Refashion Jesus from his role as a humble teacher into a vicious fanatic

I didn’t watch an online movie last Sunday because I wanted to see one in a real movie theater on a big screen with a great sound system. What drew me wasn’t the new Spider Man flick, rather the new version of West Side Story the one directed by Stephen Spielberg. It has all the wonderful Bernstein / Sondheim songs, with expanded dialogue with more backstory for some characters by Tony Kushner. I’ve long been a fan of this musical and have seen it several times both on stage and on screen. The fondness is even with that ending. I think the first time I saw it was when a cousin was in her high school production – she played one of the Jet girls. The most interesting performance was when I was living in Germany and took a work colleague to see an English language production. But I haven’t seen this movie yet. In this past week it was showing in only one theater in the area and only one time each day. So I would check in the morning to find it was already sold out. I checked a couple days ahead and found the theater had only 35 seats. And no spacing between patrons. And soon sold out. Chances look better next week when this theater will show WSS three times a day. Or I may decide, because of the virus, to stay home. See ... I downloaded Michigan’s COVID data updated yesterday. I normally do this on Saturday but Friday is a holiday. Since this is the week between two holidays I’m sure the numbers will be adjusted and redistributed (which is why Michigan Radio has been reporting seven day averages, rather than peaks). Even so, that peak is huge! The state reported that on Monday there were 13,099 new cases that day. That’s 41% higher than the peak at the end of November and 56% higher than the peak last April. A pretty good clue the numbers will be revised is two days before the number new cases was only 2170. The deaths per day for the first three weeks of December have been in the range of 100-140. The numbers after that haven’t been fully posted yet. Rebekah Sager of Daily Kos reported that Sen. Rob Standridge of the Oklahoma Legislature is pushing two bills that would...

give parents the power to remove any book in a public school library they find objectionable. Meaning any book mentioning sex or the “study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, sex-based classifications, sexual identity, or gender identity,” or books “that are of a sexual nature.” ... Parents can also receive “monetary damages including a minimum of $10,000 per day” from school districts refusing to remove the book as demanded.

Though the article doesn’t say so, this sounds to me like the Texas abortion ban in which the state doesn’t enforce the ban, but the citizens do. Standridge says that parents should have a say in what books their kids are exposed to. However, his method (or any method of removing books) makes the decision for all parents. And some parents do want their kids exposed to such books. The comment section included this thread: cmax: “Almost any book could be found objectionable to someone.” drshatterhand: “If this crap went through and I lived in Okie, my first request for removal would be the bible. There’s some perverted s--- in there.” Youffraita: “Was just thinking that very thing. I would also object that it’s far too violent for children to read.” That book does talk about the creation of male and female. And multiple wives and concubines. And eunuchs. That fits somewhere in the list of things Standridge wants banned. Doesn’t it? The commenter certainot proposed a theory not appropriate for tender ears (besides it is quite a stretch), though there are a couple bits that make sense.

authoritarianism is one of the strategies used by humans to avoid/reduce/control uncertainty — and create certainty. ... denying global warming is much easier than contemplating the complexities. they can reject vaccines outright because, as uncertainty-fearing trumper sen ron johnson of wisconsin points out, they don’t work 100%!

libera nos added: “Those mathematics books make my child’s head hurt—and mine, too!” Dartagnan of the Kos community discussed a speech by junior nasty guy at the Turning Point USA conference on December 19. He ranted about the other side playing dirty while they played nice (which is a great deal of projecting) which has gotten them nothing (the presidency for four years is nothing?). They are an enemy who must be crushed. Dartagnan then turned to Peter Wehner, an evangelical Christian (hold on, he’s on our side) writing for The Atlantic:

This in turn justifies any necessary means to win. And the former president’s son has a message for the tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP: the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.” It’s worse than that, really; the ethic of Jesus has gotten in the way of successfully prosecuting the culture wars against the left. If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go.

Contrast that with what Tyler Huckabee, writing for Relevant has to say about what Jesus taught:

Nearly every page of the Gospels has stories of Jesus refusing earthly power and exhorting his followers to do the same. In fact, there are few things Jesus talked as much about as the upside down Kingdom of God where “the last shall be first” and “blessed are the meek.” Moreover, he cautioned against seeking earthly influence, going so far as to proclaim “woe to you who are rich.” The most cursory reading of Scripture would leave anyone with the sense that this is not a manual for getting stuff.

