Razing Arizona

My friend Steve often says of the Civil War, “they (the North) should have just let them secede.” Often I think he’s right. Imagine not having to deal with the bible belt and the fundies who occupy it. Oh joy!

Then there’s my adopted state. Yes, I live in Arizona, although I try not to let on when traveling. Arizona has a rough history, but when I arrived Janet Napolitano was Governor and as such, she kept all the crazies at bay. Racist, hate-filled and batshit crazy bills came before and she vetoed them. It’s fitting she was called to serve as the third Secretary of Homeland Security having kept the world safe from Arizona those six years she was in office.

According to Wikipedia, as Governor

Napolitano set records for total number of vetoes issued. In 2005, she set a single session record of 58 vetoes, breaking Jane Dee Hull‘s 2001 record of 28. This was followed in June 2006, less than four years into her term, when she issued her 115th veto and set the all-time record for vetoes by an Arizona governor. The previous record of 114 vetoes was set by Bruce Babbitt during his nine years in office. By the time she left office, the governor had issued 180 vetoes.

Thank the goddess for Napolitano.

But when called to serve a higher office, Napolitano left Arizona in the hands of the then Secretary of State (AZ doesn’t have a Lt Governor) Jan Brewer.

Since Brewer took office in 2008, she’s signed into law many of the bills Napolitano vetoed. Brewer brought us SB 1070 and guns in restaurants and bars; she’s made drastic cuts in education, state medicare, and mental health, she’s defunded Planned Parenthood; and she’s effectively outlawed abortion by signing a bill that defines conception as taking place 2 weeks before pregnancy.

And, she’s refused to curtail Joe Arpaio’s harassment of Latinos and allowed his lapses in investigating domestic violence claims. Under her leadership, Arizona has been the subject of a number of federal investigations and lawsuits, and the state garners more of the same with every unconstitutional bill the legislature passes and she signs into law.

Now Arizona has a new claim to its craziest state fame. Secretary of State Ken Bennett. Last week Bennett, a Republican and Mitt Romney’s AZ election co-chair, brought the state more lunacy by announcing an investigation into Obama’s birth certificate and threatening to keep the president off the state’s ballot unless he saw definitive proof from Hawaii that the president was born there. Bennett claimed he was launching this investigation because many constituents had sent him emails asking him to do so.

Finally today, after days of ridicule and embarrassing the sane among those who live here, Bennett announced he wouldn’t seek to keep the president off the November ballot. As TPM reports, Bennett

still intends to keep asking Hawaii for verification that Obama’s birth certificate is authentic. But he said he only plans to use Hawaii’s answer as a way to satisfy demands from constituents who remain unconvinced Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States and so therefore eligible to be president.

Again, thank the goddess, and  officials in Hawaii who responded to Bennett’s request by saying they did not believe he was qualified to investigate Barack Obama’s birth certificate. Aloha asshole! See the email exchange between AZ secretary of state’s office and Hawaii’s deputy attorney general for a few zingers at TPM.

Of course, we still have Sheriff Joe’s birther plot to contend with since he has dispatched a deputy from his “threats unit” to Hawaii along with a lunatic volunteer posse guy. Add deputy Brian Mackiewcz and Michael Zullo to the state’s list of evil idiots. Remember earlier in the year when Arpaio announced that he and other posse members had determined a copy of the birth certificate released last year by the White House was a fraud? Now this.Of course, Maricopa County tax payers like me are footing the bill for the airfare to and from Hawaii and hotel so these hate mongers can strut their stuff. More tax payer money going to benefit or bail out the zealots.

Hopefully officials in Hawaii will arrest Mackiewcz and Zullo, Arpaio will drop dead after a massive coronary, and a Planned Parenthood banner will mysteriously become airborne and take off Brewer’s head.

Hey, a girl can dream right?

Drive in Movies and Dashboard Lights

The day Donna Summer died, “Hot Stuff” was in my head for hours. Now, I was never a disco fan, and I never went to a disco to dance. I was and am a fan of rock n’ roll, the blues, jazz, and alternative (and by that I mean REAL alternative).

That said, I liked Donna Summer’s music, and listening to the videos of her songs posted to Facebook that day I was transported back in time. Back to the 1970′s and the summer of 1977 to be exact.

