To Grandmother's House We Go

...or not. You probably got stuck in an airport somewhere along your annual trek to spend the holidays with relatives someplace else.

And what better way to commemorate the most screwed up airline travel season in decades than an Airport Toy X-Ray Machine?

Relive those humiliating moments of getting your possessions scanned, searched, and in thousands of cases, stolen by TSA employees too stupid to be mall security guards! Take off your shoes and let your child or nephew scour Gramma's purse while an undercover cop sneaks by the parts for a bomb undetected!

Celebrate the trillion-dollar completely useless rightwing-owned airport security industry!

Because that's what the holidays are all about.

Sunday Sermon: Donuts and Water

The big controversy over Barack Obama's choice of Evangelicanl megachurch pastor Rick Warren has pretty much any sensible liberal pissed off. Obama snubbed the gay voters that helped him get elected to pay off a religious fundamentalist who's gotten flack from his far rightwing followerers as well. As lesbian TV commentator Rachel Maddow said, "It's a lose-lose situation."

Warren's church actively seeks to "convert" gays, and doesn't let out gays even be members. He's compared gays to bestiality and incest. Yet he considers himself a nice guy. After all, he bragged in one interview, he gave Proposition 8 protestors "donuts and water."

And although every LGBT "leader" and organization has vocally expressed outrage and disapointment, I'd rather quote from another religious leader, it being Sunday and all, from a faith that doesn't adhere to Warren's ideology.

Presbyterian Bishop John Bryson Chane had this to say:

I am profoundly disappointed by President-elect Barack Obama’s decision to invite Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church to offer the invocation at his inauguration. The president-elect has bestowed a great honor on a man whose recent comments suggest he is both homophobic, xenophobic, and willing to use the machinery of the state to enforce his prejudices—even going so far as to support the assassination of foreign leaders.

In his home state of California, Mr. Warren’s campaigned aggressively to deny gay and lesbian couples equal rights under the law, relying on arguments that are both morally offensive and theologically crude. Christian leaders differ passionately with one another over the morality of same-sex relationships, but only the most extreme liken the loving, lifelong partnerships of their fellow citizens to incest and pedophilia, as Mr. Warren has done. The president-elect’s willingness to associate himself with a man who espouses these views as a means of reaching out to religious conservatives suggests a willingness to use the aspirations of gay and lesbian Americans as bargaining chips, and I find this deeply troubling.

Mr. Warren has been rightly praised for his efforts to deepen the engagement of evangelical Christians with impoverished Africans. He has been justifiably lauded for putting the AIDS epidemic and global warming on the political agenda of the Christian right. Yet extravagant compassion toward some of God’s people does not justify the repression of others. Jesus came to save all of humankind, and as Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pointed out, “All means all.” But rather than embrace the wisdom of Archbishop Tutu, Mr. Warren has allied himself with men such as Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda who seek to “purify” the Anglican Communion, of which my Church is a member, by driving out gay and lesbian Christians and their supporters.

....But in honoring Mr. Warren, the president-elect confers legitimacy on attitudes that are deeply contrary to the all-inclusive love of God. He is courting the powerful at the expense of the marginalized, and in doing so, he stands the Gospel on its head.

More at the LINK.

Greek Activists

Protests in Greece have gone from violent to incendiary and violent.

Back story: a cop shot a 15-year-old kid dead. The police did nothing. Now thousands of angry anarchists are torching the city, hanging banners from the Acropolis.

Protesters hung two giant banners off the Acropolis on Wednesday, with slogans calling for mass demonstrations across Europe and "resistance," after days of violent protests sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager in Athens.

About a dozen protesters held the pink banners over the walls of the ancient citadel, Greece's most famous monument, one bearing the word "Resistance" written in large black letters in four languages: Greek, English, Spanish and German. The other called for mass demonstrations across Europe on Thursday.

The banners were taken down after two hours.

"There can be no justification for this action. This hurts the image of our country abroad ... it is unacceptable," government spokesman Evangelos Antonaros said.

Student demonstrations are already planned in Athens and Greece's second largest city of Thessaloniki on Thursday to protest the Dec. 6 police killing of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos.

The riots that followed the teenager's death are the worst Greece has seen in decades, feeding off widespread dissatisfaction with the unpopular conservative government and anger over social inequality and economic hardship.

Hundreds of shops and banks were smashed, torched or looted as gangs of masked and hooded youths rampaged through cities night after night, setting up burning barricades in the streets and clashing with riot police who fired large amounts of tear gas. Retailers say the damage will cost them euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) in lost income.

More than 300 people were detained or arrested in the rioting.

