Month: January 2009

The IDF on YouTube vs. PalTube.

A reader writes:

I can only conclude that the practical intent of this map is to publicly shame and intimidate those who supported the amendment.

If my 26 employees, some of which are in civil unions (which were marriages), saw my name on this, how would they feel?  What would they think of me? How would this impact our relationship?  The really crappy thing is that I may not even know that I was listed or they looked.  It would just begin one day with glares, stares, and tension.  It would begin to create a hostile environment.  Perhaps some folks may quit working for or with me.  Perhaps someone may say something or perhaps not.  What if I just opposed SSM but, in every other way, was progressive and supportive of gay rights in my public and personal life.  Viewers of this map won’t know that.  All they know is that I gave $50.00 bucks and if I was foolish enough to list my business then all the better to make me a target.  There is no call for conversation, dialogue, discussion, debate.  Just an implied threat: support stuff like this and have your name posted in the town square for all to see.

This is all about publicly shaming, through the posting of names, folks who supported objectionable public policy.

Cry me a river. You can only shame people if they feel ashamed. And, frankly, if you have chosen to strip civil rights from some of your employees, why should you be able to protect yourself from the consequences? Your employees weren’t protected from the consequences of your decision. You helped force them into legal divorce – and you’re the victim here?

A reader writes:

Wow….that Google map of Prop 8 donors in California was like a gut punch to me.  I was raised LDS and I have family scattered throughout the Golden State.  To a person, all of them have been extremely loving and kind toward me and my partner of 15 years.  On a lark, though, I zoomed in on the cities and neighborhoods where my relatives live.  What do I find but that one of my own aunts, in San Diego, contributed $200 to the Prop 8 cause last summer.  This same aunt, a good person I honestly believe, has even invited me and my partner to stay with in her family’s home. Call me naive, but I’m kind of having trouble wrapping my brain around this seeming contradiction.

And that is surely one useful element of the map. It helps one see whom to engage. And I don’t get the fear. If Prop 8 supporters truly feel that barring equality for gay couples is vital for saving civilization, shouldn’t they be proud of their financial support? Why don’t they actually have posters advertizing their support for discriminating against gay people – as a matter of pride?

Camille Paglia unpacks:

Personally, I do believe there was a historical Jesus. The evidence is fragmentary but, to me, convincing that a charismatic, itinerant preacher of his name was swept up into the cruel politics of the Roman occupation of fractious, rebellious Judaea. Furthermore, as a literary critic, I hear a very distinct speaking voice in the sayings attributed to Jesus. This was a brilliant poet who was able to find simple, universal metaphors (a coin, a tree, a mustard seed) to convey spiritual truths to the masses. He was also a performing artist with startling improvisational gifts. Whether or not he himself thought he was the Messiah is unclear. A solid general education today should include Siddhartha (the Buddha), Jesus and Mohammed, all of whom radically changed the world.

I love that "startling improvisational gifts." I presume she does not mean the resurrection.

Poulos contextualizes the gifted Irish blowhard:

Bono — to hazard a guess — wants to appropriate inaccessibly Christian values and goals for the further and higher end of bringing people – lots and lots of people — into closer concordance with something we could crudely think of being called ‘Christianity in fact’, something more closely resembling a world that wouldn’t make Jesus weep. Bono’s Christian Hegelianism is a lot like the un- or even anti-Christian Hegelianism of secular humanists who want, as Rorty puts it, to "pull up the ladders" from oogedy-boogedy land while retaining the precious earnest of values and commitments that our Judeo-Christian heritage wound up bequeathing us. Those who seek to secularize Christianity aren’t, as Charles Taylor has suggested, merely ’subtracting’ from it; they’re adding to it, even trying to ‘purify’ it of the things within the tradition of Jesus that they think make it imperfect (like Church dogma or even God the Father). Perhaps Bono, in symmetrical contrast, has been on a long quest — if I can put it this way — to Christianize secularity.

Not easy, it appears.

A reader notices a revealing section of the president’s interview with Larry King last night. Money quote:

KING: So there’s nothing you’ve done in the area of treatment of prisoners that causes you any kind of pause?

G. BUSH: No. No. Everything we did was — you know, it had legal — legal opinions behind it. Look, you’re sitting there, you’ve captured Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He’s the guy that ordered the September the 11th attacks. And we want to know what he knows in order to protect the United States of America. And I got legal opinions that said whatever we’re going to do is legal. And my job is to protect you, Larry. And I’ve given it my all. I’ve given it my all.

Isn’t that an admission that he demanded legal cover for illegal acts? And had "lawyers" like John Yoo and Jay Bybee all too willing to write and say anything for their boss.

One more thing: no pause. No reflection. Not even a smidgen of doubt or wrestling with the profound legal, constitutional and moral issues involved. What a pathetic excuse for a president. What a sad, callous, callow man.

Joe keeps on "reporting":

Conor:

Joe must know he’s been sent to Israel as a media stunt, so it’s kinda disingenuous that he acts put off by the fact that he is a story. I wish the reporters on the ground there would pay less attention to Joe, but he’s feeding their worst impulses.

Dreher:

In his latest video dispatch from the war zone in southern Israel, Joe the Plumber accuses an Israeli journalist of not being pro-Israeli. If I were a liberal now, I’d be paying cash money to keep this asinine experiment keepin’ on.

(Hat tip: Wonkette)

Strange Maps rounds them up. My favorite – Australia as a puddle:

33 prisoners are now involuntarily attached to feeding tubes. None of them is likely to be prosecuted successfully. But Cheney has no regrets at all.