The Cult of Melinda

The gAyTM is closed! No gay rights, no gay $$$!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Better Off Ted! Brilliant!

Have you been watching "Better Off Ted"? If not, watch it. NOW! The show is brilliant and has given me a new, amazingly funny phrase to steal: "full frontal nerdity." I'm so tempted to change my blog name to that.

Plus, Portia de Rossi is gorgeous and hilariously funny! She's just brilliant in this. And, if I failed to mention it, she's really freaking hot! I bow, figuratively, at Ellen's feet.

UPDATE: Dangit! Someone is already using "full frontal nerdity."

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

In Remembrance: Still We Have Not Forgotten

Today is Yom Hashoah, the day of remembrance for those who perished in the Holocaust. The following video may be a bit too sad for some. So be forewarned.



In case you were wondering, the song is "Ani Ma'amin" or "I Believe." which was sung by Jews on their way to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. These are the words in Hebrew (transliterated) and English:

"Ani ma'amin b'emunah shleimah beviat haMashiach, v'af al pi sheyitmameiha, im kol zeh achakeh lo b'chol yom sheyavo."

"I believe with perfect faith in the coming of the Messiah, and though he may tarry, nevertheless I await his coming every day."

Sunday, April 19, 2009

Where's My Tax Cut?

Supposedly, we should already be seeing the Obama tax cut in our paychecks. My taxes haven't changed a bit according to my last paycheck on the 10th, which covered March 23 through April 3. I'll check again this Friday, but the money I earned between April 1 through 3 should've been covered and caused at least some small increase IF I was actually part of the tax cut.

I definitely meet his supposed standards. After writing off my student loan interest payments, I got less than $200 back from the more than $10,000 (nearly half in federal income taxes) that I paid this year. So, I'm DEFINITELY a taxpayer. Yet, I make much less than the supposed cap and I didn't see a single penny increase in my paycheck. Aren't I in the 95%?

Anti-Gay Bullying Leads to Yet Another Child Suicide

Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover was 11. Bullies at school called him fag and sissy. They tormented him because they thought he was gay. His mother continually demanded that the school intervene. They didn't. Carl killed himself 2 weeks ago. Once again, Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover was 11. Think about it.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Happy Passover! Day 6

So not Passover-related, but it made my holiday a little bit better. This is the best fake commercial ever! Well, it'd be better with a dorky chick where the dorky guy is, but I'll settle.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Happy Passover! Day 5



Okay. Technically, day 6 started at sundown, but I'm having internet and phone problems. So deal with it.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

RIP: Dave Arneson 1947-2009

Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, has passed away. He was preceded in death last year by Gary Gygax, his fellow co-creator of the greatest game EVER!

I first discovered D&D in the mid-80's when a friend's older brother taught us how to play a half-assed kiddie version of the game. We didn't have any dice. He just read adventures to us and let us choose what we wanted to do.

I learned a lesson that day. Never step on a stick in D&D. You never know what nefarious purposes your DM may have for what seems to be a simple piece of wood. DM's are evil!

Despite the general evilness of dungeonmasters, I would go on to play D&D for a very long time. A dork has never had so much fun.

So, my gratitude to Arneson and Gygax. Here's hoping that they're adventuring still and that their DM is a little less evil than most.

Happy Passover! Day 4

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Happy Passover! Day 3

Jeez...

I wish Obama would stop giving me reasons to say I told you so. As satisfying as it is to my ego, it really sucks for my country.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Happy Passover!

Thursday, April 09, 2009

Chag Pesach Sameach!

And........

In 18 days, I'll be 33! Fuck that shit!

Okay, Here's the Really Freaky Part!

I, Melinda Barton, have an 8 to 5 job where I have to wear freaking "professional office attire!" I take meetings with public officials. I write letters on letterhead. I have business cards! And not ones that say "Melinda: Professional Lesbian." I wear a watch and carry a wallet. I have a key ring with office keys on it. I have life insurance. And long-term disability insurance. And paid vacations. I have a fucking pension plan! I have to do my taxes this weekend and I have to pay AGAIN. My recent X-rays showed wearing on my knee due to AGE! I take like a gazillion pills every day and may have to start taking daily injections. I go to bed at 11... ON THE FREAKING WEEKENDS! I haven't been really drunk or really hung over in years! Almost all of my friends are married or getting married or trying to work up the nerve to get married. Some of them have kids. People call me Ma'am. Grown people! I'm a fricking great aunt! THIS IS NOT FAIR!

About My Last Post

I know some of you think this is waaaaaaaaaay too funny. But you can stop laughing, because Ace, Charlie and CJ are going to be adults really damned soon. One day, you'll bend over to pick up their toys and when you stand back up, they'll be asking to borrow the car! And when that day comes, I will have my revenge!

I'm Very Disturbed...

By all these grown people who keep popping up where my widdle babies used to be. They've got piercings and boyfriends and girlfriends and career plans and college acceptance letters and one even has a baby of her own. They can drive! They can vote! They can buy cigarettes! Some can buy alcohol!

