251. HUDOOD YOU LOVE?

From the Archives (September 2006) The UN reports that Iraqi civilians died at the rate of 100 a day in June and the New York Times reports that, in Baghdad alone, 90 tortured and executed bodies were found scattered around the city yesterday—just as Bush made his impassioned plea for the right to wiretap innocent-until-proven-guilty (in theory) people.

That’s one giant step backwards for basic human rights—I guess because he’s the decider.

What have we created? And why are people so goddamn complacent about having their rights stripped away before their very eyes?

... And yes, bomb supporters, I DO know that Saddam and his henchmen are charged with killing at least 50,000 Kurds before our soldiers ever stepped foot in Iraq.

So what’s your point? That the population was already decimated before we showed up expecting to be greeted with flowers anyway, so it’s okay to rape and blow away the rest of them to suit our imperial dreams?

Lordie lordie lordie. I keep thinking about the Iraqi brothers who ran my favorite lunch spot until shortly after 9/11 (when they had to close because sales dropped to almost zero). One of them was severely burned and I didn’t understand the significance of being Kurdish back then, so didn't think much about it, but now I wonder if he got burned in one of Saddam’s chemical-weapon strikes before he fled to the US?

Meanwhile, Karl Rove, the architect behind Bush&Co’s efforts to turn us into a police state, is apparently the son of Big Gay Al.

Yep, he was apparently quite close to his fag dad, but this didn't stop him from bashing gays in order to help Bush win the election. Of course, this self-professed agnostic had no trouble puckering his lips around Pat Robertson's flabby white ass either.

The hypocrite.

And how’s this for a compromise on the restructuring of Pakistan’s Hudood Ordinance? Rape victims will now be subject to the same punishment as women found guilty of adultery.

One real giant step into modernity, guys.

•

And finally, farewell Ann Richards. You were my rock star.

BEST-OF SPAM: Nothing could be prettier in pink. (Um. You obviously do not know me AT ALL.)

243. ROLLOVER AND PLAY DEAD

From the Archives. (August 2006) Yahoo! headlines are bizarre today. Besides the never-ending updates about the arrest of a skinny teacher who confesses to raping and killing JonBenet Ramsey—and could someone tell me how anyone can rape a six year old yet claim to love her?—there’s Breast implants linked to suicide, not cancer.

I could have told them that augmenting your body to suit cultural whims doesn’t buy happiness.

Then there’s the pathetic How much Paris Hilton is too much? (which, incidentally, manages to give us even more Paris Hilton).

The good news, of course, is that a judge called a halt to Bush&Co’s illegal wiretapping program.

But an even bigger headline, if you’re LGBT—and one that will never make Yahoo!’s headlines—is that Bush signed the Pension Protection Act into law today.

One special right that this country has long extended exclusively to heterosexual couples is the right to rollover retirement plans when a partner dies. Before today though, surviving LGBT partners were forced to withdraw the lump sum and then pay major penalties.

Now the non-spousal rollover provision extends the same right to “spousal equivalents.”

Another special right that has long been extended exclusively to heterosexual couples is the right to withdraw funds from your partner’s retirement fund if you’re faced with medical or financial emergencies.

Example: say my partner, Homo Schiavo, has 300 thousand dollars in a 401(k) and is in a horrible accident that has left her in a coma and she remains in a coma for years while I am left to pay the mortgage plus all those medical bills alone.

Well, now I can withdraw these funds from her retirement account to help cover her medical expenses.

That one is covered in the Hardship Distribution provision.

Not much else to report, but that’s good enough news for now.

175. HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF

From the Archives

(November 2005) In case you haven't been paying attention to Bush's illegal NSA wiretaps: article two of the three articles of impeachment against Nixon states that the president committed a crime

by directing or authorizing [intelligence] agencies or personnel to conduct or continue electronic surveillance or other investigations for purposes unrelated to national security, the enforcement of laws, or any other lawful function of his office.

So the Pentagon has been spying on Americans at the insistence of the president—a man who, when told that his wiretapping order violates the US Constitution, replied that it’s “just a goddamn piece of paper” and waaa waaa waaa baby wants what baby wants and he’s perfectly willing to kill 30 thousand Iraqis and your sons and daughters and to stamp out Democracy to get it.

Maybe Nixon said this too before he was impeached (and knowing Nixon, he probably said it afterwards too, since he blamed everyone else for his failures).

Frankly, I want a president who treasures the Constitution more than his fucking LIFE or any short-term goals that he and the lobbyists who define their platform might have.

I want her to value public service over private interests PERIOD.

I want her to consider this belief holy, a calling.

I want Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird, or the female equivalent, guiding our country—someone who will stand up to powerful interests and insist on policies that are good for ALL the people, not just the few with deep pockets and persuasive lobbyists.

I mean let’s face it, our Constitution is bigger than any one over-privileged cowboy who probably wouldn’t have even passed high-school grammar without Daddy’s connections

(and he damn well better be glad that Barbara Jordan ain’t around today or he’d already be impeached).

And let me just say that my southern Baptist mother and plenty of other fundamentalists must be aghast to know that this so-called Christian man uttered the phrase god damn out loud—bu we always knew he was an opportunistic poseur, right?

Meanwhile inquiring minds want to know what enemy so threatens national security that we must bypass customary procedures that routinely grant permission to wiretap phones with 4 hours’ notice anyway.

Is it those terrorists that the FBI warned Condi and George about? Those spies with their fingers on a nuclear bomb?

Why no. It’s those scary Quaker anti-war activist terrorists, that’s who.

Run Dick run! Better move us to red alert!!

(You’d think it’d be obvious to anyone who knows anything about Quakers that they are opposed to violence, but maybe the chickenhawks consider opposition to the war to be our greatest national threat [to coin a Vietnam phrase].)

Our president lies blatantly about weapons of mass destruction, about torture, about votes. No wonder we’re all jaded.

Meanwhile, my trunk is loaded down with gifts (which may not be unrelated); my stockings are overflowing and my suitcase is too, so I will leave you with a quote:

For now I am in a holiday humour.—Shakespeare

And, since I may not be online again before New Year’s, here’s another one:

AND NOW let us believe in a long year that is given to us, new, untouched, full of things that have never been, full of work that has never been done, full of tasks, claims, and demands; and let us see that we learn to take it without letting fall too much of what it has to bestow upon those who demand of it necessary, serious and great things.—Rainer Maria Rilke

READING: “It is unconstitutional to teach [so-called intelligent design] as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom. ... We find that the secular purposes claimed by the [School] Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom."

So wrote the judge in his 139-page opinion in the PA evolution case.

LISTENING TO: silver bells

BEST-OF SELECT SPAM: MASTERDICK! Do you know . . . I love you?