An acerbic columnist at The Guardian has a brilliant op-ed up which asserts that « death is no big deal »:

‘I lost a friend last week. These things happen — I’m bad at people, after all — but I can’t say I’m not pissed off. Last week I also talked to a nice lady who was great at describing loss, the details of loss, the amputated future, the lack of company. Because I’m bad at people it took me a long time to remember she was so well-informed because her husband died a while ago. I mean, ages ago, but she hasn’t forgotten him. Which is odd, isn’t it ? She wants to be able to talk to her husband, I want to be able to talk to my friend — but we shouldn’t. We should be over it. How do I know? Because I should be caring about how a bony tart and a petulant clothes horse choose to christen their spawn. I should be fretting over whether a lack of established royal precedent at Windsor register office will cause Camilla to spontaneously combust. I should want to see more and more and more of Jimmy Carr. Then I would be part of the real world, the things that matter, the questions that deserve every scrap of media attention they get.

‘Particularly, I should keep away from anything to do with unpleasantness, injury, or loss — they have no place in a modern media environment. Take Lance Corporal Andres Raya. I shouldn’t think about him. He’s dead now. He made it through Iraq, went home to California and couldn’t take it. He committed suicide by cop in a three-hour gun fight. But he doesn’t matter. Or Baha Mousa, he’s never going to get the kind of headlines he might if he’d shagged Jordan, or shat himself in a celebrity detox special. He’s dead now. Our troops killed him. But if that matters at all it’s as an indication of how stressed war can make the modern soldier. His brother Ala’a misses him, but he probably lacks perspective.’

— The Guardian

Like I said, brilliant.

The news report provides murky details, but apparently a « vicious homophobic beating in Santa Fe has sent a gay man to intensive care and his attackers to jail »;

‘A man remained hospitalized in intensive care Tuesday morning after he and another man were beaten in what Santa Fe police said was a hate crime sparked because the men are gay. According to a report in Tuesday’s edition of the Albuquerque Journal, police said James Maestas, 21, and another man were leaving the Denny’s Restaurant on Cerrillos with several friends early Sunday morning when they were approached by a group of five males who were throwing rocks at their car and challenging them to a fight. … According to the newspaper report, a police officer’s statement said that the attackers followed Maestas and his friend to the La Quinta Inn, where the friend was staying. That was when the group began beating up the Maestas and his friend, according to the officer’s statement. During the beating outside La Quinta Inn, the attackers were yelling, “Let’s (mess) these faggots up,” the officer’s statement said.’

— The New Mexico Channel

I’ve stayed in that La Quinta Inn and probably eaten at that Denny’s. When Frank and I were moving from SF to Ann Arbor a year-and-a-half ago, we ate dinner at a restaurant on Cerillos pretty close by; Frank got some intensely negative, uncomfortable vibes from some macho dipshit and his girlfriend who were sitting nearby. Santa Fe may be an allegedly ‘liberal’ town, but this kind of thing isn’t exactly new.

And the social climate that the Emperor and the Fascist Party have created will only make things worse, of course. Hate Crimes legislation, civil rights, civil protections are all being opposed by so-called Christians.

Tonight, I’m a little less inclined to want to move to Santa Fe after I graduate; a little more inclined to move to Canada.

After all, the Amurrican empire is now a place where « gay and lesbian are naughty words, but Hitler, Nazi, terrorist and bin Laden aren’t »:

‘To the NFL it’s naughty to be “GAY” but OK to be “BIN LADEN.” You can be a “NAZI” but not a “LESBIAN.” Even a gay man with the last name Gay can’t buy a jersey. This rather bizarre conclusion is reached when trying to order a personalized jersey from the NFL Shop, the online merchandise site run by the league. Anyone trying to buy a jersey with the single word “GAY” or “LESBIAN” or “GAY PRIDE” on the back gets a rejection message that states: “This field should not contain a naughty word.” The wording was changed in the hours since this article first appeared and the NFL contacted. Now when you enter “GAY” and try to checkout you get the following: “The personalization entered cannot be accepted.” This wording is no less offensive than “naughty” and doesn’t change the issue. Especially when you can buy jerseys with “FAG” or “HITLER” on them. Someone running the NFL’s website decided certain terms were “naughty,” including a declaration of sexual orientation. But “BIN LADEN,” “TERRORIST,” or “AL QAEDA” are all accepted; just have your credit card handy (personalized jerseys start at $79.99).’

« Godwin » be damned. Folks, look, it’s 1935, this is the Third Reich, we gay and lesbian citizens have just been banned from getting married and are about to lose even more hard-won civil rights and there are folks connected to the halls of power calling for our further demonization, marginalization, branding and out-and-out execution.

May God harshly judge, condemn and punish America’s Fascist Emperor, Party and supporters and its so-called Christian extremists.

And may God bless and heal Mr. Maestas, fighting for his life in that Santa Fe hospital.

Thanks to quite a few problems, some internal and some external, the folks over at « TextDrive », which is where all the AirBeagle sites reside, have had some problems the last couple of weeks.

So if you’ve been getting a series of errors while trying to access any part of AirBeagle, you can blame, mostly, the evil, dirty, smelly, rat bastard comment and e-mail spammers who flood servers with their foul stench and cause pain to website owners and, especially, techno-geeks at webhosting providers.

The other problem has been those techno-geeks; they did a very special offer for lifetime hosting for $400 and don’t seem to have been very prepared for the rush of new orders that they got. They’ve been overwhelmed, victims of their own success.

However, response time seems to be better this evening and the ‘internal errors’ seem to have stopped, so maybe we’re rounding a corner.

Unfortunately, individual entries don’t seem to be working right, nor do categories. I’m trying to figure out what’s going on there. You can still live comments via the popup windows.

And part of the mess is of my own making; I’m moving all sections and folding airbeagle.net and airbeagle.org into airbeagle.us. It may be a week or two, but we’ll get back to normal soon.

Thanks for hanging in there with us.