300 (or "This is Madness... This... is... BLOGGING!!!")

I mentioned last month when I celebrated the 10th anniversary of this blog that I was nearing 300 entries... and here we are. Once again, I have to marvel at both my commitment to writing on a consistent basis in this space and my ability to actually come up with 300 things to talk about (although to be fair I've talked about a lot of things several times).

I also think about the evolution of this blog. As I considered myself an aspiring "Internet columnist", I originally kept a light, humorous tone to my entries. As time has gone on, I've noticed that the entries have grown more serious, more political in nature. Unfortunately, it seems I may have followed the path taken by earlier commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck; both of their shows in the early days were heavy on the parody and "reindeer games" (like Environmentalist Wacko Football Picks and Moron Trivia), but more recently they have become obsessed with the political power they wield. As someone with ZERO political power, I do feel the need to step back from time to time from the seriousness of it all. This entry will serve as an example, as I go back through the last 100 entries to highlight my more humorous takes on life...

When you drive into PA, the sign should say, "Welcome to Pennsylvania, You're Going to Be Here a While." (#204, 8/9/08)

So I am here to propose my own radical solution to the economic woes of Upstate New York... secede from the entire country and join Canada. Yeah, you may think this is crazy, but apparently I'm not the first to propose such a solution... although I kinda resent the "give Upstate to Canada" line. We're not a charity case, we WANT to leave your asses! You don't talk like us, you annoy the hell out of us, we're outta here... (#205, 8/18/08)

Then there is the complete waste of time known as "Hole in the Wall." I single this one out as perhaps THE DUMBEST IDEA IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION. Here's the premise: two teams of contestants compete against each other by standing next to a pool of water and trying to fit through a hole in a moving wall to avoid getting knocked into said pool of water. That's it. That's the show. At least "Wipeout" has ACTUAL PHYSICAL EFFORT involved. Thank you Fox for further dumbing down the country. (#212, 10/19/08)

My best attempt to make a costume myself was the year that I wanted to be Mr. Met, and since I had no skill at creating something bearing a resemblance to a giant oversized baseball head, I wound up looking like I had a cardboard oil drum on my head with baseball stitches and a face on it. (#213, 10/30/08)

I'm letting you know now that I will outright refuse to turn 40. Not a chance. I will do the Jack Benny thing and be 39 forever. Take that to the bank. (#215, 11/14/08)

I truly wonder if the non-stop pop culture machine that is Miley Cyrus (and her brother’s band, Metro Station) is actually Billy Ray’s revenge on America for all the ways we laughed at him after “Achy Breaky Heart”. (#221, 12/31/08)

As I am at work right now, I am being subjected to Laura Ingraham doing an interview with Ann Coulter. I'm thinking of rolling tape on it because I could always use a new car alarm... (#223, 1/11/09)

We have bands and artists continuing to poach whatever bygone hit songs they can get their hands on for their own uses, and apparently it's become slim pickings. How else can you explain the hard rock band Seether covering "Careless Whisper" by Wham? I mean, this is a joke, right? A tongue-in-cheek thing, like Alanis Morissette covering "My Humps", right? Oh wait, you're doing this song seriously? Dude... (#233, 3/22/09)

Why the hell don't they put up signs at construction sites saying what they are building? Especially when you can see it from the highway. I can't imagine how many accidents are caused because someone is driving along, sees a rather large building being put up, stares at it wondering, "Hmmm, I wonder what that's going to be.... AHHHHHHH!" (*CRASH*) (#236, 4/20/09)

So what do I blame all this horrible driving on? Well, as is the case with a lot of America's problems, I blame NASCAR. People watch that and decide to go imitating it and see if they can replicate the thrill of weaving from lane to lane, passing the cars, and if you get hit, well, rubbin's racin', right? (#244, 6/23/09)

I just stopped for 40 minutes to catch up on this week's "Fringe." In the middle of this entry. I'm getting distracted from my distractions. But other shows require me to use the Internet... and how am I gonna do that when I need the Internet to whack mobsters and harvest crops? (#258, 10/10/09)

There are some things in pop culture that I see and frankly I'd rather not know more about them... because they're stupid. Like how I see all these people around Philadelphia wearing hats and shirts that only have the "ill" part of the "Phillies" script logo. I swear the first time I saw that, I wanted to ask the guy, "So where are your two friends with the shirts that say 'Ph' and 'ies'?" (#260, 10/24/09)

Matt Lauer was doing a Q&A session. My response? "Oh, it's Matt Lauer... eh." And I kept walking. Sorry, once you have seen the likes of Bob Costas and others making similar appearances at Syracuse, it becomes old hat. You'll have to do better than that, Philadelphia. (#264, 12/5/09)

