Caturday

Yeah. Dat Ting.

It's that time of the week again, and we at La Casa de Los Gatos send love to all the good people of Boston. Man, y'all had a hellacious week!

Fortunately, it's over now and y'all can sleep. Rest. Take it easy.

Meanwhile, over in TexASS (sorry, y'all. You know we here try to keep the love flowing in all directions, but right now TexASS is totally on our shit list), this-all happened.

The death toll is up to 14. It's a small town, so that's a lot. Neighbours are rallying around, which is great.

What's not so great: That outrageous IdiotAsshole Rick Perry, the erstwhile governor of a once-proud state, an imbecile who can't count to THREE without prompting — remember when he wanted to SECEDE from these fine United States? — well, now that cheap-ass motherfucker with his rhinestone boots and his mushmouthed drool wants a "quick turnaround" on federal aid money. SAY WHAT, you asshole? Say FUCKING WUT? Are you on your knees yet? Is your begging bowl up?

Now a governor's duty is to help the citizens of his state as and when needed. We all understand that. But do the rest of us need to help people who CREATE their own problems? Remember how unsympathetic all those pork barrels, I mean, Southern legislators, were when it came time to help the dying BLACK victims of Hurricane Katrina? Why, some of them actually got up on their hind legs and averred it was an Act of God. Though what kind of God drowns helpless sick old people in their beds, you gotta wonder. When people were losing their homes and livelihoods as a result of Sandy, those selfsame assholes averred as how people had "made bad choices," and must put up and shut up, since it was their own goddamned fault in the first place. Nice. Real nice. Assholes.

But this here dumbass MOTHERfucker, Rick Perry, he SLASHED funding for firefighting in his state. TexASS has had droughts nearly every damn year since I can remember, and BAD wildfires, too. Lil Ricky thought he was so damn cool, cutting those budgets, snippy-snippetty. So he could make the REST of us pay for his refusal to spend on his own people? What kind of idiot slashes firefighter funding by 75% in a state prone to droughts and wildfires?

This kind. Idiot.

And that's not all. Here's that humbugging manwhore with his tattooed eyeliner, DroopyDawgII, aka Ted Cruz.

Image from http://tonightsforecastdark.blogspot.com

This cheap piece of shit wannabe Texan — yes, born in Cuba, emigrated to Canada, then decided Americans were stupider and easier to con, maybe — had the unmitigated GALL to vote against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy. Remember that, y'all? Remember when your friends and relatives on the east coast were shivering their asses off in winter, homes destroyed, cars wrecked, kids killed? Occupy was asking people to chip in for sandwiches and blankets for the victims?

That's when this worthless gusano, this perro, this piece of dog shit you would scrape off your shoe, stood up and voted AGAINST aid for those people THREE FUCKING TIMES. Now this piece of shit wants Federal money — OUR fucking tax dollars — "all available resources," and he wants it pronto.

If you have a Twitter account, go let him know what you think of this. He's @SenTedCruz. If you *don't* have such an account, consider getting one, especially if you're from NY/NJ/MA. He wants your tax $$? Tell him to film himself kissing Chuck Schumer's ass first. Both cheeks.

Think we're being too hard on Texas? Read this, from Alternet:

[...] in 2008, the Center for American Progress found a fertilizer plant that stored millions of pounds of anhydrous ammonia in Pasadena, Texas to be among the most hazardous chemical facilities in the country, with more than 3 million people living in range of a worst-case ammonia gas release.

Anhydrous ammonia will blow your shit all to hell. You know. Like what just happened to that little town of West.

Stumble It!

Martin Luther King, Jr. and #OccupyWallStreet

The war in VietNam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. We will be marching and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.

In 1957 a sensitive American official overseas said that it seemed to him that our nation was on the wrong side of a world revolution. [...] With such activity in mind, the words of John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken — by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. When machines and computers, profits and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice that produces beggars needs re-structuring. A true revolution of values will soon look easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries and say: "This is not just." It will look upon our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: "This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

[...]

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light." We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch-anti-revolutionaries.

Stumble It!

Anniversaries

You know what day it is. A day when we should all be remembering those young men and women that we have repeatedly sent into harm's way, by lying to them, telling them they were fighting for their country, or democracy, or freedom, or some such other bullshit.

A day when we should be weeping over the fact that so many of them come home broken in body and mind to a nation that seems to have forgotten all about them, except when it comes time to buy yellow ribbon magnets from China for a dollar or two. A day when we should be doing something about the fact that SO fucking MANY of our vets are unemployed, or homeless, or struggling to get by.

Today is all those things. If you know a veteran? Give them a hug or a thank you, call them up to say hello, take them to lunch or dinner, offer to help them out with something, anything. It could be something as small as picking up groceries, babysitting their kids, polishing their resume, setting up their computer, taking their damn dog for a walk. Do something. Anything. Just to let them know you appreciate what they went through while they were sweltering in a trench somewhere getting their ass shot off or getting water tainted with decaying corpses and rotting food thanks to George Bush, Dick Cheney, KBR, and/or Halliburton.

If you don't PERSONALLY know a veteran, you can always volunteer with one of the many fine organizations that help our vets in various ways.

These men and women risked their lives and their minds and bodies to do what they saw as their duty to the nation. You don't have to agree with their politics or their service to do them the kindness you would do any other human being. Step up and do your bit for them, and remember, in one month's time, a WHOLE LOTTA them will be coming home from Iraq.

If you're a business owner, you can help by hiring them. If you're working for a big corporation, ask them if they're interested in hiring veterans. If you work at a restaurant or other service/retail business, ask your employers if they will offer vets discounts, then publicize those discounts. Everything you do helps.

And, if you're a voter? Get your ass out there, register to vote, make sure all the vets you know are registered to vote. They don't have to vote for YOUR candidate. Just make sure they vote. Offer to drive them to the polls if they're disabled. Help them register by mail. But make DAMN sure they don't vote for Mittens Romneycare, because that miserable plastic-faced billionaire bastard is talking about PRIVATIZING the VA. After G.W. Bush's disastrous experiment with Walter Reed, I don't EVAH want to hear about veterans lying in pools of their own piss while rats run across the floor and mold spreads from leaky ceilings.

