She's still not very good at this "apology" thing, and yet all of Pam's sycophants still rush to her defense, telling her (nearly a month after she fucked up) to not be so hard on herself.

Meanwhile, I'm still banned, and Pam & Autumn have refused to either delete my account as they did for Kim Pearson's request to do so, or reinstate me there. Pam told me that the former was an option, but then reneged on that; typical.

It ain't "repentance" if you just say the words and do not change your actions. It's not "repentance" if you abuse your admin powers to silence someone and then keep them silenced.

Just saw this and had to share. I've never seen a baby moose before! Full story with more pics

( Moosey! )

I'm going to be participating in this year's Blogathon, a 24-hour event to raise money for various charities. I did the Blogathon a few times, but it's been more than five years since my last one. I'm really looking forward to this.


I'm going to be blogging for the Best Friends Animal Society, an organization that ensures every animal has a home. Best Friends believes that no animal is "unadoptable" - they rehabilitate animals with physical problems, behavior issues, or any other problem that would have made them a hard case at any other shelter. They found homes for Michael Vick's old fighting dogs, and they find homes for cats with Manx syndrome (a genetic disorder resulting in incontinence, among otherthings). They find homes for guinea pigs, pigeons, and horses. Any animal who needs a forever home, BFAS works to find them one. And if they don't, or if it takes a long time, the animals can stay on the ranch in Utah as long as they need to...even forever.


But Best Friends isn't just working with the animals at the ranch. Through their No More Homeless Pets campaign, they work with shelters and retreats around the country to help them develop strategies to become no-kill. They reach out to people around the country through their show Dogtown, which airs on National Geographic Channel (and is how I learned about Best Friends). They are really a worthwhile charity, and you can find out a lot more at their website, which I linked to above.


You can sponsor me for the Blogathon on a lump sum or per hour basis. Either way, you'll be making the donation directly to BFAS (not to Blogathon or to me), so it's fully tax-deductible. I haven't decided on my content yet, but I'll definitely spend some time showcasing animals that you can sponsor (minimum donation of $25 per animal) or even adopt if you want to travel to the ranch to meet them. I hope you'll consider sponsoring me in the Blogathon to help Best Friends with their important mission!

Once again T-Mobile has been good to me. I had seen their billshrink.com commercials and used them, and called up a couple of weeks ago to change plans. The rep told me I could've done it over the web, but I said I prefer to change plans through a rep. Unfortunately, THAT rep did not help me out; she assured me that "Unlimited Data" would be okay with my Blackberry. Wrong!

Today the new plan took effect. The only change I saw was that I couldn't get "EDGE" but rather only "edge" which means you are connected to BIS but not logged in. Having forgot about the plan change, I assumed this was a technical issue. After work, I called T-Mobile to ask about it. Turns out it was due to the plan change - I'd dropped the Blackberry component of my plan.

The reason this is a GOOD post is because it all worked out. I spoke with a wonderful rep who was basically able to put me back where I was. My old plan was discontinued, but somehow she got it back - or rather, it's now a business-only plan, but she was able to add it back at the old rate rather than the scary business rate. Things are a little different now - I had to have unlimited texting added - but I have the same service and features I had before for the same price. We're on FamilyTime now and have fewer minutes, but who needs 1300 minutes/month when you only use 500? I'm paying the same for 700 that I was for 1300, but WHO CARES because we only use 500 between us anyway. (I'm a big texter, not a big talker.)

So everything is hunky dory again, I have full EDGE and all is well. As for billshrink.com, I can't blame them, I think it's a good service. The end!

Just a reminder, the newly passed-by-the-Senate-but-not-yet-a-law-yet federal hate crimes bill doesn't just establish hate crimes on basis of gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation.

It also provides for enforcement against hate crimes based on disability, as capriuni reminds us in the no_pity community.

just_katarin has a good post about why casting a white guy to play Hal "Green Lantern" Jordan sucks when they could have cast a black guy to play John "Green Lantern" Stewart.

The murderer of Lateisha Green was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime. But you won't read about that on John Aravosis' new "gay" AmericaBlog (or the "straight" one either.)

Instead there are currently two front-page articles about how homophobic black people are.

Green was an African-American trans woman.

Via the Tucson Weekly:

Wingspan, Tucson's LGBT community center and advocacy organization, is going through some major changes due to the economy.

The Range confirmed some difficult news this morning with Wingspan Executive Director Jason Cianciotto, after the organization held an emergency stakeholder meeting at the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona last night.

Cianciotto confirmed he has resigned, but will remain until the end of the month without salary to help the organization in what will be a big transition and shift, involving further layoffs and moving the agency into a new space.

Caz Springer, the organization's media and communications director, was let go, but will continue on until the end of the month. Alison Davison, the Southern Arizona Gender Alliance coordinator, remains, as does the organization's commitment to the transgender community.

The remaining staff also includes Courtney Jones, program director, as well the anti-violence program staff and Eon Youth staff that work with LGBT kids ages 13-23.

Evidently, the biggest challenge for Cianciotto and Wingspan was the unexpected collapse of the economy. Cianciotto joined Wingspan last year, coming onboard after an almost year-long search for the right ED. Unfortunately, the timing wasn't right for Cianciotto and his ideas had to be placed on hold while the organization had to figure out how to survive this downturn.

Wingspan's rent of almost $8,000 a month is a factor in the organization making a physical move. The Range was told that the landlord wasn't interested in renegotiating the lease agreement, but the lease doesn't end until 2010. Cianciotto says he can't comment further on the lease. However, the remaining staff will be moving across the street from its 425 E. 7th Street location into the Eon Youth Lounge space.

