Suburban Guerrilla

Every now and then I get the feeling that voters will be smart enough to kick out many of the repulsive wing nuts they elected in 2010. This guy, for example:

Though he never joined the military himself, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) disparaged his Democratic opponent’s military service at a town hall on Sunday, saying that she’s not a “true hero.”

Walsh is running against Tammy Duckworth, a double amputee who lost both her legs in Iraq when insurgents hit her helicopter with an RPG in 2004.

The Tea Party freshman opened the Elk Grove town hall by arguing that Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was reluctant to discuss his own military service in 2008, which made him a “noble hero.” By contrast, “Now I’m running against a woman who, my God, that’s all she talks about,” Walsh said…

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This piece from Common Dreams is news of a sort, but few environmentally conscious citizens will be surprised by it:

… Everyone knows that we are facing an unprecedented environmental crisis– right?

Wrong. This news seems never to have gotten to America’s Republican legislators. In the face of these huge and escalating threats, the GOP majority over the last year has voted no fewer than 247 times (nearly once a day for every day the House was in session) to weaken environmental protections that have been in place for decades and to defeat needed legislation.

This according to a report released on Monday by Representatives Henry Waxman, a member the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and Edward Markey a member of the Committee on Natural Resources. They have called the 112th Congress the most anti-environment ever…

Common Dreams is a fine organization, but the blandly satirical tone of the piece is annoying. It’s not as if the current crop of wing-nut Republicans hasn’t heard the “news” regarding climate change, threats to fresh water and food supplies, and so on. For a variety of reasons, they simply don’t care.

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The International Keystone Knights of the KKK in Union County, GA had their application to the Georgia “Adopt a Mile” program denied. Keith Golden of the Georgia Department of transportation said in a letter to April Chambers, a member of the group, stating “The impact of erecting a sign naming an organization which has a long-rooted history of civil disturbance would cause a significant public concern.”

The application, submitted by the group on May 21^st, proposed adopting a stretch of Highway 515 in the North Georgia Mountains. The county seat, Blairsville and a town nearby, Blue Ridge, are in popular resort areas in the state.

The Georgia DOT stated that the program is for “civic minded groups.” Georgia State Rep. Tyrone Brooks (D – Atlanta) agrees:

“It’s a terrorist organization. This is the right decision, and I commend the Department of Transportation for reaching a decision in due speed.”

The group has now turned to the American Civil Liberties Union for assistance.

“We are considering next steps and whether or not we will support the group,” said Debbie Seagraves, executive director for the ACLU of Georgia.

“We know this is unpopular,” she admits, but if her organization helps the International Keystone Knights of the KKK, it is not because it agrees with their beliefs. It will be based on legal precedent and a legal view of whether the KKK’s freedom of speech has been violated.

Harley Hanson, a member of the group, had this to say regarding litigation:

“If this does go into a litigation situation, the state really cannot afford to be wasting the money on something based on somebody else’s beliefs”

There have been other similar cases in Missouri, Delaware and California.

In 2008, the California Department of Transportation was forced to pay a $157,500 legal settlement relating to a lawsuit by the San Diego Minutemen, an anti-illegal immigration group. According to the Orange County Register, the group had adopted a piece of a highway near a Border Patrol checkpoint. Immigrant groups were angered, and state officials moved the Minutemen’s stretch of highway to another, more remote location. The group sued, arguing that its freedom of speech was violated.

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What a funny guy that Republican candidate for the presidency is:

…Phillip Maxwell, a prep school buddy, told the New Republic in 2008 that Romney had pulled over students from a girls school next door to Cranbrook while wearing a police uniform as a prank…

In The Real Romney, a biography published by Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman this year, another former friend recalled how [Mitt] Romney had “put a siren on top of his car and chased two of his friends who were driving around with their dates.” The two friends were in on the scheme, but the girls were not. There was beer in the car trunk, according to a prearranged plan. Mitt told his two counterparts to get out of their vehicle and into his car. Then they drove off, leaving the girls behind.

“It was a terrible thing to do,” said one of his accomplices, a Cranbrook classmate named Graham McDonald…

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Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, who represents my old district back when I lived in the Hellmouth. This is a guy who, as bad as most Republicans are, excels at the money grab. He should have a tattoo on his chest that says “Ask Me What It Takes To Get My Vote.”

