The George Bush You Forgot

The video above is by FAR worth your time. If that man had been our president for the last 8 years, the US wouldn’t be faring nearly so bad right now.

The sad thing is that Bush in those clips from the 2000 elections shows so much hope and has good ideas.

Feel kind of bad for him. (Cheney/Rove prob destroyed his life)

Maybe.

I think many of my blogs may have come off as anti-Christian or anti-religious.  Frankly that’s the wrong impression.  I really respect many people of many different faiths.  I think religion can provide strong morals, such as ‘love thy neighbor’, and other wisdom to live by.  In fact if I were surrounded in a world of practicing Christians, I wouldn’t be so bitter all the time.  The fact is though, there are a lot of people in America who, under the guise of religion, spread hate and discrimination.  That is what I cannot stand.  If you’re going to say you believe in something, actually take the time to know what you’re believing in and practice it.

Why were women so restricted 200 years ago?  Because people used the Bible to justify the housewife position, women only existed to serve their husbands and procreate.  They could not do ‘a man’s job’.  Perhaps that is why our country was founded on the principle of women not being allowed to vote for their own president, they didn’t have as much going on up in their heads as men.  Then the Bible was used to defend slavery.  There are extensive topics regarding the subject, all pointing to the absolute obedience of a slave to his master.  White supremacy ruled over our nation and churches did nothing to stop the vast injustice.  Now we come to a new century.  One in which two people in love aren’t allowed to get married.  The World Health Organization has already ruled that, no, I do not have some medical illness.  No, more likely that I won some sort of genetic lottery.  Or, as current science is looking into, was affected by a mix of hormones while I was developing in the womb.  A little less sin, a lot more born the way I am.

So.  There are a lot of Christians in my life whom I love and do truly respect.  Please note that any bitter rants about religion are not directed at you.  But the great thing about America is that you can choose whatever religion you want.  And I can too.  This isn’t some system where beliefs are stifled.  This is a country that is fertilized so that its population can believe what they want.  That is the absolute beauty of our system here.  Why some conservative right wing [neo Nazis] want to push THEIR views on a multicultural, multiracial, multireligious nation is up in the air.  Would I ever want to push legislation banning religion because I personally am agnostic?  No.  In fact I find the timeless quote going along the lines of ‘I may not believe in what you say, but I’ll give my life so that you have the freedom to say it’ outstandingly true.

A lady came in to Guest Service on Monday and talked to me for 20 minutes.  It was a complaint.  Why?  Because we sell the Fischer Price dolls that apparently say ‘Islam is the Light’.  Ok, yes, if you listen and are looking for words out of baby gurgling, you can hear that.  Or you could hear ‘Salami is so Right’.  What do you think the media is going to sensationalize though?  Anyways, she sits there and very seriously says how awful this is that we still have it on our shelves.  KMart and Wal Mart have apparently taken them down.  Then she drops a political bomb on me:

“This is America”

REALLY?!  You’re going to sit here and tell me that you don’t want a product sold because you don’t agree with what it’s saying?  IN AMERICA?  In a land that was founded because a group of people were persecuted for their religion?  There are millions of Muslims in America.  They are AMERICAN.  They are no better and no worse than anyone else in this country.  That is OFFENSIVE to them.  That is one of those ‘beyond-words’ its so offensive.  It was offensive to me, not as a Muslim, but as an American.  A patriotic American who believes in freedom for all, even if I’m not going to agree with them.  And she has the FREEDOM to believe that America has to follow HER rules and bow to HER will.  But it is not, in any way shape or form, her right to impose her beliefs on anyone else. 

Really?  This is over a toy.  She’s going on, threatening to talk to churches boycotting Target stores, etc.  I don’t care.  If people want to discriminate against another religion, I don’t want them anywhere near me.  Grow up lady.  Grow the hell up.

The real kicker about all this?  I held a straight face.  I was sympathetic.  I assured her that I would pass the complaint on internally and that I could see where she was coming from.  She actually told me that I was much better than workers at ANOTHER Target who had treated her rudely.  Not just a worker, the manager of toys.  Then when the store manager was called over, apparently they were rude to her too.  Wow, I wonder why.

But I stuck by the points I’m making here.  It was by no means my place to tell her that, no, I thought she was dead wrong and ought to be hung out to dry by real and honorable Christians throughout the country.  She can have her beliefs, I can have mine.  The difference is that I use a personal blog to express myself and she tries to change what a store sells so that she can feel comfortable and secure in her religion.

I don’t consider her a Christian, and I don’t consider anyone else who is willing to use their religion as justification for pushing their beliefs onto other people.  I’m hoping that people reading this will see the difference between expressing yourself and your opinions vs trying to graft your will onto a nation with a diverse population.

The picture above is Sally Kern, who got re-elected to senate in Oklahoma or something.  Her and her husband want me to be sent off to a “Re-Education Camp” (direct quote from Mr. Kern) because the way I am does not fit with their beliefs.

It is better to give more freedoms and let people take advantage of them on an individual level than for a majority to withhold rights from a minority because they may not agree with them.

