shimmer

News from the town I grew up in....

School Expels Girl for Having Gay Parents
By Associated Press

ONTARIO, Calif. - A 14-year-old student was expelled from a Christian school because her parents are lesbians, the school's superintendent said in a letter.

Shay Clark was expelled from Ontario Christian School on Thursday.

"Your family does not meet the policies of admission," Superintendent Leonard Stob wrote to Tina Clark, the girl's biological mother.

Stob wrote that school policy requires that at least one parent may not engage in practices "immoral or inconsistent with a positive Christian life style, such as cohabitating without marriage or in a homosexual relationship," The Los Angeles Times reported in Friday's edition.

Stob could not be reached for comment by the newspaper. Shay and her parents said they won't fight the ruling.

School administrators learned of the parents' relationship this week after Shay was reprimanded for talking to the crowd during a football game, Tina Clark said.

Clark and her partner have been together 22 years and have two other daughters, ages 9 and 19.

It's disheartening to see this kind of bigotry in the place where I grew up. I realize that many Xian faiths feel homosexuality is wrong. I don't blame them for not fighting the ruling, though. Who wants to stay where they're clearly not wanted? (That's why I don't understand gay Republicans, either.)

Posted by Jean at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments

I'm to the decrease rows, finally! My camera isn't working, so I had to just scan a part of the Clapotis directly.

Posted by Jean at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments

Posted by Jean at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments

Editorial
Where's the Governator Now?
from The NY Times
Published: September 9, 2005

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a profile in timidity this week when he vowed to veto a pioneering bill authorizing gay marriage in California. The bill, which both houses of the Legislature passed by narrow margins, would expand the definition of marriage to include a civil contract between two people, not exclusively a man and woman. This was an enlightened and fair-minded stand that made California's Legislature the first in the nation to approve same-sex marriages.

Too bad Mr. Schwarzenegger could not find the courage to sign the bill into law. Instead, even before receiving the bill, he announced a tortured rationale for vetoing it. For years, social conservatives have accused judges of deciding social issues that should be left to legislators. Now Mr. Schwarzenegger wants to ignore his Legislature and leave gay marriage to the courts or the voters at large to decide.

He relies on a fig leaf: five years ago, Californians voted overwhelmingly for a ballot measure that recognized only heterosexual marriages as valid. A statement by the governor's press office declared, "We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote."

That ignores the fact that five years is an eternity in the fast-moving arena of gay rights. Even though 61 percent of the voters approved the ballot measure, recent polls show that the electorate is now evenly split, with Democrats and independents favoring same-sex marriage and Republicans strongly opposed. The Legislature is hardly a renegade body if it roughly mirrors popular opinion.

Mr. Schwarzenegger also seems to have forgotten that this nation was founded as a republic, in which the citizens elect legislators to govern on their behalf. Such representative democracy is especially important when it comes to protecting the fundamental rights of minorities, who may face bigoted hostility from some segments of the electorate.

It's easy to guess why Mr. Schwarzenegger was in such a hurry to announce his veto. Although he was initially hailed as a centrist Republican superhero who could appeal to a broad range of voters, his popularity has plummeted, and polls show that most Californians are inclined to oppose his re-election. Only his Republican base continues to back him.

Mr. Schwarzenegger's own views of gay marriage are hidden beneath vague, elusive, sometimes contradictory comments that add up to ducking the issue. The former Mr. Universe who has derided political opponents as "girlie men" is afraid to say what he really thinks. He falls back on a rationale that would leave the issue to the courts or another vote of the people. Anything to get him off the hook.

Posted by Jean at 9:01 AM | Permalink | Comments

September 8, 2005

Dear Gov. Schwarzenegger:

You should be ashamed of yourself for considering vetoing the same-sex
marriage bill passed by the California legislature.

This bill gives equal rights to a group that is often discriminated
against. I understand you are trying to show respect for "the will of the
people." But if the will of the people was to discriminate against
African-Americans, Jews, or some other group, would you want to respect
that wish?

When the majority wishes to discriminate against a minority group of our
population, that is the time to pass laws protecting them. I'm sorry to
hear you are considering protecting bigotry instead of equal rights. You
really should be ashamed of yourself.


