Do you remember the lesson of Horton Hears a Who? No matter how small, everyone matters. Fox has brought the theme to the animated screen and not-unlikely bedfellows are seizing on the message. Under the revival tents, the anti-abortion preachers want you to glean something further from Horton: that the very life of a tiny embryo could depend on you, if only your inner elephant can be persuaded you hear its call.
Although, they’re are not talking about the embryos deliberately created en vitro by fertility clinics, terminated when too many have taken to the uterine wall. Nor babies miscarried, nor still-born. Do the pro-life Hortons not hear them?
Let’s agree that abortion is tragic, and shouldn’t be bandied about as a lifestyle choice like a Brazilian wax or a boob job. Personally I’d prefer our culture wasn’t so enthralled with promiscuity. Don’t encourage drinking if you can’t live with the car wrecks. Don’t paint sex as the ultimate of fulfillments if your society has set as acceptable norm a procreative age over a dozen years later than we are biological capable.
Fighting Fifth Avenue and mankind’s propensity to hedonism is doubtless harder than bringing the hammer down on a pregnant teen. Shouldn’t the church come down on immorality instead of its victims? Abortion is a hard choice, like any harsh dilemma. We euthanize cats and dogs when there become too many. A “domestic” animal designates those in man’s care, which live to serve us, and die according to our dinner plan. We ride our horses but leave them to the French to eat. To our credit we show a reluctance to face nature’s difficult choices.
Religious beliefs have been the ultimate causes of war, justifying killings in fanatical number, to this present day. Religion is always behind genocide. What is it about pre-infanticide that’s got zealots so indignant?
Is this about an egg and sperm’s right to wed? Or about the church’s prerogative to mandate pregnancy? I think to a large extent, it’s about enforcing puritanism, the better to reserve the sex drive for manipulating people. You can’t have your masses contentedly debauched, they must be repressed and thwarted, being lured by sex to get married and pregnant to breed the next batch of easily motivated worker/consumer drones.
I admire the Right to Life credo that all life is sacred. But is it? Right to Lifers remind me of pedigree animal rescue outfits, only THEIR breed is sacred enough worth saving. What about other forms of life? Owls? Whales, small fish? Are these pious folks practicing vegans, concerned not to exploit any living being? Do they feed themselves like the Buddhists monks who consume liquids through a strainer, careful not to swallow even a flea?
The pro-lifer’s concern is not for the human being small person, it’s only for the unborn baby. And it’s only for the unborn of their likeness, and more than likely from their neighborhood. Other cultures’ offspring are mere driving factors of overpopulation, unless they are our colonial suppliers of cheap labor.
And what about already born babies? Or babies -or tiny children- belonging to foreigners, right now being shot at by our troops? Where is the Right to Life alarm about people we are depriving of life? Horton’s lesson was that others matter, regardless of size. Would that mean not just little people? What of adult people being exploited, tortured or condemned to death, who is concerned for their right to life?
One of the charms of Dr. Seuss is that his myriad creatures represent an incalculable gamut of fantasy beings. Horton does not hear a baby elephant for example, he hears a WHO. The Whos of Whoville are not of his world at all, and might well inhabit a forth dimensional anthill as far as Horton can figure. Would this not be quite the humanitarian message for religious nuts preoccupied only for their own? Miserably too, they are not obsessed with precisely their own, but about YOUR own, whom they claim as theirs to save. Their daughters are having abortions, to the last, I can assure you that.
The your-baby demagogues are motivated by penance, for deed past or to come, but instead of flagellating themselves, they’re beating on your daughter. They are concerned for the right to life of her baby, to be conceived unprepared for and un-afforded. They stand for that baby’s right to the unending cycle of ill-parenting, vocational training, indebtedness, and life of servitude.
Dr. Seuss lived long enough to see the Religious Right’s interest in exploiting the Horton Hears a Sinner theme. Both Theodor Geisel and his widow publicly repudiated the holier-than-thou interpretation being used to agitate against abortion. But now his earthly voice is extinguished, and we can see Pro-Lifers don’t respect the dead either.
OK, nobody wants to talk about the health of Iraqis, Afghans, or Somalis, nor do they want to talk about our entire government being supportive enough to give the President a free ride in mandating the use of torture on prisoners taken and held without any due process, etc. So let’s talk about the health of young American women instead. One quarter of them have sexually transmitted diseases …STDs rife among US teenage girls… says the American Center for Disease Control.
Sounds like they are not doing their job if that’s the case, and neither are all the insurance companies and corporate lawyers attached like leeches upon us. They say they are necessary to deliver good health, but look at what’s actually the case. They screw up Americans’ health …PERIOD. Even the health of young women, because they are not to blame for the sorry state of the health care they are currently mainly not receiving.
Looking at early editions of the National Geographic Magazine, it is hard for me to imagine that the fabled topless photographs of indigenous woman might have been included for the express purpose of titillating the reader. Conversely, I have seen the privately printed books of the same era, published by the Anthropological Society, mailed discretely only to members, which seemed to dwell on seductive nudity it’s true. What the voyeur used to have to animate about the native’s restless frolics, this photograph SEXES UP!
OPPOSE the construction of a new immigrant detention center in Aurora!
Colorado Progressive Coalition office, 1600 Downing St. Suite 210
Saturday, March 1 11:00 a.m.
The GEO Group, one of the nation’s largest private prison corporations wants to build a new 1,100 bed immigrant holding facility in Aurora. The Aurora Planning Commission will vote on the proposal to build this facility March 12.
If you would like to help stop this facility from being built:
1. Contact Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition with your name and/or organization to sign on to the attached petition. Contact: chandrarusso-at-gmail.com
2. Contact the Planning Commission directly, along with the Mayor and Aurora City Council, and tell them to oppose the detention center. Their email addresses: schapel-at-auroragov.org, citycouncil-at-auroragov.org, etaur-at-auroragov.org, and rrpeters-at-auroragov.org
3. Personalize and print the petition as a letter to be sent to: Planning Commission Members, Aurora Mayor and City Council c/o Susan Chapel, 15151 E. Alameda Parkway, 2nd floor, Aurora, CO 80012
4. Join us on Saturday, March 1 at 11 a.m. at the Colorado Progressive Coalition, 1600 Downing St. We will meet to review strategy, talk about how to engage safely and respectfully. We will then drive out to Aurora to flyer. If you are unable to make it to this event but know others that might, please forward this message to them.
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Dear Planning Commission Members,
As you may know, the GEO Group, a billion dollar corporation, wants to build a new 1,100 bed immigrant holding facility in Aurora. This facility will hurt our community and lead to great suffering while putting millions of tax dollars into the pockets of a destructive corporation.
We strongly urge you to OPPOSE the construction of a new immigrant detention center in Aurora when it comes up for hearing on March 12.
Here is why:
Detention hurts asylum seekers and other victims of torture and trauma Torture survivors, victims of trafficking, and other vulnerable groups can be detained for months or even years, further aggravating their isolation, depression, and other mental health problems associated with the horrors they have experienced.
Conditions in detention are atrocious Detention centers across the country have prevented men, women and children access to phones and food. Several people held in immigration detention have died because they did not receive basic medical care. The GEO Group was forced to close detention centers after the US Justice Department sued for “abuse and neglect,” “life threatening conditions,” and sexual assault of children.
Private prisons profit off of misery GEO is expecting $30 million a year in profits for its new Aurora facility. GEO has a vested interest in having sufficient men, women and children to fill its beds. To GEO, they’re not people, they’re profits- at $95 per person per day. To this end, the GEO group has given hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to ensure elected officials push for policies that benefit GEO- more detentions nation-wide.
A detention center can become a poorly run state or federal prison almost overnight The GEO Group has not been granted an immigration contract for its proposed Aurora facility, meaning it could be used as a prison. Private prisons have been shown to cut corners, have inadequate staffing levels and receive little government oversight.
As decision makers for Aurora, we trust you will make choices that strengthen our communities and enhance our way of life. We believe you will support development that enriches our neighborhoods and maintains our values.
Building one of the country’s largest immigration detention center in Aurora does neither of these things. It is an affront to communities, families, workers and tax-payers. We trust you will not allow this detention center to be built.
Here comes Ralph Nader to remind us that a politician can make memorable speeches AND make it about something that matters. Here’s Ralph, younger than Barack, addressing the ills of society instead of its platitudes. Ralph’s back to force the issues into the election coverage. He faces corporate candidates who offer nothing different from each other except sex/color/age and to which uninformed voters they pander.
Do you want something new? Nader has the same thing to say, and it’s always new. Although the context becomes more dire with each election. Where has Barack given you any sense he presents “change you can believe in?” Because Barack’s reform is sufficiently infinitesimal that you believe it is plausible.
Nader is everything Dennis Kucinich promised without the caving to the Democratic Party.
Fighting all who rob or plunder! Underdog! Underdog! Underdog!
Last week it was news about a woman named Hope in New York, whose cousin had called the police because another cousin had sexually molested her. When the police came they ended up arresting the victim, taking her to jail, then assaulted her again with 7-8 heavy and thuggish cops jumping on her, stripping the clothes off her, and leaving her naked in a jail cell!
These attitudes come out of the airports, out of Guantanamo, out of the Colorado Springs city council, where similar policing attitudes and methods were glossed over when used against elderly St Pat’s Day paraders in the city last year.
I remember Elizabeth being hauled across the pavement just an hour or so after having given her a ride to be there. She could not walk to the area where we were to start the parade and I had had to ask a cop to let my car though the barricade just for her to get to the Bookmobile. Later, after being assaulted by the cops, she had to face the city bringing criminal charges against her in the aftermath… for supposedly being part of a plot to block the parade from going on!
These police attitudes come as the American Reich has begun an electrical arms race across the country, with Taser International being the Lockheed of police weaponry. Our city and county governments think nothing about now spreading these devices into the schools!
These attitudes come from Iraq and Afghanistan, where our bombers drop ordinance down onto children below, just as if they were so much trash. This is policing today, in the American Reich. This is a new system in place, that uses torture on POWs even as our own local city flies flags about American POWs once held in Vietnam from the flag masts of the downtown post office right here in The Springs.
The American Reich doesn’t see the incongruence in their idiotic national pride about being the supposed repository of all democracy as they police as they are now doing. They have become more thuggish in simple increments, and now do not see the distance downhill they have actually traveled.
We live in a scary place and in scary times, but unlike in New York with Hope and here in The Springs with Elizabeth, at least in Florida these cops who dumped the paralyzed man on the floor from his wheelchair are now facing some troubles of their own. Yet, there are many more places where those in charge are totally complicit in the Reich style policing. Foremost among these hot spots of official complicity, is the Congress of the US.
There is a building out there in Manitou Springs that is full of nuts. The building houses the remnants of Pastor Billy Hargis’s ‘Christian Crusade’ , Hargis being a commie-phobic radio evangelist from Texarkana, who lost his ministry when caught screwing with both man and wife in a married couple whose marriage he had just performed! Talking to each other they both discovered that they had both lost their virginity to Billy! Some ministry it certainly was!
Here is how Manitou based Summit Minstries and their ex-Billy Hargis disciple, Pastor David A. Noebel, was described in PublicEye.org back in 1993.
Summit Ministries
Summit Ministries of Manitou Springs, Colorado, is a little-known Religious Right organization whose work is national in scope. It is a 30-year-old Christian organization specializing in educational materials and summer youth retreats. Its president is Rev. David A. Noebel, formerly a prominent preacher in Rev. Billy James Hargis’s Christian Crusade. As early as 1977, Noebel authored The Homosexual Revolution, in which he claims that “homosexuality rapidly is becoming one of America’s most serious social problems.” He has also written several books claiming that rock’n’roll and soul music are communist plots to corrupt US youth. Summit Ministries later published AIDS: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome: A Special Report, co-authored by David Noebel, Wayne C. Lutton, and Paul Cameron. For the last several years, virtually every issue of The Journal, Summit Ministries’ monthly newsletter, has contained several anti-homosexual entries. Summit Ministries has just published Noebel’s new book, Understanding the Times: The Story of the Biblical Christian, Marxist/Leninist and Secular Humanist Worldviews.
Noebel’s background with Rev. Billy James Hargis’s Christian Crusade helps to explain the historical friendly relationship between Summit Ministries and the John Birch Society (JBS). Both the Christian Crusade and the John Birch Society represent a political sector known in political science literature as the “old right.” Born out of the conviction that communism was rampant in the United States, both organizations believed that the civil rights movement was manipulated by communists, that the National Council of Churches promoted communism, and that the United Nations was controlled by communists. In 1962, Rev. Billy James Hargis purchased an old resort hotel in Manitou Springs, which was renamed The Summit. The Summit became a retreat and anti-communism summer college.
