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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

B.U.R.N.'s 4th Annual Burlesque Bake Sale - 5.18

The 4th Annual

BURLESQUE BAKE SALE

Music. Shtick. Pasties. Pastries.

Saturday, May 18th

7:30 P.M. - $10 requested donation

@ The Speakeasy Cabaret

Basement - Green Door Tavern

678 N. Orleans

$5 w/baked good or B.U.R.N. Donor pack.

http://tinyurl.com/burlesquebakesale4

http://greendoorchicago.com

Oy ye! Oy ye!

Estimable friends of the Chicago's Burning Man community, the time is nigh to again raise our glasses, and raise our eyebrows for this evening of tantalizing titillation, transcendent tomfoolery, vivacious vaudevillians and delectable delicacies of digestive daring-do!

Since 2010, the Burlesque Bake Sale has raised over $2,400 for the Bold Urban Renaissance Network's titanic do-goodery, funding local artists, community organizations, and free expression right here in our fine metropolis. Expect a resplendent night of cuisine, libation, and eye-popping entertainment, all at one of Chicago's most historic and nostalgic venues: The Speakeasy Cabaret at the Green Door Tavern.

Proceeds will go to support the Bold Urban Renaissance Network 501(c)3, which has given out over $10,000.00 in art grants and community grants since aught eight.

We are looking for burlesque performers, or anyone who is interested in volunteering to help out! Acoustic performers, magicians, and novelty acts are especially needed.

And of course, you can't have a bake sale without baked goods! These burners are veritable Olympians of the culinary arts. DO YOU have what it takes to bring home the Golden Whisk?

This year's theme is the Future/Retro - where the distant future and distant past find harmony.

To confirm that you want to participate by performing, volunteering, or bringing a baked good for auction, contact your host: downtowndave23 AT gmail DOT com.

See you there!

Downtown Dave for B.U.R.N. Event Committee

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Finally, an apology about the tragitastrobacle in Iraq.

billmon nails it @ DailyKos.
Mea Culpa

Now that we’ve reached the 10th anniversary of the Iraq invasion, it seems only fit and proper that those of us who opposed the war from the very beginning explain how our errors in judgment led us to be so catastrophically wrong about America’s signature foreign policy achievement of the 21st century.

In particular, I think we should extend a heartfelt apology to the war’s supporters (not least, the many fine pundits at our nation’s leading opinion journals) for the pain and suffering we inflicted with our frequent attacks on their intelligence, humanity, and sanity—and, at times, I’m ashamed to admit, even their patriotism.

There is no question that America’s foreign policy and media elites are the real victims here. Surely no one can deny this . . . [There's more.]

Read it.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Anti-Gay Activist Found Guilty of Child Porn

Words fail.

Anti-Gay Zealot Guilty of Child Pornography After Videotaping 14-Year-Old Daughter Having Sex

Lisa Biron faces 25 years in prison for filming her 14-year-old having sex with two men on multiple occasions.

January 12, 2013 Alternet.org

This article was originally published by The Southern Poverty Law Center.


A New Hampshire lawyer who works with a virulently anti-gay Christian-right organization has been found guilty of child pornography charges after videotaping her own daughter having sex with two men on multiple occasions.

Lisa Biron, 43, of Manchester faces a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison after a jury convicted her yesterday. The jury deliberated for less than an hour.

Biron, arrested by the FBI last November, was accused of eight felony counts involving the videotaping of men having sex with a 14-year-old girl who was identified by the Associated Press as her daughter. She also allegedly made a cellphone video of herself having sex with her daughter.

* bold mine

My personal hero, Bill Hicks once said of late, not-great, racist North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, "Anyone that far to the right is hiding a very deep, dark secret . . ." Ol' Bill was right about a hell of a lot of things, but this disturbing story is just more proof that he was EXTREMELY CORRECT on that score.

I mean Jesus! Your own daughter? I've known some pretty freaky deakies in my day, but this is just beyond the pale. I don't even think my pervy friends would JOKE about this, because it isn't funny.

