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As evidenced by the fact that no one has started a thread about this yet.

A controversy is raging over whether a prominent Washington state civil rights activist and Howard University graduate who claimed she was African American is actually white.

Rachel Dolezal, 37, is the president of the Spokane NAACP and has claimed to be the victim of a number of hate crimes. As questions were raised about the veracity of some of her reports this week, a white couple from Montana came forward to claim that Dolezal is their daughter.

Earlier this week, KXLY4 asked Dolezal about a photo posted to the NAACP chapter's Facebook page of a black man identified as Dolezal's father.

"I was wondering if your dad really is an African American man," Jeff Humphrey of KXLY4 asked Dolezal.

"That's a very ... I mean, I don't know what you're implying," Dolezal said.

"Are you African American?" Humphrey said.

"I don't understand the question," Dolezal said. She walked off-camera as Humphrey asked: "Are your parents, are they white?"

----

Rachel Dolezal did not return requests for comment. However, she dodged questions about her race this week after allegations that some hate crimes she had reported were fabricated.

"That question is not as easy as it seems," Dolezal said after being contacted by the Spokane Spokesman-Review at Eastern Washington University, where she is a part-time professor in the Africana studies program. "There's a lot of complexities ... and I don't know that everyone would understand that."

She added: "We're all from the African continent."

This is from the FB group "Theists and Atheists Against Discordianism" 



Nothing to worry about. These Theist/Atheist alliances never last long enough to put a dent in the agenda. A few well placed likes and shares and they'll be back at each other's throats just like SHE likes them.

For now though, might be wise to keep any "family discussions" behind O:MF or deeper.

I didn't make this. This is real. It's a thing.

Using only...

My daughter and her mom have started beefing about the appropriateness of clothing choices.

She's thirteen. A bit of a hellion, but much less so than either her mother or I were at that age. I am kind of unable to get my head around clothing being an issue, but I always have to be mindful of how much residual "oi, oi, oi" I have left in me. And with some people that I respect a lot so adamant in defense of proper and adequate coverage, or whatever the standard is, I'm kind of shaky on where I stand.

Speaking of people I respect a lot, any opinions from the spag gallery?

***I did not mean to post this is AI. If someone wants to pop it over to Apple Talk, that's where it was meant to live.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Patent Office has ruled the Washington Redskins nickname is "disparaging of Native Americans'' and that the team's federal trademarks for the name must be canceled.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/11102096/us-patent-office-cancels-washington-redskins-trademark

This is the second time the patent office has ruled this way. The first time was thrown out on procedural grounds, though. The upshot is if the Washington (American) football team insists on keeping their name they lose exclusive merchandising rights. The decision can be appealed but the process of appeal in administrative law is very limited (will probably never find its way to a federal court, for instance).

Be very interesting to see how much that "honorable and glorious tradition" team owner, Dan Snyder, is always crowing about will mean to him when his brand basically becomes public domain.

Also, here's the Onion's take:

WASHINGTON—Denying widespread claims that the franchise is being offensive or disrespectful, the Washington Redskins' kike owner announced Monday that he remains steadfast in his refusal to change the team's derogatory name. "The Redskins represent 81 years of great history and tradition, and it's a source of pride for our fans," said the hook-nosed kike, stressing that the team's insulting moniker is "absolutely not a racial slur by any means." "'Washington Redskins' is much more than just a name. It stands for strength, courage, and respect—the very values that are so intrinsic to Native American culture." The shifty-eyed hebe went on to assure fans that he will do "everything in his power" to preserve the team's proud heritage.

YOU-TUBE THAT SHIT!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOysRpdo7hY

I don't fully understand it, but I know it's big, and the reaction made me choke up a lot!

Been following this trial on Democracy Now! It's been interesting...

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/05/201351591259267287.html

A Guatemalan court found former dictator and US Cold War ally, Efrain Rios Montt, guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 80 years in prison.

The reason why this is so significant is that it's not occurring after some bloody revolution, it's happening right under the noses of the oligarchy that maintained power through this genocide, and a president who, by many accounts, participated in it.

Even after the verdict, President Otto Perez Molina insists that there was no genocide in Guatemala even though, to his credit, his administration issued a statement respecting the court's ruling and the independence of the judicial system.

Of note, Molina threatened to shut down the trial if he was implicated in testimony (again). So I guess it's independence-ish of the judicial system.

Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don't belong [in our clothes], and they can't belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.  -- Mike Jeffries, CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch explaining why A&F doesn't offer women's XL sizes

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/not-available-in-xl-abercrombie--fitch-ceo-mike-jeffries-accused-of-only-wanting-thin-and-beautiful-people-8608022.html

This is too cute. So evidently the douche gives an interview in 2006 to Salon. No one notices or whatever. Then a couple of days ago, the comments resurface and shit-storm ensues.

EVEN CUTER. A&F does stock XL and XXL in men's wear, just not for women. You know...because no fat chicks and stuff. I give his job 2 weeks at best.

OH AND THE IRONY--The man who only markets to the good looking so as to attract the other good looking:



There may have been some work done. A touch.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/belgium/9798779/GPS-failure-leaves-Belgian-woman-in-Zagreb-two-days-later.html

After her son reported her missing, Belgian police searched her home and were about to launch a full scale manhunt when she phoned home to say she was in Zagreb.
The woman told relatives and police that she did not notice anything wrong "until I suddenly arrived in Zagreb and realised that I was no longer in Belgium."
"Weird? Maybe, but I was just distracted and preoccupied," Mrs Moreau said.

For some reason this reminded me of yous.

Please someone tell me there's more to the story than that.

http://phys.org/news/2012-10-italy-quake-verdict-science-trial.html

Seismologists said they were horrified after six of their colleagues were sentenced to six years in jail for manslaughter Monday on charges of underestimating the risk of an earthquake that struck Italy in 2009.

So there once was this dude what ate a bite of steak. Fucking delicious. He knew right away he loved it. Pretty much everything this dude had ever wanted forever in the history of always. This steak was so good in fact that before he had even taken a second bite he knew he would, for the rest of his life, be dedicated to steak and steak alone. By the end of the year he concluded, he would open a restaurant and call it "The Big Fucking Delicious Steak, Yum!" And serve steak 24-7 to any and all comers. He was set. It was fate. Mark it true!

Then he had a second bite...

By the end of the year he had ruled out fried chicken, specialty donuts, gluten free cajun cuisine and late-night smoothie delivery, so left without any other ideas, he took out a second mortgage on the house and bought a turn-key McDonald's franchise in a depressed economic area.

He was now a restaurant owner just as he knew he would be all those months ago.

Dude didn't know the first fucking thing about running a restaurant, and it didn't help that where it was located it got robbed more than patronized. Within 6 months the business was shut and he was well on his way to foreclosure.

Moral of the story-McDonald's franchises are a poor economic investment. Lesson learnt!

This case, however, is about independent expenditures, not soft money. When Congress finds that a problem exists, we must give that finding due deference; but Congress may not choose an unconstitutional remedy. If elected officials succumb to improper influences from independent expenditures; if they surrender their best judgment; and if they put expediency before principle, then surely there is cause for concern. We must give weight to attempts by Congress to seek to dispel either the appearance or the reality of these influences. The remedies enacted by law, however, must comply with the First Amendment ; and, it is our law and our tradition that more speech, not less, is the governing rule. An outright ban on corporate political speech during the critical preelection period is not a permissible remedy. Here Congress has created categorical bans on speech that are asymmetrical to preventing quid pro quo corruption.

But to return to, and summarize, my principal point,which is the conformity of today's opinion with the original meaning of the First Amendment. The Amendment is written in terms of "speech," not speakers.

A lot about the Citizen's United decision is strange to me. For one, Citizen's United presented the case that "as-applied" to their case McCain-Feingold was unconstitutional. I agree with this. The majority, though, dismissed the "as-applied" argument and declared the law facially unconstitutional. The arguments they present are not without merit.  Having to go to the Supreme Court to determine whether speech is constitutional is kind of a big restriction, for instance. What bugs me about this decision is it's absolutely the first time I've ever seen this court answer a broader question than it's asked. In fact, it's disturbingly impressive the lengths this court usually goes to to avoid answering even the narrowest questions it's been asked. Can the military detain U.S. civilians as enemy combatants? Well, yeah, sometimes, but they're not exactly sure how or when since the case wasn't filed in the correct court in the first place. That sort of thing is par for the course. Declaring that the Constitution states that corporations are people with free speech which is also known as money, when they were simply asked if advertising an on-demand political piece is something congress should have the right to restrict, is way out of character. They've ducked gay marriage for eons. Why were they so quick to jump on corporate personhood, without even being asked about it?

