NOT GOOD AT ALL, NOPD

New Orleans — “Ann” said she was walking to a friend’s house on Tulane Avenue in September when a New Orleans police officer stopped her for no real reason and asked for her identification. By the end of their interaction, she was in handcuffs, booked with crimes against nature and verbally abused by a local judge. “Ann” said her only crime was being a young, black transgender girl.

Like others, she was too afraid to tell her story in public or use her real name. Instead, a friend read her testimony before the City Council’s Criminal Justice Committee on Wednesday. Her presentation was one of several the committee heard — directly or indirectly — from members of the local lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning community.

If this is how the NOPD officers spend (waste) their time in the murder capital of the country, then their priorities are in serious disarray.  No wonder the department will be under a years-long consent decree order by the US Department of Justice due to "a history of discriminatory policing on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual status."

New Orleans has always been a city of great diversity, and it is unconscionable that the department is guilty of discriminatory behavior in its approach to policing in a city in so great need of a well-functioning police department that treats all citizens fairly.  And for heaven's sake, the police should concentrate their efforts on finding the murderers and perpetrators of violence who make living in certain areas of the city like living in a war zone.

Kudos to Wes Ware, director of BreakOut, "an organization that seeks to end what it calls the criminalization of LGBTQ youth in New Orleans" and the members of the organization and to the Justice Department for their efforts to bring about fair and equal treatment by NOPD of all the citizens of New Orleans.  

IS IT THAT TIME OF THE YEAR ALREADY?

 

 

HA HA HA - PRICELESS

 

Don't blame me. Blame Doug.

OH NO! ME AND MY SECRETS IN WIKIPEDIA?

 

That dear man Josh Thomas thinks I belong in Wikipedia as a notable person in the entry on Thibodaux, Louisiana, and wrote a post to that effect.  I'm flattered and honored beyond expression, but unfortunately (and unintentionally, I'm sure), he has revealed secrets that I'd rather not have called to public attention.

Truly, the post is clever and hilarious.  Here's a snippet:

Ten years ago she accepted the offer of a free, all-expenses-paid vacation at a palace in the American Southwest, where she rode around in limousines and ate like a queen – despite knowing that her hosts were charter members of the International Gay Cabal (known to the CIA as the “Gay Agendists”). These subversives succeeded in beginning her conversion to warped ways.

Experienced spies will tell you that everyone can be seduced to The Other Side. For some it’s sex, and for all we know that may have been part of her downfall. But for others, “the love of money is the root of all evil.” Those Gay tempters must have taken her to the top of a mountain and shown her, “All this can be yours!”

She signed right on the spot, happily entering a life of sordid degradation.

As you read, keep in mind that Josh Thomas runs the excellent prayer site The Daily Office West, which I use nearly every day.   Contradictions abound in the person of Josh. :-)  I give him great credit for using flattering pictures of me in his post.  The picture above is one of my favorites, taken by that big cuddly bear, Paul Strid, when we had lunch and a stroll around the French Quarter in New Orleans.  Paul's account of our meeting is at his blog Byzigenous Buddhapalian.

WEEKLY REMINDER

 

Yes, Bobby Jindal said "Obamneycare" in a slip of the tongue.

The picture also serves as a reminder that people will lose their health care coverage if Mitt Romney is elected president.

IN MEMORY OF JONATHAN'S GLENNA

 

(June Butler 10-24-2012)

Jonathan blogs as MadPriest.

WAXING GIBBOUS MOON

The picture shows the moon as it looked when I walked tonight.

Waxing gibbous moon
The words themselves a poem
Turning full moon soon

A repost which I use from time to time when the gibbous moon shines in the night sky.

HE WHO MUST NOT BE NAMED

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it passing strange that the name of the most recent Republican occupant of the Oval Office is never mentioned by the members of his own party, not even in whispers?  Republicans reach back to Ronald Reagan and even as far back as Abraham Lincoln, but George W Bush has been effectively airbrushed out of Republican history.  W has not been seen nor heard from during the campaign, nor at the convention.  Which Republican candidate for public office trumpets an endorsement from George W Bush?  He's the invisible man.  Come to think of it, the Republicans are silent about W's father, George H W Bush as well.  It's as though the two presidencies never happened.  And that's not to speak of Richard Nixon, whose presidency never happened, either. 

Democrats have not forgotten W and often speak of the wars, the deficit, the tax cuts for the rich, and the economy in deep recession, on the brink of a depression, that he bequeathed to the country and to the president who came after.  How ironic that Republicans blame Obama for the last 12 years with nary a mention of George W Bush.  As Democrats say, the election of Romney would take us back to W's policies, but "on steroids". 

THE WALL

A funeral service is held for a woman who just passed away.  As the pallbearers carry the casket out, they accidentally bump into a wall.

They hear a faint moan.  They open the casket and find that the woman is actually alive.

She lives for ten more years and then dies.

They have another funeral for her.  At the end of the service, the pallbearers carry out the casket.

As they are leaving, the husband cries out, "Watch out for that wall!"


Cheers,

Paul (A.)

Odds are the husband was a Republican.

NO ISOLATED INCIDENTS

Rep Todd Akin (R - MO)

Asked why he doesn’t support abortion in most cases of rape, he responded, "From what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume maybe that didn't work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist."

Richard Murdock (Candidate for Senate - R- IN)

During last night’s Indiana Senate debate, Republican candidate Richard Mourdock went too far when he said, “…even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”

Rep Joe Walsh (R - IL)

Abortion bans don’t need exceptions for the life of the mother because of “modern technology and science,” Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) said Thursday.

“With modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance” of an abortion necessary to save the life of the mother, Walsh said after a debate with Tammy Duckworth, his Democratic opponent....  “… There is no such exception as life of the mother, and as far as health of the mother, same thing.”

Add Paul Ryan's personhood bill to amend the US Constitution: "To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization.",  Romney's all-over-the-map-but-he's-against-abortion statements, and anti-women shenanigans and misstatements of biology I have left out, and what you have are not isolated incidents but proposed policies that are part and parcel of the Republican Party.  If you don't believe me, look at their platform, pages 13 and 14.  Republicans, all of you, you own these men and the anti-women policies.  They're yours.