Reverend Wright

Note to Readers: Still down with the virus, but I am at least somewhat functional at this point. Should be back up to full strenght with my laptop and my new blog website by Monday!!!

 

Somebody tell this guy to shut the hell up! Wright has been on a national tour over the last few days to try to salvage his reputation. Unfortunately, he’s doing so at the expense of Barack Obama.

 

Bill Moyers conducted an interview with Reverend Wright in which Wright stated he was a reverend and will do what he does and that Barack Obama was being a politician and doing what politicians do.

 

He repeated the same line a couple of days latter with the National Press Club. Reverend Wright’s comments are calculated and have a specific intent, to get back at Obama for distancing himself from the controversial preacher.

 

This clearly demonstrates to me that his statements are clearly premeditated, strategic, and are made to cause a desired effect. Reverend Wright is way too bright for his he’s-a-politician remarks to have been anything but calculated and intentional.

 

Think about it, here’s why he has an axe to grind. Before Obama, not many people outside of his Chicago parish knew of Reverend Wright. Then, all of a sudden, because he has the ear of potentially the next President of the United States, he’s now a national figure in the African-American community.

 

When the toxicity of Reverend Wright’s words came back to haunt him, there was no amount of ram’s blood that would be sufficient to make the public opinion’s Angel of Death pass over his persona.

 

So Obama, rightfully so, divorced himself from Wright. Actually, no so much from Wright himself, but from his words and sentiments.

 

Wright no longer had his ticket to widespread legitimacy in the Black community. Rather than stay quiet on the subject, Wright has gone on the offensive to protect his identity and legacy. There are two problems with that.

 

One is that the harder he tries to show that he’s not a nut or a caricature, the more he proves that he is. He speaks one way to Bill Moyers and a White audience and quite a different way to African American audiences. He’s tried to make Obama look disingenuous by saying “…he’s a politician…” but who’s the one being disingenuous when you speak a different message depending on the crowd? Maybe you are the politician Reverend Wright!

 

The other problem is that in his effort to protect his ego, he may be taking down the best chance the African-American community has ever had a putting a Black man in the Whitehouse. Barack Obama stated yesterday that he basically felt like it was now personal. He looked like it pained him to sever the relation with Reverend Wright, but it was a long time coming.

 

C’mon Reverend Wright, take loud shirts, find an island full of tourists wearing equally loud shirts, and go on an anonymous vacation until say, Thanksgiving?

 

When you come back, Obama will be President-elect and you can go back to your parish.

Discrimination at Graham’s Central Station

Graham’s is one of my favorite spots to hang out. Several clubs under one roof (one that plays some great 90’s music occasionally was well), karaoke (no, I do NOT sing, but it sure is great to watch the train wrecks!) and a drink special that can’t be beat.

But Saturday night may have been my last night there. I went to go relax and have a good time. I left early, before midnight and was on my way out to the parking lot when a transvestite asked if she could borrow my phone. She need to call for a ride because she and her partner were kicked out of the club.

She was kicked out of Grahams because of who she is. She wasn’t allowed to use the women’s restroom and there may have been some safety issues if she used the men’s room.

Look, it’s not my lifestyle but prejudice and discrimination are wrong no matter what the situation is. She has a right to be who she is, even if what she is may be against the social norms.

Graham’s is pretty dead on Saturday nights, so there aren’t a lot of people around. I’ve been noticing more homosexuals at Grahams on Saturday nights and they don’t bother anyone. Saturday is an older crowd and mostly couples, so it is usually more tolerant. People have a sitter and just want to go out and have a good time.

I saw the even as it happened. I was standing at the bar near the restrooms. I saw security, who does a great job keeping the peace there, escorting a young lady out of the ladies room, out the door, and into the parking lot. This is the usual tactic when there is a fight or something, overwhelmingly force of security and quickly whisk the offenders out of the building.

So I noticed the scene because it was dead and I was suprised to see so many around a small lady. I immediately wondered what she had done and came to the conclusion that she must’ve been using drugs or something. It’s the only plausible reason I could come up with for so much security to take a woman out of a restroom.

As it turns out, it was the transvestite.

I understand the fact that Grahams has a right to refuse service to anyone. I understand that if they feel like they don’t want a particular type of person in their establishment, that is their right.

But discrimination is just wrong. Where was she supposed to use the restroom? She PAID to get in, so Graham’s had no problem accepting her money, but they have a problem accepting who she is. Sending her, dressed as a woman, into the men’s room would’ve been a potential safety issue. God only knows what would’ve happened if a person who looked very much like a woman, was sent into a crowded men’s room full of drunk vato’s. Especially if they thought it was a woman and found out it was a man.

So I’m going to see what management does about this situation and that will determine whether I go back to that place or not. This kind of stuff cannot be tolerated by those of us who consider ourselves tolerant people.

So there you have it, Graham’s Central Station, where America plays at night. As long as it’s okay with them.

Clinton “Wins” Pennsylvania

Hillary Clinton earned a trip to the next round of the presidential tournament, I mean election. Clinton managed to hold on to a victory in a highly-contested race despite being outspent 2-1.

The win keeps her in the race, but the fact remains that each day that passes makes it less likely that Clinton will pull out an out-right victory. Clinton now has to win each of the remaining contests by even larger margins. It doesn’t appear to me that she can reach 70% of the vote in the remaining states. Even in her strongest states, Clinton has not been able to able to reach that threshold.

