aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Santorum’s “me, me, me culture”
Ask not what Santorum can do for you:
Santorum: We have a culture right now that doesn’t say serve, that doesn’t say don’t think about yourself. It says me, me, me. It’s a very self-absorbed, me centered, excessive popular culture. And yet we have brave men and women who are willing to step forward because they know what’s at stake. They’re willing to sacrifice their lives for this great country. What I’m asking all of you tonight is not to put on a uniform. Put on a bumper sticker. Is it that much to ask? Is it that much to ask to step up and serve your country?
Huh? That’s not the culture talking, that’s the self-absorbed chickenhawk politician running for office. Don’t serve just put on a bumper sticker! Good God!
Here’s a telling list of those politicians, preachers and pundits who have and have not served. For why I haven’t served, see chickenhawks and me.
Via Crooks and Liars.
The Parents Permission to Participate bill is back
The Senate Education and Youth Committee passed a controversial bill Monday requiring parental permission for students to join or take part in extracurricular activities.
“There was no discussion, there was no input from people in attendance like myself. They just brought it up ... and passed it,” said Don Rooks, legislative specialist with the Georgia School Boards Association, which opposes the bill.
The measure was introduced last year but was tabled after Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox asked lawmakers to let the State Board of Education address the issue.
The state board held hearings last summer but ultimately declined to pass a rule, a move superintendents and principals cheered.
Here’s the Georgia Equality Action Alert. Find your elected officials here.
UPDATE: In comments Harry wonders, what’s the point of the bill and who is it aimed at?
My post assumed we knew that these bills are being introduced all across the country to target gay straight alliances by forcing questioning young people to get their parents’ permission - permission conservative Christian parents are unlikely to give, even if their son or daughter is brave enough to ask - in order to join the support groups.
Here in Georgia the explicit intent was revealed in an email from Christian Coalition leader and ardent supporter of the bill Sadie Fields, who is also the mother of a lesbian daughter.
Yet another argument for same-sex marriage
Then you won’t have nonsense like this:
Critics of a new policy that extends health benefits to the unmarried partners of employees at the University of Florida complain that it unfairly requires potential beneficiaries to sign an affidavit saying they are having sex with their partner before they can receive insurance.
The university will begin offering health insurance to the unmarried partners of both gay and heterosexual employees in February. As part of the sign-up process, unmarried employees must show that they jointly own property with their partners, have shared bank accounts, or have a will that specifies their partner as the beneficiary. Such requirements are common among university policies that extend benefits to domestic partners.
But the Florida plan goes a step further by requiring employees to swear that they and their partners “have been in a nonplatonic relationship for the preceding 12 months.”
SEE ALSO: My post gay marriage strengthens all marriage.
Yahoo! to Google: you win
“We don’t think it’s reasonable to assume we’re going to gain a lot of share from Google,” Chief Financial Officer Susan Decker said in an interview. “It’s not our goal to be No. 1 in Internet search. We would be very happy to maintain our market share.”
Thomas Hawk, Hey wait just a gosh darn minute!
Look, Yahoo!’s got all the pieces… There is no way that they should capitulate to anyone—especially Google. Search is a billion dollar game, Yahoo! just needs someone there with some power, vision and authority to tie it all together.
The only thing that I can possibly speculate on why it isn’t being done today is that they lack the corporate visionary to use the chess pieces that they have in play. The rook is sitting over there in the corner and not being used. Whether because of internal politics or Yahoo! fiefdoms or whatever all of their best pieces are not being played. That hot new player that you just paid way too much money for is sitting on the bench while the coach plays the tired old veteran player who is no longer on his game.
Whatever the analogy, Yahoo! needs a strong visionary in place who can tie all of the pieces of social search together, make a few more acquisitions, and turn this ship around. They need to be empowered from the top to make changes where necessary and they can in fact get back into the search game.
Hawk’s 6 point plan makes good sense to me. (I particularly like #5, “Buy TiVo.") Maybe Yahoo! will issue a “clarifiication” before the day is out.
UPDATE: See Hawk’s update for Danny Sullivan’s explanation and this later post for more. Henry Blodget, “ I suspect the new communications strategy, at least with respect to the Street, is to try to set the bar low and then clear it easily.”
FINAL UPDATE: The definitive clarification.
Hold Oprah accountable!
From the moment I heard I wondered what about Oprah? She has no credibility and should be exposed. I’m glad the Times has stayed on it:
To Oprah Winfrey, the power of James Frey’s memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” lay not in whether the author really spent three months in jail, as he claimed, or whether he lost a lover to suicide.
Rather, she said in her now-famous call to CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Jan. 11, where Mr. Frey defended himself against accusations that he falsified significant parts of his life story, it was the author’s story of recovery, a rebirth that took place within the walls of an addiction treatment center, that provided “the underlying message of redemption” that resonated with her.
But more than three months before questions were raised about Mr. Frey’s memoir by the Smoking Gun Web site (http://www.thesmokinggun.com) - before, in fact, Ms. Winfrey first had Mr. Frey as a guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” - producers at the program were told by a former counselor at the foundation that runs the Minnesota treatment center reportedly used by Mr. Frey that his portrayal of his experience there grossly distorted reality. [...]
After receiving the information from Debra Jay, a Michigan addiction counselor who herself has been a frequent guest on Ms. Winfrey’s program, a senior producer for the “The Oprah Winfrey Show” conducted an extensive interview with Ms. Jay. It is not known if Ms. Winfrey was apprised of the concerns, but she made no mention of the potential discrepancies in her many on-the-air comments about “A Million Little Pieces,” including when she called the book “all completely true” on her program and told Mr. Frey, “I don’t doubt you.”
In response to questions last week about the early warning given to the program, a spokeswoman for Ms. Winfrey, Angela DePaul, said, “We have no comment.”
Let’s be clear - as this article makes clear - that the damage done by this book, and particularly Oprah’s endorsement of it, is that it exaggerates the claims of addiction then describes a recovery based on “Hold on” (the 12 Steps slogan is “Let go") and uses those exaggerated claims as authority to bash traditional, proven, successful but difficult recovery methods.
Real people who are struggling with real issues are hurt by this book. They have been lied to and misled, and that lying continues and is endorsed by Oprah. Hold her accountable!
RELATED UPDATE: The publisher has offered up 2 “witnesses” to corroborate Frey. They hardly do.
