Well, tonight’s the VP debate (a few minutes away) … unless Sarah can do a Dan on Joe, she and McCain will be deader than any moose ever was in that old show.

Nevermind party differences.

(Forget transgender and GLB issues for a minute.)

The reckless, the imprudent and the improvident, no problem, they’re both for’em.

Where does that get us not in that category. Not very far.

There has been, and there will continue to be a stream of bull**** (moose or otherwise) from all concerned.

If anyone thinks any of this “$700B” is for real, you don’t know about the real “Northern Exposure” … or your “Southern Exposure.”

Whatever, feel free of McPain and believe happy days will soon be barack again.

I just wanted to bring y’all up to date on the progress of our trans fundraiser for McCain …

Not a pretty picture (well, me neither, for that matter), folks.

I’m getting the impression that some of you think you have better things to do with your money.

But, please, our goal is very modest … so fill that jar up … and, remember, change is good.

Awhile ago I mentioned that I donated to the Obama Campaign as part of a trans bundling of donations. I donated specifically because I wanted to send a message to candidate Obama that trans people have supported his campaign — it would be something to point to when ENDA and the Matthew Sheppard Act come up again in the next Congress.

As a group, trans people are pretty impoverished. When we did a needs assessment in San Diego, we found that the unemployment rate for trans people was ten times higher here than the unemployment rate for the general population, and we found that 57% of respondents were trying to live on less than $20,000.00 a year. Frankly, most of my subcommunity of the LGBT community doesn’t have a lot of resources to put to political campaigns. Passing a fully inclusive ENDA — one with gender identity and expression included in the bill’s text — is a real need for all gender-variant people who need jobs.

I’m on a fixed income. I’ve donated to political campaigns (No On Prop 8 and a few candidates) this year, including to the Obama campaign. I donated through the page the Stonewall Democrats/Act Blue set up to collect money from trans people and their SOFFAs (that’s Significant Others, Friends, Families, and Allies). The point isn’t that we get a bunch of folk donate the maximum of $2,300.00 to the campaign — a bunch of folk donating as little as $5.00 each to the Obama Campaign sends a message that trans people and their SOFFAs are thinking about what Obama has said previously about trans people and trans issues when they’re donating.

Well, it’s the end of the campaign finance quarter, and the Stonewall Democrats and I are encouraging those who are planning to donate this month to the Obama Campaign, consider doing it in a through this Act Blue campaign tool that sends the message to the Obama Campaign that you support the T in LGBT. And, if you weren’t considering donating in a way that says you support trans people before, please take a moment and consider it now — it’s important.

If you decide to donate, please let us know in the comments.

~~~~~UPDATE~~~~~
I should have mentioned earlier that this is a post for the Trans Blog Day For Obama. The further reading section includes some of the other trans bloggers posting for this coordinated blog event.

~~~~~
Further reading:
* Andrea James: Shared Experiences: Trans for Obama Day
* Caprice’s Glob: Trans-blog day for Obama
* A Dahl’s House: Trans for Obama Day
* En|Gender: Trans for Obama Day
* Gardens In Bloom: Trans-Blog Day for Obama
* Kate Bornstein’s Blog for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws: Gender Outlaws for Obama
* RiftGirl: Do It To Me, Obama (and her hilarious video on Gov. Palin here)
* Stonewall Oregon: Trans Bloggers Can’t See Russia From Their Front Porch, But………
* Transgender Workplace Diversity: Trans For Obama

On the 24th of September, 1980, I entered the U.S. Navy’s boot camp as a seaman recruit. The nation was in the midst of having incredibly high interest rates, stagflation, and high unemployment rates. I joined the Navy in large part because while living in Portland, Oregon — a city and state I’d only moved to a year earlier — I lost my job as a shipping and receiving clerk due to the bad economy and I just couldn’t find another job.

Twenty years and six days later (September 30th, 2000), I retired from the military as a Fire Controlman First Class.

I feel odd in thinking about this today; odd in the sense that the Navy was never a really good fit for me. I knew in the back of my mind from before I joined the Navy that I was gender-variant, although in the late seventies I had gone through some reparative therapy and believed God had healed me from being trans. I also tend to function from the perspective of cooperation, and military services tend to reward best the servicemembers who function from the perspective of competitiveness.

But beyond those personal issues, I was always was concerned about our nation going to war. I trusted that our leaders, especially after the political mess of the Vietnam War, wouldn’t send us to battle without exceptionally good reasons, a clear and limited set of objectives, and without some sort of an exit strategy. I was wrong of course. I feel fortunate that I got out of the Navy prior to September 11th, 2001, and that I was spared being sent to war in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

The Iraq War news I saw on the Rachel Maddow Show last night (September 23rd, 2008) causes me to feel incredibly fortunate that I’m not currently on active duty; I feel incredibly fortunate that by having a Veterans Administration (VA) disability rating of 100% and by being transgender there is a 0% chance I’ll be recalled to active service. And, it causes me some great concern about the military servicesmembers that are called, and will be called in the future, to serve in Iraq:

I would hope the time and the lives of servicemembers are more valuable to the American public that their time and lives appear to be to President George W. Bush and his administration. In my humble opinion as a former servicemember, we need to bring the troops home from Iraq as soon a possible — our servicemembers shouldn’t be separated from their friends and families or placed in physical danger for “political circumstances related to the domestic situation [in the U.S.].”