Though Pennsylvania was certainly a win, let’s not lose sight of a few key points. There was little change in the actual delegate count. Clinton had only very minimal gains in delegates, which means that time is running out and she has to win the remaining states by HUGE margins.

It’s also interesting to note that many pundits have charachterized her win as “surviving” to the next state. It doesn’t mean much, but it is a very interesting charachterization.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the Clinton victory was a much-needed victory to be sure, but there is an important point to remember. She’s SUPPOSED to win Pennsylvania. She had a huge double digit lead and Obama was able to cut that lead in half. The reason that is so important is because Pennsylvania is an area that Hillary Clinton should be able to win. It’s her area of strength. They are the old-school traditional blue collar Democrats. Even though that is here traditional strength, she still escaped with only a modest victory. She attracted the “traditional” Democrats and Obama has attracted new Democrats and independents.

That makes Obama the more electable. The traditional Democrats can and will support the nominee. What the party needs is someone who can win not only the traditional Democrats, but someone who can win the independents and bring in new blood to the party.

I am a little bothered by the chatter among the pundits about how this win means that Hillary now has an “argument” she can make to the super delegates. Seems to me that Hillary needs to do more than bank on an “argument” to win the nomination and should be focusing on qualifications, campaign performance, and what the hell happened to her experience argument.

No matter how you slice it, the only way she wins is by a backroom deal in which the candidate with the most votes and most delegates gets screwed over. 

It’s time for people, locally here in El Paso and nationally, to stop trying to divide, distract, and distort the important issues of the campaign! 

God, Guns, & Gays

Change is a message we’ve been hearing throughout this election. I want you my Dear Readers, to pay very close attention to the change you will see in the campaign messages as we get closer to the general election.

 

 

 

You will see the talk change from major issues that affect our country, to the divisive wedge issues like God, Guns, and Gays. This is a tried and true Republican tactic to get us distracted from what really matters and focus only on the issues that will divide this country along religious and social lines.

 

What bothers me most is that two of the three wedge issues have already been exploited in this campaign. The God issue was pushed regarding Obama, first with the chisme that Obama was some sort of closet Muslim, and then the issue of his minister.

 

Now the gun issue has come to light. Obama is now being assaulted for his comments regarding Pennsylvanians that cling to their faith and guns in tough times.

 

Surprisingly, to me anyway, is that these wedge issues aren’t being raised by Karl Rove and the rest of the poll-pushing Republicans. This is coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign! A line from Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar comes to mind, “Et tu Brutei?”

 

I doubt she will do anything to alienate the gay community, bus she seems to be doing the Devil’s (Republicans) dirty work.

 

Personally I’m sick of seeing both candidates tripping over each other to be the average, blue collar worker, because neither of them are! They are both lawyers.

 

Hillary and Bill have earned over $110 million over the last few years and we are supposed to believe that she’s “one of us” because she’s drinking beer and taking shots! Just an observation, but if that was Bill Clinton in a bar drinking beer and taking shots, I think the conversation about that video clip would be a lot different and involve a girl in a Budweiser bikini.

 

This is America. We love being the elite. We love a winner and find a way to make everything a contest, just look at our game shows. Hell, even if you aren’t good enough to play professional baseball or football, you can still join a fantasy league and get involved in the competition!

 

So calling someone an elitist is a bit of a compliment. We want the best of everything in this country, including presidential candidates. We have that on the Democratic side of the ticket.

 

Now if we can just get them to stop bowling and taking shots…

 

 

5 of the 9 Supreme Court Justices are Catholic…

 

And yet they still ruled 7-2 that lethal injection is neither cruel nor unusual.

 

Immediately following the decision, several states started to end the moratoria on the death penalty. The Commonwealth of Virginia has an inmate scheduled to be executed in May and will be the first death penalty execution after the Courts decision.

 

John Paul Stevens voted with the majority but has also recently come out against the death penalty saying that he no longer believes it’s constitution. Stevens was new to the Court the last time the death penalty measure was before the court.

 

Last election cycle, the priest at my church talked about voting our conscience and voting our faith. He specifically mentioned that as Catholics we cannot support candidates that are not pro-life.

 

He said you can’t be Catholic and pro-choice, going on to say that we had a duty to protect all life. That got me thinking again.

 

If we can’t be both Catholic and pro-choice and we have a duty to protect all life, then we can’t be Catholic and pro-death penalty. The Vatican is VERY clear on it’s stance on the death penalty.

More “Pro-Life” Contradictions

Another point of contention for me with the so-called pro-life movement is the philosophical inconsistency of the pro-life movement.

 

The pro-life movement says that life begins at conception and that all life should be protected. This is why they believe that abortion or the harvesting of embryonic stem cells is murder and against God’s will.

 

This is where I have a problem with the pro-lifers. For some reason, they are okay with some “exceptions” in which abortions are okay. Specifically to save the life of a mother, or in cases or rape or incest. So all life is precious except the lives of babies that are the product of rape or incest? It’s okay to kill them?

 

To me, that is clearly a philosophical inconsistency.

 

If all life is precious, and Christian dogma dictates reconciliation and salvation, then support of the death penalty would be yet another philosophical inconsistency.

 

Along the same vein, I have a hard time understanding something else conservatives and the religious right seem to crusade against…euthanasia.

 

Like abortion, I am also against euthanasia. But what surprises me is how many people are against euthanasia for people who are suffering in pain with incurable disease and conditions, but are willing to put a pet down a beloved pet down because it doesn’t get adopted.

 

Or even more hypocritically, put down a pet because of a large bill or the pet is suffering, all the while calling it the “humane” thing to do!