Leelanau Whippersnapper

After a tremendous victory for the Democratic party and Obama, change is indeed on the way to Washington.  Unfortunately some types of change were set back in this election cycle.  Gay Americans were defeated in a very important state this year.  California voted by a slim margin to write discrimination into their state constitution to prohibit gay marriage.  This is quite unfortunate for one of the most progressive states in the Union.  Earlier this year, their state Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting Gays from marrying violated their state constitution (a finding that quite a number of state supreme courts have found).  With that ruling, hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians in California were granted marriage certificates.  With last nights election, those once valid marriages have become null and void.  This is a major set back for gay rights in this country.  Trends are set in California and this defeat sets back the gay rights movement a number of years.  At the same time, Arizona, and Florida both passed similar constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman (Michigan already has such an amendment).  Arkansas on the same note, outlawed single people (gays included) from being foster parents or adoptive parents.  Another election cycle done and people once again have been stripped of fundamental freedoms in this country.

I don’t weigh in very much on gay politics in this blog but it seems now that the only hope gays and lesbians will have to win the right to marry will boil down to what will be a very contentious Supreme Court decision which won’t likely happen for several years to come.  Some states have created equivalents to marriage without the name but alas for me, none of those states are close to Michigan and I’m not interested at this time in leaving the state (although the thought has crossed my mind on a number of occasions).  My biggest issue I guess is not that some people seem intent on marginalizing other people (I do that frequently on this blog) but that in respect to basic freedoms, we have so altered the fundamental documents that enshrine those freedoms to ALL people in this country.   State constitutions are so weighted down with amendments that both give and take away rights that they have lost much of their significance as documents of freedom and justice.  Not before the 20th century have constitutions stripped individuals of their rights but in the last 15 years many have done just that.  There are all kinds of arguments on this level, none of which I will get into here.  I’ll end it by saying that while this Democratic victory is significant and important, this country still has a long way to go before it realizes the fundamental principal of freedom to ALL.

I’ll likely live to see the day when gays and lesbians are finally allowed to marry the person they love, my parents won’t, most of the baby boomer generation won’t.  It’s important to note in this defeat in California, the under 35 group overwhelmingly voted against this divisive amendment and that has been the trend all over the country.  Younger people don’t and won’t tolerate discrimination in the way that older Americans do.  Things will change, it will just take time.

I’ve not written much about the upcoming election lately on this blog.  I’ve already stated my support for Obama.  I’ve kept my mouth shut for a number of reasons but deep down you all know I’m a liberal with some libertarian streaks.  I’ve been keeping up on some of the election coverage through a blog called Pam’s House Blend.  Without question a partisan blog but she does a nice job of collecting information about current events and she covers the ‘gay’ angle well.

I’ve been watching in horror about the truly pathetic anger and violence that continues to erupt within the republican campaign.  The McCain/Palin camp has truly inspired the wingnuts to crawl out from under their stones and then use those stones to hurt others.  I’m posting below several links that I feel has reflected the tone of his campaign for the past several weeks and months and I’m doing so becuase I feel it is important to create as much distance as possible between rational thinking people and the lunatics on the right.  WARNING: if you are a sensible republican (and there are a few left out there, don’t get me wrong) view these links with caution.  You WILL question your party affiliation after you read about what your buddies are doing.  These links are in many cases disturbing, racist, sexist and generally horrific tales of “red blooded republican Americans”.  These people are sick.  Read and view at your own risk.  This is ripped right from Pam’s blog (credit where credit is due)

* The parade of racist images continues: Obama ribs ‘n chicken
* NC: Greensboro reporter attacked by McCain/Palin supporter at rally
* Black bear cub shot, covered by Obama sign and left on Western Carolina University campus
* TX: More McCain/Palin patriots - trashing of car with Obama sticker
* McCain/Palin mob: 30 cars owners find tires slashed after NC Obama rally; voters heckled
* OH: Obama-labeled ghost hanged in effigy in man’s yard
* California: Sacramento GOP web site calls for the torture of Barack Obama
* Mike Signorile listens to The Hate Out There
* Here we go again: another Palin groupie shouts ‘kill him’ at PA rally
* Own it, bigot
* Missouri: More of the McCain/Palin/GOP Base
* Frank Rich on the fires stoked by McCain/Palin
* The GOP ticket draws, and apparently embraces, the bigot eruption crowd
* More fun in post-racial America
* John McCain forced to denounce racist, homophobic member of Virginia leadership team
* Kentucky, I know you can do better than this
* FL: middle school teacher uses ‘nigger’ to describe Barack Obama
* Palin praised racist writer who called for RFK’s assassination
* Values at the Values Voter Summit - Obama as a Muslim Aunt Jemima
* Westmoreland stands by ‘uppity’ remark about Obama
* White supremacists: Obama’s boosting our movement
* John McLaughlin: Obama fits the ‘Oreo’ stereotype
* Georgia: publication features Obama in crosshairs on cover for article on white supremacist threat
* Bigot eruption: GOP House member refers to Obama as ‘boy’
* South Carolina: black reporter attacked by white family (on camera!)

