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Open Letter to the Internet (and Beyond)

joshLeave a comment

Dear Internet,

Actually dear Everybody, but particularly everybody on the Internet,

Please stop feeding the trolls.

In Internet slang, a troll is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people, by posting inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

I know, it’s tough. We hate it when someone is wrong on the Internet!

What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they'll keep being wrong!

It’s so tempting to respond when you hear or see someone say something completely asinine, wrong-headed and/or offensive. But here’s the thing. Many of them are doing it for attention. There is at least one well-known and particularly egregious offender for this. I don’t even want to say her name because it will just give her what she wants, so I’ll let you figure it out yourself. Her name rhymes with Can Houlter. Know who I mean?

Of all the people that say ignorant and truly offensive things, she may just be the queen. And she’s doing it for attention, nothing more. She doesn’t actually hope to persuade anyone with her so-called “arguments”. She just wants people to say “Oh my God, did you hear what [name redacted] said about [whatever]?!” Because then people are talking about her. And she gets invited on TV to say more stupid shit, because people eat it up. Whenever I see someone complain about her I just want to scream “STOP! She is WINNING because of you!” Without attention, trolls shrivel up and die, and the world is a better place.

The only way to elevate the (abysmal) level of discourse in our society is to reward it when it’s constructive, and ignore it when it’s not. I know, it’s so very hard to do. Trust me, I know. It’s something we can all work on, together. Are you with me, Internet (and Beyond)?

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#SaveTheLoews Wonder Theater of New Jersey

joshLeave a comment

This amazing theatre has been my home away from home for the past 2 years. I’ve spent countless hours cleaning, restoring and working events. Even though I’ve been there dozens of times, I keep discovering new things there. It belongs in the hands of people who care about the building and its history, and the community, not a multinational corporation that cares for nothing but the bottom line.

Once upon a screen...

lo3

Hi All –

This post will not feature a TCM film or a horror movie of the week, but rather a plea to the people who still love classic film in it’s intended home….the big movie palaces of yesteryear.  Not many of these grand theaters are left and those that remain in their original glory are being threatened on a continuous basis by those who consider life as nothing more than an income statement where bottom line increases are never enough.  This plea is on behalf of one of those movie palaces, the historic Landmark Loew’s Theatre located in Jersey City, NJ.  Please take a moment to check out the history of the Landmark Loew’s Jersey Theatre and the online petition you can sign to help save it for future generations.

jo

If you’re not in the know as to what’s threatening the Landmark Loew’s here’s a brief version of the scoop –

The…

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An Open Letter to Michele Bachmann

josh3 Comments

It Seems To Me...

Michele Bachmann suggested that the gay community is bullying Americans and politicians.  You can read the full article and hear the clip for yourself here. This is my response.

Dear Michele Bachmann,

I would like to provide you with a definition of a word that, for all your legal experience, you seem not to comprehend. The word “bully” has become a buzzword, a convenient way for adults who are losing an argument to shut down the conversation. When your back is against the wall, you call someone a “bully” and if they don’t allow you to gracefully exit the argument you get to say, “SEE! They ARE a bully.”

Except, that’s incorrect. “Bully” is defined variously as “a person who uses superior strength or power to harm, intimidate or influence those who are weaker.”

Now let’s reconsider your words. “…the gay community, they have so bullied the American people, and…

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What Dreams May Come

joshLeave a comment

Happy New Year! It’s been some time since I’ve blogged, hasn’t it? I need to get my act together.

Yesterday I was at the grocery store, and got a glimpse of giant tubs of cookies & cream ice cream. They have been a gallon, or perhaps even larger. (Growing up, a gallon was the standard size of ice cream purchased in our house. Hey, we were in Wisconsin and most dairy came by the gallon. Also, it was more economical that way… I’m sure. These days we generally purchase ice cream in much smaller quantities, so a gallon seems monstrously huge.) I thought, “Oh [the bf] would love that!” And I kept walking.

