Nuclear Winter
Well, it's over. I have officially taken the Louisiana bar exam. I am a free man. And the first thing I am compelled to write about? The weather. Actually, I've been wanting to post this since I read it in the paper. One commentator actually called New Orleans' weather this summer akin to a "nuclear winter." I thought that was terrifyingly apt. Almost every day it has been overcast and rainy, accompanied by flashes of lighting and crashes of thunder. Even those days with sun where you lay out at a friend's 6th story rooftop pool, you find yourself sprinting through the warehouse district streets to your car down the street in the kind of instantly-drenched downpour. I don't know if it has something to do with global warming or repurcussions of hurricanes in the gulf, but it sucks. And now that I actually have time to "enjoy" the weather, it really sucks. Heh. Even now the sun pokes its head out of the clouds, as if daring me to take a book outside and read.
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posted by mW @ 1:31 PM
A Personal Aside
My social commentary must be placed on hold the the next week and half. It will be that long until I'm done with the bar exam, and hopefully on my last stage to becoming a lawyer, the only remaining bit of which will be waiting for confirmation that I am in fact qualified to so act. The sheer amount of knowledge we are being asked to know and apply over a nine-test, three-day gauntlet of endurance and wit is daunting. But at the same time, the waiting is almost over and I'm ready simply to tackle it straight up and move on to the rest of my life.
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posted by mW @ 9:44 AM
Why aren't you sickened?
Has anyone ever known a gay person while they were "in the closet?" Were you friends with them? Did you work with them? Did they make you laugh or cry or do anything else that may be considered human? So at what point did you turn on those people and say you disgust me. I do not believe you have a right to exist as God made you. Yes, I may have worked with you, breathed the same air as you, and ate the same food as you, but those days are over. Now I know who you really are. You do not deserve to share in this country's fundamental freedoms such as the right to marriage, the right to be a parent, or the right to have intimate relations. You do not deserve hospital benefit rights to see your sick partner, nor the right to handle his or her affairs when he/she dies, let alone deserve the right to inherit their property. Nor do you deserve to share insurance benefits, tax benefits, or the 295-some other benefits that have been cataloged in New York State alone.
What hatred can possibly justify these feelings? And how can so many of you feel such feelings? And if you think you do not hate gays, stop and ask yourself if they deserve all the rights of straight people. Ask yourself much in the same way you might ask if blacks deserver the same civil rights guaranteed by the state. Can we pass laws preventing blacks from having these rights? No more. And know this. 70-some% of people are against gay marriage today. 96% of people were against interracial marriage when the U.S. Supreme Court found that unconstitutional.
Nor is it relevant if your religion tells you that gays are against God's will. It is not relevant because that is how your conscience answers the question. Yet one of the very most fundamental tenets that this great nation was founded on was the protestant right to follow the dictate of God's word according to your individual conscience. Back then, protestants revolted from the Catholic Church force-feeding them dogma. This was a right any given colonist would have died for-even if it meant protecting those who held a different conscience. My conscience says gays are not immoral. It says it is their natural state of being. Many other people in this country believe the same. Nor do I or any other person have to be gay to believe that. I'm not gay. But it makes me sick to see the continued bigotry this country espouses toward the entire gay population.
In the generations to come this era will look no different than we now look back on the Jim Crow laws of the previous generation. And just like now, they will sweep our hatred under the carpet and pretend it never really happened. The thing that was important in the black civil rights movement is the same thing that is important now. Gay people are people. If they are pricked will they not bleed? They are people. Just like any straight person. To pretend they are some kind of sub-human thing should make every American sick.
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posted by mW @ 6:04 PM
What hatred can possibly justify these feelings? And how can so many of you feel such feelings? And if you think you do not hate gays, stop and ask yourself if they deserve all the rights of straight people. Ask yourself much in the same way you might ask if blacks deserver the same civil rights guaranteed by the state. Can we pass laws preventing blacks from having these rights? No more. And know this. 70-some% of people are against gay marriage today. 96% of people were against interracial marriage when the U.S. Supreme Court found that unconstitutional.
Nor is it relevant if your religion tells you that gays are against God's will. It is not relevant because that is how your conscience answers the question. Yet one of the very most fundamental tenets that this great nation was founded on was the protestant right to follow the dictate of God's word according to your individual conscience. Back then, protestants revolted from the Catholic Church force-feeding them dogma. This was a right any given colonist would have died for-even if it meant protecting those who held a different conscience. My conscience says gays are not immoral. It says it is their natural state of being. Many other people in this country believe the same. Nor do I or any other person have to be gay to believe that. I'm not gay. But it makes me sick to see the continued bigotry this country espouses toward the entire gay population.
In the generations to come this era will look no different than we now look back on the Jim Crow laws of the previous generation. And just like now, they will sweep our hatred under the carpet and pretend it never really happened. The thing that was important in the black civil rights movement is the same thing that is important now. Gay people are people. If they are pricked will they not bleed? They are people. Just like any straight person. To pretend they are some kind of sub-human thing should make every American sick.
North Korea?!?
If any of you think North Korea (or Iraq) for that matter are dangerous, you are out of your mind. Does anyone remember the Cold War anymore? How about M.A.D.? (Mutually Assured Destruction.) Who the fuck cares if North Korea or Iraq has a few nukes or chemical weapons. Why under any god's green earth would they do so? One nuclear weapon launched at us, okay, blows out NYC. And guess what, we then drop 10 nukes on them and turn their country into glass. Conflict over.
