- these are the same people with the “god hates fags” signs, who protested at the funeral of matthew sheppard, heath ledger, marines, college students, etc…

really great people.

Apparently, according to Fred Phelps (of Westboro Baptist Church/”G-d hates fags” fame), the deity himself hates Lady Gaga.  Watch out kids, the “hussy’s pretentious prancing” could lead you into moral ruin.  Consider yourselves warned.

This is pretty predictable, given the intense social-conservatism-cum-insanity of Phelps and his followers (who, incidentally, protested at Penn Hillel a few weeks back!).  What I find more interesting is his choice of Lady Gaga to hate on, as opposed to other singers.

There are certainly other prominent artists who could conceivably raise his hackles: people like Adam Lambert, who’s unapologetically out and caused a stir in November with his homoerotically-tinged AMA’s performance (good for him!), or perhaps better yet, Katy Perry, who used to be a conservative Christian but now a) kisses girls and likes it, and b) dates skinny guys with long hair (!).  Or, you know, any pop artists who have overtly sexual lyrics.

Lady Gaga, however, is adamantly pro-empowered female sexuality, often explicitly assuming sexual control in her videos, evangelizing about masturbation, openly identifying as feminist, and doing a lot to challenge the normative male gaze/crazy amount of cookie-cutter sexualization that young female celebrities (and women, period) have to deal with.

I’m not sure how much her message comes through–I feel like a lot of people put her in the “crazy antics” box and don’t pay much attention after that–but I certainly appreciate what she’s trying to do, which is pretty unique and quite important.  And it seems to me that her ideas about female sexual power, more than the fact that she doesn’t often wear much beyond tights below the necessary bits (not that the two aren’t related), is what’s ticking off the good Rev. Phelps.

As if we didn’t see this coming.  Media Matters, the liberal media watch organization, has done an outstanding job this past year showing the idiotic bigotry of Glenn Beck.  Therefore, it is more than fitting that they would award the Mormon Limbaugh with their most prestigious made up award, “Misinformer of the Year.”  The video that Media Matters created to commemorate such an occassion is a must see for any person with a brain.

Despite Glenn Beck’s ability to earn this fake award as well as the, very real, distinction by the Anti-Defamation League as one of the main contributors to the rise of America’s Right Wing hatred, Mormon bookstores such as Deseret Book still feel it a perfect opportunity to make cash off of his disgusting hate-filled diatribes.  Mark 10:25.

London, England (CNN) — A UK priest has defended his comments that it is acceptable to steal from large companies.

Tim Jones, parish priest of St Lawrence and St Hilda, told his congregation in York, northern England: “My advice, as a Christian priest, is to shoplift.”

Jones, who according to the church Web site previously worked in Corinth, Mississippi, made his comments about what he regarded as acceptable behavior by those in need when they were desperate.

In a transcript of his sermon published in the local newspaper, “The Press,” Jones said: “I do not offer such advice because I think that stealing is a good thing, or because I think it is harmless, for it is neither.

“I would ask that they do not steal from small family businesses, but from large national businesses, knowing that the costs are ultimately passed on to the rest of us in the form of higher prices.”  More…

But Ms. Jing doesn’t go for that; she says she’s “completely Chinese.”

Lou Jing – "completely Chinese"

You can expect a bumpy, bizarre road if you don’t look “white” in the U.S. and you say that you are; confusions, misunderstandings, and even hostility will come.  If you look brown or even darker, if you have a broader nose, lips, or ears (or if it’s the opposite) and call yourself “white…”

But 20-year-old Lou Jing a recent contestant in China’s “Go Oriental Angel” (their version of American Idol) has left the country with questions about how it sees itself – particularly what or who is “completely Chinese.” You see while Ms. Jing’s mother is Chinese, her father is African-American.

Ms. Jing recently declared herself “completely Chinese.”  While this seems bizarre to many people, most particularly if you’re “white,” this isn’t so very new.  Paul Seriodio is the “white” South African who chose to call himself African-American when pressed about a form.

