Whiskey Fire

Thanks, Son of Erick

Many stupid loony things have been written about the Arizona hate-the-gay love-the-Jesus horseshit, but thank Gay Christ, we have Erick the Son of Erick to uncork the Deep True Bananas.

In December of 1865, the several American states ratified the 13th amendment, constitutionally ending involuntary servitude in the United States. In the 21st century, Americans are coming full circle. In a number of states, a black man can again be forced by the government to work involuntarily for a white man.

Wow.

Yes, the Son of Erick is quite seriously arguing that if you run a wedding catering business and you might be "forced by the government" to bake a gay couple a cake, that is the fuctional equivalent of chattel slavery.

Wow.

Not since the nation eliminated Jim Crow laws during the civil rights era have we seen such a bizarre conundrum. But if the black man is a Christian and the white man is gay, a court can forcibly order the black man to serve the white man or drive the black man from business. A number of states have been working to pass laws to prevent this weird conundrum, but in an irony that knows no bounds, gay-rights activists are comparing these religious freedom laws to Jim Crow.

I certainly agree that right here, "irony knows no bounds."

Wow.

I mean, wow. No further comment.

But there's more snark!

Therein lies the problem. One side is arguing that Christ would not do this so they should not have to do this. The other side is arguing that not only would Christ do this, but the government should be able to force Christians to do it. Gone are the days of turning the other cheek and going to another baker.

This is not actually a "my Jesus is bigger than your Jesus" argument.

In one real world case, a florist had a long-time relationship with a gay couple. She had sold them flowers on multiple occasions. She knew they were gay. She gladly served them. When they asked her to provide flowers for their gay wedding, she declined because of her faith. She assumed they were friends. They sued her business for discrimination.

Because she discriminated against them. Kind of open and shut....

She did not take the position that she should be allowed to deny gays any good or service. She only objected to participating in a gay wedding.

These are two sentences next to each other. No, honestly. These are two sentences next to each other.

This is also grand:

Christian merchants do not see themselves as passive participants in a transaction, but active in a ministry. Their work cannot be separated from their faith.

The son of Erick apparently has no clue that what he just said is exactly the reason why civil rights laws exist in the first place.

Gays Are the Boss of Cake

I wasn't going back to Arizona even if they had passed their stupid bigot nonsense. The climate disagrees with me: I can't do dry hate. Rimbjobshot.

These jokes! They are quality!

Sorry.

Actually, I think we need a Solemn Pause now that Arizona's goober law didn't pass, given that the "homophobia = religious freedom" thumbsucker has rapidly become something of a genre unto itself. It's not often, historically speaking, that stupid bigotry gets a chance to write its own stupid eulogy. 

So, Solemn Pause.

Ha! This is hilarious!

Would Jesus bake a cake for a gay wedding?

It’s a weird question, but we do live in interesting times. And believe it or not, this has become one of the most heated debates of the week. That’s because, this week, liberal Christians pushed the argument that legislation allowing Christian florists and bakers to decline to work for same-sex weddings is tantamount to Jim Crow laws.

Christ.

I bet if you do the math, you will find single-digit anti-gay-wedding bakers and florists, and many thousands of gay couples who want cakes and flowers. This issue may resolve itself according to Free Market Principles, huzzah.

 

Red Fartchetta

The extremely internetty Town-Hall inmate Mike Adams sometimes fascinates as a specimen, though more often, he's godawfully boring. This, however, entertains.

Author’s Note: This is a column I wrote back a few years ago but never published. Instead, it appeared in abbreviated form in my latest book, Letters to a Young Progressive. Given recent political trends, I thought it would be good to publish it in its original extended form.

Town-Hall and wingnut-bulksale-remainder scrap-offal! Yum!

And it is a corker.

The conceit of the piece is that Adams is writing "letters" to a "young progressive" in order to convince said "young progressive" to agree with him about how Jesus loves guns and hates the capital gains tax. Adams believes that the best way to do this is to say stupid things in prose that would patronize a third-grader whose daily brown-bag lunch features paste and a spork.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the books of Ayn Rand.

