BP’s real plan; and it’s smart.

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard about BP’s verbal mis-steps.  And their excuses.  And their apologies.  But I think they’ve got something else working.

See, they call people on the Gulf “small people” and refer to the Gulf itself is a big “ocean.”  Then people get really really upset about that.  Then BP apologizes, maybe makes fun of itself.  Then we forgive them.  And we forget about the other thing.

Because a little bad verbiage is much easier to apologize for and redeem oneself for than, you know, a massive oil spill.

Brilliant!

June 17, 2010 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »

Food for thought.

Is the current health bill really that revolutionary?

Human rights standards do not tolerate the inequities inevitably linked to a reliance on market competition to meet human needs. Yet this legislation also contains some important improvements to health care access for poor people.

More.

Wanna stop killing the planet from eating too much manufactured meat?

In recent years vegetarians and vegans have upped their attack on the consumption of animal flesh, pointing out not only that it’s disgusting (read Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book) but also a major cause of climate change. The numbers range from 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions to—in one recent study that was quickly discredited—51 percent. Whatever the exact figure, suffice it to say it’s high: there’s the carbon that comes from cutting down the forest to start the farm, and from the fertilizer and diesel fuel it takes to grow the corn, there’s the truck exhaust from shipping cows hither and yon, and most of all the methane that emanates from the cows themselves (95 percent of it from the front end, not the hind, and these millions of feedlot cows would prefer if you used the word eructate in place of belch).

More.

And, Mr. Obama decides that the Chesapeake Bay would be better with oil in it — because money is better than not destroying the planet — even to Mr. O.

Maryland’s senators and environmental activists are vowing to oppose President Barack Obama’s move to expand oil and gas exploration off the state’s Atlantic coast, warning that it could hurt tourism in Ocean City, threaten fish and wildlife along relatively unspoiled Assateague Island and foul the Chesapeake Bay.

More.

April 2, 2010 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , | No Comments »

NSA and Google: Bad mix?


The world’s largest search engine and the largest entity that spies on you and I might team up, according the Washington Post.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The ACLU is urging its members and supporters to speak out:

The partnership is supposed to help protect Google’s networks, but the ramifications of companies like Google working with the NSA are frightening.

The NSA — a component of the Department of Defense — is an intelligence collection agency with few effective checks against abuse, and no public oversight of its activities. The NSA sucks up the equivalent of the contents of the Library of Congress every six to eight hours, every single day. In the last decade, the NSA’s dragnet, suspicionless surveillance has targeted everyday Americans, in violation of the law and the Constitution.

Google’s never won much praise from folks concerned about their privacy (do your own web searching on that if you’re interested), not that other search giants are exactly revolutionary in this area.  And maybe this  means nothing.  But it’s sure creepy, to me, too.

February 15, 2010 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Bad Catholic, or bad American: you have to choose?

RI Bishop Kennedy
Not working to legislate your own religion gets you banned from receiving Communion?  Sure, the Church can do what they want (and I’ll refrain from references to the 2003 scandals), but I think religious leaders in this country are completely misunderstanding their role in politics and especially their members’ role as politicians.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman’s support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal’s Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation’s most famous Roman Catholic family.
RI Bishop Kennedy
“The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion,” Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him “that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I’ve taken as a public official,” particularly on abortion. (More….)

What choice do you have? Be a bad Catholic or be a bad American? Last I checked, it was a sin to get an abortion, not a sin to NOT work to make them harder to get. And last I checked, Congress[wo]men were elected to be representatives of American citizens, not representatives of their churches. No matter what you think of Kennedy and no matter what you think of abortion rights, the Catholic Church and this particular bishop, you have to admit that Kennedy was not elected to be a Good Catholic Representative and to legislate his Catholic faith.  Not all of the citizens he represents are Catholic, right?

Am I calling politicians that put their faith over the office they were elected to bad Americans?

November 22, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Why can’t hating assholes keep it to themselves?

