Earth Hour 2009

Here's to hoping he fasts until he's as blue as a smurf

Pastor Jim Garlow of the Skyline Church in San Diego is organizing up to a thousand ministers from around the country to help pass the constitutional amendment against gay marriage on the November ballot.

Among the stunts proposed is a 40 day fast. Frankly, I think he might improve California if he should go without eating (or breathing) from now until after the election.*

Why can't they get it through their heads that if you're against gay marriage, then don't marry one!

*Would this still qualify as a non-violent response? I'm more than a tad suspicious that these creeps trying to foist their agenda are banking on us being too damn polite for our own good. Any crazy ideas I might come up with I'm blaming on the paint and plaster dust and fumes filling my apartment during the renovations.

Some civil servants in California don't want to do their job

County clerks in Butte, Kern and Merced counties have tried to get around performing same-sex marriages--by ceasing to officiate any weddings --gay or straight-- when the upcoming June 17th date set by the State Supreme Court rolls around. That's defending traditional marriage alright.

In Merced, at least, the County Clerk's office retracted their statement once they heard from county officials.

The typical excuse has been a lack of financial recources, space or staff. At first I thought, to myself, if that's the way you want it, then perhaps the state of California might not have the resources to give you any water from the California Aqueduct, or power from the state grid. And for certain, GLBT folk will know where not to spend their money on vacation (especially since more Californians are vacationing in-state with the high price of gas and plane tickets).

Yet in Kern County, one of the two remaining counties trying to not officiate same-sex marriages, a coalition of straight churches have pledged to stand by and have a minister on hand to perform weddings at all times to anyone who may need them*. With the November constitutional amendment on the ballot, it would be counterintuitive to hurt our allies by calling for a complete and outright boycott of those counties, in the very portions of California where support and goodwill are crucial. At the least, we won't honeymoon there.

Perhaps the best revenge would be for those County Clerks that don't want to follow the law just get the privilege of sitting back and watching the rest of California's counties reap the financial windfall expected to follow the legalization of same-sex marriages.

And maybe, too, getting to see how stupid they'll look to the rest of the state. The SF Chronicle noted that Contra Costa County Clerk Stephen Weir called officiating same-sex couple's weddings a no-brainer, noting that his County clerk's office makes $72,000 a year already in officiating weddings. The Californian reported that Kern County has recouped a tidy profit by providing marriages over the last two months, at $30 a pop. They also mentioned that County Clerk Barnett has cancelled 25 heterosexual marriages that had been already scheduled for after her June 13th deadline (does that mean that, technically, Barnett is against all marriage?) throwing the nuptials of those couples into limbo. Let's see how those county officials that drag their feet try to come hat in hand in Sacramento for more funding for schools and roads and other services when they turned their nose up at easy, legal money. If you know anyone who lives in Kern County, you might let them know how Barnett's decision has cost the county thousands of dollars in potential income --and be sure to remember that come election day.

It isn't like anyone was asking them to produce pollution-emitting cars, or sell guns that would be used in robberies or anything heinous that would actually affect the quality of life of other Californians.

*It might not be a bad idea to turn a positive spin on this, and send notes of thank you to the Rev. Byrd Tetzlaff, of the Unitarian Universalist church, who has pledged to be on hand at the County clerk's office, all day, every day through November 4, to perform weddings for free to any couple who shows up. You can e-mail her at minister@uufkc.org or drop her a note (and maybe a donation) at:

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Kern County

POB 296

Bakersfield, CA 93302-0296

Is it possible for the Chinese to be as stupid as straight white men?

No city in the United States is as associated with Chiang kai Shek, the "Father of the Republic of China," as San Francisco. No city in the United States has seen as many refugees from the Communist takeover of mainland China as San Francisco. So what were they thinking, bringing the Olympic torch to the City?

Not just the Olympic Committee, but the People's Republic of China, the Mayor of San Francisco, and anyone else with half a brain in the City (there are enough people already around the Bay Area if not the whole country that think you can sooner find an Eskimo at the Equator than someone with half a brain in San Francisco, but I wouldn't say that).

Somewhere, the old power elite of the City from the 1950s and '60s that never saw a longhaired anti-establishment protester they didn't want to smack right into the Bay are either scratching their heads in confusion or laughing their heads off in bemusement.

Times have changed
And we've often rewound the clock
Since the Puritans got a shock
When they landed on Plymouth Rock.
If today
Any shock they should try to stem,
'Stead of landing on Plymouth Rock,
Plymouth Rock would land on them.

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.
Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four-letter words
Writing prose,
Anything goes.
If driving fast cars you like,
If low bars you like,
If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like,
Or me undressed you like,
Why, nobody will oppose.
When ev'ry night the set that's smart is in--
Truding in nudist parties in
Studios,
Anything goes.

When Missus Ned McLean (God bless her)
Can get Russian Reds to "yes" her,
Then I suppose
Anything goes.
When Rockefeller still can hoard en--
Nough money to let Max Gordon
Produce his shows,
Anything goes.
The world has gone mad today,
And good's bad today,
And black's white today,
And day's night today,
And that gent today,
You gave a cent today,
Once had several chateaux.
When folks who still can ride in jitneys
Find out Vanderbilt and Whitneys
Lack baby clo'es,
Anything goes.

