Category: Personal Page 32 of 59

This morning, I saw a car with an “Abortion Holocaust” bumpersticker.  Rare enough in Arlington, but we get them from time to time.  But as my eyes drifted off of it, they found the other bumpersticker “Grow Locally, Buy Locally.”  Hrruh? Not the usual pairing, and it made me wonder more about the person in the car.  Quickly, she became a person with beliefs, instead of an easily dismissable stereotype.  Imaginable, for sure, but not someone who falls in the easy boxes we often find ourselves lazily relying upon.

I was similarly intrigued when someone pointed out this Vegan.com article on Matthew Scully, author of Hunter/Poacher/VP Nominee Sarah Palin’s speech to the RNC last night.  Turns out that he’s the same Matthew Scully that authored Dominion.  What’s Dominion?  Vegan.com characterizes it as ” one of the most influential animal rights books in print.”.  This Amazon link describes it:

Throughout Dominion, Scully counters the hypocritical arguments that attempt to excuse animal abuse: from those who argue that the Bible’s message permits mankind to use animals as it pleases, to the hunter’s argument that through hunting animal populations are controlled, to the popular and “scientifically proven” notions that animals cannot feel pain, experience no emotions, and are not conscious of their own lives.

The result is eye opening, painful and infuriating, insightful and rewarding. Dominion is a plea for human benevolence and mercy, a scathing attack on those who would dismiss animal activists as mere sentimentalists, and a demand for reform from the government down to the individual. Matthew Scully has created a groundbreaking work, a book of lasting power and importance for all of us.

Not exactly what you’d expect from a Bush/Palin speechwriter, eh?  Apparently even Time noticed the disconnect:

The Palin-Scully pairing is anything but a guaranteed fit, though. Palin is known as an avid hunter; Scully is best known for his vigorous defense of animal rights. A vegetarian who is regularly critical of the NRA and much of the hunting community, he is a passionate advocate for doing away with the more brutal versions of blood-sport, including aerial hunting, which Palin supports.

Our boxes.  They don’t always serve us well.

Republican Lynn Westmoreland described Obama thusly, today:

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

Just an innocent word that us mean old liberals are using to unfairly paint the Republicans as the home racists, right?  Ha.

Lynn Westmoreland hails from Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District, which starts in Atlanta’s southwestern suburbs and heads over to the Alabama border.  There is no ambiguous use of the word “uppity” there.  It’s the sort of word that starts something that can often end in violence.  And when he was given a chance to retract it, good ol’ racist Lynn Westmoreland pressed it home.  He can add this accomplishment to his resume, right there with opposing renewal of the Voting Rights Act and being one of two House members to vote against H.R. 923, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007 (a bill that would have reopened hate crimes cases from before 1970).

And we wonder why people think the South is full of racists.