Or at least not try to manipulate the laws of the land to suit their own prejudices? Wait, I know. Because these anti-gay, anti-reason, anti-socialist, anti-progress people are mean, stupid, backward, take your pick.

Via The New York Times:

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says.

The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush. The signers include nine Roman Catholic archbishops and the primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

They want to signal to the Obama administration and to Congress that they are still a formidable force that will not compromise on abortion, stem-cell research or gay marriage. They hope to influence current debates over health care reform, the same-sex marriage bill in Washington, D.C., and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. (More….)

Sure, I suppose you could be an intelligent homophobe.  I guess.  I don’t know.  Most of the truly homophobic people I’ve come into contact with are pretty stupid.  That’s been my experience.  I’m not making a universal declaration that all homophobes are stupid.  (So keep your hyperbolic hatemail to yourself.)

Why do we “liberals” get to determine the laws according to our own preferences?

One, the Constitution does not support what these people are doing. That’s why they want to change it. We do not have a State Religion. We should not. No, never. Do people who run around saying that “America is a Christian country, founded by Christians, so you heathens just shut up and let us pray in public schools” realize that theocracies can and often do result in hate and violence?  Heard of the Taliban?  If we let “Christians” legislate their religion, you know what will happen next (among other things).  People will realize that there is no such thing as “Christianity” and will war with each other over their own interpretations of the New Testament.  Faith versus Good Works.  Transubstantiation versus symbolism.  We’re dealing with petty, small-minded people here.  (I’m not saying that all Christians are small-minded; just the haters, and they’d not all Christians.)  Do you really think they’ll take over the country and just live and let live and not go after each other?  If they win, they’ll see, for instance, that Catholics and radical evangelicals don’t have enough in common to be grouped together, really.  And if you did group them, you’d have to be broad enough to include a lot of “non-Christian” religions, too.  Oh.  Shit.

Two, the hurt caused by treating gay people like, you know, everyone else, is that of the sensibilities of some people.  “Oh, shit, Uncle Jackroy is sad because gays get to marry, and he’s crying because they elected that n—–r to be President of these United States.”  Oh, shit, indeed.  Ignore the fact that I am probably not the only one who thinks these sensibilities are retrogressive and ignorant, i.e., that they don’t deserve consideration as much as other people’s rights and liberties do. It’s only people’s feelings here. Discrimination, on the other hand, destroys lives, livelihoods, creates a culture of fear and hate when it’s suggested that beating someone to death because of their sexual orientation is not a hate crime. Not discriminating makes some people uncomfortable. And, knowing more people like this than I care to admit, I don’t give a shit.

In fact, I like it. I love it!  I love love love it when racists in the U.S. have a black President. I love love love when homophobes get all uncomfortable around homosexuals. I love love love it when people’s hate hurts them. I’m mean, and I can’t help it.  People who are not particularly nice getting what they deserve doesn’t sound as bad as other people suffering for these haters’ hatefulness, right?  I mean, getting rid of the hate would be ideal.  But that’s easier said than done, and, and, AND — we don’t get the sense that these people want to give up their hate, now do we?  They’re marching on Washington!

But then I might fall into the “thought” of the haters, that some people are better than others and that the “lower” people don’t deserve equal social or legal consideration. But there’s a difference between being a gay-hating bigot and being born gay. It’s not discrimination to show disfavor to gay-haters. It’s a reaction to something they freely choose to do. We all have the right to feel how we want, to hate who we want. But when haters try to change the law and re-make The System that already fucks over some people based on facts about them that they didn’t chose (ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, economic circumstances, geographical location, etc.), that’s in infringement on the rights of these people and an affront to everyone else whom these weak scum-fucking-buckets might decide to push around in the future.

The Insane Right (not to be confused with regular conservatives who actually think and some of whom I know read this blog and who I like a great deal) is going after gay people and abortion rights today. Tomorrow, it might be people in inter-racial marriages, people with “too much” education, people who are better at them at sports or arts-and-crafts, people with green eyes, people who don’t go to church, people who ask too many questions.

