Labels: anti-oppression, LGBT, marijuana, multiculturalism, politics, USA

Labels: 1st UU principle, LGBT, sustenance, theological sources

Labels: LGBT, personal bookmarks, sexuality

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Here is the link to the Prop 8 Trial in the Federal Appeals court. I think that's currently where it is in the process. Given the recent Supreme Court conservative bloc activist decision against campaign finance reform, I'm worried about what will happen if/when Prop 8 makes it to their door.

I won't comment on the trial right now, but this provides a valuable view into a sociological understanding of gayness. :)


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: freedom versus freedom, LGBT, personal bookmarks

.Must... remember... to pound... through.... thick.... skull...

Nov. 20 every year is the annual
Transgender Day of Remembrance.

(I suppose I could also get it into my PDA calendar, if I ever get one again that doesn't get crushed, lost, or stolen.)

And also, here's an interesting image (at right) showing different LGBT rights in different parts of the world at present. The link just above is to the current state of affairs. The picture below is a snapshot (seems to be fair use, and covered under Creative Commons licensing--owners are listed at the link above) of what it looks like on this day, Nov. 20, 2009. We'll see how it changes over the years. It's interesting to note that Iowa is the only dark blue in the middle of the country, amid a sea of other colors.


lyrics: "There's more to love than boy meets girl."
From There's More to Love than Boy Meets Girl, by the Communards



pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, globalism, LGBT, USA

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Labels: anti-oppression, classism, dream recollection, LGBT, racism

So apparently back on December 19th, the Yes on Prop 8 folks got Kenneth Starr (the same guy who prosecuted against Bill Clinton) to file a case so that all 18k of the same sex couples in California who got married last year will have that marriage taken away.

Note that at the bottom of the dailykos page, there's a scary video of two Latter Day Saints marching into a lesbian household and taking their rings and marriage certificate, ripping it in half. That's pretty close to the truth. To think that rights that some people have been working to achieve and then win, could be taken away again is TOTALLY unAmerican.

So, if you're a friend of mine, and/or care about equal rights, please go here, and do as your heart compels.

I find it interesting and extremely sad that the Catholics and JC-LDS folks were two of the biggest proponents behind prop 8, and Unitarian Universalism was one of the biggest opponents to it. What I find interesting are these numbers.

The Catholics, a population of roughly 80 million give an average of 1.3%, a total easily over $5 BILLION dollars to the church annually.

The Mormons, a population of roughly 6 million give an average of 7.5% of their income to the church. For argument's sake, let's pretend the median income is a generous $50k/year. That works out to roughly $22.5 BILLION/year.

Unitarian Universalists have less than 200,000 pledging members, averaging less than 1% of their income. That means a total of (far) less than $100 million.

If we're talking about economic power (and the ability to put it to work in the form of making the world match your values), UU and our message and values are hurting. It's not just a question of getting the message out, but of getting it out enough, and getting it out more. The Catholics, the Mormons and the fundamentalists are all a lot more vocal than us, and often, its the loudest or most frequent voice that gets heard. We would be hard pressed to launch an ad campaign anywhere near the size of the Yes on 8 campaign the Mormons put on, or to pay lawyer's fees the size of someone like Kenneth Starr would ask for.

And a bit closer to home -- with the economic downturn, our association of churches are even hard-pressed to train ministers -- significantly fewer congregations are taking interns for the coming year, which means I might get the opportunity to be a stay-at-home dad for a year, and UU will have me as a minister for one less year, or perhaps not at all. My guess is that many other ministerial hopefuls are in a similar predicament. If our movement, and its values, are important, they need to spread. Unless we're going to turn all of our 50 person fellowships into 1000+ member uber-churches, we're going to need more ministers.

Giving 1% is not the way to do it. And I'm not suggesting 10%, or even 7.5%, but how about 3%? If it's about the margins between operating cost and the good social justice work we can do in the world, 1% is continually help us to keep a roof over our heads and a basic staff with bread on the table, but 1.1% would mean 10 million more bucks to go toward real community-roots justice work, and growth.

And yes, times are tough. My grandparents (a farmer, and a farmer's wife -- in other words, two farmers, one of whom fixed the tractor and tossed the hay bales on the wagon, and the other who drove the tractor and cooked and fed the chickens) didn't make a whole lot of money with their small 40-acre farm operation. But they had a policy that when times were tight. Knowing that the church community was the place that people turned to first when they ran on hard luck, if there was a recession or depression, they gave MORE money to the church, to help the community. In short, this recession/depression is an opportunity for Unitarian Universalists and other churches to pull together in community, and to rely on each other just a bit more.

