John Lewis on DOMA

Rep. John Lewis is against DOMA.  He is a gay-right proponent generally.  As one of the titans of the American Civil Rights movement, this shouldn't surprise anyone.

I found a speech that Lewis gave as DOMA was being argued back in 1996.  If we had better hearts, his words would have killed DOMA back then.  Of course, if we had better hearts, DOMA would have never been considered.




29 March 2013

Gay Rights & The Supreme Court

A writing today on TPM outlines what I think is pretty much spot-on analysis of the likely outcomes of the cases this week before the Supreme Court dealing with gay rights.  While there absolutely is a guarantee for gay rights -- and within that for gay marriage (e.g marriage) -- within the American Constitution, I am not hopeful that Justice Kennedy will affirm these rights broadly.  I'd put that chance at about 15%.  I figure there is a 70% chance that any pro-gay rights ruling will apply only to California in the Prop 8 case.  The other 15% is for an 8-state gay rights ruling, but that is less likely if the DOMA ruling is on a state's rights footing as seems likely.  Regardless, I think there is about a 90% likelihood that DOMA is dead, which is good.

I hope that I will be surprised and that my country will morally leap forward.  It would, unfortunately, be a surprise.

28 March 2013

Help Stop Finning

Help Stop Finning

So if Google would allow me to actually add a large enough graphic, instead of the peewee graphic below, you would see that while sharks kill 12 people per year, humans kill 11,417 sharks per hour.  

Do what you can to help save sharks.

28 March 2013

 

Westboro Baptist Church's New Neighbor

From Sam Eifling at The Huffington Post:

By the end of today, the inhabitants of the Westboro Baptist Church compound in Topeka, Kansas, should have a new view out their windows, just past their FAG MARRIAGE DOOMS NATIONS sign: a new gay-rights center across the street, painted in brilliant rainbow colors, with a pride flag flying from a 30-foot flagpole.

Right now, a crew of volunteers is at work on the siding of a house opposite the headquarters of the publicity-hunting hate-preacher Fred Phelps.

The center is the work of a roving do-gooder named Aaron Jackson, a 31-year-old community-college dropout whose other projects have included opening orphanages in India and Haiti and buying a thousand acres of endangered rain forest in Peru. This year, his charity, Planting Peace, also intends to de-worm every child in Guatemala.

Jackson was drawn to Topeka after reading about Josef Miles, the local boy who last year, at the age of nine, photobombed one of the Westboro protests with a handmade sign that read “God Hates No One.” Jackson had been looking for a way to support equality, anti-bullying programs, and some sort of pro-LGBT initiative, he said.

“I’ve been accused in the past of being all over the place, and they’re probably right on some level,” Jackson told me last night by phone. “Right now we are standing up to bigotry and promoting equality.”So while considering the Westboro Baptist Church, he began dinking around on Google Maps late one night. He pulled up the church, at 3701 SW 12th St. in Topeka, and took a virtual walk around the block. In the front yard of a house across the street, he noticed a For Sale sign.

“It hit me right away,” Jackson told me last night by phone. “Huh. That would be interesting to own a house across from the Westboro Baptist Church and turn it into something.’ And then, within five seconds: ‘And I’ll paint it the color of the pride flag.’ Perfect.”

Pure win.

19 March 2013

St. Patrick & Medusa

A friend shared this with me over the weekend.  Awesome.  Check the comic out at BizzaroComics.com.

18 March 2013

Welker to Broncos

And lo, the Lord Elway said unto his flock, "Send thy Slot Receiver to The Mountain so that the Holy Manning might throw over the middle to move thy chains and blow thy foes to tiny bits."

14 March 2013

Vote for Dakin Humane Society

From an email I received from our local pet shelter.  Our cat Finnegan is from Dakin and his birthday is almost upon us.  I hope that you will join me in this cause.

With your help Dakin Humane Society could win a $1,000 grant from the Animal Rescue Site challenge! But, that's not all... We just found out that if we take 1st place in Massachusetts, a generous anonymous donor will match the grant dollar for dollar. And, that person's employer will contribute an additional 30% match. That's a total of $2,300 for Dakin!

Voting is free and all you have to do is click. Some of you voted in the last challenge but some may be new to it, here are the details again:

• VISIT: www.theanimalrescuesite.com

• CLICK: "Animals" at the top of the page.  Then hold your mouse over the 2nd tab on the right of the site named "Shelter + Challenge" and click on "Vote in the Shelter Challenge".

• SEARCH: Dakin in Leverett MA. Once you have voted, the next time you come to this site, Dakin/Leverett will automatically appear. Please note - any prize money received is spent within the organization as a whole. Because we have two facilities, the label of Leverett is only for admin reasons. :) 

• VOTE: Dakin 

• PROVE: You are not a robot by entering the captcha code.

• CHECK: You can click on "Full Results" to see exactly where Dakin stands both state and nation-wide.

• SHARE: Please share this with all your friends and post on your own wall. Dakin Nation has never backed down from a CHALLENGE before! 

Please vote EVERY DAY, today through April 28th 2013!

Thank you!

13 March 2013

Voice for Equality in Minnesota

Quoting Josh Marshall at TPM:

Yesterday I posted a video of testimony from the Minnesota state House by an anti-gay marriage advocate making some comically ridiculous statements about ‘sodomy’. Here’s something very different though. It’s testimony before the same panel from a former Republican state Rep., Lynne Osterman, expressing teared up regret over voting against equality back in 2002.

Let us hope that they listen to her!

13 March 2013

God's Speed Harry Stamps

This has to be one of the all-time greatest obituaries.  With the great exception of his dislike of cats, I can really get behind Mr. Stamps!  Read the original text at the Bradford O'Keefe Funeral Home.

Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies’ man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013.

Harry was locally sourcing his food years before chefs in California starting using cilantro and arugula (both of which he hated). For his signature bacon and tomato sandwich, he procured 100% all white Bunny Bread from Georgia, Blue Plate mayonnaise from New Orleans, Sauer’s black pepper from Virginia, home grown tomatoes from outside Oxford, and Tennessee’s Benton bacon from his bacon-of-the-month subscription. As a point of pride, he purported to remember every meal he had eaten in his 80 years of life. 

The women in his life were numerous. He particularly fancied smart women. He loved his mom Wilma Hartzog (deceased), who with the help of her sisters and cousins in New Hebron reared Harry after his father Walter’s death when Harry was 12. He worshipped his older sister Lynn Stamps Garner (deceased), a character in her own right, and her daughter Lynda Lightsey of Hattiesburg. He married his main squeeze Ann Moore, a home economics teacher, almost 50 years ago, with whom they had two girls Amanda Lewis of Dallas, and Alison of Starkville. He taught them to fish, to select a quality hammer, to love nature, and to just be thankful. He took great pride in stocking their tool boxes. One of his regrets was not seeing his girl, Hillary Clinton, elected President. 

He had a life-long love affair with deviled eggs, Lane cakes, boiled peanuts, Vienna [Vi-e-na] sausages on saltines, his homemade canned fig preserves, pork chops, turnip greens, and buttermilk served in martini glasses garnished with cornbread. 

He excelled at growing camellias, rebuilding houses after hurricanes, rocking, eradicating mole crickets from his front yard, composting pine needles, living within his means, outsmarting squirrels, never losing a game of competitive sickness, and reading any history book he could get his hands on. He loved to use his oversized “old man” remote control, which thankfully survived Hurricane Katrina, to flip between watching The Barefoot Contessa and anything on The History Channel. He took extreme pride in his two grandchildren Harper Lewis (8) and William Stamps Lewis (6) of Dallas for whom he would crow like a rooster on their phone calls. As a former government and sociology professor for Gulf Coast Community College, Harry was thoroughly interested in politics and religion and enjoyed watching politicians act like preachers and preachers act like politicians. He was fond of saying a phrase he coined “I am not running for political office or trying to get married” when he was “speaking the truth.” He also took pride in his service during the Korean conflict, serving the rank of corporal--just like Napolean, as he would say.

Harry took fashion cues from no one. His signature every day look was all his: a plain pocketed T-shirt designed by the fashion house Fruit of the Loom, his black-label elastic waist shorts worn above the navel and sold exclusively at the Sam’s on Highway 49, and a pair of old school Wallabees (who can even remember where he got those?) that were always paired with a grass-stained MSU baseball cap.  

Harry traveled extensively. He only stayed in the finest quality AAA-rated campgrounds, his favorite being Indian Creek outside Cherokee, North Carolina. He always spent the extra money to upgrade to a creek view for his tent. Many years later he purchased a used pop-up camper for his family to travel in style, which spoiled his daughters for life.  

He despised phonies, his 1969 Volvo (which he also loved), know-it-all Yankees, Southerners who used the words “veranda” and “porte cochere” to put on airs, eating grape leaves, Law and Order (all franchises), cats, and Martha Stewart. In reverse order. He particularly hated Day Light Saving Time, which he referred to as The Devil’s Time. It is not lost on his family that he died the very day that he would have had to spring his clock forward. This can only be viewed as his final protest. 

Because of his irrational fear that his family would throw him a golf-themed funeral despite his hatred for the sport, his family will hold a private, family only service free of any type of “theme.” Visitation will be held at Bradford-O’Keefe Funeral Home, 15th Street, Gulfport on Monday, March 11, 2013 from 6-8 p.m. 

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you make a donation to Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (Jeff Davis Campus) for their library. Harry retired as Dean there and was very proud of his friends and the faculty. He taught thousands and thousands of Mississippians during his life. The family would also like to thank the Gulfport Railroad Center dialysis staff who took great care of him and his caretaker Jameka Stribling. 

Finally, the family asks that in honor of Harry that you write your Congressman and ask for the repeal of Day Light Saving Time. Harry wanted everyone to get back on the Lord’s Time.

I myself will remember Harry with a donation to our local cat shelter.  As a contrarian, he might very well have appreciated this act of kind rebellion.  I hope so.

11 March 2013

Rick Trevino - Running Out of Reasons to Run

Rick Trevino - Running Out of Reasons to Run



10 March 2013

Fresh Guacamole by Pes

While watching last week's Sunday Morning this week, I saw one of the animated shorts for this year's Oscars.  It is the shortest nominee ever and I loved it.



On a completely unrelated but very fun note, I give you a machine designed to remove the cream filling in an oreo.  This is actually pretty cool, but damn this guy has too much time on his hands.  (Says the blogger.)



4 March 2013

Vassar vs WBC - Postmortem

The picketing of Vassar College by Westboro Baptist Church and the Vassar counter-protest occurred on the final day of last month.  The protest by WBC appears to have been part of a larger swing through New York and included picketing memorial services for General H Normal Schwarzkopf at West Point.  However, "only" four protesters showed up at Vassar from the church.  It would appear that Vassar's showing of love was far greater.  How could it not be?



You can see my original post on the protest here.  The Crowd Rise site mentioned in the coverage is still active and has raised over $103,000 to date for The Trevor Project.

Nicely done, VC!

4 March 2013

Donna The Buffalo - Locket And Key

I heard this song in a store this weekend and liked it.

4 March 2013