Some of those protestors took off their shirts and did a little submission ritual. Mm. I like the guy with a flower in his hair.

It's amazing; all that money lost on the Olympics, and now things are even worse. It really is chaotic there. to be fair, there were and continue to be peaceful protests. but violence and burning giant Christmas trees are a bit more photogenic.

more photos HERE. Update and video HERE.

Show Tune Showdown

Ex-Mormon Jon Powell wants all of Broadway to refuse to license their work to the Mormon Church.

"Powell has talked with one artist in particular, Stephen Schwartz, the composer of the musical “Wicked” which the Young Ambassadors wants to use in their show. Powell says, “For me that material is so blatantly hypocritical... the use of it in the Young Ambassadors show.” Part of an email Schwartz wrote to Powell says, "I'm looking into it, and if this is truly a Mormon "promotional" group, rather than just student singers, I will try to do something about it."

Of course, Mor(m)ons and other are crying discrimnation and McCarthyism (where have I heard that before? Oh, yeah, outing). That's the price you pay for being evil to queens; no more show tunes!! That'll show 'em.

This should be part of a complete Mormom and Catholic product boycott.

Too bad I'm not in the market for funny underpants or bathtub Marys.

Seriously, the lengthy list is really corporate type products I wouldn't buy; cars, hotels, etc.

Newsweek takes on the biblical truth about "traditional" marriage.

"In the Old Testament, the concept of family is fundamental, but examples of what social conservatives would call "the traditional family" are scarcely to be found. Marriage was critical to the passing along of tradition and history, as well as to maintaining the Jews' precious and fragile monotheism. But as the Barnard University Bible scholar Alan Segal puts it, the arrangement was between "one man and as many women as he could pay for.'"

So, basically, to be a good old timey Christian, ya gotta be a pimp daddy.

Huh. Bet the wingnuts skip that issue.

Styrofoam Crosses and Pointed Sticks

While the Christians lionize - er, heroify their two pseudo-victions at Prop 8 rallies, where hundreds of thousands managed to do quite well when Christian crusaders, like Granny Styrofoam Cross in Palm Springs, didn't shove themselves into our contingents. 78 of 80 were Jeebus-free.

Are the crowing whining rightwingers, still sore from these two "outrages" noticing this?

Is Mike "My son tortures dogs" Huckabee seen enough skull-crackings for the week to qualify us as at least put upon in a rude manner? Asswipe. Chuck Norris may have endorsed you, but his wig went the other way.

Here's something that won't make the rounds of Freepertino and CoulterJawClamp.com

Assailant in election night rainbow flag attack was the legislative aide of Del. Jackson Miller (R-Prince William): "Bryan Fumagalli, 28, was arrested Nov. 22 on two counts of simple assault, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. 'I'm very disappointed in his actions,' Miller said today. 'He's being dealt with and being disciplined.' Police say Fumagalli assaulted one of two gay men who were walking outside the Capitol Hilton Hotel to a victory rally near the White House. They say he grabbed a rainbow flag, a gay rights symbol, from one of the men and assaulted him. Fumagalli has a court hearing Jan. 13."

Not Larry Sabato has a link to a video of local news TV coverage.

More on the assault HERE.


A Republican beat a guy up with a rainbow flag.

Styrofoam crosses, flags. What next, hurled refridgerator magnets?

You can contact Mr. Jackson yourself, right here. Tell him what you think of him and his party's attacks, literally, on gays.

Look up his friends and associates. Tell them what you think of his violent act.

Because our weapon is information, not violence.

Sing out, Louise!

...and Margaret, and Jack and Kathy and more!
Prop 8, The Musical is making the rounds of every gay blog worth a cent.

Hairspray composer Marc Shaiman (whose boycott lead to the resignation of Sacramento's California Musical Theatre creative director Scott Eckern following his donation to Prop 8) wrote and conceived this hysterical short piece (presented with a wink and a nod by the 'Sacramento Community College Players'), which was directed and staged by Hairspray director and choreographer Adam Shankman.

Shaiman plays the piano. Performers include Margaret Cho, Andy Richter, Maya Rudolph, Rashad Naylor, Nicole Parker, John C Reilly, Kathy Najimy, Katharine "Kooks" Leonard, Seth Morris, Jack Black stars as Jesus Christ, Neil Patrick Harris as 'A Very Smart Fellow' and lots of others.

Not so sweet-sounding is the scathing Rolling Stone article trashing No on 8 "leaders," who've been getting some, er, lots, okay, ALL the blame for us not winning that fight.

But never fear; a Mormon historian says that Prop 8 and other rightwing nuttery will lead to the collapse of the Mormon Church. Okay, I'm not holding my breath for that gift just yet.