Richard | Allen | Smith

Tim Brando is Wrong About Everything

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:58:00 -0600

There was a time when self-righteous segregationists just wanted to be left alone. If you wanted to integrate your schools, your churches, your bus stations, and your water fountains, that was fine. But those segregationists had a way of life and beliefs, some argued religions, which they had to preserve.

If you thought segregation was wrong, it wasn’t a moral stand. It was just a difference of opinion. And we can all be civil and still have differing opinions, right?

But something becomes more than just an opinion when your opinion hurts someone. It becomes an atrocity when it hurts an entire prominent segment of society.

Somewhere between the original social construction of racism and contemporary American society, racism ceased to be a “difference of opinion”. We realized it was incorrect. It doesn’t matter how you were raised. It doesn’t matter what you think your religion commands. If you dislike someone solely because of his or her ethnicity, you don’t just have a difference of opinion. You are wrong.

Today, Jason Collins became the first active player in a major American male team sport (there’s another piece to be written about all those qualifiers and the gender role implications of what we consider “sports”) to openly acknowledge that he is gay. Good for Jason Collins, good for the NBA and good for the gay athletes of all ages who now don’t have to be the first to brave those waters.

Enter CBS Sports personality Tim Brando:

.@callmeg_unit Simple Being a a Christian White male over 50 that’s raised a family means nothing in today’s culture. The sad truth. Period.

— Tim Brando (@TimBrando)

April 29, 2013

Brando’s comments are in response to Jason Collins being called a “hero”. Brando disagrees.

Two points for Tim, who retweets a follower including “veterans” and “single parents” on a list of people who are, according to the tweeter, “heroes”.

I’m both of those things, and Jason Collins is far more of a hero than me. Jason’s article in Sports Illustrated made life a little bit easier for thousands, if not more, of athletes who exist in a culture that has been hesitant to embrace their identity. He’s chosen to be the first to run the gauntlet and brave the bigotry of people like Brando who will attack him for being nothing more than the person he was born as. He’s drawing rhetorical fire so that fellow gay athletes can maneuver. He is the first, and no other athlete will ever take the amount of criticism he will for living an honest life.

And to move beyond athletes, he has personified an example that is counter to the stereotype of a homosexual male. Gay children and adolescents now have a role model for gay masculinity that says “gay doesn’t have to be weak, gay doesn’t have to be effeminate.” Many adolescents will realize they can be fabulous or ferocious or both or neither or anything else they want to be without having to comply with the norms society has projected on their orientation. So yes. Jason Collins is a hero.

Second, Tim Brando, you are now Archie Bunker. You are a man living outside of your time. You don’t believe these things because you are a white, (I’m not sure with what being White has to do with morality, but that’s another conversation), male, Christian, over 50, or have a family. You believe these things because you are wrong.

Our social norms, thankfully, have moved beyond you. We now realize, as a society, that discrimination against gays for decades (or centuries) has been wrong and we must correct those mistakes for current and future generations.

If your Christianity tells you to be a bigot, you have the wrong kind of Christianity. If being over 50 tells you to hate gays, you’re doing old wrong. If being white makes you oppose who Jason Collins is as a person, you belong with plantation owners and men who stood in schoolhouse doors. If having a family makes you think any less of Jason Collins, you are a poor family man and I hope, for the sake of your children, they do not look to you as an example of anything more than what not to be.

Tim Brando has a choice. He can apologize and repent from his bigotry, or he can be the George Wallace of sports history. The overwhelming majority of our society awaits your decision, Tim.

TRUE.

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 15:53:42 -0600

TRUE.

#Operationgirlfriend will so work. I randomly followed you on Twitter (my little brother just joined the service, which accounts for the initial follow I think and we have overlap in Twitter community) and as a certified single woman™ I am totally charmed by the operation!

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:39:31 -0600

Happy to charm you :)

Spending my lunch break supporting people I love. #straightally...

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 09:53:25 -0600

Spending my lunch break supporting people I love. #straightally #noh8 #marriageequality

ainteasybeinggreen: Yup. Started a new meme today with Richard...

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:36:42 -0600

ainteasybeinggreen:

Yup. Started a new meme today with Richard Allen Smith. Jealous?

