TURTLE THOUGHTS

What Is Joe Lieberman's Deal?

Any rational person can see there's something going on with Senator Joe Lieberman. Seems kinda needy. Wants a bit of attention now and then. His latest attention-grabbing stunt is to scuttle any kind of meaningful health care reform. Since Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid and the rest of the leadership seem to have no problem with Lieberman leading them about by a nose ring, he continues to sabotage reform.

Happily, MoveOn has already raised a million dollars to put Joe Lieberman out of our misery. Let's hope they're successful.

In the meantime, I have to wonder just what is Lieberman's deal? Is he really just getting his revenge on liberals who replaced him with Ned Lamont in the last Connecticut Senate race? Is he still hatin' on those mean ole progressives who almost kicked his sorry vacillating behind out of the US Senate?

And while we're talking about what makes Joe tick, I'd like somebody to answer Susie Madrak's question: Is he really a devout Jew or a pious egotist?

And why aren't we hearing more about a possible conflict of interest since the Senator's wife, Hadassah Lieberman, works for the pharmaceutical industry?

And I must admit it's crossed my mind. Is he just crazy with grief from missing an old boyfriend who moved out of town? (Hey, it's possible!)

Nope, I think the only thing that can explain Lieberman is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Yup. Gotta be the ole NPD

Hey there are Joe Lieberman jokes now. Did you hear this one?

What do you get when you cross Joe Lieberman with a frog?

A fascinating, frog-voiced lump of wrinkles whose blood runs cold with reptilian contempt for those in need. And a frog. (by David Rees, courtesy of Riotjoke)

 It's all about Joe.

Houston Makes History

The city of Houston has elected an openly gay mayor. Annise Parker is the first gay or lesbian to be elected to lead one of the country's Top Five cities.

Happy Birthday, Big Bird

What do you give a 40-year old muppet for his birthday?  It doesn't matter, he won't enjoy anything until he gets that strange forearm removed from his innards. I grew up on Sesame Street...well, watching Sesame Street anyway. And I'm glad it's still going. I'm so old I remember Mr. Hooper.

Even though the characters are rather mellow now, it's important to remember they started out on the mean streets of the city, so they used to be a bit raw.

This is still my favorite Sesame Street-related cartoon:

 

Marriage Equality Voted Down in Maine

I wish this weren't a surprise. My only consolation is knowing beyond any doubt that those opposed to my right to marry my partner of 17 years are on the wrong side of history. Shame on them. Shame on anyone who denies that marriage is a civil institution that should be available to all Americans.  Religious-based opinions...or opinions based on irrational hatred, ignorance, or fear...should not trump equal treatment under the law for all Americans. This is not a religious argument, it's an equality argument, an AMERICAN argument.    

  And how long can we morally justify putting other people's civil rights to a vote?

Putting Civil Rights to a Vote

Tomorrow the citizens of the state of Maine will go to the polls to exercise their god-given right to vote on their fellow citizens' civil rights. They'll decide whether gays and lesbians can have the same rights as heterosexuals to marry the person they love.

The vote is expected to go the way such votes have gone in the past. It was a great day, for instance, when Americans voted to legalize marriage between blacks and whites. I'm thinking that strong majorities of people, especially in the Deep South, must have been really glad to grant that right.

And when everybody got a chance to vote on school desegration? That was cool too. Big majorities of people, especially in my home state of Mississippi, were very supportive of that. They had to be, or it wouldn't have passed, right? ...Right?

Naw, it didn't happen that way at all. It was courts who stepped in to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority in those cases. Why weren't all those things put to a popular vote? Isn't that the American Way? No, it's not. And it shouldn't be.

Calling Anglican Haters. Have I Got a Church for You!

The Roman Catholic Church has a problem. Hardly anybody wants to become a priest anymore. Well, hardly anybody who is a celibate-minded penised-person, that is. That's why the Vatican is now slumming by inviting into the fold all the Anglicans (aka Episcopalians in the U.S.) who are mad because their current church doesn't hate enough. All those Anglican women priests and gay priests (and gay women priests!) are scary and wrong, so the RCC is hoping to capitalize on that irrational fear by converting angry and disillusioned Anglicans. And get this: If you're a married Anglican priest, you're still welcome and so's the little lady! So you now have two separate classes of priests, the married and the unmarried. Separate but equal. There's no way you can go wrong with that.

 

Louisiana Official Refuses to Grant Marriage License to Interracial Couple

I wished this kind of news surprised me, but it really doesn't. A Justice of the Peace in Louisiana has refused to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple. Terence McKay, who's black, and Beth Humphrey, who's white, ended up getting married by another JP.

Meanwhile, Keith Bardwell, the elected official who refused to give the couple a marriage license, says he's not racist. No, he's just worried about the children. Get that?   Not granting them a license is for their own good. Bardwell doesn't believe it's right, so he's not upholding his duty as an elected official. His personal and religious beliefs trump the American rule of law. As an individual he can be as stupid and racist as he wants, but as an elected official of Tangipahoa Parish, he must treat all citizens equally and fairly. Since he won't, he should lose his job.

....and on a related note:

We Ignore Radical Christian Fundamentalist Hatred At Our Peril

I've posted about Frank Schaeffer in the past, but this new interview of the former Christian Evangelical leader by Raw Story is still worth a look. Schaeffer says he feels like the canary in the coal mine when it comes to warning America at-large about the dangers posed by radicalized Christian fundamentalists who have taken their persecution complex and irrational fear of The Other to a new level since Barack Obama was elected president.

The bestselling status of the Left Behind novels proves that, not unlike Islamist terrorists who behead their enemies, many evangelical/ fundamentalist readers relish the prospect of God doing lots of messy killing for them as they watch in comfort from on high.

They want revenge on all people not like them -- forever. Knowingly or unknowingly, Jenkins and LaHaye cashed in on years of evangelical/fundamentalists’ imagined victimhood. I say imagined, because the born-agains had one of their very own, George W. Bush, in the White House for eight long, ruinous years and also dominated American politics for the better part of thirty years before that.

Nevertheless, their sense of being a victimized minority is still very real -- and very marketable. Whether they were winning politically or not, they nurtured a mythology of persecution by the "other." Evangelical/fundamentalists believed that even though they were winning, somehow they had actually lost.

Click over to read the entire interview. It's worth your time.

Happy Columbus Day. Or Not.

Today is Columbus Day, a federal holiday commemorating Christopher Columbus' discovery of native Americans, and, of course, America.  Yet some people content that the native Americans had already discovered America (and themselves along with it). The Europeans didn't like to think of it that way. Some of us still don't.