Fresh Friday, 9/30

Feeling much better! Thank you all for your wishes.

Defending ConnCollConfessional

NOTE: I was considering not publishing this to Bloody Shrubbery due to the college-specific nature of the subject matter. However, I ultimately decided that the case I made for internet anonymity was strong enough to justify cross-posting. Here's the original piece. Enjoy!

I was recently introduced to the experience of ConnCollConfessional – an anonymous online forum specifically designed for Connecticut College students. I would highly suggest that every questioning or critical student to check it out once (even if only once) just to have an informed decision on the website. I do not endorse, condone, or even approve of bullying in any way, shape, or form. While I admit that a small fraction of the posts on CCC do fit under this category, I still find the website to be a beneficial concept.

ConnCollConfessionals in action.

Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell didn't go far enough

CROSS-POSTED AT THE COLLEGE VOICE

As Seth Nigrosh reported earlier this week, the military repeal of the controversial Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy was finally enacted in the military. He believes, as I do, that this change was a not only beneficial, but also smart policy for the Obama administration. Frankly, when I heard the news at 12:01AM on September 20th, a part of me was beyond happy that such an oppressive era of military policy was over. However, what Seth (and the media at large) missed deserves mention: the military still bans transgender people from openly serving.

"But not if you're transgender!"

Humpway Linkday, 09/28/11

"This one's gonna be called […] ocho." - Cuban rapper, Pitbull.

Good news, everyone!

I'm now a blogger over at The College Voice! Do not worry: I still intend to blog every day. My main focus over there is politics, so I'll likely save most of the music, fashion, religion, G-Dragon, technology, and what-not exclusively for Bloody Shrubbery. The political postings will be cross-posted both here and over the The College Voice's website.

No 2012 GOP presidential candidate has actually read the Constitution.

While having a discussion with a friend's mother about the current GOP field, I came across an interesting finding that, in my view, will be the definitive issue of the 2012 election. On the heels of the health care reform bill, the country has once again descended into a debate on so-called "states' rights". (Not really, but the mainstream media seems to think so.)

Oy.

Keeping the Sabbath Holy: September 25, 2011

To many peoples' surprise, I actually enjoy art and entertainment that may have a relgious overtone. Truth be told, I might prefer it to be secular. However, that doesn't change the fact that a well-made product is a well-made product, regardless of the religiousness of it.

Alternative group Flyleaf makes good music, despite being a Christian rock group.

Yesterday…

Yeah, I took the day off. As I wrote about before, I am still sick, but getting much better with each passing day. This would mark the 4th unaccounted-for day in the history of Bloody Shrubbery. Expect a Keeping the Sabbath Holy post later today.

Fresh Friday, 9/23

Not only has the unfortunate news about Troy Davis put a damper on my week, but I am also sick with a persistent cold. It's fair to say that I'm not really feeling all too "fresh" today. However, this got me to thinking: what about being fresh while sick?

If "god" exists, she truly must have created Advil herself. It's a lifesaver.

Sixth official GOP Debate TONIGHT!

Debate rant of the day du jour: Who the hell does Gary Johnson think he is?

For those of you who don't know, he's basically John Huntsman, except that he's pro-pot. His chances of winning are minimal and he is not going to woo the base. Moderate fake liberals will claim that he is the savior of the party, but it's fairly evident that his impact will be extremely minimal (at best). Just another clown in the circus, unfortunately.

Artistic rendition of the upcoming debate.

Pro-life conservatives mock Troy Davis' death

Michelle Malkin, keeping it classy:

Hey, Michelle, do you know why "#RIPMARKMCPHAIL" isn't trending on Twitter? Because you spelled the cop who was probably not killed by Troy Davis' fucking name wrong. It's "MacPhail".

News Snap - Supreme Court rules against Troy Davis

NYTimes:

JACKSON, Ga. — The United States Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch request to step in late Wednesday to stay the Georgia execution of Troy Davis, who was convicted of gunning down a Savannah police officer 22 years ago, after Mr. Davis filed an eleventh-hour plea Wednesday with the high court.

Before my battery died, I was covering this night's events here. I wish that I could say that I am totally shocked that the Supreme Court would do such a thing. But, frankly, I am not. This is truly a sad day for America and for justice.

Troy Davis, 1968 to 2011.

Troy Davis, Sept. 21 - Huge Post with Updates

UPDATE: A large number of police officers have arrived at the scene of the pro-Troy Davis protests. I don't want to speculate, but are they bracing for the reaction of the crowd at bad news?

UPDATE 2: Democracy NOW! is live-streaming coverage of the Troy Davis case. CNN points out that SCOTUS is taking quite a long time to make their decision. It's currently 1.5 hours past the original time for Troy Davis' execution.

UPDATE 3: It's a few minutes after 9PM and we still don't know much about the SCOTUS decision.