The tragedy here is that this woman was apparently so uncomfortable with her own sexuality that she had to victimize her daughter, and then turn all the rage she internally directed at herself against innocent gay people. It's pretty clear that there are a LOT of cases where anti-gay bigotry has its roots in self-loathing. There are millions of Americans' whose hatred of "teh gay" is not so different from this woman, Lisa Biron's. Is it any wonder a story like this . . . albeit rarely to quite this level of disgusting . . . comes out like every month or so?

The rage of anti-gay bigots seems to stem from a hatred of themselves pretty often. We need a society that recognizes that homosexuality is a normal and healthy expression of human sexuality. Otherwise, we get this.

Thursday, November 22, 2012

Stuff This: Let's End Gerrymandering

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone.

This article from the always-indispensable ThinkProgress.org really got me thinking.

Why Americans Actually Voted For A Democratic House

By Ian Millhiser on Nov 7, 2012 at 4:21 pm

Although a small number of ballots remain to be counted, as of this writing, votes for a Democratic candidate for the House of Representatives outweigh votes for Republican candidates. Based on ThinkProgress’ review of all ballots counted so far, 53,952,240 votes were cast for a Democratic candidate for the House and only 53,402,643 were cast for a Republican — meaning that Democratic votes exceed Republican votes by more than half a million. . . . . [Read the full article for the full context here.]

The actual partisan breakdown of the 113th Congress will be very different, however. Currently, Republicans enjoy a 233-192 advantage over Democrats, with 10 seats remaining undecided . . . There is a simple explanation for how this happened: Republicans won several key state legislatures and governors’ mansions in the election cycle before redistricting, and they gerrymandered those states within an inch of their lives. President Obama won Pennsylvania by more than 5 points, but Democrats carried only 5 of the state’s 18 congressional seats. . .

Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), however, cannot simply thank Republican state lawmakers for enabling him to keep his job. He can also thank the conservatives on the Supreme Court. Partisan gerrymandering exists for one purpose: to cut off the ability of people who disagree with a state’s ruling party to influence future elections. It is a a clear violation of the First Amendment, which absolutely prohibits viewpoint discrimination. Yet the Supreme Court abdicated its responsibility to end this discrimination in its 5-4 decision in Vieth v. Jubelirer, where the conservative justices tossed out a lawsuit alleging that Pennsylvania’s congressional districts were unconstitutionally drawn to maximize Republican representation in Congress.

Take a look at the map of Pennsylvania above. Then remember that President Obama won Pennsylvania by 5 points; not exactly a nail-biter in overall terms. In fact, Pennsylvania hasn't been won by a Republican Presidental candidate since George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis in 1988. That was over 24 years ago now. Still, only five of Pennsylvania's eighteen seats in the House went for Democrats.

The RepubliCons have done a very good job at capturing state houses and legislatures over the last few years. (If anyone needed a reminder of just how critical state and local elections are, by the way, here's your comeuppance.) But it's not just 'Cons who do it. In my own state of Illinois, where the Dems control everything, these politicians are doing the same damn thing. After the disastrous 2010 midterms, the Democrats wanted to salvage SOMETHING in terms of their chances of regaining the House of Representatives, so our vaunted Democratic Legislature undertook what's been called a radical gerrymander. This article from the Christian Science Monitor notes that:

Even a cursory glance at the new map . . . seems to indicate that state Democrats are eager to exercise that control [over redistricting] to maximum benefit. While each member of the Democratic delegation was protected, nearly every Republican district was cut apart or shuffled around, inviting scores of intraparty primaries, or forcing GOP incumbents to run in Democratic strongholds or retire.
The plan worked, and RepubliCons lost four seats in the House and a fifth when Illinois lost representation due to low population growth.

Just look at my my district, Illinois' Fourth, which has been described as one of the most bizarrely drawn districts in the country.

Now I'm generally for ANYTHING that puts fewer RepubliCons in office. And to be fair, my home district was drawn to make sure that a Latino representative from the Chicago-area was sent to D.C., a worthy idea that is pretty different in principle from the naked power grabs we've seen in Springfield; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Columbus, Ohio, and beyond. (My district was drawn well before the 2011 gerrymander.) To be clear, I support the general notion that our nation's House of Representatives should be ethnically diverse, reflective of the American melting pot. But just as an indicator, don't the maps above show, in a general way, that SOMETHING is off about this whole process?

