Independence Day

This is one of my two favorite National Holidays. The other being Halloween. Of course this holiday for me is about the smell of sulphur, black powder, things that go crack, and boom! and that make lots of pretty sparks and billowing puffs of stinky delicious smoke.

But this Independence Day, more than others has me reflecting on my life as an American Citizen. I, like may other people, gingerly pick our way through a path of acceptance and the drawing of personal boundaries.

Of both respecting the citizenship and rights of others, while still expressing ourselves, in positive or advesarial manners. Sometimes that in itself is difficult. Because if enough people pile on a person, then it can be bullying rather than just communicating. Sometimes that is a fine line to negotiate.

So the things that I wish for my Country and my fellow citizens regardless of their religion, their political party, gender, sexual orientation, creed, or race:

Health
Prosperity
and
Happiness.

These are the same things I wish for myself and my family.

I don't have to like or agree with another person in order to hope for these things on their behalf.

I am tired of being angry. I hope for better times, and good friends and worthy advesaries.

My Half Ass Art Therapy

New Posters

The other Kind of Eugenics.

When people hate your kind, they often want to control your reproductive issue. We have found this to be true, of poor, immigrants, Jews, Hispanics, African Americans, Native Americans ---Homosexuals, and if I had more coffee, no doubt I could create quite a list.

I won't lie and tell you I am above making the joke about who should be having babies. That bumper sticker---"Stupid People Shouldn't Breed!" is one of my favorites. I am mostly joking.

What got me on this subject was a story from Cnn about the Gay Baby Boom.

First of all, I hate the use of the made up word, "Gayby." That is fucked up. You cannot bemoan the fact that people are stigmatizing Gay Couples who want to have and raise children, or the children who are raised by Gay couples, and then call them "Gaybies."

Its unbelievably tacky. On behalf of all those School Children out there who are from Gay Household, I would like to thank CNN for the mass publication of the *word "Gayby" so that they could find that scrawled on bathroom walls next to their phone numbers and e-mails. Or have it yelled at them from moving vehicles as they walk home from school.

Anyhow back to the point.

There are Americans who hate Gay People so much, who fear their Gay-Contamination, that they will deny homosexual couples and individuals, the right to have children, or to even maintain ties with children already produced in past heterosexual marriages or relationships, and most especially the right to adopt children or interact with children on any level. All that is missing is a can of anti-Gay Spray. The Catholic Church set a shining example by scapegoating Homosexuals for their internal problem with Priest-Pedophiles.

But what these Homophobes do not understand is that they are promoting two very disturbing things:

Eugenics--As in who is allowed to breed based on the perception of inborn qualities.

Eugenics is "the study of, or belief in, the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics) or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics)."[2]

Many Gay people, and their straight supporters and sympathizers understand that yes, being gay is innate. It's not strictly a learned behavior or a choice.

and

Cultural Genocide---meaning that those "Gays" who slip through the cracks and make a baby anyway, or adopt children, should be prevented from raising their children, for fear that they might indoctrinate their children into Homosexuality, and normalize homosexual cultural values.

Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as "any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."[1]

It's those last two statements: Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The only way to stop the spread of the "Gay Illness" is to stop Gays from having or adopting children and to remove children from Gay Households.

I doubt that Homophobes think of it that way. But Gays do. Or at least educated homosexuals do. Think of the source of the Pink Triangle. Homosexuals reclaimed the Pink Triangle from it's Nazi past. You see when Nazi's weren't forcing Jewish folk to sew yellow Stars on their clothing, they were making homosexuals sew pink triangles on their clothing.

Every generation of homophobes really believe that they are onto something new. But really it's just an old, old practice. Gay Bashing, taking their children away, firing them from jobs, vandalizing their homes, and private property---old hat for homosexuals.

As for why the children of Gay households, Gay Couples, might feel ashamed? Is it because their Parents are Gay? Or is it because of how their peers and others in society at large treat Gay People, and treat the children of Gay People?

Every child is embarassed by their parents at some point. That is a normal part of growing up. Its part of the process by which a child rebels and defines their individuality.

But when dealing with the stigma of Gay parents, that normal process is magnified. Lots of children have mixed feelings about their interacial parents, about their family's poverty or immigrant status, or their parent's extreme conservative or liberal values. There are lots of ways that children can feel stigmatized by their parent's identity. Gay is simply one of many possibilities in that respect.