Dartagnan wrote:

As The Washington Post’s conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin writes, the embrace of intolerance and exclusion by many of these purported “Christians”—as part and parcel of their political identity—is now a necessary and integral requirement to joining their ranks.

Rubin discussed the recent cruelty towards immigrants and the selfish refusal to vaccinate, then added:

If you wonder how so many “people of faith” can behave in such ways, understand that their “faith” has become hostile to traditional religious values such as kindness, empathy, self-restraint, grace, honesty and humility.

Dartagnan added:

In order for this “faith” to endure, however, it’s become necessary to refashion Jesus Christ from his previously understood role as a humble teacher into a vicious fanatic exhorting his followers to hatred, revenge for imagined slights, and even murder of others as exemplifying the “essence” of Christianity. Racism, bigotry, and intolerance have to become “Christian” virtues in order for this warped version of “faith” to sustain itself. ... Yet before Trump Jr.’s speech, no single voice—not even that of the elder Trump—dared to so boldly and directly repudiate the teachings of Christ himself. None but Don Jr. has so directly dared to rend the tattered fabric of morality that white evangelicals long wore, however much it annoyed or inconvenienced them. Never before had anyone so directly crumpled up the pages of the New Testament, wadded them into a ball, and proudly wiped his ass with it.

Thanks to junior for revealing the ugly core of fundamentalist belief. Aldous Pennyfarthing of the Kos community reported that an anti-vaxx crowd stormed a Burger King. I’m not sure all that went on and I certainly didn’t watch the videos Pennyfarthing posted. Eventually the police showed up. Pennyfarthing did get to the core idea:

But what really motivated this war on Whoppers? As the folks behind Patriot Takes note, they’re doing it for attention, and for street cred among Team Antivaxx.

In the case of both junior nasty and this war on Whoppers what they’re doing is a battle over their place in the social hierarchy, either fighting to keep their high position or trying to signal to those above them that they are worthy of inclusion in a higher status. While on the subject of the virus ... Hunter of Kos discussed the home test kits. He reminds is that if we get a positive test we should report it to the local health department. It is important even if one does not have symptoms.

You may be feeling fine, you may not have any symptoms at all, but if you've been exposed to COVID that means, by definition, that somebody spread it to you. And that “somebody” likely spread it to several other people as well; your own positive test means that in your county, in your city, there are new active cases. This is vital information for local health officials. If they know that local cases are rising, and know the rate at which they are rising, emergency plans can be put in place to free up hospital beds for the new cases that will become severe. Hospitals can cancel nonemergency procedures, freeing up staff. The now-familiar parking lot tents can be set up in preparation for a surge of patients. Hospitals can scrounge for additional staff, if possible, and make sure medical equipment is available.

The Capital and Main team of Kos posted a four part series on how corporations bust unions. The series looks at:

“The 50-100 Pay Gap” examines the crisis of income inequality in the U. S. A recent RAND study found that a full-time worker earning the median national wage of $50,000 would be making close to $100,000 if pay had kept up with worker productivity and economic growth.

The first post, by Jo Constantz, looks at the various ways employers use technology to spy on and intimidate their workers. This includes such commonplace things as ID badges that can be used to monitor movements and track who someone meets with and when. Technology hasn’t kept up with law. And even with existing law employees tend to not report (for a variety of reasons) and even when reported cases tend to not move forward. It is also difficult to prove the employer was spying. Management can claim they only check the data in an emergency. In the meantime employees endure the harassment and unsafe conditions while they wonder who is safe to talk to. The second post, by Marcus Baram, is about Martin Jay Levitt. He was a consultant that companies hired to show them how to intimidate their workers into not joining a union. Then in the late 1980s Levitt had a change of heart. He wrote a book, Confessions of a Union Buster. Part of it is an autobiography, part of it is to reveal tactics. Baram wrote:

“Union-busting is a field populated by bullies and built on deceit,” he wrote. “The only way to bust a union is to lie, distort, manipulate, threaten, and always, always attack.” He described how his former firm, Modern Management Methods, had developed a methodology for breaking down employee support for unions by using psychological tactics and turning managers into anti-union spokespersons.

This book has been a guide to union organizers and allies. Corporations are using the same tactics they’ve used for decades, though now with high tech help. The third post, by Baram again, documents how much corporations are willing to pay consultants to avoid paying more to their employees. One would think it would be cheaper to just pay employees more. These consultants earn an estimated $340 million a year. Baram included a list of what some corporations spend on consultants each year. I read through that and thought part of what the corporations are doing is protecting the social hierarchy – keeping poor people poor, making sure the rich stay rich, and the gulf between them stays wide. The fourth post, by Jo Constantz again, is about the shrinking field of labor studies in universities:

Researchers in the field have been the target of legal threats and lawsuits; onerous public records requests; and misinformation campaigns from union avoidance consultants, business executives, corporate lawyers, and conservative think tanks. It’s one aspect of the business lobby’s relentless war against unions in recent decades ...

