The critter count

So for weeks now the wife and I have been chuckling about all the wild life she sees on her way to work in the wee hours of the morning. We finally decided that if someone could throw up a site where people posted their indiscretions via text than there was nothing wrong with posting the nightly critter count.

You'll also note a new links addition at right. I added in some of the fun places on the web I visit routinely. Hillbillie Gourmet is my creation and it's a work in progress. I don't have much posted there but I'm working on it. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to send me an email.

Chortle ...

see more Funny Graphs

Dragtastic

“We’re three numbers into the drag show and the Lady GaGa songs are all gone!” – Post on Texts from Last Night

Grab your disco stick kids (oh YES I DID go there) and come out to the Edge this Saturday night. Marnie Rae Holiday is kicking off her new show cast. Each month the fabulous Marnie Rae will appear with Jennifer Holiday, Doc Holiday, Portia D’Lish and Gunner Holiday.

That’s a whole lotta Holiday comin’ atcha.

I’m certain the famous Marnie Rae Hotbox will make an appearance, and I’ve heard rumblings that Doc Holiday may pull something out of his kit bag.

Show starts at 10:45 pm. My advice: Get there by 9:45,grab a beer (bottled) and kick back and watch a really great show. The Wife and I will likely be in the house, so drop on by and say hello.

And when it's all over, just dance.

Book club first meeting

I’ve gotten an overwhelming number of emails about the book club and I’m very excited so many of you are interested! I’ve started a Yahoo Group to keep everyone informed, so if you want to take part in our activities please join. The group’s homepage is here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblianonspringfieldmo/


Our first meeting will be August 29 at 1 p.m. at Big Momma’s located at 217 E Commercial Street. Our first book will be Louise Rafkin’s Other People’s Dirt. Here’s the Kirkus Review on the book:

Into this life a chance for liberating creativity fell, when Rafkin narrowly escaped a straight-on march into the literary world of academia and headed into the trenches of ``other people's dirt.'' This book documents her experiences as seen from the underbelly of day-to-day life through anecdote and wry observation: dust balls and food stains, what laundry reveals and conceals, the nature of the need to clean, and the strange idiosyncrasies of those who will pay others to put order in their disorderly lives. Brief chapters cover stints in the homes of hoarders, the simply overworked, the impersonal nit-pickers, perverts, and even a suicide. In a final chapter, Rafkin travels to Japan to live with the Ittoen community, a group of homeless individuals committed to cleaning up the immediate world. Her thoughts on the need for order hint at the author's underlying belief: She would like to share the Ittoen ``nonattachment to worldly goods.'' But her comments on Japan are banal, and her search for any philosophy in what a house cleaner knows remains lifeless as long as she poses questions such as, If a forest is swept and no one sees it, was it ever really swept? . . . would I ever stop trying to achieve Home-Ec Student of the Year?'' Rafkin's breezy matter-of-factness only barely obscures a lot of cynical ranting about people, places, and things. Only at the very end does she confide her personal take on what her meanderings have meant in a final homeward gaze, the long-lost San Francisco girl at last getting real: ``It was time to clean house.'' More adventure than memoir, this book is odd and not all that entertaining. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The book can be purchased at Amazon used for a little as .01 plus shipping: http://www.amazon.com/Other-Peoples-Dirt-Housecleaners-Adventures/dp/0452280818/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248465230&sr=1-1

Book Club!

I’ve gotten together a group of five women who are interested in forming a book club. We will meet monthly on Saturday afternoon at a local coffee house and discuss a book chosen by the group’s members. The books will range from mainstream to LGBTQ themed depending on the group’s preferences. We're already mulling over what our first book will be!

We'd like to have a few more members, so if you're interested please shoot me an email at lesbianinthequeencity@gmail.com.

Thanks!
Les

ENDA is not a violation of the fundies First Amendment rights

The Wife heard an interesting tid bit on the radio that Focus on the Family is crying that ENDA (Employee Non-Discrimination Act) violates their First Amendment Rights to freedom of religion. They've been griping about this for some time actually. Apparently Focus on the Family is too busy gay bashing to really understand what, precisely, the First Amendment protects. The short answer is it doesn't completely protect you in the workplace. The far right attempted to use this same tired argument against racial discrimination and sexual harassment ... it didn't work.