Sincerely,

Posted by Jean at 3:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

Avalon Cares is the charitable fund of Officers of Avalon, Inc. Previously incarnated to collect monies for tsunami relief, it has been resurected on behalf of victims of hurricane Katrina. The dream is to end with a standing fund to continue helping others in genuine need, by networking with various pagan and non-pagan communities. To that end, we have begun organizing Avalon Cares for victims of Hurricane Katrina now, and with the long range vision of a continuing effort for other charitable causes, both incidental and long-term.

Please spread the word about this effort. We want the world to know that Pagans care about our communities, too.

-- quoted from the Avalon Cares website.

Posted by Jean at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments

To help the Katrina Hurricane victims, please take just a moment of your time and donate.

• The American Red Cross


• Mercy Corps


• Second Harvest

I also heartily recommend Charity Navigator for checking out the effectiveness and reputation of various charities. Charity Navigator considers The Red Cross and Mercy Corps both to be 4-star charities, while Second Harvest is a three-star charity (still a good rating). I personally plan to give money to Mercy Corps today. I can only give a little from my paycheck, as I earn a pathetically low wage, but I have some money that I was saving for Witchcamp next year, and I'll give that, too.

Posted by Jean at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments

09/02/2005 15:55

President George W. Bush pays back the good Christian Americans who elected him despite his illegal act of slaughter in Iraq by sitting in his Texas ranch for two days after the most horrific suffering was visited on the area around New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina.

After two hundred billion dollars were spent in destabilising Iraq, slaughtering up to one hundred thousand innocent civilians, blasting the legs and arms off defenceless children and leaving the country and region in utter chaos, the best he can do is a brief flyover of the region and a belated visit, hurriedly put together only because of the protests.

And the protests are many, and venomous and rightly so. How is it possible that in a country which is always blowing its horn about how advanced it is, that people are starving to death? Is this Somalia? No, it is George Bush's United States of America.

How is it possible that young children are dying of thirst. Is this Mali? No, it is George Bush's United States of America.

How is it possible that people are having to scavenge for food. Is this Burkina Faso? No, it is George Bush's United States of America.

So, this is how President George Bush treats the people who put their trust in him. After siphoning off 200 billion USD of their hard-earned cash to finance his illegal act of butchery overseas, he turns his back on them, leaves them to wallow in the sewage, to lie rotting in the streets and to starve to death.

Welcome to George Bush's United States of America. It appears the man is as inept at governing his own country as he is at conducting foreign policy. George W. Bush will go down in the annals of history as the worst president this country has ever had and the worst leader the international community is unfortunate enough to have been forced to rub shoulders with. -- Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Posted by Jean at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments

"Some of them, it was their last night on Earth," Terry Ebbert, chief of homeland security for New Orleans, said of people who ignored orders to evacuate the city of 480,000 over the weekend. "That's a hard way to learn a lesson."

Yes, that will teach those damn people to be poor! Many of those stranded and dying in New Orleans now could NOT evacuate. The hurricane came at the end of the month, when the poor are usually completely broke and awaiting the first of the month for paychecks. They did not have enough money for transportation out of the area, and nobody could be bothered to help them out.

I was watching Jim Lerher interview Mike Brown, head of FEMA, last night. Here's a quote I found particularly disgusting:

MIKE BROWN: Well, let me answer the question two ways: First, with regard to the evacuation of the Superdome and the convention center, we have had an ongoing supply food and water to there. They've had meals every day that they've been there. They had meals this morning.

Really? He must have missed this story (from the Gwinnett, Georgia paper), and the dozens of stories just like it. Here's a short passage about those at the New Orleans Convention Center.

At one point the crowd began to chant, ‘‘We want help! We want help!’’ Later, a woman, screaming, went on the front steps of the convention center and led the crowd in reciting the 23rd Psalm, ‘‘The Lord is my shepherd...’’

‘‘We are out here like pure animals,’’ Issac Clark said.

