Because the Flickr account was created by a Muslim woman showcases her (presumably) Muslim friends. As Debbie has been searching for any possible means to connect the events of Blacksburg to the larger battle we have with Islam, it was a natural leap-without-logic for her to make.
... Nuts like Debbie Schlussel who, in the course of 24hours, tried tying the tragedy in Virginia to her pet bugaboos of Islamic Militants, Illegal Aliens, gun control, and furry kittens.
Okay, I made one of those up.
From the sources she selectively quotes from, it's clear the murder was off his rocker. Nucking Futz. A few fries short of a happy meal.
He was seriously disturbed -- mentally ill with a growing taste for violence, rage, and death.
He'd been referred to Student Health Services and was already under investigation for several earlier incidents, all signs of how unglued this kid was.
Her efforts to link him to some broader agenda is the epitome of opportunism on her part. She's profiting off of the blood of the murdered, just as assuredly as if she'd mopped it up with a rag, squeezed it into a vial, and sold it on eBay.
I'd point out she should be ashamed, but then she's a lawyer.
Regarding Brezezinski's comment about the US getting dragged into a regional war in the Mideast, it occurs to me that it might start over something like this:
This is not good people. I don't care for a regional war in the Mideast. I also really don't care for Iranians detaining Allied soliders. I hope this resolves quickly, safely and sanely, or else we're all in deep, deep, doo-doo.
Freud (supposedly) wrote that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, meaning that there aren't always hidden, unexpressed emotions to peoples' motives or activities as he frequently, and otherwise, claimed. Specifically, while smoking a cigar could be an outlet for an oral fixation, sometimes people really do just like to smoke.
(Personally, I don't think Freud ever backtracked from his theories. Rather it's a bit of wisdom attributed to him post-hoc, after his students discovered the failure of his theories to explain all but the broadest of Human behaviors.)
...I find that more often than not, many of those who bandy about the term “homophobia” seem to use it to explain any attitude towards gay people — or gay cultural products — with which they do not agree. They seem to think that the only reason someone may not agree with their opinion on such issues is because of an animosity towards homosexuality, because that individual is, as they put it, homophobic, or, as others (including yours truly) might say, anti-gay.
The loss of Brokeback Mountain at last years' Oscars is an example he uses to illustrate his point.
I happen to agree that BB loss is far better explained by the quirks of the Academy's voting system than any, hidden hatred of gays. (Saving Private Ryan anyone?) Spend a little bit of time doing psychology, and you learn that rarely are motivations ever as simple as racism, sexism, or homophobia.
It really sucks, too, that it isn't that easy. Getting rid of the grossest examples of such bigotries are easy, once the will is there. The more nuanced affronts, the shifting alliances of thoughts and feelings that combine together to contribute to other people's activities, and our own responses to said events, can be a real bitch to tease apart, name and change. It's why shrinks can spend so much time, and make so much money, off a single person's psyche...
The irony in all this though is that at Dan's site so much countervailing opinion is labeled as antipatriotic, treasonous or unAmerican and then promptly dismissed. If you scroll through the various threads of posts, countervailing viewpoints are categorized more than as simply factually inaccurate (rather true or not) but as some kind of active support for the death and destruction of either the USA or Western Civilization.
Dan and I have disagreed many, many times. He believes Bush to be a principled guy. I find the man to be incompetent, the example of what happens when power, privilege, and pull are used to place an extraordinarily average man into a position that requires someone of whatever political stripe to be all things but that.
Setting aside for the moment the issue of factors that got us into war in Iraq -- that's just a maddeningly long discussion, one that Frank Rich already covered exceptionally well in his recent book -- the prosecution of that war has been criminally negligent. The Democrats have a lot of culpability in simply rubber-stamping everything action of the President, long after the failures of his judgment were apparent.
Still, as the "CEO" of America, a term I'm sure Bush would use for himself, the choices he and his lieutenants made in troop levels, post-combat strategies, diplomatic efforts, nation building, contract apartment -- basically every activity in Iraq -- as been blindingly inane and supremely wrong.
I'm also leaving aside here the recent scandals at the Veterans Administration and the FBI's recently admitted violations of its newly found, and in my opinion Constitutionally suspect, wiretap standards. Roll into that New Orleans fiasco, the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan (the one thing he actually did right), Guantanamo and Abu Gareb, Medicare, the gutting of the FDA, Faith-Based government programs (no matter your side, he botched this), the National Debt... I could go on, but I'm running out of room to put all of these things I'm leaving aside.