Cynicism inducing questions aside, the above quotes, taken from two majority opinions, are something worth thinking about. It's hard to argue against the proposition that more opinions are better than fewer. Speech is the thing. If the speakers are corrupt, if the politicians are corrupt, if people are duped, those are things that should be addressed on their own. Restricting the what, who, when and where of an opinion is a supreme cop-out, really. Also, saying GM can't pay a PAC to do electioneering for them, is saying that GE, or some other corporation entangled with a "legitimate" media outlet is going to be doing all the electioneering. Who has had more influence on U.S. policy, the Koch brothers or William Randolph Hearst? Rupert Murdoch doesn't really need a Super-PAC.

So now that I've played the Devil's Advocate for the Citizen's United decision, what's the alternative? A democracy that is bought and sold by a dozen billionaires instead of just a couple? Doesn't really sound any better to me. I've got some ideas. Let's hear yours.

Funny run of holy fucking upheaval has left me off PD for the last couple of weeks. Lost my job, daughter's mom got a job offer out of town which she's taking. Had to weigh my options in light of all this. Given that I'm going to be a couple thousand miles from one child and to some degree, rebuilding, for reasons I'm not going to get to deep into, I've decided to follow my daughter...to SOregon. They're moving to Corvallis, so my options are Corvallis, Eugene or Portland. I know there's at least a few of you very familiar with the area...any suggestions?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=95836&page=1#.TwCwztXfWHc

I don't know which sub-forum to put this one. Nor which nightmare. Dumbfounded. Oh do chime in...

[Like A Boss]

***Haven't written anything I felt much of "okay, then" about in...yeah. So just plucked some old dried up from the neglected remains of my blog. Enjoy...or kill me

Like A Boss

Apologies for the title.
NO...fuck that...
no apologies.
I'm so fucking tired of all this fear.
I got a complaint at work the other day,
"That lobby guy sure is cocky."
Told my boss:
"Well, you and I both know it's just that I'm that good."
I'm not going to try to hide it.
Why would I?
I'm not trying to tell people I'm better than them...
just trying to be myself...
hoping that somehow makes them feel it's okay to do the same.
hoping I can remind them they're just that good, too.
It shouldn't be this fucking exhausting to do what comes natural.
But it's a whole lot of swimming against a tide of
"please don't fuck up, please don't fuck up, please don't fuck up"
and unanswered demands from those who want to know
who exactly I think I am
that I can get away with this
not doing everything I can
to do nothing
to not fuck up?--
So instead, what?
Stand still?
Pray the unexpected never happens?
Audition for the role of "anything but the role of too horrible too imagine"?
Imagine that somehow unburdens our mind of the knowledge that
no matter what we do
the rug
can
still
be
yanked out from under us
anytime, anyways?
Call me cocky, but
that's just not for me.
I will act.
I will decide.
I will move in a direction--any direction
and nevermind the distraction
of envious opinions and the power they think they hold over me.
I just can't bring myself to sacrifice my self assurance
for insurance
And yeah, I've been down under the weight of my own mistakes
more than served any good purpose.
And yeah, I learned that's something I want to avoid-but more than that
I learned I can live through it.
if I have to...
don't want to...
but I can...
if I have to.
and by I-I mean we...
just wish I could get the rest of we to understand that...
just wish we didn't try so hard to quarantine
the contagion of confidence.

[I don't evangelize as a general rule. But seriously lost my fucking cool at some small inconsequential FB political group I hadn't bothered to delete (because I had ignored basically since I joined)]

I don't evangelize as a general rule. But seriously lost my fucking cool at some small inconsequential FB political group I hadn't bothered to delete (because I had ignored basically since I joined)

Why: I mean other than daring to pop back in here and take a glance at the quality of "discussion"? Well here we go. You guys are still actually ceding points which is good. Minimal, but good. Elsewhere I followed a 60 comment thread that was started when someone posted a picture with factually inaccurate information ie: this picture was taken at this place at this time and is of these people. All of that information was false, it was shown to be false in the thread, and the next 60 posts (and 60 was just all I read) consisted of a gang fight over whether factual information was a matter of opinion. "You're not going to change my mind on this." "That doesn't change the fact that you're wrong." "I'm not wrong I just happen to think differently." By any standard definition that was mental illness. I only read 60 of the probably endless posts because I started crying and had to stop (true facts). It hurt me.