Of course the U.S. must contend, and make clumsy peace, with the remnants of the African Holocaust (the Atlantic slave trade).  China doesn’t have that history, that experience.  It and Japan discovered their own biases against each other centuries ago, but that was very different.

Lou Jing as she poses for "Go Oriental Angel" – China's "American Idol"

Ms. Jing’s decision reminds me of when I chose to stop – or at least stem the flow of – my anger at Anglos.  While people routinely break the inter”racial” down to a binary of Black and white, which just doesn’t carry much water anymore – to put it politely), I rebel against that.  But that’s a whole nother story; a digression for a later time.

My heritage, as with most other peoples’, no matter whom they are and where they’re from, is more varied and complex than that.  If I were angry at Anglos, and their heritages were a part of mine, then doesn’t that come back to me?

In my own multicultural or multiethnic experience, I’ve wondered, and mentioned in this journal, how surprised I am to be embraced as African-American.  So I understand Ms. Jing’s choice, even if I can’t actually relate to it.

Here Anglos and people of color alike might call Ms. Jing nuts or deluded.  But you have to ask how “race” operates in China.  There are some scholars perspectives on Chinese biases or bigotry. While it only represents on, point of view and there is probably some bias, it might shed some light on a barely and rarely comfortable question.

What happened when she went to school?  “She used to wonder why she had black skin,” said one classmate. “We thought about this question together and decided to tell her it’s because she likes dark chocolate. So her skin turned darker gradually.”  Another classmate weighed in, “We said it’s because she used to drink too much soy sauce,” according to Cnn.com

Why did she not ask about her color or her father, who she’d never met, until she was 16-years-old?  These are natural questions in the United States; they are a part of a coming-of-age.

The notoriety that Ms. Jing has received makes the way she describes herself so much more important.  As with questions about what makes someone Black, or how they chose to describe themselves so, if they don’t look it, the same must be asked about being Chinese.  These are questions that must be answered about how color biases work in China where there are very few people of color.

Apparently coming-of-age stories may be as foreign to China as the idea of a pretty, brown, Shanghainese woman calling herself “completely Chinese.”

Go ahead!  Judge that book by its cover.

• Gosh I love a good mystery … and, this one involves a fast food sculpture.
• Farm raised fish that are pretty okay!  Good.
• Wow: “Starting on July 9, 2009, Emily Zinnemann relinquished control of her life to the whims of 52  strangers, friends, & acquaintances. Each participant receives a budget & a full week to enjoy as s/he pleases, choreographing Emily’s daily routine from breakfast to bedtime.  The experiment’s progress is fully mapped on this website.”
• I want a waterless washing machine, and I want it NOW!
• This doesn’t particularly surprise me.  I’m convinced that the people who are the most afraid of germs, also get sick all the time.
• This looks surprisingly yummy …. and CHEAP!
• This “Obama Weather” thingie is pretty hilarious
• Coconuts banned on the beaches of Rio?! What the hay?
• Awesome glass sculpture of an octopus.
• Believe it or not, there are nine other currencies that are doing worse than the dollar.
• Technology isolating us from one another?  Hooey!
• Tough economic times, but women leading in pursuit of higher education.
• I’m going to have to defend Guy Fieri too … I love “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives!”  “I want to go to a party at Food TV superstar Guy Fieri’s house. I imagine pyramids of glistening pork ribs and snow shovels full of hush puppies. I dream of patiently standing in line by the pool waiting for margaritas to be blasted into my open mouth by a fire hose while AC/DC blares over the loudspeaker.”
• Tip for great gravy … a keeper I’d say.
• I really really really really really want this bed!
• Isn’t bigotry all too often made to be ‘about the children?’
• Metabolism boosters that I will assume that with slight changes can be adjusted for women, too.
• “I just cannot get excited about sexual misbehavior that is never going to be investigated by a legislative committee. “
• Terrible: “Allegations of sexual exploitation and other crimes have dogged U.N. peacekeeping missions almost since their inception in 1948″
• “A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily, with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people.” --Abraham Lincoln
• Viagra dessert? Mmkay.
• And, a water sommelier?? Sheez!

