There is a pathetic excuse for a human being out there that seems to feel his narrow-mindedness has value. His name is Matt Barber from the Liberty Councel. Here he is commenting on the Matthew Shepard act recently (From District Chronicles):

Conservative Christian leaders are fighting a bill that would provide federal hate-crimes coverage to gays and lesbians, prompting questions of who, if anyone, should be protected by such laws.

With a Democrat-controlled Congress and a president who has indicated his support for the Matthew Shepard Act, time may be running out for the bill’s opponents. To stop the legislation, a few Christian leaders have suggested repealing all hate-crimes law, which would undo historic protections for race and even religion.

“The entire notion of hate-crimes legislation is extraneous and obsolete,” said Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs with the conservative nonprofit Liberty Counsel, adding that he believes hate-crimes laws are unconstitutional.

And, once again a few weeks back, on other issues:

A Christian college in India allows applicants to indicate whether they are male, female, or transgender when they enroll.

Matt Barber, cultural affairs director at Liberty Counsel, says Madras Christian College administrators must have misread the book of Genesis, believing God created male, female, and transgender.

“You know, this is just ridiculous and insane,” he contends. “It’s really sad that a Christian college is joining in and entertaining this leftist, secular, humanist delusion that is transgenderism.”

Way back when I was a younger man I wrote an opinion response in the New York Post voicing my opposition to a commenter who criticized Michael Dukakis for marrying a Jewish woman. At 24-years-old, this kind of religious descrimination sickened me as much then as it does now.

There’s little I despise more than a religious figure or religious “representative” quietly (or, sometimes, not so quietly) promoting racial intolerance in the name of God. Many of these religious leaders on the far-right are doing just that. From the old school group of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart to the current assholes holding onto that last handful of hate in a world that has less and less to do with them, their words and actions are embarrassments to the rest of the human race.

Fortunately, in this country, the people are on the other side of their nasty rants:

A 2007 Gallup poll showed a majority of Americans (68 percent) favor expanding hate-crimes protections. Majorities of frequent churchgoers (62 percent), conservatives (57 percent), and Republicans (60 percent) also were in favor of the legislation.

It is no doubt in my mind that this, along with much of the molestation trouble the churches have been publicly dealing with over the last 20 years, is what’s made organized religion less and less appealing to the audience it used to own. The average religious person might want to believe in God, but they sure as hell don’t want to do it in the name of hatred and narrow thinking. This is why the only “religions” that seem to be flourishing are the extreme ones of which include The Catholic Traditionalist Movement and Al Qaeda. So sad that the weakest minded of our world are finding each other.

And, as far as Matt Barber is concerned, this narrow-minded fuckhead may well find that if there is a heaven, there is also a hell - and his statements might make him the perfect candidate for that particular institution.

Current News, Lifestyle liberty councel, matt barber

I was 5 years old when The Jackson Five came into my life. I got up early Saturday morning to watch the cartoon (followed in earlier years by the Beatles cartoon and a few years later by the Osmonds). I had a Jackson Five poster on my wall till the age of 7 and missed their music as the seventies left them behind.

Then, in my first year of college 1982, Michael Jackson came back. Off The Wall was a huge hit, “Rock with you” was part of the soundtrack of my freshman year and a few years later, the hits from “Thriller” became the videos you waited for when lounging around and watching MTV. Loved “Human Nature” and “She’s out of my life.” Pretty much considered Michael Jackson part of the tapestry of growing up.

I was 12 years old when Farrah Fawcett burst onto the scene. Along with Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson, I collected every poster the three of them graced. I, of course, had Farrah’s most famous and, along with my male friends, would move in close on it to contemplate the one, lone nipple impression. We watched “Charlie’s Angels” religiously and hoped for the best when Farrah ventured into features with “Somebody Killed Her Husband.” Every girl I knew copied her hair (yes, even in elementary school) and every guy had a thing for her. She was the face of the 70s, more of a phenomenon than Britney is today and a part of our memory of that time.

With both of these icons gone, a part of my youth has been taken away. As a middle-aged man I don’t lament these things with the level of emotion I would if I were in my teens or twenties, being preoccupied with family, children and obligations. Maybe that’s good - the distraction.

Nonetheless, I remember them both fondly, thank them for being the latent images of my childhood and hope in years to come their impression remains in the public eye so I can tell my kids, “These were the people I loved when I was your age.”

Current News, Lifestyle Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson

Some nice thoughts in a Los Angeles Times article by Ann Powers regarding the larger message of this year’s American Idol:

Lambert and Allen might be the most unlikely pair on television this year, but their bond has helped make this singing competition more than just entertainment, no matter which man wins.