So this happened.

What up, Carnival Triumph…

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:13:39 -0600

What up, Carnival Triumph…

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 07:05:22 -0600

What up, Carnival Triumph…

Last thoughts for today

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 23:39:02 -0600

As someone who has lived a similar story to today’s events in Newtown, I’m spent. I can’t soapbox on Twitter of Facebook one more minute.

I can’t do any more tonight. I just want to curl up in a warm place and wait for a better day.

I’m thankful that I have a daughter in Kindergarten who is more than I deserve and brings me immeasurable amounts of happiness every day.

I’m grateful that I have friends that I don’t deserve who love me, even when I act like a jackass as I am wont to do, and did especially horribly this past weekend.

Let’s all love each other, and spend every day trying to be better people. Maybe if we do that enough, the world might just become a better place.

appealtoemulsion: When I got home tonight, I hugged my kids and...

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 23:10:10 -0600

appealtoemulsion:

When I got home tonight, I hugged my kids and I cried. Some parents didn’t get to do that tonight. Or ever again.

NBA: An Interesting Exercise

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 17:17:00 -0600

So this year I’ve purchased the NBA League Pass Broadband Choice package. For those not familiar, this lets you pick 5 times for whose seasons you will receive every game on PC or internet device that runs into your TV (XBox, Roku, etc.).

At first I was going to take the Nuggets, and four other teams like the Heat, Thunder, Clippers and someone else. But several NBA forums made a good point on this: those teams are already going to have a ton of nationally televised games, so you aren’t getting much for your buck.

So here is your challenge: Choose 4 teams (I’m still taking the Nuggets) who aren’t going to be nationally televised so often to make it not worth it, but will still be interesting to watch and follow through out the season. Also, consider that when you pick teams from the same division, you are doubling down on their games, and the same goes picking teams that are in the same division as those often on TV. For your convenience, I’ve pasted the number of nationally televised games for each team below (excluding NBATV games, because I don’t get that, and really this is just my con to get you guys to make this decision for me).

At first glance, Houston is the biggest no-brainer. They will be super interesting this year with Lin and Harden, and they’ve only got 2 national games. Other contenders are Minnesota, Atlanta, Utah, Indiana, Philly, & Memphis.

Kings 0

Rapters 0

Bobcats 0

Cavs 1

Wizards 1 (note: I live in the DC area, so I’ll get most of these)

Bucks 1

Hornets 2

Magic 2

Rockets 2

Pistons 2

Hawks 3

Suns 4

Timberwolves 5

Jazz 6

Pacers 7

76ers 7

Grizzlies 8

Warriors 8

Blazers 8

Nets 12

Nuggets 12 (note: this is my favorite team. I’m taking them. Deal with it.)

Spurs 16

Mavericks 17

Celtics 19

Bulls 19

Clippers 23

Lakers 24

Knicks 25

Heat 25

Thunder 25

We Should Get Rid of Presidential Debates.

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 18:24:00 -0600

By most accounts, the President didn’t just lose last night’s Presidential debate against Republican nominee Mitt Romney. To say he lost is like saying the Titanic sprung a leak, or calling the Pacific Ocean a puddle. President Obama was destroyed.

At least according to the criteria by which we evaluate debates in our contemporary political culture. And in saying that, I include myself in “we”. I repeatedly tweeted my thoughts on what I saw as Obama failing throughout the debate. But I’ve revisited those assessments after leaving them alone for 24 hours.

Why did Obama lose and Romney win? Or more precisely, why do talking heads and politicos feel that is the case? Romney spent the entire debate lying. I don’t mean exaggerating and arbitrarily extrapolating facts and figures. He lied. He said things that were directly contrary to other things he has said and has been consistently saying. Then, when called on it, he acted as if it were absurd to ever suggest that he has ever believed anything to the contrary. Anyone with literacy and an Internet connection can prove that Romney is not the warrior for the middle class that showed up in Denver last night.

And what of Obama? Despite being clearly thrown off his game by having to debate a candidate that was not the same Mitt Romney he had prepped for, the positions he articulated were truthful and balanced. Some things I didn’t agree with (his desire to continue reliance on fossil based energy, for example), but on every issue his plan was honest and a better one than was offered by his opponent.