In his comments, and particularly speaking of the raw vote totals, Ian Millhiser at ThinkProgress.org makes a great point:

Americans voted for a Democratic president, a Democratic Senate, and, barring significant shifts in the vote tally, a Democratic House. Instead, they will get a House majority similar to the one that held the entire nation hostage during last year’s debt ceiling hostage crisis. If the American people wanted this to happen, they would have said so at the polls on Tuesday. Instead, Republican state lawmakers took away their right to democratically legitimate leadership — with a big assist from the conservatives on the Supreme Court.

So what is to be done about this? Well, in some states, a divided government can be a good thing. This brief post from David Weigel at Slate notes that: "in states that weren't very gerrymandered, like Iowa and Colorado and New Hampshire, you didn't see a huge divergence between the presidential vote and the House votes." Each of these states has a divided government, in one way or another. Colorado and Iowa have divided legislatures, while New Hampshire's Democratic governor may have put a check on its GOP statehouse's impulses.

But praying for a divided government isn't really much of a solution, and obviously, the Supreme Court isn't going to be much help. There IS a better way, and we don't need the Supreme Court to jump in and save the day. Though no system is perfect, Iowa, Arizona, and California are three states that have setup independent, non-partisan redistricting committees. Now, NONE of these processes are have been perfect. California's new process, has been accused of crossing the line from independent/non-partisan to basically "clueless." Arizona's committee was famously sucked into a would-be partisan pogrom at the hands of that state's governor, Jan "Shriekingly Insane Bimbo" Brewer. And even Iowa's process, which is ostensibly non-partisan, must be approved by the Governor and General Assembly.

The way I see it, you will never totally get the politics out of decisions like this, but in a general way, I have to agree with Colby Hamilton at The Empire: "the less connected to the legislature the better." There has been some talk of moving towards the model being used in Iowa, California, and Arizona in other states; particularly New York is looking at it. I'm going to be bugging my own representatives here in Illinois about this issue real soon, and probably buggin' my local representatives in Indiana, my workplace too.

The fiasco around our undemocratic redistricting process needs serious attention. Arizona, California, and Iowa might not be perfect, but an independent, less-partisan committee is at least a great step in the right direction. The next step forward is to start talking to your state legislators and representatives. Hey! They're a lot easier to get a meeting with, or get on the phone with, than your Federal elected officials anyway!

FORWARD!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Chicago's Decompression 2012: REBIRTH

The Bold Urban Renaissance Network Not-for-Profit proudly presents:

Decompression 2012: REBIRTH

Saturday, November 10th

3:00 P.M. - 2:00 A.M.

Bridgeport Arts Center

1200 W. 35th Street

Chicago, IL

TICKETS AVAILABLE HERE

$25 Tier I

$35 Tier 2

Greetings Chicago Burners!

As you forlornly shake the dust out of your boots and pour vinegar into the laundry, fear not . . . because your friends at Burning Man Chicago and the B.U.R.N. 501(c)3 are pleased-as-punch to welcome you to Chicago's Decompression 2012: REBIRTH!

This splendid afternoon and evening of Burning Man-inspired art, culture, friendship, and love encourages you to enact the Burning Man experience right here in the great city of Chicago! Decompression is conveniently tucked down in the near-south side of Chicago, on 35th Street, just a short walk from the Red Line, at a beautiful 5th-Floor rehabbed industrial site of over 20,000 square feet!

REBIRTH

In religion, people may feel spiritually reborn when they find their guiding light, or anticipate literal rebirth after the end of this life. To to others rebirth comes in more secular epiphanies of the soul. The businessperson becomes an artist, the laborer becomes the organizer, the mistreated partner realizes they must go it alone. Or the lonely find rebirth in love.

