Reward for proficient and well-decorated fighter pilot: Kick him out because he’s gay

Lieutenant Colonel Victor J. Fehrenbach is a fighter pilot and weapons systems for the Air Force. Aubrey Sarvis writes that Fehrenbach has excelled at everything he has done for the Air Force. His reward? They are kicking him out of the Air Force because he is gay.

The Air Force is about to discharge this guy, a virtual poster boy for Air Force recruiting, because he is gay? Someone has to be kidding. This is sheer madness.

Let me check my calendar . . . yep, it's 2009. Obama is in office. This is insane. And it's been done many times before, for instance, when the military kicked out dozens of gay Arabic language specialists during the Iraq invasion because they were also gay. Sarvis advises that we need far more than an executive order to stop this madness to protect the remaining 65,000 gays and lesbians in the military. We need to change DADT immediately. We must rip it apart and choose our military personnel on one criterion: whether they can do the job.

A law is a law, even a bad law. Our country and service members are suffering the consequences as we watch this theater of the absurd play out. We need this new 111th Congress and this new President to engage each other immediately and with a sense of urgency to stop this obvious madness.

To compound this tragedy, Fehrenbach was two years shy of retiring with a full pension. See Fehrenbach's interview by Rachel Maddow at the top link.

Continue ReadingReward for proficient and well-decorated fighter pilot: Kick him out because he’s gay

A wedding observation

I attended a wedding over the weekend. My family is Italian and I'm sure it's no surprise that we are overwhelmingly Catholic. However, because the ceremony wasn't being held in a church but rather in the reception hall I had thought that I would be spared having to sit through another Catholic mass. I was wrong. *sigh* As it turns out, it was a thankfully shortened version of the ceremony. I noticed that, even in abbreviated form, the priest managed to mention FIVE TIMES (we counted) that,"...God made us MALE and FEMALE so that we may join together in His love". It would have been just another day in a big Italian Catholic family except this time, seated right up front were two good friends of the bride and groom who also happened to be a lesbian couple. I've seen "the lesbian couple", as they are called in the family, a few times at family gatherings that were large enough to encompass all of us. They have been together for many years, at least as long as many of the other couples in the room. Longer than some. I couldn't help but cringe each time the phrase rolled around.

"Marriage was created by God for MALE and FEMALE...", "We join in holy matrimony this MAN and WOMAN...", etc.
With each repetition of the phrase it seemed that the priest was emphasizing it more and more and from our vantage point several rows back it almost seemed like he was glaring at the lesbian couple when he said it. (Probably my imagination.)

Continue ReadingA wedding observation

The toll of permanent war

What is the domestic damage done by a country that lurches from war to war? Chris Hedges proposes an answer at Truthdig.com: countries that are perennially at war get eaten up from the inside out:

It is a state of permanent war that is finishing off the liberal traditions in Israel and the United States. The moral and intellectual trolls—the Dick Cheneys, the Avigdor Liebermans, the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads—personify the moral nihilism of perpetual war. They manipulate fear and paranoia. They abolish civil liberties in the name of national security. They crush legitimate dissent. They bilk state treasuries. They stoke racism.

“War,” Randolph Bourne commented acidly, “is the health of the state.”

Hedges further alleges that Obama is not in a hurry to stop the wars, because it's too much of an uphill climb and it's, in the long run, beneficial to Obama (as it was to Bush):

They support its destructive fury because it funds them. They validate its evil assumptions because to take them on is political suicide. They repeat the narrative of fear because it keeps us dormant. They do this because they have become weaker than the corporate forces that profit from permanent war.

Continue ReadingThe toll of permanent war

Hear the story about all of our stuff

In The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard tells us that all of our "stuff" is part of a linear system that is clashing with our finite planet. Her video is extremely popular (5.5 million views) and easy to follow. Here's a short description from her site:

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

What are the main problems? We are externalizing costs, so that we are oblivious to the damages we are causing around the world when we buy so much of the stuff that we are buying. We are running out of resources. Her stats from the United States are especially troubling because we are so very much living beyond our means. We generating huge heaps of waste. We are using energy + contaminated products to promulgate toxic products and untested products. One of the highest concentrations of toxic food substances has become human breast milk. 200,000 people move from their resource-exhausted long-time communities into crowded cities, many of them slums. And consider that 99% of the stuff we run through our economic system is trash within 6 months. This is not an accident, either. It is long-time government and industry policy that we should shop and consume. We shop three to four times as much as Europeans. Which, again, leads to disposal problems. For every trash can full of waste we throw away there were 70 trash cans of waste produced to make that one can of waste. Incredible. Many DI related posts can be found here. Further, listen to Daniel Goleman's description of the basic problem and the solution in his interview with Daniel Goleman.

Continue ReadingHear the story about all of our stuff

Jim Cramer, exposed

Jon Stewart is at his journalistic best here. This was filmed in March 2009, though I hadn't seen it until today. Jim Cramer desperately tries to spin himself out of Stewart's devastating indictment. Truly worth watching:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Pt. 2
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor
The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Pt. 3
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show
Full Episodes		Economic CrisisPolitical Humor

Continue ReadingJim Cramer, exposed