Summit’s relationship with the John Birch Society is deeper than mere ideological affinity. In fact, in 1983, a donor responding to a John Birch Society fundraising letter sent a check to Robert Welch of JBS, and received a thank-you letter from Welch. The check, however, was made out to Summit Ministries.
Rev. David Noebel was a member of the John Birch Society until at least 1987, and for many years Summit Ministries took out full-page advertisements for its summer youth retreats in Review of the News and American Opinion, two John Birch Society publications.
Summit Ministries is also politically close to Dr. James Dobson and Focus on the Family. Dr. Dobson, especially since moving to Colorado, leads seminars at Summit Ministries, and his endorsement of Summit’s work was prominent in Summit’s material promoting its 30th anniversary. David Noebel is on the advisory board of Colorado for Family Values.
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AYBABTU variant: All Your Babes Are Belong To Us. In ancient days when kingdoms conquered each other, the winners would slaughter the vanquished males and keep the females for themselves, to augment their own number. Warring cannibals still do the same when they raid rival villages. They kill the men, eat them to acquire their power, and take the girls for brides or for slave labor.
It would seem tribal prejudices aren’t entrenched when it comes to another culture’s women. Is this because foreign females are less threatening, or because coveting another’s spouse transcends bigotry? Westerners fantasize that Native Americans raided the pioneer settlements to take captive the white women on account of their white beauty. I doubt it. Women are smaller than men and can be dominated, wives and laborers being more or less the same thing.
Western society seems preoccupied to fetishistic extremes with the safety of its white women, while negligent about the fate of those of darker skin. But does that mean we are not interested in non-white women? Of course not. The recent focus on trying to introduce western education into Islamic cultures is strategically targeting young Muslim girls. It seems altruistic, but follows the usual pattern of male-mankind’s predatory nature.
Naturally the benefits of separating girls from their communities serves the need of human traffickers, for the sex trade but to a much bigger degree, all industrial applications.
Look at the Maquiladoras on the Mexican border, where US manufacturers have relocated to exploit cheap Mexican labor without having to ship products too much further to reach American consumers. Look into those factories, they are full of women.
Look at the sweat shops in our port cities, where non-citizens labor undocumented -or falsely documented- they’re women.
The work camps set up in the US territories to skirt our labor laws and duck import tariffs are also full of women. Indeed clothing mills and electronics factories across the globe are staffed predominantly with women. Men are left with the construction, transportation and extraction industries, the labor issues of which affect the industrialist bottom line not the least.
We may guard our white women closely, feigning paternal self-interest, but we’re after all women, for the traditional role of indentured servitude.
Call me a prude, but I don’t think a children’s studio should renew the contract of a young actress who has adult photographs circulating on the web. Particularly if she’s meant to be a youth role model and especially if the wholesome character Vanessa Hudgens portrays is younger than her real-life age. Imagine if paparazzi caught Urkel or Gary Coleman drinking at a bar for example.
Likewise do you wonder if a pregnant Jamie Lynn Spears should retain her tweenager role at Nickelodeon’s Chastity High? How are young viewers to reconcile Zoey of abstinence 101 with the tabloids which will describe Zoey the young mother? Is it the unspoken result of a mindless sitcom episode they might have missed?
But I also find it unseemly for Disney Channel actresses to be mascara’d like Bratz Dolls. It’s the painted lady look. Where is the Disney piper leading our children? To the sex service industry?
Tired of Tupperware parties, Amway sales parties, lingerie sales parties, Mary Kay cosmetics sales parties, Women? Want to make a fortune and socialize with other ladies of your type at the same time? Great!
From Phoenix, in our lovely sun state of Arizona, a new opportunity for getting rich shockingly quick is emerging. We are talking about pink stun gun sales parties! Taser parties stunning success with female clients
Yes, Arizona seems to be the perfect birthplace for this new social engagement. Pretty soon, moms all across America will be buying these high voltage birth control machines for their teenage daughters to go along with the more basic Biblical Abstinence Education course. Focus on the family!
Now, isn’t this much better than having to carry around pepper spray bottles in your purses, take feminist karate courses taught by imposing lesbians, or just calling 9/11, Ladies? Plus, if you catch the old man or teen boy watching porn on the INTERNET, you can always deliver them a gentle reminder of how you feel about such things. This is a sales item that no home can be without safely. Buy one now! ***note- The Pink Taser will soon be available in Tangerine, Fuchsia, and Nude, too.
Buy your new sex toy HERE! And just wait to our ‘peace officers’ got a shot of this! Bondage and domination has never been easier and more convenient!
I have a bunch of cool things in the works for the next couple of months- I’m excited about them and wanted to let you folks know:
On Jan. 11th I’ll be screening all of my films with live narrations and soundtracks at DiverseWorks in Houston. The band will be Jim Becker (Califone), Andy Coppinger and myself. It’ll be frenetic and beautiful. The show is to celebrate the opening of DiverseWorks’ animation show Flicker Fusion, which includes Hadacol Christmas.
Jan. 18th, 19th and 21st I’ll be screening all of my films with live narrations and improvised soundtracks by myself and Califone at Sundance. It’s part of their New Frontiers program. I love Califone. These shows will be unreal. The shows will be around an hour long with a little Q&A at the end- all of them at 6PM at the New Frontiers on Main MicroCinema building. It’s called “God Builds Like Frank Lloyd Wright: Califone and the animated films of Brent Green.”
“Carlin” is screening at Sundance, too! As part of their Documentary Spotlight program. There’s a film Isabella Rossilini made about the sex life of bugs screening in there, too. Sundance runs from Jan. 17th- Jan. 28th- the Documentary Spotlight runs five times in there somewhere.
On Feb. 8th, Tim Rutili (Califone) and I will be performing live soundtracks and narrations to all of my films and a couple of films Tim has cooked up recently at Montalvo Artspace in Califone- somewhere outside of San Francisco.
On Feb. 13th, The Kitchen will be hauling Jim Becker (Califone), Fred Lonberg-Holm (Valentine Trio, Lightbox Orchestra, cellist for Wilco, Califone, Freakwater, Ken Vandermark and all kinds of other folks) and Brendan Canty (Fugazi) to New York City. Cello, violin, musical saw, guitars, piano and drums- this is going to be a beautiful show.
My first solo museum show, at the Sculpture Center in Cleveland will be running through Jan. 5th, too. If you’re around Cleveland, that’s a pretty rad show- all of my film sets and hand-made wooden props. I also made a woodcut-print of Virginia Woolf for the Sculpture Center, which is available on their website somewhere, I think.
Dumbshell Britney Spears’ little sister is having a baby. The clan are mega millionaires, why shouldn’t they decide what they please? Clearly they’ve already decided a premature preteen nose job is fine, even if your face is going to outgrow it. Time for another!
Baby at sixteen. Please. A young mother in Bangladesh is on her third by sixteen. Young Indonesian tsunami survivors were starting second families by sixteen.
What does the Spears pregnancy say about American teens in general, ill-served by abstinence-only sex-ed, who are finding themselves pregnant? Most of those young mothers do not have media fortunes to fall back on and can expect basically lives of uneducated hardship. Historically, before public education, before the middle class, girls were pregnant as early as nature provided to yield the next generation of workers. Their witless beaus as well were shackled to prospect-less futures.
Appropriately enough the Spears celebrity news critics treat this development like it was a stumbled performance on American Idol. What does this mean for the profile-challenged Spears’ career? What advice can they offer to improve viewer poll reception in the next round? Will Nickelodeon dump pregnant Jamie Lynn from Zoey 101 because her figure may no longer be believed as a sixteen year old passing as a middle schooler. Oh my God. Forget about dumping the errant Bratz Doll because she presents too skewed a role model to America’s preteens.
Why are our culture deciders glamorizing White Trash?
In other Trailer Park news, a worker at a Lowes store discovers that a coworker is his biological mom who had given him up for adoption. What does that say about genetic self-determination? Even with new parents he couldn’t roll further than a mega store aisle from that tree.
Over the weekend I saw Lars and the Real Girl, a strange but funny movie about a mentally-ill introvert who, much to his concerned family’s delight, finds a “girlfriend” on the internet. The girlfriend, Bianca, it turns out, is actually a Real Doll, a life-sized anatomically correct silicone woman, created by Abyss Creations in California and sold for upwards of $10,000. The entire community sweetly honors the “relationship” while Lars works through deep psychological issues resulting from his mother’s death at his birth.
The brilliance of the movie is that it causes us to gain an uneasy acceptance of something that would otherwise seem perverse and completely laughable. Yet Lars is not, by any stretch, a normal guy, so our acceptance is tenuous. What type of real man is satisfied substituting a silicone representation of a woman for an actual relationship? Abyss Creations has sold thousands of Real Dolls and have an order backlog even as we speak. So who is purchasing these things? Maybe the same man who leaves his wife sleeping upstairs while spending hours looking at internet pornography? The guy who can’t handle the complexities of a real relationship with a flesh and blood female?
At the core, Real Dolls and pornography appeal to the same man. Both give the illusion of love–a travesty of love–created for poorly mothered or often-rejected men. For once these men have control over the omnipotent feminine. The unattainable girl. The instrument of rejection. That intense and infantile vulnerability to the female is turned on its head. The female is now submissive, expendable, interchangeable. Performing for you! Wanting only you! Loving only you!
Ryan Gosling, who plays Lars in the movie, is quite charitable in his assessment of the men who own Real Dolls. “There’s a whole culture of guys out there who have these dolls, and they have very intimate relationships with them. Part of it is sexual, but a lot of it is emotional. One guy goes hang gliding, and he takes his doll to watch, so that he has someone to support him in the things that he likes to do. Some guys cook with them and have dinners; they’re part of the fabric of their life. So, all of this is possible. … I think it’s a romantic idea, that love’s not a transaction. It’s something you have to give, and you give it freely to whoever and whatever you want.”
Okay, I can’t disagree. It’s plenty romantic. Objectification of women is the epitome of romance. In fact, it’s the definition of romance…an artistic work that deals with sexual love, especially in an idealized form…an idealized form like a silicone doll or a stylized airbrushed photograph.
UPDATE: The Gazette article is still among the top commented.
Here’s a string of the initial comments, in chronological order:
hmmmmm wrote:
Well this proves that if you break the law, and they did, and complain and whine enough then you can get off. Very disappointed in our DA on this one. quote “When you consider dragging an old woman across the street and not lifting her up, it’s really hard to see how that’s doing nothing wrong,” Verlo said. end quote. When this “old woman” refuses to get up and follow police orders, Yes they did nothing wrong. It’s called the law, and they broke it.
11/28/2007 7:44 PM MST on Gazette.com
csaction wrote:
No part of this trial was ever in the public’s interest and the city prosecutors were the last to see that. Some of the police used excessive force and that ruined their case. The parade rules weren’t applied to everyone equally, and that ruined their case. You aren’t guilty of obstructing the street when the police throw you down in the street. Explaining that you have a permit to march, just like the year before, is NOT failure to disperse. Allowing every politico in town to make a political statement EXCEPT those with a message of peace, is NOT equal protection under the law.
The strangest part of the city’s position, other than the obvious lame claim that they could get a conviction but decided not to, is Ms. Kelly’s apparent distrust of the legal system: “everything the police did was justified and there was probable cause for an arrest, but getting a conviction is another story”.
It is NOT another story IF the police did nothing wrong and there WAS probable cause for an arrest, and that’s ALL been decided by a jury of their peers when they couldn’t prove their case to 6 people in this town.
Is she suggesting that the jury system is wrong or that we, the people, are too stupid to see that the police and city are always right, no matter what they do? Does she think we can’t sit on a jury and decide the ruling based on the evidence, and get it right? The jury already got it right and the city wanted to intimidate the remaining 2 people with the threat of a trial, until the last minute, to stop them from suing for the police brutality, already proven to a jury.
11/28/2007 7:49 PM MST on Gazette.com
mananamaria wrote:
Apparently a jury couldn’t agree anyone broke the law in the first place. As far as I can tell, the threat to file charges against Verlo and Fineron, who both may or may no longer have pending lawsuits against the city and then dropping those is pretty telling. Besides did our finest not learn appropriat compliance tools that avoid the spectecals of dragging old women across a street and flagrantly threateniing people with tasers?
11/28/2007 8:03 PM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
CS, correction–they had a permit to march in a parade, not to interrupt the parade with a demonstration. In addition, Kelly is stating that another trial would be a waste of resources because the outcome would be the same…there is no insuation here.