Today is also a very sad day here at La Casa de Los Gatos. It is the anniversary of my father's death. Dad fought in WW II, and was on the losing side, initially, so he spent some time as a POW. He came back from the war deaf in one ear, due to shrapnel, and with an enlarged heart. He lived a long, and mostly healthy, life, but his war stories were enough to give us kids nightmares for weeks. And I know he suffered from PTSD, although he was a gentle man who turned it inward into deep depression rather than outward into beating his wife and kids.

Goodbye, Dad. I still miss you so very much. I think I always will. You loved me and you taught me to love myself, even if the lesson took a long, long time to root itself.

Today is also the anniversary of Zingiber's death. For 14 long years, he was with me every moment, a fat, silly, fearful, neurotic, sweet, affectionate, jealous, possessive, overweight lump of love. I miss him every single day. No one has ever loved me the way that fool did. No matter what I did to him — and here I have to admit, shamefacedly, that there were times when he got on my very last nerve, and I did yell at him and torment him in various small ways — he never, ever held anything against me, not even for a second. I could attribute this to his complete and total brainlessness, I guess, but every night when he put his fat, furry little head on the pillow next to me and breathed softly and warmly into my ear, I realized that he might have been as stupid as the day was long, but that was real love in those big green eyes.

I miss you baby. I wish I could tell you one more time just how much.

Stumble It!

In Honour of Labouring Folks Everywhere

Today, we celebrate Labour Day (which, everywhere else in the world, is celebrated on May 1st, also known as Lady Day) with a little ditty from the Great Depression. No doubt it will warm the cockles of every heart that has experienced these fine characters, especially of late.


Butcher, Baker, Candlestick Maker

1.
I'm an autocratic figure in these democratic states,
A dandy demonstration of hereditary traits.
As the children of the baker bake the most delicious breads,
As the sons of Casanova fill the most exclusive beds,
As the Barrymores, the Roosevelts, and others I could name
Inherited the talents that perpetuate their fame,
My position in the structure of society I owe
To the qualities my parents bequeathed me long ago.
My pappy was a gentleman, and musical to boot,
He used to play piano in a house of ill repute.
The madam was a lady, and a credit to her cult.
She enjoyed my pappy's playing, and I was the result!
So my mammy and my pappy are the ones I have to thank
That I'm Chairman of the Board of the National Silly Bank!

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

2.
In a cozy little farmhouse in a cozy little dell,
A dear old-fashioned farmer and his daughter used to dwell.
She was pretty, she was charming, she was tender, she was mild,
And her sympathy was such that she was frequently with child.
The year her hospitality attained a record high
She became the happy mother of an infant, which was I.
Whenever she was gloomy I could always make her grin
By childishly inquiring who my daddy could have been.
The hired man was favored by the girls in Mummy's set
And a trav'ling man from Scranton was an even money bet.
But such were Mammy's motives, and such was her allure,
That even Roger Babson wasn't altogether sure.
Well I took my mother's morals and I took my daddy's crust,
And I grew to be the founder of the New York Blanker's Trust.

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

3.
In a torrid penal chain gang on a dusty southern road,
My late lamented daddy had his permanent abode.
Now some were there for stealing, but my daddy's only fault
Was an overwhelming tendency for criminal ault.
His philosophy was simple and quite free of moral taint:
Seduction is for sissies, but a he-man wants his rape.
Daddy's total list of victims was embarrassingly rich,
And one of them was Mother, but he couldn't tell me which.
Well I didn't go to college, but I got me a degree.
I reckon I'm the model of a perfect S.O.B.
I'm a debit to my country but a credit to my Dad,
The most expensive senator the country ever had.
I remember Daddy's warning -- that raping is a crime,
Unless you rape the voters a million at a time.

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

4.
I'm an ordinary figure in these democratic states,
A pathetic demonstration of hereditary traits.
As the children of the cop possess the flattest kind of feet,
As the daughter of the floozie has a waggle to her seat,
My position at the bottom of society I owe
To the qualities my parents bequeathed me long ago.
My father was a married man and, what is even more,
He was married to my mother -- a fact which I deplore.
I was born in holy wedlock, consequently by and by,
I was rooked by every bastard who had plunder in his eye.
I invested, I deposited, I voted every fall,
And I saved up every penny and the bastards took it all.
At last I've learned my lesson and I'm on the proper track:
I'm a self-appointed bastard and I'M GOING TO GET IT BACK!

Chorus:
Oh, our parents forgot to get married,
Oh, our parents forgot to get wed,
Did a wedding bell chime, it was always a time
When our parents were somewhere in bed.
Then all thanks to our kind loving parents,
We are kings in the land of the free.
Your banker, your broker, your Washington joker,
Three prominent bastards are we, tra la,
Three prominent bastards are we!

Stumble It!

Arizona Racist? You Decide

OK, remember when the State of Arizona and its Queen of Prunes, Jan Brewer, passed SB 1070? That hideous piece of legislation that basically criminalizes all brown people who might cross the State borders or dwell therein? And Jan Brewer even dragged Scary Failin' away from her special-needs child to come help whitewash the law?



Less than a month after that, Brewer signed into law HB 2281, which will ban ethnic studies in that benighted state. No more Native American history classes for the half-million Native Americans living in Arizona. No more Mexican history classes for the 2.x million American citizen Latinos who comprise one-third of the state's population.

Meanwhile, the state has begun targeting teachers "with heavy accents." The state has not specified which accents it finds unacceptable. However, the fact that Latinos are being audited, and white teachers are not, makes one go "Hmmm."

Given that during the 1990s, Arizona hired native Spanish speakers from Latin American nations for its bilingual-education program, one can't help but wonder what the difference is between those apparently well-qualified yet accented speakers then and now.

The year George Bush was elected, Arizona voters passed an English-only bill, and bilingual teachers switched to English-medium classes. Those teachers have, apparently, been teaching their students just fine for two decades. But what a coincidence! Now that SB 1070 is law, their performance has miraculously degraded in a mere matter of weeks to an unacceptable level. These teachers will be "reassigned" (to what? If their accent is deemed to be incomprehensible to their students, what purpose is served by reassigning them, and where will they go? And if it is not incomprehensible, what purpose is served by such reassignment?) or fired. Of course, the fact that Arizona is facing a dire shortage of teachers is not even mentioned. Does that rate another "Hmm"? Hell fuckin' yeah. In fact the number of "Hmms" these actions have, and should, cause has us all here sounding like fucking hummingbirds.