Children are not stupid. They see on television how we portray Gay People. They see the news, they see the Mathew Sheppards of the world, and they know on some level, they should be careful with their parent's identity because hatred is involved.

So lets call this spade, a spade.

What Conservatives really want is for Homosexuals to stop being visible, and for them to be disallowed the right to reproduce or to raise their own children. They want Homosexuals to die out. It's pretty simple. They want Homosexuals to die.

Watch Gran Torino!

We just watched Gran Torino--we rented it from the local movie place. The ending was surprisingly poignant. I have always enjoyed Clint Eastwood movies and this was no disappointment.

I really like the two Confession Scenes: One for the Priest and One for Karma. Even though Catholicism plays into this movie strongly, I observed that the underlying motif was Karma.

There are a lot of racial epithets in this film. A lot of language. I don't suggest watching this movie with young children.

Walt's disappointment in his children and grandchildren in the movie say a lot about the Boomer's perception of the Affluenza and sense of entitlement that the current generation perpetuates in their children.

Its a really great movie. Not just entertaining but thought provoking.

Climate Schlimate!

Okay, what would you assign this person, if you say these credentials?

undergraduate degree in physics from CalTech and a PhD in economics from MIT

So this person has a BA in Physics, and
a PhD in Economics.

Honestly, not that you cannot be an expert in a lot if issues, but I would think this person would be working at the Wall Street Journal, or perhaps teaching Economics at some college somewhere. Maybe he got the BA in Physics to expand a bit. But then Physics can cover a lot of ground, Electricity, Hydrolics, etc., and so on. Its a basic set of rules that govern the mathematics behind a lot of different disciplines.

So I know, lets put this guy in charge of Climatological Reports at the EPA!

Really?

Carlin has an undergraduate degree in physics from CalTech and a PhD in economics from MIT. His Web site lists papers about the environment and public policy dating back to 1964, spanning topics from pollution control to environmentally-responsible energy pricing.

So this guy is a Public Policy Geek. mmmmmm, and yet he wants to determine our Climatological Policy based on his BA in Physics and his PhD in Economics. Pardon me Carlin, but I prefer Climatologists and Meteorologists, and Geologists and Oceanographers ---you know, those people who actually have their expertise in authentic Earth Sciences to determine our Climate Policy. I dunno call me silly.

Most of his papers appear to be Cost Efficiency related. Fine. So why is his report being used by Republicons to challenge current attempts to reduce our impact on the planet that if left unabated could lead to our own extinction and generations of misery before we get there?

This is what really bothers me about this story. It is released when the House passes a sweeping new Climate Policy Bill in the U.S.

AND,

there is this other issue. The interconnectedness of Pollution and Global Warming. Lets just play devil's advocate shall we? Lets pretend that Global Warming is a myth. That its not going to come to pass. Fair Enough. The main cause of it is Pollution. If Global warming isnt happening, then big polluters can use that as the perfect excuse to stop controlling their pollution--their run off, their smoke stacks, their outgasing and lagoons.

Global Warming is a myth, so if our clouds of toxic gas cause deadly Smog in your community, who the fuck cares, it's not Global Warming! So we can pollute til our heart's content.

The real issue here, the heart of it, isn't global warming, it's pollution and the expense of cutting back pollution, and the expense of cleaning up industrial messes.

But Pollution isn't that big of a deal right? I mean its just some industrial site that just sits there and looks ugly. We can reroute traffic around it, so that people don't have to see it, and they only smell it when the wind is right, right? No biggee.

Yea, no biggee. Lets ask these people:

Millions of people living in nearly 600 neighborhoods across the country are breathing concentrations of toxic air pollutants that put them at a much greater risk of contracting cancer, according to new data from the Environmental Protection Agency.The levels of 80 cancer-causing substances released by automobiles, factories and other sources in these areas exceed a 100 in 1 million cancer risk. That means that if 1 million people breathed air with similar concentrations over their lifetime, about 100 additional people would be expected to develop cancer because of their exposure to the pollution.

Sounds like a fucked up kind of lottery right? Your chances, 100 in 1 Million. Sounds pretty good? Til its you or your kid that has cancer. Then those odds disappear and are replaced with feelings of helplessness and doom. And of course a HUGE hospital Bill just before your insurance company dumps you on your ass--assuming you could afford it in the first place.
or

These People:

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. -- A United States senator has asked two federal agencies to investigate a cancer cluster in Palm Beach County.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., sent letters Thursday to both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency asking for an immediate investigation. Paulette DeCarlo is part of a group of concerned parents in The Acreage wondering why their children, who all live within a few miles of each other, developed brain tumors.