UPDATE 4: I have to go out now. Follow Democracy NOW! for the most up-to-date information.

UPDATE 5: Latest news right here.

How fucking unnecessary.

Humpway Linkday, 09/21/11

Revelation 15.1:

God marked the Bible with the Number Seven because it is the fulness of God's revelation!

Today:

I am marking this post with the Number Seven because there have been six before it. Yeah.

Linda McMahon (finally) announces her (losing) candidacy

Hartford Courant:

SOUTHINGTON — Former professional wrestling executive Linda McMahon launched her 2012 bid for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, positioning herself as the jobs candidate. […] For the site of her long-expected announcement, she chose Coil Pro Machinery, a manufacturer of custom-built coil processing machines. 

Another Republican, former Congressman Chris Shays, has said he will announce his bid for U.S. Senate in early August. Hartford attorney Brian K. Hill and Vernon Mayor Jason McCoy have already announced they are seeking the GOP nomination. […] Three Democrats are running: U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy of Cheshire, former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz of Middletown, and state Rep. William Tong of Stamford.

Let's not forget that Linda McMahon understands the hardships faced by real women, like these two:

Serial-liar Andrew Breitbart makes ridiculous claims that people take seriously?

Andrew Breitbart, at his finest:

Keeping the Sabbath Holy: September 18, 2011

It's no secret that I am not a fan of Christianity, or organized religion in general. In fact, most Keeping the Sabbath Holy posts are critical of religion (especially Christianity). Admittedly, the name of this weekly segment is cheeky and ironic, but there is a serious aspect to the name, as well.

(One that can even be read as a slight bit of praise for Christianity. )

I don't really know what the context or meaning of this is, but it looks pretty badass.

T. Blake's "Good Looks" looks and sounds pretty good.

After being pleasantly surprised with T. Blake's first mixtape, I just knew that I would have to listen to the sequel:

1. T Away
2. Material
3. Micheal Fox*
4. Forget It
5. Still Here
6. Talk French (Feat IQ)
7. Cinema
8. Float On

Download it here.

Fresh Friday, 9/16

Remember Daft Punk? Whatever happened to those guys?

News Snap - SCOTUS halts the execution of Duane Edward Buck!

Good news:

HUNTSVILLE, Texas -- The U.S. Supreme Court has halted the execution of a black man [Duane Edward Buck] convicted of a double murder in Texas 16 years ago after his lawyers contended his sentence was unfair because of a question asked about race during his trial. […]

Duane Edward Buck, 48 years of age.

Executing innocent men in Texas is the status quo

When I first discussed Texas Gov. Rick Perry's death penalty atrocities (here and here), he had already overseen 234 executions. However, since then, the media has been pretty bad in reporting that number has actually increased. Let's take a look at execution #235:

Steven Michael Woods was executed on Tuesday for his involvement in the murder of a Texas couple, but [we have] learned it was his co-defendant, Marcus Rhodes, that actually pled guilty to the murders. […] Woods, 31, was given a lethal injection and pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m., according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. […]

Woods was convicted of capital murder in 2002 when a jury found him guilty for the shooting and stabbing of Bethena Brosz, 19, and Ronald Whitehead, 21. […] While Woods admitted to hanging out with the couple, he told authorities that it was his friend Rhodes who committed the crime and police later found the victims’ belongings in Rhodes’ car. Woods claimed he witnessed the crime but did not participate — he claimed he had no idea Rhodes was going to commit murder and that when it happened he was too scared to run away. 

Rick Perry, the overseer of 235 executions in the state of Texas.

Capitalism, music in Korea, and the fact that art is not dead!

While I generally find capitalism to be the best form of economic governance (even if I believe strongly in certain government regulations), I do have my criticisms of it.* When I look at America, few industries demonstrate the destructive capability of capitalism better than the music industry. That being stated, I disagree with those who consider art to be dead. That's why I was so interested in the following article from allkpop:

[Korean music company] YG Entertainment stunned the industry when it was revealed that they’ve surpassed [rival] SM Entertainment in terms of sales for the first half of 2011! […] 

YG Entertainment has made 44,744,823,563 won (approximately $41,756,037 USD) from January 1st to June 30th. Meanwhile, SM Entertainment has made 40,592,465,358 won, which is approximately $37,867,691 USD, for that same period. […]

Recent news from Korea exemplifies my feelings about art in capitalist countries.  

American Conservatives' anti-life attitudes toward government

At the fourth GOP debate, a question about Rick Perry and the death penalty came up. The crowd of right-wingers in the audience seemed to absolutely adore killing over 230 people:

As I noted, the GOP has a real problem with how they view humanity:

Viewing execution as a viable option inherently cheapens the outlook that many people have toward humanity. This, of course, has its various tolls on society, such as a quickness to aggression, an animosity toward diplomacy, and apathy toward human dignity.