Decompression is a time for revisiting, reflecting, and re-energizing; a time to revive the spirit, to rekindle and reconnect with the friends and loved ones, old and new, who defined your Burning Man experience. In a spirit of fertility, your Decompression 2012 will bring renewed verdure to your vibrant city, revitalized with the inexorable life-forces of art, love, friendship and creativity. Chicago's Decompression 2012 will see you born anew into the abundance of your fabulous home away from Home.

Volunteers are DEFINITELY needed, and returning volunteers will get a very special price break. Go here to get involved: http://tinyurl.com/8pkfcba or email chicagodecompvolunteers AT gmail DOT com

A logo for Decompression 2012: REBIRTH is also required. Send your .jpg or .gif submissions to downtowndave23 AT gmail DOT com.

Tickets for Chicago's Decompression 2012: REBIRTH are on sale RIGHT NOW at this link: http://tinyurl.com/9lrc5qy . Tickets are limited, and your organizers expect to sell through all of them. Purchase your tickets on line.

If you are interested in any kind of performance, please email Ninjalina, the Performance Director: evelina AT ninjalina DOT com. If you want to bring out art, please contact Art Curator Elysia Lock at elysialock AT gmail DPT com. Can't wait to see you at Decompression! xoxoxo, Bold Urban Renaissance Network, NfP

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Glory in your "Gift from God;" name the child after your attacker.

This is an attempt at the bleakest, blackest and most caustic form of snark. If you're triggered to extreme negativity by issues surrounding sexual assault, this might not be the best piece for you to read.
I'm Dick Adcock*. I'm running for the U.S. Senate because I approve this message. . . .

Lady-Americans:

So you've been raped and impregnated in a sexual assault, and maybe you're feeling a little bit down in the dumps. Sure the rape itself was the most viscerally invasive and violent experience you've ever had. And sure, the zygote the embryo the fetus the child the full-fledged American citizen (with more rights than you should ever hope to have) now growing within you is one that you didn't want, you didn't plan for, and probably can't afford. I mean sure, now you'll be stuck for the next 20-25 years both bearing and then raising a child generated from a violent assault. It might be a slight change of plans for you, but honestly, what could go wrong in a parent-child relationship that began with rape?

Now hon, I'm certain you're not even considering an abortion, because I told you that abortion is wrong. Also, my party closed the state's only abortion-provider. Since being a good mother is what all women must do, you're out of options besides both having and rearing this child, trust me. You've just had your entire life plan violently ripped away from you in the most brutal type of invasive assault. So it's understandable that it may seem like life is giving you a little bit of a frowny-face these days.

But Lady Americans, you can turn that frown upside-down!

After all, my good friend and colleague Richard Mourdock from the Hoosier State said that :

. . . life is that gift from God and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something God intended to happen.

Sugar-pie, it may seem like things are bad right now, but you just trust a couple of ol' Dicks like me and Mr. Mourdock on matters like this! :-) We know our legitimate rape from our forcible rape from when you were just askin' for it, okay?

You see sweetheart, like Dick said, the precious seed of your Attacker-American is a GIFT FROM GOD. That's right, the Good Lord himself personally oversaw that spume of seed as it came from the Holy Place of your attacker, to the holey place in your body. It might not have seemed very gracious, or very "gift-like" when you were brutally assaulted, but trust me, it was a Gift straight from the Immortal-American Himself. I know I know, the wrapping on the gift might have been a little "off" with all the raping etc. . . . but you don't turn down a precious present FROM THE LORD, just because there was a teensy bit of sexual assault involved! It's the gift that matters here, not the raping wrapping. Hey the Lord works in mysterious ways, okay hon?

Okay.

So now, the next logical questions are: "How do I celebrate this wonderful, rape-given Gift from God? What is the best way to glory in the wonderful present with which the Omnipresent has presented me?

Toostie, have I got the answer for you. Nothing will help you celebrate that sacred moment when your attacker impregnated you, like naming the child after its attacker. What greater way to honor the tremendous joy this rape the attack's consequences have brought upon you! It's quite likely that this is easily done, since an overwhelming majority of rape victims know their attackers! If the man who attacked you is a Harold, you can call the child Harry or Harold. If Harold's Holy Seed produces a girl, you can call it Haroldine or some such derivative. (I like spelling it like the more traditional Geraldine, but using the Mexican "silent-G" . . . or perhaps Jeraldine.)

