According to a recent Pew poll, the number of things that Americans say are necessities has grown.Some of these goods, such as home computers, are relatively recent information era innovations that have been rapidly transformed in the public's eyes from luxury toward necessity.So, the Q of the day -- what do you consider essentials and luxuries?But other items - such as microwave ovens, dishwashers, air conditioning for the home and car, and clothes dryers - have also made substantial leaps in the past decade even though they've been fixtures on the consumer landscape for far longer.
Just based on the items in the graph, I'd have to say...
Essential
1. Car: If I lived in an area with a good mass transit system like NYC, I could cross this off my list, but I don't.
2. A/C: This is a contentious one for many, however, here in NC it gets hot as hell with 99% humidity in the summer. I have yet to experience a fan that can cool off a room once you've had 90+ degree weather for several days in a row. It's sheer misery (and can be deadly). I lived without A/C in NYC, and it can be pretty bad in the heat of a city summer, but it doesn't last as long as the onerous heat waves down here. I do, however, prefer opening the windows to get fresh air most of the year until it is intolerable (hot or cold).
3. Washer/dryer: I've done the laundromat thing back in the day. It sucks.
4. High speed Internet/Computer: Obviously I don't need either of these to survive, but I certainly wouldn't thrive as it's my main conduit to the outside world, not to mention my "second job" as blogmistress.
5. TV: I watch less and less of the idiot box, actually. Mostly for cable news in the AM or evening, L&O: SVU, an occasional movie. That's about it.
Luxury
1. Cell phone: I really don't spend time on the phone. I rarely text. I only use it for emergencies, quite frankly, or as a PDA (my calendar is on it). I think my cell got it's biggest workout when I was covering the DNC in Denver.
2. Microwave: another device I use sparingly, mostly to boil water for a cup of tea.
3. Dishwasher: this is a nice thing to have, but I lived without one until six years ago, so clearly I can do without it.
4. iPod and flat screen TV: Come on; how can these be a necessity for anyone?
H/t Chris @ Americablog.
Dr. King shared my annoyance with those who counsel the disenfranchised to wait for justice. Wait until a court victory is certain! Wait until there’s less bigotry in the culture! Wait until the political winds start blowing in your direction! He heard all those kinds of warnings. MLK certainly wasn’t blind to the political realities of his day, but as a minister of the Gospel, he saw himself spearheading a moral crusade.
He knew that a moral crusade couldn’t align itself to a partisan political timetable and retain its credibility. He also knew that African-American equality would never be a priority for politicians counting on the votes of racist constituents for re-election. In 1963, that category included John F. Kennedy, the man Barack Obama has been frequently compared to. Dr. King and his Civil Rights marchers couldn't count on President Kennedy to do the right thing. They had no choice but to crash his dinner party. They had to create tension in the Kennedy administration and lay groundwork for progress on racial issues. This is what LGBT "leadership" fails to grasp. They turn up their noses at protest rallies and marches. They seem to think the Democratic Party can and will do most of our work for us. When did "career politician" and "Gay Rights activist" become interchangeable terms?
Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well-timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied" . . .
Dr. King also shared Rosa Parks’ impatience with life as a marginalized citizen (see my earlier post titled “Save The Country”). He didn't suffer segregation laws silently, and I doubt he would understand today's calls for Gay people to tolerate ongoing injustices like DOMA and the US military's "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy. The most important thing about his Birmingham Jail letter is that it made palpable for millions of White Americans the sting of bigotry’s lash on the backs of their Black compatriots. See if you don't feel it, too, all these years later:
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim . . . when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your Black brothers and sisters . . . when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society . . . when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children . . . when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do White people treat colored people so mean?". . . when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you . . . when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "White" and "Colored" . . . when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs." . . . when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments . . . when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobody-ness", then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
How can anyone counsel patience when every day, Lesbian, Gay and transgender citizens are victims of murder or attempted murder? When every day, LGBT school children are beaten up and taunted with ugly slurs they’re too young to even understand? When every day, mainstream preachers, bishops, rabbis, imams and popes spew dehumanizing definitions of gender-blended people and call it doctrine? When every day, Lesbians and Gay men of faith are subjected to psychological torture in bizarre “ex-Gay” programs designed to stamp shame on their hearts?
