Unapologetic Humanist Hoedown

Savage continues to spin out self-serving rants that expose his fevered ego delusions for display as coarse as a hooker in a window. Please sign the petition. Enough words on his tiny little mind.

This is my favorite homemade video of the internet age. Although on many talkboards over the years I have been labeled a ’secular humanist’ among other things, I don’t think of my humanism as being particularly anti-religious. Spirituality is part of the human experience and my humanism embraces everyone. I don’t want to take anyone’s holy book from their hands; I want everyone to read as many books as they can! Anyway, this video made me smile like crazy.

of Munkees and Savages

Send Karl Rove’s hiney to Jail,
End Michael Savage ability to rail.

The Prof found Mr. Weiner’s defiant non-apology here. I will reprint it here so that you don’t have to give him a pageview. He cares about those. Here’s his self-aggrandizement for your displeasure. I promise something happy at the end. 

The Autism Controversy

“My comments about autism were meant to boldly awaken parents and children to the medical community’s attempt to label too many children or adults as “autistic.”

Just as some drug companies have overdiagnosed “ADD” and “ADHD” to peddle dangerous speed-like drugs to children as young as 4 years of age, this cartel of doctors and drug companies is now creating a national panic by overdiagnosing “autism, for which there is no definitive medical diagnosis!

Many children are being victimized by being diagnosed with an “illness” which may not exist, in all cases. Just a few weeks ago doctors recommended dangerous anti-cholesterol drugs for children as young as 2 years of age! Without any scientific studies on the possible dangers of such drugs on children, corrupt doctors made this controversial, unscientific recommendation.

Increasingly, our children are being used as profit centers by a greedy, corrupt medical/pharmaceutical establishment. As the brother of a severely disabled person who suffered and died in a New York “snake-pit” of a “mental hospital,” I know first-hand what true disability is.

To permit greedy doctors to include children in medical categories which may not be appropriate is a crime against that child and their family. Let the truly autistic be treated. Let the falsely diagnosed be free.”

Michael Savage

Mr. Weiner thinks himself a noble and brave truth-teller who apparently feels free to exploit his dead brother’s suffering as a shield. His brother knew first-hand what disability is. Savage at best understands it second-hand. Having any kind of relationship with a disabled individual does not grant one a privileged position to spew ignorant and malicious misinformation about disabled people over the public airwaves any more than having a black half-brother would make it okay for you to call black people ‘n*ggers’ on the radio. His rationalizations about provoking a discussion are sad and pathetic at best and certainly not worth acknowledging beyond that. If for a moment anything he wrote in his statement seems reasonable, please refresh your memory as to what his venomous mouth said. Then please consider taking a moment to sign this petition.

I promised to end on a happy note. Miss Mayweather and I went squeeeee with delight at the latest installment of Fillup Munkee. This is my new wallpaper.

HULLO FILLUP!

Note to Michael Savage: Screaming Insults at Autistic Children is an Ineffective Treatment

If you like books, you will find this interesting.

What is Hanny’s Vorrwerp?

Here’s your basic right wing mind unhinged for clearer viewing.

That last link is to an unpleasant tirade by Michael Savage on his radio show, “The Savage Nation”. In a brief few moments he manages to be racist, accuses autistic children of being brats who are acting, and then insults the parenting of American families. In the midst of this he recounts his own father verbal abusing him and tells his listeners they should verbally abuse their children too. 

As Lou Reed said, ‘in the name of family values, we must ask, ‘whose family’?’

Mr. Weiner (which is ‘Savages’ real name) makes a lot of money for saying ugly things. There is an audience for this that wants to hear these ugly things because they want to be reassured that the ugly things inside them are not alone. Mr. Weiner believes that homeopathy works, or at least he has tried to make a buck from it. This is the National Institutes of Health fact sheet on Autism. These are the people Mr. Weiner says are acting.

Mr. Weiner likes to insult people and call them names. His audience enjoys listening to him do it. I wonder if any of them understood the irony when Mr. Weiner quoted Papa Weiner as saying to him as a lad, “Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.”

CONTACT YOUR LOCAL STATION AND LET THEM KNOW WHAT YOU THINK.

A Greeting to My Readers

I have noticed that over the past several months my readership has increased by a modest degree to the extent that I can be certain that there are actually people reading this blog regularly. To you, the reader I have never met, I say hello.

‘Hello’. (Big smile, offers hand, crickets chirp in darkness.)

Anyway, Boo Already apparently found my review of her short films and says that Fillup will be reading it in his next installment and I find myself to be excited as he is. It’s a delightfully meta moment that for me is even better than the editor of Worldnutdaily freaking out over one of my whimsies. Morbidiculous is a new site I found through my comment threads, and I think the cartoons are hilarious.

