Well, Well, Looks Like I Was Wrong

I wasn't wrong that Aravosis' argument was full of shit, that's for damn sure. But I was demonstrably wrong in thinking that all of this agitating would have no positive effect.

P.R. exec Hillary Rosen, plugged in on gay rights issues, told me just now that President Obama will use tonight's presidential memorandum extending federal benefits to reassert his broader support for gay rights, repeating his support for repealing the Defense of Marriage Act and pushing Congress to back legislation offering more substantial benefits, like health care, to same-sex partners.

"They're demonstrating that they're going on the benefits side as far as they can administratively and laying a path for congress to follow. The things that they're announcing will actually help people," she said. "He's saying these families matter."

[Ben Smith]

If I may be allowed to indulge in a bit of dick-headed "I told you so," I would pose the question: Do you still think that Obama sees your homosexual relationship as being equivalent to incest and pederasty? Or rather, is he actually a sincere advocate of gay rights who takes his GLBT supporters seriously?

Or, do you think that he's still wishy-washy, and he only supports gay rights when it is expedient? Difficulty: Wishy-washy doesn't square with all of the fireball rhetoric that's been flying around. He either hates your gay guts or he doesn't.

Leave Adam Kleinheider ALOOOOOOOONE!

Seriously folks. I know I spanked him a bit in comments yesterday for wankery above and beyond the call of duty (I ain't linking-if you don't know about this already you probably don't care). But at the end of the day Post Politics' Adam Kleinheider is one of the goodish guys.

Yes, he's a Conservative. And yes my lefty friends the Conservatives have a pretty bad reputation these days. But ACK's not like that. So a little bias trickled in--- SO WHAT? Show me a blog where it doesn't.

This ain't about FOX news y'all. It's about a damn good blogger who links to most everything and most everybody. If I had a drink I'd toast him right now. I'd tell him he blew it this time, but I'd toast him all the same.

Wanking to the right of me, wanking to the left of me, wankers behind me... something about thunder

That is all.

John Aravosis and His Incendiary Bullshit

Pretend for a moment that I'm your attorney and I'm making an appeal on your behalf.

If I cite Plessy vs Ferguson in your appeal, would you automatically assume that I am calling you (or the opposing litigant) a segregationist? A racist?

All right, how about something more likely to actually happen to you in court. I'm filing a friend of the court brief in your defense and I cite Miranda vs Arizona as part of my argument. Does that mean I think you're a criminal? Guilty as charged, but you get off on a technicality?

We can even get medieval about this. If I go aaaaaaaaaaaall the way back to Dred Scott vs Sandford in my argument, does that mean I think that you are three fifths of a person, unworthy of full citizenship?

If you answered "no" to those hypothetical propositions, then you have absolutely no business buying in to John Aravosis' dishonest and incendiary bullshit ravings about the recent motion to dismiss filed by the Obama Justice Department in a case concerning the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).

Aravosis wants you to believe that the Department of Justice cited a previous legal precedent establishing that one state's right to allow first cousins to marry doesn't obligate every other state to honor those marriages, all because Obama thinks homosexuality is equivalent to incest. For someone who claims to be a lawyer, he has a very thin grasp of federalism. Either that, or he's being deliberately inflammatory.

Smarter people than me (who also happen to hold licenses to practice law) have already written at length about the obligation of the executive branch to uphold the laws passed by Congress, just like we learned in high school civics class. I'm not going to even try to repeat what they've said, because they have said it in far greater detail and with more precision than I ever could.

I will say this much, however. Their arguments have so far been unpersuasive to those members of the GLBT community who are presently agitating about this particular legal brief, and that anger, on the surface, seems to be based entirely on one howler of an argument so shamefully flawed it should embarrass anyone who pauses to actually read and examine the context of what was said, much less a first-year law student. There is clearly something more going on here, something unconnected to this particular motion to dismiss.

You can't reason your way out of an argument that wasn't arrived at by reason. No one can prove that the sense of betrayal, felt by those GLBTs who are presently experiencing it because of this brief, is invalid. No one can tell you that your emotions are wrong.

But if you happen to be one of those GLBTs for whom Barack Obama's unprecedented support of your basic rights still isn't good enough or fast enough, you owe it to yourself and to your compatriots to take a brief review of the Civil Rights Movement, that period of 20th century American history with which you are all, without a single exception, so quick to identify yourselves. If you want to make that kind of comparison, you need to understand what you are saying about yourself.