It might be you and me.

“The Family” should not necessarily be decided by social consensus, as if stupidity in numbers makes something morally right or factually true.  We could all be wrong. Wasn’t long ago that we officially fucked over black people.  Now it’s all unofficial (but still systemic), but at least laws sorta protect black people, ideally, on paper at least, a little.  Shit, I couldn’t live in the neighborhood where I live now just 50 years ago — for being Catholic, too close to an immigrant and for my wife being black.  That’s not that long ago!  My Mom, who is only second-generation, could not live there when she was born.  This is all recent!  Wasn’t that long ago that a white man and a black woman were not legally a family because we couldn’t get married!  Not a family!

What, do we think we have our heads sufficiently out of our asses that we can collectively be persuaded to define “The Family” by a dick, balls and a vagina?

Wow, that’s crude!  But.  Still.  What about infertile couples?  They can’t have kids “naturally.”  They might have resentment over it and be “bad parents,” right? (I don’t think so at all.)  Not to mention the fact that I personally and closely know exactly (?) 27 people who should never ever ever have become parents, all of whom really like the penis-vagina thing and most of whom are gay-hating dinosaurs themselves.  Research doesn’t show that same-sex couples make bad parents at all.  And everyone knows there are more orphaned children on the planet than there are heterosexual couples willing to adopt them. And, I’m not a sociologist, but I never understood the insistence on “the family” anyway.  I know several people who would have been way way way better off without their “families” — but this is still a little alien to me, since I think I had some pretty damned good parents.

I do realize the irony of this post title and its content.  You know what?  Firstly, I’m not trying to change laws, only ranting.  Secondly, fuck you if something on a website you chose to read (and a long post at that) is breaking your heart.  Go to GodHatesFags.Com for some solace.  Or, you know what, instead of hating on haters who hate haters, go save some souls.  Feed the poor.  Volunteer your time.  LOVE SOMEBODY.

November 20, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , | 3 Comments »

What to do: Rally against rallies?

There are tea-parties wherein critics of the Democratic healthcare plan demonstrate, like liberals like to do — but also like liberals get upset over when anyone who is not a liberal does it.  (Wew!)  Then there are ill-informed rallies composed of people stepping like sheep because some pundit who fosters their fears told them a bunch of lies that these pundits are certainly not foolish enough to believe on their own (say what you want about Rush and Glenn; they’re not unintelligent men).

Now, as Harrison Price reports from the Washington Post, liberals are stepping down into the mire and using the same fear tactics, the same “with us or against us” tactics, the same logical fallacies employed by the Bush administration that run something like, “If you’re not with us, you think puppies are evil and should be fed to Nazis in the their soup!”

So, regardless on where you stand on healthcare reform, the situation is that the Right is holding rallies, and the Left wants to respond with rallies, all the while urging a civil conversation, or debate at best.

What do we do?

One could argue that our goal is healthcare reform, not to try to bridge the chasm between the parties.  That we should pull out all the stops like “they” do.  That, frankly, a lot of the people (certainly not all of them) at these rallies are acting on fear and anger and prejudice and a number of other factors that not reasoned thought.  That there’s no use in trying to talk to or reason with such people.  That we should harness their rage and turn it against our enemies.  That “they” started it.  That we can do a lot without stooping below “them”. (Not to mention some increasingly typical elitist liberal bullshit that makes me ashamed of my frequently Leftish leanings when I hear it.)

Would escalating the situation fix it?  Because, you know.  History shows us.  This.  When people are angry, if you make them more angry, the situation never gets worse, never explodes, always gets better.  Wait….