So, there you have it.  Plenty of reasons why I will not associate with a party of bigots who have NO MORAL COMPUS.  Say what you will about my own values and lifestyle but I will refuse to support or be a part of any party that allows or encourages this sort of behavior EVEN in the heat of an election.  There is ABSOLUTLY no excuse for this sort of behavior and rhetoric in fucking 2008!

If you watch Family Guy on TV, you’ll understand what a Leafer is.  It’s a little like a fudgie… pretty much a non-local who invades the area only during certain times of the year.  My God there are a lot of people up here this weekend.

This is THE weekend to be in Northern Michigan.  According to the news about 60-80% peak color right now and it’s going to be in the 70’s all weekend.  Amazing that I happened to have this weekend off from work.  I’ve uploaded a new album to leelanauphotography.com, LOTS of color tour pictures.  I spent today out with Gavin hiking the Bay View Trail again.  I did the longer hike this time, about 6 miles.  I remembered to take the backpack today with water.  Good thing I did too, it was freaking hot when we weren’t in the woods.  I got some great pictures this year with my new camera.  This is the first fall that I’ve had this camera and the thing has more than paid for itself.  Now I just have to narrow down the choices of pictures to order for my new frames.

Gavin is exhausted again (which is good) and he’s snoring loudly on my bed right now.  I’ve still got the cats as of this writing, as much as I hate saying it, their days are numbered at this point.  I’ve made the decision to remove them from my house and have asked around at work if anyone wanted to adopt them…no takers yet.  I would much rather find them a home than give them to the humane society.  I know what will happen to them there, especially considering the recent news paper articles about the huge number of cats and dogs that have been left at local shelters due mainly to people not being able to afford to take  care of them any more.  I feel bad but again, while I treat them like family, they are pets not people.  They are specifically bread to do what I want them to do and if they are unable to do it, they can’t live here.

We have another state that has now legalized gay marriage.  Connecticut now joins Massachusetts and California as places I could go to get married legally if I actually were in a relationship.  The anti-gay right wingers are foaming at the mouth over the ‘activist judges’, what they fail to see is that on EVERY court that has decided this, most of the majority opinion in each court were appointed by REPUBLICAN leaders.  They are of course labeled as activist judges becuase the right doesn’t agree with the outcome.  This is an area of politics that pisses me off.  People don’t even realize what hypocrites they are being half the time.  EVERYONE has a political agenda.  Some (the right) are just sore losers.  These rulings really bring out the worse in people.  It just blows me away to see the hate and fear that oozes from the eyeballs of these zealots.

On a happier note, I’ll leave you with another wallpaper size picture.  Be sure to check out leelanauphotography.com for the rest of the set.

Wow, it’s getting cool up here in red neck land.  I’m finally enjoying a day off from work and getting ready to head out to the parents house for a day on the lake.  Not that I’ll be swimming but I know Gavin will be.  I decided it was time to mow my lawn this morning.  Took me about 10 minutes with this great little electric lawn mower my landlord left me.  What a contrast.  At my former house, I would have to plan an entire day around doing yard work.  It would take a minimum of 4 hours JUST to mow the lawn, then there was trimming and watering and everything else.  It was exhausting and HOT.  Thank god I no longer have to worry about that.  Even better, once it snows, I don’t even have to worry about plowing.  It’s going to be done for me!  YEH!!!

I had to go to the Secretary of State this morning and renew my drivers license and also change my voter registration.  It never ceases to amaze me how busy that office is and how rude the clerks are.  I guess when you work for the state you have some sort of license to be a shit head.  Oh well, my new license is in the mail and within a couple weeks I’ll have my voter registration back in the mail so I can vote in the election this fall.  Without question it will be for Obama.  At one time in my life I called myself a conservative but I have never voted for a republican.  As I get older, it’s easier to see just how fucked up the world really is, the republican party to me is a party that is terrified of change, espouses hypocritical “family values” (Nice to see that abstinence only education worked wonders with Palen’s daughter…NOT), rules with heavy handed and unnecessary laws, spends uncontrollably, has NO concept what-so-ever of science, and is led by these righteous wing nut theocrats who really believe they are doing the work of Jesus fucking Christ.  Sorry folks, JESUS WAS A LIBERAL.

OK enough politics…it makes me crazy.  Gonna pack up the camera and the dog now and head out to Leelanau.  Maybe another post tonight with some new pictures!

