Jesus Guns Killing Jihadists!

Awesome. The United States and our buds the United Kingdom have been buying guns for our respective militaries with secret Bible quotes inscribed on them!

RAD:

From the Daily Mail: “A spokesman for Trijicon said the inscriptions had always been on the sights and began under founder Glyn Bindon, who was a devout Christian.”

Just to be clear, I don’t actually think this is awesome. More like the opposite.

Today in Idiotic White Supremacist News…

White American male Charles Murray over at neo-con thinktank American Enterprise Institute visited France. Based on the skin color of the people he could see on the street in his range of vision, he concluded that 50% of people in France aren’t real French people. I.e. he saw a lot of people of color. Alarmed, he concludes: “Mark Steyn and Christopher Caldwell have already explained this to the rest of the world–Europe as we have known it is about to disappear–but it was still a shock to see how rapid the change has been in just the last half-dozen years.”

As you read about his “methods” of detecting who is “native French”, you see that what he was really doing was counting white people (his definition thereof) because he admits that he may have accidentally included “a few Brits and other Europeans”.

I think I know someone Charles might want to be friends with: Rob Toonkel. Rob is Director of Communications at a very special organization called U.S. English, Inc. Right now, Rob and U.S. English are freaking out because a town in Pennsylvania has erected some traffic signs in Spanish! Can you possibly conceive of the implications of the ominous act? SPANISH SPEAKERS MAY OBEY MORE TRAFFIC LAWS!!!

The unusually intellectually endowed Chairman of U.S. English, Mauro E. Mujica, informs us:

“The desire of individuals to carry out a certain activity is easily dimmed by the prospect of being able to survive in a world that adapts to them. People who drive gas guzzlers become less inclined to buy more fuel efficient models if gas prices begin to decline. Smokers are less likely to quit when businesses continue to accommodate smoking. And immigrants are far less likely to pursue English acquisition if they see that everything is being provided to them in their native language.

“Though erecting a few signs in Spanish may seem trivial, our experience with government multilingualism is often that the first step is just the beginning of a very slippery slope. The practice soon spreads to other areas, and beyond that, speakers of other languages clamor for signs in their native tongues. We all know what happens when you give a mouse a cookie. Unfortunately in the case of multilingual road signs, the entire community gets milked.”

Yes, he does seem to have a very firm grasp of “slippery slope.”

Why do some Americans focus so fanatically on making English our official language? As we can see in Canada or Switzerland, being a multilingual society does not hinder standard of living or achievement of human rights. So what gives? Perhaps if we consider who speaks which language… perhaps if we considered… race and class and color… I don’t know…

Free School Lunches Encourage ‘Stray Animals’ to ‘Breed’

I love it when American leadership poor-bashes!

South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer was speaking at a town hall meeting when he felt the urge to discuss poor people who receive government aid:

“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”

The news media have pointed out that 58% of school-age children in Bauer’s state qualify for free or low cost lunch.

But that hole was not deep enough by Bauer’s exacting standards. So he kept digging.

“I can show you a bar graph where free and reduced lunch has the worst test scores in the state of South Carolina. You show me the school that has the highest free and reduced lunch, and I’ll show you the worst test scores, folks. It’s there, period.”

and…

“So how do you fix it? Well you say, ‘Look, if you receive goods or services from the government, then you owe something back.’ “

and…

“They can continue to have more and more kids, and the reward is there’s more and more money in it for them.”

Where to start? The suggestion that starving poor people will stop them from “breeding”? The suggestion that while the well-off classes are thinking people who make love, the poor are thoughtless “animals” who “breed”? The weird idea that receiving free lunch makes you a bad student? The suggestion that the poor have to pay back their aid to the government?

It’s not like food is a human right or anything. It’s not like it’s morally reprehensible to suggest starving children based on what class of society they were born into.

How is Bauer not transparent as he blames all of our problems on a despised, disenfranchised minority?

Racewire has some great analysis:

Sarcasm aside, it’s real easy, regardless of background, to buy into the ‘welfare queen’ racialized stereotype — the Black mother popping out kids and living well on the taxpayer’s money, because she has the morals of a common animal. That image has been complemented in recent years by the ‘illegal immigrant’ having ‘anchor babies’ and refusing to learn how to speak American. Call it one of Reagan’s many gifts to the nation he hated so much: a method by which amoral rich white men can change the subject away from themselves.

