Thank you, connoisseurs of tits

Posted on May 1, 2010 by Michael

Ever since my post on the topless march in Farmington the blog traffic has been up markedly. In the 7 or so hours my post was up for the 30th, it garnered me 329 hits. Today it has been 850 (with 6 hours to go). I even received an email asking me to forward the uncensored pictures to some pro-topless web master. I’m not sure why anyone would think I’m the go-to guy on that one. Find a UMF student and ask*. In fact, one UMF student (who was not there herself) forwarded this (censored) Facebook album to me, and I didn’t even ask. I’m sure a little sleuthing will turn up all those fun pictures.

My favorite part of the increase in traffic, though, is not the hits to that one post. It’s actually the increase in hits to my Photography page that really tickles me. None of those pictures have anything remotely to due with any topless march. Hell, most of them aren’t even that topical.

If anyone is wondering about the big spike, it was for the 20th anniversary of Hubble.

*UMF didn’t sponsor the event, but the only reason the whole thing was held in Farmington was because of the college.

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Christian sex therapist loses appeal

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Michael

It makes no sense. Why would Christians even begin to think they had any qualifications as sex therapists? Certainly one can be Christian and be a competent sex therapist, but that falls apart when the sex therapist identifies his profession with Christianity itself (or really, any religion). That’s what Gary McFarlane of the UK did when he refused to treat same-sex couples – and it’s why he was fired.

Mr McFarlane said after the hearing that the decision not to let him appeal against the ruling left him “disappointed and upset”.

“I have the ability to provide counselling services to same-sex couples,” he said.

“However, because of my Christian beliefs and principles, there should be allowances taken into account whereby individuals like me can actually avoid having to contradict their very strongly-held Christian principles.”

It doesn’t work like that. Most professions have a set of ethics (whether specifically created by those in the profession or adopted from outside sources), and exceptions to those rules just do not tend to occur. If one person is allowed to skirt the tenets of his profession because he really believes something strongly, then there really are no more ethics; there are rules for some and privileges for others.

My favorite part of this whole thing comes from Lord Justice Laws.

Lord Justice Laws said legislation for the protection of views held purely on religious grounds cannot be justified.

He said it was irrational and “also divisive, capricious and arbitrary”.

The thing about religion and theology is that in all the apologetics and excuses and convolutions is the fact that if someone rejects the premise of a religion in the first place, then none of the intellectual masturbation holds any water. There are no attempts at universal appeals within theologies, and so they prove themselves useless in how society and professions ought to consider ethical guidelines and rules. Gary McFarlane’s religious beliefs do not deserve consideration because they have no justifications which can be utilized in how to counsel and treat patients on a human level.

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We aren’t racist! We aren’t rac…hang on a second

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Michael

It’s a lie that the Tea Party is not about pushing racist, bigoted agendas. All the movement represents is the philosophically incoherent libertarians of the Republican party. (Not that I want to suggest that there are a large number of Republicans who hold coherent philosophies, whether libertarian or not.) And here are some stats to back up this all-too-obvious fact.

Among whites who strongly support the Tea Party, 60 percent agreed that America “has gone too far in pushing equal rights.” By comparison, only 23 percent of white Tea Party opponents agreed with that statement.

Other findings from the survey:

  • 94 percent of Tea Party opponents said American society “should do whatever is necessary to ensure equal opportunity.” Of all whites polled for the survey, 79 percent agreed with that statement. Tea Party supporters agreed less. Sixty-four percent said America should do whatever’s necessary.
  • 72 percent of Tea Party opponents concurred that “we don’t give everyone an equal chance in this country.” By comparison, 55 percent of all whites and 23 percent of strong tea party supporters concurred with that idea.
  • 77 percent of Tea Party opponents agreed that “if people were treated more equally, we’d have many fewer problems in this country.” By comparison, 54 percent of all whites and 31 percent of Tea Party supporters agreed.

