Badger's Den

Protest Rally
5:29 p.m. - 2008-11-14

We're actually having a Prop 8 rally tomorrow in town. I think I'll go.

Don't Become Victimizers
10:31 a.m. - 2008-11-14

Victims become abusers. It's a odd psychological phenomenon. Victims of abuse often become abusers. Victims of discrimination are often discriminators themselves.

While it's understandable for gays to lash out at black and Mormon churches, LGBT people must ensure they don't become the very type of people they rail against.

Instead of anger, we must realize that renewed efforts are required with social conservatives of every stripe.

And remember that gay blacks are more reviled in their racial community than whites. As long as minorities fight each other, the tyranny of the majority will bask in their control of society.

Work
10:26 a.m. - 2008-11-14

Long days at work. I'm doing 10 hours days mostly. Others are doing 12hrs. About 100 people on the team are working Sat & Sun. Fortunately I only have to work a few hours at 6am Sunday, and I can do it from home.

Gay Marriage
2:20 p.m. - 2008-11-11

Keith Olbermann's powerful commentary on Prop 8. Thank you very much, Keith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVUecPhQPqY

He Looks Different - Must be a Muslim
10:00 a.m. - 2008-11-06

"By picking Rahm Emanuel we'll have another Muslim in the White House," one of my professional well educated 30-something white co-workers said this morning.

What do you mean by 'another?' I asked.

"Well Obama is Muslim."

No. He's United Church of Christ. Why did you think he was a Muslim?

"My wife told me," he replied.

She needs to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh.

"Well, she probably thought because his middle name is Hussein..."

Ah. And I don't even know what Rahm's religion is. He looks to be of Middle Eastern origin, but that means nothing.

Just when I think I can't be surprised...

Gay Marriage
8:39 a.m. - 2008-11-06

It's hard to be both celebrate the end of the Bush presidency and accept that gay marriage was defeated.

First I'm offended that who I can marry is up to a simple popular vote.

But more, I am offended by the lack of support in the African American community.

Many years ago I was involved in passing a city ordinance to ban discrimination for sexual orientation. I was completely blown away by the strong opposition of blacks. I thought a people who knew inequality better than anyone would see and fight it here.

I was equally taken aback when I saw the demographics of the Prop 8 vote. 70% of blacks voted to enshrine discrimination into the California constitution.

I am so disappointed.

I feel betrayed. I have and will always oppose discrimination in any form. I have felt a kindred with fellow minorities. Hell, I'm dating a black man. I see the injustices he experiences. And the worst is to be gay AND black.

When it comes to gays, I get a sense that some blacks have a chip on their shoulder, a chip that says civil rights is only about black rights. They seem offended by any comparison, and shared circumstances.

I agree that discrimination against black is much worse than against gays. Gays can blend in better. But a black child never had to tell their parents they were black. They never had to wonder if someone else was black.

Many people who voted against gay marriage have been around long enough to know when interracial marriage was illegal. And we have a new president who I think is the best statesman I've seen recently, who also happens to be black.

Interesting also was that this vote meant things that had little to do with the question at hand. To those for the ban, it seemed to be about indulging their fear. For those of us hoping to defeat the ban, it was about acceptance.

One legacy of Rovian politics has been promotion of the concept that if you believe something is sinful, you must fight to make it illegal as well.

I guess I should expect this. Those suffering from discrimination are often the ones eager to heap in on someone else. Gays can be the most vehement against other gays' rights. Blacks discriminate. Mormons discriminate. Victims long to be the master. It shouldn't surprise me, but it is still sad.

And people I support saw fit to not only make gay marriage illegal, they put it in the constitution.

President Elect Obama
8:32 a.m. - 2008-11-05

Wow, it actually happened.

Ends Justify the Means
10:36 a.m. - 2008-10-30

Deceit and billigerance. That's the Christian way to get things done, right? My way or no way. The ends justify the means. That's what Jesus would do, right? He would bully people to obey him. He would practice deceit to get people to do things his way. Lies are perfectly ok when they get people to become Christian or at least behave like they should. Plus Jesus would let you commit all the sins you want if you obey one commandment - greed gets a pass if you favor anti-abortion.

NOT!!

Yet this is exactly what I see with pro-life supporters. They are perfectly willing to use intimidation and deceit to change the laws. And of course there's only ONE solution to the problem.

For those pushing to overturn Roe V Wade, it seems like people who work to reduce the number of abortions would be a good thing. It seems that people who promise to overturn the law and then do not, would be a less desirable result. Yet I think that's exactly the situation we have. Obama, I'm confident, will work to reduce the number of abortions. McCain may put a judge on the Supreme Court that might make it more agreeable to overturning the ruling, but that's no guaranty. Meanwhile he doesn't plan on doing anything else.

