Tag Archives: society

It ought to be elementary, but…

society, , ,

My official first grade school picture.
My official first grade school picture.
So, I was reading some other blogs, and over at Twist in the Taile blog, the author listed as one of her goals for the new year: “I want to learn how the American school system works. It is just SO DARN CONFUSING. Even after reading all these books about kids in high school (?) I still do not understand which age corresponds with which year. (And honors classes?? What are they?)” My first thought on reading it was, “Good luck with that!” Then I started figuring how I could explain why it is so confusing.

I grew up in U.S. public schools (the term “public schools” in the U.S. refers to the taxpayer-funded schools that are administered by the government and are free to attend for all children), and it was confusing to me. I hang out on enough writing forums, follow enough writer blogs, and so forth to also attest that lots of other people who grew up in this system who are now trying to write books that involve characters who are either students or teachers feel compelled to ask questions about the ages of kids in certain grades, or what subjects they should be studying and so forth.

To understand the U.S. school system the very first thing you must understand is: there is NO U.S. school system. Americans, particularly Um-merr-uh-kins, are deeply suspicious of central authority (yes, most especially the ones who wave American flags all the time), and insist that schools must be subject primarily to local control. Even when a good ol’ boy Republican President like George W. Bush proposes something as harmless-sounding as “no child left behind” conservative Americans rise up foaming-at-the-mouth angry about the federal government sticking its nose in and telling us how to educate our children. Continue reading It ought to be elementary, but… →

How could they? How could we?

news, , , ,

levarburton_2014-Nov-24

I was raised by a racist jerk.

My dad is such a stereotype that people didn’t always believe me when I described him. To this day he regularly throws around the n-word, refers to the latino men who work on his crews as “wetbacks” and “spicks,” refers to any eastern asian-looking person as a “gook” or a “chink,” and so on. He will go on and on about all of the bad qualities he believes each of those groups share, if you let him. It is simply toxic to talk to him. The fact that he also speaks with a pronounced Oklahoma drawl, and that his conversation is peppered with words and phrases people associate with the south is just icing on the redneck cake.

My dad is the kind of racist that is almost too easy to spot. Guys like him make it very easy for the rest of us to pat ourselves on the backs and congratulate ourselves on being more enlightened. Because compared to him we clearly are.

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t racist… Continue reading How could they? How could we? →

A few brights lights among the gloom

news, , , ,

Things may not look so bright for Equality after the midterms, but it isn't all awful.
Things may not look so bright for Equality after the midterms, but it isn’t all awful.
I knew it was going to be bad news. More because of low turn-out and the demographic skewing that happens in those elections. But it wasn’t all bad news at the elections.

  • All six openly non-heterosexual members of Congress who were up for re-election have won their races. Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY), Rep Mark Pocan (D-WI), Rep David Cicilline (D-RI), and Rep. Kysten Sinema (D-AZ) all retained their seats this week.
  • The Citizens of Dallas, Texas, overwhelmingly voted to amend the city charter to include an anti-discrimination clause which included both sexual orientation and gender identity.
  • The Duck Dynasty cousin (Zach Dasher) whose slogan running for Congress was, “My platform begins with God,” lost. It is important to not that he was running against an incumbent conservative Republican whose previous campaign was all about defending the sanctity of marriage (and lots of other anti-gay statements), because said incumbent was too liberal. While Dasher has lost, we don’t yet know the winner. The Sanctity of Marriage guy has a run-off with a moderate Democrat in a few weeks.
  • Massachusetts has elected the first out lesbian state attorney general.
  • The anti-gay governor of Pennsylvania whose poor choice of words and even more suspect legal arguments I’ve written about before, Tom Corbett, was defeated by a candidate who has pledged to sign a comprehensive hate crime law if the legislature passes it.
  • Anti-gay crackpot (who is currently embroiled in a lawsuit about crimes against humanity for some of his anti-gay activities in Uganda), Scott Lively, failed to get even 1% of the vote in his bid for Massachusetts governor.

There were other bright spots here and there. Most of the local races I voted on went the way I wanted them to. There were other good candidates elected around the country. Despite the crowing of some of the anti-gay activists out there, there is little evidence of a change of heart of the electorate on equality issues. This election was more about who didn’t show up to vote rather than a change in the opinions of the majority.

And I’m not as bummed out as I was afraid I would be. Most of which I attribute to the fact that I started NaNoWriMo on midnight, Friday, and I written over 10,000 words already. So I’ve paid less attention to all the depressing news, rather than my usual level of obsessing over election stuff.

Comedy reveals the truth

society, , , , ,

It’s less than a minute and a half, and well worth your time. A reminder of the real relationship between politicians, business, and the people—and also how good one particular show was sometimes capable of being.

Roseanne owns state rep on fair wages, taxes, labor rights, and plight of the middle class:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

…but I don’t hate anyone!

life, , , ,

Meetville.com
Meetville.com
A while back someone objected to my post where I said that, in this day and age, if the first thought that comes to mind when thinking about a gay neighborhood is “AIDS,” that indicates a certain level of ignorance and bigotry. The reasoning presented in the objection boiled down to, “maybe I’m not as well-informed as you are, but that doesn’t mean I’m bigoted. I don’t hate anyone!”

