From The Beach

Watch this video. Or this one:

Needless to say the videos are Not Entirely Safe For Work.

I posted the above to illustrate a point. Beach wear. Now I could have done a bit with guys in Speedos but I'm partial to the ladies. And my point? I'm getting to that. There is a race in New York that I have been giving some attention to. And the gay punching is getting rough (Hippie punching does not work as well as it used to. I guess the hippie menace is no longer so menacing.)

Which brings me to Carl Paladino.

Carl Paladino, the volatile GOP candidate for governor of New York, refused to step back yesterday from his comments disparaging gays over the weekend, saying that children should not attend gay pride parades because they featured men in bikinis “grinding at each other and doing these gyrations.’’

“I don’t think that’s proper; I think it’s disgusting,’’ Paladino told NBC’s “Today.’’

In appearances before Orthodox Jewish groups Sunday in Brooklyn, the Buffalo developer and Tea Party-backed candidate created an uproar by saying that children should not be “brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is acceptable.’’

He also took a swipe at his opponent, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, for marching in a gay pride parade with his children.

He spoke as the state was still absorbing the news that nine young men had lured a gay man and two teenagers to a building and for hours savagely beat, tortured, and raped them with a baseball bat.

I'm not much up on public displays of affection by guys. But my eyes have not offended me so much yet that I'm interested in plucking them out. And my kids have to live in the real world. All the time. I have never seen the point of overly restricting them. I never put internet filters on their computers when they were growing up. Curfews were flexible. I tried to keep the reins as loose as possible without letting them go slack.

So given the choice between a society that tolerates gay guys prancing (yeah, what a cliche) in the streets or one that creates a truly vile atmosphere towards my fellow humans that makes some folks think acting out their violent fantasies towards people who are different (actively despised) is in the spirit of the age, I'm with the prancing gay guys all the way.

I'm kinda like Grant when it comes to moral panics. I don't scare worth a damn. And there are more citizens joining the unafraid ranks every day. I'm hoping that they represent enough New Yorkers to defeat Palidino. Pour encourager les autres.

Update: In case you are not comfortable voting for a Democrat and don't want to sit this one out Warren Redlich has been giving Paladino the HELL he deserves on the campaign trail.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Discrimination

Some people get all the breaks. But the question is: discrimination or bigotry? Discrimination allows you to tell the difference between red and blue. Bigotry is hating blue for some arbitrary reason.

...when statistics about other racial differences have been cited in the same strident voices when other statistics showed blacks laid off more than whites during economic downturns or the children of black women having higher infant mortality rates than the children of white women.

What we have very seldom seen or heard in such parading of statistics are other statistics— which are readily available— showing that (1) whites are turned down for mortgage loans more often than Asian Americans, (2) whites resort to subprime loans more often than Asian Americans, (3) whites have been laid off more in a downturn than Asian Americans, and (3) the children of white mothers have higher infant mortality rates than the children of mothers of Filipino or Mexican ancestry, even though these mothers receive less prenatal care than white mothers.

So are whites suffering from discrimination or they the victims of bigotry? There is no way just a number can tell that story. You have to look into the hearts of men.

H/T Jccarlton at Talk Polywell

The Problem Is White People

Yep. White people are messing up the election. But there is a fix for that. Don't allow them to vote.

As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don't think we can be trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.

I give you Exhibit A: The last eight years.

In 2000, Bush-Cheney stole the election, got us attacked, and then got us into two no-exit wars. Four years later, white people reelected them. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? (It is, I looked it up.)

Exhibit B is any given Sarah Palin rally.

We are really lucky the white guy is no bigot. If he was some kind of racist bigot he would be saying things like "black people shouldn't be allowed to vote because of the color of their skin and because they are too stupid to make good choices". Which of course is not true. Except in the case of white people. So maybe I have this whole race thing in America wrong. I'm going to have to get with the program. Does the Aryan Nation accept Jews?

H/T Newsbusters

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Anti-Railroading Society

Let me state here at the beginning that I do not have it in for the Union Pacific, B&O, Southern Pacific or any of the myriad other rail transportation companiers in America. The kind of railroading I'm against is where police and prosectors home in on a suspect and won't let go despite evidence of innocence.

We have seen that in the Duke case where the charges against the 3 Duke lacrosse players is demonstratively false. The accuser's story has changed in very significant ways over time. None of them matching the evidence. The accuser couldn't identify any lacrosse players in the first two line ups. None of her early descriptions matched any of the boys she picked. And on. The case is a bust and yet DA Nifong couldn't quit. He needed the case to win a hotly contested primary election.

However, similar cases are reported all over America. What is unusual in this case is that the boy's parents were in a positioin to fight back. They have good lawyers who have investigated and destroyed the case before it even came to trial. So badly destroyed that the original DA in the case is now up before the bar on charges.

However, most such cases never get the spotlight or the resources this case did. Who gets buried by such tactics? Poor people. Many blacks, hispancics, and poor white trash. Which brings me to the Duke Chapel. Rev. William Barber spoke yesterday at Duke Chapel. A sermon. KC Johnson discusses what he heard.

I decided to watch the webcast of Barber's sermon to hear what he had to say. With copious references to Martin Luther King, Jr., Barber organized his talk around the "devastation of denial" when Pontius Pilate gave into the mob and denied clemency for Jesus.

"The refusal to acknowledge what is right in front of us," declared Barber, "can be devastating," even more so when accompanied by a denial of responsibility to change what is bad. Any "attempt to deny injustice covers us with the blood of guilt," since "all the denial in the world will not save us from ultimately having to face reality." To replace this atmosphere, "what we need today is a theology of truth and not denial."

Then he goes on to discuss all the Rev.'s individual and collective denials. In other words the Rev. is trying to support a case that doesn't exist.

What he needs to do is turn his whole mind set around. Which is very hard. What Rev. Barber needs to focus on is bigotry free justice. I'm not just talking in a raicial or other similar context. I'm talking about situations where there is a rush to judgement, which in itself is a kind of bigotry. Bigotry is the art of avoiding evidence contrary to preconcieved notions. We know this happens from the numerous cases of people on death row exonerated after many years in prison. We also know the system is reluctant to re-examine the evidence when it is available. Which means that the system thinks it has a lot to hide.

What I think the Rev. should do is join the anti-railroading society. Because, if the prosecutors would pull this on white boys look at how much easier it would be to do to blacks. How do poor people come up with even a retainer for top lawyers?

Rev. Barber needs a serious attitude re-adjustment.

Well any way. We should help our brothers get back on track rather than pick fights with them. It would be the Christian thing to do. Funny thing is I'm Jewish.

Cross Posted at Classical Values