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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in
cardigrl's InsaneJournal:
| Thursday, November 26th, 2009 | |
| 8:22 am | Adam Lambert... or since when does a kiss equate to sexual violence? Adam Lambert has basically said he got carried away at this year's American Music Awards, but that if people were offended, that's because they're bigots. Consider these quotes: "I admit I did get carried away, but I don't see anything wrong with it." . . . "If it had been a female pop performer doing the moves that were on the stage, I don't think there'd be nearly as much of an outrage at all. I think it's because I'm a gay male." GLAAD has complained that any criticism of Lambert reinforces a double standard against gays, and uses as an example the kiss between Madonna and Britney Spears at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards, which was controversial, but was also replayed, And, honestly, I'd be sympathetic to that argument except for two things: The MTV awards were on cable, specifically MTV, which is not exactly known as sedate. But the bigger issue for me is that Lambert did not just kiss a guy on stage. That would be entirely analogous and I suspect that, while some people would have complained, there would not be much of an uproar. No, the issue is that, among other things, Lambert dressed his backup dancers in BDSM-like gear and forcibly pushed the head of another performer into his crotch and rubbed it in his crotch (although as I understand it, people on the west coast did not see that -- it was edited out). It is really more analogous to the Timberlake-Jackson Super Bowl furor, when Timberlake ripped off part of Jackson's clothing. And don't tell me that did not cause an uproar. Of course, I must confess that I have often disagreed with people about the Timberlake-Jackson issue. The two of them claimed it was just a wardrobe malfunction, and that Timberlake's ripping her clothes off was just supposed to reveal a lacy red bra, rather than her bare breast. But my question was and remains: WHY did they think it OK to be showing for titillation and supposed entertainment a white man ripping the clothing off a black woman to leave her in underwear? The bottom line is that both Lambert's shoving a man's face into his crotch and rubbing it around, and Timberlake's ripping off Jackson's clothing were mimed acts of sexual violence, played out before children on major TV networks. Well, so maybe Lambert's wasn't was mimed; apparently he was getting some stimulation there. I cannot see why Lambert thinks that is OK. I cannot see why GLAAD thinks that is OK. And I am horrified that Lambert and GLAAD are perpetrating the stereotype of gays as people who equate sexual violence with a kiss. |
| Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 | |
| 9:00 am | Federal Criminals The New York Times today has an article on how both sides of the political spectrum are challenging the increasing federalization of criminal law. It's an interesting read. But the bizarre thing about it is that it describes a revolt in legal circles against federalizing criminal law, traditionally the province of the states; yet the comments picked as Editor's Selections all rail against state drug laws. It makes me wonder if their own editors read the story. And it kind of confirms my increasing lack of respect for the editors of the NYT, given their sympathy for those irrelevantly whining in the comments that it was unfair they went to jail for state drug charges or California's three strikes state law (the problem with which -- and there most certainly is one -- is that is inappropriately applied). I mean, if they are going to whine, at least make it relevant to the topic of the article. The whiny sense of over-entitlement in the comments reminds me of a guy who called my office the other day and said he was going to be all responsible now and clean up a warrant for an old drug charge (we're getting that a lot these days, and what it really means is he can't get a job now because the warrant turned up in a background check). When I told him that was no problem: he just either needed to come back to enter a plea and pay the fine, come back to contest the charge, or get a lawyer to do one of those for him, his response was to scream obscenities at me about how the state had an obligation to take care of it for him. He wanted me to pay his mileage to drive to court. The fact that I was agreeing not to charge the jerk with criminal failure to appear charges apparently escaped him. Then there was the guy who drove through the state doing drugs and, when he got picked up, wanted us to transfer his case to an adjoining state, because it "wasn't fair that I have to drive all this way to come to court." Anyway... The other somewhat strange thing about the article is its claim that nobody on the "right" has complained about this before now. Yet, I remember clearly in the years before his death, Chief Justice William Rehnquist -- constantly criticized for being too far to the right -- repeatedly warned in speeches that Congress was exceeding its grasp -- because it was criminalizing conduct that had never been illegal; because it was increasing the power of the federal government and usurping the ability of states to prosecute (a favorite topic of mine, as you know); and because it was increasing the complexity and breadth of the federal criminal laws without any concurrent increase in budgets for the federal district courts. As a result, putting aside the philosophical issues, the federal courts are overburdened and simply do not have the resources needed to handle the increase in caseload. And I clearly recall contemptuous dismissals of Rehnquist from the NYT and others when he gave those warnings. |
| Saturday, November 14th, 2009 | |
| 7:47 pm | Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Hope it was a great one! |
| Friday, November 6th, 2009 | |
| 7:51 am | |
