A Gay Crows Nest

Pulling on bootstraps without boots

2012-01-26T23:22:00.000-05:00

Jon Stewart interviewed Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren. The two videos combined are under 14 minutes. Stewart asks if government is incompetent at doing something (a favorite claim of conservatives) why should it keep doing it? Yes, government should be held accountable. But the things government does (infrastructure, education, research) are shared resources and they build up the middle class. The 1% have shown they have no interest in shared resources. Warren surprised Stewart with a statistic: Many of the big corporations spent more on lobbying than they are charged in taxes. Obviously, with that huge expense they expect it to help their bottom line.

Newsblog Firedoglake runs Occupy Supply. If you buy from them they will send a matching item to an Occupy encampment. As of last Monday there are 60 such encampments (at least that Occupy Supply knows about), with several more under threat of eviction, or have moved inside, or are daytime only. The movement is still strong.

Kevin Gosztola has been an Occupy Supply liaison and wrote a report of visiting the encampment in Buffalo. And, yes, it is winter there.

I recently wrote about Autumn Sandeen and her observation that lots of opponents of civil rights drag the bathroom into the discussion. In another essay she considers the flip side of the issue. If a law restricted bathrooms to the appropriate people, who would check and what would they check for? Do they check for what's under the front of your undies? What about intersex people where the distinction isn't clear? What about pre-op transgender people? Isn't this a monumental invasion of privacy? Do the potty police check ID cards? States have different rules on when a transgender person is allowed to change the gender on an ID. Why not just check facial features or secondary characteristics? There are too many people where classifying them as male or female on looks alone is difficult.

What is the definition of truth? Tea Party organizations in Tennessee want textbooks to omit references of Founding Fathers owning slaves. These great men were "revolutionaries who brought liberty into a world where it didn't exist." We should focus on that progress, and not on the details that get in the way of them being seen as great. We want students to know the truth about America.

Right.

Newt Gingrich has talked about his idea of giving jobs to poor kids, such as helping the janitor at school, so they can learn the work ethic. Joi Ruth Orr of Faith Leaders for Community Change wants Newtie to apologize for insulting poor kids. And that bit about "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" -- it can't be done. A poor kid needs a community to make that happen -- especially if the kid is so poor he doesn't even have boots.

No time to learn the job

2012-01-26T23:14:00.000-05:00

It was only a few month ago that black gay Republican Bruce Harris was elected as mayor of Chatham Borough, New Jersey. But he won't have the job for much longer. The guy has barely had time to learn the job. But his exit is a good thing -- he is being appointed to the NJ Supremes. And the appointment came from Chris Christie, the GOP Gov. who has now vowed to veto a marriage equality bill.

One of the cases that will soon come before the NJ Supremes will argue that the state's Civil Unions are not equivalent to marriage, a requirement in the Supreme's ruling several years ago.

When Christie said he would veto the marriage bill he suggested it would be better for the whole thing to go before the voters to stop it being a political football. The National Organization for Marriage is salivating at the prospect because making the issue a political football in front of the voter is their specialty. Cory Booker, mayor of Newark has blasted Christie saying that rights should not be up for a vote.

More satisfaction than money

2012-01-26T23:10:00.000-05:00

Those who insist a market solution is available for every problem (I don't agree at least in the cases on health care, education, and national infrastructure) say that discrimination should be handled by market forces. Ari Ezra Waldman summarizes the argument this way:

Laws that ban workplace discrimination are unnecessary because any company that discriminates for irrational reasons (on the basis of gender, race, religion, and so on) are not hiring the best and brightest. By not hiring the best employees, these companies will suffer when competing against firms that do not discriminate and hire the best workers regardless of personal characteristics that have nothing to do with their productivity. When the discriminatory firm is faced with revenue loss or loss of market share or business failure, it will drop its discriminatory hiring practices in order to survive. Therefore, anti-discrimination laws unnecessarily impose government regulation where the free market should function efficiently, weeding out discriminators for economic ruin.

Waldman sees three problems with that argument.

1. Discrimination (such as against gay workers) may bring more satisfaction to the employer than the increased profits would.

2. Yeah, we're fabulous, but not so fabulous that our absence from a workplace will make much difference. Discriminate against women and your employee pool drops by 50%. Discriminate against gays and your employee pool drops by about 2%.

3. That nearly all big companies now have non-discrimination policies does not imply causation -- they may not have done it for purely economic reasons. As long as the society thinks it is acceptable to discriminate against gays an employer may not realize there is an economic advantage (sigh, however small) to hiring gay people. A law is a way for a society to say gays are not second-class citizens, even if it takes a generation or two for the general populace to agree.

It is all reduced to the potty

2012-01-23T22:21:00.000-05:00

One incident in the movie The Help plays out over the course of the movie. A black maid sees a severe storm brewing at a time when she badly needs to use the toilet. She defies her employer and uses the bathroom in the house and is fired. A white character tries to get the state legislature to ban black domestics from using the "white" facilities in a white home. They have their own diseases, you see. Another white family builds a separate bathroom for the help, telling her how pleased she should be to have her own facilities while ignoring how humiliated she feels.

Autumn Sandeen, a transgender woman, notes how many times civil rights issues degenerate into fear of bathroom assault.

Jim Crow demanded separate public facilities for black people.

Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum dismissed the need for the Equal Rights Amendment because it would ban separate public restrooms for men and women and if men used unisex restrooms they couldn't control their sexual urges.

Critics of the Americans with Disabilities Act complained about the expense of accessible bathrooms.

Gay men were (and sometimes still are) accused of being pedophiles and thus made public restrooms unsafe. A big part of the fear of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell was the fear of gay men attacking their straight colleagues in the latrine and shower.

And a big argument against acceptance of transgender people is that transgender men are really "men in dresses" and do that simply to attack women and children in public restrooms.

Why do these same arguments come up every time a minority fights for rights? Because as a scare tactic it works. Really well.

Sandeen says the issue needs a logical study:

1.) Is bathroom predation of women and children by “men in dresses”/”transvestites” is really a common occurrence? 2.) If it is a common occurrence, is it a more common occurrence in countries, states, provinces, territories, counties, and municipalities where public accommodation antidiscrimination laws based on gender identity have been put into law?

The people who use the bathroom scare haven't done such a study. Why bother when their unsupported claims work just fine? The progressive folks haven't publicized a study yet, though some research has been done. A commenter had been a part of such a study and found when bathroom assaults took place the transgender person was never the perpetrator and always the victim.

Speaking the language

2012-01-23T22:17:00.000-05:00

Essayist Terrence Heath talks about why Newt Gingrich has jumped to the top of the GOP pack. Newtie played the race card, speaking the language of South Carolina.

As part of Newt knowing his audience Heath quotes Paul Waldman who explains how the GOP, or at least Newt, operates. Yes, they promote class warfare (while accusing Obama of the same thing). But it isn't based on economic classes. As we've heard for many years, it is a cultural class warfare -- Don't worry about the economy because those liberal elites are out to destroy the soul of the nation. As the economic mess drags on, fewer people are buying that argument.

Newtie adds one more ingredient into his winning stew. He characterizes Obama as a black person who has become too "uppity" -- who has forgotten his proper place in society. Of course, he doesn't say that in so many words.

My friend and debate partner has said such culture war/racist talk might resonate with the GOP base and give Newtie the nomination. But it won't play well in the rest of the country. Alas, so much of what Newtie says is a dog whistle -- the intended audience is energized by it and everyone else has a hard time understanding why an apparently harmless statement should be considered inflammatory.

Classified as dangerous

2012-01-23T22:14:00.000-05:00

I have watched over the last couple months as my readership in Russia has taken off. There have been a few times when Russian readership is higher than American readership. By January 19 the number of page hits for the month from all sources topped the number of hits for all of December.

The blogging statistics also tell me what sites refer readers to my site. A Russian site was consistently at the top of that list. So I clicked on it. My security system told me that was a Dangerous Page and I probably didn't want to go there. I agreed and the reference to my site will remain a mystery to me.

Today I updated a personal website page that I use for teaching, adding a few more sound file links. When I brought it up to verify I had done it correctly I was told it was a Dangerous Page. Something strange here.

I started a chat session with the security system support and told the staff person about it. She guided me to a place that would evaluate the page (yup, dangerous), and then allow me to override the classification. I don't want my students to be told the page with their homework assignment is Dangerous.

During the chat I asked why my site was tagged. I wanted to know what was wrong so I could fix it. I got responses such as, "It could be any number of things," and, "The important thing now is to resolve the problem." I can smell evasion and said so. I can understand the need to protect algorithms and to not want to admit the software goofed. However, I now have less trust in their software. I told her that too. Since she didn't tell me what I could fix I now suspect a goof in their algorithm that determines if a page is Dangerous. Another possibility, since I found another personal page declared Dangerous, is the algorithm classified all pages from the same server -- which includes all personal web pages hosted by a giant internet provider.

That doesn't mean I'm going to go back to that Russian site, even though I'm still curious. I would welcome any of my Russian readers to leave a comment telling me about how they found my blog.

Another little detail from the readership statistics: the latest country to show up is St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It's a series of tiny islands in the eastern Caribbean.

Love and religious trappings

2012-01-21T22:49:00.000-05:00

Michael Wood explores Romans, chapters 1-3, the passages around the only reliable mention of homosexual acts by Saint Paul (other passages have translation issues). I didn't realize this chunk of text contains an apparent contradiction. Paul appears to say both that we are justified before God by what we do and that we cannot be justified before God by what we do.

So Wood consulted translation specialists and went digging. What he found is that the commandments of the Old Testament are of two types. One type is an expansion of Leviticus 19:18 -- "Love your neighbor as yourself." These are commandments on ethical issues about how one person is to treat another.

The other type of commandment deals with the rituals of worship, religious ceremony, circumcision, diet, cleanliness, and what it means to be holy. Put it another way, these are all the things that make a person a Jew.

What Paul is saying is: If you love your neighbor you are doing what God wants.

If you do all the other religious trappings except love your neighbor you are not doing what God wants.

Liberal Christians have a tendency to dismiss Paul's writings. The contradiction above -- and Paul's one comment about homosexual acts -- are some of the reasons for that dismissal. But conservatives don't. And a liberal dismissal of Paul only makes conservatives dig in their heels. But with this understanding Liberals can embrace Paul.

All issues, including sexual issues and including homosexuality, can be discussed in view of whether the action shows love or doesn't. If it shows love, it is good. If it works against love, it is bad. If neither (such as dietary laws) it has no moral component. Homosexual love is good. Homosexual rape is bad. Homosexuality by itself has no moral component.

Wood is convinced this new historical understanding will lead to conservative acceptance of gays. I'm not at all convinced. Yes, it will help.

Alas, a great deal of the conservative view, though originating in the Bible, is now intertwined with other things:

* Fear of gay people.
* A strong need to assert superiority (heterosexual superiority is only one part of this).
* A strong need to claim their worldview cannot change.
* They've built a religion on the inclusion of a strong denunciation of gays revising this piece brings the whole thing into question.
* Their pronunciations give them power which they won't let go of easily.

So, I don't think this will change their minds. It is too easy to brand Wood as misguided or a heretic.

Complications of Biblical logic

2012-01-21T22:37:00.000-05:00

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin has thought about sexual orientation and spirituality and came to this conclusion:

1. God created me same-sex attracted.
2. Despite my prayers He seems to have no intention of changing me.
Therefore one of these is true:
3a. God is perfectly fine with me being gay.
3b. God is a monster.
3c. God doesn't exist.

Orthodox Judaism has created a Torah Declaration and the logic comes out this way:
1. The Torah makes it clear homosexuality is unacceptable.
2. G-d cannot create a human who is unable to find a loving relationship within Biblical prohibitions.
Therefore:
3. Same-sex attractions can be modified and healed.

Kincaid points out there is an objectively testable reality: Does reorientation happen? The answer has been a resounding no.

That leaves two possibilities:
1. These Orthodox rabbis will realize the error in their logic.
2. These rabbis will end up without congregations to lead. This appears to be happening.

Mayors taking sides

2012-01-21T22:31:00.000-05:00

Many American mayors met for a big conference recently (I'm sure there is an official name for it). Out of that came Mayors for the Freedom to Marry. It was led by the mayors of New York, Boston, Houston, San Diego, and Los Angeles. I haven't counted the list myself, though I've heard the total signatures tops 80 names. Included in it are the mayors of Michigan cities Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor, and Hamtramck.

Amazingly, Indiana will offer a gay-friendly license plate! This might be the first in the nation (commenters dispute first place). The plate shows a hand in front of rainbow stripes with the words "Indiana Youth Group." That's the organization that will get $25 of the $40 fee. See an image here.

Shifting the balance of power

2012-01-21T22:28:00.000-05:00

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), the one that says gays can't be fired simply because they are gay, is going nowhere in the GOP controlled House. That has led Ari Ezra Waldman to discuss the possibility that Obama will implement ENDA, at least for federal contractors, through executive order. Obama might do this to show what he can get done without Congress.

Some progressives might say that Obama is following the lead of Bush II in amassing power in the executive branch. But a Congress that blocks everything and does nothing also shifts the balance of power by giving themselves no power.

That may well be the conservatives' goal: an absent federal government can do no harm when you have no faith in the federal government. But, progressives believe in the transformative power of government and, as such, the executive should act where Congress should, but will not.

And creating ENDA through executive order is a way for Obama to show that transformational power.

Slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner

2012-01-19T21:55:00.000-05:00

I've written a lot about my grumpiness with Obama. I think he's a wimp, too willing to compromise, not willing to stand up for the progressive cause, not bringing the creators of the financial collapse to justice, and perhaps a bit too beholden to possible corporate backers. There is also the matter of continuing some of the human rights abuses of Bush. The only reason why I plan to vote for Obama this year is he isn't GOP (and I'm much more interested in defeating the GOP). I'll let you browse my writings for other complaints.

Andrew Sullivan, writing the cover story for Newsweek, thinks I -- and liberals in general -- don't appreciate what we have. As for conservatives, they don't understand Obama either. Thus Obama will likely beat them in November.

Sullivan is conservative and gay, but not the kind that would be a member of Log Cabin Republicans. However, he understands that we can't let the current GOP win. It's good to have Obama ready to take them on.

Sullivan goes over Obama's record and says the prez. actually accomplished a great deal in three years and there is much in these accomplishments for the country to appreciate. In just gay issues, support for gay marriage has increased dramatically (but what did he do to make it happen?), DOMA won't be defended, gays now serve openly in the military, federal gov't hiring policies now protect gay workers, and the State Department has made gay rights a part of human rights.

Obama achieved some of those gains by not caring who got the credit and doing it in a way that can't be easily undone. On gays in the military:

But what he was doing was getting his Republican defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to move before he did. The man who made the case for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was, in the end, Adm. Mike Mullen. This took time—as did his painstaking change in the rule barring HIV-positive immigrants and tourists—but the slow and deliberate and unprovocative manner in which it was accomplished made the changes more durable. Not for the first time, I realized that to understand Obama, you have to take the long view. Because he does.

And on Obama's method of operation:

And what have we seen? A recurring pattern. To use the terms Obama first employed in his inaugural address: the president begins by extending a hand to his opponents; when they respond by raising a fist, he demonstrates that they are the source of the problem; then, finally, he moves to his preferred position of moderate liberalism and fights for it without being effectively tarred as an ideologue or a divider. This kind of strategy takes time. And it means there are long stretches when Obama seems incapable of defending himself, or willing to let others to define him, or simply weak. I remember those stretches during the campaign against Hillary Clinton. I also remember whose strategy won out in the end.

As for upholding the progressive cause, Sullivan says Obama never pledged to do that.

Sullivan has some good points, and it is good to see a summation of Obama's record and an explanation of what Obama is trying to do. However, I'm not completely convinced. Sullivan doesn't provide an explanation of what is going on with those human rights abuses.

Generating discussion

2012-01-19T21:48:00.000-05:00

Norm Magnusson has created the I-75 project. That Interstate stretches from Sault Sainte Marie in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan all the way to Miami, Florida. It also passes about a dozen miles from my house (though I don't have a need to take it often). Magnusson noted that, other than Michigan, I-75 runs through red states (I note I-25 is also close to running through only red states). To prompt discussion Magnusson created signs that could be mistaken for historical markers with short sentences that he hopes will prompt discussion.

An example of the signs:

On this site stood Robert Oknos, who thought that global warming would not affect him in his lifetime.

Your threat isn't working

2012-01-19T21:43:00.000-05:00

A poll in New Jersey says that 52% of voters approve of gay marriage. The legislature appears ready to approve such a bill. As for GOP Gov. Chris Christie, well, he now says tell us what he'll do when the bill comes to his desk. He has, in the past, said he would veto it.

True to form, the National Organization for Marriage has pledged a half-million dollars to show appreciation for GOP lawmakers who vote against the bill and heap scorn on those who don't. In that past, such NOM pledges have come across more like bribes than campaign donations and this is likely no exception.

But GOP lawmakers in NJ may not quake in their boots at the prospect of NOM funding their opposition. NOM made the same pledge to New York GOP legislators last year. Four of them defied NOM and voted for marriage equality. And since then the campaign cash has been flowing in their direction -- in record amounts. So much for NOM's threat.

Brian Brown, head of NOM is unimpressed. Money won't buy them out of their trouble, he says. People are outraged and they'll be defeated.

A commenter named MikeinSanJose sums it up this way:

In fact, people are SO outraged that they are sending check after check to express their shock and horror, with angrily scrawled signatures under dollar signs viciously punctuated with multiple commas and zeroes.

Emotionally hostile to the needs of the poor

2012-01-16T22:17:00.000-05:00

A year ago, Richard RJ Eskow of the blog Crooks and Liars, listed ten quotes of Martin Luther King that describe how we should work towards the common good. He then commented how well we are meeting each of those goals.

A year has gone by and we honor King again. So, Eskow repeated the ten quotes. We have made a little progress, thanks to the uprising in Madison and the Occupy movement. But we have a long way to go.

The quotes by King are from:
* Where Do We Go From Here, a speech given in August,1967.
* Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, April 1967 speech.
* Letter From a Birmingham Jail, April 1963.
* A Testament of Hope, essay published posthumously.

1."True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

The culture of Vulture Capitalism (a phrase now in use by GOP nominees) didn't just happen. "It was made by politicians. It should be un-made by politicians. The system is the problem and it needs to change."

In 2000 the poverty rate was 11.3%. It is now over 15%. "Is that OK with you?"

