Tea Party Signage Goodness

On Sunday, there were Tea Party rallies across the country. And as is now the norm with these sorts of things, signs were abundant. This is neither a good thing, nor a bad thing, but it is in many instances, an amusing thing. I love signs. Let's see if the type of sign that is at every other rally of this sort was present on Sunday. Come on, signers! I know you won't let me down!

First, we're going to need a small child who has no idea what is going on. Do we have one of those? Indeed we do!

Next, we're going to need to see a small child who may have some idea of what is going on, but doesn't look thrilled about it. Do we have one of those?

Check! OK, now we need something inferring that President Barry is a Muslim. (He's not a Muslim, by the way. He's a socialist. That's bad enough. If you don't want to like him, you don't need to make things up. Just don't like him because he's a socialist and you won't end up sounding like a nutjob...or a complete nutjob.)

Yeah, I'm not sure if that really infers that President Barry is a Muslim or not, but it has a pretty good depiction of a rather lopsided mosque and it says "Obama" on it, so it's going to have to do. Up next, I need a sign comparing President Barry to Hitler. Hitler. Anyone? Anyone? What?! NO Hitler comparisons?! OMG!

I could not believe that I didn't see a single sign with Hitler on it. Not one! I was kind of relieved, but I will admit that it also disappointed me just a tad. Hitler is always good for a laugh. Well, now. (It can't be too soon for that kind of joke, can it? Naaaahhh.) I'm going to need a sign that wasn't really thought out very well in terms of spacing.

Don't get me wrong. I suppose that she could have planned it like that. I just am not sure why she would have wanted to. Regardless, kudos to her for putting his hand on there anyway. It does make it kind of stand out a little bit; I will give her that. Now I'm going to need a sign that may have been planned out the way that it was, but it was probably a bad idea because it takes too much work to read it.

It's like looking at one of those charts when you go to the eye doctor. At first, I almost thought that the letters were supposed to spell something. And they are, just not cumulatively. We're still missing a sign which is perfectly fine on its own, but is photographed in an ironic manner.

Yeah, he looks anything but vigilant. He has the right idea for the type of sign that you need for these things, though. Bright colors on a dark background and a simple message. Granted, it's more fun the way that other folks do it, but if you're going for effect, follow this guy's lead. OK, we're almost done with our list here. We're down to needing a sign that makes absolutely NO sense what so ever.

OK, so, yeah. Wow. Is that our standard now? The ol' 18-letter standard? Anything that you can make fit in 18 letters makes for a good comparison, is that how this works? You know what else has 18 letters? TEAPARTYCUCKOOBIRD. And finally, we're going to need at least two signs that just make you laugh. Here's one:

I have no idea what Mickey Mouse has to do with any of this, but that's what makes it amusing. And here's the second one that just makes you laugh:

Good for you, lady, you smart ass cracker, you. Good. For. You.

Protest & March to Support Islamic Cultural Center

At the invitation of Miriam R., one of my former fiction students, I joined her and a friend of hers at the rally, at City Hall Park yesterday, on behalf of the Park 51 Islamic Cultural Center, which originally had merited little commentary or negative reponses, until blogger Pamela Geller, disgraced former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, fanatical talkshow host Sean Hannity, and others demagogued the issue, mischaracterizing both the center (which is not a mosque, or masjid) and its location (not at Ground Zero, the former World Trade Center site, under which I passed at least 2-3 days every week this summer on my way to the 4, 5 or 6 trains and thus the New York Public Library's Research Branch at Bryant Park, but two blocks away on Park Place), thereby provoking a racist, anti-Muslim furor that has not yet fully waned. Believing strongly in the principles of religious freedom, free speech, and separation of church and state, I decided to commemorate 9/11 by attending the rally, which was only a block north of the memorial for the victims but several blocks away from the anti-Islamic Center protests, and am posting a few of the photos from it and from my post-rally gambol around the area with Miriam below.


The Park 51 site

A 9/11 truther, just outside Ground Zero

At the rally, before the march

A veteran, supporting the Islamic Cultural Center

People raising placards and signs as an anti-Islamic van drove by

A reporter waiting to deliver her remarks

Reporters from a Japanese news crew

Marching

A fashion-forward photographer

Young man being told by cops he must take a different route

The media

Some people after the march, gathering on the State Court House steps, at Foley Square

A friendly young Christianist we encountered after the march

A Christianist with hateful sign

The Mosque Mess

I'm going to try my best to delve into this whole "should they build a mosque at Ground Zero" debate that seems to be going on. I'm not so sure how well I'm going to do with this, as it doesn't seem to be that difficult of a concept to wrap my head around. When something is that easy for me to understand, I always feel like I must be missing something. Yet, folks are all up in arms about it, and understandably so. Let's see what all the hubbub is about, shall we?