The first Civil Rights Act was passed in 1875. It was declared unconstitutional a mere eight years later. It wasn't until 1963, almost a hundred years after that first step, after rallies, marches, speeches, countless court cases, amendments to the Constitution, and of course, Dr. King's famous speech, that President Kennedy began making the public moves necessary to have these fundamental rights codified into law. That was a full three years after Kennedy was elected president. Barack Obama has been in the White House for five months, and even now, in 2009, we still have crap like this circulating in the halls of government.

The point that I am making here is that change comes slowly enough as it is, but what's more, our American system of government was designed to make sure that no fundamental changes to it could be materialized in short order. This is exactly the way it should be. If it weren't, these moves toward progress could be undone just as quickly as they were attained.

During the time between the Emancipation Proclamation and the final and full realization of equal rights for blacks and other non-white minorities, the people who made a lasting difference, the people we remember as heroes, were not the ones who used dishonest and inflammatory rhetoric to make their case. They were not the ones who made enemies out of those best poised to help their cause. The luminaries of the Civil Rights Movement were just those activists who successfully blended idealism with pragmatism, sincerity with formality, and patience with perseverance.

There will be gay marriage in America. There will be an openly gay American president. If I get my way, we will see it in my lifetime. But neither of those absolutely certain mileposts in history will be brought any closer to fruition by overheated emotion aimed at demonizing the first president in history to acknowledge gay rights.

In short, John Aravosis isn't doing anyone any favors.

Olive Branch Storm Blogging

My camera battery died before I got any pictures, but let me say that I was incorrect in my previous post, when I said I didn't think there had been a tornado in Olive Branch. There most definitely was.

It appears to have touched down somewhere north of Olive Branch City Park, where it hit a duplex development (1) pretty hard. I saw roofs blown off and windows shattered, and a woman I talked to who was working a roadside fruit stand in the city library parking lot said one house there was completely destroyed. It then took part of the roof of a city building (2), not sure which, before passing just over the driver's license station. I saw a couch in a drainage ditch beside the road (3). It then crossed the road into the southern end of old town Olive Branch, where it smashed (4) and uprooted numerous trees (5).

Now it gets strange because either the tornado reversed direction, or there was a second tornado, because there appears to be an entirely different storm track south of the first one, as shown on this map. Google maps is not up to date, as the duplex development and the city building aren't on this map.

I spoke to my former real estate agent today, and she said that there was a tractor trailer turned over by the tornado on 78 near the weigh station (6). Further east, there is a BBQ restaurant (7) whose brick walls were damaged, while the traffic lights were stripped from the lines, and there are several snapped power poles, at the corner of Cockrum and Sandidge. Beyond that, the roof was damaged on a church (8), and behind the church a house that looks like it was hit by Thor swinging a 4 iron, as there is an enormous divet right through the middle of the house.

On a personal level, this house is two houses north of a house we almost bought two years ago. We loved that house and really wanted it, but we couldn't sell our own house. From the road it looked like all the trees had been blown down in the backyard, so now I'm rather glad it didn't work out.

UPDATE: I think I've got it figured out now. If you look on the map between city park and the weigh station, there appears to be a trailer park. The tornado took two shots at that trailer park and missed both times. The residents are probably breathing a big sigh of relief right about now.

Memphis Storm Blogging

Most of Olive Branch is dark. There are a few small areas that still have power. Early this evening we heard a report of a tornado in Olive Branch. We saw snapped telephone poles and powerlines down on Cochrum (Riverdale) north and south of 78, and on Hacks Cross south of 78, but nothing I saw indicated a tornado. The damage is too widespread, and too limited to trees and telephone polls, while houses and mobile homes seem to be unharmed. My wife saw pink insulation in a field off Hacks Cross, so somebody's house got hit pretty hard, but I'm guessing straight line winds.

Two hotels in OB have power, and we were able to get into one of them. I'm blogging from there. I was caught in the storm on Park between Estate and White Station. One of those storms where you literally can't see the front of your car, there's so much rain, plus all the leaves and tree limbs. My car was almost hit by a piece of flying sheet metal torn off something. I haven't seen the news, so I have no idea what it's like in Memphis right now. I don't think it's as bad as Hurricane Elvis, because everything north of the state line seems to have power. My guess is power won't be restored in Olive Branch for at least a day, maybe longer.

Test Case

Yep, it’s me again, ol’ Kib.

Here’s a thought that struck me hard between the eyes this morning regarding the state’s new guns-in-bars law: Most rhetoric and analysis and political fustian has, on both sides, been pre-fabricated and predictable. Opponents of the bill had talked up the danger element; proponents had treated the matter as one of self-defense (if-guns-are-outlawed,-only-outlaws-will-have-guns, etc.)