The truth is that poverty, and everything connected to it, is a systemic issue, not an issue of choice. It’s a lot easier to make it to that parent-teacher conference when you have a good job with benefits and child care. And it’s a lot easier to have that good job when your parents could afford to get you into a good college, and when your family’s lived for generations in a neighborhood with access to public transportation and grocery stores — when you never had to learn about redlining. When the ground you walk on doesn’t make you or your kids sick, because your neighborhood has always had the political clout to keep that oil refinery from being built next door.

Haiti: Don’t Believe the MSM!

Don’t trust the MSM reporting on Haiti!

To start, here’s a great article: New Orleans’ Heart Is in Haiti

Many New Orleanians have roots in Haiti, and their revolution lent inspiration to our city. The 500 enslaved people from the parishes outside New Orleans that participated in the 1811 Rebellion to End Slavery (the largest armed uprising against slavery in the US) were directly inspired the Haitian revolution.

…Now, just as after Katrina, the media is eager to demonize and criminalize the victims as “looters.”

…Author Naomi Klein reported that within 24 hours of the earthquake, the influential right-wing think tank the Heritage Foundation was already seeking to use the disaster as an attempt at further privatization of the country’s economy. The Heritage Foundation released similar recommendations in the days after Katrina, calling for “solutions” such as school vouchers.

…Our Katrina experience has taught us to be suspicious of the Red Cross and other large and bureaucratic aid agencies that function without and means of community accountability. In New Orleans, we’ve seen literally tens of billions of dollars in aid pledged in the years since Katrina, but only a small fraction of that has made it to those most in need.

Al Jazeera critiques the United States’ weird decision to use the crisis as an opening to militarily occupy Haiti:

Contradicting MSM and US government accounts:

“There are no security issues,” says Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, reporting from the General Hospital in Port-Au-Prince in Haiti…

This quote comes from the Democracy Now! story: Doctor: Misinformation and Racism Have Frozen Recovery Effort at General Hospital in Port-au-Prince.

From the INCITE! Blog:

Right now, there are many people, organizations, and governmental agencies mobilized to provide immediate aid relief and rescue operations in Haiti. However, there tends to be more readiness to donate supplies and money in the “immediate” time when things are very chaotic and before we know what the conditions are on the ground and have identified the long-term re-development needs as articulated by those most impacted. The long-term vision is critical because, when the dust settles and the big international relief organizations have left, people’s lives will still be devastated, and the need to rebuild will still be there.

…As many of us work to figure out appropriate strategies to support the people of Haiti, it’s important to note that the people most vulnerable–namely, women, LGBT folks, people with disabilities, incarcerated people, children, and elders–can experience a slower unfolding of specific crises that are consequences of the original disaster and the social conditions that preceded the disaster.

Here are the words of Jay Smooth where he calls Haiti a “country of heroes” (also note his links for information and donations):

Ooh, this is getting a little heavy. Well, on a lighter note, isn’t it refreshing that cruise ships are still docking on private, guarded Haitian beaches?

Sixty miles from Haiti’s devastated earthquake zone, luxury liners dock at private beaches where passengers enjoy jetski rides, parasailing and rum cocktails delivered to their hammocks.

…”I just can’t see myself sunning on the beach, playing in the water, eating a barbecue, and enjoying a cocktail while [in Port-au-Prince] there are tens of thousands of dead people being piled up on the streets, with the survivors stunned and looking for food and water,” one passenger wrote on the Cruise Critic internet forum.

Donations:

Global Fund for Women
Partners in Health
Zanmi Lasant Clinic – Partners in Health’s Sister Organization in Haiti
Dwa Fanm (meaning “Women’s Rights” in Creole)
The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission
International Rescue Committee

Thanks to my roommates who helped me compile all this coverage. Look what one of them participated in to support Haiti!

Top Seven Myths About Public Housing

Megan Cottrell at True Slant wrote this great piece:

Think you know something about public housing? Not so fast. See if you’ve fallen prey to these top seven myths people believe about public housing.

Myth #1: Public housing residents don’t pay rent.

Go read it and bust some myths!

Vancouver Ends Homelessness

LOL YOUR CAPITALIST ECONOMY…

Joke’s on Vancouver. Learn more at Homelessness Is Over.