Good photo editing though, right?  All the Devil horns ‘n stuff look superb.  Photo-realistic if I must say.  Then taking a Zombie head and putting it on her “pastor” husbands head…wow.  No one could tell that was a human beforehand.  Those people are not Christians in any sense of the word.  They can say they are, but honestly, according to their own beliefs, it will be Jesus who decides that.  And Jesus has preached nothing but love.  Spreading bigotry and hate was not part of his gospel.

PS- If anyone wants to read the article that finally made me write all this out, it’s here. Remind me not to ever vote for a politician just because they’re KERN-servative.

PPS- I’ve always wondered why Muslims don’t do more to discourage radical behavior like terrorism that draws so much hate their way.  Now I’m left wondering how Christians are any better when their base is rallied to vote in the embodiement of hate into our government.

PPPS- This article was written by a Christian. Are you the same kind of Christian as him? Comment on this post. Is he really the voice of today’s Christians?

I’ve been wanting to do a post like this for a long time lol.  After working at Target for near 10 months now, I want to give a few heads up to what can make your life easier, simpler, whateva.  Prob applies to WalMart/KMart/Anywhere.  You’d think people would know these things, but you’d be surprised.  Most of these relate to returns/Guest Service because that’s where I supervise.

1) Take hangers off your clothes while you wait in line.  If you’re waiting and have your stuff on the belt, just take off the hangers.  It’ll go faster for you, and everyone else who may be behind you.

2) Be nice to the staff.  We want to help you, so don’t act all huffy if something isn’t in the spot you think it should be in.  ESPECIALLY GUEST SERVICE.  I’m a lot more willing to go above and beyond if I feel like someone will actually appreciate it.

3) Please take care of your children.  Things happen, things spill, children cry, etc.  Life happens.  But if you know you can’t control your child and you bring them along anyways…  It’ll make your shopping trip harder.

4) If we’re out of something, we sincerely apologize.  We don’t control what the trucks bring us, it’s based on what we sell.  Somethings get restocked right away…some things…not so much.  So please just keep that in mind and don’t take your anger out on the person who has to tell you we’re out.

5) Coupons.  It’ll be faster if you remember to give them to the cashier.  You can always add them on by going to Guest Service, but it definitely will take a lil extra time.  Plus if there’s a price descrepency or coupon under a dollar…why?  

6) If you return food, we have to throw it away.  If you return mediciene, we have to throw it away.  If you leave pershibles in your cart, we have to throw them away.  It’s for the consumer’s safety, but no doubt it is wasteful.  So next time you by ‘light’ chedder cheese instead of regular, please think about the bag that is going to waste and question if it’ll really hurt that much.  I cannot stand wasting stuff like this.

7) We CANNOT refund movies, CDs, software, or other disc based media if you have opened it.  If it’s defective, you can get the same item ONLY.  Sorry.  This is not Target’s policy, it’s US law.  Pushed through by the RIAA and MPAA.  So blame them.  This is a huge point of contingency for guests and I end up getting yelled at.  We just can’t do it.

8) If it’s out of the 90 day limit, we can’t return it.  This is for part stocking reasons and partly because then it is the manufacturers responsibility.  Just because you can’t return an item that stops working after 6 months doesn’t mean you need to get mad, you just need to take the case directly to the company’s customer service.

9) The store manager is not going to change the situation much.  The computers we run will tell us how we can issue the refund, when we can’t accept an item, etc.  In some cases we will have to call an internal number for Target support to override a choice, but that is usually with some creditcards and checks.  There is no way we can manually do it.

10) If for any of the reasons that were mentioned here, or some other situation occurs, and you can’t return your item, please do not get mad.  I know that I push my Guest Service to do as much as they can and be as friendly as possible, so at least I know they did what they could.  And yeah, it can get really frusterating to hear an answer you really don’t want, but it isn’t something we’re personally responsible for.  Saying ‘Oh, well, I’m never going to shop here again’ really isn’t going to help at all and only serves to make the person who just tried to help you feel bad.  And if there is swearing involved, I will not hesitate to escort someone out of the store.  As an employer, Target does not allow abuse of its employees.

If you haven’t caught on to an underlying point, working up at the frontend can get stressful when people don’t understan that there is a limit on what we can personally do.  My job (what I’m specifically paid for) is to attend to Guest’s needs at the registers, Guest Service, and the food court.  Supervise what’s going on and make sure things are running like a well oiled machine.  So at first glance it might not seem like a hard job, but I’m the person who gets called over if someone is *really* mad and I’d love to help avoid any situations =]

I do like how much attention Target puts on Guest Experience though.  If you saw the inner works, you’d see that it is a top priority for us.

<3 Paul

PS- Target does have rules for blogging if you’re an employee and I’m fairly sure I didn’t violate any of them.  Most important is to keep any employee/Guest information confidential.