Meanwhile the Catholic Church wants to punish those who don't agree with it's narrow, single issue. Would they vote for a tyrant if he promised to overturn Roe V Wade?

And if they ever do manage to change the laws, they can rest assured their place in heaven is guaranteed. Once Roe V Wade is overturned, there will never be another abortion in this country.

Yeah right.

But what disturbs me even more are those that would use trickery and deceit to get their way. They mislead people to get them to vote a certain way which well set them up to eventually challenge the laws they dispise. In Colorado such a deceit is happening. A contingent wants people to vote that personhood begins at conception.

To me that is a non-scientific declaration we don't have the wisdom to properly determine. And unintended consequences be damned. If it passed it would essentially end invitro fertilization as no company would want the responsiblity of thousands of fertilized eggs now labeled as people. So by forcing people who don't want children to have them they would deny people who really do want children from having them.

When the health of the mother is in danger, let her die and take the baby with her, is their rally cry. Rape - well that was God's will. Some god they believe in.

The whole idea of giving government control over reproduction is an intimidating concept. Ah the refreshing air of compassionate conservatism.

Undecided
11:15 a.m. - 2008-10-29

Lately whenever I hear the term 'undecided voter' my blood pressure goes up a notch. When the media interviews these undecideds they all seem to be McCain supporters who are timidly considering if they should change their vote.

I don't see an Obama supporter or someone who voted for Kerry or Gore presented as an undecided.

Now granted there are those that are genuinely torn. But if they're waiting for some new bit of information at this point it's not likely to come. If they're waiting for some new bit of dirt, well I find them objectionable. If they are waiting for black & white answer to complex problems, they are naive. Most of them just sound prejudiced, bigoted or die hard Republicans whose conscience is nagging them a bit.

The media likes to portray these people as voters carefully weighing the options. I disagree. To me they are like people in your dinner party who after everyone else has placed their orders can't seem to decide between the fish or the pork while the waiter patiently stands by.

And why can't these people make up their minds? I make up my mind by seeing which candidate is closer to sharing my values. So do these people have unformed value systems? One blog wondered if they were pro actors who just wanted to be on TV.

It also pisses me off that these people are so 'important' to the election.

I do not consider myself a core Democrat. If the candidates were reversed I would be voting Republican right now. If Obama were running on a third party, he'd still get my vote. I like to think I'm independent. I never vote a straight ticket and cringed when an acquaintance said they did to the praise of others.

And there are theologies I don't think any mainstream candidate can significantly change. Republicans like to call Democrats 'tax & spend.' Well that's preferable than 'borrow & spend' which seems to be the GW philosophy. I think the government is inefficient in many ways. But the private sector will sacrifice standards and ethics to save a buck as they have aptly demonstrated. And free trade and deregulation like all freedoms requires a certain standard of behavior almost universally lacking in our society.

We have allowed insurers to to move closer to their ideal where only low risk people can be insured. We have sacrificed environment quality to improve profits. We have sacrificed health care to improve profits. We sacrifice safety to increase profits. We have placed more burden on society in the name of increased profits. We take food from the mouths of the starving so we can fuel our cars. We manipulate the less powerful (people & nations) to increase profits. We have sacrificed the financial health of the world so a few can get obscenely wealthy.

And it's not that a few people are greedy. Greed is has swept this society like a plague replacing the work ethic at all levels of society with the get rich quick scheme. Its an attitude of wanting to accumulate as much as possible with no concern about who that money comes from.

The philosophy of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" has become from each according to his greed, to each according to their desire.

Of course I see this election as a referendum on whether we're going to keep the good ole (straight white) boy system that benefits the rich at the expense of the not so rich run by white men who talk about morality while acting unethically when no one is around.

Or are we going to move toward a system where all people are treated with respect and everyone contributes to make this country good and growing.

Now I know that sounds communistic or socialistic, but I believe we are on this earth to lift each other up not step on each other to get on top of the heap.

I find it humorous that the communisms in practice were agnostic and that professed Christians are avidly anti communism because to life as Christianity preaches, pure communism is a very Christian concept.

Instead we live in a world where the rules of little children apply. I want it therefore I should have it. If I don't like the rules, I can change them to my advantage. If I can somehow get what you have from you, through deceit, gullibility or violence, I win - you lose. If I can't win, I will call you names. And if you don't like it you are a crybaby. If you don't do things exactly my way, I will throw a tantrum. And if I get in trouble, it's because you are a tattle tale and don't play fair. And I show my gratitude by sticking my tongue out at you.