…

  • 90 percent of Tea Party opponents dissented from the idea that the “government can detain people as long as it wishes without trial.” By comparison, 70 percent of all whites and 54 percent of Tea Party supporters dissented.
  • 72 percent of Tea Party opponents disagreed that the government should be able to tap people’s telephones. By comparison, 50 percent of all whites and 33 percent of Tea Party supporters held that position.
  • 94 percent of Tea Party opponents agreed that “no matter what a person’s political beliefs, he or she is entitled to the same rights as everyone else.” By comparison, 89 percent of all whites and 81 percent of Tea Party supporters agreed.
  • 74 percent of Tea Party opponents dissented from the idea that “the government should be allowed to profile someone because of race or religion.” By comparison, 57 percent of all whites and 33 percent of Tea Party supporters opposed such moves.

When teabaggers say they want more liberty, they mean for themselves.

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Topless march in Farmington

Posted on April 30, 2010 by Michael

After protesters marched topless in Portland for equal rights, Andrea Simoneau, a 22 year old student at the University of Maine at Farmington, decided to organize a similar march in her school’s town.

Hundreds of spectators poured into the street and lined the sidewalks to watch, while clusters of protesters held up signs in opposition to the march.

That’s roughly the desired outcome. Make something that shouldn’t be a big deal into a big deal. It’s too bad that there were so many non-news cameras all over the place, but it can’t be said that that wasn’t expected. Nor could it be said that it was unexpected that some people on the other end of the spectrum would go too far.

Resident Elaine Graham took on the most active role of protest, following topless women with a blue blanket and holding it up to cover them during and after the march.

That’s really not okay. Graham was being disruptive of what was a legal protest in Maine. She really needed to stay at an appropriate distance with a sign or some other form of non-interfering expression. Of course, this isn’t the first time Elaine Graham has gone too far.

Meet Elaine Graham of Farmington, Maine. This is Elaine Graham being expelled from a Judiciary Committee work session on the same sex marriage bill last April. I have no idea at all what she is screaming. However, Ms. Graham is holding three crudely crafted signs. The top one reads: “Mission Homosexual Movement CHANGE WORLD MORAL ORDER.”

(I added the link to the image.)

No stranger to silliness, Graham has again and again publicly expressed her sexual immaturity in ways more inappropriate than what’s par for the course. It’s sad and pathetic, really. Burdened with hatred based in Christianity, she cannot accept that other people have a more adult view than she when it comes to sex, the human body, and even love.

Finally, here’s one of the pictures from the march. Obviously I’m not going to upload bare breasts on WordPress (nor am I going to link to anything besides news images, should images be floating around out there), but I think it’s worthwhile to upload this particular picture because it captures the whole event so well. Graham is there, misbehaving out of sexual immaturity, while who knows how many men take video and pictures of the event.

This contrasts so much with a show I saw in Portland last night. The bulk of the show had three bands/musicians (one of which was Theodore Treehouse), but in between sets there was a belly dancer. Any person would have fallen over him- or herself if this woman merely made eye contact, but notably, everyone refrained from recording. There were a couple of photographers for the show itself, but no one in the audience pulled out a camera or cell phone and started snapping away. It wouldn’t have been appropriate by and large, but it also would have really distracted from what was actually a very skilled and talented performance. Of course, the reason for this difference in reaction is the certainly higher sexual maturity present in the audience at that show versus the sexual maturity of those who showed up to gawk in Farmington. People were able to recognize that the belly dancing was not a sexual act; many (though certainly not all!) in Farmington saw the topless march as a sexual display. It wasn’t.

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The Arizona immigration law

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Michael

Maine doesn’t get a lot of immigrants. Some groups from Mexico come up in the summer to (mostly) pick blueberries, and a lot of people from Quebec find themselves working on the coast around the same time, but there just isn’t a big foreign population in Maine, even when considering migrant workers. That said, it’s obvious even from all the way up here that there are some serious issues with Arizona’s new immigration law.