11/28/2007 8:04 PM MST on Gazette.com
back2colorado4go wrote:
csaction, you have lost ALL credibility on these boards! And Manawhatever, you do not follow ANY of the facts about this. JWSTrue has it right. These people broke the law, and most people I know of agree that these people needed to be taught that what they did in public was a disgrace! The police PICKED THEM OFF OF THE STREET, and with resistance these people ended up hurting themselves! They are deceptive by lying for the permit and needed to be removed. No one, especially the children there to see the parade, needed to be subjected to these adults acting unruly and not listening to the police! You can protest many other ways without this sick little show! And I agree with the DA in one way though. For the little satisfaction we (the public) would get in prosecuting these people, it is not worth the cost and the publicity it would give these pathetic people in the process! And yes, juries are full of creepy people that let off murderers every day, so it is not so hard to see one that can’t decide this one! These people were LUCKY it was the police that dragged them from the streets after hearing how ticked some parade watchers were at these people when this happened! Way to teach our kids!!!
11/28/2007 8:21 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (4)
jwstrue wrote:
back2colorado4go, thanks for the support. Now we sit back and wait for jtrione to chime in…sometimes I think CS and jtrione are one in the same, maybe??
11/28/2007 8:50 PM MST on Gazette.com
tonytee wrote:
hey post person hummmmmm cops broke the law many times and have not been charged, people sometimes who break the law in history end up being heroes, sometimes the letter of the law is not always correct and golden, sometimes to make a difference in life you must break the law to make the world a better place to live and not not let the law become too powerful in trying to silence free speech.
11/28/2007 8:52 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (2)
pc12784 wrote:
CSaction, with the possibility of people like you in the jury pool, it is entirely reasonable to think that the jury would be too stupid to see that the police and city are right in this case. Your statement about excessive force still baffle me. If you don’t want to be dragged off the street by the police, MOVE when officers give you a lawful order to do so. It’s really quite simple. But JWS and back2colorado pretty much discredited everything you said in this thread anyway, so I rest my case.
11/28/2007 9:18 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (4)
lexiii wrote:
I wish they’d have gone ahead and prosecuted, but the county is trying to save money, and they are basically focusing on more important crimes, I think, which is a good thing.
However, I am not on the side of the protesters here, if there weren’t more important cases that need attention, I’d be screaming and hollering myself right now, but our jails are already over filled and we need the room for more violent offenders.
Even though they’re not going to be prosecuted, the stupid protesters still look stupid in the eyes of the public, that opinion will not change.
11/28/2007 9:37 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (4)
pastor wrote:
one thing I have learned about csaction is he is right and everyone else is wrong. Have anyone every read where he admitted he was wrong and said he was sorry. In his world the peace protest are always right and can do no wrong.
Here is an example of his world view “One more point: look at the list of issues that made the gazette change this blog. ALL rightwing issues. All rightwing hate speech. Vile, putrid, racist, sexist, Fox Noise, Rush Limpboy, dittohead, FotF issues. NONE leftwing.” ”
Mr. Rust, I see you like your peace activists stupid, brain addled, stoned hippies, with no fight in them, passively accepting any abuse from the enemies of the state. Or perhaps you like the theological activists looking for another martyrdom opportunity and willing to help any enemy nail them to the cross. Or perhaps activists that are just too stupid to see hypocrisy in the national (and local) theocracy proponents, or the threat that ALL theocrats represent to the peaceful majority. Sorry to disappoint. (not)” ” The theocratic party that wants to turn this nation into a theocracy, and is the Christian equivalent of an Islamic Republic, are who get criticized, along with the hypocrite, hate monger, adulterer, homophobe, foot tapping bathroom boys, and televangelist funditards. It has nothing to do with the religion and peaceful, loving followers of the Prince of Peace. It has to do with those straying from the message as much as the other Taliban, who want to turn back the clock on progress to created a biblical theocracy. It has to do with those that want to legislate “throwing the first stone”, battling those that want to legislate “thou shalt NOT throw the first stone”. The concept of the protection of targeted groups, is the application of that principle and those against it are NOT Christian, because it is the principle of their lord. BTW, preacher, I won’t cut you as much slack as the other guy. You know exactly what “Christian” Taliban means, you just defend them. I’ve explained this before and will not again.” all of these quotes are from him. FOR SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES CHRISTIAN ARE LIKE THE TALIBAN, WILL ALWAYS DEFEND HIS PEOPLE WHEN THERE ARE WRONG. So I am sure he will blame Christian for his friends getting in trouble, and that all of this is to silence his friends message.
11/28/2007 9:39 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
on the issues of the protester, they now know, if they disobey the police, they can get away with it by yell, that it is all the police fault. An make sure people like csaction spread their lies on line and in the newspaper, this is the normal blame the cops for our behavior.
11/28/2007 9:45 PM MST on Gazette.com
101abn wrote:
Once again, lazy DAs. I rest my case. Prosecuting the prostestors would probably cut in to the time they spend plea bargaining away other cases…
11/28/2007 10:10 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (2)
101abn wrote:
Neva Nolan. Nearly a HUNDRED COUNTS PLEA BARGAINED DOWN TO *TWO*. Did you watch the Channel 11 report on the clown with over a HALF DOZEN DUIs – INCLUDING KILLING A MAN – WHO LOST HIS DRIVER’S LICENSE, LEFT COURT, DROVE TO A LIQUOR STORE AND BOUGHT A BOTTLE OF BOOZE??? ALL FILMED AND CONFIRMED BY CHANNEL 11 NEWS CREWS. Our DAs are a BAD JOKE!
11/28/2007 10:26 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (3)
tonytee wrote:
actually lexiii i do not see the protesters as stupid in the eyes of the public, being one that is in the public i commend them for standing up for what they beleived in and taking it as far as they did, in this country too few people are sheep and will not step out and stand for what they beleive in that is why our country is in the dilemma it is in currently with politicians and fiancially, maybe more people need to step out of the box for what they beleive in instead of letting senior citizens do it for us, but maybe that is the only generation that has any guts left to stand up for something.
11/28/2007 11:50 PM MST
just1voice wrote:
Tony I think you are way off base on that one. Its not that people arent willing to stand up for what they believe in or that they are sheep following the flock. The majority of them do it WITHIN the limits of the law so it doesnt make headlines like these clowns did. Have you gone out and asked the “public” their opinion on what these people did? I have and as Lexi said, they look stupid and will continue to think they are stupid even though they wont be punished for it.
Besides, I can think of several other ways to punish a business owner besides sending him to jail so that is something the public needs to consider.
11/29/2007 7:10 AM MST on Gazette.com
skiracer wrote:
Tony – not sure exactly how you are in the public eye as I have never heard of you outside these boards and can’t find any information on basic internet searches. Someone mentioned on another thread you ran for a public office and lost. With the skewwed view points you have shown throughout the threads on this website and the apparent lack of a marketing plan I can see why.
Maybe the senior citizens in these case were convinced/brainwashed in to thinking they were standing up for a good cause. Heck, my grandmother voted for Clinton the first time around because she thought he was handsome and someone came around to her nursing home and told everyone there what a great guy he was and how his moral standards would help improve their lives in the retirement community.
The problem with what they did is that they lied their way into the protest (privately funded and run) and then refused to leave when organizers asked them to and then police asked them to. Arguing that you have a permit is not leaving. Step to the side of the road and then show your permit. But since it was privately run it doesn’t matter. Your permit can be revoked at anytime at the organizer’s discretion.
As far dragging rather than carrying an old lady across the street. I am going to guess that she was pushing 200 lbs if not more. Has anyone here tried to carry a oddly shaped, limp sack of potatoes weighing this much before. Now add some squirming into the equation and you can see why they dragged this person off the straight. Besides, I would be willing to bet that should she have been carried off we would hear about her injuring either her arms or her ribs.
11/29/2007 7:38 AM MST on Gazette.com
skiracer wrote:
And regardless of the cost, the DA should be prosecuting those who break the law. The problem with our legal system is not that too many people are getting 2nd chances, it’s that too many people never even have to plea bargain or go to court because of lazy prosecutors.
The DA just lost my vote when up for re-election. If you didn’t have enough evidence say so, but to say that you are backing out because you don’t have faith in the system you are supposed to uphold on behalf of the people is a bunch of BS.
11/29/2007 7:41 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
pastor wrote:
The next’s round of the peace protester hand book is to bring a lawsuit against the city and police for false arrest. I hope that everyone who hand entry for parade take notice and when this group try to entry next time, they make it clear to them no anti-war message permitted in the parade. If you bring in you anti-war or peace message (joke because they seem to end up in some type of fight with someone) you will be removed. This will stop them from cause trouble again.
11/29/2007 7:57 AM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
I went to war to push peace and democracy on other nations. In this nation, or atleast in this city peace is considered hate speach. This city had no case, thats why they lost and are hanging their heads in defeat.
11/29/2007 7:57 AM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
This city is changing, just drive on Fort Carson one day, count how many anti-war, anti-Bush stickers you see on people’s cars. It will shock you. But you people on this blog will probably just call those troops “phoney soldiers” or “anti-americans” or “unpatriotic”. We appreciate that. Thanks for the support. Go when Physical Training (PT) ends at 8:30am, you’ll see these troops in their cars where their PT uniform with with what you people call “propaganda” on their car. I love an America where our troops have the right to free speach, which you call “hate speach”.
11/29/2007 8:03 AM MST on Gazette.com
erniezippreplat wrote:
Break the law get away scott free with the Colorado Springs DA. Whoever run against the current DA next time around gets the five votes in my family
11/29/2007 8:08 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
lexiii wrote:
iraqwarvet, throwing yourself on the pavement during a family event isn’t speech, and it certainly isn’t peace.
If idiots want to stand up for peace, they need to be peaceable about it.
These protesters were no more peaceful than anyone else.
tonytee, the protesters were stupid. They acted like a bunch of tantruming toddlers. Grown men and women throwing themselves down like three year olds in front of little children, no less, because they were asked to leave and they didn’t want to leave.
Not only was that against their own message of peace, it was a bad example for the children concerning adult behavior, and it was completely inappropriate in the first place.
A family event is no place for a war protest, these selfish minded brainless old farts who think they’re still in the sixties need to grow up and find a more appropriate means of communication.
How can they send a message of peace when they, themselves, are not being peaceful?
11/29/2007 8:10 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
smackermack wrote:
GUYS your anger is in the wrong place!! It is the CITY ATTORNEY – not the DA who decided this!!! Read the headline and the first Paragraph of the article!!!
11/29/2007 8:55 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
No one want to silence the peace protesters right to speak, but we believe that there is a time and place for it. An most people believe that the St. Patrick’s Day parade was not the right time and place. Most people also seem to believe that if a cop asked you move you move you do not act like a baby. But I also must remind everyone that the peace protesters hand book, when the police ask you to move you drop an make a scene, so that it is caught on film, the reason is so you can make the police look like the bad guy.
Iragwarvet I have a question for you since you agree with the anti-war groups. Is it ok to block soldier return from the war? Is it ok to delay the soldier meeting with their family? Is it ok to destroy railroad tracks and stop the return of the military equipment from the war?
11/29/2007 8:56 AM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
TONYTEE, taking a stand or speaking out for what you believe in is one thing. Causing a disturbance during a public family event is quite another.
2 other bits:
– This country is in dilemma (according to you) because of corrupt politicians…
– This country is in dilemma (according to you) because of imminent recession…
Neither has anything to do with “stepping out or standing for”.
You wouldn’t happen to be one of the individuals who ran for mayor last term, would you?
11/29/2007 9:02 AM MST on Gazette.com
rambone wrote:
pastor wrote: “No one want to silence the peace protesters right to speak, but we believe that there is a time and place for it. An most people believe that the St. Patrick’s Day parade was not the right time and place.”
Oh, but it was the right time and place for an old pickup to drive in the parade with juveniles in the back, lifting kegs, acting like idiots?
Was it the right time and place for the police to scare the living daylights out of young children as they drug that poor old lady across the street by the back of her shirt?
Were you even there pastor? I was, and it was terrible that these fine police had to act like they were imposing martial law.
11/29/2007 9:11 AM MST on Gazette.com
davidb wrote:
Eric Verlo and Elizabeth Fineron should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. According to their own statements, they intentionally and premeditatedly challenged the police that day. Attorney Kelly, you do NOT speak for the public on this one. Do your job!
11/29/2007 9:20 AM MST on Gazette.com
rambone wrote:
lexiii wrote: “These protesters were no more peaceful than anyone else.”