Constantz worked through that list. An example is Kate Brofenbrenner of Cornell University. In 1992 she was on her way to a labor studies conference. When she opened the door of the car sent to pick her up she saw the CEO of a management consulting firm in the back seat. He demanded to know what she was going to talk about and demanded to see her data. She refused. He was furious. Later she was sued for libel, so a company could get her raw data through the discovery process. The lawsuit failed, but served to intimidate others who might consider entering the field.

The field of labor studies has often been lambasted by conservative lawmakers who consider it union advocacy education that indoctrinates students. ... Labor studies academics contend that the field can inform how we view everything from law, economics and history to music and literature by focusing on the perspective of the working class, which is often neglected in other disciplines.

The view from the management class and the view from the labor class are going to look quite different. Patricia Morgan, the first female Minority Leader in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, tweeted:

I had a black friend. I liked her and I think she liked me, too. But now she is hostile and unpleasant. I am sure I didn't do anything to her, except be white. Is that what teachers and our political leaders really want for our society? Divide us because of our skin color? #CRT

Lots of people tweeted their outrage at her racism – in Rhode Island!. I’ll stick to the rebuttal by George Takei:

I had a white friend. I liked him and I think he liked me, too. But then Pearl Harbor happened and whites became hostile and unpleasant. I am sure we didn’t do anything but they sent us to camps anyway. And now they don’t want to teach about this because it make kids feel bad.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column forKos started today’s post with a minute long demonstration of how a little action can have a big effect. The unnamed man in the video has a row of slabs standing on end like dominoes, each one 1.5 times larger than the previous one. The smallest is 5 millimeters high, 1 mm thick and placed in position with tweezers. The largest, the 13th, is 100 pounds and more than a meter tall. He knocked over the little one and soon the big one is knocked over. Bill got the video through the Twitter feed of Pascal Bornet. So I scanned it a bit. Here is a diagram of a measure of success I agree with: success = happiness. And another with a half minute video showing the difference between a boss and a leader. The boss wants to maintain his place high in the hierarchy. The leader cares for those under him. Harry Reid was Democratic Senate Majority Leader towards the end of the Bush II years and into the Obama years. He died this week at age 82. Joan McCarter of Kos wrote a remembrance of him.

Keep the vision of the society we wish to live in

Other bits of news:

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory trusted the political analysis of the state’s Christian conservatives and went all out for the state’s “bathroom bill” that targeted transgender citizens. McCrory didn’t listen to what happened to Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, where a similar license to discriminate bill essentially killed his political career (until he jumped on the nasty guy’s coattails).

At the moment McCrory is on the low side of a very close race to keep his job. He’s down by a few thousand votes and the state won’t certify the results until all provisional votes are counted.



Recreational marijuana was legalized in California, Nevada, and Mass. and lost in Arizona. In Maine the measure is too close to call. Medical marijuana was legalized in Florida, Arkansas, and North Dakota.

Gun control laws passed in California, Washington, and Nevada. Higher minimum wage laws were passed in several states, including Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and Washington.



Michael Moore has a five point plan. My summary:

1. The Democratic Party failed us. Take it over.

2. Fire all pundits who pushed a narrative rather than seeing what was really happening.

3. Any Congressional Democrat not ready to be obstructionist as possible must step aside.

4. Stop saying you were “stunned” and “shocked.” It only means you weren’t paying attention to the despair of your neighbors.

5. Hillary won the popular vote, which means a majority want action on climate change, equal pay for women, debt-free college, raising the minimum wage, universal health care, and they don’t want us invading other countries. The majority of voters agree with the “liberal” position.



George Takei also has things to say, which he did in a series of tweets:

1. We may not have prevailed, but we must not despair.

2. This does not feel like the America we love and honor.

3. We must reaffirm the values we cherish: equality, justice, and the care of our planet.

4. We must stand up to any divisive acts and look for the most vulnerable among us.

5. Keep the vision of the society we wish to live in.

6. This country has lived through slavery and grave injustices. We’ll find our way through this too.

7. In the toughest days we find our true mettle.



I didn’t know this was a thing. After women of Rochester, NY vote, many of them take their “I voted” sticker and place it on the grave of Susan B. Anthony. This year the line for doing so had hundreds in it and was an hour long. The city’s mayor kept the cemetery open until well after voting closed.



