Fifty years ago today, hundreds of thousands of people gathered in Washington, D.C. to march for the civil and economic rights of African Americans. There, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave what is likely the most famous speech of the 20th century. Here it is in its entirety.
The hottest ticket in DC today was a seat in the Supreme Court, where the justices heard oral arguments in the first of two days of hearings concerning same-sex marriage. The first case up was Hollingsworth v. Perry, better known as California's Proposition 8. Entitled director Rob Reiner was the first person in the public line to watch the arguments this morning, due to the fact that he paid someone to wait for him. ("He declined to talk about that aspect," reported the Huffington Post.) The rest of us schmoes, including cabals of protesters who had come to Washington to support or attack gay marriage, had to wait outside as news slowly trickled from the inner depths of the SCOTUS, where cameras and electronic equipment are banished.
The tenth anniversary of the Iraq War was marked by a procession of mostly liberal pundits solemnly apologizing for supporting the ill-fated invasion in the first place. As the issue of gay marriage goes in front of the Supreme Court, we're treated to the sight of the former president who signed the Defense of Marriage Act arguing that it should be overturned. Let's talk about what courage and cowardice in politics really mean.
When the Freedom Riders arrived in Montgomery, Alabama in May of 1961, they were greeted and beaten by a mob at the Greyhound station. The civil rights activists were not welcome in the deep south, and local law enforcement failed to protect them from violence and intimidation as the activists attempted to end race discrimination almost a century after the abolition of slavery.
The state of Mississippi ranks 50th in the average salary it pays its public school teachers. There's also, you know, the deep history of poverty and racism and deprivation. So perhaps it is no surprise that Mississippi's public schools are exceedingly quick to arrest students for the most trifling violations.
After 9/11, the New York Police Department in its manifest wisdom decided to start pretending that it was a global intelligence agency staffed by stealthy Jason Bourne types. In pursuit of its goal of spying on all Muslims, everywhere, New York's finest even crossed the Hudson River to New Brunswick, New Jersey, to establish a secret surveillance outpost because seriously there are Muslims literally everywhere. That little operation was foiled in 2009, though, when a super named Salil Sheth happened upon an apartment filled with surveillance equipment and Muslim literature and called 911 because he thought he'd stumbled upon a terror cell. The AP has just obtained the audio of the call.
Today, in the year 2012, long after Martin Luther King Jr. and all those other guys marched and stuff, there still exists, right here in New York City, the type of discrimination that would have made Sojourner Truth stand up and say, "I don't think so!" [Pause for laughter.] That's right: salons are charging dudes different prices than women, for stuff, sometimes.
The Jefferson Parish School Board has been under fire recently: civil rights organization Southern Poverty Law Center filed a complaint alleging that the school system "sends a disproportionate number of black and disabled students to alternative schools to languish for months." Now the group is targeting Jefferson Parish for employing a school psychologist who has posted a slew of racially charged comments online.
The Washington, D.C., headquarters of the gay-rights organization Human Rights Campaign was evacuated this morning after D.C. police passed on an unspecified bomb threat, according to Metro Weekly.
This is beautiful. Responding to President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage, commander-in-chief of hip-hop Jay-Z has weighed in with his own support of equality. In the video below, you can see Jay say:
"Marriage is between one man and one woman," Mitt Romney said in his speech at Liberty University. He earned a standing ovation — which isn't much of a surprise given the audience. Liberty University, founded by evangelical nightmare Jerry Falwell, is arguably the most conservative university in the nation.
ABC News has only released one brief clip of Obama's conversation about gay marriage today, but it seems fairly clear from the network's coverage that his announcement amounts to much less than meets the eye. He now believes that gay couples should be able to marry. He doesn't believe they have a right to do so. This is like saying that black children and white children ought to attend the same schools, but if the people of Alabama reject that notion—what are you gonna do?
Dakota Cochrane, a rising star in the world of mixed martial arts and a top contender on the new season of the Ultimate Fighter Live reality series set to start airing on March 9 on FX, previously had a career in gay porn, reports San Diego Gay and Lesbian News. Cochrane was known as "Danny" in the porn world and performed for Sean Cody Films.
In the USA and England, punk now exists solely to sell sneakers and sunglasses. In Southeast Asia, however, it exists to tell overbearing regimes to go fuck themselves.
Last night, the AP broke the news that the New York Police Department had spent months spying on Muslims in Newark, N.J. "The result was a 60-page report," AP reporter Adam Goldman writes, "containing brief summaries of businesses and their clientele." But was it a surveillance file... or just a guide to Newark's best Muslim restaurants?
