From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
Little Gay Billy's BIG Gay Newsapalooza!
Paraphrasing Sean Connery: "We shashay into hishtory!"
- Writing History: Liberals have blazed the trail for civil rights yet again, drafting language on marriage equality that will be added to the Democratic Party platform next month. Via Scott Wooledge, here's the full text. It took less time than I thought it would to see this come to pass. It will also take less time than we think before it becomes the new normal everywhere.
- Earning a Place in History: Tammy Smith became the first openly-gay American to be promoted to General. General Smith's star was pinned on by her wife, Tracey Hepner. For those of you keeping score, the number of dire predictions made by conservatives in the wake of Don't Ask, Don’t Tell's demise that have come even partially true: zero. Well, except for LESBIANS BECOMING GENERALS BWOO HA HAAA!!!
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1972: PFLAG founder Jeanne Manford and
her son, Morty, march together in NYC's
Christopher Street Liberation Day March.
Making History: Happy Birthday to Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), which was started by Jeanne Manford 40 years ago:
It started simply, almost accidentally. In April 1972, the New York Post published a letter from Jeanne Manford, whose gay son had been badly beaten at a protest while police stood by. “I didn’t think anything of it, but I guess it was the first time a mother ever stood up publicly and said, ‘Yes, I have a homosexual child,’” recalls Manford.
Michael and I have been members of our local chapter since 1995, and I'll say this: if Sarah Palin thinks a "mama grizzly" is tough, she ain't never met a PFLAG mom.
- Winning History: If you were rooting for the gay athletes in London, you did a lot of victory dances:
Over 43% of the out athletes (10 of the 23) won a medal in these Olympic Games. That's over double the percentage of athletes overall who won medals: 20%. … A whopping 58% of all openly gay, lesbian or intersex Olympians over the years have won a medal, which is an incredible statistic.
I don’t know if Team GLBT will rack up the same hardware in the dead of winter in Sochi, Russia, but I'll go out on a limb and say: "da."
- Funding History: Kudos to the Human Rights Campaign for contributing $250,000 to each of the campaigns involved in marriage-equality ballot initiatives in Maine, Maryland and Washington state, and fighting a constitutional amendment in Minnesota. I don’t know about the other states, but in Maine $250k goes a long way.
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Dr. Bob Ross, Valerie Jarrett and Cynthia
Germanotta at the Bullying Prevention Summit
Changing History: Reducing the pervasiveness of bullying was the focus of the third annual Bullying Prevention Summit last week, which included a discussion with Dr. Bob Ross of the California Endowment and Lady Gaga's mom, Cynthia Germanotta, co-founder of the Born This Way Foundation. Writes White House advisor and summit panelist Valerie Jarrett in her summary:
"The Obama Administration will continue to work to end bullying, and we are eager to work with anyone who is willing to help make our society more kind, inclusive, and equal."
Other than that…[Yawn]…pretty slow on the equality front.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Note: Parents, please talk to your children about the dangers of Ayn Rand before they start experimenting with it behind the tool shed. Together, we can make a difference.
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By the Numbers:
Weeks 'til the general election as of today: 12
Days 'til the Great State of Maine Air Show in Brunswick: 10
Number of registered voters in the U.S.: 146 million
Cases of alleged voter-impersonation that have been discovered since 2000: 10
(Source: News21, a Carnegie-Knight investigation/public records search)
Maine's lobster catch in 1951: 20 million lbs.
Maine's lobster catch in 2011: 105 million lbs.
(Source: Maine Sunday Telegram)
Average cost of an engagement ring in 2012: $5,229
(Source: Brides magazine)
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Tuesday Words of Wisdom from the Right-wing Blogosphere:
“Choice for Republicans involves trusting the American people to handle their affairs and retirement. Choice for Democrats involves only the option to kill children…"
---Erick Erickson at RedState
All together now: 1…2…3…
Classy!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: "She thinks they are her puppies.”
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At midnight tonight, the price could
go up by as much as $4 billion!!!
CHEERS to not missing your last chance. Yes, indeedy---all ye who plan to go to the 2013 Netroots Nation convention in San Jose (June 20-23) have until
midnight tonight to register at the early-bird price of $195. After that, I believe it goes up by 50 bucks or so. (Disclaimer: "or so" could run as high as 4 billion dollars.) Anyone who's attended the convention in Vegas, Chicago, Austin, Pittsburgh, Vegas II, Minneapolis or Providence knows what a blast it is, from the panels to the parties. So come---join us! To get the discount,
Click here and choose the "Standard Registration" option. As an added bonus, I'll try and snag ya dinner with George Clooney. And by try, of course, I mean continue stalking him as usual.