Despite this kid's all-too-true belief that anyone should be able to tell the difference between a butt and a face (not to mention the obvious use of parody), North Face sued. I guess that proves not only that North Face's lawyers don't know the difference between a face and a butt, they clearly have their former shoved up their latter. (#266, 12/20/09)

We who hail from upstate New York are hearty souls. We don't get fazed by a good heavy continuous snowfall (though we do get really frustrated and sore from all the shoveling). Hell, in the midst of this two feet-plus that fell, I went out to the bar at least twice... as long as the roads are well enough plowed or salted for me to get home, I'ma get my drink on! (#268, 1/8/10)

As such, I discovered quickly when I entered Trader Joe's that this was a place that BELONGED in Media, and I DID NOT... (I) promptly went to Acme and bought Corn Flakes. Kellogg's Corn Flakes. THAT'S America, baby! (#271, 1/24/10)

Note to the South Philly ShopRite: during the panic before a winter storm, it might not be the best idea to play "It's the End of the World" by R.E.M. over the PA system. I'm just sayin'... (#274, 2/11/10)

I decided to rely on "old-fashioned technology" for these daily trips to campus, a portable CD player. Apparently they don't make those things like they used to, because the CDs would skip like crazy and I would bang on the thing, which is the appropriate response to any mechanical problem. However, after 4 months of skipping and banging... the CD player died. Clearly defective. (#278, 5/11/10)

If you just imagine the sound of vuvuzelas in your head, it may actually have the ability to drown out the words you are reading on the screen right now. And since my roommate got a surround-sound system for the apartment, let me tell you there is nothing quite like the surround-sound vuvuzela experience. I'm not saying that as a compliment. (#285, 6/20/10)

Then there's "Cake Boss", which isn't really all that offensive or stereotypical, it's a TLC reality show about a New Jersey bakery owner. Although I bet the guy would give Gordon Ramsey a run for his money, and maybe it's just my sick mind but I would love to see them throw down. (#292, 8/8/10)

So there you go, I'm not wigging out about politics all the time. Let's hope that I continue to find humorous things to talk about and joke about, because the last thing this world really needs is one more hardcore political blogger...

Freedom and Equality for All

So it's been well over a month since the federal judge threw out Proposition 8 in California, the voter-approved referendum that forbade homosexuals from marriage. I apologize for not responding to it sooner but one of the beauties of having this blog is if everyone's talking about gay marriage and I want to talk about, say, celery... I talk about celery. I feel no impulse to be one of the first to opine about something, but I do want to talk about the ruling and its aftermath, so here goes.

First of all, I'm okay with gay marriage, and I'll put aside all the obligatory "why shouldn't they be just as miserable as the rest of us" and all the other ha-ha jokes that go with it. Love is love, regardless of who it is, and don't even start with me on the "slippery slope" routine. We are NEVER going to legalize marrying your sheep... no matter how much the Scots want it to happen. Ba dum bum. Alright, seriously done with the one-liners now. I truly believe that people don't choose to become homosexuals, they're not "recruited" by reading books and listening to their out-and-proud friends, they are born that way and there have been homosexuals all throughout history... it's just that the historians had done a pretty good job of whitewashing all of that up until recently. To each his own, live and let live. I'll do my thing searching for the right woman, you do your thing searching for the right man or woman, regardless of what gender you happen to be.

But of course there is a portion of the country who disapproves of homosexuals getting any equal recognition whatsoever. They portray homosexual males in one breath as effete, less-than-men, and in the next breath as having voracious sexual appetites and out to get with any man in their path. Incidentally, these portrayals often used to be applied (and sadly, in some cases, still are applied) to African-Americans. And of course, those who disapprove of the "lifestyle" will direct you to the Bible... while ignoring the lines about killing people who eat shellfish and the lines about beating your slaves that used to be referred to in order to justify both slavery and every other oppression of minorities.

Not to get all academic-y on you, but I am studying the works and philosophies of Jurgen Habermas, and he just gets it, and he certainly does on the place of religion in our public debate. It's okay for you to believe what you believe, and it's okay for you to have opinions on issues because they are consistent with your religious beliefs... but to enter a debate on the issue for the purposes of letting those in power know how you feel, you have to leave your Bible AT HOME. You have to translate it into a secular argument befitting of our secular system of government (referring you back to last week's entry).

And so it is that in a debate about any issue, be it gay marriage, abortion, what-have-you, the moment I see someone using Bible verses to justify their position, I tune out. Anyway, I bring that up because that, among other things was used by Cal Thomas to reject the ruling of federal Judge Vaughn Walker in his column mere days afterward. I do not often agree with Cal Thomas, he's one of these types who has gone straight overboard since 9/11, one of these right-wingers who think that all Muslims are potential terrorists, and certainly one who does not believe that homosexuals have a right to exist, much less marry. I don't get offended easily, but in the space of a mere couple of paragraphs, he managed to offend me SEVERAL times.