It's neither unpatriotic nor anti-American to demand good leadership in trying times. Disagreement isn't dissent. Contrariness isn't contempt. We are now six years into counter-offensive against a inhuman and destructive Superstition and our victories are nowhere near what they should be.
Yes, it's wrong to label everything homophobic. If the reasons line up that way, fine, but otherwise argue over the disagreement. Same thing holds for racism, sexism, and patriotism. Because frankly, sometimes the Administration really is an incompetent tool.
For someone who prides herself on being smarter than everyone else, she really doesn't get it.
"'Faggot isn't offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays," Coulter said on "Hannity and Colmes" Monday night. "It's a schoolyard taunt meaning 'wuss,' and unless you're telling me that John Edwards is gay, it was not applied to a gay person."
These soldiers are being left behind, treated like homeowners post-Katrina -- getting as little benefit as possible, screwed over so that only the most vocal and patient ever hope to receive what they are entitled to. Why should anyone sign up to serve if they cannot be certain that they will be medically cared for if severely injured in the line of duty?
I'm tired of all these armchair "patriots" ready to ship off someone else's family members as cannon fodder for Dear Leader's misadventures without a thought about the responsibility to those who serve when they return.
In my mind, for even one tax cut to go through when one Iraq Veteran can't get the full range of quality services they need, the cut is blood money, pure and simple.
Stimson said he was leaving because of the controversy over a radio interview in which he said he found it shocking that lawyers at many of the nation's top law firms represent detainees held at the U.S. military prison in Cuba.
Perhaps he'll use his free time to brush up on his civics.
In some countries, people found guilty under sharia law face penalties such as beheading, stoning, the severing of a hand or being lashed." Not exactly what I wanted to read with my morning coffee.
When a group of free people not only advocate for the destruction of their freedom, but work actively for it, how long can the rest of us allow them that freedom before it becomes a serious threat to that very freedom we hold so dear? And how can we remove their freedom without also limiting or destroying our own?
Thanks to Allah the Exalted, the Caliphate Voice Channel (CVC) is glad to bring Muslims good tiding about launching its online broadcasting service starting at the first day of the new Hijri year — 1 Muharram 1428 H (20/01/2007).
I wonder if they'll have wacky travel shows like "Where in the World is Osama?"
Or finance shows like "Mahdi Money Management," giving tips on how to support a Terrorist Cell on $1.50 a day?
Their Children's Science Programs will be the only ones on air, anywhere, that purposely teach the younguns how to make bombs in the basement.
Hmm... Do you think their Imbedded Reporters get blown up too?
"...The current approach is not working and the ability of the United States to influence events is diminishing," Hamilton said. "Our ship of state has hit rough waters. It must now chart a new way forward..."
Arrogance, meet Hubris. Hubris, Arrogance.
Now that we're all on speaking terms, let's try to get something accomplished.
Naked Holiday Cards is a power-hungry creative conglomerate fueled by hot coffee, cold Diet Dr. Pepper, and great BBQ, Indian food and sushi.
Just not all at the same time.
From Austin, Texas, its founders, Kristian Gallagher and Jason Meeker, hit the proverbial bulls-eye with witticisms inspired by all the things that cause road rage in others.Why?
I know there are lots of other, pressing issues facing our country so I don't want to minimize those efforts, but I really think holding hearings, true bipartisan hearings, both in the House and in the Senate, for the record, about everything that @#$@#@#@ happened over the last six years -- Iraq, Katrina, Habeus Corpus etc. -- is the most important thing that can be done.
Bills can be bottled up, policies thwarted, initiatives stymied, but having for the record, cool, clear and to the point, about the decision making processes involved, both behind and in front of the scene, is something far easier to do and succeed at, than any other policies that might be put into place.
If we are going to recover from this Six Year Nightmare, having the facts of what went on, and not just the spin, is to me, the most important thing we can do for ourselves and our future.
It's the Republicans who lost the war in Iraq. The debacle is their fault -- and the Democrats in Congress who failed to make a larger stink -- and no one else's.