There was once a time when I considered myself to be pretty “conservative”.  I was all for small government, self-reliance, and basic values.  Ya, not so much any more.  The Log Cabin Republicans can eat my shorts.  I have no use for today’s conservative.  They are all about big governement, spying on citizens, control of the masses…you name it, the face of conservatism today is VASTLY different from what it was years ago and I’m not even that old.  On the same note, I’m not real fond of liberalism either.  I don’t really appreciate the  dumbing down of everything to the lowest common denominator just so nobody gets offended.  I really can’t stand whiny rants of inequity about whatever.  I guess I don’t really fit either mold and I’m OK with that too.  I did find a nice blurb on conservatism tonight that I wanted to post.  I agree with it but know that there is an equally disturbing converse side for liberals.

It Must Be scary to be a Conservative - By Chris Bowers

It must be really scary to be a conservative. To be one, you must live in constant fear of terrorists nuking the United States, of gay people on the verge of convincing you that you really enjoy sodomy, of Spanish becoming the official language of the United States next week, of every African-American voting seven or eight times in the next election, of radical Islam suddenly becoming the latest hip thing among kids across the country, of perpetual lesbian orgies in girls bathrooms in high schools across America, of liberals forcing everyone to become a vegan, of Christians being rounded up into concentration camps, and of Democrats outlawing private property if they were to ever take power again.

Here is another picture of complete stupidity.

I don’t post much in the way of political punches on this blog but since it pertains to my life I had to post this. Even talking head Bill O’Reilly can’t get a cohesive answer out of the opponents for gay marriage equality. Good for him for pushing the dingle-berry on his show for a better answer. “Because” just isn’t good enough if you want to outright ban something or write it into the constitution. ESPECIALLY in California where gay marriage is now legal. It’s going to take one hell of an argument to persuade one of the most liberal states in the country to back down from the court’s ruling on this. Watch this video.

From the Detroit Free Press:

Mich. court condones misleading ballot tactics

You know, before I was in a serious relationship I don’t think I would have really cared that Gay marriage was “banned” in Michigan through the passage of proposal 2 in 2004.  Now that I’ve been in a serious relationship and now that the relationship has ended it makes me wonder why I am continuing to live in this state at all.  I know why I continue on here but oh my fucking god folks, how fucking ignorant can you all possiably be?  Did your crack pipe explode in your face?  Did Bubba forget to wash his overalls again?

Already, Lambda Legal, which recently created a “Safety Scale” of states as guidance for convention planners as well as gay couples planning to travel or relocate, put Michigan, once a leader on gay rights, in the worst class.

For those of us who care about Michigan, the damage this court ruling does to the state’s reputation is, to put it mildly, discomforting.

Michigan Sucks.  If I had been allowed to get married to Jirar, I would already have the use of the legal system to help us both dissolve our relationship.  What if the 2 of us had adopted children?  We were together 10 years, it would not have been unusual for a heterosexual couple together that long to have had kids, why not a gay couple?  The fact is, Jirar and I had (and continue to have) no legal rights in Michigan.  He could walk out on his commitments tomorrow and I would have absolutely NO recourse.  He could have the power, gas, phone, and cable shut off here tomorrow and I could do nothing about it since they are all in his name.

Two justices dissented from that May 7 ruling, saying the five-justice majority read too much into the amendment. The dissenters, citing the campaign’s bait-and-switch tactics, issued a warning that should be heard nationwide: “(T)he majority condones and even encourages the use of misleading tactics in ballot campaigns… (I)n the future, organizations may be encouraged to use lies and deception to win over voters or the court. This should be a discomforting thought for us all.”

Not only is this one of the worst states in the county economically, it has also become so corrupt even our justices don’t know what justice is.

Take a look at this article. Thought some of the statistics were pretty interesting.

Bottom line, the production of 31.2 billion liters of water for the U.S. bottled water market took roughly 17.6 million barrels of oil.

The simple break down is 3.4 megajoules of energy to produce a water bottle, cap and packaging with a barrel of oil producing about 6 thousand megajoules. Taking those numbers into account you arrive at 17.6 million barrels of oil, enough oil to run 1.5 million cars on U.S. roadways for an entire year.

I’ll be the first to admit that I do like bottled water but I like it only for the convenience of the bottle, the water is certainly nothing special.  It does not taste that much different from what comes out of my tap.  That said, especially in the summer I tend to recycle my bottled water.  I’ll fill it with filtered tap water multiple times and usually keep the bottle until I loose the cap (which happens surprisingly often).  It’s not much but it helps.

This county is all about convenience.  The nature of my job and my entire income depends entirely on America’s thirst for convenience items.  It is therefore very difficult for me to harp on people for buying them or using them.  Plastic bags and bottled water are only a small part of the “convenience market” but we as a society have to start changing our consumption behavior.  I think my generation will start but I don’t think any serious efforts will take place for many years to come.  I hope that someday, recycling will be mandatory EVERYWHERE and that I won’t live in a township like Cleveland Township in Leelanau County that voted down a recycling program becuase they didn’t want to pay $25 a year to support the program.  CHEAP FUCKING BASTARDS!  Oh well, I do what I can.