The merry month of May is a busy one. Fortunately, not a lot is happening news-wise upon which I feel the urge to pontificate at length. However, I few tidbits are worth at least a passing mention: Yay, Ireland for the feckin’ landslide to legalize same-sex marriage. Significant, I think, in light of the strong Catholic sentiment there. Seems that Rome … Read More
The GJ Charges Against The Baltimore 6
A Baltimore grand jury has charged all six police officers accused in the death of Freddie Gray. State Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby announced the revised charges yesterday, but the most serious charges – including second-degree murder – remained. In case you forgot already, Gray suffered a severe spinal cord injury in police custody in April and died a week later. His … Read More
Vagina Clown Car Family Has A Creepy Clown
I was writing about the Duggars (often misspelling their name) before the got their own TV show — see here, here, and here. Oh, and here. Then, with 19 kids and a TV show, they became some sort of major Christian conservative politico-cultural franchise, and I stopped caring. Now comes the sad news, as it must to many major Christian conservative politico-cultural franchises … Read More
Boy Scouts’ President Calls for End to Ban on Gay Leaders
I don’t have much to say about this, except (1) about time and (2) I’m not to crazy about Gates’ comment that “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.” That’s not exactly the denouncement of two decades of bigotry that I was hoping for. Still, baby steps.
New Study Shows One-In-Five Women Sexually Assaulted On Campus
A new study published online by the Journal of Adolescent Health finds that almost one-in-five women experience sexual assault ion college. The study, titled “Incapacitated and Forcible Rape of College Women: Prevalence Across the First Year,” which focused on first-year female students at one New York college, attempted to measure how frequently rape or attempted rape occurred by having female students … Read More
Talk About Self-Loathing
Did you hear the one about the anti-gay pastor who told a gay teen that he should kill himself? Yup. Until very recently, he was an associate pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church and School in Midland, Michigan. The church bio described him as a man “blessed” with a wife and five children. He had a gay teen parishoner. He … Read More
Obama Tweets — Part II
Or, I suppose, I could have named this post “Remember: According To Conservatives, There’s No More Racism In The United States — Part II” Judging from some of the unbelievable tweets made to him, a lot of people are either really stupid or simply don’t care about possible repercussions their names being taken. Clearly, respecting the dignity of the office … Read More
Remember: According To Conservatives, There’s No More Racism In The United States
The Washington Post has a report on this ugly story: If You Search Google Maps for the N-Word, It Gives You the White House: We tested the claim on Tuesday night and confirmed that, yes, this is a thing. It even zooms the camera in, automatically. (For sensitivity’s sake, we partially obscured the search term and the autocomplete responses in … Read More
So Long, Dave
It began one day with this announcement by Larry “Bud” Melman: “Good evening. Certain NBC executives feel it would be a little unkind to present this show without a word of friendly warning,… We are about to unfold a show featuring David Letterman, a man of science who sought to create a show after his own image without reckoning upon God. … Read More
Obama Tweets!
So this happened… Hello, Twitter! It’s Barack. Really! Six years in, they’re finally giving me my own account. — President Obama (@POTUS) May 18, 2015 Former White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer thinks this is big news…. This is a much bigger deal than it may seem. Changing how President’s will communicate for the foreseeable future https://t.co/zntfABtw8l — Dan Pfeiffer … Read More
All Hail The Fastest Growing Religion In The United States
Eight years ago, more Americans considered themselves “Evangelical Protestant” than any other religion — a full 26.3%. Next was Catholic (23.9%) and then “Mainline Protestant” (18.1%) in third. Today, Evangelical Protestant is still Numero Religion Uno, although its adherents have dropped to 25.4%. And in second? An upstart. The number two religion in the U.S. is now “NONE”. It jumped … Read More
Woman Sues Gays
Our favorite lawsuit: An Auburn woman claiming to be an ambassador for God and his son, Jesus Christ, is suing all homosexuals. Sylvia Driskell, 66, asked an Omaha federal judge to decide whether homosexuality is a sin. Citing Bible verses, Driskell contends “that homosexuality is a sin and that they the homosexuals know it is a sin to live a … Read More
Geller: Blaming Me For Texas Shooting Is Like Blaming A Woman For Her Own Rape
Bill O’Reilly says he would have done it “another way”. But that’s not the worst of it. Greta Van Susteren — also on Fox — editorialized against Geller: Van Susteren said that while the group has the right to exercise free speech, they should not have knowingly endangered police officers by doing do. “It is one thing for someone to stand … Read More
Lead Paint And Inner City Violence
I’m just going to point to this comprehensive and insightful Washington Post article which talks about Freddie Gray (whose death while in Baltimore police hands sparked the recent riots there) and lead paint. Like many inner city kids, Gray lived in sub-standard housing with peeling lead paint, and in his case, it specifically was blamed for ADHD and other problems. It … Read More