Were you there lexiii? Or its this just another story you want to weigh in on? I watched the whole thing, from the moment they walked out of Acatia Park, to when they got beat down 1 block away. Their signs were just peace symbols, they were not yelling into the crowd. One more thing, that pig that drug that lady across the street is lucky to be walking on two legs today. Pull off that act in front of my kids is enough to get me sent to prison.
11/29/2007 9:20 AM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Iraqwarvet, actually if any one in a position of authority sees an active duty soldier driving around with this propaganda displayed on his/her POV–they will more than likely be ordered to remove it and potentially face administrative action.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibits any type of slander against the Commander-in-Chief–in any form or fashion. While military members may disagree with the policies and procedures set forth by the Commander-in-Chief, they are prohibited by law from open criticism of those policies/procedures or the CIC himself.
Yes, military members can exercise freedom of speech–but only accompanied by certain restrictions as outlined in the UCMJ.
11/29/2007 9:22 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
pastor wrote:
So it is ok for these people to act the way they did. So again it is the police fault for doing their job, an the protester are not responsibility for their actions. So when is it ok for the police to move someone who does not listen?
11/29/2007 9:27 AM MST on Gazette.com
lwirbel wrote:
Lexii, you still aren’t describing this event accurately. Some people, like the AIM Indians at Columbus Day in Denver, choose to get arrested and commit civil disobedience by symbolically blockading an event. Verlo and Fineron were parade participants who the parade marshall decided, after the fact, he didn’t want in the parade, who were removed from the parade. The courts have a very mixed record on the right of a parade organizer to set rules, particularly in an ex post facto way. St Patricks Day organizers in Boston and elsewhere have some limited rights to exclude in advance gay and lesbian marchers, but once they’re in a parade, you have only limited rights to take them out. What’s also relevant here is what the courts have said about Apple Computer’s right to define who is a journalist. The company wants to exclude some people in advance because it says, “they’re only bloggers.” The courts say, no, Apple, even if it’s your press conference, you do not have the right to decide who is a legit participant and who is not. The St. Paddy’s Day organizer was really bordering on the edge of legality when he decided to remove folks with peace shirts after allowing Bookman in (and like Rambone said, they weren’t yelling, just marching).
11/29/2007 9:31 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Rambone if the police tell you to move out of the way, you listen and sort out the problem once you are off the street. You do not act like a little child. Rambone read your past posting you are some one who has a problem with Authorize and police. I was not there but people I know and trust were there an witness the whole thing from start to finished. They witness the police asking them to leave and witness the people not listen to the police officers.
11/29/2007 9:35 AM MST on Gazette.com
skiracer wrote:
Smackermack – My bad on the City Attorney vs the DA. Guess I heard DA used and skipped over the first few lines of the article on my reread after reading other comments. Regardless, the DA’s office should still be looking at this as Colorado Springs is in El Paso County, which is covered in the area he is responsible for. At a minimum a better reason/story/lie needs to be provided to the people of the city regarding why these charges were actually dropped. Saying you have evidence to convict but we are not going to is the same as saying we will chose which laws we are going to enforce.
As for the City Attorney (appointed by our wonderful all knowing and responsible City Council). You should be fired for either lying in your statements to the Gazette or for not upholding the law regardless of cost. If you have enough evidence a crime was committed and the police were correct in their actions you owe it to those of us who follow the law to uphold it as well as to the police officers who just had their name dragged through the mud because you are either a liar or lazy.
11/29/2007 9:36 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Lwirbel my problem is how they acted once they were told by the police to leave. I do not agree with the message they were bring in the St. Patrick’s Day parade but that is my opion. I feel that there is a time and place for that message and this to me was not the right place. With that said, I still feel they were in the wrong once the police ask them to move out of the way. They had to two choices 1. to move out of the way and sort the mess out. 2. Do not listen to the police and risk getting in trouble. The choices was up to them.
11/29/2007 9:47 AM MST on Gazette.com
justanothervet wrote:
That is right . Every time the police or any authority figure tells you to do something than do it. No protesting allowed. No thinking allowed. Vote Republican.
BTW you can send your Tea Tax to the Queen care of the United Kingdom.
11/29/2007 9:47 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (2)
lwirbel wrote:
That’s the main difference between you and me. If there was a huge accident or similar crisis and the police were getting everyone to move, I’d high-tail it. If the police were asking me to do something that was clearly a violation of my rights, I would challenge them and ask for their badge number. Never kowtow to someone simply because they are in uniform.
11/29/2007 9:54 AM MST on Gazette.com
duncan wrote:
lwirbel, from your comments I can only conclude that you had no issue with the Valedictorian from Lewis Palmer giving her speech about faith AFTER deliberately misleading the event organizers about her intentions. Is that correct? Or are you blocking that piece of evidence out to make your case? I guess lies and deceit in the name of a “cause” are complete justification to getting ones message across.
rambone, your internet tough guy act is tired. By your own admission since you watched the whole thing you had your chance with “that pig” and you did nothing. I doubt there would have been any change if your kids were there or not. It sounds like you could have used it as an example to your kids of what not to do when they grow up.
11/29/2007 9:57 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
rambone wrote:
Selective discipline? I had three short paragraphs to you. You chose to only comment on some short sighted belief that the police are the rule makers. These peace activist had the permits to be in that parade.
Act the way they did? You admit you were not there. Last I remember, he told me/she told me wasn’t admitted in a court of law. So why are you even making assumptions?
11/29/2007 10:00 AM MST on Gazette.com
lwirbel wrote:
Duncan, I actually know Erica from Lewis-Palmer and I have mixed emotions about it, I don’t think her case will stand up in court because of those deceptions, though her intention was partially admirable. I think this issue will stand up in a civil-suit court because the marchers were NOT engaged in deception. Bookman has always been an activist bookstore, and no great deception is involved in putting on green T-shirts. What about the Boston parade, if a bookstore known to be lesbian applied to the Catholic group to march, would it be deceptive to somehow have a lesbian sign on that float? I would say no.
11/29/2007 10:05 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Iwirbel I have no problem with your statement “I would challenge them and ask for their badge number. Never kowtow to someone simply because they are in uniform.” But can you not do this by getting out of the way of everyone else, so that you are not causing a delay in the parade? by doing this are you not listen to the police and showing respect to them and everyone else.
11/29/2007 10:06 AM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Quick question to someone in the know. What reason did the protesters use to apply for a permit under a business name that had nothing to do with their organization? Or is their organization called The Bookman?
11/29/2007 10:11 AM MST on Gazette.com
obxman wrote:
if the d.a.[could mean anything]had to pay for legal expenses in a failed prosecution,half these jokers would be out of a job.if civilians sue each other without merit,the losing party can be held liable for legal fees…..why not the government?!they don’t have to be right when they arrest you….you just have to be able to afford justice.
11/29/2007 10:33 AM MST
jwstrue wrote:
Come on Rambone…that’s like saying because airplanes crash, I have no respect for pilots and will never fly an airplane…you sound pretty libertarian to me. Perhaps you should relocate to one of those compounds in Montana or Utah. Be careful, you may need these guys some day…
lwirbel, most folks with common sense would not challenge authority while in the midst of a direct order–most folks would follow the appropriate complaint or challenge process. Sounds like you have the same problem as the protesters–there is a time and place for everything. When you are given instruction by a police officer–this is not the time to argue or challenge unless your desire is to be incarcerated. Yes, there are exceptions–but judgement and good sense is everything…
11/29/2007 10:35 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
lwirbel wrote:
Jwstrue, Eric has had The Bookman in the parade (and MLK parade, etc.) for several years’ running, usually has a sign about peace on the van, etc. He said something to J&P members a couple days beforehand, saying “Anyone want to be with the float?” Before that time, none of the peace groups had even thought about applying for the parade, whether or not they’d be allowed. The Justice and Peace Commission often has a float in the Christmas parade every year, allowed by the sponsors, usually with an alternative-energy theme, but no one ever thought of applying for some of these other parades.
11/29/2007 10:39 AM MST on Gazette.com
just1voice wrote:
Rambone, ignorance is bliss isnt? Why dont you check the app requirements for applying to be a cop before opening your mouth and making yourself look like more of an idiot. As for the State Trooper, he sure as anything could have made your day a whole lot worse by holding you and calling social services to come and collect your child. Dont think he had the right? Go and find out. Then you could sit here and complain about how he held you againt your will, kidnapped your child and made you look like even worse of a father than you probably are.
11/29/2007 10:41 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
jwstrue wrote:
Come on Rambone…that’s like saying because airplanes crash I have no respect for pilots and will never fly…you sound pretty libertarian to me. Perhaps you should relocate to a compound in Montana or Utah. Be careful, you may need these guys some day.
lwirbel, you may have the same problem as the protesters. There is a time and place for everything. Most folks, when instructed by a police officer to take some action, would comply and complain or challenge later. The only thing you will accomplish by direct rebellion is most likely incarceration. True, there are exceptions, but good sense and judgement apply here…
11/29/2007 10:44 AM MST on Gazette.com
just1voice wrote:
Here is the sad part of all of this. Hopefully everyone will live and learn. I guarentee you the parade organizer is amending his rules and regs and next he will not have this problem. I would imagine EVERY parade orgainizer is doing that so it is very unlikely that this “message of peace” they wanted to get out will not be seen again at any function like this. Why would you want someone hell bent on causing problems in your show anyway?
11/29/2007 10:44 AM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
jwstrue wrote:
…sorry, didn’t mean to repeat myself–couldn’t see the first comments
11/29/2007 10:46 AM MST on Gazette.com
jtrione wrote:
(laughing) Some of these comments get so hilarious. Makes for entertaining reading. And, just to clarify JWS, CSAction and I are two different people. I would think our approaches to various topics and our facility with the language would distinguish us in several ways, but, alas, not clear enough.
I cannot comment definitively on the actions that day, as truthfully, I was not there. I do, however, know that the sentiment at the time which drove and continues to drive this debate was that from the early moments of the war, Colorado Springs and our illustrious police department were forever enshrined in history as “Thugs of Intolerance”. We, the citizenry, witnessed the teargassing of peaceful protesters early on in 2003 and made the nightly news across the country for same.
So, I could see why the perception, real or not, existed during this parade event. The message which seemed to come through loud and clear from city government and the police force was “How DARE you liberal freaks question the certitude of our celestially ordained Bush administration and its actions in the world ? We will use EVERY means legal and illegal to keep you silenced.” So, no, all the comments below that those on the right welcome free speech are, frankly, prevarication. Conservatives during this period fell into a mindset that they could shout down or silence any dissent as they claimed to have higher moral authority, e.g. Bill O’Reilly’s infuriating habit of cutting off the microphone of those who disagree. The Gazette’s infuriating habit of editing AP news stories during that time to remove any possible anti-war opinions.
Those who are intellectually HONEST cannot dispute that such a pervasive mentality existed in this country for the last six years. Given that framework, it is not difficult at all to see the anguish from the left at a system which tried strenuously to silence dissent. And, for those on the right who are unable, for a moment, to see the frustration from the left, then, I’m sorry, but you would have to be CLUELESS to forget the Cheney-isms where he called into question the patriotism of those who dared to dissent.
Dunno, gang, hopefully we’re moving in the right direction. Remember, the bulk of the blame for the lack of unanimity toward the war effort falls squarely at the feet of the Loser in Chief who was unable to make a cogent case for military action and failed miserably at being a leader. A “leader” is able to rally people to his cause, not just browbeat them into obeisance. So, yes, maybe these protesters broke the law. I haven’t a clue. But, if they did, don’t they answer to a higher moral authority than some law designed to stifle protests of the left ? I think so. jtrione@mac.com
11/29/2007 10:59 AM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Thanks Jim for the clarification. I apologize, I was being sarcastic. For those who aren’t familiar, the distinction could be difficult because you both speak in dissertational formats and CS usually follows in support of your views…
Your comments are sometimes pretty hilarious as well…especially when the disdain for Christianity and the liberal arrogance shines through–all in good fun though.
11/29/2007 11:14 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Hey Jim, how are you today, I would never confuse you with csaction (I know everything) you have always been respectful to me and other. I think you are off base here on this issue. I for one question those in leadership who are against the war,why? for declares we have lost, meeting with out enemies and using those who hate us talking points as their own. Those in political power who support the peace movement have done everything in their power to ensure our solider will lose this war in order to win this next’s elections. I agree that Bush has made mistakes which war time president have not. Right now we have a chance to win this war but instead of backend our troops and giving them the funds and equipment need to fight this war the democrat’s want to withhold money in order to keep theses peace protester happy and to make sure that we do not win this war.