But would a rational conversation (insofar as anyone can have a rational conversation about healthcare anymore) work on anyone who is driven by fear and Limbaugh/Beck or by anger against the Left?  I mean, if you bracket moral/ethical concerns or even rhetorical devices like not stooping quite as lowly as your opponent does (yes, I think it can be a rhetorical device, and I’m guilty of using it), should the Left be more concerned with what works and what gets their position into minds and hearts and less about taking whatever moral highground they’re supposed to occupy if they’re civil?  I’ve chided Mr. Obama in private for being so danged concerned with not making enemies and getting everyone to agree that nothing is happening after eight months in office.  Is being civil worth it? When yelling and manipulation get the job done, should the Left do as the Right has occasionally done (and as the Left has occasionally done, too; make no mistake) and just go all out?

Or is being civil and rational and trying to get “both sides” to work together and probably not really getting anything done right away the way to go?  Sure, we might not pass any healthcare reform this year.  But if we stay civil, might we evolve a little and work together more and start getting at the fundamental problems with our government?  Besides, nothing’s exactly getting done in the currect agitated state of affairs, is it?

Here’s a question for the folks who are frequently on the same side as I am: Do ya’ll really think that fostering anger and fear just because the Right is doing it is going to fix the situation and not just make it a million times worse?

September 21, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Obama sure is evil for talking to kids.

Geezleweez, President Obama sure is evil. Talking to kids. Man, that’s some nerve. He didn’t read them a story through a national disaster, but Okay, I guess talking to them with your own words is a big deal. Huh. Clearly, urging students to take responsibility for their futures is pinko rhetoric and a false diagnosis of how education works. If we taught Creationism and had good, religiously devout teachers in every public school, kids would learn without any effort, right? I think this says it best and without overly politicizing it:

Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt told KDKA Radio: “If the president wants to speak to the students of America and talk about the importance of academic achievement and working hard, that is a wonderful thing and ought not to be the subject of debate.” (Source.)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not worshiping the guy. I wish he had gotten off his ass to so something in the gay rights arena by now (or a few months ago, really), and I’m saddened by the lack of cojones in “the party” on healthcare reform — which is probably more aptly called revision than reform with the way things are going.

Why the hell is the White House not responding more to this minority of crazy far-righties? Are we supposed to be above criticizing other people’s criticism (if you want to call these attacks criticism)? Screw the moral high road. We’re not using guns and bombs but words and legislation. Take the gloves off, man! Mr. Obama is intellectually and rhetorically capable of smashing these goons. I can understand the desire for composure and not becoming the monsters you fight. I do. But where did all the brash liberals go? Have they been they busy helping with Michael Moore’s new film?  (Kidding, kidding; they’re around.)

Me, I’m not brash. And, depending who you talk to, too leftist to be liberal or too middle to be liberal. I do have a lot of anarchist and socialist leanings (no, they are not the same thing).

September 8, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

I don’t understand business law.

spcrt0909
Okay, I know we’re supposed to be the land of the free, home of the whatever. So we don’t like The Man in the form of The Government telling us what to do with our bodies (at least some of us don’t), our property, our money, our talents, etc. Yet some of us would invite regulation by The Man in the form of The Government to regulate business, health care, etc.

Some of these folks, myself included, might be chided for being hypocrites. After all, how can we call for The Man to stay out of our personal issues and bodies and then tell Big Business (perhaps another offshoot of The Man) what it can and cannot do?

Well, so far as I understand it, people are granted freedom in this country because of the notion that there is dignity in being a human, that humans are inherently free, the way that God/nature/chance made us. And, so far as I can tell, business, health care, etc. are human creations, not endowed with anything divine or any special dignity (which is not to say there is necessary indignity per se in business).

I think that being accused of hypocrisy when one votes for freedom for individuals and regulation for business (or The Man, by The Man) is hogwash, or rather, the hog’s dirty bath water.