| 7:12 am | The good and bad So yesterday, Barack Obama and some of his cabinet and other administration officials met with representatives of all of the federally recognized tribes. By doing so, he followed through on a campaign pledge, and I hope he follows through on the specific proposals made yesterday by tribal representatives. This is a good step. It's also an indication of why I was so annoyed yesterday. The New York Times, which has pretensions of being a national paper, yesterday ran several editorials on racism in America. They were from black professors and they once again talked of racism as a black-white issue. This while Obama and his representatives were discussing the institutional racism today directed at another group of people whom both the professors individually and the New York Times choose to ignore. That complete disregard is, of course, a profound demonstration of racism, a signal that "those people" are so insignificant and unimportant we don't even have to acknowledge their existence. So today, I went through my NYT email on the headlines of the day and saw....hmmmm....one small editorial mentioning the conference yesterday. Not one single news article. Well, I thought, let's be fair; there was some pretty nasty, big headlines out of yesterday's news. Maybe it's on the news pages and just didn't make it into the headline email. So I went through the paper and found......not a single news article on an all-day meeting involving Obama and cabinet members. I though...maybe I'm just not looking in the right spot. So I searched their tag for "Indians, American" and found...not a single news article. Their one link under "news articles" was to their short comment on their editorial page. The next article they had under that tag was an article from October 11, 2009, about the people who died in Arizona in a meeting "based somewhat loosely around Native American traditions" (in the words of the article). Apparently, that in the NYT eyes made it a news article on "Indians, American". ~sigh~ But as to the Administration: good job. Now let's see some action. |
| Wednesday, October 28th, 2009 | |
| 8:05 am | More Ramblings OK, first off, to the nuts who suggested a contest for burning Pelosi and Harry Reid in effigy: This? This is not cool, guys. There's so many ways to say this is not appropriate, so I'll stick with one. For those who say (as some do) that the Bible tells us to chastise those who have fallen from God: I'm pretty sure I know the passage you are talking about. And it does not in any way encourage real (OR MOCK) violence. So no, not cool. Stop it. You are making Christians look stupid. And speaking of stupid, what's with the boot licking from the newish NEA head ? You know, where he spewed the elitist bullshit that, among other things, it was shocking! shocking! to find that there are artists in Oklahoma and the fantasy that: This is the first president that actually writes his own books since Teddy Roosevelt and arguably the first to write them really well since Lincoln. If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar. That has to be good for American artists. I don't know what's worse: that he engaged in the most blatant boot licking I've seen in a long time, or that he is such a moron when it comes to history, especially knowledge of his own country. I mean, there's three completely ignorant statements in that quoted excerpt, and his entire posting is rife with them. Is that the best artists can do? Come on, guys. I know plenty of smart, competent artists out there. Why do you put up with this being your public face to the country? Then we have Alan Grayson. Well, what can you say about this guy? He's obviously got a few screws loose. But what struck me was that not only does he have all the ego and cluelessness of a first-term Congressman, he's apparently incompetent in hiring staff. See, what really makes a politician successful is that they hire smart, tactful people to follow around and clean up after them, as well as taking care of constituents. But this guy? Check out how his spokesman (no, not a random staffer----his spokesman) defended Grayson's calling a woman a K Street Whore: She had the audacity to attack a Congressman who used to be an economist. After all, OH MY GOD, HOW DARE SHE NOT SUCK UP TO EVERY DEMOCRAT IN CONGRESS??????? Does anyone else see the irony that she was accused of sucking people because she had the audacity NOT to do it to Grayson? ;-) And speaking of politicians and what they really think of the public, check out this picture of Harry Reid giving us the finger. America has really sunk low with these bozos. |
| Tuesday, October 13th, 2009 | |
| 8:04 pm | Totally unable to resist memes But all I can say is ohh......kay...... ;-) p align="center">  </p>You are the WorldCompletion, Good Reward. The World is the final card of the Major Arcana, and as such represents saturnian energies, time, and completion. The World card pictures a dancer in a Yoni (sometimes made of laurel leaves). The Yoni symbolizes the great Mother, the cervix through which everything is born, and also the doorway to the next life after death. It is indicative of a complete circle. Everything is finally coming together, successfully and at last. You will get that Ph.D. you've been working for years to complete, graduate at long last, marry after a long engagement, or finish that huge project. This card is not for little ends, but for big ones, important ones, ones that come with well earned cheers and acknowledgements. Your hard work, knowledge, wisdom, patience, etc, will absolutely pay-off; you've done everything right. What Tarot Card are You? |
| Monday, October 12th, 2009 | |
| 7:30 am | Holidays Happy Native American Day, guys! I believe we are (still) the only state marking the second Tuesday in October as such. As I did last year, I urge those of you who live in less enlightened places to contact your legislators and media to propose the change. |
| Friday, October 9th, 2009 | |
| 9:33 pm | Just for Beth Congrats to the Yankees on a good game.....drat it! ;-) |
| Friday, October 2nd, 2009 | |
| 2:09 pm | Taxes Everyone remember how Obama promised over and over again that NO taxes would go up on anyone making under 250K a year? That would include me, and yet..... Today, I received a notice that for at least the next 3 quarters, I have to pay an additional 1.5 percent tax on my secretary's gross wages not because **I've** fired anyone, but because the government's Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund balance has become so depleted. All that Hope and Change is really working out well, innit? |