11/29/2007 11:28 AM MST on Gazette.com
pondfrogz wrote:
Wow, it appears I missed quite a conversation. Have a good day all and remember, there’s no problem that a six-pack and a good game on TV can’t cure. Just my meaningless comment of the day before tackling my fiancees chore list from $%*# on my day off.
11/29/2007 11:30 AM MST
turdman wrote:
Rambone-You are as lame as Tony Boy. Whine, Whine, I got stopped and I want to complain because I got caught and it isn’t fair.
11/29/2007 11:32 AM MST on Gazette.com
turdman wrote:
Bottom line in this case is the protestors are cowards. They protested and were legally arrested for violating the law. Then they all complained because they got arrested for again, breaking the law. Now they will sue the city because they believe their rights were violated. This group is really no better than the Westborough Baptist bunch. I hope next year they go to Denver to protest one of their events, so they can get what they really deserve.
11/29/2007 11:39 AM MST on Gazette.com
just1voice wrote:
Rambone dont flatter yourself. It would take a lot more than your couch commando comments to get under my skin. I never said your opinion made you those things. However, your lack of knowledge does. That and endangering your own child, setting a horrible example, and your running your mouth makes you a bad father. Whats wrong did I get under your skin?
No Im not one of them but I would give just about anything to watch you go one on one with the officer that you call “a pig”. Then you could teach you kids something useful, like how not to get your tail whipped.
11/29/2007 11:46 AM MST on Gazette.com
jtrione wrote:
Hey, Pastor Roy. Well, respectfully, I will disagree on some points. How do you equate “protesting” with “wanting to lose the war” ? That seems quite the logical leap to me. And, for the record, I have never taken a position on bringing the troops home early — I’m ex-military and understand the difficult role they are playing which does not fit nicely in “bumpersticker arguments” one way or the other. As one who has worn the uniform, I often cringe at some MoveOn.org statements and positions as shortsighted and limited. But, I realize that we on the left, have our normal centrists and our own “lunatic fringe”. We have to somehow work with both to craft a clear, cogent message.
I, personally, have never seen withdrawal from Iraq as a viable option and agree that a permanent presence of 50K per year is likely for the next few decades. As far as the failures of this administration (arguably in the running for the top five worst since the founding of the republic), there are not enough electrons to waste on these blogs. Yet, what seems more telling to me are the HUGE legions of right-wingers who, TO THIS DAY, support this guy. How many Bush-Cheney stickers do we STILL see on cars here ? It boggles the mind. All I know is that it certainly attaches a ‘stain’ to conservatism that will last for quite some time. For the next few decades, “conservative” will be automatically linked to the policies and actions of the Bush Administration. Nice albatross, guys, heavy enough for ya ?
And, PR, the point of this article was whether or not the protesters were in the right or not. Perhaps, they are reflective of a sentiment, wholly pervasive at the time, now weaning somewhat, that TO EVEN QUESTION the actions of the Bush-Cheney elite was somehow tantamount to disrespect for this nation. “If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.” Who thinks in such puerile, oversimplistic absolutes ? Republicans, that’s who. C’mon, to impugn the patriotism of Senator Max Cleland ? Seriously, how do they look themselves in the mirror in the morning ?
(laughing) I recall a comment at some point during all this when a secular progressive was asked about the disdain toward conservatives, especially religious ones, phrased as “you don’t need them to just be wrong, you need them to be evil”. As wrongheaded and awful as that statement appears, I think it’s dead-on. Perhaps where we liberals lose our footing is when we become unable to see the folks on the other side of the table as loving, compassionate humans who happen to be a bit misguided in their beliefs in our opinion. Maybe if we on the left felt that those on the right were truly championing our rights to hold (in their view) misguided beliefs, then protest incidents like these would be few and far between. But, when we feel that the cards are “stacked against us” by those in power and their representatives (the police), it’s easy to see the animus. jtrione@mac.com
11/29/2007 11:59 AM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Can someone please explain to me what this has to do with art.
“Fake mug shots of President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other White House officials are on display at the main branch of the New York City Public Library, and the exhibit has caused quite a commotion.
About six manipulated photographs of members of the Bush administration made to look like mug shots are lining one of the landmark building’s hallways, with each current and former official holding a D.C. police date-of-arrest placard bearing the date they made “incriminating” statements about the war in Iraq, The New York Daily News reported.”
This is an perfect example of what is wrong with the peace movement and those who are against the war.
They love to Forcing their views on people by saying it is one thing and doing something else.
What does this have to do with the above story. The answer is both enter something under a different idea or name, but when there their used it to express a political view.
11/29/2007 11:59 AM MST on Gazette.com
csaction wrote:
Well, the parade arrests are still a hot topic on the ole blog. Where to start? It’s an amazing amount of misinformation but more importantly the correlation to those that would summarily convict us is 100% with those that know nothing about the basic facts. Disagree all you want; you would be amazed at how much I disagree what what was done, but understand this: the neocon tactic of revisionist reality (war is peace) doesn’t work when you want to battle videotape and photos with ill-informed subjective opinions. The city prosecutor couldn’t make that work and neither can you kids.
Glad to see Lexi prove she was the MIA tractor gurlie. Thanx. Glad to see preacher roid make no sense as usual. So on a day of great vindication, I’m glad to see those that hate peace lose a small battle.
To address as much as I have time for: “”whining and complaining” does not defeat prosecutors in court, Evidence does.
Elizabeth and Eric were not “PICKED OFF THE STREET” but pulled off their feet by Paladino, who emmbarrassed the department in 2003 with the “Dairy Queen Dozen” arrests outside the city limits.
There was no lie on the permit. We were invited back after walking in the 2006 parade. No subterfuge, and O’Donnell said he had no problem with our message. The problem was with the lie he was told by the same person who lied to police about the permit. http://csaction.org/StPatsDay/Odonnell.html
David B, all 7 were “prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” in fact the charges were changed twice to make it easier, but the city didn’t make it’s case, so hung jury, then dropped charges. Patty Kelly is right that the outcome would be the same or they would loose outright with another trial. She wrong that the jury just didn’t get it. They did, except for the wife of the defense contractor who should have been recused at the start.
There are larger community issues of how private is a function held in the middle of Tejon and subsidized 50% for the cost of police? For such “private” events, does the 1st amendment apply, or does a permit void the constitution? If the constitution is voided by “private” events, does that mean our permit the next day, for our 4th anniversary rally mean that we could ban people we don’t agree with from Acacia Park? (like we would want to) http://csaction.org/31807/31807.html
In the end, when we have become a total fascist state and have no rights left, (while the American equivalent of the Germans in 1938 sleep) you won’t be able to find anyone who will admit they fought those fighting for rights and peace just like you can’t find anyone who will admit they voted for niXXXon.
In the end, this is a great conversation for our city to have and any city in America, because we need to understand our system in it’s superiority and not get in the way of it’s progress in the world. The lack of understanding of how our constitution works is appalling, but this is progress.
I guess we’ll see all of you at the 5pm press conference in front of the courthouse?
11/29/2007 12:00 PM MST on Gazette.com
hmmmmm wrote:
For someone who complains about being lied about, you sure post a lot only when it comes to your ridiculous protest where your people broke the law and got treated accordingly. Your people refused police orders, were subsequently moved, forcibly as you left no other option, after your “old lady” asked several officers what it would take to get arrested, and then appropriately charged. Where is the mis-information in that csaction? Your people are not martyrs, not worthy of anything but contempt. A full video of the incident shows the truth, and as much of a spin as you put on this, your people are still wrong. Next time, don’t expect any nicer treatment when you pull the same stunt.
11/29/2007 12:06 PM MST on Gazette.com
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hmmmmm wrote:
Rambone, are you speaking from experience on the gangbang comment little guy? Sure sounds like it. Maybe the aggressive defense of the police is a direct result of your ridiculous aggressive contempt for them. You opinion is ignorant. Nice racist photo by the way, Mark Fuhrman is still in Idaho if you need a place to move to.
11/29/2007 12:09 PM MST on Gazette.com
coloradogirl wrote:
I am a true believer in that life is just not fair sometimes. Justice does not ALWAYS prevail. I don’t think this was a vindication, just an abandonment of justice in the best interest of the situation.
I applaud the City Attorney for “giving up” so to speak. It’s like arguing over a $700 couch in divorce proceedings. You spend twice that to the attorney’s arguing over it. In the end, it’s just not worth it and the bigger person has to give up. Just like in this situation. The City Attorney didn’t want to waste anymore money on such frugal matters.
I personally was a witness to the groups display at the parade and I’m just as disgusted now as I was then. I wish we could send the protesters over to Iraq and let them protest there. Now THAT would be worth watching….
11/29/2007 12:32 PM MST on Gazette.com
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hmmmmm wrote:
Been here 20+ years, have a BS in computer related fields. I did military work in communications and do this job to defend the good people of my city from people like you. If you like I can send you the links for “aggressive” and “defense” definitions in great big letters and really small words so you can understand.
11/29/2007 12:52 PM MST
turdman wrote:
Rambone-Come on dude just having a little fun! I am just shocked is all. I mean I have never heard a grown man whine like a school girl. If you keep pushing out that lower lip of yours when you pout, you should put some sunscreen on so you don’t get a sunburn.
Can we still be friends?
11/29/2007 12:59 PM MST on Gazette.com
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jeep4fun wrote:
If protestors wish to protest they should apply for a permit through the city as any march is required to. For protestors to ruin what should be a community event for the purpose of enjoyment is simply silly. I believe parade organizers have the right to prohibit those groups (which this was)who wish to disrupt parade proceedings. The police acted appropriately in this instance. I grow tired of seeing idiots place the police department in a bad light due to their poor choices and actions. If you wish to truly disrupt a community event then you have to pay the piper. If you disagree with a particular event or view, request a permit from the city for your own event, but let our citizens truly enjoy the parades provided without divisive and inciteful actions and messages
11/29/2007 12:59 PM MST on Gazette.com
turdman wrote:
Hey Rambone,
Since your not doing very well on this blog today, maybe you can go down to the Gazette Telegraph office and protest this blog. I mean really, we must be violating your rights in some way. Maybe CSACTION can go with you and video tape the whole event. He can can then edit out the truth and you two can have a local TV station air your story. Maybe a lawyer can take your case and you could win millions by suing us. Maybe an officer will drive by and you could sue the city as well.
Justice, isn’t it a beautiful thing.
11/29/2007 1:09 PM MST on Gazette.com
jtrione wrote:
So, Jeep4Fun, what I hear you saying is that some government functionary, probably a conservative Republican appointee, gets to decide who does or does not get to be included in an event for “our citizens” (your words)? Based on what set of criteria ? Who are those “special” citizens ? Thought we all had a right to peaceably assemble or to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Where do you find justification to abridge those rights or place boundaries on them ? Remember, if not expressly enumerated, then those rights reside in the people. Not in you, dear friend, or in local laws designed to limit speech. Talk about “special rights”. 😉
11/29/2007 1:20 PM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Great points coloradogirl and jeep4fun….
11/29/2007 1:24 PM MST on Gazette.com
lwirbel wrote:
Jeepforfun, what you describe is not what the Constitution intended freedom of speech to mean. There are limits to allowing a soapbox speaker to stand on private property and say something. However, Mike the anti-abortionist has every right to show big pictures of foetuses on public land outside the World Arena, and it doesn’t do any good to say,
“He’s disturbing me because I’m going to see an entertainment event, Cirque de Soleil or Lee Ann Rimes or whatever.” James Madison and those writing the Bill of Rights wanted to make sure that freedom of speech WAS in your face, did NOT require a permit, and was bound to be incendiary and controversial. That’s the only way to protect it. Otherwise, our nation would be a larger version of Singapore.
11/29/2007 1:36 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
jtrione- This is not a “free assembly” issue. O’Donnell owns the right to the parade which means, he can deny access if he chooses. If the protesors want to make fools of themselves they can do it from the curb which is protected by the Constitution.
11/29/2007 1:38 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Jim, I may be wrong, but my understanding on these parade, when you applied for permission to be in the event you must fill out paperwork with what type of display you are going to enter. So if this is the case can not the group in charge make it clear on their paperwork, what type of display is permitted and what type is not? So if this group next’s year make it clear to all involve what will be permitted and what will not be permitted, we may be able to avoide this problem next’s time.
11/29/2007 1:38 PM MST
csaction wrote:
Hmmm, if you are a cop, thank you for your service and sacrifice.