I changed these people's diapers! I rocked them to sleep in their little onesies. I fed them baby food and gave them stuff to chew on when their first little teeth came in. I helped them practice walking. I kiss their booboos and gave them bandaids for invisible scratches. I tucked them in for naptime and told them bedtime stories. I taught them how to throw a ball and hold a bat and balance themselves in bizarre positions. I colored with them and watched cartoons sprawled out on the floor with them on Saturday mornings. I brought them to the Children's Museum and went with them to amusement parks and fairs. I threw them pizza parties and taught them magic tricks. I taught them to dance the box step to old 80's music. I pretended not to notice that they were singing off key at the top of their lungs. I taught them how to subway surf. I bought them porcelain angels and fairies for cleaning up their rooms. I had belching contests with them and played the "gross out" game. HOW DARE THEY GROW UP?! HOW DARE THEY!!!!!!

So, what has brought on this week's freak out?

I was talking to my nephew Brandon (who's 11) and my sister-in-law the other day as they were travelling out to Arkansas to visit a friend of hers. She tells me they had to leave on Saturday rather than Friday because... because... No, it's too disturbing. Okay, let me brace myself. Okay. BECAUSE MY FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD NEPHEW, BRYAN, HAD A DATE! A DATE, PEOPLE!!!!!!!!

Just today, I was looking at my 18-year-old niece Aemanda's photos on MySpace. She's kissing a Marine and wearing formal evening gowns. She has piercings! There are pictures in there where the look on her face is exactly my little girl being all super-goofy as a kid. Then, BOOM, the next picture is this beautiful woman who'll be going off to college in a few months. COLLEGE! GET IT? COLLEGE!!!

Just yesterday... I SWEAR IT WAS JUST YESTERDAY!... I was in college playing hide and go seek and Laser Tag and drunken volleyball with my crazy ass friends! I don't remember growing up! I grew up, didn't I? No. It can't be! I'm still just a kid, right?

Darnit! It'd be a lot easier to believe that if these darned adults would stop calling me Aunt Neecee!

The Gay Marriage Myth....

Many people are confusing ceremonies performed by clergy for gay couples with marriage ceremonies. Here's the truth.

ONLY the state can ratify a marriage. Clergy who perform ceremonies for gay couples outside of states where it is legal, must perform "commitment ceremonies" or "union blessings" NOT marriage ceremonies. It is a crime to perform a marriage without a license from the state. One clergywoman in New York has already been charged for performing a same-sex ceremony and calling it a marriage.

The clergy make every effort to make the ceremony as close as possible, religiously, to the sacrament performed for heterosexual couples but they aren't marriages and cannot legally be recognized as such.

UPDATE: It'd been a while since I read about the case. It was actually TWO clergywomen charged for performing THIRTEEN marriage ceremonies for gay couples.

Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Passover: The Quickie Version

This "Two-Minute Haggadah" is perfect for all those people who ever asked me what Passover's all about. And it's hilarious!

Lies and the Lying Christians Who Tell Them

Note: Not Christians in general, just the specific ones discussed here. I love me my Christian friends, even if they do eat pork and work on the sabbath!

Anywho, an anti-gay marriage group is running an ad against gay marriage, saying that the passage of gay marriage has led to violations of religious freedoms. You can read more about their lunacy at Salon's War Room.

Here was my response:

In all of these cases, the religious body was acting as an agent of the state, receiving state funding or running a business open to the public. Allowing them to discriminate would be a violation of anti-discrimination laws and a violation of separation of church and state, as the churches would then get special privileges not offered to secular agencies operating in the same capacities.

The churches remain free to discriminate in non-state funded, non-state related activities. There is NO violation of freedom of religion in these cases, just the "freedom" to take taxpayer money while discriminating against those same taxpayers.

It's a cheap shot, but imagine that one of these churches asked to use taxpayer money to discriminate on some other basis, such as religion, race, etc. Would anyone take their claims seriously?


I'd like to add that I'm astounded that the religious groups running anti-gay marriage campaigns for the last couple of years have used some of the most dishonest arguments available, ranging from substantive distortions to outright lies. How is it that those who claim to speak for G-d traffic so readily in lies and aren't being called out by anyone but their opponents? Don't the so-called Christians who oppose gay marriage have a problem with their co-religionists breaking one of the big ten so publicly? Isn't hypocrisy condemned in the Christian scriptures? And lying? And self-righteousness?

Step up, Christians. You're free to disagree with gay marriage. You are not free to drag the name of our G-d or your G-d through the mud with your lies and filth.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Oh Happy Day!

In case you haven't heard already, Iowa (through unanimous Supreme Court mandate) and Vermont (through legislative override of the governor's veto) have joined Connecticut and Massachusetts in providing full marriage rights for same-sex couples. (California is still up in the air as we await the Supreme Court's decision on Proposition 8.)