I recently saw a comment by a woman who simply expressed dismay that a months-old racist incident was being revived and that white women showed no more sign of basic comprehension now than they did when the episode was still new.  Sounds like a pretty easily foreseeable lament; I mean, when have white women ever tired of beating to death issues they don’t understand without regard for the discomfort it causes those who are actually affected (and, this part about the actually affected is key; regard for black women is not the same as regard for men, or the rich, or the educated, etc.)?  White women love talking about the “third world,” child brides, female genital mutilation, the “urban poor,” etc.  And I’ve yet to see the white woman who can discuss any of these things with the least bit of sophistication or nuance.

Anyway, the blogger’s response to this very simple expression of regret was to insinuate that the woman making the comment was imposing demands on the writer of the blog!  It’s such classic white-woman pouting that I couldn’t resist putting down my own thoughts about it.  Yes, a woman says, very simply, and to paraphrase, “This is a regrettable turn of the conversation,” and the white-woman blogger responds, without the slightest hint of justification, with almost panicked defensiveness.  ”Nobody’s gonna make me stop talking about it!!!  You’ll pry this racist discourse out of my cold dead hands!!!”  One can almost feel the spittle and the quick, panting breath on one’s face just reading that completely unwarranted, over-the-top response.

Now, the fact that the response was blown way out of proportion to what was actually expressed in that woman’s comment does not mean, however, that the white-woman blogger’s response was unexpected.  Oh, no!  It was, in fact, de rigueur.  White women always, and I do mean always, react to the assertion of black-woman-centered opinions, especially, but certainly not necessarily, when they’re stated by black women, with defensiveness and tears.  Always.  The defensiveness might take one of two guises – that the white women have been the victims of a brutal and unprovoked attack by brutish black women, which black-woman-centered words now make the white women fearful for their own physical safety, OR that even though the brutish black women are obviously trying to make the white women cower in their petticoats with those black-woman-centered words, why, these here are “empowered” white women and they won’t be bullied by any women spouting opinions that are sensitive to the feelings of black women.

In this incident, we have an example of the “empowered” white-woman response.  Although no demands were made of the blogger, she responds to the mere expression of the fact that one woman (and, presumably other black women and/or women sensitive to the feelings of black women) finds it lamentable that white women must continue to beat this dead horse over the head at the expense of women who understand the white women’s fumbling battery to be offensive with defiant refusal to ever “shut down” the conversation.  Where was she ever commanded to “shut down” the lamentable conversation?  Well, she wasn’t, of course, but that doesn’t matter.  When the sentiment expressed is one that is favorable to black women – especially when expressed by an actual black woman – it is an opportunity for white women to feign their victimization at the hands of black women.  End of story.

Now, I’ll end this commentary with a word of advice to any black woman, or non-black woman who gives even half a damn about black woman.  Stop going to white women’s spaces to express dismay about racist-sexism.  Seriously.  It’s like running to men’s blogs to express dismay about sexism.  These people are only ever going to clench their fists, clamp their eyelids, plug their ears, and scream beyond reason about how they won’t be “made” to stop having conversations that make black women uncomfortable, as if black women have any power over white folks and males to “make” them do a goddamn thing, especially with regard to sexism/racism.  You have to understand that white folks and males will do everything within their power to make their spaces comfortable and welcoming for their own kind – other white folks and/or males.  That is their end goal.  They don’t care if any black women ever feels at home there, although, of course, they are more than happy to have black women who swear a tacit oath never to express an opinion that is supportive of, or sensitive to, black women.   So, these lamentations and regrets and expressions of exasperation only serve to give these white women yet more spit-and-paper justification to call black women bullies.  I know it’s not fair.  I know that it’s not actually bullying or demanding or violent to just say, “Wow, this conversation is kind of pathetic and lamentable.”  But when you understand that that’s the way your comment will be read, used, and immortalized by white women in their spaces, surely it must give you cause to hesitate before taking your conversational objections up with them.