At any rate, GLORY TO GOD! IT'S GERALDINE!

Most male names have some kind of female derivative, for as we know women are always derived from men. This won't be difficult at all! And what better way to thank the good Lord for the precious gift that he bestowed upon you, through his tool, your attacker? . . . who is a bad man who should be stopped . . . . unless you were asking for it . . . in which case it was just boys bein' boys.

Now if you didn't know your attacker, you may have to think more creatively, but honestly, I STILL don't think there's any better way to celebrate your wonderful present-from-God than naming the child after your attacker. Maybe your Precious Seed-planter had dirty brown hair - call the baby Sandy - that could go for boys OR girls! Maybe His Holy Will-enactor, your Attacker-American, had red hair. Why if it's a girl, you can name her Scarlett. And if it's a boy, just call him Red. Who doesn't love a guy named Red?

If you don't know your attacker's name, and the hair color thing won't work, maybe you can recall that your attacker wore Air Jordans. Name the child Mike, or Michelle if it's a girl! Maybe you were attacked in a dorm room - name the child after the dormatory, or the street it was on! Look there's LOTS of ways to appropriately glory in the wonderful gift the Lord gave you, in the form of being raped and impregnated. The important thing is that you CELEBRATE THAT SACRED MOMENT by naming the child in a way that will forever remind you of that precious gift, and the moment it was given to you. And by the way if you can't remember anything about the attack, you were definitely asking for it.

I'm Dick Adcock, and I approve this message, because nothing goes and tells it on the mountain like glorying in the Lord's precious gift of being raped and impregnated

* The picture above is NOT of the fictional "Dick Adcock," but of the very real asshole Mark Kennedy, who will in a couple of weeks be trounced by Amy Klobuchar in the state of Minnesota, for a Senate seat, because Minnesota is a state where the words empathy and progress still have meaning in their elections.

Sunday, October 21, 2012

What exactly is the byline here?

"RepubliCon Id"-???
To some, Obama is the 'wrong' kind of Christian

John Blake a.k.a. The RepubliCon Id a.k.a. The Hate Whisperer at CNN

. . .

No other president has shared the hybrid faith that Obama displays, says Diana Butler Bass, a historian and author of “Christianity after Religion.”

“The kind of faith that Obama articulates is not the sort of Christianity that’s understood by the media or by a large swath of Christians in the U.S.,” says Bass, a progressive Christian. “He’s a different kind of Christian, and the media and the public awareness needs to reawaken to that fact.”

Some Christians, however, still see Obama as the “other.” He doesn’t act or talk like other Christians, says the Rev. Gary Cass, a conservative Christian president of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission.

Well gosharoonies. I wonder why ever it is that some people might, [snicker] see the President as "other?" I wonder wonder wonder why-so-ever that could be!!! Surely a national news company's headline directly questioning Obama's Christian bona-fides couldn't have anything to do with it!

Seriously, this traditional media turd-icle reads like it was squeezed directly from the brain-sphincter of Rush Limbaugh's tainted psyche, the nasty little word-hole that says all the things the Christian Wrong usually can't say out loud. I guess in that respect, it's possible that a quick perusal (for those with a strong stomach and weak gag reflex) might be instructive.

This hate-mongering article goes on to quote some inbred fuckface redneck asshole at length, who thoughtfully points out that . . .

"I think [Obama's] an anti-Christ,” [SOME HATEFUL BIBLE-THUMPER] "Andrew" says. Cass, of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, says Obama’s emphasis on helping the poor through social justice isn’t Christianity.

Christians who talk about “social justice” are often practicing “warmed-over Marxism,” Cass says.

Well ain't that a thoughtful treatment of this so-called "issue." Seriously, this is disgraceful and unbelievable even in a post-satire political sphere. I thought I was done being shocked by CNN's disgraceful "journolizm," but I guess this time CNN actually out-CNNed itself.

National Geographic POD