Man in Black

Can we all reflect on how awesome this song is?

Written by Johnny Cash in 1971.

Lyrics:

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he’s a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me.

Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought ‘a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen’ that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen’ that we all were on their side.

Well, there’s things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin’ everywhere you go,
But ’til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything’s OK,
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
‘Till things are brighter, I’m the Man In Black.

The West Colonizes Mental Illness

Such new behavior!

If you haven’t already checked it out, take a look at “The Americanization of Mental Illness” in the last NYT Magazine.

Some quotes:

[R]esearchers have amassed an impressive body of evidence suggesting that mental illnesses have never been the same the world over… In some Southeast Asian cultures, men have been known to experience what is called amok, an episode of murderous rage followed by amnesia; men in the region also suffer from koro, which is characterized by the debilitating certainty that their genitals are retracting into their bodies. Across the fertile crescent of the Middle East there is zar, a condition related to spirit-possession beliefs that brings forth dissociative episodes of laughing, shouting and singing.

The diversity that can be found across cultures can be seen across time as well. In his book “Mad Travelers,” the philosopher Ian Hacking documents the fleeting appearance in the 1890s of a fugue state in which European men would walk in a trance for hundreds of miles with no knowledge of their identities. The hysterical-leg paralysis that afflicted thousands of middle-class women in the late 19th century not only gives us a visceral understanding of the restrictions set on women’s social roles at the time but can also be seen from this distance as a social role itself — the troubled unconscious minds of a certain class of women speaking the idiom of distress of their time.

And…

For more than a generation now, we in the West have aggressively spread our modern knowledge of mental illness around the world. We have done this in the name of science, believing that our approaches reveal the biological basis of psychic suffering and dispel prescientific myths and harmful stigma. There is now good evidence to suggest that in the process of teaching the rest of the world to think like us, we’ve been exporting our Western “symptom repertoire” as well. That is, we’ve been changing not only the treatments but also the expression of mental illness in other cultures. Indeed, a handful of mental-health disorders — depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and anorexia among them — now appear to be spreading across cultures with the speed of contagious diseases.

And…

Mental-health professionals in the West, and in the United States in particular, create official categories of mental diseases and promote them in a diagnostic manual that has become the worldwide standard. American researchers and institutions run most of the premier scholarly journals and host top conferences in the fields of psychology and psychiatry. Western drug companies dole out large sums for research and spend billions marketing medications for mental illnesses.

Is this another one of them Objective Sciences which it turns out was never objective at all? Oh my god, ARE OUR ENDEAVORS INFLUENCED BY OUR CULTURE!? Next you’ll be telling me that persuasion and/or force can change people’s behavior, and that drug companies have some sort of motive to make a profit. Well that’s all silly.

It’s much easier to believe that if America can police the world, logically America can police the world’s mental health too. Because we’re Americans, we’re exceptional, and what I mean by that is, we’re exceptionally right about everything. So if American doctors and drug companies say people experience mental illness a certain way, they’re saying that because they are, objectively speaking, right, and not because they are fallible human beings armed with research but also with hubris. And potentially, with capital at stake.

***
I was pretty impressed that the NYT ran an article that would challenge stuff like mental health colonization, the eternal rightness of America, the objectivity of science, and the unassailable authority of mental health professionals. It got my gears turning, certainly. It also made me recall the book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman, which essentially deals with this very issue. A family of Hmong refugees in California has an epileptic daughter, and great conflict ensues between how the doctors and the family view and treat the illness.

Question Cultural Infallibility.

White Does Not Equal Right.

West Does Not Equal Best.

Kansas Lawmakers Plan to Restrict Late Abortion, Despite Absence Of Late Abortion in State

You know if Kansas State Rep Lance Kinzer is involved, it’s going to be good. I get more material for this blog from my google alert out on him than from any other single source.

So it is with an air of comfortable familiarity that I relate to you his plans to chip away at women’s ability to access late term abortions in Kansas, despite the fact that a psychotic killer already murdered the only person who provided them in the state. (Just to be clear, late term abortions are already restricted to women who need them to prevent serious bodily harm or death, along with a variety of even less sensical restrictions.)