So how are we, as a society, arriving at this conventional wisdom that Romney was the winner?

We think this because “debates” are no longer debates, but rather are auditions. And I don’t mean that figuratively. Romney didn’t win because he made you think he could be the best President. He made you believe he won because he acted Presidential. Or more accurately, he acted like the guy you’d like to vote for for President. His demeanor was calm, yet resolute. He seemed authoritative and decisive in the way he railroaded moderator Jim Lehrer.

In contrast, Obama seemed to be pleading with Lehrer for more time, like a petulant child. Romney won the battle to define Obama before Obama could define himself, and consequently the President spent the night defending his positions against Mitt’s description of them rather than telling the American people what he has done.

And Obama was right. But he didn’t do well at portraying the guy you want to vote for.

So last night, we didn’t watch two candidates trying to convince you they should be President. And, although I will be voting for Barack Obama and some will consider this self-serving, neither party nor our country are served well by that. Until we can have actual substantive debates where issues are discussed, the debates are only hurting our political culture and inhibiting our ability to select the leader of our country.

We should cancel Presidential debates until we have a system that judges who will be the best President, not who is really good at playing one on TV.

Farewell and Good Luck

Tue, 29 May 2012 09:30:00 -0600

In one capacity or another, I’ve been associated with VoteVets for half my adult life (the other half being spent on active duty in the United States Army). I’ve held positions from volunteer activist to National Vice Chairman. In many ways, the work we’ve done at VoteVets over the last five years has defined me as a person and my life as a Veteran. It’s allowed me to meet interesting people like cabinet secretaries, the President and former Presidents, members of Congress, and United States Senators. More important than any of those dignitaries, it’s allowed me to meet thousands of patriotic Veterans across the country I love and that I once pledged to defend with my life. It has been one of the most rewarding endeavors of my life. It is only after weeks of solemn internal deliberation and with the heaviest of hearts that I tell you that the time has come for me to depart my official role with an organization that has meant the world to me.

I treasure the time I have spent here. It has been rewarding and I have developed unbreakable relationships with remarkable people. It has been a better experience than I ever could have asked for. But nothing in life has an indeterminate expiration date. New opportunities arise and must be seized. In pursuing those opportunities, I will no longer have the pleasure of working along side our inspiring nationwide network of grassroots volunteers. And I will leave behind the team of people who I have been proud to not only call colleagues, but also friends.

When I first began in engaging in activism on behalf of Veterans, the things we have accomplished in the last five years seemed like distant pipe dreams. There have been many campaigns that VoteVets has participated in and/or spearheaded in that time, and I will always treasure the memories of those fights. There are no more U.S. troops in Iraq. Soon, inshallah, the same will be true of Afghanistan. Veterans by the tens of thousands are getting an education on the most generous G.I. Bill in our history. All Americans are free to serve their country regardless of who they love. Great public servants like Patrick Murphy and Joe Sestak have fought the good fight in the halls of Congress, and while they are no longer there, people like Gary Peters and Tim Walz carry our banner and the likes of Tammy Duckworth and Tulsi Gabbard will soon join their ranks.

We haven’t achieved the desired aim of every single endeavor, but we have fought honorably and rightly. And for that I am proud.

Before I drop off this net, there are a couple things I want to get off my chest. Politics is often a caustic profession, but one that can be intensely rewarding. More often than not, I have found it to be the latter. To succeed in this field, you have to have thick skin. People will say awful things about you, and you must allow those insults to roll of your back and keep your eyes on the objective.

I’ve never allowed any of the things that have been said or written about me to hurt. But the one thing I find truly offensive are attacks against my service and my patriotism. Being a father is the thing I am proudest of in my life. But immediately thereafter is having worn the uniform and flag of my country in combat. Its the reason I got involved in this arena, and the reason I still choke up during the Star Spangled Banner at sporting events. Everything I have ever done or said in this line of work, I have done so because I know in my heart that the issues we have worked on are in the best interests of Veterans and our national security. You can disagree with that assessment if you’d like. But to attack my patriotism and commitment to those who served is more disgusting than the shit I burned in Afghanistan.