Together, the Latino and Native American population of Arizona comprise approximately half the total population. And that, apparently, has some Bush cronies really worried. Apparently, Arizona racists like Russell Pearce, AZ state senator who thinks Latinos breed like bunnies, is hoping that by creating this legislation he will force undocumented migrant workers out of the state, and bugger all the documented American citizens who end up thrown in jail or out of the country because they don't have their papers on them.

And before y'all get all self-righteous on us with "That would never happen, the law says no racial profiling," go read these here links and then make up your mind.

Let me tell you just how bad things are right now: Some fucking witless bunch of teabaggin' ball-slurpers in fucking Ohio has announced a contest. Winners are invited to spend a week in Arizona "chasing aliens," and are reminded to "bring their green cards" with them.



This is why we all need to protest whenever shit like this happens, people. The idiot who dreamed up this incredibly insulting racist shit got his quantity of assholes increased by several as irate citizens contacted his radio station. The station manager has since apologized for this piece of shit (who has yet to offer his own fucking apology, by the way). So keep it up. You might not think you're being heard, and you might not think that you make a difference. But you are, and you do.

Without your calls and emails and letters, these fuckers would just have carried on being the fucking fuckety fucked fuckacious assholes that they've always been and will always be. At least now they know we're listening and if they don't want multiple rectal orifices, they'll quit spewing shit out of them.

Mind you, this is far from over. Just this month, artists painting a mural at a school in Prescott were told by the principal to lighten the skin colour of the pupils that they painted in the mural to a lily shade of white. Excuse me, what the FUCK? WHAT? These are actual real fucking live fucking children who attend this fucking school, the mural is part of revitalizing the downtown area, funded by a private organization and depicts the actual fucking children for christ's fucking sake!



How crazy fucking insane do you have to be to insist that black and brown children who attend this school be depicted as white? FTA:

City Councilman Steve Blair spearheaded a public campaign on his talk show at Prescott radio station KYCA-AM (1490) to remove the mural.

In a broadcast last month, according to the Daily Courier in Prescott, Blair mistakenly complained that the most prominent child in the painting is African-American, saying: "To depict the biggest picture on the building as a Black person, I would have to ask the question: Why?"

You would, you fat wrinkled rapidly aging bigot. Jesus. Holy quacking duckshit! What kind of people are these. It never occurred to me (or to any of you, I'll bet) to ask the question "Why" someone decided to paint a black face in a mural. Of course, the principal is now claiming this was simply a question of art, not actually whitening the children. Yeah, right. Just like your fucking laws aren't racist, Arizona.

You'll be happy to hear that the parents and teachers love the mural as it is. Upon questioning, the principal admitted that he had received a whole three complaints about the mural. As for those miserable fucks who drove by to scream epithets like "Nigger" and "Spic" at the kids who were helping on the mural, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, but you're troglodytes, so you aren't. Fortunately, there's not as many of you as you thought. You pigs. Oh, wait, that's a terrible insult to pigs which are actually very nice animals.

At any rate, a big thank you to those of you who complained. Steve Blair has been fired from the radio show. Your right to free speech has not been infringed, Mr. Blair. You're free to get on your soapbox in the local park anytime and yell your hate speech. You're not free to use the public airwaves to felch the haters though. So fuck you very much, and may you live the rest of your life in a bitter oblivion, you anal afterbirth.

Stumble It!

Boycott Arizona!

ICHC

By now, the only people who haven't heard of SB 1070, Arizona's Immigration Bill, are the acephalous. Because, you know, this feckin' thing has been teh Talking Point of every rightwing nutjob windbag since the first of them crawled back into the slime from which the rest of us fled.

While we would never incinerate that you, dear visitor, might be one of the impaired, we will, nevertheless, post a link to that foul piece of legislation, just so you can cast your seasoned and cynical eyeball over it.

One of the major talking points bandied about by the aforementioned RWNJs (Right-Wing Nut Jobs, for those of you who were not paying attention) is that the Arizona legislation is Teh Good and Totally Not Stinky Because It's Exactly Teh Same as Teh Nanny-Nanny-Boo-Boo Federal Legislation, So Suck It Lib H8ers.

Yeah, right. Here for your perusal is the Federal legislation, also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act, Title 8 of the U.S.C.

While the Arizona law refers extensively to Federal law, it goes way beyond what Federal law envisioned as appropriate in criminalizing the presence of undocumented migrant workers.

And it is a great danger to the civil liberties of American citizens and especially to American taxpayers.

For example, Title II, Chapter 7, Article 8 G states:

G. A PERSON WHO IS A LEGAL RESIDENT OF THIS STATE MAY BRING AN ACTION
37 IN SUPERIOR COURT TO CHALLENGE ANY OFFICIAL OR AGENCY OF THIS STATE OR A
38 COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS STATE THAT ADOPTS
39 OR IMPLEMENTS A POLICY OR PRACTICE THAT LIMITS OR RESTRICTS THE ENFORCEMENT
40 OF FEDERAL IMMIGRATION LAWS TO LESS THAN THE FULL EXTENT PERMITTED BY FEDERAL
41 LAW. IF THERE IS A JUDICIAL FINDING THAT AN ENTITY HAS VIOLATED THIS
42 SECTION, THE COURT SHALL ORDER THAT THE ENTITY PAY A CIVIL PENALTY OF NOT
43 LESS THAN ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS AND NOT MORE THAN FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS FOR
44 EACH DAY THAT THE POLICY HAS REMAINED IN EFFECT AFTER THE FILING OF AN ACTION
45 PURSUANT TO THIS SUBSECTION.

Pardon the formattage, it's from a PDF and this is just what Blogger does to it.

What does this section do? It allows any fucking nutbag who is a citizen *or resident* of Arizona to sue any police officer and any police department if they think such officer/department is not enforcing this law stringently enough.

I don't recall Federal law containing any such provision. Note that since police departments are funded by taxpayers, it is the taxpayers who must pay all costs associated with such lawsuits. Now why would the legislators of Arizona want to screw the citizens because they get a woody from h8n' on "teh illegalz"?

And how many cities are so wealthy that they can afford to cough up between $1K and $5K per day, if successfully sued?