‘‘We’ve got people dying out here — two babies have died, a woman died, a man died,’’ said Helen Cheek. ‘‘We haven’t had no food, we haven’t had no water, we haven’t had nothing. They just brought us here and dropped us.’’

Tourist Debbie Durso of Washington, Mich., said she asked a police officer for assistance, and his response was, ‘‘'Go to H--- — it’s every man for himself.’’’

‘‘This is just insanity,’’ she said. ‘‘We have no food, no water ... all these trucks and buses go by and they do nothing but wave.’’

FEMA director Michael Brown said the agency just learned about the situation at the convention center Thursday and quickly scrambled to provide food, water and medical care and remove the corpses.

If he only learned about it yesterday, how was he also asserting yesterday that they were given food and water?!?

In the meantime, Nero fiddles....

Posted by Jean at 9:14 AM | Permalink | Comments

Daily Kos: Category 4 Hurricane Determined to Strike U.S. -- Cont.
by Hunter at Daily Kos

Thu Sep 1st, 2005 at 10:28:22 PDT


George W. Bush was once known as the C.E.O. President, a term his handlers eagerly coined in order to convey that the country would from now on be run like a business. That quickly evolved into the less flattering Enron President... then the War President... now it's looking like we can all finally settle on one. George W. Bush: the Disaster President.

'I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees.'

He honestly said that. If that brings up more than a passing twinge of familiarity, being a more than remarkable restatement of Condi Rice's now-famous assertion to the Senate panel -- then I suppose we shouldn't be surprised.

But it does bring up something that we joke about often, but apparently have never taken quite seriously enough: our President is an idiot. I don't mean an average, run-of-the-mill idiot. I mean an idiot who apparently, for the entire duration of his presidency, literally was paying absolutely no attention to even the most life-threateningly critical tasks of government.

The administration specifically cut the funds to fix these specific levees, in order to specifically divert that Corps money to Iraq, despite urgent warnings and predictions of catastrophic disaster if the levees were breeched. The administration specifically cancelled the Clinton-backed flood control program to preserve and restore the wetlands between New Orleans and the gulf, instead specifically opening parts of that buffer zone for development.

Nobody anticipated this disaster? It was identified by FEMA as one of the top three likeliest major disasters to strike America. (That link, one of countless stories, was from 2001, by the way.) It has been a major disaster scenario for years. Everybody anticipated it, which makes this single statement by George W. Bush possibly the most dishonest, lying, craptacularly false thing he has ever said in his presidency -- even surpassing his now-infamous State of the Union Address. Truly, this is President Bush's blue-dress moment.

And yet, funneling the money into Iraq was more important. You better bet your crapulent, lying, one-track, drink-addled ass that's a political issue.

He also said today:

'I hope people don't play politics at this time of a natural disaster the likes of which this country has never seen.'

Oh, I'm touched. Utterly touched. After 9/11, the entire Republican Party went en masse to get Twin Towers ass tattoos. The Republican convention was a wholesale tribute to crass exploitation, the sets themselves designed to evoke the aftermath of the attack. Every domestic and international policy this administration -- no, this entire Republican government -- has produced has been heaved up before the public while waving the spectre of 9/11 as the catch-all vindication of every administration whim. Every tax cut, every civil rights issue, every budget cut, every budget expansion, no matter how tortured the logic must be, has some Republican senator standing on the Senate floor and proudly raping the corpses of that day as justification for their particular agenda item.

Oh, we've seen politicization of disaster. Every Republican campaign for the last four years has revolved around the politicization of disaster.

But Lord help us, George W. Bush is going to get the vapors if anyone asks him to explain his administration's active cuts of the very programs designed to keep New Orleans safe."

Posted by Jean at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments

Friday, September 2nd, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush:

Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.

Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?

Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!

I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?

And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!

On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.

There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.

No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!

You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

Posted by Jean at 8:13 AM | Permalink | Comments

From Repent America:

HURRICANE KATRINA DESTROYS NEW ORLEANS
DAYS BEFORE "SOUTHERN DECADENCE"

PHILADELPHIA - Just days before "Southern Decadence", an annual homosexual celebration attracting tens of thousands of people to the French Quarters section of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina destroys the city.

