stations will start buying from another company, and just have to cross their fingers that their new supplier has learned from BP’s mistakes. Feel free to tell these business owners why you won’t buy from them, but reserve your anger for BP itself.

Moreover, a boycott will continue to push people towards supporting research and development of greener fuels and technologies. Someone with capital to invest may see this anger as incentive to gamble $500 million in a new R & D project, or in a green start up. Plus, if enough dissent builds, BP backlash could persuade some of the other oil companies to examine their own practices (because lets face it, they’re all f!#@ing evil).

We in the USA are not communists, and despite a lot of hysterics on the far right, neither are we socialists. If you can’t stomach the possibility that people will lose their jobs in our free market economy, maybe you should consider relocating. Always remember that your purchases speak for you. BP brands to boycott include Castrol, Arco, Aral, am/pm, Amoco, Wild Bean Cafe and, Safeway gas.

Several area gas stations cover up “BP” on signs – News – The Times-Tribune.

Newsweek’s latest anti-boycott article which overall makes some very good points about the evils of all oil companies and the necessity for government interference. But doesn’t a public outcry against BP also speak to the government? Just wait and see how many politicians use anti-BPisms in their campaigns in November.

Tiger and Panda dogs!

Meet the Tiger Dog: Chinese owners dye pets to look like wild animals

I honestly can’t tell if they’re disturbing or adorable. Disturbingly adorable? I’d just be concerned about the type of dye they use, but if it’s vegetable base, then hey, knock yourselves out, China. If it’s the more toxic stuff, then it probably borders on (or is) animal abuse, considering how harsh that stuff is on the skin and eyes. Fun to look at though, so lets hope it’s safe!

People have way too much time on their hands.

In DC, even the Spelling Bee draws protesters.

Really? With the many heartbreaking causes for which one can demonstrate, these people got together and said, “We know what’s really important.”

Roberta Mahoney, 81, a former Fairfax County, Va. elementary school principal, said the current language obstructs 40 percent of the population from learning how to read, write and spell.

…

According to literature distributed by the group, it makes more sense for “fruit” to be spelled as “froot,” “slow” should be “slo,” and “heifer” – a word spelled correctly during the first oral round of the bee Thursday by Texas competitor Ramesh Ghanta – should be “hefer.”

So in the days of the Gulf oil spill, fightin’ terr’ism, inequality for the LGBT community, our endlessly bickering partisan government, and everything going on in the rest of the world, they think we ought–sorry, ott–to drop everything and rewrite the English language, a lingua franca in much of the world and not even this country’s original language, phonetically. Then what? Future authors start writing in twitter lingo?

“Weel git thru this, just t8k it slo,” Bill @Amanda.

“Ur rite! R luv wil b 4eva!” Amanda @Bill.

Thay ott 2 b ushaymd uv ther stoopiditee. Why don’t you protest our joke of an educational system instead? Except you’re probably a product of it… Ugh. Nevermind.

Still think having children is every human’s right?

Jail for couple whose baby died while they raised online child – CNN.com.

I honestly believe that the world would be much better off if we weren’t all brainwashed to believe that we must all make babies, or worse, that we are entitled to make babies. Sucks when people who are ill-equipped to be parents realize that taking care of a baby isn’t as much fun as playing video games.

Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards

Absolutely disgusting. Dis-fuckin-gusting.

Texas Conservatives Win Vote on Textbook Standards – NYTimes.com.