Betty Bowers - The World's Best Christian...

No Sin Zone: R.I.P. America:

Meet Tonya Jenkins. She died of shock this morning. You see, the poor thing had spent the past two years getting all of her information from Sean Hannity. She would then go to her favorite website, Free Republic, and read thousands and thousands and thousands of vitriolic posts, all containing no facts inconsistent with Mr. Hannity’s and no opinions that caused Tonya to rethink her own.

Tonya went to bed last night with a tumbler of cold tequila and a head full of comfy knowledge. She knew that the Lord Jesus would answer her prayer to never let no colored Muslim communist terrorist be no durn president. She was certain she would wake up to find that sassy Sarah Palin and her running mate, a wonderfully mavericky war hero, had been elected instead. In her Christian heart, Tonya was confident that Americans were every bit as racist as Republicans hoped they’d turn out to be, as the much discussed, posted about and wished for “Bradley Effect” would work its reactionary magic at the polls.

I needed this tonight. I am still in tears and short of breath. Read the rest HERE.

More Later.
*

Holiday Shoppers and a Perfect Manhattan

I have been relaxing with a perfect Manhattan following a very hot shower and dinner is on the way, so I thought I’d update what’s been going on around here since Wednesday.

Off from work Tuesday and Wednesday and, of course Thanksgiving Day, I chose to rest up and give the back a chance to heal a bit; at least a bit. Listening to music and reading was a luxury that I wouldn’t have traded for anything.

Showered and shaved Thursday night so I could be up, have a quick breakfast, coffee, and be ready to open the store at 7 am.

We know none of our customers would be dimwitted enough to be out shopping at that ungodly hour, but the Mall Nazis have their rules and they apply to ALL businesses, so we complied. Not one person set foot in the store until after 10 am. Then we were, as we say – SLAMMED! And they just kept coming – singles, couples, small groups, and hordes. It was exhausting. I need roller skates for next year.

Help arrived a little after noon when there was a lull as shoppers took a breather and had lunch. After that short break, we were busy all afternoon, as our third person arrived to pitch in. Between the snappy patter with our regular customers and new comers, it was a delightful (though exhausting) afternoon. I am sure we made some of the newcomers feel comfortable and that they will become regulars in the future, as well.

Having been at the store and on my feet for 12 hours I decided that the back had had enough, so I made my way home to have a shower, cocktail, and something to eat. The third item almost didn’t happen. The back pain was excruciating and all I wanted to do was lie down and die.

I was in bed and asleep by 8 pm.

Up before dawn today and having a coffee as I pulled myself into business drag for another day of salivating crazed shoppers. Opened the store two hours early (before most of the mall was open) and had a few good early sales.

As the saying goes – ‘blather, rinse, and repeat’ – today was almost identical to yesterday’s experience. Buyers were jovial; having a good time and not at all hostile.

Worked to the bitter end with a buzzing in my ears and searing pain in the back.

At the apartment (that shower and Manhattan worked wonders) and about to enjoy BBQ ribs, asparagus, and my own Cajun potato salad.

Thanks to the Goddess we open tomorrow at 11 am.

And so it goes.

*

Exhausted Caturday

Yes, that's the four of us after work today. Almost 12 hours yesterday and 13+ today.

More later, if I can keep my eyes open.

*

Black Friday, Indeed

A twelve hour day dealing with mostly sane people went well and everyone seemed happy. Not so in other places, like Long Island. From the NY Daily News:

Merry Christmas?

A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.

The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

What makes humans act in this manner? I just don't understand this kind of behavior.

Does anyone remember the reason for the season? Apparently not.

I smell olives.

And so it goes.

*

Macy Parade Gets "Rick Rolled"

Too funny.

Astley is clearly getting the last laugh and digging this new found fame even if 'Rick Rolling' was meant in a derogatory way.

It made me laugh out loud for the first time today. Also, he looks almost as he did when the song was popular - 20 years ago.

It's now definitely cocktail time at this abode.

Maybe more later.
*

Harvey Milk Assassination: Thirty Years On

It was thirty years ago on this date that Dan White brutally murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
This is from Yahoo and written by Rob Epstein, the director of "The Times of Harvey Milk" in which he compares Prop 8 of today, with Prop 6 back in 1977-78:

Thirty years ago on election night Harvey Milk gave an electrifying speech at the "No on Proposition 6" headquarters in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco. The results were in: Proposition 6 was going down to defeat.

In 1978, Proposition 6 ( "the Briggs Initiative") was the California ballot measure aimed at preventing gay people and supporters from working as teachers in public schools. Harvey Milk was a San Francisco city council member who had been in office for a mere ten months. Through his role in this campaign he proved himself to be more than just an "elected gay official." He was a leader at the height of his powers. When introduced to the crowd that night by Sally Gearhart (another important figure in the fight against Proposition 6), the response to Harvey was thunderous. He proceeded to give one of the greatest speeches of his relatively short political career.