And I say all this knowing full well that money is a substitute, a symbol of our labor. At some point, I intend to write a bit about what happens when the dollar (and other forms of money) get de-monetized, and are no longer current. I think a bit part of the paradigm shift coming up is when our labor gets de-monetized. I believe there can and will be a time when all our fundamental needs (food, water, housing, clothes) will be easily taken care of (if we work things right -- efficient sharing of resources & bringing the population down to 2-3 billion). And our basic modern needs (running water, electricity, communication, education, garbage collection) will also be taken care of. Then the work each of us does can be voluntary and our labor need not be monetized. It's just a question of if and when enough people have the collective will for us to turn the corner. I guess here I am talking parousia again.

Or we could just go the way of the Dodo. At least some of our theology would last, maybe. The thought that it might not is one of the few things that makes me shudder to the bones. Lord knows the mormons aren't preaching it (yet!).

lyrics: "Come around to my way of thinkin'.
Don't you want to, want to get along?"
-Urge Overkill, from Sister Havana

colors: blood red -- the color of hell -- the hell of enforced separation and divorce

mood: side-tracked. perhaps on-track actually.

chant/prayer/mantra: it takes an impulsive creative force, and then sustained energy.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: angry at organized religions, economics, equal rights, LGBT, our mission, parousia, politics, religious community, salvation, theology

Wow. I am impressed, inspired and reassured by this post on Google's official blog site.

Transgender Remembrance Day happens every November 20th.

(Oh, and regarding the title, I frequently use x as shorthand for "trans." Also as shorthand for "christ," though the two are not necessarily to be equated, just because they share a homonymic prefix.)

lyrics: "You live on Avenue Q. Your friends do too." - Avenue Q Theme

color: impressed.

mood:

chant/prayer/mantra:


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, google, LGBT

This evening I read a few different posts by people I've only recently become acquainted with, or know through other people.

Labels: angry at organized religions, anti-oppression, changing the prison paradigm, LGBT, oppression, racism

This editorial piece almost brought me to tears.

No matter who you are, if you haven't seen it, it's worth viewing.


peace and love,
joel

Labels: equal rights, LGBT, media

Apparently, somebody has placed a "No on Prop 8" sign at the city of Megiddo in Israel, the supposed site of Armageddon. This is a response to the fact that there are Christians from all over the United States pouring their money and effort into a "Yes on Prop 8" campaign in California, and some of them are saying that the right to same sex marriage is a cultural armageddon. The actual wording of California Proposition 8 includes these exact words: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

i rarely use caps, but feel the need to press the Caps Lock key today... WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE??? WHY DO THEY FEEL ENTITLED TO CALL THEMSELVES CHRISTIANS AT ALL?? NOT IN MY BACKYARD, NOT IN MY STATE, AND NOT ON MY PLANET. Christians are supposed to be intelligent, thoughtful, and according to Jesus' one big command, they are supposed to love their neighbor. Is denying rights to your neighbors some new way of expressing your love for them?

What does it take to see that this proposition is simply denying rights to a certain minority of people? Why would somebody see fit to act out a hurtful ideology against a group of mostly kind and loving people in the name of CHRIST? That is just the worst thing imaginable. I suppose this could be explained by some convoluted logic which ties same-sex love to sin, and cares that people don't go to hell when they die, and therefore a measure like this keeps them safe from sinning. But that neglects the fact that being disallowed to love freely is a real form of hell for any people while they're alive.

Further, in addition to the fact that this effort is trying to limit rights for people, it is also EXTREMELY IMMORAL to be devoting energy to something like this when there are AMAZINGLY LARGE AND SERIOUS PROBLEMS GOING ON IN THE WORLD WITHOUT HAVING TO GRANDSTAND AGAINST SOMETHING LIKE THIS. When this is all said and done, this will be seen akin to tilting at windmills in the middle of a hurricane. A genuine fools' errand, and there are millions of American sucked into doing it through religious ideology.

IMO, it's about time for the rest of humanity to come around to a more quaker way of thinking.

It looks like I'm going to be spending my birthday working against this effort, and perhaps even performing a wedding.

To those who are so concerned about gay marriage that they are devoting this much time and effort into preventing it, I'll say simply that my prayers are with you, but I will not stand with you, and your effort will fail because it is unloving and against what Christ wants for the world.

lyrics: "There's more to love than boy meets girl." - Communards

colors: Solid Rainbow.

mood: Exasperated, yet hopeful.

chant/prayer/mantra: May there be world community one day, with an overflowing amount of love, where no love is denied. Amen.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: anti-oppression, Christianity, environment, equal rights, LGBT, renewable energy

Hi Friends-

In our household, I am the IT guy, in charge of helping our computers work as a workgroup, and to each see the Internet through the router and cable modem. I am not a computer expert, so I do a lot of tinkering to hold things together. I am supposed to be working on homework, and writing applications for chaplaincy residency at hospitals, but computer woes have been sidetracking me mightily.