Humpway Linkday, 09/14/11

Round six, let's do this!

Consistency can "go to hell!"

On August 21st of this year, the right-wing media watchdog site NewsBusters condemned Rep. Maxine Waters for saying that the "tea party can go straight to hell". Of course, the wider context of the quotation is that Rep. Waters was merely saying that they cannot use race-baiting or other disgusting tactics against her.

Regardless, NewsBusters was out in full force, doing what they do best – whining about the media:

If this one doesn't get wide establishment press coverage, it will be because they will have seen the perceived negative risk of average people finding out the left's true mindset as just too high.

They think their political and ideological opponents should not be deriding others with such inflammatory phrases, such as "go to hell". I think there's some merit to their argument, even if not with the Rep. Waters example – maybe we should be having more policy-based discussions, not just the aimless deriding of others. If someone were to say something you disagree with, NewsBusters implies that you should have a thought-provoking critical analysis, not just insult them in such strong terms.

Keeping it real.

Fifth official GOP Debate TONIGHT!

THIS IS BEING LIVE-BLOGGED ON MY PERSONAL TWITTER PAGE.




Debate rant of the day: why the hell does Ron Paul get so much airtime?

(Because these debate posts are getting kind of samey, I've decided to post a small commentary at the top to break the monotony. We'll see how this feature goes.)

 Ron Paul is not going to win. I cannot name a single serious political analyst who honestly believes he has any chance of winning. At all. Furthermore, his views (even if I agree with some of them) fall so outside of the ideological mainstream for Republicans, that it makes no sense for him to even be up on the stage with the others. Ron Paul seems to be given a totally disproportionate chunk of media attention for seemingly no reason. Come on, mainstream media, it's time to give old man Paul the boot.

Right after stepping out of the clown car…

Keeping the Sabbath Holy: September 4, 2011 - 9/11 Edition

There're quite a few things that I have to say about the September 11th attacks which occurred exactly ten years ago. With this plethora of viewpoints, it was difficult to really connect all of these different opinions. However, there was one aspect that is constantly overlooked when discussing the attacks: religion. Sam Harris agrees:

Ten years have now passed since many of us first felt the jolt of history—when the second plane crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. We knew from that moment that things can go terribly wrong in our world—not because life is unfair, or moral progress impossible, but because we have failed, generation after generation, to abolish the delusions of our ignorant ancestors. The worst of these ideas continue to thrive—and are still imparted, in their purest form, to children. 

What is the meaning of life? What is our purpose on earth? These are some of the great, false questions of religion. We need not answer them—for they are badly posed—but we can live our answers all the same. At a minimum, we must create the conditions for human flourishing in this life—the only life of which we can be certain. That means we should not terrify our children with thoughts of hell, or poison them with hatred for infidels. We should not teach our sons to consider women their future property, or convince our daughters that they are property even now. And we must decline to tell our children that human history began with magic and will end with bloody magic—perhaps soon, in a glorious war between the righteous and the rest. One must be religious to fail the young so abysmally—to derange them with fear, bigotry, and superstition even as their minds are forming—and one cannot be a serious Christian, Muslim, or Jew without doing so in some measure. 

A mere decade ago.

Black mambas, college presidents, and economic perspectives

One day our son was lying on a blanket in the backyard when I saw a black mamba slithering down a tree close to him. I grabbed a machete, ran out and killed the snake.

That's what Leo I. Higdon Jr., the current president of Connecticut College, wrote in a 2006 editorial for the NYTimes. Pretty badass, no? All in all, it's an interesting piece, even if it's over half a decade old. Check it out here.

I wonder if he still keeps the machete around.

Fresh Friday, 9/9

Welcome to today's freshness.

American Jobs Act, a refreshing move from President Obama

Let me preface this by saying that I think President Obama really shone last night. I'm a bit unsure why it took him this long to actually come up with a plan and present it in such a way. While the "Obama can do no wrong" crowd will undoubtably come up with some bullshit about how the president just needed some time or something, me thinks that it had a lot more to do with his plummeting poll numbers.

Fact Check - Are the first responders really not invited to the official 9/11 memorial event in NYC?

Whenever I see a bunch of "…copy and paste this on your status if you agree!" Facebook posts, I always immediately wonder how accurate they are. Let's take a look at a recent one:

Due to "lack of room", NYC Police Officers, Port Authority Police Officers and FDNY Firefighters are not "invited" to the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at Ground Zero. Funny - they weren't invited on that day in 2001 either - they just "showed up" and became our heroes. Don't you think they belong more than a bunch of politicians? Please repost

Snopes says that the information on this status is factually accurate. From what I can tell, they are right. Apparently the city of New York is not specifically inviting first responders because the event is specifically designed for the families of the victims of 9/11. NYC is also not inviting religious leaders to event, in an attempt to focus more on the event at hand, rather than which religious leaders would be presenting.