Also, prescription painkillers have become wildly popular.

After escaping from the Soviet Union in the 1920s, Rand became a famous American playwright, philosopher, and novelist. She has written many books – three of which I would urge everyone to read. The first, Anthem, is a lot like Orwell’s 1984.

Except it's stupid.

The second, The Fountainhead, is a longer novel expounding on her philosophy, which is known as objectivism. The third, Atlas Shrugged, is her most famous work and includes the most complete explanation of her views on economics and morality.

One would have to have a heart of stone and a brain of poo to have achieved two decades of life on Earth and yet persist in reading the epic of Dagny Taggart without dissolving into tears of laughter.

But that isn't even the fun part. This is the fun part.

For those interested in Rand, I also recommend a song that was inspired by a rock musician who reads her work. His name is Neil Peart – a member of the band “Rush.” Neil is the greatest rock and roll drummer who ever lived. He is also one of the greatest songwriters who ever lived.

These things are true insofar as they were furtively scrawled on high school desktops in 1986.

When I was a teenager in the 1970s, Peart wrote “The Trees,” which fast became one of my favorite songs. I didn’t know at the time that the song was a stinging indictment of socialism and communism inspired by Neil’s reading of Ayn Rand novels.

Good grief.

Adams then goes on to explain, in remarkably berserk detail, precisely why 4-decades old childish lyrics about anthropomorphic vegetation sternly debunk, say, Obamare.

Which is not to say that certain Rush vocal performances do not demonstrate clear, perdurable, life-affirming morality.

 

 

 

Less Math! More Porn!

I have my problems with Common Core. As public policy I'm bothered by it for the reasons laid out in this New York Principals' open letter: the absence of sustained input from educators, the redirection of public money to prefab curricula prepared by private companies, the lack of evidence that the standards actually work before implementation, the perverse incentives high-stakes exit testing festers and fosters, and so forth.

As a parent I'm pissed off at how CC was rolled out in NY because the math homework the 9-Year-Old brings home sucks ass. I get that it's supposed to make the kids think through numerical logic, but the instructions are frequently badly written, counter-intuitive, and flat-out infuriating. Getting through what should be a straight-up fourth-grade fucking homework assignment is like dad & daughter trying to write a book report on The King in Yellow* every Tuesday & Thursday, the Math Homework Nights.

That said...

This is comical, for Missouri, anyway.

The House Appropriations – Education Committee cut deeply today into Gov. Jay Nixon’s proposals for public schools and higher education, slashing his planned increases by more than $200 million.

But committee Chairman Mike Lair, R-Chillicothe, found $8 to address a pressing problem. The money is to be used “for two rolls of high density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology.”

On the summary sheet handed out to lawmakers, the money is slated for “tin foil hats” and was tied to an amendment removing language barring the state from accepting federal grants to implement Common Core standards for public schools.

That's because while there are genuine reasons to cast a cold eye on CC, there are also incredibly stupid reasons, which would be those of the far-right wing lunatic fringe that is the current right-wing mainstream:

Controversy and Porn Pervade
Common Core Curriculum

 For the love of fuck.

When schools rely on Common Core (CC) Appendix B to develop literature courses for high schools, students will read books that some consider pornographic. When districts use curriculum that is “Common Core aligned,” students are encountering a variety of politically charged books to which some parents may object.

So, CC represents the attempt of the tyrranical Obama administration to propagandize America's fresh-scrubbed youth into porn and communism by developing an appendix detailing a non-exclusive, non-mandatory reading list.

If only Stalin had thunk it.

You can sewage spelunk in that last link's sewage-cave if you like; it contains many a Golden Treasure. But what strikes me the most about this particular wingnut eruption is that provokes faux-evenhanded bullshit like this:

In recent months, we have been puzzled by the small but vocal minority of conservatives who have joined forces with some on the far left to oppose the Common Core.

Which is from an NY Daily News op-ed emanated by these people.

