Ta-Naheisi Coates on Phil Robertson’s Racism

Ta-Nehisi Coates is truly a national treasure, and here he says what needs to be said about Phil Robertson’s racism. This is about why Phil never heard “the blacks” complain to him about white people in old Lousiana:

“The black people who Phil Robertson knew were warred upon. If they valued their lives, and the lives of their families, the last thing they would have done was voiced a complaint about “white people” to a man like Robertson. Ignorance is no great sin and one can forgive the good-natured white person for not knowing how all that cannibal sausage was truly made. But having been presented with a set of facts, Robertson’s response is to cite “welfare” and “entitlement” as the true culprits.

The belief that black people were at their best when they were being hunted down like dogs for the sin of insisting on citizenship is a persistent strain of thought in this country. This belief reflects the inability to cope with an America that is, at least rhetorically, committed to equality.”

No, You Cannot Use an EEG to Talk to Your Dog

I dearly love the idea behind crowdfunding, but this is an example of how it’s become another way to scam people. http://ow.ly/rWa5d Last I checked, these guys had 70% of their goal after only a few days, even though the science to put this stuff together clearly isn’t there. Also, how badly do you _really_ want to hear what your dog is thinking? Most I’ve known have been much too scatterbrained to make good conversationalists.

TES Calendar of Events, March 2007

This month’s offerings of perversion, from the people at the Eulenspiegel Society 

TES Calendar of Events, February 2007

More kinky fun coming in February, courtesy of the good folks at TES!

Domestic Partner Activists Needed

Elizabeth Wood is looking for people who can help her out with information about getting legal recognition for domestic partnerships.  Dr. Wood is a professor in Nassau County, NY, which doesn’t offer legal recognition to domestic partners, and she and her partner desperately need help getting it, whether through contract negotiation with the university, or through getting the county to change its tune.

I need, badly, to hear from people who have been actively involved in successful organizing campaigns at local or county or public employer levels to win recognition of domestic partnerships. In New York this would mean people who helped win this recognition in Suffolk County, Westchester County, Rockland County, New York City, Albany, and Rochester. Outside of New York it means a lot more places.

If you are such a person — and of all you readers out there, there must be one who is — please get in touch with me at sexinthepublicsquare (at) yahoo (dot) com or by leaving your comments here. If you are not such a person, but you know someone who is, please pass along my request.

Audacia Ray Explains It All For You

I consider Audacia Ray to be one of the smartest women in New York when it comes to sex, and her recent post on the female condom shows why.  The female condom has never quite caught on since its introduction. This is partly because of the price ($4/condom, as opposed to 25-50¢ for the standard boy model) and partly because they’ve remained kind of mysterious, more suited to the punchline of a joke than something you pack for a hot date.  Audacia does a good job of sweeping away the mystery with a smart, sensible explanation of the whys and wherefores of the girl condom:

Yes, Virginia, Perversion and Christmas Do Mix

After Ted Haggard, and now this guy, it’s starting to seem positively de rigeur for Christian homophobes to have a nice, dark closet that they can hide in. And why not? Have you seen the way these people raise their kids? I’m surprised that we didn’t find out that Haggard liked to get rimmed by billy goats while dressed as Ava Gardner and watching reruns of Green Acres or something equally inventive.

If you really, really want to make sure your kid turns out to be the city’s biggest perv, Kids in Ministry International has just the thing for you. For a mere $124.95, you can get their Blood of Jesus Visual Kit. What do you get for your money? Well…..

• Crown of Thorns
• One Crucifixion Nail
• Cat of Nine Tails Whip
• Tabernacle Felt Set
• Life-size Latex Heart Model
• Kids Discover Magazine on Blood
  
• Scarlet Cord with Tassels
  
• Cardboard Ark of the Covenant
  
• Cardboard Brazen Altar
  
• Instructions to Make High Priest Costume
  
• Instructions to Make a Temple Veil
  
• Chef’s cap for High Priest’s Crown
  
• Judge’s Gavel
  
• Simplicity Patterns for Bible costumes

With stuff like this, the parents should be happy if giving blowjobs for a nickel apiece in the back room of the Mine Shaft is the oddest thing their darling little angel winds up doing. I mean, I remember getting my first flogger, and it sure wasn’t a present from mom and dad.

