Today's Cultural Warfare Update

Getting caught up, one chunk at a time. There'll be more later this weekend again - that's what happens when you fall behind like that, I suppose. The first big deal in this update is that the Texas decision to include HPV in the standard vaccination set for schools is causing all kinds of theocon outrage - and to my surprise, apparently the school vaccinations in Texas are all opt-out, including this one, and that's not good enough. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention speaks out against HPV vaccination as "a difficult issue" - all because of OMG WOMEN MIGHT HAVE MORE SMEXING IF THEY DON'T THINK THEY'LL DIE FROM CERVICAL CANCER!!1! and I only wish I was making that up. The second big deal is CWA attempting to turn a blog reader's comment - a comment which was deleted by the blog owner, I might add - into a possible conspiracy by "crazed ... homosexuals" to assassinate Christians. Oh, and lastly, CWA's Matt Barber floats the idea that Mitt Romney is "the father of 'gay' marriage." Funny!

Anyway, today's news:

Concerned Women for America spins a response on a blog into an attempt on someone's life; the blog owner did actually take down the comment once she found out about it; Matt Barber, Concerned Women for America's Policy Director for Cultural Issues, calls it "nothing short of cyber-terrorism" and demands legal action;

CWA calls the HPV vaccine, which prevents cervical cancer, "a sex virus vaccine" in condemning the Texas decision to require it as part of the school vaccination regime, which they call "an outrageous assault on girls and their parents";

CWA's Matt Barber up to bat again, condemning Israel's recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other countries;

CWA's Matt Barber up again, this time attacking Mitt Romney as the "Father of 'gay' marriage";

CWA's Mike Mears, director of state legislative relations, condemns Texas decision on the HPV vaccine;

CWA's Amelia Wigton condemns the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women;

CWA has a second (audio-only) article on the blog comment, this one headlined, "Homosexual Blog Puts Pro-Family Activist in the Crosshairs…Literally" - which is, of course, not just stupid, but incoherently wrong, as "literally" would mean that someone actually used something like a gunsight, when what actually happened is someone commented on a blog; also, their text summary implies that the blogger herself posted the comment, which is not true. The point of all this, of course, is to tie back to their semi-regular assertion that GBLT people are dysfunctional, violent, and otherwise unfit to be normal people; there's a lot about how GBLT people are "crazed" and hate all Christians;

CWA blames pr0n again for the Abu Ghraib torture scandal;

CWA condemns Portuguese attempt to legalise abortion within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy;

Richmond, Virginia story about a legislative proposal to prohibit state government from discriminating against GBLT in hiring for state jobs is opposed by CWA, who they report as saying it will "set a precedence [sic] of condoning illegal activities including sexually molesting children and bestiality";

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land talks about the HPV vaccine that prevents cervical cancer as "a difficult issue" and says "I don’t want the government to do anything that would encourage that kind of behavior" (meaning sex), but adds, "I don’t want premarital sexual intercourse to be a death sentence" - still, it's really neat watching the theocon movement be really unhappy with a cancer vaccine because the virus it prevents against can be spread sexually; Land even opposes the vaccine as a default, apparently - but can't quite bring himself to say he opposes it outright; according to this article's author and Richard Land both, the vaccine is opt-out in Texas, along with all other vaccines - but they're opposing even that;

Agape Press cranky about the Israeli recognition of a foreign same-sex marriage; oooh, this is cool; the article quote Concerned Women for America's Matt Barber as saying that this'll encourage Islamic terrorism so shouldn't have been allowed, and calls it "it’s just a step away from breaking out the golden calf";

Kansas Catholic Conference opposes HPV vaccination as part of school vaccination set in Kansas because it's "for a behavior that's not common on the playgrounds" - the news story itself just comes out and says the opposition comes from HPV being sexually transmitted;

Faith and Freedom Network condemns domestic partnership recognition in any form;

Faith and Freedom Network ACTION ITEM against "reciprocal benefits" legislation in Washington State, HB 1351; Gary Randall calls 1351 "one of the most discriminating bills the Washington legislature has seen in my lifetime" for... allowing same-sex partners to designate each other beneficiaries for certainly limited legal purposes;

FFN's blog against the WA-DOMA stunt initiative, which would have the justification for the ruling of the State Supreme Court against GBLT marriage rights applied equally to straight couples - and as such, would invalidate childless marriages. It's being done as a stunt to point out how asymmetrical (and stupid) that ruling was, and even he's aware of that, but he's still pissed off;

FFN puts out a PDF of their legislative agenda; the first is a bill to slow divorce proceedings (they're for it); the second and third are GBLT DP and marriage rights bills. (Obviously, they're against.)

( Transcriptions, articles, and excerpts below )

Garden Show!

Yay, gardening time! February is the beginning of soil prep time for veggie gardening. You can actually plant some stuff now, if you want; in fact, there are a small assortment of things you can go ahead and plant now, particularly if you have a cold frame. But even then, it's better to spend this time prepping your soil, waiting a week or two, doing some more prep, waiting a week or two, then planting in March and April and May. What I did this time was pull off some of the leaves, hoe the partially-decomposed leaves left behind into the soil, and add fish oil and dolomite lime for Ph balance. That'll take a couple of weeks.

If you don't have or don't want to use a cold frame, you're better off waiting until next month for soil prep, unless you want to plant snow peas or another very-early cold-weather crop.

I also did a lot of cleanup in back, giving the new giant loppers a little bit of a workout. They worked great; I've cleared most of the volunteer shoots away from up against the retaining wall, and our apple and pear trees should get a bit more light this year. Plus, I peeled back all the #*@&$(!!! english ivy again. So that's all for the good.

Meanwhile, it's almost time for the Northwest Flower and Garden Show, downtown at the convention centre! I always go. Anybody wanna meet up down there and/or go with?

[Poll #924990]

Oh, and since I'm posting: we went out tonight with a few people and saw Pan's Labyrinth, which, while dark, was actually less dark than I expected. It's a well made movie, to be sure, but the mythological half of the movie rather disappointed, leaving me feeling rather too much like I'd been handed a paint-by-numbers kit. There were places it could have gone which would have been more interesting - to me, anyway - but it didn't happen, so I was sad. And the portion set in Spain pulled a punch or two that I wouldn't have pulled at the end. Still, I enjoyed the interplay between the two sets of structures and rather liked how those parallel parts played against each other, so that was nice, and I liked the sets and the performances, so that's all for the good.

Mmm, sleepy now. Vote in my poll!