"But let the record show that as the election season began, the leaders of the Republican Party, in charge of both the presidency and Congress, were trying to turn the election into a referendum on torture, which they favored. And let voters remember that record on November 7, when by pulling the right lever in the voting booth they can throw this party out of office."
Like Michael, I was blown away at the connect the dots in Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold. Rich shows, how politics, most specifically the desire to secure a lock by one party on the government, mixed with incuriosity, ego, and hubris, along with the ever present power of spin, suckered the US into an optional war that's further eroded the edge of an already precarious cliff. Things fall apart and the center doesn't hold, Yeats wrote. After reading this, you'll see there never was a center in the first place.
Sarcasm aside, given that pretty much everyone at GP hurls epithets and generalizations about their opposite numbers, it's not really hatred going on. Pugnacious partisanship is far more apt. Given the small, self-selected sample size that Dan has, generalizing it out to the mythic proportions ("We the Noble vs....") he does, (small, self-selected sample size) is a mistake.
Speaking of the Usual Suspects, since many of them are "Ex-Gay" and chatter on about the danger Gay men pose to "children" because they can't control themselves, I have to wonder, are they speaking from personal experience? As most of them maintain that they aren't over their "perversions" and can back-slide at any time, by their own logic, are they not just ticking time-bombs, waiting to Foley-ize any random child near-by?
Horror of Horrors, as most of them proclaim as proof of their new-found heterosexuality the prodigious number of children they've sired, how can they be trusted as parents, since it's "just a matter of time" before the moon is pink and their perversity busts free?
As for the "Cultural Values" organizations that employ these Ex-Gay loaded guns, you'd think they'd know better. They're going to be directly responsible when these public mouthpieces snap and go on a molestation spree. Given their constant statements about how they care for the lost and wayward and just want what is best for people, these organizations, if they really believed what they say and didn't just use it to score points in the press, would stop messing with fire and close down their Ex-Gay ministries.
Fuck him for fostering the latest in an endless series of salacious distractions that dominate the headlines, pushing real, important news to the back pages and below the folds and the "one more quick thing" slots before the start of Prime Time Distractions. Fuck him for being a sad, lonely twat of a man, with a penchant for using his prestige -- as if a Congressman really has any -- to make passes at 16 and 17 year-old Pages. Fuck him for making a second tier, run-of-the-Hill scandal an All News, All the Time, Fair-and-Balanced story it's morphed into.
Look, the Don't Ask-Don't-Tell approach of the Republicans and the Democrats to his Hillside peccadilloes is shameful and heads should role, but is it really unexpected? Given what we've seen from the Administration, their Allies on the Hill, and the ineffectual opposition of Democrats, a party to which I lay claim, is it any wonder that the Pages knew more about Foley, and took more appropriate action over his passes, than those entrusted with the care of the Nation?
Foley made unwanted passes at and even, according to some IMs, screwed around with 16 and 17 year-old young men. Not boys. Not children. Subjects for grandstanding Politicos and Culture Warriors to make their bones about their illusory innocence no doubt, but young people still above the Age of Consent in most of the U.S., Canada and Western Europe, still. We give them guns, cars, EMT jobs and Life-In-Prison on occasion. Conflating them with children denigrates these real victims of rape and abuse, kids I'm far too familiar with after years in Child Protective Services.
Foley wasn't a predator. He didn't groom anyone. All the entreaties in the world won't get at 17 year-old to clean their room if they don't want to. Have sex with a 52-year old against their will? Not going to happen outside of some major, blackmailish leverage, which doesn't seem to be in evidence. Predators are bastards, sick fucks that even civilized people fight back the urges to maim. Foley is just sad.
But is he a criminal? Sure. He violated sexual harassment laws, Federal solicitation laws, and probably a conspiracy rule or two. I doubt he was molested, though hey, might be possible -- and as for alcohol, well, he sounded pretty sober when he was writing those come-ons. But a threat to the Republic? Please.
As the media noise continues to swell, the chattering classes hem an haw with their pet punditry projects, and the Usual Suspects trot out the tired old canards of pedophilia, uncontrollable Gay sexuality, and the perversity of modern culture, last week torture -- and you can twist language all you want but the 21st-Century version of witch-dunking is still torture -- was codified into American Law. Habeas Corpus protections for non-citizens were suspended, the Geneva Conventions became a "quaint" idea, further information came to light about the worsening situation in Iraq, and military warnings about the coming loss of Afghanistan to a resurgent Taliban landed on desks near and far.