2. "We must develop a federal program of public works, retraining, and jobs for all -- so that none, white or black, will have cause to feel threatened ... There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum and livable income for every American family."

The only bills proposed in Congress are disguised tax breaks for the rich. As for large numbers of poor whites voting for the GOP, King said,

"The unemployed, poverty-stricken white man must be made to realize that he is in the very same boat with the Negro. Together, they could exert massive pressure on the government to get jobs for all. Together they could form a grand alliance. Together, they could merge all people for the good of all."

Nobody is addressing the long-term job-loss catastrophe.

3. "A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth."

Eskow quotes wealth inequality stats, including a drop in minimum wage, though sees some hope: "Hello, Occupy!"

4. "The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages a cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that encourages men to be I-centered rather than thou-centered."

Eskow quotes a few bankers and hedge-fund managers lecturing us about morals and describes the work they do to keep the government regulations from working.

5. "Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals."

The International Monetary Fund has reported a strong correlation between bank lobbying and risky bank behavior.

6. "An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal."

There is a great deal of lawbreaking by banks as part of the home foreclosure mess.

7. "When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered."

Eskow wrote:

Banking has become divorced from reality. When the financial sector can enrich itself with speculation alone, it no longer needs to fund concrete business activities. That's why statements like "Main Street and Wall Street rise and fall together" are 100 percent incorrect: Those two geographies have never been more distant from one another.

Racism? Look at disparities in infant mortality, poverty, and employment.

Militarism? Defense budget is growing, as is Homeland Security -- which is looking for new targets of surveillance.

Materialism? We don't even try to curb that.

8. "There is also the violence of (African Americans) having to live in a community and pay higher consumer prices for goods or higher rents for equivalent housing than are charged in white parts of the city."

Banks won't open branches in poor neighborhoods, but they will open Payday Lenders, which trap the poor in debt.

9. "Congress appropriates military funds with alacrity and generosity. It appropriates poverty funds with miserliness and grudging reluctance. The government is emotionally committed to the war. It is emotionally hostile to the needs of the poor."

There is a huge contrast between Congress and the American citizen on what to do about the poor.

10. "Ultimately a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."

Obama has shown a tiny bit of spine lately, but it took him a long time to find it.

Another quote by King, shared in the comments:

"I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live. You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice."

And one from Bobby Kennedy

"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."

Thank you, Martin, for your wisdom.

The only sin being celebrated

2012-01-14T22:35:00.000-05:00

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin has noticed a change in Exodus, the leading organization that promoted ex-gay therapy. It is a change in what Alan Chambers, President of Exodus, has been saying. That gives Kincaid hope that Exodus won't work so hard to demonize gay people and spiritually abuse them while trying to make them not gay.

The posting's commenters weren't buying it. They said that the only change is Alan Chambers is getting much better and more nuanced in public relations. And if Chambers really has changed there are a lot of ways he can prove it -- starting with admitting all the harm Exodus has done over the last few decades.

Jim Burroway, fellow author on BTB pulled out a counter example, writings of Mike Goeke. He is on the Exodus Board of Directors and wrote an op-ed just this past week in the Baptist Press. Goeke says that homosexuality is worse than any other sin because:

* It is the only sin being celebrated. What other sin has a pride parade? There are no greed parades, people proudly claiming to be gossips, or proudly claiming to be promiscuous.

* It is the only sin with an accepted theology built around it.

That's why it is a threat to civilization (well, a threat to the church, which in his theology is the same thing as civilization).

The words of Goeke seriously undermine what Kincaid thinks Chambers is saying. Or Exodus board meetings will soon be getting very interesting.

Again, commenters have a lot so say.

Kincaid responds to Goeke (not Burroway) by saying Ticker Tape Parades have been held for greedy people, the entire tabloid industry is made up of proud gossips, there are indeed organizations devoted to fat pride (gluttony), and liars openly gather in local bars and on TV. Another notes there is a greed pride going on now: the GOP nominating process. There is mayhem that occurs at big stores every Black Friday and there are contests about who can eat the most.

Commenter Theo notes the purpose of Exodus is (1) to show gay people can become straight and thus ineligible for civil-rights protections, and (2) to justify anti-gay punitive measures.

I've been ready with the argument: "You think gay people can change? Have you checked the success rate of Exodus?" That information is hard to find, for a reason. At times Exodus has claimed a 1/3 success rate (though highly disputed). Chambers now admits to a 0.1% success rate (which includes himself).

Theo notes that Bryan Fischer of National Organization for Marriage has said the success rate doesn't matter. As long as one person has changed it means change is possible and thus gays can't be protected from discrimination. The rest just weren't trying hard enough or simply refused to change. One successful conversion (even if a bisexual deciding to follow his/her straight side) justifies Fischer being a bully.

Lest there be question

2012-01-13T22:26:00.000-05:00

A broad coalition of Fundie denominations -- including Mormon and Orthodox Jewish -- have issued a letter saying their religious freedom is being restricted. Ya see, they aren't being allowed to discriminate against gays. This covers religious institutions such as schools, hospitals, nursing homes, adoption services, counseling services, and more.

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin summarizes it this way:

In the name of faith and religion they explicitly demand the ability to fire gay people, deny them employment, deny education, healthcare and housing, and instill punitive taxation. Further they demand exemption from restrictions which require that public funds are provided to the citizens without discrimination.

My reaction to the first sentence is: Fine, let them (though I'm not clear about the "taxation" part). But I draw the line at the second sentence. No, I don't want my taxes to pay for my discrimination.

Kincaid continues:

I find these declarations useful. They establish, lest there be question, those churches that feel entitled and privileged and who actively serve as a danger to the freedom not only of gay people, but of all Americans who dare to differ with them in any area of doctrine or dogma.

Yes, this will cause people to rethink their membership and for others to turn away from joining. Let such unholy institutions die.

Being anti-gay doesn't win elections anymore

2012-01-13T22:21:00.000-05:00

Dan Savage, the one behind Santorum's "Google problem," has a few things to say about the GOP field. There were four outspoken anti-gay candidates -- Bachmann, Perry, Cain, and Santorum. They threw a lot of red meat to their base.

But gay people didn't take the abuse and frequently confronted the candidates. I've heard of many of these confrontations, though I didn't report on them.

The result? Cain is gone. Bachmann is gone. Perry is hanging on by his fingernails (just wait a week). And Santorum is a distant third with half the support of Romney. Real Clear Politics has a cool graph showing the succession of front-runners.

Marriage law is about more than marriage

2012-01-13T22:17:00.000-05:00

The GOP controlled legislature in Michigan, signed by the GOP Gov. have barred employment benefits to partners of gay and lesbian government employees. This overturned many city ordnances which offered partner benefits. The justification was that the 2004 marriage protection amendment prevents any acknowledgment of gay couples. The ACLU has filed a suit saying this is discrimination -- the new law specifically states benefits are only taken away from gay couples.

Ari Ezra Waldman discusses what is behind the law. First, it isn't really about the benefits. Waldman wrote:

It is counterproductive to couch our fight for equality in terms of things, stuff, and other accoutrements of state largesse.

There are things to learn from the case:

* States are still trying to discriminate against gays.

* The Calif. gay marriage case is about more than marriage in Calif. It shouldn't be derailed by trying to get the question back on the ballot.

* Marriage law is about more than marriage. There are far reaching implications.

Waldman explains the case and implications in detail.

Not all the commenters on Waldman's post agree. Some of their reasons:

* We need to repeal the Calif. ban at the ballot box to show that citizens are for marriage equality, not just "activist" judges.

* A win in Calif. would boost our chances in Washington State and New Jersey (both considering bills) and other states around the country.

* Even if Californians vote to make marriage legal that doesn't prevent the ACLU from proceeding with the Michigan case. There are lots of similar cases in progress around the country.

Ya think?

2012-01-13T22:13:00.000-05:00

This is a sign at how low journalism has sunk, though it might also be a sign that things might improve. Arthur Brisbane, an editor at the New York Times -- a highly regarded source of news -- wrote an editorial wondering "Should the Times be a Truth Vigilante?" He wrote it because a reader wrote:

In other words, if a candidate repeatedly utters an outright falsehood (I leave aside ambiguous implications), shouldn't the Times's coverage nail it right at the point where the article quotes it?

Brisbane continued:

This message was typical of mail from some readers who, fed up with the distortions and evasions that are common in public life, look to The Times to set the record straight. ... Is that the prevailing view?

This left commenters bordering on speechless. Didn't you learn to do that in Journalism 101? Have we sunk so low we don't know what a fact is? Something is wrong if you even have to ask this question. Better yet, don't repeat candidate lies.

Investments come with expectations

2012-01-12T22:27:00.000-05:00

Andrew Romano has a big article in Newsweek about the Obama campaign machine and how it dwarfs the combined GOP field and is well beyond his fund raising in 2008. The war chest is big enough I wonder who he is beholden to? Are corporations funding Obama as well as GOP candidates? Does that mean he'll claim to be on our side, yet will do their bidding?

The article also discusses the various ways that the campaign will be using technology to reach out to voters.

The question of whose bidding Obama might do is wholly appropriate. The PAC Americans for Prosperity, the one funded by the Koch brothers, has published a scorecard with the five senators and 39 representatives that achieved an AFP 100% grade. Apparently, money well spent.

Mother Jones has an article on the 20 top givers in this election cycle. Of the 20, 17 gave to GOP and conservative candidates and PACs. At the top of the list is Sheldon Adelson, who got his wealth through Las Vegas casinos. Adelson gave $5 million to Gingrich's SuperPAC, which is doing all it can to take down Romney.

NPR did a story in the last couple days (alas, I didn't take note of time and can't find it now) that said a campaign with more cash than the opponents doesn't always win. The high correlation between campaign cash and victory does not imply causation. It could be the same qualities in a candidate that attracts votes also attracts dollars.

So, Obama's stash of cash does not mean he'll win.

Taking the other guy down too

2012-01-12T22:19:00.000-05:00

It has been rather interesting to see how the GOP field is going after each other. Perhaps I should rephrase that -- the Super PACs behind the candidates are going after other candidates. One wonders (hopes) the nominee will be so damaged in the process he can't win in November.

Terrence Heath documents what Romney said about Gingrich (causing Gingrich to drop about 20% in Iowa polls), and what Gingrich is saying about Romney. And it is all true.

First, about Gingrich:
* He was fined $300,000 for ethical violations while Speaker of the House.
* He received $1.6 million from mortgage company Freddie Mack.
* He's a career politician and continued to be so after leaving the House.
* He became wealthy through selling his influence through connections created by being House Speaker
* He has a record of being on both sides of a long list of issues, a list longer than Romney's known flip-flops.

But Gingrich is near the middle of the pack now and we may not have to worry about him getting close to the nomination. But Gingrich appears to be willing to take Romney down as he goes. So, about Romney:

Before getting into politics, Romney was head of Bain Capital, a company that bought other companies, fixed them up, and sold them for a profit. Romney likes to say that he has worked in the private sector and knows how to create jobs. But the point of Bain was to create money for investors and jobs were beside the point. And a good number of the companies bought by Bain were liquidated, taking the jobs down the tubes too. The people who used to have those jobs are now speaking out. Even when those companies were liquidated Bain -- and Romney -- made money.

Heath pulls apart the exit polling in New Hampshire and shows Romney decisively won the 1% vote.

Who the other students will be

2012-01-11T23:09:00.000-05:00

Education in many community public schools is so bad that irate parents are turning to charter schools. Michigan recently raised the cap on the number of permitted charter schools and, I think, the cap goes away in a few years.

Beside the dubious benefit of charter schools -- many are not better than public schools -- they are leading to another undesirable effect. Our schools are becoming more segregated. There are three reasons for this.

* Charter schools serve as neighborhood schools and most of our neighborhoods are segregated. That's an issue we haven't addressed yet. Many charter school companies will intentionally place a school in a minority neighborhood and woo the kids of that minority. That might be good for those kids, but it is still a segregated school.

* The choice of school, from a parent's perspective, depends on both what is taught and who the other students will be. School choice allows bigoted parents to take their kids elsewhere.

* When a charter school makes a choice available, not everyone can take advantage of the choice. Charters are exempt from laws that require schools to offer transportation, food for low-income students, specialists for developmental problems, or teachers for the non-English speakers. Great school, but for poor, autistic, or immigrant kids it's a false choice.

But the idea of school choice has taken hold, even in public schools, a toxic idea.

Now contrast that with Finland. No charters, no private schools, no school choice, no "reform" movement. All schools are public and all are adequately funded.

Return on investment

2012-01-11T23:04:00.000-05:00

Those in the 1% need to invest all that money they have lying around. Get it working! But the stock market and bond market aren't going to return much on an investment, so alternatives are big. And those alternatives are: SWAG --- Silver, wine, art, and gold. The price of art has gone through the roof and is now considered an "asset class."

Sam Pizzigati of Campaign for America's Future notes:

The Artprice Global Index, a broader tally of the prices works of fine art are fetching, has art values up 120 percent over the last decade.
…
Fine wines, the Liv-Ex wine index shows, have jumped about 300 percent since 2000. Gold has appreciated at an even higher rate, as has silver.

All this wealth hangs on walls, sits in wine cellars, or sits in safes. Hmm. Perhaps an investment bubble looming?

Now contrast today's rich with those in the 1950s. Income taxes were up around 90%, so Anna Dodge, widow of Horace and heir to the Dodge auto fortune invested her entire $56 million in municipal bonds.

They paid only 3 percent in interest. But the dollars invested in municipals paid off handsomely for the mid-century 99 percent. Those dollars financed the schools and sewage plants and waterworks that created the foundation for the classic American middle class.

The new/old wedge issue

2012-01-11T22:59:00.000-05:00

Back in 2004 gay marriage (not marriage equality) was the big wedge issue. It was rammed onto state ballots to encourage the Fundies to vote. It highlighted the difference between GOP and Dems. There was no concern who it hurt.

My, how things change in eight years.

Democrats in the New Jersey legislature have introduced bills S1 and A1 (A for Assembly) to legalize gay marriage. Yup, they are numbered to be the first item of business of the new legislature. And it will have to be marriage because NJ already has civil unions that are supposed to be the same as marriage in everything but the name. Marriage equality was mandated by the NJ Supremes several years ago and gay groups have a date before the Supremes to say civil unions aren't really equal to marriage.

These bills will likely pass. Alas, Gov. Chris Christie has said he disapproves of gay marriage. He may veto the bills, or he may not sign and allow them to take effect without his signature. There probably aren't enough votes for an override.

Timothy Kincaid says it this way:

Just as it was in 2004, gay marriage is again becoming a wedge issue. But this time it is opponents of equality who are embarrassed and defensive and trying to explain why their positions are inconsistent with will of the populace.
…
Now we will soon learn in New Jersey whether marriage equality has become so socially accepted that civil unions support is a position that can hurt a politician.

Words and the shade of meaning

2012-01-11T22:56:00.000-05:00

Not long ago someone noted that the phrase "gay marriage" implied that the love between two gay people way quite different from the love a straight couple had. Thus marriage for gays was a different type of marriage. And laws for gay marriage could be quite different from laws for straight marriage.

Several groups stressed the use of "marriage equality" instead. I began to use it myself.

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin says even that phrase is too confining. We want equality, not just in marriage. We don't stress racial equality, just equality. Kincaid wrote, "Equality is equality and it should not be presumed to come with asterisks, qualifiers, exceptions, and omissions." So the question should be "Do you support equality?"

Commenters were not entirely convinced. Simply stressing equality is too vague. People have to be shown that the pursuit of equality includes marriage, parenting, adoption, holding a job, attending church, feeling safe at school, and a whole host of other things. I am too aware of churches who proclaim "We welcome all people," and are quick to say, "But not you."

Even so, Kincaid says the dialog can go this way:

Q: Do you support equality?
A: Yes, of course I support equality!
Q: Equality for gay people?
(believe me, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t know what that question is asking)
A: Well… I believe that blah blah blah family, special, history, church blah blah blah
Q: So then you don’t support equality?

Keep the focus on equality and the many ways gays are denied it.

Kincaid has been looking at all the stupid and crazy things (not just related to gays) Rick Santorum has been saying on the campaign trail. A Box of Rocks is looking so much smarter. It even appears Box of Rocks is exploring a run.

This category has several posts in it and will surely only grow until Rocky, uh, Ricky drops out of the race.

Passing these laws because we can

2012-01-08T22:01:00.000-05:00

The number of state provisions to restrict abortions jumped in 2011. Yes, provisions, not just laws, because several laws contain more than one provision. There were 135 provisions enacted last year with only 89 in 2010. There were several categories of restrictions:

* Bans that deny abortion after 20 weeks.

* Waiting periods of 24 to 72 hours between the time a woman receives counseling and can then have the procedure.

* Mandated ultrasound, usually followed by the doctor showing or describing the image to the woman.

* Prohibiting standard health insurance from covering abortions except in cases of life endangerment. The woman must pay extra for it.

* New standards for abortion providers that are close to impossible to meet.

* The doctor prescribing the medical abortion pills must be in the same room as the patient.

* Cut or eliminate funding of family planning clinics (though a few states actually expanded funding).

* Make it more difficult to offer alternatives to abstinence-only sex education.

Corporations are not people

2012-01-07T22:39:00.000-05:00

The organization Move to Amend is promoting a Constitution amendment that essentially says: corporations are not people and can be regulated, money is not speech and can be regulated.

Here are a couple of the talking points:

* The sole purpose of a corporation is to amass profit and consolidate wealth. They are legally required and structurally designed to make money at any cost. This makes them dangerous to people and democracy.

* The structure of a corporation separates humans from their actions. They destroy responsibility and hijack decision-making. They make humans do things collectively that they would never do as individuals: poison water, deny healthcare, and destroy the planet.

I question the "legally required … to make money at any cost." Some corporations (Ben & Jerry's ?) are well known for being responsible citizens and may do that at the expense of profits. And some corporations don't manage the trick of making money and go out of business. Even so, I agree with the rest of the statements above.

Move to Amend is planning an Occupy the Courts (including the Supremes) on Friday, January 20. There is a long list of courts to be occupied that day, including one in Detroit -- Theodore Levin US Courthouse, 231 W. Lafayette. I'll have to contact the organizer for times. It is on a day I don't teach.

