Tag: Arthur@AmeriNZ

E is for Equality

Booker noted: “I shudder to think what would have happened if the civil rights gains, heroically established by courageous lawmakers in the 1960s, were instead conveniently left up to popular votes in our 50 states.”

 

The news that made the recent headlines in terms of marriage equality in the United States was that a federal appeals court ruled Proposition 8, the California plebiscite overturning gay marriage, violated the Constitution, setting up an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, or possibly not. Meanwhile, the Washington state legislature passed a bill legalizing gay marriage; here is part of the debate. Also, New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch has vowed to veto efforts to repeal that state’s same-sex marriage law.

Discussing specifically the California judicial ruling, writer Mark Evanier noted: “I still wish this thing could be settled by a vote of the people rather than to reopen silly arguments about ‘judicial activism.'” And in an ideal world, I would tend to agree with him.

But I was struck by something that Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, a Democrat, said. He broke with Governor Chris Christie, a Republican with whom he has previously been aligned. Booker opposed Christie’s call for a gay marriage referendum, and his threat to veto a gay marriage bill because, as Christie put it, “I need to be governed by the will of the people.”

In response, Booker noted: “I shudder to think what would have happened if the civil rights gains, heroically established by courageous lawmakers in the 1960s, were instead conveniently left up to popular votes in our 50 states.” He submitted that leaders are elected to make difficult decisions, not submit to a public referendum. “Equal protection under the law – for race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation – should not be subject to the most popular sentiments of the day. Marriage equality is not a choice. It is a legal right. I hope our leaders in Trenton will affirm and defend it.” You can watch Booker here.

I was fascinated by a lengthy article in Salon: The making of gay marriage’s top foe: How Maggie Gallagher’s college pregnancy made her a single mom, and a traditional marriage zealot. “The organization she founded in 2007, the National Organization for Marriage, helped organize the successful effort in 2008 to pass Proposition 8 in California…

“Gallagher’s opposition to gay marriage seems to have very little to do with gay people, indeed with people at all. What really excites her is a depersonalized idea of Marriage: its essence, its purity, its supposedly immutable definition…For Gallagher, gay people are the enemy only insofar as their desire to marry is yet another attack on Marriage…”

Except that marriage had already been on the decline, at least in the United States, long before the first gay nuptials. I suspect it’s a function of children with divorced parents being less likely to tie the knot. It’s almost ironic that gay couples, for whom marriage had long been out of the question, are now a growth segment in the matrimonial business.
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A brief history of the Gay Rights Movement.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has filed a legal challenge to the (so-called) Defense of Marriage Act.
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ABC Wednesday – Round 10

January Rambling: sweatshops, Steve Bissette and singing

Some yahoo wrote The Rare Case Against Creator-Owned Comics, citing the Steve Bissette article as “proof” of his premise.

 

Vernon Supreme for President. Just one of about four dozen candidates on the New Hampshire ballot.

From here: “When Steve Jobs died…, deification from the media and inconsolable consumers made gripes about Apple’s use of sweatshops seem like the cynical mumblings of contrarians. The problem is that there’s plenty of documentation and reporting that supports the criticism.” See also this: “Mike Daisey was a self-described ‘worshipper in the cult of Mac.’ Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.”

Rich Kids For Romney.

A Gentle Question for the Christian Right.

Nobody has the right to take another life; Roger Ebert on the death penalty.

Elizabeth Warren: ‘It Gets Better’

Gabrielle Giffords resigns from the US House of Representatives, a year after being shot in the head, so she can more fully recover. The video is very nice, but there are always trolls – check them out at the YouTube site at your own risk – who show what schmucks some people can be.

My buddy Steve Bissette noted the unfortunate circumstances involving the non-publication of 1963, a project that involved, among others, Steve and Alan Moore. Then, some yahoo wrote The Rare Case Against Creator-Owned Comics, citing the Bissette article as “proof” of his premise. Steve responded to “this oddly-headlined post at Newsarama, which”, Steve hastened to add, “somewhat distorts the context of my own end-of-2011 Myrant post.”

Aggressively inarticulate.