You'll have to pardon me if I think Foley's love for KFC just doesn't compare.
History will judge our actions here today. I am convinced that future generations will view passage of this bill as a grave error. I wish to be recorded as one who voted against taking this step".
Respondents sharply criticized U.S. efforts in a number of key areas of national security, including public diplomacy, intelligence, and homeland security. Nearly all of the departments and agencies responsible for fighting the war on terror received poor marks. The experts also said that recent reforms of the national security apparatus have done little to make Americans safer. Asked about recent efforts to reform America’s intelligence community, for instance, more than half of the index’s experts said that creating the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has had no positive impact in the war against terror. “Intelligence reform so far has been largely limited to structural reorganization that in most cases produced new levels of bureaucracy in an already overly bureaucratic system,” says index participant Bill Gertz, a journalist who has covered the intelligence community for more than 20 years.
Having read the article, all can say back is No, Doo-Doo-Head, they Didn't.
The point of the article, as well as the warning from the Southern Poverty Law Center referenced in it, is that while we are pouring all of our energy into fighting a completely optional battle in the War on Terror, homegrown, anti-American, racist terrorists are making the best of the opportunity to get training, experience and access to military weapons, in anticipation of their own fascist jihad.
Ian, in case you didn't know, it's patriotic when a fellow citizen warns you that criminals are looting your house while you're at work or on vacation. It's also patriotic when a newspaper warns you that a similar thing is occurring in the military and that the ultimate results will be far more tragic than filing a claim with the insurance company.
That Frontline report last night on the behind the scenes maneuvering for war with Iraq was a shotgun blast to Cheney's face. Twenty-five years from now, when the history of the War on Terror™ is finally written, I think the majority of mistakes made in this fight will be traced to the egos of the presidential players involved, with Lord Vader taking much of the blame.
Because everyone knows the best way to silence a nut-job is to feed their ego by attempting to ban their work instead of subjecting it to the fact checking, and ridicule, it deserves.
You'll have to excuse the lack of postings. I've been a little preoccupied. You see, I got shot the other day.
Last Tuesday, I responded to an emergency call: Kids in danger. Domestic violence. One parent threatened to kill the other parent and the kids. Social worker --me-- to evaluate the safety of the kids. (It's always fun when the referral come across my desk emblazoned with "DANGER! SOCIAL WORKERS TO RESPOND WITH POLICE ESCORT. FATHER THREATENED TO KILL CHILDREN" emblazoned on it in an 18 point bold face font.)
So I motor into a not particularly nice part of Los Angeles, sheriff's deputies in tow. I've got a new worker with me -- The Rookie -- his second day in Emergency Response, his first time responding to one of these nifty, gotta see 'em now calls. We've already chatted about the insanity of working for the County, the nonsensical paperwork and how cute cops are in their pressed uniforms and their spit shined shoes reflecting the winter rays of the beautiful California sun. (Hey, it's always nice to find another 'Mo on the job. Mind you, it's not particularly hard as about half the guys in the office read the same books I do, but we don't always get partnered up on emergency calls.) He's asking me what to expect on this call and I'm trying to tell him that I have no clue -- but do it in a very authoritative, resounding, impressive way that bespeaks to my ability to hide my lack of prescience in matters such as this.
We hit the front door to the rather nice little Craftsman, cute Latino deputies leading the way. They're decked out in khaki outfits, badges knight sticks and bullet proof vests. I'm in jeans and tennis shoes, sporting a little plastic ID card put together by an office secretary on a paper cutter with super-glue an Exacto knife and a Polaroid picture snapped when I was still a wide-eyed and eager pup out to save the world.
The deputies' finger itches toward the bell...his partner is off to the side covering him... the neighbor grabs her kid and closes a big white door with a rolling clap... Me and the New Guy watching as the cop puts one hand on the butt of his pistol...
And my phone rings.
