The Gynecologically Obsessed Party

Where to begin?  Locally or nationally, the batshit has hit the fanfare.  Pregnancies from rape are an anomaly.  Fetuses now masturbate.  And abortions used to be “the thing to do” back in the swinging ’70s.  It goes on —  these were all in just the last week alone.  From Arizona to Texas to Wisconsin, the party that has made a sacrament of individual liberty and freedom from big government continues to quite spectacularly demonstrate strident gibberish in the name of contradicting ideology. 

 

Proposition Straight

Finally, the issue of universal marriage has come to the Supreme Court so that a national dialogue can at least begin, stripped of religious symbolism and meretricious rhetoric, predicated on this one basic question:

What is the government’s interest, state or federal, in drawing a line of distinction between gay and straight relationships?

It’s a question that I personally have been invested in for as long as I can remember, unarguably way more so than any indefectibly straight, single man who is not a lawyer or has any background in law ever should.  I have written about, lobbied on behalf of, and fought for universal marriage more than any other political matter.  I have gone so far as to label such willed discrimination as heterosexual apartheid.  (I don’t much care for the term of art “gay marriage,” because that automatically sets the tone in a misguided direction.  The issue is one of contract law, which I believe, as many do, is a matter protected by the Establishment Clause of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, which grants equal protection to citizens.  It is a marriage contract, after all, which when recognized, is your token exchange for all the 1600+ benefits bestowed upon you as a married couple from the state and federal governments.  Besides, it carries the connotation of “universal suffrage” to it.)

But I don’t care to delve into all that right now, mainly because there isn’t much I can add that you, dear reader, do not already know.  So instead I thought to make this scribble a little more fun and interesting by placing bets about how the Court will rule on Proposition 8, the ballot question a majority of Californian voters approved in 2008 that categorically denied recognition of same-sex marriages (but still kept intact civil unions).  With the oral arguments occurring coincidentally during the March Madness of college basketball, below you will see my own brackets.  All winners will receive one of the following: a new poem dedicated to you, a new scribble of a topic of the winner’s own suggestion, or future swag the likes of t-shirts and lapel pins that read “I Got Scribbled A Bit.”

 

Borrow Me Some Equality, Yah Hey?

In a statewide referendum in 2006 Wisconsin overwhelmingly voted “I do” to the following:

“Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in this state.  A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state.”

71 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties approved this wording, effectively enshrining discrimination in the state constitution.  (The lone holdout was Dane County, where Madison is.)

Six years later Wisconsin once again waxed cognitive dissonance by voting Tammy Baldwin to be the next U.S. Senator — Tammy, the liberal lesbian from Madison — over four-time governor and basic poster child for all things Badger State, Brandy Old Fashioned and all, Tommy Thompson.  (Yes, Tammy versus Tommy.  Tommy Thompson.  In Wisconsin.  Where our other senator is Ron Johnson.  Ron Johnson from Wisconsin.  Who ousted Russ Feingold.  More specifically, Ron Johnson’s from Oshkosh B’gosh pert near da Bay you betcha go you Packers go, oh sure then don’t you know.  Ya wanna come with?  Aw Jeez, for Cripes sakes, W’scansin! 

 

Ryan + Romney = Irony

Just last year the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report licentiously entitled “Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007.”  Now, the CBO is the very entity to which Congress itself appointed all economic analysis and budget score keeping, and which is generally regarded as nonpartisan and above-the-board objective.  The report revealed some rather damning “trends,” not least of which is that the 1 percent of the population with the highest income saw their after-tax household income grow by 275 percent, while the 20 percent of the population with the lowest income saw theirs spittle at 18 percent.  Indeed, while 99 percent of the American households saw their total market income decrease – cash wages, salaries, capital gains, etc. – the rich 1 percent actually saw theirs double. 

 

Russ and Them

Not to put too fine a point on it, but sometimes I swear that all there is to one politician’s attack on his or her rival is an extroverted confession of their own flaws and sins.  Take for example all the hoopla Wisconsin Republicans have made about “outside money” and “out-of-state union thugs” meddling in Madison and running the recalls.  Saying little of how next to nothing could be further from the truth, one needn’t do anything more than keep tabs on the company our politicians keep to understand whose pillow talk lies in bed with creeps. 