Thomas declared that Walker was openly gay (I mean he must be, he ruled in favor of gay marriage) when no evidence exists to support that. He related this ruling to the constitutional right to an abortion found in Roe v. Wade (ah, the single issue voter, able to connect ANY news story to abortion). He claimed that Walker struck down the will of 7 million Californians... yeah, he's allowed to do that, it's called "judicial review", goes all the way back to 1803. And then, of course, Thomas declared that this one judge overturned biblical fiat. Except, as I mentioned last week, this country does not operate based on the Bible. It operates based on the Constitution, which declares a separation of church and state. Thomas went on to pretty much play the role of Pat Robertson and declare that our unraveling morals since the advent of Playboy in the 1950s are why the terrorists will ultimately defeat us, and of course he quoted numerous Bible verses through the rest of his rant. I imagine Mr. Thomas would not be a fan of Jurgen Habermas.

So now we have people appealing Judge Walker's ruling because they feel he was not impartial and used the wrong legal reasoning to come up with his ruling. Let's just call it what it is... they're protesting him because they think he's gay. And if he is, what the hell difference does that make? Apparently a judge from a minority group cannot be trusted to rule partially in a case involving his group... except 20 years ago when President Reagan appointed him to the appellate bench (yeah he was a Reagan appointee... pretty sure that wouldn't have happened if he was, indeed, gay), one Nancy Pelosi held up his appointment because, among other things, he was perceived as insensitive to... HOMOSEXUALS. Forty years ago, it would have been a protest against a judge because he was black, before that it would be protesting a woman judge. One hopes that this is the last major barrier of discrimination we have to get through as a society.

As far as the ruling goes, it was right on the money. It does indeed come down to the Constitution, specifically the 14th Amendement, which makes no mention of sexual orientation. It refers to all Americans, and therefore, all must receive equal protection under the law. You say marriage is a "religious sacrament", then detach the legal requirements of a marriage license from the church pomp-and-circumstance. But again that would require all Americans to have the same thing, whether it's called a "marriage license" or a "domestic partnership". It would be a helluva lot easier to say marriage for everyone than try to explain to all the married heterosexuals why we can't legally call them married couples anymore but instead have to call them "domestic partners" (smacks of political correctness).

More and more Americans agree with this sentiment, which is why many think that if and when this goes to the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court will uphold Walker's ruling and legalize gay marriage. Time and tradition have shown that when a majority of people come around toward fair and equitable treatment for an oppressed group, the Court follows suit (most notably, Brown v. Board of Education). Of course, we'll still have people like Cal Thomas and the others who gathered at the Values Voter Summit last week, showing hypocrisy of the highest order. I mean, how you can scream about how we're losing our freedom and rights and then turn around and say homosexuals should have no rights or freedoms?

And the circus continues because the Senate is about to take up the revocation of "Don't Ask/Don't Tell", the military policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the armed forces. For all of the reasons I gave above, obviously this policy should go the way of Jim Crow laws. There is a good chance that 61 senators will get behind it to stop any chance of filibuster, even with Lady GaGa leading the political charge.

And then there was the story in the Sunday papers about the Montana GOP and their platform plank that reads "homosexuality should be illegal". Apparently, it's something few in the state's party really truly believe (and it wouldn't pass constitutional muster anyway), but they never bothered to confront the platform language and get rid of it. As ridiculous as this is, it's really nothing more than low-hanging fruit for left-wingers to grab a story like that and make you think that is emblematic of all Republicans. However, this question is a valid one: is it emblematic of MOST Republicans? And once again, how much do we want that element in the party? I had hoped that the Tea Party could be about the fiscal issues that matter most to us, that unite right-wingers with social liberals like myself. Then Jim DeMint declares that "You cannot be a fiscal conservative and a social liberal." Bullshit. You can be, lots of us are, and WE'RE who you are now calling "RINOs" and telling to get out of the party because we refuse to thump Bibles alongside you. And it's absolutely laughable when The Leader of the Republican Party continues to claim that it's really the RINOs who are in charge. Can you name any prominent Republican who believes in gay marriage, ending "don't ask/don't tell", and that you CAN be a fiscal conservative and social liberal, much less enough of them to make you believe that they're running the party?

All I can say is the tide is turning, and as is the case with any paradigm shift, you may just have to wait for enough of the older people who oppose gay rights to pass on and join their predecessors who believed in institutional racism and sexism. This isn't about religion, it's about government protecting its citizens equally. That's what freedom is really all about.

Sorry, America is Not a "Christian Nation"

A couple weeks ago, I was reading the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer, and saw a story about competing groups in North Carolina who were putting up dueling billboards. The atheists were putting up signs that said "One nation indivisible", taking the phrase "under God" out of the pledge of allegiance, and a local church group countered with signs that had the full line from the pledge. When they went to the representative from the church group for a quote, a Rev. Sexton gave that often-echoed line that "we are a Christian nation."