I honestly don’t understand business and economic theory, but I assume there are other reasons for a lack of regulation on The Man that escape me. Some are probably even pretty good; I wouldn’t know. But to base the “free market” in any way on human freedom is ludicrous. You might as well give total freedom to any human-created entity. I could create a robot that got everyone hooked on coffee. We’d be fools to let it run wild (or would we, hee hee hee). Hell, maybe even the person who set my creation free is morally and legally responsible for everything it might do, no?

But, like I said, maybe folks have good reasons for believing in a free market? If you do, you’d do a service to your position by not being a jerk and getting your comment deleted. (And remember: Bloggers don’t have to share your beliefs. Nor do they have to publish them in comments, when you’re uncivil. If you’re that passionate about something, go start a blog about it.)

September 3, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Socialism and Liberalism.

ultrafine0609
Article proposing differences between [Obama's] increasing liberalism in government and socialism:

“We aren’t headed for an era of socialism at all, since socialism is not a natural outgrowth of liberalism. Liberalism is a political philosophy that seeks to extend personal autonomy to as many people as possible, if necessary through positive government action; socialism, by contrast, seeks as much equality as possible, even if doing so curtails individual liberty. These are differences of kind, not degree– differences that have historically placed the two philosophies in direct competition. Today, socialism is on the decline, in large part because liberalism has lately been on the rise. And, if Barack Obama’s version of liberalism succeeds, socialism will be even less popular than it already is.”  (Read more.)

(Post your anti-liberal and/or anti-socialist and/or completely unrelated comments with the article on TNR or on your own site please, not here.  To the SPAM filter they go.   People using my freakin website to vent their issues in an unrelated way and not coming back is getting annoying.)

June 17, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments »

Tiananmen Square stuff.

tianasq0609
Everyone’s talking about Tiananmen Square as if China is the only nation to repress some of its people. As if it’s the only “super power” to do it.

BEIJING – Chinese police aggressively deterred dissent on Thursday’s 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square, ignoring calls from Hillary Rodham Clinton and even Taiwan’s China-friendly president for Beijing to face up to the 1989 violence…

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton said in a statement Wednesday that China, as an emerging global power, ‘should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal.’
(Read more).

I can totally read China’s mind: “THE US? REALLY? Didn’t ya’ll destroy an indigenous people and crush your own people with your own military and police every chance you found? Aren’t labor strikes without Americans shooting other Americans kinda new over there?”

We do have a few Tiananmen Squares of our own, to be sure.  Read Zinn if you haven’t.  Or maybe you were even there.

Still though, damn. I’m glad to be over here today.

June 4, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , | 16 Comments »

A Pro-Life protestor speaks.

I love all life.
I love it enough to define it.
I love it enough to portray grisly images of aborted fetuses and bloody baby dolls.
I love it enough to force it on people who might not be ready or capable of making it not just A life, but a GOOD life.
I love life enough to know what’s best for everyone.
A book told me so.
(Wait, no it didn’t.)

I also love life enough to spend my energy helping the poor and disadvantaged.
I spend my time and energy working on educational efforts to help eradicate unwanted pregnancies.
I help with adoption efforts.
I want all kids to live in loving environments, even with same-sex couples.
I do everything I can to prevent the situations in which abortion is a desirable option.
I think sexual education and birth-control can help.
Wait, no I don’t.
(I don’t do any of that.)

And if I did, I would certainly be the exception to the usual old biddy standing outside the hospital with a picture of death when I want you to love life.

I’d rather protest things which are legally sanctioned and none of my business and make people who share my point of view all look crazy, cold-hearted and backward than actually help anyone.

As someone who doesn’t go to, teach at, work at or give money to a Catholic university, I know what’s best for it.  God forbid people in the faith whose name means UNIVERSAL be tolerant of anything.

May 17, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Call for embargo from AI.

Amnesty International is calling for an arms embargo on Israel and Palestine.  The blog post is getting some very heated comments.  (Read all about it here.)  The charge is that both sides are actually committing war crimes by knowingly killing civilians and that the weapons used in these murders are imported.  Largely from the United States, on one side.