That night I was having some weird dreams. I am not sure how this one started, but I remember being in my grandma’s house, with my former hairdresser and her friend/coworker. I had to go to the bathroom*. As is often the case with having to pee in a dream, it don’t go well…and I had to pee in real life, when I eventually woke up. So I went to the bathroom, but the bathroom was partially exposed, to the interior and exterior of the home. The toilet was blocked from view from the inside, but not from the outside. And there were too young kids walking up the snow-covered driveway, who would have gotten a show had I done my business in the toilet. What to do?

As it turns out, there was alternative to the toilet…a big hill? mound? glob?…of cookies and cream ice cream accessible from the bathroom. It was outside, I guess. And in this glob of ice cream, there was a hole dug for doing one’s business. Sort of an ice cream latrine. I could go there, squat down and take care of things without being seen by the kids below. So of course I did.

But this was, after all, a big pile of delicious cookies & cream ice cream! So I had to taste it. Not the stuff I was peeing (or pooing? my memory is vague here) into of course. That would be disgusting! Yet I ate some, of course I did!

I don’t really recall much after that, but I did wake up having to pee. Isn’t it weird how some random thing seen in passing can turn itself into a central–and bizarre–part of our dreams?

*As I was typing this, I suddenly recalled another dream I used to have, involving different grandparents’ house. In this one, their bathroom was partially open; there was a shelf in one of the walls that opened into the living room. What is it with grandparents’ bathrooms being exposed?

“The Obamacare Bait And Switch”: America’s Beloved Health Insurance Industry Demonstrates Why We Needed Reform All Along

joshLeave a comment

Haven’t really had time to dig into Obamacare in the blog yet, but this re-blog can serve as a starting point.

mykeystrokes.com

So here’s my advice: If you’re somebody who’s smoking hot about the Big Lie of the Affordable Care Act — you know, how President Obama told everybody that if they liked their current health insurance policy they could keep it — do yourself a favor. Avoid the county fair midway.

Because if you go, you’re apt to encounter a quick-handed scoundrel running a shell game, and that boy will take your money. Doubtless Obama should have said almosteverybody could keep their current plan, or that 95 percent could, but he apparently found that too, um, subtle for the campaign trail.

So now old Mitt “47-percent” Romney gets to call him a liar.

But while your attention’s fixed on the president’s “mendacity,” and “paternalism,” to quote one characteristically overwrought scribe, America’s beloved health insurance industry is demonstrating exactly why we needed reform all along. Certain companies are taking advantage of…

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Big Win

josh3 Comments

Last Wednesday, starting at 10am Eastern, I was participating in a remote training session at work. This was also about the time that the Supreme Court announced their rulings on the two big same-sex marriage cases they had heard earlier in the year. Needless to say, I wasn’t paying much attention to the training.

The rulings on DOMA and Prop 8 were momentous. The highest court in the land declaring (even if by a shamefully thin margin) that gays are people too, and deserving of equal protection under the law is probably the biggest single step forward I’ve witnessed so far in my life. And I think everyone felt it.

I ventured out that night, in New York City, and the street was blocked off in front of the Stonewall Inn, the place where the gay rights movement began. And the street was full of people, celebrating! There were some news crews around, and every once in awhile you’d hear the sound of a bottle of champagne being uncorked and a spontaneous cheer would rise up from the crowd. The Stonewall itself was packed and the atmosphere was festive. I overheard a bar back tell some people they were running low on vodka!

The war for full equality rages on, and the enemies of progress and equality are going to be digging themselves some deep trenches. But we won a major battle with these rulings–particularly on DOMA. The winds of change are blowing in the right direction. But we can’t get complacent and assume everything will work itself out. It hasn’t been that long since a number of gay men were attacked right in Manhattan–including one who was shot to death. Many states do still not allow same-sex marriage and in some, people can still lose their jobs for being gay. We should absolutely celebrate this win and enjoy the feeling, but we must also stay vigilant.