Secondly, fuck war. War is the most awful and dreadful thing imaginable. I’m not naive enough to think it is not sometimes necessary. I am not, by any means, a pacifist. But we owe it to the men and women who will give their lives in the most terrible of enterprises, to their families, and to the families of civilians that will inevitably be killed, to make sure the conflict is worth it. If our leaders had kept this simple principle in mind in the early part of the last decade, my presence in this field would never have been necessary.

And with that I leave you. In 2003, I answered a call to serve my country in uniform. I learned the value of service in the following five years. And now, as my country calls me to serve again, this time in a suit and tie, I must answer in the affirmative. You’ll hear more from me. I’ll be working to develop innovative methods for our government to communicate with Veterans about their benefits. Once again, I thank VoteVets and everyone I’ve met along this wild ride for an experience I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.

A Brilliant Life Through Depression

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 12:49:17 -0600

My friend and colleague Aaron Krager courageously published this piece today about his struggles with depression. I feel for Aaron, and I hope with everything he finds a way to manage his illness. I’m not a qualified therapist, and I don’t pretend to have all or any of the answers. But I do have some knowledge about what Aaron is struggling with. And if Aaron is interested, this is the story I’d tell him.

I don’t want to violate anyone’s personal privacy, but it is sufficient to say that I have a family history of depression. I have witnessed its affects on a person and a family from an early age. And I myself have dealt with it. In the summer of 2008, I went from being a combat experienced noncommissioned officer in an elite airborne infantry battalion to unemployed overnight. At the same time, I was still working my way through acknowledging that, even though the majority of comrades I served with likely suffer far worse, I was/am afflicted with PTSD. A year after that, I was also divorced.

What followed was one of the darkest and most confused periods of my life. Luckily, I immersed myself in academics so that I had something to concentrate on other than my only unraveling sanity. Having a toddler to take care of certainly helped as well. And while I probably owe the fact that I finished a BA in two and a half years to that struggle, it wasn’t all pretty. I drank a lot. I gained close to forty pounds. I did things I’m not proud of. I thought about things that aren’t pleasant. I cringe thinking back at some of the things I said and did.

I don’t know what triggered it, but one day that cloud was gone.

I love to tell stories. I’ve tried to live my life in a way that when I become an old man, I will have a wealth of interesting stories to tell. One day, I realized there are so many beautiful and amazing things in this world that I haven’t see yet. There are enough amazing things I haven’t seen within ten miles of anywhere I happen to be to occupy the rest of my life, not to mention all the beautiful things in distant places. I’m not fixed. There are still bad days, bad weeks, and a bad month her and there. But through therapy and valuable personal relationships, I’m able to move on a little more each day.

So, Aaron, I know this probably won’t help right now. I’m sure these are things you know intellectually but when you fight an illness like this you can’t force yourself to internalize them. But, Aaron, in spite of your less than pleasant experiences, in spite of what you are dealing with now, in spite of all the terrible, dirty, scummy problems we discuss and think about everyday, this world is beautiful. Life is beautiful. Living is beautiful and amazing and wonderful even with all of the bullshit that comes along with it. And you are a person with beautiful, existential value, and there are many wonderful things that people will see through you that they will be deprived of if we are ever without you.

I know it sucks. I know it probably really sucks. And even when it no longer sucks all the time, there will still be days when it sucks. But maintain your strength. There is so much beauty on the other side.

A Resolution

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:30:33 -0600

Every year, I make a habit of taking on a New Years Resolution. I’m happy to say I’ve accomplished pretty much every resolution I’ve made since I began the tradition in my pre-teen years. They’ve ranged from the specific (2011’s, “lose weight”) to the grandiose (stop being miserable, one from a particularly dark period several years ago). Sometime’s my resolutions have been achieved with diligent work. Some have come via good fortune. I have my eyes set on a few different resolutions for 2012. The one I want to write about today definitely falls into the “will require diligent work” category.

2011 was a year of changes. I moved across the country and lived outside of the South for the first time in any period that I have resided stateside. I made some great new friends, started one new job and took on exponentially greater responsibilities in another. I also encountered a struggle in an area of my life that had, in the past, remained rather prolific.