Yesterday evening, our Internet connection completely bit it (the workgroup still could all see each other through the router (when the wireless aspect was actually working--it's always been spotty even though our apartment is only about 20x20)) and I called our ISP and after an hour or two we got it to a point where now everything could see each other and the Internet.

Now today, when I booted up my audio computer, it failed to recognize the external USB/Firewire hard drive. After unplugging and replugging and rebooting FOUR times, I finally got it working by just hooking up the drive through USB only which is significantly slower, but worked. Then when iTunes fired up, it played, but I got no sound. Checked the Control Panel, and the only option is "Bluetooth Audio"... What's frustrating about that is that I have a perfectly good Firewire soundcard that wasn't being recognized. I tried in vain for two hours to get it to work, reinstalling drivers, checking in the Hardware Device Manager, unplugging and replugging, and nothing works. Windows says everything's working fine of course.

I used to work for a company that made audio software, and they made it for Windows only. That's why I've been sticking with Microsoft, but now Windows Vista's kernel plays poorly with the software that had worked nicely on Win2k, Win98, and WinXP. I *might* buy a Windows XP computer and keep it completely clean. But then again, I might be done with Microsoft. Their OS is turning into such a morass of difficulty for me that I can't see sticking with them much longer.

So, do I switch to Linux or Mac? Well, there is now FINALLY multitrack audio software (Ardour) for Linux, so maybe that if there are drivers for my audio device. Doing a google search for "linux firepod drivers" brought me to this forum, and this advice, which is bafflingly complex for a person like me. I'm computer literate, even computer savvy, but not that much of a geek to compile and build my own Linux distro, compile audio drivers, and then tweak them as this person does (though I am certainly envious of his skills). I really wish that the Linux community could find a way to make one or more installable highly stable versions of the OS that are inviting for people who know how to use computers AND have a straightforward way for people to install drivers and software using compiled executables, not requiring them to compile from source, seeking out special libraries and adding compile-time switches.

Switching to Mac might not be a bad idea, but then I need to find, pay for, and learn some alternate software. I'm not against that, as long as it's less frustrating and limited than the version of Garageband I used last year on my boss' Mac mini. Ugh.

What I really would love to see would be living communities develop with specialists in them. Imagine if you lived in an apartment building (or similar multi-unit domicile) with 40 people, one (or more) of whom was a computer specialist, one (or more...) who loved to cook, one who could repair guitars and electronic equipment, one who would take care of the garbage, one to keep the bathroom clean, one to be the treasurer, one who works the garden, one who does the political advocating, one to take care of the pets, several to work at jobs for pay, etc. As it is, with a family of two (as we are), it gets to the point where we're doing all of the jobs above, plus much more. Keeping the living rooms and bedrooms in separated quarters might be nice, but having a common dining area and kitchen would help make the community more efficient. Perhaps the dining area could double as a meeting space and movie theater. I think if human families were to try that on for size, it could make our way of life much better overall, as we'd be able to share 2 or 3 hammers between 10-15 families, cook large-scale meals and keep fresh foods and leftovers from going bad with a dedicated cook on staff. I still think having restaurants and individual family (and individual person) meals would be a good idea as well, of course. To think otherwise, IMO, would be a little myopic and confining.

Every time I bring this up to someone, they always talk about why it wouldn't work. I loathe that attitude. Its the attitude of "haters" as in, "why you gotta be all up and hatin' in my business?" What I want to hear from people is how it could work. What WOULD it take for humanity to develop more communal and cooperative lifestyles? What impediments are there, other than the same old examples shown to us in popular media, and dictated by the Defense of Marriage Act? I'm sure that if the government, and the people who elect their government, wanted to, they could provide incentives for people to live cooperatively. And for corporations to be more cooperative as well. (Oh I have a big long thing to write about corporate cooperativity, but that's for another day.)

OK, I got the computer exasperation whining off my chest for now, and have since digressed into a community-sharing tirade, so I guess I'll sign off. Thanks for reading. Love yr neighbor.

--
pax hominibus,
agape to everyone,
joel


http://revjd.blogspot.com/

"Strephon kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall,
But Colin only looked at me And never kissed at all.
Strephon's kiss was lost in jest, Robin's lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin's eyes Haunts me night and day."
-Sara Teasdale

Once in a while, the time will come
To surrender everything you have to give
Once in a while, the time will come
To surrender everything you have to give
-Flaming Lips, "Superhumans"

Labels: computers, LGBT, paradigm shift, religious community, technology