In order to preserve the sanctity of marriage, shouldn’t we outlaw divorce?  What meaning does marriage even have if it can be undone at the slightest whim?  Baseline is that we should not let married couples disband until one of them is dead.  By natural causes of course.  If people choose the wrong person, then they have the rest of their lives to anguish about it!  After all, hasty and rash decisions are not conducive to the sacred union of two souls…and those that make them will have to live with the consequences.

And remember, this is only to better America and keep our traditional values pure.

Here’s Olbermann’s special comment on Prop 8 and I feel it should resonate with everyone.  It coincides completely with my beliefs about the issue.  And above all, I think it is very pertinent in light of how hard some Christian denominations worked to influence the government.  The Mormons seem to be very upset no that people are holding them accountable for their actions during the ‘Yes on 8′ campaign, but really, they need to be held responsible for the part they played.  Should they really get to pay no taxes but stick their foot into the government?

I think this is a worthwhile read for anyone, no matter how you feel on the issue.  You can go to MSNBC’s site and watch it if you’d like here.

—————

Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics, and this isn’t really just about Prop-8.  And I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics. This is about the human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them—no. You can’t have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don’t cause too much trouble.  You’ll even give them all the same legal rights—even as you’re taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can’t marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn’t marry?

I keep hearing this term “re-defining” marriage. If this country hadn’t re-defined marriage, black people still couldn’t marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it’s worse than that. If this country had not “re-defined” marriage, some black people still couldn’t marry black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not “Until Death, Do You Part,” but “Until Death or Distance, Do You Part.” Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing, centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children, all because we said a man couldn’t marry another man, or a woman couldn’t marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage.

How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the “sanctity” of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don’t you, as human beings, have to embrace… that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling.  With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness—this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness—share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate.

You don’t have to help it, you don’t have it applaud it, you don’t have to fight for it. Just don’t put it out. Just don’t extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don’t know and you don’t understand and maybe you don’t even want to know. It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow person just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

“I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam,” he told the judge. It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all: So I be written in the Book of Love; I do not care about that Book above. Erase my name, or write it as you will, So I be written in the Book of Love.”

Just, y’know, a request for voting-age Minnesotans living in the 6th Congressional District here in MN.

Not only has she said more stupid things than should be allowable, her recent comments about Barack Obama have been disgusting.  I don’t call McCain ‘anti-American’, nor Palin.  In fact it seems to be the right who like to judge about what being American is all about.

Second half of the title is I would ask all California voters to vote NO on Proposition 8.  Homosexuality exists in almost all species of creature and is not some random perversion that occurs in humans.  The only reason we seem to view it as such is because of preconcieved notions that we were taught through different venues.  Medical and Psychological associations have all agreed that it is not a mental disorder, not some sort of illness, nothing.  It’s time that we stopped hiding behind hate and just accepted everyone for who they are.

Seriously, it’s society’s own doing that we feel it is innappropriate to see two guys or girls together.  Same reason we saw it innappropriate to see women in anything but dresses.  Or interracial couples.  Or teachers in school while they’re pregnant.  Something biological that one cannot change especially is important to recognize as a valuable difference that makes us unique, not something to shame and cause undue hardship for the person.

A fair number of people know how difficult my life has been because of my choice to face myself.  It’s a hard thing to do, which is why some men end up coming out after having a life and family already.  And it’s not easy.  So when society tells you you’re second class because of the way you were born, well, it’s no wonder there’s such a high suicide rate among GLBT teens.

And if you don’t think sexuality is biological, I’d like a good response on why you decided to be straight.  Including your struggle with looking at males and females equally and your decision to choose the opposite gender.

PS- I cleaned a lot of garbage out of my car!  Yay! </random note>

I still don’t get it.  It’s an assault on our original American beliefs and the will of the Founding Fathers.  Changing the meaning over “voter” to include people OTHER than white adult males is blasphemy.  Women didn’t have any say during Biblical times and they shouldn’t have any say now.

We failed at perserving the definition of voter.  It is an assault on white adult males everywhere and I’m going to lobby congress to not let this despicable amount of tolerance go unpunished.

I think it’s really unfortunate that families can fall apart when coping with a dying loved one.  We all have a lot of different ways we want to deal with our own feelings and the situations and it can cause horrible clashes and rifts between people.  Instead of focusing on being a family and supporting one another in the endeavor to make someone’s life as comfortable as it can be, things are turned so that everyone is vying to get their word in on how they think it should be handled.

The sad truth is that regardless of all the fighting and arguing the person is going to die.  All the static just slows down the process in which things can get done and time in which you could spend loving someone who is leaving you is significantly cut down.  It’s a time for closure with someone dear to you and should also be used as a time to give and recieve support from your family members, bond with them so that the grief can be shared between everyone.

When that person is gone, life for you will go on.  You’ll be held responisble for your actions, you’ll have to face people that you may have disagreed with, and most of all you will still be part of the family.  This is not the time to burn bridges, it’s not the time to act without thinking.  It’s a time when actions and words must be thought about with the utmost of care.  EVERYONE will be affected.

Love you all <3