Now, post the video. No one on earth has sifted through this evidence more than I have and I know every second of video and every photo. The lawyers and cops don’t know this evidence better than I do. You don’t need to post 165 videos on YouTube like I have, just 1. The one that shows what you say it shows. Just 1 video. 1 photo. 1 piece of evidence. 1 thing to back up what you say. You all have the same burden of proof as I do, so pony up. http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=csaction
Factual correction: Elizabeth asked several officers to arrest her, AFTER being dragged, because she had already gotten the punishment (not by a jury of her peers) but from Paladino, and wanted the rest of her day in court. She knew enough about it to know she had no recourse for the thousands in medical costs without the system’s protection, which she insisted on. (not contempt for the system, but admiration)
Jeep, we followed all rules and got a permit. We paid for a permit the next day in the park, and decided NOT to have our protest rally for the 4th anniversary the same day as the parade, which would have gotten us much more exposure with the thousands downtown. We decided to do both the parade with the peace message, welcomed the year before, and then the protest the next day. (4th year) Separate things with separate intentions. Everyone didn’t participate in both.
We did not make the police look bad and I don’t think the department looks bad. I think we’ve lost the PR battle, not them, and people (other than here) are capable of seeing that a couple of cops going too far does not a department make. The rest did their jobs with respect and professionalism and garnered admiration from us all.
We deal with cops all the time, and for those old gray beards like em, we’re talking 40 years of activism. I admire police, have 1 in my family, 1 was arrested at the parade and 1 testified for us along with photo evidence. I respect the new chief, and I’m pissed about the budget cuts. The rogues hurt the force, the majority are a credit.
11/29/2007 1:41 PM MST on Gazette.com
jwstrue wrote:
Jim, this was a community event–someone has to be in charge or it wouldn’t be an “organized” event. Jeep4fun is merely stating those in charge should have discretionary authority when it comes to eliminating participants who are suspect. In addition this was not the time for an assembly, whether peaceful or not. Compare this to a recent public democratic debate when a heckler became disruptive–was the heckler allowed to remain in the debate audience?
Just the fact this group applied under a separate entity makes them suspicious from the start (my opinion). Some would view this as a sneaky attempt to disrupt the event by attempting to hide their identity from the start.
11/29/2007 1:41 PM MST on Gazette.com
jtrione wrote:
Pastor, Loring said it beautifully when he said that the Framers did not intend for anyone to limit speech. That person, authorizing a placard or not, is, by definition, infringing on the rights of free speech. O’Donnell’s claim that he could restrict displays of “social advocacy” during the parade is the problem. He does not retain any such right.
On public streets, the public can say whatever it wants, tasteful or otherwise. During PrideFest, would it be legal to restrict Phelps and his Westboro Lunatics from marching around with their tacky signs ? Of course not. Did the Nazis march in Skokie during the 70’s ? Heck ya. Freedom comes with a price tag that says “everything you see or hear may or may not offend your sensibilities”. Tough noogies. Deal with it. So, however misplaced an anti-war protest might be during a civic event, it is well within the purview of what the Framers intended. Period. Stylistically is that the best forum ? Well, that’s a question worthy of debate.
11/29/2007 1:46 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Iwirbel, this may shocked you and other but I am against those who do what do you call it “Mike the anti-abortionist has every right to show big pictures of foetuses on public land outside the World Arena, and it doesn’t do any good to say,” I believe this type of behavior does more wrong then good. I am against those who protest gay event with signs that use the f word or condemn them to hell, I am against those who hold signs calling our soldiers babe killer and such.
11/29/2007 1:55 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Jim are you telling me that if I show up for the Gay Pride event and want to march down the street with signs that say they need to repent. I have the right to do it and they must let me into the event? I am using this example to get an understand of what you are saying. I was always under the impression that the group in charge off the event has the right to say who can be involved with the event and who can not.
11/29/2007 2:02 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
CSACTION-I do not like what you stand for; however, your last post is the most honest thing you have written in a long time. I disagree with you on when Fineron poked and begged the officer to arrest her.
My point is this; The officers were there legally and had ever right to remove Fineron and others from the event. Just because she got dragged across the street does not make it excessive force. Refusing to leave the area after being ordered is a crime and the officers had every right to arrest them. If the city decides not prosecute that is their loss. Obvious the police dept agreed that there was no use of excessive force used by the officers because nobody got disciplined. We all know the police dept disciplines their own people.
The only good thing out of this whole incident is that none of these protestors will even disrupt the parade again. Thay will have to wait for another Palmer Park incident to spew their lies.
11/29/2007 2:03 PM MST on Gazette.com
csaction wrote:
The 2 issues are the heart of the matter. jtrione and lwirbel are correct. Follow the logic path. If the laws of the land don’t apply to a “private” function or property, then I can grow pot across the street from any school where I own property. Of course not. It’s illegal, and my private ownership does not circumvent the law.
Mr. O’Donnell gets the nonprofit (disputed) rate for police protection just like we did, the next day, in Acacia park. Half off. $25 per hour per cop, for 2 at a time, which is $50 per hour.
Acacia Park is public property, andthat designation does not change, when it is rented out for an alloted time. Anyone that disagrees with us about this war (and there are still some) can show up and protest our rally. They usually do. They are always offered water and respect. Our permit does NOT give us the right to say “the 1st amendment of the constitution does not apply for you today, so shut up”. (we, of course, would never even try that)
In the middle of Tejon, closed to the public traffic, for hours, with 46 police subsidized for thousands by the city through the tax payers, Mr. O’Donnell’s permit CANNOT allow him to do what I describe above.
Further, he cannot be allowed to apply his “new and improved” constitutional protections for free speech to ban a message of peace, BUT have military guards, political candidates, political parties, labor unions, and many other political issues raised at the same place at the same time.
I don’t think it’s difficult to see how far this would go if we were to allow it. You either understand the beauty of what the founding fathers did, or you don’t. You have to listen to me disagree with you. The Cost? I have to listen to you. (giggle) It’s a great burden some days, but the nation needs us all to be strong. LOL.
11/29/2007 2:06 PM MST on Gazette.com
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iraqwarvet wrote:
I love hearing people tell protestor how to protest. Like lexii, telling these people that they must protest a certain way. Or Pastor Roy using a totally different subject to illustrate what he means and making no sense. These are the same people who if they lived back in the 1950’s and 60’s would be hitting and beating the nicely dressed black men sitting at the lunch counters. Lexii tell the truth, you hate freedom? Please leave my country then. I defend the rights of all Americans, while you spit on the constitution.
11/29/2007 2:12 PM MST on Gazette.com
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justhefacts wrote:
Pastor-The event coordinator can prevent anybody they want from entering their parade, event or gathering as long as they have a permit to close the street. If the protestor’s wants to stand on the street corner and display signs they have the right to do so as long as they are not on private property or impeding veh or ped traffic. Westboro never entered any event, they just stood on the outside and protested.
11/29/2007 2:12 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
OK, If I am holding a parade and I want it to be all about St. Patrick’s Day . An I make it clear no political message permitted, how is that stopping some one’ s1st Admen tent, because I am sure next’s year and maybe the next’s parade in town this will be happen. Why? To ensure we do not have another problem like this.
11/29/2007 2:16 PM MST
iraqwarvet wrote:
Hey Pastor Roy, I’ll help you out. Next Friday night in Manitou Springs, Iraq Veterans Against the War will be putting on a concert at The Ancient Mariner. How about you come down there and walk around the place with your pro-war banners. And Pro-War doesn’t mean Pro-troop. Hold high your “Death to all who are not Christian, White, and American” sign. I promise not to kick you out. And so will all the active duty troops and veterans of this war that will be at the show. Deal?
11/29/2007 2:16 PM MST on Gazette.com
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jtrione wrote:
And, yes, Pastor, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You have the freedom to walk down Tejon during PrideFest wearing a giant A-frame sign quoting pithy silly verses from some retarded book of allegory talking about how all the other right-wing zealots want to create a permanent second-class citizen status for GLBT people. That’s your right, hon, and many have fought and died for you to exercise that freedom. You might get some perplexed looks, but more likely than not, you’d get propositioned or invited for drinks and a party. Tough noogies. Deal with it. Price of freedom sort of thing.
11/29/2007 2:19 PM MST on Gazette.com
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pastor wrote:
Iragwarvet I reposted this just for you since I had a question for you.
pastor wrote:
No one want to silence the peace protesters right to speak, but we believe that there is a time and place for it. An most people believe that the St. Patrick’s Day parade was not the right time and place. Most people also seem to believe that if a cop asked you move you move you do not act like a baby. But I also must remind everyone that the peace protesters hand book, when the police ask you to move you drop an make a scene, so that it is caught on film, the reason is so you can make the police look like the bad guy.
Iragwarvet I have a question for you since you agree with the anti-war groups. Is it ok to block soldier return from the war? Is it ok to delay the soldier meeting with their family? Is it ok to destroy railroad tracks and stop the return of the military equipment from the war?
11/29/2007 8:56 AM MST on Gazette.com
11/29/2007 2:22 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Hey Pastor, I counted 15 anti-war, Anti-bush bumperstickers today just driving through post going from gate 20 to the car wash near the B-street entrance. You should probably call the Post Commander and bring an end to this. But DOD Directive 1344.10 says they can, you know why? Because their Americans.
11/29/2007 2:24 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Now Jim you last posting was an insult to me why did you have to act that way toward me. I do thank you for your stands .
11/29/2007 2:25 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Iragwarvet sorry that is my 20th year of marriage dinner to one of most wonderful women in the world. Also I was not the posting about the soldiers getting in trouble. Oh by the way my nices husband had someone put one on his truck at night and he was very upset about it.
11/29/2007 2:28 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Pastor Roy, again asking a black or white question. But, I’ll try to answer it for you. No, I don’t think its alright to block troops. So what now? What brillant thing do you have to say now?
Now I have a question for you, did you think black men trying to sit at a all white lunch counter in the late 50’s and early 60’s was a bad way to protest segregation or did they make a point? Maybe you should read Thoreau someday.
11/29/2007 2:30 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
CSACTION-Once again your mudding the water. Nobody is talking about your right to protest. You just can’t jump into a parade without permission. If the coordinator, holding the permit, decides they don’t want you to enter their parade they can exclude you from participation. If you choose to stand on the curb and spew then go for it.
If a war vet decided to get up on your stage during your permitted event in the park and take over the microphone he could be arrested. If you, the event coordinator, decided he was not welcome you have that right to exclude him.
Pretty simple stuff.
11/29/2007 2:30 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Okay Pastor Roy, since you can’t make it, I’ll invite you to our next tower guard. You can bring your sign then, and its fine with us. Since it would be a good change, only two people actually had a problem with us 2 weeks ago. Or atleast only two people had the balls to come down to Acacia Park and say something. Pastor do you have the balls?
11/29/2007 2:34 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Hey justthefacts, I’ll ask you the same question. Shouldn’t the black men in the 1950’s and 60’s been arrested for doing that illegal action of sitting at the white-only lunch counters? You probably think they should have been beating by the police and angry white men, right? Oh wait, thats what did happen…sound familiar?
11/29/2007 2:37 PM MST
justhefacts wrote:
Hey Pastor when you go to the show this weekend don’t forget your “Hillary in 08” poster.They probably wii have quite a few for rent there. You might be able to buy a Hillary shirt from them also.
11/29/2007 2:37 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
They were peace protester who say they have the right of free speech, and that blocked the soldiers coming back from Iraq from seeing their family. As one soldier was quotes as saying “ We all wanted to be the ones to remove these people from our post” These protester destroy the railroad tracks going into the base and the Dem. Governor and Dem. Mayor stopped the police from doing there job and removing these people.
11/29/2007 2:41 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
Pastor- Don’t forget your “Hillary in 08” poster when you go to Manitou this weekend. Bring money also, they will be selling Hillary and Bill shirts there.
11/29/2007 2:42 PM MST on Gazette.com
justhefacts wrote:
Vet-pick a fight with somebody else. Your comment has nothing to do with this blog.
11/29/2007 2:45 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
justthefacts, for your information since we are a 501(c)3 we don’t endorse any candidates, but personally I won’t vote for anyone who voted for this war. Please go read H.J. 114 from Oct. 12, 2002. Senator Clinton voted for it. Can’t do it. And none of us are Democrats. So try not to pigeon hole us
11/29/2007 2:46 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Pastor, I read the news. I know what your saying and I didn’t agree with their actions. So what else do you got?
11/29/2007 2:47 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Oh by the way I drove by the Guard tower that week and I counted about 15 people and that was including the homeless people hang out in the park. So yes I did go by, on both Sat and Sunday during the day and I counted about the same amount of people.