News of the Grotesque

But of course, their readership are not especially noted for their keen grasp of ironic satire.

The best thing I can say about the cover of the New Yorker is that at least they portrayed him as a human being and not some kind of monkey. It’s not that I don’t get it. I absolutely understand the point of the joke; it’s just that I think it’s stupid to think that anyone would like such an ugly image. Lord knows I have produced my share of ugly images, some of them even intentionally, but even I understand that image would be an instant FAIL.  

I’ve been meaning to mention this tidbit before it is entirely buried by the accumulation of daily outrages that pile upon us. That FOX News is so insecure they feel they have to attack reporters who point out facts like FOX slipping in the ratings is no surprise. That they would manipulate the photos of these men to make them look hideous should be even more outrageous than an ill-conceived cartoon. Photomanipulation of this sort by an alleged new organization is Orwellian, no matter what fit of pique prompted it. 

The Roma continue to be persecuted in Europe. Catholics go berzerk over wafers. I’m pretty certain Jesus wouldn’t want anyone making death threats over his Body. This makes me wonder where all those Florida Pro-Lifers who made such a fuss over Terry Schiavo are. Sometimes the news just isn’t pretty.

bastille days in the life

Great story, bad headline. His name is Dylan, not ‘Cerebral Palsy boy’. The headline should have read ‘Boy with Cerebral Palsy mows lawns.’ I realize that economy of words is a consideration for headline writing, but one word makes a big difference.

Okay, Bastille Day is Monday, but Kenny’s birthday party was Saturday and his actual birthday is the 14th, so, whatever. My Bastille Day was yesterday. It was a lovely party. Netheria and I talked all evening about this and that and she was naturally very curious about Julia. Incidentally, Julia moved her stuff out today but it’s cool; her staying here was always supposed to be temporary. We’re still going to see each other and everything but I realized yesterday how accustomed I have become to her face when I came home and she was gone. We went to the Field Museum on Friday and had a wonderful time. The whole day was great. The Mythic Creatures exhibit was interesting, and they’ve redone the Evolution and fossil exhibit hall since I’ve been there last and it’s really marvelous. It’s very up-to-date and presented clearly. We spent a lot of time in the Egyptian collection. Julia is fascinated by the ancients and we talked about them all afternoon. We dashed through the upper level until they told us it was time to leave, caressing stones from space and reflecting before Tibetan artifacts. Julia stopped stripping a while ago, not because I ever asked her to or indicated that I had a problem with it, but because she wanted to. It was after I introduced her to Miss Mayweather, actually. Still, when I described her to Netheria I mentioned she had been a stripper. I suppose I did it because I enjoyed the reaction she gave me, but I realize as I write this that Julia isn’t going back to that and is headed toward different things. She’s changed, and the truth is that she has changed me too. I don’t know where our relationship is headed at all, but I have no regrets so far. And I miss her this Sunday morning.

Netheria and I talked about books and movies, and I just had to tell her about the incredible film experience I had that very afternoon. Yesterday afternoon I picked up a crate of records and two paintings that I had left with DJ DJ and he came back to my place for lunch. On Thursday I picked up a load of DVD’s on sale, and one of them was the Richard Donner cut of Superman II. I loved the original since I saw it in the theaters when I was 11. It is difficult to describe the experience of seeing a radically different version of a film this familiar; it is a truer sequel to the first film and DJ DJ and I were both comepletely blown away. I’ve seen a lot of films lately; Julia has re-introduced me to the world of cinema. On Thursday night she made me watch Mel Gibson’s ‘Apocolypto‘ and I was shocked by how much I liked it. Mel Gibson may be a little crazy and unusual but he is a compelling filmmaker. The party was lovely.

My unlimited love to y’all.

Obama must be doing something right…

…if he’s managing to aggravate Jesse Jackson and the left even as he drives the right wing into frothing insanity. There may actually be some hope here. When all of the radicals are annoyed, it usually means that there is a pragmatic individual in the room who gives not a whit for ideological purity. That’s my kind of fellow. The kind that gets things done. If you measure a man by who opposes him, Mr. Obama is a very tall man indeed by my yardstick.

4ths of July in the Life

This past week has been hectic and strange.

Lily, you were mentioned three times to me on the 4th of July by different people in different places, and I think only one of them knows anything about what Independence Day reminds us of or how appropriate the name of that day is to our private anniversaries. I will always remember the fireworks when we brought you home. Teh internets keep you close to me. Laughing with you is the best.