“It is fantasy,” said Ross. “Out there in the real world people aren’t getting along so comfortably. The guy who sings musical theater and dresses flamboyantly isn’t necessarily going to be bonding with the jock types in high school.

But sometimes a mirror image has the power of pointing toward a future reality. It’s not sufficient in itself but it adjoins to another bunch of things that seem to be happening in our society, old prejudices falling away.”

As the writer suggests, the wider acceptance between those of “assumed” opposing viewpoints, such as Evangelical Christians and Gay Americans, is the new norm, and thank goodness for that.

It may be me, but I’ve always thought most people in general are accepting of others and the opposition are the exception to the rule, but you’d never know it sometimes by what you see in politics. The Republican party has made a business of promoting the divide between Americans on this issue. The entertainment media, fortunately, has not listened and have spent decades showing us what we already see - it’s life and it’s no big deal. Gay and straight people aren’t standing around defining themselves by their orientation when they’re shopping at the supermarket. Younger people, used to openly gay students in their schools, are probably embarrassed and stupified by the need for government to want to make these definitions at all.

As suggested in Salon, this is an unfortunate turn for people like Rick Santorum, Michelle Bachmann, Marilyn Musgrave and others. If the Republicans don’t have homosexuality as a wedge issue, who do they really represent? We already know it’s a party followed by insecure, homophobic, intellectually-challenged cowards (and those who tolerate them) - but get rid of the homophobic and the gay haters and the few lingering idiots left are hardly worth building a movement around - unless you consider ignorance a virtue.

Nonetheless, this drive away from division and hatefulness is the welcome residue of the new Obama administration. I’ve always equated the Bush administration to the poisonous atmosphere I remember from one of my worst jobs, a place where employees were pitted against each other and the head of the company was bipolar train wreck; when you’re there, immersed in this kind of place for a very long time, you can forget what the world was before it and what the possibilities are beyond it. It was only when I got the will to leave and pulled myself out of that fog that I realized how completely unrepresentative it was of a normal working environment. As a country, those who couldn’t see how horribly divided we’ve been and don’t remember that things were not always like this are finding themselves out of the fog and in a better place for the first time in a long time. Republicans, unless they really change, will try to divide us again. We should make sure they never get the chance.

Current News, Lifestyle, Politics Adam Lambert, American Idol, gay politics, Michelle Bachmann, Republican haters

One of my biggest beefs revolves around assholes who not only want us to follow “their” values, but change law to do so. None is more obscene then the crusade by a lawyer named Lori Carangelo and her appeals to abolish adoption. This woman is a world class cunt. It is, unfortunately, the only word to describe someone who, due to their own personal issues, would attempt to thwart the joy many deserving children should have by finding a family that wants them, and the desires of many well-meaning parents-to-be who, due to many reasons, cannot have children genetically or have a place in their existing families that calls for another child.

Here’s a few choice “facts” you’ll find on the website of this bitch:

While many factors come into play with regard to criminal behaviors, the fact of the adoption, and Adopted Child Syndrome is purposely overlooked at trial because it is “politically incorrect” to explore adoption’s negative effects on the adoptee. In FBI statistics, 76% of the world’s serial killers are in the United States; 90% are male.

Serial killers have been a fascination for forensic psychologists who profile killers by their crime scenes. Separating this group from other adoptees who kill is the fact that they kill strangers. Researchers have noted that, “to an adoptee, everyone is a stranger.”

It has long been documented that former foster kids are overrepresented in America’s prisons….Example: “69% on inmates in California State Prisons were former foster children; 60% in Massachusetts were foster children” according to testimony on the Congressional Record. The same appears to be true of adoptees…. Example: According to FBI stats: “16% of 500 serial killers are adoptees.”http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/foiaindex_s.htm and according to Dr. Mike Aamodt, Radford University, “14% of 225 serial killers are adoptees.”

Thankfully, there are those out there who are willing to expose Ms. Carangelo’s facts for what they are - pure bullshit. This from Sandra Hanks Benoiton’s blog:

What I found surprising is that Ms. Carangelo uses research on the “adopted child syndrome” to support her claims of adoptees mental health issues. The research she quotes is out of date…1953 to be exact. Twenty years later, the University of Washington observed a pattern of birth defects in unrelated children. The common denominator for all these kids was maternal alcoholism. Funny, no where on her site does Ms. Carangelo address the issue of FAS and how that diagnosis provides an adequate explanation for the mental health issues, problems with police and disrupted school experiences that whe blames on adoption. Nor does she discuss the percentage of alcohol affected children who are available for adoption because of neglect related to addiction.