When every day, Gay couples avoid kissing or holding hands in public for fear of being harassed, assaulted or killed? When every day, Gay policemen and firemen stay closeted for fear that their colleagues will desert them in a life-threatening situation? When every day, qualified soldiers, sailors and airmen lose their military careers because they refuse to lie about who they are? When every day, Gay or Gay-appearing men enter the prison system and administrators leave them vulnerable to terrorism and rape by other prisoners?
When every day, LGBT folk who work with or care for children live in terror that they’ll be fired by employers who equate them with pedophiles? When every day, textbooks and other literature depicting LGBT folk in a positive manner is challenged for curriculum inclusion and/or banned from libraries? When every day, children of blended gender are disowned by their parents, and parents of blended gender are forbidden access to their children?
When every day, a same-gender spouse is denied the right to visit her sick partner in the hospital, or claim her deceased spouse’s body, or attend her wife's funeral? When every day, religious Right Wing strategists huddle in their million-dollar complexes and dream up draconian ballot initiatives to separate Gay citizens from their constitutional rights? When every day, our tax money funds “faith-based” public services from churches that not only refuse to hire us but also fuel the bigoted environment that creates the other intolerable situations I’ve discussed here?
It appalls me that so many of us have made peace with life under these conditions. We act as if second-class citizenship were a privilege instead of an insult. If I have to read another op-ed like the one I just read by bisexual actor Alan Cumming(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-cumming/a-generation-ago-rick-war_b_152517.html), presuming to tell me what rights LGBT folk should or shouldn’t want, so help me . . . I’ll go postal!
I'm sure that some of you will compare my list of grievances with that of Dr. King, and you'll come away saying: “African-Americans have suffered far more than LGBT Americans ever have.” Others will come away thinking the opposite. Personally, I don't go there. Why should I? Why should you? What's to be gained by comparing levels of oppression? That’s hardly the point.
The point is what Dr. King said about injustice: All Americans lose when any American is deprived of his rights. When we fail to honor our founding principles, our nation stops being a democracy and begins morphing into a fascist state. However, when we enforce Civil Rights for every citizen, we set a shining democratic standard that people all over world are inspired to strive for. Organized Christianity’s stance on LGBT equality notwithstanding, we also set a standard similar to the one Jesus Christ set for His followers. You know . . . that mushy stuff about loving others as we love ourselves?
By the way, the Savior never said Christians should wait until it was easy to meet that standard. He commanded us to meet it immediately, or risk losing our souls to Satan. The Ken Hutchersons and Joseph Lowerys and Rick Warrens of the world are tardy in carrying out their boss’s orders. Please! Let’s not write an excuse for them. Let's not give them permission to dawdle any longer. Let's insist that they live up to the title "Christian", and do it right now and not later!
We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here . . .
MLK was referring to African-Americans here, but he surely could’ve been talking about LGBT folk. You know what? He really was talking about us. Does anyone doubt that there were Lesbians, Gay men, bisexual and transgender persons among the Black slaves? We already know from historical accounts that the Native tribes European settlers found in the New World included transgender people. What about some of those Pilgrims, too? We tend to marginalize ourselves so completely, we forget that we're all members of ethnic groups. It's high time we started remembering!
If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
Allow me the liberty of embellishing Dr. King's words a bit: If the dark days of imprisonment and institutionalization prior to the Stonewall rebellion couldn’t silence us. . . if the pain of ostracism, ridicule and bullying as children couldn’t break our spirits . . . if the scourges of drug abuse, alcoholism, AIDS and breast cancer couldn’t wipe us out of existence . . . if relentless attacks from thousands of Right Wing televangelists couldn’t drive us back into the closet . . . if the passage of 29 marriage protection amendments couldn’t spoil our appetite for equal treatment . . . and if the traitorous boosters of heterosexism among us don’t succeed in their efforts to turn us off the road to full citizenship, the opposition we now face will surely fail!