CC is not a plot, and cannot be explained away via simple conspiracy theory. It's too complex and has too many actors. Which is to say, as an upshot, is that I don't think the loony right are the stalking horses for the evil right as regards CC. That op-ed is panicky. The think-tanky right has created a monster and then lost control of it. To the extent that CC does represent a challenge to the autonomy of primary and secondary teachers as a field, this regressive goal of shitheads like these op-ed writers is imperilled by the rubes who've swallowed long-term wingnut propaganda.

Which is darkly funny, but still a shite situation overall.

Because of the false balance thing. "The right is aainst CC... and so is the left! Therefore, it is perfect."

Fuck.

*Google it, redsnouts.

Some Deans I'm Glad I'm Not

Some very lucky chairs and deans at the University of South Carolina are going to be having some exceptional special fun time this week, what with the asthma-breath phone calls and all-caps emails. Because certain passages in a social work textbook commit Reaganbad Thoughtcrime!

A University of South Carolina textbook has one student whistleblower outraged over its accusations that President Ronald Reagan was sexist and conservatives view people as incapable of “charity” and "lazy."

The textbook, obtained by Turning Points USA Founder Charlie Kirk, was authored by Karen K. Kirst-Ashman and used for the three credit course “Introduction to Social Work Profession and Social Welfare.”

This textbook is wicked, tricksy, false, etc.:

The mandated reading includes sections such as “Conservative Extremes in the 1980’s and Early 1990’s,” which claims Reagan “ascribed to women primarily domestic functions’ and failed to appoint many women to significant positions of power during his presidency.”

Anna Chapman, a sophomore at the University of South Carolina, told Campus Reform “I can not even tell you how angry I was when I read that.”

I'm rather sorry the statement in that last sentence is not literally true.

The rest of it is also sketchy.

The excerpts sent to Campus Reform make no mention of Reagan’s appointment of Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female Supreme Court Justice; his appointment of the first female U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick; Elizabeth Dole, the first female appointed to Secretary of the Department of Transportation; or that over 1,400 women were chosen by Reagan to fill powerful, policy-making positions.

This is cute.

For openers, O'Connor was nominated for reasons that the 21st century GOP would consider tyrranical. For closers, my link beats yours.

Other outrages:

“Conservatives ‘tend to take a basically pessimistic view of human nature. People are conceived of as being, self-centered, lazy and incapable of true charity,’” the text states.

Well, sure.

Wealthy individuals are also a topic of scorn throughout the course reading, which argues that “[the] wealthy find that having a social class of poor people is useful.”

“First, poor people can do the ‘dirty work’ for rich people that the latter don’t want to do,” such as dangerous or menial jobs. “Second, having a poor social class emphasizes that the wealthy are higher in the social structure. . .and allows them to look down on classes below them.”

And this is wrong?

Anyway this textbook sure is Anti-American and is surely the Number One Reason cheerful young wingnuts don't go in for professions like social work, opting instead for more Helpful gigs like pretending to be oppressed for fun and profit.

 

Oh, Is That How It Works?

"Greg Mankiw" is an exact anagram for "Grima Wormtongue." Look it up.

Those who work in banking, venture capital and other financial firms are in charge of allocating the economy’s investment resources. They decide, in a decentralized and competitive way, which companies and industries will shrink and which will grow. It makes sense that a nation would allocate many of its most talented and thus highly compensated individuals to the task.

Fuck.

Mankiw asserts that CEOs and hedge fund managers are the "LeBron Jameses" of the economy, and thus deserve to be rich and fawned upon.

This is incontrovertibly true. If LeBron James were to suddenly stop scoring and thus destroy the national economy, he'd be fired, which is exactly what happened on Wall Street in 2008-9.

Fuck.

NO FLIRTING

NO FLIRTING.

A recent column by Fr. Thomas Berg, Is Flirting a Sin?, caught my attention.