That was the summer Saturday Night Fever hit the big screen. I loved that movie and probably saw it a dozen times that summer. I fell in love with Barry Gibb and his hairy chest, and I taught a kid I was babysitting that while the Bee Gees were good, they were covering the Beatles who were much, much better. (That Robin Gibbs died this week only added to my nostalgia.)

Not only did listening to those Donna Summer songs and memories of Saturday Night Fever take me back in time, they reminded me about one of my favorite places that summer: the drive in.

There aren’t many, hell, there might not be any drive ins left these days, but back then they were where we made out and sometimes watched parts of a movie.

I have so many wonderful memories of going to the drive in. As a kid, it was an opportunity to wear my PJs while playing on the swings and slides and teeter totters that were behind the big screen. I’d get to play until the movie started and then had to head back to the car. Once there, I would eat some popcorn and promptly fall asleep.

But by 1977, the drive-in was a place I went to with friends. None of us could drive yet, so someone’s parent would take us into the drive in, leave us there, and take off in another car. Later they’d return and drive us all home. I felt so grown up hanging out in the car with my friends. And that particular summer, we danced and sang along with Saturday Night Fever, never tiring of seeing the movie. We knew the dialog, the songs, and all of John Travolta’s moves.

A few years later, we were able to drive to the drive in. Those were the days of switching cars and hanging out with the guy I was absolutely forbidden to see. I no longer remember his name, but I do remember the thrill of breaking the rules. I remember having people hide in the trunk and the bottom of the backseat so we could get in cheaper; I remember the crackling of the speakers;  and I remember having a lot of fun, although any specifics now escape me.

I don’t know when the drive in began to die. I don’t think I went to one after high school. When I was in college, it was all about the parties and late night conversations about the meaning of life and how to solve the problems of the world. By then, too, VCRs were all the rage.

What are some of your memories of the drive in?

 

Can You Spell Hypocrisy?

Call it the “War on Women” or the consistent assault on women’s healthcare, Republicans across the country have been drastically overhauling existing reproductive and women’s health laws. Often cast as pro-life initiatives, new laws do more to endanger women’s live than to protect the so-called “pre-born.”

It began in Virginia in 2011 with House Bill 1, a “personhood” bill that define life beginning at conception. Not only would the bill have banned abortion, it would also have banned the birth control pill, which sometimes prevents birth by stopping the implantation of a fertilized egg.

Certainly Virginia isn’t the only place we can look to see assaults on women’s healthcare. The Ohio House passed a “heartbeat” bill, or H.B. 125.  Not only would the bill ban abortion when a fetal heartbeat is detected, but it also makes no exceptions for rape, incest or life-threatening circumstances.

Ohio and Virginia were not alone. Republicans have been pushing anti-abortion and anti-contraception bills all around the nation. Arizona Pennsylvania, Kansas, Mississippi and Texas all made national headlines with their own bills.

In my own state, Gov. Jan Brewer recently signed a bill that would eliminate Arizona’s funding for Planned Parenthood. Although touted as an antiabortion measure, this really about basic health care for women. The AZ Republican party has defunded a group that has served one in six women in this country.

Abortions are a mere 3% of Planned Parenthood services; mammograms, PAP tests, contraceptive medicines, family planning and the like are the mainstays of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood provides life saving and family planning services for some 3 million women each year. So what Gov Brewer has accomplished with her pen is endangering the health of women across Arizona.

The idea that Republicans support limited government is a farce; they are intruding deeply into the fate and state of women ‘s health, restricting affordable birth control and enforcing invasive ultrasounds. That’s not small government politics.

Now Catholic schools have joined the “let’s limit women’s access to healthcare” bandwagon. They want to be able to deny women who attend their colleges access to birth control.

I’ve been looking and looking for the answer, but there doesn’t seem to be a similar discussion about whether or not to provide viagra.

Bastards

Historic

As I noted the other day, although President Obama hadn’t said “I fully support gay and lesbian couples’ right to marry,” it was clear he did. His administration has done more to improve the lives of gay and lesbian Americans that any other administration in the history of this country.