In two days we’re scheduled to have a presidential debate on foreign policy. If this subject isn’t broached — this subject of keeping military servicemembers in Iraq for 12 or 15 months at a time for reasons relating to “political circumstances related to the domestic situation [in the U.S.]” — then I believe the debate moderator will have seriously failed the American people.

~~~~~
Further Reading:
* Military: Your Stories: Autumn Sandeen
* Gay & Lesbain Times: Transgender Veterans: Beyond ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ transgender vets face different discriminations in the armed services (Story features my story as a transgender veteran)

This past weekend, Latter Day Saints (Mormons) were supposed get out and plant a million Yes On 8 yard signs in support of California’s Proposition 8. Well, I live in San Diego, and both the Yes On 8 and the No On Prop 8 are aware that San Diego County is very likely to be the key county that could very well decide whether or not Prop 8 passes or fails — I expected to see a lot of Yes On 8 signs throughout the county.

And yet, I’ve seen none of these yard signs. Having been an active Mormon myself for a year-and-a-half in the early eighties, I know as a group these are not a lazy folk.

So, I know I’ve been pretty curious as to why I haven’t seen any Yes On 8 yard signs. Well, leave it to Julia Rosen at Calitics to explain what happened:

This past weekend the Yes on 8 campaign had talked up passing out ONE MILLION lawn signs. It was going to be their big splash event, something big and bold to get a bunch of earned media.

To counter that push, the No on 8, Equality for All campaign organized a bunch of visibility events for the media and to raise the public face/profile of the campaign. Then shuttled the the volunteers back inside to do the work that will bring this election home: calling undecided voters.

But a funny thing happened…. There were no lawn signs, no big events from the Yes side.

I started hearing rumors that they had trouble with their vendor. It turns out they were stuck in China. Yes, China. Here is an email from a one Gena Downey, producer of the cult hit Mormon film (I’m joking about the cult and hit thing) God’s Army.

The YES on Prop 8 yard signs have been delayed in route from China. We expect to distribute them within the next two weeks. I will email you as soon as they arrive so we can make sure you have one immediately. In the interim, please continue to take note of any friends or family who would like one as well.

So, the Yes campaign, rather than purchasing some good old fashioned union made in America lawn signs, they went to some cut rate producer in China who blew the delivery date by at least three weeks. What, they couldn’t afford traditional American signs?

Heavens to Kolob — divine intervention, maybe?

Seriously, that’s a lucky break for the No On Prop 8 campaign; a lucky break for those of us who believe in the freedom to marry for California’s gay and lesbian couples. Every day the Yes On 8 campaign doesn’t have their yard signs up is a day they forever lose to influence any California voters with those yard signs — and we all have less than six weeks to go until the November election.

~~~~~
Related:
* The Unexpected Message The Yes On 8 Campaign Sends To Jews, Mormons, And Other Non-Evangelicals
* California’s Prop 8: Polling Showing Voters Moving To Defeat Measure
* PROP 8 ballot wording rewritten: to ELIMINATE RIGHT of Same-Sex Couples to Marry
* The Fundamental Freedom To Marry
* Pam’s House Blend tags: Proposition 8; Prop 8; Marriage Equality

I don’t always connect dots in the ways others do, so it’s usually interesting to me when someone connects dots in a way I never thought about — especially when it’s a particularly interesting character who makes the connections.

On September 8th, a Jewish, conservative Republican — David Benkof — wrote a piece entitled Right-wing nonsense, where he questioned the Yes On 8 - Protect Marriage Campaign’s hiring of the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) as their legal defense team:

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, so I supported the man-woman marriage Proposition 8 in California - until I discovered the Proposition 8 campaign tolerates discrimination against Jews. ProtectMarriage.com’s legal counsel, the Alliance Defense Fund, has in effect a “No Jews Need Apply” policy for legal and even secretarial positions. They say they’re not a law firm, they’re a “ministry” and thus have a right to discriminate against Jews and other non-Christians. But even if that’s true, Proposition 8 had hundreds of law firms to choose from. The fact they chose one that refuses to hire a Jew like me is very disturbing. Interestingly, Jesus himself was a Jew, so when a group has a policy that would lead them to refuse to hire their own Messiah, you know something’s seriously wrong.