Although there are many parallels to be made between Proposition 6 (1978) and Proposition 8 (2008) there are also many differences. Unlike Proposition 8, Proposition 6 had a name, a face, and a personality as its figurehead in the person of State Senator John Briggs. Briggs came across as a seemingly opportunistic and somewhat ineffectual politician, but regardless of his baboonery, the issue that he and his supporters tapped into -- "gay teachers" -- was volatile enough to find large-scale support among the electorate. Only one month before the election it looked as if it would be a very close vote, with the majority of California voters in favor of its passage.

On the other side, we had Harvey Milk as our figurehead, a "community organizer" who understood the value and importance of a well-coordinated grass-roots campaign. As a coordinated master plan, Harvey debated Briggs in high school gyms and on TV and radio, while an army of well-trained volunteers went about "canvassing" door-to-door, speaking with people on the streets and in the shopping centers about the potential consequences of the "anti-gay" Briggs Initiative. Eventually, enough voters were convinced that the measure was both unnecessary and a possible violation of constitutional rights. Proposition 6 went down by a resounding 59 to 42 percent.

On election night Harvey delivered his galvanizing speech with gale-wind force:

...to the gay community all over this state, my message to you is, so far a lot of people joined us and rejected Proposition 6, and we owe them something. We owe them to continue the education campaign that took place. We must destroy the myths once and for all, shatter them. We must continue to speak out, and most importantly, most importantly, every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is you must tell your immediate family, you must tell your relatives, you must tell your friends, if indeed they are your friends, you must tell your neighbors, you must tell the people you work with, you must tell the people in the stores you shop in (thunderous applause), and once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. And once you do, you will feel so much better.

In light of the passage of Proposition 8, Harvey's message of thirty years ago remains as vital today as it was then. It is our responsibility to let our loved ones, co-workers, friends, and neighbors know who we are, so that those who vote in favor of discrimination have our names and faces in their minds eye when doing so.

Although Proposition 8 wasn't exactly a re-make of Proposition 6, it's the same disaster movie storyline pitch: any recognition of constitutional rights for gay and lesbian citizens will somehow destroy the natural order and as a result America's institutions -- be they schools or marriage--will crumble.

Harvey pitched a different storyline: an accommodating democratic society based on constitutional principles, including the separation of church and state, and equality for all its citizens will make our country stronger and freer. But Harvey was more than just a good pitchman. He had an innate sense of history, and as a result he made his mark on history. Three weeks after his Proposition 6 victory speech Harvey was killed, and we're still waiting for another leader of his ilk to emerge. While we may not be able to predict from where or when real leaders come, eventually they do. In the meantime, as we celebrate the election of a man whose own parents' interracial marriage would not have been legal in sixteen states prior to 1967, Harvey we're still waiting.

Rob Epstein is the director of the Oscar winning film The Times of Harvey Milk, and is this years' recipient of the International Documentary Association's Pioneer Award.

“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” - Harvey Milk.

And so it goes.

Happy Thanksgiving, I think...

Yes, someone had way too much time on their hands.

It's quiet and sunny this morning. I'll be working at cleaning the place after breakfast, since I'll be at the store all weekend. Have to be there tomorrow at 6 am; not that our customers will be around, but it's the rule of the mall nazis. Never mind the economy.

More later.
*

Wishful Thinking?

I can dream, can't I?

More later
*

MILK Opens Today

Part of the review from Today's NY Times:

One of the first scenes in “Milk” is of a pick-up in a New York subway station. It’s 1970, and an insurance executive in a suit and tie catches sight of a beautiful, scruffy younger man — the phrase “angel-headed hipster” comes to mind — and banters with him on the stairs. The mood of the moment, which ends up with the two men eating birthday cake in bed, is casual and sexy, and its flirtatious playfulness is somewhat disarming, given our expectation of a serious and important movie grounded in historical events. “Milk,” directed by Gus Van Sant from a script by Dustin Lance Black, is certainly such a film, but it manages to evade many of the traps and compromises of the period biopic with a grace and tenacity worthy of its title character.

That would be Harvey Milk (played by Sean Penn), a neighborhood activist elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977 and murdered, along with the city’s mayor, George Moscone (Victor Garber), by a former supervisor named Dan White (Josh Brolin) the next year. Notwithstanding the modesty of his office and the tragic foreshortening of his tenure, Milk, among the first openly gay elected officials in the country, had a profound impact on national politics, and his rich afterlife in American culture has affirmed his status as pioneer and martyr. His brief career has inspired an opera by Stewart Wallace, an excellent documentary film (“The Times of Harvey Milk,” by Rob Epstein, from 1984) and now “Milk,” which is the best live-action mainstream American movie that I have seen this year. This is not faint praise, by the way, even though 2008 has been a middling year for Hollywood. “Milk” is accessible and instructive, an astute chronicle of big-city politics and the portrait of a warrior whose passion was equaled by his generosity and good humor. Mr. Penn, an actor of unmatched emotional intensity and physical discipline, outdoes himself here, playing a character different from any he has portrayed before.