The late Etta James covers Guns ‘N’ Roses’ Welcome To The Jungle. Here’s her Roll with me Henry a/k/a The Wallflower.
From the Wikipedia: “[Musician Johnny] Otis took the group under his wing, helping them sign to Modern Records and changing their name from the Creolettes to the Peaches and gave the singer her stage name reversing Jamesetta [Hawkins] into Etta James. James recorded the version…in 1954, and the song was released in early 1955 as ‘Dance with Me, Henry’…changed to avoid censorship due to the subtle title. In February of that year, the song reached number one on the Hot Rhythm & Blues Tracks chart.” Yes, her At Last was played at Carol’s and my wedding reception, too. And coincidentally, Johnny Otis died that same week as Etta. Here’s his Willie and the Hand Jive.

A nice story about the late Dick Tufeld, who voiced the robot on Lost in Space, among MANY other gigs.

Ten Bits of Advice Writers Should Stop Giving Aspiring Writers.

The Year in Kickstarter.

Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy hit back at Fox News during a UK press conference following the London Premiere of their new film. Fox News had publicly criticized the film for supposedly pushing a ‘dangerous liberal agenda’ at kids.

Three musical pieces, including those 5 people on one guitar I saw more than a few times across the interwebs.

Art Spiegelman exhibition in Angouleme, France.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910).

Ellen and Sofia.

Sammy Davis performing If I Were A Rich Man, with Mark Evanier citing the source, and making an interesting point about its appropriateness.

Pie on the brain.

Mozart is 256.

This guy travels the world and everywhere he goes, he shoots a second or two of video of himself. Then he goes home and puts it together.

Pacman, the Musical.

Cookie Monster as Tom Waits. Or vice versa.

Sorry, San Francisco football fans, but the 49ers Aren’t Going to the Super Bowl. So, go New York Giants, even if they play in New Jersey.

MOI, ELSEWHERE

Post SOPA/PIPA, KeepThe Web#OPEN; Oppose ACTA

The GOP Debates debate

Slavery By Another Name: Doug Blackmon, Bill Kennedy and Me

Chainsaw Comics Presents: Fear

GOOGLE ALERTS

Roger Green Trim and Construction – Local Business · Charlotte, North Carolina

Dr Roger Green DDS – General Dentistry Sun City West, AZ

11629 West Roger Green Road, Campbellsburg IN 47108

ROG answers Arthur’s Question on Irreligiosity

I’m more irritable with perversions of Christianity than I am with the irreligious. I think it’s because they are SUPPOSED to be on “my” team.

One of my favorite people in Blogistan, Arthur@AmeriNZ, asks:

You know—of course, you do—you had me scurrying for my dictionary to consider the relative merit of “gauntlet” v. “gantlet”. I give you the victory on points.

But that’s not my question. You are religious and at least some of your readers are not. How hard is it for you to overlook what I can only assume is, if not blasphemy, then as close as you can get? Some of us are a bit more stroppy in our irreligiousity than others, so I’m wondering how you reconcile that with your own faith. Or, is it that your faith allows for those who are of differing—even non-religious—beliefs?

This is something that I, as a heathen, have long wondered about.

Arthur, I hyperlinked “stroppy” for my American readers, because I had never heard of the word until I saw or heard you use it.

I think my faith journey has been helpful. I was “saved” watching Billy Graham at someone’s house on Oak Street in Binghamton, NY when I was nine years old. This house is about a half-block from my church, a couple of blocks from my house. I mention this because it wasn’t an event that took place either at home or my church.

Went to Friday Night Bible Club almost every week for years. Figured that I was destined to become a minister, and others felt similarly. But here’s when things went off track. The more I read and studied, the less the whole thing was making sense. Some of the Old Testament stuff, especially in Leviticus, was troubling and confusing. I had a very difficult time with the notion of missionaries needing to “save the savages” in other countries from their “inferior” religions. In particular, I was told that all the Hindus in India were going to go to hell, and I did (and still do) have some real difficulty with that.

So I started drifting away from Christianity in college, though I still hung out with the campus ministry occasionally. Around this time, I read a book about Mahatma Gandhi. There’s a quote in there, and I’m paraphrasing, but in response to the question of why Gandhi didn’t become a Christian since he was an admirer of the teachings of Jesus Christ, he replied, “I’d become a Christian if I had ever met one.” Think that was a great retort.

