A Six-pack of Stupid. Happy Monday!
It’s Monday, so we thought we’d start your week off like this. Here’s a compendium of stupidity from across the nation. Full stories are linked in the titles. Oh, Florida… In an effort to ban all internet cafés (because why wouldn’t you), it seems that the hastily thrown together Florida legislation will make all cell phones, tablets, laptops, and every 40-pound PC owned by every retiree in the state illegal, because apparently they are the same as slot machines. You just know it’s only a matter of time before some red southern state is going to slip up and ban…
Cute Little Girl Totally Owns Westboro Baptist Church
Remember when Sarah Palin put her daughter Piper up to sitting at a lemonade stand on the lawn of the Governor’s Mansion, just to increase car traffic and piss off the neighbors? Little Piper raised $40 for charity. And she was not pleased. She wanted to keep it all for herself, and her mother understood. This is a direct quote from the governor’s email account. “Piper made $43 at her lemonade stand here yesterday, and is donating it to the March of Dimes charity walk on Saturday. She says the next time she’s not going to advertise it ‘For Charity.’…
This Week in Equality – The Right Wept.
This was a huge week for America. The reaction of the Right Wing has been curious to me. I wonder if we aren’t watching the suicide of a political party. The Supreme Court agreed there is discrimination against certain citizens who want to vote, but a slim majority of justices were okay with that. Seriously? Yes. Not a shocker. With few exceptions, the Roberts Court has been a recurring disaster for everyone except the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. I guess Republican senators felt better about approving a path to citizenship for undocumented people — now that it will be easier…
Day of Decision – Anchorage, Alaska
Celebrations of the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act sprang up across the country yesterday, and Anchorage joined in. A happy and boisterous group gathered in front of the Federal Courthouse downtown to hug, and wave flags, and be present with each other. Despite Alaska’s dubious honor of being the first state to discriminate against marriage for all people in its Constitution, the LGBT community and its allies are strong and committed to equality for all. Christians for Equality had a large banner, and there were rainbow flags everywhere. I was struck by how many honks and waves the…
Scenes from A Revolution
Day of Decision, Castro Edition. (Pics at City Hall by friend of the Mudflats, Joanie Juster. Pics from the Castro by Mudflats webmaster, Thomas Dewar.) San Francisco’s City Hall opened its doors at 6:30 a.m. for people to wait for the Supreme Court’s decisions on the two cases determining the legality of same-sex marriage: Proposition 8 and DOMA. When both of these unjust laws were struck down, City Hall erupted in joy. The celebration in the capitol of LGBT America — San Francisco’s Castro District — was the kind of bedlam one would expect yesterday. The streets were packed shoulder…
Smitten Moose Falls for Same-Sex Statue
This may not be safe for work. Honestly, we just don’t know. In Anchorage this week, new moose mamas are emerging into the open with their tiny calves, barely two weeks old. It’s an adorable sight to see, and the whole neighborhood is awash in motherly love. But moose love of a different sort is on full display in Grand Lake, Colorado. It involves one moose who’s quite… how shall we say… “gregarious,” and the other who’s more of the strong, silent type. It’s a notable courtship for several reasons, and proves that true love will not be denied. 1)…
Facts: They’re Just My Opinion
A few months ago a listener to my radio show delivered a fresh new conspiracy/scandal. He was certain that President Obama had orchestrated the Sandy Hook school shooting to help get himself re-elected. Really. When I pointed out to the caller that the president had been reelected more than a month before the shooting, he responded, “That’s just your opinion.” So, now actual historical events are JUST MY OPINION because they don’t fit into the narrative that Obama wants to take your guns so badly he’ll send a Manchurian nut-job to shoot up a school. OK, so this guy may…
Stories We Missed
Between the news from Boston, Watertown and Texas the 24 hour news media seemed to be like a pig in… well you know what. MSNBC, FOX, CNN all seemed unable to cover anything else other than the two big stories – they threw their entire media machine at them. Meanwhile, stories that would normally be headline news went by the wayside – and weren’t even talked about. While I could never pretend to have caught all the really important ones here’s a bunch of the news stories that we at TheMudflats thought were really important and deserve a second shot…
The View from Juneau
An old saying goes something like this, “We hate in others what we hate in ourselves.” I don’t think I’ve seen a better example of that than this 28th legislative session. I flew to Juneau to watch the last days of the session for myself. Home in Anchorage, I spend a remarkable amount of time watching Gavel to Gavel – I even Tivo it. But the cameras don’t show what’s really going on in the Capitol, restaurants and bars; they don’t show the lobbyists following lawmakers into the bathroom or to the smoking porch. (I have to wonder whether the…
“Active Homosexuals” to be “Embraced” by Boy Scouts?
Read it and weep. Jim Minnery, of Alaska Family Council sent out an email calling supporters to show up at a Town Hall meeting of the Boy Scouts to address whether “active homosexuals” will be “embraced” by the Boy Scouts. Not sure about those inactive people who have let their homosexual memberships lapse, but “embracing” is definitely a red flag. If you get his meaning. *ahem* Next month, the Boy Scouts of America plans to vote about whether to lift the ban on gays in scouting. And one 16-year old Maryland Eagle Scout candidate who has come out, may be…