There have been seven amendments proposed to fix the Citizens United decision. The Move to Amend finds they are either unclear (loophole!) or don't address both the corporate personhood and the money is not speech issues. Getting amendments approved is such a daunting process there will be one chance to get it right.

Another round of denying a quorum

2012-01-07T22:34:00.000-05:00

It's a puzzle why this isn't getting in the news. I've heard on NPR that Indiana will be considering a Right to Work bill. To be clear, that kind of law has a misleading name. Several (all?) states in the South have such a law. What it means is that a factory worker is not required to pay union dues. And that means the union becomes ineffective and the corporation is free to take advantage of its workers.

Michigan Public Radio is reporting on the bill because if it is successfully enacted in Indiana, Michigan -- and its strong unions -- is next.

The GOP controlled legislature in Indiana is trying to expedite the bill. They started by holding House and Senate hearings together. Now it is time for a vote.

Democrats in the House are following the example of Wisconsin last winter and are staying away from the House chamber (though they haven't left the state), denying the GOP of a quorum. However, there is a catch. When Wisconsin Dems stayed away last year the GOP in Indiana rushed through rule changes that say if a legislator misses 3 consecutive days a fine of $1000 is assessed for every additional day. And the House Speaker is itching to do just that.

The response of Vanessa Summers of Indianapolis: go right ahead. I may have to move in with my mother, but I'm on the right side of history.

The mess is preventing the state GOP from doing the deed quickly. There is a good reason for the desire for speed -- The Super Bowl will be played in Indianapolis and they don't want national scrutiny on the issue during the game. Football in town means the NFL Players Association is campaigning against the law.

Dems vacate the statehouse in Wisconsin and get national attention. Dems vacate the statehouse in Indiana and the mainstream media says nothing. Is the difference only the crowds that occupied the statehouse in Wisconsin?

Little scraps of fame

2012-01-07T22:28:00.000-05:00

A picture of me is in Between the Lines again! The article is about the DSO brass quintet visiting the Ruth Ellis Center before Christmas and in one photo I'm standing behind them wearing a red shirt.

That image is in the online edition as part of a slideshow. Alas, when I tried it the direction buttons on the image weren't working. If that happens to you, reload the page, then use the right-mouse button to pull up a small menu, then choose Open Image in New Window. If that new image doesn't include me go back to the first image, click on the arrow pointing right (the image on that page won't change) and do the Open Image in New Window menu again. The other window (or tab) should now have a new image in it. Isn't technology wonderful!

Christianity and taxes

2012-01-06T23:31:00.000-05:00

I'm almost done with the book The Least of These; Fair Taxes and the Moral Duty of Christians by Susan Pace Hamill. The author achieved tenure at the University of Alabama School of Law and had an upcoming sabbatical. She felt she should study ethics, so went off to the Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham. She eventually completed a masters of theological studies and her thesis became this book. She felt she was in a unique position to look at tax issues from both the legal and Judeo-Christian moral viewpoint. The thesis is only 81 pages long and more than half of most pages is taken up with footnotes (which can be skipped, though that's where all the Biblical quotes are). Here's a summary of her points:

The tax system in Alabama is so unfair that it intentionally perpetuates poverty. Property taxes, the potentially most progressive, are way too low, especially on forestry property, which is a high percentage of the state. Income taxes are essentially flat, which makes them regressive, and have such a low exemption that the working poor (with a job but still under the poverty line) must pay. The percentage of their income going to taxes is much higher than that of the rich. State sales tax may be moderate, but since local governments can't raise enough money anywhere else, they tack on a hefty local sales tax -- on the people least able to pay. Even with the extra sales tax school districts are chronically underfunded. Poor people cannot break out of the cycle of poverty. Hamill, being a law professor and a scholar, provides plenty of details in those extensive footnotes. Hamill includes a discussion of standard principals of evaluating whether a tax system is fair. Yup, the Alabama system fails them all.

Since this tax system was created in 1901 and this is Alabama it is obvious who the poor people are and why their education is intentionally inadequate.

On to the moral argument.

Deuteronomy 6:5 -- Love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you strength.

Leviticus 19:18 -- Love your neighbor as yourself.

Our link with God is inseparable from a proper relationship with fellow humans. God imposes a complete pattern of moral and social behavior on believers. We are responsible for one another.

The rest of the Biblical quotes are from The Message, a paraphrase by Eugene Peterson.

Exodus 22:21-22 -- Don't abuse or take advantage of strangers; you, remember, were once strangers in Egypt. Don't mistreat widows or orphans.

Exodus 23:10-11 -- Sow your land for six years and gather in its crops, but in the seventh year leave it alone and give it a rest so that your poor may eat from it. What they leave, let the wildlife have. Do the same with your vineyards and olive groves.

Deuteronomy 14:28-29 -- At the end of every third year, gather the tithe from all your produce of that year and put it aside in storage. Keep it in reserve for the Levite who won't get any property or inheritance as you will, and for the foreigner, the orphan, and the widow who live in your neighborhood. That way they'll have plenty to eat and God, your God, will bless you in all your work.

Deuteronomy 15:1-2 -- At the end of every seventh year, cancel all debts. This is the procedure: Everyone who has lent money to a neighbor writes it off. You must not press your neighbor or his brother for payment.

Deuteronomy 15:11 -- There are always going to be poor and needy people among you. So I command you: Always be generous, open purse and hands, give to your neighbors in trouble, your poor and hurting neighbors.

Deuteronomy 15:12-14 -- If a Hebrew man or Hebrew woman was sold to you and has served you for six years, in the seventh year you must set him or her free, released into a free life. And when you set them free don't send them off empty-handed. Provide them with some animals, plenty of bread and wine and oil. Load them with provisions from all the blessings with which God, your God, has blessed you.

Deuteronomy 16:18-20 -- Appoint judges and officers, organized by tribes, in all the towns that God, your God, is giving you. They are to judge the people fairly and honestly. Don't twist the law. Don't play favorites. Don't take a bribe—a bribe blinds even a wise person; it undermines the intentions of the best of people.

Deuteronomy 17:15,17 -- Choose your king from among your kinsmen; don't take a foreigner—only a kinsman. And make sure he doesn't build up a war machine, amassing military horses and chariots. And make sure he doesn't pile up a lot of silver and gold.

Deuteronomy 24:14-15 -- Don't abuse a laborer who is destitute and needy, whether he is a fellow Israelite living in your land and in your city. Pay him at the end of each workday; he's living from hand to mouth and needs it now.

Deuteronomy 24:17 -- Make sure foreigners and orphans get their just rights.

Leviticus 19:9-10 -- When you harvest your land, don't harvest right up to the edges of your field or gather the gleanings from the harvest. Don't strip your vineyard bare or go back and pick up the fallen grapes. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner

Amos 2:6-8 -- Because of the three great sins of Israel—make that four—I'm not putting up with them any longer. They buy and sell upstanding people. People for them are only things—ways of making money. They'd sell a poor man for a pair of shoes. They'd sell their own grandmother! They grind the penniless into the dirt, shove the luckless into the ditch. Everyone and his brother sleeps with the 'sacred whore'—a sacrilege against my Holy Name. Stuff they've extorted from the poor is piled up at the shrine of their god, While they sit around drinking wine they've conned from their victims.

Amos 5:7 -- Woe to you who turn justice to vinegar and stomp righteousness into the mud.

Isaiah 1:17 -- Work for justice. Help the down-and-out. Stand up for the homeless. Go to bat for the defenseless.

Isaiah 5:8 -- Doom to you who buy up all the houses and grab all the land for yourselves—Evicting the old owners, posting no trespassing signs, Taking over the country, leaving everyone homeless and landless.

Isaiah 10:1-2 -- Doom to you who legislate evil, who make laws that make victims— Laws that make misery for the poor, that rob my destitute people of dignity, Exploiting defenseless widows, taking advantage of homeless children.

Micah 2:1-2 -- Doom to those who plot evil, who go to bed dreaming up crimes! As soon as it's morning, they're off, full of energy, doing what they've planned. They covet fields and grab them, find homes and take them. They bully the neighbor and his family, see people only for what they can get out of them.

Micah 3:1-3 -- Don't you know anything of justice? Haters of good, lovers of evil: Isn't justice in your job description? But you skin my people alive. You rip the meat off their bones. You break up the bones, chop the meat, and throw it in a pot for cannibal stew.

Leaders have special responsibilities of upholding justice:
Ezekiel 22:25-29 -- Your priests violated my law and desecrated my holy things. They can't tell the difference between sacred and secular. They tell people there's no difference between right and wrong. They're contemptuous of my holy Sabbaths, profaning me by trying to pull me down to their level. Your politicians are like wolves prowling and killing and rapaciously taking whatever they want. Your preachers cover up for the politicians by pretending to have received visions and special revelations. They say, "This is what God, the Master, says..." when God hasn't said so much as one word. Extortion is rife, robbery is epidemic, the poor and needy are abused, outsiders are kicked around at will, with no access to justice.

Proverbs 31:8-9 -- Speak up for the people who have no voice, for the rights of all the down-and-outers. Speak out for justice! Stand up for the poor and destitute!

Jeremiah 22:3 -- Attend to matters of justice. Set things right between people. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Don't take advantage of the homeless, the orphans, the widows.

Yes, there are a lot more Old Testament passages like the ones above. And a lot of Christians insist chunks of the Old Testament (like the Top Ten) should still be in force. But what about the New Testament? Does Jesus say the same thing?

Luke 3:11 -- "If you have two coats, give one away," Jesus said. "Do the same with your food."

Luke 12: 16-20 -- Then Jesus told them this story: "The farm of a certain rich man produced a terrific crop. He talked to himself: 'What can I do? My barn isn't big enough for this harvest.' Then he said, 'Here's what I'll do: I'll tear down my barns and build bigger ones. Then I'll gather in all my grain and goods, and I'll say to myself, Self, you've done well! You've got it made and can now retire. Take it easy and have the time of your life!' Just then God showed up and said, 'Fool! Tonight you die. And your barnful of goods—who gets it?'

Luke 16:19-25 -- There once was a rich man, expensively dressed in the latest fashions, wasting his days in conspicuous consumption. A poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, had been dumped on his doorstep. All he lived for was to get a meal from scraps off the rich man's table. His best friends were the dogs who came and licked his sores.

Then he died, this poor man, and was taken up by the angels to the lap of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell and in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham in the distance and Lazarus in his lap. He called out, 'Father Abraham, mercy! Have mercy! Send Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool my tongue. I'm in agony in this fire.'

But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that in your lifetime you got the good things and Lazarus the bad things. It's not like that here. Here he's consoled and you're tormented.

Matthew 25:41-45 -- Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—

I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited.'

Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'

He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'

Philippians 2:3-4 -- Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

1 John 3:17 -- If you see some brother or sister in need and have the means to do something about it but turn a cold shoulder and do nothing, what happens to God's love? It disappears. And you made it disappear.

Acts 2:44-45 -- And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person's need was met.

And there are a lot more verses like that in the New Testament.

Putting this together has reminded me of the priorities of God and Jesus. I tend to skip a great deal of the Old Testament because so little of the laws seem to have anything to do with modern life (not to mention a passage here and there used to condemn me). I had forgotten there is a great deal that does apply to the modern age and does support the values I hold dear.

Putting these verses all in one place shows clearly that the GOP and their backers are not living up to Christian ideas. This is quite an indictment of a party who claims to represent those same ideals. They clearly do not.

But back to Alabama's taxes. Few of these passages talk directly about taxes. They certainly don't talk about sales tax v. property tax. Do they apply to today? Yes, says Hamill, they do. One must look at what those commandments meant for the society of the time, extract the general principle, and apply that same principle to our own society.

And when those principles are applied, Hamill says, at the very least the tax structure should allow the poor a way out of their poverty. At the very least the schools should be funded to sufficiently educate all children so they are able to get a job with an income at least above the poverty line. Anything less is immoral.

Judeo-Christian ethics calls on those with privilege to use their access to power structures to alleviate the plight of the poor by at least reforming the tax code. Those who selfishly take advantage of the poor's lack of knowledge to maintain the current system (through misleading ads, or thwarting the truth) are violating the principle that forbids economic oppression. Those in positions of power have even greater responsibility to right this wrong. Religious leaders bear the greatest responsibility to educate the community about this oppression and to speak this truth to the powerful.

I could say, yeah, that's Alabama. It doesn't apply to me. But Michigan's income tax is also flat (mandated by the state constitution). Several years ago property taxes were shifted to sales taxes. And last year business taxes were shifted to pension taxes. Schools in Detroit, Flint, and Benton Harbor appear to be consistently underfunded. This isn't just an Alabama issue.

And I haven't yet talked about national taxes.

Why can't you decide on a candidate?

2012-01-06T23:05:00.000-05:00

Going into the Iowa caucuses NPR reported the high percentage of undecided voters and said with a number that high the result was unpredictable. Yup, few predictions (if any) for Santorum tying with Romney. But the campaign has been going on for essentially a year. Why were there undecided voters so close to the deadline?

Back in 2004 Christopher Hayes, now an editor of The Nation and contributor to MSNBC, wrote an article that appeared in The New Republic about undecided voters. That year he spent seven weeks of the campaign in the suburbs around Madison, Wisconsin looking for undecided voters and trying to convince them to vote for John Kerry in his race against Bush. He found those undecided voters (based on anecdotal evidence) fell into a few categories.

Those who didn't have a rational analysis of the situation. Those included: Believing Cheney, an oilman, would make us independent of foreign oil. Believing Bush supported stem-cell research.

Those who cared enough to vote, but found the whole thing unpleasant -- like doing the laundry. Why do laundry (decide who to vote for) before you absolutely have to?

Those who were rabid racists. This was at the height of the Iraq war and when that topic came up the reactions would be quite strong and nasty. Bush's rhetoric about spreading freedom and democracy in the Arab world fell flat.

Those who didn't think either candidate could help the situation. As things got bad in Iraq, opinions of Bush improved. Yeah, Bush is bad, but Kerry couldn't possibly do any better. All politicians are bad and nobody can fix things.

Those who don't make a connection between their problems and political solutions. Cost of health care is high! Kerry has a solution. C'mon, politicians can't fix that!

So, if issues don't connect with undecided voters, what do they base their decisions on? Values and character.

Hayes says Dems have two choices: Promote character instead of issues (usually a progressive strong suit) or take the long road of rebuilding the political vocabulary. Perhaps both.

I look over the categories that Hayes presents and see some similarities of another kind. I don't see politics as unpleasant, just annoying. I'd like to ignore the whole mess. But my progressive foundation won't let me. But on to the other items in the list.

Incapable of rational analysis -- conservatives and the GOP seem to be pushing irrational analysis -- no such thing as a climate crisis, the way to prosperity is to cut taxes and eliminate regulation, it's all Obama's fault. No wonder voters are confused.

Racists, well, bigots in general -- the GOP is catering to them.

Candidates can't help the situation -- the GOP is doing all it can to create a feeling of hopelessness.

Pushing character instead of issues -- who claims to have a corner on "values voters"? How about claims of moral character?

It's only January and I'm already pushing the off button when I hear a GOP candidate open his mouth.

Welcome!

2012-01-05T22:37:00.000-05:00

Every date that I post to this blog I check the visitor stats. I've been surprised over the last month that an evening of posts now routinely gets 30-60 visitor hits and there have been a few days -- two this past week -- in which the visitor count was in the 64-76 range.

At the moment the stats for a week show the most visits from Russia at 98, 72 from USA, 22 from Britain, and a few from Ukraine, Belarus, Turkey, Brazil, Germany (usually higher in the standings), France, and Japan.

Surprisingly, of the top 10 posts that got the most hits in the last week only half were written in that time. The rest appear to be perennial favorites, which you can see in a sidebar on the blog homepage.

I've submitted a request to the Blogger tech crew to allow me to see all the countries of visitors to my blog, rather than the top 10 I see now. I've seen a wide assortment of countries show up in the stats (Chile, Nigeria, Ecuador), but didn't keep an independent list. When I do see it I'm sure the list will be long.

The stats show what sites have links to mine. The one sitting at the top of the list is Russian. I clicked on it. My PC's security system was not happy and put up a screen strongly urging me to not go there. So I didn't.

So, to all of you who have found my blog and appear to be coming back for more: Welcome! I'm glad you find a visit worthwhile. I would appreciate you telling a bit about yourself in the comments -- and doing so anonymously is fine. I'd also like to know how you found my little blog.

Immorality and twisted research

2012-01-05T22:01:00.000-05:00

Another anti-gay bigot twists a scientific finding. Not exactly a surprise these days, but these things must be exposed far and wide. Dr. Theodora Sirota studied attachment issues of daughters by comparing the attitudes of daughters of gay men with daughters of straight men.

Aha! pounced Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons of NARTH. That proves that gay parents are harmful to the kids!

Not so fast, says Sirota. These gay men were trying to maintain a straight marriage and the daughters had attachment issues because they saw how their mothers suffered in a marriage in which the husband wasn't really attracted to the wife. Thus the study proves that forcing gay men into straight marriages is what causes the problems in the kids. In addition, the study did not look at gay couples. Fitzgibbons is misusing her research to draw that conclusion. Stop doing that!

Fitzgibbons didn't give up easily. He responded rather rudely (reproduced in the comments) that her methodology contains a "confound" -- there are actually two open variables in her data, so she can't claim that simply being gay doesn't harm the child.

Other commenters were quick to point out that if the data does have a confound in it, Fitzgibbons can't make his claim either.

Rob Tisinai of Box Turtle Bulletin wrote up this spat because Sirota asked him for help in exposing the dishonesty of Fitzgibbons. Rob closes with two points of interest.

"First (and this is the minor one), every time our opponents unrepentantly twist someone’s research, they admit they have no honest case."

Second, Tisinai points out the major issue is the immorality of what Fitzgibbons has done. Sirota's research has been abused. Gay parents have been libeled. Gay youth are traumatized. Fitzgibbons is lying.

Tisinai points out what I commented on recently: We can win our rights through claims of morality, not just on tolerance. Gay relationships can be just as moral as straight ones. It is immoral to deny us equal rights. Our opposition must resort to immorality to "prove" we don't deserve rights.

Please excuse my clumsy and inarticulate words

2012-01-05T21:50:00.000-05:00

Former tennis legend (not that I've heard of her) and now televangelist pastor Margaret Court said some nasty things about gays recently, and this isn't the first time. She was called out by Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova (two that I have heard of), and Rennae Stubbs -- all three are lesbians.