In my 20s, I drifted theologically, flirting with various faiths, including the Moonies, and occasionally no faith at all. When I found my way back to Christianity over time in my 30s, it was with a more – what’s the word? – adult (?) sensibility, better able to deal with seemingly inherent contradictions of living faith and document.

As I was doing a Bible study in the mid-1990s, one of the exercises was to go to a faith tradition different from my own. I went to a now-defunct Coptic (Egyptian Orthodox) church on Madison Avenue in Albany and spent about three hours there. After the service, I was engaged in conversation with a member. He wanted to know what my religious background was; I told him that I was a Protestant, a Methodist at the time. He said to me, as nicely as one can, “You do know you’re going to go to hell, don’t you?” This had to do with the fact that Protestants, unlike Catholics and Orthodox, do not subscribe to the literal belief in transubstantiation. That certainly helped my understanding of faith in the world from a different perspective, and how it felt to be the “other” theologically.

Indeed, I always engage people in religious conversations, if they want (and I have time) because all it can do is hone my own faith. Jehovah’s Witnesses at the door? Come on in!

So, Arthur, the long answer to the question, is that irreligiosity bothers me far less than it seems to bug others, maybe because I’ve been there. “Opiate of the masses”? If that works for you. The late Christopher Hitchens’ tirade against the idea of God/faith? Fine. (Although this writer does have a valid point about Hitchens in a wider context.) Let’s face it, faith can be a bit scary, like stepping out into the void as Indiana Jones did in the third movie.

Actually, I’m more irritable with perversions of Christianity than I am with the irreligious. I think it’s because they are SUPPOSED to be on “my” team. So those Westboro Baptists tick me off far more than atheists. The peculiar intersection of Christianity and Americanism I find troubling because I believe Jesus was fighting the status quo, not embracing it.

I like many comedy movies about God. George Burns as God (Oh God), Morgan Freeman as God (Bruce Almighty). I love Monty Python’s Life of Brian so much that I bought it on DVD just this year.

Arthur, I’m not overlooking blasphemy; indeed, I happen to find it helpful to me. And yes, my faith allows room for those who are of differing— even non-religious— beliefs from me, because I think that is the Jesus message.

Sidebar: there was a discussion in adult Bible education at church a few weeks ago, and there was a conversation about whether people know you’re a Christian. One guy said that it would be unlikely. He didn’t wear a cross, carry around a Bible (like I did my first two years in high school – really), so how would anyone know? I suppose I DO want people to know – surely people at work know that, at least, I sing in a church choir. I mention faith periodically in this blog, I hope, but not TOO often. To proselytize would be anathema to me; this is what I believe, but I’m not saying that’s how someone else should feel. On the other hand, if you think, “he’s not so bad, for a Christian,” that’d be a plus.
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Still taking questions.

 

What a Mess!

Next time he comes here, he’ll be work on…our foundation, which he also has to do in decent weather; the curse of an old house. Then, he’ll finally get to insulating the OTHER half of the attic.

Generally, I enjoy listening to the podcast of Arthur@AmeriNZ. But on a recent episode, Arthur was describing what a mess his house was, and the fact that he can’t do X until Y is done, and he can’t do Y until Z is done, et al. I nearly shrieked – and not with joy – because it’s pretty much what’s been going on with us.

It’s been going on SO long that the chronology has gotten to be a bit sketchy. As I recall, a couple of years ago, we decided to get the attic insulated. There is a bunch of stuff up there, inevitably. The easiest way to go about it was to move all the things in one half of the attic to the other, which we did, which naturally made that side almost impassable, and difficult to find things in, as you might imagine. Then we waited. And waited.

Our contractor had some emergencies that he needed to do for other people, and a couple for us.

Finally, the contractor did the work on half the attic, in relatively short order. We painted the one side and it looked lovely, as attics go.

So now it’s time to insulate the other side; this was November 2010. Of course, everything that was in the attic is now on the OTHER half. The attic is stripped down to the studs. And we wait and wait. The contractor has flood repairs to do for others. He also – and this is important to do in good weather – replaced our roof.

Next time he comes here, he’ll be work on…our foundation, which he also has to do in decent weather; the curse of an old house. Then, he’ll finally get to insulating the OTHER half of the attic.

We might have sought another contractor for the attic save for the fact that the job was already 2/3s done.