There are few things in the world that bring me greater joy than the written word. I’ve always said that I write not because I desire to write, but because I can’t not write. Ideas seep into your brain. They swirl around. They consume your every thought, every action until you have no choice but to pick up a pen or sit in front of a keyboard and set them free. In the past, such an emotion has led to many late nights. It has sent me click-clacking on a computer with unparalleled fury, leaving words on my screen with little forethought that resulted in some of the work of which I am most proud.

Put something happened in 2012. Suddenly, I was able to not write. My online work became more and more infrequent, and consisted of little more than a link, a quote, and a couple sentences of snarky “analysis”. What I did write was not of the quality I had previously demanded of myself Good writing can affect people in many ways. One of my many joys has been in attempting to affect our discussions over impactful public policy. I feel that, to some small degree, I’ve done that.

But I’ve grown more cynical. This doesn’t apply solely to the last year, but it seems to have come to a head. I still hold fast to my ideals. I remain on unabashed liberal, and a believer in electoral democracy and our political system (for all its faults and corruptions). But that cynicism aided, and in some cases amplified, by a number of factors (new responsibilities, unresponsive leaders, my own general lack of motivation) has made my contributions of far less consequence.

So in 2012, I will resolve to write more. I will write with greater passion, in the way I wrote in previous years. I will write in greater volume when the ideas demand it, and I will write in greater volume when they do not if for no other reason than to get the bad writing out of my system. I will not set specific metrics, other than to write more than I have in the past year. Setting a goal beyond my earlier joy for the medium is unnecessary.

I may affect our policy discussion. I may not. That isn’t my concern yet. What I will do is reclaim the joyfully urgent endeavor that has brought my so much pleasure in the past.

Think Baseball Was Nuts Tonight? Consider This.

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 23:07:13 -0600

How is this for some eerie trivia:

The curse of the Bambino of course originates with the sale of Babe Ruth from the New York Yankees to the Boston Red Sox. But Ruth first played professional baseball for the Baltimore Orioles (who eliminated the Red Sox from Wild Card contention tonight) and last played professionally for the Atlanta Braves (who lost the NL Wild Card to the St. Louis Cardinals tonight). In 1926, the St. Louis Cardinals (who clinched the NL Wild Card with a win tonight) won their first World Series as a result of a two outs, bottom of the ninth base-running error committed by the Yankees’ Babe Ruth. In 1934, Babe Ruth played his last game in Philadelphia (home of the Philadelphia Phillies who beat the Braves tonight ending their hopes of post-season play). After retiring, Babe Ruth moved to his winter home in the Tampa Bay area (home of the Tampa Bay Rays, who eliminated the Red Sox from wild card contention by beating the Yankees tonight).

Carrying the Burden

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:34:00 -0600

I don’t know how long the term “PTSD” has been around, but for however long that has been, I think the term has been inaccurate. If you spend several months away from your family in a foreign, third world country, spend every day living somewhere on a sliding scale of fear, knowing anyone that isn’t wearing the same clothes as you might be trying to kill you, actually experiencing what it’s like to have someone try to kill you, seeing what happens to people when they try to kill each other, if you spend, 6, 9, 12 or in my case 14, months living that way and don’t come back altered in some way, that’s a disorder. Post-traumatic stress is the natural reaction.

I still remember the first moment I realized I wasn’t the same. It was a couple days before the Fourth of July, 2008. I had just gotten back from Afghanistan the previous April and was staying with my ex-wife’s cousin in North Alabama while we were house hunting. My ex-wife heard something outside and asked me to go check it out. I walked to the door, opened it and looked around. I couldn’t see anyone and assumed it had been an animal or something. Then, across the street one of the neighbors fired off a roman candle or a bottle rocket or some other thing that made a noise that sounded exactly like a rocket propelled grenade. Reflexively, I half ran, half dove back into the house, ending up beneath a table ten feet or so from the front door. I got up and didn’t think anything else of it.

