Soapbox

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/10/tea-party-leader-defends-attack-lawmaker-muslim/

Dear members of the Tea "We want to defend the constitution against you liberals" Party:

      Since you're so fond of the constitution, you might want to investigate a little thing called the first amendment. Oh, I know, you just LOVE the first amendment when you've said some horribly racist or homophobic thing  or are encouraging people to instigate armed insurrection against the duly elected government and don't want to get nailed for it. Freedom of speech! Only Nazis believe in political correctness! 
      But even if you insist on believing that the Establishment clause of the first amendment was not intended to create a "separation of church and state" (after all, what does that commie Thomas Jefferson know about the Constitution?) it does say that there can be NO religious litmus test for public office.

    In other words, despite what Judson Phillips, head of Tea Party Nation says, you cannot remove congressman Keith Ellison from office simply because he's a Muslim. I know, I know, 9/11, hate our freedoms, kill the infidel, blah blah blah I repeat, you cannot remove him from office simply for being a member of a religion that you don't like.  
    This is actually a good thing. No, really. This is part of what makes America great. I bet. Because, you know what, out of the billions and billions of Christians in the world, there are a LOT out there that I don't like, and you probably don't either! The ones who use God as a shield to hide behind while they are hating, oppressing, attacking and even killing innocent people, just for starters. How about the KKK and Christian Identity folks who thinks God made blacks as "mud people"? How about the ones who say that God killed all those innocent people with Hurricane Katrina because Mardi Gras is too gay?! I really hate that.

     Never would I suggest that a person who is Catholic is unfit for public office because some Catholic priests attack children like wolves and some Catholic bishops and cardinals keep throwing those wolves back in the lambs' pen. Never would I say that all Baptists are evil just because Fred Phelps is a pustulant boil on the face of humanity.

      So tell this guy he is wrong. Tell him he does not speak for you. Tell him that it is a violation of everything America stands for, and that this intolerance is damaging to this nation and far more dangerous than a person who calls God by a different name.
     Use that free speech and speak up! Make one of your famous signs and refuse to accept the idea that only members of certain religions- and only the right members of that religion ('cause I"m pretty sure my kind of Christianity would get me kicked out of Judson Phillips' America!) are capable of serving in a secular, civil government.

    Look, I understand that both the democratic and Republican parties have you frustrated and angry. Me too.  And it was fun, wasn't it? All the rallies and signs, all the excuses to shout and let out your frustrations? But the party's over. It's time to stop and think before the election. Don't wait until the morning after when you'll have to look in the mirror, see your rumpled hair and bleary eyes and wonder what in the hell you did to yourself and your reputation last night.
    Ask yourself- is this who you want to be- the party that wants to create a rich, white male theocracy where evolution is taught as a "fringe theory" and we judge people on how straight they are, how white they are and how many guns they own? You want to be the party that believes the civil rights act went too far, the party that throws people in handcuffs because they ask inconvenient questions? Were you really out there marching to create a party that demands budget restraint while writing blank checks and belligerently asserts their right to offend and demean everyone who doesn't look like them?

     We already have the Republican party for that. Please, offer us something new.
    
      Thanks.
     Sincerely, your friend,

                   Rational America

   A few months ago a young woman "friended" me on Facebook. She has an obviously made up poetry "street" name and I have never met her, but we had a common friend in my poetry group, so I said "yes". All she ever seems to post is the occasional poem. They are very, very different from the stuff I write- but that's cool, right? It's good do stretch. Mostly based on the Bible and sex- which there is plenty of in the Bible. And once in a while they were kind of interesting. (I never read the comments though, because she and her friends all talk in letters, like texters, and usually, in effect, just make silly noises at each other)

     About a week ago, for the first time, she "tagged" me in a poem she wrote, like she particularly wanted me to read it. So I did. It was a rather crude piece about how women are only supposed to have sex with men, and vice versa, because asses are just for pooping and what is your "eden" for if you don't let a man stick his thing in it? So don't believe that crap about gay being the way people are born because there's a reason men are born with Jimmies and women with Edens.

    Yeah, really erudite stuff.

