I Support Ceara Sturgis

by Dick Mac

Ceara Sturgis is a young woman whose choice of clothing styles has always leaned towards the masculine. She wears "boys clothes" and is most comfortable that way.

She wore "boys clothes" as a pre-teen and a tween and a teenager, and as she approaches the end of her teenage years, she still wears "boys clothes."

Obviously, any clothes owned by Ceara are girls' clothes. She is a girl and she owns them, and that makes them a girls' clothes. The notion that I might see these same clothes in an advertisement or on a mannequin and think of them as boys' clothes matters for nothing. They are purchased by a girl, they are in her wardrobe, she wears them and they are girls' clothes now.

At the high school she attends in Mississippi, high school seniors are required to "dress" in a particular way: the boys are put in a tuxedo jacket, dress shit and bow tie, and the girls are put in a drape.

Ceara posed in her drape and was not at all comfortable. She asked to pose in the tuxedo, the photographer got her re-seated and took a beautiful picture of her for the yearbook.

When someone in the school's administration saw the picture they decided to exclude her from the yearbook. It's not rocket science to conclude that this decision is unconstitutional and a violation of Ceara's civil rights.

Needless to say, and thankfully, the American Civil Liberties Union has taken the issue to the federal courts.

This sort of discrimination has to stop.

Please support Ceara anyway you can.

I Support Ceara Sturgis on Facebook

District sued over yearbook

Support Ceara Sturgis: Yearbooks Must Include Everyone

Influencing Elections Without Voting

by Dick Mac

News Corporation, especially its subsidiaries of Fox News and The New York Post, have been referred to as the media appendage of the Republican Party.

This isn't news, it's not even a stretch. Anybody who pays any attention to the dissemination of information knows that News Corporation broadcasts and distributes the party-line for conservatism, general, and the GOP, specifically.

No other news agency operates in such a complicit manner: not Gannett, not New York Times Corporation, not Time-Warner, no other company perfectly aligns itself with a political party as does News Corporation.

The Supreme Court, today's conservative power base, decided that corporations can spend money on electoral campaigns in the same manner as voting citizens. This is bad news for Americans.

There is so much wrong with this decision that the simple statement that corporations aren't people, and companies can't vote, seem too simplistic to even present as an argument. In reality, though, they are the best arguments: if you can't mark a ballot, you shouldn't be giving money to influence electoral campaigns.

Recently, Target and Best Buy have donated large sums of money to Republican campaigns, and you can probably bet your bottom dollar that every other corporation with an extra nickle in the bank plans on donating that money to the Republcians, as well. Why? They know that Republicans will enact laws that benefit business to the detriment of workers and consumers.

This is bad news for eveyrone, including teabaggers who work for a living.

News Corp. Gives Republicans $1 Million

Target Ain't People

by Dick Mac

Target (a/k/a Tarjhay) is the first large corporation to make a campaign donation after the Supreme Court declared that corporations are people and have the same right to spend money on electoral campaigns as ordinary citizens.

Sadly, Target donated that money to the campaign of a man who opposes the civil rights of taxpayers and the workplace rights of America's labor force.

I wrote about one mother's dismay a couple weeks ago in my post When Moms Boycott.

Recently, some who disagree with Target's decision took to the aisles with a demonstration that consisted of singing a reworked version of Depeche Mode's "People Are People," renamed "Target Ain't People."

Aerosmith Perform "Dream On" at Fenway Park

by Dick Mac

Easing back into daily publishing, I begin my return from a New England vacation with this bootleg video of Aerosmith performing "Dream On" at Fenway Park, in Boston, on August 14, 2010.

Enjoy it until it's taken down by "the authorities."

Until 16 AUG . . .