Court didn't like that reprimand. She insists she loves gay people, such as Billie Jean and Martina, but says, "I make a stand for both my biblical side, and what I believe."

Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend imagines Court saying, “I’m not a bigot, my crude, insensitive remarks are just me expressing my religious beliefs.” I would put it another way: I'm so sorry my clumsy way of articulating my beliefs offends you, but I do have free speech rights. An apology like that usually appears after the perpetrator has said something about gay people that has been verified to not be true.

Spaulding then links Court's comments to the attempts in Tennessee to add a religious exemption to the anti-bullying law I mentioned yesterday. Kids have a right to talk about their religion. It's just too bad their inarticulate and clumsy way of expressing themselves is seen as bullying.

Allies in high places

2012-01-05T21:40:00.000-05:00

I wrote a short note yesterday about Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire's support of marriage equality there. Here's a bit more detail -- a history of support of gay relationships in the state so far and a transcript of the Gov's wonderful comments.

Jamaica is known for its severe homophobia. There is lots of talk on the street by straight men about going after the "batty boys." So it is great to hear that Portia Simpson Miller has just become Prime Minister. Her People's National Party won a landslide victory. The reason why it is great is she commented before the election that discrimination against gays is wrong (which means the voters knew what they were getting). Since the election she said she is even open to appointing a gay person (otherwise qualified) to her cabinet.
She also happens to be the first female Prime Minister of Jamaica.

Thank you, Governor

2012-01-04T23:21:00.000-05:00

Washington State Governor Chris Gregiore has endorsed marriage equality and will work to make it happen in that state! She has some wonderful things to say during her announcement.

The GOP in Tennessee is trying to introduce the religious exemption -- the right to bully for religious reasons -- in the state's anti-bullying law. Yup, that's the one the Michigan GOP tried and got roundly smacked down for their efforts.

One commenter wonders if that means gay kids are given exemption to bully Christian kids. There would surely be a religious reason.

Socialism v. capitalism

2012-01-04T23:16:00.000-05:00

The Pew Project took a look at how some political words are viewed by the public. The results, showing positive/negative views are: socialism: 31/60, capitalism: 50/40, liberal: 50/39, conservative: 62/30, and progressive: 67/22. This post shows a nice chart of the results.

The poster added no commentary, though his readers supplied plenty of that. The ones that interested me are by Bill Perdue. Some wondered why socialism is viewed so negatively (not that the GOP using the word to slander Obama every chance they get would have anything to do with it). That prompts Perdue (no credentials supplied) to explain what socialism is.

Fascists, not socialists, propose economic policies based on economic rule by a capitalist state in the interests of the rich and includes provisions for the destruction of unions. wars of aggression and even, in the case of the Nazis, large scale slave labor.

Socialists propose the opposite - democracy in the workplace and in politics via the total and complete elimination of the wealth and termination of the rule of the rich. Socialist propose the rule of working people by the creation of a workers state to legislate and enforce their rule.

…

"29% in the Pew poll describe 'socialism' as positive. This positive percent soars much higher when you look at key sub-groups, as discussed shortly. A 2010 Gallup poll found 37% of all Americans preferring socialism as “superior” to capitalism." Especially among the "millennial generation” currently between 18 and 30. In the Pew poll, just 43% of Americans under 30 describe “capitalism” as positive. Even more striking, the same percentage, 43%, describes “socialism” as positive. In other words, the new generation is equally divided between capitalism and socialism. The Pew, Gallup and Rasmussen polls come to the same conclusion. Young people cannot be characterized as a capitalist generation. They are half capitalist and half socialist. Since the socialist leaning keeps rising among the young, it suggests—depending on how you interpret “socialism”—that we are moving toward an America that is either Center-Left or actually majoritarian socialist." Common Dreams

In the final analysis socialism is democracy in the workplace and in politics. It's the ultimate and decisive eradication of the rule and the wealth of the rich and it's transfer to workers by the creation of a workers state to legislate and enforce their rule.

It is fascinating to me that a majority of the millennial generation does not see capitalism as a good thing. I'm not surprised, though. In their lifetimes they've see a tech bubble burst, a housing bubble burst, and the obvious control of the political system by the rich. This is capitalism? No thanks.

But that definition of socialism is too stark. "Total and complete elimination of the wealth"? How drastic or brutal does the government/society have to get to make that happen? That will surely kill any incentive to rise above one's present circumstances, what we currently call the American Dream. "To legislate and enforce their rule" doesn't sound like a democracy, but does sound like a police state. "Termination of the rule of the rich" does sound like a worthwhile goal. While that probably can't be eliminated, it can come closer through campaign finance reform.

Leave the law alone

2012-01-04T23:11:00.000-05:00

The GOP in New Hampshire appears determined to hold a vote on repealing marriage equality in the state. It looks like they'll at least wait until after the GOP primary, when the national attention has drifted elsewhere. It will pass. Gov. Lynch (Dem.) will veto it. The question is whether the GOP has enough votes for an override. The citizens of the state quite like marriage equality by a large margin, though I don't have exact numbers at the moment.

The Concord Monitor, an important newspaper voice in the state, published an editorial calling to keep marriage equality. The cool part of the editorial is that it was written by Monitor staff, not a gay advocacy group.

The editorial lists the frequent reasons for banning gay marriage and debunks each one. Here is my summary:

* Marriage is between a man and a woman. Who gets to define it? It is just a statement of bigotry.

* Marriage has been restricted to straights for thousands of years. Slavery was an ancient practice too. Mercifully, times change.

* Marriage is for procreation. But we don't bar straights who have no interest in kids from getting married.

* Gay couples aren't as good as raising kids. And some straight couples aren't either. How many examples of great gay parents do you need?

* There's that slippery slope to legalized polygamy and incest. In the off chance such a bill actually comes up, lawmakers may vote no.

* Gay relationships are immoral. Yeah, some churches think so. But lawmakers must also protect freedom from religion.

* Gay marriage threatens the institutions of marriage. Nope, encouraging marriage encourages marriage.

Leave the law alone.

War of words

2012-01-04T23:07:00.000-05:00

On New Year's Day, Lake Superior State University published a list of words that should be banned for "misuse, overuse, and general uselessness." One of the words on this year's list is "occupy" which prompted my friend and debate partner to reply:

I am NOT done with "occupy" until at least next election day, and very likely not then.

I heartily agree, though note such things as "occupy Thanksgiving" are phrases I think should fall under the ban (which is why it was included).

Wayne State University politely waited a couple days after the earlier list was announced, then responded with their own list of words that are perfectly fine, but don't get much use these days. The list of 10 words includes:

Frisson -- A sudden involuntary shiver felt at times of great emotion.

Sisyphean -- A task that is or appears to be endless and futile.

Truckle -- Be subservient.

Banning overused words and promoting underused words is a fun little exercise, but there is a war of words out there. This war has been going on for a long time, with the current phase running hard since at least the 1970s. It's the war the 1% has been wielding against the 99%. Though the war has been waged only with words so far it has still done quite a bit of damage. Over the years the 1% has been very good at this war, mainly because (1) they have the think-tanks that do the research to find out exactly which turn of phrase gets the biggest response and (2) they have the money, media exposure, and discipline to hammer their choice phrases home. The war of words has been so successful that large numbers of Democrats (and many times the prez.) have bought into the phrases (as well as the dollars behind them).

Some of the words used in this campaign have been "death tax" (used to be estate tax), "job creators," and "special interests" (how a teacher got to have special interests and a corporation doesn't shows how effective the war has been).

Richard Eskow of Campaign for America's Future lists some of the most effective phrases in the campaign in 2011. The list and Eskow's reaction includes:

Entitlement reform -- "designed to persuade the public that an elderly woman living on $800 per month is a social parasite -- but the hedge fund manager who pays 15% tax rate on his billions is not."

Deficit crisis -- Nope, the crisis is 24 million un- or under-employed.

Technocrat -- makes the 1 percent's actions sound clean, bipartisan, and above the fray.

Ideology -- a word that has been bloodied. Everyone operates through a personal ideology. Claiming to operate without an ideology makes the corporations sound noble.

Triggers -- allows the current lawmakers to be long gone before the explosion decimates the budget through unpopular cuts.

Ah, but this year progressives have been able to broadcast a few words of their own, such as "occupy" and "the 99%" and "income inequality" and "Justice for Wall Street." And in only three months the war of words has changed significantly.

Victory that will take years to pay off

2012-01-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

Now that the Iraq war is over (and only extreme conservatives are using the word "won") Terrence Heath looks at the cost. The end of the war is like a gift we've all been waiting for with a credit card bill that will take years to pay off. I've discussed some of these costs before, so I'll only itemize them now.

* American and Coalition dead, wounded, and suffering from PTSD.

* Much higher numbers of Iraqi (especially children) dead, wounded, suffering from PTSD, and displaced. Women and girls forced in sexual slavery. We should consider this is a nation with PTSD. And it won't recover quickly.

* A shattered Iraqi infrastructure. Decimated health system.

* Extensive hit to our national debt (perhaps $1.3 trillion, which we'll be paying interest on for a long time), and through that an extensive hit to our ability to help our national economy recover.

The idea of an entire nation suffering from PTSD got me to thinking. I'm well aware that in 2003 when the war began nobody had any idea of the Arab Spring that would happen 8 years later (and before the end of the war). Suppose we didn't topple Saddam in 2003 and waited for the Iraqis to do it themselves. Would they have succeeded like Libya or been stuck like Syria? What would the costs have been like?

The American and Coalition costs would have been close to zero.

Would the overthrow of Saddam have cost the Iraqis 103K dead and 1.6 million refugees. Would it have shattered the infrastructure? Would it have created an entire nation suffering from PTSD? Would all that suffering be smaller or larger than 8 (or more) years under Saddam?

I suspect if we had stayed out of Iraq the Iraqis would have a lot fewer dead (compare numbers with Syria), a lot fewer refugees, and would have a much better level of mental health. And their mental health would have been boosted by being able to claim the overthrow was their own victory.

Power grab

2012-01-02T22:54:00.000-05:00

There are days that Obama only looks good in comparison to the GOP candidates. It appears New Year's Eve was one of those days. Obama wrangled with Congress over an new defense bill and on that day he signed it, complete with a Bush style signing statement. The problem with the new law has to do with the way Congress wants military (terrorist) detainees to be treated, a power grab. The problem with the signing statement is that Obama declares he gets to decide how detainees get treated. I don't understand it all, though it appears Obama heartily endorses the idea of detention without charges or trial for everyone (including legal USA residents) who are not citizens.

Always vote, even if sometimes it is to keep a greater evil out of power.

Clean, sterile, and corporatized

2012-01-02T22:48:00.000-05:00

Yes, there was an Occupy the Rose Parade event in Pasadena today, though you wouldn't have known it through broadcast television. OTRP was not an official part of the parade. They were allowed onto the parade route after the official floats, which meant after network TV had turned their cameras off. Sigh.

The OTRP contingent featured a large octopus, (nicely made out of recyclable plastic bags), a 250 foot long copy of the Constitution, a banner of the preamble of the Constitution with the word "people" replaced with "corporations" and signatures replace with corporate logos, and lots (maybe 3,000?) of people carrying signs. They only walked 1.5 miles of the 5.5 mile route.

Knowing about OTRP made me think about the Rose Parade a little differently. Though I didn't count I did note the corporate floats (and some of the announcer descriptions sounded a lot like advertising). Yes, watching the parade was enjoyable, but I could also see how clean, sterile, and corporatized it is (though that probably happened decades ago).

Ah, the internet provides alternate resources.

A "Live Blog" of the event. A participant describes various events throughout the day. Scroll to the bottom and work back to the top.

A video of the OTRP contingent posted on the KTLA site. I don't think this was a professional cameraman. The video is about 3 minutes long.

A slideshow of 13 photos with a bit of commentary.

A news report on Huffington Post with an extensive slideshow (close to 60 images).

Redefining morality

2012-01-01T22:53:00.000-05:00

Linda Hirshman of Salon says gays have made such huge gains in 2011 because we have fundamentally changed the debate.

They did it – and this is the lesson that the gay revolution holds for any progressive movement – not by asking for “tolerance.” They didn’t ask people to accept gay marriage by holding their moral noses. Rather, they set out to change people’s minds about what is moral.

For too long, morality in America has been reduced to sexual morality. That allowed economic justice -- and the vast income inequalities we now see -- to be ignored as topics of discussion. Gays changed the discussion. Instead of discussing the morality of sex gay leaders (and gay court cases) talked about the morality of relationships. And in 2011 we passed 50% of Americans approving marriage equality.

It is time to change the discussion around lots of other progressive causes, to fight morality with improved morality.

An amazing ginormous shared sacrifice to win the future without trickeration

2012-01-01T22:49:00.000-05:00

Happy New Year!

Lake Superior State University has released this year's list of words that should be banished for "Misuse, overuse, and general uselessness." The words, with my shortened reason for banishment.

Amazing -- Yes, some things are amazing. But not everything, such as toast. And it shouldn't be used as a substitute for "heartwarming."

Baby bump -- no it isn't a celebrity accessory.

Shared sacrifice -- usually said by someone who had no intention of sacrificing anything.

Occupy -- Occupy Wall Street is one thing. Occupy Thanksgiving is quite another.

Blowback -- "reaction" is a more accurate word.

Man cave -- too much a cliché.

New normal -- only serves to convince people they are powerless.

Pet parent -- pet owners are incapable of loving their pets?

Win the future -- so if we don't like your political plans we will "lose the future"?

Trickeration -- a made up word describing a trick play in sports (which is probably why I've never heard of it).

Ginormous -- gigantic and enormous aren't good enough?

Thank you in advance -- since I've already thanked you, you have to do what I asked.

Changing hearts and minds as well as laws

2011-12-30T22:21:00.000-05:00

A week ago I wrote, "Litigation can be more successful than disorganized political activism." A few days later my friend and debate partner responded. Yes, he said, litigation has brought many progressive victories. He listed several examples.

But there is a problem: Legal decisions do not change opponents' hearts or minds; instead opponents experience defeat and resentment of "activist judges". Long bitter fights can ensue, as we have so painfully seen in the case of abortion. The Michigan legislature displayed its anger and bigotry toward gays in the recently enacted law that took away unmarried partner benefits. It may well be overturned in court... but the anger and bigotry will deepen and reappear in other forms.

The ACLU (a very conservative organization -- its sole mission is to conserve the Bill of Rights and other dimensions of the rule of law) has a very negative public reputation, especially among conservatives (!) because it just sues and wins, doing little to persuade the public to appreciate and support its mission.

One way to address this problem is "progress one funeral at a time" -- keep the pressure for progress up, wait for elderly bigots to die off.

The best solution is to create a constituency for progress, fairness and human rights. This must include creating a large public commitment to the Constitution as a document to be interpreted in keeping with modern problems and issues. The Occupy movement is the closest thing to that opportunity I have seen since the sixties.

I agree that hearts and minds must be changed along with the laws. Many gay rights organizations, for example the marriage equality organization in Oregon, are doing exactly that. Thank you, friend, for your insight.

However, I disagree with "progress one funeral at a time." (1) There are a lot of elderly bigots out there and it could take a while for enough to die off. (2) If we followed that method for churches the youth would simply stay away and those churches would die. I'd rather see the churches reform and attract the youth. (3) Polls have shown that elderly bigots do change their minds. Their support for marriage equality has increased.

God v. Gays is fading

2011-12-30T22:16:00.000-05:00

Just a few short years ago the general impression in America was "God v. Gays." Joseph Ward III of the Believe Out Loud organization and writing in the Huffington Post saw a big change in that equation, in spite claims by Rick Perry. Believe Out Loud is an effort to have gay-friendly pastors actually say as much so gays and parents of gays won't think their church is against them. Ward lists the top ten things in 2011 that show at least some Christians welcome gays. The webpage is a slideshow, so worthwhile to visit for the pictures.

10. A Believe Out Loud video was rejected by Sojourners. The incident prompted lots of attention to the issue and Sojourners got a lot of response.

9. Rick Perry's "Strong" video dissing gay military personnel got a firestorm of criticism from Christians.

8. When the Michigan Legislature attempted to put a religious exemption into their anti-bullying bill they got a lot of pressure to change. Lutherans Concerned has anti-bullying curriculum for churches.

7. In October the United Church for Christ reached 971 congregations that welcome gays and expect that number to top 1000 this coming spring.

6. The Association for Welcoming and Affirming Baptists took a petition with 10,000 names urging the Southern Baptist Convention to apologize for the way they have harmed gay people.

5. 1,000 United Methodist Clergy have declared to make an Alter for All, saying they will officiate or bless same-sex couples in spite of denomination prohibitions.

4. The Presbyterian Church now allows gay pastors.

3. The military ban against gays is gone (though the blurb doesn't say what this has to do with religion).

2. Marriage Equality came to New York with 700 church leaders actively pushing for the new law.

1. Hillary Clinton's UN speech on gay rights are human rights included comments about how religious traditions can be sources of compassion and inspiration.

100% genuine content

2011-12-29T22:20:00.000-05:00

Quote of the week:

The trouble with quotes on the internet is that people pass them along without ensuring that they're genuine.
--- Abraham Lincoln

Small government close to the people, except…

2011-12-29T22:18:00.000-05:00

Newt's failure to qualify for the Virginia GOP primary has been in the news all week. Perry, Bachmann, Santorum, Huntsman, and I don't remember who else didn't qualify either, leaving only Romney and Paul on the ballot.

Of course, lots of reasons are offered. Tea Party people blame voter fraud on Obama and unions. Though it is amazing unions had such power to take over the state GOP.

To qualify a candidate needed at least 400 signatures from each congressional district and 10K overall. Perhaps Newt let it slip until the last moment and then didn't have enough of an organization to get it done.

Or perhaps part of the GOP backed Voter ID law came around and bit them in the butt.

A new law required each signature be compared against voter rolls. If the address didn't match the signature wasn't counted. Don't expect the GOP (and much of the mainstream media) to say anything about this little problem.

Back in the 1990s Ron Paul produced a newsletter trumpeting his ideas. A lot of what was said in them is very homophobic, anti-semitic, and racist. Some of the worst are excerpted here (the list is long). Paul is trying to dismiss the mess but Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin isn't buying. There are a few scenarios and only one of them is in Paul's favor. And it isn't the one Paul is claiming.

Option 1, the one Paul is pushing: Hey, I was an absentee landlord. I didn't approve every last word in those newsletters.