 

Miss Swiss

The kerfuffle of Michelle Bachman’s application for Swiss citizenship isn’t new, per se, but I’d be most remiss if I let a blip like this pass.  What could have been mere matter of fact — that her in-laws were natural-born Swiss citizens who emigrated, which made her husband a Swiss citizen, and therefore herself one by de jure marriage — was unnecessarily escalated by the revelation that earlier this year, while still running for President of the United States, she was simultaneously applying for her children to be Swiss citizens.  (No word yet about those 20-odd foster kids they’d had and whether those Heathers will become Heidis and Jeffreys Jans, who will trade in those elementary school recorders for alphorns, or renege nacho cheese for fondue.)  

 

May D(ay) in China

Each year on the near-south side of Milwaukee a few hundred folks gather together to commemorate the Bay View Tragedy, the bloodiest day — May 5 1886 — in the history of the labor movement in Wisconsin.  I won’t bother rehashing the clash right now (you’re welcome to read about it here).  Instead, I would like to reconsider it in the context of our contemporary world, from Fox News and Foxconn to Scott Walker and Steve Jobs. 

 

Tax Dodging Rotten to the Core

I’ve always liked that bumper sticker that reads “If you’re not OUTRAGED, you’re not paying attention.”  (Though of course it can just as easily be stated that If you’re not outraged, you must be paying attention to Fox, but I digress…)  Another slogan I’ve enjoyed goes “I’ll believe corporations are people when a Texas jury executes one.”  To that sentiment all I would add is this: or until they pay they have to pay their taxes like all the rest of us working stiffs.  To wit, today is Tax Day, everybody, so pony up!  You, too, corporations — that is what your name means after all: “corporation” from the Latin for corpus and corporare, literally to make into a body.  (Think “corporeal punishment” or “Marine Corps.”  Or hell, just think corpse, as in the American dream/ social mobility/ public works/ U.S. revenue thanks to tax dodging loopholes.) 

 

Green Is The New Black: What Ecoterrorism and Crack Cocaine Can Tell Us About Pro-Life Extremists

First off, an editorial consideration: the last time a scribble indirectly dabbled in abortion and race the shit hit the fan like a fanatic orangutan with a crop duster but no Pepto-Bismol.  From that experience I have not learned that I should not be even scribbling about such emotionally charged issues in the first place, in part because I am by nature a stubborn person, but mostly because it has long been a cherished belief that to elicit a passionate response is generally an indication of doing good work.  That said, if I am reaching out exclusively to a certain segment of the population, then I am being a bad writer.  This blog is admittedly pretty liberal.  But I would regard myself an amateur with written-off irrelevance if I only pissed off some of the people all of the time; far better would it be to piss off all of the people some of the time.  For then, at least occasionally, I must be getting something right.  Not that pissing people off is my intention; I am not a provocateur.  (Actually, I’d like to consider myself a fairly nice guy, who despite a lot of weird stuff was given good manners.)  I personally have no interest in taking up a controversial topic for controversy’s sake — I will leave that kind of dare-devil skullduggery to the stirring pots of schlock-jock op-eds and braggadocio bloggers.  For me the point is to take up a controversial subject unflinchingly when its moment arises.  If I fail to reach out with a requisite amount of tact or only pretend to see things from the opposing perspective so as to seem more reasonable or circumspect, then I am genuinely sorry and I ask that you accept my apology.  In this scribble, as in many of my endeavors, I seek only to speak truth to power, and if I happen to piss off anyone, let it be them — those whose vested interests see living things as commodities and codify justice with dastardly and bastardized double standards.

 

The ABCs of Asymmetry (ICYMI)

Today marks the last day of the (ir)regular session of the Wisconsin State Legislature; good riddance to bad rubbish indeed!  While halfway through lent, this lapse Catholic is glad the state is giving up Republican mandates for a short while at least.  Plus spring has sprung, and with it that irrepressibly burning eternal.  Keeping with the lenten theme, the days are longer (lengthened, you might even say), the sun brighter and warmer.  With recalls soon to be set, there is light for sure at the end of this tunnel that has been the yearlong winter of our discontent, and hope outshining the audacity of dopes.