11/29/2007 2:48 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
justthefacts, haha! can’t answer the question so you run. You are sad.
11/29/2007 2:48 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
JusttheFacts, why don’t you just show up. Why do you have to get someone else to do your work? I don’t like Hillary and never voted for Bill. I don’t vote for people who use the military as nation-builders. Sound like a current President?
11/29/2007 2:51 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
Justefacts so much for peace love people inside the peace movement, I took it what he was trying to do was pick a fight with everyone who is against the peace movement, By trying to call us raciest.
11/29/2007 2:52 PM MST
pastor wrote:
Justefacts so much for peace love people inside the peace movement, I took it what he was trying to do was pick a fight with everyone who is against the peace movement, By trying to call us raciest.
11/29/2007 2:53 PM MST on Gazette.com
peanuts wrote:
So now it is politically correct to try people, WHAT AN INJUSTICE!
11/29/2007 2:53 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
JusttheFacts, my comment has nothing to do with this blog? What do you mean by that? Americans protested in the late 50’s and early 60’s by doing something illegal, if you know anything about history, black men sat at lunch-counters in the south which were labeled white-only. They were beaten by both the police and angry white men. It was illegal what these black men were doing. Their is some history for you, since obviously your still in grade school. Now, were the Black men back then justified for what they were doing, or should the white police and white men have continued doing what they were doing? Should the Black men have just been arrested?
11/29/2007 2:55 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
So that would leave FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Bush, Clinton, and Bush. You would not vote for.
11/29/2007 2:57 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Pastor, I answered your question, why can’t you or justthefacts answer mine? I’m not saying your a racist, I’m just comparing the non-violent protests of the civil rights movement to what happened here on our streets of Colorado Springs, specifically what you people think is unjustifable behavior, since back then it was also considered unjustifiable behavior by the black men in the south. Whats your opinion?
11/29/2007 3:00 PM MST on Gazette.com
iraqwarvet wrote:
Pastor, again not black and white. I never said I’m anti-all wars. Just this one. Open your mind dude.
11/29/2007 3:02 PM MST on Gazette.com
rambone wrote:
hmmmmm wrote: “Been here 20+ years”
So this gives an implant like you the right to tell native born people like me were to go? I bet I got the California part right.
“BS in computer related fields”
I never heard of that degree. I that like,”I started but transfered when courses got tough”?
“defend the good people of my city from people like you”
Me, with no criminal record, military service, college educated? Yeah right, defend from people like me. Maybe what the people need is to be defended from rouge cops like you.
“for “aggressive” and “defense” definitions”
No thanks, but I would like the definition of the combined words. You know, the way you posted it earlier. Nothing over two syllables please, I don’t have all week for you to spell check.
11/29/2007 3:03 PM MST on Gazette.com
Recommend (1)
iraqwarvet wrote:
Oh yeah, Pastor, I’m only 35. I don’t really remember FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, or Nixon (even though I was two when he resigned).
11/29/2007 3:03 PM MST on Gazette.com
pastor wrote:
The issue is we have always been involved in nations building in one form or another.
11/29/2007 3:16 PM MST on Gazette.com
The Cure for AIDS
1. If you are gay/str8/lesbian/trans/bi and have tested for HIv and been told you are positive for the antibodies to HIv, (using Western Blot type test which register as much as 70% false positives) or been told due to a low T-cell count or high viral load count with PCR test, you are at risk for AIDS, and that HIv is the cause … you need to first thing, look your doctor or AIDS org. counselor in the eye and say: I’m not taking the AZT, HAART, Protease Inhibitors, chemo poison drugs that are the main regimen for treatment and that will destroy my immune system and internal organs (depending on dosage and length of time on the meds). Nor will I be a guinea pig for any new untested drugs or vaccines. Nor will I take any drugs for HIv because HIv is not cytotoxic nor can it destroy my T-cells. Over 60 known diseases cross react with the unreliable Elisa or Western Blot type HIv tests giving false positives. Don’t believe the HIv=AIDS “death sentence”. Sources: Help For HIV and Living Without HIV Drugs.
2. If you are pregnant and test “positive” for the HIv antibodies (meaning your immune system has destroyed it and you’re actually HIv negative) or the PCR viral count/low T-cell farse, refuse the drugs vehemently. HIv in infants passes in 90% of cases. In the remaining cases it really doesn’t matter as HIv can do nothing being a non-cytotoxic retrovirus and will likely soon be passed by healthy immune system. AZT drugs cause many different birth/developmental defects! Retroviruses cannot destroy the cells they infect. Long known in virology. See African Treatment Information Group (a PDF)
3. If you are a gay male, stop having unprotected sex especially if promiscuous because multiple std’s and then resistance to antibiotics cause immune suppression. And possible immune destruction if in combination with this you are doing poppers, I.V. drugs, meth, heroin etc……heavily. And not getting sleep. Foreign proteins from sperm that may enter through torn anal lining are more serious as this may be a causation of autoimmunity where the immune system attacks itself.
4. If you are a hemophiliac getting blood transfusions, know that HIv is a retrovirus, cannot cause anything and that you are more at risk of foreign proteins or other real viruses in donor blood reacting in your body and overwhelming your immune system. You need to be extra ambitious in taking care of your immune system. Don’t buy into HIv.
5. For all; Stop all heavy drug use as in I.V.drugs like heroin, meth, cocaine. Limit marijuana and also alcohol, and take care of your immune system with regular exercise, laughter, lots of water, avoiding stress, avoiding refined sugars, flour, cut down or quit dairy, and get as close to vegetarian diet (i.e. raw foods, organic) as possible. Stop worrying about HIv. Personally I will never worry about HIv testing again. In 1st world nations supposed HIv infecteds live long healthy lives without AZT or any HIv drugs.
That’s it. I’ve just cured American, European and other 1st world nation “AIDS!” You’re welcome.
AIDS in Africa, Distinguishing Fact from Fiction (a PDF)
African and other similar circumstance countries with many poor living in squalid, unsanitary, overcrowded slum conditions with rampant malnutrition, unsanitary water, parasitical disease and lack of access to health care …well we all know their fate. Because no one cares about them. UNAIDS, WHO and CDC can however count their deaths and diseases as AIDS by their own permission and rules, without HIv.
No wonder we’re fooled into believing that they are dying of AIDS. It is indifference they are really dying of. And all the old diseases and conditions of developing poor countries, now categorized as AIDS cases or deaths. All of UNAIDS, CDC and WHO HIv/AIDS case numbers are projections that never develop into real numbers. Or outright lies. Death by HIv caused AIDS is a lie.
AZT -Shouldn’t we ask, why give a drug that mimics the symptoms of a “probable” causation HIv, that you’re trying to cure with same drug? I know the answer:
Glaxo Wellcome puts the following warning in large, bold-faced, capital letters at the start of the section in the 1999 Physician’s Desk Reference that describes AZT (referred to under the name Retrovir or Zidovudine).
“RETROVIR (ZIDOVUDINE) MAY BE ASSOCIATED WITH SEVERE HEMATOLOGIC TOXICITY INCLUDING GRANULOCYTOPENIA AND SEVERE ANEMIA PARTICULARLY IN PATIENTS WITH ADVANCED HIV DISEASE (SEE WARNINGS). PROLONGED USE OF RETROVIR HAS ALSO BEEN ASSOCIATED WITH WITH SYMPTOMATIC MYOPATHY SIMILAR TO THAT PRODUCED BY HUMAN IMMUNODEFICIENCY VIRUS.”
An earlier version of the Physician’s Desk Reference, published in 1992 made the connection even clearer:
“It is often difficult to distinguish adverse events possibly associated with Zidovudine administration from underlying signs of HIV disease or intercurrent illness.”
Zogby says that is there was an election today, that Hillary Clinton would lose to any and all of the top 5 Republican contenders for president. Does Zogby (like many pollsters) have a hidden agenda that he is using his crafted poll results to promote, or is Hillary the Hoss that unpopular for real?
Let’s face it, the voting part of the public, according to Zogby, currently would prefer Mormon Milt in office more than it would Hillary! Now that’s a sign that the return of the Clintons is not something the public actually wants. But why not?
I think that there are two reasons. First off, many think correctly that Clintonism is Bush-lite. We couldn’t have gotten Dubya without first having a Slick in office. In Texas, we got Dubya after having mealy mouthed Ann Richards in as governor.
Clintonism is kind of like a ‘vaccine’ to prepare us for the plague…. and we get it. We hurt so bad and then some demand to have ‘the vaccine’ back again even. It’s a vaccine that makes you sick and sicker.
Reason # 2 IMO is the sex division. Ditto heads amongst the male side can handle fascist minded idiots like Donald, Dubya, and Dick quite well, as can their ditto-headed wives who are accustomed to that mindset, and get it in heavy doses in their cathedrals and homes. But when the lineup is reversed, such as it was with Janet (Reno), Madelyn (Albright), and Hillary around, the ditto minded males begin to retch, grimace, growl, and become quite psychotic. That’s alarming, too, to their women folk. They just want to protect their investments.
So what big negatives Hillary has as Hoss in the hoss race! Strangely enough, conservative men prefer their corporate whores to be male, and not female. That’s going to work against Hillary the Hoss. Apparently many top conservatives, even prefer all their whores to be male! That’s a known fact now.. we just can’t get away from it any longer.
Still, Hillary the Hoss has quite a grip on The Machine and even Zogby’s nay-saying can’t probably break it. We are in for a truly comic ‘election’ so laugh through your tears if you can? The breakdown of society can get ugly when it was actually an insane asylum to begin with. We can rest assured that there is madness that lies ahead… Hillary or no Hillary as Hoss, the Boss.
Everywhere in the US liberals want the United Nations to get involved and send in the ‘UN peacekeepers’, even though the UN Security Council is totally controlled by the American government.
And let’s face it, at times the UN troops act in some ways like the US troops do in Afghanistan and Iraq. And in some ways even worse! Like many of the ‘peacekeepers’ having sex with minors in areas under their control.
Why are liberals so enchanted about having UN troops being sent into a country? The UN is a total mess and totally under the control of the US. Isn’t it time to stop calling or desiring for the UN to do the US’s mop up operations?
Saddam’s US jailer goes on trial What’s this about? Who is this man, Lieutenant Colonel William Steele, who now faces life in prison? What did he do?
Wikipedia gives us some basic information about the charges this man faces. William H. Steele We learn what the legal charges consist of here, and what we find is that this man, like Guantanamo military chaplain James Yee before him, has done absolutely nothing worthy of being made into a criminal offense. James Yee was let go after a torturing Kafkaesque experience where the military threatened to destroy his life completely. William Steele will not be so lucky it appears.
So what did he supposedly do, this Lieutenant Colonel? It turns out that he gave Saddam Hussein a cigar and some hair color to cover up the gray hair while he was in jail! For this he is charged with aiding an enemy of the United States and was threatened originally with the death penalty!
Oh yes, there are other charges they used to stack the deck for conviction against this career officer. He was charged with flirting some with a female interpreter! And get this! He was charged with having porn on his computer! Oh, and it gets much worse…. He allowed some kids, that were thrown into this military prison, to call out on his own personal cell phone to notify family members of their arrest by the US storm troopers! What a beast!
I think we can see now why people like Yee and Steele have to be imprisoned. They are to be made into an example for others in the US military, that no compassion must be allowed with Muslim prisoners. Muslim prisoners are to be tortured, humiliated, and murdered, and not coddled as Steele is made out to have been doing.
What a contrast! Under the Bush Administration with active Democratic Party help, the US has put thousands of POWs in Afghanistan in air tight containers where they were suffocated, choked, and shot to death. They have hooded and tortured POWs at Guantanamo using isolation techniques of sensory deprivation. They have raped and sexually humiliated POWs at Abu Ghraib, along with using other forms of physical and psychological tortures. They have moved (‘rendered’) POWs to hidden torture centers around the globe using a hidden fleet of unmarked aircraft. But giving a cigar to Saddam Hussein in jail is now to be made into a capital offense, which in the infinite mercy of these Christian Crusaders will be turned into a mere life sentence in prison. All minds off Donald Rumsfield and Dickey Cheney… Who’s the guy who gave the cigar to Saddam? Get him! Give him LIFE!
This whole trial is an indecent charade, and shows how little support the government really does give the troops. Instead of support, they threaten and bully them just like they wish to do with the rest of the whole world. When you sign up with the military, you truly do sign a deal with the Devil. This is the real mistake that Lieutenant Colonel William Steele has made. Now he is to be scapegoated and made into an example for the other troops.
Bad guy! You showed a drop of compassion for our official enemy, the Muslims. For this you must be punished but good.