Burroway responds: His name is in the banner, his signature is at the bottom. The newsletter was written to raise money for his campaign. The letters said some vile stuff, though is congressional constituents happened to agree with him. The letters said this stuff for over a decade to they didn't just happen to escape an editor's notice. Absentee landlord doesn't wash.

Option 2: Paul didn't agree with the vile statements but stuck with them because they were good for his campaign. Burroway says this is the kind of cynicism that Paul is running against this year.

Option 3: Paul really did believe that stuff then and doesn't now. He has matured. He would be a man of his word then and now (a campaign theme). Burroway responds: But that's not what he's saying.

The mess prompted a writer named Bluegal aka Fran of the blog Crooks and Liars to sum it up this way: "Can't manage a newsletter. Can't manage a country."

Rom Paul opposes the Supreme Court ruling that struck down laws that banned gay sex between consenting adults. His reason: such a thing should be up to states to decide. That has made Paul the darling of some Dominionists, those who believe Christ will return once we (they) have made the world (or at least America) pure enough to be acceptable to Christ. And one of those Dominionists beliefs is that gays should be executed by the government. That will certainly restore the remaining gays (at least until they cross the Canadian border). The description of their theology is quite scary and nothing like the Christianity I know. At least Paul has the sense to hide such an effusive endorsement.

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin (yes, I refer to the site a lot -- they do good work debunking the anti-gay noise) of a bit of hypocrisy in the Michigan GOP (yeesh, only a little bit?).

The state party's statement of principles say:

I BELIEVE the proper role of government is to provide for the people only those critical functions that cannot be performed by individuals or private organizations, and that the best government is that which governs least.

I BELIEVE the most effective, responsible and responsive government is government closest to the people.

And yet, with the recent bills outlawing domestic partner benefits, they have violated both of those principles. The new law doesn't govern least -- it demands that the entire state follow the moral principles of a small population (perhaps only 25% want to get rid of DP benefits). The new law is not government closest to the people -- it overrides DP benefit laws of many cities and school districts.

At least the law doesn't try to hide saying, "We simply don't like gay people."

Take the loneliness out of the sting of life

2011-12-26T22:36:00.000-05:00

I've been reading books by Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong. He has some important criticisms of some of the core pieces of doctrine of Christianity. However, I'm not going to get into that. Instead, I want to share Spong's vision of what he thinks the church should be. It is a vision that resonates with me and I wish its implementation could happen quickly. Alas, too many church leaders are heavily invested in the way things work now.

A vision for the church from the book A New Christianity for a New World:

A place where people are called out of prejudice and brokenness and into a community. This community will celebrate its members for why they are and learn what it means to be fully human. The journey will be towards wholeness instead of goodness. This is not something one does in private.

The community will be agents of life. It will celebrate all life -- plant, animal, and human -- and the ways life interconnects.

We will reach beyond the tribe to solve the needs of the whole earth and of future generations. We will challenge our excessive ways of living, our spiraling birthrate, our disregard for the environment.

We will reach to each other to heal the scars of prejudice and income inequality. The variety of faith stories will be honored, not be a source of condemnation.

We will continue to mark the stages of life, such as birth, puberty, marriage, parenthood, sickness, and death. We may perhaps honor the difficult decisions to end a pregnancy or end life-support.

Guilt will not be a weapon of control. We will call people to be free to be themselves. The church will shift the basic story from estrangement from God to evolutionary incompleteness. The self-centeredness that increased the chances of survival of our ancestors must give way to a love that reaches beyond our own needs.

We will not insist the way our ancestors understood their God must be the way we understand God. Even so, there is much to learn from the faith struggles of our ancestors.

We will dedicate ourselves to the search for truth, never insisting we have all the answers.

We will be a center of caring. We may not take the sting from life, but can take the loneliness from the sting.

We will be a place of justice, calling for justice for all people in a way that leads to reconciliation. We will confront racism, patriarchy, heterosupremacy, the economically powerful.

The church leaders will have positions of service, not of hierarchy.

We will bring life, not death. Love, not oppression. Community, not destruction.

Leading the bullying

2011-12-26T22:30:00.000-05:00

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin takes a look at the recent lawsuit brought by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of a student and parent in Howell, Michigan. I won't go into the details of the case, only saying the student appears to be a bully and uses religion as justification. The lawsuit is of much more interest and not simply because TMLC is taking the side of the bully. Even perpetrators need legal defense.

The TMLC brief, which lays out the case, talks repeatedly of the gay "lifestyle" and how damaging and abusive it is. That means the TMLC plan of action is for Christian kids to bully gay kids until the gay kids give up on the lifestyle.

Kincaid goes into detail about how [in]effective that is.

Kincaid reminds us of 10 kids who have committed suicide over the last three years, kids who were bullied for being gay. These kids were as young as 11 and 13. Some were gay. Some hadn't said. But at age 11 and 13 it is clear these kids had not taken part in any kind of "lifestyle" according to the definition of many Fundies (orientation doesn't exist, their definition is based entirely on actions).

Which means, says Kincaid, that TMLC isn't just defending bullies. From the language in their brief they are participating in the bullying.

You can't tell me what to do

2011-12-26T22:27:00.000-05:00

Laura Sessions Stepp of CNN Opinion reports on a problem of many Fundie churches. Once the kids are out on their own, they leave the church. There is a 43% drop in attendance by young adults. Many of this age do leave the church (and not just Fundie denominations), only to return 2-3 years later when they have kids of their own. But many are now marrying much later (if at all) so the gap could be 10 years. And with such a gap they are unlikely to return.

The reason for the big exodus is the young adults don't like the way the church is telling them to live their lives. They don't like being condemned for being gay, having sex outside of marriage, living with a partner, being a single mom, or opting for an abortion. This condemnation is much stronger than the sense of community they get within the church, so they leave.

Having heard of enough studies about kids doing better with two parents (the studies that get misused by Fundies who insist those parents must be of different genders) I think having kids within a marriage is a very good thing for the church to teach. However, I don't like the harsh condemnation for violating that rule.

That makes me wonder if the youth are rejecting the teachings on sex because they also reject the teaching on gays. Stepp doesn't provide any data. Of course, it is quite possible the culture's teaching on sex is much louder than the church's and that may be enough for the youth to reject the church's teaching.

All I want for Christmas is equality

2011-12-26T22:23:00.000-05:00

Randi Reitan, mother of gay activist Jacob Reitan, has written a sweet Christmas letter to her son. She wishes she could give him one important Christmas gift: equality.

Won't keep you from getting elected

2011-12-26T22:22:00.000-05:00

Denis Dison of the blog Gay Politics reports that 48 states now have openly gay elected officials. The two that don't are South Dakota and Alaska (and that means every state in the South does). Dison says even these two most likely have gay officials, just not out.

I wondered for a moment about the gay elected officials in Michigan, though when I saw the list from the Victory Institute database, several names did, indeed, look familiar -- David Coulter, Mayor of Ferndale; Craig Covey, Oakland County Commissioner; Charles Pugh, president of Detroit City Council; and Chris Swope, City Clerk of Lansing. In all, there are 16 openly gay elected officials in Michigan.

A problem if he wins, a problem if he doesn't

2011-12-23T22:56:00.000-05:00

Terrence Heath notes the GOP is backing itself into a no-win situation with Ron Paul surging in the polls as Newt fades. The problem is because Paul's backers are of the True Believer variety who won't vote for anyone else.

Paul might also be helped by what Theo Anderson calls the new Confederacy. Those of us not in the new Confederacy are pragmatic, look for verification in science, and want solutions that work in the real world. Progressives invested in educational and governmental institutions that were built around how the world actually works.

But conservatives built parallel institutions to preserve The Truth (as they saw it). So the current battle isn't just about the size of government. It is whose definition of truth will the nation accept. One believes the Truth, one doesn't test it against experience. So, as Anderson says, "For these leaders and their followers, faith justifies–and verifies–itself. You don’t believe an idea because it’s true. It’s true because you believe it."

This is why, in the “real America” of Bachmann, Palin and Perry, it is self-evident that cutting taxes increases revenues; the founders were evangelical Christians; evolution is bunk; climate change is a hoax; the United States has the best healthcare system in the world; we can transform the Middle East into a garden of democracy; Kenya native Barack Obama has slashed the military budget; the war on drugs is worth the cost; and so on. These are all leaps of faith. The new Confederates flat-out reject or ignore any counter-evidence, because they have their own fount of truth.

Ron Paul appears to be Libertarian except on social issues important to the Fundies and just might appeal to enough of the new Confederacy to be a player in the upcoming primary season.

Heath's summary:

The problem for the GOP is that, if the party wants to have a hope of winning the White House in 2012, Paul can’t be the nominee. As much as his views might endear him to increasingly vocal and powerful (witness the debt deal debacle and the recent payroll tax cut fiasco) factions within the party, they would doom his candidacy in the general election. (At least, that’s what one hopes.)

The even bigger problem for the GOP is, that Paul won’t be he nominee. With no other candidate that has a base as passionate and loyal as Paul’s, even a second place spot in Iowa leaves him in a position to be a spoiler throughout the primaries and on in the general election. If he follows through on his threat not to endorse any of other GOP hopefuls, the mad doctor of the GOP just might slice a significant number off any potential margin of victory for the GOP.

Confronting claims of disruption

2011-12-23T22:45:00.000-05:00

Lots of conservatives of various kids issued dire warnings about what would happen if gays were allowed to serve openly in the military. Those dire warnings were also issued against blacks (integration of the military, Civil Rights Act, Voting Rights Act), immigrants, and women. "Disruption" is the easiest claim to make when the religious and moral reasons for prejudice fall flat.

But it has been three months since the DADT repeal went into effect and Western Civilization is still standing.

Dr. Nathaniel Frank says it is now time to gather up all those claims made against gays in the military and hold the speakers accountable with how wrong their predictions were.

The need for this accountability is simple -- those "disruption" arguments are still trotted out against marriage equality.

A responder notes the anti-gay industry is changing their tune a little bit. Massachusetts has, after all, had gay marriage for seven years now. The tune now is, well, nothing has happened yet but a couple generations from now things like religious liberty will be gone.

Self-focused and myopic

2011-12-23T22:41:00.000-05:00

Amy Koch was a leader in the Minnesota state Senate and was instrumental in getting the marriage protection amendment onto next year's ballot. She's now out of the Senate after it was revealed she had an affair with a senior staffer who is not her husband (which means the staffer cheated on his wife). So much for protecting marriage.

John Madeiros sent Koch a letter on behalf of all gays and lesbians apologizing for destroying her marriage. It is worthy of Mark Twain (say some responders) in its sly snarkiness. I'll quote only a sample, the whole delicious thing is worth a read.

It is now clear to us that if we were not so self-focused and myopic, we would have been able to see that the time you wasted diligently writing legislation that would forever seal the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, could have been more usefully spent reshaping the legal definition of "adultery."

We like lists

2011-12-23T22:38:00.000-05:00

We're closing in on the end of the year so the best/worst lists are appearing. I'll feature a great one -- 40 Reasons Why 2011 Was a Great Year For Gays created by Matt Stopera of Buzzfeed. I won't reproduce it here because the list comes with great photos.

Ari Ezra Waldman's list is about the legal aspects (he's a lawyer) of gay rights. He starts off with the lessons learned:

* Obama has been the "fierce advocate" he said he would be.

* Litigation can be more successful than disorganized political activism.

* The gay rights institutions sometimes called "Gay, Inc." can be relevant if they adapt to what gay people are actually like today.

An example of the success of litigation is the ongoing battle over Prop. 8, the Calif. gay marriage ban. The case has created several other rulings in our favor. Waldman wrote:

Still, look how far we have come: The Prop 8 litigation -- thanks to the American Foundation of Equal Rights (AFER), its legal team run by Ted Olson and David Boies -- gave us the first federal court decision declaring gay judges can be impartial on gay rights cases, and it gave us a federal court's declaration that no evidence exists to suggest that natural procreation was ever a purpose of marriage, that no rational reason exist for keeping gays and lesbians out of the institution of marriage, and that marriage discrimination is an example of state action that classifies individuals on the basis on sexual orientation, which merits heightened scrutiny. And, let us not forget that Perry gave us a forum to say that marriage discrimination is unconstitutional.

Marriage equality came to New York due to the efforts of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the local and national Gay, Inc.

The repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (signed into law last year, but went into effect only last September) was an example of Democratic leadership, both by the Prez. and Congress. It is also an example of the need to pursue both a legal and political solution -- Congress didn't act until a legal case declared DADT to be unconstitutional.

Examples of Obama's leadership include his refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court, his declaration that court cases on gay rights must face heightened scrutiny, his emphasis on gay rights being human rights and a part of foreign policy, his stopping deportations of foreign spouses of married gay couples, and the extension of federal benefits to gay people.

Remember who our allies are when the election comes.

Alas, we must contrast all that good news with Michigan. Yes, indeed, Gov. Snyder signed the bill that prevents any level of government from offering domestic partner benefits. Snyder says the new law doesn't cover state university employees and doesn't affect classified state civil service. Analysts in the House agree with Snyder. Analysts in the Senate say it would affect all gov't employees, no exceptions. It appears Snyder signed it for purely economic reasons (save the cash-strapped state a few bucks), not out of actual malice to gays.

That malice came for the legislature. Between the Lines declares the legislature in 2011 to be the most hostile to gays in state history. That includes the partner benefits already mentioned plus proposals (as BTL calls them, which I don't think passed) to eliminate local anti-discrimination laws and do damage to programs for HIV/AIDS.

A big culprit, according to BTL, is term limits. Since frequent turnover is assured, legislators must go to the extremes of the party to get funding.

Avoiding being a Scrooge

2011-12-22T22:29:00.000-05:00

Tina Dupuy reposts a commentary she wrote last year. Why do we spend so much money on Christmas, especially in years when we don’t have much? We've been told that "not giving on Christmas is a moral shortcoming." We don't want to be accused of being a Scrooge. Because of that, "We’re a nation of Bob Cratchits who are terrified of being Scrooges."

But Dupuy reminds us, "Scrooge is rich."

So don't be hard on yourself and send yourself deeper into debt if you can't give a lot at Christmas.

Never intended to promote thinking

2011-12-22T22:26:00.000-05:00

I've been reading the blog of Steve Miranda, who is a high school teacher in Seattle. He decries the "factory" method of teaching and he and his school work to first take care of the student, then teach to the student's passions. Yeah, that sounds mighty simplistic. Miranda's blog fleshes out those ideas. Alas, I'm not yet sure how to apply them in my own teaching.

In a recent post, Miranda talks about how schools in low-income areas stress drills and discipline. This is the wrong idea he says. The teacher must make it real for the student. He then quotes Alfie Kohn.

Is racism to blame here—or perhaps behaviorism? Or could it be that, at its core, the corporate version of “school reform” was never intended to promote thinking—let alone interest in learning—but merely to improve test results? That pressure is highest in the inner cities, where the scores are lowest. And the pedagogy of poverty can sometimes “work” to raise those scores, which makes everyone happy and inclined to reward those teachers.

Unfortunately, that result is often at the expense of real learning, the sort that more privileged students enjoy, because the tests measure what matters least. Thus, it’s possible for the accountability movement to simultaneously narrow the test-score gap and widen the learning gap.

That emphasis on tests is a big part of the Bush era law No Child Left Behind, which Obama has, alas, endorsed and expanded. Jeff Bryant of Campaign for America's Future wonders if we'll learn from that law's "train wreck."

Yeah, some math scores have gone up, but many teachers have also cut back significantly on other subjects, such as science, art, and social studies. And in spite of some score increases nearly half of our public schools are defined as "failing" under the law.

The big problem is the standards are defective because the standards are based on standardized test score data that is defective.

Michael Winerip of the New York Times wonders about data that can go from "dismal" to "record levels" to "ridiculously inflated" to "statistically significant declines" without any particular reason. Joy Resmovits of Huffington Post notes comparing the test scores of this year's fourth graders to last year's fourth graders is showing the variation in the students, not the difference in the education they've been getting. A US News and World Report notes that schools can lump together regular high school students with those in special ed, night school, and GED programs. "The data" will show a sudden dropout crisis because of the new way of computing it.

We're building public policy on bogus numbers. And the biggest problem of all that data is that learning can't be condensed into "data outputs."

A kiss for equality

2011-12-22T22:20:00.000-05:00

When a Navy ship pulls into port, one sailor is selected to be the first off the ship to give their significant other a symbolic welcome home kiss. Sometimes that selection is done by a raffle. So Marissa Gaeta won the raffle and was given the honor of kissing her partner Citlalic Snell. Quite appropriate for the day before the first anniversary of Obama signing the bill that eventually resulted in the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell last September.

Defining the success of austerity

2011-12-22T22:17:00.000-05:00

Terrence Heath takes a look at the austerity that is being imposed on several nations around the world (and the GOP would like to impose on America to combat the Scary Deficit Monster). Is austerity successful? Depends on your definition of success.

I've already discussed Ireland, where people are fleeing in search of jobs elsewhere. Here, success is being defined by the 1%.

When Communism collapsed in Russia, Yeltsin made things safe for the Oligarchs (the 17 people who because sudden billionaires), then turned the government over to Putin. But for the average Russian, things were much better under Communism. Most people are so desperate to survive they can't spare any effort to see how their neighbor is doing and the sense of community has collapsed. We can do nothing is true because "we" no longer exists.

That's why, when Russians protested the recent election, the chant was "We exist!"

Iceland was hit hard by the financial collapse in 2008. But they took a different route. The let the banks fail. They bailed out the citizens. They kept the social contract intact. They severed ties between corporations and the government, rewriting the constitution to do so. And they are doing just fine today. Success was defined by the 99%.

Hunter of DailyKos discusses austerity.

The current fad is to declare that austerity, in the form of slashed budgets, slashed jobs, a slashed tax based and so on will magically produce the opposite of all those things, as wealthy benefactors rush in to spend all the new money you have given them, create jobs creating new products nobody can afford to buy, and, I don’t know, start rebuilding infrastructure out of the goodness of their hearts. It is never clear, and nor is it honest: it is predicated on the danger of the Scary Deficit Monster, who was not at all scary during the time he was being fed by these same politicians and think-tank prophets, but who, like any false god, just happens to hate all the same things that his worshippers do.

As long as "we" -- a vibrant community -- exists there is a way out.

