Showing posts with label heart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label heart. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
And gravity pulls and no matter how hard you try you can't fight it.
She's been finding Walden hidden in storybooks and pictures, tucked away on tanning pages. Notes in margins of broken hearts and heavy chests. Brilliant yet speechless.
There's no reason in madness or love. No sense in weightlessness. She wants to go home.
Meticulously detailed plans and letters written and stored away deep within a trunk of safety, the key strung loosely on waxed twine around her neck.
She's been finding Walden hidden in storybooks and pictures, tucked away on tanning pages. Notes in margins of broken hearts and heavy chests. Brilliant yet speechless.
There's no reason in madness or love. No sense in weightlessness. She wants to go home.
Meticulously detailed plans and letters written and stored away deep within a trunk of safety, the key strung loosely on waxed twine around her neck.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
thanks renee!
ok, so what a better way to start Tuesday than to get a link to this piece of heaven sent to me?!?!?! i've loved jesca hoop for ages and this album is incredible, sooooooo listen up. and if the music isn't enough, look at the pretty...Sunday, August 8, 2010
life's a beach
today we woke up early and headed east.
left turns. right turns. wrong turns.
tempers. doubt. silence.
forgiveness on water.
the knowing that this means more than anything.
left turns. right turns. wrong turns.
tempers. doubt. silence.
forgiveness on water.
the knowing that this means more than anything.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Prop 8 is UNCONSITUTIONAL
NYTimes Editorial
Marriage Is a Constitutional Right
Until Wednesday, the thousands of same-sex couples who have married did so because a state judge or Legislature allowed them to. The nation’s most fundamental guarantees of freedom, set out in the Constitution, were not part of the equation. That has changed with the historic decision by a federal judge in California, Vaughn Walker, that said his state’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the 14th Amendment’s rights to equal protection and due process of law.
The decision, though an instant landmark in American legal history, is more than that. It also is a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of pathbreaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.
As the case heads toward appeals at the circuit level and probably the Supreme Court, Judge Walker’s opinion will provide a firm legal foundation that will be difficult for appellate judges to assail.
The case was brought by two gay couples who said California’s Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote, discriminated against them by prohibiting same-sex marriage and relegating them to domestic partnerships. The judge easily dismissed the idea that discrimination is permissible if a majority of voters approve it; the referendum’s outcome was “irrelevant,” he said, quoting a 1943 case, because “fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote.”
He then dismantled, brick by crumbling brick, the weak case made by supporters of Proposition 8 and laid out the facts presented in testimony. The two witnesses called by the supporters (the state having bowed out of the case) had no credibility, he said, and presented no evidence that same-sex marriage harmed society or the institution of marriage.
Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in their ability to form successful marital unions and raise children, he said. Though procreation is not a necessary goal of marriage, children of same-sex couples will benefit from the stability provided by marriage, as will the state and society. Domestic partnerships confer a second-class status. The discrimination inherent in that second-class status is harmful to gay men and lesbians. These findings of fact will be highly significant as the case winds its way through years of appeals.
One of Judge Walker’s strongest points was that traditional notions of marriage can no longer be used to justify discrimination, just as gender roles in opposite-sex marriage have changed dramatically over the decades. All marriages are now unions of equals, he wrote, and there is no reason to restrict that equality to straight couples. The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage “exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage,” he wrote. “That time has passed.”
To justify the proposition’s inherent discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation, he wrote, there would have to be a compelling state interest in banning same-sex marriage. But no rational basis for discrimination was presented at the two-and-a-half-week trial in January, he said. The real reason for Proposition 8, he wrote, is a moral view “that there is something wrong with same-sex couples,” and that is not a permissible reason for legislation.
“Moral disapproval alone,” he wrote, in words that could someday help change history, “is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and women.”
The ideological odd couple who led the case — Ted Olson and David Boies, who fought against each other in the Supreme Court battle over the 2000 election — were criticized by some supporters of same-sex marriage for moving too quickly to the federal courts. Certainly, there is no guarantee that the current Supreme Court would uphold Judge Walker’s ruling. But there are times when legal opinions help lead public opinions.
Just as they did for racial equality in previous decades, the moment has arrived for the federal courts to bestow full equality to millions of gay men and lesbians.
Marriage Is a Constitutional Right
Until Wednesday, the thousands of same-sex couples who have married did so because a state judge or Legislature allowed them to. The nation’s most fundamental guarantees of freedom, set out in the Constitution, were not part of the equation. That has changed with the historic decision by a federal judge in California, Vaughn Walker, that said his state’s ban on same-sex marriage violated the 14th Amendment’s rights to equal protection and due process of law.
