The Arizona Shooting and The Politics of Revolution

The victim of attempted assassination, Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords clings to life in an Arizona Hospital. Nine other people are dead including a nine year old girl, Christina Taylor Greene...

And we are all looking for meaning...

What drives another human being to commit a crime like this? The assailant, Jared Loughner's mental illness has been given as the likely cause and anyone who has seen his YouTube channel would be hard pressed to disagree. Jared seemed to have the idea that all politicians where part of a giant scheme to control the populace through certain concepts that he obsessed over...like, the meaninglessness of words and currency. While I am still unsure what he thought of as "currency" it was clear that he had gone down the rabbit whole to the point of paranoia.

Yet, all that was on anybodies lips the day after was Sarah Palin's political action map...you know, the one covered in cross hairs?...the same map in which one of those cross hairs includes Gabrielle Giffords name and district, prompting speculation that her map may have provided Loughner...and any one else with an itchy trigger finger...a handy hit list. Viewing Loughners video is chilling but one thing it doesn't include are specific names or political parties. He seemed to have a problem with the entire system.

Whether the map and Loughners actions are connected have become almost irrelevant at this point as one of the effects of this horrible event is that we are talking about the negatives of engaging in "culture war". Sometimes its not just a way of words...sometimes it's real bullets....and who owns the blame?

New LGBT History Museum...Epic Win?

San Francisco has been the site of many important leaps forward in LGBT history. It was home to one of the most famous  gay enclaves in modern history, The Castro district. Many prominent gay rights activists come out of San Francisco including Harvey Milk, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, as well as many other pioneers of gay rights. Harvey Milk work in the gay community, his murder, and the White Night Riots that followed, helped launch an era in which gays and lesbians no longer accepted the violence and discrimination of society...and fought back. It was in San Francisco that mayor Gavin Newsom instructed the city clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbians, sparking the Prop 8 legal battle still raging today. The city by the bay has long history of being a gay haven and flash point for gay politics...there's alot of history here.

That's why my curiosity was piqued when I heard about a new GLBT history museum to be opened near the Castro. The museum is an undertaking of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco and had been in the works for a long time. From what I can gather from their website, this is a labor of love by local community members who have collected decades of materials from those who lived those events. ow...so much awesome! But not having seen it yet I am left with a few questions...

Gotta Have Faith

No really...you gotta..the army says so...

A recent report from Truthout and courtesy Pam's house Blend highlights an experimental military mental-health fitness initiative that goes by the name "Comprehensive Soldier Fitness". The Program, which is aimed at lowering suicide rates and Post-Traumatic Stress issues in soldiers consists of a Pair of online tests meant to measure a soldier psychological resiliency in five areas: Physical, Emotional, Family, Social, and...Spiritual. However, if a soldier scores low in  any category, they get assigned to "remedial counseling in a classroom or online setting". So if you don't live up to the tests standards of spirituality...you will be taught how to believe so you don't fall apart after experiencing the bloody realities of war.

Understandably, this has caused a backlash from soldiers and civil rights groups who point out that this program "unconstitutionally requires enlistees to believe in God or a "higher power" in order to be deemed "spiritually fit" to serve in the Army.". One of the programs initial designers was a psychologist who helped design the Bush Administrations torture program....if that tells you anything about the intent of the people behind this....and the obvious double standard of forcing something onto a group of people that is not inherent to them smacks of the arguments used against repealing Don't Ask Don't Tell.

New Hampshire In The Crosshairs...Again

When will  marriage equality be a final passage to full and equal treatment and stop being a revolving door? of giveth and taketh away? Never...as long as certain conservatives and fundamentalists continue to have the ability to submit our rights and relationships to a vote.

 In the first assault on the rights of gays and lesbians in 2011, conservatives are mounting a repeal effort of New Hampshire's recently enacted marriage equality bill. That's right...the ink is barely dry on the marriage certificates of gay and lesbian New Hampshire newlyweds and already their unions are in danger.....Can you believe this cr*p?!  Yes, I guess we can. After all this will be attempt number two in the state of New Hampshire....only this time the game has changed and our attention is called for.