There were thousands of people many in many cities across the country protesting the nasty man’s victory. The protests in Manhattan focused on Trump Tower.



This is the second of the last five presidential elections in which the candidate with the most votes didn’t win. Time to get rid of the Electoral College – or at least make it more reflective of the country by getting rid of winner-take-all. The good news is that such a change doesn’t have to come from Congress (since the GOP benefited both times why would they want to?). The downside is what the Michigan GOP considered – assign the Electoral College votes according to which party won each highly gerrymandered congressional district.



It is not completely dark for progressives. Democrats in office are becoming more diverse, such as Catherine Cortez-Masto (Harry Reid’s replacement) who is the first Latina in the Senate, and Tammy Dickworth who is the first Thai-American there. Democrats made gains in western state legislatures, including taking back the New Mexico House. We gained a majority in the North Carolina Supreme Court and kept a couple others (including Kansas!).



Yesterday I wrote about the GOP to-do list. My comments were on the mild side. For example, I suggested the GOP would privatize Medicare. It looks like they would rather kill it. They’re not too fond of libraries either.

"Boldly go" isn't so bold

A couple days ago I saw the movie Star Trek Beyond. I've seen a few episodes of the Original Series (premiered 50 years ago!) and of Next Generation. I was a pretty regular viewer of the series Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. I've seen many, though perhaps not all, of the 13 movies featuring the Original, Next Gen, and reboot casts. So, yeah, I saw the latest movie, though only after it came to a second-run theater.

I enjoyed it, though the violence was a bit too relentless (and some commenters have declared the emphasis of action over ideas and characters to be the reason why this one hasn't made a profit yet, which means it is possibly the last movie). I was quite captivated by the scale, complexity, and beauty of Starbase Yorktown. Quite impressive. It was a delight to see the repartee between Bones, Spock, and Kirk, and to see the other main characters – Uhura, Sulu, Scotty, and Chekov – have strong meaty roles.

Afterward I looked up the movie in the International Movie Database (IMDb), as I usually do, to read the quotes, goofs, crazy credits, and trivia. I was surprised when the trivia page talked about making Sulu gay. This was done in honor of George Takei, who played Sulu in the Original Series and has since become a gay-rights champion. Takei disagreed with the choice saying that was not Roddenberry's intention for the character (and in the late 1960s it could not have been). John Cho, who played Sulu, campaigned to make sure Sulu's husband was also Asian, even though an Asian man willing to play gay in Dubai, where they were filming, was difficult to come by.

I read that and thought: Wha? How did I miss that? A scene showing Sulu with his husband should have leapt off the screen at me. I thought through the movie wondering when I saw Sulu other than in his role as pilot and navigator or as a leader of part of the crew. It was in the middle of the night when I realized I had seen it, or might have seen it. There is a brief scene early in the movie where the Enterprise crew has made a stop at Yorktown and several crew members are shown in joyful reunion with family, which they hadn't seen in close to three years. Even so, I don't remember Sulu embracing another man.

And maybe my memory isn't faulty. I searched the web for "Sulu's husband" and got an image of a crowd that included an Asian man holding an Asian child, but no images of an actual embrace. And another site features John Cho saying the welcome home kiss was cut. How is one to tell that Asian man is Sulu's husband when we don't actually see them together? Bold new direction for the series? Hardly.

Rosa Parks or George Wallace?

The American news cycle has not yet gotten tired of Kim Davis. Sigh.

Davis has been compared to Rosa Parks. This cartoon quickly explains what nonsense that is.

George Takei blasts Davis for imposing her beliefs on others. When challenged that he doesn't know his First Amendment he responded by saying the challenger doesn't know the second half of the amendment. "Ms. Davis is in effect establishing religion by using her governmental powers to impose her religious views."

Terrence Heath looks into the results of her efforts to be a martyr. That martyr thing isn't working out so well. Americans just aren't that into her. What was expected to be a solid wall of conservative support has a lot of cracks in it. Fox News called her attorney "ridiculously stupid." Conservative columnist George Will has compared her to George Wallace. Only four GOP prez. candidates are firmly on her side. Another six have been vague. And three more say she must uphold the law or resign. Though conservatives had said hundreds would be dragged off to jail, Davis is the single case. And only 26% of Americans approve of what she is doing.