Under the new Arizona law, immigrants unable to produce documents showing they are allowed to be in the U.S. could be arrested, jailed for up to six months and fined $2,500. That is a significant escalation of the typical federal punishment for being here illegally – deportation.

1) People can just lie and claim to be native. Police can do nothing.
2) If another crime has been committed, however, and the person lies about being an immigrant (even a legal one), that is another charge that can be brought against the person. When natives lie to the police, however, the ramifications are significantly less.
3) Freed black people in the 1860’s had to carry documentation showing that they were no longer slaves.

Filed under: News | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Obama expands rights for all

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Michael

I’m not sure how I managed to miss this story, but Obama has expanded visitation rights in hospitals that will primarily benefit gay couples.

The president directed the Department of Health and Human Services to prohibit discrimination in hospital visitation in a memo that was e-mailed to reporters Thursday night.

Administration officials and gay activists, who have been quietly working together on the issue, said the new rule, once in place, will affect any hospital that receives Medicare or Medicaid funding, a move that covers the vast majority of the nation’s health care institutions.

While those who irrationally hate gays because they think homosexuality is all about sex (and that’s just icky!) are going to paint this as special rights for gays, it is an expansion of rights for all.

Obama’s memo to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius orders the development of new rules to ensure that hospitals “respect the rights of patients to designate visitors” and to choose the people who will make medical decisions on their behalf.

This is common sense. Even with legal documents in place, gays and some unmarried straight couples still face horrific discrimination in hospitals. Specifically, this recent memo is in response to the case of Lisa Pond and Janice Langbehn.

Ms. Pond had filed a living will, a binding legal document, that appointed Ms. Langbehn to make medical decisions for her should she become too ill to speak for herself.

But even after copies of that document were faxed to the Florida hospital where Ms. Pond was dying, nurses refused to allow Ms. Langbehn and the couple’s three children into the room.

It is difficult to imagine that a heterosexual couple — even an unmarried heterosexual couple with a similarly long-standing relationship — would be treated the same way.

In another case (from the same link), a couple had designated each other as the person in charge of medical decisions should the other become ill.

Like Ms. Pond, Ms. Ritchie had a living will that designated her partner to make medical decisions for her. But hospital officials wouldn’t provide Ms. Reed with any information on her partner’s condition. Without that information, she couldn’t possibly make informed medical decisions, as Ms. Ritchie had intended.

Things like this are the successes of bigoted voters who go to the ballot box thinking they’re protecting some institution. This isn’t about abstract social constructs. It is about human beings. This goes beyond the petty narrow-mindedness that pervades so many; the happiness of others is what matters. Equal rights for all will increase happiness while not affecting the currently privileged one bit.

What is so damned hard about this? Institutions matter only insofar as they protect people.

Filed under: News, Politics and Social, Rights, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Hear ye, hear ye!

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Michael

The April-May edition of Without Apology is out. This is likely the last edition I do for quite some time as I will be busy this summer (not to mention the cost, plus the reduced audience given the end of the spring semester).

The articles in this edition of Without Apology are more varied than usual. From issues in the NFL to a revisiting of T’s Golf to gene therapy for mouse vision, the range is wider.

Perhaps the best article, however, is the one by Gabriel Levesque. Also known as Mr. Jay Gatsby, Gabe has written about bastardizing history.

History is too often called upon to support presentist ideological and political themes. Politicians and radio personalities use historical figures to suggest their ideas are correct and in accordance with some great historical figure. Polarizing images and comparisons with Lincoln, for example, dominated Obama’s campaign and the first year of his presidency. Obama’s political adversaries countered by comparing his policies with Soviet Russia and Joseph Stalin. This is a practice that is unfair and all too common…

Thanks to Gabe for his contribution. Physical copies of the paper were placed around UMA, but it looks like they went quickly. A second batch will show up around campus sometime soon.