Slippery slope? Nope. Forgetting for a moment the ridiculous amounts of ad-hominem that happens in this group, there are specific examples: Actually, not going to get into the actual text because that would be calling people out, and that comes later with specific articles...you've been warned. The example I just read was I have position A but because of position B I'm forced to apply position C to this case. It was then demonstrated that position B was false and that point was ceded and that was GLORIOUS, because rational human beings are just that, GLORIOUS. Except that the statement that ceded position B then went on to say, but I still stand by my original position C because D. AAAAAAAAUGH! This will not stand. Okay, a little overblown. It's an unfortunately common thing we do and I'll get to the reasons of that but for now, lest I lose you in words before I can put an important question to all of you:
*****************************************************************
Each person in this group must ask themselves:
1. Would I rather be right, or would I rather be honest?
2. Is it better to hold my ground, or to be sane?
3. (caps here, cause it's big) DO I WANT TO WIN, OR DO I WANT TO SURVIVE?
******************************************************************

And that's not hyperbolic. Look deep, deep at the other side's biases for a minutes. See how completely irrational they appear? See how based on fear, or hatred or contempt, rather than reason, they seem to be? Could yours, without your biases, be just as over the top, or maybe moreso?

About me and why I'm saying this. I'm fully delusional/dissociative. It's a mental illness and I do suffer from it. What it means is that I hallucinate through all senses and often am unable to differentiate between what is hallucination and what is real. I understand what is happening because certain "familiar" hallucinations I experience by sense as real, but by reason I know them to be hallucinations. Think, a fully immersive simulator ride. All of your senses are telling you this is real, but you don't accept it as real because you rationally know it's a ride. I don't always know it's a ride. I am seeing many people here and everywhere taking many rides and fully ignorant of the fact that they are on a ride.

At this point in history, the amount of information we are taking in, while we have not looked at how we are taking it in has served one purpose and one purpose only--to make us more secure in our own beliefs. That's it. It hasn't opened us up to new information and new conclusions, it's just pulled us further and further into the dangerous, and yes, INSANE, notion that what we think defines reality and not the other way around. Now look around you. This is not pitching horse-shoes. This is not a football game where the Broncos should always win because every other team is evil THIS IS REAL LIFE. The decisions being made in the political arena are effecting all of us, directly, and things are not near as stable as they have been, and sooner or later, if the center of rationality and common interest keeps dissolving, we are going to come to arms, we are going to sink ourselves. You guys call each other jackasses and get frustrated that you're not being heard. I've been around this great big FB place (on the same journey that led me to the thread I cried about) and I saw hatred, deep seated, call to arms, hatred in an abundance. Knowing how easy it would be for me to give myself over to a belief that actually painted devils and created a need to go after them, it's real easy for me to spot it in others when I see it. It's not predisposition, either. I wasn't always here (not significantly more so than anybody else, anyways). I got here, by forcing it on myself to a certain extent. By taking the belief that what I think is reality and running it all the way down until it broke loose. I did it consciously, Everybody who I've read more than 10 posts by in this group is currently doing it unconsciously (and that's very few of you so don't get all uptight, sheesh). The prevalent trend in media and political discourse, is making it happen nationally by an overwhelming majority.

Let this sink in--we are all going insane...literally (well you all are, I'm already there...and it sucks)

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/we-demand-vapid-condescending-meaningless-politically-safe-response-petition/gCZfn86x

This is from the "We the People" section of whitehouse.gov.

If not familiar, it's a site where people are allowed to post petitions and if they pass a certain threshold they will receive an official response. Evidently some folks were a little dissatisfied with the quality of the responses thus the petition titled:

"We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition."

Since these petitions are ignored apart from an occasional patronizing and inane political statement amounting to nothing more than a condescending pat on the head, we the signers would enjoy having the illusion of success. Since no other outcome to this process seems possible, we demand that the White House immediately assign a junior staffer to compose a tame and vapid response to this petition, and never attempt to take any meaningful action on this or any other issue. We would also like a cookie.


It's about 12k signatures from passing the response threshold. This tickles me to no end.