It also permits the same mentally deficient RWNJs to sue any city or other state-level entity that adopts a "sanctuary" policy. Which, frankly, sucks. But what the abovementioned language means for the law enforcement personnel who have to put it into practice in the streets is that if you call the cops because, oh, I dunno, you're being raped or murdered? And someone else calls reporting a suspected "illegal alien"? You're shit outa luck, because the PD won't get sued if it doesn't immediately show up to save your injured ass. It will fershure get sued if some litigious asshole made the "illegal alien" call and found out that the police failed to respond or did not respond swiftly enough.

Arizona, you sure you want this shitty law?

And that's just the peripheral stuff.

Here's the real reason why this law seriously sucks hind end:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This, boyz'ngurlz, is the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. It is part of what is called The Bill of Rights.

For decades now, the courts have chipped away at various provisions of the Bill of Rights, but none so brutally and continually as the Fourth Amendment. See, the Fourth Amendment prevents the government from violating its citizens rights to a great degree. It says "... no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, ..." et cetera. This means the cops can't haul your ass to jail for looking, or dressing, or even acting funny without swearing under oath that they have a good reason to believe that you're a dangerous criminal. They can't bust down your door, they can't enter your home, they can't stop you when you walk down the street, they can't do shit to you without that little piece of paper signed by a judge and sworn to under oath. So if the cops lie to get that little piece of paper, they're guilty of perjury and you have the right to sue their asses off.

However, this law amends Section 13-3883 of the Arizona Revised Statutes to permit the police to arrest without a warrant, not just for dangerous felonies and suspected terrorism, which we would probably all agree is justified by the demands of public safety, but also for mere misdemeanors. Under this law, the cops can come into your house and demand to see everyone's papers if there's too many people in your house, or you're violating some noise ordinance, or there's a car on blocks in your yard.

The po-pos can impound your vehicle if you give someone a ride without inquiring for evidence of their immigration status. Isn't that nice? Give your elderly neighbour a ride to church? Bam! Go to jail, do not collect, etc. Give your friend's kids a ride home from school? Tough shit for you if they were born someplace else and are "undocumented." Wifey in the car had a little nip of alcohol? If she's under 21, off you go to teh jailhouse. What's even worse, the law specifies that your insurance company has no duty to pay any charges that you might rack up during this period. What, not even while you're pleading your innocence and wrongful arrest through the courts? Nice.

This law also shifts the burden of proof regarding entrapment charges to the defendant. If the cops entrap you into doing something illegal (we all know the honourable po-pos would never do that, right?), this law says it is up to you the citizen to prove that they entrapped you. As a rule, the burden of proof has been on the prosecution because the Government has vast resources and power, compared to the average citizen. It is less costly for the Government to prove that it has clean hands than for you, joe citizen, to prove that it does not.

Nowhere in the Constitution or in Title 8 of the USC does it say that an American citizen must carry identification on their person at all times. But SB 1070, the Aryanzona law (as it's popularly known among the bright sparks of the InnerTubes) says that if the cops stop your ass for, I dunno, crossing against a light? Walking your dog off leash? Parking in the wrong zone? — they can ask you for ID, and if you don't have any, it's off to the hoosegow with you, buddy.

Don't take my word for it. Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, AZ, has done this several times. In his opinion, it's totally cool to throw all the brown people in jail and release the US citizens later. Does this sound like the Fourth Amendment is being respected and obeyed at all in Aryanzona?

And when did AZ flatfoots become experts in determining the ethnicity of a brown person, let alone their possible immigration status? Because, you know, stuff like this happens all the time.

By now you're probably sick of hearing about this. I'm certainly sick of writing about it. In honour of the humongous fucking headache this issue has given me, I'd like to leave you with this very enjoyable video clip.



And for the last word, we turn to the Native inhabitants of this land:



We'll be blogging on this issue regularly. Stay tuned.

Stumble It!

Politics: Supporting The Troops

You know how we're always shooting off our mouth here at La Casa de Los Gatos, about how we should be doing more for our troops?

Because, you know, it's like the conservatives, ReUglycans, and teabaggers seem to have co-opted that issue right out from under us.

And we don't like that one fucking bit. All kinds of people end up in the military. Some of them are very rightwing, some of them are pretty fucking leftwing. As far as we here at La Casa de Los Gatos are concerned, their politics ain't the issue. Face it, you can't get most people to whistle a tune in fucking harmony, how the hell are you going to get an entire fucking military to have a single point of view on politics?

No, for us, the issue is, when you ask someone to go get killed because their Commander-in-Chief said so, then you owe them something. Maybe you don't need to wipe their fucking ass for the rest of their natural-born days. But you sure as hell don't kick them to the curb and treat them like bumwad, either.

Because once these guys join the military, the only way they can disobey orders (regardless about how they might feel about the righteousness or justice of those orders) is to risk the loss of their career, their benefits, few as they are, and jail time.

And you know how anxious the world is to hire a jailbird, especially these days when you're lucky to be underemployed, at best.

So it turns out that there's an organization that builds homes for vets who are severely injured in the line of duty.

And it warms the cockles of our shriveled black heart to hear that they're doing this for one Frank Pierson, who lost one leg and a significant part of another in Iraq. And the most touching part?

"Many people who volunteer to work on these homes are Vietnam veterans," Thomas said. "They said they've sworn that they wouldn't have another war where veterans were treated as they were when they returned from Vietnam."

Kudos to those VN vets who, after all they went through, still found room in their hearts to help their fellow soldiers out.



You know we don't support the war in Afghanistan, we didn't support the war in Iraq, we were opposed to the bombing of Serbia, and we utterly despised, resisted, and demonstrated against the war in Vietnam. But these guys who get their asses blown off and their heads fucked up? They're not the ones who are getting rich off any of this. They're not the ones making the decisions. Just like the rest of us working stiffs, they got hired into this organization which pays them in "pride" and "honour" rather than, you know, filthy lucre, aka money.

It suckers them into this whole ethos of "serving the nation" (even though that hasn't been an issue since WW II, the last "righteous war"), and then pays them squat to go out and be cannon fodder. It imposes a strict training system that creates lifelong bonds between these people who, depending for their very lives on their comrades, are more tightly tied to them because of shared danger and trauma than most people are to their spouses and children.

If they make it back less than whole, it does its best to deny them care for any suffering they might have undergone.