Like most people I know, I have a very very limited understanding of what the hell is always going on at Gaze.  The fact is that, as Americans, we get lied to all the time from our alleged channels of truth and information, i.e., the media.  The only way we can know what’s happening (aside from being there) is to study reports like AI’s.  While, certainly, no report is 100% impartial, I wouldn’t take anything that either side says at face value.  And I don’t think there are a lot of truth-seeking people in this country who believe that what we’re told on TV is really what happens and happened.  I don’t.

But we’re the United States.  We’ll sell anything to anybody willing to pay for it, no matter what it is and what they do with it.  Religious pundits say it all the time, and we ignore them for some of the actually crazy things they also say.  We’re the nation of the dollar, and no one’s going to stand for being told who they can sell their bombs to.  I mean, come one, we’re not telling them what to do with it.  They might use it in a “just war” one day, and we’ll be on the sides of the good guys.  Right?

Our trade “rights” are more important than human rights, no?

I mean, the United States is nothing without a free market, right?  Without unfettered greed, I mean, capitalism, we have nothing to offer the world, right?  No other ideals or art or sports or culture?  So let us do our business and sell whatever we want to people who just might use our products to kill families on purpose, but, you know, we don’t know nuthin bout dat.

Unless, of course, it’s a little Communist island called Cuba.  We won’t sell them anything.  Free markets mean nothing there.

March 24, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , , | No Comments »

Yay, stick up for rich people and polluters!

“President Barack Obama’s call to raise taxes on high earners and greenhouse gas polluters met fierce opposition Tuesday from congressional Republicans and also a few Democrats.”
Politicians sticking up for rich people and companies that don’t want The Man telling them what to do?
What?
You have to be shitting me.

March 3, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , | 3 Comments »

Fact-checking Obama.

They are checking Obama’s facts. I commented to Mrs. P this morning that I don’t remember anyone fact-checking Dubbya after his speeches. But, you know, I don’t think anyone could have it finished in the morning for publication.

This is my morning chuckle for the day.

February 10, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments »

Saw Obama.

obama01091
I made it to see Obama Saturday. It was amazing.

We bundled up, mounted our bikes and met a co-worker and fellow Nation Service member and walked down. We waited in line for about an hour or an hour and a half and then made it to the metal detectors. Everything went very smoothly, save me having to get wand-ed, even after removing all my metal and AmeriCorps pins. We got some Donna’s hot chocolate and found good spots, maybe a third of the way from the front. Considering that we didn’t get to the event area until nearly noon, I thought that was pretty good. I was mildly afraid that we weren’t going to get in.

At any big public event, a lot of folks are rude and butt in front of one another and hold their cameras up in front of people’s faces, etc. I think this was less widespread that day, or, at least, people weren’t so militant about it. (One note though: owning an SLR does not make you a Photographer and does not mean you can be a jerk. The dudes next to me were screwing over the people behind them during the whole speech holding multiple large cameras over their heads, and all their photos were poorly composed and blurry from what I could see on their LCD. Wankers. All that gear, and you still can’t take good pictures.)

But. Yeah. OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There were people there from all over. I was afraid it would be the Roland Park crowd or just students, etc. But no. The mix of people was fantastic and, frankly, unusual for a sometimes-self-segregated Southern city like Baltimore. In itself, it was worth the cold and lack of coffee.

Anything would have been worth standing in a crowd of Baltimoreans and hearing Barack Obama stand up and shout, “Hello, Baltimore!” I get chills and tear-up a little thinking about it. I’m listening to the Inaugural events on NPR right now, and I’m still thinking about seeing Obama in my city this past weekend.

There were a lot of bikes around, but mine was in my office. I wished I’d brought it closer to brag about riding in the cold. But I think anyone who was outside deserved credit and could brag about the chill we all braved Saturday. But it was so worth it, I think it was more about the benefit and less about bravery.

I am wearing a blue and white flannel under a red sweater today. Rode in the snow to get to work. It’s a good day.