If you dislike adoption, lady, don’t adopt. Because of your hateful personal need to apply legal means to this issue - and the prejudice and lies apparent from your website - you deserve to be publicly berated.

Lifestyle, Politics, Verbal Paintball adoption, crime, Lori Carangelo

From CNN:

America is a less Christian nation than it was 20 years ago, and Christianity is not losing out to other religions, but primarily to a rejection of religion altogether, a survey published Monday found.

Seventy-five percent of Americans call themselves Christian, according to the American Religious Identification Survey from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1990, the figure was 86 percent.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League said he thinks a radical shift towards individualism over the last quarter-century has a lot to do it.

“The three most dreaded words are thou shalt not,” he told Lou Dobbs. “Notice they are not atheists — they are saying I don’t want to be told what to do with my life.”

My father has been diagnosed with a disease that will rob him of his memory. By the time he passes into the next life there is a likelihood that he might not even know who I am when I make that last visit. THAT upcoming moment - above all else - has left me wondering questioning the existence of God and why certain painful events are thrust upon us. Before my children were born - and during the time when my wife and had a miscarriage and several failed IVF’s - I found myself cursing God, wondering why he felt the need to have us suffer when all we really wanted was raise a child and do so in a Christian manner.

Nonetheless, no matter the challenge I’ve faced, no matter the pain I’ve felt, I’ve always believed that there is something out greater than us out there. Whether that person/presence/spirit even knows who I am is of no consequence. That he/she would have a place for me in the afterlife is certainly a hope. That there IS an afterlife is a hope.

But none of this is a given.

Pure religion leaving our society in such a massive way is disappointing. We need to know there’s something greater than us out there even if, in the end, it’s not the case. If for no other reason, it’s a valid excuse to treat everyone better than we normally would.

14 or so years ago I had a conversation with a co-worker of mine who has since gone on to write/produce and direct quite a few comedies you’re probably familiar with. He told me of a scenario that actually happened to him and a friend (that later would show up as dialogue in a movie) where his friend stopped his car next to a homeless man, pulled a hundred dollar bill out and asked him if he believed in God. Looking at the bill, the man said, “Yes I do.” My friend’s friend pulled the bill away and said, “Wrong answer” and burned rubber. My friend’s question to me was, ‘Does this mean anything and will his friend be punished for what he had done?’

His theory (this being a theory and not how he lived his life. He was a very generous, good guy - he just enjoyed these kind of debates) was that it all didn’t matter. In a world absent of a true God, these moments mean nothing. No one goes to hell. Nobody goes to heaven. Being decent to another human being will not get your anything in this life.

I disagreed. To me, you really have two choices in this life whether God exists or not; you can either be a the kind of person you’d hope others would be to you - compassionate, sympathetic, understanding - or you can simply be nothing better than a piece of meat. If nothing else, religion in it’s purest sense enforces the feeling that we are all connected, all part of this life together, and all our joys and tragedies are not felt alone.

It’s that thought that gives me hope that more people will find religion, in whatever form, and therefore discover a world where there is something greater than themselves.

Lifestyle Christian, Christianity, religion

When I was in 6th grade it was 1976 - year of the Bicentennial.

Like many elementary schools at the time, mine had a pageant. Every class was assigned a different creative performance project to celebrate the event, all of which were to be enacted throughout the school for our parent’s pleasure. My teachers planned to have a few of us represent different historical figures: Lincoln, Washington, Roosevelt, etc. and recite an important passage from them or related to them. Taking creative license, my teacher decided that I would portray Martin Luther King.

Now, so you know, I’m Irish. Welsh-Irish. About the whitest kid you’d know. Still am. Another kid, a black kid, portrayed Washington.

While he was expected to step forward and read aloud one of Washington’s many letters to Congress during the revolutionary war, it was my assignment to learn and recite the first part of the “I have a dream” speech. I remember the day it was performed. Our “stage” was one of the many glass-enclosed hallways in our Elementary school, a place that was brand new at the time. I was dressed in a gray suit, no makeup - just me looking like me. When it was my turn, I stepped forward and the teacher said the name - “Martin Luther King”. At first there was a slow rumble - the kind you hear when a surprise is revealed. Then, ever so slowly, all the parents began to applaud. When I was first informed that this would be my role, I remember saying something along the lines of “But I don’t LOOK like Martin Luther King”. By the time I began reciting that well known speech, I knew, at 11 years old, how ballsy a move this was for my school - and also how healing.

