Counterprotest of one

So the Westboro Baptist Church (the "God Hates Fags" people) are coming to campus to protest outside the Hillel center on Friday. Students are organizing a counter-protest of some kind. I doubt I'll go--it is at 8am. But were I to join the public opposition, I'd advocate simple laughter. After all, these WBC people are just ridiculous. Here are a few snippets from their website [all errors, jargon, funky caps, and 8th grade AOL-speak theirs]. They really speak for themselves.

• Contemporary Jewish Museum - BORING on steroids, God H8s U . . . Our God reigneth, Our God caused the punishment which you commonly refer to as the Holocaust. OH PLEASE! You ain't seen nothin' yet! AMEN!
• ADL San Fran style - You liars are leading bros to hell! You got a problem with WBC telling people what the Bible says on the subject of Jesus Christ, the fact that Jews Killed Jesus and that unless they repent of that crime they can NEVER see the Kingdom of Heaven? Too stinking bad. . . . Yes, it might be nice to be treated fairly and kindly by you haters - but not to the destruction of our never-dying souls. AMEN!
• JCC San Fran Style - Jews are Fags Really, 2 True! WBC will have signs of truth and warning for these rebels who enable sin all around the world! Zionist freaks: It's NOT your land! What did you steal that land for? Give it back! God Hates Thieves! Thou Shalt Not Steal! Thous Shalt Not Kill! Why you tell the fags they're all good? God Hates Fag Enablers.
• Lowell High School - SCHMOOZE FOR JEWS? Tell 'em truth! WBC needs to come and show the little brutes what you all have failed to show them - OBEY GOD! . . . Also to be satisfied, having our senses exercised by these events, satisfied I say that these parents will actually be doing the infants a favor if they just go ahead and eat them instead of doing to them what they have done to these pre-teens and teens in this nation. AMEN!
• WBC to Picket Twitter, Inc.! Now that should get interesting, WBC member(s) Tweeting as they picket outside Twitter, Inc. Won't a black hole or something open in the space/time vortex? Seriously, let us focus in on a few facts, to wit: Twitter is a company which lends itself to mass communication. Why in heaven's name would the great publishers at WBC NOT picket this place? They have a duty to God just like every other person to serve God and to use ALL their resources in their service to him. So we come with hearts of love and joy to humbly suggest they GET ON THAT TASK! . . . Obama's about to take away any/all resources like Twitter to serve him and his Antichristic agenda, so enjoy this freedom while it lasts a little longer. Praise God! AMEN!
• WBC is determined that each place we go, all the children who you adults have lied to to, get this message: TWO WORDS define Antichrist Obama's "Education Plan", to wit: KEVIN JENNINGS, United States Education Czar. This fag who started GSAs and GLSEN Organizations all across DOOMED america. Now 63 years old, with ZERO CHILDREN of his own, this fag is DETERMINED to sodomize all of you children he and Obama can get their filthy, bloody hands on. Flee these lying false prophets, kids.
• Congregation Beth Israel & Day School - Rabbis Rape Boys! You pretentious Jews are in BIG trouble, and WBC has the duty - job really - to tell you about it. . . . Just because you filthy, liars reject the testimony and record DOES NOT make it any less true. Each one of you Jews who refuse to help God's true servants, and hide in your little multiple-level-one-stop shops like this place, pretending to be so holy, selfless and kind are just as guilty of these murderers just referred to. AMEN!
• Obama will shortly bring the trauma to this nation, then as you each turn and gnaw on the bones of all those who you currently profess "love" for, he will step right over your stinking, rotting carcasses (think Haiti corpses piled up, and that stink PEOPLE!)and ascend to his throne of world leader - as promised him by his father the devil. As predetermined by God Almighty, who by the way will be laughing at you brutish cannibals. Tah DAAAAH! Praise God! AMEN!
  

I think "Tah DAAAAH!" is a good place to end. I fell off my chair reading this shit. How can you not laugh?

Just now:

Raining.
Power goes out.
Lightning strikes.
Huge thunder clap.
Power comes back on.
Car alarms go apeshit.

I love rain.

Maybe I should take her class?

This week's Questions are for Terry Castle, lit prof at Stanford.

Do you agree that lesbians suffer from a paucity of wit?
Well, those who drank the Kool-Aid in the ’70s in the heyday of lesbian separatism — a lot of them have ended up in the academic world as historians or sociologists. And so there is a kind of earnest and stylistically impaired lesbian who is still in existence, like a stegosaurus.
***
How do you feel about seeing the adventure of life reduced to a function of DNA?
I guess I’m down with it because I’ve always felt, for instance, that my own lesbianism was genetic. My cousin, whom I was just visiting in London, we have the same DNA, and we’re both big, old dykes.
Surely you can find a more graceful way to describe yourself.
Svelte, coltish and effortlessly alluring? Cate Blanchett, please call me.

Things to remember when talking about food

"Agriculture is a business. Farming without a financial motive is gardening."

More here. Parsons calls these "fundamental principles that both sides should be able to agree on." Some are common sense--courtesy and empathy are always good tools in conversations about touchy subjects, after all. But not even ground rules are ideology-free, and if we have to have an ideological conversation, I'd rather it be about stuff than about how to talk about stuff. Thoughts?

And this is A.O. Scott being "positive"?

"'Leap Year' is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). No sex. No jokes. No serious swearing. No violence. Nothing."

A new year

So. 2010. Two thousand and ten. This is the year that I can say "ten years ago" and be referring entirely to the 21st century. Le wow.

Resolutions? Well, sorta. Starting tomorrow I'm back in the gym, (mostly) CrossFitting. And after reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, well, I feel inspired, but to do what? I want to make a change, but I can't articulate a goal. So far--all four days, or at least two of them--I've been trying to buy only organic foods, and only "local-ish," meaning California and nearby states. I'm making as many of my own meals as possible, with allowances for social meals. I have some early thoughts on manufacturing a personal food culture to pass down, but that needs to hibernate a bit longer in my mind. Ideally I'd like to be "opted-out" of the industrial food system, but I have doubts that's even possible in--good grief--2010.

And yours?