Dahlia, every time I saw the rockets red glare and the bombs bursting in air I thought of my London Lady fair. You couldn’t be closer to me if you were here. Do you remember when we were walking down Michigan Avenue in a sea of people and the toy soldier in front of FAO Schwarz started waving and shouting ‘Hey, Winston!’ and it was like a to-ridiculous-to-ever-actually-happen-in-real-life kind of movie moment? Well, he runs an entertainment company that does small events and birthday parties and he needed somebody to frolic in a moose costume at a local festival this weekend. He kind of called me out of the blue and said he really needed somebody to do this for him. How could I say no? Needless to say, I had as much fun as one could have in a giant cartoon moose costume on a sunny 85 degree afternoon. I gadded and cavorted with mad abandon in front of the WXRT booth to the delight of all. There was a cover band nearby that worked it’s way through an oldies set of songs from twenty years or more ago with a White Stripes tune thrown in their mix. The photographer from the local paper who was not wearing a cartoon moose costume thought it would be a good idea for me to make a spectacle of myself in front of the bandstand. Turns out he was right. While the band worked their way through ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ I gyrated spastically in the best approximation of how a moose might boogie down and several children joined me, including a young lady with Down’s Syndrome who took great delight in holding my paw while twirling. The band in a moment of mad spontanity sang a chorus of ‘Hungry Like the Moose’ and a very mild wave of whimsy crested through the afternoon. Another forty five minutes of waving and posing for pictures with tourists (there was a schoolteacher from Wyoming who asked for a picture with me for her fifth grade class. Weird.) and children and then I was done. I smelled like a moose.

I spent the 4th and 5th with the Port Awesome crew. Gargunza and I drove back from Indiana together and had a delightful conversation. He only almost got us killed once, which is really good for him. Justin and Maggie are out in the country near Hobart and have a beautiful view. I failed horribly at Guitar Hero.

Gotta get some sleep. My unlimited love to y’all.
WD

There’s no such slur as ‘whitey’

I was at a barbecue in Indiana today, and it’s a long story as to how I ended up there, but it involved the Port Awesome crew. Anyway, while I was there I overheard a conversation between two fellows about the video of Michelle Obama saying ‘whitey’ at Trinity Baptist in 2004. I didn’t interject as I didn’t want to get into an argument but here you can read one of the wormtongued vermin elaborating on why this video still seems nonexistent. I believe there is no video of Michelle Obama uttering the word ‘whitey’ while on stage with Lous Farrakhan onstage at Trinity Baptist in 2004. If there is, show it or shut up about it.

I’ve never heard ’whitey’ come out of the mouth of any African-American in real life in anger as an actual slur. I’ve attended lectures and presentations by rather radical African-American speakers and never heard any of them say it. When I got bitch-slapped by a pimp (who was a black man) for interceding between him and a woman he was beating he called me many names but ‘whitey’ (or ‘honky’ or ‘cracker’) wasn’t one of them. The only time I’ve heard black people call white people ‘whitey’ is in tv shows and movies written and produced by white people, or in comedy sketches where black people are mocking racism. Aesthetically speaking, it doesn’t even sound threatening or derogatory; I mean, ‘Whitey’ Ford didn’t seem to mind the nickname that much (he had very blond hair) but people still get upset about a book with a character named ‘Nigger Jim’. Nobody has ever been called ‘whitey’ by their oppressors.

These ‘ethnic slurs’ for white people primarily exist these days in white people’s heads as a justification for the words they use for others. I’ve heard white people justify their use of slurs like ‘nigger’ by saying ‘well, they call us whitey and honky, so it’s the same thing.’ It’s not the same thing, and again, I’ve never heard those words hurled by a black person at a white person in anger. I’m sure it’s happened somewhere, sometime, but I’ve never heard it. I’ve heard whites refer to blacks as ’niggers’ with hate and disdain dripping from their voices my entire life. Racial animosity felt by blacks for whites is different in character than what is expressed by whites for blacks. For starters, black people are vastly outnumbered by whites. Secondly, whites have dominated the social structure of the country for a very long time and have used racist methods to keep non-whites in the underclass. For example, I have often heard whites who are ethnically Irish or Italian talk about words like ‘mick’ or ‘wop’ (which surely are slurs and offensive to use) as if they were equivalent to ‘nigger’. While these ethnic groups faced tremendous discrimination during their initial immigration after a few generations these groups were fully integrated into society without facing discrimination as an entire group. African-Americans can not ‘pass’ as white by simply changing their name or losing an accent. Polls often show that African-Americans are more ‘racist’ as a group, but I would submit that people on the receiving end of racial discrimination tend to be more conscious of race and these responses reflect that. The racism of Louis Farrakhan, while ignorant, self-serving, and venomously toxic is not comprable to the racism of a white supremacist in either scope or intensity. Consider that even if only 20% of the white population of America were truly racist, and that if every single African-American were truly racist, the white racists would still outnumber the black racists by 7.6 million people. The point of this non-statistic is to illustrate that even if black people really did call whites ‘whitey’ as a common racial slur, it really couldn’t have the same oppressive power as ‘nigger’.  