Crap.

http://www.asofterworld.com/index.php?id=462

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The Unitarian Universalist Association elected Peter Morales its eighth president on June 27, but that doesn't mean it's time for UUs to stop thinking about the way we choose our national leaders. The Board of Trustees is proposing some major...

The racist horrorshow that is Pam's House Blend continues, as they talk some more about how black people are homophobic (but say little-to-nothing about racism in the LGB(t) community).

Particularly galling is yet another case of Autumn Sandeen attempting to be a moderator, in this thread.

First, Narra spews forth some typical-for-the-blend racist white gay resentment against dem negroes:

Whatever you do, don't trust anyone LGBT.

It was obviously a big mistake to try to win support from a key minority group like the black community by appealing to them with our LGBT struggles and being so rude and ridiculous as to assert that our struggle is ANYTHING like the black struggle. Clearly it was wrong headed and we have now been set straight by the black community leaders who would never concede any similarities exist because it would *gasp* align our two communities in a highly uncomfortable way......The black community does not want to be dragged down into the nasty LGBT struggle as they have (especially the Christians) risen up as high as ever before in this country and don't want to screw that up now by associating with us losers. And whatever they do, they will definitely not be trusting any LGBT POC to tell them ANYTHING about what being gay is like or how understanding more about it might lead to at least some empathy, if not outright votes in our favor.

So, thanks again for taking us impudent, white, high class, shiny, clueless gay folk and putting us in our place. End of story. No further discussion needed at this time.

Kevin Erickson replies:

Um...

Clearly you did not read the article. The author is an LGBT POC. His principle concern is the lack of understanding among LGBT folks about what a civil rights movement really looks like.

...and then this guy Michael Bedwell inexplicably goes off not on the author of the article being discussed, but on Bilerico's blogger, Alex Blaze:

PUHLEEZE

Little Alex @ Bilerico claims to be Latino but, if his dorky picture is any indication, he passes for white quite well, thank you.

What he doesn't pass for is the objective intellectual he thinks he is. Quoting him on anything is like quoting Pee Wee Herman on nuclear physics.

kukito, a Latino, responds angrily to the racism:

a moron is a moron is a moron

and Michael Bedwell is obviously in the front of that line. Latinos, like LGBT persons, can be black, white, yellow, red, or any combination of those. We don't need to "pass" for anything. Pee Wee Herman is probably much more intelligent than Bedwell, judging from his moronic comment.

...and the folks at the Blend clutch their pearls in shock, for someone has said something mean!

And so of course, Autumn comes along, and threatens kukito with banning, while simultaneously saying nothing about Bedwell. She's even got a cute little graphic to further make it clear that the racist, anti-Latina/o bullshit Bedwell posted was okay but a Latino person responding to that insult is not okay:



Bedwell goes on to defend himself with yet more racist language, including continued attacks on Alex Blaze's ethnicity:

For anyone confused, my point was, when I thought that kevinerickson was trying to certify the superior credibility of Alex Blaze [rather than Granderson] because he's supposedly an "LGBT POC" was that, based on his photo [and name] alone no one would discriminate against him on the basis of his being "POC" because he didn't display any of the typical external cues to bigots.

If Granderson is an "LGBT POC" that doesn't a priori make him intelligent, insightful, or right...any more than it does the professional lesbian race card shark Jasmyne Cannick.

And this is not remarked upon by Autumn at all.

Because racism is okay at the Blend, but calling out racists for their racism? That's a personal attack and Autumn will getcha for it!

Update: I forgot to add, "a moron is a moron is a moron" is simply kukito echoing back Bedwell's own words. He also wrote this stuff:

The bottomline is that Granderson is playing the race card simply to defend Obama not on substance but because he's black [actually biracial but....]. AKA judging him "not by the content of his character but by the color of his skin." Somewhere Jasmyne Cannick is having a rare multiple orgasm.

"Playing the race card," check! "The black man is defending Obama because they're both black," check! "Obama isn't really black, he's biracial," check! Gratuitous quoting of MLK, check! Derogatory references to a lesbian based on her sexuality, check!

And none of this gets a whistle blown by Autumn Sandeen.

Many talk about the "good news" UUism has to share with the world but are light on specifics. On his blog, Rev. Tittle offers some of examples of good news that we offer

The one that resonates most with me is:

- Good news that human goodness and restoration can and will triumph over human evil and destruction.

"Witnesses' Waltz"



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_GciXA-6Ag

As I said to chuckvideo earlier today:

By July 16th, 1969, I was a veteran of watching so many launches that I knew the last hour of news coverage of the night before (midnight-1 a.m.) and the first two hours of the morning coverage (5-7 a.m.) would tell me nothing I didn't already know (in the last hour before midnight they had broadcast the third repeat of the day of an explanatory clip of how the spacesuit diapers functioned), so I went to bed at midnight and set my alarm clock for seven.

At 6:58 my eyes s*p*r*a*n*g open from the first of only two times in my entire life that my internal clock has awakened me with such precision. I deactivated my external alarm before it could buzz, went into the living room to turn on the big hunk-of-furniture color t.v., then got a bowl & spoon, milk, and Cheerios and sat down in front of it, prepared for for what I knew was going to be a flawless launch.

Some events are just microcosms of perfection. That morning was one of them.

Just wanted to let everyone know, that a new version of MemcacheD has been released. We will be rolling this out to the memcache nodes during the week of July 20th to 24th. This should have very little impact on the stability of the website; however users may see a slight increase in load times as the cache is re-populated with entries.

The software has been tested and verified to be working just fine with the application; so we perceive this to be a very minimal risk in regards to updating, and the stability of the website.

Thanks...