Student Politics are not for Sissies

http://laughingsquid.com/san-franciscos-answer-to-westboro-baptist-church/

Each time someone sends me a friend request on Facebook, I spend some time first thinking about whether I'm comfortable opening up myself to that person. It's not that I hide my political beliefs or my propensity to use bad language from those I know, but some of the requests I get are from people who may have just met me, and I might not have had a chance to exercise all of my colourful vocabulary in person.

It's a particular concern when I get friend requests from young people. Some of Super Son's friends have sent me requests. I like to think it is because they admire me as a brilliant conversationalist and potential mentor, a trendsetter whose style they want to emulate. Yeah....sure. It does make me wonder sometimes who else is reading my scintillating status updates and snarky comments to friends. Do groups of students gather around the computer of one who has friended me, eager to see what I've written? Not bloody likely. Are parents of some of these impressionable young persons reading my blathering, aghast at my wild liberal viewpoints on issues like health care reform, social justice and gay rights?

Possibly.

But I just can't lose a lot of sleep over what they think. Because although some of what I write and say is pure silliness, sometimes a tad racy (truthfully, not much worse than the level of a "that's what she said" joke), some of my posts and comments relate to my core beliefs and values. And if I'm not willing to state those positions and take action every once in a while, I'd be a pretty poor role model.

There are some evildoers from Westboro Baptist Church coming to my town, determined to picket at a local high school. You can read the details here. I posted the article on my Facebook page, and noticed that many of the local high schoolers were already doing the same thing. Word spreads pretty fast on the interwebs. Young people are organizing to take action to counter protest these haters and spread a message of acceptance and tolerance and love. Super Son is one of them. And I've volunteered to drive him and others - who have their parents' written permission (I am not stupid, after all) to the counter protest. I am proud of and impressed by these young people. They are standing up for what they believe. That takes guts. And I want to support them.


I believe there are bad guys and injustice in the world, and it's up to people like me to stand up to that to make things better. Now all I need to do is decide what to put on my counter protest sign. Leave your suggestions in the comments. The photo at the top of this post shows some examples of signs from another counter protest. They make me laugh. Laughing is good. I think God likes laughter, don't you?

Here's my theme song. What's yours?

What Would YOU Do?

My second husband takes Stephen Hawking to task for his comments about time travel. Consider this my Cinco de Mayo gift to you. Enjoy with a nice glass of sangria. Then leave me a comment on this topic: What would you do if you could time travel?

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Stephen Hawking Is Such an A-Hole - Time Travel
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Civic Courage

As Super Son stays late after school each day, in rehearsals for The Wizard of Oz, (the story of a young girl's desperate struggle to return home to her beloved Uncle Henry), I am watching the news with great interest. Recently, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said something I thought was pretty darned smart:

Running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage.

The Oregonian editors wrote a great piece about the case involved. You can read it here. The case, Doe v. Reed, is from my home state of Washington. As the editors explain:

The court was wrestling with the nature of democracy vs. secrecy. At issue: whether people who sign ballot petitions should have a new right to add their names to ballot petitions -- anonymously.

I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, a place with some very interesting politics. It wasn't until I moved out west, first to Oregon and, later, to Washington, that I learned about the initative process. Professor X and I did quite a bit of research in the 1990's on Ballot Measure 9, a precursor to the recent Proposition Hate in California. Like those two measures, the one involved in this recent court case concerns gay rights. This little gem, which I'm happy to say was resoundingly rejected by the voters, sought to overturn domestic partnership protections for gay and lesbian couples. Petition signers didn't want the public to know about their bigotry and sought to have the names remain secret. The Oregonian observed that

But by signing their names on initiative or referendum petitions, people act as citizen legislators. Yes, in the age of the Internet, it may take some special courage to let your name hang out in the public square, but that is a minimal requirement of petitioning for a change in the law. ... Signers' names should be public in the same way that lawmakers' names, are public.

Years ago, I had a mad crush on was crazy in love with deeply admired one of my political science professors. Something he said has always stuck with me. Just a pithy little truism, I suppose. But that doesn't make it any less valid.