I wanted to check to see if the employment policies of the ADF were as Benkof described these policies, and he’s correct on that facts, in that the ADF doesn’t hire anyone but those who ascribe to the ADF’s vision of Christianity:

[Below the fold: The employment policies of the ADF, and the interesting personal history of David Benkof]

Read the rest of this entry »

Forget Sarah Palin (who, rightly so, is going to be and should be “burnt toast” rather sooner than later … good take here on that today) … who’s not been in national government yet … or ever … I hope.

But, how some folks can so embrace some folks who have been in Washington — who’ve been part(y) and parcel to a big, bipartisan mess — and deny most responsibility for such — and take on greater patriotic airs, too … is beyond my simple comprehension.

Sorry, for me, it doesn’t work.

I don’t have any kind of secure position or entitlements.

Whatever I’ve scrapped and saved for, however prudent I’ve been, over the past decade … doesn’t mean shit to a tree … or pig …

… to the $66M man or to the poor old guy …

It’s going to be a “new” “Morning again in America” …

for them, anyway, either way it goes.

Party on …

… but they’ll be our piggies, one way or another.

Feeling grumpy, once again, America …

… “a container, a way to harvest energy and an information carrier.”

This is the sort of news that Zoe (who, I’m happy to hear, is back in the saddle) is much more apt to post about than I am — frankly, I haven’t kept up with cellular biology and such since my undergraduate days back in the Paleolithic era.

But, no doubt, the RNC and the McCain campaign have been closely following this research …

A team of biologists and chemists is closing in on bringing non-living matter to life.

It’s not as Frankensteinian as it sounds. Instead, a lab led by Jack Szostak, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School, is building simple cell models that can almost be called life.

[...]

The rest of “Biologists on the Verge of Creating New Form of Life” can be found at Wired.

Sunday night …

Fannie and Freddie, a “bi-gender” mess — a long time coming and a longer time payin’ … brought to us, “bipartisanly,” of course.

I just can’t focus on one candidate’s putative primacy on gay and transgender issues when both parties are and have been (and will be) parties to running the country fiscally, monetarily, militarily and every other which way into the ground … and I’m getting it you know where.

Some things trump other things and, as much as Ivana, I just can’t count on a Trump to help me out … as a poor tax payer of limited means.

By the way, St. Barney (Kat’s well-chosen appellation), who’s been so benificent on “T” stuff (sarcasm alert) — heck, you may not know which (pun alert) ENDA’s up, but Chairman Barney knows — there’s money for everything, like old times — something to look forward to in the “days” ahead … is a player in all this.

Frankly, I’m cranky … and not amused by any of this.

Sorry.

Last week I posted a word cloud of Barrack Obama’s acceptance speech. Here’s a similar word cloud of John McCain’s acceptance speech this evening …

Via Wordle

I’m sure there were more than a few folks out there who expected “Crazy Uncle Joe” Biden to come up with another “clean and articulate” type comment rather sooner than later and, commenting on the Republican VP nominee, the “gorgeous” Sen. Gaffe did not disappoint …

“She’s good looking.”

Well, whatever one may think about Gov. Palin’s apparent complete and utter lack of experience and qualifications, what was Biden thinking?

Ha ha, we don’t need those feminists anyhow, maybe? We’re gonna get the women’s vote anyway (just kidding), maybe?

A couple of reactions to Biden’s remark …

Oh, jeez, here we go already. With the canny, seemingly good-natured-but-really-a-put-down jokes about a female candidate.

The lone female is gone from the Democratic race; they can’t use the old pantsuits laugher anymore. So Joe Biden trotted out the subtly dismissive, isn’t-she-pretty line about you-know-who, the newbie on the Republican side. (Translation: There’s really nothing else to her to comment about, but I won’t say that because I’m not a sexist.)

[...]

“She’s good-looking,” he quipped.

Yeah, really, hold your sides on that one.

Let’s turn that reference around 180-degrees and imagine a female candidate in front of a large audience talking about some, oh, hypothetical male opponent for the vice presidency. “Thirty-six years in the United States Senate,” she says, “And all he’s got to show for it is a beautiful head of hairplugs.”

Real classy, right?

Democrat Joe Biden likes Republican Sarah Palin’s looks

… and …

“There’s a gigantic difference between John McCain and Barack Obama and between me and I suspect my vice presidential opponent,” he said in Toledo, Ohio. Pause for the punch-line. “She’s good looking.” It’s the way he tells ‘em, folks.

[...]

Amid all the kerfuffle over Sarah Palin, it’s worth remembering that one advantage of the pick could be that Joe Biden has a habit of behaving like your slightly embarrassing uncle. Or, as Alex Massie puts it, he’s “the sort of man I’ve met many a time in Irish pubs”.

Joe Biden: Sarah Palin is “good looking”

Enough of our “future.”