So if anyone is reading this, and I’m not entirely sure that they are, I would love to hear your own coming out stories. What happened, how did you do it, who did you do it to, what was their reaction, was it favourable or poor? How long did it take them to get over it? Maybe they still haven’t got over it? Let’s have a share

“Our white friends are deceived when they imagine they are free from prejudice against color , and yet are content with a lower standard of attainments for colored youth, and inferior exhibitions of talent on the part of colored men.”‘ — 1837 editorial in the New York Colored American

I witnessed the above first hand last night. A little black kid stumbled through reading a text in front of 200 people.  My heart went out to the young guy when he was onstage struggling with words he obviously didn’t know. His diction made me cringe. This was “dis”. That was “dat”.  Then I became angry as I wondered who would subject this boy to such a terror. My experience with teaching children and my memory as a student has taught me that good readers want to read out loud all the time. Poor readers would rather swallow hot gravel than read aloud. My brain swelled with the verbal knives I wanted to fling at the people responsible for making this sweet, docile kid a spectacle.

After the program, which featured two white children who read flawlessly, the black boy was hailed for his wonderful performance by the overwhelmingly white audience. The above quote immediately came to mind. I spoke briefly to the boy’s mother and other relatives. No sign of embarrassment. I saw the boy mingling freely around the refreshments — proud as could be. Then I thought, “Maybe he went on stage willingly, even happily. Maybe what I heard tonight was a vast improvement over his ability in years before. Maybe he and his mother don’t know or care that his reading ability is poor at best.”

I don’t know the answer but the last thought stuck with me the rest of the night. In the 170 years since the editorial I quote above was written, a horrible corollary has developed in the black community. It would go something like this: My black brothers are deceived when they confuse equality and liberty with pats on the head, and crumbs from the table of guilt ridden whites.

Black folks have internalized mediocrity and it seems the whole world is cool with it. I’ll starve in the wilderness before I live on that plantation.

Wendy Rule

It’s Midsummer tomorrow here in Melbourne and we’re in the swing of the season with drinks tonight and what should be a fab outing to the Botanic Gardens for A Midsummer Night’s Dream tomorrow. We kicked off last night with Wendy Rule’s Fairy Ball at the gorgeous Thornbury Theatre (except for the loos, which smelled like a bat cave by the end of the night, and the absence of napkins to accompany the scrummy finger food).

Rule is a Melbourne singer-songwriter with an international reputation in pagan circles. She and her guitars were backed with cello, vibraphone, percussion, violin and clarinet last night, playing two sets that included songs from her forthcoming album, Guided by Venus, as well as favourites such as Wolf Sky, Artemis and Hecate.

The first set, heavy on slow songs, struggled to make an impact over the chatter and the delightful squeals of children dancing and playing with balloons, but the second, ramping up the tempo and volume, got us where we needed to be, and filled the dance floor.

The most powerful gig I’ve seen Rule play was in a delicious venue in Brisbane, a converted church, where, to judge by the vibe and appreciative quiet in the room, the audience was mostly pagan, there not just for the music but for the message as well. There was a similar atmosphere last year when Rule and cellist Rachel Samuel played a gig in our backyard. That was a different ‘our’, and a different backyard, but the magic of that night endures.

A highlight of last night’s gig was Zero, a song Rule dedicated to the energy of creativity. Midsummer was a good time, she said, for looking ahead to projects about to begin, and back to those accomplished. A time to take stock, and draw up energy for the year ahead.

Sitting at the gig, watching the parade of fairy wings and glitter faces, I was reminded of a recent discussion on Radio National about atheism. The discussion itself was illuminating, offering a wide variety of experiences explaining why callers did not believe, or had abandoned their belief, in a deity. (The Life Matters episode was anchored off a new collection of essays about atheism, 50 Voices of Disbelief co-edited by Aussie Russell Blackford.)

