The good listener

He listened to folks — that’s pretty much what he did.  He listened to folks and talked to them and wrote about them.  He won a Pulitzer Prize for the book The Good War (about WWII).  And he said …

“The older you are, the freer you are, as long as you last.” Studs Terkel at 95

Thanks for listening and thanks for sharing.

Studs Terkel 1912-2008

Yeah well — about that more later

You Should Be an Action Hero for Halloween

According to our quiz, you’d make an ideal action hero. Your runner up costume: Cat

The Halloween Costume Generator

This is fascinating

I don’t know how to add audio to this. But today I was listening to a show called The Story (from American Public Media, the same folks that bring us A Prairie Home Companion). Dick Gordon (the host) was talking to a guy named Andrew Callahan about California’s Prop 8.

Andrew Callahan is currently a High Priest of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In California, LDS is the driving force behind Prop 8 (and the largest amount of funding for the yes on prop 8 camp comes from members of the LDS — and the request of the church higher up).

Andrew Callahan has spoken out against the LDS stand on gay marriage. I mentioned earlier that he is “currently” a Mormon — well, if you listen to the story — you’ll find out that he might not be for long, because he is voicing strong opposition to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints stand on gay marriage.

If you’re interested in more details, you can click on the main page for The Story and if you do this soon the Callahan interview is on the front page (and if you do it later, you can search for Callahan)

As I was listening to this I thought of the words of Pastor Martin Niemoeller

“In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;
And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;
And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;
And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

Marriage meme

Why should my pals over on livejournal have all the fun, I hope I’m neither the first or last to take this from the livejournal folks to the rest of the world. WordPress, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, I don’t care …..

“Copy this sentence into your livejournal blog if you’re in a heterosexual marriage, and you don’t want it “protected” by the bigots who think that gay marriage hurts it somehow.”

I honestly can’t figure out how my marriage could possibly be hurt by any two (or more) of my friends marrying one another, regardless of their gender, race, religion, age….

Write to Marry Day

When I first saw that I was wondering why people would be “writing” about “Mary” but then realized that the word was actually “Marry” and read on to discover that this was in support of voting *NO* on Prop 8 in California. If you want more information on Prop 8 you can read this wikipedia article, or you can search on google and find lots of information, from both sides.

Now, I don’t live in California, and I’m not GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, or trans gendered). So why does it matter to me?

I’m going to go simply to the basics, and instead of addressing the issues surrounding Prop 8 and same sex marriage in California, I’m just going to state why I think that gays and lesbians should have the right to marry.

I’m not seeing how gays and lesbians having the right to marry takes away from marriage??? If you do allow gays and lesbians to have same sex marriages does this mean that all the gay men and lesbian women would then marry members of the opposite sex??? Would that really help marriage? Having people living in marriages where they were not attracted to their spouse and living a lie?? I’m really at a lose to figure out where the harm is in same sex marriages?

I’m married to my straight husband and we have two children. There is no question that the children are our children. Recently my husband lost his job. He now is working as a contractor (meaning he doesn’t have health care). I’ve recently taken a job where I get health benefits. There’s nobody looking over my shoulder questioning whether the children are “really” my children and whether they have a right to my benefits.

Spouse just got over a stomach virus, if he had had something worse, much worse, and was hospitalized and decisions needed to be made as to his care, as his legal spouse, I would have say in any care he received (or, didn’t receive, as goes with my and his wishes). No questions — no wondering if I have the right to speak on his behalf.

In closing, I’m going to answer some of the questions I found on the Protect Marriage website (the website for the people in FAVOR of voting YES for Proposition

Do you believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman?

Why the heck should it matter to me?

Do you believe that traditional marriage is the foundation of society?

What do you mean by traditional marriage? Who married Adam and Eve? What about all those Old Testament guys that had more than one spouse? I’d LOVE my husband to be married to another woman if she would do all the cleaning and organizing the lives of everyone around here. Especially if I could be married to another guy that could do all the fixing up.

OH — perhaps I should also ask what you mean by society?

Do you believe that children are entitled to a mother AND a father?