What conservatives and racists do not wish to acknowledge is that African-Americans have been playing a rigged game for centuries and still refuse to lose. The hundred years of Jim Crow and the hundred years of de facto segregation in Northern cities that followed Emancipation have long faded from the memories of these whites, at least, and they just won’t understand how any black person could be distrusting of a system that has been so fair and giving to them. This faulty understanding explains why folks like Larry Johnson are drooling with desire for this video of Michelle Obama ‘ranting about whitey’ to be real; it would justify their fantasy that their racist feelings are matched tit for tat in the hearts of blacks. For these conservatives, a video of Michelle Obama ranting about the evil of ‘whitey’ would be exactly equivalent to every racist thing said by all whites for the last thirty years. This would make everything they’ve thought or done okey-dokey and balance the scales of justice in their minds, which should be an indication of how off-balance their minds are.

When I started writing this I did a search for the word ‘whitey’. I wanted to see if I could find it being used as a deragatory term by any black bloggers or posters. I couldn’t find any through a variety of search terms but the results were all frontloaded with posts by conservatives using the word regarding this manufactured controversey. Conversely, when I did a search for the word ‘nigger’ the third term found was for ‘nigger jokes’ and a racist site called ‘niggermania’ was just below it. The ‘niggermania’ site has been pulled down but there’s a cached version of it here. A balanced mind should have difficulty seeing these two terms as equal. 

Anyway, I did find the Michelle Obama ’whitey’ video. Enjoy.

Happy 232nd Birthday, USA.

Our Republic, that grand experiment in human freedom, is 232 years old. It has endured much and achieved triumphs undreamed by any other nation that has ever existed on this Earth. Pharohs and Emperors built grand tombs and monuments to their glory; the greatest relics of the American Experiment are on the Moon and have soared past the heliosphere of the solar system. Certainly there were Earthly political motives behind the achievements of the United States space program, but from the muck of nationalistic and militaristic posturing something arose that transcended all of that. For all of it’s faults our Republic has done things no other nation even dreamed possible. Of this and more I am proud to be an American.

It has just been announced that former Senator Jesse Helms has died. Helms life spanned over one-third of the 232 years of our Republic’s existence. Surely there will be many tributes to the Senator that will gloss over the uglier aspects of his career. He was an unreformed racist who fought against the Civil Rights Movement and its legacy throughout his life. He certainly has his apologists who will argue he wasn’t a racist but rather a great patriot who fought for the preservation of traditional America; but they will fail to explain what specific traditions he sought to perpetuate. 

This is a very special year for the USA. Racism has been the central problem of this nation for over two centuries. The United States has been the single greatest proponent of liberty the family of nations has ever known but has always had great difficulty squaring reality with the rhetoric. In this year when a black man is not only a candidate for the Presidency but actually appears to be able to win the office the smouldering racism in the heart of America is rekindling with a terrible heat. White supremacist groups are increasing in membership as the possibility of an African-American President becomes more likely.  The ugly racism underlying many of the attacks on Obama is easily apparent even as the attackers cry with mock outrage that Obama is using race as a shield against scrutiny or exaggerating the racist nature of the attacks. Of course, blaming the victim is nothing new. 

Americans who look to Jesse Helms as a hero have been reduced to lies, distortions and smears to make their case, and as a result their argument is a diseased monster stitched together out of rotting corpse parts that is so convinced of its own beautiful perfection that it mistakes its own reflection for that which it hates. The reek of decay that the right wing is complaining about is their own festering corruption; they are so infused with their own filth that they blame everything around them for the stink without realizing that they are the ones who are producing it.

The thing to do with a festering carcass is to bury it; even better would be to cremate it and scatter its ashes without a memorial of any kind. The racist past of America is an ancient undead thing that claws at our throats and has us still struggling in a fight that was won long ago and keeps us from looking to the future. This thing wants to drag the living into the grave with it to keep it company in the long night of the past. We the living are the inheritors of the Declaration of Independence. It is incumbent upon us to finally put the ghosts of the past to rest; otherwise we will join them in the Hell of their making.

On this Independence Day, I remember the America that was, I toast the America that is, and I celebrate the America that could be. Every day we all must choose between fear or hope, brotherhood or strife, and the past or the future. We must all decide what a patriot is for ourselves; for me, patriotism is loving your country enough to be honest with it. Happy 4th of July, everyone.