One Utah

So it’s New Year’s Eve. Most people are either celebrating, looking back on the year past and looking forward to the coming year.
I’m watching - for the first time in quite a while - the 1972 film What’s Up Doc? In the tradition of the screwball comedy of the 30s, it takes a [...]

HT to Pam’s House Blend.
The Boy Scouts of America, specifically their San Diego chapter, are spewing more bullshit about their right to use public property and discriminate against members of the public.
A few years ago, the Boy Scouts of America went to great lengths to convince the Supreme Court that allowing atheists and gay people [...]

Courtesy of UNICEF (via Amanda at pandagon).
It doesn’t get any clearer than this:
World leaders know that human development is stunted by entrenched discrimination and injustice. Yet although 27 years have elapsed since CEDAW was adopted – and despite the fact that the convention has received 184 ratifications, accessions and successions by States parties – millions [...]

My first grandson entered the world on Sunday. I’m elated…..and worried at the same time. Elated over this new chapter in our lives, and worried because of the color of his skin. He is half peruvian (indigenous) and about 12% Portugese, with other stuff mixed in. He has a “brown” [...]

The Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) decided to celebrate Christmas early last Tuesday, with the biggest-ever roundup of illegal immigrants. ICE staged six raids of meat packing plants owned by Swift & Company in Nebraska, Texas, Minnesota, Iowa and Hyrum, Utah. The arrests totaled 1,282, with 145 workers arrested [...]

I recently returned from military service in Iraq. One of the greatest lessons my wife teaches others from her experience in my absence is that she would not wish single motherhood on anyone.
Let alone a 14-year old.
In the news recently was the story of a young mother and her son from southern Utah. [...]

Starbucks workers need your help to continue organizing a union with the Industrial Workers of the World. With members at seven Starbucks locations and growing, the IWW baristas are proving that workers at large multinational retailers can gain an independent voice on the job. However, we can’t do it alone. The coffee giant [...]

Something of a theme this week (and it’s only Tuesday). Today’s Tribune published this op-ed today about the price paid by individuals and society for intolerance of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons.  I was struck by two passages in particular:
The root of the problem is in our denial that gays and lesbians are as worthy [...]

In both book and blog, Bill Scher advises Democrats to fight back. Never surrender the point to conservatives; don’t buy into the conservative premise, don’t concede the argument. Rephrasing his consistent theme, I’d say it this: if you don’t fight back, conservatives win by default; fight back and chances are you’ll win the [...]

I’m not a lawyer- that’s Ed Firmage’s territory – so I may be completely wrong.  But, I think Griswold v. Connecticut is a more important decision than Roe v. Wade.
In Griswold, the Supreme Court held that citizens have a right to privacy.  Griswold was the basis for Roe and Lawrence (striking down state sodomy laws).  [...]

Bill Scher is one of my favorite bloggers – his site www.liberaloasis.com - is consistently one of the best, most insightful around. LO follows a consistent pattern that I appreciate – it combines Lakoffian framing with hard-headed policy and refusal to knuckle under to Conservative bullies.
So, I’ve been waiting to get time to dig into [...]

Historical memory is both individual and community based.  Historical memory is nothing more than knowing where we as a community come from, what we’ve done before, what we’ve learned from that doing.  Historical memory is also personal – the story of our families and how they fit into history.
My great aunts – Effie, Alice and [...]