Photo Friday: Iconic.

January 20, 2009 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

Be good for what sake?

With a lot of the pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-”Christian”* crap we all get to look at, it’s at least…refreshing to see some diverse views in ad space.  Read about DC’s “Why believe in a God?” ads. People are pissed!

Why,  oh why, do some faithful people get so fucking upset when there are people who don’t believe what they believe?  I understand the urge to evangelize, but come on.  Ignore non-Christian religious folks.  How many strands of Christianity are there, and how much do they really have in common?

I get people’s religious beliefs shoved in my face constantly, without shoving my lack of belief in anyone’s face.  I’m glad someone is doing it, though, no matter how I feel about what I might call “God” in place of any faith in my lapsed Catholicism.

Belief that can’t be held alone is weak belief indeed.

*[What's a "Christian"?  What's a vegetable?  Show me "vegetable"!  Christians are usually members of a Church or denomination of some kind.  Be more specific, Johnny!  Asparagus!]

December 3, 2008 | Johnny | Tags: , , , | 18 Comments »

Hate crimes on the rise.

Since Obama was elected, stupid racist people are getting a little more…active.  Read more.  Schoolchildren shout “Assassinate Obama!”  Okay, so kids are being taught by someone to be so full of ignorant hate as to call for the murder of a President-elect.  If they still yell that after he’s in, should that be, something you get arrested for? I mean, you can’t go to jail and stay there for something you say.  I would never want that.  But is it to be construed as a threat worth of at least a look?

Maybe I sound like an advocate of the Patriot Act or something.  But come on.  Will we really tolerate kids yelling that? I may just be speaking out of an unspoken fear that one of these racist assholes will actually act on their hate.

If black kids in New Orleans in 2005 yelled “Assassinate Bush,” that would not have been tolerated, even if it wasn’t necessarily and entirely racially motivated.

If the kids are not being taught to be so hateful by someone else and are in fact that bad on their own, this is doubly true — we can’t tolerate this.  We can’t control someone’s heart and their hate, but we can discourage the expression of it.  Can’t we?  Should we?

November 16, 2008 | Johnny | Tags: , , , | 10 Comments »

What will activism mean now?


Now that we have a President that a lot of folks who are activism-oriented seem to like (at least from what I’ve read), what will activism mean?

I was at Red Emma’s Monday having lunch with a co-worker, and I wondered what things might start to look like among activists.  Will folks continue to rail and rally against The State because certainly beaurocracy will block a lot of Obama’s plans, or even because some folks really just want The State to go away on principle?  I found anarchism attractive while Bush was in office, especially the first time.  Most of the people in the country didn’t want him for a President, but there he was.  Obama has so many people inspired and seems so inspired himself that I have to wonder what we can get done in the next four or eight years without the help of The State?  I don’t really know enough about anarchism to be able to answer that.

Will activism mean working with the Obama administration, against other parts of The Machine in order to change things?  Will activism mean working with The Man?  Or is it a misunderstanding of activism to suggest that working with the government is unusual or somehow makes something not activism anymore?

Community organizing, national service and working with government groups to get things done are all activism, no?

In my [first?] year of national service, I find the election of Obama inspiring, in that maybe some of the hurdles that hinder the kind of work we do may shrink or disappear with the new administration, that we will have more help in fighting the good fight, in addition to less resistance.

Maybe what we think of as activism can instead become known merely as participation?  But that requires more than a new man in the White House.  If we can continue the act of getting off our collective asses the way some of us have started to, with the huge voter turn-out this year, might we just begin to participate in our own democracy again to such a common extent that the concept of activism becomes obsolete?

November 6, 2008 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

Obama is a muslim and not a citizen.

What?  You know how we keep hearing about these crazies who repeat what other crazies say and maybe actually believe this bullshit?  I mean, I keep thinking to myself, “Good thing I don’t live near these backward inbreeders.”  I never thought I’d ever meet someone like that.