I spoke to the Paternal Unit, nationally recognized free speech expert Paul McMasters, who didn't use all the profanity I wanted to but basically agreed that Focus on the Family is way off base. He pointed me in the direction of numerous articles showing how a blogger's free speech OUTSIDE the workplace could be controlled by his or her employer. Read, you can get fired for what you say publicly if your boss doesn't like it.

Now, let's do a little check up here: the government can make no law governing your speech or religious practices. It's a bit more complicated when it comes to your boss. Especially if your boss isn't the Federal Government.

Dear Old Dad pointed me to this article, by lawyer David Hudson, on religious freedom in the workplace. The important take aways from the article are as follows:

*Public employees have the protections of the First Amendment and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the major federal anti-discrimination law that covers virtually all public and private employers with 15 or more full-time employees. Employees in the executive branch of the federal government are also covered by the "White House Guidelines on Religious Exercise and Religious Expression in the Federal Workplace."

*Title VII generally prohibits an employer from discriminating against employees on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin or religion. Under Title VII, an employer must reasonably accommodate an employee’s religion unless doing so would create an “undue hardship.”

*The First Amendment's free-speech and free-exercises clause also protect public employees’ religious speech. The free-exercise clause provides that the government may not prevent individuals from freely practicing their religious faith. Public employees do not forfeit all of their free-exercise rights when they take a government job. If a government employer or workplace rule targets an employee’s religious speech and causes a substantial burden on his or her religious faith, it can be justified only if the employer shows a compelling interest. More often employer policies do not intentionally target an employee’s religious faith but have an incidental impact.

*In litigation, many public employers assert that they silenced an employee’s religious expression to avoid an establishment-clause conflict. The argument is that if the employer allows employees to speak about their religious faith on the job, the public will believe that the employer is sanctioning or endorsing the religious views.

You'll note all of that pertains to public employers. Private sector employers can have even more restrictions on their employees behavior in the workplace. They cannot, however, discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex or national origin. ENDA simply aims to add sexual orientation and gender identity to that.

If you attempted to file suit against your employer because you felt that your boss's hiring of a Native American, Latino, African-American, fill in the ethnicity here person, violated your First Amendment rights you'd be laughed out of court. Likewise, while your boss can't keep you from going to church he or she can regulate what you say about it in the office.

Gay people in the workforce are not going to keep anyone from praying or going to church. Therefore they really can't hurt anyone's religious freedoms. The Focus on the Family folks are still entitled to their "gay is evil" opinion but they won't be able use it to discriminate against the drag queen in the cube next to them.

Barbara Ehrenreich on Gay Marriage

My interest in Barbara Ehrenreich began with her book Nickled and Dimed, a definite MUST for anyone who thinks that it's entirely on the shoulders of the hourly-wage employee if they're not affluent and successful. I also suggest following that one up with her look at white-collar work, Bait and Switch. She shows what really goes on in the attempt to survive--or join--the world of work.

Cheeky to a near-fault, Ehrenreich has provided some of the most biting social commentary in her book This Land is Their Land. And one of the reasons I bought the book was because of her take on same-sex marriage.

I actually read this book a few months back, but I found my copy in the backseat of the car. And my thoughts immediately went here.

In the form of satire, Ehrenreich posits that what's missing from the PR effort in gay marriage is to show how we're doing just great without the legal rights. We can stay up all night partying, even if we're well past our party prime. We can leave relationships on a whim. Forget debates on kids! As one couple I know pointed out, they don't want a marriage: their mortgage is MUCH harder to get out of!

All this sound like too much? I understand...and laugh heartily at her humor!

My relationship is valid with or without the government stamp of approval. Unfortunately, what's not okay with me isn't simply the fundamental legal benefits of marriage. It's the fact that if my partner gets killed in an auto accident (Heaven forbid!), and has not established a health care directive, his estranged sister has more right to make decisions than me. In the event of his death--unless he has taken extreme precautions to set up the legal aspects--all of his belongings default to his family...despite our consistent communication, and his family's--well--lack, thereof.

There's a lot that won't be resolved by simply giving same-sex marriages the name "marriage". Churches will still debate the moral implications. Fights will still ensue. But are we arguing a moral point?

I noticed this idea today, too, because of Les's post on the DOMA lawsuit coming out of MA. Yes, it's time. And certainly, this has an infinitely better shot of passing the bar than anything else. But we need to be honest, here. Just getting DOMA off the record is a start--not a finish line.

And I have my own take on "DOMA", for its semantic implications...but that's another post entirely.