liberty, security, etc.

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little
Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. —Ben Franklin

I can't say I'll quit flying, because I'm going to have to at some point, and I still haven't been to Asia, but until this fascist invasion of bodily integrity calms the fuck down, I will not be engaging in elective air transportation.

twenty years on...

So, I ran across a copy of "The Band Played On", Randy Shilts' book about the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and figured I'd go ahead and read it. It is thorough, grim, infuriating, sad, compelling, and enlightening. And, twenty years on, with AIDS still ravaging Africans and the drug cocktail that keeps it in check only available to the affluent, I can only believe it's this way because the people at the top *do not care* and have *never cared* about a disease has mostly afflicted poor people, gay people, black people, addicts, and sex workers.

And, furthermore, Ronald fucking Reagan? Was NOT a great president. He presided over what I can only call negligent genocide. His people kept calling AIDS his "number-one health priority" while refusing to fund it, acknowledge it, or throw any resources at it at all. The Congress had to force a tad of AIDS funding into the budget every year, but never enough. Never enough. That motherfucker, if I believe in hell, would be rotting there for sure.

There's also nothing like a week of reading about AIDS to turn one into a giant hypochondriac. I think of those years in the 80s, before they told us straight people could get AIDS, when I did not practice safe sex. I was on the Pill, what else did I need, right? I can't exactly pinpoint the moment when straight people realized we were at risk. For me, living in Texas, it was sometime between 1987 and 2001; I got married in 1987, and by the time I got divorced four years later, the sexual landscape had changed and condoms were mandatory. Before 1987, I don't think I'd ever used one. Birth control was the issue, not STIs. So, point being, every sniffle or new freckle I've noticed this week? Freaked. Me. Out. Which is absurd, considering I have been tested several times and been practicing safer sex for several decades. I cannot imagine the level of absolute terror gay men were living with in the 80s.

[I called this post twenty years on because the book was published in 1988 or so, which was 20 or so years ago, but in reality, the AIDS epidemic is much older. It's probably closer to 35 years old. The first MMWR report on what would turn out to be AIDS was published in the summer of 1981, almost 30 years ago]

Godwinned by the radio: Shouty White Men edition

So I'm tootling to work this morning and turn on NPR. I hear part eleventy-billion in a series called "Why Miss'ssippi So Fat, Y'all"? The discourse here has yet to be embiggened regardless of how much they talk about it on the radio. It's like everybody in the fucking state thinks it's all about french fries. I have yet to hear anybody mention the high cost of nutritious food, the link between poverty and poor nutrition, the genetic component, or the fact that we should be treating diabetes, high blood pressure, and actual diseases, rather than hassling fat people who may or may not be unhealthy. I actually heard the state health czar say that it was high time being fat was considered socially unacceptable in Mississippi. Because, you know, 'round here, fat people get all the love.

But I digress. Because what I really want to yak about is the snippet of Shouty White Man Radio I heard after I got disgusted with NPR. I flipped through a coupla stations and find a Shouty White Man talking about eugenics. Eugenics! Who knew Shouty White Men cared about such things, right? He mentions early eugenics, which were bad before the Nazis commenced to genocide, and I'm thinking - huh - is there now a Shouty White Man who isn't a total tool? [For those who like to skip to the end of the novel and read it first, the answer is no. I know you're shocked.] And then he says there are people making eugenics-type statements here and now! In the 1970s! In the 1990s! YES! [I will pass over in silence that it's no longer the 1990s.] They are comparing the value of babies and teenagers, old people and middle aged people! [And I'm thinking: is he talking about trial lawyers? Because that doesn't sound like eugenics to me. That sounds like those formulas that help juries decide how much to award survivors in the case of wrongful death.] I'm wondering if these new eugenicists are rising in Germany, or what? Where are they!? I'm on the edge of my seat. Y'all, you are gonna be shocked. I was.

They are advising President Obama on health care reform.

Yeah. THAT'S where Shouty White Man was going with this. And I roll my eyes, and slump in my seat, because it's true: all Shouty White Men on the radio are idiots. Sigh. He totally Godwinned the conversation from the git-go and I missed it. He's comparing health care reform advisors to the architects of the Nazi genocide. For fuck's sake, do the Shouty White Men have no integrity whatsoever? I can't take any more. I change the channel. And then, I need to know - who is the Shouty White Man - and I go back and find it's Glenn Beck. He's the one I hear is less of an asshole than the other guys, the one who's kind of "middle of the road." The one with compassion, because he cries a lot. No. He's a fucking moron, yo.

Economy check

In the last, say, six months, amongst people known to me personally:

1 local business closed (Mississippi)
1 systems analyst laid off (Illinois)
1 administrative assistant laid off (Connecticut)
1 local newspaper reporter laid off (Mississippi)

Just keeping track, you know?

I kind of love Texas.

Went to college in San Antonio, spent a few years in Austin during the slacker years, but on the whole, Texas has been a little douchebaggy of late, there's no denying it. I mean, I've got a passport, so I could visit for Taco Cabana and visits with my college friends, but if no Texan ever became president again, that would be A-OKAY with me, ya know?

ayiyi.

Look, I've been paying taxes to the frat boy, supporting his stupid wars and abstinence-only sex ed and his war on women for eight fucking years. Yet I am not such an asshole that I think my disgust with his choices has anything - ANYTHING - in common with the American colony's objection to taxation without representation back in the 1770s. What a bunch of fucking whiners. We won, you lost, fair and square, which is more than the R's could say about 8 years ago. I fully intended to go document the Teabagging in downtown Buttcrack today, but professional commitments forced me to leave town for the day. Alas. However, nothing I could post here could be as hilarious as Rachel Maddow covering this story:



I mean, seriously, have none of these people ever seen a John Waters movie, even by accident??

armchair diagnosis

As I have watched a lot of procedural crime dramas, I consider myself an armchair expert in, you know, the Mind of the Criminal. According to all of them, one of the signposts along the way to full-fledged serial killer behavior is the torturing and/or killing of animals. It's like practice for killing humans.

