Monday, February 25, 2013

Saturday, February 23, 2013

An outline of awesomeness

 Prop 8 Respondents Brief (against Calif's Proposition 8) extract restated in outline form (because I think it's awesome). Hat-tip to Dante Atkins at DailyKOS.

Note: Link will open a PDF file.

This extract starts at the bottom of page 3:
  1. Proposition 8's unmistakable purpose and effect is to
    1. stigmatize gay men and lesbians—
      1. and them alone—
    2. enshrine in California’s Constitution that gay men/women
      1. are “unequal to everyone else”
      2. committed relationships are ineligible for the designation “marriage,” 
      3. unworthy of that “most important relation in life.” 
  2. The obligation to identify and rectify discrimination in all its forms 
    1. society or the courts cannot be absolved by
      1. tradition
      2. fear of change
      3. an “interest in democratic self-governance”
  3. If a history of discrimination were sufficient to justify its perpetual existence, as Proponents argue, 
    1. public schools, drinking fountains, and swimming pools 
      1. would still be segregated by race, 
    2. government workplaces and military institutions 
      1. would still be largely offlimits 
        1. to one sex—
        2. and to gays and lesbians, 
    3. marriage 
      1. would still be unattainable for interracial couples. 
  4. Yet the Fourteenth Amendment 
    1. could not tolerate 
      1. those discriminatory practices, 
    2. and it similarly does not tolerate 
      1. the permanent exclusion of gay men and lesbians 
        1. from the most important relation in life. 
  5. “In respect of civil rights, 
    1. all citizens are equal before the law.” 
      1. Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537, 559 (1896) (Harlan, J., dissenting).

There's really no such thing as voiceless



 I tried to link back to the FB post, but FB wouldn't me. So here is the very apt quote.

Here the link to the FB account that put posted this. Kudos to them for this wonderful image.
https://www.facebook.com/WomenWhoRunWithTheMoon

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Are Guns Subject to Law?

I keep seeing this graphic (the black block with white letters) on Facebook, and it's a totally bogus argument that (as usual) misses the whole point.

Monday, February 11, 2013

I Brainstorm In My Brain

Part of the reason I don't like to do formal "brainstorming" on paper; it's already worked out in my head.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Finding a lost heritage through art

http://www.theroot.com/views/black-latin-america-other-african-americans-0#

It wasn't until my sophomore year at Yale, as a student auditing Robert Farris Thompson's art-history class, the Trans-Atlantic Tradition: From Africa to the Black Americas, that I began to understand how "black" the New World really was. Professor Thompson used a methodology that he called the "tri-continental approach" -- complete with three slide projectors -- to trace visual leitmotifs that recurred among African, African-American and Afro-descended artistic traditions and artifacts in the Caribbean and Latin America, to show, à la Melville Herskovits, the retention of what he called "Africanisms" in the New World. So in a very real sense, I would have to say that my fascination with Afro-descendants in this hemisphere, south of the United States, began in 1969, in Professor Thompson's very popular -- and extremely entertaining and rich -- art-history lecture course.

Thoughts for the Day 20240304

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