Maybe Heath should hold off on that single case thing. Back in May, in preparation for the marriage ruling by the Supremes, the state legislature in North Carolina held by the GOP passed a law allowing county magistrates to opt out of performing marriages as long as someone is available for those duties. That's not working so well for McDowell County. All four magistrates have invoked their rights to not perform marriages. So two magistrates from Rutherford County drive to McDowell County three days a week.

There appears to be a new "sheriff" in town. They are the Oath Keepers and describe themselves as a "Christian patriot" militia (wow, quite the contradiction in terms!). They recently showed up in Ferguson, Missouri to "help" the police keep down civil unrest. That was scary enough – badass white dudes loaded with military gear in a town already in turmoil over how the police treat black people. But this crosses the line into what looks like sedition: Members of the Oath Keepers are beginning to show up in the town where Davis lives saying they will intercede if the judge sends Davis back to jail.

Shimmering, golden glow

The Supreme Court of Alabama has declared their interpretation of the state's same-sex marriage ban trumps that of the federal district judge, who had ruled the ban unconstitutional. And they did this without Chief Justice Roy Moore (though some commenters think his fingerprints are all over the text). You can read this ruling, though be prepared for a whole lot of head scratching while trying to make sense of it. Summary: they pulled out all the anti-gay arguments used against us. Though illogical, they're defiant. The only court that they say can overrule them is the Supremes.

The anti-gay crowd is, of course, ecstatic. Especially since all counties have stopped issuing licenses to same-sex couples. Up to this point only 48 of Alabama's 67 counties had followed the federal order. Now none are. The battle between state and federal courts could get entertaining – if it wasn't for the mental anguish experienced by same-sex couples in Alabama.

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville responded:

This is all about straight bigots who feel like their rights are being eroded because they can't distinguish between "rights" and "privileges." Their right to get married is wholly intact; their privilege of being conferred that right while it is denied to others based on sexual orientation is vanishing.

What feels like a loss of "rights" is actually just a desperate insecurity about their super-special relationships losing the shimmering, golden glow that only denying marriage equality to same-sex couples conveys upon their gloriously gilded unions.

Lots of people are calling this ruling despicable. Here is the best response: George Takei and his husband give this ruling a one-finger salute – using the fingers with their wedding rings.

Generous and charming

It was a busy weekend which included time visiting family. The busyness was enough to keep me from mentioning recent news stories. A good and enjoyable chunk of the weekend was the Cinetopia Film Festival taking place in Ann Arbor and Detroit. Out of the fifty films I saw four.

On Friday evening I saw Ummah Among Friends. This is a German language film. The central character is Daniel who works for some undercover agency, such as the German equivalent to the FBI. After an incident that causes injury to Daniel and death to someone else he wants out. His boss convinces him to take some time off and supplies him with an agency apartment in one of the not-so-nice areas of Berlin. The apartment is a dump, but soon made habitable, though not great looking. Daniel meets and becomes friends with many of the Arabs in the area. He's invited to a wedding and to a Koran study session. Along the way he finds the local police are targeting his friends, taking any excuse to stop them and hauling them to the station when proper ID isn't produced. Daniel eventually takes action. I've been trying to think of an alternate ending because what he does proves to be disastrous for him as well as ineffectual. I had to look up the first word of the title. It is the Arabic word for community.

The movie Saturday evening was To Be Takei, a documentary about the life of George Takei (rhymes with "gay" not "eye"). We hear about his time in WWII internment camps for those with Japanese ancestry. At one point his father was asked to sign a form that stated he pledged his loyalty to America and renounced loyalty to the Japanese emperor. Since he was never loyal to the emperor, he refused to sign. That meant the last couple years of the war the family was in a high-security center. His experiences eventually turned into the musical Allegiance. We also saw highlights of his acting career (the big break was, of course, Sulu on Star Trek) and the need to be closeted during most of it. Once he realized his advocacy for gay rights was desperately needed he and his partner (now husband) came out and joined the fight. Takei is so generous and charming the film was delightful.

The Sunday afternoon movie was The Better Angels. It is rare for a movie to put out so little effort to explain itself. The dialogue is scant and the narration vague. All I'm really sure (from the movie itself) is that it depicts life in Indiana in 1817. Most of the living is done outdoors, though some in the log cabin. The mother in the family dies, the father leaves (abandoning his son and daughter for the winter?) and returns with a second wife and some step-children. The boy of perhaps 8 years who seems to be the central character tends to tell the truth about boyhood pranks and is punished. The second mother convinces the father the boy should go to school (such as it is on the frontier). Though life that is depicted is hard, the cinematography is great (though in black & white) and the scenes are lyrical. A quote at the beginning of the film -- and all the promotional materials -- imply the boy is Abraham Lincoln. The angels of the title are his mother and step-mother.