I've long found sport hunting repugnant, which I distinguish from killing things which one intends to eat. In fact, I think anyone who wants to eat meat should *have* to kill their own, so they know exactly what it is they're eating: Death. Not a pre-packaged lump of stuff on a bun or a plate. No, hon, you're eating bloody, howling DEATH. How ya like that burger now?

ANYWAY, sport hunting, in which people go out and kill animals for the fun of it, is inexcusable, repugnant, and unethical. I don't see any difference between trophy hunting in Africa, torturing the neighbor's cat, and, say, shooting wolves from a helicopter. It's all killing for fun. Killing for pleasure. So, sport hunters, I say: you are psychopaths. That includes you, Sarah Palin. I've got your "culture of life" right here, lady. If you loved "life," you wouldn't kill animals for jollies.

how come I've never heard of this guy?

Oscar Micheaux

I was wandering around my twelve channels yesterday afternoon, the television a wasteland of dudely sports (golf, car racing, basketball, blah), and I ran across a short documentary on Oscar Micheaux, independent black filmmaker. The most prolific indie filmmaker of the early 20th century, who did everything from write the screenplay to casting, production, direction, distribution, and when he had to, town-to-town PR at each black theater. He produced a direct response to Griffiths' Birth of a Nation, the pro-Klan epic that is cited in nearly every film survey as the Great Birth of Cinema, though the racist narrative is usually glossed right over. He was one of the first directors to successfully jump from silents to talkies. The dude was a one-man movie industry.

How come I've never heard of this guy?

Oh, right: he was a black filmmaker. He made movies starring black people, for black people. Un-frackin-believable, the stuff that's buried skin-deep in this country.

state of the union

You know, in all these years of Bush's idiocy, he's never actually been so heinous that I've been brought to tears. Until now. In his entire State of the Union address, he made NO MENTION of New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, or the continuing needs of the entire Katrina-affected Gulf South. I guess the "union" no longer includes south Mississippi and south Louisiana, millions of people, billions of dollars of damage, deaths, ruination, disease.... Un-fucking-believable.

I guess now I know how the gay community felt when Reagan and Bush, Sr. refused to even acknowledge the AIDS crisis for the entire combined 12 years of their reign.

Never learning their lessons

Trent Lott wins back leadership slot - Yahoo! News

Want evidence that the Republicans are completely unapologetic, unhumbled, and downright determined to be the same racist assholes they've always been? Check it: Trent Lott is back in Senate leadership, after a secret ballot that voted him in 25-24. Secret so that none of the senators that voted for him can be held accountable.

Gah.

On Losing Edges and Winning Senate Seats at I Blame The Patriarchy

On Losing Edges and Winning Senate Seats at I Blame The Patriarchy

Sometimes, I find myself blathering on too long on someone else's blog, and I think: why am I littering her comment section with my only-slightly-related musings? So then I come to my senses and just respond over here, littering my own personal space with said ramblings. So.

Look, I live in Mississippi, so I take my political joy where I can, right? So I have this shit-eating grin on my face all day yesterday, despite Trent Effin Lott's re-election. (and because Gene Taylor, my beloved democratic representative, got re-elected).

Then I go to the gym after work, in my continuing good mood, and mid-workout I look up at the monitors and see the quote in which Shrub says he can recommend a good interior decorator to Nancy Pelosi to help her change the drapes. I damn near fall off the elliptical trainer, I'm pretty sure I cussed out loud, and my heart rate went up directly. BOG, he just can't let up for a minute, can he? And I can see his frat-boy grin, shrugging shoulders, "what? what'd I say? heh heh" if someone were to say, what the fuck? What the fuckity fuck are you doing making snide suggestions to Nancy Pelosi about hiring a decorator?

In other news, red state chatter is incorrectly passing the word that Pelosi intends to immediately send more troops overseas, which is not even truthy, it's the exact opposite of the truth, according to her press releases, which I googled this morning. Google 'em yourself, though, because frankly I'm too lazy to run the search again. Try this one: Nancy Pelosi more troops to Iraq

Molly Ivins...

Creators.com - Creators Syndicate

as always, Molly Ivins hits the nail on the head. The media is turning the Middle East into a scary movie, and nothing is better for Republicans than fear, fear, and more fear.

the cost of living

Lebanon Situation Update - July 15, 2006 - US Embassy Beirut Lebanon

Do you need to get out of Lebanon because the Middle East is all fucked up? The government will arrange it, but they'll bill you. And let's hope they don't contract it out to Halliburton, because you'll be paying off that "repatriation loan" with your social security check.


via

Bring it On! and
WTF is it now?

democracy & despotism: Redneck Mother unearths a gem

Redneck Mother: But they have so many letters in common!

Watch the whole thing, and tremble. We are on the slippery slope to despotism, and if anyone showed this in a public school today they'd get stomped by the godbags. If anyone showed it on TV, they'd get hassled by the godbags and righties. If, bog forbid, PBS showed it, it'd be more fuel for the "PBS is commie" fire.

Except for the free exchange of information on the internet, the US is on the downside of each of the scales that help assess where a country is on the democracy-despotism spectrum. The categories: power, respect, wealth, and freedom of information. It's a blunt instrument, to be sure, but still pertinent today.

We don't seem to have made a lot of progress towards democracy in the last 60 years, looking at it this way. I have to qualify that, though, because women and people of color and children do have more power & respect than they did sixty years ago, at least legislatively speaking, but then again, in 1946, they were starting at zero on those scales.