I work harder than half the world

I would have gone to the Ruth Ellis Center today for my usual volunteer time, but I got an email from the evening director saying the center was closed. There was a big warehouse fire about a mile to the west (as in upwind). It started last night and while under control it was still burning. The fire department determined the smoke was toxic.



A couple days ago I mentioned the Ali Forney Center was raising money to buy the Atlah Church, which will be auctioned off due to not paying its bills. Since then Dan Savage has urged support and the campaign is above $153K, 77% of its goal.

The campaign's website reminds us why they are so interested in taking over the Atlah site. The AFC has several residences for homeless LGBT youth, one of them a few blocks from Atlah Church. The church frequently posted its anti-gay tirades on the church marquee, which these kids would see. In addition, these kids are homeless because their parents listened to and believed the hatred spouted by church pastors, such as Rev. Manning of Atlah.

Buying the building that had been this pastor's pulpit will make these kids' lives a bit easier and hopefully cause fewer other kids to become homeless.

Of course, Rev. Manning isn't going quietly, but I'm not going to link to something that toxic.



Many months ago I heard someone propose that a good person to be nominated to the Supremes would be Barack Obama. His expertise is constitutional law, he knows how gov't works, and he's a decent progressive. It would be good to have a person of color with the opposite views of Justice Thomas. Obama would follow the steps of William Howard Taft, who was president, then Chief Justice.

About a week ago someone proposed that idea to Hillary. She's delighted with the idea. Obama, not so much.



A couple weeks ago Oxfam released an analysis that showed the richest 62 people in the world "have as much wealth as the bottom half of humanity."

A common refrain from the rich is that they work harder and are worth their wealth. Along with that is the refrain that the poor are poor because they don't work hard. Melissa McEwen of Shakesville replies:

But surely, surely, even the people who make this reprehensible argument cannot choke out the incredible claim that 62 people work harder than half of the entire world. Or even that their work is more important, more inherently valuable, than the work of the population of half of the entire world.

No one can possibly believe this. Especially when the accumulated wealth of those 62 people was largely earned not by their own labor, but by exploiting other people's labor.

Another delicious result.

There was big news last summer about two videographers, David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, made a video of their meeting with officials at Planned Parenthood, edited the result to look like PP was making a profit from selling organs from aborted fetuses, and released it to the delight of the anti-abortion crowd.

Numerous states have investigated PP and have found nothing illegal or outside standard medical practices. A grand jury also cleared PP and then indicted Daleiden and Merrit on charges of tampering with a gov't document (they used false driver's licenses for ID in PP offices). Sweet!