*clears throat*

Again, you're welcome.

We've been arguing over Federalism since we started.  This isn't the beginning of the ending of anything.  It's what we do. 

We need a new term, so here it is: RAGE attack

I was reading an article on gay bashing in high schools, and had a flashback so hard it was nuts.  It felt so much like a panic attack, but there was nothing to panic about.

I took an anxiety pill anyway, and allowed the memory back.  In short, there was a point in middle school where just about every boy in 6th and/or 7th grade decided I was fair game for what I can only describe as "rude construction worker" - as in, even construction workers don't yell out your name and lift up their shirts and prance at you.  They'd chant my name, sometimes in unison, and try to get my attention.  It wasn't so much premeditated as flash-mobby.  I had no idea what they were on about, so I'd look at them and then away, and go about my business.  It was impossible to ignore, but at the same time I knew from my time being bullied, and, well, being a bully, that getting bent out shape or complaining wasn't going to do anything.  There were certain teachers who's classrooms they wouldn't dare try it in or around, but the good ones can't be everywhere.

It would happen in the halls, or recess, or at lunch, but one day it happened in the gym, during PE.  We'd all changed into our shorts and tshirts. The boys were in the bleachers, stacked up to be ready to go outside.  The girls were getting stacked up in the bleachers on the other side of the gym, to be ready for whatever we were going to do inside the gym.

When I came out of the changing room there was a deafening roar.  Every damned one of those boys went fucking nuts. Technically they all stayed seated in the bleacher area, but it was like some crazy burlesque, all of them clamoring for attention.  I stared at them, puzzled for a few seconds, then shook my head and went to the bleachers.

I don't remember what my feelings were at the time.  I've blocked so much of my life out, and I'd really rather it stayed blocked, thanks. But one thing I remember now, and that's where the RAGE came from.  The Coach.  He just fucking stood there and smiled his amusement.  I don't remember what the girls were doing. I think some of them were laughing at the spectacle at the boys and not necessarily at me. (I'm sure some of them were, but what else was new?)  I knew the girls' coach didn't care - she hated my family, so I deserved whatever I got.

But the coach.  Goddammit.  It might have been all of a minute.  But it's stayed with me, apparently.  The article mentions kids who had all the home support they could ask for, and still tried to (and sometimes did) kill themselves.

I do feel a little like the one girl who made it through.  She's not the happy trippy kid she was.  There's a shell that I recognize, and that I try to project myself.  I know, goddamn, I know.

Slime like Barb Anderson* are in the midst of their own gay-panic.  Panic that takei will be "normal".  Panic that their perceived control over America will be over once takei take over.  Panic that people like her will be a minority, and they know exactly how minorities are treated and don't want to be in that position.  So instead of fighting for the rights of minorities, Slime like Barb Anderson and her PALs are fighting to keep the "abnormals" in their place, because dog knows you don't want to fall down from such a high perch.

Trouble is, you can't keep people down without staying down there with them.


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*Oh, yes, I will call you slime, for thinking you can just force everyone to conform to your twisted version of the bible. I will call you slime for lying about what it is to be gay.  I will call you slime for even implying that ANYONE deserves to be bullied.  I'm already laughing at you composing an email telling me you're "hurt" and "offended" by me.  That you feel "bullied".  You don't know from bullied.  It's what people with power do to people without power, who have no recourse but to take it. All you have to do is close the browser window.

My A-Biden Love: my man Joe slips Obama a Thunderstone

Well!  In a year that's mostly been too boring for words, we finally have our only president telling us what we already knew and what he should have said anyway, anybody ought to be able to marry the man or woman they love: same, opposite, whatever. 

I've got the White House in my Google Plus stream (oh, don't hate, it's a nice place) so I'd seen it go by. Yay!  About time.

Since it's, you know, sensible, I didn't think to question why now except to note that something about the Republicans was finally winding down.  It'd be a safe bet, and it would get lost in you know, the fact that it's obvious and we're busy trying to get the economy back on line and end our stupid little wars.  You know, grown up stuff.

And honestly, I think I'm right. All I saw from my neo-con buddies was the same old LIBAERALS BAD.  Nothing about Obama except the professional Big C conservatives (Hi, Mark! How's business?)  who make money separating the fools from their money in the form of bumper stickers and daily affirmations.

I'm sorry to have to break it to you, regressives, but you're on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of demographics, and the wrong side of wrong.  The younger Repubs just don't care, and the ones with the money can see that, so they're not pushing it that hard.

So really, no big deal. Until I hear that some folks are trying to resuscitate that dead horse, the "Joe Biden gaffe".   One fellow goes so far as to demand, DEMAND that Joe be replaced by da Hilz*

Oh, the humanity. Seriously people, grow up.

Every four years we get the Worst VP Candidate Ever. There is no good selection "process".  We'd almost do better to go back to the Original Concept and just take whoever comes in second for prez in the Electoral College.
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*Yeah, I'm gonna totally call her that, she's earned a nickname.

Don't Prosletyze, Don't Tell

Let me ask you this, chaplains who are worried you can't preach against homosexuality: when you wrote the Pentagon and President asking to retain Don't Ask Don't Tell, did you stop to think that you were asking people to keep on breaking the Eighth Commandment?

When you sign up, you're told up front that you're going to be in an ecumenical environment.  How is that changing?

Is the problem you won't be able to run amok with your particularly extreme views?  That you won't be able to keep Christianizing the military under the radar?

You do remember Matthew 24:45, yes?  Good, me too.

So Nancy up, my fellow ordained.  Get on your knees, ask for forgiveness, and do your duty.

The world is not going to end tomorrow

But I will say I have more faith in the energy of the young than the anger of the old.

Burn This Post

You give a thing power by your actions and beliefs.  This is true if you revere or revile something.

Words are immortal, books are not.

Free speech isn't free.  The work of not tolerating intolerance starts here, with everyone using their freedom of speech to condemn the Holy Book fetishists of all stripes: those who revere them to the point of madness, and those who revile them to the point of madness.

So burn your Quarans, burn your American flags, burn your tax bills, whatever.  Just remember that you are locking your own chains.  You are building your own prison.  While the rest of us move toward a more perfect union, you're the one who's stuck where you are, angry at an inanimate object that has only harmed you in your imagination.

I suppose there's a 'logic' to it

If you call "abject fear of the Other" logic.

So the SCOTUS has ruled that peacemaking efforts aid and abet terrorism.  This isn't hyperbole.

The US Supreme Court on Monday upheld the constitutionality of a federal law that makes it illegal to teach members of a foreign terrorist group how to use peaceful means to pursue political goals. Source

So that's how we're gong to win the war on (Some) Terror: make it so we have no choice but to be war like, and keep the cycle going.

So.  What to do?  Imagine the spectacle of peace group members languishing in jail.  Can you see former President Carter writing letters from a jail thanks to the "Patriot" Act?  He pays the fine and gets out and does it again?  Or does he get a pardon?  Can he get one in advance?

Or we could, you know, just Nancy up and behave like grown ups.  We could try mediation.

It's worked before, in Ireland and South Africa.  South Africa doesn't have oil, but it does have gold.  I don't know what Ireland has, except proximity to England, a minor global power.

It's a basic tenet of terrorism and anti-terrorism - if someone has nothing left to lose, they are capable of abhorrent acts.  If we make sure they have nothing left to lose, we're inviting blowback.

This is not "blame America first". This is logic.  This is rational self-interest.  This is looking at what is and not what I want to see.