Similar moments have happened intermittently ever since. A balloon pops at a birthday party. Fireworks unexpectedly exploding nearby. It was fireworks before a political event later that summer of 2008 that made me finally admit to myself that I wasn’t the same. I had been waiting to get in with several friends when the fireworks were unexpectedly tested. All of my friends were Vets. When the pyrotechnics fired, everyone else in line looked up and released a chorus of “oooohs!” and “aaaahhhs!” Not us. We all moved towards cover with our hands over our heads, similar to what I had done a few weeks before in the entry way in Alabama. It’s never a “flashback” type experience as its often-portrayed in movies. It’s far more ingrained than that. You know exactly where you are, but the movements are completely involuntary.

When talking about PTSD later that night with friends that have been more afflicted than I, they asked what reaction I had to the fireworks. I said same as them. “Then you have PTSD”.

I doubted my affliction for a while because I didn’t see much in combat in the way of events you generally associate with PTSD. I saw enough to say I saw some, but not much more. Lord knows most of the guys in my unit saw a lot more. But I’ve come to realize that apart from the physical reactions, like jumping under things when I hear loud noises, are because of that, not in spite of it.

I feel guilty. I carry with me the guys who we lost. I carry the thought that I should have been out there with them. I don’t have a “it should have been me” mentality. I just regret doing so little while others gave everything.

I get by far better than a lot of my friends who have had serious problems. Avoiding county fairs and other places where balloons and fireworks are going to be popping isn’t a bad deal in the grand scheme of things. Surely, I have other problems. It’s extremely difficult for me to form attachments with people, to allow someone to become more than just an acquaintance. It’s not that I don’t want to let people in. Its just become extremely rare for me to have a reaction to anyone that is more than what’d you’d have for an office acquaintance. I don’t know how to “fix” it. So if you’ve managed to be one of those people, consider yourself lucky.

And then there are some nights when all the guilt hits me hard. It’s always triggered by something. For example, when photojournalist Tim Hetherington, who co-directed the documentary Restrepo about a platoon in the Korengal Valley of Afghanistan, was killed in Libya several weeks ago, that was a bad night. When there was a shooting at my school last February, that was a bad few nights. I get depressed. Sometimes the trigger is just being depressed about something else. I generally don’t do anything self-destructive like drink to oblivion. I just sit around by myself and think. The thinking never helps.

This doesn’t happen often. Maybe a few times a year since I got back. 99.9% of my nights are fine, but the tough nights aren’t fun.

I’m not a mental health professional, so I’m not sure how healthy this is, but the more I think about my post-traumatic stress, the more I come to the realization that I don’t want to get “better”. I feel like I owe it to the guys we lost to continue carrying their names, their circumstances and my guilt. If I let it go, it’s as if I’m failing to acknowledge their sacrifice. And so that’s what I do.

Today is PTSD Awareness Day. I’ve been trying to think of what to write on the subject all day and decided to just tell my story. I don’t know that it will help anyone, or if anyone will be interested, or if those I know will be uncomfortable from reading about the wound that they don’t see and probably don’t know much about my struggle with. But it’s the burden I carry everyday, that I don’t want to get “better”, and if nothing else I’ve humped it a little further down the trail today.

Why Do People Think Conservatives are Extremist Bigots?

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:02:14 -0600

On the rare occasion that I have the misfortune of discussing politics with a conservative, they always react with feigned outrage when I make a reference to conservatives being bigots. Now, I won’t argue that all self-identified conservatives subscribe to some form of bigotry, even though conservative policies have disproportionate negative affects on minorities. But the fact is, the rare level headed conservative must realize that when you claim to subscribe to a certain ideology, you are associating yourself with the leadership of that ideology and the positions of that leadership. And in the case of conservatism, the leadership of that movement is composed nearly exclusively of radical bigots.

To illustrate my point, I need only point to tonight’s GOP Presidential primary debate. Without exception, every candidate that will appear on the stage tonight has a history of extremist bigotry. Let’s take a look:

Ron Paul:

“Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action. Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,’ I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal (W)e are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers. We don’t think a child of 13 should be held responsible as a man of 23. That’s true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult and should be treated as such.”

Newt Gingrich:

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

“The American people believe English should be the official language of the government… . We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,” Gingrich said, drawing cheers from the crowd of more than 100.