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

I believe firmly in the sentiments expressed by this quote of Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle:

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

A military man, my professor undoubtedly knew of the speech of General Douglas MacArthur, in which he stated:

Last, but by no means least, courage--moral courage, the courage of one's convictions, the courage to see things through. The world is in a constant conspiracy against the brave. It's the age-old struggle--the roar of the crowd on one side and the voice of your conscience on the other.

Maybe if people know that they can't anonymously seek to prevent others from having equal rights, they'll think again. They might ponder how their friends and neighbors would feel if their intolerance was public knowledge.

I've testified at many hearings and written many letters to the editor expressing my opinion about all sorts of issues. It's not always safe; sometimes those who disagree have confronted me and asked to take it outside. Once, I testified at a Forest Service hearing about wilderness areas and the need to protect some places from motorized vehicles. A motorcycle enthusiast got in my face when I was done speaking, and walked into the hallway with me so that he could explain that God created those wild places so that he could ride his noisy, stinky bike there. He phrased it a little differently, but he definitely mentioned that it was God's will. A friend I know testified at a hearing in Idaho on another environmental issue, only to find that his small car had been flipped upside down by angry opponents.

But we keep standing up and speaking out for what we believe.

Here's a lovely little clip from The Wizard of Oz. Just click your heels together, say "There's no place like an open democracy" and then click on the pic below.

Oh, and in case you're wondering, Super Son is playing the role of Uncle Henry. He's going to be awesome.

Sounds of Silence

Image from SodaHead

Warning: Some of this may be offensive to some readers. For example, the incredible misspellings in a quoted Facebook status. Or maybe even the notion that someone can be so young and so bigoted. Read at your discretion.

So...here goes.

I have been extremely unsettled since I read a young man's status post on Facebook the other day. He wrote - no, wait. Let me share an interesting post (yes, it is related; I am not going off on a tangent) I read at Militant Ginger: Why do Christians hate Gay People?

Don't feel like clicking the link and reading the whole piece? Okay, slacker, I'll give you a good quote from it:

While certain Christians were instrumental in securing Civil Rights for African-Americans, the core support for racial segregation across the United States came from the majority of 'decent,' normal, Church-going Americans. The same people who are now protesting against gay marriage.

In fact, the scriptural arguments were quite similar, too - with the 'mark of Cain' often being interpreted as dark skin, thereby offering scriptural evidence to support the assumption that black people were spiritually inferior to whites.

Such scriptural interpretations were clearly just cynical attempts to hide racism and bigotry behind the legitimacy of religion. I honestly don't see how the Christian position on homosexuality is any different today.

The recent case of Constance McKinnen's prom (Don't know what I'm talking about? Have you been living in a cave?) illustrated a depressing demonstration of hateful homophobia by Christian churchgoers. Go over to Wisenheimer for a funny take on this story. No, really, go over there now and read it. I will wait.

That Courtenay has a way with words, doesn't she? Yes, this is related to what I began telling you about. It's not a tangent, I swear.

Okay, now back to the Facebook kid. He was writing in response to the Day of Silence on April 16th. Don't know what that's about? Don't feel bad; I didn't either. Here's how the group sponsoring it describes their mission:

The Day of Silence, a project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is a student-led day of action when concerned students take some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to the name-calling, bullying and harassment -- in effect, the silencing -- experienced by LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) students and their allies.

Sounds like a pretty damned good idea to me. I thought of my friend Mrs. Chili, and the posts she's done about the young men who were driven to suicide by such bullying. This is a worthy effort on behalf of a group who deserve better treatment. In the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., it was a good old fashioned non-violent protest. It was greeted by these compassionate words in this child's Facebook status:

Not participating in the Day Of Silence tomorrow. Honestly, there are bigger problems to rally for. 4,000 Children die every hour from starvation and I see no Day of Silence for THEM. Thousands of Christians and their families are tourtured, imprissoned, and killed every year and nobody says a word. But if gay couples aren't allowed to marry? OH NO!!! Lobby!!! Boycott!!! Rally!!!