| 12:33 pm | Streetwalking Lawyers Still not much luck on embedding. But check out this link to The Streetwalking Lawyers Of Aurora Avenue - Almost Live |
| 11:26 am | Embedding video I'm practicing on dreamwidth to see if I can embed video and cross post. And this seemed a funny one to use as a test: Jack Webb v Roman Polanski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIZ_wEXiA |
| Saturday, September 26th, 2009 | |
| 8:50 am | For the Brits and law geeks amongst us... Or, what it means sometimes when criminal lawyers say location, location, location. I've been hearing on the news podcasts a fair amount of chatter about people in Britain carrying knives and how inappropriate the authorities find that fact. Yesterday, I was also researching for a brief on a vehicle search and ran across this court opinion from a few years ago, which I offer for your amusement: ( Finding a small knife in the pocket of a South Dakotan is about as indicative of criminal activity as someone wearing a seed corn cap. ) |
| Saturday, September 19th, 2009 | |
| 10:58 am | Stupidity or selfishness? Please forgive the rant, but sometimes a person just has to, you know? The National Weather Service has Red Flag Warnings out. For those who don't know, that means conditions are ideal for wildland fire ignition and "explosive fire growth potential". We've got warm weather, high winds, and extremely low humidity. So.....I'm driving along the interstate yesterday and what do I see? Some creep from New York throwing a cigarette out the window of his car. I bet that moron has never had to fight a fire in his life. Do you suppose he would even care about the fire that burned tens of thousands of acres a few years ago and cost big bucks to fight, all started by some tourist who threw a ciggie out the window? If they hate the smell of tobacco so much that they can't have it tainting the smell of their precious cars, then why are they smoking it? |
| Sunday, August 30th, 2009 | |
| 9:53 pm | Chocolate Sings Ran across a cutesy, and very short, story today. Hard to argue with the last line: Remember that while money talks, CHOCOLATE SINGS |
| Thursday, August 27th, 2009 | |
| 10:44 pm | A Blast from the Past I invite you to view http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGKkPEvD2 It's a report from Walter Cronkite and Daniel Schorr on the national health insurance program Richard Nixon proposed in 1971, as a compromise to the Democratic proposal for a single-payer system. Among other things, under the Nixon plan, employers would have been required to provide health insurance for employees; the poor would have received government aid to purchase insurance; medicare premiums would have been dropped for certain individuals; and the self-employed would have had access to group plans, so insurance would have been affordable group coverage rather than the extremely expensive single policies. With the help of unions, Teddy Kennedy killed it because he was absolutely certain he would be able to get single-payer coverage passed real soon. The Kennedy plan would have covered approximately 70 percent of an individual's health costs, at the cost to the federal government of billions. Keep in mind, that was billions in 1971 dollars. Really worked out well there, didn't it? |
| Monday, August 10th, 2009 | |
| 8:57 pm | Life is good In Duluth at the moment. This is such a great town. There was a blues festival this weekend, and then a 2 1/2 day work-related seminar, and it's a good one, too! It was a bit amusing yesterday. We had people from the surrounding states sitting at the table, and we started talking about our trips here. One person said she lasted about an hour on the drive up from Minneapolis before her back started itching between her shoulder blades. The Minnesotans were puzzled, but everyone from west nodded in agreement. We all understood exactly; there are so many trees surrounding the interstate that it's impossible to see where you're going, even. And yeah, it took about an hour before it started to feel oppressive. It was a huge relief to get to Duluth and have some horizon visible over Lake Superior. Funny how much a person's environment becomes part of them without their even noticing. |
| 8:50 pm | Happy Birthday, Hope you enjoy every minute of it! |
| Friday, August 7th, 2009 | |
| 9:16 am | The Senate Indian Affairs Committee yesterday approved a resolution apologizing to Native Americans for years of "depredations and ill-conceived policies by the federal government." They did that last year, too, but it died in the House. We'll see what happens this year. The thing is, they can apologize all they want, but it would be better if they did something about it. I could not say it better than the following excerpt from the article: Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., who has advocated more help for Indians, said he'd probably vote for the resolution if it came before the Senate. But he thinks tribes need immediate help in the form of more police officers and other services to combat recent crime waves. "I do think that the focus of our efforts ought to be on (steps) that will really have an impact on the quality of life for people on our reservations, which is deteriorating rapidly in some areas because of these public safety issues," he said. Obama and Eric Holder -- the ones responsible for the services -- were, of course, silent on the issue. As usual. And BTW, this is not a partisan issue. We never heard that much from the Bush Administration, either. OTOH, the Bush Administration did not go around lecturing us on how they were all enlightened so they could lecture everybody else about how terrible everyone else was about racism. It is discouraging to read the comments to the linked article. The vast majority of them are nothing short of disgraceful. But good on Thune for standing up to those blowhards and pointing out that the feds should be doing something positive rather than just talking about it. |
| Thursday, August 6th, 2009 | |
| 6:03 pm | Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday to The Woman Totally Made of Awesome, a/k/a Hope it was a great one! |
