Thank a Veteran

Today Is Veterans' Day. Or, as my Grandparents originally knew it, Armistice Day.

Why Armistice, to honor the service of our veterans? World War One was the first major European War in a century. With no real memory of the true horrors of war, Europe quickly sank to the horrors of trench warfare, stagnant in military, social, and health terms.

The "War to End all Wars" did not achieve that goal. But the end of WW I by armistice, at 11 am European Time on 11-Nov-1918 ended the horrors of  the trenches, and a generation observed that hopeful event as Armistice Day.

The aftermath of a vindictive peace from Versailles destroyed a generation in Western Europe as the dystopian phoenix of Fascism and Nazism rose in the ashes of defeat and caused World War Two. The social collapse in eastern Europe which ended the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Turkish Empires also led to the horrors of Communism, which suppressed the hopes and lives of hundreds of millions for most of 20th Century.

So thank a Veteran today for their faithful service to our nation, and damn the politicians who undermined the work of our Sailors, Soldiers, Airmen / Airwomen, and Marines after 1918, and appear hellbent on the same today as they cut budgets on the backs of services to rehabilitate wounded warriors, and destroy the peace by failure to decide on the goals for our new wars..

Never again!

Today marks the 75th Anniversary of "Kristallnacht", the open salvo of the Nazi's organized attempt to exterminate the Jews. As everyone except the former president of Iran knows, the follow-up to this was the murder of 6 million Jews, as well as numerous Gays, Roma ("Gypsy"), Jehovah's Witnesses, the disabled, and others in Nazi extermination camps, the people deemed "unworthy" by the Nazis.

We need to remember the sheer inhumanity of the Nazis, and make sure this never happens again..

Thank you, Rep Kawakami

Rep Derek Kawakami of Kauai noted in his comments in support of SB-1, the Hawaii equal marriage bill, that there is only one time is is proper to look down on someone. That one time is when you at standing over someone, helping them up when they fall.

The opponents of equal civil marriage do not understand this, and go out of their way to put down and denigrate Gay and Lesbian persons.

Here's hoping that Hawai'i completes the work begun in 1993 with Baehr v Miike, sadly sidetracked for the past 15 years through the 1998 amendment.

Rep Kawakami, you are a saint and a hero.

Best testimony yet from Hawai'i

7:54 pm, HST, 11/4/13

The (straight but not narrow) woman testifying now before the Hawai'i House Judiciary committee just noted that marriage equality for same sex couples will make those opposed uncomfortable, just as the abolition of slavery in 1865 made the live of white people less comfortable.

Cry me a river, build me a bridge, get over it.

There's a map for that.

I saw a link on another news article, pointing to maps you might like. One of the choices was a transit map, showing where you can go in 15 minutes from any spot.

Fascinating what an overlay to Google maps can do.

Have we learned nothing since Thomas More?

I've been watching the news from Honolulu as the Hawai'i legislature debates SB-1, the proposed marriage equality bill.

See, for example, streaming video from the House and Senate.

It's fascinating watching the testimony from the anti-Gay side. The seem incapable of separating religious from secular reasons to support their position. I am always reminded of Robert Bolt's comments in "A Man for All Seasons", arguing with his son-in-law about how to root out "evil".

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast– man's laws, not God's– and if you cut them down—and you're just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.