Moonhowlings

Anne Rice of sensual vampire fame has rejected Christianity. She is still committed to Christ but said she is fed up with his followers. Interesting concept. From USA Today:

Novelist Anne Rice says she’s quit being a Christian but she’s hanging on to Christ. She’s just fed up with his followers.

The author, whose vampire books (i.e. Interview with a Vampire) were huge sellers long before Twilight and whose return to her childhood Catholicism dominated her more recent works, posted a series of comments on Facebook (confirmed by her publisher as authentic, according to Associated Press).

For those who care, and I understand if you don’t: Today I quit being a Christian. I’m out. I remain committed to Christ as always but not to being “Christian” or to being part of Christianity. It’s simply impossible for me to “belong” to this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group. For ten years, I’ve tried. I’ve failed. I’m an outsider. My conscience will allow nothing else.

The mother of novelist Christopher Rice, who is gay, goes on to say:

I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

In a USA TODAY profile of Anne and Christopher, Rice talked about growing up Catholic, drifting away as a teen and marrying an atheist. After the death of a young daughter, she began writing her vampire books,

…about lost souls looking for answers, so in a sense I was always on this journey back. I do get people saying, “How can you be such a fool to believe in God?” I sense many are young Goth kids who feel abandoned. I just say, look, you’re looking for the same things that I was, transcendence and redemption. I found what my characters were looking for.

Even now, as she tosses off organized religion, Rice posts that she’s still

… an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God … Christ is infinitely more important than Christianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become

.

Perhaps people who continually try to drag religion into public policy helped nudge Ann Rice to this position.

One of our contributors sent us this news article. How clever.  I am trying not to laugh:

From the Washington Post:

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will be the special guest at the Capital Pride Festival this weekend — only he doesn’t know it yet.

The Virginia Partisans, a gay rights group with thousands of members in the state, will ask parade attendees to “kiss” a life-size cutout of the controversial attorney general in an event they are affectionately calling “Smooches for Cooch.”

 

The group will send a collection of photos of people kissing Cuccinelli to the attorney general along with the message that Virginia is for all lovers. The same motto will appear on stickers and banners at the group’s booth along the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route Sunday.

Cuccinelli, who advised public colleges that they could not legally prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, has called the practice of homosexuality “a detriment to our culture” and “wrong.”

The Partisans hope Cuccinelli will be just the draw they need to recruit members. The group considered a petition drive, but abandoned it because members thought it was too passé.

“We’re sending our love to Ken Cuccinelli,” said Terry Mansberger, president of the Virginia Partisans. “He’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

A spokesman for Cuccinelli had no comment.

Gay pride parades tend to get a little graphic. Cuccinelli knew what he was signing on for when he took on these gay issues. Being Attorney General doesn’t keep you from being humiliated.

Al and Tipper Gore have just announced they are separating after 40 years of marriage.  No!  Not allowed.  I always thought they were the one couple who would make it.  They have not given reasons why and I suppose it isn’t any of our business.

Hopefully we won’t find out that Al also has a zipper problem. I just wouldn’t like that at all. Tipper was a true leader is her efforts to hold entertainers responsible for the content of their art, especially if those artists had a main audience of kids. She also was instrumental in insisting on a rating system for music, similar to that at the movies.

Abstinence only seems to be both a cash cow and a political hotcake. And it got lots of headlines this week.

First off, Bristol Palin will be paid  up to $30,000 per gig for her abstinence only promos. What kind of message does this send to the very audience the message is intended for? Don’t have sex before marriage. However, if you do and if you have a baby, you can make 30 grand talking about it and telling others to do as you say, not as you do? That’s a hideous message.

According to SeattlePI.com:

Opportunity knocks when you are America’s best-known teenage mom, and Bristol Palin has signed on with Single Source Speakers to give lectures at $15,000 to $30,000 a pop, more lucrative than her current job at an Anchorage doctor’s office.