We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation, the righteousness of LGBT identity, and the eternal will of God, upon whose transgender essence we are modeled, are embodied in our proud demands. Believe me, it’s no accident that the inspiring messages of Martin Luther King, Jr. transcend racial applications; they were meant to! The provisions of our Federal Constitution transcend them as well.
This Black vs. Gay conflict over terminology is beyond ludicrous. It’s nothing but thinly-veiled antipathy coming from a bunch of Black bigots. What infuriates me most, though, is the apparently widespread notion among Gay pundits that Black Gay people don’t exist! Ever heard of actor Paul Winfield? He was born Black and Gay. How about playwright Lorraine Hansberry? She was born Black and a Lesbian. Jazz arranger Billy Strayhorn was born Black and Gay, too. So were Blues singer Alberta Hunter, writer James Baldwin and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. A couple of these people were important figures in the struggle for African-American equality, along with the aforementioned Bayard Rustin.
Being Gay didn’t make any of them less Black! Being Black didn’t make any of them less Gay! Most important, being either didn’t make any of them less deserving of their constitutional protections. Quite a document, our Constitution; read it if you get the chance. Whatever you do, don’t ever let anybody get away with telling you Gay Rights aren’t Civil Rights!
According to a recent Pew poll, the number of things that Americans say are necessities has grown.Some of these goods, such as home computers, are relatively recent information era innovations that have been rapidly transformed in the public's eyes from luxury toward necessity.So, the Q of the day -- what do you consider essentials and luxuries?But other items - such as microwave ovens, dishwashers, air conditioning for the home and car, and clothes dryers - have also made substantial leaps in the past decade even though they've been fixtures on the consumer landscape for far longer.
Just based on the items in the graph, I'd have to say...
Essential
1. Car: If I lived in an area with a good mass transit system like NYC, I could cross this off my list, but I don't.
2. A/C: This is a contentious one for many, however, here in NC it gets hot as hell with 99% humidity in the summer. I have yet to experience a fan that can cool off a room once you've had 90+ degree weather for several days in a row. It's sheer misery (and can be deadly). I lived without A/C in NYC, and it can be pretty bad in the heat of a city summer, but it doesn't last as long as the onerous heat waves down here. I do, however, prefer opening the windows to get fresh air most of the year until it is intolerable (hot or cold).
3. Washer/dryer: I've done the laundromat thing back in the day. It sucks.
4. High speed Internet/Computer: Obviously I don't need either of these to survive, but I certainly wouldn't thrive as it's my main conduit to the outside world, not to mention my "second job" as blogmistress.
5. TV: I watch less and less of the idiot box, actually. Mostly for cable news in the AM or evening, L&O: SVU, an occasional movie. That's about it.
Luxury
1. Cell phone: I really don't spend time on the phone. I rarely text. I only use it for emergencies, quite frankly, or as a PDA (my calendar is on it). I think my cell got it's biggest workout when I was covering the DNC in Denver.
2. Microwave: another device I use sparingly, mostly to boil water for a cup of tea.
3. Dishwasher: this is a nice thing to have, but I lived without one until six years ago, so clearly I can do without it.
4. iPod and flat screen TV: Come on; how can these be a necessity for anyone?
H/t Chris @ Americablog.
Dr. King shared my annoyance with those who counsel the disenfranchised to wait for justice. Wait until a court victory is certain! Wait until there’s less bigotry in the culture! Wait until the political winds start blowing in your direction! He heard all those kinds of warnings. MLK certainly wasn’t blind to the political realities of his day, but as a minister of the Gospel, he saw himself spearheading a moral crusade.
He knew that a moral crusade couldn’t align itself to a partisan political timetable and retain its credibility. He also knew that African-American equality would never be a priority for politicians counting on the votes of racist constituents for re-election. In 1963, that category included John F. Kennedy, the man Barack Obama has been frequently compared to. Dr. King and his Civil Rights marchers couldn't count on President Kennedy to do the right thing. They had no choice but to crash his dinner party. They had to create tension in the Kennedy administration and lay groundwork for progress on racial issues. This is what LGBT "leadership" fails to grasp. They turn up their noses at protest rallies and marches. They seem to think the Democratic Party can and will do most of our work for us. When did "career politician" and "Gay Rights activist" become interchangeable terms?
Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well-timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied" . . .
Dr. King also shared Rosa Parks’ impatience with life as a marginalized citizen (see my earlier post titled “Save The Country”). He didn't suffer segregation laws silently, and I doubt he would understand today's calls for Gay people to tolerate ongoing injustices like DOMA and the US military's "Don't Ask/Don't Tell" policy. The most important thing about his Birmingham Jail letter is that it made palpable for millions of White Americans the sting of bigotry’s lash on the backs of their Black compatriots. See if you don't feel it, too, all these years later:
Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim . . . when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your Black brothers and sisters . . . when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society . . . when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children . . . when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do White people treat colored people so mean?". . . when you take a cross-country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you . . . when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "White" and "Colored" . . . when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs." . . . when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments . . . when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobody-ness", then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.
How can anyone counsel patience when every day, Lesbian, Gay and transgender citizens are victims of murder or attempted murder? When every day, LGBT school children are beaten up and taunted with ugly slurs they’re too young to even understand? When every day, mainstream preachers, bishops, rabbis, imams and popes spew dehumanizing definitions of gender-blended people and call it doctrine? When every day, Lesbians and Gay men of faith are subjected to psychological torture in bizarre “ex-Gay” programs designed to stamp shame on their hearts?
When every day, Gay couples avoid kissing or holding hands in public for fear of being harassed, assaulted or killed? When every day, Gay policemen and firemen stay closeted for fear that their colleagues will desert them in a life-threatening situation? When every day, qualified soldiers, sailors and airmen lose their military careers because they refuse to lie about who they are? When every day, Gay or Gay-appearing men enter the prison system and administrators leave them vulnerable to terrorism and rape by other prisoners?
When every day, LGBT folk who work with or care for children live in terror that they’ll be fired by employers who equate them with pedophiles? When every day, textbooks and other literature depicting LGBT folk in a positive manner is challenged for curriculum inclusion and/or banned from libraries? When every day, children of blended gender are disowned by their parents, and parents of blended gender are forbidden access to their children?
When every day, a same-gender spouse is denied the right to visit her sick partner in the hospital, or claim her deceased spouse’s body, or attend her wife's funeral? When every day, religious Right Wing strategists huddle in their million-dollar complexes and dream up draconian ballot initiatives to separate Gay citizens from their constitutional rights? When every day, our tax money funds “faith-based” public services from churches that not only refuse to hire us but also fuel the bigoted environment that creates the other intolerable situations I’ve discussed here?
It appalls me that so many of us have made peace with life under these conditions. We act as if second-class citizenship were a privilege instead of an insult. If I have to read another op-ed like the one I just read by bisexual actor Alan Cumming(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-cumming/a-generation-ago-rick-war_b_152517.html), presuming to tell me what rights LGBT folk should or shouldn’t want, so help me . . . I’ll go postal!
I'm sure that some of you will compare my list of grievances with that of Dr. King, and you'll come away saying: “African-Americans have suffered far more than LGBT Americans ever have.” Others will come away thinking the opposite. Personally, I don't go there. Why should I? Why should you? What's to be gained by comparing levels of oppression? That’s hardly the point.
The point is what Dr. King said about injustice: All Americans lose when any American is deprived of his rights. When we fail to honor our founding principles, our nation stops being a democracy and begins morphing into a fascist state. However, when we enforce Civil Rights for every citizen, we set a shining democratic standard that people all over world are inspired to strive for. Organized Christianity’s stance on LGBT equality notwithstanding, we also set a standard similar to the one Jesus Christ set for His followers. You know . . . that mushy stuff about loving others as we love ourselves?
By the way, the Savior never said Christians should wait until it was easy to meet that standard. He commanded us to meet it immediately, or risk losing our souls to Satan. The Ken Hutchersons and Joseph Lowerys and Rick Warrens of the world are tardy in carrying out their boss’s orders. Please! Let’s not write an excuse for them. Let's not give them permission to dawdle any longer. Let's insist that they live up to the title "Christian", and do it right now and not later!