Don’t get me wrong.  I know and care a great deal about several people who are Republicans, conservatives, libertarians (small L), etc.  It’s not like anyone could say I only surround myself with people who think like I think.  Not that anyone actually accuses me of that very often.

I was talking to a non-liberal today who says he disagrees with Obama’s policies.  Okay.  I mean, if you’re not going to vote for a man, that’s pretty much the best reason not to vote for him and to vote for someone else.  That’s something where, if you’re in the mood and have the time, you can talk, discuss, maybe both come away a little better off.

But I was talking to another guy tonight who commented that we’d have the most “Islamic” country in the world if Obama gets elected.  Okay, more “Islamic” than actual Islamic countries I guess?  I calmly informed him that Obama is not, in fact, Muslim, ignoring the fact that it wouldn’t matter to me either way.  Then he went on to inform me that Obama is not a US citizen, that he made it to the United States Senate without ever having to prove this to anyone, all the way up to top Presidential candidate.  I mean, I guess there’s some pro-Muslim conspiracy at work here, to get this to happen.

I let him keep ranting.  He was getting upset.

Then he said that Obama was “only” leading by two points in the poll this morning.  I corrected him that it was in the double digits last time I checked, that, in fact, Obama was really winning.  “But see who bothers to vote,” I offered, in the way of consolation.

He got even more upset.  Started saying that you can’t trust Obama, that the answers are all out there.  On the internet, where, you know, all the reliable information is.  “You should look this up on the internet, boy.”

Ouch.  Yes.  I’m 29, married, bearded and all.  I don’t like to throw my education around, but I’m almost a frikkin doctor.

“Boy.”  Ouch again.

Well, he got himself so upset that he didn’t do something he said he’d do before he left, and I wasn’t shy about telling why.

He also asked me, two weeks ago, if a cop in a certain undesirable situation was black.  “No, actually he was white.  They all were,” was what I was only too glad to tell him.

You can’t argue with people like that.  Yes, I’m told, he’s from a different generation.  So what?  There weren’t any non-racist white people in Southern states until the last few decades?  That can explain a lot of things pretty well to me.  But not repeating the bullshit this guy repeated.  And, for the record, my uncle who passed away last month was completely different that he saw through bullshit and didn’t propound racist attitudes.  And he was the same age and fought in the same war.

I’m tired of all the reasons other people like to offer for why people that they like say fucked up things.  “He’s not like that.”  “She’s a Christian.”  “It’s her background.”  “He doesn’t have the education you have.”  Cuz, you know, education: that‘s the way to erase racism and bullshit spreading.

And why, FUCK ME, why would you, knowing that my wife is black, say these kinds of fucking things to me?  I’m serious.  Why?

October 17, 2008 | Johnny | Tags: , , , | 9 Comments »

Johnny McC not into Amtrak.


I am honestly trying to not so negative about McCain.  Really.  There is so much that Obama has going for him that it’s not as “necessary” as when we had Lurch running against Stupid Monkey Face last time.  At least, that’s how I feel now.  (Remind I said that in the fall.)

But McCain does a lot of crazy stuff that people ignore because he’s a war hero, because he has “experience,” because he’s a Republican, because he’s old/from another era. While I don’t think too much bashing will accomplish anything, it’s important to realize what the hell this guy really stands for and to understand some of the other-worldly things he’s said and done. Mobtown Shank does a cool comic series on some of these wacky McCain-isms which you should check out.

Grist reported [via General Carlessness] how Johnny M.C. wants to kill the train in America.  Never mind that flying is becoming and bigger and bigger pain in the ass.  Nevermind how expensive taking your own car is.  Never mind how big our frikkin country is.  (And we should definitely not consider the environment!)  Let’s cripple the train, rather than developing it.  Good idea.

Another reason to vote for Obama.

July 10, 2008 | Johnny | Tags: , , , , | No Comments »
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