How much is that doggie in the window?

priorities, priorities….

In his election victory speech Tuesday night, President-elect Barack Obama promised his two daughters that they’d be moving into the White House with a new puppy. Now the dogosphere is engaged in widespread speculation over the breed of the presidential pooch-to-be.

Or pooches-to-be. The American Kennel Club hopes that the pet will turn out to be a pair of 6-week-old toy poodles, rescued by Flora’s Pet Project/Poodle Rescue in Connecticut. First lady-to-be Michelle Obama said in an interview last month that the family was interested in adopting a rescue dog after the election.

Actually I commend Michelle for advocating adopting a rescued dog.  In case you haven’t noticed I have a link on the sidebar to an organization that works to find homes for unwanted dogs and cats.  It is one of my passions.   I think it is misguided to want to rescue a designer dog like a “toy poodle”.  They tend to have a better chance at finding a good home.  Maybe she would consider a mutt like one of my little sweeties.  We rescued Sofia from the Wake County animal shelter in Raleigh.  She was found wandering the streets in the rain at 6 months, malnourished and frightened.  She went as a cowboy this Halloween…

(H/T to Mawm for becoming my resident editorial cartoonist.  He promises to be a regular contributor)

1,538

That’s how many more days we have to wait until that lying sack of crap that the media forced down our throats packs his bags and moves back to Chicago.  That is, unless, the Republicans can expose any number of his many crimes, lies, or ties to unscrupulous and criminal friends and impeach him and send him to jail where he belongs.  But in the meantime we’re going to have to find other things to talk about.  I want this blog to be a center of discussion for civil rights.  Rights for women, gays, latinos, african americans–any group that finds itself under the thumb of oppression.   I also want this to be a place where anybody can talk about those issues that they are passionate about.  Even if it is not about politics.

So what’s on your mind?

I hear from Carol that the media is pretending that Sarah Palin never existed:

This picture is on the front page of FoxNews.com…I don’t want to have the role of the defender of women…or defender of any particular women…but what’s with this pic? Governor Palin has drawn bigger crowds than any of these men ….even her state (Alaska) is bigger than any of the three governors (Florida, Louisiana, Minnesota) whose pictures appears here…(not that each of the men has not distinguished himself in their Party)…but why is she now invisible? why is she not in the lineup?  I think she is getting the same attack – or lack of acknowledgment -  that Senator Clinton got / gets..

And in another slap in the face to women by our misogynist in chief, comes news of what may be the makeup of some of his cabinet (hint: no women yet!).  This, after his patronizing attitude towards Hillary supporters, his patronizing of a reporter by calling her sweetie, his “she’s likeable enough” and “she gets periodically down” digs.  As well as his text announcement that he wasn’t choosing Hillary to be VP at 3 a.m.  God I could keep going but here’s the latest:

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, who will inherit the worst financial crisis in decades when he takes office, is expected to announce his pick for some key economic jobs soon and may reveal his Treasury Secretary selection as early as Thursday.

Timothy Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker are among those being considered for the Treasury post.

It doesn’t seem to bother Obama that Summers holds views that women are somehow less able when it comes to understanding hard sciences such as math.  Maybe its because of who the women are that are criticizing him:

“Larry Summers has a clear and unequivocal record of sexism and misogyny,” said the group’s co-founder Amy Siskind in a statement. “Summers’ work history demonstrates a clear inability to work well with others, especially women.”

Another founding member of the group, The New Agenda, which has taken pro-Sarah Palin stands in the past and advocated against media sexism during the primary, is Dr. Nancy Hopkins of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hopkins famously clashed with Summers at a January 2005 MIT forum on women in the sciences after Summers, who was then president of Harvard University, said that the paucity of women in the hard sciences might be a reflection of their “intrinsic aptitude.”

What an asshole this guy is.  I mean he has two daughters.  Does he really want them to think that they are somehow less able to be scientists then men are?  What a national disgrace.  We will see that these four years will be a quiet chipping away of all the gains women have made in their fight for equality.  We need to be vigilant in our chronicles of these travesties so that they are not forgotten.   Anybody else got any horror stories?

Oh, and one last thing.  Michelle, honey, don’t get to thinking that because of the color of your skin, or that you’re now the first lady, they’re going to forget that you have a vagina too:

As wide-eyes stared with awe anticipating the first on-stage victory lap from the next first family and, perhaps, the most symbolically historic election ever, I can’t lie, my moist eyes were a bit bewildered.Two words about Michelle’s dress: No likey.

Even she deserves to be noticed for more than just what she’s wearing.

Civil Rights for Gays=Civil Rights for African Americans

I’ve had a troll suggest that the Prop 8 passage is somehow payback for racism in the “middle class white gay” community.  I also found evidence online of this belief.

Brown said that he had preached to his Third Baptist Church congregation in San Francisco that African-Americans especially should remember the connection between the Bible’s Golden Rule — “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” — and equal protection under the Constitution. However, he noted, some people didn’t see gay marriage as their issue.

“I think, to be quite candid, some people feel white gay and lesbian people have not been with them on the issue of race,” he said. “So (African-Americans) said, ‘Why should we be concerned about them when they were not concerned about us?’ “

Yes, there is racism in the gay community, but when you look at the community as a whole, it has always stood shoulder to shoulder with the African American community when it comes to civil rights.  But this kind of rationalization is both immature and dangerous.   Would Martin Luther King Jr suggest that denying rights to some groups is OK if it is done in order to exact revenge on that community?  Would the rev. Brown strip ALL white people of their rights given the opportunity?  No, of course not.  This is payback for perceived wrongs.  What it really is is just another symptom of the homophobia within the black community.  Brown should be ashamed of sugar coating his bigotry.  In fact I’ve read in several blogs by african americans the conspiracy theory that gay marriage is actually a plot to keep them down.  Of course they also tend to value their victimization above all others:

While homophobia in the Black community is certainly an issue we need to address, Blacks of all sexualities experience the reality that many white gays and lesbians think that because they’re gay, they “understand” oppression, and therefore could not be racist like their heterosexual counterparts. Bullshit. America is first built on the privilege of whiteness, and as long as you have white skin, you have a level of agency and access above and beyond people of color, period. White women and white non-heteros included.

I’m sure in his last moments of life that Matthew Shepherd understood oppression.  And your complete ignorance on the oppression of women, even white women, is shocking.  So, Kenyon Farrow, I call bullshit on you.  Your oppression is no different from mine.  Hate is colorblind.  In fact many black gay men and women find refuge in the gay community.  It is time for some people in the black community to wake up and smell the coffee.  And if you don’t want to hear it from a gay white man, maybe you’ll be more receptive to this:

Much of the media coverage about black reaction to the court decision has focused on black opposition to gay marriage, and a recent report by the National Black Justice Coalition, an organization that supports marriage equality for gays and lesbians, found that blacks were more likely than whites (65 percent versus 53 percent) to oppose same-sex marriage.

It is time to get over our petty bigotry and form a coalition to fight for equal rights for all minorities, and yes Kenyon, despite the color of my skin I am a minority.