Hide your ovaries!
≡ Category: Semi-daily thoughts, queer | ≅ Comments Off
Tomorrow, the 5th annual anti-abortion “Walk for Life” will be advancing its agenda of controlling my reproductive organs. I suppose the organizers want to slow San Francisco’s steady march towards the fires of Hell. Lest you think I can’t extend a compassionate hand towards those I vehemently disagree with, let me suggest a couple of pro-life, pro-family suggestions that may resonate in San Francisco…Stop sterilizing poor women–end the “maximum family grant” rule: The rule works like this: low-income women who conceive and give birth while receiving public assistance (CalWorks) receive no additional cash aid to support the baby. Why? Because pushing poor families into deeper financial straits builds character and strengthens families. Note, the maximum amount of aid for a single adult supporting one child in San Francisco is $584 per month. Maximum cash aid for a family with 2 children is $723.
Encourage queer families to foster and/or adopt children: San Francisco already has an ad campaign doing just this. So maybe the pro-family folks could hop over to Arkansas where as of January 1st same-sex couples are banned from becoming foster or adoptive parents.
Extend legal protections to all parents and children: California has some legal protections, but cross state lines and it’s legal chaos. Seems like a no-brainer that Mom or Pop would be in the best position to make medical and other decisions for their kid, but nah, that privilege is reserved for heterosexuals.
Oh the list could go on…but I’ve made my point.
The Bay Area Coalition for Our Reproductive Rights is sponsoring a counter protest tomorrow: 10:30 AM, Music Concourse (the end of Market at the Embarcadero BART), January 24. I’ve heard it’s been kind of a fun counter-protest in past years.
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Inaugural tidbits II
≡ Category: Politicking, Semi-daily thoughts, queer | ≅ Comments Off
Glib commentary on Aretha’s hat and John “not really a strict constructionist” Roberts aside, yesterday I enjoyed one last day of unbridled optimism. We’re certainly nowhere near a post-racial, post-war, post-financial disaster era, however, we are post-Bush. That alone made me exhale and exuberantly cheer the regime change.I streamed hours of CNN Live, chocked up seeing Michelle (and Barack) Obama, smiled at Sasha’s exuberant thumbs up, winced at Rick Warren, laughed with Rev. Lowery, wished Mariah had chosen a song other than Hero, admired Jay-Z’s glasses and marveled that www.whitehouse.gov has a tumblr acct.
I also made a deliberate effort to harbor hope and high expectations of the Obama administration. I took my imaginary fruity smelling markers and unfurled my imaginary butcher paper and with my imaginary illustration skills conjured an imaginary world of just immigration reform, a living wage, racial justice and queer justice (not just marriage equality–although that’s important too), bigger stronger more effective labor unions, restorative justice, free health care, better public schools, no kill animal shelters, blue skies, clean water, affordable airfares that somehow leave no carbon footprint–you get the point.
Projecting hope and generating high expectations are familiar exercises from those “visioning” exercises that beleaguered non-profits conduct as part of those groan inducing 8 hr retreats that devolve into 14 hr events because you have to go process the dysfunction of the day over stiff drinks. I digress. Placing the Executive Branch of government in the same head space as that alternate social justice reality felt totally alien. Alien, but not an entirely laughable or impossible a mental exercise with Obama as POTUS*. It underscored my low expectations of elected officials, but reminded me that inching towards that imagined reality requires holding government accountable to our loftiest ideals.
In the coming days, I’ll both cheer and jeer the potus, but I’ll try to remember the imaginary world I conjured yesterday as we hold Obama –and ourselves–accountable to our “better angels.” When the Obama-ites gets too far out of line, I’ll just remind myself that at least there are no Bushes in the Oval Office.
*I think POTUS is a great acronym. Yes, because it sounds like a potty joke.
Inaugural tidbits
≡ Category: Semi-daily thoughts | ≅ 1 Comment
Aretha’s “let it ring, let it ring…” gave me goosebumps, but The Hat really needed a bigger role. I would rigged blinking LED lights to the tips of the bow and then have it shoot off fireworks at the end. But I suppose that would be undignified…
I thought Obama’s swearing-in flub was due to nerves, but Adam Liptak suggests Professor Obama caught John Roberts committing (yet another) constitutional law error. Gots to appreciate the legal geekery involved in parsing this exchange.
Speaking of geekery, Air Force One makes sense. It’s an airplane from the Air Force for the Number One person in charge. Got it! Marine One–it’s a ship for the…no,wait. It’s a helicopter flown by Marines. I never did understand the Marines, but who cares, it took Bush away. The real name stumper = Special Air Mission 28000. wtf?
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Albums
News- Families Can’t Afford the Gender Wage Gap
- Nebraska to Limit Abortions Because of Fetal Pain - NYTimes.com
- Supreme Court: Lawyers must advise immigrants of deportation threat / The Christian Science Monitor - CSMonitor.com
- Pritzker Prize Goes To Japan's SANAA Duo : NPR
- The San Francisco Chronicle takes the honor for the worst "pharm party" story ever. - By Jack Shafer - Slate Magazine
- Tweetin’ @lunamania