Chorus - With a View
1:52 p.m. - 2008-10-28

Went to Bill's home for the first time. He sings with me in the chorus. We rehearsed the two numbers we are doing this fall. They are in Hebrew which is very difficult to learn. Latin is so much easier, or am I just more comfortable in Latin.

Hebrew just doesn't trip across the tongue - more like it stumbles and lurches.

Afterward we sat in his living room and talked. His house which he shares with his partner sits on a bluff overlooking the lake and downtown. The city lights were spectacular.

PS. Eugene is coming for the weekend !!!!

Thoughts for Today
9:41 a.m. - 2008-10-23

From TV...

If you can see that Obama has a 10 point lead in the polls and still think he might lose the election, you are definitely a Democrat.

Maybe good investment counsellors should have explained better the phrase "past performance is not an indicator of future results."

Our entire economic system is designed to transfer wealth upward. The rich complain about the transfer of wealth downward.

Bush promised that increasing the wealth of the top 1% at the expense of the middle class and the national debt would increase jobs.

Eugene has been unemployed for 6 months.

If I have $100M how many jobs will I create vs only having $95M. Seems like if trickle down worked it would already be working.

We are destroying small businesses through mega companies which makes startup competition nearly impossible. How do you compete with Walmart and an entrepreneur? Try starting up your own TV station.

The rich claim the poor people are the leeches of society, but if you look at the flow of money, the great sucking sound has been coming from the weathly.

When the Bush tax cut was announced, there were 10% of the population who thought they were in the top 1%.

In the Midwest the "living wage" is calculated at $15,000. We average $24,000 annually to house someone in prison. Seems like if we could keep some people out of jail by giving them a living wage, we'd be money ahead and crime would drop.

I remember an interesting thing I heard in high school. A sociologist stated that as productivity increased, there would be less need for the number of jobs everyone would need. A society could well afford to pay a percentage of the population NOT to work.

It was contrary to my Protestant work ethic at the time, but it seems to make sense these days.

Changing from an income tax to a consumption based tax system seems to make sense as well. But that would interfere with the economic engine we've created to tell me how scarce things are, to increase my "needs" and influence me to send my money upward.

If anyone thinks unrestrained capitalism is desireable, they haven't read The Jungle. We've been there. Many countries are there right now. Do we want to be like Brazil where 1% of the people have 90% of the money and 20% of the people have ALL the money.

I don't pretend to have the solutions. I do think we need smart leadership to pragmatically and fairly figure these things out.

But several years ago, I wondered about the wisdom of upper class wanna be's who were living beyond their means.

I've wondered about our tolerance to buy crappier products to save a buck.

I've wondered about our crumbling infrastructure. I've wondered why our public transit system is so reliant on the airplane which is subject to the vagaries of weather and traffic and the draining of funds for railroads.

I've wondered the efficience of moving tons of freight across highways instead of much more efficient rail systems. I've wondered about the wisdom of global supply chains relying on the lack of quality of some countries and the cost of cheap transportation.

We're running out of cheap oil - sometime in the very near future. And it doesn't matter if we drill on every square inch of the planet.

Why doesn't our government have a 10 year plan; a 20 year plan. Why are corporations so short sighted focused solely on the stock price and maximizing short term profits at the expense of long term viability?

We've had 8 years of rule by the oil companies. And where are we?

I used to respect John McCain, but I have lost practically all of that watching his performance in this campaign.

I've heard a lot of people say that the presidency is no place for on the job training. Well unless you're being re-elected, everyone taking that job has some on the job training to do.

Leaders have a way about them. In a lot of presidents we've had precious few leaders, people who can truly get all the people to unite enough to move is a common direction.

I believe people should live within their means. I believe in live and let live with a helping hand for those who need it. I believe in treating all people with respect and justice. I believe that a decent society makes sure its people have basic needs met as well as prividing decent education for all and access to health care.

I believe individuals should take responsibliity for their lives, but I believe how we treat the least of us exemplifies our national character.

To quote the Bible, "to whom much is given, much is expected."

Personal Organizer Needed - Cute Male Preferred
2:07 p.m. - 2008-10-21

I need Mary Poppins - someone to make the work go easier. I don't like housework as I can always think of more fun things to do with my free time.

SOmehoe I have to think about housekeeping as fun. Hmmm how to do that. It's not that the house is so bad it's just that there's a lot of clutter in area.

It's mainly due to all my hobbies, like collecting things. I envy people who missed out on the collecting gene. Life could be som much simplified.

I just need motivation. For a lot of things I need motivation. Something to break the lethargy.

Plus if the weather is nice, I want to be outside, exploring.

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