And those same assholes of the rightwing who scream the loudest about "Supporting Teh Troops" are the same motherfucking pig-diddlers who vote against any funding for the VA, for educational opportunities for vets, for any improvement in servicemembers' lives. They're the assholes who won't volunteer, who find ways to vote for every war that every existed and ways to avoid getting their own worthless asses shot up. Those are the same dicksuckers who piss and moan about how "the troops volunteered, they need to suck it up."

Well, suck this, assholes.



As for the rest of youse, if you want to lend a hand, donate money, supplies, or labour, get your ass over there and do your thang. You'll find them here.

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World: Uganda Wants Death Penalty For LGBTQ

The Huffington Post is reporting that, following visits by conservative American Christians, lawmaker David Bahati of Uganda is proposing a sweeping law aimed at LGBTQ Ugandans that includes life imprisonment or the death penalty for being gay, as well as severe penalties for those who rent homes to, employ, or fail to report homosexuals to the authorities:

The Ugandan legislation in its current form would mandate a death sentence for active homosexuals living with HIV or in cases of same-sex rape. "Serial offenders" also could face capital punishment, but the legislation does not define the term. Anyone convicted of a homosexual act faces life imprisonment.

Anyone who "aids, abets, counsels or procures another to engage of acts of homosexuality" faces seven years in prison if convicted. Landlords who rent rooms or homes to homosexuals also could get seven years and anyone with "religious, political, economic or social authority" who fails to report anyone violating the act faces three years.

While some African journalists and bloggers are characterizing the proposed legislation as aimed at those who knowingly infect others, especially children, with HIV, it is not clear that they are referring to the same legislation as the bill sponsored by Bahati. A request for clarification has not received a response.

Although Bloomberg has since reported in an update from its Kampala bureau that both the proposed death penalty and life imprisonment have been dropped from the bill, this might well be a reaction to the outcry in other countries against this hideous legislation.

Peter Kent, Canadian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, has characterized the bill as "vile and hateful," and has stated that Canada would raise the issue with its Ugandan counterparts at a Commonwealth summit held in Trinidad and Tobago this weekend.

This blog agrees. The proposed legislation is against all ethics and all human rights laws, nationally and internationally. You simply *cannot* execute people for being who/what they are. Science has shown that homosexuality is genetically determined.

What You Can Do

The United States currently gives Uganda approximately $60 million annually in aid. Please contact your legislator and request that such aid be made contingent upon Uganda's observation of the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Please also contact the Ugandan Embassy in your country and voice your opposition to this law *politely*. You can reach the Ugandan Embassy in the U.S. here. You can also contact the Uganda Human Rights Commission to urge them to act on this. According to AllAfrica.com, Uganda is a signatory to the UDHR. Thank you.

Under Article 51 of the Constitution of Uganda, the UHRC, among other functions is mandated to monitor the government's compliance with Constitutional provisions and international human rights instruments on human rights. It is their duty to ensure that Mr. Bahati and President Museveni adhere to human rights standards.

Gay Americans are taxpayers, and we resent our taxes paying for the oppression and murder of our brothers and sisters anywhere in the world.

Christians, if you believe what Your Teacher taught, now is the time to speak up and stand with your gay brothers and sisters. Jesus would not have condoned the killing of people who have committed no wrong. If you feel it is wrong for a person to love someone of the same gender, remember that it is for your God, and not you, to judge. Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I shall repay.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, said your Jesus. Do not let your brethren in the fundamentalist church drag you all into opprobrium by condemning others to death.

In case you haven't seen it, Rachel Maddow has done a yeoman job of reportage on the event.

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Workers' Rights: Happy Labour Day

The U.S. is the only nation in the world that celebrates Labour Day on a day other than May 1st, which is International Labour Day. There's reasons for that, even if they are pathetic, wimpy reasons. But enough with the quibble.

Today is Labour Day in this fair nation, and let us all take the time to remember that it was the strong hands of working men and women that gave us the blessings we take for granted today. Let us honour those workers, both voluntary and involuntary (although, let's face it, unless you're doing something you really love, all work is involuntary. We work so that we will not starve.), who built the roads, the bridges, the hospitals and schools, who taught our children and nursed our sick and cared for our aged and our poor. Who grew our crops and picked them and trucked them to market so we could enjoy the bounty of the land. Who designed and built and assembled the cars we drove. Who fixed our machines and worked on our railroads.

Remember the slaves of African descent who were forced to give the fruits of their labour to others, who profited greatly from them. Remember the Chinese railroad workers, brought here in their thousands to provide cheap labour while surviving somehow in substandard housing, the victims of hatred. Remember the Japanese truck gardeners and market gardeners, imprisoned in concentration camps and robbed of the fruits of their labour and everything they owned. Remember the Indians who came as farmers and agricultural labourers and were vilified for their ethnicity and religion, prohibited from bringing their wives and families and victims of the same Exclusion Act that was used to discriminate against the Chinese. Remember the Irish, sold into indentured servitude which outlasted their own lifetimes in many cases. Remember those of every ethnicity and colour, the workers who came from all over the world seeking freedom and a better life for themselves or their children.



Without the labour of millions of hard-working people, we would not have the abundance of riches that we enjoy today. Therefore, as we enjoy this public holiday, let us remember those who made today a day off from work for millions of labouring men and women. And let us honour those who suffered in the long struggle for the right of working people everywhere to be treated as human beings, and not chattel.

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Politics: Health Care

Seen with her favourite person, your own Senator DiFi

Live in California? Want a better health care system?

Then get ready to sit down and give ol' helmet-hair (Senator DiFi) an earful. Because that worthless bitch doesn't think you need health care reform. Why the fuck should she, she's married to a rich man and making a couple hundred thou a year PLUS she gets gold-plated healthcare at the taxpayers' expense.

I can't stand her, quite honestly. Her politics would be seen for the worthless shit they are if we didn't have true asshats like John Cornyn, John McCain, Lamar Alexander, Evan Bayh, Kit Bond, Sam Brownback, Jim Bunning, Saxby Chambliss, Tom Coburn, Thad Cochran, Jim DeMint, John "Fuckaround" Ensign, David Vitter, Lindsay Graham, James Inhofe, Orrin Hatch, Jon Kyl, Joe LieberWHORE, Mitch "Granny" McConnell, Ben Nelson, Pat Roberts and Jeff Sessions in the Senate. Geez, that's an awful lotta asshats, huh? And most of them worse than your very own Princess Diane.