It occurred to me that the recent Chris Jones trial in Memphis offered a perfect test case of the two rival theses. Actually, an amalgamation of them. In his defense, Jones – then a sheriff’s deputy nursing private grievances by quaffing a few rounds off-duty – testified that in the midst of a sudden barroom quarrel that turned physical he presumed himself to be in mortal danger and, only from motives of self-protection, fired at two individuals, killing one and wounding the other.

Let’s take Jones’ defense at face value: Had he not been packing, what might have happened instead? Who knows? Maybe he’d have roughed up somebody or been roughed up himself. Maybe seriously in either case. He would not, however, have been on the receiving end of a second-degree murder conviction – given him by a jury that did not believe his account of events.

But again, let’s assume his account was God’s truth. He thought he was in danger and fired, killing someone. That someone, a karaoke D.J., possessed no weapon and was, according to the overwhelming weight of testimony from witnesses, merely trying to break up the sudden fracas.

But, again, let’s assume that Jones’ account was on the level and the D.J. himself was part of a mob intent on doing him serious harm. Even taking that as gospel (and the jury didn’t), where there might have been the possibility of mortal danger, the certainty of it emerged only with the firing of Jones’ weapon.

Make of that what you will. I’m just sayin’….

Obama say what?

I still have quite a bit of faith in the President. The man has a lot on his plate and I don't mind that he's not making all of my pet issues priority one. I can also respect certain frustrating changes in direction as he negotiates political and economic minefields. And frankly, I worry that any major federal push to insure things like gay equality will bring the right wing terrorists out in droves. But that's a cowardly excuse for not doing the right thing. And Obama does seem to be throwing gay Americans under the bus.

He's better than what we've had for a long time. But Barry-O needs to listen a little less to Rahm and a little more to his own campaign speeches. The guy who made those was awesome.

Lou Dobbs: Won't do covers

Lou Dobbs says he won't repeat James von Brunn's "Hate speech." Guess Lou only does original material.

HEADLINE FIXED.

Memphis' Most Popular Blog?

If the number of comments and Google followers is any indication, RiPPa holds the distinction of running Memphis' most popular blog, and while he's been churning away with quality content for over a year now, I still haven't seen anyone local link to him.

Regardless of whether or not my guess about his traffic versus everyone else's is correct, I think the folks who manage the Memphis Flyer's Blogs We Like blogroll ought to take a look.

Feel Good Whatever the Hell Day It Is: Autotune Edition

I've long believed that the tradition of "Feel Good Friday" is nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse for bloggers to share great music with their readers, and in the spirit of that tradition, I'm declaring today an Official Friday for the Purposes of Blogging.

You Were Scared and You Had No Idea

Seeing that Commercial Appeal columnist Wendi Thomas is now collaborating with my pal Leftwing Cracker on building a list of restaurants that serve alcohol where guns are not allowed, I've decided to lend them both a hand.

It's going to take a lot of phone calls to put together this list, not to mention all the work that goes into indexing and publishing the data. Since they've got so much work cut out for them, let's do this by process of elimination, shall we?

You can go ahead and strike off the list every bar in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming. That's because it's always been legal to carry a weapon into a bar in those states.

You see, that's what really changed my mind about this issue. When I first heard that the General Assembly was considering lifting the ban on guns in bars, like practically everyone else, I thought, "Mixing guns and alcohol!? Are they drunk?"

However, the sobering reality is that the last time you went to a casino in Tunica, it would have been a safe bet that someone in the place was armed. You can drink mint juleps to your heart's content at the Kentucky Derby, or you can take a weapon instead. (If you've ever taken a hard look at some of the people who frequent that thing, it's probably not a bad idea.) The last time you went to one of those happening blues shows in Jackson or Oxford, anyone could have walked right through the door with a pistol in hand, and while it might have put a few people on edge, it would have been perfectly legal. What's more, it has always been this way, and in all these years neither I nor anyone else ever noticed a difference.

Maybe, just maybe, if bar patrons in thirty-seven other states are able to resist the urge to get loaded and proceed to go on drunken Wild West-style shooting sprees, the people of Tennessee can, too. Call me crazy, but I have this idea that the people of this state are not fundamentally any different from the people in bordering states, and among our neighbors, only North Carolina prohibits weapons in bars.

Think about that for a minute. If the notion of enjoying a cocktail while sharing space with armed people scares you, get a load of this: if you ever got drunk in Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Missouri or Virginia, the people there were already packing heat and you didn't even know it!

Are you shitting your pants yet? No? Well, why not?

Why the long face

Bill Hobbs is out as TNGOP's communications director.