The two movies on Sunday were both in the Midtown area of Detroit, near the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Wayne State University campus, an area I know reasonably well. One movie let out at 5:10 and the next started at 6:00 -- and all the restaurants within walking distance are closed on Sundays. Even the café in the DIA closed at 3:00. The festival arranged for a few food trucks to be there, but they packed up early. I finally found a drug store and bought a packet of cashews to supplement the almonds in my pocket.

My last movie of the festival was The Case Against 8, a documentary of Proposition 8 that banned same-sex marriage in California and the court case to repeal it. We see the 2008 ruling for marriage equality, the drive to overturn it, and all aspects of the case at the District, Circuit, and Supreme Courts. It concludes with the weddings of the plaintiffs. Though we know the outcome it remained fascinating because we got to know the people involved. We meet Kris, Sandy, Jeff, and Paul, learn their stories and what they have to go through to be the faces of the case. We see them practice their testimony for the court and preparing for cross-examination. We feel their anxiety suddenly facing the phalanx of cameras and the hateful messages left in their voice mail. We watch Ted Olson and David Boies and see what goes into preparation for such a case. We hear about the backlash in 2009 when gay rights groups thought the strategy was all wrong, since this was a "leftist" cause. We see how the strategy proved to be correct by the time the case was over in 2013. This movie was shown in New York, Los Angeles, and Detroit so that it would qualify for an Oscar. HBO will bring it to the small screen by the end of this month. I highly recommend it.

After the showing Dustin Lance Black was there to answer questions. He won an Oscar for the script for the movie Milk and was a member of the board of American Foundation for Equal Rights that funded the case. He appeared in the movie a couple times. He also wrote a play (which I've seen) based on the transcripts of the district level trial. One thing Black mentioned is how this film helps our cause in conservative circles. Hey, would you like to see a movie featuring your hero Ted Olson, who was the winning attorney in Bush v. Gore? Another is a prediction of 13 months -- the Virginia and Utah cases have been heard at the Circuit level, giving plenty of time for a ruling and an appeal to the Supremes by the time their year begins in October with a ruling next June.

David Mixner is delighted with the movie and urges everyone to see it, though he notes this case has almost become its own industry with plays, movies, documentaries, and books. Are coffee cups and coasters next? But what about Edie Windsor, the heroine of the other big case the Supremes handed down last summer? We should also see more of the lives of the heroes of the AIDS era and other parts of the history of sexual minorities.

Ultimate reality TV

Last weekend I attended a rally about how banks are draining money out of Detroit. The local newspaper Metro Times has a fine article about the event. It explains the situation a lot better than I could.



A nonprofit organization in the Netherlands with the name Mars One has invited people to apply for a pretty nifty job: be colonists on Mars. It took only a few days for them to get 78,000 applications. How are they planning to fund the whole thing? Treat it as the ultimate Reality TV show. As someone who has had a life-long love of science fiction my mind rebels at the thought.



George Takei narrates a new fun Public Service Announcement for marriage equality. Says Takei:

There is one person living on this street whose orientation threatens to destroy society....Dale looks normal, but he gives off clues of his prejudice with buzzwords like 'pro-family', 'traditional marriage' or .... 'pole smoker'.

Yeah, it's been perhaps two weeks since Congress exempted the FAA from the Sequester budget cuts, ending delays at airports from low staffing of traffic controllers. Terrence Heath wrote about the indifference of lawmakers and included this little quote from Rep. Lee Terry, GOP from Nebraska:

I vote to shift funds to stop FAA furloughs and now U.S. AIR says my plane home is delayed. Oh the irony!

Oh the cluelessness!

Mr. Sulu to the rescue

There is a bill working its way through the Tennessee legislature that will prohibit any public school teacher from saying anything about homosexuality. It has been dubbed the "Don't Say Gay" bill. George Takei (Star Trek's Mr. Sulu and a gay activist) offers a wonderful way around the law if it ever goes into effect. The video is less than 2 minutes.


I'm not going to buy one, though others feel this is a masterstroke of marketing. Obama is now offering t-shirts to benefit his campaign fund that play off his recent disclosure of his long-form birth certificate. On the front is a picture of himself and the words "Made in the USA" and on the back is a reproduction of the birth certificate.