The Occupy movement is about to make a big splash -- they will enter a "human float" in the Rose Parade and might get 1-4 thousand participants. Why Occupy the Rose Parade? 50 million viewers in America, 200 million worldwide. In addition, the parade has become too corporatized (note how many corporations sponsor floats) and militarized (this year's Grand Marshall is an Iraq vet).

Critics have said the Occupy movement had no goals or demands. The Occupy the Rose Parade spells out 5 specific demands.

* Ban corporate cash from the election process.

* Separate investment and commercial banking functions (restore "Glass-Steagal").

* Punish the CEOs and banks that caused the dot-com bust and the 2008 economic collapse.

* Restore the Capital Gains Tax to 30% as it was before Bush II.

* Foreclosure relief.

A reminder -- because New Year's Day is a Sunday the parade will be on Monday.

A big settlement with Bank of America has been announced. It says that Countrywide, now a subsidiary of BofA, discriminated against blacks and Latinos by pushing them into costlier mortgages. Richard Eskow of Campaign for America's Future pulls it apart.

* Yes, the deal requires that a third-party settlement administrator distribute the money to those affected. That's good. Alas, BofA gets to choose the administrator.

* The pot of money $335 million isn't big enough. Countrywide made millions of loans and sucked perhaps an extra $10,000 out of each one. The pot may reimburse 35,000 victims, not millions.

* The deal doesn't require admitting wrongdoing and shields the bank from investigation.

* The deal requires Countrywide to not discriminate in its lending practices -- for 4 years. It does not require BofA to change its practices.

* This is only one small type of fraud committed by Countrywide and BofA.

* The settlement amount is peanuts to BofA. In the bailout BofA made $1.5 billion from the loans from the government. The settlement pot is 1/5 of that.

* The bank is still too big to fail -- or to prosecute. There are six such banks and BofA is reportedly the worst of the bunch, still run by the perpetrators and still able to bring down the economy.

Unpaid celebrity endorser in a made-up war

2011-12-22T22:06:00.001-05:00

Justin Lee of the Gay Christian Network discusses why Christians should avoid The War on Christmas. He gives several reasons.

* There are many holidays in December. Wishing people a generic "Happy Holidays" includes them too. It is respectful of non-Christians.

* Forcing people to refer to an event centered on Jesus when they don't believe in him is like taking God's name in vain (and there is a Top Ten against that).

* Jesus is not an unpaid celebrity endorser for Wal-Mart, so it is better to leave him out of a secular practice -- what does buying a flat-screen TV have to do with Christmas anyway?

* So many Christian traditions (the date, the tree, etc.) had pagan beginnings, so Jesus isn't entirely the "reason for the season."

Is there a bell player in the house?

2011-12-21T22:55:00.000-05:00

This evening was the Christmas party at the Ruth Ellis Center. The Michigan Gay Rodeo Association brought and served a fine dinner. They also brought a Santa Sack and raffled off the various gifts. Most were DVDs of gay movies (such as Milk) or CDs of artists the kids liked. There were also lots of bags from Meijer which, I think, held canned food. Each kid got one. There were also fleece blankets for all.

The featured entertainment was a brass quintet from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. During December various small ensembles of the orchestra visit homeless shelters on the metro area. They played arrangements of Christmas carols. One of them asked Jessie, our program coordinator, if there was someone who could play the jingle bells. She immediately nominated me. The arrangement assumed one of the trumpeters would play the bells, so I was handed a copy of the trumpet part. Off we went. I handled the first bell entrance just fine, but the second was after 14 measures of rest. I was thrown off my count because the other trumpet player turned to me and said something, but that seemed early. The first trumpeter said something, but I didn't catch it. The horn player then said, "Just play." So I did. Not exactly an auspicious ending. Even so, I played with members of the DSO!

Well after the official festivities when the kids were dancing Jessie suddenly said we had to close early. Something inappropriate (drugs?) was found in the restroom. That left the volunteers scrambling to package up the leftover food for the kids to take with them.

I suspect next Wednesday will be the New Year party.

The bad and good within us

2011-12-19T22:28:00.000-05:00

I've been a fan of the books written by Tracy Kidder since his first, The Soul of a New Machine, came out 30 years ago. That classic documents how a new computer was designed and built. He also watched a house being built, sat in a 5th grade classroom for a year, observed a small town for a year, and traveled with Dr. Paul Farmer while he worked on community health issues in Haiti, Peru, and Russia. All of them are well worth the read.

Kidder's latest is Strength in What Remains. It is the story of Deo, who grew up in Burundi and was a medical student in 1993. To jog your memory a bit, Burundi is just south of Rwanda, shared the same colonial history, and is also populated with Hutus and Tutsis. Sound familiar yet? The slaughter in Burundi started six months before it started in Rwanda -- time enough for Deo to get to Rwanda as a refugee. Deo eventually gets to New York where he slowly rebuilds his life. While at Columbia University he studies medicine, but also takes every philosophy class because he wants someone to explain what happened in his homeland.

Yes, parts of the story are gruesome. Kidder includes a thorough explanation of why the genocide happened. However, the story ends with a hopeful and uplifting chapter. Deo has survived and is now flourishing. I highly recommend it.

War on Christmas

2011-12-19T22:25:00.000-05:00

I want to say with this little skirmish conservatives have sunk to a new low or have reached a new level of idiocy. But it is actually small potatoes compared to what the GOP is doing to the country as a whole and especially to the poor. Even so, when I heard it on the radio my reaction was only "Grrrr!"

We can all name the product promoted with the slogans, "It's what's for dinner." "The fabric of our lives." "Got milk?" These and 15 other commodities are promoted through partnerships with producers and the Dept. of Agriculture. The producers agree to give a certain amount (such as a dollar per bale of cotton) to the DoA, who then runs an advertising campaign for the product. From the slogans above we see it can work very well.

Since sales of artificial Christmas trees now top sales of real trees the tree grower association agreed to the same kind of deal with the DoA. Conservatives quickly branded it as "Obama's Christmas tree tax," even though it is nothing of the sort. The program is on hold. Such infantile behavior to grasp at everything for partisan advantage.

A new twist to the battle

2011-12-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

Nancy Hass of Newsweek has a report on the next phase of the abortion battle that neither side wants to embrace. Jennie McCormack used the RU-486 abortion pill to end a pregnancy. She got the pills through the Internet. In Idaho, where she lives, terminating a pregnancy, no matter who does it, is illegal. That law is being challenged.

The anti-abortion (yeah, I know they want to be known as pro-life) side doesn't like the case because they've built their campaign around demonizing abortion providers while holding the woman blameless.

The pro-choice side is wary of the case because McCormack ended a pregnancy that was further along than Roe v. Wade allows. They don't want the case to go to the Supremes while the court is so conservative.

Alas, McCormick, living in a Mormon area of Idaho, has been thoroughly ostracized by her family and community.

The big to-do list

2011-12-18T22:27:00.000-05:00

Can progressives declare victory when something doesn't happen? Yes, when that something is the GOP To-Do list. But will voters care that the bad stuff didn’t happen? Terrence Heath lists several items that the House has been trying to get into the latest budget and tax cut deals with a few more items that are being saved for the next battle. I'll let Heath explain in detail why each of these is a bad idea.

• Extending a pay freeze for federal workers.
• Cuts in federal workforce
• Means testing of retirement benefits
• Accelerated approval of the Keystone XL pipeline
• Slashing unemployment benefits
• Allowing states to bar people from receiving unemployment unless they submit to drug testing
• Requiring the unemployed to be enrolled in GED or training programs.
• Stop the EPA from regulating incinerators
• Stripping $8 billion in preventative care funding out of the Affordable Care Act

Don't want to fix poverty

2011-12-18T22:24:00.000-05:00

Essayist Terrence Heath takes another look at the way the rich view the poor. I've already shared (but would have a difficult time finding the link) the conservative view that the rich see the poor as a moral issue -- if you are poor it is because you are immoral. Yep, the amount of money equals personal level of morality. In particular, a person is poor because he deserves to be. The matching statement is just as bad: a person is rich because he deserves to be. Heath explores that idea some more, then gets into the why (something I'm always interested in).

Heath starts of by saying all those programs proposed by the GOP to fix poverty won't work -- "because conservatives don't want to fix poverty". Heath continues with a quote from an article by James Thindwa:

Actually, there is a self-serving logic to the Right’s aversion to a systemic approach to poverty mitigation. Really serious anti-poverty strategies would require its corporate benefactors to raise wages, dispense with unionbusting, support minimum-wage hikes, embrace national healthcare, and stop discriminating on the basis of race, gender, age and disability. This burdensome outlook is what angers conservatives. The truth threatens their worldview.

Heath expands on that:

Its easier to ignore that the economy really one big system that we’re all a part of. It’s a system that privileges some of us, and disadvantages other. It’s harder to consider that our status within that system —privileged or disadvantaged —may be partly or wholly unearned. It’s harder to consider that our privilege might result in and even depend on someone else being disadvantaged, because it shifts moral responsibility to us to do something about it. Or not.

If you can rationalize your privilege, and rationalize related inequities on the flip-side, then you don’t have to change how you are in the world; because all is right with the world, no matter how bad it is for somebody else.

In fact, your privilege — whether it stems from your race, gender, sexual orientation, economic status, etc. — doesn’t even exit. The whole world is suddenly a meritocracy. What you have, you deserve, basically because you have it. And the “have-nots”? Well, if they deserved it, they’d have it.

I've commented on privilege before (this link is easier to find) and I note (as have others before me) those who have privilege are convinced there is no such thing, yet when their privileges are threatened, the claws come out. Heath agrees:

If you ask why, without settling for simplistic answers, you might conclude that inequity an injustice do not exist in a vacuum and do not persist according to some law of nature, but because they serve as the basis for the privileges of some, and thus the privileged perpetuate them in order to preserve their privileges. You might be inclined to believe, then, that inequities and injustices are not “inevitable” or “natural” and you might also choose to do something about them. Or, even knowing all of this, not to. Either way, it’s a choice.

It’s not that conservatives don’t can’t fix poverty. Conservatives don’t want to fix poverty. Given would require of them a lot of hard work — both intellectual and political — that they just don’t want to do.

An entire worldview based on, "I'm better than you."

Feeling hopeful

2011-12-15T22:42:00.000-05:00

See a post on my brother blog.

A second offender registry

2011-12-15T22:26:00.000-05:00

I heard in Michigan news about the sting operation in Kent County (Grand Rapids) in which undercover cops would approach men in parks and ask if they were interested in gay sex. The gay men would then be hauled in for indecent behavior, even though only words were exchanged.

They cops say they are making sure the parks remain family-friendly. And if the action is actually illegal, well, officers and their superiors are rarely reprimanded. Alas, the cost to the victims can be huge, including being placed on a Sex Offender Registry.

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin is sick of it. Too much police brutality. Not enough accountability of the cops. Kincaid proposed a Police Brutality Offenders Registry. If you are surly at a citizen, if someone dies, if an officer claims an action that would land someone else in jail is "justifiable" they go on the Registry. People considering moving into an area can check the PBOR and decide if the rate of brutality is too high.

The party of the 1% no longer hiding

2011-12-15T22:24:00.000-05:00

Obama sent another Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to the Senate for confirmation. He already sent Elizabeth Warren and the GOP soundly rejected her. That time they said they had problems with Warren. But this time the GOP said they had no problems with the nominee, Richard Cordray. They don't like the CFPB. Proving the GOP is no longer hiding they are the party of the 1%.

Mitch McConnell said America doesn't need another "unelected czar." But the head of the CFPB is not a "czar" but a presidential appointee (which there are lots of in Washington) to run an agency created by a democratically elected Congress and signed by a democratically elected president. And thwarting a law on behalf of the 1% is thwarting democracy.

We knew that is what the GOP is doing. It is good to hear the GOP actually admit it.

Paul Begala in Newsweek ponders why, if the GOP is so in favor of cutting taxes (which seems to have been their only goal for, um, maybe a decade), the bill to extend the payroll tax cut that benefits the middle class is having such a tough slog. Class Warfare! shout the GOP. Heh, this isn't even class spitballs, counters Begala.

But why not go for a middle class tax cut and do it so quietly that nobody gets any credit? Because it appears the GOP goal is to make sure the economy tanks, which would take down Obama next year. But this tax cut would only generate maybe 2 million jobs over two years in an economy that needs 14 million jobs.

A tiny problem with this GOP strategy. They have to pursue it in broad daylight. Voters are likely to blame them rather than Obama next fall. By killing Obama's jobs plans they may save his presidency.

The poor will have nothing left to eat but the rich

2011-12-15T22:18:00.000-05:00

Time Magazine has announced its Person of the Year. This year it is the protester.

Along with that is the top 40 protest signs of 2011. Was there such a category in 2010?

Here is a map of the Occupy sites in America. It includes the number of people that have taken part in each protest and the number of arrested. You may have to click on the map to enlarge it to read it.

The austerity budget problems now hitting Greece and Italy hit Ireland some time ago. We can see how well it is working. In a word: not. Because the economy isn't growing the budget problems are getting worse. The Irish are voting with their feet and leaving (40K so far), producing a brain drain that is taking the country's future with them. Those left behind are settling in for long-term resignation. There is a glimmer of hope: the Occupy protests are starting to take hold in Dublin.

Destroying the customer base

2011-12-10T22:27:00.000-05:00

Nick Hanauer, a member of the 1%, chatted with Guy Raz on All Things Considered this evening because he wrote an opinion piece for Bloomberg News saying, "Please tax me more." He isn't doing this because he is a good person.

"Let me just be very clear: I do not love you. I value you as a potential customer, and we have rigged the economic system in a way to destroy my customer base."

Raz and Hanauer then discuss the various ways in which the rich avoid paying taxes. Most of the rich don't earn salaries (income tax, top tax rate of 35%), but get money from stocks and bonds (capital gains tax, top rate of 15%). There are also ways to "sell" investments at low rates to avoid paying any capital gains taxes on the sale.

A business man does two things: create sales and contain costs. A business only creates jobs when the sales require it -- when the middle class generates enough sales.

Because of the form the rich receive their income, raising the income tax rates won't make much difference. The way taxes are raised makes a difference and that means tax reform.

Hanauer says starting a big business in Africa doesn't make much sense -- there would be nobody to buy the product.

"The difference here is the American middle class, which is by every measure the most extraordinary economic achievement in the history of the world — and there is only one of those."

It is that American middle class that Hanauer calls "incredibly precious," not just for the American economy, but for the world's economy.

Terrence Heath looks at the latest GOP tax proposal and claims it stinks. The rich don't spend their money and don't create jobs with it. He then tackles the idea that the rich could simply donate money for deficit reduction.

The government should hold telethons to convince the 1% to contribute? Even the millionaires who want higher taxes find that idea laughable. Government, say the Patriotic Millionaires, is a shared responsibility. The "1 percent wouldn’t have its wealth without the benefit of the social contract that the rest of us support.
What’s needed from them is not a 'donation.' It’s payment due."

Under no circumstances is it every okay

2011-12-10T22:22:00.000-05:00

The Onion is known for using satire to tell the truth, but every so often they create a story that steps well beyond satire. The news source made up a story about a coalition of 10 year old boys holding a news conference outside the Penn State football stadium. Their message was simple.

"It doesn't matter who the boy being raped is, and it doesn't matter who is doing the raping, just please, please alert law enforcement. And by the way, under no circumstances is it ever okay for an adult to rape a 10-year-old boy, so you really can't go wrong by calling the police when something like that happens."

Don't even wait until after lunch.

If a church leader or lawmaker pushes for stringent laws against gay people (perhaps, as is proposed in Uganda, including death) they might find their efforts backfire. Their opponents may accuse them of being gay just to get rid of them.

That may have happened to Bishop John Atherton in 1640. He pushed hard for the death penalty for the crime of homosexuality and then was the second person hanged for that offense. He may have been gay (not enough evidence) or his opponents may have found a way to get him out of the way.

Jay Michaelson wrote an article for The Jewish Daily Forward highlighting the ideas in his book God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality. He says that all Biblical passages can be interpreted in a variety of ways. To be ordained a lawyer-rabbi was once required to be able to argue both sides of an issue.

So does that make all interpretations equally valid? Not at all. The proper interpretation is the one that matches the fundamental values of the Bible, building life, living honestly (which I see as the same as living with high mental health), and sanctifying love.

We grow as religious people because the Bible allows for reinterpretation. If it didn't we would remain ethical infants.

Retired Army captain and atheist Jason Torpy says that atheists need chaplains too. In addition to religious duties, chaplains also advise and counsel the soldiers under their care. Atheist soldiers need that counseling too, preferably from an atheist chaplain. Torpy has made a request for such chaplains. The Chaplain Corps hasn't said no, but isn't pursuing the idea very quickly.

Gay rights are human rights

2011-12-08T22:43:00.000-05:00

A couple days ago Obama issued a memo that all government agencies that do work outside of the country are to "promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons." It is a lengthy memo and lists a wide variety of ways American agencies should do this work: Combat criminalization, protect asylum seekers, use foreign aid to build respect for LGBT people, respond swiftly to abuse of gay people, and help organizations that fight against LGBT discrimination. All good to see.

The same day Hillary Clinton gave a speech as part of International Human Rights Day. Her 30 minute speech was all about how the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to LGBT people. Find both video and transcript here.

Response was as expected. Rick Perry spouted off about how much Obama is out of step with America. He followed it up with a new campaign ad claiming it is wrong for gays to serve in the military while kids aren't allowed to pray in public school. That prompted an essay about how deeply Perry hates gay people.

And, while I don't want to go digging for every last link, Rick Santorum, Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, Matt Barber of the Liberty Council, and Pat Robertson weighed in condemning the policy, as expected. Actually, Robertson has a point. He says Obama is making a big deal about other countries persecuting gay people but is silent about other countries persecuting Christians. Well, yeah, all persecution is wrong.

Obama's policy and Clinton's announcement didn't get much notice in American TV news.

In response, Nigeria told us to get our noses out of its business and a draconian anti-gay bill was introduced to its House of Representatives (having already passed the Senate barely the day before). And Cameroon is talking of increasing the penalties of its anti-gay laws.

Shoppers more important than tax breaks

2011-12-08T22:38:00.000-05:00

Jeremy Hooper, writing in his personal blog, looks forward to Newt Gingrich being the GOP prez. nominee. Newt, on his third, marriage, would put the Fundies and the GOP into such a conniption that it would advance the cause of marriage equality.