Oh, and when I said that all the stuff is in the attic, that’s not entirely accurate. Some of it won’t fit up there right now. So there are things in the guest room, which has been a tidy, and occasionally untidy, mess for about 24 months. Once the other side of the attic is finished, and then we paint it, the living quarters of the house will be MUCH nicer. Maybe by next summer.

And once the attic is passable, it’ll be much easier to sort what’s there and we can decide what to keep, what to give away, and what to toss, without having to live immediately in it.

Getting Around and Getting Along in Canada

Most of the bicyclists were not wearing helmets, which I think is crazy, but such is the confidence he pedalists have in their drivers.

I don’t want to say that everyone we saw in Canada was nicer than the folks in the United States. A couple of the folks at the first hotel were, let’s say, indifferent. And the very first person we dealt with on the subway was clearly frustrated that we didn’t understand her incomprehensible instructions.

By and large, however, I found it a joy to be in Canada, especially Toronto. Other subway workers in the big city were quite helpful, and even complete strangers initiated contact to assist us when we looked confused.

Once we got the hang of it, we found the Toronto subway to be quite usable. Reasonably clean, mostly on time – except for that delay on the way to the zoo – and the riders were not openly hostile, as I’ve experienced in more than a few major American cities.

The bus trip to the zoo was actually fun, with people generally compliant with the signs to move back. We were near three high school girls from the suburbs who were native Chinese speakers but were studying English words for some major comprehensive test, perhaps the SATs.

Apparently driving out of Toronto in the afternoon is OK until about 3:30 pm, except on Friday afternoons in the summer, which is when we departed at 2 pm and got into a major traffic slowdown east of the city. That’s why, I suppose, the highway has all of those LED road signs imploring people to Try Mass Transit, or Use Mass Transit. And when a merged lane sign shows up, the drivers were generally quite content to let a driver in, taking turns.

In Toronto, I’ve never seen so many people riding bicycles in North America in my life. And unlike in Albany, NY, the drivers weren’t hostile to them. Most of the bicyclists were not wearing helmets, which I think is crazy, but such is the confidence the pedalists have in their drivers.

Oh, and cars yield to pedestrians – what’s THAT all about? I was practically in shock when cars stopped at the intersection and waited for the people to cross the street, even folks who were not at the intersection before the auto was. This would never happen in Albany. The one sign of impatience is when the drivers ARE making their right turns, either with the light or especially right on red, they will usually have one or two drivers turn after the light is red. So don’t step off the curb right away.

I even liked a lot of Canadian television, the little we saw, generally in the morning and evening. There was some morning show that gave a lot more of what I consider REAL news than the US equivalents do after the first half-hour. One segment was about homelessness in Canada, and the host showed real concern. Oh, and my wife got to see a performance by one of her two favorite singers, Diana Krall.

My favorite moment in Toronto: we were at the Ontario Science Centre. We bought a one-use camera for the Daughter, which was reasonably priced, BTW. She proceeded to misplace it. When I finally noticed this, I contacted the nearest employee and asked what I could do. He said, “Wait here,” walked over to the Lost and Found and in a few minutes, brought the camera to me. Usually, in such situations in the past, at best, an employee would direct me to the Lost and Found, where the camera might or might not have been returned. This outcome was, as they say, way cool.

So I was quite surprised in reading a comment to this blogpost by Arthur about the most livable cities. One of his LOCs stated: “I hope Toronto is not in the top ten! I was transferred here 6 months ago and as someone who has traveled all over and lived in South Africa, Australia, DC, LA, etc – I can tell you Toronto is not in the top ten!! Angriest people in North America, expensive, horrible weather. 6 months to go if I can make it.” (It’s #4, BTW.)

Now I did not live there. It was only four days. But there was a point, walking by the Royal Ontario Museum on our second day there when I said to my wife: “I think I could live here,” assuming that we had employment, etc. Good mass transit, bikes, educational capital, intellectual stimulation, massive multiculturalism; there were plenty of places we DIDN’T get a chance to see. And there are angrier people in lots of US cities I’ve been to, starting with Albany, NY.
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Heather Morris’ Staples Canada Back To School Commercial. Heather Morris, from the TV show Glee, is not from Canada, BTW.

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