Ultimately what we are dealing with are the plethora of effects caused by Pollution. Whether its bleaching dying coral reefs, brain cancer clusters, or other environmental diseases, poisoned water, unbreathable air, dying water sheds, etc., and so on. Ultimately it comes down to big Corporations that need to do more to control their polluting activities for the health and safety of us all.

They want to reduce their overhead, and so they do, they sacrifice our lives and health for a bigger profit. And the moment the people get together to challenge that toxic sense of entitlement, these companies fight back with lobbyests, with their own "Independent reports" and "Findings" that support their goal of making more money.

I am very skeptical of this story, but I have no doubt that ever reich winger out there will latch onto this like a drowning man on a life preserver.

The fact is Corporate America has been telling American Citizens {as if it were anything other than an authority on profit} to not prepare for the future and spend spend spend. Keep up that disposable lifestyle, nothing bad will happen. What's one more piece of trash in the landfill that takes 200 years to break down?

Because the more we live that disposable lifestyle, the more we support their investors and we keep their profit margins in the black. Whether that is big oil, plastics, or what have you.

The end result is Pollution affects you directly.

It affects you, your pregnant wife, your unborn child, your college age student, and everyone else who is still drinking the water on this planet, and still breathing the air. You can set a price on those things. In fact we already have. A lot of us though are fighting to take that price off.

My Lungs , my heart and my Liver are no longer for sale.

My children's are no longer for sale.

My unborn grandchildren's epigenetics are no longer for sale.

We found that during the Bush Administration the EPA was declawed and defanged. That Big Oil called the shots---all of Bush's old Cronies, and Rice's and Cheney's and Rumsfeld's buddies called the shots. Money Money Money. They could buy enough property with a well, mineral and water rights and all, that they would probably not have to worry about the things I worry about-.

Exorcise the Daemons of Homo-Sexu-ali-tay!

I saw quite possibly the fifth or sixth most fucked up scene ever this morning while I was scanning the news. I watched a video of a group of Christians exorcising the Demons out of a young Black man. He was laying on the floor of this church, and it was dramatic and heart breaking.

Maybe he felt he really needed the exorcism. I will say this. If he did, it is because he has been told repeatedly via the culture war, that homosexuality is a condition to be cured, and not a modality, an inborn trait. And that makes me very sad for him. Because if that is the case, then he was begging these people to cut the offensive part of his soul off, so that he could now, fit into their narrow box of heterosexism.

This desire was a cry, that he felt his essential nature made him unloveable and irredeemable in the eyes of some judgemental deity. What a profoundly self destructive statement that is. How this young man must be filled utterly with self loathing and stark emotional pain. I know a bit about that, but won't address it here on this blog. But I understand how one can take such short sighted and bigoted messages, and merge with them, so that the hate from without, now screams at a soul from within.

The crazy lady on the video defending this despicable and unethical was a piece of work. She was fairly filled with her own spirit of judgement and deception, oozing her version of righteousness all over the camera lense as she preened over this prideful act of reifying this catastrophic soul loss, this child was suffering from.

I was sickened and had to turn away. I thought that I had emailed myself the video URL but apparently not. Perhaps I just imagined I did, just before I repressed this awful memory of what I just witnessed. I have no doubt, if ever confronted with authentic demonic entities, these people would run like rabbits. Homosexuality is hardly demonic. I mean not unless you believe that the Almighty makes mistakes. And that opens a whole other can of theological larvae.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – A U.S. pastor defended a video posted on YouTube of an exorcism of a gay man, saying the Manifested Glory Ministries church does not hate gay people, it just does not believe in their lifestyle.

Ah yes, hate the sin, but not the sinner? Yes, well we all know how well Hate serves everyone in our everyday lives. How it blinds one to realities that are uncomfortable and complicated. Hate is a handy thing to invoke when one is looking to make sacrifices on the altar of expedience.

Pastor Patricia McKinney said the man told the church "he did not want to live this way."

Of course not. Because society has told him that he is innately something [note thing] to be ashamed of. I mean that self loathing doesnt occur in a vacuum. It has to come from somewhere and he is awfully young to generate that level of self disgust.



They should be invoking Agape, not self inflicted homophobia.