All that remains.

Rick Perry's dead wrong about execution, views on humanity

I'm not going to say much about the fourth GOP debate. Jon Huntsman was relatively rational yet irrelevant, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich added nothing, Herman Cain's 15 minutes of fame are up, Ron Paul is still overrated, and Michele Bachmann underperformed. The only two people who shone were Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.

Anyway, the most shocking part of the night for me was when one of the MSNBC moderators actually asked Rick Perry a question about his grueling statistics on state-funded execution in Texas. He responded with the normal nonsense about it being justice served. This may be terrible in its own regard, but it gets much worse.

A replica of where children in Texas have sat.

Fourth official GOP Debate TONIGHT!

THIS IS BEING LIVE-BLOGGED ON MY PERSONAL TWITTER PAGE.

While I might have originally mistaken this week's "character forum" for a debate, the real forth debate is tonight! Get ready for a whole lot of nothing – this time with Rick Perry!

Yep, I went there.

Hurricane Irene in Old Saybrook, Connecticut

I wanted to wait a little while to post this, because, as I wrote about here, Hurricane Irene was a big deal to people in Connecticut. However, I have received several requests to post videos and pictures of what happened to Old Saybrook, Connecticut during the storm. I will admit that I am a bit biased toward my own beach community of Knollwood, but I'm not against posting anything about other parts of town during or after Hurricane Irene. Let me know if I missed anything. All pictures, unless marked as such, were taken by me.


During the storm:

Humpway Linkday, 09/07/11

V.

Teaching Ryan Higa a few things about equality.

File this in the grouping of "people who have feminist views but nonsensically reject feminist label."

News Snap - GOP candidate forum is going on RIGHT NOW!

Apparently there's another irrelevant GOP debate candidate forum going on right now:

Context is key.

I was doing a bit of research about a great aunt of mine. She was a school teacher, did not drink alcohol, and retired in Old Saybrook, CT. Apparently, she was never married, and, presumably, abstained from having sex. My first thought was, "I wonder if she was a lesbian." Was I wrong to wonder this?

My great aunt lived in Old Saybrook, an old sea town.

Keeping the Sabbath Holy: September 4, 2011

I identify my philosophy on religion as agnostic nontheist atheism. In essence, I am an atheistic agnostic. I do not rule out the possibility of a "god", but I see no evidence to suggest that one exists. Therefore, I generally have no problem getting along with the atheist community. I'm just another part of the pack when we rally against the intersection of state and religion, when we dissect lame religious arguments, or when we fantasize about the beauty of a religion-free world.

However, there's one faction of the atheist community that I fundamentally disagree with: the Islamophobes.

Real talk.

Four Reflections on Irene

• First and foremost, I’ve heard many people over the last few days claim that Hurricane Irene was not a big deal at all and that people who shared my grave concern for it were being hyperbolic. While it may be undeniable that Hurricane Irene was not as powerful as predicted, that does not diminish the fact that this was a big fucking deal. Millions (myself included*) are still without power all of the country, the extreme flooding is still very pervasive, over 130 homes are destroyed, and 42 people are dead. (And, let me add, there would probably have been a lot more people dead if worrywarts like myself had been less vigilant about this.) Furthermore, Irene is likely to place in the top 10 costliest natural disasters.

Zinnia Jones on anonymity, Facebook, and the future of Internet.

Couldn't have said it better myself:

Transcript below the jump.

News Snap - Obama administration caves to teabaggers on EPA standards

FireDogLake: 

The EPA was set to soon implement tough new regulations that would restrict the production of ozone. President Obama has decided to ignore the advice of his own EPA director, Lisa Jackson, and direct her to shelve the new standards for now. From the official White House statement:

[…] I have continued to underscore the importance of reducing regulatory burdens and regulatory uncertainty, particularly as our economy continues to recover. With that in mind, and after careful consideration, I have requested that Administrator Jackson withdraw the draft Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards at this time. Work is already underway to update a 2006 review of the science that will result in the reconsideration of the ozone standard in 2013. Ultimately, I did not support asking state and local governments to begin implementing a new standard that will soon be reconsidered.

Future of America.

No, anti-gay groups have NOT moderated.

In recent times, conservatives may have moderated in their views on LGBTQ equality (slightly), but let's not forget the end goal of homophobic groups:

Of course, Bryan Fischer isn't new to declaring blatant disregards for the US Constitution. Aside from his daily homophobia on AM radio, he caused controversy a while ago for asking for the government to ban Mosques. Seriously.

Fresh Friday, 9/2

"La la la la…"

"Jump! Jump!"

Real talk on undecided voters?

In a little over one year, I will be feeling the exact same way: