Bobservations

We recently received a recall notice for our car, and so Carlos called the dealership and set up the appointment; he said, and I quote:

“They open at 7 AM.”

The night before the appointment, I reminded him we needed to leave the house about 6:45 to get the car in, and he was quite unhappy not to have a leisurely breakfast. But we got him up and dressed and ready to go and arrived at the dealership about five minutes early. The place was pitch dark, and there were no other cars around. I asked:

“Are you sure the appointment is at seven?”

“Yes, I put it on my calendar with Siri … Hey Siri, do I have any appointments today?”

“You have one appointment scheduled. 7:45 AM recall on car.”

And yes, we sat and waited the forty-five minutes so I could torture him about his memory.

Here’s another Tuxedo story, and pictures, from March 22, 2009

“A Sunday Tuxedo raises his eyes toward Heaven and prays to the cat gods that there will be fish for dinner.

And when he realizes it'll be a dish of dry stuff like every day, he pouts.

And does his best Camille impression.

Or Tuxedo of the Jungle....or Bond Tuxedo Bond.”

Sidenote: The other morning I went to the bedroom to make the bed and started patting down the covers because Tuxedo used to crawl underneath and sleep. Carlos came in and asked what I was doing and I started to say, ‘Looking for Tuxedo.’

And the tears came again.

That darn cat will always be in my head and heart.

In Denver yesterday a student shot two high school administrators, Good thing he wasn’t reading a banned book … or learning history … or saying gay … in the United States of Guns.

The Walt Disney Company will host a major conference promoting LGBTQ+ rights in the workplace in Central Florida this September, in a defiant display of the limits of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis De Fascists’ campaign against diversity training.

Joining Disney will be Apple, McDonald’s, Uber, Walmart, Hilton, Amazon, Boeing, Cracker Barrel and John Deere who are all sponsoring the Out & Equal Workplace summit.

And they will be saying Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender.

A man and his wife, along with their three small children, were checking into a hotel, and after getting the room key, the father leaned over the counter and whispered to the front desk clerk:

“I hope the porn is disabled.”

And the desk clerk replied:

“It’s all regular porn, you sick fuck.”

It’s all in the phrasing.

I haven’t talked much about our lone cat, Consuelo, since we lost Tuxedo. She’s been somewhat different; before she was a solitary cat—though she played with Tuxedo and Max when they were still with us—but she's become more social, sleeping on the floor of the living room while we watch TV or read. And while she has never been the kind of cat who likes being picked up, she has taken to letting me put her in my lap, where she will fall asleep after a while.

Still, we think she needs a companion, and after having, at one time, seven cats, having just one feels strange. So we’re getting set to look for a new cat, and a friend who works at an animal shelter was asking what kind we wanted: age, color, gender, all those questions. My only criteria: it cannot be a Tuxedo because we’ve already had the best one and anything else would be a letdown.

But we’re hoping for a younger cat that can keep Consuelo busy but will also get along with an aging tiny dog and a couple of queens.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act which expands basic protections for the LGBTQ community, prohibiting discrimination at schools, offices, and housing, based on a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity.

Whitmer said, as she signed the bill, thanks to a Democrat controlled legislature:

“In the words of Detroit native Lizzo, it’s about damn time!”

It’s about damn time we all vote Blue to end the bigotry and make equality the law.

Thor Bulow is a former fashion model from Germany, and that’s about the end of my knowledge, so I will ask: Would You Hit It?

Tuesday Thought #2

I Didn't Say It........

Mark Morford, San Francisco Chronicle columnist, on the avalanche of major companies backing the repeal of DOMA:

"Are you not furious, righteous Republican homophobe? I bet you are. I bet you're dialing your angriest, most confused buds right this moment to write letters, post barely punctuated rants to the hate forums on Free Republic, call in to Rush to demand a Tea Party-wide boycott of every single one of these sicko companies. I mean, you can't really call yourself a true American, a real Christian and still openly wear Nikes or Levi's, use Microsoft or Google, or watch Warner Brothers movies, can you? If you really walk your anti-gay talk, well, every one of these companies should be banned from your life, right?"

Hee hee.
It's funny, cuz it's true.

Brett Ratner, "apologizing" for using a gay slur during an audience Q&A, when he said, 'Rehearsal? What’s that? Rehearsal’s for fags.':

“I apologize for any offense my remarks caused. It was a dumb way of expressing myself. Everyone who knows me knows that I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. But as a storyteller I should have been much more thoughtful about the power of language and my choice of words.”


I am so sick of people saying the word 'fag' as some sort of derogatory slur, or when they can think of another word for stupid. [Sidenote: I suggest Ratner, as in, 'Rehearsal's are for Ratner's.']
And then these Ratner people release a statement where they tell us that they have gay friends and everyone who knows them knows they aren't homophobes.
Guess what? We don't know you aren't a homophobe, or Ratner-esque. We go by what you say, and what you say is Ratn....stupiud.

Larry Kramer, on his perception that the LGBT community needs to learn to fight back:

"At the height of the Holocaust, when Jews were being shoveled into the ovens by the trainload, a great woman by the name of Hannah Arendt, who was a political philosopher – Jewish, obviously, and German – said, in essence, to all of the Jews in the world, 'Why are you allowing this to happen? Where is your army?' She thought the Jews should actually have their own army, which was an unbelievable thing for a woman to say. And, in essence, she was saying, 'You brought all this on yourselves. You get what you deserve. You're not fighting back. And you've never fought back, ever, in your whole history.' And I say that about us, too. People don't want to hear it."


You can't sit silently by and "hope" it'll get better.
You have to stand up, stand for something, say something, do something.
Otherwise, you'll get what you put out. Nothing.

Mark Driscoll, the "pastor" who claimed that male masturbation is gay, because it's the same thing as having sex with a man, now says that yoga is the Devil's handiwork:

"Whether they know it or not, Christians who engage in yoga are participating in a religious expression that is antithetical to Christianity. The result is often an unguarded spirit that is susceptible to the many lies of Satan and a slow, almost unperceivable degradation of faith and Christian truth in one’s life. The act itself is a worship act. Subsequently, it cannot be done in a way that is not spiritual."


Wow.
I can't Choke The Chicken, Spank The Monkey or do Downward Facing Dog?
I'm screwed.
But in a good way.

Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan state Senator, reading the GOP the riot act over passage of a "bullying" bill that was gutted so heavily that it actually creates "a blueprint for bullying":

"You may be able to pat yourselves on the back today and say that you did something, but in actuality, you're explicitly outlining how to get away with bullying. Your exceptions have swallowed the rule. As passed today, bullying kids is okay if a student, parent, teacher, or school employee can come up with a religious or moral reason for doing it....There are at least 10 Michigan children in the past decade whose deaths are directly attributable to bullying...Had this bill that you're going to pass today been law in effect while they were alive, how many of their deaths would have been prevented? ZERO!....In fact not only does this not protect kids who are bullied. It further endangers them by legitimizing excuses for tormenting a student. And the saddest and sickest irony of this whole thing is that it's called 'Matt's Safe School Law'. And after the way that you've gutted it, it wouldn't have done a damn thing to save Matt!....This is worse than doing nothing! It's a Republican license to bully."


And now it looks like her rant has paved the way for the bill's wording to be changed.
Bullying is bullying, whether you're Christian or not.

Sergio Viula, Brazil's "ex-gay" leader, on how there is no such thing as "ex-gay":
"Today I know that I was deceiving myself. But back then, I thought that every sentiment or attraction was a mere case of ‘temptation’ and that it could be overcome with prayer and dedication to god. In the group, we used to think, basically speaking, that being gay was a sin, which should be confessed and abandoned and, therefore, we would proselytize, counsel, pray, preach, recommend certain books, read the Bible – things that believers usually do, but focusing on homosexuality itself; unfortunately, always demonizing homogenic love. Nobody really quit being gay. There were relationships even within the group, between an activity and another, they would always find time for that."


You can Pray Away The Gay, or Gay Away The Pray.
We're here, we're queer, pray for something you can actually change.
Like a bigoted mind. It worked with Sergio Viula.

Brian Brown, NOM president, on the Michigan state Senate's recent passage of a bill that allows bullying if it's done with a "religious or moral" purpose:
"Are some major political players openly now asserting that protecting gay children from bullying—a worthy goal—requires giving the government the right to prohibit thoughtful and civil expressions of religious or moral viewpoints? What would become of our democracy if we accepted this reckless premise? I hope Michigan's effort to civilize children by repressing bullying becomes a landmark of a new effort to genuinely address the legitimate concerns of parents—including parents with gay teens—without heavy-handed use of government power to repress and exclude Christian views on sex and marriage."


Shut up, Brian,
You've been served.
See, perhaps a gay kid could justify bullying a Christian kid for a good and moral reason. How would you feel about that you dimwitted hack?

Stephen Colbert, on that Bullying Is Okay If Jesus Says So bill in Michigan:

"It is well known that the homosexual agenda is just an insidious plot to prevent gay teenagers from dying...The point is, bullying is just fine as long as you get a permission slip from God. With this amendment to the law, if you're a Michigan Christian teenager giving a gay kid a swirlie, you can just say it's a baptism."

The Gay Agenda is, as anyone who is LGBT or LGBT-friendly knows, equality.

That's all.

Just treat us like you'd treat everyone else, only, we're kinda hoping you treat everyone as you'd want to be treated.

UPDATE: Michigan, Where Christians Are Free To Bully

Senator Gretchen Whitmer

Michigan state Democratic Senator Gretchen Whitmer has announced that the language in Michigan's new It's Okay To Bully If You Believe In Jesus Bill, AKA SB 137, will be changed before the bill becomes law, and she is hopeful that after meeting with Republican lawmakers that it will happen soon.

"It looks like they are poised to do that. I'm glad to say that there are people on both sides of the aisle that believe that we should not legitimize excuses for tormenting a student in school."

It was just last week that Senate legislators nearly came to blows over SB 137, AKA Matt's Safe Schools Law, after Democrats accused Republicans of creating a "license to bully" when the GOP-controlled legislature allowed this language to be added to the bill:

Amendment of the constitution of the United States or under article I of the state constitution of 1963 of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian. This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian.

This idea that, if you're Christian, or believe you have a moral right, you will not be punished for bullying another student. In fact, it makes it perfect;y okay to bully, if you 'have a friend in Jesus.' And that new language enraged Gretchen Whitmer:

"Frankly, no one I talked to has any idea what the Senate Republicans were thinking when they decided to put this language in. We need to protect our kids. In the name and memory of Matt Epling, we need to do the right thing."

As it enraged Kevin Epling, the father of the bill's namesake, who hopes that, in addition to removing the debated language, the bill should include provisions on cyberbullying:

"I think there needs to be stronger language on cyberbullying and there needs to be stronger language on reporting, all the way to the state level. Students are attacking each other 24/7."

Hoping to add more fuel to their cause Democrats also released a video with Michigan students speaking out against the language in SB 137:


The hope is, that even Michigan GOP can see that there is no excuse for bullying, no matter the reason. It is never okay to tease, taunt, push, shove, name-call, hit, or punch anyone because of who they are. 
Maybe now the Michigan GOP gets it.


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