Unfortunately, as long as the Defense of Marriage Act stands, these marriages will be recognized neither by other states nor by the federal government. On its face, DOMA is an unconstitutional violation of the Full Faith and Credit Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment and is being challenged on those grounds. Again, unfortunately, that challenge may take years to reach the Supreme Court.

In the meantime, any one else find it infuriatingly hilarious that the Defense of Marriage Act was signed by a serial adulterer?

UPDATE: The DC Council also voted unanimously to recognize gay marriages performed in other states. They will hold a final vote next month, but it's pretty much a done deal. This brings DC one step closer to allowing gay marriages to be performed in the nation's capital.

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Heck Yeah!

Stacey has linked to this site, which has reminded me of one of my pet peeves: people who don't get the heck up out of the disabled seats for someone who is disabled or injured AND people who push past disabled or injured people just because they fucking can.

I spent quite a while in a HUGE brace for my torn quadriceps and a couple months in a cast when I broke my arm in two places. I've also had a lot of less visible injuries. From personal experience, I can tell you that people on public transportation and in public restrooms suck!

When I was in my very visible HUGE knee brace, I was sitting where I was supposed to sit, the only place I could sit since I could barely bend my leg. This woman came stomping by and literally kicked my foot out of the way even though there was more than enough room since I was at an angle and my foot was only a few inches into the aisle. Just so you know, the forced, sudden bending of a torn body part does NOT feel good.

Other times, I had to try to balance myself standing as obviously healthy people did their best to look anywhere but at me as they enjoyed the disability seating. Trying to hold yourself up with a broken arm because the other one is full. Major suckage. Trying to hold yourself up on a moving vehicle driven by someone who got his driver's license from a Cracker Jack Box with only one functional leg. Also major suckage.

One day, at work, where EVERYONE knew I was injured, a very healthy coworker literally rushed past me into the handicapped stall so I had to WAIT until she was finished, doing the pee pee dance the whole way. Fortunately, another coworker came in, noticed the empty stall and told me to go ahead. This gave me the chance to explain LOUDLY that since I could barely bend my leg and needed both arms to get up from a seated position, I could ONLY use the now-occupied handicapped stall. I think that message was received b/c the guilty coworker couldn't even look in my direction as she walked out.

The point: Get your healthy ass up and let someone who can't stand on a moving vehicle without tremendous amounts of pain sit down. Don't use the freaking handicapped stall unless your're handicapped, disabled or injured OR there's no other option and your bladder is about to explode out of your abdomen. If you don't, you're a weak, pathetic asshole who should not be allowed to live in polite society. Do not complain if one of the decent people decided to stomp you for it just because WE can.

Googling Judaism...

As Passover is coming up, I've been deepening my study of Judaism and its traditions. It's sort of my habit to spend a little more time than usual studying around the holy days. This year, I've been focusing on first century Judaism and the transition from pre-Diaspora to post-Diaspora Judaism (aka Rabbinic Judaism). Problem? Every time I google some of the topics I want to explore, the first few or first page of results are anti-Semitic or anti-Judaic to some extent, sometimes virulently so. Obviously, we Jews do not control the interwebs.

Is It Wrong....

That I enjoy rubbing my superior wisdom in people's faces?

Saturday, April 04, 2009

Someone Please Teach Obama Protocol

The diplomatic faux pas are piling up. Some are petty, like giving the British PM DVD's that are useless in British machines or giving the Queen an iPod. Others are a little bigger, like refusing the traditional joint press conference with the visiting Prime Minister, rescheduling a visit with the President of Brazil, and misspelling the name of a visiting head of state on the formal announcement. But this one is gigantic! The President of the United States bowed before the Saudi king! This gesture implies that the POTUS and by extension, all Americans are subjects of the Saudi king. Lovely!

My Boy!

This is my newphew, Anthony, the little mac daddy who gets phone numbers from 23-year-old waitresses. You can't tell in this pic but he has gorgeous blue eyes. I think I'm going to have to get him a chastity belt.

Friday, April 03, 2009

I Love Her Even More Now....

I Wanna Be Sedated...

A lovely friend of mine is having trouble sleeping, so I thought I'd help by doing what nerds do best: research. So, Stacey, here's some insomnia cures that might work for you.

According to this:

To cure insomnia one should rub their temple with cat fat or eat chicken cooked with milkweed. Another cure for insomnia was to smoke a mixture of black tobacco, toad powder, and honey.


You have cats, so you have the ingredients!

Or maybe this will help:

Soap your head with the ordinary yellow soap; rub it into the roots of the hair until your head is just lather all over, tie it up in a napkin, go to bed, and wash it out in the morning. Do this for a fortnight. Take no tea after 6pm.


Now, we just have to figure out what a fortnight might be. Wouldn't want to overdose. (Yes, I know what it is. It's a joke.)

Someone once told me to tape a red bean on the inside of my wrist, but I never did it. Maybe you should try it. I'd go with Camelia beans. They're the best!

Good luck.