I’m sure there are those of you out there who read this and say something along the lines of “those damn liberal teachers”, but, to be honest, that moment cemented for me what I’ve always loved about this country: The fact that no matter how wrong we’ve been in the past, no matter what set of circumstances become normal despite their questionable morality, Americans always strive to be better than they are.

My parents were equal parts democrat and republican, but we grew up here in New York, a melting pot. From an early age, my schoolmates were Black, Indian, Iranian, Puerto Rican, Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, Russian, Italian, Armenian…you name it, we had at least one or more in our school. You learned early on that your identity as an American is tied in with theirs, your view of this country - the one you learn in school - is identical to theirs. While there were bigoted parents who taught their children wrong, it wasn’t happening in my house or with my friends. We would have looked at a them with discomfort. It just wasn’t the way we were brought up.

As I became older, I learned more about the different meanings of patriotism. Needing to personalize it, I resolved that it was something along these lines - we live in an imperfect world and an imperfect country, but our job as citizens is to always question those imperfections and find a way to right them for love of the country. One quote always came to mind:

“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” - Mark Twain

To me, race and patriotism are inextricably tied together, for we cannot be true to our country if we attempt to keep others down, either literally or figuratively. For quite some time, we were the beacon other countries followed. We were a people who always strived to be better, even when we didn’t have to.

For eight years, these ideas have been foreign here. We’ve had a population - a majority - that through fear or convenience decided it was okay to follow our government blindly and allow Arabs as a race and Muslimism as a religion to become the necessary evil. We didn’t have to do this. It was just easy. We needed someone to blame for our vulnerability in 2001 and since some of the perpetrators fit that description we found a vessel for our hatred. Our government, against it’s better nature, fanned that hatred. Sure, they’ll tell you otherwise. Let you know that they were doing everything in their power to keep you safe, and they couldn’t control this kind of collateral damage. I could never accept that excuse.

Today we have a President with African blood. We have mixed-race couples everywhere and no one bats an eye (I’m one of those statistics, with two kids as well). Within 20 years, we will have American schools where half of the student body is mixed. We will have kids that no one can tell off-hand what they are. We already have kids who couldn’t give a damn as to whether their boyfriends or girlfriends are of another race.

And we will look back on these past 8 years as a detour from the idea of America and the definition of patriotism - and the people who followed this previous administration as a scared crowd very similar to some Germans during Hitler - who needed to direct their anger at the depression and found the Jews, courtesy of their complicit government.

Lifestyle, Politics bigotry, mixed race children, muslims, patriotism, racism

From CNN:

Police are close to making an arrest in the Chandra Levy murder case, one of Washington’s most infamous cold cases, CNN affiliate KGO-TV reported Saturday. Chandra Levy was a Washington intern who had an affair with a congressman. She disappeared in 2001. Police told Levy’s parents Friday that an arrest was imminent, the San Francisco, California, television station reported.

Media reports said police were planning to arrest Ingmar Guandique, an inmate in the District of Columbia prison system.

The world was a different place in early 2001. The first Apple store opened. The biggest news from the White House was that Barbara and Jenna Bush were prosecuted for under-aged drinking. Bratz were all the rage. Osmosis Jones with Bill Murray was in the theaters. And our news was overtaken by personal tragedies and trivial events.

The biggest personal tragedy at the time was the Chandra Levy case. Levy was in intern at the Federal Bureau of Prisons in Washington, D.C., who disappeared in the spring of that year and was found murdered in Rock Creek Park, Washington. As the investigation moved forward, it was discovered that she had an affair with a married member of the House, Gary Condit. Condit later left Congress, was seen in the public eye as a possible suspect (even though he was never targeted by Police) and these events became the daily background noise we remember from the time. What it had for newspeople was a mystery, an affair and politics. By September, no suspect was found, however, there was suspicion of a homeless man from the area. Then September 11th.

Children who were 9 years old at the time are now of age for the military. Hundreds of thousands have been killed oversees and our country has been involved in perpetual war for so long now we tend to forget what life was like before all this. There is a tension now, just under the surface for those of us not on the frontlines of these wars, that never ceases. A real, deep rest we can never seem to achieve. Back in 2001, however, we were tired of the media’s repetitiveness and their need to make local issues sensational. We felt terrible for Chandra Levy’s family and sad about a girl who who would be 33 years old today (24 at the time) and well into her life and family had it not been for this callous asshole who had no respect for human life.

The rest of us became desensitized to death as Iraq and Afghanistan became the same background noise that Chandra’s story was back then. As uneventful as early 2001 seemed to be for most of us, I know I would do it over, appreciate the world around me a little more, not worry about small things, enjoy the trivial aspects of my life as if they were gold and get that deep, restful sleep that’s alluded me for so long.

