Margaret Hartmann, at NYMag:
Same-sex couples are seeing the benefits of the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling even faster than anticipated (much to the chagrin of conservatives). On Friday, as same-sex marriages resumed in California, Julian Marsh, an American, and his husband Traian Popov, a Bulgarian immigrant, got the news that they are the first gay couple to have their marriage-based green card petition approved. The New York Times reports that the visa agency had said it would hold off on approving applications until this week, but apparently immigration officers got excited and decided to jump the gun….
Soon many other couples will receive the same happy news. For the last two years officials at U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services have been keeping a list of same-sex couples whose green card petitions were denied, in anticipation of the Supreme Court’s DOMA ruling. The decisions in those cases will be reversed, with no need for a new application, and other pending applications from gay couples will be handled exactly the same as those from opposite-sex couples.
What’s on the agenda for the start of the week?
raven
I wish that it was not true but 19 firefighters were killed in an Arizona wildfire.
OzarkHillbilly
A nap? For the 3rd night in a row I have awakened before 2 am. I managed a nap on Sat, but not yesterday. I have not much hope for today.
Ultraviolet Thunder
Just checking in to say call off the search party. I’m not gone, just lurking. I can hear the sighs of relief!
Headed out to Alabama for the third time in 9 days. It is hot there, and humid. Beastly weather. Pretty nice here in Michigan lately, though. Perfect evening dog walking weather.
I’ve found out why US Air is consistently the airline rated worst by passengers. They wasted half of my weekend by stranding me in CLT unnecessarily for a full day. I fly 5-10 times a month and I’ll avoid US Air in the future.
raven
On a brighter note, my dear friend Katherine and her spouse Jodi were legally married in New York last year and should be able to come home from Australia soon!
Anne Laurie
@raven: Yes, Cole told us about that in the last post.
Ramalama
I’m still trying to sort out what to do on my end. I married my French & Canadian (two passports) partner in Canada and am basically living in Canada. We were told by the lesbos at the US border not to declare we were married when making a trip to Boston (long ago) because it would be tantamount to showing intent for her to live/stay with me in the US without having any legal approval. And therefore she’d be prevented from stepping foot inside the US.
But we never filed any papers in the US. It’s a welcome paper-shuffling hassle, don’t get me wrong. But just trying to figure out where to go now. Our lives have opened up in a way we didn’t expect.
raven
@Anne Laurie: I’m sorry, just catching up after a weekend in Music City! We were going to stay through today but I had a fairly important meeting. Got back, opened my email and it was cancelled.
Suffern ACE
@Ultraviolet Thunder: I saw “I’m so excited” this weekend. I recommend Peninsula Airways if you can find them.
raven
@Ramalama: Here is an article by my friend that speaks directly to your issue.
RSA
@OzarkHillbilly:
If I’m awakened between 4 and 5 am and can’t get back to sleep immediately, I’m up for the day. Typically in a bad mood. Like today.
Anne Laurie
@raven: No prob, just didn’t want you to think we didn’t care!
Schlemizel
hmmm, I’m still thinking it is in my world.
OTOH – to day s Canada Day. I can’t recall seeing many Canadians here but we should be grateful to our neighbor for being what we profess to be & for not building a 30 foot high wall along our border to keep Americans out
Happy Canada Day to the true North strong and free!
JPL
@raven: Since it is suppose to be a soggy week, you’ll have to keep us updated on your muddy garden.
geg6
Happy Canada Day to all the Canuckistani Juicers!
I have the week off and it’s pouring rain. I really didn’t want to spend the week doing housework, but it seems fate has other plans.
OzarkHillbilly
@RSA:
After 30 years of getting up between 3:30 and 4 am, 2 am shouldn’t be that big a deal, but it is. Like you, once I wake up, that is usually it for the night. My brain kicks in and starts running various scripts and I just can’t shut it off. Being in a bad mood because of my insomnia is not an option tho. I’m married.
RSA
@OzarkHillbilly:
Okay, that made me laugh. Me too. And now my bad mood is cured.
Amir Khalid
A little bit more from the Confederations Cup. Check out the meh look on Nando Torres’ face as he receives the tournament’s Golden Boot award (for being the top scorer, with five goals).
Ramalama
@raven: What a harrowing experience for your friend.
I commuted from Cambridge to Montreal every weekend for maybe 10 years. I know the border guard scene. use the right tone, make the right kind of eye contact, know what to say….
There’s a huge flux of people who travel as frequently as I did (maybe not so so much) so, after I – duh – saw the rideshare link on Craigslist, started driving people up and back with me. It became a thing. People set their own schedules to my driving schedule to catch sure-thing rides with me. People in other countries told their friends visiting either Montreal or Boston about me, gave them my contact info. I drove people from maybe 20-30 other countries, homo and hetero and in-between. Border guards with varying degrees of cool or assholery regarding me but also the group of people I brought with me, week in, week out.
My life felt very gamboly and gamble-y then. My whole life became about the trip between point A and point C. I only recently stopped commuting but still have had to struggle about national identity, and finding ways to eat, while learning French badly, slowly.
Here’s a story about one such border guard event.
fuckwit
Jeebus fuck, I can’t get any work done during the day when people are awake. I need the quiet of nighttime in order to hear myself think.
I just got off of a rather productive “shift” tonight, am going to bed, and am not looking forward to have to slog through a sunlight-out day whilst pretending to be awake.