Nice melodious symphonic number -- free with my Samsung -- that sends air into our lungs and attention towards the little chirping flip phone on my belt. It's the Mother, calling me back from her office, wanting to know why we're bothering her. Stating over and over again that the whole thing has been blown out of proportion, that there really isn't a problem and that we're just going to get her husband really, really, angry if we keep at this and besides, her kids aren't even there and--
I spring into action, being threatening, therapeutic, understanding and probing all at the same time. (Try it sometime. It's a lot like running, standing still and doing mid air somersaults simultaneously -- damn near impossible, very noisy in the attempt, but ultimately quite beautiful.) Eventually, after she stops crying, after she realizes how serious all of this is, after she understands that I just am not going away, she discloses that her children are at their grandparents house in yet another, even less desirable part of Los Angeles, and her husband is at work. I tell her to meet me at the grandparent's home as soon as she can.
One of the less convenient aspects of Los Angeles is that that the Sheriff's department manages some sections of the city, local police other parts, and city wide LAPD other sections still. It's a patch work of jurisdictions, overlaps and boundaries, where no two police organizations co-exist and we social workers are forced to figure out who claims what zip code as theirs. Same thing can't be said for we social workers. We go everywhere, do everything and see everyone, no matter the hour. It's all our bloody jurisdiction.
The Cute Latino Deputies say they can't follow to the new address. It's LAPD territory Besides, they've got a 211 in progress to respond to. I still don't know what a 211 is, but it's must be pretty important given how fast they blazed away, lights spinning and siren blaring.
I wasn't expecting the grandparents home to be so messy. It was pile on pile of garbage. Gradients of decay, with bottles on top of paper on top of older bottles on top of discarded cartons of half eaten KFC. A treasure trove for future archeologists I'm sure, but currently a breeding ground for several small, wiggly things that I didn't know existed outside of the Cantina scene in the original -Star Wars.-
Grandma knew we were coming, her daughter probably called her the moment she hung up with me. Grandma's hands seemed to be full dealing with her own husband, a man teetering precariously with each step, gravity drawing him down, his slurred speach, blunt affect and glazy eyes giving some clue as to the causes of the decay. The Rookie mouthed the usual variation of "Jesus Christ," his previous stint in the Adoptions Division not preparing him for the strange decorating tastes of many of the Southland's residents. I made the sign for Binky's Balls to ward off the evil trash monsters and proceeded into the morass of mess to interview the kids.
With the kids -- two over active twin 10 year old boys and an adorable 8 year old girl with braided ebony locks -- the information just started pouring out. Usually I'm pulling teeth or doing a simpler variation of my running fast while standing still routine, but these kids were giving up the details before I could pull the cap off of my pen with my teeth. Dad pushes mommy down the stairs, one of the boys says. Mom knows about dad's affair, the other imparts. Mommy told us to go upstairs and lock the doors while she and daddy threw things at each other, the daughter related in the same tone used for the detached play by play for what she learned at school.
By the time the mother arrived I had a fair idea of how everything was transpiring. Fights, abuse, violence, yelling, screaming -- the usual, bad situation where the woman was the victim of a horrendous amount of pain and suffering. She was also the perpatator too. By keeping her children there with her, in a situation where there was a strong chance of violence and perhaps even death, she was victimizing her kids all over again. Binky forbid that she be killed, but it would be about a thousand times worse were it to happen in front of the twins and their sister.
And death -- or years more of abuse -- was what was likely to happen, given the first words out of the mother's mouth after I discussed my interviews with her kids was "They're lying." Every incident, happening, push, shove, scream or shout I relayed was met with some spin, some comeback, some justification that tried to pass the whole thing off as one big mistake, as just another day in the life of their happy neo-Brady family.
Yes, it's always possible things can get blown out of proportion, that little details become big incidents when the Eye of the State peers through, looking for trouble. I've seen those little things grow quite quickly, kiboshed only after a good deal of work and effort. But that is the rare case. Mostly these things are true, the stories turn out to be the most easily remembered incident of a much larger and more pervasive case. One blow, pop in the eye, push down the stair or clobber over the head turns out -- with further interviews, conversations with knowing parties and a simple review of previous social worker visits -- to be the most recent, most noticed unacceptable event in a long line of equally unacceptable happenings.
That left me with two options, one involved the mother taking the kids out of the house and heading for a shelter and the other involved mom choosing to stay in the house and the kids coming with me. And I would have explained all of this to the mother in some degree of detail, along with a fair amount of cajoling, sympathy and encoragement towards taking the first of the two options, thus saving me from opening a court case and giving her more leeway in conducting her treatment, but for a rather untimely and unwarranted arrival.