I appreciate Fr. Berg’s distinctions and precautions. As a married mom myself, I am deeply sympathetic to a woman who finds herself aging and is tempted to boost her ego by turning a few heads. I am very concerned, however, about the fact that so few of us take the steps we need to protect our marriages. In a sex-saturated culture, marriages need vigilant protection. Even the very best of marriages can fall prey to temptations brought on by innocent (enough) flirtations....

NO FLIRTING, sugartits.

Every woman’s desire to be attractive is natural and good. Feminine beauty is meant to be a gift to the world, and in special way to our husbands.

NO FLIRTING. Dress hot, but also, like a nun.

The problem arises when a woman seeks not just to be beautiful, but to be sexually attractive to a man who is not her husband. It’s hard sometimes for women to recognize the difference, and for men it can be an easy line to cross.

NO FLIRTING. Gotta re-tune that slut vibe there, Mrs. O'Malley, we can see your ankles through the wool socks and glaoshes.

Flirting among singles can be a fun and healthy way to explore the possibility of a relationship, but when flirtation turns “sexy” outside of marriage, we use our sexuality as a means to an end—to garner ego-feeding attention in a way that can inspire the sins of lust and covetousness in others.

NO FLIRTING. It's your fault Mr. Gallagher got arrested jerking into your begonias. He saw your ankles.

Human sexuality is meant to be a gift between spouses alone.

NO FLIRTING.

I would encourage any woman tempted to look outside her marriage for sexual attention to think carefully about why she is seeking this attention. Chances are, her marriage needs some work.

Even if her husband is a lazy clod who never looks up from the video game he’s playing to notice her stylish new hair color, her vocation is to that man in that marriage, and her job is to make a full gift of herself to that man, in that marriage.

NO FLIRTING. You may think it's all fun and games, missy, but remember the sheer joy of official Catholic boinking: he gets to play video games all he likes no matter how many tassels you strap to your tatas.

In conclusion, NO FLIRTING.

Blizzards and Other Weird Weather Patterns

I grew up in New York City, Bayside, and went to NYC public schools until high school, and yes, I recall -- fondly, as it happens -- very few snow days.

New York City has a history of actively trying to avoid closing schools. ABC 7 asked Farina today for more clarification on the decision to keep schools open. A big part of the decision, she said, comes down to the fact that if schools are closed, many children don't eat.

"If people can go to work, then kids can go to school," she said. "Many of our kids don't get a hot lunch and, in many cases breakfast, unless they go to school. So it's still a parent's decision whether they send their kids to school or not. My decision is where the kids are safest and the most taken care of, and the answer to that is in schools."

Bold in original, but, duh.

NYC is, as it happens, mostly prepared to handle lots of snow. Snow doesn't much bother the subway, for instance. And despite the perpetual gripes about plowing (a hallowed NYC tradition), the streets do get cleared, by and large, though my dad just called and grouchily observed that in his outer borough holdfast lots of street-parked cars, including his, are buried by precipiation and plow-walls.

Except for the worst blizzards, you can usually get somewhere in NYC even if it's snowing heavily.

Now that I'm living in the Rural Hellhole high atop Liberal Mountain, the kids have lots of snow days. It's actually sort of a pain in the ass for parents with jobs, because the job may be open, but you have nowhere to park your little ones. We have the sort of job where we have flexibility, but that is not remotely the case for most people up here.

Nation Not Yesterday

This is a sidebar to Booman's discussion of a prepsterous hypothetical, but anyhoo:

For a long time, the Democrats correctly felt that they had little chance to win the presidency unless they ran a Southern candidate. The reverse is probably true for the Republicans at the moment. That doesn't mean that the base of the party is clamoring for another moderate governor from a blue state, but they might be willing to settle for a northerner out of pure expediency.

The last sentence intrigues. (Never mind that the base of that party has approximately Ahab's grasp of the notion of "expediency.")

How much does "northener/southerner" mean anything anymore in terms of how Americans conceive their own identity?

The Confederate flags I occasionally see in upstate rural New York are only a small tiny little part of what makes me wonder about this.

Rest of Country Not Doing That