The decision, though an instant landmark in American legal history, is more than that. It also is a stirring and eloquently reasoned denunciation of all forms of irrational discrimination, the latest link in a chain of pathbreaking decisions that permitted interracial marriages and decriminalized gay sex between consenting adults.
As the case heads toward appeals at the circuit level and probably the Supreme Court, Judge Walker’s opinion will provide a firm legal foundation that will be difficult for appellate judges to assail.
The case was brought by two gay couples who said California’s Proposition 8, which passed in 2008 with 52 percent of the vote, discriminated against them by prohibiting same-sex marriage and relegating them to domestic partnerships. The judge easily dismissed the idea that discrimination is permissible if a majority of voters approve it; the referendum’s outcome was “irrelevant,” he said, quoting a 1943 case, because “fundamental rights may not be submitted to a vote.”
He then dismantled, brick by crumbling brick, the weak case made by supporters of Proposition 8 and laid out the facts presented in testimony. The two witnesses called by the supporters (the state having bowed out of the case) had no credibility, he said, and presented no evidence that same-sex marriage harmed society or the institution of marriage.
Same-sex couples are identical to opposite-sex couples in their ability to form successful marital unions and raise children, he said. Though procreation is not a necessary goal of marriage, children of same-sex couples will benefit from the stability provided by marriage, as will the state and society. Domestic partnerships confer a second-class status. The discrimination inherent in that second-class status is harmful to gay men and lesbians. These findings of fact will be highly significant as the case winds its way through years of appeals.
One of Judge Walker’s strongest points was that traditional notions of marriage can no longer be used to justify discrimination, just as gender roles in opposite-sex marriage have changed dramatically over the decades. All marriages are now unions of equals, he wrote, and there is no reason to restrict that equality to straight couples. The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage “exists as an artifact of a time when the genders were seen as having distinct roles in society and in marriage,” he wrote. “That time has passed.”
To justify the proposition’s inherent discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation, he wrote, there would have to be a compelling state interest in banning same-sex marriage. But no rational basis for discrimination was presented at the two-and-a-half-week trial in January, he said. The real reason for Proposition 8, he wrote, is a moral view “that there is something wrong with same-sex couples,” and that is not a permissible reason for legislation.
“Moral disapproval alone,” he wrote, in words that could someday help change history, “is an improper basis on which to deny rights to gay men and women.”
The ideological odd couple who led the case — Ted Olson and David Boies, who fought against each other in the Supreme Court battle over the 2000 election — were criticized by some supporters of same-sex marriage for moving too quickly to the federal courts. Certainly, there is no guarantee that the current Supreme Court would uphold Judge Walker’s ruling. But there are times when legal opinions help lead public opinions.
Just as they did for racial equality in previous decades, the moment has arrived for the federal courts to bestow full equality to millions of gay men and lesbians.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Monday, October 27, 2008
Obama at rally in Pittsburgh, Monday October 27, 2008 - As I was shaking his hand I thanked him for always remembering the lesbians and gays, he said "Of course, and thank you." Being at this rally was absolutely amazing. During the singing of the National Anthem I recalled how in high school at my basketball games my mom would harp on me about not putting my hand over my heart during the singing (I would instead stand respectfully with my hands behind my back); well, it was different this time. This time, I listened to that song and I stood in a room of 20,000 individuals and was more than proud of my country. I felt the hope that I've always wanted to know and I knew that this, electing Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States of America is, in fact possible. I even teared up. I was a proud, queer, female American. I know that we can truly become "angels of our better nature."
It is not the idealist in me - it is the realist in me. The part of me that knows and truly believes that we are better than these last eight years, that we, with Obama as President will be so much better off in 8 more years.
As I edit this and add text, we are almost 4 days out, there are people who I have met along this journey that I am so grateful for, there are many more, whom I have never met, but their stories are inspiring and it is these stories that keep me motivated in the late hours of the night, it is the thought of tomorrow that gets me up every morning before the sunrise to get out and organize, it is the students, the veterans, the moms, the dads, the disenfranchised, the poor, the women, the queers, the folks that just need a little help - - - it is the idea that America can become a place that I am truly proud of that keeps me going.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
the anticipation for this is sometimes paralyzing...
My favorite Scorpio's Release, possibly Feb.
...in the meantime, read ideolect
My favorite Scorpio's Release, possibly Feb.
...in the meantime, read ideolect
Sunday, October 12, 2008
And so it happened...
24 days out, I get sick...
I'm in Lancaster still and woke up this am and well, sore throat, cough, and that raspy voice I tend to actually like ;) but nonetheless, sick.
Today I'll be at the Lancaster field office, phonebanking and then a round of canvassing.
My hope, that we can change some hearts and minds and that the fresh Lancaster air sets me on a road back to health :)
Sent via BlackBerry
Friday, October 10, 2008
Not in Manhattan anymore...
Obama/Biden 2008
There's something great about being on a train, a pair of Levi's, a white, v-neck tee and my boots. I forgot the bourbon, but I'm not too far away from a dream.
smiling.
Sent via BlackBerry
Thursday, October 9, 2008
a day well spent
it's confirmed - water is necessary for my well being.
was there ever really a doubt?
that said, and acknowledged, my death will have something related to water...just sayin'
Sunday, October 5, 2008
as i lay here, attempting sleep i am next to a white envelope contents: a twenty;
close by the contents of my pockets -
an empty bottle of bourbon,
another twenty,
a twenty minus the blue moon and new company.
keys and a lighter.
books surround my sleep, words that were meant to inspire thoughts, something worth saying.
instead i'm sleepless -
the ideas around changes are caught in the corners of grey matter.
is she still drinking?
will i know when she stops.
i walked home tonight and told myself not to look up as i passed -
im not that strong.
i looked up to a dark window.
headed to the park -
a stint on the swings -
only wishing to fly, higher.
i passed a bride -
a saturday night well spent.
the universe is a complicated thing, that is what they say.
an exploratory committee.
thoughts that may pass.
sleep that doesn't come, when body is exhausted but mind streams on.
Monday, September 29, 2008
Saturday, September 27, 2008
After a train and ferry ride, this is what greeted me on Fire Island. Who could ask for anything more? The getaway to the island was much needed following a brunch in which I learned some news that was, to say the least, hard to swallow. I left brunch, and headed to the liquor store for some bourbon. My plan was to retreat to my roof and think...this plan was interupted by a text telling me to get my ass on a boat, how could I resist...so I packed a towel, a swimsuit, a change of clothes, the bourbon and headed to the train. No looking back.
Following the welcoming view, I was greeted by friends...we took a quick tour of Cherry Grove and then headed to the deck for bloody marias. Dinner at Cherry's, then back to the roof. After more drinking and relaxation, it was time for a nap before the evening's Halloween Party. Halloween drinking and dancing and partying at the coustume party, without, yup you guessed it, costumes. Party was followed by taking a long walk back to the house, my need of being close to the water...sleep.
Good Morning! Sunday morning: bloody marys, extra olives, please. A breakfast sandwich on the beach; preparing to swim, and being reminded who is in control - mother nature. Hard breaking waves, inconsistent rhythms, rip currents. As the day went on, the skies cleared, and more and more people came out of hiding and made their way down to the water.
Working with nature, studying her ebb and flow, stopping to feel. Working in tandem with her power, tapping into a cajoling power to find the partnership to dive through waves and enter the chaotic force. Worked up quite an appetite - pizza and beer on the beach - a perfect solution. Decision made to stay another night and have the best commute to work in ages...
The journey begins back to the chaos of NYC, a government bailout in Washington, and more than enough work to keep me in the office after we close at 2.
Good-bye to an amzing weekend. And much needed getaway. Hello to an amzing commute to work. (I'm saving for a boat - not exactly new news)
saturday...post brunch bloody marys
"tumble out of bed, and i stumble to the kitchen. pour myself a cup of ambition, and yawn and stretch and try to come to life. jump in the shower, and the blood starts pumpin, out on the streets the traffic starts jumpin with folks like me on the job from 9 - 5. workin 9 - 5, what a way to make a livin, barely gettin by, its all takin and no givin, they just use your mind and never give you no credit. its enough to make you crazy if you let it." dolly p.
am i really going to say fuck it and go to fire island or will i stay in brooklyn and get shit done. decision making post brunch is not a good idea. had brunch with big j - total craziness. i miss her. jadirus the virus. she told me she always looked up to me. wow.
am i really going to say fuck it and go to fire island or will i stay in brooklyn and get shit done. decision making post brunch is not a good idea. had brunch with big j - total craziness. i miss her. jadirus the virus. she told me she always looked up to me. wow.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
a weekend well spent
the best place to go to get away - the most permanent place in my life. it's one of my favorite times of the year to be there; the air is crisp, the water slowly preparing for the winter, the leaves begin to blush with the beauty of fall. on a clear night you can see the stars, and reach out as though you could grab them. sweatshirts. beanies. campfires. laughing till it hurts. i'm glad i was able to get away this weekend, to regroup and to come back to nyc ready for the next 47 days. bring it.
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