Michele Bachmann:

One comment she has never explained came during a debate she had while running for Congress the first time in November 2005. Prompted by a question on the rioting in France and Europe at the time, Bachmann said “not all cultures are equal, not all values are equal,” letting it be known that she thought that people of the Muslim faith had an inferior culture to that of the United States and the West.

Herman Cain:

Cain’s comments came in response to a question from a reporter for liberal-leaning Think Progress about potentially appointing a Muslim in a Cain administration. “No, I will not,” Cain responded. “And here’s why. There is this creeping attempt, there is this attempt to gradually ease Sharia law and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government. This is what happened in Europe. And little by little, to try and be politically correct, they made this little change, they made this little change. And now they’ve got a social problem that they don’t know what to do with hardly.”

Tim Pawlenty:

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (yes, him again! sorry, Minnesotans), in a little chat with reporters this week, described why he feels immigration enforcement is so necessary: “It’s analogous in some ways to what was happening in New York not long ago. If you allow people to pee on the sidewalks, next they’re snatching purses.”

Mitt Romney:

I asked Mr. Romney whether he would consider including qualified Americans of the Islamic faith in his cabinet as advisers on national security matters, given his position that “jihadism” is the principal foreign policy threat facing America today. He answered, “…based on the numbers of American Muslims [as a percentage] in our population, I cannot see that a cabinet position would be justified. But of course, I would imagine that Muslims could serve at lower levels of my administration.”

And of course, the GOP field’s Grand Poobah of bigotry, Rick Santorum:

Marriage is an institution that’s a bridge too far for too many African-American woman and is not desirable among African-American males.

If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.

[On senior military officers acknowledging that allowing gays to serve openly would be good for the armed forces]: I’m not too sure that we haven’t indoctrinated the Officer Corps in this country that they can actually see straight to make the right decisions.

The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness“

The Islamization of Europe that is already on the way and will visit these shores not too soon is a concern for us and something that we need to identify and we need to talk about and we need to fight with every ounce of our being“

If you find these comments distasteful, maybe you should question why you subscribe to an ideology that is led by outright bigots. If you don’t maybe you should take a moment for introspection to determine whether you are actually a bigot.

Grilling on the roof. (Taken with Instagram at City of Denver)

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:30:50 -0600

Grilling on the roof. (Taken with Instagram at City of Denver)

The Southern Diaspora: The Soundtrack

Sun, 06 Mar 2011 13:26:46 -0600

I spent last night drinkin’ with a good ol’ boy I’ve met here in Denver. We talked for hours about the Southern Diaspora (I should really copyright that term) and our feelings of overwhelming love for our homeland combined with our reservations about some of its history, and even some of its present. My friend directed me to this song, which describes to me perfectly the feelings I’ve been writing about. I think if there is going to be a Diasporic National Anthem, this is an outstanding candidate. It could be my autobiography.

Reconciling the Southern Diaspora.

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 21:27:00 -0600

I spent most of the first 20 years of my life running from my heritage. It isn’t like my ancestors were Nazis or members of a cult or anything. They were Southern, and so was I. I saw anything touched by Southernism as ignorant and uncouth. So I rebelled. I deliberately worked the drawl out of my voice. I tried to be as punk as a kid from a small backwoods Florida town knew how to be. I decided to hate guns, trucks and gravy. And I left. When I was 18 I joined the Army and left the South and thought I’d never have to deal with it again.

Then, I left the Army and by a bizarre twist of fate ended up in Alabama in a town less than an hour from where my Dad graduated high school. And somehow, I came to realize that maybe being a Southerner wasn’t such a bad thing. My drawl worked its way back in to my voice (though not near as thick as it once was). I got a taste for cowboy boots. I realized that perhaps no one was as punk as Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. And I made my peace with my homeland. But after not even three years, employment once again drew me away and I left for the mountain west vowing to return as soon as possible.

But then in the short time I’ve been away, things like this and this happen and apart from the bare minimum of sane citizens who aren’t afraid to speak out, there is no outcry.

There are a lot of things I love about the South. Plenty more than there are things that are repellent. But I wonder of the atrocities that provoke little if any outrage are so egregious that they overwhelm the things that are dear to my heart. And they make me question if I can ever choose to return.