I told you were were some serious misspellings. There is also a depressing lack of tolerance for his fellow man. What made it even more depressing to me was seeing that ten of his peers, including a girl I know, had clicked the "like" button. It shook me up to think that this girl agreed with such a bigoted view.

Kids, we need to respect each other. We can rally for more than one thing. We can help feed children and protect Christians from the lions and let gay folks get married. Of course, I'd argue that we should probably have fewer children so that there are not so many hungry mouths in the first place. But that's sort of a tangent. The point is that Christians should stop hating on gay people.

For some reason, I'm reminded of the poem "First they came" by Pastor Martin Niemoller. Often quoted, it describes the dangers of political apathy in response to fear and hatred which soon escalates out of control.

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

THEN THEY CAME for me
and by that time no one was left to speak up."

My son heightened my sense of anxiety about this current of hatred in our country when he talked this evening at dinner. He mentioned things he'd read in the news about the rise of militia groups and the threat of civil unrest in this country.

But that's all fodder for another post. I'm worn out right now (as you've probably already surmised by the rambling incoherency of this post) by the thought of young people I have met who are bullying those who are unlike them. From the things I've read about Jesus, I don't think he'd cotton much to their actions. I'm headed to bed now, with visions of a Ricky Ricardo-like Jesus greeting them some day beside St. Peter at the pearly gates "Kids, you got a lotta 'splaining to do! What part of " but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" did you not understand?

UPDATED!! Carry-on Douchebaggery is Afoot

Photo by Kvatch found at The Travel Pirates: insiders giving you the coolest news,

tips and tricks about travel and the crazy business of travel
orig. from Blognonymous, which then switched to Ragebot - check them all out!

We rode Southwest Airlines to LAX on our recent trip to Disneyland. The fare was the cheapest and they don't charge for checked bags. I booked another trip elsewhere coming up and chose American because their fare was the same as Southwest's; I plan to only use carry-ons because they charge for checked bags.

But now my heart is filled with fear. I just read this story about an airline charging for carry-ons.

Bastards.

This part really kills me:

Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza said having fewer carry-on bags will help empty the plane faster. He said the idea is to get customers to pay for individual things they want, while keeping the base fare low.

"The beauty of it is they will do what they think is best for them and will now have the choice," he said.

The choice? How about the choice to not fly your feckin' airline, buddy? That's one choice this traveler will be exercising.

When we lived in Europe, Ryan Air was reknowned for super cheap fares. We flew them from Eire to the UK, and were amused at the attendants' antics hawking water for a euro, even selling lottery tickets and perfume to passengers. But this proposed policy goes beyond the pale. It's enough to make me say "Piss off!"


UPDATE! My second husband has a lot to say about this issue. Check him out at Colbert Nation.

Altering the Course of My Generation

Funnel cakes. It's what's for dinner.

I haven't stepped on the scale since we returned from Disneyland, but I am officially ready to make some BIG changes around here. Sure, we walked our butts off for six days all over the Magic Kingdom, but we also ate Monte Cristo sandwiches, funnel cakes, ice cream sundaes and other treats. So our butts didn't actually get walked off. Nor did our guts. And I won't begin to tell you about my despair regarding my upper arms because some things should just remain private shames.

I'm not talking about Professor X (aka the Human Stringbean) or Super Son (who wants to tone up but is basically quite healthy). I am talking about beloved little daughter and me.

Today is the day I go to the grocery store and revolutionize how I shop. Veggies, lean meats, whole grains. And the day we go to the fitness center and begin healthy moves. My friends have been doing it for some time - running, shredding, working out and eating healthy. It's high time I jumped on the bandwagon. Or maybe it would be better to walk briskly alongside it. Heh! I might lose weight, but I will never lose my fabulous sense of humour.


I saw this today and wanted to share. I think it's inspiring!

Adventuring

Kindly pardon my recent lack of posts;
we've been off gallivanting.

Five points if you can identify this location.