The second outrage is Mark Souder and the ‘other woman’ who just happened to be his staffer, ‘starring’ in an ‘abstinence only’ video. From Politico:

Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.), who will resign from Congress as a result of an affair with a female staffer, filmed a video interview about abstinence only education with that same staffer.

In a statement announcing his resignation, Souder admitted the affair took place with a “part-time member of my staff.” GOP sources identified the woman that Souder had the affair with as Tracy Meadows Jackson. Jackson has been a part-time employee on Souder’s staff since Dec. 2004, according to House financial disbursement records. Jackson could not be reached for comment Tuesday morning

Such hypocrisy. In fact, the fact that non-abstinence people are pushing abstinence is pure hypocrisy. The fact that abstinence is being pushed at all is hypocrisy. Modern life is overloaded with sexual messages from everywhere. Kids get bombarded with these messages from the time they are old enough to be aware  from various multiple sources: on the news, radio, Internet, films, advertising, magazines, music, TV, politics, Madison Avenue, the clothing industry…. There is no escaping it. Kids cannot be protected but so much from sexual messages. The taboos that were in place when I was growing up are simply not there now. They won’t come back. The times they are NOT a’changing. They have changed and they will stay changed.

Young people need to be encouraged to make responsbile choices. Parents should be setting goals and behavioral expections for their children. Kids need to be know that sex has consequences and very often these consequences are life altering. Kids need to know about contraception, disease prevention and other vital information in the event that they do become sexually active.

‘Don’t do it’ only works so well. A good dose of  practicality needs to be thrown in with the don’t do it.  Ms. Palin is just capitalizing on glam.  Souder is  beneath contempt. How dare he.  Maybe his wife will take him to the cleaners. 

Candleight Vigil for Yeardly Love

UVA President John Casteen III delivered a chilling, emotional speech to those gathered at the candlelight vigil for slain lacrosse player Yeardly Love. His message should be repeated over and over in middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities, churches, libraries–just about anywhere there are women.

Casteen told the mourners  that we are all responsible for getting people help who are entangled and trapped in toxic, violent relationships. We can not longer just tell our friends, relatives and acquaintances to ditch a toxic relationship. We have to step forward and perhaps make some of those unpopular calls. Doing so might just save someone’s life–someone like Yeardly Love’s life.

The fraternity of silence and the culture of hiding abuse can no longer be tolerated.

President Casteen’s  remarks at the candlelight vigil for Yeardley Love:

There are profound ironies in our gathering here tonight for this purpose. This is the spring time. It’s the time of year for renewal, for new beginnings. And yet we have come here to grieve the ending of a young life, of Yeardley Love’s life, one full of promise and high prospects—and one not unlike yours.

I want to talk tonight about Yeardley Love, and I want to talk about you, and about this community—about us. Some of what I have to say is very hard. Bear with me, and listen.

Read more…

According to MercuryHills.com:

All the brouhaha stems from Wednesday, when four teens wore red, white and blue garb on Cinco de Mayo, a day when many Latino students wore red, white and green to honor the defeat of the French military in Mexico in 1862.

Reached by cell phone today, one of the boys, Matthew Dariano, 16, said he was not at school today fearing there might be violence on campus. Instead, he and his mother were at a hotel doing satellite interviews with Fox News. He insisted that despite reports that he and his friends said unkind words to Latino students, “We didn’t say anything at all. We just wore our shirts.”

The assistant principal had asked the boys to turn their shirts inside out or go home, saying the clothing was “incendiary” on the Mexican holiday, and that he feared for the safety of the students. The boys thought that was “disrespectful” and two went home; their mothers called the media.

The boys are Dariano; Dominic Maciel, 15; and Daniel Galli and Austin Carvalho, both 16. Two of the boys are of Mexican heritage and two are not.

Dariano said he and his friends have not received any disciplinary actions for their behavior, but they have not received any type of apology either.