If Samuel Goldwyn can with great conviction
Instruct Anna Sten in diction,
Then Anna shows
Anything goes.
When you hear that Lady Mendel standing up
Now turns a handspring landing up--
On her toes,
Anything goes.
Just think of those shocks you've got
And all those knocks you've got
And those blues you've got
From that news you've got
And those pains you've got
(If any brains you've got)
From those little radios.

So Missus R., with all her trimmin's,
Can broadcast a bed from Simmons
'Cause Franklin knows
Anything goes.









(I don't know why Cole Porter suddenly seemed appropriate here with all that very serious shouting and all along the Olympic torch route, but I didn't know any 'Please don't kill the nuns in Tibet' songs)

Pick up a pen. Now. Help save a life

Letters of support are urgently needed to help persuade the Home Office of the United Kingdom to grant permanent asylum to Mehdi Kazemi, who is being threatened with deportation back to Iran. Mehdi has learned that his lover, when tortured, revealed Mehdi's name to authorites, before he was executed. To date, more than 4,000 people have been executed by the Iranian regime.

Click on the header at top to find out how you may assist. In addition, you may send letters to:

Lord Right Honourable Waheed Alli
The SW1 Delivery Office
53 Nine Elms Lane
London, UK
SW8 5BB

or

The Lord Alli
House of Lords
London, UK
SW
1A OPW

You may also send e-mails to Lord Alli, the gay member of the House of Lords who is championing Mehdi's cause, at:

alliw@parliament.uk

Trestles is safe... for now

After a raucous 18 hour meeting, the project to connect the Highway 241 toll road with Interstate 5 right through the California state park has been denied. But for how long?

If one follows the arguments of the proponents for extending Highway 241, it ought to go inland, skirting the Camp Pendelton Marine Base and the Cleveland National Forest, serving the fast-growing communities from Fallbrook through San Marcos; connecting with Highway 78, and then either Highway 15 or eventually the 5. After all, that's where the fastest growing communities are in northern San Diego County, and the greatest freeway congestion.

As anyone who drives along the California coast is aware, if any pristine stretch of the coast should be obliterated for a six-lane freeway, it should be Pacific Coast Highway between the Oxnard Plain and Pacific Palisades. Fortunately, there are enough millionaires residing there (FOA; Friends of Arnold) who consider Malibu to be their personal enclave we can be assured that will never happen.


The Embarcadero Freeway, which God, and/or the San Andreas Fault sought fit to destroy in the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake, was but one link in chain of proposed highways that would have made San Francisco more freeway-centric than Los Angeles. Hey--San Francisco has enough hills that they wouldn't miss a few of 'em being blasted to smithereens in the name of progress, right?

Blockade this, why don'tcha?

Too much news today had me yelling at the radio and frightening the horses. Fortunately, my sister happened to chose today to ask about how to donate perfectly good unused medical supplies that might otherwise be trashed. While there are no shortage of organizations with appropriate credentials throughout the world, here's a short-short list:

Doctors without Borders
1-888-392-0392 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)

Rainbow World Fund
1-415-431-1485
4111 - 18th St, San Francisco, CA
http://www.rainbowworldfund.org

Volunteer for Inter-American Development Assistance (VIDA)
1-510-655-8432
6251 Hollis St., Emeryville, CA

Medshare.org

I'd much rather concentrate on being a part of crossing those borders that can't be seen from space for the good of humankind, than participate in the screaming match that tends to forget that whatever the border, whatever the conflict, on both sides there are mothers and fathers and children who all basically want the same thing out of life.

Perhaps from time to time, if someone else happens to get a little fed up at how the grown-ups of this planet are running things, they might consider looking at that little ball of dirt and air and water spinning through space and ask themselves what they can do to help it along.

"I find it tedious to detail the savagery of the enemy..." -Ann Coulter*

NPR reported today on the proliferation of cluster bombs used in the 2006 conflict between Israel and Hezbollah rebels in Lebanon.

Most Americans are as yet unaware that the US government was the source of these cluster bombs as part of our $2.2 billion support in military aid. That's $21 for every man, woman and child in the United States.

So you, as it would turn out, are a terrorist. At the least, you --through your government-- are the reason that 'they' hate us. Among the most noted manufacturer of cluster bombs in the US is Alliant Techsystems of Hopkins, Minnesota. Their product doesn't exactly fall out under the category of Minnesota nice, does it?

As it turns out, most of the unexploded ordnance is about the size of a D battery. In Viet Nam, some 300 people are still being killed every year from unexploded cluster bombs-- 30 years after the war ended! There are millions of them, scattered in fields and roads and even around houses, schools and hospitals, all over the world in over 70 countries. And all this time you thought the US was just giving out powdered milk or candy bars.

For those of you not faint of heart who can stomach the gruesome sight of children with amputated limbs, click on the header at the top for a link to the Cluster Munition Coalition.



*as quoted by the LA Times during remarks made Wednesday at USC. Ann Coulter was wearing that same old tired past-its-expiration date black cocktail dress that she's worn once too many times. Halloween isn't until next week! Is that a Freudian cry for help or what? Seriously, girl, that dress is like week-old fish! The vampire drag queen prostitutes in my neighborhood dress better. Someone needs to do an intervention on her, but that's a subject for another day.

Lights Out LA

Image: Dark Sky Association

This Saturday night, between 8 and 9 pm, the lights will go out in buildings across the country -and around the world- to focus on light pollution and energy conservation. Hopefully, I'll get home from the Miracle Mile Art Walk in time before the trannie prostitute goblins come out in my neighborhood (everyday is Halloween in Hollywood)!