    And I thought "You little bitch. You read the stuff I post. You may not know that I have close and beloved  family members who are gay, but you know my position on gay rights. You've seen my posts about Coming Out Day, etc. And you didn't just write this, you specifically sent your crude little "4th graders playing doctor behind the gym" piece of trash to ME to try to make a statement!"

    But I just didn't have the time or the need to get upset about it. Hell, I don't even know her! I thought for about 5 seconds before I blocked her ass. Gone baby gone, in 60 seconds. And I didn't think much more about it.

     Then today- I got a friend request from her. "XYZ wants to be your friend on Facebook"
      Are you kidding me? Are you f**king kidding me?
      First of all, I was told that once you blocked someone they couldn't find you, even if they did a search for you. Clearly that was wrong information. Second-  are you kidding me? Does she think I accidentaly blocked her? Of course not. So why in the world would I re-friend her ass, if I blocked her once? Does she really feel that strong a need to tell me the purpose behind God giving me an Eden? She's like the street front preacher who, not content with your rejecting their "Repent- the end is near!" crap on the street, follows you home!

     I considered sending her a message saying "Not in a million years. Not if you won a Pulitzer prize for your crude little poetic turds. Not if Oprah personally called and begged me to friend you. "
     There was no "Reject with extreme prejudice" option to the request, so I hid it. It seemed insufficent, but  it was the only option other than accepting it. All I can say is, she'd better not try again. Right now, I just don't have the time to worry about some crazy woman I've never met, but if she keeps bugging me, I could find the time. Oh yeah.

    It's slow right now in custom framing, so today I spent 5 hours in the warehouse, unpacking Christmas decorations. I unboxed and sorted onto carts santa-this and snowman-that and angel-the other things until I thought my brain would bleed.
    It was a little bit surreal, too, listening to halloween muzak and unpacking boxes of Christmas items that were made in China. I finished my shift covered with more glitter than a drag queen. This year almost everything is either sequined or glittered. I unpacked a box of 16 inch high nutcrackers covered in gold sequins. Never saw anything so  tacky in my life.  Started calling them "the Pimp-crackers" for obvious reasons. But you know what? they will probably fly off the shelves. Why, America? Why?

     While opening and unwrapping dozens and dozens and dozens of assorted Christmas cookie tins, I had a flash back to last year, spending hours on the floor putting dozens and dozens and dozens of Christmas tins in shelves, thinking "Enough already!"  But then we'd sell them all, and put out more the next week.
     It is my belief that enough Christmas tins have been manufactured just in the last 5 years that every person on earth should have one by now. Hell, every person in America could have one just from the ones JoAnns has sold. I think peasants in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan probably keep things in old Christmas tins from the USA.
    Our biggest sellers are a set in assorted sizes that say "Peace" "Love" and "Joy". It would be nice to have a set that say "Reduce", "Reuse" and "Recycle" because I"m pretty sure people  just throw these damn things out every year to make room for next years' tins.

      "How are you doing back here?" Rachelle asked when she came back to get something that was on hold.
     "If Santa Claus walked in here right now, I would kick him in the nuts" I said as I ripped open yet another box of stuffed Santa doorknob hangers.
     Now in my entire life I believe the only thing I have ever felt the need to hang from my doorknob was the occasional sweater  that I was too lazy to open the closet for, and yet apparently we anticipate that at least 100 people in Columbus are going to feel that their house is bare and Christmas is not complete without a Santa or a snowman to hang from their doorknob. Go figure.
      I loaded an entire cart with outdoor decorations: Santas and snowmen and reindeers in cute little hats with sticks up their asses so you can jam them in the front yard. Most  of them say pithy things like "Christmas is almost here!" apparently for people whose neighbors do not have calendars, I guess.  
     Whatever. I shouldn't complain. Yes, it's junk and most of it is ugly. Yes, if people gave half the money they normally spend on useless junk like this to charities there wouldn't be hungry children at Christmas… but I should just go with the flow. Who am I to begrudge the world a little decoration during the cold, dark months of the year, right?

    Then I found the 8 boxes of "wreaths" made entirely out of neon colored, glitter-sprinkled bells.

     Yeah, I'm pretty sure the human race is doomed.