Wesley Smith, superintendent for the Morgan Hill Unified School District, said in a statement Thursday that the incident was “extremely unfortunate” and the boys should not have been disciplined for wearing “patriotic” clothing.

Free speech experts agreed with the district, saying political speech is protected even on a school campus as long as there is no basis that it will cause violence or physical harm.

About 100 Latino students walked out of class Thursday and marched to Morgan Hill City Hall to protest the boys’ action.

When  does it just become the better part of valor to wear a neutral shirt? 

The NY Daily News reports the same story with a little stronger flavor added:

A handful of California students got an unexpected lesson at their high school this week: Don’t wear your stars and stripes on Cinco de Mayo.

Five Morgan Hill, California students were asked to take off their American flag bandannas and turn their T-shirts inside out after students complained, according to NBC news in San Francisco.

Many members of Live Oak High School‘s large Mexican-American student population that felt it was offensive for the students to wear the American flag on a day that’s supposed to celebrate Mexican heritage.

When the boys refused to take off their flag t-shirts and bandannas, they were ordered to go to the principal’s office.

“They said we could wear it on any other day,” Live Oak student Daniel Galli said, “but today is sensitive to Mexican-Americans because it’s supposed to be their holiday so we were not allowed to wear it today.”

The alleged concern was that the T-shirts would lead to fights on campus.

“They said if we tried to go back to class with our shirts not taken off, they said it was defiance and we would get suspended,” said Dominic Maciel.

The chastised teens’ parents were furious.

“I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” Julie Fagerstrom, Maciel’s mom, said. “All they were doing was displaying their patriotic nature. They’re expressing their individuality.”

Morgan Hill Unified School District released a statement saying it does not agree with how Live Oak High School administrators handled this incident and that the boys would not be suspended.

Funny how 2 different reports seem to give a totally different version of an incident.  I still want to know why kids are being allowed to wear bandanas.  Gang attire alert. 

This area is a suburb of Silicon Valley.  It is not a barrio.  It sounds to me like kids are being kids and schools are being schools.   And some folks on both ‘sides’ know exactly which buttons to push.  And the entire nation is at war over it.

Good for the kids who wore neutral white.  It looks like maturity set in.  No one wants their school to be an armed camp.

UPDATE:  according to a video on Foxnews.com, the students say they were not suspended over the shirts.  They chose to go home rather than change their shirts. 

Jon Stewart tries to educate himself on just what is going on in Arizona. He postulates that Arizona is the meth lab of democracy. Social commentary gets into Jon’s space.

Eric Williamson was aquitted of an indecent exposure charge made against him last October. Williamson was in his own kitchen drinking coffee, sans clothing one morning. A woman, cutting through his yard with her kid, saw him through the screen door and said he made eye contact with her. She called the police who entered Williamson’s home without a warrant and swore that the glass was broken on one of the entrance doors.

Channel 5 news states:

SPRINGFIELD, Va. – One key piece of evidence that prosecutors were hoping to send a Springfield man to jail for being naked in his home ended up being the crucial clue that swayed the jury to find him not guilty of indecent exposure.

Williamson says the photos convinced a jury that he had no idea that two women saw him drinking coffee naked in his kitchen that October morning.

One of those women was taking a shortcut with her daughter through Williamson’s yard when she says she made eye contact with the 29-year-old as he stood naked inside his house in front of his screen door.

Police introduced this photo saying her vantage point was about 25 feet away. But the defense says they proved she was actually 83 feet from his door.

Now Williamson says he wants people to realize how easy it is to be charged with a crime like this and how difficult it is to rebuild your life, even after a jury says you have done nothing wrong.

“It’s great to be not guilty but I still have a lot of wreckage to deal with. A lot of things that were torn apart because of what happened,” said Williamson.

By the time the jury found him not guilty, six months had passed and Williamson had been laid off, lost visitation rights with his young daughter and racked up $15,000 in legal bills.

