Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Hope, for this town of mine...

Bigotry loses – by a very narrow margin.

Amendment 1 failed in the local city elections last night. If you are not from G-Town, allow me to explain: About a year ago, the city commissioners made a bold, open-minded move and created an ordinance that allowed trans-gendered individuals to use whichever public rest-room that best suited their needs.

Of course, the “moral right” immediately put up such a hue and cry, and demanded that it be struck from the books. They formed a committee of similarly small minded individuals, raised a cadre of misinformed masses and got a petition through demanding an amendment to not only remove the ordinance, but remove *all* anti-discrimination legislation from the city, and restrict the commissioners from ever creating any anti-discrimination referendum – ever.

Their battle cry was “Keep men out of women’s rooms!”, but what was really on their minds (forgive the overstatement) was complete discrimination against the gay and lesbian community, and any other folks what weren’t brung up proper, like they wuz. If they strictly wanted to keep men out of women’s rooms, then why wasn’t that the way the amendment was written? Why restrict the city solely to the classes already protected by (and only by) the State constitution? I don’t think that even they, those mule-minded bigots that unfortunately live within my town, realized exactly how far reaching their persecutionist retardation really was.

Yes, you would keep “men out of the women’s rooms”. You would also remove any gay rights or privileges, which could only have been part of your hidden agenda, owing to the wording you chose. You would have also removed the rights of opposite sex couples in G’Ville. Wait, what? Yes. The city has extended spousal rights to long-term unmarried couples. Bob and Mary have been together for 25 years, yet have never felt the need to get married. The city felt that Mary, due to her dedication and steadfastness, deserved the right that a “wife” should have. Amendment 1 would have ridded that, too.

The Citizens for Good Public Policy (oops, didn’t mean to name names….) even went so far to air a surveillance video taken from a recent incident. A man followed a woman into the restroom at a Home Depot, and tried to take photos under the stall with his phone. He was caught and arrested. They used this as a “weapon” to demonstrate how terrible this ordinance was, allowing such occurrences. Unfortunately for them, it completely knocks the winds out of their week sails. The man was…say it with me…arrested. Perverts can not use the ordinance to support their perversions. Period. They are going to prey upon others whether or not there is a law in place that really doesn’t affect them anyway. In fact, such perverts really don’t care about the law. They only care about satisfying their own needs. But I digress.

The point is now moot, as the true good citizens of this town pulled together on a polling Tuesday and said, “We don’t agree with your narrow-minded fanaticism” and, by a margin of 58%, said NO.

I am not affected by this law in any way, shape or form, but the little part of me that believes in equality is rejoicing. Sometimes the right thing IS done.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Bizkit the Sleep Walking Dog

I remember a teacher who argued that dogs didn't have souls because they didn't dream. Tell me this dog isn't dreaming...

I bet PETA is losing their minds over this video. "How dare you let that dog sleep so close to a wall!"

Monday, March 02, 2009

On death, and dying

It’s kind of strange; planning your own death… Even if it was just in jest.

This weekend past, I stepped down as the Landed Baron of my local SCA chapter. It was a great opportunity for schtick, and owing as to how I am a great lover of such, I really wanted to play it up. My Baroness just wanted to “walk away” and that’s fine, but I’m too much of the ham to just walk off from a gig like this.

I did have a “death” planned, but the week before the event was a rough one, SCA politally speaking, and, upon reflection, it didn’t seem like such a good idea to have my successor knock me off… While it was silly (very silly), it would give ammo to some folks currently engaged in a snipe hunt/pointless vendetta. No, I won’t go into details. It isn’t worth it, and it is, hopefully, over.

The “plan” was to have me decide that I wasn’t going to step down after all, and my successor, who was currently my herald, would squeeze an orange into my mug, thus “poisoning” me. (For those who've been hiding under a rock for the last 40 years, I am highly allergic to oranges...) The orange was brought up in the form of a “parting gift fruit basket” from the Barony. The Baroness was not in on the gag (few were – I wanted it to be a surprise) tried to remove the orange (it was fake – a good fake) from the basket, but I quietly told her not to. It worked out well, though, as it pointed out the fact that there was an orange in there. I made a distraction while the next Baron, quite theatrically, picked out the orange and made a show of squeezing it into my mug (behind my back, of course).

Well, as I mentioned, it was a rough week, and making a “villain” out of my successor would not have been such a great plan. I came up with an additional bit of schtick that no one knew about. I called him out and allowed him to turn over his office of herald to his deputy, and then dismissed him. I had an arrow stashed behind my throne and a squire to put it into my hand properly at the right time. I claimed knowledge of the poisoned mug and said that I was no fool to fall for such a silly trick, and then the arrow “struck”. “You’re right… honey… Four years… is long enough…”, I cried, as I got up and staggered out of court. The crowd seemed to like it, which was the intent. My lovely bride, however, didn’t take to kindly to it… Actually, she’s got a great sense of humor, but I caught her by surprise…

The rest of the day was spent being… ignored. People were well intentioned, but wrong. Folks thought they were doing me a favor and leaving me alone, but the end result was that I felt shunned. It seemed that I was some kind of anathema and people went out of their way to avoid me. Not intending to be vain, or anything, but it really sucked. I am a people person, and just came from a position that garnered me a lot of attention. Going from “a lot” to “none whatsoever” was a bit painful.

Sheeps had tried to prepare me, but until you actually experience it, you really just can’t understand. She’d arranged to have some friends come up and spend the event with me, to help ease the feeling, but "S" was very sick and couldn’t come, and his wife "B" could only come for a little while, before driving back home to take care of him. I understood, as you can’t really help being sick, but they were sorely missed. Marius was going to come, too, but ended up with car trouble and couldn’t make it. It had been a day that I was truly looking forward to, but it the reality was much more dismal.

I realize that the day belonged to the new Baron and Baroness, and folks believed themselves to be doing me a favor by giving me space, but they were shutting me off from the one thing that I thrive on – attention. Don’t get me wrong; I am not an attention whore who must be in the spotlight at all times, but I am, at least, an attention slut, and need, at minimum, some affirmation.

We’d have left early, but we’d already made plans to sit in on feast, and I’m glad we did. I don’t know how she managed to pull that off with the budget she had, but it was amazing. Food galore! And a ton of meat! The head cook and bottle-washer did an awesome job. After feast, I was too stuffed, and too tired to drive home, so we hit the cabin and crashed.

Sunday was a rainy, hazy day, so we packed up quickly and headed home, picking up donuts on the way. Comfort food, dontcha know…

All and all, it was kind of a “meh” weekend. It could have been a lot better, but, on the other hand, it could have blown up and been a lot worse. All told, I am relieved that is over, and I can concentrate on being a regular schmoe again.