Recently, that waste of skin Feinstein was heard to opine to Greg Sargent, who now blogs at Plum Line, that criticism from "the left" doesn't bother her.

Problem is, it ain't the mythical "left" that wants President Obama's health care bill to pass. It's three out of every four Americans. You know, your average person who (1) doesn't have pots of money; (2) isn't married to someone who has pots of money; (3) doesn't have taxpayer-funded health care.

If you really want the health care system reformed, do your part. Here's some information on how to get started. If you don't want to do the activist number, then at least call DiFi and make sure you let her know that you KNOW she's up for re-election in 2012; and that she's thinking of running for Governor of California; and you will remember her votes on health care and will hold her accountable at the polls, whatever office she sets her sights on.

Di-Fi's numbers:

San Diego: 619-231-9712
Washington DC: 202-224-3841

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World: WTF is going on in Peru?

Photograph from Whenua Fenua Enua Vanua

Via The Huffington Post, AP is reporting that native tribes are protesting exploitation of the Amazon and the government has retaliated by widespread armed attacks, killing many unarmed native people. Now, the situation is escalating as tribespeople retaliate by capturing and killing soldiers.

NASDAQ is reporting that Carmen Vildoso, Peru's Minister of Women's Affairs and Social Development, has submitted her resignation to President Alan Garcia, although no reason was given.

Opposition member Keiko Fujimori has asked for the resignation of Prime Minister Yehude Simon. Simon leads Garcia's Cabinet. From the article:

Native Indians blocked a main highway in the province of Amazonas for close to two months, while they pressed the government to roll back legislative decrees that regulate resource development.

Those decrees were brought in by the administration of President Alan Garcia as part of enabling legislation required in the free trade agreement with the United States.

Once again, FTAs appear to be at the root of the problem, dispossessing native people, stealing their resources for exploitation for the benefit of larger, more powerful members of the Free Trade coalitions. It appears that Free Trade is free only for the rich. It certainly isn't helping the poor. Perhaps they mean "free of those annoying poor people who don't want to lose their homes and lands and their beautiful environment."

Is the U.S. government once again functioning as the military arm of big corporations that want the resources of poor people who happen to be not-American?

According to this article, Garcia used to be a "leftist," although the Sendero Luminoso, or Shining Path, apparently did not consider him left enough. Now he's a rightist par excellence — a champion of the Free Market (free, once again, of those pestilential poor people who are unable to purchase the arms and wherewithal to defend themselves against the greed of the multinationals). Whatever he is, or was, there's no denying the guy is a total racist. He speaks contemptuously of the "savagery" and "barbarity" of the indigenous tribespeople while conveniently ignoring the savagery and barbarity of his troops which are believed to have killed tens, and possibly, hundreds, of the indigenous tribespeople and hidden the bodies.

Surprisingly, the Roman Catholic bishops of the nation are siding with the indigenous people on this issue.

Auntie Beeb is also reporting that hundreds of native people are missing.

Before you blame this on President Obama, please note that the Guardian is claiming that the Peru Free Trade Agreement was signed some three years ago, which would make it Bush's responsibility.

Alberto Pizango, courtesy of AFP

Alberto Pizango, an indigenous leader, is seeking asylum in Nicaragua. Peruvian police have already shot and killed one other indigenous leader, at least. Reuters is reporting that Nicaragua has granted asylum to Pizango and is now seeking Garcia's cooperation in giving Pizango safe passage to Nicaragua.

Feel free to write your local fishwrap a letter on the issue. Also, your Congresscritters. I'll post more on this later — must take my poison pills now (I'm cutting back, which means I'm dealing with shivers and sweats and pain and various other disturbances of teh bod; apparently, these highly addictive pain medications can't just be stopped cold turkey).

If you want to do more than just write letters to those worthless shills in congress and the local birdcage liner, consider starting a protest march in solidarity with the native people of Peru in front of the nearest Embassy. Blogger Ana at Whenua Fenua Enua Vanua has a boatload of email addresses for the UN and Peruvian leaders, in case you want to give those worthless fucks a piece of your mind as well. This kind of whatthefuckery deserves a response, goddammit.

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Labour: Why It's Good

To have a strong labour movement and good labour policies:

From chillycrap, obviously

Yet while Europe may be worse off statistically, most Europeans are not feeling the crisis to the same level as most Americans. Millions of European workers have been spared the full impact because of strict labor laws that make it profoundly difficult for a company, in, say, France, to lay off employees in times good or bad. And those workers who lose their jobs in Europe often receive generous unemployment benefits, covering the lion's share of their lost salaries for many months.

And when those rightwingnuttians start whining about how taxing the rich at a fairer rate will "drive them away," be sure to ask them where the fuck those exploitative bastids will be driven. Because most Third World countries lack the infrastructure to support large-scale business investment, not to mention the stable political climate necessary to doing business. The risk of being kidnapped, murdered, or having one's assets nationalized are far worse than having to pay a couple of percentage points more on the tens of millions or billions those bastards already have.

Those Third World nations that have the required political stability and infrastructure also have strict laws on pollution, stronger labour laws, and high taxation.

Eastern Europe is currently in such a slump that taking one's business there is not a sensible move. Needless to say, the political climate is unstable, and the cost of doing business is NOT minimal. Believe it or don't, employees in Eastern Europe have far more generous vacation and sick-leave and time-off policies than most Americans. In Russia, for example, most people take a good part of the summer off, which can sort of put a crimp in one's deliverables.

So where exactly are the wealthy capitalists going to put their money? The USA is the best bet, for low taxes, lots of tax cheating, a highly industrialized and efficient infrastructure, and truly shitty labour policies. Nowhere else do workers get a lousy 2 weeks in vacation time per year (if that). Nowhere.

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Politics: You Owe It To Yourselves

to read what my good friend Chuck Butcher has to say about Senator Jim Webb and the criminal justice system.

I'm really thrilled to see that Senator Webb is living up to the high hopes I had for him. I was convinced there was gold in there in that complex, shy, stubborn, and solid man, and he's proving that he's more interested in the wellbeing of this nation than his own political future. McCain could learn a lot about "country first" by watching Senator Webb.