Way back in June when New York legalized gay marriage, Janice Daniels put a derogatory sentence on her Facebook page. Not many people noticed and she was elected to be mayor of Troy (one of the nice suburbs outside of Detroit). It is only now that bad sentence is getting airtime. Ms. Daniels is upset over the firestorm (annoyed that gays won't forgive her), but has not apologized. That made for some tense times in a recent city council meeting where 80 residents -- including lots of students -- lined up to speak in protest. Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin provides some insight.

Last Monday Andrea Seabrook of NPR talked to people in Cincinnati about what they think of Congress and its abysmally low approval rating. One comment caught my attention. She talked to Danny Korman, who owns a small business and is supposed to be someone who doesn't want his taxes raised. Seabrook's summary of Korman's comments:

"It's more important to Korman that lots and lots of shoppers have money in their pockets to spend, than that he gets a tax break."

The United Health Foundation has released a ranking of states according to how healthy their citizens are. Top 5: Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Hawaii, and Massachusetts. What attracted my attention (and that of Rob Tisinai) to the list? Four of the five are marriage equality states. The other two states, New York and Iowa, are in the top ten. Hawaii has civil unions that are gay marriage in all but the name.

Yes, Tisinai warns, correlation is not causation. There could be other factors at work. But there is a reason for bringing it up. The National Organization for marriage has been trumpeting a different list to make the claim that anti-gay laws don't impact business in a state. Of the top 5 states for income growth -- Wyoming, North Dakota, Louisiana, Montana, and Oklahoma -- four have marriage protection amendments and the fifth doesn't have gay marriage.

And that claim is just as bogus as the first one.

The German magazine Der Spiegel has an article describing the GOP prez. candidates. Run it through Google Translator and the fractured English has just about the right absurdity to capture the bunch. "Even Cain is a caricature of content." Then scroll down to comment #4.

Moving inside for the winter

2011-12-08T22:31:00.000-05:00

The cover story in this week's Metro Times (Detroit's alternative newspaper) is on the state of Occupy Detroit, now that it has vacated the downtown park where it started. It has not gone away.

Detroit has had a long history of protests (see labor battles with the Detroit automakers in the 1930s), but this one is different. Previous protests were about a particular group and their supporters -- factory workers, blacks, women, gays -- fighting for particular rights. The Occupy group is everyone and the slogan "99%" is brilliant branding. This protest has issues, such as denying alleged terrorists a right to trial, in which liberals, Tea Party members, libertarians, and communists all agree on.

Alas, Occupy Detroit, as does much here is Southeast Michigan, has racial overtones. City residents, more than 80% black, don't trust whites taking over their issues and the OD campers were mostly white. Fortunately, various OD working groups are reaching out to black organizations.

Yes, OD is still protesting. A recent cause is the closure of a few branches of the Detroit Public Library. The group also meets twice a week at a small downtown theater, that has been made available for their use. And a Southwest Detroit businessman has donated space that was to be a café until the economy soured a few years ago. That businessman is mighty pissed at the 1%.

A related organization, Occupy the Hood, is starting to rehab houses that became vacant from the housing bust.

Choices in helping the poor

2011-12-04T23:20:00.000-05:00

My current view of the Salvation Army was formed back in 2001. That's when Bush II proposed funding faith-based charities. The Salvation Army asked that religious charities be exempt from local laws that bar anti-gay discrimination. I haven't dropped any money into the red kettles since.

Since then the SA view of gays may have softened somewhat. As news stories circulate about the gay community declaring a boycott of SA, Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin takes a closer look.

Back in 2001 the concern was not that the SA wanted to discriminate against gay people, but that they would be required to provide domestic partner benefits to their gay employees.

Yeah, I said they don't want to discriminate… In contrast to the Fundies, they don't deny gays exist. They don't force gays into harmful ex-gay ministries. They don't deny membership to gays. They don't deny leadership positions to gays. They don't deny their charitable services to gays. In some ways they do better than my own United Methodist Church.

However, they do require gay members to be celibate. They won't provide partner benefits to gay employees. And there are stories that to get charitable services gay couples must split up (and I don't mean just separate bedrooms for the duration).

The SA do better than many (perhaps most) other Christian denominations in living out the "love your neighbor" commandment of Jesus. There is a lot of need out there and the SA works to meet as much of that need as they can. Your money in that kettle will help a lot. The SA is convenient -- donating to other charities requires more effort and thought than passing the kettle and dropping in the few dollars you haven't yet stuffed back in your wallet.

But, Kincaid says, there are lots of other charities that do the same work that don't have restrictions on their gay members, employees, and clients and don't follow up the soup and the soap with preaching about salvation. If the SA policies are troublesome there are lots of other places that will put your donations to work.

Kincaid's posting prompted a huge number of comments. A good number of them state their refusal to donate to the SA. Many cite the preaching aspect as much as the attitude for gays.

I won't change my position.

Feeling good about not being special

2011-12-02T22:11:00.000-05:00

Matthew Phelps is a captain in the Marines and is also gay. In a long essay he talks about the pressure of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Then he talks about the pressure of its repeal -- everyone seems to be watching the gay guy, waiting for him to screw up, so they can pounce, "See, I told you allowing gays to serve openly was a bad idea!"

Then Phelps tells us about his experience of taking a date to the annual formal Birthday Ball, when the corps celebrates the date the Marine Corps was founded.

I introduced Brandon and they were all as nice as could be. My Regimental Commander, a colonel, asked him if it was his first Marine Birthday Ball, I think realizing as soon as the words left his mouth how silly the question must have sounded. The memorable part of that moment, however, wasn’t the potential embarrassment of asking the gay date of the gay Marine if he’d been to such an event before, but that he asked the same exact question he would have asked any Marine’s date. I wasn’t pretending to fit in any more, trying to disguise the unique part of me that I couldn’t tell anyone about, I was just another Marine celebrating the birthday, and Brandon was just another date. Never before in my life had it felt so good to be no one special.

There were lots of comments to this series of posts, some apparently from the Marines who serve under Phelps. I didn't read them all, but those I read were all supportive.

About love and commitment

2011-12-02T22:08:00.000-05:00

Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum has a pledge for judges to sign. Yeah, various groups (usually Fundie in nature) have asked various politicians (usually GOP) to sign various types of pledges. I think this is a first for judges.

As far as I can make out the legal language it says that America is founded on Christian principles and because of that there really isn't a separation of church and state. The judge who signs it declares he supports the idea that Congress can tell courts they aren't allowed to review particular kinds of cases. These cases include displaying the Ten Commandments on public property or mentioning God in the Pledge of Allegiance and the national motto (which, if you've forgotten is, "In God We Trust").

I note they define "God" as the deity of the Ten Commandments -- the God of Law -- not Jesus -- the God of Love.

Many commenters note that judges who sign this pledge are not fit to serve.

The big banks are getting antsy about Occupy Wall Street -- who'd a guessed? -- because the truth is gaining traction. So a lobbying firm the banks use is offering to opposition research on OWS and any Democrats who associate with them. For a fee, of course. Oppo research is usually sponsored by one political group wanting to find dirt on another group or candidate.

The Guardian created a 6 minute video to explain who the 99% are.

The group Get Up Australia has put together this wonderful video. We see a guy falling in love and only at the end do we see his lover is another man. As a commenter said, it isn't about a man and a woman, it is about love and commitment. This has been all over the gay blogs, all of them raving about it. It has been posted less than two weeks ago and already has over 3 million views. It is 2 minutes long.

AIDS appeared in America 30 years ago. The gay TV news show In the Life did a half hour program of the disease. The first half of the program was about the history (or about ITL's coverage of the history, alas, some was a bit too self-congratulatory). The second half was a long-time AIDS activist talking with a young transgender woman.

The rights of all people

2011-12-01T22:36:00.000-05:00

Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin notes that many in Uganda are mystified by things said in the West. Yeah, a draconian anti-gay bill is still in play there (one penalty is death) and the West is right to criticize it. But abuse of gays is only one of many human rights problems in Uganda. And the West isn't threatening sanctions over the denial of rights of other kinds of people.

This one-sided view of rights means:

Ugandans feel gays are seeking special rights that many ordinary citizens don't have.

The West's insistence only of the rights of gays when rights of so many others are violated means the West is out of touch with what is really going on in Uganda.

Such a narrow focus reinforces the false idea that homosexuality is a foreign import and we're only interested in protecting our own.

A luxury issue

2011-12-01T22:33:00.000-05:00

The National Organization for Marriage poured a ton of money into Iowa for a special election in the state Senate. If the GOP candidate had won the balance of power would have been a tie. The GOP could have brought a marriage amendment to the floor, overturning the state's gay marriage law. In spite all of NOM's money, the Dem won.

Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal gets to say what bills will make it to the Senate floor. He has said that he will not allow any votes that would undermine marriage equality.

The state House is under GOP control and could pass all kinds of symbolic votes to keep their base happy. In response to Gronstal's declaration, House Speaker Kraig Paulsen -said the equivalent of, "Oh well."

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin says this is important. Inaction is speaking louder than action. The GOP knows that pressuring Gronstal won't work. "Sending a message" to the GOP base is a waste of time better spent on more important issues. The anti-gay base doesn't have the influence it used to. And anti-gay activism is a luxury issue for politicians.

The mainstream media may lob softballs at the GOP candidates (or accept dodging answers), so leave it to the teenagers to ask the tough ones. Jane Schmidt in Iowa asked Michele Bachmann about gay marriage. Sure, Bachmann said, a gay man can already get married -- to a woman. But she's not into special rights for gays. Schmidt went on to ask how to keep a Muslim student from being ostracized if Bachmann is pushing Christian prayer in public schools. I don't want to listen to the lady rant to hear her answer to that one.

Justice, fairness, and inclusiveness

2011-12-01T22:26:00.000-05:00

It was a long drive with family to get to southern Kentucky and another long drive home. But it was an enjoyable two days with my brother, his wife, and grown kids. Once home I had a lot of stuff to do for my teaching job. I have lots I want to write about and doubt I'll get to some of it. So I'll get started.

My dad gave me reading material for the trip, the Nov./Dec. issue of Washington Monthly (hmm, it has Monthly in the title and is actually bimonthly?). He didn't say what article prompted him to share it with me, so I had to peruse it myself to see what caught my interest. The article that did that best featured both maps and why the Tea Party won't succeed -- A Geography Lesson for the Tea Party by Colin Woodard. The article is related to Woodard's recent book, A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.

Yes, he says, America is made up of regions that don't follow state lines. Some of them spill over into Canada and Mexico, though I'll only mention the important American ones here.

Yankeedom was founded by the Pilgrims and spread to the areas their descendants settled (New England, northern Midwest, and northern Plains). It emphasizes education, community, empowerment, and a government -- supported by participation by all -- that can make a difference in the lives of citizens.

Tidewater and Deep South are similar. Both were settled by aristocracy who believed that democracy isn't for everyone, certainly not the peasantry. There is an emphasis on authoritarianism. The biggest difference between the two is the Tidewater would have been satisfied with servants, while the Deep South thought slavery was natural.

Nearly all of the battles (real and merely about government) have been between Yankeedom and Deep South.

Greater Appalachia stretches all the way to the hills of East Texas. The emphasis is on individual liberty. They will align with others based on who is the greater threat to their freedom. If the South hadn't fired on Fort Sumter, Appalachia would have been happy to secede as well, perhaps forming a third country out of the union.

The Midlands are a narrow strip between Appalachia and Yankeedom and the Far West -- Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois are all divided between Yankeedom, Midlands, and Appalachia. A lot of people settled here, so there is no ideological purity. Local government should help ordinary people, but top-down solutions are intrusive. Politics are moderate or even apathetic.

Left Coast people combine Yankeedom faith in good government and Appalachia commitment to self-expression. They are the staunchest allies of Yankeedom.

El Norte spans the USA-Mexico border. The strong Hispanic culture is a hotbed of democratic reform. They are self-sufficient and adaptable.

Far West was colonized only through intervention of the federal government and corporations (rail and mines). There is a combination of speaking well of the benefactors and resenting their influence.

The Tea Party is a product of the Deep South. It has made inroads in Yankeedom (see Wisconsin) only to be soundly discredited. So again, it is a battle between the two ideological foes with other regions taking sides. Yankeedom can win out over the Tea Party …

Split the Midlands and Appalachia away from the Deep South by emphasizing how the citizens are being exploited by bankers, miners, health insurers, and monopolistic food processors. Then promise to make the corporate titans pay for the mess they created as a matter of justice. Close tax loopholes as a matter of fairness. Don't push new government programs. The gains may not be great, but in states, such as Ohio which straddles three regions, it would be enough to tip the balance of power.

Stress cultural inclusiveness to pull in El Norte. The Deep South (and the GOP) want white supremacy.

Are the Dems up to the challenge? A party platform based on justice, fairness, and inclusiveness sounds great to me.

The Tea Party may do lots of damage from their base in the Deep South. But they can't take over.

Hug someone who is different

2011-11-23T22:31:00.000-05:00

A couple things before I get to the main topic for today:

I paid Charlie on the completion of basement renovations. Getting all the stuff out of my den and back into the basement will be a long term project.

I'll be traveling over the next 4 days. Postings will resume sometime after that.

Dan Pearce, who blogs under the name Single Dad Laughing, wrote an entry that has become an internet sensation. Pearce wrote about a gay friend he calls Jacob, who was cut off when Jacob's other friends found out he is gay.

That gets Pearce to talking about the way we treat people who are different. Yeah, the way gay people are treated is at the top of the list, but Pearce doesn't stop there. People talk of the different with disdain and disgust and wrap it in pious words. Christians say those things believing they are speaking love. But Christians aren't the only ones who say these things. Believers in lots of religions say, "God hates…"

But the core beliefs from every one of these same religions say things like this: "A true Muslim is the one who does not defame or abuse others; but the truly righteous becomes a refuge for humankind, their lives and their properties." And: "Examine the contents, not the bottle."

Pearce discovers those who have no religion are sometimes the most Christ-like. And many who profess to follow Christ say I'll act like a Christian unless you are gay.

It all comes down to giving up the need to be better than others.

If you aren't able to put your arm around someone who is different you are being a bully. Whether you think the other person's behavior is sinful does not matter. Love them anyway.

So. Find someone different from you, who makes you feel uncomfortable, and give them a hug.

Six days later Pearce shared some of the response to his words. Nearly a half-million readers. Nearly 2000 comments (and two days later that is approaching 3000) plus direct emails. Pearce posted the most powerful comments. Two accused him of redefining the religion, branding him a heretic. Five more overwhelmed him: the estranged gay man who said the post prompted his mother to apologize, the worker who was prompted to apologize to a gay colleague, the mother of a bullied teen who shoved the column at a school official and found her daughter's life improve, the gay teen who read the column and warm responses and decided not to commit suicide, and a gay man who reconnected with his ex-wife and kids after she read the posting.

Benefits along the long, legal road

2011-11-20T23:02:00.000-05:00

Many gays in Calif. are disappointed that gay marriage won't go before the voters in 2012. Ari Ezra Waldman, a law professor, says we should let the court case about the marriage ban proceed. The process may be slow, but we've already seen benefits.

* During the trial over the ban several key points were explicitly designated as facts. Those include: marriage isn't about procreation, there is no rational reason why gays and lesbians cannot marry.

* A federal court has declared a gay marriage ban to be unconstitutional based on the merits of the case.

* A side ruling declared that a gay judge is not inherently biased when dealing with gay issues.

* The legal case reaches much further than a ballot initiative. Even if it doesn't go to the Supremes, the case lays the groundwork for other federal court districts.

* A ballot initiative only allows our opponents to spew their venomous and false arguments and wastes millions of dollars better spent elsewhere.

A lot of commenters to Waldman's post disagree, saying we should be pursuing victory both in the courts and ballot box. The 9th Circuit Court will probably rule by June so working now to get the question on the ballot for November won't make the case meaningless. If we win the ballot measure, the case won't go to the Supremes, but winning there not a sure thing anyway.

Time to just get out of the way

2011-11-20T22:59:00.000-05:00

Thomas L. Day, an alumnus of Penn State and 31 years old, decided that the pedophile scandal there was the last straw. Most generations leave the world a better place for their descendants. Not now. His parent's generation has screwed things up enough and it is time for them to get out of the way. He lists some of the screw-ups: Ruinous tax breaks for the rich, reckless response to 9/11, being sent to a war in which he was not greeted as a liberator, churches that tell him to fight against gay marriage instead of against poverty, crumbling infrastructure, downgraded national credit rating because a debt that exceeds the national wealth, and 3.3 million unemployed between the ages of 25 and 34. He forgot to mention the housing boom and bust.

I wonder if it is worthwhile commenting on the words and antics of the GOP prez. candidates. But every so often, grrr! One must call them out. The latest is from Newt Gingrich. I could have commented on any of the six (out of eight) who attended a forum in Iowa put on by the Family Forum. Yup, the main focus of the event was to get all the candidates to publicly declare how much they were against abortion and gay marriage (which is why Romney and Huntsman didn't attend). Newt went on to bash the Occupy Wall Street protesters. The first and last sentences:

All the Occupy movements start with the premise that we all owe them everything. … Go get a job, right after you take a bath.

Sorry, Newt, their protests start with the premise that you and your cronies corrupted the political and financial systems of America. No doubt you are trying to divert America's attention from your part in the mess. Besides, most protesters have jobs, and those that don't can't get one, thanks to you.

A phrase claimed by the Fundies is "religious liberty." It describes those "martyrs" who choose religious freedom over their livelihood, people like the town clerk who refuses to grant marriage licenses to gay couples in New York or the bakery owner who refused to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple.

Alvin McEwen, of Pam's House Blend, pokes a few holes in that phrase. When someone claims religious liberty, there is someone else who has been discriminated against. The phrase has less to do with liberty, religious or not, than with wanting to tell gay people they are inferior.

Where rich and poor still mingle

2011-11-20T22:51:00.000-05:00

Michigan Radio has been doing a series on the Culture of Class. I've heard a few of the segments, though not all. When I have more time…

I did hear the first segment in the series. While racial and ethnic segregation is less of a determinant of where we live than it was 40 years ago, economic segregation is on the rise. It used to be common for the poor and rich to see each other in downtown stores. But economic segregation is getting to be so bad that some kinds of workers, such as teachers, sales clerks, and auto repair mechanics, can't afford to live in the communities where they work.