First, I didn’t say hatred, I said bigotry. Bigotry is formally defined as “obstinate and unreasonable adherence to an opinion or idea.” Depending on the context it can shade into narrow-minded intolerance, or blind and excessive zeal, as well as dismissiveness of other ideas. But the central meaning, and the meaning I intended was that “unreasonable adherence to an idea.”

The unreasonable idea (the idea not supported by facts), is not even the obvious one… Continue reading …but I don’t hate anyone! →

Oh! That explains it!

life, society, , ,

I’ve mentioned before that I used to be active on Queernet, which was run as both a Usenet group and a mailing list. And because I posted and/or replied to other people’s posts on there a lot, I more than occasionally got hate mail. Because even back in late 80s/early 90s ultraconservative haters trolled the net looking for people to spew vitriol at. And one of those trolls was a member of the Westboro Baptist Church clan, usually logging in as Ben Phelps. And every single hate mail that he sent to any of us on that list included some reference to butt sex.

Even when he was yelling at bisexual women, lesbians, or people who identified as straight allies…

Continue reading Oh! That explains it! →

Dumb arguments against legal protections for transgender people, part 3

news, , , ,

mediamatters.org
None of those bathroom or locker room horror stories have a basis in fact. (Click to embiggen)
Media Matters has a nice compilation of statements from law enforcement officials and other experts from the 12 states that have had laws protecting transgender people on the books for a while (some going back to 1993!) about whether or not all those predictioned sexual assaults in bathrooms and locker rooms have occurred. Shockingly, no such assault has occurred in any of those twelve states. Who would have thought?

Well, obviously, since I debunked those sorts of claims in not one but two previous posts, I think a lot of us thought exactly that.

In my previous postings about transgender rights laws in particular, and LGBT rights laws in general, one of the dumb arguments I didn’t cover has come up and contributed to the temporary suspension and threatened firing of a teacher just because she was transgender. The argument takes several forms, but they’re all basically the same objection.

So let’s take a look at it, shall we?
Continue reading Dumb arguments against legal protections for transgender people, part 3 →

Never thought I’d be happy to do the taxes

life, , , ,

Us, at our reception.
It isn’t primarily about the legal stuff, of course. Except when it is.
The last few years our taxes have been very unpleasant. When Washington state voters approved the “everything-but-marriage” domestic partnership referendum a few years ago, our separate incomes became community property. The so-called Defense of Marriage Act forbade the federal government from recognizing our relationship, except that other parts of the tax code (voted in by the same congress critters who passed DOMA) required that anything which your home state considered community property had to be taxed as jointly owned property.

The upshot was that we had to file extra forms, but none of the forms that existed had places for folks in our situation to list the name or social security number of our partner. The first year that was the case, the IRS didn’t properly inform their own people, so same sex couples in the relevant states who filed early had their returns rejected and received letters threatening fines and penalties.

That got straightened out quickly, but the IRS never put out comprehensive instructions for taxpayers in our situation. Even after three years. Everyone was having to refer to one article from a gay rights lawyer posted on the web that walked you through all the different IRS publications—a few rules from this publication, the form from that, and these instructions from this other one. Yes, even the tax professionals were referring to that site.

It was a mess. And we weren’t even allowed to mail our separate filings in the same envelope.

Continue reading Never thought I’d be happy to do the taxes →

What’s the big deal about Valentine’s Day?

love, , , , ,

dailyotter.org
Together forever.
We’ve never made a super big deal out of Valentines Day. I think we’ve both had more fun, the last couple of years, meeting up with friends to celebrate Jared’s birthday, instead of doing the Valentine’s thing. Nor have we ever been really over the top on any of our anniversaries. In fact, both of us frequently forget them altogether. It could be argued that it’s because we have too many. One reason we have so many is because for the longest time, we couldn’t agree on what constituted our anniversary, since we weren’t able to legally marry until very recently. I favored February 7, as the anniversary of our first date. Michael leaned toward Easter, because we first met (nearly three years before that first date) at the NorthWest Science Fiction Convention on an Easter weekend. There was also a strong argument to be made for the date we signed and notarized the domestic partnership papers and had a party with friends, of course.

Now that we are finally legally hitched (and given what a struggle it has been to get it legal here), shouldn’t our wedding anniversary be the one we observe?

Or course, it’s impossible to forget about Valentine’s Day. I know this because I have been told many, many, many times by various people how the way our society deals with Valentine’s Day amounts to oppression or even abuse of people who are not in a relationship… Continue reading What’s the big deal about Valentine’s Day? →

I now pronounce you…

news, , , , , , ,

Same-sex couples wait in long lines to wed in Salt Lake City.
Same-sex couples wait in long lines to wed in Salt Lake City.
I’ve been expecting the New Mexico ruling. They already had a number of individual counties issuing licenses to same sex couples, and the state didn’t have a specific same-sex ban (unlike other states). There were a number of different laws related to marriage that included gender-specific clauses, but it seemed fairly obvious the state supreme court would rule in favor of equality. So, when the court issued its unanimous ruling on Thursday, it was worth cheering, but it wasn’t a shocker.

Utah on Friday was a big shock. Especially to me, since part of my childhood was spent in one of the most religiously conservative counties in that state… Continue reading I now pronounce you… →