Now, back to the future …

Google introduces Chrome

Geez, the last time I saw chrome was back in ‘69 on my Chevy.

A sign of the times, ahhhh …

This year, however, fewer people are ordering the region’s signature dish, driving down lobster prices and making times harder for lobster fishermen already reeling from the high cost of fuel and bait.

“Lobster is a luxury item, and when things are tight, people don’t buy lobster,” said Peter Eaton, a lobsterman from Kennebunkport, Me., who is getting about $3.75 per lobster off the boat, a quarter less than three months ago and about a dollar less than last summer.

While price and demand have hit their lowest point in years, lobster fishermen are hauling in larger catches than ever. Restaurants in New England have been running lobster specials all summer, trying to pass on the lower prices and move lobsters from the tank to the table.

Demand and Price Are Falling for Lobster

Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, there’s a “Rally for Liberty” (aka The Ron Paul Show) … no lobsters speaking as far as we know, but Tucker “Just because you’re castrated and have a fake set of boobs does not make you a woman” Carlson is there.

Transgender news and views for Friday …

#1 - Here’s the latest (’Random, “Conventional” Thoughts…‘ and ‘Log Cabin Republican’s Apparently Have An Interesting Definition Of “Inclusive Republican”‘) at PHB from Autumn, who’s been a bit of a tease, and obviously in need of help.

#2 - I’m a lifelong “Yankee Yellow Dog” … but I’ll not likely be voting for the Obama-Biden ticket come election time. Time enough to share my simple thoughts about that later. Meanwhile, let’s say I can’t disagree with Serena Freewomyn today over at Bilerico …

… the Democrats are chicken shits who will pander to the least common denominator …

Of course, I’ve held the same view (but multiply it by an appropriate double-digit — at least — numerator) of the Republicans for the past 40 years … as long as I’ve been voting.

Sorry, call me a curmudgeon (or whatever you may prefer) if you wish, but no apologies, I conscientiously object to ‘em all.

#3 - Lynn Conway’s posted a critique on her site regarding the prevalence of GID. News of this sort of apparent “undercounting” came out earlier this year. Kelly Winters has also touched on the subject recently.

#4 - Marti Abernathey, who’s been busy with the Obama campaign, among other things, I’m sure, has a post up at Transadvocate (and Bilerico) today about “St. Barney” (as Kat Rose refers to him) …

On Tuesday I attended the HRC/Victory Fund luncheon and on Wednesday I attended the LGBT caucus at the convention center in Denver. Many stories were broke in the past few days, but one event passed by without a word. In a very consistent manner, Barney Frank again signaled that when ENDA is introduced, it will not be fully inclusive.

#5 - Some trans people in the news …

• “Teacher Chooses Gender Change” [Video here]
• “The Second Most Beautiful Girl in New York“
• “Transsexual’s old online ad won’t derail parks board bid“

No, I wasn’t expecting to see “transgender” (among other things) in here …

Via Wordle

(I’ll do the same for McCain next week.)

This one (click the pic) …

… not this one.

Richard Kim concluded a good blog piece (”Gay Days at the DNC“) at The Nation with …

“Will everyone else please stop bitching about trivia!” he exclaimed–a rather inopportune verb choice that had some gay PUMAs licking their fur off. Fortunately, Barney talks like he has marbles in his mouth, so his plea came out more like this: “Veel jevvryone else reees rop wristing arout Riviera!”

I thought, for a moment, he was talking about some fabulous drag-queen delegate who had found her name on a map of France.

On a more substantive note, Kim pointed out …

… the Democratic platform this year is the most pro-gay it has ever been, calling for a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, employment non-discrimination legislation that includes trans folks, increased money to fight AIDS and opposition to the federal marriage amendment. There was some worry earlier this month by gay activists who noticed that the words “gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender” appear nowhere in the platform (unlike 2004), but that reflects a move toward using the terms “sexual orientation,” “same-sex couple” and “gender identity”–expressions that have some legal teeth.

Mara Keisling of NCTE (National Center for Transgender Equality) made essentially the same observation a couple of days ago in one of our Yahoo! groups (TGV_Advocacy) …

… note that neither ENDA nor any other federal legislation we support — that I can think of — mentions the words gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender either. We write laws to protect people based on characteristics not by naming types of people.

By the way, Kim met up with Arizona delegate Amanda Simpson in Denver …

And then I met Amanda Simpson, a male-to-female transgender Obama delegate from Arizona who (and I don’t think she’d mind me saying) has had about as much work done as Cindy McCain, but looks 100 times better. Simpson was introduced to me as a “rocket scientist,” and indeed, she works in the aerospace industry but can’t tell me exactly what she does without clearance. She breakfasts here in Denver with a retired one-star general and his wife, also delegates from Arizona, who according to Simpson think, like many military officers, that DADT is silly and outrageous.

pretty amazing person, Amanda.