The commercial diver and his lawyer say this case shows you are not always safe inside your own home. They want to draw attention to the “community caretaker exception” which lets police search a home or car without a warrant based on concerns for public safety or suspicion that a crime has or is about to happen.

Why can’t you be in the buff in your own house? Didn’t we read earlier that the peeking Thomasina was the wife of a Fairfax County policeman? This is just a horrible story. To quote Elena, it sounds more like a peeping Thomasina than a coffee drinking perv. Who says a man’s home is his castle? Are any of us safe?
Full Story at myfoxdc.com

Soooo, has everyone calmed down from the latest Biden gaff?  I listen to Joe now with my ears perked…waiting for him to put his foot in his mouth.  I used to do the same thing with George Bush and Dan Quayle.  The media has made too much out of mocking these three  and they never let us down. 

However on Monday when VP Biden blurted out that the new health care legislation was a BFD, I didn’t blink.  I was waiting for a different type of gaff.  I even heard it and it didn’t even make me blink.  Or maybe I didn’t care.  Maybe my own mouth has deteriorated to the point I don’t notice.  I have a 4 year old granddaughter who slaps her thighs and roars with laughter, screaming WHAT THE HELL, when those hamsters drive their rat wheels down the street.  I guess someone  has reinforced negative behavior. And yes, at age 4, saying ‘what the hell’ IS potty mouth.

I have heard all sorts of moaning and groaning over bad Biden being in the East Room of the White House and dropping the F-Bomb.  These same people  I heard gasping over Biden’s potty mouth   defended the other V-P, Cheney, for telling Senator Leahy to go ‘f-bomb himself on the floor of the Senate.  I don’t really think one area is more sacred than the other.  Either both need their respective mouths washed out with soap (Lifebouy was one of the soaps of choice)  or we suck it up and move on, barely noticing. 

When the term ‘douche bag’ is used with great regularity on TV on 10 PM shows, there really is no where to go but up.   I am of the opinion that people can talk any way they want in their own homes.  However, clean it up when they go out in public.  That includes in bars, malls, schools, at other drivers on the road, and on TV.

So where have we come as a nation with our profanity? Did Biden just make BFD (and the fact that the acronym needs no explanation in the first place speaks volumes) a household word or perhaps he reflected the norm? Who sets the tone for our language  being  considered acceptable? ‘Our Mothers’ is not the right answer.

We have seen enough of Joe Biden at the open mic. For a change of pace, here is what brings out the potty tongue in my house these days:

(warning: bad grammar in this song)

A follow up on the original story about  Constance McMillan’s desire to go to her own prom with her girl friend has lead to a less than conclusive end:

ABERDEEN, Miss. — A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Itawamba County, Miss., school board violated the rights of a lesbian student by canceling the prom when the student challenged a ban on same-sex dates, but the judge stopped short of ordering the district to reinstate the April 2 prom.U.S. District Court Judge Glen Davidson said he denied the injunction request because a private prom parents are planning will serve the same purpose as the school prom and because “requiring defendants to step back into a sponsorship role at this late date would only confuse and confound the community on the issue.”

 Did Constance win/lose or did she lose/win?  The school violated her rights.  However the judge isn’t going to make things right.  The school will not be forced to have a prom.  The private prom folks will not be forced to admit Constance.  Constance must go to the gay and lesbian prom instead of to her school prom.  Does this sound like forced segregation to you?

The federal judge sounds like the chicken you-know- what judge to me.  I thought the entire point of these kinds of court rulings was to either say yes her rights were violated and fix things or no her rights were not violated, go home and get over it.   I guess there is a lot of laughter and snickering in the Itawamba County school district today.  I guess they showed “them thar dykes a thing or 3 now didn’t they?”   What a shame that this young woman’s civil rights weren’t upheld. 

Maybe Constance McMillan has the last laugh after all.  She appeared on the” Ellen” and was awareded $30,000 in scholarship money by the talk show host who said she was so proud of her.  DeGeneres said:

“I admire you so much. “When I was your age I never would have had the strength to do what you are doing.”