Dad walked in the door.
And Dad was just a bit peeved.
And Dad had a gun.
One of the more common notions out there about child protection social workers is that we're all about breaking up families. Someone calls us, we swoop in, grab kids, cart them off to the dark terrors of the Foster Care System and ask questions about the whole thing later. I can tell you that it's patently false.
Detaining children is just too much paperwork to be done willy-nilly. Seriously. After the Detention Report, there's the Petition, the Amendments to the Petition, the Pretrial Release Interview, the Pretrial Resolution Conference, the 280 forms, the 709 forms, the Case Plan, the Notification to School for Change of Report, the 815, 816, and 817 forms to meet ASFA requirements for placements with RCs or NREFMs or... Well, you get the idea. Gack, the paperwork will just kill you in the end.
Anyway.
The effort that 99% of social workers make, what the supervisors support and the Court tries to uphold, is make sure that kids are safe and to try, whenever possible, to keep families together. Out in the field, in the heat of the moment, discovering messy homes, bugs, spankings or the like, the first goal is to figure out if there is a threat to the health or safety of the child, and if nothing immediate is found but concerns persist, then try like mad to get the family to get the help it needs to stay on the good side of the Welfare and Institutions Code of the State of California. It's the simple presence of the DCFS social worker, on the doorstep, asking pesky questions, that is more than enough to kick people out of their stupor and into the arms of a community organization suited to helping them.
When the abuse is so bad we pull 'em. When all pointers show there's a problem in a family...say like one parent is getting smacked around by another... and no one is doing anything about... like say when the smackie is in denial that the smacker is hurting them... and the kids stay in the middle of the situation ... such as when twins take their sister to an upstairs room, close the door and hope everything blows over... then there isn't anything else to do but put the little ones in the back of the car and tell everyone to show up in Court 72 hours from now. That usually pisses people off. And pissed off people aren't pleasant. And pissed off people with guns can be very, very unpleasant.
Which brings us back to Yours Truly, standing waist deep in a landfill hiding out in an apartment, with a couple of very, very angry parents who I'm about to tell I'm taking their kids away from them. And did I mention Dad's got a gun?
Dad works security. He stated very explicitly that he would in no way go along with any kind of separation and shelter plan for the mother and children, as that involved restraining orders, which would have his gun permit yanked which would cause him to loose his job. Besides, he denied problems, and mom, now very animated, bargaining, and pleading, offered her own denials still. Dad's big .50 Cent sweater obscured the gun, but not the outline of it against the fabric.
Me: (low voice, directed to the Rookie) "Call the cops, now."
Rookie: (lower voice, puzzled and perplexed) "How do I do that?"
An hour later I'm still waiting for the police. Still talking people down. Still contemplating just bailing for the car, retreating to the police station, and calling my boss up with a sudden onset illness. But I stayed, worried about what would happen to the mom and the kids if I did go. Or maybe that's just what I tell myself. Maybe pride, or stupidity or masculine ego blinded me to the Trouble-Alert blaring in my head. When I look back on it, it was nuts.
The cops did show up, the cops did remove the gun from the Dad -- a nice .357 with a stylish Eagle handgrip, perfect for maintaining aim when firing while angry -- and I did remove the children from mom. Given her state, there wasn't much else I could do. She didn't want to go to a shelter, didn't believe her life was in danger, and Dad, with no marks found on his wife on his kids, was free to go -- after I left with kids planted in the back seat of the car.
I suppose you are wondering where the gore is, the blood, the bullets, the violence? I did say I got shot after all. Well, see later, after the kids were placed safely in foster care, the Rookie was on his way home to his partner of six years, and I drove off into the cold night, my head pounding, my heart still rumbling, and greatly upset that I didn't have a substance abuse problem to drown my jitters with, I clicked on the radio and heard the President talk about his proposed Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage. It was the irony that hit me about as surely and directly as any one that would have come out of the barrel of Angry Dad's pistol. I can get killed trying to fix something I legally can't have.