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Jailing Kids for Cash

I just read an article in yesterday's paper that appalled me. Amy Goodman writes about a county in Pennsylvania (but suspects it's going on elsewhere) and its two judges who were convicted of jailing kids for cash. Here's an excerpt:

As many as 5,000 children in Pennsylvania have been found guilty, and up to 2,000 of them jailed, by two corrupt judges who received kickbacks from the builders and owners of private prison facilities that benefited. The two judges pleaded guilty in a stunning case of greed and corruption that is still unfolding. Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan received $2.6 million in kickbacks while imprisoning children who often had no access to a lawyer. The case offers an extraordinary glimpse into the shameful private prison industry that is flourishing in the United States.

The whole things is worth reading. And you won't need caffeine to pump you up for the rest of the day. To read it, click here.

Here's another excerpt:

This scandal involves just one county in the U.S., and one relatively small private prison company. According to The Sentencing Project, “the United States is the world’s leader in incarceration with 2.1 million people currently in the nation’s prisons or jails—a 500 percent increase over the past thirty years.” The Wall Street Journal reports that “[p]rison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.” For-profit prison companies like the Corrections Corporation of America and GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) are positioned for increased profits. It is still not clear what impact the just-signed stimulus bill will have on the private prison industry (for example, the bill contains $800 million for prison construction, yet billions for school construction were cut out).

500% increase!!! What shame upon our country!

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World: Eyeless in Gaza

From the New York Times

Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke;
Samson Agonistes, John Milton

One — this one, anyway — can't help wondering what the fuck is going on in Gaza this week. Why is Israel bombing, shooting, and sending the sixth largest and best equipped army in the world into Gaza, the refuge of 1.3 million Palestinians, most of whom are unarmed civilians? Some 400,000 of that population lives in refugee camps funded by the UN.

Israel has bombed the power plants, water and sewage treatment facilities, and restricted movement in and out of Gaza which has essentially become the world's largest standing concentration camp. Why? What is this about? And why is Israel getting away with this starkly inhumane treatment?

Before you start lecturing me about what the Palestinians have done to bring this upon themselves, stop. No. I'm well aware of the tortuous politics of the Middle East (or West Asia, if you prefer). Here's a timeline of the events leading up to today's report of tanks entering the much-bombed and repeatedly destroyed strip of Gaza.

This is the most recent mapping of the conflict. Its roots go back all the way to the fight of two desert tribes over scarce land and water resources. Or perhaps, given the Jewish Diaspora under Rome, only as far back as the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which established in Palestine a "home" for the Jewish people with a guarantee of "civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine." Of course, in the intervening years, Israel has repeatedly taken land and scarce water from the Palestinians, refused the refugees that it has created the right of return (thereby ensuring that their lands and goods, if any, become the property of the state of Israel), and reduced the "land of Palestine" to a series of narrow unconnected strips with no sovereignty and severely restricted movement.

This fine map courtesy of aucegypt.edu

It was generous of the British to so dispose of the land and the fruits of the labour of others.

As a lifelong supporter of Israel, I long admired the state for its tenacity, its refusal to contemplate surrender or nonexistence, its bravery in the face of daunting odds. But there is a huge difference between fighting the remnants of the great Turkish empire and an assault upon a defenseless civilian population when you have the best army and armaments that the contents of the American Treasury can buy.

What is now going on in Gaza is nothing short of despicable. Yes, Israel has a right to exist. But nobody has a right to rain bombs on the heads of women, old people, children, noncombatant civilians. To those who seek to apologize for Israel's actions by claiming that it is Hamas, the "terrorists," who hide their bombs and guns behind the bodies of civilians, let me point out that Gaza is currently the most densely populated place in the world. Where exactly could Hamas locate their weapons of self-defense away from civilians? Why should they give up their pitifully ineffective weapons when the State of Israel kills 100 Palestinians for every Israeli that is killed? How can they trust Israel to safeguard their rights, when Israel brazenly destroys their homes, orchards, lands, wells, and their children?

It is well documented that Israel has eaten away at the "civil rights" of the Palestinians as well as at their territory. The Western Powers created the State of Israel as a salve for their collective guilt of a thousand years of pogroms, discrimination, hatred, bloodshed, killing, concentration camps, and Final Solutions. Why did they choose to carve out for the victims of their evil a "home" in a place already occupied by others? Why, since they were presumably moved by a generous spirit, did they not generously give up their own damned land, or some portion thereof?

They have discriminated against the Roma (gypsies) in much the same way, for nearly the same length of time. Yet they do not feel obliged to give the Gypsies a new home (assuming that they could find a location to which they could trace their historical roots). They prefer to leave them to the tender mercies of their fellow Europeans.

There is no honour in this battle; nothing of which to feel proud. This is not like the fight over the Golan Heights, the Six-Day War, in which Israel took on multiple armed foes and triumphed. This is a disgrace. Gaza has been cut off from the rest of the world for years now. Deprived of food, water, sewage treatment facilities, light, power, medicine, basic dignity. To attack an armed enemy and prevail is a mighty feat. To attack a weakened toothless civilian rabble of children and women — that is a disgrace and a shame.

Read what the Gazans have to say. It indicts the Israeli Army very effectively.

And not just the Israeli Army. The current occupant of the White House, the most wretched to occupy that space, has given Israel his full permission to indulge in this disgraceful carnage; asking only, in the most timid of voices, that Israel "try hard to avoid civilian casualties," even as reports tell us that Israel's air strikes over the past week have killed more than 400 Palestinians, wounded many more. And even as I write this, Israeli tanks are rumbling into the beleaguered Gaza strip.

The only good news to report in the midst of this revolting ongoing Holocaust upon the Palestinians is that finally, the scales seem to be falling from everyone's eyes. I can no longer support Israel. I will always support the right of the Israeli people and the State of Israel to exist, but that existence must now be tempered with a verifiable demonstration of their commitment to civil rights for Palestinians, peace with their neighbours, and a return of Palestinian land and property.

Rest assured, those of you who are demonstrating against Israel's unacceptable military actions, that millions of Jews, whether Israeli, American, or other, and countless millions of people of every nation, ethnicity, and faith or lack thereof stand with you. Israel can no longer whitewash these crimes against humanity.