The second one I heard noted a place where rich and poor still mingle -- on the dance floor of a gay bar. Actually, the example used in the report is the lesbian bar Stilettos in the suburb of Inkster. Sexual minorities are still discriminated against in the wider community, so they tend to create safe spaces and work to make sure all are welcome.

Some of the other reports in the series are: Why is class difficult to define? How does an economist define class? Who lives next to heavy industry? Does class determine who joins the military and does that allow class climbing? How does class determine investment in early childhood education? What are the differences between Benton Harbor and St. Joseph, sometimes called Twin Cities but have different rates of poverty? Is Upward Mobility a myth? Can the arts act as a hook to help kids out of poverty?

The series also includes an essay and since it doesn't have an "audio" button it apparently was not broadcast. Connie Schulz grew up in a working class family but many fellow high school students were from rich families. Their enthusiasm for college boosted her own desire to go and she became the first in her family to do so. A paid internship got her into a news reporter career.

But rich kids tend to no longer mingle with poor kids. The poor kids no longer hear of the rich kid's dreams and goals. Most internships are now unpaid, meaning only rich kids can afford to take them. Class segregation means social mobility becomes less likely for poor kids. Is pointing this out waging class warfare?

Raising a stink

2011-11-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

Busy day yesterday. I welcomed Charlie and the basement crew, then dashed off to the college. I'm playing one of my pieces in the music department recital next week, so met with the dept. accompanist. After an afternoon of teaching it was off to the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and their Festival of Flutes, featuring James Galway. One piece featured about 35 flute students from the area -- that was a marvelous sound!

So it was 10:30 when I got home. About 3/4 of the floor tile had been laid in the basement. However, the house stank! If it hadn't been so late I would have called a friend to inquire about an extra bed. I didn't sleep well.

The next morning Charlie determined it wasn't the glue from the floor tile, but the mineral spirits used to clean the glue from unwanted surfaces. Charlie didn't smell much downstairs but really noticed it when he came up. And, of course, this is the first time the overnight temperature was below 30.

I've been following the Weight Watchers program since May (as much as I can) and today marked the completion of one goal -- I've lost 10 pounds! Pants are getting loose.

This evening I attended the Transgender Day of Remembrance service. The rest of that story is on my other blog.

Please tax me!

2011-11-14T22:23:00.000-05:00

Elspeth Gilmore inherited her wealth and is not part of the 99%. She did a commentary for Marketplace Radio on NPR in which she says she would be better off if she had less personal wealth and the community infrastructure and safety net were made stronger. She now leads an organization that is trying to convince other wealthy people under 35 that the common good is more important than personal wealth. This page has the transcript of what was heard on-air. The audio looks like it will be long (13 minutes), but it starts at the 10 minute mark.

Greedy Geezers

2011-11-14T22:21:00.000-05:00

To be able to attack Social Security the GOP and its backers are pushing the "greedy Geezer" stereotype. All old people are rich. They just want more money. Supporting the rich geezers simply means generational "warfare" between them and the young whose taxes pay for those benefits.

Terrence Heath looks at a revised measure of poverty among the elderly and finds they're just as poor as everyone else. Those older than 55 were hit especially hard in this recession. The greedy geezer is a myth.

Heath takes a look at the 1% who actually deserve all we can do for them. These are our veterans, and they are very much a part of the 99%.

Intellectual integrity

2011-11-14T22:18:00.000-05:00

I've written about Robert George before. He is the author of the long essay What is Marriage? that attempts to prove that marriage is only for straights. Rob Tisinai was able to pick it apart, showing George's reasoning is circular and illogical. Even so, George currently provides the intellectual heft behind a lot of anti-gay rhetoric. One way he does that is make sure his pronouncements include the name of his employer -- Princeton University. Definitely some heft there.

Scott Rose of Pam's House Blend says that makes Princeton complicit in George's anti-gay rants. Princeton, as do other universities, has a Code of Conduct that stresses intellectual integrity, that a professor's work observes basic honesty. Rose shows there are at least three cases where George's work is not honest. This is grounds for dismissal.

Yet, Princeton's administration hasn't taken action. The reason is the same as a lot of institutions that appear to be compromised -- money. Much of George's funding (and no doubt funding of maybe other professors, support staff, and a few grad students) is from the James Madison Program. A major goal of the program is to combat liberalism. Because of that a great deal of the money comes from conservative individuals and institutions. Get rid of George and Princeton loses a lot of money.

Yesterday's Non Sequitur comic my Wiley Miller would be appropriate right now.

The true cost

2011-11-12T22:40:00.000-05:00

Now that Obama has announced the withdrawal of troops from Iraq John Tirman of the MIT Center for International Studies in an article for The Washington Spectator (alas, no link) says it is time to look at the true cost of the war, and he doesn't mean dollars. When we look back on a war we tend to rate its worth only in terms of cost to Americans. But that doesn't give us an idea of the sheer destructive cost of war, which allows us to ignore these costs when the next war comes up. Here are some of these costs.

* Dire levels of health care because doctors and nurses have fled or been killed. Poor hygiene cannot be maintained at many facilities.

* Perhaps up to 5 million Iraqis displaced. Those displaced yet still in Iraq are in settlements with poor conditions.

* Shortages of electricity, clean water, and sanitation.

* Thousands of women and girls forced in sexual slavery. 750,000 war widows living in poverty. Rising Islamic militancy (reaction to US occupation?) strips rights of women.

* More than half of all Iraqis live in slum conditions, up from 17% in 2000.

* Perhaps up to 650,000 have died because of the war.

* Perhaps a half million children died because of the 12 years of sanctions between the Gulf War and the Iraq War.

Why is this important? Because many conservatives are declaring the Iraq War a victory. This is a war that most Americans oppose and feel we got into it because conservatives lied to us. Because we are walking away from our responsibilities to account for our own destructiveness. Because we face "reputational costs" of being seen as reckless and callous. Because we won't have real consequences to stay our hand when the next crisis erupts.

Good to have a handyman around

2011-11-12T22:38:00.000-05:00

I was out on my bike this afternoon, November 12th. It was sunny, but the temp was only 52. Add a sweatshirt and jacket and I'm ready.

The basement restoration is proceeding. The big foundation crack (not the source of the flood) has been filled. Old electrical fixtures removed (and also a large pile of wires that no longer connected anything). New wiring and light fixtures up. The fuse box has been replaced with circuit breakers. Waterproof barrier paint will start being applied to exterior walls tomorrow. Next week the shelves and floor will be installed.

The day Charlie started my digital thermostat went blank. Charlie said the batteries must be dead. I had forgotten it doesn't have a power line to it. But once the new batteries were in place the thermostat wouldn't recognize the furnace. I’d seen that display after furnace repairs and the repairman only needed to reset the furnace. But turning the furnace off and on didn't fix it and Charlie and his furnace friend had no idea what "reset" meant or knew of any buttons to push. Having a furnace guy come would cost as much as a new thermostat, so Charlie installed a new one. The old one was 18 years old.

A couple days later I woke up to a cold house. Fortunately, Charlie was there a couple hours and found the furnace switch off. He says he may have bumped it. It was snowing that afternoon when I left school.

When Charlie cleaned out the wet stuff in August he bumped the hose from the clothes washer. It wiggled enough that water sprayed onto the floor. I rerouted the hose to shoot into the laundry tub and not be susceptible to bumping. Shortly after that I began seeing trails of water from the tub to the floor drain. I figured water was splashing out of the tub. A couple days ago I was looking over the progress Charlie had made. There was the trail of water. But I hadn't run the clothes washer. I had just run the dishwasher just above it. I was able to track the water trail up the wall to the drainpipe coming from the dishwasher.

The next morning I told Charlie about it. He got a stool to stand on and reached up to investigate the rusty pipe. A piece of pipe came off in his hands. He was pleased that was the day his plumber friend was already scheduled to come to do a thorough job of cutting tree roots out of the drain tiles. No problem to ask him to bring a few extra pieces and replace the broken pipe.

I'm fortunate these problems appeared while Charlie is here.

Hearing from a former bully

2011-11-12T22:28:00.000-05:00

I recently wrote about the Michigan anti-bullying bill and mistakenly said it had passed both the House and Senate. The really bad version had passed only the Senate.

The outcry from that version prompted Senator Gretchen Whitmer to make a couple videos, one condemning the provision that permitted bullying for religious reasons (apparently her floor speech) and the other featuring kids speaking out against bullying and Whitmer reading letters from kids who were bullied.

The House has now passed a version. This one doesn't have the religious exemption clause but appears to still have the other flaws of the Senate version. It passed by a wide margin with only a few GOP voting against it. No Dems pushing for a better bill?

Rap artist 50 Cent (yeah, that's his name) has written a novel Playground: The Mostly True Story of a Former Bully. Yes, he is the former bully. The story isn't completely about the rapper, it's about Butterball (named for his weight issues) and why he is a bully. Many thanks to 50 Cent for providing insight to the problem.

Sorry, your toaster won't consent to marriage

2011-11-10T22:42:00.000-05:00

Some more cool stuff from Tuesday's election:

North Carolina seems to be a hotbed of gay politicians, which is a great thing since the state will vote on a marriage protection amendment next May. I mentioned LaWana Mayfield in Charlotte and Mark Kleinschimdt in Chapel Hill. There is also Lee Storrow, only 22, now on the Chapel Hill city council and Lydia Lavelle back as an Alderwoman in Carrboro.

Dade County, Florida, voted in an equal benefits ordinance. An employer must give same-sex couples the same benefits as straight couples.

Here is a summary of why the argument that gay marriage leads to marrying your toaster (or a dog, or a corpse) is bogus.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved the Respect for Marriage Act, which would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996. The vote was 10-8, along party lines. The fate of the bill before the whole Senate is unknown. Considering the House leadership is trying to defend DOMA, this bill won't get far there, even with 135 sponsors. This vote is hugely important, even if the bill goes no further.

Gay agenda: win elections

2011-11-09T22:30:00.000-05:00

Gay and progressive election results (at least the ones I know about, summarized on the blog Towleroad):

* The National Organization for Marriage heavily promoted a GOP candidate for a vacant state Senate seat in Iowa. Their candidate lost, preventing consideration of a marriage protection amendment.

* Adam Ebblin elected as first gay senator in the Virginia Senate.

* Lesbian Annise Parker kept the mayor job in Houston, barely avoiding a runoff.

* The anti-gay candidate for Largo, Fla. City Commission was defeated.

* LaWana Mayfield, lesbian, won a seat on the Charlotte, NC, city commission.

* Gay Chapel Hill, NC, mayor Mark Kleinschmidt reelected.

* Alex Morse, gay and only 22, became mayor of Holyoke, Mass.

* Tim Eustace won a seat in the NJ Assembly, becoming the second gay Assemblyman.

* Chris Seelbach is the first openly gay city council member in Cincinnati.

* Bruce Harris will become mayor of Chatham Borough, NJ, and is gay, black, and GOP.

* Lesbian Mary Doran will serve on the School Board in St. Paul, Minn.

* Pedro Segarra is back as mayor of Hartford, CT. He was unopposed. I got tired of saying they're all lesbian or gay. Just assume so.

* Zach Adamson is the first openly gay City Council member in Indianapolis.

* Caitlin Copple will join the City Council in Missoula, MT.

* Daniel Hernandez (famous from the Gabby Giffords shooting) was elected to the Tucson School Board.

* Traverse City, MI, kept it's anti-discrimination ordinance, approving it my 63%.

* Maine kept its same-day voter registration law despite nasty anti-gay tactics by the GOP.

* Mississippi rejected the "personhood at conception" amendment by 55%.

* Ohio overturned the nasty anti-union law rammed through last spring.

The bad news.

* Rose Marie Belforti made a stink in Ledyard, NY when, as town clerk, refused to grant gay marriage licenses after they were approved in the state. She won reelection by 62%.

* Manuel Rodriguez ran a nasty anti-gay campaign and won in the Houston school system (don't know the office).

More good news supplied by commenters:

* John Campbell will be Treasurer in Harrisburg, PA.

* New London, CT, has restored the office of mayor and its first occupant will be Daryl Justin Finizio, who is gay.

* Michael Sutphin elected to the town council of Blacksburg, VA.

* Palm Springs kept its gay mayor Steve Pougnet.

* Attleboro, MA, kept its gay mayor Kevin Dumas who was elected for a 5th term.

* More in Houston: Mike Laster elected to the city council.

* Council Bluffs, IA, elected GOP Nate Watson to city council.

* Dems regained control of the Wake County (Raleigh), NC, school board. This race was recently featured in NPR as a small race attracting big money. Can't win nationally? Fight locally.

Fighting back

2011-11-06T22:47:00.000-05:00

The Occupy Wall Street protest have not been allowed to use any electronic voice amplification equipment, so they developed a human amplification system. Here they use it to protest Gov. Walker of Wisconsin. The video is under 4 minutes.

License to bully

2011-11-06T22:33:00.000-05:00

I don't read the suburban newspaper for my community, though every so often they throw a copy on my driveway in hopes I'll subscribe. I did get a couple issues this week and found them timely because they included their endorsements for city council and school board, the only races on Tuesday's ballot.

The paper also included a news article that included comments from my state senator Glenn Anderson, who I mentioned yesterday. For perhaps a decade, starting when he was a state Rep., Anderson has been trying to get an anti-bullying law passed. Repeatedly, some GOP legislator would find a reason to trap it in committee or simply refuse to allow a full-chamber vote.

This past week the GOP finally acted on it. They turned it into what Anderson calls a "license to bully." Dems are outraged. The bill is named after Matt Epling, a boy who committed suicide after being bullied. Matt's parents are furious with what the GOP did. The bill quickly passed the House and Senate and now awaits the Gov's. signature. Here's what the GOP did:

* Removed enumeration. This is the list of categories of kids -- gay, overweight, wrong race, disabled, etc. -- that are explicitly protected by the law. Gay organizations have long known that without enumeration too many adults look at a gay kid being bullied and say, "But that's not really bullying so I can ignore it."

* Refused to cover cyberbullying. Facebook, Twitter, and email have become a popular way for one student to bully another.

* Refused to protect teachers and other staff from being bullied.

* Refused to require schools to track the effectiveness of the law.

* Permitted bullying if it involves "a statement of sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction."

Since nearly all bullying of gays is due to "sincerely held religious beliefs" the bill, instead of banning bullying, tells students how to go about their bullying and get away with it. Want to bully some kid? Here's how to do it legally! Do it online or make sure you have a religious reason for your actions.

Now that both chambers have passed the law the GOP can now say, "An anti-bullying law? Been there, done that. No need to bring it up again. Besides, the current version is working," because there is no way to tell it isn't. Except kids keep committing suicide out of desperation.

Protesters and police

2011-11-05T23:59:00.000-04:00

Essayist Terrence Heath notes how hard the conservative talking heads are working overtime to discredit the Occupy Wall Street movement. He also notes how OWS ideas and goals are being accepted by the rest of the nation in spite of conservative efforts. The options now available to conservatives: discredit OWS (not working), actually pay attention to OWS (keep dreaming), or police OWS. This last appears to be what is happening in Oakland, as well as New York, Chicago, and Boston.

Banker arrests: 0. Protester arrests: approaching 3000. CEO of a failed mortgage company who committed $3B in fraud: 40 months in prison. Homeless man who stole $100: 15 years in prison.

OWS protesters (and the rest of us) understand that the wealth of the 1% is not because they are fantastic at business, but because they now control legislatures that abolish limiting laws and retroactively immunize themselves from crimes. That wealth isn't being used to raise all boats (remember "trickle down economics"?) but to sink the boats of ordinary Americans.

But even though the number of arrested protesters is high and Oakland hauled out the tear gas, the police are recognizing they are part of the 99%. Their pay and pensions are being cut too. They sympathize with the protesters and many are now defying orders to clean out the hippies (gosh, Mr. Mayor, we don't have the resources for that). So policing OWS isn't working so well either.

That leaves me wondering what tactics to the rich have left? Discrediting OWS isn't working. Policing OWS isn't working. They certainly won't listen to OWS. Whatever their next step is, it won't be pretty.

It doesn't take long for a country to collapse

2011-11-05T23:49:00.000-04:00

I'm still annoyed at Niall Ferguson for his poorly reasoned article in Newsweek last week trumpeting how the rich are raising money for one charter school. Newsweek did print a rebuttal letter, which noted that charter schools aren't unionized, so the reason the rich are supporting this school is because it helps their union-busting efforts.

But Ferguson's latest article appears to be more thoroughly researched. One would hope so, because the article is a condensation of his latest book.

Many people have predicted that the West, or at least America, is facing a long, slow decline. Ferguson says history doesn't support that theory. Civilizations and powerful countries don't decline, they collapse and do so in about 10, maybe 20 years. The reason for the collapse is always the same: the complex social systems supporting the society stop working. One minute the rulers are seen as legitimate, the next minute they aren't. Who knew last December the head of Tunisia would be gone in a couple months?

Since 1500 (shortly after the Renaissance began to spread across Europe) Western Civilization has developed several key ideas that made it significantly richer than the rest of the world. These ideas are:

* Competition. Europe was fragmented into small territories, each competing with those around it. It is that competition that has made modern Western corporations great.

* Scientific Revolution. All the major 17th century breakthroughs happened in the West.

* Rule of Law and Representative Government. Yeah, it was at first limited to property owners, but it is better than other forms of government.

* Modern Medicine. All big improvements in health care came from the West.

* The Consumer Society.

* The Work Ethic, combined with saving, allowed sustained capital accumulation.

Two things have been happening over the last half century. First, other countries, first Japan and notably China, have started applying these ideas to their own cultures. That's not bad. However… Second, the West has been ignoring what made it great.

* Work Ethic? The students who work the hardest are Asian or Asian-American.

* Consumer Society? 26 of the 30 biggest shopping malls are not in the West.

* Medicine? America now has the most expensive. But other countries have better improvement in life expectancy.

* Rule of Law? We're only good at investor protection (take a moment to think about who is being protected). We're terrible in the ethics of politicians, cost imposed on business by organized crime, bribery, standards of auditing, and 11 other categories.

* Science? Lots of studies show how our students rank low in science compared to places like China.

* Competition? We're becoming less so, and social mobility is dropping.

Yes, it is possible to rebuild these ideas. Break up anticompetitive monopolies. Stop deflecting students from science. Stop lobbyists from subverting the rule of law. Fix health care (starting with the way health care is funded). Start saving. Get people back into jobs before they learn an unemployment ethic.

But if we don't start now, collapse may come within one election cycle.