The Lawrence Journal-World:

Tiller was the face of the abortion debate in Kansas — and sometimes nationally — because his Wichita clinic was among a few in the U.S. performing abortions in the last weeks of pregnancy. Tiller’s clinic has been closed since he was shot to death in May and no doctor or clinic elsewhere in Kansas is doing the same work.

But legislators who oppose abortion still expect to pass a bill requiring doctors who perform late-term procedures to report more information to the state and making it possible for them to face lawsuits if patients or others come to believe their abortions violated state law. Abortion opponents contend such issues are still compelling, even if no doctor or clinic is performing abortions as late as Tiller did.

So saving imaginary pre-born patriots is more “compelling” than dealing with Kansas’ multitude of non-imaginary problems, like poverty, foreclosures, homelessness, drug addiction, the disappearance of small farmers as factory farming takes over, de-facto racial segregation, unemployment, lack of public transportation, massive budget shortfalls, waterway pollution, religious intolerance, and etc.

Fascinating, Lance.

Some abortion rights supporters had hoped for a break from the Legislature’s perennial debates over abortion because of lingering revulsion over Tiller’s murder, including among many abortion opponents.

Ha! How amusingly naïve.

“There’s nobody in the state of Kansas who’s doing abortions past 22 weeks of pregnancy. It’s a moot issue,” said Peter Brownlie, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri.

Jan.16: March on Phoenix for Immigrant Human Rights! Be There.

Arpaio’s America is not my America!

Organizers in Arizona are planning a huge action next Saturday in Phoenix against shithead Sheriff Joe Arpaio, pictured above. Be there if it is at all possible! It’s going to be awesome.

The lead organizers are the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.

The march starts at 10:00am in Falcon Park at 3420 W. Roosevelt St. in Phoenix and ends at Tent City. To get fired up, take a gander at this delightful video. (For some reason, I can’t embed vimeo videos.)

Starting at 5pm there will be a huge concert at 2nd Ave & Grant in downtown Phoenix.

Here’s how you can find out more, get involved, and/or make donations.

A Letter from Christine Quinn: Stop Cuts to NYC Public Transportation!

January 6, 2010

Dear New Yorker,

Last month the MTA unveiled a package of budget cuts that is a slap in the face to hardworking people across our city.

Yesterday I stood with elected officials, transportation advocates, students, seniors, people with disabilities and other transit riders to protest this latest round of proposed service cuts, which include the elimination of Student MetroCards and cuts to the Access-a-Ride Program.

New Yorkers from all walks of life joined us in sending a strong, clear message to the MTA: Don’t Leave New Yorkers Stranded!

Working together with transit advocates, the New York City Council has proposed an alternate budget solution that will help us to avoid these drastic service cuts by:

* Reallocating 10 percent of direct stimulus aid to MTA operating expenses ($91.5 million);

* Using budgeted PAYGO capital funds for operating ($50 million); and

* Reallocating 10 percent of additional stimulus transit aid to State to operating ($30 million).

Relevant articles in the press:

* “Rally to save service: Astoria protest vs. MTA plan to kill W line“

* “Save Our Subways! NYers Protest MTA Cuts“

* “Students, Politicians Protest MTA Cuts“

We need your help. Below are actions we can all take to stem these cuts and adopt a more rational plan.

Take Action

* Sign our petition here and support our plan!

* Attend the MTA’s public hearing on this issue. By signing our petition we will be able to notify you when the hearing is scheduled.

* Contact the MTA. Urge them to find alternative ways to prevent these terrible cuts and to ensure an open public process. By phone, dial (212) 878-7483. By e-mail, click here.

* Click here to contact Governor Paterson. Let him know how these transit service cuts will affect your life.

* Sign up to volunteer! If you would like to take part in any of the events that we will be organizing around this issue, please contact Nick Rolf at NROLF@council.nyc.gov.

With your help we can stop these drastic cuts and ensure greater public input in the MTA’s budget process.

Sincerely,

Christine C. Quinn
Speaker
New York City Council

“Hijacking Abortion Rights Through the Health Care Bill”

“The hijacking of abortion rights as a bargaining chip for the provision of health care is morally reprehensible and if it stands will result in significant harms to women’s health. As women’s health advocates are working full tilt to try to stop this from happening, there is an uncomfortable sense of having been here before. How is it possible that we have to fight for the right to choose to have an abortion all over again?”