The program’s website has a comment board, where one delightful respondent opined that those who didn’t belong to the Jesus club had no right to celebrate Christmas. So, presumably, all these little fairy kids in front of me, prancing and laughing in their colourful costumes, were denied a present under the tree because of their parents’ non-Christian beliefs. As if Santa Claus has anything to do with the Christian faith. Given the festival has been appropriated from pagan origins anyway, how downright cheeky and short-sighted. And, of course, how bloody typical of the fascism that turned me off organised religion in the first place.

Humans are social animals who like to feel they belong. I get that. What I don’t get is that we make this feeling through a policy of exclusion. You can belong to God’s love club, but only if you meet certain requirements. Otherwise, you burn, and good riddance to you. Is this “with us or against us” approach really the best social construct we can find?

Don’t get me wrong. I fully appreciate the commonsense laws, fundamentally Christian, that grease the wheels of modern Western society. The do unto others, the shalt not kills and covets… a lot of these make perfect sense. But to tell me who I should love? To dictate my path to understanding my spirituality and my relationship with the world and the people around me? To tell a whole lot of other people that they’re damned because they belong to a different club, and treat them as such? I don’t think so.

Christmas is a time to get in touch and share the love. We should be doing it all year round, but we’re busy, aren’t we? But to take time out as a community, to draw a breath, once a year, and remind ourselves of who and what’s important, of our blessings and our achievements and our goals, well, that seems a good idea to me. Regardless of which club you belong to.

Merry Christmas. Or whatever you call it, and however you celebrate it. Enjoy, and share the love. Blessed be.

No one disputes that an on-duty Irvine police officer got an erection and ejaculated on a motorist during an early-morning traffic stop in Laguna Beach. The female driver reported it, DNA testing confirmed it and officer David Alex Park finally admitted it.

When the case went to trial, however, defense attorney Al Stokke argued that Park wasn’t responsible for making sticky all over the woman’s sweater. He insisted that she made the married patrolman make the mess—after all, she was on her way home from work as a dancer at Captain Cream Cabaret.

“She got what she wanted,” said Stokke. “She’s an overtly sexual person.”

A jury of one woman and 11 men—many white and in their 50s or 60s—agreed with Stokke. On Feb. 2, after a half-day of deliberations, they found Park not guilty of three felony charges that he’d used his badge to win sexual favors during the December 2004 traffic stop.

Continues on the original article

All of MAB-femininity (Male At Birth) is treated badly in feminist spaces, especially by lesbian feminism. Julia Serrano called this transmisogyny. I feel that it is much simpler, it is simply anti-MAB bigotry.

CNN’s Jeanne Moos Highlights ‘Liberal Hate’ at Joe Lieberman
December 16, 2009 by Matthew Balan

On Wednesday’s Situation Room, CNN correspondent Jeanne Moos exposed some of the left-wing rage being directed at Senator Joe Lieberman, especially on the Internet. Moos’s examples of “liberal hate” at the Connecticut politician ranged from fantasy Hanukkah gifts, such as a muzzle, to a YouTube video of a woman having her cats attack a string which stood in for the senator [Moos's full report is available here].

The correspondent’s latest light report for CNN highlighted Liberman’s “new low among liberals.” Along with the multiple examples of leftists mocking the senator on YouTube.com, Moos noted the strong reactions from “progressive radio hosts,” such as Mike Malloy, and attacks on liberal blogs like The Huffington Post and Daily Kos

Democrats, bigotry, discrimination, government, hate speech, health care, ideology, intolerance, left wing, liberalism, nanny state, pandering, philosophy, political correctness, politics, protests, video

Rachel Maddow Falsely Claims Ex-Gay Author Gave ‘Support and Encouragement’ for Execution of Gays in Uganda
December 17, 2009 by Jack Coleman

It’s one thing to justifiably criticize an author for dubious claims. It’s quite another to assert that the same author supported something heinous he adamantly opposes. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow did both over the last two weeks.

Maddow’s regular viewers have recently learned a great deal about Ugandan politics, as nearly every broadcast of her show since late November has featured a segment on proposed legislation in Uganda calling for harsh penalties against gays, including execution.

