Those two lovebirds above are Phyllis Lyon and Del Martin, who have dedicated their lives to the advocacy of gay women's rights. Yesterday, their lifelong mission, as well as their love for each other, was finally chronicled in the most significant and valid of ceremonial events: they exchanged "I do's".
They were the first gay couple to recite their vows with the full legal recognition of the state of California. While they'd already been married when San Francisco legalized marriage for all its residents, the rest of Cali just caught up to the Golden Gate on Monday, June 16th.
The happy couple's state-sanctioned wedding was a landmark event, for several reasons. Number one, it made the government, and its constituents, recognize what Lyon and Martin had known for the past five decades (that's over twice my age!): love is beautiful wherever it exists on the sexuality diaspora. Number two, it's a step in re-affirming the civil rights of all Americans.
Side note: "gay marriage" is a stupid term. It's the same thing as straight marriage, except both partners have the same kind of gonads. Conversely, "straight marriage" is also a stupid term. They're unnecessarily redundant quantifiers for the same concept: the union of two people that love each other enough to sign binding pre-nuptial agreements.
But I digress. While I may have no problem with two guys or two girls getting married and filing joint tax returns and boring stuff like that, there are those that still have a problem with it. Something about "sanctity" or somesuch nonsense like that. One of those naysayers happens to be some dude named John McCain.
Parkside Q's Seven Step Guide On How NOT To Steal A Car In Canada
Take notes kids, the following may save you some time in the clink:
1) Do NOT boost a rare Nissan Skyline GT-R from a specialty dealership, especially during business hours. Busy dealerships tend to have people nearby that, during criminal investigations, magically morph into this new entity called "witnesses".
2) Do NOT cruise around your hometown in boosted car (which was never sold in North America, BTW) where people can spot and recognize said obscure import tuner. In fact, Parkside Q recommends that you skip town for a few days while you try to find someone who will buy "your" car.
3) Do NOT pose for pictures taken by a passerby, who just so happens to be a member of the car enthusiast forum that your grand theft victim posted news of his loss on. You might as well send your own homemade mugshot to the po-lice.
4) Do NOT keep your Facebook profile set to "public". Otherwise, people looking for you and/or "your" car might find that you're nothing but a high school degenerate. And the address of that high school. And directions to your house by way of Google Maps.
5) Do NOT leave "your" car parked in your driveway. Otherwise, if someone from aforementioned online car club spots the Nissan and decides to box you in while they call the cops on your dumb ass, you might not be able to make a squeaky-clean getaway.
6) Do NOT resist arrest as the police escort you to your new ride: the back of a squad car. No one wants you to be that guy screaming like a bitch because he got tasered for being belligerent.
7) Go directly to jail. Do NOT pass "Go". Do NOT collect $200.
Image and story via Switched by way of The New York Times.
The above document is over 175 years old, and is a testament to the atrocity that we as Black people have faced in these United States. While we are no longer bought and sold like cattle, we are still held in the bondage of discrimination that sometimes can stifle the spirit of a human soul.
Normally I don't like blogging about depressing things like slavery and the dark history of emancipation, but if we forget history, we will be doomed to repeat it. So I am posting this image as a reminder of where we've come, so that we don't lose sight of where we have to go.
Continue reading "In Case You Thought Black History Ended On Feb. 29" »
I was just browsing CNN's website this evening, in an attempt to delay doing my laundry for another hour or so, when I stumbled upon this story. Apparently, Misha Defonseca (pictured above, via CNN) wrote a book detailing her survival during the Holocaust, which included a "trek [of] 1,900 miles as a child across Europe with a pack of wolves in search of her deported parents during World War II."
Now, Misha's story has been celebrated as one of courage in the face of adversity; hers is the memoir of an impassioned champion of the human condition, the will to stay alive and overcome obstacles strewn into one's life by a tornado called fate.
There's just one problem with her testimonial. It's fake.
Hi, my name is Leon Hart, and I have a problem. I like shock entertainment. I watched the Saw series just to see the different ways someone can get mutilated to death. I used montage reels of people getting owned in various predicaments as stress relief during college. The Maury show is my surrogate father (hell, Maury was in my house more than my dad was when I was growing up).
However, it seems as if my casual use of shock value has gone from recreational to dangerous levels of exposure. I, like many of you, am a survivor of the "2 Girls 1 Cup" scourge that plagued monitors and scarred retinas everywhere, as its somber music, much like the Pied Piper's flute, directed onlookers' gazes toward a sea of guilty pleasure, only to drown in its riptide of stomach-churning depravity. Like many others sucked into the wake, I forwarded the link to others, so that they might also share my watery grave.
It seems that this episode, despite my need to go to the eye doctor next week, not only didn't scare me straight, but possibly enabled more shock video tolerance, and a general anesthetization of my senses to less shocking (and much less disgusting) visual fanfare. However, today might just be the day that I quit this shit cold turkey. I just saw footage from that new show "Moment of Truth", and let me tell you, I shouldn't have to get a fix of shock video for at least another week or two.