OzarkHillbilly
@RSA:
Whooohooo!!! 6am and I have already done my good deed for the day. Now if only I can find that bottle of tequila my wife hid last night…
aimai
@Ramalama: That is beautifully written. Thanks for posting it. Border guarding is weird. We just crossed customs/border security coming back into the states with our two teenage daughters. I handed the passports in to the guy (we are returning to our own city, this is customs in Boston) and he looks at my husband and says “You’re outnumbered, huh?” meaning: too many women for one man. Then he really scans us as he’s looking at the passports. Then he asks me what I do for a living like he’s checking to see if I am lying. From the point of view of just being oneself it seems crazy, from his point of view? Well, I just don’t know what they are looking for. I wondered if he thought we were potentially bringing in the teenage girls for the sex trade? He asked them, individually, a lot of questions about where they go to school. It clearly wasn’t enough that we had passports. Perhaps those can be faked more than we think.
Face
This ruling has sent The Troo Beliebers into complete fits. They asked the SCOTUS to rehear the case. Some Rep from KS is going to push a Const. Amendment to ban it. Bloggers screaming about polygamy coming next. Methinks Jesus laughs.
Steeplejack (tablet)
@Amir Khalid:
Four of those goals were against Tahiti, so he should look not just meh but ashamed.
raven
@Ramalama: Wow! I sent this on to my friend downunder!
Debbie(aussie)
@raven: so happy for them, sure it’s. our loss. Wonderful to be accepted for who you are! Hop they enjoyed their small side trp down under. And remember us fondly
raven
@Debbie(aussie): It seems like a done deal but one partner is in school and the other is in school so I wonder when it will happen.
Debbie(aussie)
@raven: school in Aus college takes mid year break now maybe they can transfer?
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack (tablet):
For what? Beating up on the Tahitian goalie? I’ll admit it was kind of embarrassing… for the goalie. Spain 10-0 Tahiti.
raven
@Debbie(aussie): They posted their NYC marriage license on FB so they are on the case!
Schlemizel
@aimai:
Part of it I think is that the job is boring 90% of the time & some people just like to talk to folks and why not a couple of teen aged girls?
Part of it is like fishing. You may know the good spots but you have to run a line out in other places just to see if you get a nibble. Plus as a security guy I understand you cannot be too predictable or the bad guys will take advantage of that.
Still, every time I have to go through it I wonder what the heck was the point of all that.
raven
Cold Missouri Waters about the Mann Gulch Fire
Svensker
Happy Canada Day, eh?
Official Canada Day events you, too, can participate in, wherever you are:
— end every sentence with an upward, questioning inflection,
— stand in line without complaining
— be polite
raven
@Svensker: don’t tip
Botsplainer
Kill me now. I’m going to a Talibangelical hellhole for a hearing this morning, and am sitting at a McDonald’s for breakfast (didn’t want to wake anybody).
There’s a loud discussion at a table across the room about Jesus and washed in the blood and sacrifice and how stupid the devil is, all in redneck accents.
Another Halocene Human
I thought the random questions are to see if the subject starts showing signs of being nervous. The US government is really enamored with CNS arousal as a lie detector/bad guy detector.
I just hope that if they’re this proactive about the same-sex couples (and got-damn, I know someone whose partner got deported about three years ago), then maybe they will stop being assholes at the border and let my wife and me use a single customs form. The last time we came through it was a federal holiday and we thought we’d get shit but apparently it was junior people and they were super nice. However, all previous border crossings into the US since we got married have been hell, including one guy who made a point of being a jerk as we were leaving Canada which was kind of like, so why should we leave, anyway? We could just spend more money here and we get more respect.
I’m also hoping immigration reform passes and there is some reform of the immigration process. The process is really, really fucked these days. It’s embarrassing, not to mention I know a lot of good people who have suffered as a result.
Another Halocene Human
@Botsplainer: The issue is not them believing that stuff-I had two classmates in high school from rural SE Asia who talked about spirits at night and stuff like that–it’s having a giant attitude towards others as a result (which my SE Asian friends did not).
What bothers me is not “the Devil is a liar” but “the Devil made me do it”. Really? You didn’t enjoy it at all? Although secular people have their own ways of telling themselves “it just happened” and remaining in denial.
Does anybody else follow AU? For example the failed bid to remove the ten commandments in Dixie County, Florida, and the publicly funded Jesus cross in Bradford County, Florida that nobody owned when the lawsuit came? Well, here is Bradford County again:
Atheist monument next to ten commandments in Starke
Botsplainer
@Svensker:
Say “going out and about in a boat” in a Canadian accent.
Face
@Svensker: Talkabout nothing except hockey and ice fishing.
Cassidy
Got called back for a second interview tomorrow with the Chief with hiring decisions to be made Wednesday. I’m pre-planing the interview so damn much that I’ve summoned my insomnia from my younger days. Hopefully, I can manage to get some work done today.
PeakVT
@Svensker: Explain how you just can’t wait for curling season to start.
Svensker
@raven:
You can tip, but only 11%
raven
@Cassidy: Bro, I know it’s picky but there ain’t no other kind of planning.
R-Jud
@Svensker:
– Refer to a woolen winter hat as a “toque”
– Get arrested for trying to sell stolen maple syrup
– Get huffy when the English ask if you’re American
– KATE BEATON!
Svensker
@Botsplainer:
There is a slight difference to the “ou” vowel sounds, but the ones that get me are proh-gress, proh-cess and prah-duce (fruits and vegetables).
Svensker
@PeakVT:
Is curling season ever over?
Professor
Does anyone think Glenn Greenwald would be able to bring his boyfriend to the USA to settle, EVER?
Suffern ACE
Since Ohio ‘s anti abortion bill was passed as part if the budget bill, does that mean it expires when the new budget bill is passed and will need to be voted in every year?
Joey Maloney
Well, let’s see, my aging prostate and bladder got me up in the middle of the night. I walked into the bathroom with the lights off and stepped right into some fresh cat poop in my bare feet. Getting back to sleep after that was kind of a nonstarter.
This morning I had to work half the day at a friend’s apt instead of mine because there was a scheduled power cut for my block. Last night I fell asleep and left my bicycle locked up on the street rather than hauling it upstairs. When I went down this morning I found the tires slashed. I had to take a cab to my friend’s and it took nearly as long as walking would have.
So it’s been a swell fucking day so far. I think I’ll devote this week to destroying some traditional marriages.
The Red Pen
I found what is quite possibly the most racist thing I’ve ever found on Free Republic. Don’t click on this link unless you have a strong psyche: YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
For those would rather not click through (don’t blame you), it is a lurid description of the horrors experienced by a school teacher in an all black school. Really, you can guess the content. For the record, my (white) aunt and uncle spent their entire professional lives teaching predominantly black students in Cleveland inner-city schools and reported nothing of the sort. They didn’t soft-peddle some of the problems they saw, but they had great affection and dedication for their students, most of whom they saw as great kids.
Cassidy
@raven: It’s how I cope with stress. I run through multiple scenarios in my head with the intent to be prepared for the most likely scenarios. Hell, on timed runs I have to have the time called out after each lap so that I can project forward to a finishing time. It keeps my brain busy.
Sligthly related, we’ve been letting our two oldest stay home this summer. Theyr’e old enough to be responsible, keep the door locked, and we’re paying them to clean house; they didn’t want to go to summer camp. Well, this week, we’re letting the younger two stay home because my wife is getting most of this week off and we didn’t see any reason to pay $200 for two days worth of camp and my oldest, now a teenager, said she could watch them. So I start running through scenarios last night with my daughter and what to do and where to go and she responds “Dad, I’ve been staying home. This isn’t new.” I proceed to tell her it’s different when it’s just her and her younger sister and having her two youngest siblings in tow. This initiates a round of laughter and making fun from her and my wife regarding my attempts to be prepared for disasters and the first aid skills I’ve taught them, etc. Assholes.
raven
@Cassidy: I got that part, I just meant that all “planning” is pre-planning.
bemused
It’s difficult to be down when we have a now 3 month old adorable, sweet, cuddly imp of a puppy. Potty training has been s-l-o-w but we’re seeing signs of progress…she whined at the door this morning to go out to potty and treat with excessive praising commenced. She does sleep through the night in her crate but she has switched from a 5 to 5:30 wake up to 4 am or so! We’re not happy about that one bit but blaming it on the earlier summer sunrise and noisy bird chorus. Having an older dog to play hard with sure helps expend all that puppy energy, thank goodness.
Shakezula
@OzarkHillbilly: For my fellow insomniacs, some advice. Read about segmented sleep, just to get an idea of one reason your brain might be snapping from Zzzz to Rarin’ to go at hours ungodly.
The other is to regulate your blood glucose levels. An NP who helped me with a number of issues, including a nasty case of the wakes (I was getting 3 hours a night, if I was lucky) said that when your bg gets low enough, you wake up and awake you will stay. I was skeptical because this seems to be of limited evolutionary value. Small tasty hominids with inferior night vision ought not to forage in the dark. But that night I ate a meat-intensive dinner and went right to bed. Result: Zzzzzz until 5 am instead of 2 am.
It can also be fixed by getting up and eating something high in protein. Cheese, beef jerky, peanut butter. I think this second is better for you in terms of not loading up on calories right before bed and making you get out of bed, which is what your body wants. (Also if you smoke – consider quitting. Smoking fucks up the way you metabolize blood sugar as well and I’ve had less trouble staying out since I stopped.)
Hope it helps, insomnia is a bastard bitch from hell.
Punchy
@Cassidy: Better find a way to rein in all that anger and flippant attitude.
GregB
@The Red Pen:
I could tolerate about a paragraph. That is tantamount to a Protocols of the Elders of Zion in Craigslist essay form. Filth designed to dehumanize and enrage those already inclined towards racist sentiment.
There is a boiler room somewhere that is filled with a digital Radio Hutu propaganda mill hoping to incite some to violence.
Sickening.
The Red Pen
@Professor: Why does Glenn Greenwald hate America?
(Actually, I think GG might very well move back.)
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
I’m surprised it took this long for anyone to mention St. Glenn of the Brasilia
Cassidy
@The Red Pen: It’s a plant and hits all the buzzwords correctly. I’m curious which PAC wrote it. Freepers eat it up, but they’ll lick anything as long as it confirms their biases.
WereBear
@Shakezula: Excellent points.
Too many people try to sleep in a room with nightlights, the cable box brightly on, street noises… ear plugs and a sleep mask can make a world of difference if you don’t have a dark cave to sleep in. Back when I was going to school full time and working almost full time my husband’s late night television habit did not bother me; I was too exhausted to care. But now, it certainly does.
Also, sufferers should consider sleep apnea; the body gets tired of straining for oxygen and just gets you up!
PaulW
Today is the 150th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
Cassidy
@Punchy: I think I’m fine. You’ll excuse me, but I don’t really need life or career advice from someone like you. Now, if I ever have my tailgate rudely interrupted by an unfortunate rape, you’ll be the first person on my list to contact.
Shakezula
@Cassidy: Thank you for this window into what I’d be like if I’d had offspring.
Only my kids would have been taking some form of martial arts from the minute they could walk.
However, as someone who had to be threatened with terminal grounding before she would agree to watch her siblings, be damn glad your oldest girl volunteered.
Citizen_X
@R-Jud: Pretend you’re a Newfoundlander/Quebecker/Albertan/British Columbian (?) and threaten constantly to separate–not secede, mind you, separate–from Canada.
Cassidy
@Shakezula: She’s a good kid, good head on her shoulders, craszy smart and in honors courses, etc. I did teach the two oldest to box. ;)
They make fun because I’m one of those who has to plan everything: We wake up at (blank), get showered, leave at (blank), grab breakfast around…so on and so forth.
RobertDSC-iPhone 4
I’ll be working with the Air Force all week. A lot of fun.
I did have fun combing through the NASA image archive for wallpaper ideas. Some of the moon pictures are to die for.
The Shuttle had its own beauty, too.
Kim Walker
@Schlemizel: Hi! Can-Am hybrid here. Be careful in romanticizing the neighbors to the north. Living in Canada has made me appreciate an awful lot of institutions and social practices that are sorely missing here: any consumer protection; workers rights; school meal programs for low-income children; services and supports for people with disabilities; questioning authority (rather than deference); less group-think; actual outcomes (rather than processes); innovation, rather than continuing inept hierarchies; real integration, rather than multi-culti (plus polite but extraordinary levels of racism/xenophobia).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Has anyone else noticed that Fox (the channel that carries the Simpsons, not the other entertainment channel) is trying to copy Adult Swim. I keep seeing ads for Axe Cop and other shows, where the animation styles are not your typical Fox Sunday animation.
lojasmo
@OzarkHillbilly:
This used to be the case for me too. Since I have had my OSA treated, I typically fall back asleep right away…if I even awaken early, which most times is not the case anymore.
15 years of needless sleep deprivation. FU.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Face:
Proves my thesis that present day conservatives are only interested in forbidding things – except to the wealthy. They’re in the business of forbidding anything they can to anyone else they can. The reasons for that behavior go, I think, beyond simple assholery. I’m just not smart enough to figure them all out.
Rex Everything
Can I say one thing to you? And I say this with an unblemished record of staunch heterosexuality: Lady Gaga is fabulous.
Gex
The agenda is the same as it always was. I’m going to spend the day destroying straight marriages and America. It’s the only thing I put on my daily agenda in ink.
Shakezula
@WereBear: Good points. I have said no to any conversation that remotely hints of a TV in the bedroom and I bless the inventor of the light sensor on my alarm clock.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Gex: As a heterosexual, I was going to try to figure out how to destroy straight marriages. I realized that the best way to do this was to be heterosexual.
The Red Pen
@Cassidy: I was quite amazed at what a comprehensive piece of propaganda this was. I think GregB nailed it with a comparison to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Gex
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): We can only use the talents God gave us.
The Red Pen
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I’ve seen some ads for a new block of animation dubbed “ADHD.” It supposedly stands for “Animation Domination High Definition.” “Animation Domination” is their term for their popular block of animated shows on Sunday night.
Cassidy
@The Red Pen: My first impression is that it was too orderly going through all the standard generalizations like a laundry list to be anything other than propaganda.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@The Red Pen: Yeah, that’s the stuff. Animation Domination is what they have called their sunday block. ADHD stuff is going to air on a different night, and like I said, is featuring a far more diverse set of styles and story lines. It’ll be interesting to see how far those shows push the boundaries.
The Red Pen
@Face:
I think the most likely fallout is a normalization of laws concerning marriage between cousins.
There are states where I could marry my cousin Jenny because… well, because I can, There are states where I can marry my cousin Jenny because we’re not actually related (she’s adopted). If we were to do so and move to Texas, not only would our marriage be technically invalid, but if we claim to be married, we’d be committing a criminal act (I think worse than a same-sex couple claiming to be married). Some states disallow cousins marriage, but permit married cousins to enter the state and continue to be recognized.
You can see how this legal minefield is similar to the one faced by same-sex couples.
One interesting twist is that some states allow cousins to marry provided that they are unable to have children. That raises the question of whether or not two brothers or two sisters should be able to marry in states that allow same-sex marriage. Sibling marriage is a strong cross-cultural taboo, so I really dread the day that issue comes up.
The Red Pen
@Cassidy:
About half-way through, it gets to the inevitable “blacks are the real racists because they always play the race card” trope.
I dunno, anonymous person, maybe this student read your essay.
Chris
@Another Halocene Human:
Didn’t Eve try that defense back in Genesis? Didn’t work out so well for her, did it?
Gex
@Face: The fun fact of it is, the Supreme Court set up a situation that seems to make polygamy expressly legal. I can marry a woman in Minnesota now. If I move to Mississippi, I will be once again considered a single person, in which case I could marry a man in that state.
Much like they can’t pick a policy that makes any sense given sex change operations (should a M to F be allowed to marry a man or a woman?) They also can’t figure out that this policy makes a bigger mess of the marriage situation than a more sweeping ruling would have.
How would the feds handle this? Marriage is left to the states. The feds just honor state marriages.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@The Red Pen: And as someone who totally endorses gay marriage, I’m going to have to say that sibling marriage should always be illegal. Unless you were watching them night and day, proving the “can’t or won’t have children” would be impossible in most cases. But more importantly, there’s the issue of always maintaining consent. It’s similar to why I’m against polygamy. In places that allow polygamy, it has almost always been one gender that has dominated, and it tends to be a requirement for further generations, not something consented to. Allowing sibling marriages would inevitably lead to the same issues.
ETA: And I am completely ignoring the biological reasons for not allowing these marriages. Once you take the biology into account – a very high chance of genetic disorders – it has to be illegal.
Amir Khalid
@Steeplejack (tablet):
It’s not Nando’s fault that Tahiti are champions of what is by far the weakest football confederation on the planet. A goal is a goal; a Golden Boot, even one so cheaply won, is still a Golden Boot for the trophy cabinet, right? That sour puss is more likely the result of Spain losing the final.
Rex Everything
@The Red Pen: It’s a fucking hilarious essay. It seems like a parody of what a particularly silly type of white person would fear in that scenario. The writer gives the game away with a horribly tone-deaf rendering of black dialect (e.g. the preposterous “where the bathroom be?”; “I black”; etc) along with the following:
There is one way, and one way only, to have this kind of idea about black kids, and it’s by having as little to do with them as you possibly can. No way a teacher of black children would conclude this.
There’s no doubt in my mind this essay is a fraud.
The Red Pen
@Gex:
Nice catch. Throw that on the growing pile of “problems letting states handle marriage.”
Once upon a time, people lived their entire married lives in a single state, so it probably worked better then.
aimai
@Schlemizel: Totally agree about the boredom. If you really want to wake them up, at least in Boston, tell them you are carrying anchovies or a bit of sausage. We got pulled out of line once for admitting we had a very small, prepackaged, snack sausage and they put all our luggage through the most intense scrutiny and some weird huge new machine that presumably would have detected the rpesence of nuclear weapons as well as salami. What the point of that was escaped me (and them) since I was the one who said “oops! here’s a teeny piece of salami I have in my bag.” If I were trying to smuggle stuff in would I have bothered?
Shakezula
@Gex: Waaaah! I wanna destroy straight marriages too. I am a victim of homosexualilst discrimination!
Chris
@The Red Pen:
Every white conservative has that traumatic horror story about that one time somebody “played the race card” against them. Strangely, though, I’m a white man and I’ve only ever had it happen to me once.
It was by another white man.
Beggar: ” ‘scuse me, sir, spare some change?”
Me: “Sorry, I don’t have any.”
Beggar: “Yeah, everyone gives money to the Mexicans, but no one’ll help Americans…”
Oddly enough, none of the black people I’ve ever said “sorry, no change” to (and in DC, there’s a hell of a lot more of them) have thought it appropriate to play the race card.
aimai
@The Red Pen: My cousin–extremely white, like, Queen of England white–worked intensively with black kids at a school as a volunteer. She’s a union props person for the San Francisco Opera and a funny mixture of blue collar skill and Opera and creative interests. She overheard one of the kids breaking the news to another kid that she was white which was met with extreme disbelief “she’s not white!” Yes, she is. “No she’s not! She’s so nice.” Her interpretation was that her behavior was no natural and human and humane that the kid who didn’t think she was white just had never encountered that in a white person before and just assumed she was a very, very, very, light skinned black person. I think, knowing my cousin, that’s probably exactly right.
TooManyJens
@Cassidy: Really, all it was missing was a reference to twins named Oranjello and Lemonjello.
Ted & Hellen
Not a big Gaga fan overall, but her voice sounds great here.
Cacti
Happy 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg.
And for any neo-confederates or lost-causers out there who have any doubts about what Bobby Lee and the boys in grey were all about:
As part of the Pennsylvania campaign, confederate troops kidnapped hundreds of northern black freemen as “contraband” and transported them south for a life of forced labor.
Gex
@The Red Pen: Their policies have always had gaping logic holes.
How do conservatives want to handle transgender people? They like to insist that transgender people be forced to keep their assigned at birth gender identity. But if a M to F person marries a woman, they will look like a gay couple. In order to fix things for appearances, they would have to give on the gender assignment issue.
And they’ve never specified who intersex folks would marry. As much as they love to talk about how God made man and woman (only) the fact of the matter is that Christian doctors know that reality differs from the Bible on this matter of dogma. The traditional marriage people have never been forced to justify their base assumption (there is only man and woman and that inherently demonstrates that humans must pair up in certain ways). Did God goof? Is the Bible wrong? Why don’t they have to answer that question?
It’s been so frustrating because these things make it absolutely clear that if people spent a little bit of time really thinking the issue through, they’d see how the solutions presented by one side don’t actually solve the problem like they claim they do.
The Red Pen
@Rex Everything:
I started reading this and worried that the author might come to light and might be giving a version of the truth about a particularly bad school. The farther you read, the more it becomes clear that it’s a fantasy woven from a (rather exhaustive) list of racist memes. The comments on the article make it clear that it’s purpose is to give white racists a “reasonable, fact based” story to buttress their beliefs.
Ted & Hellen
@Schlemizel:
Random intimidation.
Cassidy
@TooManyJens: And Impalas with oversized rims.
Frankensteinbeck
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
The other half is the culture war. We don’t see it except when they’re trying to force abortion restrictions or rewrite our textbooks, but to them it’s intensely real. Christianism, white social dominance, the peculiar sexual paradigm more or less invented in the ’50s… they’re dying. All of the beliefs and attitudes that define their culture have gone from overwhelming majorities to minorities, and their numbers shrink every day. They can SEE it happening, as their children abandon their lifestyle. The election of a black president was a really, really obvious tell, and they just united their entire culture to prevent his reelection and failed. They’ve reacted with the same mindset that creates abstinence-only sex education. If they can forbid every alternative to their cultural values, if they can blot it all out so that no one can see it or hear about it, then their children won’t know there’s anywhere to run away to.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
lol
Ted & Hellen
@The Red Pen:
Why do you seek out this kind of crap?
Cassidy
@Ted & Hellen: Says the person who thinks a toddler activity is work.
Chris
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Authoritarian mentality? The people at the top are entitled to break the rules, or more precisely, there’s no one but God who’s qualified to enforce the rules on them – after all, they’re at the top because they’re the smartest/the most righteous/the ones God smiles upon and it’s not for us to question them.
Related to this is the conservative conception of wedding, in which it’s vitally important that “wives submit to their husband,” because there has to be a leader in the family. Thus the husband is basically the one anointed to enforce God’s law in his family, but there’s no one to check his behavior – you just have to sort of hope that he polices himself.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Frankensteinbeck:
Nicely put. I was thinking of William Burroughs’ phrase from Nova Express, “Before I give an inch the whole shithouse goes up in chunks.”
Mnemosyne
I knew some kind of tipping point had been reached when Alice Cooper started performing “Born This Way” in concert:
Alice Cooper sings Lady Gaga
(Yes, I’ve posted this before, but I love it beyond reason. You can see that he’s not quite sure how it’s going to go over, but then he really starts to get into it. I still suspect his younger band members talked him into trying it.)
Gozer
Job interview this AM then back home to a nap, some afternoon yoga with Dr. Mrs., and a marathon of Hannibal.
And probably putting up with our old ass dog farting up the house.
The Red Pen
@Gex:
Like this.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
@The Red Pen:
No, because ewwwwww.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Mnemosyne:
That is excellent! Fits Alice Cooper to a T. Thanks for the catch.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
Pot, kettle.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Gex:
Roughly.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy: @Cassidy:
.
Ummm…weren’t you going to try to get some work done today?
Just asking.
Cassidy
@Ted & Hellen: yawn…we get it. You spent a lonely weekend and are trying to pick a fight. Please get a new schtick. You’re boring.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
For some reason, I heard you say this in the voice of Maurice LaMarche, aka The Brain.
“What do you want to do tonight, Brain?”
“What we do every night, Pinky — try to destroy traditional marriage!”
Feebog
We are starting week two of our vacation with our grand kids. Sitting here waiting for everyone to wake up, then pack up for a day at the beach. Leaving Friday to take them back home to Washington state.
JoyfulA
@PaulW: Our local newspaper has been running a series of articles on this area as the fight at Gettysburg approached, e.g., http://blog.pennlive.com/gettysburg-150/2013/07/gettysburg_150_patriot_union_-_117.html
If a bridge across the Susquehanna hadn’t been burned as the Rebs approached and stuck them to the west, Gettysburg wouldn’t have happened.
I was amused that the mayor of the town where I now live surrendered.
Seanly
@The Red Pen:
Sorry, I refuse to get out of the boat. Especially since I’m at work.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
On the topic: took my 9-year old kid to the SF Gay Pride Parade. I hadn’t been for a few years, but made a point of going there this weekend, ‘cos of history and all that.
Floats were mostly either corporate floats (there must have been 400 Facebook employees in the parade alone) or CA politicians. Not only wasn’t there anything particularly shocking for my kid to see, there wasn’t even anything I had to do an “explanation” about to my kid. I guess it’s a side effect of mainstreaming of teh ghey, but the parade, while larger, was a bit tamer than I remember in the past.
Me: “Did you see that person in a green dress in our BART car” [referring a very passable transgender MTF in a gown]
Kid: “Yes”
Me: “Was it a girl or a boy?”
Kid: “Boy”
Me: “You can tell you were born in San Francisco”
The Red Pen
@Ted & Hellen:
1. Because every now and then, when you are talking about the moral bankruptcy of the right wing, you need to point to some examples.
2. Sometimes you have to confront these people and you have to know what they are going to fling. This essay might be exactly what your drunk racist uncle starts going on about at the family July 4th gathering later this week. When he claims that his rant is based on a news report, you can shut him down pointing out that it’s actually based on an anonymous Craigslist posting.
3. The satisfying sense of moral superiority one gets when looking at stuff like this energizes some people (including me) to continue fighting them.
The Red Pen
@Seanly:
A wise decision. You can get some of the salient points from the comments here, if you’re interested.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
What?
I was just randomly expressing a sense of joy and wonder at life, in the form of a giggle.
Jeez…
Shakezula
@Chris: If I had to guess, your panhandler was a beneficiary of St. Ron’s super humane policy to shut down the psychiatric hospitals and replace them with clinics that hand out meds.
In general these guys (and gals) don’t want to start anything with anyone because the city has regular fits of vaporing over panhandlers that results in attempts to ban panhandling outright and sanctioned rough treatment by the cops. And some of the people around here are remarkably candy ass about the homeless. So no, nothing that could be seen as a threat, and since commenting on race could be seen as a threat, even if someone might have otherwise done it, you won’t hear it. But let’s face it the homeless in D.C. hear “No change” and worse from people of all colors. I think I have been asked to help a brother out exactly twice.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
Hey Sassidy, do you seriously think creativity is only for children? Assume you’re not talking about my shit stain paintings, but oh say Picasso or Leonardo.
Just asking.
Gex
@Mnemosyne: You just happened upon one of my favorite cartoons. Man, I loved Animaniacs!
Ruckus
@aimai:
I recall that all new passports have chips in them and this has been for several years now. And one of the reasons given was that the chips made passports much harder to counterfeit.
I’ve traveled internationally a little and I’ve had some pretty bad experiences with the border patrol. I believe they are either trained as assholes or hired because they already are. I’ve always tried to be nice and calm and as accommodating to their power as I know how and still they act like assholes or are totally dismissive. It’s like it’s not my country too, at least until I am back inside of it. Maybe like the rest of the world is tolerated to exist, while AMERICA stands atop everyone and every place else, so why in GOD’S name would you want to travel there except for nefarious reasons.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
Ignore me and you’ll do fine.
Getting a lot of work done?
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
Did FIFA affix a large asterisk to Torres’ trophy, because four of his five goals came against Tahiti?
Matt McIrvin
@Gex:
The same problem applies to other, already-existing variations in state marriage laws, though, such as cousin marriage, common-law marriage, varying ages of consent, etc. So presumably there’s some applicable body of case law governing what happens in those situations. For common-law marriage particularly, it has to have come up at some point. Anyone know?
Ted & Hellen
@The Red Pen:
Seriously…I admire that you admit to that. Most here are less self aware.
Mnemosyne
@Gex:
Then you will be almost as disappointed as G was that, when we saw They Might Be Giants in concert a few weeks ago, they did not do “Particle Man.”
They did sing “Istanbul Not Constantinople,” though, which for me was just as good.
JoyfulA
@Cacti: I have been reading about exceptionally high levels of black volunteers for “the Colored Troops” and other military and defense activity here in southern Pennsylvania, such as burning a bridge across the Susquehanna to prevent Confederates from crossing to Lancaster, Harrisburg, and points east.
Maybe that kidnapping was part of the cause. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 produced a lot of abolitionists hereabouts as locals witnessed slavehunters grabbing any person of color they saw, even those who’d been living here free for generations.
Ruckus
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
You are trying to overthink this.
They are assholes. They have always been assholes. So they think like assholes. It really is that simple.
Matt McIrvin
@The Red Pen:
It’s really simple: if opposite-sex siblings can’t marry, same-sex siblings can’t marry either. The restrictions ought to be equal. As far as I know, sibling marriage isn’t legal anywhere in the US under any circumstances.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: “Particle Man” seems to have started to disappear from TMBG’s set lists in recent years. They didn’t play it when I saw them on the Join Us tour, though I think they’d done it in every previous show I’d seen, including the children’s concert. Probably they just got a bit sick of it.
“Birdhouse In Your Soul” still seems to be obligatory, often as an encore.
Cassidy
@Ted & Hellen: I do not think creativity is for children. You are not creative in your professional pursuits nor in your attempts to stimulate an argument to get your emotional fix. As needy as you are for emotional contact and validation, you should get a hooker.
@Ted & Hellen: Yes actually, quite a bit.
Ramalama
@raven, @aimai – thanks.
I can’t imagine being a border guard. So much at stake. But on the user end, tricky, because all it takes is for someone to be having a bad day. Kind of like a judge.
It’s been really tough. My own family – the ones I grew up with – still didn’t get it for the longest time. But I was lucky. My partner didn’t get booted for overstaying a visa. My partner didn’t end up getting deported back home in some middle eastern country. My partner didn’t have to look for work in a place rife with jobs but loathesome to being gay like Saudi Arabia. Like some of my friends experienced.
I could drive back and forth. So I did.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
Oh damn. And here I thought the money in my bank account was being earned thru my creativity in making pictures that some people like enough to pay for.
But I guess not, since you say so.
Enjoy your cubicle today.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
lol
Cassidy
@Ted & Hellen: Meh, still boring. Just so you know, regardless of whether I go back to work at a cubicle or office, regardless of how much money you supposedly have in your bank account, which actually wouldn’t surprise me because people buy tacky shit to furnish their home all the time, regardless of all this when the weekend is over and we go back to work on Monday, I come back with fond memories of friends and spending quality time with my children and my lovely wife. You, otoh, always show up bitter and alone and spoiling for a fight, hoping to get some sort of emotional purge. I think my bank account is just fine, thank you. Your’s is obviously missing something, but that’s what happens when you’re an unrepentant shit and liar. Eventually the kids don’t want anything to do with you other than humoring your emotional neediness. I feel sorry for you, Timmy. All the money in the world, supposedly, and weekends so lonely and bitter you have to come here to get some sort of catharsis. You are truly an example of a life well wasted.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
lol
It’s kind of you to allow me to live rent free in your head, Assisdy. And there is so much empty space in there it’s amazing. Room to roam around and enjoy the degree to which your fantasies about my life enable you to carry on with your own.