The blindness of the Israeli hawks who willingly lead their own people into the role of catspaw for the American military-industrial complex is sad to see. So great a nation, deluded by its failure to recognize that there is no military solution to the Gordian knot that binds it.

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Human Rights: CA. Proposition 8

The election results made us so joyful with Obama's win that we couldn't bear to tarnish the excitement with thoughts of the passage of California Proposition 8 or, as the voters here now refer to it, Proposition Hate.

However, we've been seething about it ever since it passed and sooner or later we have to share the seethe. California, hello? Excuse me? What the fuck did Arnie put in the water that people actually marched to the polls and voted against their LGBTQ brothers and sisters?

La Casa de Los Gatos is well aware that not all of California is progressive. SF, LA, Berkeley, Oakland, Palo Alto, Monterey, Carmel, Mendocino, maybe a few other small towns here and there, are pretty forward-thinking and have a significant population of LGBTQ people. Orange County has a fair number of pinheads, and military areas like San Diego are pretty fucking hopeless. But still, people! Why you wanna do this for? What business is it of yours who does what with their naughty bits? You want people checking around in your bedroom? No? Then get the hell out of our bedrooms!

This is ridiculous, and we're not going to put up with it. Civil rights should never be left to the will of the majority because the majority tends to oppose civil rights for minorities (of any ilk). Imagine if we had asked the people to vote on slavery. There were only a few people brave enough to oppose it at the time. The majority would have happily permitted it to continue or merely ignored the issue.

In the same way we cannot leave the right of LGBTQ folks to love and marry who they will in the hands of those who have no understanding or empathy on this issue. Straight people say, "Well we don't care who you have sex with, just don't flaunt it in our faces. You can have civil unions. You'll have the same rights. Leave us marriage." (No, we don't personally know anyone who actually says such things because we strive not to associate with troglodytes. However, such things and much worse can be found in a few minutes of perusing teh InnerTubes.)

Unfortunately, this is a myth. It's simply not true that gay people have all the rights that straight people have through a civil union. For one thing, in community property states, married people who own property in common cannot sell or give away any part of that property without their spouse's explicit consent. Upon one spouse's death, the other spouse inherits the entire property as a whole — no part of it can be alienated without the surviving spouse's consent, and no probate is required for the property to pass intact from one spouse to the other.

A civil union confers some benefits on the partners thereto, but consider the case of Lisa Pond who was traveling with her partner and children when she suffered a brain aneurysm. Her partner and family were not permitted to see her on her deathbed. Would that happen to a straight couple? No. Consider the case of a gay couple who spent twenty years or more building a home and family, acquiring property together. Should one partner die, regardless of any contract or property arrangement to the contrary, the same biological relations who kicked the dead partner out of their home for being gay could descend upon the couple's property and contest the will and boot the survivor out of the home in which they had invested a lifetime of earnings and hopes. Could that happen to a straight couple? The family could try it, but the courts would most likely rule for the survivor.


Well, the time has come to insist on the same spousal rights for gay couples, and quite frankly we don't care what the hell you call it — civil union, marriage, schtuppenpupik — if it will allow a partner at their dying partner's bedside in any state in the country; if it will guarantee that two people in a loving relationship can legally inherit one from the other to no less an extent than any other people in such a relationship despite their sexual preference; if it will give LGBTQ partners the same tax breaks and family rates on health care and child care and family matters, then call it what you will but give us our rights.

Today is the day that LGBTQ people all over this country march in support of gay rights, and against such antigay legislation as California's shameful Proposition 8. They'll be marching in Portland; InTheNameOf8 lists groups that will be working against Prop 8 nationwide; JoinTheImpact gives pointers on how to organize yourselves, including a site that tells you how to find your local protest.

Fellow digger and gay activist Scoyboy of OnTopmag has a fine piece on the spontaneous marches erupting across the nation.

In good news, many Mormons are disgusted enough by their church's shameful support of this equality-denying proposition to up 'n leave. Thank you to those of our Mormon brothers and sisters who stand with us.

We urge our Catholic brothers and sisters to take a stand against the hate being perpetrated by their religion. Jesus did not teach hatred and discrimination. He taught love and acceptance. He sat with beggars and prostitutes and dined with publicans and outcasts. He did not, as the fathers of today's church do, wine and dine on gold and silver with the wealthy and powerful while turning his back on the poor who starve among us. If you profess to believe in him, then you must act in support of his message and stand up for the rights of your LGBTQ brothers and sisters and not permit Proposition 8 to take away the rights of a loving couple to marry and raise a family — a right that you yourselves possess and take for granted.

To do something about this shameful and discriminatory proposition, you can go here and sign the pledge.

Be sure to write the gubernator, who will be getting an earful from the bigots and haters who poured millions into this campaign.


Finally, for those who think that the record numbers of Black American voters who turned out for Obama were responsible for the passing of Proposition 8, stop it, OK? Just quit. Go read this first, and then come back and flap your gums if you still can. To imply that Black Americans are responsible for this hateful proposition passing is to hold all White Americans, gay and straight, harmless on the issue. And how could that be, when Black Americans comprise a whole six fucking per cent of the California electorate? Do you think if even half the White churchgoing population had voted against this proposition, it would have passed even if every single Black voter voted for it? And, furthermore, are there no LGBTQ Black Americans, or people of Tint among the ranks of the various LGBTQ folks? Is it not a clear manifestation of prejudice to assume that all LGBTQ persons are White, that White is the default colour of LGBTQ people?

Prop 8 passed because of gullibility and misinformation. The religious churchgoers were told that if it did not pass, their churches might be shut down, their preachers jailed. We don't find that a compelling argument, but religious people we're not. So we understand that they voted out of ignorance and fear. Such ignorance and fear must not dictate our lives though. Already the forces of provocateurism are at work, with "unknown individuals" mailing packets of white powder to various religious factions. We doubt that LGBTQ people were behind that, but if they were, we urge them to remember to whose detriment such actions redound.

Much as we may dislike it, we have to reach out to our churchgoing religious friends and neighbours and engage them in discourse. For a perfect love casteth out fear. And quite frankly, it's time everybody got over this fucking fear hangover that's been chewing our hineys to ribbons for nearly a decade.

So get out there, people, and wave a flag or a banner or a poster for those of us who can't stand up. We're with you in spirit. This fight ain't over, but we all have to fight it.

Stumble It!