I'm sorry but I just have to roll my eyes whenever I see that said or written somewhere. Where in the Constitution does it state that the United States shall be a "Christian nation"? The only part of the Constitution I know of that mentions religion is the First Amendment, where it says that there shall be no state religion. Declaring that we are a "Christian nation" implies a state religion, and furthermore implies no tolerance of Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, really any non-Christians, in addition to agnostics and atheists. When you hear about us being a "Christian nation", it's usually from a very devout Christian who believes that all other religions are wrong.

Then you'll hear about how the Founding Fathers were good Christian men. Except they weren't all Christians. Thomas Jefferson, for one, preferred to take the Deist route, which involves believing in a higher power, but not necessarily that Jesus is the Son of God. Yes, the Founders talked about faith and prayer and divine help in the American experiment in democracy, but that is who they were. It does not imply a desire for all Americans to believe in the same thing. They weren't into proselytizing because they saw the Puritans' brand of that, and they knew people wouldn't go for that, so they made the public square a place that could be "free from religion". By that, of course, the imposition of religion from the government.

But when you get people who have it in their head so deeply that America is a "Christian nation", you are bound to get those who wish there would be imposed Christianity on the people... or at least certain people. And that's how we come to the curious case of Terry Jones. Jones made waves worldwide this week when he threatened to burn copies of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, on September 11th for the benefit of his parishioners... all 50 of them. But such a spectacle brings the media spotlight and in our global village of the 21st century, news gets out there pretty quickly, and by "out there" I mean the Muslim world, which did not take kindly to Rev. Jones' plans. It got to the point where General David Petraeus, the commander of our Afghanistan war effort, made a statement in which he feared reprisals against American troops. Then we got into this whole tete-a-tete about whether or not this was about the "Ground Zero mosque", and was Jones going to meet with the imam behind that project and it was practically a 24-hour news cycle in itself.

And a debate began about whether or not it was right to give Jones so much attention. Well, the media has to cover things that may cause us trouble abroad, and when General Petraeus said something, it had to be covered. But then the media turned around and started issuing stories lamenting about how this story was causing 9-11 to be politicized. And once again, the accusation was coming from THE VERY PEOPLE who were politicizing 9-11! Just like in 2006 when the Democrats accused President Bush of playing politics with 9-11, and in so doing played politics with 9-11 themselves. I should note that I originally was set to publish this entry on 9-11, but realized that I myself would be politicizing the day, and that is not the proper thing to do, so I waited until today in order to give yesterday the reverence it deserves. Luckily, the media caught themselves and changed their 9-11 stories to depoliticize things and turn attention instead to the tolerance issue.

But not before they introduced one very intriguing wrinkle into the story. Turns out Jones went to the same high school in Cape Girardeau, MO as Rush Limbaugh. Why is this an issue? Because the fact that this story ran will now lead many on the Left to believe that this cuckoo-banana's planned Quran burning had the tacit approval of the Leader of the Republican Party... and they'll work it into the template of xenophobia that they are using to try to preserve the Democratic majorities on Election Day.

Well, in the end, Jones didn't do it. Furthermore, he said he never was going to do it. His purpose was to call attention to that element of Islam that was dangerous and radical. Of course, in so doing, Jones no doubt fanned the flames of such radicalism, which only makes you want to shake your head in disgust even more. Furthermore, he also called attention to that element of Christianity that was dangerous and radical. Because as soon as it appeared that the burning wouldn't happen, who showed up to proudly proclaim, "We'll do it"? None other than Fred Phelps and his wackjobs from the Westboro Baptist Church. Yeah, the guys who celebrate at military funerals. And I doubt anyone would try to stop them since half his flock are lawyers and they would get sued so fast it would make their heads spin. Truthfully, I don't know if the Westboro wackjobs went through it; furthermore, I don't really care. I'm just glad it's over. Now can we PLEASE start talking about how we're going to fix this friggin' economy?!?

For the record, Rev. Sexton, in that same Inquirer article from a few weeks ago, later used a much better and more accurate statement: "We are a nation built on Christian principles." Yes, very true, "love thy neighbor", "thou shalt not kill", a lot of the moral code of the Bible is built into our system of laws. Thankfully not all of it, such as the stuff in Leviticus about homosexuals and what you do with someone who eats shellfish (but that's my next entry), but certainly the system of morals is similar. So yes, we are a "moral nation", but not an officially-sanctioned "Christian" one. Also, I'm not quite sure if there's a line in the Bible about over-the-top publicity-seeking reverends and the media that love them, but I'm pretty sure that kind of spectacle was NOT what the Founders intended...