And all these blank walls for you to project upon…while you think about me and how you imagine my life to be.
Sure you’re not gay and needing to come out yourself? There are resources I could point you to.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
To clarify–and I point this out because it is an excellent example of how you misread and project to your own assumptions and biases, something you do regularly here to me and others–I made no reference to having large piles of cash in my bank account. I wrote “the money.”
Your fragile ego took it and ran…
Also, word to the wise: Your controlling nature, expressed as “planning,” is going to annoy your kids more and more as they grow into their own. Might be a good idea to focus on planning your own emotional/psychiatric recovery with a professional rather than making everyone around you suffer. Right up until they tell you to take your “planning” and “scheduling” and shove it.
Cassidy
Have a nice day Timmy. I know you like to feel smarmy and superior; I guess anything to try and replace being alone. I can’t wait to enjoy the warmth of my family’s prescence this evening, especially the children. I don’t think I need to take the advice of someone who lied to their children their whole life and then invades their life as an emotionally needy drama queen. You see, when my children laugh at me, it’s usually in my prescence and good natured, not behind my back. have fun with your crayons, Timmy. It’s all you got.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
Your projection is epic.
You know nothing about my personal life, though I am surprised you haven’t stalked me on FB. If you had, you wouldn’t be making such a fool of yourself right now. Unless that’s all you’ve got.
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
Just for the record: I love my crayons. They complete me.
Amir Khalid
@burnspbesq:
I’m kind of ambivalent on this. Tahiti were the only confederation champions without a full squad of pro players (they did have one pro, possibly the only one in all of Oceania). So there might a case for an asterisk against Nando’s Golden Boot. But Tahiti might take that as an insult, even so.
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
There are people willing to buy the novels of Stephenie Meyer. That doesn’t necessarily mean her novels are any good; indeed, I and many others think they suck. Ditto with the portrait art of Ted & Hellen.
Cassidy
@Ted & Hellen: Sure Timmy.
Ted & Hellen
@Amir Khalid:
Can you quote me on where I said my art was “good?” Thanks.
Do you think you would feel differently about my work if I were an Obot?
Be honest, now…
Ted & Hellen
@Cassidy:
“Timmy” is very original.
Also, too: Spend some time today examining where all this projection about my personal life and my relationships with my kids comes from.
I base my assumptions that you hate your job, slack off when you’re supposed to be “working,” are overweight, have major control and rage issues, and have apparently killed people, on specific things you have written in comments.
What specific things do you base your fantasies about me on, Assidy?
Just for fun, and I know I’m spending way too much time on this but what the hell, I really do set MY own schedule…do you think it’s more honorable to own up to a major mistake/misjudgment and correct it truthfully while mitigating its effects as much as possible, or to compound the error over and over by continued dishonesty?
From your comments, and of course I grant that it’s obvious you have never made any major mistakes in life and have nothing at all to regret, I’m guessing you’d go with the continued dishonesty…
Amir Khalid
@Ted & Hellen:
If you won’t claim your art is any good, presumably you produce it because you can sell it regardless of merit. There’s no shame in that. You’re welcome.
Your portrait art ranges, in my admittedly subjective assessment, between mediocre and poor. Not that your politics have any bearing on your talent; if you were an Obot, your art would be neither better nor worse for it.
Cassidy
@Ted & Hellen: Have a nice day Timmy.
markmac
@Cassidy:
Is Timmy the one who said Jerry Sandusky’s victims asked for it?
Ted & Hellen
@Amir Khalid:
lol
Ted & Hellen
@markmac:
Oh Assidy, that old trope again. Once again dredged up, apropos of nothing, from the blackened slime at the bottom of the bilious barrel that is your soul.
No one, that I saw, ever wrote any such thing on BJ, including me. Somewhere in there, you know that.
The idea that I did is among your most profound and disturbing projections.
In a similar vein, saying that I don’t KNOW that Zimmerman killed Martin without provocation and think it best to wait for the information presented at trial and the subsequent verdict before rendering an opinion and calling for a lynching, is NOT the same as saying I am glad Trayvon is dead because I hate black people and that Zimmerman is innocent.
Can you grasp this distinction? Alas, I am not optimistic…
Read the words that I write in the order in which I arrange them, not how you imagine them to be.
And take your meds.
Amir Khalid
@markmac:
That’s not quite what Timmeh said. He was commenting on the assistant coach who walked in on Sandusky having sex with a child in the showers. Timmeh suggested the asst. coach was right not to interrupt because maybe the kid was enjoying it.
And T&H: before you accuse me of lying, be aware that plenty of other commenters also remember this comment, and would be prepared to link to it.
Rex Everything
@The Red Pen:
That was my take as well.
Ted & Hellen
@Amir Khalid:
Naturally, you have posted a dishonest paraphrase. Again. But that’s what you and yours do. Apropos of nothing in this thread.
Look, get John to post another Sandusky thread and I’ll be happy to hash it out again for/with you, since you’re too dense to understand words, meanings, and shadings of what it is I actually wrote and meant to convey.
But yeah, totally, as a gay man/former gay boy who actually knows what he’s talking about, I stand by my earlier writing on this matter.
And fuck you.