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Nestled in the Northwest Georgia Mountains in the city of Rome is Shorter University. Shorter University is a small Baptist Institution with a big problem.

Close to 60 of its faculty will not renew their contracts for new school year. The school has about 100 full time faculty members.

This is due to the requirement to sign a “Personal Lifestyle Statement.”

Here is part of the statement:

 I agree to adhere to and support the following principles (on or off the campus):

1. I will be loyal to the mission of Shorter University as a Christ-centered institution affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention.

2. I will not engage in the use, sale, possession, or production of illegal drugs.

3. I reject as acceptable all sexual activity not in agreement with the Bible, including, but not limited to, premarital sex, adultery, and homosexuality.

4. I will not use alcoholic beverages in the presence of students, and I will abstain from serving, from using, and from advocating the use of alcoholic beverages in public (e.g. in locations that are open to use by the general public, including as some examples restaurants, concert venues, stadiums, and sports facilities) and in settings in which students are present or are likely to be present. I will not attend any University sponsored event in which I have consumed alcohol within the last six hours. Neither will I promote or encourage the use of alcohol.

The University is practically decimated. Four out of seven deans will not be returning. The School of Professional Programs (remote learning for non traditional students) is the largest tuition draw, has lost a sizable portion of its students and 20% of its faculty. The College of Nursing has lost all but 2 inexperienced faculty members. The faculty that left is developing a new nursing program at nearby Berry College. Music and Theater has historically been a big draw to the undergraduate program at Shorter and they will lose 12 out of 20 faculty members. A tenured librarian of 14 years has also turned in his resignation.

Inside Higher Ed has an article giving some background:

In 2002, Shorter’s board of trustees voted to break away from the Georgia Baptist Convention after a dispute about who would appoint the college’s board. In the past, the state convention had chosen from a list of candidates approved by the college; beginning in 2001, it began to put its own board members forward.

The state convention fought the move, and the case went to the state Supreme Court, which ruled in 2005 which ruled the college did not have authority to sever ties with the church on its own……

Another Georgia Baptist college, Mercer University, provides a view of an alternate path, had Shorter won at the state supreme court.

When Shorter sought independence from the Baptist convention, it used Mercer as a model: at the time, the college’s charter limited the convention’s control over the board of trustees. In 2006, not long after Shorter lost its court case, the convention cut ties with Mercer entirely, the result of a dispute about both institutional control and the rights of gay student groups.

Unlike Shorter, that separation stuck. Thus, five years later, a few days after Shorter announced its new faith statements, Mercer announced an employment policy change of its own: the Baptist university is now extending health insurance and other benefits to employees’ same-sex partners.

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Sara Robinson of Alternet had a good idea for a Mothers Day column, but she got carried away and ended up arguing that the Randian conservatism is, more than anything else, anti-feminist. More here.

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It’s pure pulp, but library officials in three states have elevated the trilogy by E.L. James to banned-book status, a category that has included Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer:

Public libraries in several states are pulling the racy romance trilogy “Fifty Shades of Grey” from shelves or deciding not to order the best-seller at all, saying it’s too steamy or too poorly written.

Even in the age of e-books and tablets, banning a book from a public library still carries weight because libraries still play such a vital role in providing people access to books.

“When a book is removed from the shelf, folks who can’t afford a Nook or a Kindle, the book is no longer available to them,” said Deborah Caldwell Stone, the deputy director of the American Library Association’s office for intellectual freedom.

“Fifty Shades of Grey,” a novel about bondage, wild sex and yes, love, has been called “mommy porn” because of its popularity among middle-aged women. It has become so well-known that “Saturday Night Live” performed a skit about it, joking that a Kindle with “Fifty Shades” uploaded on it was the perfect Mother’s Day gift.

This week, the steamy books hold the top three spots on the New York Times best-seller list.

Libraries in Wisconsin, Georgia and Florida have all either declined to order the book or pulled it from shelves. Other states may soon follow.

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Former Ambassador to the UN and U.S. Sen. John Danforth (R-MO), in 2010: “If [Indiana Republican Senator] Dick Lugar, having served five terms in the U.S. Senate and being the most respected person in the Senate and the leading authority on foreign policy, is seriously challenged by anybody in the Republican Party, we have gone so far overboard that we are beyond redemption.”

On Wednesday, Lugar lost his bid for re-nomination in Indiana by a wide margin to an extreme right-winger. There you have it.

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