Current News, Lifestyle 2001, Chandra Levy, Gary Condit, media sensationalism, September 11th

From CNN

Eric Holder may be book smart, but he's stupid in every other way.

In his first major speech since being confirmed, the nation’s first black attorney general told an overflow crowd celebrating Black History Month at the Justice Department the nation remains “voluntarily socially segregated.”

“Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” Holder declared.

Holder urged Americans of all races to use Black History Month as a time to have a forthright national conversation between blacks and whites to discuss aspects of race which are ignored because they are uncomfortable.

This guy is is out-of-line with this statement it just leaves me with a gaping jaw. Look, no one’s saying our prejudices have disappeared because we have an African-American in office. Everyone knows this is an imperfect country with imperfect citizens. When I was in high school, sure, alot of the black kids congregated in one side of the lunch hall together and whites interspersed elsewhere, but it was hardly a given. There were many “ethnically diverse” lunch partners. We even had several black and white couples. At home, my parents had black friends and, yes, they were invited to our parties. My wife and I are the same. Nothing is as concrete as this idiot is trying to make it.

It’s not that I take umbridge to the definition “coward.” Call me what you will. To be so tone-deaf after this country’s gone over a major hurdle racially gives me pause as to this guy’s qualifications for Attorney General.

We have a long way to go, but we’re finally on the right track. Nothing happens overnight. I intend to get into more detail about that on Tuesday.

Lifestyle, Verbal Paintball attorney general eric holder, bigotry, cowards, Eric Holder, NAACP speech, racism

Rodriguez says a cousin, whom he would not identify, first introduced him to a substance he referred to as “Boli” that could be purchased in the Dominican Republic and brought to the United States.

“It was his understanding it would give me a dramatic energy boost and was otherwise harmless,” Rodriguez said in a prepared statement before the question and answer portion of his press conference. “My cousin and I, one more ignorant than the other, decided it was a good idea to start taking it. We consulted no one and it was pretty evident that we didn’t know what we were doing. We did everything we could to keep it between us. I stopped taking it in 2003 and haven’t taken it since. I stopped taking it for several reasons. In 2003 I had a serious neck injury and it scared me half to death. I was scared for my career and my life after baseball. Second after players voted for a mandatory drug policy, I realized how serious this all was and I decided to stop then.”

Well, I hate discussing sports because I find it so trivial, but I just can’t let this pass. We live in a culture today where idiots like this think it’s fine to NOT take responsibility for their actions. We’ve had a President like that for 8 years. I’m REALLY hoping we enter a period where personal responsibility and a certain embarrassment in saying something obviously false is part of our culture again.

We’ve got a President today who tells us, if the economy doesn’t turn around from his actions, you’ll have a new President in four years. Hopefully, he’ll stick to that discipline. I ACTUALLY think he will.

A-Rod should be thrown into the athletic trash-heap with people like Pete Rose. It’s not so much the steroids I have issue with (even though I do), it’s the lies and the excuses. Pathetic.

Lifestyle, Sports A-Rod, A-Rod cousin, Alex Rodriguez, Boli drug, steroids

This woman, Nadya Suleman, is a self-centered moron. Nonetheless, she doesn’t deserve this (from AP):

Police said Thursday they will investigate death threats against octuplet mother Nadya Suleman and advise her publicist on how to handle a torrent of other nasty messages that have flooded his office.

Word that the 33-year-old single, unemployed mother is receiving public assistance to care for the 14 children she conceived through in vitro fertilization has stoked furor among many people.

Police Lt. John Romero said officers were meeting with Suleman’s publicist Mike Furtney about the flood of angry phone calls and e-mail messages against Suleman, her children and Furtney.

“We are aware of the media accounts of the threats, and that they are being sent to the West Los Angeles detectives for appropriate action,” Romero said.

Wherever the threats are coming from, they’re not making a very good case for her children’s safety. Listen. I can understand the anger toward this woman. She’s approached motherhood like those weird people who adopt 12 puppies or kittens. Certainly, being on the dole and having to attend to the emotional needs of so many is not an ideal circumstance. But people who feel they are teaching her a lesson by exposing their anger in this way - or truly mean what they say - are as useful to this life as the cowards who bomb abortion clinics.

Whoever it is who’s threatening her, you are a small, pathetic coward and as much as I find her predicament distasteful, it doesn’t even come close to the loathing I have for a person of your ugly qualities.

Lifestyle Nadya Suleman, octuplet mom, threats