According to the Boston Herald, "A controversial mosque and Islamic center to be built some 600 feet from Ground Zero cleared its last legal hurdle this week, winning approval from New York’s Landmarks Preservation Commission." That's right. A group of folks headed by a one Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (pronounce any of those however you'd like) want to build a mosque a couple of blocks from where the World Trade Center used to stand and where almost three thousand people were killed as the result of "...the actions of a group of Islamic radicals.". As you can imagine, that idea isn't setting very well with folks.

People are upset. People want to prevent them from building a mosque there, saying that it's disrespectful, it's awful, etc. And they're right. It would appear to be all of those things and a whole hell of a lot more. But here's the thing: No matter how much we don't like it, there isn't anything we can do about it to prevent it from being built.

That whole First Amendment, you know, the one that makes this country freaking awesome? Yeah, that thing is exactly why nothing can be done and it's probably why nothing should be done. The First Amendment, for those who might be a little fuzzy on the text, reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances." You can't just ignore that.

I wish that, instead of focusing on how much people dislike and abhor this idea, people would focus more on things like why in the world is it being built there of all freaking places? Yeah, yeah, I know that they have the land and that land in Manhattan is rather difficult to come by. I get that. That doesn't make it any more palatable. And it certainly doesn't make it any more justifiable.

Apparently, this project has a web site that the Boston Herald inexplicably does not link to. Oh, that's right. The media sucks. I forgot. But they do say "The Web site for the $100 million project says all the right things about its aims at bringing people of different faiths together and about honoring the memory of 9/11 victims." Hmm. Tell you what, mosque guys. How about you let us decide when we'd like to be brought together, OK? How about you help us honor the memory of the 09/11 victims by not building a mosque a couple of blocks away? How about that? I can't see how something this disrespectful is going to do anything other than strain relations between folks of different faiths. (And by "between folks of different faiths" I mean the mosque-goers and the non-mosque goers.)

I'm guessing because it doesn't have anything to do with any of that flowery crap that he was spouting. See, "He has repeatedly refused to disclose who is putting up the money for the project, although he told an Arab-language newspaper that such funding would come from the Middle East." Why wouldn't you disclose that, dude? Why the secrets? You expect people to be perfectly OK with this and not ask you questions? You expect people are going to be perfectly OK with this when you refuse to answer their questions about funding? This can't be good.

Obviously, this is just a kick in the head of the American people. They could build this thing anywhere they wanted to, but they're not. And I think that they're not because it's their way of letting us know that they're here and they're not going away. And as the United States, we have to allow that, as that is what our Constitution guides us to do. Now, I keep hearing the argument or the point or whatever they want to call it about Pearl Harbor. Basically, would we have let the Japanese build some sort of Shinto shrine or temple next to the USS Arizona? It kind of sounds valid, but I don't think that it really is when the context of how it's being argued is used.

See, the Japanese would not have built a temple next to the USS Arizona. You know why not? Because we kicked their ass, that is correct. We not only kicked their ass, we obliterated it. Twice. We haven't kicked anyone's ass in retaliation for 09/11. Oh, sure. We invaded a country that had nothing to do with it and deposed of their dictator who was eventually executed. We've been traipsing around the God-forsaken rocks of Afghanistan for a while without a lot of success. (But that's only because success hasn't been defined yet. As soon as it's defined, I'm sure that we'll have fallen incredibly short. But until then, we'll just stay vague about the degree of success which we may or may not have achieved.)

If someone's ass had been kicked over 09/11, you can bet that there wouldn't be any mosque building going on that close to Ground Zero. They're doing it simply because they can and, more importantly, because they want to. They want to appear the martyr in this situation. They want to have rationale for all of their twisted logic under Islamic law and Sharia law. And since we operate under our Constitution, we have to allow them to do so.

I don't know what would be better; to civilly protest this thing or to stay quiet about this thing. Legally, nothing can be done and nothing should be done. Legal action for something like this would point the country in a direction that I'm not so sure you really want it to go in. In fact, I'm positive you don't. But would a lack of attention be better in this case? I don't know. I just know that people need to take their emotions out of the issue. I realize that is damn near impossible for some. But we can't go around making decisions based on feelings. (Look at California's freaking financial situation. The state is swimming in expensive "feel good" programs. It doesn't work to legislate with feelings.) That just doesn't work.

Facebook Wins

Terms like "a lot" are only accurate when used in the correct context, unless you're a very small child, in which case, your perception and context is a bit skewed, not to mention a bit limited. Thus, if you're not a small child and have more than four or five years experience on this planet, you're going to have to use terms like "a lot" correctly so that it doesn't make you look and/or sound like a complete moron. Though in this case, I don't think that's all one will have to do in order to avoid the moron moniker.