The best thing, though, is the accessory they offer: The Sacrifice Lamb.

Adorable, isn’t he? The Sacrifice Lamb “stands 15″ tall so it is nearly life-size of a new-born lamb.”  Even better, it’s made to fit perfectly on the altar that comes with the Visual Kit, so that your darlings can practice their Holy Butchering techniques. (I suppose it would be “too Jewish” for them to include something on proper Kosher slaughtering methods.)

Christianity: for when your kid absolutely, positively has to be a closet case by 16.

TES Calendar of Events, January 2007

The Eulenspiegel Society (TES) is the main social and educational organization in New York for the BDSM crowd. Here’s their planned events for January, 2007:

Stephen King Killed John Lennon!

As of yesterday, it’s been 26 years since Mark David Chapman put four rounds into “the smart Beatle,” John Lennon, and ended an era.  Or so the mainstream media would have us think.  This guy claims that it was a bizarre conspiracy between Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and, er…. Stephen King.  Honestly, I can’t quite parse his logic; it’s a little like trying to read a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s after downing some speed.  But if you look at it right, his writing does have a kind of dadaistic beauty to it:

Along the way I saw my influence shape events in ways ONLY I could see. I am amazed at how big a dent I have already made, and yet I am still agast at how little support I have received from my fellow man and Americans. My own mother, and my siblings, the one constituency who should have helped me come forward so I could remove my life from danger have taken a step back from my plight. I have witnessed the apathy of my country and have come to appreciate that it is fueled by their own sense of shame, fear, jealousy and, I’ll say it, misery. Everyone’s very afraid where political assassination is concerned but me. Even Paul McCartney, who endorsed me live at Berkeley (see website) has retreated singing “…words of NON wisdom..” lately letting civilization slide into barbarism and banality. His recent 2002 concert passed without a relevant remark.
I don’t trust Yoko to do anything but protect the lie and her estate. I feel sorry for New York City that they can’t see through her. I feel sorry for New York that they tolerated a no trial necessary remedy for Lennon’s assassination. No wonder America is in such shambles. New York City is out of control and disconnected.
I worry about all of you people for having to have me tell you why this is important and vital to begin with. When I started I assumed everyone would know that this expose will unleash more power to the people than at any time in our lifetimes.  If you are not excited by that fact you, indeed, need my prayers too.
Thank you for visiting my website. Only you can expose this story. It will never be told until you people change, first, deep inside. Don’t keep me waiting. I need your help and support. BREAK THIS STORY, PLEASE!

I think this man has the makings of a presidential candidate.

Gloating Like a Motherfucker

There isn’t much to feel happy about these days if you’re an unemployed, chronically-depressed, leftist atheist pervert. But in between the stories of the mounting body count in Iraq and the hateful madness that stands in for conservative political thought these days, you get something like this.  Maybe I’ll have to reconsider the atheism thing.
Well. Not quite. But it’s pretty fucking sweet, especially coming on the heels of Mark Foley and Ted Haggard.

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Truth Wins Out expressed satisfaction today in learning that Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, President of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), has stepped down amid a cloud of controversy stemming from a polemic justifying slavery found on the group’s website, according to a statement released by Truth Wins Out. NARTH had also taken heat in recent months for advocating child abuse against gender variant children.

“NARTH was a sinking ship and they had no choice but to throw their captain overboard,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “The group was quickly becoming the Mel Gibson of the ‘ex-gay’ world and this move was NARTH’s desperate way of saying, ‘timeout, we are going to rehab.’ However, it may be too late, as no spin can erase their racist and anti-gay sin.”

Trouble began mounting for Nicolosi after Canadian doctor Joseph Berger, who serves on NARTH’s “Scientific Advisory Board” wrote on the organization’s website that gender variant children should be sent to school in opposite-sex clothing so they can be “ridiculed” into conforming.

But criticism of NARTH reached a crescendo after “Scientific Advisory Board” member, Dr. Gerald Schoenewolf, penned a polemic on the group’s website that seemed to justify slavery and said that African-Americans taken away in chains on slave ships “were in many ways better off than they had been in Africa.”