We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here . . .
MLK was referring to African-Americans here, but he surely could’ve been talking about LGBT folk. You know what? He really was talking about us. Does anyone doubt that there were Lesbians, Gay men, bisexual and transgender persons among the Black slaves? We already know from historical accounts that the Native tribes European settlers found in the New World included transgender people. What about some of those Pilgrims, too? We tend to marginalize ourselves so completely, we forget that we're all members of ethnic groups. It's high time we started remembering!
If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands.
Allow me the liberty of embellishing Dr. King's words a bit: If the dark days of imprisonment and institutionalization prior to the Stonewall rebellion couldn’t silence us. . . if the pain of ostracism, ridicule and bullying as children couldn’t break our spirits . . . if the scourges of drug abuse, alcoholism, AIDS and breast cancer couldn’t wipe us out of existence . . . if relentless attacks from thousands of Right Wing televangelists couldn’t drive us back into the closet . . . if the passage of 29 marriage protection amendments couldn’t spoil our appetite for equal treatment . . . and if the traitorous boosters of heterosexism among us don’t succeed in their efforts to turn us off the road to full citizenship, the opposition we now face will surely fail!
We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation, the righteousness of LGBT identity, and the eternal will of God, upon whose transgender essence we are modeled, are embodied in our proud demands. Believe me, it’s no accident that the inspiring messages of Martin Luther King, Jr. transcend racial applications; they were meant to! The provisions of our Federal Constitution transcend them as well.
This Black vs. Gay conflict over terminology is beyond ludicrous. It’s nothing but thinly-veiled antipathy coming from a bunch of Black bigots. What infuriates me most, though, is the apparently widespread notion among Gay pundits that Black Gay people don’t exist! Ever heard of actor Paul Winfield? He was born Black and Gay. How about playwright Lorraine Hansberry? She was born Black and a Lesbian. Jazz arranger Billy Strayhorn was born Black and Gay, too. So were Blues singer Alberta Hunter, writer James Baldwin and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. A couple of these people were important figures in the struggle for African-American equality, along with the aforementioned Bayard Rustin.
Being Gay didn’t make any of them less Black! Being Black didn’t make any of them less Gay! Most important, being either didn’t make any of them less deserving of their constitutional protections. Quite a document, our Constitution; read it if you get the chance. Whatever you do, don’t ever let anybody get away with telling you Gay Rights aren’t Civil Rights!
High school music teacher Matthew Cox didn't make it home to Michigan for Christmas. Instead, he was allegedly murdered by one of his own students. On December 20, the 32-year-old Cox picked up Basic High School student Juan Aguirre and his brother Jose Delatorre and took them back to his house in Henderson.OK, now here is where the garbage defense unravels; the thugs choke Cox for 10 minutes, until he stops moving, and tie up his hands and feet. Do the the sexually terrorized young men call 911? Do they run to their home and ask for help? No.The brothers told police in the report that they played video games with Cox. Before leaving, however, they say Cox went upstairs with Juan. Juan says that while they were alone, his teacher became sexual with him and made him feel uncomfortable.
Jose drove them back to Cox's house, where the two teens stole his electronics. The brothers left Cox's dead body on his couch and Juan says he kissed his teacher's cheek before they left. The teens say they didn't mean to hurt him, they just wanted to rob Cox. Juan also told police that their mother helped them to hide Cox's car at a local casino.
As I mentioned above, gay panic worked in a case in Grand Rapids, Michigan in April; Steve Scarborough was charged with felony murder and faced mandatory life in prison without parole for the murder of Victor Manious. Mind you, Scarborough admitted in a taped confession that after an alleged sexual advance by Manious, Scarborough hit Manious with a bat, stuffed him in a car trunk, then went on a four-day binge, using the dead man's cell phone and credit cards for shopping sprees, gas and air fare to Texas.
What was the verdict? Voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. The jury was aware that Scarborough had a previous criminal record, but obviously believed that he was a victim of an assault by Manious and the victim must have had it coming to him.
Let's hope this kind of defense can be put to bed in 2009. I won't hold my breath.
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