I believe that every child on this planet is entitled to as many people around that love them as possible. And I SURE as HELL believe that EVERY child should be in a home where they are loved and protected and appreciated and given every opportunity for the best possible life they can possibly have …

and sometimes that’s with a married, opposite sex couple, and sometimes that’s with a same sex couple, and sometimes that’s with a SINGLE parent of EITHER sex. But you just TRY and tell me that it’s FRICKING BETTER for children to be brought up in INSTITUTIONS than to be with a SINGLE PARENT and you are fixing for a fight!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You’ll discover that even though over many years I might have lost the “carrot top” red of my hair, my temper can flare up.

GO FAMILIES!!!! However they look!

(I know this has nothing to with the right to marry — but do these people think that children are better off in a two parent family if you’ve got one spouse that’s an abusive drunk than they’d be living alone with mom??? )

Because you just can’t make this stuff up.

Who, you may wonder (or not) who is John Toplikar??

Well, he’s a member of the Johnson County (Kansas) Board of Commissioners. What, you may wonder, does the Board of Commissioners do? This is from their website….

ABOUT THE BOARD
Pursuant to the Constitution and laws of the State of Kansas and in accordance with the Home Rule Charter, the legislative powers of county government are vested in a seven-member Board of County Commissioners, which forms the legislative branch of Johnson County Government. The Board of County Commissioners serves to strengthen and to preserve the health, safety, and welfare of the community. To that end, it has exclusive power to enact, amend, and repeal local legislation; to levy and apportion taxes, make appropriations, and adopt budgets; to establish strategic plans that guide organizational development and performance; and to appoint certain offices, boards and commissions.

And, what was John Toplikar doing over the weekend, you may ask? Well, he was visiting with some of the county’s finest

Cause see, he’s running for reelection and he was out

STEALING HIS OPPONENTS YARD SIGNS!!!!!

Writing exercise

OKAY — so by posting this image here

I guess that means I’m signing up to write (today or tomorrow) about why Californians should vote NO on Prop 8.

Which should be fun as

1. I’m not GLBT and
2. I do not now, nor have I ever, lived in California

It should stimulate my brain cells.

Whodathunkit

We know that I’m an avid animal lover and a fan of animal rescue.

Today I was driving along behind a car with a Georgia license plate that looked something like this …

Now, I as a bit behind the car and couldn’t really tall what it said — just that there was a cute dog on the place.

So I decided to come home and do a web search to see why Georgia had a picture of a dog as an option for a license plate.  As I can now see (from that picture above) there’s a caption under the picture that says “spay and neuter” and, on the GA DOR (Georgia Department of Revenue) it states, under the plate …

Proceeds from the sale of these tags will help support the statewide sterilization procedures & assist in educating GA citizens on the benefits of spaying & neutering. For more information contact the Dept. of Agriculture, Dog & Cat Sterilization Fund at: 1-800-282-5852 or visit their web site at: www.agr.state.ga.us

There are a ton of other options available for plates, but I never would have expected one for spaying and neutering (but such a cute picture)

How I ask, how could I not pass this along???

Anyone who has read this blog for any amount of time probably realizes a few things about me …

1. I’m a fan of animal rescue
2. I have certain distinct political leanings
3. I’m not hesitant to speak my mind.

So with all that I mind, I ask you how could I not pass this information along?? Mind you I think there are many issues in this (and any) election and there are a number of things to take into account when deciding what button to push (hole to punch/oval to darken), but if you need to look into just one more point of information you can check out the Humane Society Legislative Fund. If you look you can see who they endorse for congress or the senate in any state, (they base this on voting records for animal welfare issues) and this election they have endorsed a presidential candidate. You can click on these links to find out all the information. I will add the summary paragraph ….

Voters who care about protecting wildlife from inhumane and unsporting abuses, enforcing the laws that combat large-scale cruelties like dogfighting and puppy mills, providing humane treatment of animals in agriculture, and addressing other challenges that face animals in our nation, must become active over the next six weeks to elect a president and vice president who share our values. Please spread the word, and tell friends and family members that an honest assessment of the records of the two presidential tickets leads to the inescapable conclusion that Obama-Biden is the choice for humane-minded voters.

Just a thought

Okay malewis1212 (and ragtopday and others) here’s an idea for the files for something to write about in November …

What do you WANT people to say about you behind your back, and how can you make that happen.