This is less a matter of sexuality — there is no longer much novelty in a straight actor’s “playing gay” — than of temperament. Unlike, say, Jimmy Markum, Mr. Penn’s brooding ex-convict in Clint Eastwood’s “Mystic River,” Harvey Milk is an extrovert and an ironist, a man whose expansive, sometimes sloppy self-presentation camouflages an incisive mind and a ferociously stubborn will. All of this Mr. Penn captures effortlessly through voice and gesture, but what is most arresting is the sense he conveys of Milk’s fundamental kindness, a personal virtue that also functions as a political principle.

Which is not to say that “Milk” is an easy, sunny, feel-good movie, or that its hero is a shiny liberal saint. There is righteous anger in this movie, and also an arresting, moody lyricism. Mr. Van Sant has frequently practiced a kind of detached romanticism, letting his stories unfold matter-of-factly while infusing them with touches of melancholy beauty. (He is helped here by Danny Elfman’s elegant score and by the expressive cinematography of Harris Savides, whose touch when it comes to framing and focus could more aptly be called a caress.)

Go and read the whole thing HERE. The film opens today in NY, LA, and SF. God knows when - or if - it will ever get onto screens here.

And so it goes.

*

Say NO to Drugs?: An Update

Was she kidding? I mean, Nancy, really.

If not for the painkillers and muscle relaxants I would have killed myself a week ago. While the drugs relieve some pain, they cannot eliminate it completely.

Made an appointment with my PCP for last Thursday but not without a few hassles with the snotty reception staff (I don’t know what their medical title is) reading my beads for not calling sooner. Who are these people…my parents?

My last office visit was over a year ago and she wasn’t going to go easy on me essentially saying that she didn’t think I was worth the doctor’s time. I told her to look through the file and she might understand the reasons for the absence. She ignored that completely until I demanded that she do so.

Who are these people demanding a reason to see the doctor; WHY do they always sound like they’re doing a favour; WHY are they so disengaged; WHY do they ask about my symptoms. My answer is always the same – it’s none of your business. Why do you need to know? That usually shuts them up, though some have hung up on me.

All I ask is personal access to my PCP and/or his nurse or nurse practitioner. Not file clerks who answer the phones; demand payment before even seeing the doctor.

Fast forward.

The appointment went well; the dr. was on holiday so I met with the nurse practitioner that knew my history, updated my file, and answered all my questions. Blood pressure was still elevated, but better than in the ER. She was surprised to learn that I am no longer insured.

I needed prescriptions for ongoing meds as part of the daily regimen. The NP gave me refills, and refills for the painkillers and muscle relaxants prescribed by the ER physician.

While I am no longer whimpering in constant pain, when it hits it is manageable with the Ibuprofen and in severe situations a muscle relaxant helps me sleep.

I pray for the morning that I wake with no pain.

I smell olives.

And so it goes.

*

Clarifying Lies About Prop 8 Protests.

From Black Tsunami:

We need to clarify the lies about the Proposition 8 'protests'

I wrote this as a sort of itemization of claims by the religious right. The unfortunate thing is that we don't have a network of pundits or shows (i.e. Fox network) to set the story straight.

There have been claims that due to the Proposition 8 vote, the gay community has undergone a coordinated plan of violence against those who voted for the law.

Senator Mike Huckabee, former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, syndicated columnists such as Michelle Malkin and Thomas Sowell, and religious right organizations have referenced incidents that according to them, proves this assertion.

But all of these individuals are incorrect. The incidents in question have been either exaggerated or distorted.

Whatever the case may be, the incidents in question are isolated, and certainly are not indicative of the needs and desires of the gay community. However, for the sake of clarity, the complete story behind each incident must be given:

Distortion - For no particular reason other than their hatred, gays attacked a 69-year-old woman and ripped a styrofoam cross from her hand

Truth - The woman in question, Phyllis Burgess, is infamous in her area for invading gay events such pride festivals. While she has a right to attend, her behavior while at these events are clearly designed to draw attention and evoke a response. The incident in question had to do with her attending a silent protest over the passage of Proposition 8. People attending were asked to ignore her. However as television cameras appeared, she made it a point to push her way in the middle of the crowd, allegedly knocking over a disabled man. That only increased the volatility of the situation.

Go and read the rest at Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, then pass the link along to others.

More later.
*

President Obama: Can He Kick It?

Yes, He Can.

I love this, and in case you're not old enough to remember the music in the background, it's Take a Walk on the Wild Side by the Animals.

It's Sunday and that means a dining experience at the Parrot with friends.

And so it goes.
*