-Lucinda Marshall, writing at Counterpunch

The Czech in the 11th Carnival of Feminists – Global Edition

The 11th Carnival of Feminists, Global Edition, is now up at Gender Across Borders. The Czech is included! Yayz. Go check it out, lots of good reading there.

“Me & My Four Husbands”

This is the title of Saudi journalist Nadine Al Bedair’s Dec. 11th article in the Egyptian independent daily newspaper Al Masry Al Youm. Interestingly, their English language site does not include a translation of the article, but Muslimah Media Watch provides the first couple paragraphs in English, and after which the story was apparently picked up by the LA Times, nearly a month after the original article was published.

Al Bedair’s words have caused quite a stir, as you can see at Muslimah Media Watch.

Here’s the translation of the beginning of the article that MMW posted to their site:

Allow me to choose four, five or even nine men, just as my wildest imagination shall chose.

I’ll pick them with different shapes and sizes, one of them will be dark and the other will be blonde. Tall or maybe short, they are to be Chosen from different denominations, religions, races and nations. And I promise you there will be harmony.

Create a brand new positive law for me, or may be a divine one. Make me a new law under the umbrella of the fatwa and fantasies, those which you unanimously agree on suddenly and without any advance notice.

Other media coverage of this story (note that America was a tad late on this boat):

The Guardian: Polygamy for all (Written by a male, starts out with a sexist cliche, and continues on to miss the entire point of Al Bedair’s article. But shockingly he isn’t against her. Whatever.)

Bikya Masr: Egypt: women should have right to polygamy article causes stir

Elan: Polygamy for Chicks: Saving Spinster Men Everywhere (I see they borrowed their idea for their news graphic from shitty gay marriage news stories.)

Al Arabiya: Egypt paper promotes polygamy for women (One article subheading is “Destroying Society”.)

A Homeless Man on Homelessness

From a highly recommended article titled “Can Life Be Lived in Dignity by Every San Diegan? ” by Rocky Neptun, are the words of Bill Foster, a homeless San Diegan:

“You know, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, spending cold and hot days in the library, reading the newspapers, using the Internet; the City of San Diego doesn’t want a year-round shelter because the fat cats who own this city know that minimal, scarce charity for each person individualizes the process, makes that person the culprit, the bad guy, separates him not only from himself but from himself in company with others because he has to compete with other homeless to survive. All poor people must be recipients rather than participants; given something for nothing and in the American way despised for it…made to grovel, then, beg, borrow or steal a bit of dignity.

“City government can finance charity, pay the junkyard dealers like Father Joe’s or the Rescue Mission to warehouse the poor, to keep them out of sight as much as possible, to create economic parolees with institutional mindsets of meekness and order-ability so that police can shove them around and the merchants can verbally push them along and the public can look down on them, judgmentally, scorning their scarlet lettered dirty clothes.”

300 People in LA Declare Housing a Human Right

This is a really exciting video. A bunch of economic justice groups in LA got together on Human Rights Day (Dec. 10) and rallied for the human right to housing! Los Angeles Community Action Network posted this video. Just as civil and political rights are important, so are economic and social ones. How can you pursue life, liberty and happiness if you can’t afford a home? How can racial disparities disappear until everyone has the same economic rights?

The diminutive activist from Korean Immigrant Workers Advocates wearing the black cowboy hat and pumping his fist is the highlight.

Video: International Human Rights Day in LA from pete white on Vimeo.

“It’s more difficult today because we are struggling now for genuine equality. And it’s much easier to integrate a lunch counter than it is to guarantee a livable income and a good solid job. It’s much easier to guarantee the right to vote than it is to guarantee the right to live in sanitary, decent housing conditions. It is much easier to integrate a public park than it is to make genuine, quality, integrated education a reality. And so today we are struggling for something which says we demand genuine equality.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 1967

And a random related quote:

“The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.”

-Sitting Bull, ~1886

Hot Queer Music Video Pt.6

Willie Nelson with Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly (Fond of Each Other):

Hot Queer Music Video Pt.5

Yes, I had to rename this series because there are just too many awesome queer music videos that don’t quite fit the Lesbian category.

So here you are: Fagette by Athens Boys Choir:

1 Photo, 1000 Words

This photograph snapped by Shenanigans Dec. 28, 2009: