Responding to hate creatively

A few days ago, I posted about how Australian bus shelter ads promoting safer sex were taken down when the company, Adshel, received 80 complaints, and how after they realised it was actually the result of an organised campaign from extremist anti-gay activists, they put the ads back up.

This video takes the real homophobic comments from the complaints and also from comments posted to articles covering the story. They say about 80-90% are verbatim, with some creative liberties, too, and all to make a point, as summed up in the information they posted with the video on YouTube:

“It's unfortunate these people use the banner of ‘Christianity’ to promote hate. Most modern Christians have accepted the homophobic aspects of the bible as misguided relics from a society gone by—like stoning, slavery and the whole ‘world being flat’ thing. Unfortunately, there are a minority in Australia that wield these like weapons and give Christians a bad name.

“I don't like that. You don't get to do that any more. If you're uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality, you will grow out of it and then realise you had nothing to fear, and that your life hasn't changed in the slightest.” [typos corrected]

This is one of the more creative ways that I’ve seen people fight back against homophobic bigotry, and I think it’s something others can do and build on. This is the first way I’ve seen that really has the potential to embarrass bigots with their own words.

(Via Joe.My.God.)

One word for the weather

Meh.

The Gay Who Wasn't Gay Enough

Because not everything about Gay Pride Month has to be serious…
(Via Joe.My.God.)

A good day for love

Yesterday, my native Illinois officially became the latest US state to offer civil unions, giving same-sex couples all the state-level benefits of marriage—without allowing them to actually get married, of course. Several hundred people took out licenses on the first day they were available, and today the first couples became legally joined. A special ceremony with Illinois Governor Pat Quinn and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel was held in the city’s Millennium Park (as covered by Windy City Times, with photos).

Let me clear: This is very important for the couples who, until June 1, had no way to have their relationship recognised by the state of Illinois. When I read the Chicago Tribune account, I was struck by one fact: How long the couples profiled had been waiting for official recognition: From 10 to 47 years—nearly five decades waiting to be treated like a citizen. Talk about the enduring power of love! That’s probably longer than most marriages last.

Even so, civil unions are not marriages, which have universal legal recognition throughout the state. Illinois still needs full marriage equality or, if the “m word” so troubles delicate souls, then Illinois could convert all existing marriages to civil unions and get the state out of the marriage business altogether.

Naturally, the anti-gay industry is in full froth mode (when are they not?). Anti-gay extremist “Porno Pete” LaBarbara, who is head of an SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group, is organising a campaign to try and get a referendum on the ballot to amend the state constitution to outlaw any recognition of same-sex relationships, including civil unions. It’s a legally pointless vanity exercise, which would cost hard-working Illinois taxpayers a lot of money just to assuage Porno Pete’s ego—well, that, and so Porno Pete can use it to raise ever more money, which is kinda the whole point.

Illinois doesn’t have binding citizen-initiated referenda; instead citizens have only advisory referenda—the Illinois General Assembly must take action, which it won’t. That fact makes the bald hatred and bigotry of Porno Pete’s group even more evident. The proposed wording of their referendum statement makes it obvious: “To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.” [emphasis added]

Note the way it apes the tone of the wording in the Preamble to the US Constitution; that’s no accident. The anti-gay industry tries to wrap itself—and it’s hatred—in the US flag, apparently thinking no one will be able to see what hate-filled bigots they truly are. But if this was really about their peculiar religious views, they wouldn’t oppose civil unions, too. Their true agenda is that that they want zero recognition of same sex couples (outlawing civil unions for heterosexuals, too, doesn’t fool anyone about their true intention). In fact, many leaders of the anti-gay industry (AFA, FRC, and others) are openly advocating criminalisation of homosexuality itself and active discrimination against GLBT people, even if that means breaking the law to do it. Yeah, those people are such good Americans—they must be added to Mt. Rushmore at once!

So today we see an important step on the road to full equality for gay and lesbian Illinoisans. Yet we are mindful that it is not yet full equality, and also that there are still enemies waging a culture war to take away even this.

Hatred, bigotry, prejudice, religious intolerance and religious chauvinism have always been with us. But so, too, has love. Today, we have a true victory for the enduring power of love. We must all ensure that love, not hatred, always wins.

About sums it up

Today I read a post on Joe.My.God. about how the Obama White House has set-up a new page on its website called “Winning the Future: President Obama and the LGBT Community”. I think that’s a really good thing—can anyone seriously imagine any Republican president doing that?—but the comments to such posts on Joe’s site always degenerate into fights between factions, with nothing to be learned, and no real common ground.

Even so, buried among the nearly 200 comments, many of them flat out stupid (a topic I’ll return to another day), was one that I thought neatly sums up the situation facing GLBT voters—so much so, I decided to do something I’ve never done before and re-publish someone else’s comment here, because I think it’s that good (hopefully, I’m not violating anyone’s copyright; if so, just email me).

Anyway, here’s that contribution from commenter James:

Here's the playing field:

1) Pro-gay politicians who will support gay rights to a certain extent. The line to be determined is how much support will get them how many votes and campaign dollars without costing them anything. This line is called the point of diminishing returns, and Obama has determined his. So have many prominent Democrats.

2) Anti-gay politicians pandering to the anti-gay vote. (JMG covers these).

3) People who don't really care.

4) Racist, wealthy gays who care more about taxes than equal gay rights. They think that they are part of the elite, and don't realize that the part of the elite they are licks the boot of backwoods white evangelical Republicania, then asks if he can use [his] Amex to pay for the privilege of being allowed to do so.

5) Pouty gays who care more about rights than progress, however incremental. These opt out and spend election night in a karaoke bar singing mournful torch songs. Morrissey, mostly, and Tori Amos.

6) Gays who would prefer to cast support behind full-equality politicians who are totally unelectable, and who don't care that people who are unelectable can't speak for us, because they are only visible during campaigns. They spend election night sprinting down K Street in a leather thong with a lit sparkler up their hoo-hah and singing "Anarchy In The UK". (Yay, principles!)

Obama needs to be pushed, but I am unconfident that he can be, pre-2012. But he's the devil we know. So I'll vote for him, and write him letters, along with… others. I'll tell my personal story. I'll ask questions I already know the answers to. And I'll wait… a little longer.

I agree with the conclusion, too, actually, but I’ll have more to say about all this at another time. By the way, if you do follow the link to James' original comment, you'll need to click the link, then click in the URL address space over at JMG, and then hit enter. It's a JSKit thing, apparently.

Refreshing change

Here’s something you don’t see every day—well, not in the US, anyway: An Australian company reversed an earlier decision after it realised it had been targeted by a campaign from extremist anti-gay activists.

Outdoor advertising company Adshel removed bus shelter ads in Brisbane aimed at promoting condom use among gay men after they received some 30 complaints. However, they were unaware, until social media got wind of the story, that a religious extremist group, Australian Christian [sic] Lobby, had orchestrated the complaints.

The ACL’s spokesbigot, Wendy Francis, said, "I've been labelled homophobic. This has absolutely nothing to do with gay couples," which is a bit rich considering how notoriously anti-gay the group is. In a Tweet last year, Wendy compared gay marriage to legalising child abuse.

Wendy went on, "This has nothing to do with anything other than another condom ad in a bus shelter, where the children are catching buses to school and billboards where their parents are stopping at lights.” This amounts to the usual radical-right “Christian” hysterical refrain, “think of the—gasp!—children—gasp!”

There is no “sexual imagery” in the ad, despite Wendy’s fevered claims. The fully-clothed men are a real-life couple who are engaged to each other—note the ring, and even the Christian cross one of them wears. The unopened condom by itself is not sexual, and one could argue that it would be best for everyone if children grew up in a world in which the presence of condoms is a non-issue, not something to have a moral panic over.

Adshel issued their own statement, saying: "It has now become clear Adshel has been the target of a coordinated ACL campaign. This has led us to review our decision to remove the campaign, and we will therefore reinstate the campaign with immediate effect."

Kudos to Adshel for doing the right thing, though they probably shouldn’t have been so quick to react to supposed “complaints”. Hopefully, they’ll be more cautious—and suspicious—in the future.

Still, it’s a nice change from the usual course these things take. It’s a victory for common sense, and also a nice way to start GLBT Pride Month.

National's plans to kill ACC

The National-led government is moving ahead with plans to privatise New Zealand’s Accident Compensation Commission (ACC). Today they announced that it would be “opened up” to competition from private insurance companies from October of next year—if National/Act win the election. They revealed their intention to do this a year and a half ago.

Ever since taking power in 2008, National/Act have been working to get rid of ACC. First, they lied about the supposedly bad situation with ACC’s finances. Then, they used that as an excuse to raise fees on ordinary working New Zealanders—tax increases by another name. This, of course, made it easier for them to cut the taxes of the rich.

National also used their imaginary “crisis” to gut rehabilitation services and impose fees on patients, forcing people, especially poor work working people, to forgo treatment due to cost. The National/Act Government recently announced plans to “review” the Sickness and Invalid’s benefits, obviously with an eye toward dropping people from the rolls—people who may be on the rolls in the first place because, thanks to National/Act, they couldn’t afford the rehabilitation services necessary to help them get back into work.

National has engaged in a campaign of deliberate deception and distortion about ACC, all as part of a marketing plan to soften-up Kiwi voters so they’ll accept the National/Act plan to privatise ACC—just like the previous National government did. Back then, when Labour came into power, they re-nationalised ACC. This pattern looks likely to repeat itself.

And that’s the way things go: National gets into power, guts everything that ordinary New Zealanders rely on and generally wrecks the country. Then Labour gets in and fixes everything, until the people get sick of them and put National back in to start the process all over again. The problem is that each time Labour gets back in to clean up the mess National’s made, things are never fully restored and we continue to move, in fits and starts, toward National’s goal of a corporatist state in which profits and riches always come ahead of the people.

New Zealanders should take a good long look at the country as it is now. If National/Act win the next election, in 2014 this will be very different, a much harsher and crueller country. Privatisation of ACC is only one of the many awful things National/Act plans to do to ordinary, hardworking New Zealanders. The question is, will That Nice Mr Key™ fool them into voting against their own best interests?

Never say die

Newsweek magazine labelled Grand Rapids, Michigan a “dying city”. Naturally, the residents didn’t take too kindly to that designation, and this lip-dub video was their response.

Rob Bliss, the director and executive producer of the video, said in the YouTube description:

"The Grand Rapids LipDub Video was filmed May 22nd, with 5,000 people, and involved a major shutdown of downtown Grand Rapids, which was filled with marching bands, parades, weddings, motorcades, bridges on fire, and helicopter take offs. It is the largest and longest LipDub video, to date.

“This video was created as an official response to the Newsweek article calling Grand Rapids a ‘dying city.’ We disagreed strongly, and wanted to create a video that encompasses the passion and energy we all feel is growing exponentially, in this great city. We felt Don McLean's ‘American Pie,’ a song about death, was in the end, triumphant and filled to the brim with life and hope."

Whether you like the song or not, and whether or not you like lip-dub videos, you have to admit the production is pretty awesome. If they can harvest some of the spirit shown in the video, their city is unlikely to die.

There’s a short video on the making of the lip-dub, and another on rehearsals—as if we couldn’t guess that a lot of work goes into such things.

Funny numbers

I was on Twitter yesterday (of course…) and I saw that the National Party had re-tweeted someone from a radio station I’d never heard of. That last part isn’t that important, but it was part of my “huh?!” reaction.

The Tweet said that two recent polls found that, based on the polls, National would get 65 seats in Parliament—enough to govern alone. That’s true, but what the (apparent) fan of National didn’t note was that National’s support had dropped some two points since the budget was released.

On the other had, why would he mention that? Labour’s support was static, and the support for Labour Leader Phil Goff in the meaningless “preferred prime minister” poll had actually dropped. That’s not good news for those wanting to stop a National/Act government being elected in November.

The polls show that even though clear majorities oppose National’s plans to sell-off state-owned assets and to gut KiwiSaver, they nevertheless continue to think of that Nice Mr. Key™, and well, why not give that nice man another go? After all, we haven’t been screwed over personally yet…

Being roughly 20 points behind only six months out from the election doesn’t bode well for Labour—or New Zealand. Still, there are plenty more funny numbers to come, so, well, one lives in hope.

Weekend Diversion: The KLF

This week I picked a song that I actually didn’t know about until I moved to New Zealand: “Justified and Ancient (Stand by the JAMs)” by The KLF (also known as The JAMs, for Justified and Ancient of Mu Mu) from their album, The White Room. The history of the song is so convoluted that I won’t even try to summarise it here. Instead, check out the Wikipedia article on the song, and also the article on the band, which are both pretty good.

I heard the song because Nigel had it—on vinyl, I think. The song reached number one in New Zealand, number 2 in the UK, number three in Australia, number 8 in Canada and number 11 on Billboard’s Hot 100. So, it was reasonably popular, and I can certainly understand why: I thought it was trippy, campy, catchy and a whole lot of fun. The vocals by Tammy Wynette added the perfect touch.

When we made a trip to the US in 1997 or 99 (I forget which), we were browsing in a CD store and I found The White Room CD there, so we bought it.

The song has a link to two previous Weekend Distractions: Wax Trax! records, which I mentioned last week when I talked about Ministry, distributed songs by The KLF, just as they did with songs by Ministry and also by Laibach. Small world.

I still think this song is fun.

Typical

The modern Republican Party always puts extremist ideology over sound public policy. Always. Virginia Foxx (pictured—on the right, of course) is a perfect example of that.

The far–right Republican US Representative from North Carolina is far from being a bright bulb on her best days, but she’s surpassed ever her usual brand of idiocy: She authored an amendment (later adopted by the Republican-controlled US House) to forbid teaching health centres from providing training in abortion techniques. To rigid theocratic ideologues like Virginia, it’s better that doctors be ignorant than be able to effectively treat female patients. Where does she get this lunacy?

The answer is that, like most Republican politicians, Virginia is determined to impose extremist religious views on everyone else. Far from being traditional conservatives, these modern Republicans want to use the power of government to tell people how to live every single detail of their lives.

The Republican Party has abandoned the idea of “small government”, except when it comes to protecting ordinary, mainstream Americans, of course—they get out of the way of the rich and the corporate elites. Instead, the Republican Party has become the party of Big Government Conservatives, trying to create a theocracy in which they can dictate to the majority of Americans.

Conventional wisdom has it that Republicans have over-reached. They were elected in 2010 to deal with jobs and the economy, but instead they’ve been using their power only to wage culture wars, destroy Medicaid and bust unions—none of which is what American voters wanted or thought they were getting.

If American voters want a poster child for everything that’s wrong with the Republican Party, Virginia is as good an example as any other, albeit one of the dumber ones. With luck, in November 2012 American voters will remember how awful the Republican Party has become. With politicians like Virginia providing typical examples of modern Republicans, it’ll be hard for them to forget.

Truth through humour

Laughter is often born of tears, and those who are subjected to pain are often the ones who are most likely to create humour. We’ve seen that again and again with comedians who are Jewish, African American, Hispanic and GLBT, all of whom are over-represented, statistically speaking.

GLBT people, like any oppressed minority, have turned to humour not only to ease the pain of oppression, but also to fight the oppressor with what is sometimes the only the only tool at hand: Humour. The fact that our enemies are usually too thick to see the jokes only makes them all the funnier.

So when politicians attack GLBT people, as they do so often in the US, humorous rejoinders are inevitable.

In the state of Tennessee, lawmakers—mostly Republican, but with some “Democrats” as well—passed a bill making it illegal to talk about homosexuality in school classrooms. The bill, which even its supporters called the “Don’t Say Gay Bill”, was easily approved and signed by the state’s Republican Governor.

The video above mocks the idiotic idea these bigots have that simply not saying the word “gay” will make it all go away (that’s what these morons really said they thought would happen). In the video below, George Takei mocks them by offering an alternative: “It’s okay to be Takei”.

I can remember watching an interview many years ago in which a Jewish comedian worried that as minorities became more assimilated, and oppression eased, the quality of humour and number of good comedians would drop. That’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means ending oppression and hatred, and permanently retiring redneck, bigoted politicians. Ending hatred and bigotry, like that of the Tennessee legislators and Governor, would bring permanent smiles, after all.

That nice Mr. Key

There’s long been a perception of Prime Minister John Key as “that nice Mr. Key”. He smiles in public, sometimes acts kind of goofy and seems so, well, nice.

But there’s another John Key, one who’s frequently on display in Parliament. Anyone who watches Question Time—and that’s hardly anyone at all—has seen this other John Key, and he’s frankly a bit of a jerk.

Question Time is all about partisan point-scoring, on behalf of one’s own party and especially against the others. It’s a game, filled with noise, distraction and little of substance. However, we can sometimes see another side of politicians, the side they don’t want voters to see.

One week earlier this year, the Speaker had to admonish Key for three days running because of Key’s bitchy, snarky comments that were clearly out of order. He does this quite often, actually—not that most people see that, since it doesn’t make the evening news.

But the distorted and, I would argue, wholly inaccurate image of John Key as “that nice Mr. Key” lets him get away with lying to the New Zealand public. Here are three examples:

• Before the 2008 election, he said he wouldn’t raise GST. Then, in government, he did raise GST and claimed he never said he wouldn’t.

• He said during the 2008 campaign and during government that there would be no sales of public assets until/unless National/Act were elected to a second term. But, it turns out that his government is already advertising for advisers to help with the asset sales.

• Key said there would be no changes to KiwiSaver until after the election. But, in fact, the cuts to the government subsidy begin in July of THIS year, well before the election.

Key dismisses every criticism as a “smear” or “dirty campaign” from Labour, which figures—when cornered, politicians always lash out at their accusers. What’s incredible is that the mainstream media let him get away with it, thus reinforcing the myth of “that nice Mr. Key”.

If Key and what would be a hard-right National/Act government wins the next election, what they would do TO New Zealand and TO mainstream New Zealanders definitely would be even worse, with everyone seeing there’s no such thing as “that nice Mr. Key”. By then, though, it would be too late.

Well said

I don’t often praise the New Zealand Herald, for a variety of reasons. Among them, I just don’t mention good things; most of us talk about bad things, not good things, so this is probably natural.

At any rate, today the Herald did something so right, it begs to be praised. In an editorial titled “Pharmac more important than US deal” the paper makes an argument that I’ve been making: Our drug buying agency, Pharmac, is far more important to New Zealand than any trade agreement with the United States.

This is an issue because the pharmaceutical corporations have been lobbying the US government to make sure that any “free trade” agreement with New Zealand must ensure the destruction, or, at least, the emasculation of the agency. At the moment, there are negotiations to bring the US into the Trans Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement between New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei and Chile.

But 28 US Senators sent President Obama a letter claiming that, in their opinion, "intellectual property" wasn’t protected in the trade agreement. This is bullshit, and everyone knows it: Those 28 Senators are lobbying only to protect the profits of the big pharmaceutical companies.

We know this because, as the Herald notes, if it was really about “intellectual property” that would be easily addressed through negotiation. We’ve seen that already when the government rolled over and gave the Americans nearly everything they wanted when it passed—under bloody urgency—the recent law dealing with copyright and file sharing.

The Herald also correctly points out that Pharmac doesn’t determine what drugs can be sold, and it doesn’t prevent people from buying prescription drugs at whatever prices the pharmaceutical companies demand. All Pharmac does is negotiate on behalf of the taxpayer to get the best possible price for drugs that are most commonly prescribed.

Pharmac provides excellent value; as the Herald put it, “a survey of 14 developed countries last year found New Zealand spent the least on medicines, at US$2510 ($3152) a person, and the United States spent the most, US$7290.” The Herald lays out what this all means:

“America has the world's most expensive health services and the developed world's poorest coverage. It is struggling to reform its health system while setting its plans firmly against a publicly funded single purchaser of services for those who cannot afford competitive private insurance. Until it solves the conundrum it has set for itself, it is in no position to insist that trade partners abandon a system that works well.”

And that’s really what it comes down to. We would never adopt the broken American system willingly, what makes them think they can coerce us into it? As the Herald sums up, “Pharmac must not be a bargaining chip in any trade negotiation. If the US is going to make it a deal-breaker, so be it.”

I couldn’t possibly agree more.

Oh, FFS!

Harold Camping, fresh from yet another failure to predict the “rapture”, now says it’ll be on October 21. Having to once again rationalise away his being wrong, he said that May 21 was "an invisible judgment day" in which Camping’s god supposedly made “spiritual judgment”, whatever that means.

There’s simply no end to the lengths these people will go to explain away being wrong. One of Camping’s disciples declared that their “prayers worked” and that their god “delayed judgment” so that more people could be “saved”. Others believed the delay was their god's way of separating true believers from those willing to doubt what they claimed were clear biblical warnings. Such people always have an explanation for being wrong, but never a good one.

Camping himself must not be a true believer: He’s not giving away his possessions before his next imaginary end of the world. He says he’ll need them before October 21 and after that it won’t matter. Or, maybe—having been spectacularly wrong twice now—he has a sensible portion of doubt.

Camping has pissed off even fellow fundamentalists. The more common belief among conservative Christians is that humans can’t know about “the end of the world,” and they’re right about that. The fundamentalists quote the bible, Matthew 24:36, "but about that day or hour no one knows". Rationalists and Christians who are not fundamentalists simply point out that science is incapable of saying when, precisely, the earth will “end”, though scientists do have theories.

Pretty much everyone who’s not a religious extremist agrees that Camping’s predictions are, and always have been, total nonsense. Why, then, is everyone afraid to call Camping what he is: A delusional old man who’s trying to hoodwink gullible people into sharing his delusion. I realise the media can’t put it so honestly, but come on, how much more absolute bullshit are we supposed to take from this whackadoodle? Do even rightwing Christians really believe that their god would entrust such an important message to a nutjob like Camping?

The media will probably make another circus out of this in October. I’ve had enough. So, I intend to completely ignore it. However, I do reserve the right to ridicule Camping again on October 22. If I’m not too busy in the reality-based world or can even be bothered, that is.

Weekend Diversion: Ministry

This week’s choice is one that could be outside the mainstream, but it isn’t. Ministry in early 1980s was a band that was sort of a New Wave synthpop blend, and then in the late 1980s/early 1990s morphed into an industrial thrash metal band. I only liked the early version.

I first encountered Ministry in the legendary Chicago record store, Wax Trax!, which was located at 2449 North Lincoln Avenue, north of Fullerton Avenue in the city’s DePaul Neighbourhood. It was the home of New Wave, punk rock and industrial metal—and a significant selection of dance music, too. The first commercial Ministry’s album, With Sympathy, was released in 1983.

Ministry released four 12” singles through Wax Trax!, which is where I found them. I used to listen to With Sympathy back in the day, and later got the 12” versions of "All Day" and "Every Day is Halloween". I never bought one of their metal albums.

Wax Trax!, meanwhile, was an institution. It had been founded as a record shop in 1974 in Denver by Jim Nash and Dannie Flesher, then sold in 1978. They opened a new store in Chicago in November of that year, and released its first record in 1980. Among the many records they released were 12 inch versions of Laibach’s Opus Dei, a song that was the Weekend Diversion last week.

The business went bankrupt in 1992 and was bought by TVT Records of New York. Jim Nash died from AIDS-related complications on October 10, 1995, but his life partner, Dannie Flesher, continued until 2001, when TVT closed the business and he retired from the music business. Flesher died of pneumonia on January 10, 2010.

Ministry continued until 2008, when the band’s founder, Al Jourgensen, retired the name. He reportedly hated With Sympathy, alleging it was the way it was because he’d lost creative control. I always thought his attitude was unfortunate. As the music review on iTunes aptly put it, “Al Jourgensen must be more insecure about his past than a superstar linebacker of childhood courses in ballet.”

This week’s song, then, is a sad selection: The band I liked changed completely, the place I bought it went out of business, its owners died, and the unique vibe created by that store is now part of Chicago’s—and my own—cultural history.

The video above is an audio-only recording of the extended mix of "Work for Love", from With Sympathy. There don’t seem to be any music videos of the song, so I thought I may as well use the extended version, because that’s exactly the sort of thing I went to Wax Trax! to buy.

A parable for Harold

Just like Linus, who wasted his time waiting for a mythological event that never happened, Harold Camping, or someone like him, will again predict the end of the world, and, like Linus, he’ll be wrong. Again.

There’s never a shortage of people trying to sell belief in imaginary nonsense like the Great Pumpkin. I’d hope that this was the last time “end of days” predictions are spread around by the newsmedia, but that’s unlikely (next year is 2012, after all). Maybe next time journalists could try remembering the old saying, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof” before they jump on the lesser pumpkins’ bandwagons.

Apocalypse not

Harold Camping days before his "rapture" didn't happen.

It’s 11:59pm on Saturday, May 21, 2011—the last moment before it becomes Sunday, and the last timezone on earth enters Saturday. I thought I’d wait until the last possible moment to finally declare that Harold Camping was wrong—again. If it’s May 22 here, that means the “rapture” he predicted didn’t happen.

He said: "God has given sooo much information in the Bible about this, and so many proofs, and so many signs, that we know it is absolutely going to happen without any question at all.” Well, no, he was wrong. I bet he said something equally stupid before September 6, 1994—the last time he falsely predicted “the rapture”.

All of the folks who promoted this really ought to be apologising to the world for having bothered and annoyed us with their nonsense. But I’m sure right now they’re feeling mightily embarrassed, and probably disappointed, so I don’t expect to see those apologies any time soon. Oh well, maybe next time!

Yep, we’re still here…

It’s 6:01pm on Saturday, May 21, 2011. We’re still here, and so is everyone we know. There was no “rapture”, no “judgment day”, no massive earthquakes or hail of sulphur. I don’t think any of his “prophecies” are even biblical, actually, but I can’t be bothered looking it up.

Guess old Harold was wrong—again.

Auckland Skytower

 Today we went to Auckland’s Skytower to support our nephew (nephew-in-law?) and his brother, who were competing in the Firefighter Sky Tower Challenge 2011 to raise money for the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation. Since I don’t post photos of family members on this blog, I’ve instead posted a photo of the view from the Skytower’s Observation Deck (above). Nigel joked that if the rapture really happens, this is as close to heaven as we’ll get.

The photo below is looking up Skytower's skirts, so to speak.