Meanwhile, her ACLU lawyer is preparing round 2 of her legal battle. 

USA Today story

Warning: some adult subject matter.

Jon Stewart does a real good Glenn Beck. You have to watch out for that social justice!

Is it just me or does Jon Stewart’s spoof make more sense than Glenn Beck?
I have decided Beck is just dangerous. His audience is too wide and there are just too many people who buy into this crap. Is this a cult?

From WTOP and the Associated Press:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has directed state agencies not to discriminate against gay people, essentially overriding the state attorney general’s advice to colleges.

McDonnell’s directive Wednesday came amid a public uproar over Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli’s letter last week telling public colleges they lack the authority to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Cuccinelli told colleges to rescind or change any anti-discrimination policies that include protection for gay people.

The Republican attorney general’s letter was denounced by gay-rights groups and Democrats. In the letter, Cuccinelli said colleges can’t include gays in their anti-discrimination policies without General Assembly authorization.

The Richmond Times Dispatch further adds that the AG is all happy that the governor has issued his ‘don’t discriminate’ decree. Now what’s wrong with this picture?

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who says there’s nothing in Virginia law to protect gay state workers from discrimination, is welcoming Gov. Bob McDonnell’s decree against bias on the basis of sexual orientation.

However, it’s not clear from a written statement just issued by Cuccinelli whether he backs the governor’s legal thinking in issuing a so-called executive directive protecting gay employees.

“I applaud Gov. McDonnell for the tone he is setting for the commonwealth of Virginia,” said Cuccinelli.

“I will remain in contact with the governor and continue to work with him on issues important to Virginians. I expect Virginia’s state employees to follow all state and federal anti-discrimination laws and will enforce Virginia’s laws to the fullest extent.”

So if you are feeling just a little bit confused, welcome to my world. Has someone contacted Jon Stewart to tell him its OK  here in Virginia now?  The Guv has nullified the AG.  Maybe he will now retract his remark about our gay flag. 

Perhaps Gov. Moderate McDonnell has discovered that Virginia really does want a mainstream governor and that this nonsense just isn’t going to fly. I am glad he made this decision.

Chris Matthews without his foot in his mouth

One of the biggest spins from the State of the Union Address post mortem was the statement made by Chris Matthews who somehow manages to rub everyone the wrong way.  He said that:

NEW YORK (AP) — MSNBC’s Chris Matthews says President Barack Obama has done so much to heal racial divisions that he “forgot he was black” while watching his State of the Union address.
Those four words — “forgot he was black” — so instantly set the Twitter world afire that Matthews came back less than 90 minutes later Wednesday night to explain what he meant.

The MSNBC commentator said it was noteworthy to him that a black president was addressing a room of mostly white people and how it didn’t seem to be an issue. He said he saw it in the context of growing up at a time racial divisions were ever-present.

Says Matthews: “I went in the room tonight, you could feel it wasn’t there tonight and that takes leadership on his part, to get us beyond those divisions.“
 

So what did Chris Matthews really mean? How do you forget someone is black? Was he complimenting Obama or was he stepping all over himself with awkward words.  This obviously wasn’t just a tingle.  Chris Matthews is famous for being pro-Obama so he obviously isn’t trying to insult him.

Many news agencies are reporting that for the first time since the early 1990s, the teen pregnancy rate is inching up. The long term decline cut across all racial groups and the reversal is also true. No one demographic stands out amongst young women ages 15 to 19.

USA Today reports:

The numbers, calculated by the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit group that studies reproductive and sexual health, show a clear reversal from the downward trend that began in the 1990s.

About 7% of teen girls got pregnant in 2006, a rate of 71.5 pregnancies per 1,000 teens. That’s up slightly from 69.5 in 2005, Guttmacher says. In 1990, when rates peaked, about 12% got pregnant.

 
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