There is apparently a movement underfoot (or under CPU) for folks to delete their Facebook account. According to the huffy folks over at The Huffington Post, "A group of dissatisfied Facebook users have teamed up in an effort to organize a mass, coordinated exodus from Facebook". Whaaa...?? A mass coordinated exodus from Facebook? That sounds serious! And while the propelling rationale behind such a movement is serious, I'd hardly call what they have going on a "mass coordinated exodus".

The issue has become the privacy settings on Facebook. Now, I am one person who is fully behind the school of thought that if you don't want the world to see something, for God's sake, don't post it on the Internets (yes, all of them!). But I'm also someone who thinks that I should have control over my own stuff. I'm not a big fan of someone else telling me what is private and what is public. How about if I decide that? Uh, well, if you're asking Facebook, they're not going to let you.

Now, there's nothing making you use Facebook in the first place. I find it ridiculous, yet at the same time, rather entertaining. I am not a big fan of having anything about myself plastered all over anywhere. (It almost makes me cringe every time I see my own picture on this blog. I'm not comfortable with it.) That being said, I never really cared because I could always clamp down my privacy setting so that I could keep certain things (ie, everything) private except to those who were my "Friends". Granted, my life is so boring that there isn't anything on there that would cause scandal in my life, but I'm trying to make a point! Can we pretend that I have a social life just for the sake of a freakin' argument, for cryin' out loud?!

It's when Facebook decided that they would decide what its users had control over is when people started getting up in arms. According to Huffington Post again, Facebook's privacy police "...is now longer than the Constitution and offers some 50 settings and over 170 options." OK, do I care that it's longer than the Constitution? Not really. A lot of things are longer than the Constitution. Most owner's manuals are longer than the Constitution. That isn't reason alone for me to stop buying products. (Man, if you're going to come up with an inflammatory argument, try to make it better than "it's longer than the Constitution". That's pretty weak. The Constitution might not be very long, but I will say that with all of that swirly, old-timey writing, it is a bit difficult to read as it was written. At least the Facebook policy has a more eyeball friendly font.)

But if you're using the Constitution as a guide for what is an acceptable length for any sort of document and/or policy, and you are now considering deleting your Facebook account, then you're going to want to know about Quit Facebook Day. And it is just what it sounds like. The website cited is a proponent of that "mass exodus" I mentioned above. As of this writing, they have 1,745 folks who claim to be committed to deleting their Facebook account on May 31st. That's about twice as many as the 780 that had made the commitment when the Huffington Post article went up. If that sort of commitment continues, then it might turn into something that might be more interesting to watch than paint drying.

Facebook has over 400,000,000 user accounts. From what I can tell, only about a quarter of those are daily users. Don't get me wrong. That's a heckuva lot of people, that one hundred million. But it's a far cry from the user base that Facebook claims to have. And I'm sure that there's a point where it doesn't matter how many users there are for any practical arguments. But since I don't know where that point is, I'm still going with whatever it is that I've been spelling out up until this point.

Facebook is free because it is an information mining organization. It takes every single thing that you post on there and logs it in a very large book (I'm guessing here) and then sells that information to companies who can't figure out how to mine their own data (mainly because they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground). If you have even 100,000,000 active user's information to sell, having 1,725 people quit isn't going to even register a blip on the Facebook radar. They don't care. They're not going to care. Why would they? They're making a gazillion dollars off of the apparent fact that some folks cannot resist the temptation to post half-naked, drunken, frat party pictures of themselves every weekend.

Does it suck? I don't know. Maybe. I guess I wished that privacy controls weren't necessary. But in a world where online identity theft is rampant, they kind of are. Do I wish that I could post half-naked, drunken, frat party pictures of myself every weekend and not have to worry about ramifications? Sure, but only because I'd really like to be half-naked and drunk at a frat party (it's been a while). I think I wish more that people were smarter and more responsible than that, but I have better things to think about and wish for than the impossible, let alone, the improbable.

And while the only thing that is going to make Facebook reconsider whether or not it should be in charge of determining what is private and what is public is to have another option available, that's not going to fix things for a lot of people. The problem here is that the definition and probably more importantly the expectation of privacy is being changed. No one is going to use another option if they don't think that not having privacy is a problem. Granted, no one has to use any of these things at all. But if the definition and the expectations of privacy are changed to the point where real privacy no longer exists, then it becomes more than just about freaking Facebook. Then it becomes about all of the Internets (all of which I love dearly). And then it becomes one of those cases where it doesn't need to be about change right at the moment. It needs to be more about awareness.