"Southern Decadence" has a history of filling the French Quarters section of the city with drunken homosexuals engaging in sex acts in the public streets and bars. Last year, a local pastor sent video footage of sex acts being performed in front of police to the mayor, city council, and the media. City officials simply ignored the footage and continued to welcome and praise the weeklong celebration as being an "exciting event". However, Hurricane Katrina has put an end to the annual celebration of sin.

On the official "Southern Decadence" website (www.SouthernDecadence.com), it states that the annual event brought in "125,000 revelers" to New Orleans last year, increasing by thousands each year, and up from "over 50,000 revelers" in 1997. This year’s 34th annual "Southern Decadence" was set for Wednesday, August 31, 2005 through Monday, September 5, 2005, but due to massive flooding and the damage left by the hurricane, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has ordered everyone to evacuate the city.

The past three mayors of New Orleans, including Sidney Barthelomew, Marc H. Morial, and C. Ray Nagin, issued official proclamations welcoming visitors to "Southern Decadence". Additionally, New Orleans City Council made other proclamations recognizing the annual homosexual celebration.

"Although the loss of lives is deeply saddening, this act of God destroyed a wicked city," stated Repent America director Michael Marcavage. "From 'Girls Gone Wild' to 'Southern Decadence,' New Orleans was a city that had its doors wide open to the public celebration of sin. From the devastation may a city full of righteousness emerge," he continued.

New Orleans is also known for its Mardi Gras parties where thousands of drunken men revel in the streets to exchange plastic jewelry for drunken women to expose their breasts. This annual event sparked the creation of the "Girls Gone Wild" video series.

"We must help and pray for those ravaged by this disaster, but let us not forget that the citizens of New Orleans tolerated and welcomed the wickedness in their city for so long," Marcavage said. "May this act of God cause us all to think about what we tolerate in our city limits, and bring us trembling before the throne of Almighty God," Marcavage concluded.

"[God] sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." (Matthew 5:45)

OK, how is the ending scriptural quote supposed to support the idea that God sends hurricanes to punish queers? (Also see: complete lack of disasters at San Francisco gay pride parades.)

Posted by Jean at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments

Is Katrina God's punishment for abortion?

from War Room, Salon.com
By Tim Grieve

We knew this was coming.

Two days after 9/11, Jerry Falwell took to the airwaves to proclaim that God had allowed the United States to be attacked because 'the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians' had tried to transform America into a secular society. Just this weekend, wingnuts from the Westboro Baptist Church turned out at the funerals of two fallen soldiers to say that God is punishing the United States in Iraq for its tolerance of homosexuality back home.

So when Hurricane Katrina hit land yesterday, we knew it was only a matter of time before we'd be hearing from the lunatic fringe again. And now, here it is. In an e-mail message we just received, a group calling itself Columbia Christians for Life alerts us to the fact that a satellite image of Hurricane Katrina as it hit the Gulf Coast Monday looks just like a six-week-old fetus.

'The image of the hurricane ... with its eye already ashore at 12:32 p.m. Monday, August 29, looks like a fetus (unborn human baby) facing to the left (west) in the womb, in the early weeks of gestation (approx. 6 weeks),' the e-mail message says. 'Even the orange color of the image is reminiscent of a commonly used pro-life picture of early prenatal development.'

And in case you're not getting the point, the e-mail message spells it out in black and white: 'Louisiana has 10 child-murder-by-abortion centers,' the groups says, and 'five are in New Orleans.'

But why would God single out Louisiana? Other states have many more abortion clinics, and Louisiana and the other states hit hardest by Katrina all voted for the pro-life president of the United States. It didn't add up for us at first, but the Columbia Christians for Life have an answer for everything. God has already punished California with earthquakes, forest fires and mudslides; New York with 9/11; and Florida with Hurricanes Bonnie, Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne and the early version of Katrina.

I like the theory that God (aka Yahweh, Jehovah) punishes us for--basically--being too liberal, but when He does, it's actually the red states He sends disasters to. Couldn't God smite the blue states directly, if He's that pissed off?

Posted by Jean at 9:12 AM | Permalink | Comments