At the height of the Cold War, The Soviet Union (let alone China, who still has them) had enough nukes to lay waste to the entire world. How are today's "Axis of Evil" remotely dangerous in comparison? Oh, right, these guys are scary, they're crazy! They might actually use them! Right. North Korea's leader directly quoted realized the futility in such a conflict. His response was not to threaten the U.S., but to say if we attacked him, he'd lay waste to South Korea.
The media. The Administration. Take your pick. Someone's trying to create a politic of fear to manipulate you all. Wake up.
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posted by mW @ 10:36 AM
At the height of the Cold War, The Soviet Union (let alone China, who still has them) had enough nukes to lay waste to the entire world. How are today's "Axis of Evil" remotely dangerous in comparison? Oh, right, these guys are scary, they're crazy! They might actually use them! Right. North Korea's leader directly quoted realized the futility in such a conflict. His response was not to threaten the U.S., but to say if we attacked him, he'd lay waste to South Korea.
The media. The Administration. Take your pick. Someone's trying to create a politic of fear to manipulate you all. Wake up.
Through the Looking Glass
Monday, the day before we all celebrate the independence of our country, the Associated Press put out a story entitlted "Supreme Court decision needs reining in, GOP senators say." This, a reaction to the Court's telling the President that he has overstepped his bounds in creating "enemy combatant" classifications and holding these men subject to special trials,subject to no law. The Court found this a violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Accords. This is not a new gripe. For some reason, we Americans are terrified of being subject to foreign treaties. If this is truly the case, then our Presidents should never sign international treaties and the Senate should never ratify them. But they do. And it is a fundamental tenet of our legal system that these treaties have a binding effect on our country.
What is really disturbing is what scares these GOP Senators. Article 3 of the Geneva Accords prohibits outrages upon personal dignity, "In particular humiliating and degrading treatement," and bars violance, including murder, mutilation, and torture. Mitch McConnel, R-Ky, said "I don't think we're going to pass something that's going to have our miltary servicemen subject to some kind of international rules," McConnel said. Why not? Do we really object to these rules? Don't we wish that our servicemen and women captured in Iraq were shown these kindnesses? They should be. But these terrorists are all about an eye for an eye, and so if we torture their prisoners, they'll torture ours. Other Congresspersons say that "detainees in the war on terror should not have the same legal protections as those in the military." (That because the Court ordered they receive at least the same justice as through military courts--which, mind you, is far less than our domestic criminal courts.) If any of you out there really think that the United States has the right to commit these international crimes on prisoners of war, then I guess you should keep electing these people. But maybe you've also forgot what it means to be human. To have compassion. To turn the other cheek.
I'm not going to go on some kind of post-hippie rant about love, but there is something to those arguments. Look, how many stories, plays, books, and legends have we passed on to each other over the last several millennia that relate the story of "live by the sword, die by the sword," or "violence only begets violence?" How can we stop hatred with guns blazing? We can't. And you cannot shove peace and democracy down people's throats. It doesn't work like that. The U.S. needs to stop meddling in other countries' business and stop nation-building, a promise that George Bush made on his initial campaign trail. We have so many problems in the country, from high crime rates, drug trade, poor education, poverty, and more. Yet we spend how many billions fighting wars that never needed happen? We could have launched enough missiles to wipe out every terrorist camp in Afghanistan and called it a day. And gone on to rebuild our country. To put those billions into our people.
Instead we're out trying to articificially craft others' independence days. Good luck.
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posted by mW @ 10:13 AM
What is really disturbing is what scares these GOP Senators. Article 3 of the Geneva Accords prohibits outrages upon personal dignity, "In particular humiliating and degrading treatement," and bars violance, including murder, mutilation, and torture. Mitch McConnel, R-Ky, said "I don't think we're going to pass something that's going to have our miltary servicemen subject to some kind of international rules," McConnel said. Why not? Do we really object to these rules? Don't we wish that our servicemen and women captured in Iraq were shown these kindnesses? They should be. But these terrorists are all about an eye for an eye, and so if we torture their prisoners, they'll torture ours. Other Congresspersons say that "detainees in the war on terror should not have the same legal protections as those in the military." (That because the Court ordered they receive at least the same justice as through military courts--which, mind you, is far less than our domestic criminal courts.) If any of you out there really think that the United States has the right to commit these international crimes on prisoners of war, then I guess you should keep electing these people. But maybe you've also forgot what it means to be human. To have compassion. To turn the other cheek.
I'm not going to go on some kind of post-hippie rant about love, but there is something to those arguments. Look, how many stories, plays, books, and legends have we passed on to each other over the last several millennia that relate the story of "live by the sword, die by the sword," or "violence only begets violence?" How can we stop hatred with guns blazing? We can't. And you cannot shove peace and democracy down people's throats. It doesn't work like that. The U.S. needs to stop meddling in other countries' business and stop nation-building, a promise that George Bush made on his initial campaign trail. We have so many problems in the country, from high crime rates, drug trade, poor education, poverty, and more. Yet we spend how many billions fighting wars that never needed happen? We could have launched enough missiles to wipe out every terrorist camp in Afghanistan and called it a day. And gone on to rebuild our country. To put those billions into our people.
Instead we're out trying to articificially craft others' independence days. Good luck.
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