Wow. I guess there’s no stopping sycophantic fake journalists from improving network ratings an any cost.

abuse, bias, bigotry, discrimination, diversity, false, fraud, hate crime, hate speech, homosexuality, ideology, intolerance, left wing, legislation, liberalism, news media, oppression, pandering, philosophy, political correctness, politics, propaganda, scandal

James Bain,54, was wrongly convicted in December of 1974 for the rape and kidnapping of a 9-year-old little boy. Bain had been in prison since the Nixon presidency, just to give you some perspective.

The Innocence Project,  is a national organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing, was responsible for aggressively getting Bain’s DNA tested, which led to his exoneration.

In 2001 a Florida statute was passed allowing cases to be reopened for DNA testing,and Bain immediately filed to have his DNA tested, but was turned down 4 times. It was only after he presented his case to the Court of Appeals that he was granted a hearing.

Polk County State Attorney Jerry Hill told the judge that DNA testing had excluded Bain from the crime.

“He’s just not connected with this particular incident,” Hill said.

James Bain-released-from-prison after 35 years

“Mr. Bain, I’m now signing the order, sir,” the judge said, referring to an order vacating the judgment and sentence.

The first thing he did was to call his mom on a cel phone, which was the first time that he had ever used one, as they did not exist before he was imprisoned, and they did not have access to them in jail.

I can not imagine what it must be like to spend that much time in prison labeled a pedophile, as well as knowing that you are innocent. James Bain says that his faith in God pulled him through, and that he holds no ill will towards anyone involved in his incarceration.

 He says he’s not angry and is looking forward to eating fried turkey, drinking Dr. Pepper and hopefully going back to school.

The Houston Chronicle reports…He was convicted largely on the strength of the victim’s eyewitness identification, even though testing available at the time did not definitively link him to the crime. The boy said his attacker had bushy sideburns and a mustache. The boy’s uncle, a former assistant principal at a high school, said it sounded like Bain, a former student.

The boy picked Bain out of a photo lineup, although there are lingering questions about whether detectives steered him.

The jury rejected Bain’s story that he was home watching TV with his twin sister when the crime was committed, an alibi she repeated at a news conference last week. He was 19 when he was sentenced.

The victim is currently 44 years old, and has been informed of James Bain’s release from prison.State investigators have taken more DNA from both Bain and the victim for additional testing.

It is being reported that Florida State  has passed a law  that automatically provides $50,000 in compensation for every year an innocent person has spent in prison,and James will be entitled to the award.http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1377187.html

The Innocence Project is a non-profit legal clinic affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University and created by Barry C. Scheck and Peter J. Neufeld in 1992. The project is a national litigation and public policy organization dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. As a clinic, law students handle case work while supervised by a team of attorneys and clinic staff.  http://www.innocenceproject.org/

His mother, Sarah Reed, has been in and out of hospitals in recent years. She said she is putting her house and her car in her son’s name. “I want him to have something by himself. He’s suffered enough,” she said.

This case serves as a beam of hope for those that are falsely imprisoned throughout our country, and to those heartless fools that believe everything the police say is true. The sad truth is that black men are in prison for crimes they did not commit, at a rate three times that of white men, who have the nerve to blame us for their heinous crimes, knowing that the culture is primed in bigotry and hatred to believe such lies about our people.

We are being kidnapped by the judicial system, because we are behind enemy lines.We only have our selves to rely upon, to stay strong and healthy, so that we can eventually be freed, and our good names restored, just like James Bain.

I can only imagine the level of racial injustice that was pervasive in South Florida in the 1970’s could only have fanned the flames of hatred that ultimately led to James wrongful conviction.

Just think about it…only a decade earlier, James would have been lynched in that county, as had happened there so many times in the past,…and the mob would have murdered an innocent man.

As it stands, the white man who raped and kidnapped the 9-year-old victim, got away with it, by relying upon the racism that most non-black people use to convict and kill innocent young black men.

Justice was not served here…only racism.

Follow the story here…

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/17/florida.dna.exoneration/

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/6775155.html

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=113973&sectionid=3510203