Well today, a lot sooner that I ever imagined he would, our President affirmed his support of marriage equality stating during an interview with an interview with ABC News’ Robin Roberts:

I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors, when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

This is an historic statement. For the first time in our country’s history, a sitting president has stated his support for marriage equality. Sure, some will say this is all “politics” or that his hand was forced after Vice President Biden’s appearance this past weekend on Meet the Press, and there may be some truth to those claims, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the President made these remarks on the day after voters in North Carolina passed Amendment 1 that bans same-sex marriage and civil unions (and so denies both unmarried gay and hetero couples rights for which they pay taxes) despite the fact gay marriage was already illegal there; now it’s unconstitutional. Thus NC’s Amendment 1 goes further than the other southern states’ anti-gay bills. Religious bigotry and rednecks make for awful, inhumane policies.

It is also not a coincidence that President Obama notes that his thinking about marriage equality has been shaped by his wife, his kids, his friends, and others. Or that surveys by various national media pollsters have shown a consistent, ongoing trend toward support of same-sex marriage, with slightly more Americans offering support than opposition in measurements taken over the past year. Or that for a majority of young people, the only issue with regard to marriage equality is that there are actually people who don’t support it.

Whether Obama’s embrace of same-sex marriage will further shift opinions on this issue remains to be seen, but if the GOP makes this an issue in the upcoming election, I say more power to them. The more they focus on wedge issues and anything other than the economy, the more votes they hand to President Obama.

In the meantime, I’ll share George Takie’s latest Facebook post

 

Doctoring

This is the time of year when I try to pack in all my medical appointments, routine tests, and the like. Thus far, my teeth are clean and my blood work results are awesome.

On the medical horizon: mammogram and well woman visit. I’m making sure to get those in before the Rethugs in my state outlaw them.

SNL LOL

I often lament the good ole days of Saturday Night Live with the “Not Ready for Primetime Players” John Belushi, Jane Curtin, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase and Garret Morris. Samuri Deli, the Coneheads, Roseanne Roseannadanna, Cheese Burger, Cheese Burger; I loved those skits and tuned in every Saturday Night to watch. These days we record the show but usually fast forward to “Weekend Update” then delete the episode.

But this past Saturday’s SNL was well-worth watching. First, they opened with a parody that skillfully skewered “Fox and Friends.” Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade are idiots, and SNL nailed their stupidity.  For example, Taran Killam playing Doocy : “Shame on President Barack Obama, who is running a campaign ad that argues that Mitt Romney would not have made the decision to launch the raid,” to which Bobby Moynihan as Brian Kilmeade replied, “I can name one person who wouldn’t have launched that raid: Barack Obama!”

They went on to wonder if Bin Laden is actually dead (why don’t they show us pictures, says Carlson, portrayed by Vanessa Bayer), to complain about the White House Correspondents Dinner and to chat with Rupert Murdoch about the “lies” being perpetrated about his authorizing phone hacking. The end of episode fact checking is fabulous as well. I wish I could link to a video, but you’ll have to go to the Saturday Night Live site and click on Eli Manning who was the host.

Then the ever strange  Kristen Wiig visited “Weekend Update” as the tanning mom:

http://www.nbc.com/assets/video/widget/widget.html?vid=1400048

And Eli Manning in drag was pretty good as well.

Marriage Equality

Does anyone really doubt President Obama supports marriage equality? If so, Vice President Joe Biden’s Meet the Press appearance this weekend and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s response to a question about marriage equality today ought to put such questions to rest.

Has President Obama said, “I fully support gay and lesbian couples’ right to marry”? No. Why? The President is running for reelection. And while most citizens of the US support marriage equality (see http://www.marriageequality.org/polls-and-studies), there remains an intrenched minority who see challenges to the status quo as signaling the end of civilization as we know it. That this minority consists of fundamentalist Christians and some older Americans should come as no surprise. Fundies fear anything that they think challenges the reign of patriarchy, and many older Americans cling to the past because that is what they know best.

If my students are any indication, marriage equality is the civil rights issue of the late 20th and early 21st century. They choose to research its history, to discuss it, and to write about it and in each case, they fully support marriage equality even when the religion to which they belong does not.

While congressional fundamentalists throughout the country propose and sometimes pass redundant and antiquated marriage laws, the citizens of this country, including President Obama, continue to recognize that equal rights extend to marriage.