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Teabaggers in Augusta

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Michael

Everyone knows about all the incoherent, vaguely libertarian teabagging parties that went on across the country April 15. My state was no different. According to friends (I suggested to one that she ought to start panhandling just to make things interesting), one was held down in Portland with a number of signs insisting no one tread on any of the protesters. I suspect they enjoyed the ease of walking on their publicly funded roads amidst all the publicly funded statures as their children went by on the buses heading to the publicly funded schools. Another was held in Augusta. My favorite part was this quote from one of the speakers:

Pete Harring of Maine Refounders, one of two Maine Tea Party groups, said the movement has more than 1,000 members in Maine. He noted that this year’s event was much larger than a similar gathering held a year ago.

“If we were all a bunch of liberals, we could have filled the whole park, ’cause none of them have any jobs,” he said.

What makes this hilarious is local knowledge. A huge number of people attending the rally weren’t educated, job-holding conservatives. They were the scummy leaches of Augusta, Maine who get $674 a month in Social Security “disability”; their ‘income’ goes largely to alcohol and drugs, and the only reason they attended the tax day get-together was that it had “party” in the title and they thought it would be a good excuse to imbibe their various intoxicants. Honestly. There’s no real parking near where the event was held – and that was fine. None of these people have cars, and they are actually commonly seen strolling the streets of Augusta (of course, mostly around the 1st of the month when the government sends them their checks).

And the thing is, the fact that these people have no idea what the rally is about doesn’t separate them very much from everyone else. The major problem the teabaggers have had is articulating what makes them angry. They’ve heard a lot of rhetoric from FOX Noise, but they don’t have much grasp on what’s actually going on and how government actually affects them.

I like that this video identifies these are Republican protesters. As much as the teabaggers want to deny it, they’re just the more radical wing of the Republican party (which is a feat in its own right).

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Congratulations to Simon Singh

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Michael

Simon Singh no longer has to worry about that pesky, quacking lawsuit against him.

The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) has admitted defeat in its defamation battle with science writer Simon Singh.

The BCA yesterday served notice of discontinuance of its action against Dr Singh.

But wait! There’s more! (And it’s even better.)

Solicitor Robert Dougans, of law firm Bryan Cave, which represented Dr Singh, said: “To have won this case for Simon is the proudest moment of my career, but if we had the libel laws we ought to have I would never have met Simon at all.

“Until we have a proper public interest defence scientists and writers are going to have to carry on making the unenviable choice of either shying away from hard-hitting debate, or paying through the nose for the privilege of defending it.

He said the only issue which remained to be settled was the amount of his costs Dr Singh would be able to recover from the BCA, and how much he would have to pay himself.

It is believed that Dr Singh’s costs amount to some £200,000.

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National Day of Prayer struck down

Posted on April 17, 2010 by Michael

The National Day of Prayer is a purely religious statute endorsed by the government. It is unconstitutional – and obviously so.

“[I]ts sole purpose is to encourage all citizens to engage in prayer, an inherently religious exercise that serves no secular function,” a Wisconsin judge wrote in the ruling, referring to the 1952 law that created the National Day of Prayer.

“In this instance, the government has taken sides on a matter that must be left to individual conscience,” wrote the judge, Barbara B. Crabb.

This is an obviously reasonable ruling. Unlike Christmas, there is no secular function or secular need for such a day. Of course, not everyone is so clear-headed.

Conservative religious groups called on the White House to appeal the decision.

“The National Day of Prayer provides an opportunity for all Americans to pray voluntarily according to their own faith and does not promote any particular religion or form of religious observance,” said Joel Oster, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund.

This makes no sense. It’s the same nonsensical crap religidiots are always peddling. “It’s freedom OF religion, not freedom FROM religion!” All these Joel Osters of the world are doing is demonstrating their poor grasp on prepositions and how they pertain to the First Amendment.

The promotion of any religion is a violation of the First Amendment, even if that promotion includes all religions – the constitution does not somehow exclude atheists, agnostics, and other non-believers (or even those whose religions exclude prayer).

This really shouldn’t be that hard to grasp.

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