Yes, yes, I'm aware of all the obfuscations people pull by saying that I can go off and marry any girl I want and start a family. Since I can't bitchslap such fools and a simple, curt, "Don't be a tool" is painfully pedestrian, I'll quote France, who wrote in the early part of the 20th century:
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
A few days before I met my Angry Dad on my DV call, an LAPD officer was killed after meeting an angry one of his own. I skirted through a tough situation without getting shot. Over a week later, now able to sleep again after the ancient reptile brain stopped arguing shrilly all night long with the newer, more evolved reason centers, I understand that my job hazards include not only paper cuts and ink splatters but arterial bleed outs and exit wounds.
There is nothing heroic about what I do. I do not want to give that impression at all. The cops who helped me out, the firefighters who pull burned kids from buildings, the soldiers who take a bullet far across the sea are much more in keeping with the idea of defenders and protectors than anything I do or have done. I've got a civil service job -- that I'm admittedly a bit burnt out on -- which allows me to help kids and families on a good day. That social workers don't get much respect is another matter, an essay, all together.
There is also nothing heroic about proposing an amendment to the Constitution banning gays from marrying in an effort to "protect the family." There's nothing heroic in stating, over and over again, from pulpits to blogs, to opinion pages, to street corners, that gay people are trying to bring down families by seeking legal recognition for their own. My caseload hasn't gone up since San Francisco staged its civil disobedience, nor have the hidden horrors I've discovered in messed up families gotten worse since the SCOTUS handed down their rulings. Gay people, gay families, have nothing to do with the pain and problems of heterosexual families. They don't take away from the scant social services monies available for family care, nor the lack of adequate police resources, nor school deficiencies, nor access to preventive and protective health and medical systems. In short, blaming gay folk for these problems is a bogus argument, one that isn't grounded in the reality of this world. It is rather a sales tool, offered by people scared of change, seeking any reason, any justification, to hold on to a world that never really existed.
Coffee's done. I gotta go. I've several home calls to make before I get into the office and try to figure out if a homeless grandmother with cancer can take care of her special needs daughter.
"The people shall not be deprived or abridged of their right to speak, to write, or to publish their sentiments; and the freedom of press as one of the great bulwarks of liberty, shall be inviolable."
Look, there are serious immigration and population issues that need to be addressed by the government and the electorate. It needs to be addressed though in a sane, non-sensationalistic manner. It's the only way we'll come up with any kind of solution that will actually make sense and won't, in fact, just be the source of massive new problems. Is that going to happen? Probably not.
The cost of de-nuking Iran will be high now but significantly higher with every year it’s postponed. The lesson of the Danish cartoons is the clearest reminder that what is at stake here is the credibility of our civilization. Whether or not we end the nuclearization of the Islamic Republic will be an act that defines our time.
On the face of it, not a problem, because anyone and everyone should be a defender of the First Amendment. Yet below the face, you know, in the zone where zits are created, Dr. Ahmed is, according to the linked quote, an advocate of blasphemy laws.
Like condos, do people in Florida time-share on functioning brains too?
The British historian David Irving on Monday pleaded guilty to denying the Holocaust and was sentenced to three years in prison. He conceded that he was wrong when he said there were no Nazi gas chambers at the Auschwitz death camp.
While we can condemn the violence of the Islamists over the Muhammad cartoons, when we, the West, sentence someone to jail for speaking a hideous falsehood vis a vis the Nazis and their persecution of the Jews, we loose the moral high ground that societies are stronger, more robust, more free when all points of view, no matter how distasteful, are heard.
With this verdict, the difference between us and them shrinks to down to a cultural difference of opinion on how to silence noxious views the majority disagrees with.
An Indian state minister has offered a reward of more than $10 million and a prospective killer's weight in gold to anyone who beheads one of the cartoonists who angered Muslims by depcting the Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper, the London Sunday Times reported this week.
Witty remark? I got nothing.
Anger over the homicidal stupidity fueled by a belief in fairies? That I have in spades.
I really couldn't say if most people ever really admitted to what was in question and moved on. It all blurs together. The only people who did though, were those who recognized the problem, realized why it occurred, their own responsibility in it, and worked diligently to correct it.
I was always happy for them, but both pissed at and sad for the rest.
A 41-page assessment by the Department of Homeland Security's National Infrastructure Simulation and Analysis Center (NISAC), was delivered by e-mail to the White House's "situation room," the nerve center where crises are handled, at 1:47 a.m. on Aug. 29, the day the storm hit, according to an e-mail cover sheet accompanying the document... I'd say "Bush is incompetent," but why restate the obvious?