I love how reading on the internet can get you thinking and moving in weird ways. Like this reportage titled Man with Two Penises Loses Wife.
One would actually think that she would take advantage of that?… but probably she just didn’t like sex that much?
Anyway, I got to that article by way of antiwar.com since they had a link titled Dilbert on Ahmadinejad which got me to a commentary on The Dilbert Blog by Scott Adams. I’ve liked him ever since the humorless Democratic Party-tied liberal, Norman Solomon, attacked him with an entire book dedicated to Dilbert, of all things!
Anyway, things go full circle sometimes and Dilbert does defend Ahmadinejad quite well, I rather think. The Iranian president certainly is a prick, but then most of those people making a fuss about him seem to be what might best be termed DOUBLE PRICKS. We should be like the wife in the story of the man with 2 penises. We should just leave these DOUBLE PRICKS and get on with reality and life. It’s just too much all the time getting screwed!
The DOUBLE PRICKS extreme are the current US government and the current Israeli government IMO. Right on Dilbert! Down with Ratbert and Dogbert! DOUBLE PRICKS like this are way too much tax-fed militarism to take all the time.
Despite having no experience in education, Neil Bush is the founder of a Texas-based company called Ignite! Learning, which, since 1999 has peddled strange little devices called “Curriculums on Wheels” (COWs) to schools state and nationwide.
Rather than anything bovine, COWs actually resemble bright plastic droids or office chairs gone terribly wrong. Described as “computer/projectors,” it’s not really clear what they do or how they work, and a cursory look at the company’s website does not help. (Apparently it involves swivel action.) Regardless, there are COWs for different subjects: the Math COW, the Science COW (“the ultimate classroom sidekick!”) and the Social Studies COW. No sign of a sex-ed COW. See the complete alternet article
In District 11 Colorado Springs, this sort of robotic device goes by the name ‘the success maker‘. It too, is a cash cow that is a bright ‘droid’ that doesn’t profit the kids at all, but kills them slowly with non-teaching designed to kill the brain. This crap from these corporate vampires is sick, sick, sick…. In fact, it is a form of child abuse pretending to be education reform.
Check out Neil Bush’s website and the lovely Musak he uses to push this nonsense.
Remember back when the Catholic Church was trying to stonewall and lead the public into believing that the pedophiles in The Church were a minor and isolated aberration?
That certainly has changed hasn’t it? In the last 2 months the Catholic Church has had to fork over almost $1,000,000,000 in Southern California alone to their former victims of their pedophile priests! And how many victims more are there than just the ones now getting compensation?
And there she lulled me asleep,
And there I dream’d—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream’d
On the cold hill’s side.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—“La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill’s side.
I’ve always been captivated by archetypes of the feminine pariah.
These are the vixens about which cautionary yarns are spun to bridle man’s lust by fomenting a distrust of his opposite sex. They especially served to poison the power of woman, particularly when it was derived from her sexuality.
Can it be coincidence that the promulgators of these literary tales were often gay?
Keats fleshed out a famous Circe of the middle ages, a woman who without mercy would seduce a knight to his death in the woods.
There are sirens of course, and la grande dame Delilah, and all forms of emasculating succubi. Another variant has been haunting me from gothic images in black and white which I remember from my youth, of the film Jane Eyre.
Do you remember poor Rochester? He was not free to love Jane owing to an entanglement kept secret, his wife, become mad, kept for her own safety locked on an upper floor. Her sudden offscreen cackle was one of the most haunting sounds ever.
I remember warning myself to avoid Rochester’s fate, that of caretaker to a self-destructive, utterly irrational woman, in the character of Bertha Mason.
Actually, I believe the mad woman is at the core of every romantic villainess. Why would a mate wish her suitor harm were she not insane? Excepting the entrepreneurial black widow, a woman can be sympathetic and maternal, like your mother, or she can be a femme fatale leading you to self destruction.
Charlotte Bronte humanized the cautionary stereotype, but externalized two malevolent wild cards — multiple personality and drink. I’d forgotten these elements until reacquainting myself with the plot just now. There was a second woman, Grace Poole, charged with looking after the mad wife. Grace however, was prone to drunken bouts. Bertha seized those opportunities to escape and wreak destruction.
Even when Bertha set the castle alight, Rochester fought through the fire to save her, losing his hand and his sight in the attempt. Whether you attributed her actions to insanity, or metaphysically to Rochester’s due for having lived the life of a rake, blame ultimately did not lie with Bertha, nor with careless Grace, herself a victim of a vice.
Would Rochester have been so honor bound to Bertha if her homicidal lunges had been ignited by her own intemperance? I wonder.
When he says “I did nothing wrong,” does conservative Senator Larry Craig mean:
I did not lead the attack against gay rights as well as carp on and on about Bill Clinton’s impropriety?
Was Larry Craig peering into your stall in the bathroom? No. He was sizing up a man who appeared to be lingering there while others pooped and went. Smells something of entrapment to me. I can see airport travelers complain about hearing sex acts in neighboring bathroom stalls, but not for fear of unwarranted solicitation. Why are policemen detailed to interrupt a time-honored last resort among few social options for closeted lonely guys?
I believe Senator Craig when he says he’s not gay. To a homophobic conservative, the idea of a male partner may seem dirtier than a quick lewd act to feed his nagging alter-ego.
That said, I’m damn glad he’s unmasked for the humanity-hater he is. The GOP plays by no rules. We should celebrate the rare occasion it works for the common good.
Here he is calling Bill Clinton a “nasty, bad, naughty boy.”
What’s with up with Republican legislators and men’s rooms? I love that the media is complicit in trying to limit the damage: disorderly conduct, ’nuff said. Though I also loved the subversively dismissive: what happened was “he said, he said.”
What are so many undercover cops doing in public men’s rooms? If they are following these senators, fantastic. But I rather think they’re targeting the usual suspects, gay men.
I confess an unnatural aversion to public restrooms. So I didn’t know they are out of control. Are they absolutely plagued by lonely homosexuals? Isn’t the gay hookup in a public urinal a time-honored tradition? I’d think consensual sex is a rather victimless crime. Or do police departments get the complaint all the time that Boy George is bugging them in the boys bathroom, man can’t pee in peace?
I’ve never been solicited in a men’s room. Does that mean I have yet to encounter a homosexual, a Republican senator, or it seems more likely, a cop?
This article in the NYT made me laugh. Just this morning, while driving my kids to tennis lessons, we saw a Bichon Frise. I said, “Hey kids, it’s a Bitchin’ Freeze.” Devon, age 9, said, “Mom, is our dog a bitch?” Lara replied, “You just said bitch.” Devon, “Yes, but not IN VAIN!” Ho, ho, ho.
August 7, 2007It’s a Female Dog, or Worse. Or Endearing. And Illegal?
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
The New York City Council, which drew national headlines when it passed a symbolic citywide ban earlier this year on the use of the so-called n-word, has turned its linguistic (and legislative) lance toward a different slur: bitch.
The term is hateful and deeply sexist, said Councilwoman Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, who has introduced a measure against the word, saying it creates “a paradigm of shame and indignity” for all women.
But conversations over the last week indicate that the “b-word” (as it is referred to in the legislation) enjoys a surprisingly strong currency — and even some defenders — among many New Yorkers.
And Ms. Mealy admitted that the city’s political ruling class can be guilty of its use. As she circulated her proposal, she said, “even council members are saying that they use it to their wives.”
The measure, which 19 of the 51 council members have signed onto, was prompted in part by the frequent use of the word in hip-hop music. Ten rappers were cited in the legislation, along with an excerpt from an 1811 dictionary that defined the word as “A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman.”
While the bill also bans the slang word “ho,” the b-word appears to have acquired more shades of meaning among various groups, ranging from a term of camaraderie to, in a gerund form, an expression of emphatic approval. Ms. Mealy acknowledged that the measure was unenforceable, but she argued that it would carry symbolic power against the pejorative uses of the word. Even so, a number of New Yorkers said they were taken aback by the idea of prohibiting a term that they not only use, but do so with relish and affection.
“Half my conversation would be gone,” said Michael Musto, the Village Voice columnist, whom a reporter encountered on his bicycle on Sunday night on the corner of Seventh Avenue South and Christopher Street. Mr. Musto, widely known for his coverage of celebrity gossip, dismissed the idea as absurd.
“On the downtown club scene,” he said, munching on an apple, the two terms are often used as terms of endearment. “We divest any negative implication from the word and toss it around with love.”
Darris James, 31, an architect from Brooklyn who was outside the Duplex, a piano bar in the West Village, on Sunday night was similarly opposed. “Hell, if I can’t say bitch, I wouldn’t be able to call half my friends.”
They may not have been the kinds of reaction that Ms. Mealy, a Detroit-born former transit worker serving her first term, was expecting. “They buried the n-word, but what about the other words that really affect women, such as ‘b,’ and ‘ho’? That’s a vile attack on our womanhood,” Ms. Mealy said in a telephone interview. “In listening to my other colleagues, that they say that to their wives or their friends, we have gotten really complacent with it.”
The resolution, introduced on July 25, was first reported by The Daily News. It is being considered by the Council’s Civil Rights Committee and is expected to be discussed next month.
Many of those interviewed for this article acknowledged that the b-word could be quite vicious — but insisted that context was everything.
“I think it’s a description that is used insouciantly in the fashion industry,” said Hamish Bowles, the European editor at large of Vogue, as he ordered a sushi special at the Condé Nast cafeteria last week. “It would only be used in the fashion world with a sense of high irony and camp.”
Mr. Bowles, in salmon seersucker and a purple polo, appeared amused by the Council measure. “It’s very ‘Paris Is Burning,’ isn’t it?” he asked, referring to the film that captured the 1980s drag queen scene in New York.
The b-word has been used to refer to female dogs since around 1000 A.D., according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which traces the term’s derogatory application to women to the 15th century; the entry notes that the term is “not now in decent use.”
But there is much evidence that the word — for better or worse — is part of the accepted vernacular of the city. The cover of this week’s New York magazine features the word, and syndicated episodes of “Sex and the City,” the chronicle of high-heeled Manhattan singledom, include it, though some obscenities were bleeped for its run on family-friendly TBS. A feminist journal with the word as its title is widely available in bookstores here, displayed in the front rung at Borders at the Time Warner Center.
Robin Lakoff, a Brooklyn-born linguist who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, said that she despised the word, but that enforcing linguistic change through authority “almost never works,” echoing comments from some New Yorkers who believed a ban would only serve to heighten the word’s power.
“If what the City Council wants to do is increase civility, it would have to be able to contextualize it,” said Ms. Lakoff, who studies language and gender. “You forbid the uses that drive people apart, but encourage the ones that drive people together. Which is not easy.”
Councilman Leroy G. Comrie Jr., the Queens Democrat who successfully sponsored a symbolic moratorium on the n-word that was adopted Feb. 28, said he supported Ms. Mealy’s measure, but acknowledged that the term had many uses.
“We want to make sure the context that it’s used is not a negative one,” Mr. Comrie said yesterday.
Back at the West Village piano bar on Sunday evening, Poppi Kramer had just finished up her cabaret set. She scoffed at the proposal. “I’m a stand-up comic. You may as well just say to me, don’t even use the word ‘the.’ ”
But at least one person with a legitimate reason to use the word saw some merit in cutting down on its use.
“We’d be grandfathered in, I would think,” said David Frei, who has been a host of the Westminster Kennel Club dog show in New York since 1990. The word is a formal canine label that appears on the competition’s official materials. But Mr. Frei said he worried about the word’s impact on some viewers, especially younger ones.
“I think we have to take responsibility for that word on the air. The reality is it’s in the realm of responsible conduct to not use that word anymore.
Dumbshell Britney Spears’ little sister is having a baby. The clan are mega millionaires, why shouldn’t they decide what they please? Clearly they’ve already decided a premature preteen nose job is fine, even if your face is going to outgrow it. Time for another!
Despite having no experience in education, Neil Bush is the founder of a Texas-based company called Ignite! Learning, which, since 1999 has peddled strange little devices called “Curriculums on Wheels” (COWs) to schools state and nationwide.
When he says “I did nothing wrong,” does conservative Senator Larry Craig mean:
What’s with up with 
This article in the NYT made me laugh. Just this morning, while driving my kids to tennis lessons, we saw a Bichon Frise. I said, “Hey kids, it’s a Bitchin’ Freeze.” Devon, age 9, said, “Mom, is our dog a bitch?” Lara replied, “You just said bitch.” Devon, “Yes, but not IN VAIN!” Ho, ho, ho.