JEERS to cowards in Surrogate Land. Wow---everyone on the right was in dreamy, creamy love with Paul Ryan's budget plan (the plan: liberate the middle class from their money, jobs and health security, if they're lucky enough to have it). But now that Ryan is (romney's) running mate, they're beating a hasty, flop-sweat-drenched retreat from what they once considered the Magna Carta of tea party economics. Case in point: actual words spoken last night by (romney) surrogate John Sununu---he with the complexion of beefsteak and the personality of a belt sander---on Hardball:
"Forget the Ryan plan!!!"
Fat chance, ya big sweaty lunkhead. If President (romney) pulls a William Henry Harrison and dies after a month in office, Vice President Ryan becomes President Ryan and then…
BING!!!…President Ryan unleashes the Ryan Plan! So, Congressman Ryan: tell us again about this Ryan plan of yours. Slowly and loudly, so the old folks can hear.
CHEERS to America's favorite safety net. On today's date in 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt gave us one less thing to fear by
signing the Social Security Act into law, saying:
Paul Ryan directly benefited from
this provision of Social Security, thus
proving he's a commie socialist hippie.
"We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age.
This law, too, represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete. It is a structure intended to lessen the force of possible future depressions. It will act as a protection to future Administrations against the necessity of going deeply into debt to furnish relief to the needy. The law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation. It is, in short, a law that will take care of human needs and at the same time provide for the United States an economic structure of vastly greater soundness."
Today a frighteningly high number of Republicans regard Social Security as the brainchild of a dirty eff'ing commie socialist hippie. But just you wait. When they start getting their checks in the mail their silence will be deafening. And then they'll start complaining that their commie socialist hippie checks aren't big enough. And then they'll actively work to prevent the commie socialist hippie program from being privatized by the evil Republicans. Run that by your local annoying wingnut next time he says evolution doesn't exist.
JEERS to Swiss-cheese defenses. Some drunk New Yawk guy swam to the shore of JFK Airport after his jet ski broke down in Fuggedaboudit Bay. Then he hopped the fence and walked across the runways to get to the terminal, successfully breaching every security measure there. Not to be outdone, an 82 year-old nun successfully broke into a top-secret storage facility for "crucial nuclear bomb parts and fuel," breaching every security measure there, too. Jeezus!!! The Department of Homeland Security, egg dripping off its face, vowed to take swift and decisive action to ensure that no unauthorized snoopers will ever again be able to enter restricted areas, no matter how hard they try. Step 1: From now on all federal buildings will be built to look like Mitt Romney's tax returns. Step 2: See Step 1.
Republicans, please: Let my governor go!
CHEERS to respecting the rules. You've heard me talk about the attempt up here by the establishment Republicans to steal the delegates (24, I believe) that were rightfully won by Ron Paul's supporters during the primaries. It's become so heated that our loudmouth, insult-prone tea party governor, who has more in common with the Paulites than the Cardigan sweater conservatives, is threatening to
skip the GOP convention in protest. So I'm going out on a limb here by inserting myself into this mess: the Ron Paul supporters MUST be seated, and the country-club Republicans MUST stop their power grab. Otherwise our governor won’t leave the state to spend a few days in Tampa. And as we like to say up here (since January, 2011, anyway): A day without our governor is a day
with sunshine.
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Five years ago in C&J: August 14, 2007
GOOD RIDDANCE to Karl Rove. As Andrew Sullivan says, he leaves behind a trail of sweets and flowers. If by sweets and flowers you mean carnage, debt and dog shit:
The man's legacy is a conservative movement largely discredited and disunited, a president with lower consistent approval ratings than any in modern history, a generational shift to the Democrats, a resurgent al Qaeda, an endless catastrophe in Iraq, a long hard struggle in Afghanistan, a fiscal legacy that means bankrupting America within a decade, and the poisoning of American religion with politics and vice-versa. For this, he got two terms of power---which the GOP used mainly to enrich themselves, their clients and to expand government's reach and drain on the productive sector.
The official excuse for why he's skittering back under a Texas rock is---you'll never guess---"to spend more time with the family." Real reason: he plumb ran out of things to break.
[8/14/12 Update: And like a bad penny, he just keeps turning up…although oddly ineffective so far this year.]
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And just one more…
CHEERS to the whitest guy ever to be "born a poor black child." Happy birthday to Steve Martin, who was a spry 30 when I first lost my shit to his stand-up act at 12, and who today is an elder statesman of comedy at 67. Besides re-defining stand-up, having a hit single (King Tut), hosting the Oscars and SNL, starring in a boatload of popular movies, and writing best-selling books, an Oscar-nominated screenplay (Roxanne), and sketches for the legendary Smothers Brothers, what has he contributed to society? While we're trying to think of something, crank this up…
Sorry, Steve, but I'm drawin' a blank. Happy birthday, anyway.
Have a nice Tuesday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
With heat, there's only so much Bill in Portland Maine can take off before they come and take him away. And rightly so. Billy the beautiful is not when unclothed.
---Craig Wilson
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